Chapter Text
Aventurine pants, eyes half lidded, lips parted and kissed glossy and pink. The daze of lust and pleasure laps pleasantly over his mind, ebbing in his stomach like a great wave preparing to transform into a tsunami. His hands grip a sturdy pair of shoulders, clammy and sweat slick against the hot flesh. His head is leant sideways against the back of a couch, facing the man who’s currently got a hand slipped down his white trousers and beneath his boxers. Aventurine bites his lips together, eyes rolling back. He’s watching the way the air moves through that chest inches from his face. Bare, muscular arms grace the air—a blue sash thrown to the side, but unfortunately he still hears a black tank top with a collar that reaches his throat. Aventurine reaches out to flatten his palm against the diamond shaped cut out in his shirt in a lustful whim. He gives a closed mouth moan then sucks in a thin breath through his teeth.
These fingers are firm, thick, and decisive. He’s sat in the palm of a man that makes him feel fainting from the mere sight of him. Taut muscles, hot skin, a low rumbling voice that he can’t quite make out the words of at the moment, but practically lulls his pleased mind into something of a trance. He feels those fingers thrust and pull, flicking the farthest reaches within him and sending that wave further back, pulling, and pulling, and growing in intensity as it prepares to crash.
Then his other hand lies on Aventurine’s trembling knee to keep his legs from pulling inwards, applying just barely enough strength to keep him in place. Though something about that grip and the way his knuckles bend that sends him over the edge, his chest convulses as he gasps in airy tones that if he would never allow past his lips in any other circumstance.
In pure bliss, he throws his head back, taking his gaze away from that wrist—away from those cords like tendons flexing and pulling—and his pink tinged eyes land upon the statuesque face of the man who’s fingers threaten to send him to heaven.
He’s met with a focused, but passioned expression with amber eyes that carry a heat which sears him alive.
“Ratio,” Aventurine moans, body jerking as hot liquid shoots from his body, pooling in Ratio’s palm and soaking his boxers. “Fuck—” He gasps in a timely manner, at every pulse of pleasure, every gush of fluid that slips from his body in ripe hot pleasure.
He doesn’t look away from Ratio’s face. His eyes flick to his lips and thinks about kissing him. He thinks about throwing him down to the couch and eating him alive right here and now.
The fingers inside of him slow. The last few drops trickle down the inside of his thighs and soak his pants. Whatever… His breaths slow and the dizziness and pressure behind his eyes retracts and this time in its wake is a coldness that washes over him like thousands of stinging needles.
He stares at the doctor’s face. There’s a crinkle in those smooth, firm brows of his.
Something starts to feel out of place, like he’s forgotten something fatally important, like he’s committed a capital offense without knowing what.
Aventurine closes his mouth, not realizing his lips had been parted. His multicolored eyes dart across Ratio’s face. Something like clarity smacks him hard in the face. He flutters his eyes as if to blink away the haze, head twitching to the side like his neck had been screwed on a little too far.
The doctor.
Veritas Ratio.
He reminds himself.
How is this happening? How did I get here? How did this happen?
“Are you quite alright?” Ratio’s voice is concerned, but doesn’t waver. He slips his hand away from Aventurine and he feels the loss of warmth like a stab to the chest. His jaw falls open again and he feels that he’s making an unpleasant face, but he can’t seem to control the way his muscles tense.
Aventurine turns away, facing forward and draping his legs over the edge of the couch. He feels almost tired, but at the same time far more awake than he’d like to be. The room is too vivid, but his eyes won’t focus.
He tries to remember while he zips up his pants, interlocking his hands together over his knees while he stares at a television that’s been left on. A movie is playing, but they obviously weren’t watching it.
The good doctor had finally taken up his offer after a multitude of failed attempts to take him out for a simple dinner between friends. Ratio kept assuming Aventurine must’ve wanted something from him or was looking to pry information out of him that the IPC had sent him out to extract.
Yet, after the last visit to his office and more proof than the doctor would’ve ever asked for that this wasn’t an assignment for the IPC and the gambler’s genuine desire to reconvene with his former partner, he begrudgingly blocked out a day in his schedule to make time for him.
He had almost lost the man after all, the least he could do was humor him for one night.
