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When Aventurine hears his phone ring and sees the caller ID "Diamond", he knows he's about to be asked to do some dangerous job that’s probably not worth it, even if the money will be nice. He briefly entertains the idea of saying no, just to see how Diamond would react.
(He doesn't do it, of course. He’s not stupid.)
This one is special, Diamond tells him. This one is important.
“You, Aventurine,” he drawls, sickly-sweet, “are going after Penacony.”
Ah. This is important.
Fuck.
The Penacony Museum is one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, and Diamond has had his sights set on it for a while. Aventurine knows why they're going after it now. The museum’s director, Sunday Oak, recently announced that they will be displaying the famous Watchmaker’s Legacy , a priceless necklace valued at tens of millions of dollars, in honor of the museum’s one-hundredth anniversary.
Alone, it's probably not enough to warrant going after Penacony, but the necklace is worth more than just its price tag. It's the pride and joy of the Oak family. Losing it would be a huge blow. Diamond wants the necklace, sure, but mostly he wants the Museum humiliated—and stealing their prized possession during the biggest celebration of the year is a surefire way to knock them down a peg or two. This, Aventurine can sympathize with. He would also like to see that perpetually smug look Sunday has wiped off his face.
It’s just that Penacony—well… it's complicated, but like he said, he's not stupid. This wasn’t exactly optional. Diamond wanted him for a reason, and any personal issues Aventurine may have with the Museum were irrelevant in the face of that.
“You'll be working with Topaz and Jade. I expect you three in Penacony within two days. I have already arranged accommodations.” There's a pause. Aventurine knows better than to try and fill it. “Do not let me down, Aventurine.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, idly flicking a coin back and forth between his fingers. “I won’t.”
♤
He leaves for Penacony that afternoon. Topaz and Jade are most likely already there, if for no other reason than they would do it just to get there before him since they know he likes getting there first. He gets to pick the best room that way. As far as his coworkers (fellow thieves? partners in crime? He doesn't entirely know how to define their relationship) go, they're probably his favorites (God forbid they ever find that out).
Topaz is a little too soft-hearted for a career criminal, but she makes up for it by being the best treasure hunter in the world. She's found just about every mark they've ever gone after. She claims her pet dog, Numby, is the reason she’s able to find all of it, which is almost certainly a lie and just an excuse to bring the thing with her everywhere. Still, Aventurine learned the hard way that Numby’s a trained sniffer dog, so maybe there is some truth to him being Topaz’s lucky charm.
If Topaz is too kind to be a criminal, then Jade was practically made for this life. She delights in it; she loves the infamy and the adrenaline rush you get from a successful heist. Master of disguise, master of forgery, master of convincing people she’s definitely supposed to be here, you name it. She’s the one who takes the stuff, gets into the vaults and display cases, and nets them all the money. Sweet talking can get you a long way.
A lot of people would call her a snake, but Aventurine knows better.
Jade could talk a man dying of thirst into giving her his last bottle of water and be gone before he realized what he’d done. She could talk a scared, newly homeless orphan into helping her pickpocket a Wall Street executive, and then when that same scared kid messed up and alerted the mark, she could talk them both out of it. She’d go from cold and cunning stranger to worried older sister in a moment, all saccharine-sweet voice and swaying hips, apologizing for her little brother. By the end of it, she’d convince him to give her double what that kid had tried to steal and get his number to boot.
(She could talk that same scared kid into joining the organization she was part of and he’d be so in awe of her he wouldn’t think twice before saying yes.)
No, Jade isn’t a snake. She’s the whole damn pit of vipers.
They’re both already in the room when he arrives. (Thankfully, Diamond was kind enough to book them a hotel room with three bedrooms. Aventurine has shared enough bedrooms with Jade and Topaz in the past to know he has no interest in ever doing it again). Topaz is sitting at the desk in the center area, typing away at her laptop with Numby asleep at her feet, while Jade lounges on the couch.
“Kind of you to join us,” Topaz snarks as he enters the room. “Took your sweet time.”
“Diamond told me I had two days from when he called me this morning, so fuck off, actually,” he snips right back, and she grins. “So. Penacony, huh?”
Jade raises an eyebrow. “I thought you’d be more excited. Don’t you want to see the Oak Family get what’s coming to them?”
“Obviously.” He tosses his bag in the vague direction of one of the attached bedrooms. “Haven’t they been talking about this celebration for months? I’d just hate to see Sunday have to eat his words when they go to unveil the Legacy and it’s vanished from right under their noses.”
“We’ve got a bit of help, too.” Topaz tosses her phone to Aventurine, an article from two hours ago already open on the screen. “Their princess has escaped the tower. They’re all kinds of distracted.”
Robin Oak, beloved musician and socialite, missing and presumed dead after missing person searches fail, the headline reads, and Aventurine lets out a low chuckle. “Damn. That’s not good.”
“For them? No. I imagine poor Sunday’s rather distraught.” Jade’s smiling now, all teeth. “But for us? We couldn’t have asked for a better way to mess with his head.”
“Good thing, ‘cause we’re in for a rough ride with the security on this place,” Topaz mumbles, mostly to herself. “Plus, there’s the new guy, too.”
And therein lies the issue.
The problem with Penacony for Aventurine—the real problem, besides Sunday Oak and his insufferable attitude, besides Robin’s mysterious disappearance, besides Topaz and Jade’s incessant need to get in his business and stay in his business—is that the Penacony Museum has just hired a new curator from outside of the Family to assist with the research and care of some of the more precious artwork. It’s practically unheard of for the board of directors to hire someone outside their nepotistic inner circle, so someone being called in from the outside had to be special.
And Doctor Veritas Ratio sure is fucking special. And special, thy name is Aventurine.
Well, okay. They aren’t fucking anymore. This is the problem, given that having a man on the inside (ha) would have been extraordinarily useful to the Stonehearts’ plans, especially a man as clever as Ratio. But no, the good doctor didn’t exactly like finding out that the guy he was sleeping with was stealing priceless works of art on the regular. Aventurine was fine with this, of course. His line of work would be a dealbreaker for most people. He understands why Ratio kicked him to the curb.
It’s just that—
He’s—
It’s not a crime to say that he liked Ratio. Maybe as more than a casual fuck. If he thought, well, perhaps they were more than that, that was dispelled easily enough when he woke up one morning to his stuff packed up and a note on the bedside table telling him he had until noon to get out and never come back.
(And if he misses the doctor like a drowning man misses air, that’s no one’s business but his own.)
“Did Diamond tell you what he wants you to do on this mission?” Jade asks, sitting up from where she’s lying on the couch.
He shrugs. “No. I assume I’m some sort of distraction, though.” If Topaz finds the mark and Jade takes it, Aventurine’s here to make sure no one gets in their way. Whatever that may take.
“You’ll need to deal with Sunday. Not kill him, of course,” she says, though her tone implies she really wouldn’t mind doing so. “But first, he wants you to get that doctor they’ve got on their payroll out of the way. He’s one of the ones with clearance to the backrooms I need to get into, and Diamond thinks getting the information out of him is our best shot.” She pouts. “You always get the easiest tasks.”
Oh, he’s the honeypot. Well, it’s not like he’s never been—
Jade’s words catch up to him all at once and he freezes for a moment, trying desperately to keep his expression neutral. “Come on, it can’t be that easy,” he laughs. “A stuffy old doctor like that probably isn’t interested in me.”
“He’s only four years older than you,” she replies, distinctly unimpressed. Jade stands up and crosses the room to stand behind him. “And he’s gorgeous,” she breathes in his ear, hand on his shoulder. “So, listen to me. You’ll get him back to his place, you’ll ride him ‘till he passes out, and then you’ll use Topaz’s fancy gadgets to copy his clearance information while he’s asleep. It’s simple.” Her nails dig into his skin. “Do you understand?”
“I understand, Jade. I’m just worried that this won’t work on the type of person you’re trying to send me after, that’s all.” Aventurine is scrambling to think of an excuse that isn’t just blurting out the truth that, actually, Veritas Ratio is extremely susceptible to pretty little gamblers who can’t seem to shut up, but that has already run its course and the odds of it working a second time are infinitesimal. He’s also trying really, really hard to not think about being fucked by Ratio. He’s failing on both accounts.
“Aven,” Jade purrs, slinging her arms around his shoulders from behind, “come on, it’s just a little honeypot mission. It’s not like you haven’t done it before. He’s a sucker for a pretty face just like the rest of ‘em, and he’s handsome, too. If the good doctor had any interest in women, rest assured I’d be happy to do it myself.” She sighs dramatically, leaning her head against his. “But alas, the man’s gay as they come. Our pretty little peacock has to take care of it.”
He tries not to tense up as she presses against him. “You sure a man like that can even be seduced? He seems like the type to think sex is beneath him.”
“So you show him that it’s better to have you beneath him instead.” She traces a sharp nail down the side of his face. “One thing leads to another, he’s out of the picture, and the Legacy ’s all ours.”
Topaz smiles at him apologetically from the other side of the room. “Sorry, ‘Ven, but it is our best option. It could be worse, though! We could be whoring you out to Sunday.”
He would rather go after Sunday than Ratio. Aventurine’s feelings about Sunday are not complicated—he fucking despises the man, and he knows that Sunday probably feels the same way about the Stonehearts. That’s a relationship he can work with.
Ratio, though. His feelings about Ratio are nothing but complicated. Lying to the man was as easy as breathing right up until it wasn’t, and he doesn’t know why.
“Usual cover?” Topaz asks, snapping him out of his drifting thoughts. “Representing the interests of one Kaeo Ayutthaya?”
“When aren’t we?” Jade responds playfully. “The widely respected art appraisal firm of Jade Eden and her associates hasn’t been to the Penacony Museum yet. Our generous benefactor’s bound to have something there he wants.”
(He does—it’s the necklace.)
Of course, they’re not there to appraise the necklace. The Oak family’s not selling. But there’s a few art pieces that the museum has been looking to sell, and the fictional Kaeo Ayutthata is always looking to buy.
Art appraisers were their go-to hide-in-plain-sight role, especially because Diamond really had dealt in fine art before he started stealing it. The credentials were easy enough to fake when you had a solid template already.
Now, trying to fool the Oak family into thinking they were just art appraisers was a little more difficult, since one of the other Stonehearts had tried and failed to steal from them back in the day and had gotten caught. They’d been acquitted, of course, but it meant Diamond was already on the Family’s radar. Sunday was the acting head of the museum now, and he’d been much younger during the first failed heist—plus, Topaz and Aventurine were newer. They’d been brought on after that mission. Even if he did vaguely recollect a man named Diamond having come up in passing regarding an art theft, connecting that to the three other people who were just now attending his museum’s celebration was nigh impossible.
So, their cover was their usual art appraisal firm: the charming Ms. Jade representing the interests of Kaeo Ayutthaya, her dedicated assistant Miss Topaz, and her securities and investment advisor Mr. Aventurine. They make a lovely team, and have never heard of any notorious art thieves known as the Ten Stonehearts.
Jade releases him from her grip and walks away, humming under her breath as she grabs a few things from the room and puts them in her handbag. “I’m going to go take a look at the room they’re keeping the necklace in,” she says, “and see if I can’t find that doctor while I’m there. I’m going to invite him out, so Aven, meet me at the club a few blocks from the museum at ten o’clock. I think it’s called the Dreamscape. Don't be late this time, darling.”
“You’re that sure he’ll come?” he asks.
Her grin is nothing short of predatory. “They always do.”
As soon as Jade is out of the room, Topaz flicks open the top of her water bottle and takes a long sip. She exhales slowly. “So, she wants you to honeypot the guy who dumped you when he found out you’re a criminal, huh? I can’t see that going well.”
“How the fuck do you know about that?” Aventurine hisses. “I was keeping that a secret.”
“You're sloppy when you're drunk,” she informs him flatly, and he begins to reconsider his previous thought about her being kind. She’s right, though. It’s why he doesn’t drink much. “Don't worry, you didn’t tell me that much. It was mostly graphic descriptions of your sex life. I know things about that man’s dick I never needed to know.”
He groans, running a hand down his face. “Good. I’m so happy you're here to help, Topaz. Yes, fine, obviously you already know that I can’t exactly seduce the man. What exactly do you propose I do instead, then? Jade’s right, we need him out of the way.”
She rolls her eyes and reaches down to scratch the top of Numby’s head. “I didn’t say you couldn't seduce him. I’m saying you’ll have to go after it from a different angle.”
“What. Angle,” he grits out, frustrated with her nonchalance and the casual way with which she treats his second-best-kept secret. “If you say under him, I am going to put your laptop under running water and leave it there until it explodes.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Topaz sighs. “No, I was going to say that you could try and convince him that you want him back. If you can make him believe you’ve changed, maybe you can still trap him the way Jade wants you to.”
“I don’t…” Want to, he thinks helplessly, but that’s not something he’s allowed to say here. “I don’t think he’d fall for that. He’s smart.”
Topaz shrugs at that, leaning back in the hotel desk chair. “Well, then you’re fucked. And if I may?”
“You may not.”
“Not in the fun way.”
