Chapter Text
Aventurine had spent his entire life feeling like a walking contradiction.
So lucky it felt unlucky. So confident to cover the crippling self-loathing. So done with life yet clinging onto hope every time he met death face-to-face.
But maybe the worst part was the way he felt when it came to sex. Something like a virgin whore.
Peoples’ definition of virginity varies depending on who and where you ask. Is it the physical act of sex itself? Is it the emotional intimacy of a “first time?”
Aventurine didn't like to think about it. The more he thought about it, the stronger that nauseating anxiety built in his stomach and chest.
His escape with his life out of slavery was nothing short of a miracle… But at times it felt like a curse.
He was alive, breathing. But beyond that, what was he? A tool of the trade, a commodity, an object, a toy. Everything his masters told him he was, everything he fought to escape.
It didn't matter. Perhaps it was just the cruel twist of fate.
Aventurine refused to let anyone touch him. It didn't matter who it was. It didn't matter what for. Touching Aventurine was off limits.
He didn't shake hands. He didn't pat friends on the back. He didn't cuddle. He didn't touch.
He thought he was saving himself, but it only made the painful void worse.
His inability to be touched got worse. It went from something he saw as a conscious choice to a genuine trigger. Even the brush of someone's hand was enough to get his heart racing, his stomach churning, his mind sending every signal that said— It's happening again.
A stranger in public could bump into him, and suddenly he was barely a teenager again with a grown man on top of him. A child who could hardly bear the pain of someone forcing their way into a body that wasn't built for such an act. He would feel the pain in his lower belly, the numbness in his legs, the racing heart, the tightness in his chest, and God, he couldn't even breathe.
Something that everyone does, something that is part of what makes humans really human, and Aventurine couldn't stand it for even a moment.
Why did a pat on the shoulder have to remind him of the cold, concrete floors? The feeling of being torn apart between his thighs? The sticky sweat of his own mixing with someone else’s?
Why did shaking someone's hand have to remind him of the bites on his shoulder, on his neck? The dirty whispers in his ear about how pretty he was, about how good he could take it? The painful, bruising grip on the pale skin over his bony hips?
Why did a hug feel like the nights where it seemed like it would just never end? Man after man, covered in bodily fluids he could hardly recognize, bloody and bruised? The sharp pain of having his hair yanked violently, the suffocating feeling of someone forcing themselves down his throat, the sick feeling in his stomach when he felt like he was bruised inside and out?
And what would real, intimate touch feel like? How was he supposed to enjoy the feeling of someone else's bodies without remembering the countless nights of his face pushed into pillows as he was taken from behind, his thighs spread so far apart he heard his hips pop, the vile words and spit flying from the mouths of men who saw him as nothing more than a doll? A toy? A slave?
How would any touch ever feel safe? How could any touch ever feel safe after almost all of the touch in his life had been everything but that?
He was supposed to believe sex felt good? For what, an orgasm? Something that had been forced upon him again and again as a means of shame, pain, and punishment? A bodily function so broken and abused that he still struggled with it even in the comfort of his own bed by himself?
And yet, it felt pathetic on his part. What would avoiding touch altogether ever protect him from? What *had* it protected him from? People who want to take things without your consent won't change their mind because you don't touch other people.
He would walk down the street and see couples holding hands. He would watch TV and see people kiss. He would hold his own hand, just wondering what that warmth felt like. Touching his lips gently with his fingertips, wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by someone who loved him.
Those thoughts always led him down the worst of paths.
Is life without intimacy, without trust, without touch, without relationships, even a life at all? Or was he simply a placeholder, a dead man walking, a cosmic mistake where he should've died but never did? Questions that would never be answered, and just another thing completely out of his control.
Laying in his bed alone at night surrounded by pillows, blankets, and plushies, he would scroll through social media apps on his phone. Things would pop up that somehow managed to make the pain even worse.
“Don't give up! It gets better. I was super depressed, and now I'm happy and married!”
“Don't let your past control you.”
