I black out on dessert wine

[brushoff]

WHO: Dorian & others! some closed prompts, some open prompts
WHERE: all over the place
WHEN: all through the month of February
WHAT: surprise, Dorian Gray is actually secretly really pathetic
WARNINGS: talk of depression, mild drug use, alcoholism, body horror

open ish prompt: for people Dorian's got good cr with
Dorian's still an absolute wreck. It's been a month since Toby ported out and while he handled December by getting blackout drunk on a near daily basis, he's handled January by holing up in his apartment like a recluse, staring at his portrait, and just thinking about the past, about how he messed everything up, how it's his fault that if Toby comes back here, he won't be the same.

Of course, that's a big if in the first place. He's already lost Toby twice. What's the likelihood that the third time he loses him he'll get lucky?

Dorian's thankful for the blackout--it saved him the trouble of having to go out and pretend to care about all these sorts of trivial, boring imPort things. But he's hidden himself away for most of January and he knows that his friends are probably wondering why one of the community's most social butterflies has been laying low.

He has friends. Friends that care about him. That's still damn weird to wrap his head around.

So, Dorian's invited people over, partly to stop people from worrying, partly to force him to actually clean up his goddamn apartment. As he opens the door, Dorian gives whoever he invited a grin. There are still signs that things aren't great: there's far too many liquor bottles in the trash can, far too many shot glasses in the sink, and Dorian's wearing a sweatshirt. Still, he's able to put on a fake enough smile.

"Come on in," said with a nod.

open prompt: a bar in maurtia falls
This 'trying to people' and 'trying to seem like he's got it all together when in reality he almost had a breakdown at the laundromat when he discovered one of Toby's shirts in his load' fucking sucks. So Dorian's getting drunk. Again. Surprising no one. This bar's a bit more dive bar than his usual locations, but the alcohol's cheap, there's a jukebox, and nobody'll bother him.

That is, nobody except the bartender who recognizes Dorian as that guy who kind of passed out drunk sometime last month and they had to call a cab to get his alcoholic ass home. Needless to say, Dorian's gotten cut off after one drink.

So hello there person who Dorian might or might not recognize from the network, he's sliding right up to them, presenting them with his most winning, most 'surely I'M not trouble', most persuasive smile he can muster.

"Buy me a drink? I'll pay you back later, I just left my wallet at the house."

This is a lie. Just talking to the bartender will reveal this as a lie. Still, Dorian's delivering it like it's the utmost truth.

Comments

crane: a maurtia falls arts gallery

[brushoff]

Part of this 'trying to look like you're a functioning human being' again involved doing all the snobby, pretentious asshole things that Dorian would still do when Toby was here and pretending like he's got this in the bag and isn't missing his husband entirely. One of these things is attending the opening of a new exhibit at the Maurtia Falls Institute of Art.

Some of these paintings were obtained through...dubious means. A few of them Dorian recognizes from his summer as a supervillain, when he dipped into the illegal art trade. He's got half a mind to go up to the curator and drop a few little nasty hints about the provenance of the artwork but no, let's keep that a secret for now.

It's in one of the rooms of the gallery that Dorian spots Crane. Walking up to the other man, Dorian gives him a little smile and a nod. "I don't know why you're spending time in this section of the gallery," he teases, as he looks at a painting. "It's abstract. I fucking hate abstract art."

[restingstitchface]

The part of Crane's mind that registers people as friend or foe kicks in once he hears Dorian's voice; and promptly decides neither. There is something bordering amusement in his tone, though he has yet to send a glance in Dorian's direction.

"Abstraction is a collective reaction against social normality, Mr Gray. Nothing about these works is subversive. They're all cut from the same cheap cloth." His lips curl up a little. "I am here because these people need to hear the truth. They use money to get the art they want without a true appreciation of the form."

[brushoff]

"It's like bloody Hirst," Dorian complains, looking at the art with a frown. "People assume that anything in an art gallery must be good due to it's placement in the art gallery, ignoring the fact that sometimes it's awful and sometimes the curator has a misguided sense of taste."

This is good. He likes complaining, complaining's safe, and Crane...well, Crane's at least someone he can complain with. There's so few imPorts here with the smallest sense of culture, Dorian'll take whatever he can get, even if said imPort has a weird fear boner.

