Zee (fall_of_rain) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-08-23 00:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: lxg, dorian gray, meg giry |
Who: Dorian and Zee->Meg
What: Talks through the door and first meeting(s)
Where: Passages, outside Dorian's door
When: Recent-ish
Warnings/Rating: Dorian is still a jerk? ;-D
It was a bad idea. Zee knew that meeting with Dorian himself would be a bad idea, and sending Meg through the door to do it was even worse. Every other word out of Dorian’s mouth seemed tailor made to offend, and while he’d had a good control on his temper for years, Zee didn’t want to test how far he could be pushed. Especially not if those comments revolved around Hunter. The end of their last real conversation (the one that was about more than laundry or groceries) had shown him that there was very little hope in whatever was between the two of them being repaired. He wasn’t interested in going backwards, since he knew the both of them had changed, and he wasn’t interested in pretending like he’d never fucked up in the first place. But he wanted to be able to maybe one day move past it and work on something new. But the haunted, hurt look in Hunter’s eyes had stopped him more effectively than anything else. He didn’t want to keep hurting Hunter, and it seemed obvious now that he’d be doing exactly that if he kept pushing. So he’d let things slip into the strange status quo they were now - roommates with a history. One guy helping another.
That didn’t stop Zee from worrying about Hunter though. And Dorian running his mouth on the journals didn’t help ease that worry at all. It made Zee need to go and check on things. Make sure that Dorian wasn’t doing things he shouldn’t, that Hunter would come back through the door in one piece and no worse for wear.
The hotel was as dark and quiet as it always was when Zee pushed inside. He rarely saw anyone else there, even when he knew that others had to be coming and going. No one intercepted him on the way to Dorian’s door, though, and he let out an annoyed sigh as he approached it. Meg was present and aware in his mind, curious about everything, and he did his best to try to scold her into behaving, into promising to come back through the door if anything started getting out of control. With her sweet promise in his mind, he stopped in front of the door, body a long line of slouch and hands in his pockets.
The door was slightly ajar and swung easily open at even a breath of air, a hint of presence. The door opened to Dorian Gray’s library, but it was much changed since the last visitor had stepped through. Pale yellow light the color of old pearls lit a chamber of wealth and privilege. It alleviated the clutter somewhat, revealing slim paths of patterned carpets from the Orient that divided through glass display cases crammed with shimmering jewels and rock samples, wound around generously stuffed armchairs and leather couches, ended in massive oak doors of the same make as the one to the hotel beyond. Shelves were heavy with leather-bound books, many askew and disordered, held upright with busts of dead poets and exotic souvenirs from Africa and India. Curtains the size and color of medieval tapestries were flung open to let in the paltry daylight, and pretty pictures of a busy London street moved as the century turned only just out of reach. A small coal fire was banked in the hearth, and the impossibly rich smells of cooking pidgeon in gravy and heavy black tea mixed with the sharp scent of coming rain.
At the sound of the door, Dorian himself turned from one of the windows. Slim and exquisite as one of Raphael’s angels, Dorian looked through the door to the hotel with a ill-concealed eagerness. His smile was euphoric, his brown eyes and hair aglow with health and boyish beguilement. “You came,” he commented, in a voice like satin. “I am delighted.” And, to every evidence, it was true. He came close enough to set a palm on his open door and stared out at Zee with admiration.
Zee’s first thought, eyes following the close paths of the room to where Dorian stood near the window, was Fuck. That feeling only intensified as Dorian walked toward the door, and by the time they were divided by only the threshold, Zee’s stomach had twisted around into an uneasy knot. He should have realized, remembered what he’d heard of the story, that Dorian would be distractingly good-looking. Anyone that had the attitude he had, had to have more than a small helping of justified narcissism. Bel homme, came the soft voice in his mind, and Zee sighed and shook his head, hands still in his pocket, craving either a drink or a smoke.
“I came,” he replied, though he lifted an eyebrow at Dorian’s claim of being delighted. That seemed a bit strong. He looked past Dorian’s shoulder again, taking in the room as well as he could from the doorway. It was maybe more cluttered than he’d expected, but just as fancy and old-fashioned as he’d thought. “Quite a room you got there.”