♤
His phone pings with a text message from Jade just as he’s starting to think she’s finally been foiled by the indomitable Dr. Ratio, but of course, he should know better than to bet against her.
Jade (09:45 pm)
Doctor’s coming clubbing with us tonight. Dreamscape, four and a half blocks south of the Museum. Be there.
Me (09:46 pm)
Or be square?
Jade (09:47 pm)
Ha. Be there, Aventurine.
Jade must not have brought up his name, then. He has no doubts that if she had mentioned him in the conversation, the doctor would have been filing the police report preemptively. He needs to tell Jade because if he doesn’t tell her, she’s going to kill him when the whole honeypot thing blows up in their faces. He should have told her when she first brought it up, but. Ugh. Veritas Ratio is still a fresh wound on Aventurine’s heart.
There’s some solace in the fact that Ratio doesn’t know Aventurine’s legal name, and he certainly doesn’t know Jade’s—it took Aventurine ten years to learn what Jade’s legal name was. They use code names for a reason.
(There is no one left on this earth that still calls Aventurine Kakavasha. He wonders if the same goes for Topaz and Jelena, or Jade and Eve. If their code names have slotted into the space where the traces of their family should be the way Aventurine has for him.)
“You coming?” he asks Topaz, who has moved from the desk chair to the couch, laptop perched on the arm.
“To the Dreamscape?” She huffs. “Yeah, I have to. We’re going there tonight because we’ve got intel that some high-profile guests of the Family’s are planning on hanging out there and Jade wants us to try and get some information out of them about what Sunday has planned for the celebration.”
He hums, adjusting the cuff on his jacket. “What guests?”
“You’ve heard of the Astral Express?” Aventurine’s eyebrows raise, and she grins. “Yeah. I’m surprised too. Met a couple of the younger ones once, they’re certainly something.”
The Astral Express is a group of astronomically famous influencers with a penchant for causing chaos wherever they go. Letting them anywhere near Penacony seems like a recipe for disaster, but it means their job will be a lot easier.
“Maybe Sunday just wants good press,” he muses. “The Express are media darlings. Their charity fundraisers have raised millions for reputable causes. I’d want that kind of publicity on my side.”
“Didn’t they cause a political scandal in Xianzhou when they were visiting?” Topaz asks, but her voice betrays that she’s more amused than anything.
“The Luofu was begging for it anyway,” Aventurine dismisses. “If one messy divorce is enough to upend your entire political system, your system wasn’t strong enough.”
She thinks about it for a second and shrugs. “You’re probably right. Back to the point—you’re going after Ratio, while I go charm a set of teenagers. Honestly, I think you might have the easier job this time.”
He laughs at that, a statement that might have made him bristle and snap a few years ago. He’s more or less gotten over it at this point. So he’s their go-to honeypot, what’s the big deal? There are plenty of men out there who are chomping at the bit to give up information for a pretty face, and Aventurine knows he’s damn pretty. Jade, for all her threats and implications, would never force him to go past a point he doesn’t fully consent to—besides, she knows just as many ways to charm information out of someone without getting sex involved, and Aventurine’s picked up a few over the years. He’s good at it, too. Topaz couldn’t do his job.
Topaz seems like she means what she says, too, and he doesn’t envy her having to chat up the Astral Express. Still, he’s about to risk blowing their entire cover and operation wide open, so she could stand to have a little sympathy.
“If Jade kills me when she finds out about all this mess with the doctor, will you give my eulogy at the funeral?” he asks, slipping his glasses on.
“Ha. No. I’ll give your bones to Numby, how’s that?”
Aventurine sighs. “It’ll do.”
♤
The Dreamscape is loud, crowded, and pulsing with energy. The guests of honor are mingling with the crowds, though when the pink-haired girl from the Express catches sight of Topaz and Aventurine she gasps and bounds right over.
“ Topaz!” she calls over the thunderous music. “Oh my god, hi! How are you? What are you doing here?”
“Hi, March,” Topaz greets. “I’m doing well! It’s good to see you again. Aventurine and I are in town for the Penacony’s big celebration and heard there were some special guests at the Dreamscape tonight.”
“Aw, I don’t know about that, but we are pretty stoked that Sunday invited us!” March says before turning back to the crowd. “Welt Yang and Himeko thought it was a trick at first. Hey! Himeko, Caelus, get over here! Topaz is here!”
Aventurine scans the crowd for blue-violet hair as the Express girl chatters away to Topaz. He doesn’t see anything, and he isn’t sure if that’s reassuring or not. Even if he’s not accomplishing his mission, they’re still getting information about Sunday that could be vital. The Express was just as surprised as the Stonehearts were when they found out they’d been invited. That’s… odd.
“March, this is Aventurine. He’s my coworker within the Stonehearts. My other colleague, Jade, should be around here somewhere…” Topaz trails off, glancing around for any sign of lilac hair and oversized hats.
“Nice to meet you, Aventurine!” the pink-haired girl chirps, sticking out a hand. He offers her his most charming smile as he takes it. “I’m March 7th, and that’s Caelus,” she points over her shoulder at the other person who had just appeared behind her. “Himeko’s around here somewhere.”
“No, she isn’t,” Caelus says. “She’s in the back with Kafka.”
“Ugh, I knew she was going to do something like that! I told her she needed to be more careful, but nooo, she knows what she’s doing, March.” She huffs. “See if I ever give her advice again.”
The person beside her just nods serenely, dutifully ignoring her comments. “Your coworker was here a minute ago, though. She was just talking to that doctor who works at the museum.”
“That one?” Topaz says, pointing to Aventurine’s left. He whips around, startled, only to find no sign of blue-violet hair and instead hear Topaz’s snickering as she pats him on the shoulder. “Sorry. Aven and the doctor are old friends, so he’s a bit keyed up right now. March, Caelus, there’s something I wanted to ask you about if you don’t mind.”
She leads the Express crew off to a side area where they can talk in private, and now Aventurine is all on his own, head on a swivel for any sign of lilac and apples or indigo and chalk.
Topaz must be right about him being keyed up because Ratio manages to sneak up on him despite his careful vigilance.
“Aventurine,” he hears from behind him, and it’s certainly telling of something that Ratio’s low voice is still enough to send a small shiver down his spine. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Whatever you have to say to me, we shouldn’t—what?” His brain screeches to a crashing halt, blanking as he truly processes what has just been said to him. His carefully formed guard crashes down around him, unsure how to respond to anything other than the dispassionate dismissal or outright anger. Ratio should be shocked to see him, he should be furious. He shouldn’t do—whatever this is. There’s no reason for there to be warmth in his voice, not when the last time they saw each other ended the way it did.
A small smile tugs at the edge of the good doctor’s mouth. “I said that it’s good to see you again. We have a lot to talk about.”
Ah. So the tiny, stupid part of Aventurine’s heart that thought maybe Ratio had just been happy to see him was wrong—this was to talk business.
Well. He can do business.
He shakes off the hopeful feeling that had bubbled up at the doctor’s words and steels himself. “Right. Let’s go talk.”
“You are correct, though. This might be better discussed somewhere more private than,” he wrinkles his nose, “an establishment such as this. My hotel is not too far from here if you would care to accompany me.”
Aventurine hopes his surprise isn’t as obvious as it feels like it is, right now, under Ratio’s gaze. If this is some sort of trap—if he’s being led into the lion’s den—he can’t find it within himself to care. The risk is there, but…
That’s what makes it so enticing.
And besides, this is technically what he was supposed to do here anyway. Jade would have my head if I turned this down, he rationalizes, ignoring the other parts of his brain saying she’d rather he didn’t get himself arrested.
“Sure, doctor. We can head back to your place,” he says, lowering his voice to a low purr. “Though we’ll have to be careful, you know.” Aventurine steps into his space and trails a hand down the taller man’s chest before standing on the tips of his toes to whisper into his ear, “I’ve been told I’m a very dangerous criminal.”
Ratio grabs his wrist as he goes to pull it away and Aventurine’s breath hitches involuntarily. “I think I’ll manage, dear gambler.”
♤
The walk back to Ratio’s hotel is short, thankfully, and unbelievably awkward. Aventurine finds himself at a loss for words, unwilling to break the silence lest he be confronted with whatever trap he’s probably backed himself into. The longer Ratio lets the silence stretch on, the more convinced he is that this was all a mistake, and he itches to grab his phone and tell Jade or Topaz what’s going on.
But they make it to a hotel down the block nonetheless, and up to the tenth floor in a silent elevator, and Ratio has not made any indication that there’s a bunch of cops hiding behind the door of his room to arrest Aventurine. It seems like—genuinely, and for no reason—he just wants to talk.
The door locks behind them with a soft click , and briefly, Aventurine considers that Ratio could just kill him. It’s not that ridiculous—there’s not a lot of record of his existence outside of his affiliations within the Stonehearts, and no one’s out there looking for Kakavasha anymore, and—
His train of thought is interrupted by Ratio clearing his throat. “I wanted to…” he trails off, looking away from Aventurine’s face and toward the space past Aventurine’s shoulder like he can’t quite manage to make eye contact with him. Embarrassed, maybe. Disappointed. “Mmh. Let me begin again. I wanted to offer my sincere apologies for the way I treated you, Aventurine.”
Whatever he was expecting the doctor to say next, it wasn’t fucking that. “Your apologies?”
“Yes.” Ratio has the audacity to look confused. “You… do not wish for me to apologize?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re apologizing for!” He opens his mouth to respond, but Aventurine waves a hand through the air to interrupt him before he can. “For the way you treated me, yes. I don’t know why, though. I mean, you found out your fuckbuddy was a criminal. I think kicking me out was probably a pretty logical thing to do there.”
He nods, though the unimpressed look on his face suggests he doesn’t much care for Aventurine’s argument. “Well, I disagree with several points you just made, but I will limit my counter to this and this only: I did not want to kick you out. I should not have done it. Therefore, I offer my apologies.”
“You didn’t want to?”
“That is what I said, yes.”
Aventurine mulls this over for a second, trying to figure out what to make of that. His brain is scrambling to recontextualize this information in terms of his worldview. “What, did you want to stick around to watch me get arrested?”
“Aventurine, if my goal was to get you arrested, do you truly think I would have invited you to my hotel room?” The doctor’s tone is slightly annoyed, though there’s a tinge of exasperated fondness he doesn’t know what to do with. “Your colleague approached me today and after a significant amount of irrelevant conversation, told me she had invited some friends to a club tonight. I had no interest in this and was prepared to turn her down, but she mentioned one of her friends was named Aventurine, and…” He looks slightly uncomfortable but continues anyway, once again looking off into the space just over Aventurine’s shoulder. “I wanted to see you again.
“You are not stupid, for all you may act the part when you want. If I had wanted you arrested I would have done it when I found out who you were and you were still asleep in my bed,” Ratio points out. “Tell me—all this time, did you think I hated you?”
He can’t quite meet the doctor’s eyes. “I didn’t think you liked me in the first place.”
“And yet here we are,” he says, a wry smile on his face. “Once again, then. I apologize for requesting you leave my apartment when I found out. If I may be candid with you,” he steps slightly closer to Aventurine, and the smaller man’s eyebrows raise, “part of the reason I was so insistent you leave is because I was afraid of how little I cared that you were a criminal.”
His brain is screaming at him to run, but he shoves all those thoughts down and moves forward anyway. “Okay, you don’t care that I make bad decisions, so what?”
“Aventurine,” Ratio snaps, taking another step towards him. “If you insist on forcing me to spell it out for you, then fine. I missed you, you damned gambler, and I am trying to tell you that—”
That’s enough for Aventurine, and he closes the rest of the space between them by yanking the doctor down to his level by the front of his shirt and kissing him soundly.
Ratio makes a noise that Aventurine would describe as soft if he didn't know better. Aventurine tightens his hold on Ratio’s shirt and swipes his tongue along the seam of his lips as if asking for permission. His lips part, allowing Aventurine entry.
They stay like that for a moment before Aventurine pulls back, nipping at the doctor’s lower lip as he does so. “This is nice and all, but—”
“Am I not allowed to just enjoy your presence, dear gambler?” Ratio asks, though there’s an inexplicable hint of fondness to his voice. “Or must we immediately move on to more carnal activities?”
“You can enjoy my presence horizontally on the bed over there,” he replies cheerfully, “and with your dick in me, preferably.”
“That can be arranged,” he says, eyes going dark.
Aventurine shivers. “Come on then, doctor, let’s go.” He tugs at Ratio’s shirt, pulling him back towards the bed. “I don’t want to be able to think by the end of tonight.”
♤
“Did you know— haah, yes, just like that—Jade sent me here to seduce you?” Aventurine asks, rather conversationally, even though Ratio is eating him out like he’s starving. “I believe her exact words were ‘ride him until he passes out’—mhh, do that agai-nn!” His voice breaks off into a high-pitched whine as a finger joins the doctor’s tongue inside his cunt. “How would you rate my performance, Veritas?”
Ratio glares at him from where he’s situated between Aventurine’s thighs, pulling away from his pussy long enough to respond dryly, “Gold star. Are you quite finished?”
He whimpers at the loss of contact, making Ratio roll his eyes. “I can’t finish if you don't keep your mouth on me .”
