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When Aventurine wakes up, the first thing he smells is flowers.
The bouquet is easy enough to spot. His hotel room barely looked occupied and next to his dream pool it felt even more out of place, it's not like Aventurine bothered to make himself feel at home in Penacony. He recognizes most of the yellow flowers in the bouquet: carnations, roses, tulips, and daisies. He thinks most of the scent is from the marigolds that lay at the center of the vase, but even as he thinks that, he isn't sure that's even what they're called. There's some smaller yellow flowers he doesn't know the name of, littered among blue clusters of flowers. It's a beautiful bouquet, brighter than it has any right to be.
Aventurine struggles to get out of the dream pool, his legs feel weak and his arms heavy. He must have been in the Nihility for quite a while, enough that he doesn't even have a welcoming party, just flowers. Maybe they were preparing for his funeral, and that's why the bouquet is so unusually cheerful. He knows that as much faith as Topaz and Jade have in him, there are some members of the IPC that are probably cheering for his downfall.
(He does not think of Ratio, not for a single second.)
He sits on the couch, right next to the flowers, the cluster of blue reminds him of his sister. Blue was one of her favorite colors, especially the light, pale kind. It's not a color that Aventurine himself gravitates towards, it's too muted for his tastes. Still, Aventurine can exhale and take a breath; at least, the Nihility didn't take her away from him.
At least, he didn't forget her.
There's something else in the bouquet, besides the blues and yellows, there's a single red rose among the bouquet. Aventurine smiles for the first time since he's woken up from the dream pool, his body suddenly doesn't feel as heavy anymore.
(He does not think of Ratio, not for a single second.)
He's so caught up in his thoughts that he hears the door open. Aventurine shouldn't be surprised to see Ratio, but he still manages to be. The easy smile he usually has around the doctor is harder to pull off when all of his limbs feel weak. Ratio looks panicked for a brief second, because he looks to the dream pool before he looks to the couch where Aventurine is sitting. He relaxes, then furrows his brows when he sees Aventurine out of the dream pool.
"Good morning, doc," Aventurine greets before Ratio has the chance to say anything, he doesn't want to hear his worry or his lectures. He isn't sure what emotion the crease in his brows represents and he isn't taking any chances; Ratio is one of the few things he wouldn't just take a chance on. "Next time my colleagues gift me flowers, feel free to turn them away, I don't need their congratulations or condolences."
Ratio raises a brow, he clears his throat, but it's too late, he can already tell something sounds strained in his usual smooth baritone. "You shouldn't even be walking—where were you, Aventurine?"
Aventurine wonders if now is a good opportunity to say the Nihility, but he isn't sure he has the energy for that conversation. "I'm here now, aren't I?" He smirks and then leans over to pluck the red rose among the bouquet of yellows and blues. "You know, you didn't have to get me anything." Ratio's eyes haven't left him, the crease still hasn't disappeared from between his brows. If Aventurine didn't know better, he thinks that the doctor is exercising restraint of all things.
(Aventurine does not believe the doctor to be an emotionless void—but it is rather convenient to pretend that he is.)
Aventurine's eyes flick away from Ratio's own, smelling the red rose among the bouquet. "I always appreciate the thought." It contradicts the statement he said earlier, that he doesn't want his colleagues to gift him any flowers, but it's better than outright saying the unspoken; Aventurine appreciates the thought from Ratio.
"I didn't gift you that." Ratio sounds cold when he says it, which is an unusual tone for him to take on around Aventurine. "The Knight of Beauty who found you insisted on putting it in the vase. Personally, I think it's out of place in the entire bouquet."
"I didn't know you had such strong opinions on floral arrangements, doc." Aventurine can't help but laugh, but raise an eyebrow. Ratio should be making more of a fuss over him, he should be antagonizing him over the fact that he dared to walk up on his own two legs and hasn't so much as asked for a glass of water. Thank the Goddess he hasn't actually told Ratio where he actually emerged from. "Then, who should I thank for the gesture? You know, one of these yellows matches the shade of my hair."
Aventurine leans over the bouquet to demonstrate, Ratio just turns his head away from him. Aventurine frowns, the doctor really isn't going to entertain any of his antics, is he?
Only, even though Ratio's head is still turned away, he still speaks. "Don't take the meanings too seriously, it's about the gesture, though yellow is typically associated with being a happier color. In some cultures, it can even be meant to bring good luck."