[restingstitchface]

For the time being, Crane chooses to set aside the fact he prefers his own company and indulges himself. He scratches beneath his chin before bobbing his head sideways, birdlike. It is good to have somebody to complain at.

"Kitsch. It's a description given to something one cannot admit is shit ghastly. Curators are as affected as anyone." He turns to Dorian, finally. "And what are you here to visit, exactly?"

[brushoff]

"Nostalgia," Dorian simply remarks, with a shrug. "I have a personal history with some of these paintings that may or may not have fallen off the back of a truck."

Dorian gives Crane a wry little smile suggesting that yeah, they totally did fall off a back of the truck, the legality of some of these paintings is hilariously in dispute.

mick rory: heropa, GARBAGE CAN FIRE.

[brushoff]

"Are you sure this'll help?" Dorian can't help but mutter, as he looked over the trash can filled with all sorts of flammable objects. He was talking with Mick, Dorian idly let slip that he was feeling a bit depressed, Mick joked that setting things on fire made him feel better, Dorian took it 100% seriously. So here they were, on a Heropa beach with a trash can that Dorian stole borrowed from a different location as well as lighter fluid and some matches.

"Bonfires are nice, I'll admit. But that's...it's more of a thing than just setting something on fire. More of an event."

Still, Dorian's not making any attempt to stop the lighting of things on fire. He trusts Mick's judgement, even if he's a bit confused as to why he joked about setting things on fire in the first place.

noah czerny: de chima, the woods near the raven house

[brushoff]

In retrospect, going to get high in the woods was probably a bad idea.

Not because of the obvious flaw in the plan, that Dorian was going to get high in the woods. People can't bother you in the woods and ask you stupid questions like 'how are you doing' or 'I'm sorry to hear about your husband.' It was a bad idea because his usual Maurtia Falls dealer got busted, but he knew a guy in De Chima, so Dorian had to go over to the De Chima guy and it's damned hard to smuggle drugs through the Porter so he settled on just getting high in some woods in Virginia but, whether by accident or not, he ended up rather close to the house of Gansey and the rest.

He didn't really miss Gansey, per se. He just missed what the boy could have been, if he hadn't surrounded himself with people like Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch. Dorian's lost in his memories, walking around the familiar woods. Here was where that confrontation about the nightmare monster was, the one that attacked him, the one that Ronan had created. Did that beast still exist in this world? Or would it soon be forgotten like the rest of the raven children, the only marker of their existence this abandoned house.

People were so impermanent. Even when they were supposed to be permanent, they were impermanent. All except himself.

A crunch of leaves alerts him to the presence of someone else. "I didn't know there were any of you Aglionby brats left," Dorian says, in a loud voice, as he stands up and turns to look at...Noah? Well shit, he had straight up forgotten that Noah existed. That's the dead one, right? The lucky one.

[admemoriam]

Noah doesn't seem affected by the comment. He shuffles his feet, looks down at the dead leaves - he looks thinner, younger, older.

"Just me." Barely. Alone.

Silent and blank, he walks a bit closer.

"What do you have?"

[brushoff]

"Weed." It's said very bluntly, with absolutely no shame. Dorian's done worse drugs before (he had a pretty bad coke habit back in the early 2000s), ain't no shame in getting high.

Of course, he also has no idea what Noah the dead kid thinks about weed. He doesn't need a morality lecture from a ghost, how ridiculous would that be. So, instead, he's going to put that aside for now and focus on the obvious.

"Well you look like shit."

[admemoriam]

"No worse than you."

It's not with the tone of an insult - just a simple, even truth. Pulling his sweatshirt down past his hands, Noah moves to sit down on the forest floor. The underbrush around him quivers for a second.

"You're on my property. That means you have to share."

[brushoff]

"That's not how it works," Dorian remarks, with a little roll of his eyes. Reaching into his pocket, Dorian pulled out a slightly sloppily rolled joint, another reason why his Maurtia Falls guy was so much better.

He held the joint between his teeth as he rummages around his coat pockets to try and find the stupid lighter.

"Say please first," he teases, 100% being a shit for the sake of being a shit.

klarion bleak: dorian's sad apartment

[brushoff]

The problem with staying in and being a pathetic introvert who stares at his portrait and reflects on his bad decisions is that Dorian's in his apartment more often than not, and usually when he would be out of his apartment. He's in the middle of one of his periods of moping, self-loathing, and staring at his portrait (currently propped up against his living room wall) when he hears something weird...and then hears a meow.

