The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

[devils_bargain]

Who: Dorian Gray and Adrian Veidt.
Where: Floor 7, Room 1. Dorian's room.
When: Today, during the truthiness flood.
What: Dorian presses Adrian for information on the libelist who goes by the name of Oscar Wilde.
Warnings: Murder, alcohol, sex (implied). 
Flood notes: Dorian is very much affected. He is also very much in his room and unreachable. He's

Comments

[triggered_it]

Adrian had been about to leave for Dorian's room when the Admiral's flood announcement came over the PA system. He swore to himself, and then glanced around, checked the network one last time. It seemed no one could figure out what this flood was, or how it had affected them, if they even were affected. It was too soon to know details

[devils_bargain]

Dorian heard the knock at his door and went to it. This door was like his bedroom door in London save one detail; unlike an interior door, this one had a peep hole as if it were a door to the street. Incongruity aside, Dorian was thankful for the difference as he peered out and caught sight of the man he had taken leave of the previous evening in the library

[triggered_it]

Oh, decadence. It was something Adrian missed from his evenings at Studio 54. True, those had been mostly for show and media attention, but he had enjoyed certain companionship, without the press being able to print too many of the details. The atmosphere was almost relaxing, and there were few places on the Barge where Adrian felt able to relax. He was beginning to feel he had made the right choice in coming here

[devils_bargain]

Dorian shut and locked his door and followed Adrian to the small sitting area that was here, just as it was in his bedroom in London. He missed his parlour, but this, it seemed, would have to suffice. Dorian sat on the divan at a diagonal to Adrian, and had been about to reach into his jacket for another cigarette, and to offer one to Adrian, when the other mentioned the flood. Dorian's expression grew serious and intent.

"No. Well, in a way, they have warned me, but I haven't heard more than just that strange things happen during the floods."

He paused for a moment, and then asked, "What do you know about them?"

[triggered_it]

Adrian shook his head at the offer of the cigarette. He would keep his pure and pristine image, at least for now.

"Normally, their effects are more obvious: physical changes, obvious mental changes. This one is different. I don't know whether we are affected yet or not. Until you find out, I would be careful to avoid speaking to many people." It was a warning that Adrian followed himself. That he was here, speaking to Dorian, speaking to anyone, was a risk.

Next, though, he would have to tell him about Oscar Wilde, which may be just as risky. During the silence, he thought of ways that would be best to word what he wanted to say.

[devils_bargain]

When Adrian refused a cigarette, Dorian took another for himself and put it between his lips as he then fished out a match. It was lit as he considered Adrian's words. A flood with strange and magical changes, but this one was as yet unknown. Adrian was warning Dorian to avoid people, and yet, here he was. Dorian inhaled slowly, enjoying the taste of the cigarette as well as the scent.

"What sort of things usually happen?" he asked. "Nothing about myself has changed. I think I have not been affected... and you, too, seem no different..."

As he spoke of Adrian, he looked him over... thoroughly.

[triggered_it]

"People turn into animals, people feel drunk or have amnesia. During the last one, people were paranoid. This one, though, you're right. Nothing seems to have changed."

He noticed Dorian looking him over, and he just smiled the same smile featured on thousands of magazines. "You wanted to talk about Oscar Wilde, Dorian?" Perfectly innocent, yet obviously falsely so.

[devils_bargain]

"I do, yes. You said in your note that you know who he is... that he is a real person?" Dorian asked, refocusing on his own situation now that he was somewhat more assured that nothing strange was happening. He did not feel paranoid, nor was he an animal.

[triggered_it]

"A real person, yes. He was an Irish writer, a poet, and an aesthete. He was born in 1854, and he died in 1900, in a boarding house in France, after being disgraced due to a trial where he was sentenced to prison for homosexuality. He wrote many well known plays, but the most well known work of his is his book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Of course, according to yourself, that book is nothing but lies, correct?"

