Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The mission ended at two seventeen in the morning with one recovered cipher, four conspirators in custody, a section of the embassy's western balcony scattered across the courtyard, and Aventurine emerging from an ornamental tree with blood running down both hands.

By two forty-one, the cipher had been transferred to secure storage, the prisoners had been surrendered to local authorities, and Ratio had been assured three separate times that Aventurine had declined medical attention. Aventurine objected to the word declined. According to him, he had merely explained that treatment was unnecessary and continued walking before the physician could disagree.

Ratio objected to his objection and followed him back to his room.

The door sealed behind them, cutting off the last of the voices and hurried footsteps in the corridor. The sudden quiet made the aftermath more obvious. Leaves still clung to Aventurine's coat. Dust had settled pale against one shoulder, and the blood dried across his gloves had turned almost black beneath the suite's warm lighting.

Aventurine removed his mask as he crossed the room and tossed it onto the desk without looking. It skidded through the incident reports Ratio had arranged before the mission and came to rest against the lamp, green stones flashing once beneath the light.

Ratio watched him continue toward the washroom.

"You declined the physician."

Aventurine loosened one cuff with his teeth. "I am upright, coherent, and in possession of all my limbs."

"You are bleeding through both gloves."

"No one is perfect."

Ratio followed him into the washroom. "Your standards are appalling."

The lights came on automatically, hard and white after the dim embassy gardens. Aventurine turned on the tap and held his hands beneath it. Water struck the dried blood and carried thin pink streams into the basin, but it did little for the fabric still stuck to his skin.

He began peeling away what remained of the right glove. The glove had split almost completely across the palm. Blood had soaked through the torn material and dried there, adhering it to the abrasions beneath. The first pull barely shifted it. Aventurine's fingers tightened against the edge of the basin before he tried again, more sharply this time.

He smiled at his reflection.

The expression arrived too smoothly.

Ratio stopped directly behind him, close enough that their reflections nearly overlapped in the mirror.

"Take it off properly."

"That was the intention."

"You are tearing the skin further."

"It has already been torn. Very inconsiderate of it."

"You caught the broken edge of a collapsing balcony with both hands."

"I was there, Doctor."

The problem was not that Aventurine had caught the ledge. That had almost certainly kept the fall from being worse. The problem was that he had needed to catch it at all.

"You should never have been on that balcony."

Aventurine glanced at him through the mirror. "The courier was strangely unwilling to wait for the stairs."

"You pursued an armed man and grabbed broken-"

Aventurine glanced at him through the mirror. "Are you criticizing me for attempting not to fall?"

"I am criticizing you for pursuing an armed courier onto a balcony that was actively being destroyed beneath your feet."

Aventurine hummed and lifted his hand. 

"Do not pull it off with your mouth," Ratio caught his wrist before he could.

Aventurine's gaze dropped immediately to Ratio's hand around him. The smile changed, sharpening a little. He tilted his head.

"Careful," he said. "People might think you're concerned."

"People frequently reach idiotic conclusions from insufficient evidence."

"And here I thought your reaction to my blood was fairly compelling."

"It is evidence that you are reckless and don't think before you act. I had already established that. Numerous times, in fact."

Ratio loosened the damaged fastening and began working the glove away from the wound in small sections. Aventurine leaned one hip against the basin, watching him in the mirror with bright, exhausted amusement.

"You could have let the courier go," Ratio said.

"That would have defeated the purpose of pursuing him."

"You had the route sealed."

"And leave it to some third rate low-level employees, not even from my department? No chance. Plus - he was carrying the second cipher."

"You did not know whether he still had it."

"I calculated that he did."

"You gambled that he did."

Aventurine's mouth curved. "Now you're speaking my language."

Ratio pulled the glove free.

Aventurine's breath caught.

The reaction was small. Genuine enough to irritate Ratio further.

