milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

[[After this.]]

This morning, Dorian Gray feels decidedly odd. There are no marks on his skin, but he is feeling tired, languid, under the weather, and not his usual enterprising and pleasure-seeking self.

This never happens, he muses as he sits nursing his café au lait and half-heartedly nibbling a croissant.

Perhaps it is because a certain painting is still in his world while Dorian himself has been tarrying at the end of the universe? He decides that he must go home and remedy that. This feels just too unpleasant.

So, abandoning his breakfast, he gets up, walks to the door, and leaves.

[[OOC: Warning for blood-drinking and sexual allusions in the OOM. Catch Dorian over his breakfast if you like, but he will be leaving at the end of the thread.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Vampire hangover?" Jay asks, not unsympatheticly.

"What?" Dorian says, not feeling quite up to his usual polite eloquence.

He peers at Jay. His eyes look decidedly bleary, and he's rather paler than usually.

"What you're feeling right now, is a vampire hangover. The drained, flat feeling. I recognise the symptoms. What it Eric or Pam?"

"... Eric," Dorian says. "I suppose it takes one to know one?"

He manages a smile, but it's a bit wan, due to both languor and astonishment.

Trust this place to have a name for this apparently common occurrence after a not-at-all extraordinary experience.

"There's a couple of us here he likes to snack on." Jay shrugs. "I find the trick is to sleep it off, drink a lot of water and then have a big steak dinner the next day."

"Thank you," Dorian says. "I should probably order bacon and eggs, then, instead of the croissant?"

Inwardly, he resolves not to repeat the vampire experience, if it's all that common here.

"Wouldn't hurt. And drink lots of water."

Not that common but Jay can see Dorian seems disappointed. "Didn't enjoy it? If you don't mind me asking?"

"I did," Dorian says, somewhat cautiously. "I simply didn't realise that it was such a popular experience. Like accidentally discovering the most exciting little cabaret theatre, and then finding out all your friends have already seen the show."

"It's not all that popular." Jay shrugs. "There's a lot of people here who... aren't real happy that Eric's allowed to feed here. But he's charismatic and fucking beautiful. And knows how to press all the right buttons."

Dorian isn't quite that convinced of Eric's personal qualities, but it doesn't matter -- Jay seems to think the world of him.

Cute, really.

"How could anybody object to him feeding here?" he asks. "What business is it of theirs?"

Not entirely the world but he knows what Eric's good at. When he wants to be.

"Some of them come from worlds where vampires are monsters, the enemy. It's hard for them to believe that a vampire would only feed on the consenting. Or that anyone would willingly want to be fed on."

"It is quite blinkered of them if they fail to see that vampires can be different," Dorian says. "But then, what would you expect of people who consider themselves to be fighting evil? Most so-called evil is only in the mind of the beholder."

"Hate's a hard thing to get around. It's not exactly centred in the rational part of the brain!" Jay shrugs. "Most people are pretty tolerant here. I guess coming from different times and worlds, you gotta find a way to think past your own prejudices or you stop coming."

"I very much doubt that vampires are the strangest thing here, or the most dangerous," Dorian muses.

"Not even close. But even gods of chaos have to play by the rules here. Hell, half of them are on the security team!" He looks around the room. "No-one here is exactly normal but it works out for the most part."

"Compared to them, I am probably ordinary," Dorian says. "Nothing I can do about that."

Jay laughs warmly. "No-one here is ordinary. Not even slightly. Everyone has a story, stories that sound all the stranger to each other for coming from different places."

"But doesn't everyone have a story, in any case, because we are people and tell our lives to ourselves and others as stories?" Dorian muses.

"Everyone has a story but I bet you everyone here has one that's stranger or more interesting than most. Hell, that's a handful of us here who have been dead at least once."

"I am glad, I must admit, that I've been spared that one, so far," Dorian admits.

"Lucky you. I'm told it's easier here, at least compared to what I went through." He shrugs.

"You died?" Dorian asks. "I am sorry to hear that!"

Should he offer condolences? Hardly; that would be flippant.

Jay waves it away. "It was a few years ago now. But that what I mean, nonone's story here is boring. I bet yours is very interesting?"

"I don't know," Dorian says. "As I said, I'm just a useless hedonist dabbling in everything."

Jay cocks an eyebrow. "I see a beautiful young man with a thirst to explore."

"That is a nice way of putting the same thing," Dorian says, quietly.

Jay rests a gentle hand on Dorian's arm, his thumb moving over the soft skin of his wrist. "Get some sleep, you'll feel better."

"I already had a lot of that," Dorian admits. "I think I'll just go home for a bit."

To the portrait, which is welcome to his vampire hangover, in addition to everything else.

Jay nods and gets up. "Safe journey, then. If you come back, we should go riding again."

"Thank you, Jay," Dorian says, managing a smile.

Then, spontaneous, he bends to kiss Jay's cheek, before getting up and walking out of the door, towards feeling better.-

[[OOC: Thanks for the thread!]]

The kiss makes Jay smile and he lets his hand linger on Dorian's arm as he goes. There's something intriguingly sad about Dorian that makes him want to know more.

{ooc: a pleasure! Thank you. Dorian's a wonderful character.}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only