Archive of Our Own ^beta

i.  hazard 

       topaz

“Remember, one shot for the kill is key.”

He’s too close to her.

There is nothing professional or normal about how he’s standing behind her, pressed against her back with his hands on her waist.  Gloved and decorated in his ridiculous golden rings.  The icy metal of his dog tag is poking into her shirt.  His body melts against hers and she can feel each shift and flex of his muscles through his clothes as he fixes her posture.

The longer she knows Aventurine, the more he invades her personal space like she begged him to be in it.

It’s maddening.

Distracting.

“Something the matter, sweetheart?  You seem tense.”

“Don’t call me that.  It’s inappropriate.”

“Oh?”  He hums, a poisonously seductive sound.  “How funny.  Quite a different attitude from how you spoke to me a few weeks ago at that hotel on Taikiyan  -  ”

His hands tighten around her waist and she completely loses her concentration.  He purrs out laughter, derisive and lethal like he knows he’s won something from her, the tease of it forbidden but too tempting to not be curious of.  His hand covers hers around the pistol.  

With deliberate pressure, he makes her pull the trigger, the bullet piercing the dead center of the target.

“  - and I think we’re past the point of appropriate, aren’t we?”

He moves off of her, aims his pistol and fires it without looking where he’s shooting  - unsurprisingly, the bullet flies flawlessly through the hole hers had created.  Dead center.  Grinning at her, he yanks her by the leather harness around her chest into a slanted kiss that has her pressing the barrel of her gun at him, her finger twitching on the trigger.

“Go on, shoot me,”  he instructs, “and make sure you shoot to kill like I showed you.”

“I don’t like killing.”

“I won’t always be around to do it for you.”

His scent overwhelms her, this close to each other.  Mist over a stormy ocean.  With a hint of amber.  She drowns in his cologne unintentionally, inhaling deeply as he leans down to laugh against her throat.  He doesn’t kiss her there, like she expects, instead he steals the weapon from her hand and she finds herself shoved then pinned against a solid wall.

He clicks his tongue at her, disappointed.  Holstering his pistol while aiming her own gun at her, under her chin.  The metal is a cold contrast to the warmth of his body against hers.  “You missed your chance.  Now you’re dead.  Or worse.  What do you think would happen to you, if I was a sadistic man?”

“You aren’t my enemy.”  

“Not currently.  What about later?”

“We work together,”  she says, feeling his knee push between her thighs,  “why would we ever be against one another?”

“All for the Amber Lord,”  he tells her, a reminder of the oath they both had sworn upon their accession as Stonehearts.  He taps, teases the trigger in her silence, she can hear it - and nothing happens, except for the rapid throb of her pulse all throughout her veins.  “Who knows.  I simply want you to be prepared for the worst.  Even if it will never occur.”

She bites down a whine as he rubs his leg against the apex of her thighs.  “You know something I don’t.”

“Smart girl,”  he praises, and that undoes any logic in her.  It shouldn’t.  He certainly shouldn’t be able to do this to her, but when he finally kisses her, his lips soft and wanting against hers, she doesn’t shove him off.  Her hands cling to him, hold him close.  Her hips grind down, needing friction.

He’s murmuring how pretty she is, how good she tastes, how he can feel how much she wants him already.  The heat inside her is taking over, and all that she really hears clearly is,  “ how does it feel to lose, Topaz?  I want to know.  I wish I could know the surrender I see in your eyes.”

-

-

-

“My, my.  So wet for me.  Have you been waiting for this?”

He takes her on the floor, ruthlessly, shamelessly, entirely, until there is nothing left of herself that she could give him.  That’s how it is with Aventurine, he’s a void of want and power and desires she’ll never understand or share.  Gentle, though.  The position would be far more uncomfortable than it already is if he wasn’t being mindful of how he holds himself atop her, attentive.

Unfair, though, is how he wields his control when he’s on top.  He stopped moving for no clear reason.  He’s only stared down at her, kissed her throat and rolled his hips in the slightest motions, their bodies pressed as close together as possible.

“Why did you stop?”   She whines, clawing at his lithe, muscular arms.  “I was about to  - ”

“Beg me,”  he demands,  “I want to hear how much you need me.”

“No.  Absolutely not.”

He hums and the sound vibrates through her, warming her blood.  A lick under her ear, then he bites it lightly.  “Fine.  Guess neither of us will get to come, then.”   He moves to pull out of her, but she locks her legs around him.  “Oho?  Changed your mind?”

“Fine.  Please ,”  she cries, “please, don’t leave.”  It’s what he wants to hear, so she’ll let him have it.  Once.  Maybe once later, too.  Then never again.

He derisively laughs, and it could be at her, but something tells her it’s at himself.  “So needy, sweetheart.  It’s okay though.  I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

“You shouldn’t make promises you won’t keep.”

“Is that a challenge?”

She hadn’t intended to let the intrusive thought leave her tongue, but it’s too late to undo what she said.  “If you want it to be.”

“Careful,”  he warns, grinding his hips against her, teasing her with the fullness of his cock stretching her cunt,  “I don’t bet on deals I won’t profit from, remember?  You should be mindful of what you’re tempting me to do.”

“Mhm.  I know,”  she breathes, desperate to get past whatever this is,  “hurry, would you?”

His dog tag drags against her exposed collarbone as he shifts above her.  “Say my name.”

“What?”

“My name, sweetheart.  What is it?”

It seems silly but she acquiesces, her cunt pulsing in need around him inside her.  “ Aventurine.”   Then he finally moves, thrusting out then back into her.  “Aventurine.”  Echo.  Repeat.  She’ll do whatever he wants if he can keep making her feel good.  “ Aventurine.  Please  - ”

“Fuck,”  he exhales, his pace turning frantic, the slap of their bodies blending with their moans,  “do you know what it is you do to me, Topaz?  Do you know how much I think about you?  I hate it.  I have no control over it.”

Her arms enfold around his neck and pull him closer, their combat attire an unusual friction between them.  She’s so used to the heat of his naked skin on hers, she almost misses it.  That’d be too embarrassing to confess, though.  Enticing that it is to tell him in the delirium of him fucking her.

She swallows her breath when she comes, not allowing him the satisfaction of hearing her scream because of how good he makes her feel.  

It will stay locked inside her until it either breaks out or bursts in her ribcage.

“Remember,”  he whispers in her ear, chasing his own release, “ you need to shoot to kill, when the time comes.  You need to be decisive.  Or you won’t make it far, and I truly do wish to see what you’ll do in the future, Topaz.”

What is he saying to her - ?  What is he mouthing off about - ?  His words are lost in the burn of pleasure.  In how he’s bending her more into herself, fucking her deeper, looking far too handsome with his iridescent eyes clouded by lust and his blonde hair damp with sweat.

