A/N: Wow these chapters are just pouring out of me. Just reinforces my theory that I really do run on angst. DELICIOUS ANGST. I do love me some angsty angstyness. Hope you do too.
Warning: Dark themes and mentions of drug use/abuse.
Links to: Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch5, Ch6, Ch7, Ch8 ,Ch9, Ch10, Ch11, Ch12,Ch13, Ch14, Ch15,Ch16, Ch17, Ch18, Ch19, Ch20, Ch21
“Can we talk?” said a voice at her shoulder.
Ellana turns her head away from her consideration of the … badass work of art in front of her to see Dorian, standing just out of arms’ reach. The stubborn jut of his chin contrasted weirdly with the worried glint in his eyes.
She frowns. “Of course, Dorian.”
He looks around at all the roadies unloading the bus of all the band’s equipment into the warehouse. Then his gaze swings back. “Somewhere a little more private?”
Her frown deepens, but she nods and leads him to her little living space. Amusement tickles her as she watches him search for a place to perch that isn’t littered with dirty clothes or dust. His expression reflects a mild horror that anyone could live like this. Finally, he sweeps a pair of her pants off one of her two chairs and plops into it, eyeing her with trepidation and other mixed emotions.
She waits, but when he is less than forthcoming, she says, “You wanted to tal— ?”
“What are your intentions with Solas?” he interrupts, voice low.
Blinking, she tilts her head at him. Then she smiles a wicked smile. “Ah, so if I want permission to come a-courtin’, I ask you? I can see it now. I’ll come to the door with the bouquet and corsage. You’ll let me in and shout for him to come down the stairs, then pointedly polish a pistol while telling me to have him home by twelve.”
“I’m serious, Ellana.” Yet the way his mustache twitches at one corner belies a, ah, complete lack of seeing the humor in the situation.
She takes a dirty plate and cup from the other chair and transfers them to the sink before sitting opposite the Vint. “I don’t see how that’s really any of your business.”
Dorian sits back and crosses his arms. “Whether or not he acknowledges it, he’s my friend. I don’t have many. But I look out for the few that I do have.”
The pure and sincere concern in his face moves her. The estimation she holds for the swarthy man grows a few increments. Ellana’s core warms, lifting her heart. She tamps down the sudden urge to hug him. They’re having A Serious Talk, after all.
She decides to go for broke and tell the truth. “I love him.”
Now he blinks, surprised. Then he looks away and sighs.
She can’t tell if it’s relief or not.
His gaze, when it swings back to her, seeks to pierce her very soul. He searches her face hard. An ugly twist takes his mouth as he forges a cynical and disdainful weapon of his voice, “All the little elf maids come running when the great Fen’harel howls. They all want a piece of him; his arrogant sneer, his diamond-studded fingers, his leopard-print covered ass. They all ‘love’ him. He’s had hundreds, you know. All kneeling before him, begging for the chance to suck his dread co—”
Her palm slams down on her little card table, tipping the few dirty glasses atop it. The bang and clatter shocks Dorian to silence, as does the wrath that must surely be stamped on her face. She says, voice little more than a whisper, “So, I’m just another groupie, huh?”
“Aren’t you?” challenges he.
The impulse that nearly takes her then is less huggy and more … chokey. She bites the inside of her cheek until it abates, then heaves a huge calming breath and says, “You’re lucky I know how deeply you care about him. How much he needs people that care about him. Anyone else would be spitting teeth right now.”
The blatant threat of violence causes Dorian to freeze, color rising to his cheeks. His mouth opens, but she isn’t finished—
“You’re right, in a way. But I don’t just want a piece of him. I want all of him. His silly laugh. His random kindnesses. Even that thing he does that drives me insane, with his big toes. Ugh, the popping. It haunts my nightmares. The good and the bad. All of it. Because all of it is him. Beautiful, brilliant him. Just … Solas.” Her tirade leaves her a little breathless. The anger drains away with the last of the words.
Dorian’s silence persists for another few heartbeats, before his face breaks into a beaming smile. Almost a silly grin. Boyish in mien. She wonders at this peek beyond the bitter wall the years built around this sort of unsullied, guileless core. He reaches across the table to put his hand over hers. “I had to be sure. I’m sorry.”
She understands, though it still hurts a bit that he thought that of her. Nodding, she then says, “A good friend would want to be, though most aren’t so damn mean about it.”
“Well, if my father taught me one thing, it’s if you piss people off, they show you who they really are.” He snorts and shakes his head. The look he gives her is all apology as he says, “Forgive me my worry. At first, I saw his interest and cheered. Yes! thought I. That’s just what he needs. A healthy dose of energetic, meaningless sex. Break him out of his depressing listlessness. But that isn’t the way it went, is it?”
Ellana nods, though the question is largely rhetorical. “Nope. Your sinister plan was foiled by … feelings.”
“Curses!” exclaimed Dorian, with a villainous theatrical twirl of his mustache. “Ah, well, the world makes fools of us all, and all that rot. Anyway, there’s more. I just … I don’t want him hurt again. Go gently, Ellana. Some hearts do not mend whole.”
The haunted sheen to his eyes pulls at her and she cannot help but ask, “What do you mean? What happened?”