"You bought me flowers?" Aventurine is about to burst into laughter, but when Ratio gives him a look—well, on anyone else it would be mistaken for a glare. On Ratio, it looks more like something else, something more sincere, Aventurine refuses to think more on it than that.
"Topaz and Jade added some things to the arrangements, maybe the tulips, I'm not sure—it all blends together. I believe the emanator and a few more guests also got some yellow flowers of their own." Ratio sighs and rubs at his eyes, and that's when Aventurine sees the dark circles under them.
There are so many moments where Aventurine can recall the doctor's sincerity, they are easy to brush off, they are easy to ignore, they are even easier to take apart. Aventurine doesn't distance himself to be cruel, but before this moment he was a man with a death wish. Even after the Nihility, the only difference now is that he can say with certainty that he does actually wish for that death. It is all Ratio's fault, it is all because Aventurine acknowledges his sincerity, but he can refuse to see the depths of it.
"Well." Aventurine's voice is flat, too harsh considering their earlier conversation. "Thank you for the gift, the good fortune—do you believe in that now? Do you think I appreciate the fact that of all the things you could have wished me, it was good luck?"
Often when Ratio talks to him, Aventurine would hear his tone like it was something reserved for his students. It only took a few more missions for Aventurine to realize that Ratio didn't see him as only a colleague or even someone who needed to be taught. Even though Aventurine is horrified that Ratio sees him as an equal, he still doesn't like it when Ratio interrupts him and only sounds bitter. "It's the least I could do, I don't tend to believe things such as luck or chance or fortune. We both know your skills aren't only these things, but if you're going to bet your life on such things, the least I could do was offer you it."
The worst thing about it all is that even when he's clearly upset with Aventurine, he sounds more hurt than anything else.
Aventurine has to try his hardest to make the next question not come out soft, to sound more like the smug, arrogant mask he always wore. "Did you think I was going to die?"
"I think at some point, I had more faith in you than both of your colleagues," Ratio immediately retorts and it almost makes Aventurine falter. "You didn't wake up for days, four days and twelve system hours. I thought you had lost your way back."
Aventurine thinks his choice of words is strange, back, like Ratio knew where he had already gone. "How did you—"
Ratio is silent for a moment, but when he finally speaks, his voice is soft. "It doesn't surprise me that you don't remember that we discussed the possibility." Aventurine's eyes widen at the implication that Ratio laid out before him, forgetting was never an intimidating thing to Aventurine before this moment, or maybe it was and Aventurine had forgotten that too.
Ratio continues, because if nothing else, he will always fill in gaps for him. "Maybe we didn't discuss going into the Nihility itself, but being affected by it in some way. We didn't know we were dealing with the emanator until we arrived in Penacony, but it was still a factor that we talked about. My knowledge, should at the very least, have helped you navigate your way out of there."
"Stop it," Aventurine snaps before Ratio can even continue. "There is no way you are going to blame any part of a known risk that I took on yourself. You just can't help yourself, can you, doc?" Aventurine laughs and it's something cruel, something sad, an emotion that he shouldn't let slip around Ratio, but should he really be surprised that it does slip? It's always Ratio, it's only Ratio. "Everyone around us thinks that this is who you are—a hardened, stoic scholar that thinks the gambler is taking too many risks, that's why we work together so well."
Aventurine's eyes don't leave Ratio's this time. He can't escape the truth that Ratio's eyes will always look at him with a kindness that he doesn't deserve. Ratio has so much faith in him, even when they both know he shouldn't.
"But you've always been such a good colleague, you've always seen me as just endless potential, right?"
Aventurine can't outright ask Ratio his feelings out loud, he couldn't ever bring himself to do so. Ratio is lucky that he's even getting this close.
Instead, he has to remind him that Aventurine is just full of risk.
"Were the flowers just a step in preparing for my inevitable death?" Aventurine wants to ask more questions, even if he already knows the answer to all of them. Ratio couldn't give him everything he wanted if Aventurine dies while he's on the job, that's just fact. Getting the Aventurine flowers when he has no one, it's the least he could do.
And yet, Ratio surprises him. Maybe the fact that Ratio could still surprise him is the reason Aventurine has fallen this far in the first place. "Maybe not everyone was preparing for your death, Aventurine. Do you see funeral flowers in your bouquet? There's no shame if you don't even know what any of those would be." Ratio takes one of the flowers from the vase, one of the small, blue ones and hands it to Aventurine. It accents the bright, cheerful yellows perfectly, but outside, in his hands, it feels foreign to him.