Though he ended up doing much more than that. It turns out Veritas Ratio has a weak spot for red wine and Aventurine has never cared to pace himself, especially in the company of someone he’s been trying to charm for months.
The excitement of finally getting any affirmation of his efforts at all from the man was enough to give him the confidence to invite a tipsy Veritas to his hotel room to watch a movie while the doctor let himself sober up enough to drive, being such a lightweight in the fact that he rarely indulges.
And they found themselves in the couch and Aventurine couldn’t keep his hands to himself and sometime later their lips had met and…
Aventurine admittedly had a lot more to drink than he should’ve. He never would’ve been so forward normally, especially not with Ratio of all people. Charming someone with ill intent is one thing, but the stoneheart has never been good at making advances on people he’s actually interested in.
Meaning he doesn’t.
But there’s something about Veritas Ratio even the nerves can’t keep him away from.
And tonight whisked by him in a pleasant breeze, just the way he planned and everything went exactly as he hoped it might.
Like always.
Yet… for some reason, right now as he stares at his knees this doesn’t feel much like a win. Not even a draw, for that matter. Now that he thinks about it, it’s not really like he’s lost either. He’s just…
Stagnant in this moment, as if he’s not in the same room anymore or the same night, or the same week, not even the same timeline, and maybe not even the same person.
“Aventurine,” Ratio calls softly from behind him. The couch groans as he shifts closer, yet still leaves a good amount of distance between them. His voice is sobering.
No, no, no, absolutely not what I need.
The doctor continues. “Is something wrong?”
“Quiet, just… hold on,” He holds up a hand, speaking a bit more robotically than he’d like to. “Be quiet.” Then he curls his arm in so that he can rest the same hand against his forehead, fingers pressing divets in the skin. There’s a roaring wind circling round his head and he can’t seem to quell it.
His breaths are quiet and sparse, more like little puffs than actual inhales. His eyes land somewhere on the screen of the television but he doesn’t actually make out anything more than moving colors and shapes. His body feels warm and nice and a wave of vibrations go tumbling up and down his spine every so often.
Then there’s that feeling in his gut. The warm fluttery feeling right below his navel that reminds him of the things inside his body he’d rather not think about. That pressure that always came when his bare chest was shoved against a gritty concrete floor and there was an onslaught of pain accompanied by a myriad of other sickening symptoms.
Now there’s no pain, just this feeling. Yet, he doesn’t know what to do with it.
Nowadays he’s alone when he lets himself feel this way.
Even then, he feels like he’s drifting underwater for a long period of time afterward. Normally to combat it he’ll simply go to bed where the nightmares greet him unconditionally.
You really fucking forgot how incapable you are? Why can’t you be normal?
Why is your mouth hanging open like that? Stop staring like a horrified damsel in distress, get it together!
Aventurine bows his head slightly, his hand slides against his forehead and he feels that he’s started to sweat. His feet bounce idly against the carpeted floor. His teeth click when he finally gets around to shutting his jaw.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Why am I like this?
Nothing happened!
“I’ll um—I’ll be right back. Don’t get too comfortable while I’m gone.” He says as he stands, but it’s forced and he’s not really sure what it was supposed to mean and he knows by the staleness in Ratio’s silence that it was painfully obvious that he was trying to force out something close enough to what he’d normally say in a situation like this.
A situation like this? You don’t have situations like this with him…
Aventurine is in the suite’s luxurious marbled bathroom before he can even understand that his body has begun to move. He thinks about cleaning himself up and fixing his messy hair, envisioning a future where he’d frantically tidied himself up like a doll and returned to the doctor as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever occurred in the first place and they had continued onto the bedroom without a single care in the world.
I am good at scratching up my stupid up self into something presentable. I clean up well. Always do.
But he doesn’t. He’s not sure if he even caught his own eyes in the mirror before he sunk to the floor with his back pressed to the edge of the tub. His knees are drawn to his chest, chin resting between them as his hair tickles his cheeks.
The ceramic of the tub is cool and refreshing on his back. He feels disgusting. He really should clean up, but at the current moment he’s not really a hundred percent in control of his body.
