Archive of Our Own

It’s not that Aventurine disliked being a beta, per se. He preferred it- the thought of being constantly swayed this way and that by hormones and pheromones sounded exhausting. He didn’t envy the way people could so easily become helpless in the face of mating cycles. One less thing to fight himself over was most certainly a boon- so, yes, he was grateful. He was grateful for the amount of control, precision, versatility he was given. 

But in his line of work? Well, it wasn’t always advantageous. Most of the people he worked with- most people in positions of power in general were alphas. And most weren’t the reasonable kind, either. (People with money were rarely sane or reasonable.) They would only see eye to eye with another alpha, and a beta like Aventurine wouldn’t be able to convince them of a thing. But an omega? They flew under the radar- they were underestimated. An omega as pretty as Aventurine could bat their eyelashes and it be worth more than an hour of negotiations. 

Aventurine was small for a beta, he was pretty, and he had years of experience being forced into similar roles. All it took was a well-placed scent-suppressing patch to sell the facade. Alphas would trip over themselves wondering about what was concealed under the patch, unaware of the subdued, underwhelming truth. It also partially helped to cover up his brand, which was a nice touch. A high-collared shirt and a scent patch kept it almost completely concealed. It was nice not to have to look directly at it most days.

He had figured out this trick years ago now, and for the sake of appearances, lived as an omega. While there were a few higher-ups that knew the truth, it was kept under fairly close wraps. He was the only “omega” in the Stonehearts, and they used that to their full advantage. 

The benefits outweighed the risks. Sure, alphas thought less of him, thought of him as weaker. But people already thought less of him for being an Avgin. This lie, at least, could be turned on its head if need be. The more someone knows about you, the more confident they are in their moves against you. Keep them in the dark, and you’ll have them moving in the wholly wrong direction. He wasn’t necessarily proud of the charade- rather the opposite, in fact. He didn’t enjoy living a lie, but to an extent, he always had been. What's one more?

Perhaps for someone else, it would be more of a precarious balance, but who was he hiding the truth from? He had no family, and no friends to speak of. This lie helped his work, and his work was his life.

There was one recent development, however. A hitch in his plan, as it were. A development by the name of Veritas Ratio. 

They got along well enough at first. Ratio seemed vaguely annoyed by him, but then again, he seemed annoyed by anyone that breathed, so Aventurine didn’t think much of it. They worked well together. Quite well, actually. As it were, Aventurine did not necessarily tend to communicate well with guild representatives on missions- he saw little need. Most of them were left in the dust, and this did not concern Aventurine in the slightest. He worked better alone. Or, at least, he used to. 

Ratio could actually manage to parse out Aventurine’s schemes, and kept pace with him perfectly well, albeit not without his complaints. So they were placed together more often than not. With every mission, the doctor seemed to warm up to him a bit more, and Aventurine grew to enjoy his company in turn. They were friends, even Aventurine had to admit that much.

But Aventurine, of course, could not be satisfied with being friends . He was a gambler, through and through, and he suffered the same vices all gamblers did- he did not know when to quit. You can leave with more than you came, double it, triple it, but when would it be enough ? (That’s a question with no answer, of course.) He could not simply warm his hands with fire that was companionship- he swallowed the sparks, and let them burn down his throat in hopes that they would catch his stomach alight and warm him from the inside out. 

Falling in love was a misstep on his part. It was a deal made with crossed fingers- a bone destined to break. There was a convocation of reasons why Aventurine simply was not built to love. He could list them if he wished, but his stubborn heart would not listen. 

Love was an enticing thing, after all. It could make Psyche weep, could make Orpheus turn his head. It was a trap. It was not like a trap for animals, the promise of food distracting from the jaws of the snare. It was a trap for humans, in which the snare and the promise were one and the same. It was a honeyed set of jaws, which promised comfort in their embrace. It was intriguing, it was enticing. I am an expensive mistake , it called out to him, and I know you will take this risk.

Their relationship was a hypothetical- one which Aventurine fed and played with like one might a pet. It slept atop a pile of untruths and contradictions. He lived as an omega, and he was not one. He was a man called Aventurine, named Kakavasha. He lived as a human- he did not know how to be one. 