Oh hell. It's Klarion. Probably come to steal some food. Which normally wouldn't be a problem except right now there's his portrait, it all of it's twisted, warped, horrible glory and he kind of doesn't want Klarion to see how much of a dirtbag he is on the inside.

"Close your eyes!" Dorian can't help but yell, as he springs up from the floor, desperately trying to find the dropcloth that he had been using to cover said portrait. Dammit, it was around here somewhere, he literally just had it, it was a six foot sheet of cloth, you can't lose something like that!

[beneathbluerafters]

"What? Why?" The muffled reply comes from inside the kitchen, naturally. Klarion hadn't actually thought that Dorian would be home when he'd decided to raid his fridge for leftover pizza, but in retrospect, it isn't very surprising - the guy has been moping around for weeks. What is surprising is Dorian yelling, though. What doesn't he want him to see?

"For heaven's sakes, Dorian, it's three in the afternoon!" Klarion calls back, sounding slightly annoyed, "You'd better have clothes on!" Klarion had learned through trial and (mortifying) error that raiding the fridge during the day, when Toby was asleep, drastically lowered the chances of teleporting in on a makeout session and seeing things that he really didn't want to see. Now that Toby was gone, Klarion assumed that his chances of interrupting something like that had all but disappeared, but if that's no longer the case, then he'll stay in the kitchen, thankyouverymuch.

Teekl, however, does not give a shit, and ambles into the living room like he owns the place. As soon as he catches sight of the portrait, his tail arches up with a yowl, and all of his fur stands on end.

[brushoff]

The portrait is absolutely horrifying. It looks like Dorian but a warped version of Dorian, withered with age. Traces of all the injuries he's ever received show on the portrait: burns are spotted around the face, two puncture wounds on the neck bleed, it's every sin, every injury, every trace of age writ large on his portrait.

Finally finding the dropcloth (how did it get under the couch?) Dorian tossed it over the portrait and gave Teekl a Look. A sort of 'don't try anything, cat' look. The last thing he needed was Klarion's cat to try and use the portrait as a scratching post.

"It's my portrait," Dorian explains, as he looks over at Klarion. "I brought it back to my apartment when the blackout happened. I don't..." He doesn't want Klarion just to see how much of a truly awful person he is. "You don't need to see it."

[beneathbluerafters]

"Why not?" Klarion steps inside the living room, carrying a plate of cold pizza. He's already halfway through a slice himself, and he holds the plate out to Dorian, because offering someone their own stolen food is the polite thing for unwanted houseguests to do under these circumstances.

"Is it a bad likeness? Or did you get a new black eye recently?" His tone is halfway between teasing and goading; he only has a vague idea of how the portrait works, and bickering with an irritated Dorian is usually easier than figuring out how to deal with his moping moods.

Teekl keeps his distance from both of them, edging closer to the portrait while keeping his eyes on Dorian. He saw what was under that dropcloth, even if he hasn't communicated it yet.

[brushoff]

Dorian shakes his head at Klarion's plate. No thanks, he's not going to eat cold pizza (that he bought himself, that's not how sharing works, buddy). Instead, he pauses for a moment, trying to find a good way to communicate just exactly what the problem is.

"You know that I'm immortal and can't be hurt. Well my immortality works...differently than most. Any sin, any trace of age, any wound that would appear on me, instead appears on my portrait. As such, it's not a pretty sight."

A hundred and fifty years of sin, debauchery, and various bloody circumstances? It looks awful.

haen: baelish's strip club

[brushoff]

It's inevitable they'd meet here. Dorian bartends, and Haen is Baelish's...well, not his girlfriend. Significant other is too formal and current fuck is too degrading. His special someone? How twee. But, until he finds a term to actually describe their relationship, special someone it is.

He still would rather be at home, moping. But, as content as he'd be to wallow in misery, Dorian likes money. You can buy clothes and alcohol with money. And you get money by working, especially when you're stuck in an alternate universe and your status as 'filthy rich' didn't transfer over to said alternate universe, thanks Porter.

It's in the early hours of the evening. Dorian's making certain everything's stocked up, that there's plenty of washed glasses, the ice machine is working, all of that fun setting up stuff, when he spots Haen out of the corner of his eye. With a grin, he calls her over.

