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They meet at a formal meeting between the IPC and the Intelligentsia Guild. Dressed in his best clothes, Aventurine can’t help but zone out of the director’s voice and into the absolute build of a man sitting across from him.
He watches those hands flex on top of the table, those sharp eyes, focused on the speaker. Aventurine keeps a serene smile on his face, even as those eyes flicker to him for all but a moment before looking away.
How interesting.
In the end, he puts himself between the man and the exit door. The man — Dr. Ratio — easily towers over him, and it does not help the spark of attraction building up inside him.
He introduces himself and asks to cooperate, to which Ratio narrows his eyes judgmentally. He clearly has high standards, and perhaps Aventurine does not fulfill every condition, but he can always slot himself into his life. He always can.
“And what would I gain from working with you?”
“I make sure that my friends reap great benefits from our deals. You won’t find anyone better from the IPC to play your cards with.”
Ratio scoffs. “An egotist above the bravado. Tell me, where do you get your confidence?”
Aventurine chuckles. He pulls out his revolver and places it in the doctor’s hand, guiding the nuzzle to press his chest. Like that, he makes Ratio pull the trigger thrice to three empty shots, then gives him a grin.
His hand shakes behind his back.
Ratio says nothing at all, but there’s a look of awe that tells him, you’re crazy, and he wouldn’t be wrong.
Aventurine loves games of chances, only because fate has written him to be the final victor. He plays fair and square, he never loses, only because he is a blessed child of Gaiathra.
His winning streak gives him confidence, fame, riches, and everything that he could ever want. It doesn’t fill the empty void in his heart. It’s dug itself too deep in him since the day he was born. That feeling of hatred for the world, for the gods, for himself.
He spends another night at the casino, gambling everything and losing nothing. They accuse him of cheating, as they always do, but he isn’t. He walks away with twice the money in his wallet and that gnawing feeling in his chest that this is his life, there’s no way to change it. You can’t fight destiny itself.
Back in his room, he smokes a cigarette or two after emptying a recently purchased bottle all by himself. It doesn’t get him drunk enough. He has a stupidly high tolerance, if only because people have tried to drug him and take advantage of him twice too often when he’s drunk.
The sad thing is that he still fantasizes about dying from a high. Maybe alcohol poisoning or lung failure could save him. Either way, he’d still win. Unfortunately, death was, by all means, a loss of life. He never loses.
Rage comes over him. He snuffs out the cigarette and lights a new one, taking a long whiff. His revolver rests on the nightstand. He blearily blinks at it before reaching for it and spinning the barrel. He doesn’t remember how many bullets he has in it. It doesn’t even matter. The barrel locks in place and he presses it to his temple.
This is reality. There’s no waking up if this chamber is loaded. A whiff of the cigarette steadies his hand. Click.
Alas, another lucky night.
He sleeps before changing his clothes or cleaning up the mess. Tears dry at the corner of his eyes as he drifts off.
When he’s not trying to kill himself, he usually spends his nights indulging in casual sex. Not that it’s any better. It’s just another form of self-destruction.
Sex numbs his mind the same way alcohol and nicotine do. He’s still an asset of the IPC, so they won’t let him die just yet. So be it. Sometimes being fucked within an inch of his life is good enough. If he’s lucky, he won’t even be able to think about the edging pain, bringing him close to an old memory that he’d rather forget.
It’s scalding when they touch him. When they kiss him, he can almost let go. Keyword: almost. There’s too much gamble in really letting go during these encounters. Aventurine knows he’s an easy target, so he keeps his cards close to his chest. It doesn’t matter how much he undresses in front of these men, they’ll never know him, and he doesn’t want to know them.
With all of that, it’s not hard to imagine how Aventurine eventually falls into Ratio’s bed. He’s half-drunk when he kisses the doctor, pushing at his chest, clear enough with his intentions that even Veritas Ratio of all people can’t resist him. He’s done this whole song and dance many times before though, so why is it different when Ratio touches; kisses him?
His hands and lips ground him instead of sending him to a near-panic attack. He’s disgustingly gentle even when Aventurine begs for him to be rougher. Throughout it all, Ratio barely says anything. It’s not like him at all. This — it’s not them.
After, they fall into silence. Ratio’s mind is an enigma, so Aventurine would be seriously overestimating himself to try and get a penny for his thoughts. He can’t figure out if he’s the problem, but why does it matter?
Whatever they are, he can’t rid himself of it anymore. Ratio’s done a number on him, in several ways, for better or worse.
Aventurine is assigned to reclaim Penacony, so obviously, the IPC is gambling everything on him.
With the deal laid out, he takes his pick. Jade was the first chip. She gives into his plan easily. Naturally, she trusts him to carry out his plan with the perfection of a fate-willed gambler. Topaz was the second chip. It’s not as if they’re overly friendly, but Topaz believes in Aventurine’s luck, and that’s enough. Plus, she’s just suffered a grand defeat from Jarilo-VI, so she’ll probably be spending some time sulking. “I told you so,” Aventurine says, if only to annoy her.