He invited Veritas to dinner on a whim. Pier Point was quiet for once, and a slow night in a quick city made people restless. They had been to dinner before, of course, countless times. But this one was different, for there was no mission to keep them glued to each other. There was no guise, no plan to discuss. It was a declaration of affection. I want to see you, and I want to do it for no reason in particular. I miss you when you aren’t around. 

Veritas accepted. They had dinner, once, twice, and then three times- thrice was a pattern. That’s when he knew he was well and truly doomed. 

They danced across the line between what they were and what they were not. They were not quite courting- Aventurine never left with any scent lingering on his body but his own. But it was impossible to say that they weren’t something . He would have to be a fool not to notice the ropes that bound them, tugging them this way and that. He wished he really were an omega- then, perhaps, he could blame it on his baser instincts. But there were no perfumed temptations, no primal cravings in his gut. This was his doing alone. That was the worst part.

The buildings in Sigonia were all shoddy and unstable- his sister told him when he was young it was because they were built on sand. When it rained, the sand shifted underneath the foundations, and it left the buildings different than before it had come. There are, of course, many ways to build sturdy houses on sand- Aventurine knows this now. But the people of Sigonia were undereducated, underresourced, and they did not. They made the same mistakes over and over, their infrastructure falling and being rebuilt over and over again.

A partnership built on falsehood was like a house with a bad foundation. No matter how well kept, how cleanly primed and painted, it would fall eventually. The foundations would shift until the walls began to crack. He was the shoddy house in the sand- and he was the man who built it. Aventurine knew this. So why didn’t he back down?

This little dance of theirs happened in a slow, careful rhythm, and it gave him every opportunity to change course. At each of these opportunities, he deliberately chose to keep hold, to keep dancing. This could only end in ruin, he knew this well, and yet he kept chasing after something . 

Perhaps their first encounter had left something to be desired in Aventurine. Perhaps three empty chambers were not enough for the gambler- he needed to see how many rounds of roulette he could stand before the bullet lodged in his heart. He always had a bad habit of pushing his luck.

“Say, doctor.” He twirled his wine glass in his hand, watching the liquid churn in its cup. It was overfilled, and the contents threatened to spill with each gentle twirl. “What are you doing tomorrow morning?” 

“I had planned on a trip to the bookstore,” Ratio replied. “Though I have my doubts that you’re seriously interested in my goings-on.”

“Oh? Am I not allowed to be curious?” He smiled and tilted his head- a playfully false display of innocence. “Would it interrupt your schedule terribly if I were to keep you a bit longer tonight?”

“Speak plainly, if you will.” His voice was flat, but his gaze held no small amount of amusement. Perhaps there was a flicker of affection there, though Aventurine could have easily imagined it. 

“I’m trying to invite myself over, doc. Is that plain enough for you?”

“Invite yourself? How presumptuous.” A small quirk of the corner of his lips- hardly noticeable. Aventurine finds himself staring. “How do you know my home is in any state for visitors, dear gambler?” 

“I’m willing to wager it’s in a better state than mine,” he says. It’s a blatant lie- his house is spotless. But it was much easier to find an excuse to leave someone else’s house than it was to kick someone out of your own, should shit hit the fan, as it were. “So, what do you say?”

“I would be glad to have you.”

Were they to have sex, Aventurine’s differing biology would have become apparent fairly quickly. He knew this. But he also knew that sex was the best way to keep an alpha interested. His solution was a rather simple one- misdirection. Offer one thing, give another. Do it efficiently, do it quickly, and they rarely question it. At the end of the day, most alpha’s didn’t care what they stuck their dick into, as long as it was marketed to them correctly. This wasn’t exactly the same situation, but he knew his fundamentals. He figured that the same principles would apply, to an extent.

Aventurine had planned for this. 

They barely made it through the door before Veritas was kissing him- he had spent the whole trip there throwing teasing remarks around for this very reason. Wind someone up, get them overwrought, and they took much less time to think about what they ought to do.

