So I was talking to my friend who'd just finished an english unit on Dorian Gray, and she was telling me about how Actually Homosexual™ it was, when I suggested that fanfiction of it probably exists on the internet. (I'm playing a risky game, telling this story right in the midst of the dorian gray fanfiction community.) I sent her my first sentence on the spot, and after we chortled a little over it, I made the henceforth-regrettable decision to write the entire thing. It is particularly regrettable, because as you will have already seen, I never bothered to learn a thing about the book in my life.

I asked my friend for a summary of a couple other characters, and I received the following:

- Basil, 'painter' (I apparently sought no further elaboration) with a raging crush on Dorian
- Lord Henry, Oscar Wilde self-insert.

I think it's already clear this could go nowhere but downwards.

Written ~late Jan - early March 2013, age 18.

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Dorian sniffed Gray's neck alluringly. It smelt of soft perfume, and also, trepidation. Good, thought Dorian.

"We can't - we can't do this," Gray murmured into Dorian's ear, breathless. "We shall be duly executed if the wider world discovers our sexuality."

"None of that matters, because I have you, and by you, I mean me," Dorian muttered back. It was sensual in all the right ways, and even some of the wrong ways. Gray felt himself swooning a little more.

Dorian had made his way to Gray's bulbous pectoral muscle, gingerly exposed amidst twenty or thirty layers of old-fashioned clothing, when the door suddenly burst open.

"Basil!" Dorian yelped, tipping off his chair in fright and embarrassment. "What are you doing here?! I thought I set you to paint the fence."

"Oi fuck ya kindly guv'nor," Basil snarled, loudly dropping a bucket of paint on the floor. "You ain't set me to do nothin' apart from leave ya to have a lil' alone time. An' this is my storage room! You think it's alright to - to deface my equipment?!"

"No equipment has been defaced," Dorian levelly retorted, trying to cover up the paint he had smeared all over his chest. "Quite frankly, you're overreacting and being disrespectful to your superiors. Now be off with you," he finished, pushing himself off the floor.

Ah, to be ripped away from one's coitus; the very thought of it stung at Dorian's eyes, and indeed stung in other areas that now found themselves neglected, but the man clenched his fist tight and breathed in deeply. He would reunite himself, and continue where he had left off. And it would be staggering. A solid eight out of ten, even, Dorian concluded, before noticing Basil still stood in the doorway with unbridled rage.

"Be off, ya say," the painter barely managed to grind out. "As if I can be cast away so easily? Is that it?! Is that all I mean to you?!" he suddenly roared, dropping another bucket of paint and flinging himself east'ard.

"Basil? Basil, I -!" Dorian stuttered, rushing out the door to see the man escape round a corner. "What in the good Christian Lord just happened? Should I... confront him?"

"Do it, Dorian, for you are the greatest of men," Gray whispered lovingly from behind.

"Thank you, Gray," said Dorian. "No, Gray," he continued, as two hands slipped round his waist. "Later."

Following the rogue worker's trail, Dorian found himself in the garden, which was rife with sakura petals and neatly trimmed little hedges. He could see, across the landscaping, Basil weeping amongst the basils.

"What ho, Basil, what is the meaning of all this," Dorian called out as he started to move forward. "There is something decidedly peculiar about the way this whole debacle has unfolded. Would you say, there is something... more to all this?" He reached the other party, who had yet to respond, and hesitantly placed a hand on his shoulder; however, the movement was thrown off as Basil twisted round, and Dorian was shocked to look right into the other's eyes, enlarged and watering.

"How could you put me through this, Dorian?" Basil sobbed loudly. "All you do is make me paint - paint things that don't need paint - paint things that already have paint! And you don't even look my way - and I only receive minimum wage - and who names their child Basil, and -" The painter could not continue, for his existential crisis was too much, and Dorian patted him on the back consolingly as he received blubbering into his shirt. All the while though, Dorian's mind was in overdrive.

How could I have been so blind? the noble thought, forlorn. All this time, I only thought of him as a painter... but he should also be my lover.

"Look at me, Basil," Dorian commanded gently, and the man did so, sniffing. "You are right; I was wrong. From now on, you shall receive the lavacious sum of at least sixteen dollars an hour. And..." he trailed off, noticing the painter clutch onto his clothing that much tighter, "you shall know how beautiful you are, every day of the year."

"Oh, Dorian!" Basil cried, dropping a bucket of paint and leaping into his comrade's arms. "The entire time, this is all I wanted! It's as if something entirely new has stirred within me... it's as if I have... hope."

And hope indeed it was, as birds sung from the treetops, and leaves rustled in the wind, and tongues grossly twisted around each other. And it was as if there was nothing left for them to undergo; no tribulations left to brave, and no stories left to be told.

Or was it...?

Far away, in the walls of a grungy castle, a fist slammed on the arm of a creaking throne. "This will not be tolerated!" King Oscar Wilde roared, his rage echoing around the chamber. "Everyone knows only I may get to first base with any character!"

TO BE CONTINUED...?

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(It really won't be continued; I can't be frickin' arsed.)