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Is it reasonable to wait for a man with whom you have no real connection?
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"Ah! Hsss... Can't you be a bit more gentle, Doc?"
"Applying medicine to wounds will sting no matter how gentle I am."
"Still. Look at the state I'm in. Couldn't you pity me a little and take more care?"
"As the state you are in is the result of your own machinations, I am not moved to pity."
"Ah-ha," Aventurine says. "But at this time, in this moment, the state I am in is not my fault at all—but yours."
Veritas' actions—which, despite his words, are unbearably tender—momentarily cease. He looks up. Aventurine is sitting across from him in dishevelled clothes. The fur of his coat is singed, the fabric of his pants and shirt scratched and torn. There are a number of superficial wounds on his face. His injured arm is thin in Veritas' grip. Veritas' gaze tracks slowly from Aventurine's messy hair down to his dirty clothes—the shirt rather more unbuttoned than necessary—all the way down his legs. Strangely, his feet are bare. Without his socks and formal leather shoes, Aventurine looks strangely undone. Unmade.
The overall impression of the Aventurine seated opposite him is one of absolute incongruity. In fact, Aventurine has never appeared before Veritas in anything resembling his current state.
There are other observations to be made. For example, the medical supplies next to them. They contain exactly the amount necessary for Veritas to patch Aventurine up. The bed they are sitting on: the covers seem to be grey, but are they? The room they are in. It is indistinct. The walls are perhaps white. There is the impression of a ceiling.
There is a conclusion to be drawn from the totality of all these details. "You are right," Veritas says at last. "That you look like this... perhaps, it's my fault." Not willing to allow Aventurine a complete win, however, he adds: "Nevertheless, it is only because you have a pattern of entangling yourself in dangerous gambits that you came to me so."
"Speaking of—isn't it interesting that I came to you?" Aventurine replies. "Shall we debate as to why that is? It's not as if you're that kind of doctor—ow! You're doing that on purpose!"
"Indeed," Veritas agrees. As to which statement he is agreeing to, who knows. He carefully applies bandages to the long gash on Aventurine's arm. Even the injury is notable; what occasion, what incident does he imagine Aventurine to have gone through?
It doesn't matter. Veritas will see this scenario through to the end.
He shifts closer. The mattress moves under his weight. Aventurine watches his approach. His eyes are bright, like that of a feline's reflecting light at nighttime. A predator's eyes. His body language is relaxed, but his gaze tracks exactly Veritas' movements. His thin lips are curved into a smile. You are a smart man, that smile says, but right now, you are not at all as clever as you think you are.
Veritas, like a person under arrest raising hands in surrender, holds up the tube of ointment in one hand and an open bare palm in the other. And then, having shown his lack of both weaponry and ill intent, he applies a thin layer of ointment to his fingers and brings his hand to Aventurine's face.
It is testament that he could not bear to see this face marred that the scratches here are so light. Their placement is in fact artistic, like those seen in a film. They enhance all the beauty of Aventurine's face, which, already possessing all the advantages necessary to appeal to Veritas' sense of aesthetics, transforms it from merely beautiful to entrancing.
His skin, under Veritas' touch, is very warm. His obedience and docility are absolute illusions.
"Are you happy to see to my wounds like this, Doctor?" Aventurine asks. He is still smiling. Earlier, he was protesting, but look now how well he holds himself. Even the manner with which he shows hurt is a tool to be used by Aventurine in his schemes.
"Am I 'happy'...? No. Perhaps what I derive is instead a sense of self-satisfaction. You do not need me," Veritas says, "nor has it ever been necessary for me to look after you or look after your wounds. We are not intimates, you and I."
"But you know me so well!"
A long silence. And then: "I do not," Veritas says at last, voice heavy, heart burdened.
He places his hand under Aventurine's chin and tilts his head up. Aventurine's size is, as with every aspect of him, an advantage. He can appear vulnerable, like weak prey. And then, when he strikes—like a venomous snake hidden in grass—his showmanship and personality reveal the truth of him. He is a dangerous creature. He can diminish himself or he can command a stage—whatever the situation calls for, he will rise to the occasion always. It is infuriating.
But now look at him. As docile as a cat, unabashedly allowing, perhaps even inviting, Veritas to look at him.
Even so, studying the bridge of Aventurine's nose, the slope of his brow, the curve of his lips, Veritas is left wondering: Does Aventurine truly look like this? He turns Aventurine's head to the left, and then to the right. He studies every detail of the face before him, every eyelash, every strand of hair, every imperfection, even the curves of his ears. Aventurine chuckles, and the low amused sound of it pricks Veritas' ears like needles. He shivers.