So he sits there. It’s not the first time he’s stared at white polished tiles as if within their faint marbled design bore the answers to the universe itself. Though it’s the first time he’s done it with a sense of urgency quite like this nipping at the back of his skull. He can’t just disappear and wait for things to magically twist back into shape on their own like he always does.
He’s out there, waiting for you. Suck it up!
Genuinely, what is you problem?
What went wrong?
He tries to identify it, but touching that part of his mind feels like a dog reaching the bounds of it’s electric fence. So he recoils and instead analyses the pleasant parts of situation he’s found himself in tonight.
He’d let the doctor lecture him at the restaurant about his week at the academy he works at and Aventurine enjoyed himself greatly listening to that smooth, low voice of his. Though once they were alone the man went quiet and Aventurine naturally sought out ways to provoke a response from him. One of which being a full palm stroking along the doctor’s bicep with a comment about his well kept physique.
“The mind has an easier time connecting ideas and completing thoughts when one’s body is in motion. Exercise helps me think, that is all, but I’m glad someone’s paying attention. I do try to appear in a presentable fashion.” Ratio had replied. His face was tinged red and his neck was damp with sweat. It was clearer now more than before how ill versed he was in consuming alcohol.
“Try? I’d say you pass with flying colors, doc,” Aventurine had purred in his usual playful tone. Yet this time he was feeling rather flirtatious and let his eyes fall half lidded and relaxed in response to Ratio’s gaze as he drew precisely placed fingers down the thick tendon in the man’s arm. “But all I’ve seen you lift are books and pencils. I couldn’t possibly imagine the good doctor sweating and exerting himself—the very same man who keeps a steady pace not to disrupt his hair in the wind.”
Ratio’s face reddened further, his eyes escaping as he turned away for an exasperated breath.
It was addicting to play with this man.
“Whatever assumptions you’ve made about my demeanor are incorrect, gambler. I’m not that uptight about my appearance,” His eyes roll back to Aventurine. “But I wouldn’t put it past you to project something like that onto me.”
Aventurine’s lips curled into a smile, his hand encircling Ratio’s wrist as it laid on his thigh.
“You’re calling me uptight? After I treated you to a five star meal and invited you home.”
“This is not where you live.”
“And you know? Follow me home a few times, doc, just to see what the IPC’s dog does after a day of tugging— oh so hard —at the leash?” Aventurine added a light chuckle then.
“No, I’m not an idiot. Don’t be absurd.” He then used his other hand to unwrap Aventurine’s fingers from around his wrist. His hand was slightly sweaty and a little clumsy.
“Sorry, I’ll have you know, I don’t do anything to my hair, my luck simply allows the strands to fall in the perfect position no matter the occasion.”
Ratio crossed him arms and swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing along his throat. He faces the television, seeming to pretend to be suddenly immersed in the show they hadn’t been watching. Aventurine giggled, replacing his hand where the doctor had previously removed it. His fingers ghosted over the backside of his glove.
“Am I making you nervous, Veritas Ratio?” He drew the words out with purposeful flair, slurring a little at the doctor’s first name which he hadn’t been used to speaking aloud.
“I am only confused why you seem so keen on invading my personal space, otherwise I am simply experiencing the effects of one too many glasses of wine.” He answered without looking at him, but the man’s flushed face appeared to deepen in color.
“But your space looks so comfortable, mind sharing with a partner? Show me a little more of that physique you don’t work so hard on?” He tried then to work his fingers under the hen of the doctor’s glove. This time when Ratio grabbed Aventurine’s hand he shifted to face him while holding it up above the man’s head. His eyes were hard, staring down at him as if he were staring at an unruly student.
“I understand your intentions, gambler, but I have morals and I’m not completely mentally incapacitated. Have you considered I hadn’t accepted your proposals before because I had an idea of what you might be planning?”
”Ah ha, how introspective of you. You see right through me, don’t you? What is it I’m planning, then, if you’re so sure? Enlighten me with your theory.”
Dr Ratio let go of him hand, allowing it to fall to the couch. Then he huffed to himself, wearing somewhat of a smug look. “You haven’t been ordered to get in my good graces, but you’re doing it anyway because you believe that after the stunt you pulled you’d rather me accept the invitation the IPC sent me to join their company, but I won’t and I’d like you to know that the decision is not because of you nor will I allow it to be about you.”