“You asked me a question,” he points out but returns to his prior task following another petulant whine and small wiggle from Aventurine trying to get him back on track.
“I said I didn’t want to be able to think, and yet here I am—nng, yes, Veritas! ” he moans, high-pitched and drawn out, as yet another finger stretches out his cunt. Three months of no sex has made him more than a little pent up. It's not for a lack of trying; he's ashamed to admit it, but no one compares to Ratio. He bucks up a little into the feeling of Ratio’s tongue in him; a hand comes up to hold down his hips and he whines at it.
“Stay still, Aventurine,” Ratio says, and the commanding tone of his voice pushes him over the edge with nothing but Ratio’s fingers in him. Aventurine gasps, coming with a wordless moan and a shudder. Ratio quirks an eyebrow at him.
Aventurine throws an arm over his face to hide the red flush creeping up it—it’s probably not worth it, he’s always been a bit of a full-body blusher and he is, in fact, completely naked. “It’s been a little while, alright?”
“I am merely happy to see that I can still elicit such reactions from you, dear gambler,” Ratio says, standing up and holding a hand out to Aventurine. “Shower?”
“Am I really that disgusting, doctor?” he teases, gripping his hand and pulling himself up.
He sighs. “With me, Aventurine. Must I really—”
Aventurine interrupts him by kissing him squarely on the lips, the sensation of his bare chest against Ratio’s still-clothed one stirring something in him. “I’m just teasing you. Come on, I fully intend to come at least twice more tonight.”
♤
Aventurine is no stranger to waking up in unfamiliar hotel rooms, but normally they’re his—he typically doesn’t feel comfortable sleeping in a room with someone he doesn’t know.
But this isn’t quite as unfamiliar to him; the presence next to him is anything but. Ratio is still sound asleep beside him, taking up as little space as possible to make up for Aventurine’s tendency to starfish out on large beds. Something flutters in his heart at that—how easily they fall back into these patterns.
He can hear the doctor’s soft snoring from beside him as he rolls over to pick up his phone and check the time. It’s just past four in the morning—the ideal time for him to get up and get out of the room with Ratio’s clearance information.
But he doesn’t need to just yet.
Aventurine sighs and snuggles back into the pillow, tucking himself back into the space Ratio has left for him. He can sleep for a few more hours. He knows well enough that the doctor, despite what some people may assume, much prefers to sleep in when he can. Aventurine was always the one up early, out the door before there was time for good morning kisses and breakfast.
Not that he thinks there would have been much of that, but… there could have been. In a different world, where they were different people.
He wakes up a couple of hours later around six, and Ratio is still sleeping soundly. Aventurine slides out of bed, stretching his arms over his head and yawning as he does so, careful not to wake the man still sleeping beside him up. He shuffles around for a bit, looking for his discarded clothes and the modified RFID scanner Topaz had given him—thankfully, it’s still in his back pocket even after his pants ended up halfway across the room.
Veritas Ratio is a creature of habit, and so Aventurine finds his museum ID in the exact spot he knew he would, tucked carefully between other important cards in a wallet sitting on the table right next to the hotel keys. He’d watched him set it down the night before, but still—Ratio always leaves his things where he’ll remember them in the morning.
Aventurine takes the ID out of Ratio’s wallet and stares at it for a moment, idly twirling it back and forth between his fingers. Eventually, he sighs and holds the scanner up to it, copying the data over so that Topaz can forge a copy of it from her laptop in their hotel room.
Jade’ll be happy, at least, even if there’s a pit forming in his stomach that no amount of reassurance he’s just doing his job can fill.
It’s a job. That’s all it is.
He sets the card back down and pulls his pants back on. He doesn’t bother to put the ID back in the wallet; Ratio’s not stupid, he’ll work out what Aventurine wanted immediately. It feels a little like an apology, too, an I’m sorry I’m not as good as you wanted me to be, a band-aid over the collapsed lung that is their fucked-up little situationship.
Ratio’s not stupid, no, but Aventurine still feels a little bad for tricking him again and again and again, for letting him believe that there’s more to this relationship than sex and mutual attraction—and the part of his brain that’s screaming there is more, there always was more is dutifully ignored once again.
He still hasn’t put his shirt back on. He still hasn’t put the card away. He still hasn’t moved.
The doctor is going to wake up soon, he knows that. If he gets caught doing this it’ll all be over—Aventurine needs to get out of this room before Ratio can rediscover just how awful the man he claims to want is. He doesn’t want to be there when the other shoe drops, when it finally hits him that there is nothing good left in Aventurine.
Ratio is… good. He deserves someone who won’t lie to him. He deserves someone who— when he tells them that he missed them—can say I missed you too and not just jump him like the feral whore Aventurine has always been.
Aventurine wants to climb back into bed, to pretend like this whole domestic scene of them waking up in each other’s arms could be real. He wants to tell Ratio the entire plan, ask him to help, and have the doctor say yes, to choose Aventurine. He wants, he wants, he wants what he can’t have.
He closes his eyes and sighs, mumbles “I’m sorry, Veritas,” under his breath, puts his shirt on, and leaves.
♤
Aventurine returns to his shared hotel room, expecting neither of his roommates to be awake (and only half expecting either of them to be there). He's surprised to find them both in the central area. Jade’s head whips towards him when he opens the door, and she grins at him. “Saw you got the data. Well done, Aventurine.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he says, not quite willing to meet her smile with one of his own. “Early morning?”
Jade’s grin grows even wider as she jerks her thumb towards Topaz. “You weren’t the only one doing a walk of shame this morning, and she didn’t even get us information out of it.”
Topaz scoffs, reaching down to scratch the top of Numby’s head. “Oh, so if Himeko Murata invited you to have a threesome with her and Kafka Hunter, you’d say no?”
“Obviously not,” Jade says. “But I’d steal one of their credit cards afterward just because I could.”
“That’s because you’re insane,” Aventurine quips back, allowing himself to slip back into the familiar routine. “Topaz is supposed to be the nice one.”
“Please, that doctor thinks you’re plenty nice,” she dismisses. “I was worried that with your history he’d turn you down, but I mentioned your name to him at the museum and he was all over it.”
Aventurine freezes. “You knew?”
Jade quirks a perfectly manicured eyebrow at him. “What, that you were fucking Veritas Ratio? Of course I knew, darling, that’s my job.”
“You acted like—”
“I acted like I didn’t because I knew you’d react like this, little peacock.” Her voice grows sharper, more and more the disappointed older sister whose brother just won’t behave. “I needed you to be afraid you’d let me and Diamond down.” Jade sighs, looking away from him to inspect a nail. “You’re good at your job, Aventurine. Don’t let feelings get in the way of that.”
He wants to scream at her, wants to tear at her throat until she understands just how much this has all ruined him, ruined the best—the only— ugh. He can’t. He knows he can’t.
Aventurine had a chance. He had a moment, this morning, where he could have done the right thing. He could have gone back to sleep, told Jade Ratio didn’t keep his ID on him, and told Ratio the truth about it all.
He didn’t though. He came back here, to Jade and Topaz, because that’s where he belongs, no matter how good Ratio’s arms may feel around him.
So he swallows back the rising tide of anger, of horrible things he wants to spit at Jade, and laughs instead. “Feelings are irrelevant. He’s damn good with his tongue, that’s all.”
Topaz gives him a look like she doesn’t quite believe him, and he knows for sure Jade doesn’t, but they both accept his answer and move back on to more important things. He slinks off towards his room, not before he can hear Topaz whisper something and hear Numby trot after him. Her dog bumps his head against the back of Aventurine’s knee and he reaches back to pet him before nudging him back towards Topaz.
It’s… nice of her. He does like Numby, after all, even if he prefers cats.
The next few hours are sort of a blur—Topaz comes to drag him out of his room eventually, says they have to discuss logistics, and she’s willing to share the information she got out of the Astral Express crew if he’ll come join them. He acquiesces, lets himself be brought out. As soon as Topaz manages to consolidate the group into the main room once again, she claps her hands together and says, “Alright. First things first, Robin’s not dead.”
“How on earth did you find that one out from your conversation with the Astral Express?” Aventurine asks. “Don’t tell me she was also in Kafka and Himeko’s bed.”
“God, I wish,” Topaz says with an almost dreamy sigh. “No, they just so happened to run into her while visiting a nearby town and she’s been staying with them for a few days. The Oak Family doesn’t know that though, and the only reason they even let me talk to her is because I…” she trails off, glancing over towards Jade. “Apologies in advance, by the way. I might have already told them what my job was, back when we met during the Belobog job, and they were interested in why were were here in Penacony, so…”
Jade closes her eyes, counting to ten under her breath. “You told the Astral Express that we were here to steal the Legacy from the museum.”
Topaz only looks a little bit sheepish despite the fact that Jade appears moments away from reporting her to their nonexistent HR department. “They asked.”
“That is an unbelievable breach of security, Topaz.”
“I didn’t do it for absolutely no reason!” she argues, and the longer this conversation progresses, the more content Aventurine feels to just sit back and watch. He likes Topaz quite a bit, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy her getting chewed out by Jade. God knows she would do the same if it was him getting in trouble. “They’re on our side, Jade.”
Jade scoffs. “They are probably just telling you that.”
“That’s not how the Express works. I’m the only one here who’s met them before. I’m telling you, they’re just genuinely interested in doing things they think are good, and they think that use going after Penacony is good.” Topaz tosses Jade her phone. “Here. Read my text conversations with Caelus. That boy is incapable of telling a lie with a straight face, and he’s telling me they’re here to help.”
“If he’s texting you, he doesn’t have to keep a straight face,” Jade snarks, but she begins to scroll through the messages all the same. Aventurine leans over from his position on the couch to read them as well.
According to Caelus, who he’s pretty sure is the grey-haired one, the Express is interested in seeing the Penacony Museum brought down a few pegs as well, because they’ve been investigating the museum and have found evidence of corruption among the upper echelon. As far as they can tell, it’s more or less just a money laundering scheme with a couple of pretty pictures thrown in. This, alongside Robin’s stories about her childhood within the Family, has led them to the conclusion that the Penacony Museum is worth taking down.
“What does the Express want with us, then?” Jade asks, clearly still miffed about Topaz’s decision to loop them in. “We’re not here to expose corruption, we’re just here to make money and humiliate the Oak Family while we’re at it.”
Topaz grins, reaching for her laptop to pull up her secure email. “Because they know someone who’s interested in buying.” She proudly presents her laptop to Jade and Aventurine.
Aventurine’s eyes widen as he reads the email. “No.”
“Yes.”
“There’s no way,” Jade replies, pushing the laptop back towards Topaz. “It’s just not realistic.”
Topaz huffs, “And I’m telling you that it is. Just let me keep talking to them. They’re a good source of information and they’re willing to help.”
“Fine,” she dismisses, the conversation clearly over. “Aventurine, if the Express is willing to help us—which I am not putting all of my faith in—then your job is significantly easier tomorrow than it might have been. You’ll still have to keep Sunday out of my way, of course. Whatever you need to do.”
He raises an eyebrow at that. “You don’t want me to—what did Topaz call it yesterday—whore myself out to him?”
“If that’s what you want to do,” she responds, her tone a little softer than normal. “If you don’t want to, you never have to. You know that.”
Aventurine looks away, lips pressed into a thin line. “I know.”
“Besides, he’s sleeping with his head of security.” Jade clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “The museum staff were all very gossipy about it when I went there yesterday.”
“The scruffy one?” Topaz asks, quickly pulling up a list of museum staff on her computer. “Damn. Didn’t think Sunday Oak was into that.”
He looks over at her screen and snorts at the picture he sees. “Yeah, if that’s what he’s into, I don’t stand a chance. I’ll just have to annoy him into staying in his office.”
“Be careful,” Jade warns. “We’ve dealt with the Oaks before. Sunday’s a shrewd one, and if the doctor blabs, there’s a good chance he knows we’re coming.”
“He…” wouldn’t, Aventurine wants to say, but if everything Ratio told him about missing him was true, he might just be heartbroken enough (ha, as if) to tell Sunday everything. “I’ll be careful.”
She looks him up and down, something unidentifiable in her gaze. “Good. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
Aventurine just laughs. “It’s all for the Stonehearts, no? We’re all tools to be used.”
“Tools are no good to anyone broken, Aventurine. Keep yourself safe.” Jade stands up, walking over to her bedroom door. “I’ve got a call with Diamond in a few minutes that I’ll be taking elsewhere, and I’ll be doing another sweep of the museum afterward. I think I have a contact who can tell us which doors the doctor’s keycard will open. Topaz, are you still meeting with the Express in an hour?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Perfect. Aventurine, if you wouldn’t mind watching over Topaz’s data transfer while she’s gone?”
Topaz’s data transfer doesn’t need watching and they all know it. He accepts this for the olive branch it is and replies with a slightly more mocking “Yes, ma’am,” that does elicit a small huff from her.