Ratio then wraps a hand around his, around the flower in his hands, and suddenly Aventurine is very aware that the doctor is very close to his face. "Maybe, some of us were waiting to celebrate the moment you woke up. Maybe that is why the flowers I got for you are bright and yellow. If you were in the Nihility, like the emanator would later tell me, maybe I just wanted to reassure you that you were finally in a world of color again." The look in Ratio's eyes makes Aventurine want to curl into himself, it's soft. Ratio is often soft in ways that nobody understands, but if he was any softer than Aventurine isn't sure he would be able to handle him. "I would not even entertain the thought that you were no longer here and alive."
Aventurine remains silent then, his body gains the heaviness that he thought was lost moments ago. The adrenaline of this conversation is replaced with exhaustion. "I had all the reasons not to come back." Ratio's eyes don't leave his, so Aventurine can see the question in them. Fine, he will give the doctor a small smile, for his unwavering belief, he will give him the truth that he so desperately craves, maybe it will be enough for Ratio to see Aventurine as the deranged gambler that he is. "You're the reason I'm here."
Silence, for Aventurine, is one of the most constricting traps he could be stuck in. Aventurine is usually good about navigating his way out of it, he is usually adept at not letting the room linger with something so encompassing for so long. Aventurine needs to be the shiniest thing in the room, and it's hard when a room is shrouded over in just silence. It's even worse when it's with Ratio, it's even worse when Ratio is still holding his hand.
But he isn't going to give him anything else, he isn't going to tell Ratio that it's because of the note that he handed him after the Dewlight Pavilion, even though he suspects that Ratio knows at least that much. Aventurine certainly isn't going to talk about any of the other feelings or implications or anything else in that statement, he has already given Ratio enough.
Finally, Ratio's tone almost seems back to normal, not so harsh, not so soft. "I am not the only reason you are here, but I don't want to lecture you. You'll learn the reasons you came back in time. Just, let me have one last selfish moment with you." Aventurine's eyes flash at him then, his eyes shine in what he hopes is curiosity and anticipation, even if all he feels is anxiety at whatever Ratio could possibly say to him. "There is one thing you told me that you never wanted to forget, and there is one thing I promised myself I would do, after the mission was all over."
Aventurine nods and ignores the warmth that courses through him when Ratio squeezes his hand reassuringly. He decides at that moment that Ratio deserves this much even if that makes Aventurine weak, even if it's admitting that Aventurine will feel this way, always, with Ratio.
Ratio knows that there's a reason that Aventurine chose him for Penacony, and he knows that Aventurine has put faith in his knowledge again, and when he initially took this job he had an unshakable faith that he would be able to guide Aventurine out of anything. It's not arrogance, but just because any other outcome wouldn't do. He wouldn't tolerate it if this was his greatest failure.
And yet, Aventurine is a man full of contingencies.
“I want to give you something.” Aventurine says in a rush, across from him his legs are drumming against the floor. Ratio can tell the effort he's taking to remain still is only making his restless legs worse, he wants to put a hand on a knee. He doesn't. Aventurine doesn't like to be soothed.
“What is it?” He tries to keep his voice neutral, void of curiosity.
“My name.”
“What?”
“If I forget anything—well. It doesn't matter, but I've decided this is the part of me I don't want to forget.”
It does matter, Aventurine's entire past, heritage, and culture matters. All of these things made him the man that he is today, and that is what matters to Ratio. That is why he has spent night after night researching Sigonia IV, why he filled the pathetically small file as much as he could. He did not do it because he fears Aventurine will forget, because he will get him out of there.
Ratio has to stop his voice from trembling, he has to grasp onto rationality that is in any other circumstance so easy to cling onto. “It makes sense.”
“Kakavasha.” Again, it's said in a rush. Aventurine looks away from him immediately, his eyes are looking towards the side of a wall. It's unusual for the gambler to not even try to bluff or put on a facade, but considering how he says his own name, a whispered, rushed secret—Ratio understands.
He doesn't know how to respond to the gift he's been given. There's a sentence that repeats in his head, a sentence he will never say out loud but he wants to make sure it sounds as good as it feels when he thinks about it. Over and over again he turns it over: I love you, Kakavasha. Kakavasha, I love you.