What he hadn’t accounted for was Ratio’s gentleness- his thoroughness. His kiss was not forceful, nor overzealous. There was hunger in it, yes, but the hunger was not gluttonous. It was simple in its wanting. Veritas had one hand on his hip, the other cupping his face, touch soft, almost tender. As if Aventurine was something to be treasured, to be held carefully so as not to mar. He kissed him with a sort of delicacy Aventurine had not felt before- soft, slow, open-mouthed without the gnashing of teeth. 

His back was against the wall, though he could not say that he was pressed against it, exactly, as much as he was leaned against it, held up by it. He knew he should have sped things up by now- should have dropped to his knees with desperate eyes and insisted. 

But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wanted more- he always did, with Veritas. He wanted more of this tenderness, like honeysuckles plucked while no one watches, like sweet chevrefoil. Even with his weak nose, this close, he could smell the alpha’s scent- sweet and warm, like amber. For the first time, he itched to have someone else’s fragrance clinging to his skin. It was a foreign feeling, not entirely welcome. He had not realized how cunning became a coward in the face of desire. Aventurine kissed greedily, single-minded in his pursuit until he remembered to breathe again, and he gasped for air.

“Let me suck you off,” he said, breathlessly, before he had more time to convince himself not to. 

“Someone’s impatient,” Veritas raised his eyebrows, looking down at him. He wasn’t quite smiling, but there was an affection in his eyes that seemed to be reserved for Aventurine. He reveled in it.

“I prefer the word eager,” he replied with a smile. 

“Yes, I suppose that works too.” He laughed softly- a lovely timbre that Aventurine was seldom allowed to hear. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to take my time with you,” he murmured, a gentle caress to Aventurine’s cheek sending a shiver through him that he barely managed to suppress.

And what was he meant to say to that, no ? That would be an admission that something was out of the ordinary, something was being painted over. The overly eager omega game could only get him so far, and Veritas was stubborn. Aventurine got the overwhelming sense that he had been backed into a corner- though the one that had lured him there was himself. Of course this little trick wouldn’t work on Veritas. Why did he ever delude himself into thinking that it would?

“If you insist,” he sighed, throwing a veil of playfulness over the feeling. All he could do now was stall, and enjoy this luxury until he could think of a backup plan.

With that, Veritas began to kiss him once again. To his chagrin, the alpha’s lips began to migrate. He kissed the corner of Aventurine’s lips, then his cheek, his jaw, the soft skin below his ear. His lips cascaded down, further, then further, tortuously slow, almost taunting. They hovered mere millimeters above the suppressant patch. 

“May I?” He murmurs.

Aventurine holds his breath. Suddenly, he is no longer confident in this gamble. The wool is pulled off from over his eyes, and the sun is so bright that he stumbles. Love made people stupid. Love made people do things they shouldn’t. Love had led him to convince himself that this would work, that it would keep Veritas interested. It was supposed to prolong the wait before the inevitable fall. All Aventurine was really doing now was leading their waltz ever closer to the cliff’s edge.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said with a smile. It was supposed to sound playful. Cheeky, if not a bit shy. His voice just came out just a little too hollow, and he could only hope his smile didn’t look as cheap as the rest of him. Veritas merely stared at him, puzzled. 

“Forgive my bluntness, but am I mistaken about your intentions here?” Ratio asked. 

“I’m… hesitant to take the patch off around an alpha,” he lied. “It has to do with my past, I’m sure you understand.” Perhaps the pity card could convince him to ask fewer questions. Perhaps, if he wanted someone who would not ask questions, he should not have fallen in love with a scientist.

“And yet you offered to perform sexual favors for me?” He knitted his eyebrows. “I don’t wish to offend, but if you don’t even feel comfortable enough around me to let me near your scent, I doubt that we should be engaging in any type of sexual exchange.”

“You’re probably right,” he said with a small, faux disappointed sigh. “Got a little ahead of myself, I’m afraid.” He pulled away from Veritas. An apologetic smile. A nervous smoothing of shirt fabric. “I should go.”

