Dorian Pavus Inbox

[rebelarchivist]

You have tried to reach Dorian Pavus, and have unfortunately failed. But, if you leave a message I will probably get back to you as soon as I can. Unless I've reason to avoid you, but leave a message anyway.

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[defaulthawke]

[It's been too long. This is ridiculous. He can't- he can't run. Can't waste this chance with a new Dorian, a new chance to find something precious. When has he ever turned away from someone he cares about just because they hurt him? It's not a good enough reason to cut someone off.]

Hey.

[rebelarchivist]

[It would be completely fair to say that Dorian has been avoiding Hawke, because he has. Once he had realized what he'd done he could barely look at himself in the mirror let along... let alone face the man he'd done it too. And maybe that makes him a coward but sometimes he's allowed that, isn't he? Why would Garrett want to speak to him anyway?]

[So it takes some time before he sends anything back, he debates just deleting the message but in the end he decides he might as well face whatever he's going to get.]

Well, this is a surprise.

[Thank the Maker for text communication, it's so much easier to pretend at nonchalance like this]

[defaulthawke]

Don't.

[Practically unheard-of, for Garrett Hawke to shut down defensive flippancy.]

He loves you. You don't remember, but he does. He said it to you not long before we got together. It was the first thing he told me when we did.

[rebelarchivist]

[Welp, there goes that line of defense.]

[He sighs to himself, rubbing his face]

He loves a Dorian, Garrett. I don't know how much you know about how this works, but the Dorian that he knows, that the both of you knew, is not me, any more than you are any of the dozens of iterations of Hawke that exist out there. You are correct, I don't remember and I'm never going to remember, because it didn't happen to me. He seems like a sweet, lovely young man, and he's going to forever be thinking of someone else with my face when he looks at me.

Or he's going to remember being killed by me.

[Because that was him. Tortured and bent and warped into something monstrous, but he's not going to remember Barry saying that he loves him, just him offering his pain in the hopes that it would help him.]

[defaulthawke]

[He video calls Dorian, and if Dorian doesn't answer will keep doing so until he picks up.]

He's met or known about a lot of versions of me. You're not the first friend we've met who didn't remember us.

[They've done this shit before.]

He knows you're not the same. But you need to be careful with him. You- or him- Dorian Pavus was one of my best friends, and someone I could've- but if you hurt him, I mean you when you're in your right mind...

[He trails off. It's a threat, but it's a sentence he can't finish. Or maybe he just doesn't want to.]

Give him a chance. He's a good friend to have, and pretty spectacular in bed.

[video]

[rebelarchivist]

[Dorian is doing his best to look bored as possible, but he can tell it's not working. There's a bottle of liquor nearby that's at least a partial explanation and really just... this talk is enough of a reason really.]

And he was in love with all of them as well, was he? Has he ever been without you, and had to deal with these other Hawkes when he didn't have you to come back to?

[He sighs, taking a sip of the whiskey]

I have little desire to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it, I had thought you would know that. Unless 'hurting' him at this point is counted as 'letting him get through this without being reminded constantly of the person he loves.' And it will just be a matter of getting through it, if you've been to more than one of these shams you know that.

[He's ignoring the last bit, he knows Barry is good in bed but... that seems minor right now. Being good in bed is lovely, but it's not as rare an ability as some people seemed to think. He's not terribly thrilled at the idea of trying to force a relationship just because it worked out for a different version of him. He knows that the various Dorians are largely interchangeable, but that doesn't mean he likes it.]

[defaulthawke]

[Garrett doesn’t look convinced.]

Maybe he wants the chance to be painfully reminded of the man he loved. You never know- maybe starting over, as heartbreaking as it is, sounds better than never seeing you again.

[ He honestly isn’t sure if he’s still talking about Barry. ]

[rebelarchivist]

And what makes you think I want to do that to this dear sweet darling boy of yours?

[He can hear how fond Garrett was of him in the way he said his name, the way he spoke of him. And he's glad for him, he really is, glad that he has someone, glad that he's gotten to a point where he'll let himself have someone. The Hawke he hadn't let himself fall in love with had been too hurt to do that. They'd fucked, it had been lovely, he had mourned him and that... that had been it. That he was back in his life, and from before he would have remembered Dorian or even known of his existence, was a cruel joke and nothing more.]

