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If someone had told Aventurine he’d find someone he was happy with, he’d never believe those words. He wouldn’t believe someone could actually love him without using him. Love itself was a foreign concept to the Avgin. But after dying but technically not dying in Penacony and seeing Ratio sitting at Aventurine’s bedside, a warm feeling blossomed in his chest. The relief in Ratio’s eyes confused Aventurine. Then he remembered the note from Ratio. ‘Do stay alive.’ The warm feeling grew even more. Maybe…maybe someone did care. Ratio nursed Aventurine back to health and brought him back to his home near the Intelligentsia Guild’s university.
For the first few weeks, Ratio stayed around the house with Aventurine until he was stable enough to handle basic things on his own. It was quite endearing and again very foreign. Part of Aventurine wondered when the curtain would fall and Ratio would hurt him. Logically, he knew that would never happen. Irrationally, that fear lingered in the back of his mind. But of course, Ratio’s classes started up again. That left Aventurine to his own devices for hours at a time, which wasn’t the best idea at times. So, naturally, he decided to explore the campus.
It was no secret that Doctor Veritas Ratio was a strict teacher within the Intelligentsia Guild. With his arrogant personality and his strict methods, no more than three percent of his students ever passed. Aventurine had heard all sorts of rumors about many students who failed Ratio’s classes and even how Ratio threw someone out of his class for attempting to bribe him to pass a student that was clearly failing. Aventurine didn’t doubt that that particular rumor was true. With how strict Ratio was, Aventurine was a little shocked to find out his students didn’t hate him at all.
“Get out, dear Gambler,” Ratio sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose when Aventurine picked the lock of his office door and promptly strutted in. “I have office hours for a reason. Be like my students and actually follow them. If you need me, either wait until I am home or when my office hours are open.”
“Oh come on, Doc,” Aventurine flashed his signature smile. He sat across from Ratio, leaning forward on the desk. “I’m bored.” He glanced at the papers on the desk. Most of them were covered in red marks.
“I am not your personal entertainer,” Ratio deadpanned, flipping one of the papers to continue grading. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m busy.” Aventurine pouted as Ratio didn’t even bother to look up from the papers he was grading. He opened his mouth to complain when a knock on the door rang out and Ratio looked up from the papers. “Come in,” he spoke in his usual cold and stern voice.
A young girl popped her head in through the door. The girl wore black leggings, a dark green tank top, and a buffalo plaid zip up hoodie. “Hey, Professor, I have a ques—” she cut herself off when she saw Aventurine lounging in the chair. “Am I interrupting something?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Not at all,” Aventurine grinned before Ratio had the chance to speak. “I’m just paying the lovely Doctor a visit. You are?” He flashed a charming smile at her.
The girl looked unimpressed by Aventurine’s antics. “I’m Avana. I’m one of the students…” She glanced from Aventurine to Ratio. “Is now a bad time?” she asked, fidgeting with the sleeves of her jacket. “I know office hours are over but you did say at the beginning of the school year if we really needed help you’d be available and—”
“What seems to be the problem?” Ratio asked, shooting Aventurine a stern look. He stopped marking the papers in front of him to give Avana his full attention. He raised an eyebrow, expecting an answer.
“Problem? There’s no problem…” Avana smiled, putting her hands in her pockets. Ratio raised an eyebrow and Avana’s smile faltered. “Hypothetically speaking, if there happened to be an incident where these people borrowed a life form oven and made a lot of creatures, what would one do to keep the creatures from…overrunning the dorms?” she explained sheepishly, wincing by the time she had finished.
Ratio sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “If you must give me these ‘hypothetical’ situations, do better to at least make them seem hypothetical.” He shot Aventurine a glare for the muffled laugh.
Avana grimaced, frowning. “Alright, yeah, we made a mistake,” she nervously chuckled. “In our defense, we didn’t think that the freshmen would use the oven as well…” She swallowed thickly and glanced at her teacher.
“Blaming others will not help your case,” Ratio sternly admonished the student. He set his pen down. “Tell me, how did you even get a life form oven?”
“You don’t wanna know,” Avana quickly responded, smiling weakly. “All I know is Jasper brought it back to the dorms while you were at Penacony. ‘Boredom’ was the word he used to explain why.” Her voice lowered as she spoke to herself. “Not like Riv and Chase would’ve stopped him.”
Ratio shook his head. “Always you four,” he grumbled to himself. “I apologize, gambler, but it seems I am needed. Go home,” he sternly told Aventurine before standing up.
Aventurine frowned, sighing dramatically. “Aw, are you sure I won’t be of any help?” he put a hand on his heart. “You wound me, doctor.”
“I can handle this,” Ratio firmly replied, leaving no room for arguments. Avana couldn’t help but glare at Aventurine. Aventurine frowned as Ratio left his office with his student following him to the dorms.
Ratio did not expect for the entirety of the east wing dorms to be completely full of cake cats nor did he expect to see his four prestigious students to be the cause of it all. Chase, Jasper, and Rivera were in the middle of the giant pile of cake cats, being suffocated by the love and affection of the critters. And of course, Avana pulled out her phone to get a picture to use as blackmail.
The esteemed scholar could feel a migraine forming. He pinched the bridge of his nose once more. “What in Aeons name are you fools doing?” he snapped, narrowing his eyes at his students and the cake cats. The meowing grew louder. “Can you hear me over this ceaseless noise?” he said a little louder.
“Oh, hi, Doctor!” Chase laughed as a cake cat clinged to his head, the tail tickling the back of his neck. “We seem to have a problem.”
