open / and I've been putting out the fire with gasoline

[brushoff]

Who: Dorian Gray & others!
What: body horror, creepy portraits, murder???
When: early May & onwards
Where: Milton, Lakeside

Content Warnings: NPC murder, will edit as needed

( open & closed starters in the comments! )

Comments

[lieutenantsteward]

He narrows his eyes just slightly. "My name is Thomas," he says with a bit of a bite.

[brushoff]

"You need a cute nickname," Dorian points out. Thomas. He's known dozens of men named Thomas.

"Going all the way back to the original point, since you don't have a frame of reference for the type of art I work with, I'll just have to describe it. Either that, or we wait six months until that Santa Pig I've heard people talk about shows up and I can ask him for a book."

Put some respect on the Holiday Boar's name, Dorian.

"Or if you want to know something else about me, ask a different question."

[lieutenantsteward]

Thomas bites back a laugh. He is not going to laugh. He is not going to indulge this piece of shit murderer.

He takes a breath and covers it with a cough.

"Where are you from?"

[brushoff]

Was that a laugh? That might have been a laugh. Shit, he might be getting out of this intact.

Time to lay on the charm.

"London, specifically Mayfair. And I'm afraid to say it's even more full of rich idiots in 2016 than it was in the 1860s."

[lieutenantsteward]

He doesn't hide the small roll of his eyes.

"Ah, yes, I did detect that in your voice," he says with a solemn nod. "I suppose some things never change."

[brushoff]

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," Dorian quotes, like a pretentious asshole. He shrugs a little before pointing out,

"There will always be rich assholes. And in a situation like this," said with a vague gesture to the world around them, "where their richness doesn't matter, you still have that learned rich asshole behavior. Lord knows when I'll resign myself to learning how to hunt, but it'll probably be a while."

[lieutenantsteward]

Cheerfully, Jopson offers:

"Well, fortunately you won't starve. No one will allow that."

Except Jopson. Jopson might.

[brushoff]

"Still, I'd like to be more than slightly useless," Dorian cheerfully responds back. "Might as well give something to the community besides a pretty face and a lovely singing voice."

[lieutenantsteward]

"That is all you bring to this place?" he snorts. "Perhaps you were the wrong choice."

[brushoff]

"I bring plenty of things!" Dorian retorts, with a little laugh. "Nothing useful, of course. But I can sing. I can act. I'm easy on the eyes. I'm good for a little...stress relief."

And he just blatantly eyes up Jopson, gaze trailing downwards, as he blatantly stares at the lieutenant's dick for a moment. It's very obvious what sort of 'stress relief' Dorian is thinking about.

[lieutenantsteward]

Two years ago, he would have shrank from that view. A year ago, he would have laughed. But now, he simply rolls his eyes.

"That happens here far more than you know. You should have come years ago."

[brushoff]

"Truth be told, I'd prefer not to have come at all. Being stranded in the wilderness is so far away from my usual scene, it's honestly kind of funny."

This is not his vibe and he knows it.

[lieutenantsteward]

"Do you think any of us would choose this life?"

He pauses.

"Other than Fraser, of course."

[brushoff]

Dorian shrugs!

"Depends on how terrible your home life is. Plenty of people will choose the lesser of two evils if given the choice."

[lieutenantsteward]

"How terrible is your home life?" he wonders because he has no idea how small talk should go.

[brushoff]

"Mine isn't," Dorian points out, with a little shake of his head. He's rich and ridiculous and useless, remember?

"But some people might be."

[lieutenantsteward]

He looks at him skeptically and leans back against the wall.

"What does a day look like for you?"

[brushoff]

"Depends on the day," Dorian shrugs. "Sometimes it's boring. Go in to work, answer emails, put out a metaphorical fire, talk up someone with more money than sense to give me some of that money."

A big lie.

"But sometimes, if I travel, that's when it gets fun."

[lieutenantsteward]

The fuck is an email?

He makes a note to ask the Doctor.

"Fun?" he prompts because the rest of what just came out of his mouth is absolute nonsense.

[brushoff]

"Fun," Dorian repeats. A wide smirk of a smile spreads across his face as he muses, "Anything's more fun than sitting at a bloody desk. But travel's when you run into interesting people. You step outside of your own life, your own circumstances, and see something new."

[lieutenantsteward]

At least that can agree on that.

"This...job was the only way I was going to travel anywhere," he says gently. "I do understand the desire. I think all men do."

[brushoff]

Dorian makes a little noise of interest at 'this job' before he continues,

"Tell me more about yourself," Dorian asks. "I've picked up gossip here and there about you sailors, but that's just gossip. It's hardly the truth."

[lieutenantsteward]

Thomas isn't surprised by that. The others here can't keep their mouths shut.

He rolls his eyes.

"What have you heard?"

[brushoff]

"Honestly, the moment I heard the phrase 'HMS Terror,' that told me all I need to know," Dorian shrugs. "No details needed—your story is a bit infamous in my time. And because it's a bit infamous, I also know it's not the sort of thing one brings up to practical strangers."

How the fuck do you loop that into casual conversation? Hello, don't mind me, just want a little chit-chat, terribly sorry about that starving and dying and possible lead poisoning of it all.