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]

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.