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"He's dead," he tells him stiffly. "And there's no world I want to go back to."

"Stay on as a warden and you can bring him back," points out the man who knows that Johann isn't going to ever be a warden.

"As for that other point? Honestly, you'd fit well in my world. And I'm sure there are others you'd fit in as well. You just need to expand your horizons."

As tempting as it is, he would never be able to.

But he aches for him again and that sadness and anger wells up in him enough that he goes silent for a while.

"Sure thing, boss."

That's a silence that says something. A silence that Dorian knows he should press at.

Not now, though.

"I should show you London in the Enclosure. After all, we both know we aren't stopping at a fucking city any time soon."

"I saw London," he mutters. "Sebastian showed me."

Which reminds him, and is a good opportunity for him to point out -

"He's my friend. And I haven't killed anyone in that time. I think it's nearly time for you to pay up."

Note to self: bother Sebastian to double-check this.

"When we're back on the ship, I'll send a message to the Admiral to let you have your full healing back. Anyway, my London's different from Sebastian's. It's much more modern, for one."

"You keep using that word, but I'm not certain you really understand what it means," he mutters. "Modern doesn't mean a damned thing."

"It does to me," Dorian shrugs. "I've lived through what most people are now nostalgic about it. And I honestly can't see why they would go back to times like that."

"Because you're a bitter, cynical bastard," he remarks lightly.

"Takes one to know one!" Dorian happily chirps. You're a cynical bastard too, babe.

"Yes, but I have a reason to be. You did this to yourself."

"Mmm, I doubt that. So humor me. What's your reason for being a cynical bastard?"

"You've read my file, sweetheart. You should know."

"I do," Dorian nods. "And I know that other people would have taken what happened to them and responded with grace. Or tenacity. Or a stubborn desire to make it so that never happens to anyone else. You did this to yourself just as much as I did."

"What happened to me? My dear Herr Gray, what do you think happened to me?" he challenges, bristling a little.

"My darling Johann, I've read your fucking file. I know exactly what happened to you—and I know what happened to you as a child."

There's a pause as Dorian decides how to phrase this.

"You aren't the only person in the world who was hurt by someone just for the hell of it."

He rolls his eyes. "Nothing happened to me except I learned how to do what I needed to survive," he huffs.

"Don't bullshit me," Dorian dryly responds. "You're terrible at it anyway."

"It's working so fucking far," he grumbles.

"So fucking far doesn't mean shit. As far as I'm concerned, you need something that works always."

He groans, glancing back towards the town and, subsequently, the Barge. "Good fucking luck, sweet pea. But if you want to talk about getting fucked before I even knew what the world was like, then you tell me what else I should have done other than make sure they felt the knife across their throats afterward."

Dorian rolls his eyes before pointing out, "I'm not begrudging you murdering them—some people need to die. What I am begrudging you for is that you seem to have shaped your entire life based on the shit that happened to you when you were young."

He frowns before deciding to continue with, "Do you know when my first time was? Fifteen, my governness, a horrible woman who happily took advantage of the fact that I was young, stupid, and didn't know how to say no. You don't have a monopoly on getting fucked as a child."

"Why does that have to shape any fucking thing? I didn't have a childhood. I was made. Crawled out of the shit and the muck," he tells him with absolutely no sympathy.

"Crawled out of the shit and the muck and immediately started interacting with people," he retorts. "And whether you want to admit it or not, those actions have so very obviously shaped you—like it would a child."

"The more you keep trying to make me human, the stupider you sound," he mutters.

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cw: csa

cw: csa right back at you, this is a bummer of a conversation

like every one of them will beeeee

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