A content murmur slipped between the young man's rose petal lips, having been somewhat begrudgingly drawn back into the waking world from a comfortable nap made all the sweeter from some lovely dream that had already slipped from his memory by the time he thought to recall it. Dorian did not wish to rouse quite so soon, however, and so the youth buried his face in the great coat that was draped over him as a makeshift blanket. Even through the aroma of fine cologne, a remnant of some grand travels, it smelt of cigarette smoke, though that was the inevitable end to any garment worn by one who smoked at least somewhat regularly, however the lad was hardly disapproving of the scent. In fact it brought a sleepy smile to his delicate features as he took a deep inhale before finally fluttering his eyes open to meet the midday sunlight.
While this had been done with the full intention of drawing attention with his mild theatrics, it went by entirely unnoticed by the man he set his gaze upon. Well, he assumed so at least. He never could quite tell what Lord Henry Wotton was actually thinking at any given time, only what the man wanted the world to think that he was thinking. Whether there was actually a distinction between the two was open to debate - a debate that Dorian himself had shared in on two separate occasions and found himself arguing for a different point each time - and one could wonder if the man truly knew the answer himself.
As for the older of the two gentlemen, in that moment he seemed just as invested in the task of refastening his shirt cuffs and straightening his collar in the ornately gilded mirror as he was in the awakening of his charming young companion. That being, outwardly, not at all as he carried a near insufferable air of indifference about him.
Of course, if he had missed the lad's wakefulness, he had not missed the series of increasingly theatrical sighs that he was uttering as his elder busied himself with refastening his cravat.
"Must you go off tonight?" Dorian began with a whine once he concluded he was not going to be addressed organically, "I would much rather you stay here with me."
"And yet I must all the same," came the reply, the elder's voice carrying a waver of something not dissimilar to amusement to it, "It would be a poor show to not appear in public with my wife tonight, seeing as it is our anniversary, and nowadays the general public are crying out for any little hint of intrigue to exaggerate into enough of a scandal to assuage the tedium of their existence for a spell."
"I thought it was your anniversary last year?" pressed Dorian when his first whine had not progressed as he had hoped.
"The anniversary of one's marriage, much like most obligations," Lord Henry returned, "Has the terrible habit of recurring yearly as long as there are those determined to remind a person of their contractual obligations."
"It is a terrible habit, Harry." was what Dorian Gray offered, pouting as he shuffled just enough to rest his chin in a way that allowed him to gaze upon his companion.
"Most are," returned he, "To fall back on a habit is to seek refuge in mundanity, to fall to a routine rather than live in a way that could be, at the very least, interesting enough to share over dinner."
This was more than a little hypocritical, as Lord Henry himself held to a great many habits of his own - the evidence one still smouldered half-forgotten in the ashtray by the mirror - and had no intention of letting any one of them slip away from him. Whether the habits were good or bad, however, was thoroughly open to interpretation, but as far as the man himself was concerned there were no good or bad habits at all, but rather interesting habits and dull habits, and he would think his own here far from dull.
Dorian excused any hypocrisy of the comment, as he did much of the man's misdeeds. He did not want to think about them and so he simply did not.
"You truly cannot stay?" the blond persisted, "Perhaps you are right, people talk too far too much for it, but what of afterwards? Surely you cannot be preoccupied for the whole evening, we could go to the club once you and Lady Victoria part ways for the night?"
"My dear boy," came the reply, the incredulous nature of this not entirely the most sincere thing in the world, finally turning in a way that meant he could properly face his companion, even if this was more an exaggerated look over his shoulder, "If I did not know better, I would wonder if you were jealous."
"And do you?"
"Do I?"
"Do you know better?" Dorian mused, gazing upon the other though half-shut eyes, an odd intensity still managing to shine out through the twinkling sapphire of his eyes.
The extent of the reply that this won came in the form of a flash of a smile. Brief, wolfish and sharp, and enough to leave its recipient sinking down into his arms in an attempt to mask the flush that tried very hard to make itself known upon his face. This was, one could assume, entirely on purpose but the elder of the pair always managed to look smug so it was not all that easy to tell if he seemed any more smug and insufferable seeing this than he was beforehand.
"Perhaps," Lord Henry began passively, "Tomorrow we could meet for lunch. I have heard that the-"
"Tomorrow?" Dorian interrupted with far more intensity than was necessarily warranted, "But that is practically an eternity away!"
"Only when one is young," came the chuckled reply of the other, "But if you are so terribly desperate for company this evening, I am far too aware that Fergus has been hoping to accompany you to the theatre again. I could always write to him and say it was mutual."
"And perhaps I might even have the privilege to see out the first act in full," Dorian replied with a perfectly appropriate grimace, "He's disgracefully overeager and just," he paused, screwing up his nose, "Dreadful."
