Work Text:
In space, there is no night.
Or day, for that matter.
Time stretches on relentlessly, punctuated only by interruptions from students running into Ratio’s office to submit their assignments late. Fellow instructors drop by too, sore and tired and aching for someone to empathize with them as they’re subjected to the grueling task of grading final assignments.
As an instructor, did you or did you not sign up for this? Did you not read the job description?
Luckily, Ratio’s caught up on all his vaccines, and whatever infectious stupidity runs rampant through the rest of the school soars over his plaster head as he hunches over his desk and strikes through a passage in red ink.
Flu season has a heavy grip on the school, and while Ratio has thus far gone unscathed, his students haven’t. While he would love to flunk those who have missed final tests and papers, he can’t. It’s the school’s policy that extensions must be afforded to those with doctor’s notes, and every fucker has one.
Those bastards are lucky enough to get extensions.
But Ratio isn’t. All the grades are due in a week and must be inputted on time, otherwise it’ll mean a black mark on his otherwise pristine record.
He doesn’t underestimate the power of several hundred students and their germ-riddled papers to get him sick. He picks through papers swiftly and with gloved hands, stamping abstracts with bright-red marks that he records in his grade book.
He feels lethargy seeping over him starting at the sore point at the back of his neck and curling around to his sore eyes like a sleeping mask.
It invades his mind easily from there.
His fingers tingle warmly. He blinks twice. The essay he’s on isn’t particularly complex. If anything, it’s mind-numbing, an affront to his intelligence that’s not even typed on one of the approved font faces.
That’s another ten points docked…
Living in the velvety darkness of space has its perks but having an office with no natural sunlight fucked up Ratio’s sleep schedule long ago. His head dips toward his desk; he tugs it back up. It feels like a fish dangling at the end of a line, heavy and unruly.
He heaves a sigh and pushes his chair back. A spell’s been broken, the veil of his daze dissipating as the details of the desk sharpen into focus. An uncapped pen. A pile of dishes teetering near the corner. Four piles of graded and ungraded papers marked with red.
Will he still remember what the distinctions for the separate piles are in the morning? Probably not, but he’s smart enough to figure it out.
He caps his pen, stretches a little, then slinks off to the bath with a bottle of lavender essential oil. By the time Ratio settles in for bed, the System Time is 3:24 a.m. Three unread messages from Aventurine sit on the top of his notifications. Instead of reading them, Ratio turns over in bed and sinks a little deeper into his pillow.
Through the night, Ratio dreams of Aventurine slinking through his apartment, letting himself to Ratio’s fridge and poking at the piles of papers on his desk with a mischievous smile.
Ratio’s too tired to stop him. And it’s a dream anyway, so it’s not like he really cares as he stares at the imaginary figure kneeling at his bedside and laying a hand across his forehead. He doesn’t feel the touch and closes his eyes when it’s too much effort to keep the act going. After all, it isn’t like he’s actually here. In fact, he remembers telling Aventurine very explicitly to stay away until finals grading was finished.
When Ratio wakes in the morning, it’s to a thick, rhythmic throbbing at the front of his lobe. His head feels like it’s been stuffed with the plaster he uses to casts his heads. He’s not wearing one now, though, as evidenced by the fact that he’s thoroughly blinded when something flicks on his bedside lamp. It takes all of his energy to grumble and lift his hands to his eyes to shield his face from the light.
“Wake up, you grumpy head,” A familiar voice coos.
Ratio’s breath comes out hot and uncomfortable against the back of his throat. In lieu of a response, he coughs a few times and drags a pillow over his head.
So, it wasn’t a hallucination after all.
The apparition doesn’t force him to sit up, and he wouldn’t be able to regardless, so he turns back over in bed as Aventurine moves to some point deeper in the room.
Just five more minutes…
If he rests now and makes time for lunch or dinner in the evening, then he can still stay up through the night and at least get the rest of the papers graded, although, in the best-case scenario, he would also record the grades and submit them to the online portal.
He’s not late yet; he will only be off-schedule if he sleeps for more than ten hours.
His eyes snap open again. How late? How late is it?
Aventurine’s sitting at his desk looking through his things. From Ratio’s angle in bed, he sees only the thin, focused line of Aventurine’s frown.
“Stop… stop…”
Aventurine looks over at him again and smiles. Ratio’s heart hammers against his chest. The fault of his illness, of course.
“You’ve really let your work pile up, huh?” Aventurine asks. “Good thing I’m here to help you out. Leave this all to me.”
No. Absolutely not. He’ll almost certainly get fired if this idiot gets involved. As Ratio tries to sit up, though, he’s captured in another coughing fit and sinks into his bed with a miserable groan.
“I’m not gonna break anything,” Aventurine says. He pulls the logbook out from underneath a pile of papers. “Just gonna update what I can.”
“If you get me fired, I’m going to skin you,” Ratio hisses.
“Noted.”
The smile doesn’t falter on his lips.
When Ratio fully wakes, movements come and go in a haze. He thinks he remembers Aventurine helping him to the bathroom, then to the dinner table to eat more than a flimsy slice of toast. Aventurine offers him a glass of orange juice and some scrambled eggs. When Ratio’s stomach grumbles for more, Aventurine grins and prepares a fruit bowl and potatoes tossed in spinach and cheese. He’s managed to cook it just to the point of burning but not tipping over the edge so the potatoes are crisp when Ratio bites into them.
It’s not until Ratio’s finally done eating and has wiped his mouth that he finally fully sets his gaze on Aventurine.
That unshakeable smile is still on his lips.
He looks like he came straight over after work, his gold-and-violet outfit studded in the repeating triangular pattern of the IPC. The coat’s been abandoned at Ratio’s desk, revealing the primly creased, white dress shirt and gaudy yellow tie. He’s rolled the sleeves up to cook breakfast; Ratio tries not to meditate too long on Aventurine’s forearms or fit physique.