Both broad abrasions across the palm had reopened. The skin beneath his fingers was split where he had held the fractured stone, and a deeper cut crossed the heel of his hand, still bleeding sluggishly now that the fabric no longer compressed it.

Aventurine lifted the hand between them and examined it beneath the light.

"Oh, no."

Ratio reached for the antiseptic stored beneath the basin. "What?"

"My nail."

Aventurine turned his hand gravely towards him. The polished edge of one nail had broken unevenly against the stone.

"Ruined," he continued. "And I believe there may be dirt on my coat. Possibly even a tear. I don't know how I'll survive the night."

"Your palms are bleeding because you tried to hold up a collapsing balcony, you absolute idiot."

Aventurine went still.

Ratio had raised his voice. Not by much. Enough that the words echoed in the tiled room harder than intended.

For one second, Aventurine merely stared at him through the mirror.

Then he laughed.

The sound escaped low and warm, startlingly genuine beneath the exhaustion. He turned his head, looking at Ratio directly now rather than through the reflection.

"You're very upset."

"I am surrounded by incompetence."

"Isn't it thrilling?"

"I wouldn't describe it as thrilling or the appropriate response to falling into a tree. Especially when you kept fighting from inside it."

"I won, didn't I?"

"You fell almost two floors."

"And remained remarkably handsome."

"You struck the branches hard enough to split the planter beneath them."

"That planter was hideous. I consider it a public service."

"You are not funny."

"I am delightful. You're simply too tired to appreciate it tonight."

Ratio set the antiseptic on the edge of the basin with a sigh.

Aventurine looked delighted.

"You could have fractured several ribs."

"I didn't."

"You do not know that."

"I can breathe."

"That is not a valid diagnostic, damned gambler."

"I can do several other things too, if you require a more thorough demonstration."

Ratio stared at him.

Aventurine smiled wider.

There it was. The exact expression he had worn in the ballroom when he extended his hand and asked Ratio to dance, as though every refusal were merely another stage of acceptance. But now his hair was disordered, leaves still caught near the back of his collar, and both his hands were bleeding into the white basin.

Still unbearable.

"You are a Pathstrider of Preservation," Ratio said. "Not an indestructible object."

Aventurine pressed his uninjured fingertips to his chest and gave a faint, scandalized gasp. "Doctor. That is almost blasphemous."

"It is an observable fact."

"Qlipoth may disagree."

"THEY might one day."

Aventurine's expression shifted.

Barely.

Ratio regretted the sentence immediately and therefore continued before either of them could examine it.

"Mm." Aventurine looked down at the blood on his palm. "And you arrived shortly afterward to shout at me."

"I did not shout."

"You're shouting now."

"I am speaking at the volume required to penetrate your thick skull."

"So you admit you were worried."

"I admit you are remarkably resistant to instruction."

Aventurine looked back up.

He was tired. Ratio could see it now that the mask was gone and the light was harsher - the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the strain held too carefully from his mouth, the way he kept his left side angled away from the basin. He had been doing that since they left the courtyard actually. Which meant-

Ratio's gaze dropped to his side, the way his arm was very carefully positioned, not to high, not to low, not touching his sides either.

Aventurine followed his attention and sighed.

"The arm is still attached too."

"Remove the coat."

"Very direct."

"The coat, Aventurine."

"You could at least pretend this is part of the debrief."

"It is. I am documenting the consequences of your foolish decisions."

"That sounds almost intimate."

Ratio took the ruined glove from his other hand before Aventurine could begin pulling at it himself.

Aventurine let him.

Not obediently. Never that. He leaned closer instead, the movement bringing his shoulder against Ratio's chest, and watched their hands reflected together in the mirror.

"Ugh...So serious," he murmured. "The mission was successful, you know."

"Success does not retroactively make every decision intelligent."

"No," Aventurine agreed. "Sometimes it only makes them worthwhile."

"You could have split your head open-"

"But I didn't."

Ratio met his eyes in the mirror.

The water continued running into the basin, carrying thin streams of red toward the drain.