“About to come,”  he moans, biting his lip,  “you feel too good.  Can I  - ?”

Surrender.  Submission.  Defeat.  It’s addictive with him, to feel and to watch him suffer.  She can see herself liking this too much, later on, liking him too much.

“Yes,”  she breathes, tensing when he goes still, liquid warmth flooding her.  Golden heat reminiscent of a burning sun surrounding her, and she likes the way he unsteadily breathes, the way he moans, the shudder and collapse of his body onto her.  Likes it all far too much for her own good.

ii.  unworthy 

        aventurine ( ? )

“You’re leaving already?”

Hunger, he is all too familiar with.  Greed and the ever elusive desire for better, for even the bare minimum to survive.  His default mindset is to consider what he may lose, what could be taken from him.  If there is nothing he cares for, then it’s simpler, since monetary or reputational loss can be recovered, but  -

Emotional  loss?  That is out of his control.

He’s learned that when it comes to her, he doesn’t like to not have that control.  The upper hand.  The winning hand.  Yet he knows he already lost the moment she separates from his embrace, but he pretends like he’s still in the game, like he isn’t about to lose her and the side of the bed she’s on will become cold.

He yawns and sits up, combing a hand through his hair as he watches her.  The mattress shifts under him.  This is the time when he should let her go, stay in his silence, but he makes it a point to sigh in dismay.  To selfishly steal her attention.

“Sorry.”  It’s only a fleeting glance that she gives him, but it feels eternal.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He gives her an easy smile, though it isn’t visible in the darkness.  “Am I that terrible to sleep with?  Don’t want to stay?  Did I steal the blankets or something?”

“If you did, I would have stolen them back.”   She exhales tiredly.  “Go back to sleep.  It’s early.”

“You should too.”

“The sun will rise soon.”

“Does the light frighten you so?”

“No, I actually like the sunrise, but isn’t it better if I disappear before it comes?”   She moves to the edge of the bed when he reaches for her.  Her pale skin bathed in the last flecks of starlight that reveal the damage he left on her, the bite marks and bruises and imprint of the rings he wears.  “Otherwise  - ”

He stares blankly at the ceiling rather than at her.  “You’ll have to see the truth of what you did?”

Her silence is deafening.  “One of us has to leave, Aventurine.  You know this.”

He yawns, chasing a restless lethargy.  “Mm.  You seem especially in a hurry this time.  Sick of me?  Or  - ?”   He waits for her, but she says nothing.  “Or do I make you uncomfortable?”

Nothing.

Silence.  Silence.  Silence.

He wouldn’t be upset if it was anyone but her, if it was a stranger.  Another forgettable lover to never meet again.  Yet she’s like the gentle moon and he’s the too blistering sun, always catching a glimpse of her, but never close enough to touch.  

If your luck is born on the pain of someone you love, then what good is it?

If HER blessing is only yours, then what use is it?

What did you do to deserve living like this?

“  - and I have a meeting at eleven,”  her voice cuts in, clear, soft, and it takes him a second to realize he missed whatever else she said.  She’s found her bra and blouse and is about to slip them on.  She’s left the bed already.  “Why are you being so sentimental?”

“Sentimental … ?”   He huffs.  Is that what this is?  He wouldn’t know.  “Hm.  I guess I am.  Sorry.”

He knows of reckless risks, of the impulse for self-destruction.

Not of -

Of whatever it is that makes him miss her when she hasn’t even left yet.

Take a chance, gambler.

What do you have to lose?

He throws himself out of the bed, lethargic.

His hand finds hers in the darkness, holds on, and only holds tighter with each second that crawls by.

“Stay with me,”  he begs, quietly,  “a little longer, please?”

“If you really want me to,”  she murmurs, defeated,  “then I guess I will, for an hour or so … ”

He feels a wave of relief.  Unusual.  His heart flutters.

What bad luck it is for her, to have such a sinner so covetous of her time and attention.  It’s contemptible how selfish he is when it comes to her, to let his thoughts all be consumed by her even when she isn’t near.  To act as her lover when he has pointed a loaded gun at her and pressed the trigger.

He kisses her to distract himself, his hands on her waist as he drags her back to the bed.  He takes off her bra and blouse, much to her annoyance.  Throws them somewhere on the floor.  He wants all of her, all of her attention and all of her vulnerability.  Selfish, possessive, and oh  -  there it is, that greed he is quite intimate with.

He supposes it was inevitable that he’d want to keep something all to himself, and sadly, it would seem it’s her that he craves.

“I’ll make this worth your time,”  he tells her, pinning her to the mattress.

“I need to be able to walk after,”  she whines, squirming under him.

He laughs, softly, leaning in to suck on her throat to leave his mark.  “I’ll try to remember that.”

-

-

-

He dreams of her, only ever of her.  It’s become a problem.

He’ll wake and feel irrevocably transformed by those dreams.  With dread and tempered fear at the implication of what it means to think of his coworker, even in his sleep.  What the significance of her replacing his recurrent nightmares is.

Sleep is the rehearsal for death.  He waits for her to fall into a peaceful slumber, then smiles at her, lifting a hand toward her face but never touching her, out of an unease he can’t explain.

When will she find someone worthy to touch her?  When will she find someone better than him?

He wishes he could touch her.  He wishes he was better.

He wishes he was worthy.

He remembers wishing in the past with his sister, playing dead in bloodied water.  Hiding.  Trying not to cry whenever a shrill shriek scratched his ears.  Not being good enough then, either.  Never good enough.  He’s forever stuck as a coward, pathetic  - wanting and praying, why?

“What should I do?”  He asks to some inconceivable higher power, to a Goddess that puppets him on HER strings.  “What should  - What should I do, hm?  What worth does a dead man have?  What good am I for her?”

Quietly, expectedly, nothing answers him.

His smile falls.

He’s about to retract his hand to himself, but fingers close around his wrist.  There is no breath in his lungs.  The light floods in around him, blinding.

Fathomless eyes of azure stare into violet in the dawn of a predetermined destiny.  “You’re not dead, Aventurine.  You’re not worthless, either.  Don’t think like that.”  Blink.  Interlude.  Freefall.  “If you need a distraction from yourself, you can use me.”

iii.  inner light 

       topaz

“What are the pills for?”

He scares her enough that she drops the medicine bottle and has to watch the tiny capsules spill and scatter all over the counter and across the floor, some into the sink.  It defeats her.  It’s humiliating already to be found in such a state, by Aventurine  - who, once, she told herself to stay as far as possible from.