[devils_bargain]

Dorian listened to what sounded like a summation of the mans life. He sounded somewhat interesting, but in a very remote way. Dorian had already decided he hated this man. Adrian had previously suggested that perhaps this book, Wilde's only book of note, was written by Lord Henry and published under Wilde's name. Dorian, too, had suspected that. And yet, he could not be sure

[triggered_it]

Adrian just raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow at the casual statement. Dorian would not joke about such a thing, if he had been intending to keep up the lie.

"Well," he said, equally casual, as if continuing to converse about a troubling story from a paper. "I think I just figured out what the flood is."

Truth, then. It had to be. Dangerous territory for Adrian, but he wouldn't let his confidence falter. It was Dorian's reputation that now stood on the line. His own, he felt, would be perfectly safe, so long as the right subjects were avoided. "I'll tell no one what you just said," he reassured. "In fact, nothing that happens inside this room ever need be known to anyone else." Yes, that would be implying exactly what Dorian probably thinks it is.

[devils_bargain]

Dorian realized that Adrian believed him. He had sensed at the outset that Adrian had not entirely believed in his innocence, but any hope for that was dashed. In the moments before Adrian spoke, Dorian did not allow his gaze to falter, though he was thinking through the fastest method of killing Adrian where he sat with something he could easily put his hands on. It would be a shame to kill Adrian, really. He appeared to have the potential to be quite useful, and quite enjoyable, but he now posed a threat to Dorian's continued well being.

He was quickly distracted, at least partially, from those thoughts when Adrian noted casually that he had figured out what the flood was. It clicked for Dorian as well. Truth? Was there somehow a magical aura of truth over the barge, compelling the affected to answer questions honestly and openly?

Adrian promised Dorian that his words would not leave the room, that nothing that happens would leave the room. Dorian did not miss the implication behind the statement, yet he did not trust Adrian.

[triggered_it]

"Of course, it's only fair to tell you something in return, and neither of us are unused to bargaining." He paused. There were many secret truths that would bring him disgrace but obviously none compared to the fact that he had murdered fifteen million people. The way that the question was worded, though. He could lie, the same way he had first lied to Hayley.

"Behind the lovely image I put forward, I'm a murderer, like you." It was a half truth. He was a murderer, but he was so much more. A murderer kills once. A serial killer kills more. What was someone who killed fifteen million people other than a dictator?

Adrian wasn't a dictator, even if that was what Martha had called him. No, he simply did what needed to be done, and now he was dead, left to let the world make their own idiotic decisions, probably undoing all the good that he had made such sacrifices for in the first place.

[devils_bargain]

Dorian seemed, at once, satisfied and ruffled. He did not consider himself a murderer. Those words, they were harsh light on a dark moment in his life. He hadn't had a choice, he had acted in self-defense. He had scarcely realized what was happening until he saw the knife sink into Basil's flesh. No, Dorian had not been in his right mind then. He could not be blamed for it, not really. Not when one had the full picture, you see.

Yet, Dorian could not bring himself to correct Adrian on this point. His mouth would not open, the words would not come. This fact deeply unsettled Dorian. Was he lying to himself?

At length, Dorian nodded, more to himself than to Adrian. "Do you believe Lord Henry wrote the book to dishonor me?"

[triggered_it]

So long as he was satisfied. The next answer, though, would obviously be shattering. He didn't even bother trying to lie this time.

"No, I believe you're in the same situation as Stephen O'Brien, Captain Beatty, and Iago. Yes, the same Iago from Othello. Parallel universes, Dorian. What is fictional in one universe, penned by a man that exists in that one universe, is reality in another universe where that author does not exist. Does that make sense?"

Of course it didn't, but it was the best he could do to explain.

[devils_bargain]

Dorian stared at Adrian blankly. The first two names meant nothing to him, but Shakespeare's Iago was familiar and for a moment he was distracted from what Adrian was telling him. He returned to it after a moment, and tried to imagine it. Two universes, planets, stars, galaxies. In one there was an author creating stories, and in the other the stories were real.

Adrian was suggesting that the story was, in fact, a work of fiction. And yet, Dorian existed. Dorian was from some other world, some strange universe where lies breathe life.

Dorian was at once troubled and amused. "No, not at all," he said, "Dare I ask, have you been using drugs?"