Neither of them looked away.

Then Ratio reached past him and shut off the tap.

The sudden quiet made the small room feel narrower. Aventurine's gaze dropped briefly to Ratio's hand on the fixture, then to the space between them. They were standing close enough that Ratio could feel the heat still clinging to him from the fight, could see the faint tremor beginning in the fingers Aventurine held too casually over the basin.

"Sit," Ratio said.

Aventurine's mouth curved, but the familiar answer never quite arrived. He pushed away from the marble instead and sat on the closed edge of the bathing platform, one shoulder resting against the wall. The movement was slower than it should have been.

Ratio opened the medical cabinet.

Behind him, Aventurine said, "You know, I already declined professional opinion tonight."

"She was attempting to assess you while you had a courier's collar in one fist and were negotiating terms into his ear."

"That wasn't negotiation. That was diplomacy."

"He was unconscious for most of it."

"He was a very agreeable audience."

Ratio looked back at him. He looked too composed for a man with blood drying between his fingers, and not composed enough to convince Ratio.

Ratio took out a pair of tweezers, sterile gauze, and antiseptic.

The smile faded a little when Aventurine saw the tweezers.

"No."

"There is stone embedded in the wound."

"It is superficial."

"You have not looked closely enough to know that."

"I can feel it."

"You have spent the last hour insisting you feel nothing."

"That was before you became determined to prove otherwise."

Ratio held out his hand.

Aventurine stared at it for a moment. Then he placed his injured palm in it with a theatrical sigh and an air of reluctant generosity, as though Ratio were the one being indulged.

The gravel was small, pale against the blood and torn skin. Ratio turned Aventurine's hand beneath the light, searching for the angle that would cause the least additional damage.

Aventurine watched his face rather than the wound.

"This will hurt," Ratio said.

"You sound pleased."

"I am warning you."

"Very considerate."

Ratio began with the shallowest fragment. It came free cleanly. Aventurine did not react.

The second was deeper.

His fingers shifted in Ratio's grip.

Ratio paused. "Hold still."

"I am holding still."

"You are attempting to withdraw your hand."

"I am reconsidering the whole arrangement. You know doc, following someone into their room in the middle of the night is not the best loo-"

Ratio's thumb settled against the inside of his wrist, firm enough to keep him from moving without gripping the injured skin.

Aventurine went quiet.

The tweezers touched the wound again. Ratio felt the pulse beneath his thumb quicken before Aventurine's expression changed at all.

He removed the fragment.

Aventurine inhaled through his nose and looked away, toward the blank white wall.

Ratio placed the piece of stone on the gauze.

"There are three more."

Aventurine closed his eyes briefly. "Amazing. Love this."

"You can complain."

His eyes opened again. "I have been."

"Not about the pain."

Something shifted in Aventurine's face. It was small enough that Ratio might have missed it had he not been watching for every involuntary movement.

Then the smile returned.

"I didn't realize you required a full report."

Ratio lowered his gaze to the hand between them. "You are not required to make everything difficult."

"Only the important things."

Ratio did not answer.

He worked more slowly after that. The next fragment lay close to the base of Aventurine's fingers, driven in at an angle by the broken stone. Ratio had to press the skin aside to reach it. Aventurine's breathing remained even until the instant the tweezers closed.

His hand jerked.

Ratio tightened his hold before the metal could tear anything further.

Aventurine made a small sound and immediately pressed his lips together.

"There," Ratio said quietly. "That is what I meant."

"It stings."

"Yes. I believe I warned you."

"You appear vindicated."

"I am not."

The answer came sharper than Ratio intended.

Aventurine looked at him.

Ratio removed the fragment and set the tweezers aside long enough to press clean gauze over the renewed bleeding. Aventurine's hand was cold despite the warmth of the room.

"You could have lost your grip sooner," Ratio said, his eyes still on the wound. "You could have landed without the branches beneath you. You could have struck the planter edge instead of the soil. Preservation does not eliminate impact trauma. It reduces the likelihood that it kills you."

