maskormenacelogs | Brave face talk so lightly...

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Brave face talk so lightly...

WHO: Poe Dameron, Dorian Pavus, and Maxwell Trevelyan. Then Max and Poe.
WHERE: Nonah #5
WHEN: Day orrr two after Dorian arrives?
WHAT: Maxwell hasn't been the most forthcoming to Dorian about all the differences between their alternate timelines. Poe helpfully gets him up to speed in the only way Poe knows how. Later, Poe and Max have a chat about what the fuck just happened.
WARNINGS: Cursing probably? Will update if necessary.

Maxwell had decided it might be for the best. And not just for himself, though that was selfishly, part of it. He did truly believe the knowledge might be more of a burden than the honesty would be worth.

How could you tell a stranger they were supposed to love you?

How was that stranger supposed to move forward with that?

So he'd kept the truth about his relationship with the other Dorian to himself, even as he'd sensed Dorian suspected there was more he wasn't sharing. Even after they'd parted ways and Maxwell had spent the following night tossing and turning with the weight of it. Even when he'd texted Dorian to see how he was settling in and couldn't stop himself from inviting the man over.

He could live with it, he told himself, Dorian shouldn't have to.

He would have to learn how to hide it better. Compose himself more.

And that, it turned out, was what kept him when Dorian arrived. He was so busy trying to think nothing, feel nothing, that he heard nothing too, and it was someone else that greeted Dorian at the door.

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Nonah, and by extension the rest of the area, was quite strange. Dorian found himself mostly keeping to himself, reading things on the device they'd given him and trying, with a frustrating absolute minimum of success, to make his magic work as it should. He tried not to chew over the issue of Maxwell Trevelyan too much, he had other things to think about after all, but it kept creeping into his thoughts at inopportune moments. There had been something quite obviously bothering Maxwell, and it involved Dorian, or rather... his Dorian, and he wanted to know what it was. But... but. He also wasn't sure he wanted to possibly ostracize the only other person from his world that seemed to be present in this place.

So, like a coward, he didn't. But it was a bit of a relief to get the message from him, one which he had replied to as soon as he'd properly figured the damned device out, that he was more than happy to come over.

He was even a few minutes early when he knocked on the door to the house that Maxwell was staying in, giving his best charming smile to the person that opened the door. He had hoped it would be Maxwell, but oh well. "Hello, pleasure to meet you. I'm Dorian Pavus, is Maxwell in? He should be expecting me." How could this possibly go badly?

Alas, it was not Maxwell.

Instead, it was a slightly shorter gentleman with a permanent five o'clock shadow and dark curls that made it look like he had just gotten out of bed. It also happened to be his day off - and given the long hours that they'd been keeping him at the air force base, was therefore something of a treasure. He hadn't been expecting visitors, so he was wearing his pyjama bottoms that had fighter jets all over them, and a white tank top, and bare feet.

When he opened the door, he didn't recognise the man at first. After all, having seen someone in someone else's horror-house induced hallucination did not make for the best memory recall. But it clicked fairly quickly - the moustache was a dead give away - and then the man said his name.

Poe was not a man particularly prone to deep thought. He acted on instinct, for the most part, and while Dorian didn't pose a threat to him, he had known Maxwell long enough and had seen him torn apart over Dorian enough to know that this was not a good thing.

So - after giving something of a disgusted face - and before Dorian had even gotten through the words 'he should' - Poe simply slammed the door in his face.

Two seconds later, however, it was open again, because that hadn't been anywhere near satisfying enough. So instead, he took a step out the door, his face setting hard.

"You have a lot of nerve showing up here, bud."

Dorian's first thought was that the man almost looked Tevene, with the cast to his skin and the dark curl to his hair. The nose was all wrong, but he was very attractive, even looking as though he had just rolled out of bed. And with those unfortunate trousers, but at least the shirt showed off his arms to good effect.

Of course, Dorian's thought process was quite interrupted when he looked at Dorian as though he were covered in bronto dung, and he got a door slammed in his face. He frowned, this was the right house, wasn't it? He was just about to check his device and knock again when the door was re-opened by the same scowling man.

To say Dorian was confused by the accusation would have been an understatement, and he took an involuntary step back before stopping. No, he was not getting bullied by some ruffian when he'd been invited here. "I beg your pardon?" His frown got deeper as he drew himself up, feeling a bit of satisfaction that he had a couple of inches on the man. "This is house number 5, is it not? Maxwell Trevelyan lives here? Because if so I have no idea how I have nerve showing up where I was invited." What was his problem anyway? Dorian hadn't done anything to deserve that sort of look, he'd had a few drinks with Maxwell, talked to him about here, rambled a bit about home. Certainly nothing to have earned that kind of look.

"You were invited---" He cut off with an annoyed sound, before stepping further out of the house and closing the door behind him, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Really? That's what you expect me to believe? You really think that after everything Maxwell would just invite you home without so much as a--"

Shit. Wait. Maxwell was unfailingly considerate and hospitable. Yeah. He probably would invite Dorian over, despite everything.

"You didn't have to accept!" There. That was better. "You can't choose to walk out of someone's life and then just waltz back into it like nothing happened just because you're here anyway!"

"I do tend to accept invitations when they're given in good faith." He barely ceded enough room for Poe to step outside, now confused along with being annoyed. "I've only just met the man! How am I supposed to walk out of his life when we just... met."