“Watch my reaction to my husband hugging me from behind.”
He gently touched his face with his fingertips, feeling the warmth and wetness of tears.
Aventurine just sighed. What kind of pathetic person cries in bed alone because they saw someone else be happy?
Well, he was that kind of pathetic person. Behind the masks, the fronts, the confidence he'd so meticulously built, he was broken. Absolutely broken.
“I'm nothing more than a ghost pretending to be a human being, so why do you insist on sticking around!?”
He remembers yelling those words at Ratio during an argument. He remembers telling him off. Not because he wanted Ratio to go away, but because he was too weak and pretending to be strong by never being vulnerable.
But Ratio persisted, for some odd reason.
Aventurine sniffled and opened his messaging app, going to Ratio's contact.
Aventurine : Hey, weird question. Do you consider someone with my past to be a virgin?
Ratio blinked a few times as he reread the message over and over. They had discussed Aventurine's past a few times. And just vague details were enough to make him, a doctor with 8 PhDs, feel squeamish and ill. But perhaps that was what made him so determined to stay.
Aventurine watched anxiously, swallowing hard and biting at his thumb as the three dots appeared. Ratio was typing, typing, typing…
Ratio : That's quite a heavy question, don't you think?
He sighed. Of course Ratio would avoid answering such an abrupt and overly personal question.
But the dots didn't stop. Ratio was still typing, typing, typing…
Ratio : If you're asking if I see anything that happened to you as a child and teenager as sex, then my answer is no. Not at all.
Aventurine looked at his phone a bit curiously, wiping the remaining tears from his eyes as Ratio kept typing.
Ratio : Virginity is a concept, an abstract, it's not definite. But clearly you're asking me this for a reason, so what is it that is on your mind?
He laughed sadly from behind his screen. God, Ratio really saw right through him, huh?
Aventurine : You got me.
Aventurine sent with a cheeky little emoji. But behind those words was a world of hurt he could never describe over text.
Aventurine : Just started thinking about it. I don't know. Kinda weird to be in your twenties with no sexual experience outside of being raped.
Ratio’s eyes widened at the bluntness of Aventurine's reply. But the shock was washed away by a profound sense of compassion. Such a powerful word, a life-altering trauma, and yet, for Aventurine, it was more like a cloud passing by in the sky.
Ratio : I wouldn't call it weird at all. Someone with your history is bound to have those thoughts.
Aventurine bit his lip as he looked down at the screen, taking a shaky breath and bracing himself for what he would type next.
God, this was a stupid, stupid idea.
Aventurine : Look, I don't want to die a virgin. And honestly, I'm at death's door every other night. I don't trust anyone the way I trust you, so could you maybe…
He hit send before he could talk himself out of it.
Ratio read the reply over and over, ensuring he read it correctly. Was Aventurine… Asking to have sex with him in the saddest most socially awkward way imaginable?
Ratio started typing again, and Aventurine felt even more ill with anxiety. What if he just ruined whatever sort of relationship he had with Ratio? Did Ratio even like men? Would Ratio find him—
Ratio : Sure. I'll be there in 15.
Aventurine's jaw dropped open slightly at the response. Surely Ratio had misinterpreted his message, right? He wasn't actually just going to come over for that on a whim, a random night where he was up past his “Ratio bedtime” anyway?
Against all of Aventurine's anxious thoughts, Ratio knocked on the door. He couldn't believe it.
He opened the door to look up at Ratio. He was dressed pretty casually, at least for his standards. Black slacks, a button-up shirt. Nothing fancy, but also nothing too comfortable.
Aventurine felt his heart racing in his chest. Truly, he felt like he could faint. There was no way that Ratio was seriously here for what he was asking for, he must've misinterpreted, misread, or—
“Can I kiss you?”
Ratio asked softly, leaving Aventurine absolutely speechless. He blinked a few times, letting Ratio into his home and closing the door behind him.
Kiss him? Kiss him!? Was Ratio serious right now!?
“It's alright if it's a no.”