Staring back at her in the mirror, she sees him  -

Not  as himself, because Aventurine  - the Stoneheart, not the man she keeps falling into trysts with, is not someone to slouch against a doorframe, drowsy and unkempt with only loose sweatpants on.  

He’s the ostentatious, resplendent playboy that adorns himself in the most expensive accessories and designer clothes custom-made to fit and be worn by him.  He doesn’t let himself be seen in any other way besides flawless, like he owns the entire universe and seeks even more beyond that.

Yet he’s crawled out of bed and bothered to find her, dark shadows under his eyes from the interrupted sleep.

His blonde hair is tousled, and she can distinctly remember how soft the strands were between her fingers.  His skin is tinted by stains of her lipstick and the blush of heat in his blood.  His bottom lip is swollen where she had bit it a little too hard earlier, the pleasure she felt so intense it was on the edge of blissful pain.

He yawns, glancing at the mess of strewed pills.  “Topaz?”

Nothing.

There is nothing to say, nothing she can do.

He visibly swallows, for once showing an inkling of fear.  How strangely attractive it looks on him.  “Topaz?”

Her mouth opens, but the breath she inhales suffocates her.  The air burns her throat.  It withers inside her lungs.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  And she is, she really is.  No one should have to witness this.  She didn’t want him to.  This was never meant to be something he saw of her.

Hiding her wet eyes behind her palm, she shakes her head in lack of her voice.

I’m sorry.

He steps closer, she hears his bare feet on the hard floor.

I’m sorry.

He’s close enough that she faintly smells the aroma of his cologne, mingled with sex and her perfume.  Somehow her scent has stuck onto him.  The thought makes her heart constrict in the confine of her chest.  Her bottom lip quivers.  She knows he’s looking at her, that he’s still there  - but why, what does he want?

I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry  -

“Av  - Ave  - I’m  - ”

His warm hand covers her mouth and silences her, and she uncovers her vision to find him to be all that she can see.  Dapples of sunlight peek through from the bedroom, shining onto him like he’s an angel.  His golden hair is like a halo.  If she closed her eyes and opened them a second after, maybe he’d have beautiful, feathery white wings fluttering behind him.

What is he, truly?

Oh, her mind reels.  It’s too much to consider what he may be to her.

He’s the summer that passes by.  He’s the light she didn’t know she was waiting for.  He’s a drop of gold in a sea of green, falling, tragically, beautifully, lonely.  Landing by himself, and then she’s leaping in after him.  He’s the prettiest broken thing on a shelf, caged in a glass case.

Is she kept beside him?  Is she in her own glass case?

Is topaz any brighter, better, or valued than aventurine?

Gemstones can be replaced.  Interchanged.  Another can take her place, like someone could take his.  She’s on borrowed time, time she owes to the IPC  - a debt she took herself, that will never be paid off.  Not until she dies.  All for the Amber Lord, and that feels fine with her, when he closes in on her, slow, each step an aeon, then kisses her and licks the blood from her tongue.

-

-

-

He fucks her on the bathroom counter because she asks him to, because all they stay together for after a project is to be each other’s temporary distraction.  It’s what they are.  It’s all they’ll ever be.  Questioning it is pointless, at least to her, though she can’t say for certain what he thinks.

Neither of them have ever spoken of it.  Poked at it.  It’s like a slumbering creature in the dark corner, always there  - lurking, haunting, the potential to bloom into something precious, but also a discovery that could be their ruin.

He pours his light into her, but it isn’t enough.  Hers is devouring.  Sex with him makes her feel complete, at least for a short time, but there’s still an emptiness in the aftermath when she’s naked and trembling and he still hasn’t left.

“You’re sick.”

It’s not a question.  More an affirmation.

For himself, or for her?  It’s difficult to tell.

He doesn’t know the entire truth of it.  That she’s been sick since she was born, that she outlived the year she was told she would die.  That time is ticking on and on, and he keeps sticking to her, tying a knot that will be painful to yank apart.

“I’ll get better,”  she lies, then coughs, seeing spots of discolored blood on her palm,  “I’ll -  I’ll get better, don’t worry about me.  Please.  You can leave.  You  - You should leave.  Please.”   Please.  She feels so pathetic.  Please, don’t look at me.  “Aventurine  - ”

The next breath she inhales feels like her last.  It almost kills her.  Her lungs could be collapsing.  The bones of her ribcage could be shattering and slicing at her insides.  It’s all worsened because he’s staring at her and she has nowhere to hide.

“Sorry.  I’m staying,”  he insists, and she has no choice.  No good reason or capacity to argue with or deny him.  Her knees tremble, too weak to keep her standing but he catches her, holding her by her arm.  Firmly.  Gently.  He falls with her when she crumbles onto the cold floor.  His countenance is emotionless, almost heartless, but deathly pale.

He doesn’t let go of her, but softens his grip.  His fingers pluck a pill from the marble and press it to her lips, and it’s sickeningly cold but he forces her to swallow it with his thumb pressing down on her tongue.  Her stomach lurches.  Her cheeks are stained with a warm wetness.

“You can hate me for it.  I don’t mind.”

“I could never hate you,”  she chokes, fractured, dry, far too honest.  He’s looking at her like she’s a stranger, and he’s looking past her like he can’t see her.  Like she isn’t there.  It hurts more than dying.  

It hurts more than anything.

“Aventurine.”

His lips part but he says nothing to her, and then his hand that isn’t holding her trembles uncontrollably.

“Aventurine.”  She lifts a hand to his face, caresses his cheek down to his chin.  “Have I been doing good?  Has any of what I’ve done mattered?”

“Yes,”  he tells her, suddenly,  “yes, it has.”

iv.  rain

      aventurine

“Good Heavens.  Where did this downpour come from?”

Don’t fear, don’t look back.

Run.  Remember, you are blessed.  The rain will keep you safe.  The Mother Goddess loves you.  The Avgin will live on within your blood, Kakavasha.  Never be afraid.  Never curse your pain or suffering.  You will save us all.  Your luck is our luck.  You must -

Remember -

Remember -

Don’t fear, don’t look back.  Remember -

“I wonder if I can have umbrellas delivered to our room.”  His coworker is checking her phone, the brightness of the screen illuminating her pretty face, prettier with the makeup she spent an hour on.  “I can’t afford to ruin my dress.  Ugh.  Of course it had to rain an hour before the event.”

“I’ll buy you another,”  he tells her, dully,  “I can afford it.”

“That doesn’t solve our current problem.  It won’t look good if we arrive soaking wet.”

“I’ll hold my jacket over us.  We can huddle together and run for it.”

