This is a silly place...

[devils_bargain]

Who: Dorian Gray and Hayley Stark. Then, Dorian and Adrian Veidt.
When: Tonight.
Where: Seventh floor, though perhaps he will venture further.
What: Dorian is meeting Hayley so she can explain his comm to him.
Warnings: None.
Note: COMPLETE. This ends with Dorian going away angrily to read Dorian Gray, so he isn't lingering about after Adrian's thread.

Comments

[devils_bargain]

Were Dorian in the mood to share, he would have told Adrian he sounded like someone he used to know. Dorian followed along, keeping a close eye on Adrian, still not quite sure what was going on.

He stood in the library, arms folded across his chest as Adrian looked through the books. He saw the title first and snatched the book away from Adrian. He stared at it in stark disbelief. The Portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. A book penned by a stranger, and his own name in the title. His name, and his secret, stamped together on the cover for anyone to see.

The look on his face made his shock clear, but the depth of feeling could not be adequately expressed. He felt as if he had been punched, the slow, creeping realization that this book contained details of his life, and people had read it. People knew him, details, names, places. Crimes.

"And you have read this?" Dorian demanded, voice thin and struggling against his rising panic.

It was ironic, really, that it should have been a book that poisoned him, and a book that exposed his corruption.

[triggered_it]

"I've read it," Adrian answered, his voice giving away nothing: none of the former pleasantness, but no coldness, either. It was just a statement of facts. "Most people here have probably at least heard of it, if not read it. That's why I wanted to show you before anyone else caught you off guard." He paused, for a moment, and then gave a light laugh that seemed out of place given Dorian's obvious shock and indignation.

"Of course, that doesn't mean I believe every word of it is true -- only the bit about the portrait. Your own earlier response told me that much."

Lies. He knew every word of it was true, the way every word of 1984 portrayed Stephen O'Brien or how Fahrenheit 451 described Captain Beatty. Of course, if their positions had been reversed, and he had had all his secrets displayed for all to read, he would have denied it, refused to even acknowledge its existence or dignify the 'author' with a response. After all, he was a well known man in his world, and libel was a near constant. 'Libel' that happened to be true also wasn't a foreign enemy, but something he was deeply familiar with after the publishing of Rorschach's journal.

Dorian, on the other hand, wouldn't be so well prepared.

[devils_bargain]

Adrian had read it. Adrian also claimed he didn't believe the details within it, but Dorian couldn't know whether they were true or not. He didn't dare open the book, as if for fear that his secrets would spring forth from the pages into the room.

"I don't understand how it could be true."

Dorian looked... dazed. This conversation had to end soon, because he had to go read this. He had to know what was said about him, what other people knew or assumed about him.

"Is this the only copy here?" he asked, clutching the book more tightly to himself.

[triggered_it]

He took another glance at the bookshelf, pulling out a more ragged paperback copy.

"These two are the only ones that I see." He handed it to Dorian nonchalantly. "As for how it can be true? There are people here from different times, different places. Perhaps someone from the future saw fit to right about your life, however incorrect some of the details may be." He spoke casually enough, as if that may actually be the case, instead of it actually being a real man who wrote a fictional account of another man's life that turned out to be an actual account of a real man's life in another universe. The lie simplified matters immensely, and he got the impression that Dorian was a man who very much liked being told what he wanted to hear. "Some may insist that every detail is true, that you are even 'fictional,' but ignore their ridiculous claims."

He smiled again, but only slightly, though it was not unfriendly. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Dorian. I'll leave you to your reading now."

[devils_bargain]

Dorian took the second book from Adrian and held it with the first, and scanned around the empty space in the shelf to be sure there weren't other copies that Adrian had missed.

Someone, after he had died, wrote about his life. He was infamous. He had, in some sense, been infamous while he was alive. He was still adjusting to the idea, perhaps the fact, that this barge travelled in time and that he was liberated from his own time, rather than merely being dead and in hell, or on the way to it.

"Fictional..." he echoed, kind of distantly. He was, to put it mildly, incredibly preoccupied. "Ignore them. Yes..." he frowned at Adrian, though he was not upset with him. This was not his fault. He actually owed him a favor for telling him about this quickly, helping him to possibly head off potential damages.

"Thank you," he said. "I trust that you won't speak of this..." though, he knew, from what Adrian had told him, that some people knew regardless.