"I know."

"You behave as though probability is the same as immunity."

Aventurine's gaze remained on their hands. "I know the difference."

Ratio believed him.

That was, perhaps, the most infuriating part.

He cleaned the remaining gravel from both palms without further argument. Aventurine still tensed when the antiseptic touched the raw skin, still tried to disguise the worst of it by turning his attention elsewhere, but he stopped attempting to pull away. By the time Ratio wrapped the second hand, the theatrical brightness had drained from him almost entirely.

He sat with his bandaged palms turned upward, studying them as though they belonged to someone else.

Ratio threw bloodied gauze in the sink, in lack of a proper bio-hazard disposal.

"The coat," he said again.

Aventurine looked up. "You're very persistent."

"You are holding your left arm away from your side."

"It's just bruised."

"You do not know that it is only bruised."

"I can move it, so it is fine."

"That proves very little."

Aventurine exhaled, the sound hovering between amusement and surrender. He reached for the fastening at his throat, but the bandages made the movement clumsy. His fingers slipped once, then again.

Ratio stepped closer and lifted his hands to the clasp. The fastening came free beneath his fingers, followed by the next one, and the next. Aventurine watched him. The air seemed to change with each small click of metal.

They had kissed only hours ago.

The thought arrived without permission and remained there, inconveniently vivid - Aventurine's mouth under his, the surprised break in his breathing, the way he had followed when Ratio drew back.

Ratio kept his attention on the coat.

"Raise your arm."

Aventurine did, though not very high.

Ratio eased the garment from his right shoulder first. When he reached the left, Aventurine's body tightened before the fabric had even moved.

Ratio stopped.

"How bad?"

"It isn't."

"Aventurine."

"Just sore."

Ratio drew the coat down carefully, supporting the injured arm so the weight of the fabric would not pull at it. Aventurine went very still while he worked. The coat slipped free at last and Ratio set it aside.

The shirt beneath was open at the shoulder and along the lower side. Dark bruising showed through the gap in the fabric.

Ratio's jaw tightened.

Aventurine noticed. "That expression is becoming repetitive."

"Remove the shirt too."

Aventurine's eyebrows lifted slightly. Ratio could hear the suggestive comment already, how Aventurine would smile and tilt his head just so to make him flustered and look away.

Ratio did not look away.

That silenced whatever answer had first occurred to Aventurine apparently.

With his hands wrapped, the buttons were nearly impossible. Aventurine managed two before Ratio caught his wrists and moved them gently aside.

"Let me."

For once, Aventurine did not turn the words into a joke.

Ratio undid the shirt himself. His knuckles brushed Aventurine's chest once, then again lower down, each contact brief and unavoidable and far too easy to notice in the quiet. Aventurine's breathing changed by a fraction, though whether from pain or proximity Ratio could not yet determine.

Bruising spread from the outside of Aventurine's upper arm across his shoulder and down his left side, already dark at the center where he had struck the thicker branches. Another wide mark sat over the lower ribs. The skin around it was swollen.

Older injuries crossed beneath the new ones. Pale and dark lines, some thin, others jagged where the flesh had once healed poorly. A rough scar disappeared beneath one rib and emerged again farther back. Another cut diagonally across his flank. More marked his shoulders and back when the shirt slid away, old enough that their edges had softened but not vanished.

Ratio's eyes passed over them.

His hand settled instead at the edge of the fresh bruising.

Aventurine watched him lower it.

"Tell me if the pain becomes sharp."

"It's a bruise, Doctor."

"Bruising forms over fractures."

"Nothing is broken."

"You cannot know that without examination."

"I know my own body."

"You ignore your own body."

The words landed more heavily than the rest of the lecture.

Aventurine's expression stilled.

Ratio softened his touch, not his voice. "Raise the arm as far as you comfortably can."

