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Who: Dorian Pavus (

flashystyle) & you!
When: The week post-attack
Where: The Institute & Olympian Streets
Warning(s): Very tired would-be scientist doing his best

I. The Institute

[The Institute's most prestigious scholars working tirelessly to produce a cure sounds very inspiring on paper. One might imagine careful, clean environments with all neatly organized ingredients across their work stations. They may even go on to say that their researchers must have the most capable, cleanest, well-manicured hands for the job.

This is not the case for Dorian, nor his work station. The laboratory may have started clean, but it's long since deteriorated into the space of a man who has been taking advantage of the 8am to 4am hours since all this bombing business began. Unlabeled bottles are littered across the counters with no indicators as to what they are any longer, books are left open on dog eared pages far too close to the former, and stray notes have been made ineligible by stains of Orbiters know what. There's ever a hole eaten through the counter that might indicate if one had drank whatever potion came before what's currently simmering, the wouldn't have just been silenced by a sore throat.

Whether it be depositing findings, coming for updates, or passing through as an employee or visitor, you've come through the open door to this mess of a station. The one responsible for it has a hand through his hair with the other nursing a bottle that he hasn't quite noticed it isn't his water yet. He doesn't look up from the brew when you enter, but he does raise his voice the second you step through the door.]

There must be hundreds of different species out in the wilds. Hundreds! And yet all of them are either poisonous, just aesthetically pleasing, or only serve to make people talk to one another! I don't mind the talk, truly, but what is the point if no one has the solution to this sickness? Words of encouragement that only make the pang of failure hit harder? I'm close to just combining all the sleeping agents and putting the patients down for a long rest, because that might be less excruciating than trying all of these. What do you think?

II. Streets

[For research purposes, Dorian has tasked himself with picking up an overabundance of Liln from a flowershop outside the Market District. With the bomb being an airborne flu, they seemed to have fled to the point of becoming pests in places free of the sick. One might notice they're carefully contained in a glass jar as Dorian makes his way through crowds of citizens gathered to gossip... up until he runs into someone.

That someone might be you, or it might be another unfortunate soul who simply wasn't looking where they were going. Regardless, the jar of the creatures slips through his fingers, shattering into pieces once it hits the pavement. The Liln scatter in fear of being trapped again, consequently latching onto any hosts in the the vicinity of the broken glass. Needless to say, due to the suddenness spread of a brightly colored creature, Olympians around also scatter lest it be another stage of sickness. Those that stick around will find that the Liln harmlessly slipped onto their skin, forming a tattoo potentially revealing of their mood in their panic. They will also find that they're now in the company of a very tired man.]

Those were to be our test subjects for a cure, you know. [He says, lines of a bright red snake curling around his neck.] Best hope those don't make an M.

III. Wildcard

[Dorian will be around the Institute, Sanctuary, and the Red Light District at night looking to hear the information of others who are out capturing/gathering intelligence. If you've an idea for their interaction outside of the prompts, feel free to tag with it! Or hit me up at

meganerd for a closed prompt idea.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Really? I'd love to meet those exceptions, because you're terribly soft.

[Now it's his turn to tap By on the nose, teasingly.]

[ By's smile doesn't quite meet that teasing warmth. ]

I don't think you'd enjoy those exceptions much. Nor they you, for that matter.

It's a good thing they aren't here, then. I do so enjoy being even more insufferable around those who can't stand me.

I already have the best of your name in this bed, anyhow. I wouldn't care less about others.

[ That draws a more genuine laugh out of him. ]

Now, now, don't say that too hastily. I think if you met my cousin Dono, you'd lose your heart to him. All rational people do. [ By traces his fingers across Dorian's chest. ] But yes, axe and cudgel. On Barrayar, a family is made Vor for their service to the Emperor. My family's service was smashing all the correct skulls.

[Dorian takes a moment to respond, distracted by his fingers.]

A little barbaric for such a prestigious honor, but at least you've risen above the expectation. Is that why you were ousted?

Oh, it was centuries ago we used cudgels. Nowadays, it's energy weapons, like proper modernized monsters. [ A smile and an easy shrug. ] No. That wasn't why. Most Vor are military-mad, certainly, so I'd have had quite a different life if I were an officer, but the cracks in my little branch of the family tree wouldn't have been so easily taped back together.

[He parts his lips with questions about the workings of energy weapons on his tongue, but he ultimately refrains. Byerly is much more interesting than the technology of his world.]

What did you do to make them so... angry?

[ Byerly debates a moment, uncertain, even as his face remains set in a tranquil smile. Should he...? It's not something he shares easily, or willingly. But Dorian has been honest with him...But...No. Just a half-truth for now. ]

Is it really that hard to imagine? A useless, lazy, perverted young fool like myself...