Jade leaves a few minutes later, and Topaz a few minutes after that, taking Numby with her and asking Aventurine to let her know if anything actually does happen to her data transfer. The hotel room is rather quiet without the two of them, and Aventurine takes the opportunity to slink back into his room and bury himself face down in the pillow, letting out a frustrated scream. He dares to check his phone as if there’s any chance Ratio would have called him. He hates the fact that he even wants to check.
(He checks again anyway.)
Aventurine lies there, having rolled over onto his back to stare at the ceiling, trying desperately to stop thinking about Ratio. It fails, because it always fails.
He’s just… he’s a good man, even if he is a little bit of an asshole sometimes, but Aventurine finds that he likes that about him. He likes the fact that Ratio can match him blow for blow when they’re teasing each other. It’s no fun to talk to someone who can’t dish it out just as well.
He’s smart, too, obviously. Aventurine asked once, and it turns out the doctor’s got three separate master’s degrees and two PhDs. But more than that, he’s dedicated to making sure knowledge is available to everyone—he let Aventurine tag along to a couple of events he’d been invited to, and it’s clear he really cares about that sort of thing. Ratio doesn’t look down on him for having never finished high school, for not going to college—he told Aventurine on multiple occasions he thinks he’s significantly more intelligent than most of the people he’s worked with. It’s probably not true, but Ratio has never really made Aventurine feel less than in the way that so, so many people have.
Not to mention he’s drop-dead gorgeous and wonderfully talented in bed with a dick to match the size of his (admittedly well-earned) ego. God, Aventurine really is an idiot for letting this one get away, huh?
He sighs, mind having drifted back to the previous night. He toys with the waistband of his pants before slipping his hand underneath, recalling the way Ratio had licked him open with that tongue of his; it’s good for more than just verbal sparring. They’d been sleeping together for more than three years—Aventurine has plenty of material to draw from for his fantasies, even outside of last night.
He casts his mind back to a night from back when Ratio had first asked him out to one of his events as he starts to play with his clit. Aventurine had whispered all the much more fun things they could have been doing into his ear the whole night until Ratio had dragged him into the bathroom, shoved Aventurine down on his knees, and fucked his throat until he was sobbing.
Aventurine had never really enjoyed being manhandled until he started sleeping with Veritas, but there’s something about the… care that he does it with, for lack of a better word, that made it a little more enjoyable. Even so, Ratio’s one of those people who insists on communication, and didn’t take well to Aventurine not telling him when he wasn’t interested in something he was doing. Told him they needed a safeword, that he better use it when he didn’t like what was happening.
Damned doctor. This whole breakup thing would have been much easier if he’d been a total dick, but he had to go and be a good person underneath the chiseled exterior. It’s frankly unfair.
He slides two fingers into his cunt, shifting his hips slightly. Ratio’s fingers are so much bigger than his, but his’ll have to do, now that he’s gone and given that up. Still, thinking about Ratio inevitably leads to thinking about having sex with Ratio, and now he’s horny, so. He crooks his fingers, trying to rub up against the bundle of nerves inside him, and—argh. How the hell is Veritas so good at this? He can’t help but think about Ratio’s fingers, opening him up, his thick cock splitting him open as Aventurine pants and whines for it.
His cunt clenches involuntarily at that, and he whimpers a little to himself. His brain is flooded with images of their past encounters, of him on his hands and knees begging for Ratio to go harder, faster, while his partner insists that he wants to take his time with Aventurine. He slips a third finger in, stretching himself a little wider, whining a bit as he thinks about how much better this would feel if it was Veritas doing it to him, if this foreplay was going to be rewarded with his wonderful cock. He’s wet enough for it already, stretched out on his own fingers—Ratio could just slide right in and fuck him. He moves his other hand up to his chest, rubbing at his nipples through the rough fabric of his shirt.
It’s probably worth getting undressed at this point, but he wasn’t planning on fingering himself at this exact moment; it just sort of happened. If his clothes get dirty he’ll send Ratio the dry-cleaning bill. Aventurine rubs more insistently on the sensitive area inside him, whining at the touch because it’s not enough , not when he knows what he’s missing . It’s not like Ratio’s the only person he’s ever slept with, but when you only have sex with one person for three years they tend to be the only thing you remember.
He freezes suddenly, three fingers still deep inside his cunt. He really didn’t sleep with anyone else these past three years? That can’t be right. Half of his job relies on him having sex with people in order to get information.
…and yet, he can’t recall anyone else. A few in the beginning, sure, when what they were doing was still sort of tentative. But, now that he’s thinking about it, he first met Veritas the year that the Stonehearts didn’t go on many jobs because of how much they’d scored the previous year, and the year after that was the Belobog thing where he didn’t actually do much besides make fun of Topaz, and then he’d felt kind of bad about sleeping with other people besides Ratio so he’d—
Holy fucking shit, had they been dating?
Horrible time for that realization, he thinks, trying to drag his brain back onto its previous train of thought and get off before he starts having a full crisis. Don’t think about that. Think about Ratio’s tits, Ratio’s dick, Ratio’s tongue—anything except the fact that apparently he’d had a boyfriend for three years and had somehow failed to notice that.
Too late, he’s thinking about it again.
The invitations to events and galas—now that he’s actually considering it, it felt a little strange for Ratio to take his fuckbuddy to charity events as a date. But Aventurine knows he’s pretty, and sometimes it helps to just have a pretty thing on your arm at those kinds of things. Though—the good doctor doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would ask just to have something nice to show off.
The mood has officially been killed, so he pulls his hand out of his pants and reaches for the tissues on the bedside to wipe it off. God damned doctor, somehow cockblocking him even after Aventurine has gone and thoroughly ruined their relationship.
He stares at the ceiling above him, contemplating the many, many mistakes he has made in his life. He doesn’t regret a lot of things—genuinely, he doesn’t—but not taking advantage of his time with Ratio… he’ll never get over that.
♤
Topaz finds him like that, still splayed out on his bed and staring at the ceiling. She’s back earlier than he expected, and she doesn’t knock on his door when she opens it—which is stupid and she knows better. Still, she sees him laying down and sighs. “Why are you moping?”
“I’m not moping.”
She turns to her dog, who is currently struggling to jump up onto Aventurine’s bed. “Numby thinks you’re moping.”
“Shut up,” he says, but there’s no vitriol behind it. “Topaz, if you thought you were just having casual sex with someone, but upon further reflection realized you were maybe kind of dating them the whole time, what would you do about that?”
Topaz sits down on the bed next to him as he sits up and scoots over to give her more space. She reaches down to help Numby up onto her lap as she asks, “Is this about Dr. Ratio?”
“It’s hypothetical.”
“Uh huh.”
He glares at her before tugging his knees up to his chest. “Alright, maybe. I was thinking about it, and… I spent quite a bit of time with him.” A thought occurs to him. “We work together a lot, right?”
“I’m not going to be your rebound, and I feel that I do have to remind you that the last time we talked about this, you told me that the only pussy you were interested in was your own,” she informs him with a straight face, though she laughs when he reaches over to hit her lightly on the shoulder. He’s laughing too. “Yeah, we work together a lot. What’s that got to do with you and the doctor?”
“Do you remember what honeytrap missions I went on the last few times we worked together?” he asks, and she thinks for a moment.
“Besides Ratio himself? It’s been a little while since Jade’s had you do that, hasn’t it? You were sidelined for the Belobog job,” she grits her teeth through the name of the city, “and we weren’t on a lot of missions that required honeytraps the year before that. Can’t remember anything recently either. Why do you ask?”
He goes quiet, and Numby noses at the side of his leg inquisitively. “I didn’t think we were in a relationship, but I’m pretty sure we were, and I think I may have fucked up any chance I had of getting that back.”
Topaz mirrors his silence as her dog begins to try and climb out of her lap and onto Aventurine. “You know, you never really told me why you two stopped talking,” she says, quieter than before. “I know he found out what you do for a living, but…”
“He found out three months ago,” he tells her. “I still don’t even know how—I must have gotten sloppy covering something up. I woke up to all the stuff I’d been keeping in his apartment packed up with a note on top saying I had an hour to get out of his apartment once I woke up or he’d call the police. He blocked me on everything.”
“Nice of him,” she remarks, idly scratching the top of Numby’s head. “Yeah, I mean, you had stuff at his apartment, Aven. I don’t really keep clothes and a toothbrush at my hookup’s houses, you know?”
“We’d been sleeping together for three years—”
“Three years?” she interrupts, dumbfounded. “I thought you guys had been fucking for, like, six months at most!”
He laughs morosely. “I was a little more careful in the beginning with regards to keeping it a secret. Worlds colliding and all that.”
“I guess,” she huffs. “I’m surprised you were able to keep that secret for that long.”
“I am a career criminal.”
“That doesn’t make you a good liar when it comes to this kind of thing,” she says, and before he can process what the hell that’s supposed to mean, she continues. “Regardless of whether or not you were dating… the real question is, do you want to be dating him now ?” Topaz asks, and she’s right, that is the real question. And the horrible, humiliating, awful part is—
“I think I do,” Aventurine says, not quite meeting her eyes. “But it’s too late.”
She scoffs. “Really? We’re wallowing in self-pity already?”
“I am not wallowing,” he argues. “It was a miracle he didn’t call the cops on Jade when she said she knew me, and I took advantage of that kindness by stealing his identification with the intent on using it to break into the museum he works at.”
“You’re forgetting something,” she says with a tone that implies that he’s being very silly right now. “Did he or did he not take you back to his hotel room and fuck you in between those two things happening?”
Aventurine rolls his eyes, letting go of his legs and finally allowing Numby to climb into his lap as he had been attempting to do throughout most of the conversation. “People make stupid decisions sometimes.”
“Yeah, of course!” Her voice is growing more and more exasperated by the moment. “But think about it, Aven, ‘cause I know you’re not an idiot. You told me yourself that your doctor is wildly intelligent and that he’s got, like, twenty PhDs. Do you really, genuinely think that he met Jade at the museum where a priceless artifact is about to go on display, learned that she was working with you, someone he knows deals in stealing things like, oh, I don’t know, priceless artifacts and artwork, and didn’t guess exactly what you were there for?”
“Maybe it was willful ignorance then,” he snaps. “Or maybe he was just naive enough to think me being an art thief didn’t apply to the art he worked with.”
Topaz goes silent, and he goes to apologize before he’s cut off when she says, “When you ran into him last night, how did he treat you?”
“Are you honestly worried about my virtue right now?” Aventurine laughs. “He treated me just fine. A perfect gentleman.”
“Right! Exactly!” She gestures wildly at Aventurine. “But he knew what you did! And he knew why you were there! Hell, if he’s anywhere near as smart as you say he is, he might have even guessed why we were looking for him in the first place.”
A moment from the previous night flashes through his mind and he blushes. “I… may have told him I was there to seduce him.”
“And you woke up in his bed this morning all the same,” Topaz points out triumphantly. “I think your doctor is far less concerned with your lack of morality than he maybe should be and is probably still willing to pursue a relationship with you even though he knows what you do. You're the problem here.”
“Fuck you,” he says, and she just rolls her eyes. “What do you mean I’m the problem here?”
“Relationships scare you—don't give me that look, they scare me too—and it’s easier to say that you want him but he would never take you back than it is to actually put the effort in to make it work. But you want to make it work.”
He glares at her. “Thank you for informing me of my own opinions on the matter.”
“You’re welcome. Do something about it.” She stands up, picking Numby up and setting him down on the floor. “Get your head out of your ass, tell him you're in love with him, and let’s get this mission back on track.”
♤
He doesn’t, in fact, do anything about it. Instead, he awaits his doom, signaled by a sharp knock on the door from Jade and a request to get up and go to the museum with her.
Somehow, despite the sheer number of personal crises he’s had to deal with—it’s only 4pm. Jade wants more reconnaissance, and this time, she wants him to chat up the head of security while her and Topaz sneak around in the back. This prospect is terrifying, because Aventurine recalls the photo he’d seen of the head of security, and he seems like the no-nonsense type.
The walk there is almost entirely silent. Aventurine has no real desire to talk to Jade or Topaz right now outside of a brief “yes, ma’am” when Jade assigns him his task—charm the head of security and make sure he’s got a way into Sunday’s office. This bit’s not new; the surprising part is when a man with a badge reading T. Gallagher, Head of Museum Security greets Jade with a small half-smile and a wave when they pass by the entrance to the storage area of the museum.
“Ms. Jade, lovely to see you again. These must be your associates?”
“Yes, Miss Topaz and Mr. Aventurine are part of the same appraisal firm as I am,” she lies, smooth as anything. “I know Mr. Aventurine had a few questions for you about security regarding the artifacts and artwork here…”
Aventurine laughs. “Yes, of course, unfortunately I’m rather curious by nature, and I’d love to pick your brain about some of your techniques for detecting forgeries.”
The security guard shrugs and waves Jade and Topaz through. “Yeah, sure. It’s my smoke break, so if you don’t mind the smell, I’ll be happy to answer your questions out back.”
Jade shoots him a questioning glance that Aventurine thoroughly ignores. “Absolutely. Thank you for indulging me.”
The two women are whisked away by another set of security guards to go view the art they’re supposedly interested in as Aventurine follows the head of security out behind the back of the museum’s storage area. It’s one of the stupider things—well, no, it probably isn’t. He’s done a lot of very stupid shit.
