maskormenacelogs | so what's up with your everything

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so what's up with your everything

WHO: Dorian Gray & Blue Sargent
WHERE: a little Italian restaurant in Maurtia Falls
WHEN: god probably backdated back to July, TIME IS NEBULOUS, WE DON'T CARE
WHAT: two people try to get dirt on each other while maintaining pleasantries.
WARNINGS: n/a, will edit if needed

Dorian's not late. But he's not early. He arrives on time, a few minutes before noon, looking entirely like someone out of a GQ magazine. Sorry Blue, he places so much emphasis on looking good and, in this case, that involves tight black slacks and a thin nautical themed sweater. Dorian also desperately wants it to be fall.

A pair of expensive sunglasses perch on his nose as he spots Blue, giving her a small wave as he approaches. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long," Dorian chimes in, tone of voice not apologetic in the slightest. It's a statement of fact: he really hopes he didn't keep Blue waiting too long because he totally kept her waiting at some point. He gives her a wide grin, a grin that's entirely the practiced sort of grin that gets him out of trouble.

"Shall we?"

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Blue's outfit, meanwhile, looks like a rototiller got in a fight with a pair of scissors while a few straight razors stood by and cheered them on. It has one or two less layers than usual. Because, you know, summery weather. Or something. Who needs a reason?

She stands up a bit straighter when addressed (which makes her roughly five-nothing instead of roughly sub-five-nothing), shaking her head wordlessly as if to say, 'not a problem.'

... He did say "noonish," after all. It's noonish. "Sure, let's," she offers in return, while kind of giving his outfit a look-see. It's not chinos and a polo shirt, that's for sure. And it's definitely not shredded. "I just got here," says Blue, with an air of nonchalance that might very well be put-on.

To Dorian's credit, he manages to repress that feeling of disgust that bubbles up when he sees Blue's outfit (was this some sort of modern teenager's attempt at grunge? She had to deliberately cut some of those, there's no way stores sold clothes that shredded. All those holes weren't necessary in the first place!)

"Well then, I'm glad I didn't keep you waiting." Heading towards the restaurant, Dorian holds the door open for Blue—though not in a manner of him going out of his way to do it, just because he got to the door first and is trying to project this image of 'nice person.' "I didn't know how busy this place was going to be, so I went ahead and reserved us a table—though it seems I shouldn't have bothered."

The restaurant is only about half-full. It's a small place, so the clientele is about half couples and half people eating by themselves, reading a newspaper as they wait for their food. Noticeably, there aren't any small children in sight. What a surprise, said no one ever, Dorian prefers places that aren't child free. The atmosphere is utilitarian out of default rather by choice—a few touches here and there such as curtains and pictures show that they're trying for a homey theme.

"It's new," Dorian says, as an explanation, "and hopefully poised to be one of the hottest restaurants here once they fix the ambiance problem."

That's a little bit sad, because Blue very likely would've loved the opportunity to defend her unique style. It's certainly something. Blue Sargent is not known to be kind to clothing, not at all. On the other hand, when you layer this much, you can wear a truly astonishing number of colors! There's a whole rainbow in there.

Blue lets him hold the door. Either she's been abducted by aliens and replaced by pod person Blue (and her wardrobe says no) or she's really trying to be on her best behavior too. Possibly she's waiting for a more opportune moment to start being more feisty or maybe she intends to be as inoffensive as possible in order to do some information-gathering. Who knows? She's pretty curious about this whole... get-together.

Somehow "lunch with Dorian Gray" sounds like more than "lunch with Dorian Gray."

"It's not like I would've melted on the sidewalk if I had to stand there a little longer," she says, not unkindly, nodding her head as she enters. "Thanks." If Blue is making any observations about the place or the people occupying it, it's not obvious. Mostly her attention seems to be on Dorian. "Do you eat out a lot?"

Meaning, 'at a lot of places' more than 'frequently.'

He sits down at a nearby table, gesturing for Blue to sit across from him. A server comes by to set out menus and sit down glasses of water for the two of them. Dorian takes a sip of his water before he continues talking.

"Unfortunately, I do. Cooking for one's a nightmare and Toby drinks blood. I'm a decent cook, but there's a lot of times I simply just order takeaway."

