Work Text:
Death, a doctor, and a gambler walk into a reverie.
They run together, and Ratio watches– helplessly? He hasn't felt helpless in a long time, and didn't think he was still capable of it– as Aventurine’s silhouette slowly becomes ever more indistinguishable from that of the shadow haunting the memory zone. At the last moment, at his final, desperate hour, when all that's human about him looks like it might become lost forever–
He wakes up. There have been complaints of hotel guests suffering from vivid nightmares in the short moments while they wake from the dream, but Ratio never thought he'd be the victim of such a phenomenon. He reminds himself that he is always correct when he assumes a tempered measure of his own genius.
The room is cold and empty. There are thousands at the Reverie just like it– excepting only the contents of their dreampools. Ratio rises from his own, grimacing as its liquid streams down his skin. It's far too thick, too laced with the Family's chemical mix, to be at all like the regular bathwater he's actually fond of.
He steps out, his movements slow and automatic. A part of him still feels like he hasn't woken from the dream, is still acting on instinct. That's the part of him that leads the rest of his body to the couch, where the contraband he's been entrusted with lies sleeping.
Aventurine looks more peaceful than Ratio’s ever seen him, his false smile replaced with an easy one. Traitorously, Ratio runs his hand along the curve of his jaw, wishing he could see such an expression directed at him while the man was awake to mean it.
His hand moves down to his throat in order to check his pulse, and Ratio decides to pretend that he'd intended all along for the movement to be nothing more than practical. All of this is practical. He'd agreed to help with the Penacony project in order to get the Family's research, agreed to follow Aventurine's plan for the sake of the IPC, and agreed to shelter his dormant body in his room as to maintain the ruse that Aventurine is dead.
The trouble is he's not. His pulse beats steadily under Ratio’s tortured fingers even as his eyes refuse to open. Ratio wishes at least that they could transport him to a hospital, where he could be properly treated, but it'll be too risky to sneak him out of Penacony until after the Charmony Festival is over. He's the only doctor that'll get the chance to see him until then.
If Aventurine were really dead, Ratio wouldn't have to worry about any of this, but that would be unquestionably worse.
A part of him is irrational. This is probably why he has not been accepted into the genius society. His fingers have not left Aventurine's neck, and his heart beats beneath them. A part of him is irrational, and he listens to that part more often than he should. Right now, it's telling him to lean down, to cradle Aventurine's sleeping form in his arms, and carry him to the dreampool.
It's unwise to put two dreamers in the same pool. The Family did not institute that policy purely for economic reasons– there is actually a risk of the two separate minds melding together and becoming inseparable.
There is– also– possibility. Aventurine's body is warm against his in the cool water of the dreampool. His eyelids and conscience weigh on him heavily as he drifts off to sleep.
~
“You've done something terrible, haven't you?”
He knows that he is not fully asleep, not yet. Aventurine is not here. Instead, he's been caught by the memokeeper hanging around Penacony– she's watching him now, smiling, not attempting to hide that the expression is a mask the way Aventurine would.
“I have,” he confirms.
The memokeeper sighs, neither reproachful nor pleased. For a moment, her white hair trailing out behind her looks like delicately feathered wings.
“You know he would have woken up eventually,” she says. “The only thing you have to gain from this is time, and you don't strike me as particularly impatient– or selfish, for that matter.”
“That's not why,” he starts, but though he's telling the truth he finds he lacks the words to defend himself. It's not that he's impatient to see Aventurine again, it's that– it's that–
“You miss him,” concludes the memokeeper. She looks over again, as if the revelation of this has made him an entirely new person in her eyes.
She still isn't quite right, but she's closer. He misses Aventurine. The world will not be as it should until he wakes, and Ratio wants nothing more than for things to be in their proper order.
“Let me go to him, would you?”
She smiles, seeing something that isn't there– not physically, anyways. He doesn't doubt that she sees the world in a way he, biologically, cannot comprehend.
“I see I've been too harsh on you. You're only doing what anyone in your situation would.”
He fears to name what she thinks his situation is. He fears to name that he's in a situation. He feared this even before the Penacony incident, back when Aventurine was around and alive and always winning his bets.
“The man you call Aventurine is currently trapped in a fragment of memoria beyond the dreamscape,” the memokeeper explains. “You can help lead him back to the waking world, but dreams are terribly fickle– if you look back, even once, the shape of the dream will shift. He'll become so irrevocably lost I doubt he'll ever manage to wake.”
Ratio swallows.
“Knowing that, do you still wish to go to him?”
Nous only smiles upon those who do not make foolish, lovesick decisions.
“Yes,” he says.
The memokeeper does not smile. The expression on her face is far more honest, more vulnerable, more filled with hope. As the dream above a dream begins to fade away, he hears her voice inside his head:
“... Good luck.”
~
The dream outside the dreamscape is black and empty. Ratio resists the urge to look around, remembering the memokeeper’s words. There is nowhere to go but forwards, which he has to trust is the right direction.
