April Roberta Ludgate (
aggressiveapathy) wrote in
maskormenacelogs2016-08-12 11:39 pm
Entry tags:
And you would keep the warhead missile silo good as new
WHO: April Ludgate and murder victim Dorian Gray
WHERE: Some Bohemian club, in the private booth
WHEN: Friday night
WHAT: Marriage bitching
WARNINGS: Cannibalism, murder, giant egos
She arrived fifteen minutes late. It wasn't a statement, it was more her freaking out in the car about some dumbass traffic cop possibly opening her trunk and-
No. No cop had ever done that, and her current position as Mitch Hundred's chief of staff usually helped avoid that kind of thing (or at least promised phone calls asking for bribes before the arrest went out). So. She eventually took a deep breath, paid the meter, and walked into the place with a purse about 10 times the size of her normal one swinging from her arm as she was lead to the table.
WHERE: Some Bohemian club, in the private booth
WHEN: Friday night
WHAT: Marriage bitching
WARNINGS: Cannibalism, murder, giant egos
She arrived fifteen minutes late. It wasn't a statement, it was more her freaking out in the car about some dumbass traffic cop possibly opening her trunk and-
No. No cop had ever done that, and her current position as Mitch Hundred's chief of staff usually helped avoid that kind of thing (or at least promised phone calls asking for bribes before the arrest went out). So. She eventually took a deep breath, paid the meter, and walked into the place with a purse about 10 times the size of her normal one swinging from her arm as she was lead to the table.

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When April enters, Dorian gives her a wide grin, absolutely unaware that Will's filled her in on his crazy. It's a grin that one gives to a friend more than anything else. "Finally," he teases, sliding his phone back into his pocket. "I was beginning to worry I've been stood up!"
Look at this smiley happy picture of youth & beauty, surely he couldn't have been the person to fuck Will over these past six months and look, that is the image that Dorian's projecting right now, the image that everything is aokay and perfectly normal and they're going to gossip about their respective husbands while drinking too much expensive wine. Maybe Dorian'll end up asking April about that tackyass purse, who the hell knows.
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If Dorian is so curious as to open the thing, he'll find one of his lovely livers neatly sealed in a bag and surrounded by dry ice inside. April is really not here for foreplay. If he doesn't open it right away, she'll just be drinking more and more wine, waiting until he does so.
"You forgot something at the house."
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Ah. That is most definitely a body part. And, in all likelihood, probably his body part. Well damn, looks like Will finally told April. Alternatively, looks like Will's a worse hider of body parts than Dorian thought. There's really no use trying to pretend that he had no idea whose liver that was, not after this fiasco had grown the lengths it did. So, Dorian neatly closes up the bag, sits it on the floor, and takes a sip of wine for himself.
"You brought it to a public place? Not only is that reckless of you, it's frankly a bit tacky."
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Whether that's reckless, tacky, or both isn't discussed, but April is refilling her glass. A little too much. A lot too much. Red wine should not be level with the top of the wine glass.
"Got anything you wanna say first?"
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"You were never supposed to be brought into this."
Somebody still has a few issues with the concept that marriage means telling your partner things.
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It a little too loud. Loud enough April pauses to make sure the waiter isn't going to come rushing in to make sure she isn't talking about the service before she goes back to talking. At a slightly more reasonable level.
"I just- Dorian, are we, like, friends? Or is this just some weird getting close to the future ex so you're ready to comfort Will when he's sad thing?"
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"I like you. I doubt we'd be having this conversation if I didn't."
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The drinking isn't a big gulp at this point. More of a calm, controlled swallow. While April certainly has no problem throwing shit fits in public, there was a reason she hadn't just asked Dorian to the house and kicked Jeff out. Here she could at least remind herself how annoying getting caught with human organs would be if the staff got bitchy and called the cops.
So. A little self-forced restraint and giving Dorian a tiny chance to answer. Also the benefit of spending all his money on the wine.
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Enjoy that bit about a mistaken assumption, April: Dorian doesn't admit when he was wrong all that often.
"I wormed my way closer to him also while terrorizing him with said body parts. I didn't expect Baltimore to be insane or for me to like any of your family."
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Fred, a man she certainly liked way less than Dorian, her shirtless pillow fort friend.
"You like Will?"
