open / you can get used to anything over time

[brushoff]

Who: Dorian Gray & OPEN!
What: investigation, poking a fissure, putting together some clues
When: the month of August
Where: Milton

Content Warnings: will edit if needed

milton house / ota
Dorian has poked around Milton House before. He poked around it before the recent nonsense, when he and Chloe were trapped in there, trapped in Enola's grief with all those damn corpses in the basement. But he hadn't spent time exploring the house afterwards. He doubts he'll find anything. But Dorian Gray is absolutely the sort of man to go poking around a haunted house, even if it's not possibly haunted.

He first spends his time tramping around the grounds, exploring to see if he'll spot anything of use. The house itself is remarkably dilapidated—he'll have to go into it eventually, but he's not particularly fond of the idea of doing it by himself. Dorian is well aware of just how limited this place has made his immortality. He'll have to proceed with caution, a wild rarity for him. Fortunately, there's someone else approaching.

Dorian is bundled up, covered practically head to toe, with only a little bit of skin showing—it's twilight, but it isn't properly dark. He takes comfort in the fact that it'll only be a month or so until he feels like himself again...but God, can't it be September already? Where there's actual night? And it doesn't hurt to exist? He moves his ski goggles to the top of his head, so that the person approaching can see who exactly it is standing in front of the house.

"Care to join in on a little investigation?"

community center / ota
Dorian is lounging at a table in the community center, notebook in front of him. The page is covered in his neat, precise handwriting. He won't stop anybody if they're nosy or want to look over his shoulder. The text on the notebook is all speculation, a list of facts he has and theories about them. And all the facts, theories, notes, are about Enola.

(Side note, it truly is aggravating how Dorian manages to lounge in a way that looks great. This is the sort of man who's perfected the art of looking like he doesn't care and looking like he's just relaxing, but he's relaxing in a way where he hits the light perfectly and there's just enough of his chest exposed from his not-buttoned-all-the-way shirt, his legs look great, etc. This is a man who has perfected the best way to sit to make himself look attractive, the goddamn peacock.)

Anybody approaching gets a little nod and a, "Here, come on over. Are you one of the people who had an odd dream that then led to gaining a supernatural gift?"

fissure / ota
"I don't see what the problem is," Dorian says, as he looks over the fissure, looking at the green gas slowly emerging from the depths. It is a damn lie, he knows exactly what the problem is. There's a low-grade sense of fear in the back of his brain. He needs to get away from this, he doesn't want to be here, this thing is wrong.

But the low-grade sense of fear is just that: low-grade. And for the moment, Dorian can overpower it.

"How deep do you think these things go? I'm halfway tempted to find a pinecone and just chuck it down that fissure, simply to see what happens."

Comments

[desperate_times_right]

Chloe thinks for a bit. “Yeah, it's like… everyone died in the autumn, I think, then a few weeks later we started to show up. I got dropped here just in time to miss the Christmas pig, and the Darkwalker dream happened on New Year’s. Not long after that, it killed an Interloper in person for the first time. We got our first 'gift' a few months later.”

It definitely feels like that's all related.

“I still think it's her who did all of this to us. She's always beaming 'good job' into our heads like a fucked up kindergarten teacher. Besides, we saw her memory, right? Fog-induced guilt nightmare or what-fucking-ever. All of the dead Interlopers were there. She said she’d caused it, and I don't think she just meant the fire.”

That makes her mind snag on something else.

“You know, I think maybe she tried to give people powers before. Locals. I had a dream around Halloween last year about that house, that a girl named Beatrice had been accused by other kids of burning it down by magic. She called herself a freak. I know a guy here who got the fire power from her and it can be hard to control it.”

[brushoff]

"She could have caused it. Or she could just be blaming herself. I could see her doing that, in a sort of 'I failed to protect everyone' sort of way. She certainly seems like she puts pressure on herself to keep us all safe."

Chloe's not wrong with her 'fucked up kindergarten teacher' diagnosis, though. No matter what, Enola desperately wants them all to keep going, to not give up.

The mention about other powers, though....

"It's a shame we don't have a hospital or anything like that here. I'm not averse to doing a little breaking and entering to grab some medical records."

[desperate_times_right]

“I don't know if setting fires with your mind was something doctors here were equipped to deal with, anyway.”

If this had cropped up at home, Chloe doubts that she would have gone to the hospital about it.

“Methuselah was there, but he never seems to want to tell anyone anything unless you go on one of his little trips.”

[brushoff]

With zero hesitation, Dorian says,

"And I am absolutely not going on one of his fun little trips where you end up dying in the woods. God no. I love myself too much for that."

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah, I don't trust him either. One of my mates went on a trip with him and got attacked by wolves.”