Aventurine rolled his eyes but did. Slowly this time.

Ratio pressed along the shoulder first, testing the joint, then moved down the upper arm. The muscles tightened beneath his fingertips at one point, though Aventurine gave no other sign.

"Here?"

"Sore."

He moved lower. "Here?"

"Less sore. Really, if you wanted an excuse to put your hands-"

Ratio's hand moved inward, beneath the arm and along the side and Aventurine's breath caught.

Ratio stopped immediately.

"It surprised me. Nothing more."

"Your pulse says otherwise."

Aventurine looked down at him. "My pulse is dramatic. It takes after me."

Ratio pressed again, much more lightly. Aventurine's abdomen tightened before his fingers made full contact.

The reaction was enough.

Ratio traced the rib carefully, checking for deformity. Nothing shifted beneath his hand. No grinding. No obvious break. He moved to the next, then the next, each touch measured and deliberate.

Aventurine had gone quiet.

At first Ratio assumed he was concentrating on concealing discomfort. Then he noticed where Aventurine was looking.

Not at the bruises.

At Ratio's hand.

Ratio's fingers moved over the old ridge of a scar as he followed the line of the rib. The texture changed beneath his touch, pulling slightly against the surrounding skin. He adjusted instinctively, easing the pressure there before continuing.

Aventurine's gaze lifted to his face.

Neither of them acknowledged the pause.

"Breathe in," Ratio said.

Aventurine did.

"Deeper."

His ribs expanded beneath Ratio's palm. The breath stopped short near the end.

"Again."

"This is becoming excessive."

"Again."

Aventurine inhaled. This time Ratio felt precisely where the movement faltered.

"No instability," he said, more to himself than to Aventurine. "Possibly a severe contusion. A hairline fracture cannot be excluded without a scan however."

"I told you it was a bruise."

"And that was not what I said."

"It was close enough."

Ratio looked up at him. "A fractured rib can puncture a lung. You cannot leave something like this unaddressed."

Aventurine's smile returned faintly. "Yet mine appears unpunctured."

Ratio didn't indulge him any further. He helped him up by his uninjured side. 

"Turn. I also need to examine your lower back." 

"Oh wow, doctor, now that's-"

"Your spine could be injured you wre-" he exhaled. "Spinal injuries can worsen after the initial impact. Turn."

"And I can still walk, so it doesn't apply-" 

"People have walked immediately after vertebral fractures."

"You do know how to make an evening romantic."

Ratio's hand went against his side.

The remark was light, but Aventurine's voice had gone quieter. He no longer sounded entirely amused.

Ratio moved behind him.

"Turn."

Aventurine did.

The bruises across his back were less concentrated, scattered among the old scars and the reddish marks left by branches. One darker patch sat perilously close to the lower spine.

Ratio touched the skin beside it.

Aventurine flinched.

It was almost imperceptible.

Ratio's fingers gentled at once.

"Bend forward."

"Oh, now you have to be doing it on purpose." Aventurine laughed, then placed his bandaged hands against the basin and leaned over it.

Ratio examined each vertebra in turn, pressing carefully along both sides. Aventurine's back was warm beneath his fingertips, the muscles tense despite his effort to appear relaxed. Ratio took his time, testing each point, watching for any change in breathing or balance.

Near the lower bruise, Aventurine's shoulders drew tight.

Ratio stopped.

"Here?"

A pause.

"Yes."

"Sharp?"

"No."

"Radiating?"

"No."

"Numbness?"

"No."

Ratio pressed slightly lower.

Aventurine's fingers curled against the marble. "It actually feels kinda nice."

Ratio withdrew immediately.

"That is enough."

Aventurine straightened slowly. When he turned, they were closer than either of them had intended.

Ratio's hand was still at his waist.

Aventurine's hair had fallen forward across his face, and without the smile fully in place, exhaustion made him look younger and more vulnerable than Ratio was prepared to consider.

For several seconds, neither of them moved.