“You think so poorly of me, why would I need you to work for the IPC when I know you’d come to my aid from any corner of the universe if I ever requested it?” Aventurine returned, hiding his offense at Ratio’s take. “You’ve already proven that to me, doctor. Why would I need to go to such lengths to keep you around? Um, look around you, you’re here now.”
“Yes and I realize my mistake, now in allowing myself to be affected by you,” Dr Ratio rubbed a hand down over his face. “I’m the one at a disadvantage, here.”
Aventurine felt his body sting with desire, straightening his spine. “Affected by me?”
”You are correct in your assessment. I’m inadvertently at your disposal, even if I were aware of your schemes or not.” He slid his arms over his chest, crossing them tightly.
“Uh, hold on, Doc,” Aventurine leaned forward, shifting to face Ratio so he could lay his hands on his elbows. “Let’s take a step back here. What effect do I have over you?” He couldn’t keep the smile from his face or out of his voice. Everything was falling into place.
Ratio’s eyes followed up and down Aventurine’s form, his tensed muscles remained stiff as ever. Though his blush and his darting eyes revealed just how nervous being confronted by shorter man’s made him.
“I shouldn’t have agreed to this.”
”Aw, don’t say that. Talk to me, Doc. You’re a walking novel at any other moment, but when it really comes down to it, you never show me your true colors. Don’t I deserve that as a reward for not getting you killed on Penacony?” He drummed his fingers against his arms, watching as Ratio’s brow twitched as he tried desperately to keep a straight face.
“It is not about what you deserve, it’s about keeping my focus unclouded by… things I need not indulge in.” He tried to look away, but a slender finger placed on the side of his jaw stopped his movements. Yet Aventurine hadn’t applied any force at all. It’s as if Ratio was simply frozen in place by the touch itself.
“What are you referring to? The alcohol or me?” Aventurine’s voice was quiet, a little less showy than he normally wears it, yet he couldn’t help but keep the fact that he was incredibly turned on out of his tone. He was sure it was blatantly obvious, but he he didn’t care. He was banking on the fact that it was helping his cause.
He got no answer, so he kept pushing on the cracks in Ratio’s composure.
“You say you’re affected by me, but you do a great job of not letting it show. You’ve got me curious now, Doctor Veritas Ratio, I wanna know what it looks like when a man like you indulges… so what is it?” Aventurine leaned in closer so that he could speak right in the man’s ear. The alcohol…” He stroked his hands up along Ratio’s biceps, puffing out his chest to close the space between them. Aventurine could hear his unsteady breaths, watching his throat move as he swallowed hard. “Or me?” He turned his head to let his lips brush the doctor’s ear. His blood boiled within him, filling him with adrenaline that burned at the sheer risk in his actions. The possibility of allowing himself to be so vulnerable without complete certainty or the possibility of ruining the trust they’d built on Penacony, losing the best partner he’d ever had, the first thing he could call a friend more than a coworker.
Ratio turned his head, his eyes meeting his with an intensity in their stare that made Aventurine truly question whether he’d truly fucked everything up or not.
Though the tension snapped as the Doctor leaned in.
And then they were kissing and every smack of their lips set Aventurine’s heart ablaze ten times hotter. He’d leaned back to get a better angle, fingers weaving in the dark hair at the back of his neck as he chuckled gently in his chest in response to the doctor's careful yet precise kissing.
Somewhere along the way Ratio’s hand settled on Aventurine’s knee, then the other on his waist and the stoneheart felt as if he may faint right then and there. He grasped that hand on his hip and murmured against Ratio’s lips,
“Gloves off.”
The great doctor renowned throughout the cosmos and the known universe was quick to comply.
Initially, Aventurine had breathed the words in a lust drunk desire to feel the man’s strong hands against him and experience his hot skin flush to his, but the doctor seemed to have something else in mind. Another interpretation which Aventurine wasn’t at all opposed to.
Sitting against the tub, now, forgetting exactly where in this timeline he currently exists, Aventurine feels his face grow hot at the thought of it. The doctor’s strong, confident fingers sliding against him so gently and slipping in without a single hesitation. No force, no pain, just tenderness and care in a place Aventurine had never felt it before.