He can't help but give Blue a weak little smile. Whoops. He'll acknowledge his flaws occasionally, especially when it's something as innocuous as his ability to cook.

"Who does most of the cooking at your household? There's five or so of you, someone's got to know how to cook."

Blue momentarily acknowledges the server as she sits, saying 'thanks' for the menus and drinks. She listens to that explanation, nodding along once or twice. "That's not too surprising," she says, but she doesn't elaborate on which part isn't surprising.

There are a lot of options. Most people would assume it's not the part where Dorian lives with someone who subsists on blood. But Blue's been historically unfazed by things like that. Her family tree has actual trees on it. Vampirism seems par for the course. Actually, she will provide some elaboration, if not clarification: "Cooking for one person is tough."

She has yet to look at the menu. "I don't cook at all. Mostly I eat yogurt." That isn't an answer to the question, is it? "Just because I'm the only girl, doesn't mean I'm in charge of that kind of thing."

Well, it's reassuring that Blue's not bothered by vampirism, at least. That would be an entirely awkward conversation if they spent the whole dinner explaining that whole 'gay married to the undead' thing. Mentally, he thanks Blue for her wonderfulness to roll with the strange. However, points are deduced for that transparent attempt at trying to prove Dorian as a sexist. He raises an eyebrow at Blue as she mentions the part about being the only girl.

"I didn't think it was you," Dorian simply responds, as he opens up his menu to scan the choices. "Personally, if I had to guess? I'd guess Adam was the one who cooked."

Gansey was rich, rich people were usually shit cooks. Ronan probably subsisted on a diet entirely of rage and grumpiness. Matthew would burn the house down the moment he tried to cook and Noah was a ghost and didn't need to eat. Ergo, Adam.

Well, you win some and you lose some, isn't that right? Not that she'd mean to categorize things that way. Much as she's all about sticking it to the man and she's generally sort of anti-marriage-by-default for herself, she does respect and support everyone's right to marry who they like.

Vampires or no vampires.

Perhaps next time she'll learn to be more subtle. Either way, Blue is working to control the flow of information from her side of the table. She watches Dorian quietly for a second over her own menu, before she gives it her attention instead.

When she speaks, she addresses her reply to the drink section.

"I can cook a few things," she says. This is almost so evasive that it practically seems like a confirmation of what Dorian said. "I can make a few kinds of pie. And lots of things with bacon."

Her family is weird.

Edited (don't tag on two hours of sleep just don't do it) 2016-08-15 14:57 (UTC)

Well. Pie. He wasn't expecting pie, as shown by Dorian's little frown. Bacon he was expecting, she was a teenager, bacon was a thing all teenagers did but pie? He was not expecting that in the slightest.

"How...unexpected." Because yeah. Pie. How often did Blue get stuck with the church sale bake sale? Because that's the main example in Dorian's mind of why Blue would know how to make a few kinds of pie.

And to think, Blue actually doesn't eat bacon all that often.

"Is it?" she asks, like she can't possibly comprehend how anything she said just now was out-of-the-ordinary in any way. Mostly because she likes to think everything about her and her life and her family falls into that category. And she exists in a constant state of challenging the world to fault any one of them for it. "But it wasn't unexpected that I don't do the cooking at home."

She's a feisty one.

"Well, of course not. You'd probably be all 'rah rah, my name's Blue Sargant and I refuse to conform to traditional modes of femininity such as cooking.'" That would also explain her clothes...and her hair. But wouldn't explain Gansey, why on Earth is she seeing Gansey?

Dorian gives a little shrug, taking a sip from his glass of water before he continues. "Hence, not unexpected that you do cooking but entirely unexpected that you bake something like pies, the ultimate food for bringing to church functions."

Not that Dorian would know, of course. It's been literal decades since he went to church.

Blue actually looks a little amused at that. This is good and safe though, in terms of not being "overly friendly," because she's dating Gansey and her reaction to him pointing out her feminism is to be offended. So the opposite of that, therefore, is... amusement?