Dorian did a neat quarter-turn that would make an actor envy and pressed his palms against the door to push it just a bit wider, as if to present the room. In reality his profile was just as striking as the rest of him, and his body pressed flat against the door was unmistakably suggestive. So was his smile. He broke it a moment later, however, to spread out one hand to present the room. “My library. It is beginning to resemble a storage closet, as there is many years worth of frivolous trinkets.” As if a blue diamond from India worth several lifetimes of saving could be called a trinket. “But I have hired new staff, and they have been cleaning. I find myself in the mood for sunlight as well as company.” He gave Zee a positively sunny smile.
Zee did his best to ignore the suggestive expressions and poses, focusing instead on the room still. "Staff. Right. Because you're the kind of guy that can afford staff." He was still far enough from the door that he could take a half-step forward to peer farther into the room without getting pulled through. The window especially got a close look, and the way the city passed by outside of it. He could tell it wasn't Meg's Paris, and he didn't expect it to be, but the sight of a city that old made him stare for a moment until he shook himself and allowed a frown to slip over his features as he looked back at Dorian. "Which is why you put out the open call on the journals? For company?" He gestured back over his shoulder, as if the aforementioned journals were lingering right there in the hotel hallway.
Dorian’s sunny smile slipped. He couldn’t imagine what was wrong with having staff. Even merchants and traders had staff. Captains on ships, shopowners, even fallen women could sometimes afford a housekeeper. Jules was not around to explain how this had some relation to “race” (men, not horses, can you imagine), and he gave Zee a perplexed look. It diminished none of his beauty, and followed the man’s gaze to the window and back. “It is what I said. I even ordered afternoon tea.” He pointed, and indeed one of the small ebony tables had been cleared of bric-a-brac to make way for a silver tea service, sandwiches and all. The new cook had even put a chintz tea cozy over the silver pot. Zee got another smile from Dorian’s considerable arsenal. This one was soft, tactfully hurt, mild and laughing. “You do not trust me.”
The small table finally caught Zee's attention, everything else having distracted him from it at first. Between the warmth of the room, woods and leather and rich colors, and the invitingly laid out food, Dorian's library almost looked cozy. Comfortable. Like a place that would invite you to sit and stay a long while. It was in direct contrast to the way its owner put up Zee's guard, made him a prickly, wary hedgehog. "Nope. Not in the slightest."
Dorian let his lower lip loosen for just a moment with disappointment. “How could I mean you harm?” he asked, quite logically. “It would make Hunter quite upset, which would only cause me trouble and no good. You may take my word that I am anxious to keep things well with Hunter, so he has no reason to call me an enemy.” A new smile, this one reassuring, soft as peach flesh.
Zee still had trouble believing Dorian's expressions, the way they so easily slipped on and off his face. He finally drew his hands out of his pockets, crossing his arms over his chest. "Might be more prone to believing you if you hadn't done your best to get your hands on me the first time we met." He sighed and shook his head. "You're just full of opposites, aren't you?" He wanted to believe the smile, to believe that Dorian meant everything that he said. But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was always more lurking beneath the words and the (admittedly) pretty face.
Dorian let his eyebrows slip upward. The silken fall of his hair looked picturesque even in this. “You seem insulted. I don’t know why you would dislike my admiration. It did not hurt you, and wouldn’t. Hunter understands such things. He assumes you look elsewhere, and it would not really surprise him.” He contemplated Zee with an earnest expression, a professor staring at an algebra problem. “I am more experienced in all things, at any rate,” Dorian felt impelled to add. He failed to see what was contrary in that.
"No, you don't get it, do you?" Zee frowned, but he sounded more tired than angry. It didn't stop him from stepping even closer to the door, almost close enough to slip through, but he only leaned in to make his point. "I don't care about your experience and I don't want Hunter to think I'm looking at someone else like that. I get that we got nothing going now because of the way he feels about me fucking around on him. But it doesn't mean I'm going to go messing around now. You included, even in H's body." He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and frowned again.