He smiles at her, mischievous, lighthearted.  She scowls at him, ever her serious self.  Gazing over her naked body laid out across the rumpled bedsheets  - the rainfall becomes louder, thunder crackling above in the atmosphere.  He needs to listen to something else, and all he can think of is the delicious sound of her moans.

Peeling himself away from the rain painted window, the dark clouds taking over outside, he stalks over to her.  He crawls onto the bed and snatches her phone, tossing it somewhere on the mattress.  He’s half-dressed, more clothed than her.  His shirt isn’t buttoned and he hasn’t put his belt on.

“I’ll think of something,”  he promises,  “don’t worry your pretty head about it.”

He dances his fingers over the curve of her spine, his hand bare  - his gloves not yet on, and he admires how she shivers for him.  It takes so little to make her squirm.  He shouldn’t like watching it as much as he does.

“Forget whatever it is you’re thinking of doing to me,”  she scolds, glaring at his roaming hand on her body.

“A little fun before the monotony.”

“No.”

He smirks.  “What if I beg nicely?”

Her gaze flicks to her phone that’s out of her reach then back to him.  As if she’s actually considering his offer, rather than defaulting to the work that will consume them in less than an hour.  He hears an illusory ticking in his ears.  Gently, he taps his fingertips to her shoulders then curls a strand of white-crimson hair in thoughtless contemplation.

Do not be afraid.

Do not look back.

The rain will accompany you.  The rain will bless you.

Hear HER call.  Embrace HER fortune.  Feel HER looking down on you.

“What are you thinking of?”  She asks.  “Aventurine?”

He blinks, disoriented.  “Nothing important.”

Nothing at all.  Nothing that matters.  Nothing  - Nothing , because what does he have?  Nothing is left for him.  Which is what possesses him to crawl over her, to drag her to the edge of the bed as he kisses her roughly.  He gets on his knees for her, the floor like wet sand in his mind.

We will meet again.

Sinner.  Blood debt.  Coward.  Killer.

We will  -

He kisses a path over the softness of her thighs, paying special attention to the beauty mark dotted on one.  She complains about something but he doesn’t listen to what it is, too focused on forgetting.  He hears thunder, the snap of lightning.  The rain is all-consuming but he listens to only her when she gasps, her hand in his hair.  He listens to her when she moans, his mouth on her cunt and her muffled cries filling the hotel room.

-

-

-

He sees his reflection in a puddle and steps in it.  His mirror self disappears in the ripples.  “Well.  That was fun.  Felt a bit out of our favor though, didn’t it?  Should be fun explaining that loss to Jade.”

Not paying attention to him, or pretending not to, she keeps walking ahead and he listens to the clack of her heels on the wet pavement in the silence.  He follows after her, because he always does.  It’s not like he has somewhere better to be.  The city streets are quiet and dark and he wouldn’t want her to be alone, not at this hour, not on a planet that’s unfriendly to the IPC.

“So much light pollution,”  she mutters, holding his suit jacket tighter around herself.

“You’ll see the stars once we’re in space.”

“It’s not about me.”

He huffs out a mirthless chuckle.  “Do you ever think about yourself, Topaz?”

Once more, she ignores him.  It makes him wonder if he somehow offended her during the banquet or she’s in her sour, empathetic mood that creeps over her when she fails an assignment.  He stares at her back while she looks at the muddled sky, smog overhead in a gray haze in the early twilight of night and morning.

Killer.  Coward.  Loser.  Pathetic.  Pathetic.  Pathetic  -

He walks over to her, places a firm hand on her shoulder and shoves his other in his pocket.  “Can’t win them all,”  he says, as uncomplicated and unbothered as he can.

“I thought you never lose?”

“Life would be far too dull if I endlessly won.  Hm?”   He sighs.  “Winning isn’t everything.”

Trickles of light raindrops land on his face.  He blinks and tilts his head back a little, letting the drizzle wash over him as it quickly becomes heavier and heavier, transforming into a cloudburst.  He laughs into it while she shields herself, and then him, under the cover of his drenched jacket.

The rain will bless you, Kakavasha.

We will reunite in Kakava’s next aurora.

“Aventurine!”

“Yes?”

“Why are you laughing?”  She presses her body against his, her hands fisting in his dress shirt once he takes the task of holding the jacket above them from her.  “You sound insane.  Nothing about this is funny.  I can’t believe it started pouring out of nowhere on us.”

He can barely hear her over how loud the rainfall is, and it carries terrible memories with it but with her  - it’s not so bad, is it?  He can remake the ugly past into something better, even if it’s a veil to curtain what will never be washed off.  The blood and death that will be his to remember, his to live on from.

His reflection in the water at his shoes is distorted by the infinite splashes, the crest and swell of a storm to worship.  A tide to carry him back home.

A prayer.  A hymn.  He hears it from his childhood, hears his sister and mother and all that he has ever lost.  He knows his family would have liked the woman that stands beside him  - he knows, from deep within himself, that he may not be someone to be proud of, but she certainly is.

“We should find some shelter,”  she yelps over the downpour, clinging more firmly to him as lightning crackles nearby.

“You’re cute.  You know that?”

“This is not the time!”

He takes her in his arms and lets the rain shower them together, laughing into the thunder as she yells at him.  “Oh, come now.  There is nothing to be afraid of,  hm?  I’ll take care of you.”

“You’re acting ridiculous.”  A squeal escapes her throat when he throws the jacket off of their heads, onto the flooding ground of asphalt.  “Aventurine!  What are you -  ?”

Your good luck is the most precious wealth we -  all Avgin have.

Welcome to this sad world.

Welcome to your  -

“  - are you listening to me?”   Black streaks of her eyeliner are streaming in rivulets down her face, and strangely, she is still pretty.  “Aventurine!”  She rips the earpiece out of her ear, glowering at it as she throws the broken device into the deluge.  “ Ugh.  You better pay for that.”

Welcome to your downfall, gambler.

How does it feel, being so blessed?  Being the Chosen One?

Voices whisper, indistinguishable, in the din of the tempest.  “Topaz.”

“What  - ?”

It is only by casting aside all reason that he truly gambles.  So he abandons himself, all reason  - he stares directly into her eyes then kisses her, trapping her in his arms.  Eternity stills.  The drops of rain stop midair.  Time itself cracks.  He feels like himself, not himself, and someone that he will never be.

He tastes his future, and it’s the taste of her.

“Thank you,”  he whispers,  “for sharing this moment with me.”

v.  3am

        topaz

“Hello, dear.”

It’s 3am.

“Thank you for opening the door.”  He inspects his bloodied gloves methodically.  “Can I come in?”

“Aventurine.  It’s three in the morning,”  she grumbles, still half-asleep,  “why are you here?”