Then Aventurine glanced down at Ratio's hand.

"You're being very gentle," he said.

There was no mockery in it, or if it was, it wasn't a sharp as he was used to from him.

Ratio looked at the bruising beneath his fingers.

"You are injured."

"Apparently."

"And you are an idiot."

Aventurine's mouth curved, small and tired. "Apparently that too."

Ratio should have stepped back.

Instead, his thumb moved once over the unbruised skin beside the scar at Aventurine's side, almost absent-mindedly, as though confirming that the flesh beneath it was warm and intact.

Aventurine's breath changed.

Ratio felt it.

He removed his hand.

"You require a proper scan," he said. "Why would you decline medical attention?"

Aventurine sighed and let his head fall briefly against Ratio's shoulder.

Only for a moment.

Perhaps from fatigue. Perhaps because standing unsupported had become uncomfortable. Perhaps because neither of them had yet decided what the second kiss meant once there was no one left to deceive.

Ratio did not ask.

He stood still and allowed it.

Aventurine's forehead rested near the curve of his shoulder, his breath warm through the fabric of Ratio's shirt. He did not lean heavily. Even exhausted, he seemed unwilling to surrender his full weight to anything that had not been formally reinforced and independently inspected.

Ratio kept one hand hovering near his uninjured side.

After several seconds, Aventurine said, "You can stop looking for symptoms. I'm not going to collapse."

His voice was muffled against Ratio's shoulder.

"You nearly did once already tonight."

"I fell. There is a distinction."

"Not a meaningful one from this distance."

Aventurine laughed quietly, though the sound lacked its usual polish. His head shifted with it, temple brushing Ratio's jaw before settling again.

Ratio should have made him sit properly.

He should have retrieved the medical scanner from the adjoining room, completed the preliminary report, and arranged transport to a proper facility before Aventurine found another argument persuasive only to himself.

Instead, his hand settled against Aventurine's back.

Carefully.

The bruising was concentrated lower and to the left. Ratio avoided it without conscious calculation, resting his palm between Aventurine's shoulder blades where the skin was warm and uninjured. His thumb lay against the edge of an old scar without pressing.

Aventurine became very still.

Ratio felt the change move through him in the small adjustment of his breathing.

"You're indulging me," Aventurine murmured.

"I am preventing you from falling a second time."

"Mmhm. How practical."

"You are exhausted."

"So are you."

"I did not fall from a balcony."

"No. You only ran through an active firefight and arrived beneath it looking ready to murder everyone in the courtyard. You could have also gotten seriously injured you know, doctor. You're not nearly as level headed as you like to pretend to be."

"That was a reasonable response."

"To the fight?"

"To you."

Aventurine lifted his head.

They were already too close. The motion only made the fact impossible to ignore.

His hair had fallen across one eye. A faint superficial scratch remained along his cheekbone, interrupted by the clean line where the mask had protected the skin beneath it. Without the jeweled frame and the careful arrangement of his clothes, he looked less decorated, but not less striking, even with the bandages covering both palms and bruises darkening visibly across his side.

Ratio's gaze returned to his face.

Aventurine watched him notice all of it.

"You were worried," he said.

There was very little triumph in the words.

Ratio could have denied it. Aventurine plainly expected him to. The beginning of a smile had already gathered at the corner of his mouth, ready to turn the answer into something light enough to survive.

"Yes," Ratio said. "I was really worried." 

The smile stopped.

For a moment, Aventurine only looked at him.

Ratio felt the muscles beneath his hand tighten.

"That was remarkably easy," Aventurine said at last.

"It was a pretty straightforward question."

"You usually object to those on principle."

"I object to poorly constructed questions."

"And apparently to me throwing myself from balconies."

"You did not throw yourself from it."

"No," Aventurine said softly. "I suppose not."

The distinction mattered. Ratio could tell by the way Aventurine's gaze shifted briefly away from him, toward the mirror and the red-streaked basin beyond them.