Dorian let his face relax and then quirked only one brow this time. No, he didn’t “get” it. He leaned more casually against the door, so heavy that it didn’t move much even as he did so. “I was not exactly looking forward to an encounter in someone else’s body either.” Dorian smoothed the front of his waistcoat proprietarily. “But I fail to see how being faithful to someone that expects next to nothing is going to assist you. Unless you plan on doing something hopelessly romantic in a garden of butterflies, or something of that nature.” One side of Dorian’s mouth curled. The amusement wasn’t even meant to be cruelty; the idea simply amused him. Romance amused him.
"Yeah, maybe I don't know yet either. But I'm still not going to start waving my dick around before I figure out what I'm doing." Zee made a face and rolled his eyes. "Don't know if you noticed, but I'm not really the garden and butterflies sort of guy. Might not know what I'm doing, but it's not that." Dorian's amusement, layered over his own frustration and confusion, the lingering irritation over their earlier conversation on the journals, made Zee's eyes narrow. It might not have been meant as cruelty, but Dorian's smirk and tone drove knives right into the part of him that was already hurting over him and Hunter. "Great. You think it's funny. Well have fun laughing then." He turned to go, gathering limbs to carry him back down the hall.
“Wait!” Dorian called, immediately. He stepped quickly forward and stopped short of the threshold. He actually put his hands out against some invisible wall to prevent himself from falling through. He really didn’t want to be Hunter right now. The boy would be upset and the tea would get cold. “I wasn’t laughing,” Dorian said, all smiles gone now. “Hunter doesn’t like romance anyway. He likes you. You know this, obviously. It doesn’t mean you can’t stay to chat.” He almost said ‘we don’t need to tell him,’ but he knew that would be a mistake before it made it out of thought. Dorian was much smarter than Hunter and better at hiding, but he was at least as lonely.
Zee had to wonder if Dorian was lying at the insistence that Hunter liked him, but he put that thought to the side. Liking and trusting were two vastly different things and if nothing else, Zee knew he did not fall into the latter category. He stopped though, turning back to peer at the sliver of room and man that he could see from his position several doors down. He waited there for several moments, fighting with himself about whether or not he should leave. Finally, though it went against what little good judgement he had, he returned to his place in front of Dorian's door. "Fine," he sighed, leaning against the wall opposite. "I can stay to chat."
By the time Zee returned to the frame of the door, Dorian had given up on waiting. He had always been quick to give up, quick to sacrifice a connection when he thought it likely to sever without his influence if he left it alone long enough to do so. The clouds beyond the London door had shifted, turning the soft yellow light slightly dingy and gray. Specks of rain glistened on the library window nearest, though the traffic--both motor and horse-drawn--still continued past. Dorian sat in the armchair nearest the door, turning over a small pale pink box in his hands. He jumped up as Zee reappeared. “Wonderful,” he said, the smile of sunlight immediately returning despite the natural gray light. He drew closer to the door once again, tilting his head to take in Zee once more, as if it had not been only a handful of moments since they’d last seen each other. He tapped the box twice over his palm and extracted an oblong cigarette wrapped in paper. A sphinx was emblazoned on the side. He offered it in Zee’s direction across the threshold.
The sunny smile took Zee by surprise, not expecting an expression quite so happy from Dorian. The close looks still set tension along his spine, but he forced himself into a relaxed slouch. Zee fished his own cigarettes out of his pocket, cardboard slightly battered but still intact. He raised the box between two long fingers to show Dorian. “Thanks, but I got my own.” Still leaning against the opposite wall, he decided that sounded good, in fact. Something to ground him while Dorian played his games on the other side of the door. He drew a cigarette out of the pack and put it between his lips to light it, not caring about the smoke in the already-dingy hallway of the hotel.
Dorian shrugged and kept his box to himself, setting it to one side as he propped himself up against the arm of the chair. He lit the stub of cigarette (nothing like the mechanically rolled, elegantly elongated white things of Zee’s century) and held it delicately as he set the box to one side. A sweet, sweet scent spilled out into the air around him, sneaking through the portal and trailing white smoke dragons as Dorian’s opium and rough raw tobacco mixed with the chemical filter of Zee’s. Thin trails of smoke escaped from Dorian’s narrow nostrils as he gave a pleasant heaving sigh and then opened his eyes again. Through the thick black fringe of his lashes he watched Zee light his with interest. “Such a handy device,” he said, of the cheap lighter, licking generous pink lips. “You have such luxury in your world.”
