Work Text:
In a well-lit office, in the dead of night, a database entry is being deleted. A file is being shredded back to empty hard-drive space. Meta-data is being meticulously relabelled. This is routine. This is normal.
In a well-lit bathroom, in the dead of night, a body bathes in a pool of cold blood. Belongings are being collected. Location data is being meticulously relabelled. This is routine. This is normal.
A few hours ago – who cares about the specifics, they’ll be changed by morning – Albert Jenkins was shot. A few hours ago, Aventurine holstered a still warm gun, clapped his hands, and called in the IPC collections agents temporarily under his command to get the difficult work done. Then he sat by the window, one knee bouncing, and took in the scenery of an industrial, run-down world, as the house was ransacked and the IPC reclaimed its property.
A few months ago – and this is absolute – Albert Jenkins stole from the IPC. He took credits that are an eye-watering amount to the normal person but a blip in the system to a galactic corporation. Normally this would not be a death sentence. As a rule, the IPC always prefers negotiation to violence. He also took sensitive information about IPC dealings. Some minor, trivial details that could make public relations quite… difficult, and then he sought to sell them to the highest bidder.
Thus, he was already looking over his shoulder. Thus, negotiation got nowhere. Thus, they sent a stoneheart.
In the morning, Albert Jenkins will not report for work at the local government’s real estate archive. The authorities will go to his house to perform a wellness check, and they will find nothing and nobody. Officially, Albert will be listed as a missing person. Unofficially, the IPC will be rigorously investing in the planet.
By tomorrow evening, Albert Jenkins’ stolen assets will be back in the IPC’s hands, and he himself will have been reappropriated into useful material to be sold on via their medical trade.
The IPC does not waste resources.
But right now, here, in the present, the clean-up crew continue their work, and Aventurine, tired of watching misery pile onto the grey city, pulls out his phone.
U up?
There's a long pause while he waits for a response. It still comes quickly enough that it gives away too much.
Proper grammar please, or I shall mark you as spam.
Aventurine smiles. The dead man stares at the ceiling with blank, unseeing eyes.
#####
Aventurine stares into the mirror, cataloguing the damage as he does up his shirt. There are bruises on his neck and scratches on his thighs, none of them from violence. He can see Ratio, over his shoulder. He’s covered in scratches too, slowly disappearing behind his own clothes.
Usually they only collide like this when they happen to be in the same place at the same time. Ratio pretends not to want him, Aventurine pretends to seduce him, and then they go to the nearest room and Ratio fucks him until they’re both too tired to annoy each other.
Usually.
Lately that pattern has been changing. They arrange to meet when they happen to be within travelling distance. Ratio barely bothers to pretend he doesn’t want him. They come together eagerly and often. But still, they dress and separate afterwards. They’ve never stayed the night.
Aventurine should feel shame that he was given execution orders and immediately felt a thrill upon realising how close it would take him to Ratio’s current research expedition. He doesn’t. Ratio had taken the gun from his thigh as he’d stripped him, tossing weapon and holster aside and replacing it with his large, warm hand, so close to his straining cock.
Aventurine shivers at the memory. His fingers ghost over a bite mark on his exposed collarbone and, caught off-guard, his hand stills. The tender flesh stings beneath his fingers and his eyes. Blatant. Possessive. Stupid.
Aventurine frowns. “How am I supposed to hide this?”
Ratio hums not-so-distantly, and then appears in the mirror behind him. One hand snakes around Aventurine’s shoulders to touch his handywork. Thankfully the exasperated look on his face does not reflect the easy, terrifyingly familiar affection in his touch. “Wear a different shirt.” He drags out the words, like Aventurine is a very slow toddler.
Aventurine’s face remained flat as Albert begged for his life. It does not cringe or fall when people strike him. For Ratio – disturbingly – it reacts. His nose wrinkles up with displeasure, makes no secrets of emotions that he thought he’d freed himself of. It’s almost worse than being able to read Ratio’s silent face. “I like this shirt.”
Ratio sighs wearily, but there’s a ghost of a smirk on his face. “Then wear it.” His hand curls over the bite mark, hiding it from the glare of the mirror. A secret, just for them. He tugs Aventurine closer and rests his head atop the blonde hair that his hands made such a state of earlier. “Surely people won’t think anything of a bite mark on you?”
That isn't the point. He would have to be a fool not to know the IPC has everything about him on file, that they could draw a line from the mark to his mouth using dental records and location data, that they wouldn’t need to because they already know what the two of them get up to in hotel rooms around the galaxy. If there’s one thing Ratio isn’t, it’s a fool. So he must be overconfident. He must not realise how dangerous this is.
"You should be careful,” Aventurine murmurs lowly. A warning. A threat. “The IPC doesn't take kindly to other people touching its property.”
The arm around him tenses.
What’s more dangerous: pretending they aren’t playing with fire, or acknowledging they’ve long since burned themselves? What’s the lie, and is it more dangerous than the truth? Aventurine isn’t built for the sentiment he’s trying to convey.
“I’m not touching IPC property,” Ratio spits, quiet and serious. His fingers press harder on pale skin.