"Oh yes," Lord Henry agreed, "He's utterly terrible, and worse still, entirely influential."
"Tell me, Harry," the lad remarked, catching a tail of the comment as he knew all too well that the other man enjoyed any excuse to just keep talking, "Are all influential people bound to be terrible?"
"Not at all," returned Lord Henry, "It is simply that those who are terrible and hold influence are far more interesting than those who choose to be terrible without anything behind it."
"Do they have to be?" questioned the lad, "Be terrible, I mean."
"No," came the reply, "But there is an intrigue to wickedness that serves as a challenge, one enabled once a person is offered an opportunity to exert any sort of influence over another. It is quite natural, of course, as the wickedness of one's influence can only stem from the wickedness of the person themselves, more so even than the susceptibility of those who their influence is being pressed upon."
"And if the influence was intended to be good?"
"Then the person was insincere," returned he, "Influence is, by definition, immoral and to claim others is to no end greater than to assuage a guilty conscience."
Considering the man was entirely comfortable and enjoyed asserting his influence over the lives of others far too much, it was safe to assume Lord Henry was entirely unrepentant. Or just entirely lacking in the guilty conscience of which he had remarked of with so little care for the matter. Or more likely still, it was a combination of both, his unrepentant nature coming as a direct result of him lacking in any feelings of guilt over the repercussions his influence had on the lives of others.
By this stage, Lord Henry had returned himself to a perfectly presentable state, apart from the smoking jacket that had served as a makeshift blanket and had proceeded to be taken as a sort of hostage by Dorian. Dorian, who had put precisely none of the same effort to make himself seem more put together and so was left with a charmingly disheveled aesthetic, had taken it upon himself to cling the crimson fabric to his chest. He hoped very much that he was looking, at the very least, half as dramatic and tragic as he was hoping for.
"Tomorrow then?" Dorian said, gazing up at the man with big, blue eyes.
"Certainly," came the reply, and as if to finalise this, the man stamped out the cigarette that had been ignored just long enough to have burnt through its usefulness, "I shall write to you in the morning with a time. Sometime after noon, certainly. Nothing worth doing is ever done before noon."
"Do you promise?" came the reply. The question itself left Dorian feeling oddly, and perhaps just a little embarrassingly childish but he held the point all the same.
"I never make promises if I have any intention to actually keep to my word." the elder returned nonchalantly.
This was not entirely what Dorian was hoping for, and so the younger of the men let out a discontented murmur to make sure that the other was fully aware of this. He was, perhaps, just being a little petty at this point but in his defence - as much of a defence as it actually counted for at least - he had woken in a bit of a mood and so felt it was absolutely vital to make sure that he made it everyone's problem immediately.
"Do not forget," came the pacifying enough reply, "It was by my own suggestion that we were to meet tomorrow at all."
With this declared, the man rose to his feet. There was no haste to his languid movements, as if he had never once felt the tug of timed obligation dragging him onwards. Or perhaps it was his own disconnect from the world, an observer of the world free from the expectation of active engagement, that left him free to move to no speed dictated by anyone by himself. More likely, however, was that he just was trying to delay having to go out and be seen in a way that he was quite sure would be just as tedious and unnecessary to his wife as it was feeling to him.
He drifted over to reclaim his coat, though not without much displeasure from the fellow who had temporarily claimed it.
With a pout - practiced, charming and not without an edge of something innocent gleaming through - Dorian made a show of contemplating whether or not he would actually return the garment to its rightful owner. He took the quirk of the other's eyebrow as a challenge to draw things out just that little bit longer than it necessarily needed to be, but before it reached a level of excess he considered to be nothing more than dull, he handed the coat back again.
"If you've not written to me by the time I wake tomorrow," Dorian said with an airy sense of a threat, "I shall be cross with you, Harry."
"You are never cross with me, dear boy," Lord Henry replied in a tone that anyone else hearing it might take to be patronising and dismissing, but Dorian took as light teasing, "But if it is so very important to you, it shall be done."
The man moved to leave, and taking this as a cue to leave, the younger of the two moved to rise up to follow him out.
"Goodbye Dorian, no need to get up," the elder of the two intervened, "I shall show myself out."
And he did precisely that, Lord Henry vanishing out the door on smooth footfalls. He stopped only once to check his reflection in yet another of the multitude of mirrors that decorated the place to ensure his coat, tossed on with a flourish, was sitting neatly.
Only a handful of moments had passed once Dorian was alone before he flung himself back down with the intention of falling back to sleep once more. Annoyingly though, he was just a little too awake by that point and so just sat about sulking for a quarter of an hour at most before ringing for tea to be brought to him.
He did not require Lord Henry's attention to enjoy himself and so he decided to ponder his own possible means of entertaining himself for the remainder of the day, and as we all know, there was nothing better to plot, scheme and ponder things with than a decent cup of tea.