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He is desperately trying to find a way to cling to April, someone so wonderfully irreverent that he'd get drunk in a pillow fort with and Will, someone who Dorian found as bulwark in times of trouble, without owning up to or acknowledging the fact that he hurt them both real bad.
"I do," Dorian simply responds, a hint of annoyance in his voice as he talks. "I gave him a key to my portrait, after all. And certainly part of that was an attempt at worming my way into his life, but...I don't know. You don't trust people with your Achilles heel, even if it's for other tactical reasons."
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Which was...something her and Will were working through. But if she and Dorian were going to be whatever they were, he needed to know the truth. And she needed to know he knew it. Or he might light their house on fire in the night. It wouldn't be a new thing in her life.
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"At the risk of pointing out the obvious, it hurt like a bitch." No shit. When he starts back up, he talks in a calm manner, almost dispassionate. April wanted honest? April's getting honest, in all the true crazy colors. "He stabbed my lungs with a knife, to prevent me from talking. That had the added bonus of making me choke on my own blood as well as preventing me from actually getting up and leaving." There's another pause. Surely April didn't have that sort of experience of lung wounds—but oh God they stung like a bitch. "Will wanted me right where he had me and kept me there while he took his revenge. There are very few people I hated more than I hated your husband in that moment as he was disemboweling me...and yet thirty minutes later, I was giving him shit about his clothing choices again."
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She was going to be strong. She was going to handle this. But when he actually spells it out, April stands up abruptly. She was going to throw up. It's a lurch then a run, but she makes it to the bathroom. Fuck the wine, fuck the bag, fuck everything. Dorian can stay at the table and she'll come back a few minutes later, or he can follow after.
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Well. He should have expected that.
While April's gone, Dorian does damage control, reassuring a waitress that no, she's perfectly fine, it was something that didn't agree with April back home, they've only had a little bit of wine after all, don't worry, though could they have a glass of water and some saltines? When April comes back, Dorian's at the table, just sort of carefully blocking the view of the organ purse. After all, who knows if said waitress will come back. Said glass of water and saltines are currently sitting in front of April's seat.
Dorian can't hide it: visible relief briefly flits across his face as he sees April return. He doesn't say anything though. He just watches April. What part of that bombshell was she going to tackle first?
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She pauses to eat a saline, then chug half a glass of water as she processes.
"Why were you back to that? What is...Dorian."
It's a weaker voice, far more so than she'd pick, than she'd allow. And she takes another swallow of water.
"Dorian."
Better. More her. More 'I don't care about anything' Ludgate. Not fully that but...closer.
"We're friends. Why let that happen to you?"
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At least in Dorian's mind, the warning signs are all there. He murdered someone during Lucifer's attempt at bringing on the Apocalypse, Petrov thought him enough of a sinner to burn him on the spot, he freely admits to being Dorian Gray, the poster child for sin and debauchery. Yes, he can be a nice person. And yes, they were friends. But Dorian knew full well just how terrible a human being he was. He saw the fruits of his labor reflected in his portrait. There's no trace of gloating in his voice as he explains, talking in an almost clinical tone.
"I let it happen to me because I wanted to make Will suffer. Practically murdering a close friend? There's nothing more macabre and horrifying than that. And, so I thought, if Will suffered, Chilton suffered. I didn't expect it to go as far as he did."
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"Oh my god, D. You fucking suck at being bad. You're bad at being bad."
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"How was I supposed to know that Will's version of Baltimore was insane?! He married you! You're normal!"
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She says it out loud, expecting anyone that might be passing by to thing she's...who knows. Is speaking metaphorically? But to be calm enough around a vomit victim to do nothing.
"Is it that bad? To be...not awful?"
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But is it bad for people to be 'not awful' or to at least be semi-decent? Hell if Dorian knows.
"I surround myself with awful people—sometimes it seems like I'm trying to set a record for most dubious friendships. I simply didn't expect Will Graham to join that collection."
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Because she has no other bit of honesty to offer. She hadn't expected Will to 'join', either. But...here they were. She was married to him, and didn't think he was awful. He was her husband. He was Will. And Dorian was Dorian. Her loved ones got a special buffer zone people like Fred or murderers on the network didn't get.