Something like that. Or maybe it's the church comment. Or maybe she holds Gansey to a ridiculously high level of accountability and she doesn't hold Dorian to that level, as he's already admitted to immortal selfishness or whatever you prefer to call it. She's going to have to think about that later.

"We don't go to church, we just like pie," she says, which seems like a somewhat generous offering. "It makes people feel good, you know? It puts them in a good mood."

And she does not elaborate as to why this is significant, except hey! Being in a good mood, that's something you want to have occur, right? Right.

Dorian matches Blue's amused look with one of his own. Good. Amusement is good, Dorian's perfectly fine with Blue being amused and is a little proud of himself for getting her towards amused in the first place. Good job on him! He continues, with that same little amused smile on his face as he lightly teases.

"For future reference, if you do decide to pursue higher education, there's nothing that endears you to a room full of university students more than dessert."

Speaking as someone who was a university student once upon a time—Dorian majored in classics in the 1940s. The lack of a budget and fact that college students are always hungry is a timeless fact of the ages.

Blue is quiet for a second, intentionally so. Not a long, long second. Not a literal second. Somewhere in between.

"You're speaking from personal experience, right?" she asks, after that somewhat longer than logical second passes. That second represents an attempt at being more polite than usual. Blue is extremely rude sometimes, so it's a somewhat Herculean effort squashed into a very short time frame.

Now she's just politely inquiring about Dorian's college experience! Not potentially lamenting her lack thereof. Nothing to see here, folks.

"Indeed I am," Dorian replies, with a little nod. "Early 1950s. I majored in English literature, with a minor in finding the best party and finding the best drinks." After all, he was Dorian Gray: of course he was going to find a party, even if it was a stuffy faculty event.

He takes a sip of his water, falling dangerously close to nostalgia. Shut him up now Blue, or he's going to talk about himself endlessly for the next few hours. "I never finished the degree. Dropped out a few years later to decide to be Dorian Gray: world traveler. I haven't been back since."

Blue just blinks for a second, then huffs out something like a laugh. "I can see that." She rotates her glass on the surface of the table, rolling it between her palms. Possibly she's cogitating something that will do nothing whatsoever to get attention off him and onto something else.

"Why did you go?" Well, that's a Super Weird question. Right?

Dorian paused...and shrugged. "I was bored, I suppose." That's it, that's just his answer, he was bored. Bored with nothing to do? Why not try academia for a few years! "Besides, it's fun to study things that I've lived through."

It's at around this time that the waiter comes back to take their orders. Smiling, Dorian orders some sort of simple cheese ravioli dish. He's nothing but nice and polite as he talks to the waiter, a perfect picture of someone who's showing that he totally knows how to nicely treat the service industry.

Replying to Dorian gets put off by the waiter arriving to take their order. Blue orders what is nearly a plain plate of pasta and more water, pretty quick to turn her attention on Dorian again after thanking the person who took their order.

"Did you correct your professors a lot?" Apparently it's time to play a game called 'how many questions can Blue Sargent ask?'

It's fair, right? Who wouldn't be curious about this?

Dorian can't help but laugh at that, giving Blue a little shake of his head. His laugh is quick, more of a small chuckle than anything else. It is a fair question, but he can't help but be a little critical in his response.

"The quickest way to get your professor to hate you is to correct them. Ask probing questions, sure, delve into other subjects, but nobody likes a pedant who pipes in just to say that Oscar Wilde actually ate his eggs a certain way."

Blue schools her expression into seriousness, blinking at Dorian. "How did he take his eggs?" she inquires, the picture of perfect innocence.

What?

She just wants to know now, doesn't she.

"Over easy," Dorian responds, equally the picture of perfect innocence.

Hey, she asked.

Blue purses her lips, giving a small hum of assessment. "Now I have to decide if I believe you or not."

Says she, while not really sounding much like she actually disbelieves him.

Lying about eggs would be pretty silly.

Dorian can't help but laugh, shaking his head as he grins at Blue.

"Why on Earth would I lie about something as petty as eggs?" When he's going to lie, he's going to lie about other things. Because let's be real. He is straight up going to lie to Blue's face about something sooner or later.

Blue shrugs demonstratively, raising her glass to her lips. It's basically already empty. Oops.

