Poison

What a dreadful thing seriousness is

"You've poisoned me, did you know that? I'm sure you do." Dorian Gray remarked all of a sudden.

The youth spoke in such a light, flippant manner that it was no wonder that it took his companion more than the customary cluster of moments to realise that he really was serious with his remark. He had not though the topic important enough to, or perhaps too important that he could not bear to bring himself to draw his gaze up and away from the half-drunk glass of wine he was swirling about. In the tempestuous ruby sea contained wholly within his glass, his reflection stared back up at him, distorted and far more tragic than he was sure that he truly did present as. Not when the fine silks and lace of his shirt, and, indeed, the delicate embroidery of the silvery-blue waistcoat he donned served as a suitable distraction from any tragedies that might so happen to wish to present themselves.

"My dear boy, what nonsense you speak!" came the reply from the other man, one Lord Henry Wotton, a dry chuckle punctuating his words in a way that the curl of blue-stained smoke that poured from his lips could not have offered alone. 

The elder of the two hedonistically inclined gentlemen brought his cigarette to his lips in a motion that had developed a fluidity from frequent repetition. He let his head hang back, resting against the back of the couch the pair had taken to, his blond companion kept in the corner of his vision. Unlike the youth, the fellow had chosen to don a darker shade of attire, though the traces of crimson detailing against the black of his own waistcoat paired rather strikingly with that of the red smoking jacket that he had tossed loosely onto the little coffee table of which Dorian had elected to rest a foot upon. 

"Don't laugh, Harry, that's dreadful of you. I shan't forgive you if you laugh again." Dorian whined, though both knew this to be an empty threat, even if he had hoped to mean it at the time he had said it, by the time he had it already began to ring annoyingly insincere even to himself.

"Oh, you are serious," Lord Henry remarked, though he did have the good sense to to hold back a laugh on the off chance the younger man might actually attempt to make good on his threat, "How ghastly. I don't think any man, nowadays, should spend their time speaking seriously about anything that warrants seriousness. It spoils the mood, or worse, serves to prove the nature of English seriousness to be nothing more than the same fickle drabble as it has always been." 

"Perhaps I should like to be serious about this, if there is anything in the whole world that warrants seriousness, it is the fact of being poisoned." protested the youth, the wine-enabled whine - the sort of whine that stood out from any other attempt thereof because it was helped a little along the way by an adequate amount of wine that overpowered the need to present more maturely than one was - trying to very hard to creep back into his voice by the end of this statement. 

For what little credit one could willingly afford Lord Henry, he did seem at least a little willing to entertain the notion, even if he had been, and still was, more prepared to scoff at it than take it seriously. Why, he even went so far as to lift his head back up enough to show he was offering more of his attention. Of course, this hardly improved his posture, as far as respectability went, but really the worth of respectability only really went as far as one was willing to let it stretch, and there was little to be gained stretching it in that moment, not when there was only the two of them to endeavour to impress. 

"Then tell me, Dorian," the elder began, an artfully raised eyebrow accompanying this, "How is it that you propose I have poisoned you? I should rather like to take the complement, if you were to explain." 

"I did not mean it as a complement." Dorian replied.

"And yet I shall take it as one all the same," the elder said with a smile, "Now, please, indulge me, if you would?"  

"When we first met, and I do hope you recall it as vividly as I do," Dorian began, not giving the other the chance to confirm or deny this, for he was not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer, "You told me such fantastic things. Fantastic things, but all the more frightening for it, and then you offered a book to read. Perhaps, and I can only say perhaps as we cannot change the past to see for ourselves, if it were your words, or the book itself, in isolation it may not have formed the sweet poison of which it became. Do you recall the book, Harry? The little yellow one?" 

"Of course I recall," confirmed the other, "It is one that I, myself, received when I was several years younger than you had been, and yet I do not consider myself poisoned for it." Though he let a note of amusement at the notion show in his tone, he was careful to not let it come off as laughter, not if the other had already decided laughter to be akin to mockery. 

"Perhaps you should." came the reply, the blond's tone coming across a little more flatly than he'd like, raising his glass to his lips. 

He noted, in the briefest passing, that the win he sipped seemed just that little bit more bitter than it had been previously. This could simply be the dreadful result of gradually beginning to sober up again, which seemed absolutely ghastly even if he had come to expect the intoxicating effects to not grip him in the same way that it would those around him, but the idea that the very nature of the conversation having soured his pallet did ever so briefly occur to him. Before he had the chance to prove either to be true, he quickly drained what was left in his glass. It had been quite some time since he had to fight back a grimace from the sensations around wine, yet it took a degree of effort to keep his face steady.

"I do not," Lord Henry said with a particular sense of finality to this, "There is little elegance to be found in poisoning one's mind. It denies a person a place for their true character to blossom freely, instead treating one's thought with the same lack of regard an undisciplined gardener might, stripping away any charm it might once have held." The man paused, took a long drag of his cigarette, dumping the ash into the ashtray they shared before he continued. "Frankly, Dorian, and I do not mean to offend, to claim that you were to be poisoned by a book is nearing on absurd and absurdity does not suit you. You cannot be poisoned by literature, for there is no more merit to the written word than there is a towering statue. Both serve as lovely things to look at, and perhaps might find a space in the mind for a time, but both are equally lacking in the capacity to change, or as you have chosen to call it, poison a person. Yes, it is all very flattering for you to consider my contribution and, indeed, connotations to the book to allow it to become poisonous, but that does not make it true."

"It is true to me." protested the younger of the two, his brow furrowed. 

"Is it?"

"...yes." Even with his determination to confirm this, Dorian wasn't sure so sure of his own conviction anymore. He had been quite sure when he mentioned it, but it it seemed his companion once again proved he was far more capable of speaking with a perceptibly unflappable certainty than he was. 

"Don't scowl, Dorian, it shall give you wrinkles," Lord Henry chastised after several moments, "It shall ruin you to spoil your lovely face with lines."

"Of course, Harry," Dorian replied, making a point of show of setting his face in a way that seemed a little more presentable, "Do forget I said anything, I'm afraid all I have done is embarrass myself."

"Then I shall." came the nonchalant reply, the man pointedly bringing his cigarette to his lips as if to prove this.

Thus, nothing at all came from the conversation, beyond a strange lingering sense of dissatisfaction that refused to shift even after the bottle they were sharing had run dry. In fact, even once his companion took his leave, and Dorian himself decided it was in his best interest to take to the night, the stubborn dissatisfaction managed to rather cruelly sour, and eventually cut short what could have otherwise been a rather delightfully debaucherous evening.