“Like what you see, doctor?” Aventurine asks, a line he’s used many times now, a line that should no longer ruffle him as much as it does.
Ratio ruffles. “Shut up,” he grumbles.
Aventurine laughs and leans forward in his seat across from him. A gloved hand picks at the underside of Ratio’s chin; he lifts his head up and out of the way with a huff.
Aventurine pouts. “Let me have a little fun, baby~ I came all the way out here to make sure you’re alright and you rebuff me so?”
“Don’t call me baby again.” Ratio sticks his tongue out in disgust.
He laughs again. Irritating noise. “It really is too much fun to tease you. It’s nice to see some life coming back to those pale cheeks of yours.”
“It can’t be any paler than you. When’s the last time you’ve seen sunlight?”
“Isn’t that line of questioning what folks call ‘pot, meet kettle’?”
Ratio scowls at him, but he doesn’t deny it. Aventurine finally allows him to stand unassisted and cross the apartment to his bedroom again where the pile of work still awaits him. Aventurine follows him silently like a smug shadow; when Ratio sits down, the piles have all but disappeared, replaced, instead, by two neat stacks of paper.
“You have better not fucked with my work,” Ratio says.
“All I did was input all of the graded papers into this.” Aventurine sits on the edge of his desk and picks up the grade book, aiming to poke him on the forehead with it.
An arm strikes out and pries it from Aventurine’s grip before he’s able to. Ratio huffs and sets it back down. “I see.”
He gets started quietly on his work. Thinking hard for too long hurts his head, but he can get by in short bursts without feeling a throb at his forehead. For every graded paper Ratio drops back onto his desk, Aventurine adds a mark to his ledger.
When Ratio pauses an hour in to yawn, Aventurine doesn’t let it slip his notice.
“Hey, doc. I wanna spoil you a little more. Will you let me?”
“Absolutely not. You’ve already done too much.”
“That’s a funny way of saying I saved your life.”
“Tch. That’s far too dramatic for what you did.”
“And now you’re undoing all of my effort.”
“The grades are due in a little under thirty system hours, Aventurine. What do you want me to do?”
“Mmm, pass everyone.”
Ratio sends him a glance that asks, Do I look like the sort of person to do something like that? “I have a reputation to uphold here. The bright minds of today need to work for the distinction. This isn’t the sort of institution where half-assery should be rewarded with an encouraging pat on the—” A cough rips him from the last of his sentence, and the amused look on Aventurine’s face falters. Ratio thumps a fist against his chest once, then scrawls a giant 45 on the paper he’s grading like a scream into the void.
“Enough, Aventurine. Let me to my work.”
Aventurine slips off the desk. A soft touch at the back of his head smooths down some of the unruly hair he hadn’t brushed since he got out of bed.
“Gimme the login to your virtual grade keeping,” he says. “The grade book already has a lot of data points on it that could be uploaded. And that way you can have your beloved bath sooner.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ratio says without looking at him.
Ratio really can’t wait for that bath now that Aventurine’s got the thought implanted in his mind. At some point, he unlocks his account and silently hands his tablet to Aventurine. No explanations, no requests. Ratio’s pride is too swollen alongside his lymph nodes to admit when he needs help, and he knows Aventurine can figure it out without instructions.
Aventurine hums away like he’s playing one of his online casino games. It’s ridiculous that he would turn something as serious as this into a game, but then again, he’s done it to worse things. They work well as a team; Ratio hands him the papers he completes and Aventurine skillfully types them into the books. He’s good at balancing numbers, after all. This probably isn’t much different from the usual admin work he’s used to.
It’s too late for Ratio to double-check his work. When he runs out of papers to grade and Aventurine puts the last number into the system, he lets Aventurine place the tablet back on his desk.
He’s focused on much more important things now, like that bath. Aventurine sees it in his eyes; he’s already poking through Ratio’s wardrobe for him.
When had he gotten so good at taking the initiative? Or being able to so skillfully pick his favorite bathrobe out of a lineup?
“I’ll run the hot water for you,” Aventurine says. “You wait here.”
Of course Ratio doesn’t. Instead, he follows Aventurine into the bathroom.
He sits on the closed toilet seat as Aventurine runs water into the tub. The sound hurts his ears, and he coughs and tenses his forehead through the whole ordeal.
He doesn’t remove his clothes until the tub’s almost full and bubbles cloak the surface. Ratio involuntarily shudders and Aventurine does a good job of not staring as he watches him undress and approach the edge of the tub. There’s only a brief second of silence before Ratio’s shuffling into the water and sighing in relief at the warmth rushing across his sore muscles.
“Is it to your liking?” Aventurine asks.
“Hm,” Ratio hums by way of a response.
Once again, Aventurine sits on the edge of the tub and gazes down at him with a calm smile.
Ratio grimaces. “Why are you—” a cough— “Looking at me like that?”
“Mm, I don’t know,” Aventurine says. He cups Ratio’s wet cheek with a warm hand. “You enjoy your tubs so much, huh?”
“Shut up,” he huffs.
“If that’s really what you want,” Aventurine says.
God, he’s so smug. Just because he did something as small as come to Ratio’s need when he was at his lowest. No big deal.
Aventurine doesn’t stop staring.
That heat from before curls around the back of his neck again, painting the tips of his ears red. He feels it.
“Stop staring or kiss me already, idiot,” Ratio scowls.
Aventurine grins and leans forward, pressing a kiss to the corner of his cheek. Ratio leans forward again, capturing him in another kiss, this time on the lips.
“You promise to take responsibility if I get sick?” Aventurine whispers.
Ratio huffs. “What man would I be if I didn’t?”
And Aventurine smiles.