What makes you think I want to do that to myself? I know I'm something of a masochist, but that is taking things a bit far.

[defaulthawke]

[ Garrett catches himself about to open his mouth and say some stupid shit. ]

I think I’m doing that whole “yelling about someone else, even though I’m talking about myself” thing.

[ honestly, he hadn’t realized he felt this strongly about it. The realization is... strange. ]

Look, Dorian... [ quieter. ] I know you, or some version of you. Life hasn’t been the same without you in it. It’s a bit fucked to finally have you back, then the first big thing to happen is... that. And now I feel itchy and weird when I think about you, and you won’t even look at me.

[rebelarchivist]

[Well at least they got to more of the meat of it. Dorian takes a long drink from the bottle, Maker he is not nearly drunk enough for this]

Goodness, I wonder why I might have a problem looking at you and remembering what... what I did.

[He'd almost said 'what happened' as if Garrett had been hit by a falling rock instead of... that]

Can you even say you can be in the same room as me with what those things did to me, with the stark reminder that I'm not the Dorian you fell in love with [As much as that hurt to say, his Hawke had never been in love with him, he had been an outlet and a mage he could protect instead of the one he hadn't been able to save. It had been a wonderfully unhealthy relationship, but he wasn't sure either of them had been capable of anything else at the time] literally etched into my damned skin? I'm sure you'd rather forget that I'm not really him, but I don't think that's going to be possible here.

[The scars along the sides of his head are still there after all, he wasn't getting rid of them, and his hair hadn't even grown long enough to fully cover them yet. It would always look strange, even if he were to grow his hair out completely the scars would still be visible as disturbances]

[defaulthawke]

[true to Dorian’s words, Garrett can’t maintain this video eye contact with him for very long. He has to look down, at his drink, at his shoes, somewhere. ]

That’s not quite it. [ Quietly. ] I wasn’t in love with him. The timing was all wrong, with Anders and Justice, and then Barry... and he... [ sigh. ] He hated me in the end, over something that really wasn’t my fault. I’ve done plenty of things to be a bastard, but that wasn’t one of them.

[rebelarchivist]

Then what, precisely, is it that you want from me. A chance to make things right? At least you can fix things with one Dorian, even if the one that hated you is beyond your reach, right?

[He drains his glass and then pours another one, taking a drink from it and then setting it down again.]

[He knows it's not quite fair that he's taking out his whole 'interchangeable' frustration out on Hawke, but the man is making it a bit easy for him]

[defaulthawke]

[And now we come to Garrett Hawke’s greatest weakness: his heart. He has always had too much of it and opens it too easily, making room for anyone he meets more than once who seems to have a story, a heartbreak, or a mission. The Dorian he knew had all three, and once a person has wormed into Hawke’s heart, a part of him will always belong to them. It’s strong enough that the tone in Dorian’s voice makes him look up, ignoring the twinge of instinctual fear in his chest at the man’s familiar, once-adored face.]

Dorian Pavus is a man worth knowing. [It’s simple. Devoid of his usual bullshit.] I can’t imagine a Thedas so different that that isn’t true.

[rebelarchivist]

And if it's true for one of us then it's true for all of us, is that it? If you can get one of us to love you then maybe it really and truly wasn't your fault that one of us hated you.

[He doesn't believe that Hawke really believes it wasn't his fault, whatever happened with his and Barry's Dorian. Or, perhaps he does on some level know that it wasn't. But Dorian has known too many people like Hawke, like Mahanon, and on some level, they all believed it was their fault. That if they had been better, maybe they could have kept anything from going wrong. As if the world were some kind of puzzle or a game, and if you said and did all the right things then everything would go perfectly.That no one would get hurt. That no one would die.]

[defaulthawke]

[ Hawke honestly doesn’t begrudge Dorian this anger. ]

I already have someone who loves me. But I wouldn’t mind making a friend- or even just someone to have drinks with.