"I don't know, why would you?" she queries. "I can think of stupider things to lie about, and people do it all the time." The thing is, she actually is anticipating a lie. Is that fair? Maybe not. But she's come into several relationships or acquaintanceships or whatever you want to call them carrying information from other people.

She doesn't necessarily like that, so she's trying to make use of that information as little as possible. But it doesn't mean she's forgotten it entirely.

Dorian just happens to be the most complicated of these situations, because she has a lot of voices telling her a lot of things, but she really doesn't loathe talking to him either. And because she's Blue, she refuses to be made to feel bad about that.

Edited 2016-08-23 00:42 (UTC)

"Well yeah, but they're eggs." Again, Dorian can't help but laugh, raising an eyebrow slightly. What he wants to ask is something along the lines of 'are you that paranoid that you think any sort of statement is a lie?' Or possibly, 'am I really that untrustworthy?'

He's got a feeling it's more of the latter than the former. After all, Adam and Ronan's probably shit-talked him to high heaven.

"I can think of stupider things to lie about as well, but usually that's got higher stakes than just 'how someone does their eggs.'"

Now Blue's turned her attention to the egg issue, it's going to be hard to get her off it. "Watch out or you'll end up in a life-threatening egg-related situation," she says, drumming her fingers lightly on the table.

"Mostly I just wonder why people lie at all if they can help it."

Hello, hypocrisy. Blue is a lying liar who lies too, so. She's trying to be more... fair though. Trying.

"Well the obvious answer for why people lie at all is they don't want someone to know the truth." Duh, Blue. Dorian shrugs, waving his hand in a dismissive sort of gesture.

"Why someone wouldn't want to know the truth about eggs is beyond me."

"I did say, 'if they can help it.' I understand it's necessary sometimes." Blue mimics the gesture, looking a little less sure of herself for a split second. That passes pretty quickly though.

"It's not about eggs. It's about the fact that you knew that information for certain and you could've said anything you wanted about a beloved figure in history. I know it's not lost on you that you have a little bit of power there."

"Oscar's beloved?" Dorian can't help but laugh at that, as he took a sip of water. There's a pause before he continues, idly fiddling with his silverware as he does so.

"I still remember the man who died, nameless and friendless, in a hellhole of a Parisian hotel. He might be beloved now, but the Oscar Wilde I knew was anything but. At times, it's hard to believe otherwise."

There's a hint of nostalgia in his voice as he talks. The fact that Oscar Wilde is taught in high schools nationwide is something that Dorian knows...and yet, he remembers a different man entirely.

Initially, Blue raises a brow, as if to say, 'isn't he?' Her expression settles as he speaks. She smooths her hands over the edge of the table, like she's thinking.

"I guess you can't predict what kind of legacy you're going to leave behind, can you?"

"All the more reason why you need to curate a specific image while alive."

After all, if he were to die, what would people think? That probably depended a lot on his own interactions with people, how he dealt with things and the sort of interactions he'd leave behind.

Blue purses her lips. "Trying to control how people see you can have some pretty disastrous results."

Is she saying that to be contrary or is this another one of those ironic moments where Blue gets argumentative about something that could easily be turned back on her? Possibly both...

"And what 'specific image' should you curate?"

"Whichever image you want to curate! I try to curate the image of myself as a fun, hedonistic, party boy. You obviously try to curate the image of someone who doesn't give a damn about contemporary norms."

He gestures to Blue as he says this, a sweeping sort of dismissive gesture towards her outfit. Try and prove him wrong, buddy.

Ugh, no. The side of Blue's mouth is twitching a little. It's probably just some kind of reflex motion. It doesn't mean she's amused. Not even a little bit.

"Is that what my image says?" she asks, sounding haughtier than is strictly believable.

Dorian can't help it. He straight up laughs at Blue's haughtiness. Surely she knows what her image says, she's curated the damn thing to begin with!

"Some of that clothing is more safety pins than actual clothing. Of course that's what your image says!"

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so what's up with your everything

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WE'RE JUST GONNA DO SOME RETCONNING because wow did I mess up when and where he got his degree in

the other thing that never happened... never happened /waves a hand

whooooo magical retcon

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