“So,” Gallagher says, lighting a cigarette. “You’re here to steal that necklace, huh?”
Nope, nevermind. Stupidest thing he’s ever done.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Aventurine deflects. “I’m here to learn more about—”
“The security system surrounding forgeries, yeah, you’ve mentioned.” He chuckles. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna rat you out. I think getting that stupid thing taken will be good for Sunday. Want one?” He offers a cigarette to Aventurine, who shakes his head.
“I can’t imagine why getting a prized family heirloom stolen the same week his sister turns up dead would be good for him,” he says, before properly remembering the conversation he’d had with Topaz and Jade earlier about who, precisely, is sleeping with who. “You and Sunday, you’re...”
“Fucking? Yeah, definitely. Oh, he’ll be thrilled to learn that the random appraisers we’ve got hanging around know that too,” the security guard says with a huff. “Be careful around here. It’s a pretty museum, Aventurine, but make sure you do your research first. The Oak family doesn’t take kindly to people they can’t trust.”
“And what does that make you?” he asks.
Gallagher says, “Oh, I never said I wasn’t one. Just that they’re not very nice to them. And someone like you, well… you’re a Stoneheart, aren’t you? He’s been reading up on you. His predecessor apparently got it in his head that you’re after the museum.”
“How’d you make it to head of security if—and this is a hypothetical, of course, I am certainly not a Stoneheart—you were to have an art thief right in front of you and simply let them go?” He's probably giving away too much information with that question, but he can't help himself.
The other man just smirks, taking a drag of his cigarette. “I’m not very good at my job, unfortunately. But the Family likes to keep their friends close and their enemies much, much closer.”
Aventurine raises an eyebrow. “Is that why you're with him, then?”
“Against all odds, I like the bastard quite a bit. That's really why I’m here, you know. Talking to you.” He sighs. “We’ve got a performance meeting scheduled for tomorrow about an hour before the celebration opens, and our performance meetings aren’t exactly about work, if you catch my drift. Birdie gets in his head about people knowing what he's doing with me, so there won't be any guards around his office nor the storage area in general that time of day. Now, I’ve got a prior engagement the day of the celebration, so I’ll be missing that evaluation, but if an enterprising person were to want to sneak into Sunday’s office without getting caught, well…”
“Why are you telling me this?” Aventurine presses, skeptical. “What do you gain?”
Infuriatingly, he winks at him, grinning. “If you're half as smart as the people I’ve talked to about you claim, you should be able to work that one out easily.”
“So assume I’m not that smart and explain it to me.” He folds his arms across his chest. “You work here as a security guard. Surely the museum getting broken into reflects badly on you.”
Gallagher shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t really care about this job. But, like I said, the Family likes to keep their enemies close, and it’s real easy to keep an eye on someone when you’re paying their salary. ‘Sides, I think it’ll be good for little Birdie to have to deal with a crisis. Builds character.” He sighs. “That, and this museum can burn in hell for all I care about it. Bunch of money-hungry morons who think they know better than all of us ‘cause they can tell the difference between a Matisse and a Monet.”
(Aventurine very wisely chooses not to respond to that with “you can’t?”, but it’s a near thing.)
He stubs out the half-smoked cigarette and tosses it in a nearby trash can. “Did I answer all your questions, Mr. Aventurine?”
He’d only raised new ones, but still, Aventurine nods and says, “Yes, of course. Have a great rest of your day, Mr. Gallagher.”
He heads back inside, head still spinning. If what that security guard was saying was true, they have a perfect opening to both distract Sunday and get the necklace all at once, with the guards being sent away from the staff portion of the museum. And it doesn’t seem like Gallagher was lying.
Aventurine is starting to feel like he’s a lot less in control than he thought he was.
He meets back up with Jade and Topaz outside the museum, where Topaz is already furiously typing something on her phone. “How was your chat with Mr. Gallagher?” Jade asks pleasantly, though her eyes are narrowed, scrutinizing him.
“Enlightening,” he replies. “He’s an interesting man.”
“Opened up a lot of doors for me,” Jade says with a slight smile, and, ah. That makes a lot more sense now, if he’s her contact within the museum. “Shall we get going? Mr. Ayutthaya is certainly waiting for more information on the pieces he was interested in.”
“One moment.” Topaz looks up from her phone. “Aven, your doctor’s card isn’t working.”
He glares at her, though she’s not fazed by it in the slightest. “How do you know?”
“I tested it while Jade was chatting up the security guards in the storage area. He must have deactivated it.”
Aventurine extends his arms out, with an incredulous, deadpan expression to match that just screamed and what the fuck do you want me to do about that? “Okay? Do you want me to try and get someone else’s?”
“I think you should talk to Dr. Ratio about it,” she says, meeting his deadpan gaze with one of her own. “And ask him to give you his ID.”
“Ha.” There's no mirth in his voice. “Very funny. What do you actually want me to do?”
Topaz’s expression doesn’t change, and it dawns on him that she’s fucking serious. “I just told you what I actually wanted you to do. We’re not going after his identification just to piss you off, Aventurine. He has more freedom and access than almost any other person at this museum when it comes to the storage area where the necklace is stored, and he’s only a contractor, not an official employee, so Sunday has significantly less oversight as to what he does.”
“Okay, that’s great, but he’s not going to give it to me. Are you crazy?”
She looks just over his shoulder and grins. “Wanna find out?”
He hears the telltale sound of footsteps from behind him and then an extremely familiar voice says, “Aventurine?” and oh, he’s going to fucking kill her. He is going to put her laptop in a blender and then set the blender on fire. She is jeopardizing the entire job for the sake of this. Why isn’t Jade commenting on this? Jade is fucking smiling, the absolute bitch, as if this is somehow funny and not potentially life-ruining.
“Dr. Ratio!” Jade greets. She is dutifully ignoring the murderous looks Aventurine is sending her way. “Lovely to see you again. This is Miss Topaz, my assistant, and my associate, Aventurine. Have you two met before?”
“We… have,” he says. “We spoke last night at the Dreamscape.”
“Aventurine was actually just talking about you, Doctor,” Topaz continues, because apparently this is some sort of plot they’ve cooked up and she’s in on it. Great . “He had a few questions about the way the artwork and artifacts are stored here that the head of security was unable to answer.”
Aventurine goes to start protesting Topaz’s statement when Ratio cuts him off before he can get anything out and says, “Of course. I’d be happy to assist your team with anything they need, Miss Topaz.”
Topaz levels him with a pointed stare even as she continues to speak. “Wonderful. Ms. Jade is meeting a client for dinner and I have some actuarial work to finish, so do you mind if we take our leave now? If you’re alright just speaking with Aventurine instead of Jade, of course.”
“I don’t mind at all,” he says. “I was just heading to my office. If you would care to accompany me, Mr. Aventurine?”
“Lead the way, doctor,” Aventurine replies smoothly. He hasn’t worked out the good doctor’s reasoning yet as to why he’s not scrambling for the nearest phone to get the three of them arrested, but he’s sure there’s something more sinister going on here that he hasn’t figured out yet.
♤
Once again, they walk alongside each other in utterly awkward silence, though Aventurine feels Ratio’s gaze heavy on him the entire time. They reach the office, and Ratio locks the door behind them, then pulls a remote out of his pocket and points it at the corner of the room where he can see a security camera’s red light blinking. He then turns to Aventurine, expression unreadable, even to someone as experienced in deciphering Ratio’s face as he is. “My camera often has… ah, technical glitches that preclude it from operating properly, and Mr. Gallagher has yet to replace it. My office is quite far removed from the other offices here as well.”
So this conversation is private. Alright. No spectators while Ratio either straight up kills him, or, as the more primal part of his brain has begun to suggest, bends him over the desk and fucks him until he’s sobbing. Both of these options sound excellent right about now.
“Why am I here, Veritas?” Aventurine asks, unwilling to engage in any sort of false pleasantries.
“You left before I woke up,” he answers, arms crossed, “and I wished to speak with you.”
Aventurine spreads his arms out, gesturing around the otherwise empty office. “Well? You have me. Cameras off, away from anyone else. Have your way with me.”
“Why do you insist on misinterpreting the things I say to you?” Veritas sounds genuinely upset, which is… unusual, to say the least. “Aventurine. Please do not mistake my desire to speak with you for a desire to reprimand you for the things that you choose to do with your life. I merely wish to have a conversation with you in order to understand why you left.”
“Because I don’t fucking get it, Ratio!” he exclaims, frustrated. “You kick me out of your apartment because you can’t stand the idea of being with a criminal, but you miss me enough to want to come see me. You block my phone number, but you seek me out at a club on the off chance some random person you met was telling the truth that I’d be there.” He pauses to catch his breath, dutifully ignoring the confused expression on the doctor’s face. “I stole the RFID information off of your museum ID. That’s why I left.”
He continues to look confused, blinking owlishly. “I know. You left the ID sitting out on the table. I assumed you did not care whether I knew what you had done.”
“Veritas, I’m not a good person,” Aventurine says, anger mixing with sadness and desperation into a cocktail of emotion that bubbles up and over and leads his voice to come out less steady and more choked-off. “You can’t fix me. I’m not going to give up my life to be with you.”
“I would not ask you to.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!” he snaps. “You kicked me out of your apartment when you found out, and you weren’t even there to do it in person, you goddamn coward . I’m not going to repent and find meaning in my life. I like my job. I’m good at my job. If you want to hold on to your precious morals and still have me, I suggest you reconsider.”
Ratio’s eyes flick over to the camera in the corner briefly before landing back on Aventurine’s own. “It was not my choice to cut you out of my life, dear gambler.”
“Your conscience is not a separate being—”
“Listen to me!” Aventurine, wisely enough, shuts his mouth. “The night before… what transpired, I received a text message from an unknown number warning me to stay away from you. It included several inculpatory details about you, explaining that your alleged job as an art appraiser was a front for a high-profile group of thieves known as the Ten Stonehearts. This unknown person sent me several links in order to prove this connection.” Ratio’s gaze holds steady as he utters the next few words, as if he needs to know that Aventurine is hearing what he’s saying. “I told them I did not care.”
“Then why—”
Ratio interrupts him more gently this time with, “Please let me finish. I told them I did not care. They then elaborated by saying they were someone who worked closely with the Stonehearts and was concerned that you were becoming more and more distracted by your relationship with me, and that if it continued… something was going to happen to you.
“They were vague, but I assumed they meant that if we were to continue seeing each other that there was a very real possibility you would die or get seriously hurt, whether through the actions of one of your colleagues or through distractions from me leading you to fail a mission. I felt that the best course of action there was to end our relationship.” He reaches a hand out to take one of Aventurine’s.
“Please understand that if I had not felt you were in some sort of danger by continuing to associate with me, I would not have done what I had done.”
Aventurine's head is spinning with this new information as he tries to slot it all into place amongst his existing worldview. Only one person knew that Ratio and Aventurine were involved, and he may not like her methods when it comes to work, but he genuinely believes Topaz wouldn’t interfere like that. Interfere in other ways, certainly, but she does seem far more invested in personal happiness than the good of the Stonehearts as a whole.
Wait.
No.
Two people knew that they were involved, he recalls, thinking back to the morning that seems so far away now. “Do you still have those text messages?” Aventurine asks, dropping Ratio’s hand. “I think I know who sent them.”
Ratio obliges, handing his phone over. Aventurine looks for the messages and…
“ Jade ,” he hisses, recognizing the texting style immediately. “She sent that. I’d bet my life that she wanted to keep me from being distracted by you in case it fucked up a mission or something.”
“But you understand now,” the doctor presses, “that I genuinely felt that your life was at stake here.”
Aventurine shrugs, handing the phone back over. “It wasn’t. She wouldn’t have killed me, and she would have prevented me from being hurt on a mission if she could help it. But…” he trails off, recalling her words from this morning.
You’re good at your job, Aventurine. Don’t let feelings get in the way of that.
“She would definitely try and stop you from sleeping with me if she thought it was going to be detrimental to the Stonehearts,” he says, words heavy in the air. He cares about Jade. He doesn’t want to think that she’d purposely ruin something like this just to make sure he was focused entirely on their job. “Well. I owe you an apology, then.”
“You do not owe me anything, Aventurine,” Veritas responds, voice uncharacteristically soft. “I love you. I wish only for your happiness.”
Aventurine nearly doubles over laughing. “You love me? No, you don’t.”
“Please, do enlighten me as to how you understand my feelings better than I do,” the doctor asks, eyes narrowing. “We were… dating, for all that that term feels childish in nature to me, for the better part of three years. That is a perfectly logical amount of time for me to have developed feelings within the span of.”
“We weren’t—we weren’t really dating, Veritas.” He takes a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “I mean, I didn’t even consider that a possibility until this morning. We were fucking, that’s about it.”
“Yes, and all that time we spent together outside of that is, what, exactly, gambler? Foreplay?” Ratio leans back against his desk. “You have known me for almost four years now. Do you believe that I am the kind of person who invites someone to events with me merely because I feel that I should?”