Ratio said calmly, watching Aventurine's frantic anxious reactions.
“I won't do anything without your explicit consent.”
Aventurine felt like he could crumble right there. Such a bare minimum to most, but the only time someone had ever said those words to Aventurine and truly meant it.
“Yes,”
Aventurine breathed out quietly.
“You can kiss me.”
Ratio leaned down gently, his lips just inches apart from Aventurine's. So close that Aventurine could smell the faint scent of a mint the man must've been sucking on before he got there.
Guess he planned to impress.
Guiding him down onto Aventurine's couch, Ratio gently put his hands on the smaller man's waist. He let their lips connect in a soft, intimate kiss that took Aventurine's breath away. The smaller man couldn't help the way his body reacted automatically. Wincing, flinching, muscles tense and ready to fight or flight. Nausea, adrenaline, a racing heart, cold sweating, shallow breathing, trembling…
Ratio took a deep breath as he pulled back, looking down at Aventurine's face… And it certainly wasn't what he expected to see from the confident gambler he usually knew.
Aventurine's face was flushed red, his eyes brimming with tears. His breathing was quick and shaky, like he didn't know what to do at all.
Despite knowing otherwise, Aventurine's promiscuous and provocative attitude even had him fooled into believing he was quite experienced in the bedroom.
But now he looked like he would sob and fall apart in his arms from just one kiss.
Ratio smiled softly down at the stunned expression on Aventurine's face. It gave him a warm feeling in his chest to know that this side of Aventurine, soft and vulnerable, was a side only he would get to see.
“Are you alright?”
Ratio asked softly, keeping eye contact as he gently stroked Aventurine's cheek with his thumb.
Never in his life had Ratio ever seen a person so starved of love and intimacy. He gently cupped Aventurine's face with both hands, feeling him tremble slightly as he broke down into silent sobs.
Ratio wiped away the tears with his thumbs, looking down at Aventurine with nothing but love and affection in his gaze. He can't imagine how isolated, how alone, how utterly broken and shattered this man must be.
He gently pulled Aventurine into his arms, feeling his body shake with sobs that didn't make a sound. He realized with a nauseating drop that Aventurine cried silently. Completely silently.
A direct remnant of his time as a slave where crying was likely shamed or punished.
It was just one glance into the depths of how much those years as a slave affected Aventurine. It was just one small peek into the shattered pieces of the man Aventurine maybe could've been without his countless traumas.
“You don't have to cry silently, Aventurine.”
Ratio murmured gently, his lips pressed against Aventurine's hair as the smaller man sobbed hysterically into his chest. He sobbed so hard it must've been physically painful. And yet, not a sound.
Because no matter how much it hurt, Aventurine was conditioned to be silent. Obedient. To take pain without a single sound. To take pain that most people couldn't even dream of, yet be expected to get back up and brush it off as if it were mere dust on his clothes.
Ratio squeezed him a bit tighter, his hand rubbing up and down Aventurine's back soothingly.
“I don't… Think I can have sex,”
Aventurine murmured through his tears, his voice muffled by Ratio's muscular chest.
“There's no rush. We’ll do anything and everything at your pace, when you want it.”
Ratio whispered softly against the soft blonde locks of hair.
“And if we never do it, so be it. I didn't show up to your door with the expectation of sex. I showed up at your door because I wanted you to know that someone cares deeply for you.”
Aventurine sniffled, wiping his tears with his hands roughly.
“Gentle,”
Ratio softly reprimanded, replacing Aventurine's hands with his own. He gently brushed the tears away with his thumbs instead of the smaller man’s almost painful rubbing.
“You deserve gentle, Aventurine. You deserve care. You deserve love.”
Aventurine's eyes looked even more gorgeous than usual, the dim light of the living room mixed with the soft glaze of wet tears made them almost glow. It was a sight so tragically beautiful that it even tugged at Ratio's heart a bit.
Instead of judgement, disgust, resentment, or whatever other negative reaction Aventurine expected to see, Ratio simply smiled at him.
“You'll be okay.”