Ratio lifted his free hand.

Aventurine's attention returned immediately.

There was still a leaf caught in his hair, crushed and dark near the back of his neck. Ratio removed it, then brushed his fingers through the disordered strands once to make certain there were no fragments left behind.

Aventurine's eyes followed the movement.

"You missed one," he said.

"Where?"

Aventurine tilted his face toward him by a fraction. "I'm sure you'll find it."

Ratio stared at him.

There it was again. The familiar provocation, but quieter now. No ballroom behind it. No approaching footsteps. No operational justification waiting to make the choice for either of them.

Only Aventurine standing half-dressed beneath the harsh washroom light, injured hands held awkwardly between them, asking without asking because asking plainly would require more exposure than removing his shirt had.

Ratio touched the scratch on his cheek with his thumb before pressing a light kiss there.

Aventurine's breath caught.

"You'll survive," Ratio said.

"How disappointing."

His thumb remained against Aventurine's cheek.

Neither of them pretended this was necessary.

Aventurine turned his face slightly into the touch. The movement was so small Ratio might have mistaken it for coincidence from anyone else.

He knew Aventurine too well for that.

"The report is due in several hours," Aventurine said.

"It can wait."

"That doesn't sound like you."

"You are distracting me."

"Again?"

"Yes."

Aventurine's mouth curved. "And here I thought your resistance had improved. Really doctor-"

Ratio kissed him.

The smile vanished beneath his mouth.

This kiss did not begin like the one in the garden. There was no sudden pull into shadow, no footsteps drawing closer, no need to make the contact convincing before someone looked too carefully.

Ratio had time to feel Aventurine realize it was happening.

The brief stillness. The soft interruption of his breath. The way his lips parted a fraction before he responded.

Ratio kissed him slowly.

Deliberately.

Aventurine made a quiet sound against his mouth, too small to be laughter and too unguarded to be intentional. His bandaged hands lifted instinctively, reaching for Ratio's coat before stopping short between them.

For once, Aventurine could not seize his collar and convert surprise into control.

His fingers curled uselessly in the air.

Ratio caught one wrist gently and guided the hand against his chest.

The bandages were warm through his shirt.

Aventurine kissed him harder.

The restraint lasted only a few seconds. Then he leaned fully into Ratio, mouth opening beneath his, all the careful distance he had maintained collapsing at once. His other hand came to rest at Ratio's shoulder, unable to grip properly but pressing there as if intent alone could hold him closer.

Ratio's arm tightened around his waist.

Aventurine flinched.

Ratio stopped immediately.

The withdrawal was slight, barely the beginning of distance, but Aventurine followed before he could complete it.

"I'm fine," he whispered against Ratio's mouth.

"You are bruised."

"Yes."

"Sorry. I wasn't thinking. You should not-"

Aventurine kissed him again.

It was an inefficient method of ending an argument. But it worked well enough to distract him until no objections felt relevant. 

Ratio allowed it for several seconds before catching Aventurine carefully by the jaw and drawing back just far enough to speak.

"Do not use my mouth to avoid medical instruction."

Aventurine's eyes were bright, his breathing less steady than he would have preferred. "You objected when I used it for operational cover too."

"I objected to the lack of warning."

"Consider this a warning then."

Aventurine kissed him once, brief and almost gentle.

Then again, lingering this time, before pulling back slightly.

Ratio looked at him.

Aventurine's mouth was slightly swollen and the corner still marked where Ratio had bitten him earlier. His expression held the beginning of a smile, but there was uncertainty beneath it. Not fear of refusal exactly. Something more complicated.

"You are an idiot," Ratio sighed as Aventurine let his head drop on his shoulder again.

"I believe that has been formally established." he let out a small laugh Ratio could feel on his collarbone.

"You are reckless."

"Frequently." Aventurine's lips moved to his neck and Ratio tightened his hand against him.

"You have no respect for the limitations of your own body."

"Is this still part of the seduction?"