Aventurine rubs at the back of his neck, averting his eyes. “Well, no. But it’s not really dating if I didn’t think we were, right?”
“Well, I suppose not, but that doesn’t invalidate the fact that after careful consideration I have decided that I love you and that I would like to be with you.”
He laughs derisively. “Oh, well, if you’ve carefully considered it.”
“Aventurine,” Ratio says, still in that gentle tone of voice, “why is this so hard for you to believe?”
There’s a moment of silence before Aventurine finally speaks up, voice quiet. “I’m not worth it, you know that? I’m an orphan who never finished high school, didn’t go to college, and I steal priceless works of art for a living. You told me that you missed me and I couldn’t say it back. I repaid your admission by stealing your museum ID information. I said it already, but I’m not a good person. I’m not the kind of person who gets a happy ending, and you shouldn’t forfeit yours just to be with me.”
“Is it too much to consider that you might be my idea of a happy ending?”
“Yes,” he chokes out, that same bubbling cocktail of emotions still stirring in his gut. “Yes, it is.”
Ratio pushes himself off the desk he’s leaning against and walks over to Aventurine, reaching out a hand. Aventurine takes it, wiping his eyes with his free hand. He’s not sure when tears started forming at the edges of his vision, but they’re there.
“Dear, I do not think you are anywhere near as bad of a person as you seem to think you are.” Ratio places his free hand on the side of Aventurine’s face and gently tilts it up to face him.
“I think you are as intelligent as you are charming, regardless of your level of formal education. You are unbelievably beautiful, but more so, you are witty and clever, and I enjoy every conversation we engage in. Furthermore, I believe that at heart, regardless of what you do to make money, you are a good person. Even the information given to me by your colleague indicates you never target those who will be genuinely hurt by your actions.”
“I’m not Robin Hood,” he says, though he’s already leaning into the careful touch. It feels like giving in. He can’t bring himself to care. “I’m not going to change.”
“And I am not asking you to.”
“What are you asking me, Veritas?” Aventurine feels the doctor running his thumb along the side of his face, a gesture of comfort. “What do you want from me?”
Ratio smiles, and, oh, it’s just as lovely as every other time Aventurine is able to draw a real, genuine smile out of him. He’s weak for this man—he can see why Jade thought Ratio would be an issue. But—Jade can fuck off. “I want whatever you’re willing to give me, Aventurine,” he says. “Whatever you will allow me to have is more than enough for me.”
“Okay,” he says, voice breaking on the last syllable. “Can I—”
Veritas interrupts him by leaning down to kiss him, softer and sweeter than the last time they did this, which was all tongue and teeth and passion. This is—this is loving, as if Aventurine is something precious. Something to be cared for. He returns the kiss helplessly, hand not currently in Ratio’s going to tangle in the doctor’s soft hair.
He pulls away breathlessly after a long moment that feels far too short and asks, “Is this—what is this, Ratio?”
“A relationship, if you’d let me,” the doctor answers brusquely. “I will say it as many times as you need to hear it in order to believe me—I love you, Aventurine, with and despite all your flaws.”
“And what if I never believe it? What if I can’t ever say it back?” Aventurine grips Ratio’s hand tighter. “What happens then?”
“Do you want to say it back?” Ratio questions, answering the grip on his hand with a soft squeeze of his own.
He casts his eyes downward, unwilling to meet Ratio’s. “Well, maybe. But I don’t think I can. Yet. Ever. I don’t know.”
“To know that you wish to say it, even if the words themselves will not be uttered from your mouth, is enough for me.” Ratio slides the hand on the side of Aventurine’s face down so that it’s resting on his neck, covering the scar on the side of his neck he earned back when he was living on the streets, before he met Jade. “I have known you for four years, Aventurine. Do not think I do not understand that sometimes it is hard for you to say what you mean, even if you want to.”
Aventurine takes this as a cue to pull Ratio down for another kiss, this one slightly messier and hungrier than the first. Ratio returns it in kind, parting his lips to allow Aventurine better access. When they break apart, once again nowhere near long enough for all that Aventurine wants, he says, “I did miss you, you know. I should have told you that, back when you said it to me.”
“Your actions spoke well enough,” Ratio responds, eyes darting down to the small window in Aventurine’s shirt before flicking back up to his face. “But it is nice to hear you say it, as well.”
Aventurine laughs as the doctor’s eyes rake him over, though it’s still a little choked up. “And here I thought we were having a sweet moment, Veritas, not foreplay .”
“We are doing both,” the hand on his neck travels down to grip at Aventurine’s lithe waist, “because you somehow have it in your head that sex cannot be tender or loving, and if we engage in intercourse now, I intend on proving you wrong.”
“Talk dirty to me, doctor,” Aventurine deadpans, though he lets go of Ratio’s hand to bring it up and fist it in Ratio’s shirt. “What, you want to make love to me?” he asks teasingly, though he gasps when Ratio’s hand at his waist tightens, possessive. “A-ah, that’s not really what I’m good at.”
Ratio rolls his eyes as he spins the two of them around so Aventurine’s back is against the mahogany desk in the center of the room. “Then let me do all the work for you, dear.”
“So, I just lie there and take it?” he asks, choking back another little gasp as Ratio’s possessive hand travels further down his body and starts to play with the waistband of his nice pants.
He’d gotten all dressed up today, damn it, he was supposed to be playing the part of a high-profile art appraiser, not the mewling mess he turns into at Ratio’s hands. Ratio’s racking up quite a few dry-cleaning bills from him today, he realizes as he recalls that he fingered himself to the thought of Ratio bending him over like this just earlier today. He’s gotten too predictable. Needs to develop a few more out-there kinks.
“I would like to take my time with you,” Ratio says, reaching both hands down to Aventurine’s thigh and lifting him up to sit on the desk, positioning himself in between Aventurine’s now-spread thighs, “and if you do not feel that you are, as you said, capable of making love, then yes, you will sit there and let me take my time with you.”
“My my, so forward, Veritas,” Aventurine says, though he can already feel a damp patch forming in his underwear at the idea of letting Ratio do whatever he wants to him. His partner’s hand moves back to its prior position at the waistband of Aventurine’s pants before slipping inside. “Take me out to dinner first,” he jokes in a feeble attempt to distract Ratio from how wet he is already.
Ratio rolls his eyes again (while he’s just started sticking his hand down Aventurine’s pants! Unbelievable!) and says, “I have. Many times, if you’ll recall. I was not the one who thought the dates we went on were merely a precursor to sex.”
“H-hey,” he protests as Ratio starts to toy with his clit, voice going breathy, “I didn’t think they were dates at all.”
“You are ridiculous,” he responds, though there’s a distinct fondness to it that makes Aventurine squirm a little in his grasp. His free hand is on top of Aventurine’s thigh, his other just starting to play with his folds. Aventurine feels completely at Ratio’s mercy right now.
He squirms again, sighing as Ratio slides one finger inside his cunt for a moment before pulling it out just as soon as he enters. “If you’re going to tease me like that, at least take my pants off properly. These are nice, you know.”
“You are correct,” he acquiesces, and he helps Aventurine shimmy out of his pants before immediately going back to playing with his folds. “You’re already so wet for me, Aventurine. I’ve barely even touched you.”
“Liar,” Aventurine shoots back. He’s aiming for playful, but it comes across breathy and desperate. “You can’t keep your hands off of me.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” Ratio asks, running his hand up and down Aventurine’s thigh. “You’re beautiful.”
“And you’re desperate,” he says, hands going to tug at the collar of Ratio’s shirt. “Who would have ever thought the esteemed Dr. Veritas Ratio would stoop so low as to having sex on his own desk.”
Ratio laughs, crooking a finger inside of Aventurine. He whimpers as another finger breaches him, tugging more insistently at the collar of Ratio’s shirt. “I don’t suppose I’ll be holding this position for much longer, dear gambler,” Ratio whispers against his ear, nipping at his earlobe as he pulls away. “Might as well have some fun with it while I’m still employed here.”
“Take your fucking shirt off,” Aventurine grumbles, rocking forward onto the two fingers inside him as he tries to undo the top button of Ratio’s collar. "You’re wearing far too many clothes for the things you claim you want to do to me.”
“What I want to do to you is take my time with you,” Ratio says, breath hot against the side of Aventurine’s face. “And if that means I need to bring you off with my fingers alone, I will do that. Whatever it will take to make you understand that I enjoy you, Aventurine.”
“Your cock can enjoy my— haah… ” he trails off as a third finger enters him, Ratio’s face still in the crook of his neck, “—pussy much better than your fingers can, Veritas.” He rocks forward again, more insistently this time. “ Please! ”
Ratio sucks a mark into the side of Aventurine’s neck, and though he knows he will almost certainly be torn to shreds over it by Jade and Topaz he can’t bring himself to care. He whines instead, high and needy, finally able to undo the first two buttons of Ratio’s shirt. “If you will not indulge me with your cock the least you can do is allow me to see those wonderful tits of yours,” Aventurine says, and Ratio laughs once again. “I’m serious!”
“I’m sure you are, love,” he replies, removing the hand from Aventurine’s thigh to undo his shirt, finally . “And I have every intention to give you what you so desperately want. You must have patience.”
Aventurine throws his head back with a loud keen as Ratio rubs insistently against the bundle of nerves inside him, his shirt finally open at the front. He reaches one hand down to palm at the bulge in Ratio’s slacks as he kneads at his chest with the other. “I’m—nng— very patient,” he asserts, bearing down more on Ratio’s fingers, desperate for more of that delicious friction. “So very patient. I deserve a reward for how patient I am.”
Ratio’s rhythm falters as Aventurine palms at his cock through his pants, though he recovers quickly, clearly eager to draw more of those breathy whines and moans out of his partner. “Oh? Are my fingers not reward enough? I could—”
Aventurine tightens his thighs around Ratio’s waist, trapping him there, and hisses, “Don’t you dare.”
“Needy thing,” Ratio admonishes, though he reaches down to unbuckle his belt and slide his pants down, freeing his cock just as he grinds the heel of his palm against Aventurine’s clit and his partner cries out. “Be a little quieter, won’t you?”
“You said we were far enough away from the other offices not to be heard,” Aventurine points out.
“I had forgotten how loud you were capable of being.” He pulls his fingers out of Aventurine’s cunt, wiping the excess slick on his thigh. Aventurine whines a little at the loss, but steels himself, since he knows what’s coming next.
Slowly, surely, Ratio pushes in, and Aventurine lets out another high, keening moan as he feels Ratio hit home, his frankly massive cock rubbing up against all the right places inside of him. His eyes have flickered shut at the sensation, hands going from Ratio’s chest to grip the edges of the beautiful mahogany desk they’re about to ruin. He lays back so he’s nearly horizontal on the desk as Ratio’s hand goes to grip the underside of his thigh and hitch it up around his waist. They stay there for a moment, panting, frozen.
Eventually, Aventurine grows bored of this wonderful torment. “ Move ,” he whines, clenching down around Ratio’s length. “You know I can take it, come on.”
“When will you get it through that head of yours that I want to go slow, dear?” Ratio asks, though he acquiesces to Aventurine’s demands and begins to move, slowly, slower than Aventurine wants, goddamnit, far too slow.
“Remember, if you do not think you are capable of making love—” he stills, and Aventurine whimpers at the loss of friction before Ratio’s hand is on his, bringing it away from its death grip at the edge of the desk and forcing it up by his head, “—then I will happily do the work for you.”
Aventurine hooks a leg around Ratio’s waist and pulls, trying to force his cock deeper inside him yet. “I don’t see you doing any work right now,” he taunts. “All this talk about me lying there and taking it and yet— haah!” His teasing is interrupted by another loud moan as Ratio begins to move once again, sliding all the way out before thrusting back all the way to the base. “Mmh, making love, huh, Veritas?” he asks, breathless.
“Theoretically, we can broaden the definition of making love to any form of intercourse engaged in by two people who care for each other deeply,” he says, and Aventurine rolls his eyes. “But still. We have less time than I originally thought, so I will have to take my time with you the way I want to at a later date.”
“This isn’t taking your time with me?” Aventurine replies incredulously.
He sees a hint of a wicked grin cross Ratio’s face as he slides out again. “No. Not the way I want to,” he says, leaving Aventurine only a moment to process that before he slams back home again, drawing another high-pitched noise from Aventurine’s throat.
Ratio’s cock feels so good inside him, the way it always does, and he knows those needy little keening noises he can hear are coming from his mouth, but he can’t quite bring himself to care. He thinks if he were to reach down and touch his stomach there would be a bulge forming as Ratio fucks him, tangible evidence of the massive cock inside him.
Aventurine begins to lose himself to the heady pleasure of it all, the way Ratio’s cock rubs against the already-sensitive bundle of nerves, Ratio’s hand on his thigh, keeping it in place aside his waist, as familiar heat begins to pool in his stomach. “Veritas—I’m gonna—”
“Come for me,” Ratio says, and Aventurine does just that, orgasm cresting over him in a tidal wave of pleasure as he clenches down on Ratio’s cock for the last time, trying desperately to keep hold of it for as long as possible. His leg tightens its hold on Ratio’s waist. “Aventurine, I need to pull out.”