Zee wrinkled his nose at the sweet scent that wove its way across the threshold toward him, and was glad he’d turned down the offered cigarette. He couldn’t place the scent, but he knew that it wouldn’t have been a good idea for him to agree. He slid his back down the wall he was leaning against, folding his knees up and sitting on the dingy carpet across from the door. He breathed out, chasing smoke away from his face as he continued to watch Dorian. “This?” He asked with a laugh, holding up the lighter he’d picked up from a gas station somewhere crossing the country and that he’d just rediscovered in his backseat the week before. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it skittering across carpet and then over the threshold, wondering what would happen to it.
Dorian stopped the lighter with the tip of a boot that had been ordered expressly for his tapered feet by a cobbler on Fleet Street and shined by a newly-hired personal valet whose sole responsibility was picking up Dorian’s things and caring for Dorian’s clothing. He leaned down, holding the cigarette, with its too-white smoke, in one corner of his mouth as he did so and pressing a hand flat against his gold watch chain to prevent it from falling. Picking up the plastic lighter he rubbed it between his fingers. “So warm,” he said of the plastic. “It is like a kerosene lamp, only in miniature.” He rolled it between his fingers. The liquid black eyes lifted up to Zee, slightly glassier than they had been not long before. “You will not come show me how to use it?”
Zee shook his head even as he had it tipped back against the wall, a loose, relaxed motion. It wasn’t easy to see from his place in the hotel hallway, but he could tell that Dorian’s expression had loosened since he’d lit his own cigarette. “You know that it’s not gonna be me if I come over there. And who it will be doesn’t really know how to use it either.” Even though he knew that he’d likely go through that door at some point, he was still keeping Meg’s identity as secret as he could. He didn’t know if it was more for her protection or his, but it didn’t change the fact that Sam was the only other person that knew he was linked to Meg. “And it’s more warm from being in my pocket than from the fire.”
Dorian sighed heavily. It was difficult having a conversation from such a great distance away, and he said so. “One cannot even hand things politely, they must be tossed about like a bone to a dog,” he said, morosely. He wanted to be able to touch and taste, even if it was just the intervening air, and the opium and tobacco made him languid and lazy, but it didn’t dim his personality. They merged, instead, this untroubled, sleepy Dorian and the one that was questing hands and stretching joints. He pushed at the lighter to try to make the flame come forth, not quite understanding the mechanism yet. “I do not know why you insist upon being so mysterious.”
Zee couldn't stop the subtle smile at the tone of Dorian's voice. He sounded so sad about the fact that they were separated by door and space. Like a little kid pouting over not getting something. He didn't especially want to think about himself being the "something", instead figuring it was an ongoing complaint of Dorian's. His smile only spread at the failed attempts at getting the lighter to strike, and he had to take a drag to keep himself from actually laughing. Letting the smoke escape from his mouth slowly, he lowered his knees to fold himself into a cross-legged position, leaning forward and gesturing with the hand that held the cigarette. "You gotta roll your thumb against the wheel before you press down. S'what makes it spark." He leaned back against the wall again but kept his legs down, sighing. "Because not all of us want to go broadcasting who we're tied to. For whatever reason."
With the explanation, Dorian immediately lifted one finger and shoved at the wheel. He pushed it the wrong way so nothing happened, but he was no fool, and he didn’t quite give up before trying the opposite direction, counterclockwise. The lighter snapped to life and Dorian let go with surprise. The flame went out, and the lighter bounced away on the Oriental carpet. “Very clever,” he observed, reaching out for it once more from where it had gone under the side table. Once he rose back into sitting position, he tapped some ash to one side in a bronze ashtray of exquisite design, a flat bowl held aloft by tarnished naiads. “Not proud of it, are you? A killer or murderer, perhaps?” Dorian raised an eyebrow in Zee’s direction.
Zee kept the smile as he watched Dorian figure out the lighter, and actually nodded a little once he got it to work. His eyes flicked over at the 'ashtray', something he'd thought was just a decorative bowl, and shook his head at how expensive it looked. His attention was drawn back by Dorian's questions, and combined with the curious expression, it made Zee laugh. It was smoke-filled and loud enough to carry down the hallway. "Nah, man," he finally managed, still grinning at the thought of tiny Meg being a killer. Even she was an amused echo in his mind. "Nothing like that at all."