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but I know he never will. He’d probably never speak to me again if he found out.” A fear of this roils around the man’s eyes, but determination stills it. He hesitates before speaking again, “You know who I work for, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Imperium Records.”
“Well, I say ‘work,’ but honestly, that’s laughable. My career has stalled; my responsibilities handed to other people. But as long as I keep out of trouble, don’t kick up too much fuss, then my paychecks keep arriving.” Dorian sighs. “Though once, I was a young and upcoming star in the scout biz. One indiscretion, my Big Mistake, killed any hope of real accomplishment. They didn’t fire me. I’m a legacy, you see. I’m ‘forgiven.’ And well, they call it a mistake. I call it my biggest triumph. And I will to my dying day.”
“You want something to drink?” she asks, into the uncertain pause. “It’s just, you look like you might need one.”
“Please tell me it’s liquor.”
“It’s liquor.” She stands and leans to retrieve the half empty fifth from behind the microwave. She even blows the dust off it before handing it to him.
“You’re an angel, you know that?” He chokes back the rotgut with hardly a wince for the taste. She takes a swig herself as he gathers himself to continue, “Anyway, it’s hard to keep track of talent. They tend to be a flighty bunch. But most eventually show back up. One didn’t. I got handed a search and recovery when a particular artist disappeared for so long, he was in breach of contract. Instructions were; find him, bring him back. All would be forgiven if he just continued upholding his legal obligations to the label. If not, then he’d get reamed by every bigwig lawyer Imperium had on retainer. All pretty standard stuff.”
Ellana shudders. Maybe signing wasn’t that great a thing then—
Dorian sees her doubt and holds up his hands. “Oh, no. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not touting the evils of big corp to scare you off. You have some amazing people looking out for you. Chiefly, me. We’ll see you right. We know every pitfall and trap.”
Mollified, but still worried, she nods for him to keep going.
He says, “Would that Evanuris had such help in the beginning. Oh, but they got the short end. They made next to nothing on record sales and believe me, those were some of the highest sales on record. They had no creative control. They didn’t even own their stage names. No, Imperium is a ruthless, greedy bunch. They took every advantage.”
She swallows a lump in her throat.
Dorian glowers into the middle distance as he takes another draught of cheap bourbon. Then his features smoothed. “I’d met him once before, when they’d all come in for a meeting with my father and the other execs on the board. They were like … brightly colored peacocks in the midst of all that drab charcoal and grey. Well, a lot of talent is like that, but Evanuris was different. They owned it better maybe. Comfortable in their outrageousness. Suffice it to say, they left an impression.”
“But then Solas disappeared?” she asks, luring him away from the tangent.
“Something … bad happened, and he skipped off the reservation. He was gone for, oh, almost two years before they decided he needed to be found. I thought I got handed an easy assignment. Turns out it nearly pulled me inside out.” His gaze goes distant again. Pain draws his mouth down and tight. “Took me nearly another three years, but I … I found him. In some rat-infested hell hole in Seheron. I puked in the foyer on the way in, the smell was so bad. I stepped over so many sleeping bodies, all thin and barely clothed. Moaning in their drug-fevered dreams. All the way down in the back of the dankest cellar you could imagine, he was on a mattress. Covered in filth and rags. Skeletal. Thin bands of bruises on his arms where the ligatures had been.
“I called his name. He turned onto his back and saw me, but he didn’t know me. He was so addled, he didn’t know anything. Didn’t speak a word the whole time I carried him out. Just shook like a leaf in a storm. Light as one too. I put him in the back of the car and sat in the driver’s seat. I stared at him in the rearview, and he stared back at me, those blue eyes huge in his too-thin face. I think he knew then. Why I was there. Because he sighed the saddest sigh I’d ever heard. The car phone sat in my hand like a brick. The dial tone so loud. And I don’t … I don’t know what possessed me. Instead of calling in my success, I put it back. I drove us to a hotel, paid in cash so they couldn’t trace the corporate card and checked in.”
Her mouth opens before she could stop it, “Compassion. Compassion possessed you.”
Dorian sniffs. “I’d like to think so. Decency, at least. Whatever last little ember I had left of it. So, I got him out, but that was only the beginning. I had no plan beyond that. No real idea what I was doing. Just a hotel room, my travel bag, a thousand royals in cash, and one shivering, filthy junkie who couldn’t even feed himself. I bathed him like a child. He-he cried when I cut off his hair.”
He shoots her a glance and a shrug. ”He’d gotten lice and fleas, you see. It was so sad to see that glorious pile in the trash. After I’d gotten some fluids and soft foods into him, he looked at me and said, ‘Dorian.’ He remembered me. What sort of person makes it a point to learn the names of every single person they meet? I knew then that I’d made the right choice. And no one will ever tell me different.”
“Well, there’s no magic ‘fix-it’ button. It took a long time for him to get sober and stay sober. By then, my bosses knew what had happened. They cajoled. They threatened. But I wouldn’t hand him back over to them, no matter what they promised. Especially after he started telling me about them all. About … her.”
The pronoun lies soft on the air, tremors of awe and fear woven into it. A benediction and a curse.
Begging the question that tugs itself free of her lips, “Who?”