“I wasn’t trying to kick you out, you know. You could-“

“I really should go,” Aventurine said again, turning to put on the coat he had hastily thrown on a hook. Before he could think of a good excuse, Ratio had placed a hand on his shoulder, and he had turned to look at the taller man. 

“Aventurine,” he said, expression still tinged with concern. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.” 

This was curtains for Aventurine’s little game. He could only bluff for so many rounds in a row before Ratio would call- and here it was. 

“Can’t a man have his secrets, doctor?” He asked with a playful smile, a last-ditch attempt to climb out of a shallow grave. 

“Not if you intend to take this courtship seriously,” Ratio told him, bluntly. Courtship . Putting a name to it made it seem so much heavier. It seemed that he was the only one with misgivings about what this was supposed to be. “Do you?” He asked- the statement unspoken: because I do. Aventurine had a lump in his throat. 

He would like to say that he didn’t want to hurt Veritas, and he supposed that much was true. He didn’t want to, but at some point, he realized that he was going to, and selfishly, he persisted anyway. 

Ratio didn’t deserve this. He had done nothing wrong other than make the foolish mistake of beginning to care about Aventurine- a liar and a crook. He did not deserve this, and yet he was going to get it. 

Aventurine could not help but wonder how things could have turned out if he had been different. If he had simply not pretended for so long, or, perhaps, if he really had been an omega. Would things have worked, then? Perhaps, though he could not shake the feeling that no matter what, Aventurine would have screwed it up somewhere along the line, irrevocably, and it would end up just like this. 

He could walk away now, leave secrets hiding in the dark, and perhaps they could remain friends. Cordial and familiar, albeit with an underlying sorrow at what could have been. The thought made Aventurine itch. He would not give himself another thing to mourn. Another thing that he could not save. He wanted to set this feeling ablaze, to let the flames lick at his skin and burn away the guilt that coated it.

“Secret’s out, then.” His fingers feel for the edge of the patch and he rips it off, the cling of the adhesive burning, leaving his skin red and tender in its wake. Were he the omega that he claimed to be, his scent would have curled through the air, cloying and thick. The revelation was held in the lack, rather than the reveal.

“…I see,” Ratio said. His face did not betray much emotion, but there was something tense in the way he stood, the way he looked at Aventurine so differently suddenly. “I’ll admit that I had my suspicions, but-“

“But you didn’t want to believe it, did you? That I’m not what you wanted?” He felt impossibly small, though he spoke with a smile as if to indicate a lack of concern. 

“What I didn’t want to believe is that you’ve been lying to me,” Veritas said, voice rapidly growing cold, like hot metal quenched in water, sizzling out. Aventurine wanted to kick himself. 

“Sorry to say it, Ratio, but I’ve been lying to everyone ,” he spat. Something tender in his heart wanted to grovel, wanted to explain that he had set these dominos in motion years ago. He wanted to tell of the shame which clawed at him, that he was sorry the scheme he had set up long before he knew the doctor was falling down around both of them now. But he would not allow himself to grieve that which he himself killed. “You aren’t special,” he said instead.

“You’d certainly like to tell yourself that, wouldn’t you? And yet here we are.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Aventurine replied, though the way the words sat heavy in his stomach proved otherwise. He liked to consider himself a hard person to read. To most, he was. Veritas had become too familiar.

“You…” Veritas sighed, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not doing this right now.”

“Right,” he huffed. It wasn’t like Veritas not to fight back, and Aventurine had honestly hoped that he would- that he would blow up and say something hurtful that would make Aventurine miss him less. But there was no point in dragging it out now- he was being handed a ticket out, and he would be a fool not to take it. He began to speak again, unsure of what exactly he would say, when Ratio interrupted him. 

“I just need time to think.”

Aventurine froze in place. “…Think,” he said, dumbly. About what, exactly? He tried not to bristle at the implications- that this wasn’t over yet. That he hadn’t killed it in one swift motion, like a guillotine. “Not much to think about,” he replied, reaching for the door handle and listening to the click of the latch, swinging open the door and feeling the night air hit his face. He could almost breathe again. 