Who seems to me turned into a useful, working, still very perverted man.

[He knows there has to be more to it, but he also knows the feeling of having his past pried into. So he lets it go for now, instead leaning to kiss him yet again.]

They don't know what they lost. I stand by having the best of them in my bed, and you can't prove me otherwise for now.

[ Byerly's mouth is just a little hard, just for a moment, before he softens into the kiss. There's something that feels wrong about the best of them. Heaven help him if he knows why. It's empty flattery, and it's damned near the truth - aside from Dono and Nadine, there's hardly a decent member of his whole family. But there's something...wrong about being admired by someone like Dorian. It just seems like...well, like the fellow is too good for actually thinking well of him.

So. Changing the subject. Just a bit. ]

So...What did happen between you and your father?

[Dorian's smile falters and his fingers curl in, but he can't bring himself to move out of this warmth. It'd be easy to make excuses, to go home. But he didn't like being cold, or being alone, let alone thinking about things like this.]

He... He cared for me in his own way, up until he hit a wall of what he couldn't understand. I sabotaged his attempts at finishing my education so he would be able to marry me off, and I'd spend all the time I freed up in bars and brothels. My mentor found me in the latter, took me in, and we eventually came to a compromise that I be allowed to stay in the capitol. I tested out and started partaking in debates, balls, focus on making a name for myself. I made excuses not to go home, and I wasn't lying- I was working hard.

My mentor's wife passed, and his son fell ill. He ran off to join all those cultists in the war south in attempt to save him. I remained behind, and... I fell back into what I did best. Paying coin to engage with men, but caring little for keeping it hidden. I was in the process of getting to know a man without spending a silver when my father hired some thugs came to take me home. They didn't even let us finish-- It's awfully embarrassing, getting dragged through guards' blood when you haven't even the chance to dress.

[ By hesitates. It doesn't matter, of course, and it's an absurdly soft thing to ask, but - ]

The fellow you were with. Was he all right?

[He swallows, turning his head away.]

I don't know. I didn't hear much news about anyone after that. I assumed he was alright as he could be, alone with dead men until his father returned. I'd taken advantage of the fact he was not of high status, and he was probably punished for lowering their name further.

He made his choices.

[ Byerly's voice is as firm as it can get. Generally, he speaks in an ironic drawl, but there's just a hint of iron to it now. ]

Any blame is not on you, Dorian. It's on someone else entirely, I fancy. So - what then?

I was taken back to my family's estate. We got into some understandably heated arguments, but they ended differently than I'd imagined they would. He wouldn't let me leave for months, keeping me locked away from the world like some shameful secret. I was getting by well enough, it being my home. I could keep myself entertained between denying pleas that I get over it and marry another girl, but he wouldn't listen to me. He couldn't take it.

[By voice hints of iron, but Dorian's is unsteady. He's told this story before, he's gotten past it. It isn't as hard as it was before, but it's less easier than he imagined.]

He tried to... change me. He was going to a blood ritual, alter my mind and make me more agreeable, acceptable. I found out. I told him I was his son, he said I was no son of his. It wasn't hard to leave, after all that.

[ Byerly is, for once, utterly bereft of words. He stares at Dorian, his eyes gone wide, his face gone pale. He shouldn't be horrified, he knows. Men have been murdered in the past for being homosexual. But there's something worse about this...maybe because he knows Dorian, or maybe because of what a violation it is. Not to kill, not to destroy, but to alter. To make...different. It seems a crueler trespass than mere death.

In the end, he just grips Dorian's forearm. Tightly, comfortingly - or perhaps trying to brace himself. Who knows? And, finally, he manages: ]

I hope you never said another word to the son-of-a-bitch.

[The shock is strange to see, even if the subject is so abhorrent. All their talk before had only scratched the surface of serious matters, and while he insisted that he must be a good man, he hadn't really known how Byerly would react. Even if he's nursing old wounds himself, he wants to make it better for the other man- make it seem lesser than what it is. But he chokes on his attempt to laugh.]

You can't avoid family forever, my friend. I didn't say anything to him that made him feel better, if it's any comfort.

[ By hesitates a moment, then rolls over onto his back to avoid looking at Dorian. ]

Mine...didn't actually disown me. I left them, as well. [ Just a small admission for solidarity. Needed for his own sanity. ] Haven't seen the tightfisted bastard since then. [ Anyway. ] Why did you see him?

[Dorian reluctantly lets him go, but turns on his side to trace his fingers in the same pattern By had on his chest minutes before.]

I didn't intend to, but I couldn't up and leave the second I saw him again. I had to realize that there wasn't anything I could do to make him understand, to really move on. [He pauses, hesitant, but. If it has him so upset, it doesn't hurt to ask again.] Why did you leave?