“Not much of a problem,” Rivera argued, holding three in her arms. “These babies are adorable,” she cooed, minding her own business as Ratio’s migraine grew more prominent. The red-headed female hugged and squeezed the cake cats.
“Avana! You snitch!” Jasper yelled at the brunette. He scowled as a few more cake cats circled him. “I had this under control.”
“Pfft, yeah right,” Chase snickered, covering his mouth to muffle his laugh. “His solution was adopting the children out.” He pried the cat off his head, wincing as the claws dug into his head. “Come on, you brat. Get off,” he grumbled.
“Enough of this!” Ratio snapped, patience wearing thin. He knew his four students were…eccentric to say the least. They got amazing grades, part of the small three percent that actually passed his classes. He couldn’t help but wonder how they could be so book smart but so dumb in other areas.
The four students went silent, the only sound in the dorms was the meowing. Ratio sighed heavily. “You are going to get these creatures out of here and clean up this mess! Jasper, don’t go teleporting around making copies of machines you find fascinating! I don’t want another incident like this!” Ratio turned to the other three students. “Don’t let this happen again.”
“Yes, Doctor,” all four students said in unison.
“Good,” Ratio said sternly. “Now, I have other business to attend to.” As he turned to leave, Avana spoke up. “Who was that man in your office?” she wondered.
“Wait, what?” Chase stopped trying to pry the cat off of him.
“Yeah, there was a blond man in really, really nice looking clothes,” Avana confirmed, glancing at Chase. “He looked…rather comfortable in Doctor Ratio’s office.” She frowned slightly. Chase narrowed his eyes. Rivera and Jasper shared a look with each other, smiles faltering slightly. “Doc called him ‘dear gambler’, too.”
“Is that true?” Rivera asked, looking at Ratio with wide eyes.
Ratio pushed back a sigh. He turned back to face his students. “That is correct. Aventurine is a dear…friend of mine,” he hesitated slightly, shaking his not. “Not that it is any of your business. I expect all of you to at the very least treat him with respect when he is on campus. You don’t have to like him, just treat him with respect.” He gave them all an even stare.
All four grumbled their confirmations, none looking too pleased. Another mystery Ratio never understood about his students. How protective and loyal they could be. He lightly shook his head. “I won’t pretend to understand you four. Just be nice.” He turned his heel and walked away.
“Can we trust him?” Jasper whispered to Avana.
“Rivera,” Avana cooed, smirking at the ginger. “Can you work your magic and look up an Aventurine?”
“Oh, absolutely,” the redhead chuckled.
Over the next couple days, the four students worked tirelessly to get rid of every cake cat that had been created. Ratio taught his classes as usual and helped make sure Aventurine was getting back to good health. The four students stayed respectful to Aventurine. They seemed to be nice to him, yet they were still standoffish.
Aventurine kept coming on campus, usually ending up in Ratio’s office. On multiple occasions the students would walk in asking questions about the lecture to find the blond IPC agent talking to Ratio about his day and acting all clingy. It still unnerved them. What unnerved them more was how comfortable and happy Aventurine made Ratio.
“Why does Aventurine come here so much?” Ratio looked up from more paperwork he was marking. Chase, Rivera, Jasper, and Avana were all in his office, working on their own papers. Most students would rarely come visit his office, and since office hours were open, those four practically lived in his office.
Ratio narrowed his eyes on them. “Why are you so insistent on knowing about that gambler?”
“Just curious,” Chase shrugged, flipping the page of his book. “One would think he’s lonely.”
Ratio raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth to say something but then he thought back on it. Aventurine had been clingier since coming back from Penacony. “I suppose you raise a…compelling reason. He seems to show the symptoms of being lonely.”
Avana smirked and elbowed Rivera who yelped. “We might have a solution.”
“Pray tell,” Ratio demanded.
“We didn’t get rid of all the cake cats…” Rivera sheepishly told him, rubbing the back of her neck. “Three of them haven't been adopted yet.” She hesitated, glancing at her friends. “Do you think Aventurine would like them?”
Ratio brought his hand to his chin. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to give him some companions. The worst he could do is refuse and you’d have to find someone else to adopt them. I will deliver them to Aventurine after work.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
Rivera paused, looking back down at her paper she was writing. “Um, no reason,” she grumbled.
Ratio narrowed his eyes, looking at her accusingly. “You did your research, didn’t you?” Rivera winced guiltily. Ratio sighed. “Do not bring Aventurine’s past up when he is around. Do not act like you know anything. You are lucky I am not reporting your breach of privacy to the university board or the IPC.” Rivera shrunk in on herself. “Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t,” Rivera said in a small voice, lying through her teeth. Everyone in the room knew it. No one spoke about it. She went back to writing her paper. Office hours ended an hour later and Ratio had three cake cats in his arms to deliver to Aventurine.
“Doctor, what is this?” Aventurine asked, opening the door of the apartment, face to face with three critters. Their giant eyes locked onto him and their meowing started. Aventurine couldn’t help but smile at the adorable creatures.
“My students wanted you to have company,” Ratio bluntly spoke, stepping inside and setting the cats down. They immediately started scampering around, exploring their new home. “I will help you acquire the necessary supplies for their care.” Ratio didn’t wait for a response before venturing into the apartment.
“Huh?” Aventurine blinked in surprise. “I thought they didn’t like me.”
“Change of heart, I suppose,” Ratio offered the blond a soft smile. “You have this annoying talent of worming your way into people’s hearts.”
“Aw, so you do love me!” Aventurine cooed, smiling like the cat who got the cream.
“I did not say that!”