"Searching for something?"
"Yes. I am searching for you."
Aventurine's hand wraps around Veritas' wrist. A tender gesture, except that his fingers are placed on the vulnerable point. They squeeze lightly. "And have you found me?"
"Of course not." Their gazes meet.
At least, Veritas thinks, he could never misremember Aventurine's eyes. They are too distinctive. The colour, the shape, the power of them—he would never forget. Veritas' hand slides from Aventurine's chin to his cheek, so that his palm follows that curve, fingers entangling slightly with flaxen bangs. And he leans down.
How is a kiss initiated, conducted, seen through to the end?
Veritas lacks such knowledge. He can only imagine that he might like it. That they might like it, the intimate touch of lips on lips and then further, of tongues meeting and the hot searing heat inside. A kiss that is not a physical touch, nor one meant to arouse, but rather the expression of hidden desires. Someone makes a sound, it is Aventurine, it is Veritas, it is both and neither. The next few moments pass in a haze, and then they part.
The kiss began with Veritas holding Aventurine. But when it ends it is Aventurine holding Veritas firmly, his two hands gripping with confident surety the sides of his skull, fingers in Veritas' hair curled. He's smiling. "You are so innocent," he sighs.
Veritas' lips curl. "Lacking knowledge is not the same as being innocent."
"No, you are innocent." Aventurine's grip tightens. It is Veritas leaning over him due to the disparity in their sizes. Yet now it feels as if it is Veritas entrapped, spine curved, head bowed, hands caught in Aventurine's obscenely open shirt, like a fly snared in spider web. "What do you know of these matters? What do you want, Veritas?" The sudden ferocity of his words, his tone, catches Veritas off-guard. He watches Aventurine. Their faces are so close that every word is a warm exhalation he feels against his lips. "To look after me? To guard me? To patch me up when I am hurt, as a child brings back an injured bird? And then to exchange tender kisses, like lovers?"
"And so what if it is?" Veritas returns. "Humanity has always had ambition, and dreams, and yearning. But not all dreams are grand. Nor can we demand all our fantasies to fit the cold restrictions of reality." He closes his eyes. "You are not a person to be protected, Aventurine. And even if you were, that protection would not come from me. But yes, I want to. I wish to. It is not a wish that will ever bear fruit, but I want you."
When he opens his eyes, Aventurine is gone.
Veritas looks down at his hands, fingers still curled as if he were holding someone. There is the lingering warmth of another's body heat. There is the remembrance of a touch upon his lips, which tingle. There is all the evidence of intimacy on his body.
But Aventurine was never here.
Veritas' hands curl into fists. His face is as expressionless as the masks he wears as he studies his surroundings. Before his eyes, details blur. The walls shimmer and shift.
-
And Veritas wakes up.
-
Veritas opens his eyes. It is a process. His eyelids feel inordinately heavy, his throat thick. It is as if he is sick.
He is on a bright red sofa. His back protests; his neck is stiff. Within the confines of his chest his heart slams against his ribs as if demanding to get out.
He sits up—slowly.
The Reverie hotel room is strangely stark. Other hotels on other worlds have the ambient noise of muffled conversation, of doors opening and closing as guests come and go. Not so on Penacony. That silence, as all-encompassing as a vacuum, heightens the unreality of his awakening.
His gaze, as he looks about the Reverie hotel room, is unfocused. Creases mar his brow as he frowns. At last, his hastened breathing slows; his heartbeat settles.
But his hands, his skin, are limned with sweat. And when he brings fingers to face, he feels the remnants of tear tracks on his cheeks. "What an absurd dream," he murmurs. His voice is rough, from both emotion and his recent waking.
He looks down at his hands. They tighten, the fingers curling in as if he were attempting to catch sand falling through his fingers.
Dreams have been studied for millenia. They are nonsensical; they are meaningful; they are incoherent code from a brain refreshing itself; they are prophecy and power. And unlike the fantastical dreamscape, it is not easy to remember them.
Veritas recalls, vaguely, the touch of lips. The sensation of his soul being stripped open naked and bare for the judgement of another.
And a pair of sharp eyes, the most distinctive and beautiful eyes in all the universe.
But nothing more than that. And even those remnants fade, already turning to dust. In a moment, all the sentiments that brought him to tears will be as nothing.
He drags the back of his hand roughly across his face. He stands up. Perhaps it is that sleep—true sleep, not that brought on by the dreampool—has eluded him for so long that he staggers. But in a moment he rights himself. The strong line of his back straightens. His shoulders set.
It is another day in Penacony, the Land of Dreams.
It is another day of waiting.