It’s 3am system time.  It’s 3am and she has less than 2 hours of sleep left and he is at the door to her hotel suite.  

He’s covered in someone’s blood  - it could be his own, or another’s, or a blend of both.  Yet he still has that blithe, handsome smile on his face that makes her believe he’s fine even if he isn’t.

She’s in her sleepwear, hair a frizzled mess.  Not fit to meet her coworker.  Or to let anyone see her, really.

Yet he ambles past her, unconcerned with her disheveled appearance and irritated tone.  He walks into her suite as if he belongs in it, as if he shares it with her.  It’s ridiculous how normal it feels.

Closing the door, she locks it and counts three deep breaths to calm herself before turning to frown at him.  “I don’t remember inviting you in.”

“I took your virginity over a bar counter,”  he laughs once, humorless,  “I’d think coming over uninvited to your hotel room would be less loathsome.  It’s not like you live here.  Hm?  I’m not invading your personal space.”

“You are, actually.”

“Then pretend I’m a piece of furniture, at least for a while.  Act like I’m not even here.”

Her lips part to tell him off, tell him to leave, but something in his expression silences her.  He’s looking at her, but not quite, with his violet eyes hazy and clouded over.  He doesn’t smell of alcohol or smoke.  Which means whatever has him bothering her at such an hour is a problem he can’t escape from by himself.

He takes off his golden rings, peels off his leather gloves.  In a slow, deliberate manner to draw her attention.  Then he sets it all on the glass coffee table and stains it in splotches of crimson.

“Should I ask about the blood?”

“No. Curiosity is a dangerous thing.”

His back is turned to her.  It takes her a minute, but she admits quiet defeat and closes the distance between them.  Neither of them say a word as she helps him pull off his fur-lined coat and then undo his vest and shirt.  Once his bare chest and abdomen are exposed to her, she examines him for wounds and finds none.

“How sweet you are,”  he hums, mocking her.  Or it could be sincere.

This close to him, there’s the scent of petrichor and gunpowder.  It makes her cold skin tingle.  Makes her shiver, and when she does, he slips his warm hands under the silk fabric of her attire to touch her, his body heat like that of sunlight.

“Aventurine  - ”

He’s distracting her.  His hands are drifting higher and higher, calloused fingers brushing the underside of her breasts.

“Topaz.”  He echoes her title, her name, saccharine on his tongue.  “You’re so cold.”  He leans down to be closer, far taller than her since she’s barefoot.  “Want me to make you warmer?  I know a few ways.”

Her imagination floods with absurd thoughts.

Or are they memories?

His head between her thighs, his silken blonde hair between her fingers.  His lips a breath from hers when he pushes his cock inside her, seeming as if he wants to kiss her, but not letting himself do so.  His hands holding her wrists down.  His body heat overwhelming her because he’s far, far too close, but she’s the one keeping him pressed to her.

His cologne  - the fragrance of rain during a storm, of a sea and its sandy shore.  He’s the tempest she stands willingly in.  Then there are times he’s crisp and scorching like the burn of a sun, of light that makes her skin peel and feel raw.

He keeps his distance from her, when he’s like that.

As if he knows he’s bad for her, as though he’s conflicted by desire and the knowledge that he hurts her the longer he stays.

Memories -

Memories -

Memories, and why are they all filled with him  - ?

His hands are feeling the bones of her ribcage, touching around the places she wants him most.  Another shiver shoots down her spine.  Out of instinct she moves a step closer, inhaling that stormy, intoxicating aroma surrounding him.  It shouldn’t be as alluring as it is, but it’s him and she’s oddly fond of his singularities when she’s exhausted.

Grabbing his wrists, she meets his gaze in the artificially lit darkness.  “I’ll ask again.  Why are you here?”

He blinks at her, languid and contemplative.  “I  - I didn’t know where else to go.”

It sounds too good to be true.  “Don’t lie to me.”

His smile softens.  “I never lie to you.  You’d see through me, so I don’t bother.  Although, I can if you want me to.  I’ll do whatever makes you happy.  How’s that sound?  Want me to invent a lie for why I’m here?”

No,  she thinks, but her lack of an answer is all he needs from her.  

He chuckles lightly and stares at her, doing nothing else.  His hands don’t move but he doesn’t remove them from her skin either.  His sharp gaze roams across her face and then lower, then flicks to her eyes as if he’s searching for something in her.

You know what he’s here for.

May as well get it over with.  You want him too, don’t you?

That damned illusory voice has her leaning in so that their noses brush together, and his smile becomes a kiss that melts into her mouth.  There’s a strange hesitation in his normal confidence, and she can sense that he’s about to pull away from her.  Desperation and blind lust for more of his honey and cinnamon taste.

“You have  - ”  She squints at the holographic time illuminated in the kitchen.  “  - one hour and forty-two minutes.  Make good use of it.”

“Sensible as ever.”  He seems charmed by such a mundane quirk of hers.  “I do like that about you.”

Her mind is too tired to think logically as he leads her past the coffee table, his hands on her waist to guide her.  His mouth is on her throat and it’s like a dream  - standing there, in a daze, his nimble fingers undoing the loose ties of her sleepwear.  He slides a hand under her waistband and teases her by rubbing below her navel.

“What would you like?”   He drags her down onto the sofa with him, their bodies sinking into the leather.  “Slow, gentle lovemaking?  Or a quick, hard fuck?  I’m in the mood for either.”

She hates how he sounds so casual, like he’s asking her what drink she wants from a vending machine.  Her hand raises to his face and she considers slapping him but she strokes his cheek instead, brushing strands of his golden hair behind his ear.  He’s so handsome that she could look at him this close for hours, and hours, and  -

“Distracted?”

“Can’t you be quiet?”

He smirks, sharp, white teeth showing for a moment.  “I like the way you look at me.  I’ve never seen you look at anyone else like this.”

She exhales, her arms around his neck as he lifts the hem of her cotton blouse to fondle her breasts.  “You always talk too much.”

“You like my voice.”

“Occasionally.”

He purrs a pleased sound as he kisses under her ear, pressing her deeper into the cushions as he tangles their bodies together.  It’s easier to kiss him than to talk so that’s what she does, knowing what he’s here for.  What he came to her for.  If it’s not for some risky plan he concocted then it’s to lose himself in pleasure, which she is admittedly guilty of too.

“So, sweetheart.  What kind of lover do you desire?”  His cologne is tainted with the metallic scent of blood.  He tastes like tobacco and liquor.  “Who should I be?”

“Yourself,”  she replies, closing her eyes.  “Be yourself,”  she asks, and then she takes the initiative to press her mouth to his again before he can craft some witty, self-deprecating remark about how he doesn’t know who he is.  That’s fine, she thinks, maybe  - foolishly  - that she could help him find out who he is, even if only for a little while.