“This isn’t over, Aventurine.” He wished it sounded more like a threat, less like a reassurance.

Aventurine’s hand on the door’s handle tensed. What was this, exactly? This confrontation, maybe? Or something else entirely? There was an ache in the cavity of his chest at the thought that perhaps he meant this as in whatever it was they had between them- a courtship, he had called it. Aventurine swallowed the thought. 

“Sure,” he said, weakly, and let the door swing shut behind him. 

He tried not to allow himself to agonize over it, he truly did. He had developed the ability over the years to tune out the things which made him ache. But this one was fresh and uncertain, like an illness undiagnosed. 

Over the course of their situation, he had developed a habit of visiting the doctor on his lunch break. Some days he was there, some days Aventurine found an empty office, and he bought a coffee to leave on the desk before he left. The lunches he had spent alone for years somehow felt lonelier now, as if he were experiencing withdrawal. He started working right through them.

He was getting sloppy. He was missing things he would never normally miss, he was taking longer to do menial tasks. He blamed Veritas for ruining him- for making him distracted thinking about a boy like a gods damned teenager. For leaving a jagged edge when he could have left a clean cut. He could only blame Veritas for so long before his brain turned it back on him. He was stupid for getting attached, stupid for staying attached. He wanted to take a drill to the part of his brain which made him hopeful . Hopeful that Veritas would forgive him, that they could move on from this like normal people might. But you aren’t normal, Aventurine reprimanded himself. The dance is through. Stop floundering on the stage like an idiot.

A knock came at his office door, interrupting his thoughts- a few light raps followed by Topaz’s agitated voice. 

“Aventurine,” she huffed. “Are you even in there?”

“Yes? The door’s unlocked, you know.” She walked in with her arms crossed, a file folder wedged between her arm and her body. Most days she at least had the decency to wait to look annoyed until Aventurine opened his mouth, but it seemed that today was not one of those days. 

“I brought you the notes from the meeting,” she said, dropping the offending papers on his desk. “You know, the one you didn’t even bother to attend?”

“…Meeting?” He asked. It took a moment for his brain to catch up- today was Thursday, and there was indeed a meeting today. One that he had, evidently, completely blanked out on and missed. “Ah, right. That meeting.”

“Yeah, that meeting. I covered for your ass this time, and I took some of the flack for you. But only because I know something is off with you.” 

“Nothing is off with me. I just… lost track of time, is all. Tell Jade it won’t happen again.”

“See, you say that, but I don’t think I’ve seen you screw up like this the whole time I’ve been a stoneheart. Something is up with you.” She narrowed her eyes at him, though it was not exactly a glare. It was a warning look, like the kind you might give a small child caught in the act of doing something wrong. For a moment, she looked like his sister. He gritted his teeth.

“Aeons, you’re acting like I shot someone. It was a one-time thing, alright? Drop it.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I’m just trying to help, alright? Let me know if you wanna… talk about it, or something.” Oh, Topaz, always so well-meaning. The alpha saw the best in everyone, went out of her way to be kind even in a profession that punished it. Aventurine did not give her the opportunity to be disappointed in him. He made an effort to drop the pretense of charm- he figured she deserved the truth, as ugly as it tended to be. 

“I appreciate your generosity,” he made a show of rolling his eyes. “But there’s nothing to talk about, and I don’t want your charity .” He takes up the file folder and shoves it back into her hands. “Take your little papers and go do something more worthwhile with your time.” 

Topaz crossed her arms again, her voice almost a growl. “You are so- so stubborn. All I’m trying to do is help you, you know. But no, nothing can be so simple for the great Aventurine .”

“Save your help for someone else.”

That night, Topaz emailed him the meeting notes regardless of his protests. He promptly ignored the email until he was tired enough to stop being stubborn, and he replied with a curt apology before promptly muting her contact. 