Dorian examined Zee’s smile, and relaxed more deeply into his big armchair, but he did not return the smile. He did not say that he was a murderer, though he was, and he did not say just what it was like to have one constantly in your mind, because nothing would send his company away faster. “Very well then. Some other nasty habit?” He didn’t actually think so, as Zee seemed to happy at Dorian’s unintentional jest to be hiding any of his alter’s sordid habits.
Zee’s cigarette had finally burned down, and he put it out on the dusty baseboard he was sitting against, making sure it was out. Last thing he wanted to do was burn down the hotel. “None I can see, other than maybe being a little too optimistic about things sometimes. A little too ready to believe people are good.” He raised an eyebrow in Dorian’s direction. “S’why I don’t entirely trust you if I cross over. Things’ve already been rough. Don’t need you complicating shit even more. For either one of us.”
“Ah. An innocent.” Dorian considered this response, gaze dark and solemn as he brought the stub of cigarette up across his face and over his eyes. Smoke undulated through the air, coiling in squat colorless firecrackers before dissipating into the pale ivory of his cheek. “I am not especially complex. But I see that you would not want this person to be complex. Selfish of you, but understandable.” Another wave of his hand to bring the stub to his mouth, and a harsh glow of red before he put what remained in the bronze tray to send its dying tendrils upward. “It would be best to protect them from me, then.” A slow, honey smile.
Zee watched Dorian through the door, the sweet smoke still faintly making its way to his side of the barrier. He didn’t negate Meg’s innocence, but sighed and shook his head, again slouched lazily so that it rolled against the wall behind him. “Yeah, you saying shit like that doesn’t make me want to change my mind any. You got ‘bad influence’ written all over you, and I haven’t had time to read your book and figure out what else might be going on in that pretty head of yours. Don’t think that’s selfish of me. Think it’s a good idea.” He watched the smile spread and raised an eyebrow in response. “That smile’s not helping your case any, either.”
Dorian slumped in his chair and pouted over the remains of his last exhale of cigarette smoke. “You are like an old biddy aunt used as a chaperone,” he complained. “Pretty men are not meant to be such. It is some crime against the boldness of humanity.” Rising, he went to fetch a cup of tea and a sandwich before returning to his chair. The cup was intricate china with delicate blue designs and silver accents, and the sandwich had thin slices of salted fish in a lovely cucumber sauce. Dorian munched on the tea sandwich grumpily. “I do not see what is so horrible at coming to visit me,” he went on. “Surely young people know how to have fun.” In appearance, Dorian looked at least a decade younger than Zee.
"Well that's something no one's called me before." Zee had to allow a smile back on his face at the thought that he would be the one to chaperone anything, but ignored the comment about pretty men. He watched Dorian cross the room and return, watched him eat for a moment before responding. "Yeah, I don't think you're actually all that young. And it's all that fun I'm worried about." He went quiet for a bit, listening to the thoughts pass through his mind, not all of them his, and finally, reluctantly, sighed. "Fine," he murmured, shaking his head and slowly drawing himself back up to his feet, taking a step closer to the door. "But you behave, yeah? You do anything, I'm figuring out a way to get back through the door, and then I'm figuring out a way to punch you in the face. So don't try anything." He leaned in as he spoke, pointing to emphasize his words, but staying far enough from the door so as not to get pulled through yet, waiting for an agreement.
Dorian didn’t stand when Zee did, but he definitely watched the man unfold with obvious appreciation for all those long limbs. The dark eyes lifted to Zee’s face and Dorian took up his cup for a demure sip before responding. “And by ‘try anything,’ you mean any familiar advances?” Dorian asked, with a hint of incredulity in his voice. Yes, his society dictated he behave a certain way, but he had most certainly kicked those rules to one side in his pursuit of the real delights of life. Anybody who knew him had to understand that.
“I mean touchin’ in a way that isn’t wanted.” Zee paused, giving Dorian a shrewd look. “Or in any way, if it comes to that.” He shook his head at the tone of Dorian’s voice. “And see, that voice right there is why I’m thinking twice about stepping through this door. If you can turn that shit off for however long it takes you to chat and get through tea, then we’re good. If not, I’m staying over here.”