He hears no footsteps behind him, no breathing, no laughter. He'd expected something, a well doctor, I didn't expect to see you here, but the dream gives him nothing. Nevertheless, he trusts that he is there.
His thoughts sing in his head as he walks, twisting themselves into a hectic cacophony. Half of him, the irrational part that led him here, screams to turn around. For once, Ratio resists. He trusts that he is there.
The darkness seems to go on forever. He remembers hearing Aventurine say that he planned to die at the hands of an emenator. Only later did he find out that it was a emenator of nihility. This place is not as bad as he imagined nothingness could be, but still Ratio thinks it is far too cruel a fate for Aventurine. He trusts that he is there.
Aventurine always makes it a point to be surrounded by something greater than himself. He makes it a point to improve himself to match, and then he moves on to the next venue, the next gamble. He'd tried to do it with Ratio, but Ratio had always countered him– up until he'd realized that Aventurine was only doing it in a desperate effort to justify his own existence. After that, Ratio had let him win. He trusts that he is there.
Aventurine hates to be handed a win. Ratio hates to hand out wins. Coming to understand this about each other, they'd eventually settled into a kind of strange partnership. It was more genuine than they were with anyone else, in its own kind of way. He trusts that he is there.
In short, his relationship with Aventurine is unlike his relationship with anyone else. He trusts that he is there.
He wouldn't have done this for anyone else. He trusts that he is there.
He doesn't think anyone else would have done this for him. Not even the IPC would take a gamble like this to accelerate their re-acquisition of an asset– not with their biggest gambler gone, anyways. He trusts that he is there.
The horizon is still far off. It doesn't exist, actually. He has no way of knowing how far he's gone or how far he has left to go. He trusts that he is there.
Doubt starts to creep in– not about Aventurine. He trusts that he is there.
He takes a step forward. He trusts that he is there.
He takes another. He trusts that he is there.
He does not remember how long he's been here. He trusts that he is there.
He does not know how much longer he has to go. He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He trusts that he is there.
He knows nothing else– except, perhaps, the true meaning of nihility– but he trusts that he is there.
His own footsteps echo in his ears. He has been here for minutes, maybe, or centuries. A soft sound comes from behind him, someone tripping over their feet, and Ratio turns to catch Aventurine before he hits the ground.
He turns, he realizes too late.
Aventurine smiles at him, softer than the moon and more radiant than the sun, and disappears.
~
Ratio wakes up drowning.
He coughs the dreampool out of his lungs, desperately reaching for Aventurine’s cold body. He drags the two of them out onto the floor unceremoniously, uncaring of the water he drags out with him.
He realizes that he's begging for someone, anyone to help, but not even an Aeon can undo his own mistake. He is completely and entirely helpless.
“Please,” he cannot stop himself from muttering. What he's asking for he doesn't know.
He reaches for Aventurine– fearful, desperate, helpless– and drops his head to his chest. Just barely, he makes out the sound of his still beating heart.
Ratio remembers how to breathe. He has not ruined everything. When the corporation asks him if Aventurine will wake up, he can tell them there's a chance and not be lying. When Aventurine wakes up– when– Ratio will be able to look him in the eye and know that he did not sentence him to something worse than death.
The air is bitingly cold. Salt stings in his eyes. He cannot remember the last time he cried.
“Forgive me,” he says. “I love you.”
He loves him, and it does not change a thing. He is a fool, a terrible, hopeless fool, and the task laid out before him was impossible from the start. He tries to imagine any version of that trial where he does not turn around, and fails. If Aventurine needs him, he'd always turn. The fact that he loves him is what makes the opposite, a happy ending, impossible.
He stops pretending not to sob. He doesn't deserve to, he's the one who failed, but he cannot stop himself. Cannot stop himself from turning. Aventurine will suffer and it's all because of him.
He curls into his body, fearing that he'll get cold if Ratio doesn't get him cleaned up and back in his makeshift bed soon. He knows he can't manage that right now, so his meager body heat will have to be adequate.
The more he thinks of it, the more he can only understand his life as a grand series of failures. He has more degrees than anyone could possibly need, but when it comes to everything that really matters, Ratio has always failed.
He couldn't even trust in Aventurine's ability to save himself. He thinks that haunts him the most. Aventurine wouldn't want Ratio to think of him as some helpless puppy–
But he'd followed him. He'd been there with every step. Ratio cannot decide if that means he actually needed the help, or if he'd simply decided to indulge him. He cannot decide which is worse.
He runs his fingers through his hair, slowly, like a child learning the limits of their own body for the first time. Ratio freezes, his eyes snapping up, and tries to stop his tears. They disregard him completely, and continue to fall as if from a leaky faucet.
“Don't cry, doctor,” says Aventurine, his voice rough from disuse. He smiles, lopsided, genuine. “You won.”