The scars had been pretty cool.

[brushoff]

Dorian winces at hearing about Chloe's mate. No matter what, he absolutely does not want something like that to happen to him.

"Has anybody gone on one of those fucked up little field trips and come back in one piece? I suspect the answer is 'no,' but I simply want to make sure."

[desperate_times_right]

“None that I’ve heard of. That's the guy who learned the name of the Darkwalker, though.”

She does wonder sometimes if he'd felt it was worth it.

[brushoff]

There's a moment's pause before Dorian muses, "I wonder if Methuselah would have ever told us that thing's name on his own. That old man is hiding things from us. What specifically, I don't know."

[desperate_times_right]

“Probably not. Bill might’ve, once we found him.” He’d had to deal with the Forest Talkers alone for a long time.

[brushoff]

"You know, I don't think I ever talked to Bill," Dorian shrugs. "I arrived a month or two before all that business with the bear. Suddenly turning into a vampiric monster who hates the sun distracted me a little from what was going on with other things."

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah, I didn't talk to him either.” Yes, she had gone along with his plan to raid the caches, but that had all been second-hand. “He’s where most of those dogs came from. The mountie’s dog got a bit friendly with Bill’s dog.”

[brushoff]

Dorian groans an over the top groan of annoyance before,

"Christ I hate those dogs. I hate dogs in general, but those in particular are annoying. Why have a bloody pet in the middle of the Arctic?"

[desperate_times_right]

Chloe snorts. “Just be glad you weren't here when we were all starving and kids were getting precious about their pet rabbits.”

At least Tim had managed to use what little sense he had. Those puppies are also well-behaved compared to Kostya’s stupid dog but she likes him so she won’t say that.

[brushoff]

"I'd eat a rabbit," said with a little shrug. "No idea how to field dress one but if I'm hungry enough, that won't stop me."

He's saying that solely to tell Chloe he's on Team Animals for Emergency Rations If Needed.

cw animal cruelty maybe lol

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah, I never learned how to do that, either.” Chloe’s been hungry enough that she’s just eaten them raw, straight out of the snare. They're lucky she even kills them first.

“I can understand being a little squeamish about it, but they were talking about starving us. The runners, I mean. We’re people!”

get fucked, rabbits!!

[brushoff]

Dorian wrinkles his nose a little at that admission. After a moment, he continues with,

"Swing by mine the next time something like that happens. There's plenty of places in the church to squirrel away secrets."

Like bodies. Or cursed portraits. Or rabbits! He's totally just talking about rabbits.

"After all, hide the body of a dog long enough, nobody will ask questions. They'll just assume that Fido fell off a cliff or drowned in the lake."

[desperate_times_right]

Chloe makes a face.

“People tend to ask about the provenance of suspicious meat more often after last summer.”

[brushoff]

"I never said I'd share the meat with people," Dorian points out. "Just us. Frankly, I don't trust half the people here after their reaction to my confession."

[desperate_times_right]

“It's always been like that here,” Chloe says, frowning. “Since I’ve been here, anyway. If you're friends with the right people you can do anything, but otherwise if there's anything about you they don't like you're fucked.”

[brushoff]

Dorian lets out a sarcastic little chuckle as Chloe points that out. Because really, isn't that just how the world works? You have to make friends with people in high places, with people everyone likes, otherwise you're a sitting duck.

"In that case, I wonder if I should lean into my bad boy reputation. They don't like me anyway. Better to try and attract like minds than to make idiots like Lester like me."

[desperate_times_right]

“I wouldn't worry too much about Lester - he's loud but he doesn't seem that well-connected.” Chloe hasn't seen him around with any of the groups who would really concern her. “Watch out for the sailors, though they're not as bad now without the captain. Rorschach too. He’s bad enough on his own, but it sounds like he's Kate Marsh’s attack dog.”

[brushoff]

Urgh. Rorschach. Dorian visibly grimaces as Chloe mentions that man's name.

"I'm not sure he bathes," Dorian points out. "Logically, I know he has to know one needs to take a bath, but I don't think he chooses to."

[desperate_times_right]

“I heard a rumour that someone chucked him in the hot spring,” Chloe says. “So he must have at least once.”

Not the point right now, though.

“He broke into my mates’ house one time at night and attacked them. If they hadn't had aurora powers I don't know what would have happened.”

[brushoff]

Well that's interesting. Dorian's grimace is still on his face as he asks, "Any clue why he attacked them?"

[desperate_times_right]

“Sounded like he was pissed when he got to the house and there were two guys there.” Billy had been shaken about it and he's a lot more inured to people being disgusted by that than she is. “But he was surprised, so he must have gone there for another reason. I figure it was for Kate. Or on her behalf, anyway.”