And god it felt good, so what’s the problem? Why are you still doing this, sitting here like a stupid rag doll?
Just then there’s a quiet rapping at the door. It makes Aventurine’s heart stutter in his chest. Icy tingles zip through his veins. Adrenaline has him shoot to his feet as if someone might catch him in the act of being vulnerable.
“I will give you your space if that’s what you want, but before I leave I need to at least know for certain you’re not in poor health… physically or mentally. It would be against my morals to not be absolutely sure.” Ratio says, hesitating slightly at the end.
“I’m fine, doctor,” Aventurine gives a breathy laugh. He thrusts his hands into his hair and brushes it through twice before straightening himself up into an arrogant enough pose to face the doctor in. He throws the door open with a hand on his hip, wearing a lazy half smile to truly express just how in good spirits he is. “Is there something wrong with wanting to spruce myself up after such messy behavior? Wouldn’t you like me to clean up for the main act?” He rests a hand on his chest, the other gripped on the door handle behind him out of sight as if it were a lifeline.
Ratio stands before him with his arms crossed. His eyes take an extended trip from Aventurine’s socked feet up to his face. It’s almost criminal how those eyes linger. Aventurine is glad to be holding onto something sturdy for how violently his head swims. It seems his obsession with the doctor and his aversion to physical contact and intimacy are having a very negative reaction to each other and currently battle for dominance within the fog that clouds his psyche.
“But you haven’t.”
“I- Sorry?” He tilts his head in confusion, genuinely derailed by his reply. Dr Ratio opens his mouth to repeat himself, but before he can answer Aventurine cuts him off. “Oh, yes, well you’ve interrupted me. Obviously! ” He draws out the word, making sure to go heavy on the lisp. That’s how I sounded when I attracted him, right? He likes that?
“Your eyes are dilated, but you’re not exactly looking at me—or anything for that matter—now, you don’t seem to be very aware right now, but your eyes tell otherwise. They reflect that your parasympathetic nervous system is experiencing a state of agitation and if the subject isn’t something physical that you’re looking at to cause that reaction, it would lead me to believe that the subject of such emotional distress comes from within. In other words, I believe you are in a state of disassociation, Aventurine. Though this conclusion could’ve been reached much easier by the fact that you don’t seem to be hearing anything I’m saying to you right now.” Veritas Ratio explains in that melodic tone of his. His brow is furrowed, but Aventurine isn’t sure what he’s feeling.
He is not listening. Well, he is and he’s enjoying the sound of the doctor’s voice a great deal. He thinks about asking if he has a podcast or perhaps would be so inclined to record one of those lectures of his so that Aventurine can play it at night to help him sleep. The man’s voice is like a drug, honestly.
But that would be stupid and embarrassing, don’t do that.
Wouldn’t that just piss me off, though? I’d hate to wake up and realized I’d actually absorbed it and learned something from him… but, if he had a podcast, what the hell would he talk about other than math or theology or the cosmos and whatever bullshit he goes on about in those classrooms? What the fuck does this guy even do that isn’t pretentious?
“Do you even do anything other than stroke your own ego?” Aventurine retorts, smug with his ability to scratch up a comprehensive response. “You don’t need to babble your theories to me, I’m fine. Sure, I’ve had more to drink than I probably should, but god, don’t I deserve it? Why don’t you scamper back to your research now that you know you’re not getting what you want.” He lets go of the door and leans his back against the sink and tucks his hands behind him, feeling faint as pinpricks of static dot along the edge of his vision. He’s not sure he even remembers what the problem was in the first place or why he even cut their ‘interaction’ short.
So clearly it’s not important and there’s nothing wrong with you.
Why not give him what he wants, then?
You’re an idiot, you’re clearly incapable. You can’t even be coherent enough to be selfish and take what you want from him! You’re pathetic!
“What I want? No—I never intended to imply any intention of— I got carried away earlier and I’m sorry I’ve sent you into such a state. I will leave if you want me to, but you have to understand it’s my nature to want to,” Ratio gestures smally with his hands at his sides, uncharacteristically hesitant. “… help. Especially when I know I’ve caused you distress.”