The night crawls on, and Aventurine lies awake for hours in a stretch. This wasn’t uncommon for him. He slept very little for days in a row until it all caught up with him and he slept almost entire days away. Some restless nights he took to pacing like an animal in captivity, others he spent staring at his ceiling as if daring it to fall down on him. Tonight, he did neither. His brain was never quiet by any measure, but as of late it was entirely too loud, and rather than listen to it, he opted to stare at his phone screen until the words stopped making sense and his eyes stung in protest. However, he had not nearly reached this familiar state of half-delirium when the notification appeared. 

A text from Ratio, which simply read: are you busy?

He stared at the message. It seemed to stare right back at him- he could almost feel Ratio’s gaze through the phone. He could ignore the message, hypothetically, but he knew that there was a little green light by his name which betrayed his status as active. He typed out several responses, deleted them, and then typed them back out, before groaning and running a hand through his hair. He settled on just about to go to sleep, in hopes that that might delay the conversation until the morning. 

You must have made some serious lifestyle changes since last we spoke, Ratio replied. He must have known this much about Aventurine by now. For a man who was so fastidious about his own health, even he had his weaknesses, and one of them was a restlessness which could almost rival Aventurine’s own. They often spent mutually insomniac nights on the phone, where Aventurine admitted more than he should, and Ratio paid him the kindness of not mentioning the things he said in the morning.

Yep. A real paragon, you wouldn’t believe it. 

Can you come over? 

He did not reply. He merely scrubbed his hands over his face, groaned, and got out of bed. He changed into something more presentable than his pajamas, and then reached for a scent patch, as easily as he might reach for a pair of car keys. He crumbled it in his hand, tossing it to the floor. He felt a sort of animosity towards it, as if it was the patches fault rather than his own. Despite this, he felt naked without it, as if walking into the chill of the night with no coat.

The drive felt excruciatingly long, perhaps due to the way he considered turning around at every possible juncture, but never did. When he arrived, he killed the headlights and parked down the street in an attempt not to give any indication he had arrived. The two halves of his brain pulled in different directions, threatening to split his head in two. Does he face Veritas, or does he run away? He could not tell which part of his brain was the emotional part, and which was the rational. Regardless, the half of his mind which sought out Veritas seemed to be the same as the one which held his stubborn will, as it wrenched his reluctant body along. 

He stood at the door for a while- it could have been mere seconds, but if it had stretched into minutes or more, Aventurine was none the wiser. He merely stared at the door for a while, until the night breeze climbed down the back of his shirt, and he shivered and knocked on the door.

The alpha opened it after only a moment, and stood in the dim doorway, staring at Aventurine as if scrutinizing, reading in his margins. Aventurine was dazed by how the sight of his face made him ache, though it had scarcely been a week since they’d spoken. Veritas was looking him right in the eyes- he always had, where other’s had sought not to, which enthralled Aventurine as much as it disquieted him. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come,” Ratio said, and stepped out of the way, allowing Aventurine to follow him through the door. He hesitated at the doorway, as if it was a threshold he should be wary to cross. Veritas was turned away and did not see.

Neither was I . “I did.”

“That you did. I’m having tea if you’d like any.” He shut and locked the door behind them, before walking to the kitchen, leaving Aventurine to trail behind and stare at the back of his head. 

He sat on a tall barstool and watched Veritas work- there was a gentle simplicity to him that he rarely got to see. Rather than his usually attire, carefully fitted, meticulously pressed, he wore a plain sweater, and the the thick fabric fell loosely over his frame. Still, he was so similar in his rigid posture, his meticulous and steady hand, that Aventurine could almost imagine him in a lab rather than a kitchen. Though Veritas wasn’t looking at him, he used the last dregs of his self-discipline to keep his own hands from fidgeting. He kept his face still and unbothered as if he did not feel half-naked, laid bare in the bed he had made for himself.

“So,” Veritas broke the silence as he handed the mug to Aventurine, dark liquid still steaming softly. He walked back to the living room, and once again Aventurine wordlessly fell in step behind him. “Explain yourself,” he sat on the couch, and Aventurine settled into an armchair. “I’d like to understand.”