"No."

"A shame." Aventurine sighed and pulled back.

"It is the reason I have spent the last half hour removing pieces of a balcony from your hands."

The smile disappeared completely.

Ratio continued before Aventurine could replace it.

"And it does not make me want you less."

Aventurine stared at him.

Ratio had not planned to say that.

The statement was accurate nonetheless.

For once, Aventurine produced no immediate answer. His lips parted, but whatever line he had reached for seemed to fail him before it formed.

Ratio found the silence unexpectedly satisfying.

He kissed him again.

Aventurine yielded this time without attempting to disguise the fact. His head tilted back beneath Ratio's hand. His body settled closer, careful of his bruised side but no longer pretending not to require the support. Ratio kept one arm around him, palm spread over the uninjured curve of his back, holding him securely without pressing anywhere that might hurt.

The kiss deepened by degrees.

Aventurine's mouth moved against his with less polish than before. Exhaustion made him slower. The bandages made him clumsy. Once, his fingers attempted to close around Ratio's shirt and failed, and the small sound of frustration he made was swallowed between them.

Ratio took his lower lip between his own.

Aventurine shuddered.

Not dramatically. Not enough that he could later claim it had never happened. Just a visible tremor through his shoulders, followed by the sudden pressure of his bandaged palm against Ratio's chest.

Ratio drew back a fraction.

Aventurine followed.

Exactly as he had in the garden.

His eyes opened when he realized it.

Ratio watched the awareness reach him.

"You know you can ask without some elaborate reason behind it?" Ratio said quietly.

Aventurine's breath touched his mouth. "Ask what?"

"For this"

The flush across Aventurine's face deepened.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ratio leaned away another fraction.

Aventurine moved after him before stopping himself.

Ratio raised one eyebrow.

Aventurine, with what dignity he could recover while half-undressed, injured, and pressed against Ratio's body, he said, "Your evidence is very circumstantial."

"Hm. Perhaps you do have a point. We need more documentation."

Aventurine looked at his mouth.

Ratio saw the decision form.

This time, Aventurine did not pull him closer. He could not, not properly, and perhaps that was what made the moment different. He only lifted his face and waited at the edge of the remaining distance.

Ratio closed it.

The kiss was softer than the others.

That seemed to affect Aventurine most of all.

His posture loosened slowly beneath Ratio's hands, each held tension giving way as though he had not expected gentleness to persist once it was offered. His mouth lost the clever angle it usually carried. His breathing warmed Ratio's cheek. When Ratio's fingers moved into his hair, Aventurine made no joke about it.

He only leaned closer.

They remained like that until the medical cabinet chimed softly behind them, warning that it had been left open too long.

Neither moved.

The alarm chimed again.

Aventurine laughed against Ratio's mouth.

Ratio closed his eyes.

"The entire room is conspiring against me," Aventurine murmured.

"The room is demonstrating better judgment than either of us."

"Speak for yourself."

"I am."

Ratio kissed him once more before stepping back.

Only far enough to close the cabinet.

When he turned around, Aventurine was still standing where he had left him, hair disordered, lips flushed, and both bandaged hands held before him as though he had forgotten what to do with them.

His expression was unusually unguarded.

"Now," Ratio said, "you are going to sit down properly."

Aventurine glanced toward the adjoining room and smirked. "For a mission debrief?"

"For imaging."

"That is considerably less romantic."

"You have already extracted more romance from a medical examination than any reasonable person could expect."

Aventurine stepped closer until their shoulders touched.

"And after?"

Ratio looked at him.

Aventurine's smile wavered at the edges, waiting.

"After," Ratio said, "we will see whether you can complete one report without attempting to seduction."

Aventurine brightened. "So there will be a debrief? Maybe a repeat of this specific lesson to help me get it through my thick skull?"

Ratio rolled his eyes and took him by the uninjured arm, guiding him out of the washroom.

Aventurine went willingly, leaning against him.