God, you’re so fucked up it’s infecting him, too!
Aventurine sighs, hands gripping the cold countertop. “You wanna treat me like a patient? Sounds like some kind of strange fantasy I’ve had.”
“What? I—listen, I crossed a line, I admit that, but I want to make it right…” Now he’s the one left staring blankly and failing to piece together sentences.
Aventurine drops his head, a sudden twinge in his chest fills him with unplaced irritation. “If you crossed a line, you’d be dead, dear doctor. Should I tell you about the last man who crossed my line?” His tone is unintentionally harsh.
“Right, then…”
“Leave, yes,” He says without looking up, eyes stuck to the image of his black socks contrasted against white tiles. “I’m not myself.” He forces the words out, some horrible thing deep inside of him urging him to be honest to the doctor. His voice is so quiet he half hopes Ratio hadn’t heard.
Maybe it’s self sabotage, because honestly has only ever got him duped.
“What exactly does that mean?” Ratio asks, but the question isn’t meant to pry. His curiosity as a doctor is clearly driving him, yes, but his words are too cautious for it to only be that.
Oh, keep dreaming, princess.
Aventurine groans, his knees suddenly buckling. He takes a very deliberately slow, but measured fall to the floor where his elbows perch on his knees with trembling hands cupping his sweaty face. “Save me the humiliation and humor me, please. I just need quiet. I need everything to stop fucking moving for a second.” Despite his agitation and his attempt to keep up his demeanor, his voice is quite boneless.
The doctor’s voice is ever soothing and addictive to the ears, but Aventurine’s brain is moving too sluggishly to properly grasp it and the implication that in order to hear his voice means that the doctor is still here, seeing him in this state. That thought alone makes his heart race and his meager breaths catch in his chest.
You might as well smash your head on the marble for him to see at this point so he can fully understand how even you know how ridiculous this behavior is.
He closes his eyes, flattening his palms against his face until a spiral of static starts to spin behind his eyelids from the pressure. It feels good actually to have something simple like that to focus on. That and the cool air of the bathroom on his skin. He wants to dive into the spirals until the grey clouds his vision and swallows him whole.
There’s a shuffling of feet and a gentle click of the door shutting and Aventurine deflates, his head falling forward atop his knees.
Thank god.
He releases a long winded sigh in celebration of his solitude, proceeding to stare at the still damp fabric of his lap.
Disgusting.
Flashes of unfinished memories cross him, twinges jab him in the stomach in response and he tries his best not to acknowledge it. Though he has to keep himself from drifting too far into the nothingness at the back of his mind. He achieves this somewhat by rubbing at the knuckles on his left hand until they start to sting, then he scratches at the irritated skin.
At some point auto pilot kicks in and he draws himself a bath. The water pouring from the tap is searing hot, turning the skin of his hand an angry shade of pink. Perfect. He leans down to plug the drain.
Now would be the perfect time to cry or scream out or perhaps curse himself, but he doesn’t do any of that. Not a peep leaves his lips for that matter. He sits perfectly still like a statue until the water reaches the lip of the tub and he has to wrench his hand out to shut off the water. Moving feels like trying to position a doll with rusted joints. In his solitude he allows his face to fall into a very tired, very loose expression. He’s not sure if his eyes are dilated or not. He doesn’t check. He doesn’t care. That information isn’t of use to him, it’s apparently of use to people like Veritas Ratio who use the data to analyze his psychological state or perhaps there’s a deeper meaning to why the doctor knows his eyes so well.
Undressing is like trying to remove a death gripped prey from a python’s jaws.
A hiss leaves Aventurine as he sinks into the bath, tendrils of steam go spiraling out as if he were being cooked from the inside out. His skin prickles over in stinging pain from the intense heat.
God that’d be nice. They say endangered or extinct species always taste the best… I wonder why they didn’t eat me when they had the chance.
His head lulls to the side in the tub, eyes blankly staring at the ceiling.
Why didn’t he devour me when he had the chance? Why was he so docile? So… careful.
The only other time someone was careful with Aventurine was in order to coerce him into trusting them so that the ‘main act’ would be all the much easier achieved. It worked and the stoneheart had another lesson branded into him which he carries with him to this day. Don’t trust people, especially people who are kind to you with no obvious motive.