“What do you want me to explain, exactly?” The ceramic cup warmed his hands, though he did not dare drink. “It’s fairly straightforward, I’m afraid.” He was being willfully dense, and Veritas knew this, though he had seemed to summon some measure of patience in preparation.

“Why? What exactly do you gain from lying to… everyone?”

“Well,” he begins, setting his mug down on the coffee table. “It’s textbook slow playing. Fishing for the overcall. Underplay your hand, lure your opponent into raising where he’d normally fold.”

“A fine strategy in poker, I’m sure. But this isn’t a game of cards, and I am not your opponent.”

“I never said you were,” he said. He swatted away the part of him that wanted to turn this into a confrontation as the words echoed in his head. I am not your opponent. “But this game started a long time before I met you, doctor. I didn’t… anticipate you.”

“So… what? If I hadn’t come along, it somehow wouldn’t have mattered? It wouldn’t have mattered that there’s a part of you no one gets to know?” He sounded strangely concerned with this notion.

“There are plenty of parts of me no one gets to know. What’s one more?”

“It just… doesn’t seem worth it, is all. All of this deception just for a bit of an upper hand.”

“You wouldn’t understand. And I don’t necessarily blame you for that. We all play the cards we’re dealt- and you’ve got a much different hand than I do. Aeons, we’re barely playing the same game.”

“But what about when the game is through?”

“The game is never through, doctor. Not for me.”

“Sounds awfully tiring,” he said, gaze seeming to be searching for something. Aventurine did not know what he was looking for, nor know how to provide it. Ratio seemed to come to a similar conclusion- he did not find, in Aventurine, the answer to his unspoken question. He sighed. “I understand, to some extent, where you’re coming from. I… merely wish you would have told me at some point.”

“Have you ever thought about how most alphas would react to that news?”

“That’s hardly an excuse. You knew that this was going to be an issue, and yet you let things go on for months. What was your plan , exactly? Just how long were you going to toy with me?” It stung to hear him say it like that, so bluntly. It angered him that it was true. 

“I didn’t have a plan.”

“That’s quite unlike you.”.

“This whole mess is unlike me,” Aventurine snapped, standing abruptly and beginning to pace a bit back and forth. “I never let things go on this long. And I never care when they’re finished. I had no reason to believe this would be any different, but you- you- ugh!” He ran his hands through his hair, resisting the urge to tug at it.

“Aventurine.”

“I never wanted to love you!” He threw his hands in the air, and then shrank back as he heard the frantic tone of his own voice. He took a deep breath before he allowed himself to continue. “There’s your story, Ratio. I’m a desperate, selfish fool who fell in love with a lie. And I’m sorry I dragged you along.” 

“You can’t just tell me that you love me and then leave.”

“Watch me.”

“Aventurine, please.” He sounded less composed now, and Aventurine turned to see him standing behind him. “Don’t go.” To his chagrin, Ratio looked hurt. Worried, even. His eyes held an uneasiness that a man of his disposition rarely showed. 

“This would be so much easier for the both of us if you’d just hate me.”

“I don’t care about what’s easy. I care about you.”

He closed his eyes, counted to three in his head, and sighed. “I’m not an omega,” he said as if the reiteration would somehow change something. Make him realize how stupid this dance had been, how farcical.

“No. You aren’t.”

“And you aren’t upset?”

“I’m angry that I’ve been lied to for months. I’m… surprised that you aren’t what I thought you were. But my attraction to you was never based on something so… arbitrary as secondary gender.” 

“I think you may well be the only alpha I’ve ever met who would consider it arbitrary.”

“ Most alphas are overly concerned with holding power over their mates. That’s where the glorification of alpha and omega relationships comes from- it’s about control.” He crosses his arms. “That's beside the point. I’m not attracted to you due to… instincts, pheromones, whatever you want to pin it on. I like you because you’re charming and witty, and you’re one of the few people on this star system whose company I actually enjoy.” 

He could not help but be taken aback by the blunt kindness of the statement. He could not help but feel the weight of how much he did not deserve it. “You’re serious about this.”