-

-

-

“Be more gentle, Aventurine,”  it may be ridiculous of her to beg that of him, but he’s being too cruel to her.  It wouldn’t normally bother her, because she’s used to him when he’s like this, but the brutal pace of his thrusts are leaving her too lightheaded.

He stills completely inside her, his cock splitting her apart.  He lifts his head and stares down at her like he doesn’t know who she is, then blinks, once, twice  - an alarm goes off somewhere, but he doesn’t react to it.  The time has arrived for her to wake from her minimal rest and get ready to work but she’s stuck under him, powerless.

Shivering.

Dripping.

Desperate for more, desperate for nothing.

“Ah.”   He pulls out of her, flips their positions so he’s under her, sunken into the sofa in her place.  “Forgive me, sweetheart.  Lost control of myself.  You take the lead.”

Her breasts are peeking out of her sleepwear that he unbuttoned, but his warm hands shield the delicate skin from the cold, his calloused fingers pinching her nipples.  There are countless things she wants to say to him but can only focus on getting him back inside of her, so she raises her hips in silence and moans at how smoothly his cock slides into her wet cunt.

He mutters some kind of curse in a language she doesn’t know, or recognize.

“You’re trembling,”  he groans, golden sin incarnate under her,  “you close?”

“Mhm.”

“Can I kiss you?”

What a weird question.  He’s literally fucking her, and he asks such a thing?  Oh well.  Her mind has no reason or rationality so she nods, gasping when he moves all of a sudden like he had been waiting for permission.  The position he settles into is an intimate embrace, even more visceral with their bodies connected.  His hand drifts down between them to rub at her sensitive clit.

He stares into her eyes, their faces too close, far too close,  and smirks.

“I like this,”  he breathes, sounding oddly innocent and boyish,  “being this close to you.”

“You’re acting strange.”

“I know.”

“Then stop,”  she hisses, moaning at the full thickness of his cock buried inside her,  “stop  - stop whatever it is you’re doing, it’s not like you.”

“I know,”  he repeats, detached from himself.  The alarm she set on her phone is still going off, somewhere in the suite.  It’s not like her, either  - to disregard her work and obligations, to be late or irresponsible.  Yet she keeps riding him, bouncing herself up and down with his hands on her waist in a silent provocation to choose him over anything else.

“ Aventurine  - ”

“I know,”  again, he mumbles those words, then moans, writhes beneath her, panting like he’s about to die,  “I know,  I’ve got you, baby.  Come for me.  Let go.  Don’t think.”

It’s a command.  Controlling.  

A choice that she pretends isn’t hers.  That she blames on him when it’s really all her fault.

Her body squirms.  Her blood is hot.  The walls are dripping in colors that match his iridescent eyes, all of his rapt attention on her and her alone.  Her cunt pulses around his cock and he fucks her through it, losing more of himself in her, hiding his face in her throat and biting her hard enough to definitely leave a dark bruise.

“Topaz.”   His desperation excites her beyond comprehension.  “Aeons, you feel so fucking good.  I  -  ”

vi.  farewell

        aventurine

"You're a natural with children, it's surprising to see."

The creak of a door closing shut.  The clack of heeled boots, closer, closer.

It’s windy atop the roof.  The air is on the fine line of too cold to be comfortable, but he delights in the icy shiver across his skin.  It reminds him of desert nights under a sky of falling stars.  Of him and his sister around a fire, eating what scraps he could steal from close by.

Memories of youth.

Either scorched.  Or frozen.

The sun would burn him during the day.  The moon would weep silver comets at night.  Equally unsafe.  Unthinkable to live in  - let alone survive, and escape from.  Yet he did.  He exists, years later, older, no better off, under such a serene atmosphere of astral lights, so surreal it’s almost laughable to think that he is the only survivor of his clan left to witness such a view.

“They’re not difficult to please,”  he says, taking a final drag of his cigarette before tossing it on the roof, then stomping the last of its embers out under his shoe.

He thinks of a burning sun about to explode, of a planet so barren it's considered a wasteland.

He thinks of home.

Home,  and then he stares down at his coworker, not expecting her to be real, but she is  - dressed in a clean black uniform that matches his, her hair still tucked in a short, neat braid at the side of her head.  Waves of white that bleed into crimson.  

He thinks of blood blooming across untouched snow, of how the rosy blush in her cheeks means she is alive like he is.  If he touched her, would she recoil from him?  Slap his hand away?  Hate him even more?

He thinks, and thinks, and he thinks and nothing leaves his mouth -

“It was unexpected, is all.”

“Hm.  Glad to impress, then.”

She’s anxious, restless even as she stands still.  He knows the reason but doesn’t bother her about it.  He’ll wait for her, if she wants to share what’s on her mind then she will.  Sometimes his silent company is all she’ll take.  Other times, she’ll be a little greedier, ask for advice or a distraction and let herself take more from him.

He’s fine with either.  He’d be fine with whatever she wanted in truth, and he wonders if she even knows that or not.

“Aventurine.”   She sounds unusually vulnerable.   “If we don’t fight this  - if we let the IPC go through with the proposal, what will happen to those children?  To everyone?”

“A life of servitude to the Amber Lord.  I think you know the outcome.”  He takes his hat and glasses off, setting them down on an ash stained ledge.   “It won’t be so bad.  Their futures won’t be theirs, but their planet will no longer be under the burden of such debt.  Their generation will be the sacrifice for the later ones to come.  You don’t need me to explain it further.”

Her gloved hand raises to cover her mouth.

“I feel sick.”   She inhales deeply but it doesn’t seem to calm her.  “I feel  - I feel really sick letting this happen.  How are you so indifferent?”

“You get used to it.” 

“Really?  Have you?”

He’s not used to it.  He never will be.  

It’s been years.  He feels sick too, but knows how to swallow it.  Unlike her.  Maybe he could teach her, or maybe she’ll have to learn to live with it.

There’s a trick his sister once showed him whenever he felt nauseous.  A hand at the lower back to rub small circles  - and so that is what he does to her, placing his hand there hesitantly.  Then applying the slightest pressure when she doesn’t flinch from him.

“Don’t pity me,”  she mutters.

“I have no pity left in me to give,”  he tells her, drawing those soothing shapes through her suit.

He accepted what he’s become long ago, the first time he took a life to protect his own.  In the divine name of  Preservation  he’s killed in order to defend.  It was his choice.  Then it became someone else’s, and he’s since been a dog on a chain whether it’s to an unseen God or a master that tells him when and how to bark.

