Raison D'être

Raison D’être | Chapter 3




Raison D’être | Chapter 3

A LXG Fanfiction by Majokai Yukiko

 

Pairing: Dorian + Tom

Warning: Slash. Wicked Dreams.

Timeline: Post-movie cannon.

 

This is an amateur effort and does not intend to infringe
on the rights of Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neil, the filmmakers and their associates.


 

A/N: Thanks to inasense and prodigette for the
encouragement. I’d jump for joy if the filmmakers will use this plot to bring
Dorian back. I’m sure we can do with more slash in the movie.

 

Sorry to Ally for not letting you beta this. You can help
me beta it when you watched the movie…[actually, it’s because it’s ending soon
and I don’t want to spoil the movie for you.]

 

---

 

I know you! I walked with you once upon a dream

I know you! The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

Yet, I know it’s true that visions are seldom all they
seem

But if I know you, I know what you’ll do

You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream

~ONCE UPON A DREAM

 

“Mrs Harker! MRS HARKER! Are you awake?! I need your help!”
Tom shouted, pounding on the cabin door frantically.

 

Outside the rain was pouring, and the waves were violent. It
was as if Neptune had taken it upon himself to punish Nau Nautilus for invading
his realm. The lights flickered.

 

“Coming!” Mina opened the door with a half-worried,
half-annoyed look on her face. She was still dressed in her nightgown; her
luscious blonde curls falling over her shoulders wildly. “What’s wrong?”

 

Without hesitation, Tom grabbed her hand and pulled her down
the corridors and into his room. He flicked a light switch on and pointed at
the painting on the wall.

 

The wet paint on Dorian Gray’s immortalized face reflected
the light and glinted. Beside Tom, Mina shuddered lightly and hissed in anger.
She then turned to the American with a look of exasperation on her face.

 

“What is it, Tom?” She asked.

 

“The picture!” Tom exclaimed. “The paint’s fresh! See!” He
thrust his stained fingers in her face.

 

“Tom,” she sighed and spoke very slowly, as though trying to
explain something ridiculously simple to a retarded child without losing her
patience. “You left the windows open.”

 

Blue eyes widened as Tom turned away from Mina to inspect
the far end of his room. He had indeed left his windows open, and a puddle of
water was already forming on his floor.

 

“But…but…” He sputtered incoherently, blushing furiously in
embarrassment.

 

“It’s only a picture, Tom.” Mina whispered sadly. “Only a
painting.”

 

“But what if he can return? What if, so long as the painting
is not destroyed, he can come back to life again?”

 

“I hate to say this, Tom, but Dorian is gone.” Mina walked
out of the room, turning off the lights as she went.

 

Tom stared from the open window, to his bed and to the
painting. The portrait was facing his bed. If it got wet, why was his bed still
dry then?

 

Also, the American narrowed his eyes and took note of the
water on his floor. The rain tracks never reached that far.

 

***

 

“A penny for your thos?” s?” Tom looked up from his sausage
(mutilated by the constant stabbing with his fork) and offered a weak smile.

 

Jekyll tilted his head to one side and regarded Tom with a
concerned expression his face. After thinking about it for a while, the
scientist pulled out the chair beside Tom and sat down.

 

“You’ve changed.” Tom realized. At the beginning of the
League, Jekyll was a timid doctor who could barely keep his demons in check. He
had indeed changed for the better, more confident, more in control.

 

They had all changed.

 

“And you look terrible.” Jekyll retorted. Tom gave a wry
grin. He knew. There were dark rings around his eyes, and heavy bhanghanging
from his lower lids. He was getting thinner too, losing weight faster than he
could replace them, the combined result of a horrible appetite and even worse
sleeping habits.

 

Or the lack of them, in any case.

 

Tom had not slept a wink for three days, ever since that
stormy morning when he work up to wet paint. The canvas had not dried yet, but
Tom dared not mentioned it to Mina. He had made enough of a fool of himself
before her, and had no wish of doing so again.

 

He was also afraid of what he would dream of if he sleep.

 

“I think you need help, young Sawyer.” Jekyll got up from
the table and put a hand on Tom’s shoulders gently. “Come see me in my office
when you are done. I’ll give you something to help you sleep.”

 

“Poison can do the job.” Tom muttered to himself and
returned to murdering his lunch.

 

***

 

He should not have gone looking for Jekyll like he was told
to. Tom cursed himself and the good doctor repeatedly as he paced around his dream
world, Dorian Gray’s library, waiting for a certain obnoxious ass to show
himself.

 

“I wasn’t expecting you to come.” Tom spun around and caught
sight of the man standing at the doorway of the library, soaked wet to his
skin. Was it raining outside?

 

Duh, it was London. It was either raining, or just rained or
about to rain.

 

“You haven’t been here for a few days. I thought you weren’t
coming at all.” Dorian continued, shrugging out of his wet waistcoat and
hanging it up at the corner of the room.

 

“Not that I have a choice. I have to sleep, sooner or later,
right?” Tom was angry. Whose fault was it that every time he sleeps, he would
dream of the immortal? How dare Gray even think he had the choice of not
showing up?

 

“A dream is a wish your heart makes, Tom Sawyer.” Dorian
smirked. “The usual?” He asked, holding up a clear bottle from his liquor
collection. Tom nodded.

 

The American took the moment of silence to ponder upon what
the other man had said. He definitely had no wish to keep seeing Dorian Gray in
his dreams. A dream had all the makings of a nightmare if it contained the
immortal. Not that it had ever been particularly scary. Not unless you count
the last time when he woke up to find the paint on the portrait as fresh as if
it was newly painted.

 

“I—“

 

“Don’t ask a thing!” Dorian yelled furiously, slamming the
bottle back onto the tabletop. He marched over to where Tom was with wide
strides, grabbing the boy by the shoulders and pushing him down onto the
leather couch, glaring at him with fury and what could be read as hurt in those
eyes. Tom was shocked. This was probably the most variety of emotion he would
ever see on the immortal’s face. For some reason, it had dissolved the
otherwise aloof and distant air around the man.

 

For other reasons, it had frightened yet intrigued him to
see the man like that.

 

“I didn’t want you to see you, but you had to turn up,
didn’t you? You simply had to, butting your nose into any thing and every thing
as if it were your birthright to do so!”

 

Tom raised an eyw. “w. “Why didn’t you want to see me?”

 

Dorian took a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself. All
his anger seemed to have been peeled off after that loud tirade. He was not
offended by the question, only contemplating the best way to go about answering
it.

 

“You have questions,” Dorian finally replied. “Questions
that I do not wish to answor dor do not have answers for.”

 

“And that is supposed to stop me from asking them?” Tom
reclined back onto the couch, making himself comfortable. How quickly the
tables turned. Tom had the vague idea that the European was treading on
dangerous ground here, exploring a new territory that he had never been to
before.

 

“You should go,” Dorian sighed, picking up his cane and
began to walk out of the library.

 

“Wait!” Tom got up from the couch and followed the other man
a step or two. “Why was the paint on the portrait fresh?”

 

Dorian stopped in his steps and lowered his head. Without
turning back, he answered.

 

“You will know what you wake up later. Ask Mina or Jekyll to
give you something strong enough to knock you out without dreaming. I had been
uncharacteristically kind to you, but don’t expect any encore performance.”

 

Tom looked thoughtfully at the waistcoat hanging from its
rack. And then he woke up.

 

End of Chapter 3

Continue to Chapter 4