“I’m not going to ask you to drop your whole… game. I understand the position you’re in after so long of keeping up the act, and frankly, it isn’t my place to decide this for you. But I’d like to court you properly. And in order for that to happen, I’d like for you to be honest with me, at the very least.”

“You must be a real glutton for punishment, doctor,” he laughs softly.

“Perhaps,” he replies, eyes flickering with a rare bit of mirth, which seemed to lighten the mood if only a bit. “So,” he murmurs, stepping a bit closer. “May I?” 

He realized after a small moment that Veritas wanted to scent him. It made sense- it was a fairly standard sign of courtship, and the alpha had made it quite clear by now that this was what they were meant to be. It wasn’t overly intimate, really- he had done much worse with alphas he liked much less. But no one had laid a hand on his neck, not since his body became more or less his own again. He never went anywhere without a patch- it accompanied him like a second skin. But here he was, now, bare of it.

“Go ahead,” he replied, quietly. 

Veritas leaned into him, placed a broad, gentle hand on his shoulder, the other on his hip. He brought his face to the crook of Aventurine’s bared throat. He nuzzled into the space that he made there, his skin warm, his scent making itself known to Aventurine’s dull senses. The skin of his scent gland wasn’t necessarily sensitive , but there was some kind of sensation beneath his skin, as if there was an itch he had never noticed before. He sighed and melted into the gentle touch.

“You smell nice.”.

“I didn’t know I had much of a scent.”

“Not too much,” he admitted, leaning back, satisfied with his work. “But what’s there is nice. Like honey.” He almost laughed. Avgin was the Sigonian word for honey. Was that where his people had gotten their name, he wondered? Had his mother, his father, his sister had that floral sweetness he supposedly did? He wished he could remember even one of their scents. 

“Good to know, I suppose.” Ratio was looking right at him. He always did. “…I think the tea has gone rather cold by now,” he noted, though he had barely drank a sip in the first place.

“Certainly,” he replied. “I can make more, if you plan on staying.”

“Inviting me to stay the night, are you?” He teased. “Rather brazen, doctor.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he warned, though they both knew that any ideas to be had would not grace the bed tonight. The air was still much too heavy for such things, the silence thick and humid.

“I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“It’s awfully late,” Veritas said. It was already late when he called, and later still when Aventurine came. The time seemed to have no weight, though they both pretended that it did, for no one’s benefit in particular. “I want you to stay,” he said, finally, less concerned with dancing around matters. 

“Okay,” Aventurine said, quietly. “I’ll stay.” 

He had slept in many places- from cold sands to the finest hotel suites that money could buy. He would choose cold hard concrete any day over the idea of sleeping beside an alpha. The times he had the displeasure, the alpha’s scent seemed to cling to his skin, to the bed, and even to someone with a weak sense of smell like himself, it seemed to smother. The warmth of their body would creep under Aventurine’s skin, sticky and venereal. But he would smile, lie in wait, pretend to sleep.

Veritas was different. Strikingly so. Perhaps it was merely the choice that seemed to halt the crawling of his skin- the knowing that if he wished to leave, he could. Perhaps it was the fact that the scent which curled around him made him feel soothed rather than suffocated. Perhaps it was the way they lay beside each other and talked while they should have been sleeping. 

The warmth of his body was not nauseating. It was welcoming, soft, like sateen sheets. When Veritas touched him, he found himself leaning into the touch rather than wishing he could scrub it off of his skin. The feeling frightened him. (He had a penchant for things that frightened him.)

Despite this, he did not expect that he would be able to sleep. Not beside someone else. He could only sleep when he was alone- with every door locked, checked twice, every window closed. Even then he could sleep only after he had properly exhausted himself, enough that his eyelids grew heavy and his brain swam in and out of slumber of its own accord.

But the night is ripe with surprises. Aventurine does not realize that he sleeps until he wakes, impossible without the former. He is in a bed that is not his own, a house that is not his own, folded in arms that are not his own. He is comfortable and warm, and part of him does not want to let himself covet this repose. But he is sleep-dazed, and scent-drunk. For once, he allows himself this creature comfort. He closes his eyes and smiles.