Dorian set his teacup down on the saucer. It balanced there elegantly for a fraction of a second, and then he lifted his opposite hand and set all five fingers along the rim, making a little tent of finely-shaped white fingers. Lashes heavy, he avoided Zee’s gaze as he spoke again. “I do not touch where I am unwanted. Such ‘activity,’ does not interest me.” He did not sound insulted, just informative, as if they were discussing the passing rain, which was increasing its assault on the window.
The fact that Dorian wouldn’t (or couldn't) meet his gaze didn’t help Zee feel any better about sending Meg across, but at least the words were right. He rubbed harshly at his eyes, sighing and shaking his head. It would be easier to make a decision without Meg’s insistence in the back of his mind that everything would be alright, but it was that same insistence that finally made up his mind. His voice was tired when he replied. “Fine. ...Fine.”
A single step forward was all it took for Zee to touch the barrier between the hotel and Dorian’s room, and in that single step Zee no longer stood there. Meg blinked, looking around the room and smoothing her hands down over her practice skirt. It was full enough to swish when she turned, and blonde ringlets fell halfway down her back. Standing in her toe shoes like she’d just come from rehearsal, her feet were turned out wide, nearly forming a straight line even in her relaxed pose. Once she’d given the room a full once-over, she finally turned her attention to Dorian. She was not nearly so shy or proper as she could have been, given when she was born, but he still made her cheeks go pink for a moment. “Bonjour,” she said with a warm smile.
Dorian blinked, surprised. It wasn’t a snake’s solemn flicker of attention, it was a twitter of surprise from a silken nightingale, and as the pretty ballerina stepped through the door, Dorian was putting his teacup and saucer to one side and rising to his feet in one long, glorious movement of perfection and smiles. His French was absolutely fluent, the kind learned very early from close tutors and sculpted by the country herself. “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he said, with quite a becoming show of delight and awe. “Je suis un homme chanceux aujourd'hui!” He stepped immediately forward, stopped precisely a step and a half away, and bowed over her hand with all the flourish of the princes of yore. His lips brushed the back of her hand in the briefest, most polite way, cool and brisk, yet affectionate in their curve as he drew it back toward the sofa in front of the fire. Eyes dropping down her appearance, his smile only widened. “We have taken you from the stage?” he inquired.
Dorian’s actions and words brought a pleased pink flush to Meg’s cheeks, and her smile widened. The fact that he spoke French, and spoke it well, sparked a bit of delight her her expression. The language barrier was one thing she had been worried about, but her worries were easily put to rest. She allowed herself to be drawn forward with little hesitation, even with Zee urging caution. She knew the sort of rake a man could be, had grown up listening to the stories of the other girls in the ballet, and while perhaps it would be her downfall, she was willing enough to attempt to deal with the situation if Dorian turned out to be such a man. But for the moment, she was in a comfortable room that, while richer than anything she’d ever known, seemed at least somehow familiar, missing any of the strange technology she saw in Zee’s world.
The way he treated her, the kiss to her hand, like she was an actual lady and not simply a ballet girl, made her draw herself up and give him another smile that was perhaps a bit shyer than the last. She looked down at herself when he did, she shook her head. “Oh! No, simply rehearsal. We are all working quite hard to reopen the Opera House, so we rehearse most hours of the day. I suppose it would make sense then, that I should be wearing this...” Her voice was bright and quick, eyes intent and happy as she spilled words out into the room between them.
Well-born men of England learned the classics in school--French, Latin, Italian--and his remaining family had made sure that Dorian got all the trappings of a wealthy young man. Such things remained even as an orphan, and then later an heir, though he had thought they were not as important as the great fortune. He was young and foolish then--but not wrong. Money could get everything, and charm got you the rest. Language, knowledge and study that was just a little help when times got interesting. The little ballerina was worth charming even on a good day, and Dorian was desperate for company, any company, eyes to look kindly on him, to admire, even to taunt. Anything.
“Rehearsal. We must get you back on time, then. Just one cup of tea and a small sandwich today.” Yes. The introduction would be enough. A mere touch of the hand, a sandwich, and Zee would return, and so would the ballerina. More could be saved for later, as there would then always be a later.