Aventurine laughs. It’s actually genuine. “Chivalry, Doctor?”
“Facts.” There’s something stubborn and dangerous in his tone.
“We’re all IPC property.” Aventurine smoothly twists the conversation, defuses the bomb he’s handed Ratio. This much is true too, even if less directly so. “You know that.”
“If you think I’m too attached,” Ratio begins, defensive, “I would point out that you are the one who has initiated our encounters 87.6% of the time.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Aventurine shakes his head, crushes the rush of fondness Ratio’s pedantry starts in his hollow chest. “It doesn’t matter if you’re using me or I’m using you.” Or the far worse option left unsaid, that neither of them is using the other and this really is the awful, terrible thing that the mirror accuses them of. “Do you understand? The IPC doesn’t care about feelings or intentions. They care about cold hard facts, cash, and property. It’s open and shut, my dear Doctor. This…” he steals Ratio’s hand and draws it to his mouth to kiss the knuckles. “Is theft.”
Ratio shifts their hands. His nails dig into Aventurine’s soft palm. “I’m perturbed to discover you think I’m a man who can be intimidated.”
“Only an idiot can’t be warned away from danger.” Those nails are starting to hurt, but Aventurine doesn’t flinch. His smirk is sewn on. “Take me for example-”
“You’re not an idiot,” Ratio says immediately. “A fool? Yes. A genius? No. But I couldn’t put up with an idiot as much as I put up with you.”
“Stop it.”
“I suppose you are being idiotic right now,” Ratio agrees. “Since I can’t tell what you’re aiming to accomplish.”
Aventurine nips at his hand, frustrated. Ratio releases him with an annoyed grunt. This infuriating, stupid man. “This. Me. Us,” he spits the word like acid and smiles charmingly throughout. “It’s dangerous.” This is a galaxy of order and regulation that the IPC preserves. Their lust is chaotic. It will eventually be brought to heel.
There’s silence for a moment. They watch each other in the hotel mirror, both unsure. Ratio regards him with open misgivings, Aventurine smiles back pleasantly at him. This is the closest they’ve ever come to a serious discussion about this. It isn’t trust between them – certainly not any bigger word. But it’s familiarity, and that is the closest thing Aventurine has to trust these days.
That bite mark still seems to scream out to the world from his collarbone. It’s set him off. Or maybe Albert has set him off, the reminder of how little leash the IPC affords them all. Ratio is so damn determined to pursue Truth, and business runs on withheld information and white lies. He has no loyalty to the company and, though he’ll deny it, the man is just so stupidly, naively optimistic about how the world should work. Eventually he’ll cross the IPC. Eventually, they’ll use everything against him.
Aventurine’s fate is settled. There’s nothing left to say. Ratio’s fate does not have to be. As much as Aventurine enjoys their liaisons, he needs Ratio to stay alert to the danger here, to not get dragged under by it. Aventurine is so good at dragging men under with lust.
“I thought you liked a risk.” Ratio phrases it like an accusation. That’s good. They’ve grown far too comfortable in their little arrangement.
Aventurine pats the back of Ratio’s hand. It is warm, sympathetic, and mocking. “Betting against the house in this case wouldn't just be suicide." That same eerie, pleasant smile stays on his face. "It would be murder-suicide"
Ratio is silent for another moment. He surveys Aventurine, cataloguing, reviewing, and Aventurine hates that Ratio can read him now. There was a time his brow would furrow when he did this, where he would appear openly unsatisfied. Now his contemplation is quiet and unbothered.
Finally, Ratio meets his eyes again. That arm around him pulls him flush to Ratio’s body. Another arm snakes around his middle, and Ratio’s large hand sneaks under his shirt, splaying out across his bare stomach. He buries his face in Aventurine’s hair, inhaling sex, fruit, and gun smoke. "In that case, I don't believe the bet is yours to make or refuse alone."
Ratio kisses the crown of his head chastely. Aventurine watches the hellish scene play out through the mirror. He’ll deny to his dying day that he melts back against Ratio’s broad frame, like a stick of wax accepting its fate. His hand strokes over the arm Ratio has wrapped around his middle.
The pair in the mirror look like a couple. They might even be a happy couple, given the way they hold each other. The taller man looks like he’s good at comforting someone, which Ratio is not. The smaller man looks like he needs comfort, which Aventurine does not. There’s familiarity in the way they fit around each other. It’s almost domestic. But that’s a word Aventurine has never experienced himself, only seen and heard. It doesn’t sound like something he’d want, so he can’t exactly begrudge it to the mirror couple. They look peaceful, safe, and warm. They’ll get to stay like that forever. This moment, this brief reflection, is all that they are.
Aventurine lets a wild, vengeful impulse to smash the mirror flow over him and ebb away. He stares at the couple, burning their moment into his eyes, before finally closing them and clutching at the arm around his shoulders. He butts his head softly against the curve of Ratio’s chin, like an affectionate cat.
Nothing. This means nothing.
Somewhere, in a well-lit office, two files are being updated. This is routine. This is normal.