Work Text:
“So please don’t leave,
I need you more than you need me,
You’re beautiful and smart and kind,
And I am ugly, full of lies.”
-Trees II - McCafferty
Aventurine stared at the decoration on the wall for longer than he'd intended to. And then he laughs bitterly, leaning against the wall. He should’ve expected Ratio to leave, truly. Everyone does, eventually, and Ratio was no exception. He just should've realized that the other would be leaving sooner because of how he'd been pulling away a week after the news was released. And yet he ignored the signs and let himself feel the heartbreak.
Still, a decoration was what triggered his unhappiness. A decoration. (It doesn’t matter that he was the one to gift the painting to Ratio. His apartment was bare before, is all.) That’s all it was. A decoration. A painting. Hung above Ratio’s door that he’d never looked up at before. He shakes his head and walks over to Ratio’s kitchen. Or well, what was his kitchen. He moves from memory, opening the cupboard he’d seen Ratio put some wine he’d been gifted once.
Here’s to a night of trying to forget that the only person Aventurine truly cared about left him too!
----
Aventurine unofficially moved in within the week. Ratio’s apartment was closer to his usual haunts after all. (It wasn’t but he didn’t care.) Soon enough, he brought the cat cakes over and some of his clothes that he needed -- what he already had there wasn’t enough -- but other than that, he just.. Kept everything the same. Replaced items when they got old or he used them up, or whatnot.
He wasn’t grieving. No. The Astral Express crew and Topaz and everyone else can call it that if they want, but that’s not what’s happening. He wasn’t mourning Ratio leaving or anything. Nope. Not one bit. He’s just.. Expressing his freedom! Ratio always chided him for his habits so why not indulge now that he’s gone! (He misses him. So much.)
His cat cakes had adjusted well to the change. They already liked Ratio enough that an entire apartment that smelled of the man to them? It was basically heaven for them. So he allowed them to run ‘haywire’, only making sure some things were safe for them. And that.. Stuff wouldn’t be broken. Obviously. He wouldn’t dare break anything of Veritas’.
----
It takes a month for ‘Ratio’s apartment’ to become ‘Aventurine’s apartment’ in people’s eyes. Sure, Aventurine still had the place he lived before, but he rarely returned there. Only if he really, truly, needed something. And that was basically never. So he never corrected them. It wasn’t like they’d known that he wasn’t going to stay here forever. Just until Ratio came back.
It’d only be a few more months, right? ... Right?
----
Three months into Ratio’s disappearance, Aventurine broke. His vices increased tenfold. The drinking. The smoking. The gambling. The toying with his life as if it weren’t his. Topaz called him out on it once. He brushed her off. (“Seriously, ‘Paz. I’m fine. It’s nothing. I mean it.” “You got worse, Aventurine! This isn’t how you should let your grief out..”) He paid her words no mind after that. So long as they weren’t work related, that is.
Aventurine wasn’t the first, but he also wasn’t the last to think that Ratio was dead. It only made sense. He left in the dead of night. Told Aventurine to keep his house maintained. He stopped talking to everyone, but didn’t block them regardless. He went full no contact. And it hurt. So Aventurine let himself believe that Ratio was dead. (He could ignore the hurt that way. Like dealing with his big sis’ death.)
He attended the first of many ‘funerals’ held by people who cared for Ratio that month. ... He stopped attending after the first year. It was easier to be numb to the lack of Ratio. (It was easier when he took the other’s jacket out of the closet and slept with it in his arms.)
----
His first assigned mission without Ratio was difficult. He wasn’t alone, instead with a few of the agents that worked beneath him, but it was.. Hard. He was used to working with someone who knew him. Who knew him well enough to understand that he’s doing what’s necessary. ... It was also difficult due to the IPC’s new standards and rules and all that jack, but he’s grown to not care about that anymore.
It’s not like he followed the rules before, anyway. And they always found a way to cover his messes up. (After all, everything he did wasn’t revealed in the leak.) So, he let himself get loose. Get wild. Messy. He was wild and yet free in his missions without Ratio to reign him in, and soon everyone learned that letting him do missions alone was best. (His agents were scared of him now.)
----
Eventually, Aventurine returns to how he once was. It took a year or so, but he did. He mellowed out. He still refused to work with anyone else, though. It hurt to be working without Ratio still. So he requested to work alone, and besides, he wasn’t risking his life, was he? He’s always the Final Victor after all. (It hurts to think of how he started using that phrase more often. It always got Ratio to have the prettiest look in his eyes.)
He finds it within himself to speak to Topaz and the others, both hoping for any idea of a word from Ratio. (Though they’d all said that the man would speak to him first. He doesn’t get why.) But it was.. Enjoyable. Topaz is kind, after all, he enjoys her presence, even if they aren’t exactly friends and merely coworkers. The Stellaron twins are.. something else, excitable and energetic and they enjoyed the time they had come over to see his cat cakes.
He would’ve said he enjoyed it too, but a part of him still wishes Ratio were here. He doesn’t get these.. feelings. The feeling of longing for a man who left everyone behind a year ago. He tries to let go of these feelings, they’d only hurt him in the past. But he fails miserably, and it takes him much longer to come to terms with Ratio never returning.
----
When Ratio finally returns, 5 or 6 or so years later, Aventurine is, for lack of a better word, pissed. He was out, it was around four in the morning, and he gets a text from a number he never thought he’d get one from again. Well, no.. He wasn’t pissed. He was when he was left on sent. No. He was shocked and upset, and generally... Not ready.
...
Doc~: I see you’ve taken up residence in my old apartment.
I’ll feed your cats.
We’ll speak in the morning. Please, be rational about this situation.
>wait what
...
Aventurine starts to type out Ratio’s first name, but thinks better of it, replying as quickly as his fingers can type.
...
> vratio explain
you’re back??
(read)
>ratio
doc i swear to the aeons
why are you back now?
why did you leave??
it’s 3am
4am
i’m coming home stay up for me
we’re talking now
Aventurine’s hands are shaking as he’s left on sent, and he shoves his phone into his pocket. He’ll run home. Screw the game he was in, the tab that’s perpetually unpaid, he can see Ratio again. (He hates the man, he’d decided a year ago. He shouldn’t be this excited to see him again.)
When he enters the apartment, he stops and stares at the head of purple hair barely visible over the back of the couch. He walks over, sighing when he sees the three cat cakes resting on the other’s chest. He goes to speak, but he sees how the other is sleeping and his eyebags, and Aventurine decides to ignore him until tomorrow.
They can talk later. Because as much as it hurts to see him again, he’s not going to disrupt his sleep. He’s not ready for another Ratio-Lecture. So he heads into what used to be Ratio’s bedroom and lays on the bed. He exhales and grabs a random blanket, sheet, or whatever and pulls it over himself. He pulls in the jacket that become one of his few comforts over the past few days, and buries his face into it to sleep.
----
When he wakes, Ratio is still asleep, and he can’t bring himself to care.(He cares far too much for this man, but he doesn’t want to let himself believe it.) He sends him a text telling him that he’s going to work and that’s that. He settles himself to a day of paperwork and boring gossip that his agents bring to him when they’re bored too.