Oh damn it. Dorian narrowed his gaze at Poe. "You think I'm the Dorian from his world. The one that he won't tell me about." He rubbed his eyes. "Look, as far as I am concerned, I've never met Maxwell before coming here. It's complicated..." He wasn't even sure he understood it, and he wasn't about to explain all of this to some ruffian wearing trousers that would put Bull to shame, no matter how charmingly touseled he looked.

"That's--!" But Poe cut off before he could say what 'that' was, because instead of frustration, confusion was now spreading over his features and making his brows knit tightly.

There was a good few seconds of Poe just glaring at him.

"Wait, what?"

Sorry Dorian, he is not the quickest cookie in the toolbox.

He raised his hands to scrub his face, trying to get the words to sink in properly. Not from his world? How was that even--

"But I saw you. You look exactly the same."

"No, you did not. Because I am quite sure I would remember you." He gave his trousers a pointed look "Especially with those sort of fashion choices." There was no way he would have forgotten those trousers, they were nearly as bad as plaidweave. Not as bright, thank the Maker.

"Look, I am telling you, I have never met Maxwell. The Inquisitor from my timeline is an elf. I'm not sure why they're different, but they are. We have a completely different set of memories about everything that happened." He sighed "And he hasn't told me what happened with his Dorian, but I'm rather tired of being kept in the dark about the whole thing." Especially since evidently people were once again judging him without having met him. Or at least, this him. It was even more annoying than people thinking he was going to enslave them and drain their blood just because he was from Tevinter.

"Yeah, I did. From his memories." He saw the look at his pyjamas, but you know what? You know what Dorian? Fighter Jets are awesome and he doesn't care.

He let out a hard breath, glaring at him, then looked backwards at the closed door.

Fuck.

"Fine. Fine. But I'm not letting you storm in there and break his heart all over again just because you don't know what you're doing." He pointed to the yard leading around the side of the house. "Let's go."

"Where are you taking me then? Because I beg your pardon if I'm a bit reluctant to follow a man anywhere when he looked as though he wanted to hit me a few moments ago." No thanks, he was staying right here, in view of the street and the people walking by, so if Poe did decide to hit him he could claim it as self-defense when he set those tousled curls on fire. He at least knew he could do that with his magic as it was now.

"What, you'd rather stand here so that he can--" He rolled his eyes with a heavy sigh. "I'm not going to hit you. Alright? But it's not generally my favourite thing to stand on my porch having to explain to one guy how he broke another guy's heart in some - alternate - fucking - universe? Timeline? While in my pyjamas."

He hated this place, sometimes.

"The paparazzi stalk us enough without inviting it. There's a garden in the back yard."

Damn. So that had been the look Maxwell had given him. He frowned, but it was sad this time as he looked down at the porch. "Alright. Well, lead the way." He glanced at the street, there was one person walking their dog, but he didn't think they were watching him. He hoped he was going to get some straight answers from... whoever this was. But the only way he could find out was by going into the back garden.

He was going to need so much wine after this.

The short walk gave Poe a minute to recalibrate himself, even if he wasn't all that pleased about it. A different inquisitor... He'd never heard of something happening like that, but he definitely understood not being from the right time. He led Dorian back behind the house and indeed, there was a small garden - a little sad looking in February, but still there - complete with a little bench. He waved at it, but he didn't take a seat, running a hand through his hair.

"Okay, so, just, to confirm - you've seriously never met him? At all?"

"Not before he ran into me at... I think it's the Branch and Vine. Anyway, I was trying to light a damned candle, he dropped a full glass of red when he saw me, and we started talking when it was quite clear he knew me and I had never seen him before in my life."

Dorian hadn't taken the offered seat, he didn't think Poe was going to punch him, but that didn't mean he was comfortable, or that he wanted to give the man that much of a height advantage over him. He was fine standing in a little garden that reminded him of the one at Skyhold, practical more than decorative, meant for raising herbs or vegetables rather than flowers. So he stood there, careful not to step on anything that might be living, his arms crossed over his chest.

"What happened? With his Dorian? I didn't feel I knew him well enough to ask and he hasn't been very forthcoming with information but..." he had recognized the look in Maxwell's eyes. Heartbreak. Maker knew he had seen it in the mirror often enough. "They were lovers, weren't they?" It felt so odd, to be referring to himself as if he were another person, but in this case they were. Another Dorian, and really he could see what the appeal would have been, charming, good looking, and a good enough person that this man had been willing to start swinging at him when they hadn't even met. That kind of loyalty was hard to come by in Dorian's world.

Poe swore, a low streak of words that weren't familiar to anyone on Earth, let alone in Thedas, but the emotion behind them was clear even if the translation wasn't. He rubbed his hands over his face. Fucking... Poor Maxwell. Of course it was something like this. Like the Porter would give anyone a break.

"Yeah. More than that, I think, or at least to Maxwell you we-- sorry -- they were. Definitely not just a couple of nights sharing a bunk, anyway. We were- I found out about you when we got stuck in this- really fucked up house. One of the rooms- it gave visions. Like a trap. Showed you exactly what you wanted most, so that you wouldn't want to leave while it killed you. I - was there. Got pulled into his. So that's how I met you."

He frowned, fidgeting a little and then scrubbing at his own hair again like he couldn't stand still. He sighed, and then raised his eyes to lock his gaze on Dorian's.

"He dreamed about it because he couldn't have it. Not just here. You left. I don't know the details but - you left, and he's been here months and he still pines after you." A pause. "Him. Sorry. That's really doing my head in."

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