That night, that bar, that man. It had been so long since Aventurine’s ‘freedom’ he should’ve known better. He should’ve been past falling for trivial means of manipulation, yet, he did and he spent the next morning sore and vomiting up whatever had been slipped into his drink earlier.
He slaps a wet hand over his face, trying to claw himself back to reality. Yet, the memories are too cruel for that.
And those things kept happening.
Aventurine’s luck didn’t ever save him from being a fool. Maybe he was always destined for despair to even out his blessing. It’d make sense. Why would a god grant anyone a blessing without some horrible side effect or hidden catch?
Or maybe he was simply just a fool susceptible to being used.
Why didn’t Ratio use me? He was right there, so hungry and possessive as he kissed me dizzy, but then the moment he had me like putty in his hands, all he did was sit there and watch with those damn eyes.
It didn’t make sense. Ratio don’t make sense.
Swirling the suds that float atop the water with his finger, Aventurine wonders if he should go out and spend his money to make himself feel better. Maybe he’ll throw a few dice, flip a few cards, just to prove to himself he’s still got ‘it.’ Though at the moment he’s not sure he’d be able to coordinate his own body to even get dressed. This damn paralysis grips him far deeper than just on the physical level. He sits in the tub for what feel like hours, staring at nothing and thinking about nothing while his mind occasionally presents him a tidbit of a memory that sends him deeper into his blank, glassy eyed daze. Aventurine thinks about the doctor. Water drips off the tip of his nose. He feels far drunker than he actually is.
You become inanimate. An object. How ironic and horribly fitting.
What even happened? What set you off? Realizing it was his face you were coming to?
No… it was what he felt when he met those eyes. Something so foreign and sweetly nestled beside his heart that he had to push it away as fast as possible in fear that it may crumble to pieces in his hands.
“Fuck!” He shouts, gripping his hands in his damp hair and making fists. “You were there, everything was perfect. You got what you wanted? Since when can’t I handle winning!?” He groans, dropping his head so that the water drips down over his face. The humiliation is unbearable. It’s like a hot knife through his chest that sinks deeper everytime he pictures the doctor’s face and remembers he saw him like that.
And then the horrible fact that he’ll never be able to face him again.
“For all my luck, this blessing really knows how to backfire on me.” Aventurine mumbles to himself, stepping out of the tub and burying his face in a towel. He throws his hair messily back over his head and decides to call it a night and slips into one of his expensive downy feather robes before stepping out of the bathroom.
He’ll pamper himself, order room service, buy something online, have some more wine because why not, anything to distract himself from the horrific little thing called shame eating away at him from the inside out.
I’m important if I want the doctor gone out of my sight for the foreseeable future, I can make it happen. This can disappear with a snap of my fingers.
He assures himself mentally as he steps back into the hotel suite. His goal is the phone where he’ll order a dessert offensive for his figure to soothe his palette.
He freezes about one step out of the bathroom. His hotel suite is not empty for an unbothered Dr Ratio is lounged on the couch in front of the master bed with a book propped up in his hand eyes unmoving from the text as Aventurine emerges from the bathroom.
Aventurine stammers out something incomprehensible, clutching the robe to his body as he feels his face grow hot. Finally piecing some semblance of words together he shouts,
“Wh- why are you still—I said leave!”
Veritas Ratio’s eyes slide from his book to meet Aventurine’s gaze.
“You didn’t specify for me to vacate the building entirely, besides I didn't think it would be a good idea for you to be unattended in a state like that until I was absolutely sure you were in better condition,” He says as if there’s absolutely nothing wrong with his logic, nor the situation they both share. “Also, you took my keys at the bar when you declared me too tipsy to drive, so I didn’t have much choice.”
Yes, he did do that. Except the doctor’s keys are just in his jacket pocket. It wouldn’t have been a very arduous task for him to find them.
Aventurine slaps a palm to his face, trying to hide his horrified expression. He wants to flee, but he’s not exactly sure if he can go out in only a robe and the only other room in the suite is the bathroom. So in the end he does a little useless spin as he tries to scratch up enough working brain cells to deal with this.