[ Byerly is quiet a moment, but - after Dorian's confession, there's no way he'll keep mum about himself. Even trade, that. Positively Jacksonian in the equity of the deal. ]

I was made the object of a truly vile slander, and my father believed it. Believed it wholeheartedly. Better to live penniless than with that dishonor. [ He hesitates a moment, then shakes his head. ] It's not quite on the level of what yours attempted. I'd have wanted to kill him if I saw him again. [ Dorian's father, that is; not Byerly's own. ]

[Dorian stills his fingers, expression shifting from concern to something angrier. It isn't directed towards Byerly—it couldn't possibly be at Byerly—but whatever chance of holding his tongue was gone.]

It's one thing to oppose what is true about your son, but to make no effort to know what is not? He isn't worthy to call you his own. You are a good man, Byerly. If anyone who's known you even longer than I isn't willing to recognize you as such, they must have the simple mind of someone clubbed over their own fucking cudgels. Ridiculous.

Edited (i missed words bc i'm a genius, also i'd die for byerly now) 2017-10-24 07:20 (UTC)

[ Not even asking what the slander is. Not even expressing the least doubt in him. By knows he doesn't deserve that faith and trust and belief - after all, isn't he asking the questions he asks to know about Dorian? Isn't he trying to ferret out Dorian's secrets with purpose? And so that trust should be repugnant to him. He knows he ought to think less of Dorian for trusting him so automatically. That would be the ImpSec thing to do - coolly note down the gullibility of the target even while smiling genuinely.

Yet Byerly, for all that he is the only ImpSec agent left on any world, now, apparently isn't ImpSec enough. Because that ferocious defense raises from him a little shudder of pained gratitude, an agonizing gladness. There isn't even a moment of glancing at him dubiously, wondering - what did you do, really? Not even a split second of wariness. Just trust. Thank you. And damn you. Don't you know how mixed up that sympathy makes me feel? How am I supposed to treat you dispassionately when you're like this...

He summons up some dryness to quip: ]

Well, it was very logical. I'd been caught kissing boys at school, you see. If you kiss boys, you're enough of a pervert to do anything. Everyone knows that.

[Dorian liked to think he'd braced himself enough for whatever it was that made Byerly seem to terrible in the eyes of his own blood. He thought that it might be something calculated to ruin his relationship with his father, thought-out, devastating. He was prepared for something complex.

He wasn't prepared for it to be something so simple, and so very familiar. There's a fire in his eyes as he lies there staring at Byerly, fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turn a lighter shade. He's furious- he doesn't remember being so furious for someone besides himself. Not for something like this.]

Because kissing boys is such a vile thing, so unforgivably treacherous and shameful that is warrants casting aside a life that he put into the world. Everyone knows that! Everyone fucking-- fucking knows that, how could anyone think that your father is selfish and stupid and unworthy of his son? I must mad to think that it's a wonderful thing to kiss you, that I'd like to again and again, that your company is a goddamn blessing.

Your father can choke. Anyone who brought it forward as a perverted thing that only leads to more perverted things can choke on the shit they blather. All the advancements of your world, and they think like slack-jawed yokels.

[ The anger is so strange. So altogether strange. He hasn't told this story to many people - a dozen or so, right after when he was disinherited, and fewer and fewer as the years go by - and not many of them have taken his father's side. True. But no one has ever reacted with this rawness, this fury. No one has cursed dear old Leon Vorrutyer, no one has spat with rage over him...Just vague sympathy, a disgruntlement over how quick to judge he was. Or frustration with Byerly for being so quick to make bad choices. Fury, though, and a passionate declamation of how wonderful Byerly is -

He finds himself growing oddly...flustered. Now, By is smooth, cool, suave, quick-witted, so truly, being flustered is out of the ordinary for him. But here he is, a hint of a flush coming into his face, rather at a loss for words. Awkwardly: ]

Now, now, dear fellow, that's...Don't get so worked up. I certainly wasn't some perfect angel aside from my sexuality. I made trouble. Quite a lot of it. [ And - ] I'm not a blessing. [ Anyway. ]

[Dorian could go on until he's out of breath and exhausted every insult from his vocabulary. He would have, too, if he hadn't gotten so caught up in Byerly's expression. He simply watches him for the moment, lips parted with no words to utter. He forgot his protest in favor of committing how nice that hint of red looks on him to memory, so he has no choice but to yield. He unclenches his fists, leaning forward so he can run his fingers through By's hair.]

Perhaps not an angel, but not a devil either. So long as you weren't malicious in what you did, I doubt it was anything unforgivable. Besides, some people like trouble.

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