She confronts him in Pier Point, her pet trotter following close by, in a far better mood than its owner.
“I need your Cornerstone,” he cuts to the chase.
His coworker freezes for a second, frown deepening. “Why?”
“Well, you know how The Family sees the IPC. They surely won’t let me in their territory without a bargaining chip.”
“You want to pawn off my Cornerstone?” Topaz chuckles in disbelief. “I don’t think so.”
Aventurine blinks, a smooth smile coming on his lips. “You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not about believing, it’s—” Topaz sighs. “Just what are you planning?”
He talks, she listens, and she realizes just exactly what the cards they’re dealt are.
“You’re really going to risk it all for this?” Topaz crosses her arms, her serious tone belies the concern in her eyes. It’s a tacit understanding that this is the riskiest plan of action Aventurine has ever— would be taking. The IPC might even be setting him up for defeat; a death sentence in and of its own.
“I’ve told you time and time again, my friend,” Aventurine says, the smirk searing itself onto his face. “Life is a grand gamble.”
Topaz is quiet for a brief moment, and Aventurine can almost picture the gears in her head turning. She’s always been a most reasonable coworker, bleeding heart and all, but Aventurine thinks, deep down, she’s better off than him. “Then… are you coming back?”
He inhales deeply, sighing a chuckle. “We’ll see.”
She gives him one decisive look, and he knows he’s won again.
Seventeen system hours. That’s all he has.
Ratio’s betrayal was clever, Aventurine had to admit. He walks out of Dewlight Pavilion with a distant resonance in his head, urging him to act. Sunday’s little trick might have thrown him off guard, but it doesn’t matter. This just moves his plans a bit quicker.
Ratio meets him in Golden Hour, all cool as if he hadn’t been caught selling Aventurine out.
“Tell me if you can’t hold on any longer,” he says. Funny. When did Ratio start acting like he knew exactly what Aventurine needed? They aren’t even friends.
“I’m the manager of this task,” he says. Aventurine knows that. He’s sick of being managed and controlled. He’s never had any control of his life and his schemes — there was always a bigger person in his plans and he’s sick of it.
It doesn’t matter, Aventurine tells himself. It doesn’t matter. Everything will fall into place soon enough. It’s great, actually, because Sunday will finally get off his back and he can even tell Ratio to fuck off. This way, he won’t have any guilt in executing his death.
Ratio looks down at him, judgment stinging on his tongue. “Sounds like a very elaborate way to say that you failed.”
“Well, what can I say,” Aventurine resigns. “You betrayed me.”
“I thought this was exactly what you wanted,” Ratio says decisively, and the sheer certainty irritates Aventurine to no end.
Maybe it was, but Aventurine can’t bring himself to say that. He can’t accept a reality where Ratio understands him better than most people. Instead, he asks, “What do you really know about me, Doctor?”
At Ratio’s silence, he allows himself to scowl. “Go. I don’t need you anymore.”
Before he leaves, Ratio shoves a scroll into Aventurine’s hand, telling him to open it when he’s on his last legs, and that he’ll thank him for it.
He really hates Ratio.
At the end of his performance, he stands in the void with an Emanator. She burns crimson before his eyes, and everything finally makes sense to him. The truth was covered by a thin veil of defeat.
Is this really the end?
Even she cannot give him an answer.
“Human nature is the fear of death,” Acheron tells him. “You don’t want to die. You just want to stop living.”
Aventurine breathes in, breathes out, mouth relaxing into a smile. So it seems. But the world condemns him, who would miss him when he’s gone? He has no one else to lose, he’s played his cards, he chose to tread the path of Preservation and ends up engulfed in the Nihility.
What meaning is there to his life? He’s questioned it over and over and only comes up with dead ends. Blanks. Just like this dark abyss he’s found himself in. In the end, there’s nothing, and the Emanator in front of him — there’s a hopeless look in her eyes that he’s all too familiar with.
The knowledge that everything you did was for naught; your efforts amount to nothing. The desire to not live. In this world of pitch black, they’re reflected in a thousand hues of crimson.
He shoots his shot.
“What about you? You’re still living.”
Acheron stares at him.
“I have unfinished business. As do you,” she says frankly, turning away from him and walking into the distant void.
It must be nice, he thinks, to walk the path of meaninglessness, and still find the desire to live. He lost it a long time ago.
Before she disappears, the Emanator's voice sounds in his ears:
“To live, or not to live. After looking Nihility in the eyes, which will you choose?”
At the end of his life, Aventurine feels nothing and sees nothing. There is an endless void stretching into nothingness. Perhaps this is death.
He bids farewell to his past self, clutching the doctor’s advice.
Stay alive.
How selfish, for him to want Aventurine to live for his sake.
How unbelievable, that after everything, Aventurine wants to live, too.
He has unfinished business. He still wants to see, to experience the world for all its beauty and not its ugly. He still wants to love. To live is to understand that the world has not condemned you. You’ve just yet to give it a chance.
At the end of it all, he just wants to live, not survive.
Life, isn’t that every human’s desire?
With a new resolve, he walks towards darkness in search of light.