Her, though -

The problem with her is that she refuses to embrace what she’s becoming.

“You know, Topaz.  Some things are so far gone that not even you can save them.”   He slips off his coat and throws it over her, draping it across her back and arms to shield her from the wind.   “It’s better to let them be.  Not concern yourself with it.  It’s not your fault.  Exhausting yourself in a futile struggle is foolish, however.  So don’t let your kind heart become a liability.  Save yourself the misery.”

The cute frown on her face deepens as she pulls his coat tighter around herself, letting it surround her.  “You don’t know me.  Stop pretending you do.”

“That’s true.  I don’t.  I have known people like you, though.”   He sighs and tilts his head back to find the stars oddly brighter than they were earlier, when he was alone.  “Can you take a guess where they are now?”

A minute passes.  Then another, and then she leans over the edge of the roof and peers down.  “Sympathy is not always the weakness you paint it as.”

“It is in our line of work.”

“I don’t feel like arguing with you.”

“Then why did you come up here?”

“For some fresh air.”

He hums, not considering why that sounded like a lie.  What the truth could be.  The wind rushes past them harder, colder.  He inhales a deep breath of it and leans on the edge of the roof with her, looking down into the inky abyss of the city streets.

“You’re rational until the situation feels personal.”  A shiny coin appears between his gloved fingers.  “Then you take it upon yourself to make a business nightmare your problem to suffer, when you could cut the deal easily all in the IPC’s favor.  It’d even earn you a raise probably.”

She rests her head on her arms, his coat around her billowing in the currents of icy air.  “Acting like you know anything about me is a bit hollow, don’t you think?”

He closes his eyes, stays quiet.

He may not know her, but he has read her files.  He’s seen how hopelessly she gazes at those that are ill and dying.

“Seeing those sick kids reminded you of where you came from, didn’t it?  It reminded you of your homeworld.”

In her strained silence, he flips the coin between his fingers with ease.  Then flicks it high and watches it twirl.  It lands on the back of his hand vertically and he balances it there, letting it waver and roll but never fall over.  He eventually realizes he’s captured her attention and sees that the azure of her eyes are wet.

A tear drips down her face, dried by the wind.

He pretends not to see it.

That he doesn’t feel her sadness as though it’s his own.

“What should I do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing - ?”  She echoes, choked.  “Why?”

“No one will take the fall with you,”  he warns her, hoping she listens for once.

The coin slips from his hand but she catches it before he does, clutching it in her palm.  Staring at each other, he feels locked in place -  locked in this eternal moment with her, under the flickering stars, with a heaviness on his shoulders as if the universe is about to end.

“I’ll take it by myself then.”

He thinks of home.

He thinks of his sister letting go of him, of the last time he’ll ever see her.  He thinks of rain and blood and screams.  He thinks of shadows in a storm.

She hands the coin back to him and holds onto his hand with both of hers too long to be considered accidental.  He feels her let go of him  - a determined, final kind of motion.  It all happens too slow and too fast.  He reacts without thinking of the consequences or the future he’ll have to deal with.

Clink.  The metal of the coin hits the rooftop as he abandons it to reach for her, yanking her against his chest.

“Don’t,”  he says, soft and crisp,  “you’ll lose.”

“This isn’t fair to them.  You know it isn’t.  It’s grossly in our favor and they have no clue,”  she hisses, twisting her wrist futilely in his grasp.

“As I said:  some things are too far gone to be saved.”

“There’s a better way.  I thought of what to do.”

“You need to let the IPC keep their advantage.  Or the loss will be yours to take on.”

“Let me go.  The vote will be over soon.  I need to  -  ”

He drags her back to the edge of the roof, and he shares some weird but intimate dance with her as she tries to escape from him. 

“I’m not letting you do this.”   The win is his, as expected  - and he pins her against the cold stone, knowing she’ll hate him for choosing to save her over this doomed planet.  “If you disrupt the vote, you’ll be considered an interference.  You’ll get wiped from existence before you can even blink.”

Her form goes limp against him.  “Pretending like you care about me is different.”  

“It’s in my best interest to keep my dear partner from throwing herself to the wolves.”

“You want to use me.”

“Sometimes, yes,”  he admits,  “as you have done to me, hm?  It’s mutually beneficial.”

“You’re acting like a bastard,”  she bristles, but her hands on his chest don’t shove him off.  Rather, she pulls him closer, his tie coiled around her fist.

“It’s not acting.”

“I know this isn’t really you.”

He kisses her to end the meaningless discussion, to distract her from making a poor decision that could end her career, end her life itself potentially.  Initially, she tries to squirm out of his hold.  To run.  Then she gives in and he tells her to look at the stars as he undoes the buttons of her attire, touching her in the places she wants him most.

“You don’t know me,”   he mirrors her statement from earlier, mimicking her sweeter voice.  Kindly.  Softly.  Bitterly.  

His hand slips under her blouse, and he hesitates, which is quite unlike himself.  What is he waiting for?  He doesn’t know, but she takes the lead and her lips are under his collar, kissing the brand on his skin, her arms around his neck to cage him against her.

“How would I?”  She asks.  “How well do you even know yourself, Aventurine?”

His deceptive smile crumbles.

The infallible gambler is left speechless, his riskiest bet becoming his grandest downfall in the snap of an infinite second.  If the stars fell then, he would not know, because he was drowning in the azure of her gaze piercing through him.

-

-

-

She doesn’t wait or look back to see if he follows after her, but he does.  He’s still fitting his suit together, attempting to seem presentable, like he didn’t just fuck his coworker on a windy rooftop under a canvas of glittering celestial bodies.

“We swore our lives in service to the Amber Lord.  Remember what I once told you, dear ,”  he calls out to her,  “ welcome to the Stonehearts, Topaz.  Welcome to a life of atrocious decisions that need to be made, and problems far out of your control.”

Her hand is on the door handle, she tilts her head back and weeps at the flares shooting into the atmosphere.  Signals to the waiting IPC ships that had been prepared to land hours prior, set to takeover.

“You can’t save everyone.”

He stands beside her, a trembling hand hiding in his pocket.

Farewell, Kakavasha.

We will reunite in Kakava’s next aurora.

He thinks of his sister.  He thinks of home.  He thinks of emptiness and the vacuum of space, sucking his corpse in once the IPC is done with him.

He thinks of Topaz and she’s blinding like sunlight in his thoughts, painful but irresistible to stare into.  Or at least glance at.

“I know,”  she says, surrendering, resting her forehead against the metal door.

“  - It’s not your fault,”  is all he can offer, bowing his head down and putting his hat on, not watching the descent of the end of this world but keeping her misery company regardless.  The smoke that pollutes the atmosphere blots out the distant stars and any remaining light.

vii.  wounded mirror

            topaz

“You shouldn’t do this to yourself.”