“Mm. No. Come inside me,” he begs, brain going foggy post-orgasm. Ratio hesitates, so Aventurine pleads, “Please, haven’t I been good for you?”
Those words seem to push Ratio over the edge and he comes inside Aventurine with not a moan but a heavy sigh, collapsing on top of his partner. They lay there for a moment, basking in the afterglow and the head-rush of it all, before Aventurine complains of the desk digging into his back and they separate, Ratio’s dick slipping out of his pussy as a gush of come and slick follow it.
Ratio reaches for the tissue box on the desk and kneels down in between Aventurine’s thighs, beginning to clean the mess of fluids off of him. “We should have talked about me coming inside beforehand,” he admonishes, and Aventurine merely laughs.
“Please, Veritas, we had the safe-sex talk last night before you put your tongue in my pussy. You’ve been my only partner for the better part of three years, you know we’re both clean.”
“It’s still a good conversation—” he begins before being promptly interrupted by Aventurine capturing his lips in a kiss, fully intending to derail this conversation before it starts. Ratio allows it, but looks distinctly unimpressed when they part. “You can’t kiss me to prevent me from saying things you don’t want to hear, love.”
“Au contraire, Veritas,” Aventurine replies, pressing another quick kiss to his partner’s cheek. “I can do whatever I want.”
♤
“Ratio,” Aventurine asks, once they’re more or less cleaned up and he’s struggling to get back into his nice slacks, “you do understand I’m here to steal from the museum, right?”
Ratio shoots him a look and says, “Obviously, Aventurine. I certainly didn’t think you were here to appraise art.”
“Okay, well, rude,” he mutters, drawing a laugh out of his partner. “But seriously, you seem surprisingly okay with me and my colleagues stealing from your place of work.”
Ratio shrugs loosely, adjusting one of his wrist cuffs. “I believe that knowledge should be shared amongst the masses. Museums are generally good places to spread that sort of knowledge, but this…” He pulls a face, and Aventurine snorts at how out-of-place it looks on his chiseled features. “The Penacony Museum has no such lofty goals in mind. Had I known that it was little more than a money laundering scheme and a way for the Oak Family to pat itself on the back and claim it was making charitable donations , I would have turned Sunday’s offer down in an instant.”
“So stealing from them is a-okay then, Veritas?” Aventurine teases. “Want a cut of the profits?”
“The Legacy is not a particularly expensive item, love, I figured your team was after it simply to humiliate Sunday.” He hums softly as he finishes buttoning back up his shirt and reaches over to help Aventurine do up the last few buttons of his dress shirt and adjust his collar. “There.”
“Wouldn’t want me looking like the esteemed Dr. Ratio had just bent me over his own desk, huh?” Aventurine rests a hand on Ratio’s bicep, smiling up at him. “Gotta keep up appearances.”
He flushes red at the lewd comment, and some part of Aventurine crows with victory at getting the doctor to blush. “I thought you would rather be presentable when you returned to your colleagues,” Ratio says, quickly regaining his composure. “Also, you have a mark on the side of your neck I was trying to cover up.”
Aventurine merely laughs. “I’d be happy to show it off,” he purrs, pressing up against Ratio once again. “Let everyone know I’m taken.”
Ratio’s expression softens, and he reaches up to cup the side of Aventurine’s face. He feels himself leaning into the touch once again—he’s weak for it, these gentle, almost loving touches. They make him feel precious. Special. As if he is something to be cherished.
(Ratio makes him feel like he is something to be cherished.)
He leans up for a kiss, pressing his lips against Ratio’s chastely. “Tomorrow,” he says as they break apart. “Tomorrow, at 5 pm. The Reverie Hotel, room 666. Meet me there.”
Ratio nods. “Until then, Aventurine.”
♤
He slips back into the hotel room around an hour later, trying his best to go unnoticed, but Jade has taken up her usual position lounging on the couch and narrows her eyes at him when he walks in looking noticeably more disheveled than he would have preferred had he known he would have to talk to Jade immediately after. “Fun time?” she snarks, scooting over so that there’s room enough on the couch for both of them. He takes the hint—whatever conversation they’re about to have needs to happen now .
“I don’t imagine you care all that much,” he says, sitting down on the arm of the couch opposite her. “We talked. It went well.”
“Clearly.” Jade looks him up and down with a vaguely disappointed look, and Aventurine resists the blush threatening to cover his face. “Did you even get the ID information we wanted you to?”
He fishes around in his pants pocket for a second before pulling out not just a copy of Ratio’s museum ID but the ID itself and tosses it to her. “He’s not coming in to work tomorrow. Said we could just use his if the RFID information wasn’t working.”
Jade catches the ID, seeming genuinely taken aback at that. “Well, that’s good to hear. Topaz is out speaking with the Express crew right now. According to her, they’ve located Robin and are planning on staging some sort of… intervention, in the middle of the event.” Jade rolls her eyes. “Whatever works, I suppose. She’s going to be helping me disable the tracking and security on the necklace while you keep Sunday in his office tomorrow.”
“Understood. The security guard—”
“Gallagher has his own motivations for assisting us,” she interrupts. “However strange they may be, he is trustworthy. Whatever information he gave you is most likely legitimate.”
“Did it ever occur to you to tell me that Gallagher was your contact within the museum?” he asks, irritated. “Because that would have been nice to know ahead of time.”
She shrugs. “I was going to tell you on the walk over there, but you insisted on ignoring me.”
“Oh, come the fuck on, Jade,” Aventurine huffs. “We’re both professionals. You know I’m more than capable of putting aside any personal issues for the sake of the mission.”
“Are you?” she hisses. “Are you capable of it, Aventurine? Because I’m pretty sure Topaz and I asked you to get the museum identification off of that doctor and instead you let him fuck you in his office.”
“I didn’t let him do anything,” he says. “And I got the fucking ID, Jade! What does it matter if I had a little fun on the side too?”
Jade stands up, pacing back and forth along the length of the hotel room’s common area as she rants. “You’re too close to him, Aventurine! You cannot allow feelings to get in the way of your job! You know that! He hurt you once already, he’s going to hurt you again. And when he hurts you again, who’s to say that’s not going to impact your performance on a mission?”
“He didn’t want to hurt me!” Aventurine stands up as well, blocking Jade’s path. “He had no other choice!”
“Oh, that’s what they all say, dear—”
“Shut the fuck up!” he snaps, and she goes rigid. “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are, you know? Did you think I wouldn’t find out what you did?”
She turns away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Save it,” Aventurine says, incensed. “We’ve been working together for ten years now. You think I can’t recognize the way you type?”
Jade refuses to meet his eyes, arms folded across her chest. “I can’t imagine why that’s relevant to this conversation.”
He reaches out to grab her forearm. “Jade, please, I know you know what I’m talking about. Why did you do it?” he asks. “Why did you do any of this?”
Her gaze remains fixed on the carpet beneath them even as she begins to speak. “You were going to— are going to get hurt. It always goes like that between people like us and people like your doctor.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to decide for me,” he says, fight seeping out of him. “Why would you ask me to honeytrap him if you already knew what had happened between us, too?”
“Because I knew he still wanted you,” Jade replies honestly. “It took a lot of convincing to get him to give you up, Aven. Your doctor cares about you too much for his own good. I didn’t think it mattered to you nearly as much.”
“Three years, Jade,” he says, pained. “After three years, you didn’t think it mattered to me?”
“I thought your job would matter more.”
Aventurine asks, “You didn’t trust me enough to make that decision on my own?” while Jade continues to stare silently down at the floor. “I can have both. I could have always had both. He never cared that I was a Stoneheart—and I saw the text messages, you knew he never cared!”
“But what happens when it’s him or us, Aventurine?” she argues back, finally meeting his eyes. “What happens when it’s a little less palatable of a job than stealing something from a family that won’t miss a ten million dollar necklace? What then?”
“I don’t do those kinds of jobs, you know that,” Aventurine responds icily. “You don’t do those kinds of jobs either. No matter how morally depraved some of the stuff we do may be, I know as well as you do that neither of us—and Topaz too, for that matter—won’t take from someone who can’t recover from it. Don’t put situations in front of me that won’t ever come to light just to make yourself feel better about hurting me.”
“He hurt you.”
“ You hurt me.” He lets go of her forearm, turning to walk back towards his room. He pauses at the doorway to add, “Jade, you have to trust me to know when I’m going to get hurt. Please.”
She doesn’t say anything, so he shuts the door behind him and slumps down against it with a heavy sigh. He’s angry with her, but… she’s Jade. There’s ten years of history there that’s nearly impossible to erase just based on one—momentous and heartbreaking as it may be—decision on her part.
Aventurine lets his head fall back against the door, glaring at an off-color patch of paint on the wall across from him. He’s starting to think Penacony isn’t worth any of this.
♤
The day of the heist arrives, contrary to the two days prior, with very little fanfare. The night before, Topaz had returned from her meeting with the Astral Express to see both Aventurine and Jade’s doors locked and had promptly turned around and went back out, gathering up a feast of junk food and bringing it back to the hotel room in order to entice her morose teammates into actually, you know, doing their jobs. Their last night of planning was frosty, to say the least, given the underlying tensions between Jade and Aventurine, but they pulled through with an actual plan for how their next day was going to go.
Aventurine dresses up in his nicest outfit, a teal shirt with a cutout in the middle and gold stitching adorning the outsides of it and black slacks with matching gold trims. On most people it would look tacky, but he likes to think he makes it work. He needs Sunday to look at him and think expensive .
He has his instructions—a plan based on Gallagher’s information and Ratio’s own observations. Sunday will be in his office— keep him there , with whatever means necessary. The young Head of the Oak Family is not someone who suffers fools lightly, so Aventurine will have to be on his best behavior, which, he always is. Obviously.
Gallagher has told him that Sunday will be in his office at two in the afternoon, about an hour before the official celebration begins. There will be no security guards around and the cameras will be off because Sunday thinks Gallagher’s coming for a performance evaluation, which is—well, Aventurine has no real right to judge, unfortunately.
Aventurine is an art appraiser who’s been looking to speak with Sunday on behalf of his benefactor, etcetera, etcetera, he knows the drill. Keep him distracted, keep him out of Jade and Topaz’s way, don’t kill him unless they have to—no, wait, just straight up don’t kill him. Boring.
(“His sister’s already missing and presumed dead, if the brother dies we’re definitely getting investigated!” Topaz says to him when he voices this sentiment to her during their junk-food fueled planning session.
“She’s not dead though,” he points out. “The Express found her.”
“That doesn’t mean you can kill Sunday!”)
Jade and Topaz will do their Jade and Topaz thing and, er, liberate the Watchmaker’s Legacy from the staging area it’s being stored in at the moment, and Jade will contact Aventurine to let him know when they can leave. They’ve even got Ratio willing to provide cover stories for Jade and Topaz in case he’s questioned. How sweet. Aventurine will make a criminal out of him yet.
So at five minutes to two in the afternoon, Aventurine is waiting outside Sunday Oak’s office, trying to wrestle the last remaining bit of his nerves under control. He’s got this. He’s Aventurine . He can deal with a bratty socialite.
At three minutes to two, he knocks on the door and is surprised to hear a melodic voice call, “Come in!” when he does so. He pushes the door open to see Sunday Oak sitting at his desk with mountains of paperwork in front of him. He glances up and raises an eyebrow at Aventurine. “Well? Shut the door behind you, Mr. Aventurine.”
If he's at all surprised that Aventurine has come to call, he’s doing a damn good job of hiding it. “I hope I’m not intruding, Mr. Oak. I ran into your head of security while looking for you and he directed me to your office.”
“I’m sure he did,” Sunday sighs. “Take a seat, Aventurine.”
He does so, the eerie feeling that something is deeply wrong still thrumming in his veins. “You're familiar with what my firm is doing here, Mr. Oak?”
“Your firm? No. But you, Aventurine, I assume are here to steal the Watchmaker’s Legacy,” he says brusquely, lacing his fingers together. “You’re not anywhere near as subtle as you seem to think you are.”
“I shouldn't think I needed to be, but apparently you've got quite the impression of me,” Aventurine brushes him off. “I assure you I’m merely here at the request of my benefactor.”
Sunday smiles, all shark-like and sharp teeth. “Well, of course. I imagine Diamond of the Stonehearts has a vested interest in you being here.”
His face remains impassive. “Do you accuse all your guests of working for high profile art thieves or is it just the ones you don’t like?”
“You’re not my guest, Aventurine,” he counters. “All I know about you is that one of my employees is very concerned that you pose a threat to the safety of some of the pieces in this museum and I take that sort of thing seriously.”
The door opens behind Aventurine, and he whips around only to come face to face with fucking Ratio, because god forbid Aventurine be able to have one nice thing in his life. He wants to scream and shout how could you at his—well, his former partner, now, he supposes—but he’s a professional. He keeps his face disinterested, unwilling to show any weakness and turns back to Sunday.
“I assume you know Dr. Veritas Ratio?” Sunday asks, and Aventurine nods. “He’s been very helpful, you know. I wouldn’t have expected someone in your line of work to be the trusting type, Aventurine, but you really went and told him everything, didn’t you? All of your plans to steal the Legacy.”