“I will use it responsibly, Aventurine.”
After Penacony, he will tell him.
"Kakavasha." Aventurine blinks at the way Ratio says his full name, his birth name. The last time he heard Kakavasha was when he was told to strip the identity entirely. There isn't a way that Ratio could have gotten that information, unless he was purposely looking for it, unless Aventurine had told him. Only Aventurine can't remember telling him, but that's the explanation, considering Ratio told him that this is something Aventurine didn't want to forget. It almost doesn't sound like him because most days Aventurine does act like he wants Kakavasha, the last Avgin to just disappear.
It's a moment later that he realizes that Ratio is still speaking and wants to say more even with his name fresh out of his lips. The next thing shouldn't be surprising, because Aventurine already knows it, and Ratio doesn't run away from facts like these. "I love you, Kakavasha."
Silence is a constricting, oppressive thing. It's usually something Aventurine would never choose to weaponize, and the silence he exhibits now, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted while looking at Ratio, surely can't be a choice. The worst part of it all is that Ratio doesn't look upset in the slightest. Their hands are still joined together because it is the smallest mercy that Aventurine can grant.
This isn't how love confessions are supposed to be, but it's how his is going to be.
"What's the flower?" Aventurine asks instead of addressing anything Ratio said, his voice sounding unusually small. Ratio frowns at him, their emotions are both out there, it makes sense for Ratio to openly frown like this now.
"It's a forget-me-not."
Aventurine laughs, that's hilarious, did Ratio pick those out? Considering the way he chuckles, Aventurine has a feeling that's the case. There's a realization in this back and forth with Ratio, that he will always forget and always be sick, and Ratio will be the only person who truly knows. Aventurine already forgot that he told Ratio his name; he doesn't know what else he forgot and will always forget. He puts the flower back in its vase, before sighing in a way that might as well say, I love you too. "You've always been to the point, Ratio."
"I told you that this was selfish of me." Ratio pulls his hand away from Aventurine's own hand, then tilts his head up so Aventurine is looking up at him; Aventurine still hasn't told Ratio that he loves him. Aventurine is still telling himself that maybe it's easier if he tells Ratio that he forgot what he felt around Ratio, that maybe in the past he reciprocated the feeling, even if he doesn't now. They could both get what they wanted then. "You don't have to say it back, but you're going to let me take care of you, aren't you?"
Aventurine rolls his eyes, he can't help himself. "You're not really good at this negotiation thing, doc. You confess your feelings for me and you think that it's a positive towards you sharing a space with you? Do you know me at all?"
"I know the poor Doctor of Chaos the IPC hires to look over you will get tired of hearing my name when you realize a stranger is looking over you instead." Ratio can't help but be practical about these things, but he sighs, the hand underneath his chin pushing some hair behind his ear. Aventurine doesn't like the look in his eyes—the fondness—he wonders how many times he's looked at the doctor just the same. "You can walk away from me after that, but let me watch over you while you're recovering. I know how you are, Aventurine, and I know that just saying I love you can be seen as unfair. It's only the truth."
And isn't that a terrifying thing? For your truth to be in love with Aventurine? Isn't it also a terrifying thing to be known, by someone who has everything, has been given everything, and only wants Aventurine?
Aventurine doesn't answer with words, he can make much better use of his mouth in this moment. Honestly, he's surprised it even took him this long to succumb to his own urges.
He leans up and wraps his arms around Ratio's shoulders when he kisses him. Aventurine's limbs felt impossibly heavy before, but in Ratio's arms they feel light, and now the impossible task is not melting into his body entirely. There is no second guessing if Ratio's going to kiss back this time, like previous kisses exchanged between them, instead Ratio's lips immediately meet his own, immediately deepen the kiss and hang on to the small of his back. It's almost like Ratio is giving him the permission to let go, the permission to melt, the permission to fall. If only things were that easy, maybe in their kisses it can be.
Aventurine has to pull away and take a breath sooner than he'd like, he leans back down to kiss Ratio again, but Ratio already has a finger to his lips.
"No more. You need rest, food and water as well."
Aventurine leans his whole body weight against the doctor, melting into him completely. "I'm taking my very enthusiastic answer back."
Aventurine gives him one last chaste kiss, before pulling away and enjoying the sound of Ratio's laugh.