"Care for a drink? And yes, I know it's Wednesday, but that's all the more reason to drink in the first place! Nothing of note ever happened on a Wednesday."

Bar!

[flowerette]

"Surely you can charm the bartender to give you a freebie." Raina mutters irritably. Already drunk herself if the various empty glasses lined up before her are anything to go by. This is definitely a Chilton sucks drinking binge. This is definitely the worst Raina has ever been.

Love sucks.

She raises her hand for another round to be brought to her table and once it is, she knocks it back without hesitation.

"Didn't expect to see you in a place like this." Or anyone she knew. Dorian and Raina definitely had similar agendas when it came to coming here. And unbeknownst to her -- similar reasons to be drinking. Again. Love sucks.

[brushoff]

"I'm afraid the bartender hasn't forgotten the last time I was here." But holy shit, that is a lot of alcohol. Dorian recognizes this binge far too well: it's the self-destructive binge of having a fight with your partner.

Which, he wasn't surprised that Chilton messed things up. What he is surprised about is to see Raina, here, three sheets to the wind.

"Most people settle for making the significant other sleep on the couch, you know."

[flowerette]

"I left. Couch. Bed. It's all his. I've been bouncing between my De Chima apartment and The Castile with The Countess. I can't do it anymore." Raina still hesitates to say that Dorian was right. They might have been in separate houses, but Raina hadn't officially ended things yet. She still held out hope that Chilton would put up a fight.

"I'm not surprised that all of his other girlfriends have tried to murder him at some point. I am surprised that none of them succeeded, however."

[brushoff]

He doesn't say 'I told you so.' But oh, he is desperately thinking it. Dorian's managing to keep a straight face but there's a vicious flame of glee burning inside of him. Ha! Chilton had fucked everything up and driven Raina away. It was to be expected, of course. She was always too good for him.

"What was the tipping point?" Because how he wants to hear this gossip.

constantine: dorian's apartment aka the sadness cave

[brushoff]

Dorian had invited Constantine over partly for drinks, partly for another reason. And, as they're standing in front of a closet door with some sort of magical sigil scribbled on the doorknob in sharpie, that other reason is becoming apparently clear.

"These are the wards Klarion put up," Dorian explains, as he fumbles with a lighter. He's gripping a cigarette between his teeth as he talks, struggling to get the lighter to actually light the damn thing. "He's a good kid and I trust his magical ability. But I'm a firm believer in asking for a second opinion. I don't want you to set them off or anything, I believe the wards are set to vaporize someone. I just want you to see if they're there."

He's fairly certain they're actually there, after all, but it never hurts to have a second opinion. Klarion's...well, he's not necessarily a good kid, but he's someone that Dorian trusts. Their odd little brotherly relationship is definitely odd and only slightly brotherly, but Dorian enjoys it all the same.

He finally gets the damn lighter to work. As he lights his cigarette, Dorian looks over to John. "Want a smoke while you work?"

[heckblazer]

By the time Dorian turns around to ask, John's already got his own smoke between his teeth and his engraved lighter in hand to help himself. He replies with a silent, teasing look at Gray before leaning in to examine Bleak's handiwork. The kid was mostly a basket of trouble filled with headaches, but he could be amusing. If the tickling in John's frontal lobe as he bends over to squint at the insignia is any sign, there is a potent spell at work here, but...

"The kid's handwriting is atrocious." concludes John. "Muddles up the whole enchantment. Pretty sure this'll amortize or magnetize the intended victim, with what a mess the runes are."

He looks back at his mate quizically, "Wot's it you need me to do?"

[brushoff]

"Really, I just needed you to make certain it worked," Dorian answers, with a little shrug. "I don't know all that much about magic. I don't care how it'll mess people up, all I care about is that except for me, nobody should open this door."

There's a pause, while Dorian takes a drag on his cigarette. "Unless I want them to, of course. But I doubt that'll happen any time soon."

[heckblazer]

His reply to Dorian mostly just takes on the form of a hard stare, the kind that John hopes will, if he waits another moment or so, break the pretty man's haughtiness. Too easy to fluster, this one. Dorian might be immortal, but John knows how to long-game. It's another minute or so of holding the gaze, slowly cooking his friend beneath before he asks as casually as he can manage,

"Is what's in there what I think's in there? And I no mean yer' stash."

Although he was a touch bitter that Dorian still hadn't shared any of his top-shelf opium.