Well—that can’t possibly be true, because Ratio didn’t know all of their plans to steal the Legacy, just that they needed to use his museum keycard for it. Aventurine is… kind of stupid over Ratio, but he’s not that dumb. There was always a chance for betrayal.
He didn’t think it was likely, but there was a chance.
Sunday turns around to face the bookcases behind him, no doubt preparing another set of inane ramblings, when Ratio meets Aventurine’s gaze and
the bastard
fucking
winks
at him, and that feeling of bitter betrayal that had first washed over him at the initial sight of his partner melts away in an instant. Apparently Ratio has a flair for the dramatic as well. He finds himself, instead of three wrong words away from crying, on the verge of laughter.
This man.
Aventurine schools his face back into that same disinterested expression as Sunday faces them once again. “So? It seems like you’ve more or less made up your mind about me, Sunday. What, do you want to search my pockets for the necklace?”
“I don’t need to.” He reaches into a bag beside him and pulls out a small case. “I have it right here.”
Aventurine’s eyes flick over to Ratio, who has furrowed his brow in confusion. Seems he wasn’t expecting this either.
Okay. This is bad. This is very bad. He will allow himself to admit that Sunday having the necklace is very, very bad for Topaz and Jade’s plans. He can spin this, though. That’s what he’s good at. Plus, Ratio’s here! He’s got this.
(The internal pep talk is not working. Aventurine does not, in fact, got this.)
“That’s not the real necklace,” he says lazily, examining his fingernails. He has no fucking clue if it’s the real necklace or not—he knows Jade has a forgery of it stashed somewhere in the building, but that’s really not his part of the job. “We swapped it out yesterday.”
“So you admit you’re stealing from the museum?” Sunday asks, seeming genuinely taken aback. “You—I assumed you would be smarter than this.”
He shrugs, hand on his hip. “Well, I mean, it’s not like you have any proof, Sunday. Cameras are off.”
“Why would the—”
“Your boyfriend’s real nice, you know,” Aventurine says, trying his best to keep the bored affectation on his voice steady. He is in control here, and if he keeps telling himself that, maybe it’ll become true. “I met him yesterday when we came in for a security sweep of the place. He told me he usually shuts the cameras off in this block at around…” he trails off, checking his wrist for a nonexistent watch. He should probably get one—but it’s not the time. “Two in the afternoon?”
“He’s not my—” Sunday interrupts himself by taking a deep breath and turning to Ratio. “I trust you’ve been recording the audio like I asked you to? Once again, I appreciate you coming to me with your concerns about Mr. Aventurine here.”
“Of course, Sunday,” Ratio replies, all smooth baritone and nonchalance. “But if I may—Aventurine is telling the truth. That’s a fake necklace.”
He narrows his eyes down at the piece of jewelry in the case, scrutinizing it. “How can you tell, Doctor?”
“It’s not that I can tell,” he explains, “it’s that I spoke with Aventurine yesterday and he informed me that the plan was to trade the real necklace for a forgery the day before so that him and his colleagues had a solid alibi for the day of the event when everyone would realize the necklace was missing. The real necklace is currently in the hiding spot for the forgery, in the staging area of Miss Robin’s collection of artwork.”
It’s not at all what their plan was, but it’s fairly solid. Could work, in a different situation. Maybe they’ll make a Stoneheart of him yet.
“Oh no, you caught me,” Aventurine says with a grin. He’s starting to feel more and more in control of this conversation by the second— just the way he likes it. Too much of the trip to Penacony has been him getting blindsided by other people’s decisions for him, but this? Lying through his teeth, grifting, selling a story? This he can do. This is what he’s good at. “I don’t have the real necklace. You do. It’s in the storage behind your sister’s collection. Sorry for your loss, by the way. Must have been hard.”
Anger flashes behind Sunday’s serene expression. “Leave Robin out of this, you vile thief.”
He puts a hand on his chest in mock sympathy. “I’m just offering my condolences. But if we’re done here—can I have that fake back? It’s quite nice.”
Sunday crosses the room to stand directly in front of the pair of them and pointedly hands the fake necklace to Ratio. “Doctor, if you wouldn’t mind seeing to it that this is destroyed…?”
“Rude,” Aventurine sniffs. “Won’t even give a man his forged necklace back.”
“You understand you’ve been caught, right?”
Aventurine smiles, mirroring that shark-like grin of Sunday’s from earlier. “Have I? Because it sounds like your necklace just got misplaced, Mr. Oak. I’d hate for someone to find it and take it home.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Sunday scoffs. "I know the cameras are normally off right now, but—”
“I forgot to mention, Mr. Sunday, the camera system has been down for a few hours and will most likely not be back on until after the ceremony,” Ratio says, and it takes every last bit of Aventurine’s willpower not to start laughing at that. “Apparently the head of security spilled a drink on the control panel.”
“I am going to kill him.” He scowls, his pristine composure starting to break down. “We have an audio recording, though. Your actions are—”
Ratio holds up his phone and looks at it with the blandest expression Aventurine has ever seen on a man. “Oh. I forgot to press record.”
That does Aventurine in, sending him doubling over with laughter. He thinks he even sees Ratio crack a smile out of the corner of his eye. “Well, Sunday, if you don’t mind—”
“Stop right there!”
“No, I don’t think I will!” Aventurine calls, pushing open the office door behind him and sprinting off down the hallway. He can hear the heavy footfalls of Ratio behind him, but he doesn’t stop running until he’s sure he’s well out of reach of that prissy little socialite. Luckily enough for him—his luck had to start kicking in at some point—he nearly smacks right into Jade as she’s making her own hasty exit. He grabs onto her wrist and says, “Sunday’s pissed, we need to go!”
She nods and reaches down to take off her heels (why did she wear heels to a job?) as she hands Aventurine her phone and instructs, “Call Topaz. Necklace wasn’t there.”
Ah. So that was Ratio’s plan all along. “Don’t worry, I took care of it!” he says as he dials Topaz’s number as fast as he can.
Ratio catches up to the two of them a few seconds later.. “You’re fast, love,” he remarks, breathing heavily. Aw. So he’s not perfect at everything.
Aventurine pats him on the shoulder fondly. “This is sort of what I do for a living.” Topaz picks up on the second ring, and he motions for them to take off again—slightly slower this time, as they’ve now broken out into the public part of the museum—as he starts talking. “Hey, Topaz! It’s me, Aventurine.”
“Aven? Why do you have—”
“No time to talk about that, I’ve got your boss here with me and she’s curious about where we’re meeting up with the buyer for this art piece we’ve got on us,” he says casually, dodging curious passersby as they finally exit onto the museum steps. There’s probably security guards closing in on them, but Jade and Aventurine are faster. Ratio will have to keep up if he knows what’s good for him.
“Yep, buyer’s been secured. She’s meeting you in a car two blocks down from the museum if you two can evade for that long.” He hears Topaz typing away furiously at a laptop keyboard. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.”
“What do you mean by—”
There’s a loud crash and a commotion immediately starts up by the entrance to the museum, and Aventurine sees a strangely familiar flash of pink hair and yellow eyes, followed by a “Helloooooo, Penacony Museum!” in a high-pitched voice he only vaguely recognizes.
Jade, however, seems to know exactly what this means. She shakes her head with a click of her tongue, slowing down from a full sprint as the cacophony outside of the museum intensifies. “Topaz told me she had an angle she was working with the Astral Express. Guess she managed to convince them after all.”
“Did they knock down one of the pillars?” Ratio asks incredulously. “My goodness.”
They make their way the rest of the two blocks Topaz instructed, their hasty exit covered by the chaos stirred up by the Astral Express. Aventurine doesn’t understand how that got arranged in the slightest, but he’s not about to question it.
There’s a nondescript black car waiting for them at the point Topaz indicated, and a young woman with lilac-grey hair hangs out of the window waving at them. Her hair is back in a ponytail and she’s wearing sunglasses, but Aventurine still recognizes her almost immediately.
“Hi, Stonehearts!” Robin Oak greets. “I’m your buyer! Hop in!”
♤
After a few tense moments in which Jade comes very close to strangling the young socialite for nearly blowing any semblance of cover they have left, and then almost beats Aventurine over the head for bringing Ratio along with them, the two Stonehearts, one ex-museum consultant, and one presumed-dead singer face each other in the back of a rather nice getaway car.
Aventurine is the first one to break the awkward silence. “So, Miss Oak—”
“Please call me Robin,” she interrupts with a smile. “I’m trying to get away from the whole Oak family thing.”
“...right. Miss Robin, you’re interested in buying your family’s necklace from us? You understand that we stole it, correct?” he asks.
Her eyes narrow and her soft smile grows a little sharper. “I’m perfectly aware, Aventurine. As I understand it from my conversations with Miss Topaz, the purpose of this job was never really to make money, yes?”
“Yes.”
She spreads her arms out wide, looking utterly regal despite the fact that she’s wearing only a soft purple sweatshirt and black jeans while everyone else in the car is dressed to the nines. Only the best to rob a museum in, of course. “You want to humiliate the Oak Family. I want the necklace back. So we kill two birds with one stone, and use a few million of the Oak Family’s own money to buy it back. You make money, I keep my family heirloom, and I get to use it to beat some sense into my older brother.”
“One issue, Miss Robin,” Jade begins. “We were… unable to secure the necklace.”
“You were,” Ratio corrects gently, handing over the jewelry clutched tightly in his hand to Jade. “I figured Sunday was going to remove the necklace once he caught wind that the Stonehearts were sniffing around his museum. Aventurine and I were able to convince him that the one in his possession was the fake, and he entrusted it to me before we ran.”
Jade blinks, utterly taken aback. Aventurine can’t help but feel entirely too smug. That’s his partner. They did that. “Oh. Well, then, we do have the necklace.”
Robin claps her hands together, beaming. “Wonderful! Then I’ll arrange the transfer of… 30 million? Does that sound good? It’s more than the thing’s worth, but I figured I needed to make it worth your while if you were just selling it right back to the people you stole it from.”
“Absolutely,” Aventurine says, offering her a hand to shake. “Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Robin.”
She smiles back at him as she takes it. “The pleasure’s all mine, Stonehearts!”
♤
Aventurine, Jade, and Ratio exit the car in front of the Reverie Hotel, and all of a sudden Aventurine feels exhausted. He leans against Ratio, gripping his hand tightly in his. “So. Raincheck on that meetup?” he asks, smiling up at him.
Ratio squeezes his hand comfortingly as Jade looks away. “I’m assuming we’re headed in different directions now.”
“Oh, definitely. We’ve gotta lay low for a bit and make sure Robin doesn’t immediately blow our cover, so…”
Jade clears her throat, and they both look over to her. “Aventurine. Diamond and I were talking, and we think you… deserve a break. You and Topaz worked very hard on this job, and we’re happy to let you enjoy a bit of time off in the aftermath.”
He recognizes it for the olive branch that it is—it’s not enough, not in the slightest, but she’s trying. It’s Jade’s way of saying she’s sorry, since she’s never going to say it out loud. “Thanks, Jade,” Aventurine says, trying to convey the appropriate amount of you’re not forgiven, but it’s a start in those two words.
She nods stiffly and walks off, leaving Ratio and Aventurine alone in front of the Reverie. Aventurine extricates himself from Ratio’s side and turns to face his partner, a tired smile still adorning his face. “Well, it looks like my schedule is suddenly very, very open. Where are you headed next?”
“Home,” he says, and Aventurine’s shoulders sag. “But you are more than welcome to join me there, love.” Ratio rests a gentle hand on the side of Aventurine’s face. “I do not intend to let anyone get in our way this time.”
“Not even me?” Aventurine asks, a feeble attempt at a joke.
He doesn’t rise to the bait. “Certainly not you. I love you, Aventurine—you cannot get in the way of that no matter how hard you try.”
Aventurine leans into the hand on his face briefly before pulling Ratio in for an embrace, resting his head on his partner’s chest. “Is it okay if I still can’t say it back?”
That soft smile that graces Ratio’s face is quickly becoming his favorite thing in the world. “Take as much time as you need.” He leans down and captures Aventurine’s lips in a soft kiss. This one is different once again, not the sweet, gentle kisses nor the heated and passionate ones they’ve shared before, but something earnest and full of promise. It is not long enough and Aventurine doesn’t think any kiss he shares with Ratio ever will be, now that he’s starting to think there’s no upper limit on how long they can spend together.
“See you later?” Aventurine asks when they part, unwilling to commit to a full goodbye. He knows the smile on his face must be unbelievably goofy, but he can’t bring himself to care. This isn’t goodbye—he’ll call Ratio later, ask him all kinds of inane questions while he packs up, endure Topaz’s teasing for the lovesick look on his face. He has had his fair share of goodbyes, and this is not one of them.
“See you later,” Ratio agrees, a smile still gracing his lips. “Love you,” he calls as he begins to walk away.
“Okay!” Aventurine replies, unsure of what to say. It draws a laugh out of Ratio, though, so that’s a win. Love you too, he wants to say. He can’t quite manage it—
but he thinks Ratio knows anyway.