"But they're mine, Dorian. Aren't they. You started it. Sending...parts. I thought I was giving it all back, but...god. It's really not yours now. Is it."
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Getting your heart ripped out multiple times and having your appendix literally try to kill you meant that Dorian had a relatively unique view on bodily integrity.
Besides, Will Graham vivisected him for a reason. Granted, that reason was petty revenge, but Dorian certainly wasn't going to deprive him of his petty revenge trophies (mostly because he has no fucking clue what he would do with organs to begin with, God he really was horrible at being horrible was he.)
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She reaches for the wine. She hold the wine. She lifts it...but fuck, her stomach can't. So she places it down hard enough that there's a red ring on the table and reaches for her water and saltines again.
The ones Dorian got for her.
"It stops now. You and Will and the messed up stuff. I don't care- That's Toby's shit. You and your messed up. But you can't bring in Will. Without dragging me in, too. That's marriage, Dorian. Being the same person. For the bad and good."
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That guilty look quickly gets replaced by a frown, though.
"Trust me, it stopped a few weeks ago. Too many people got dragged in." Some of those people were April and some of those people were dangerous. As soon as Nicolas Demidov, the investigator who Chilton put on the case showed his crazy racist hand when some of Toby's fledgelings got murdered, that was the point that Dorian realized 'well damn, I messed up real bad.'
"Again, it shouldn't have spread the way it did."
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She can grab the wine again at that statement. Doesn't pick it up, doesn't sip from it. But holds it.
"No games. No...whatever you were trying to do for Fred. All of it is for both of us. And Will's used to being fucked with. I take it personally."
She was normal, sure. But she'd been in this world long enough to know how to make it suck for an imPort. Powers, jails, debates. Community service. She knows it all.
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He's still a bit grumpy at the idea that he was doing this for the benefit of Chilton as Dorian takes a small little sip of his wine. April's drawing a line in the sand. That much is apparent. And really, Dorian's not entirely sure he wants to cross it.
"So, what do you want me to do about it? I highly doubt flowers and a card would be appropriate."
Sorry I manipulated you, xoxo Dorian.
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It's vague, she knows. To the point of not even meaning anything to the kind of people that spawn Baltimore and whatever place Dorian comes from. But it's from the heart- her never murdered, beating heart. So maybe it means something. Or so she hopes as she takes a sip of her wine again, letting it wash down the horrible taste of vomit and salt.
"Don't not tell me things. If you're gonna be my friend...be my friend. No lying, no obfuscating. Be my gay husband. And we can make other, suckier people cry."
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But he can at least give April attempts at the truth. Attempts to tell her things. Making an effort still counts. "I'll need to check with Toby about the whole 'sharing' thing, you know." It's an attempt at a joke! Everything is fine!
"No lying, no obfuscating, being on your side. I can do that."
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He's joking, she isn't. April takes a sip of her wine as she settles into the agreement. Not perfect, not by a long shot. But something she can live with. Like anything in life.
"You're got a week to tell Toby. About the organs and stuff. Or I'm gonna. And don't even think you can kill me first. I've got way too much life saved up."
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Dorian looks visibly put out at the idea of telling Toby...but then again, what's one more person in this giant clusterfuck. And hopefully Toby will understand about Dorian's project, right? After all, it started...fuck it started ages ago, he really should have told Toby before now, Dorian Gray you really are a terrible husband.
But April's right. Toby really does need to know, especially since people like Demidov are involved. "Fine," Dorian answers, with a little huff of his own.
Ohhhh he is going to be sleeping on the couch for the next month, he knows that.
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"I'm gonna check. Don't test me."
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Liking people was just the worst.
"There's still one more thing I gotta do before the night's done, you know."
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"And that thing is?"
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Then throws the contents of her glass in Dorian's face.
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"Dammit April, this is dry clean only!"
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But, for now, her honor is at least appeased if not satisfied. So, happy to leave Dorian to deal with the soon to be unhappy waitstaff, April stands up from her chair.
"I've got the rest of your stuff. If you want it. Or Will's gonna figure it out."
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"We'll let Will figure it out," Dorian responds, with a little shrug. "He got rid of a body before, he can get rid of organs."
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And, with that, unless Dorian has any other issues to cover, April will make her dramatic exit. Again, before the wait staff notices the mess she made.
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