His worst enemy is himself.

He’ll wake in a daze and not seem aware of reality.  Or of her presence.  He’ll aim the barrel of a gun at himself, smile and pull the trigger; He’ll break things and drag their sharp edges over his flesh to see if he will bleed.  He’s never liked his reflection and so that tends to be the focus of his self destruction.

How has she learned this?  Oh, too much time together.  Familiarity leads to a sense of withdrawal when he isn’t around.

Her muscles are still sore from when he fucked her earlier, her thighs sticky with their mingled arousal she never had a chance to clean off.  Tiredness had claimed her before she could shower, or better yet, leave. 

“I hate mirrors,”  he mutters, pouting with false innocence.

She only shakes her head at his apathetic response, not discussing the delicate matter further.  He’s tried to take his own life more times than she can remember, but it would seem that his luck protects him from Death itself.  He never succeeds.

It isn’t Death that heals him in the aftermath though.  It isn’t himself, either.

It’s her that covers his bleeding wounds in bandages, and it’s her that applies gentle pressure until the crimson liquid no longer seeps out of them.  He lets her do whatever she wants, but she chooses mercy over the punishment he’s no doubt seeking.

His arms are swathed in firm cloth.  His hands, however, are exposed.

Taking a tempting chance on that bathroom floor, she examines them with tender affection.  Calluses.  Scars.  Indents where his gloves and rings have left their permanent mark on him, because he wears them too much and for too long.

“You like my hands, sweetheart?”   He asks her, while languidly interlocking his fingers with hers.  His palms are warm and calloused and make her think of sun and sand.  “Or the things I do with them?”

It’s unusual for him to not have his gloves on.  Gazing at the exposed skin of his hands feels like she’s seeing something that shouldn’t exist.  Or that she shouldn’t be seeing.  Nothing should be intimate about what he’s doing to her, but her heart is about to leap into her throat and suffocate her.  

The way he’s caressing her is far too close to affectionate for coworkers to be.

His boyish smile flicks into a predatory grin.

“Do you know what these hands have done?  Care to guess?”

He strokes her palm with his thumb, teasing and inviting and condescending all at once.

Ignoring his pointless question, she turns on the hot water in the tub and closes the drain.  She’s mindlessly watching the clear, sanguine tinted sea in the bath rise and rise when he closes in behind her, encircling his arms around her waist.  His body heat melts into her, surrounds her like a wicked embrace.

“I’ve taken a lot of lives with them.”  The faintest pressure squeezes around her throat, reminiscent of a threat  - it’s his hand, feeling the muscles of her jugular.  Yet she isn’t afraid, not of him.  Not as she probably should be.   “Too many to remember them all.  What do you think of that?  Of me?”

“I know you aren’t a killer,”  she says, quiet but resolute.

“I am.  You’ve watched me end quite a number of lives, in fact.”

“Not because you wanted to.  You had to.”

He forces her to look over her shoulder, to meet his radiant violet gaze in the dying fluorescent light.  The halos of sapphire are disappearing.

The brand burned into his neck peeks out from under his loose collar, his head tilting curiously at her.  “That doesn’t absolve what I’ve done to survive.  The sins I’ve committed, and will continue to commit.”  A break in time between them, transitory.  “I was born a sinner, actually.  Though I was told I was blessed, blessed beyond belief.  To think  -  ”

The lights flick off.  Then on.  Then off, and it feels like some kind of divine end has found them both.

“  - if only they had known what a curse this blessing actually is.”

In the darkness, he grabs her, holds her down, but those hands are too familiar to incite fear.  

-

-

-

“No more.  No more, please,”  she sobs, moaning as he licks at the wet folds of her cunt,  “ Aventurine.  Please, I can’t  - ”

He lifts his head from between her thighs, his blonde hair stuck to his flushed face.  Water that looks like translucent blood ripples under him.   “You’re so pretty like this, you know, it hurts to look at you.”

“It’s too much  - ”

“You can give me another, hm?  One more?”

“ No,  I’m  - ”

“So lovely,”  he sings, edging her to yet another peak to fall from,  “so good for me.”

Her limbs are too weak for her to control.  He’s made her come three times, pinned her in some awkward position above him on the edge of the tub to eat her out.  His fingers curl inside her and she cries out in ecstasy, helpless.  He licks his lips like she’s something delicious he’s about to devour.

His palm rubs her oversensitive clit and the walls of the bathroom spin around her.  The dizzying trance is cut off when she slips and splashes into the water, pouring a flood of it onto the floor, which he merely chuckles at even as it soaks his sleepwear.  He strips it off, letting himself be as naked as she is.

“You alright?”

Screams pierce the air from somewhere distant beyond their hotel suite.  Yet close enough to be heard through the walls.  Sirens and gunfire outside.  The sudden chaos has her curling in on herself in the burning water.  He climbs into the tub with her, crowding the little space she had.

“Afraid?”  He laughs, his voice sweet and viscous like honey.  “I told you not to follow me.  It’s risky to be here, considering what we did earlier.  This entire planet will be hunting any IPC personnel.”

“You need me,”  she exhales, squirming in the tub as he kisses her shoulder, her neck.

“Do I?”

“I know I’m your safety net.”

“You sound so sure of yourself.  How cute.”  Under the flickering vermilion light he looks like the manifestation of sin incarnate, of her chronic bad choice to gravitate to him no matter the distance she tries to create.  “I’ll be honest with you, Topaz   - You’re not entirely correct, as I never think of you as a bargaining chip for myself.  No, rather, you’re my unrivaled leverage.”

Crawling out of the overfilled tub, she collapses on the hard floor.  Wet.  Suddenly cold.  “Leverage?”

He moves after her like he’s her shadow, his motions languid but deliberate.

“Mhm.  We’re such a good team together.  It’s almost unfair to our clients.  Poor fools.”

“Are you complimenting me?”

“Yeah,”  he tells her, inexplicably sincere,  “I am.”

Naked and dripping above her, he pins her wrists and smiles.  Stares down at her, contemplative.  Holding her breath, she spreads her legs wider apart and he fits himself between them like he belongs there.  It occurs to her that he does, that she has once more found herself in this unexplainable situation with him.

The lights go off.

Then buzz back on, electricity popping and exploding.

His smile softened in the seconds of complete darkness, and he released one of her wrists to instead admire a piece of glass.  Glaring at the fragment of his reflection.  He lifts it in the air, as if he’s about to stab her with it  - and for an ephemeral moment she sees the end of her life in his hands, in that shattered mirror.

“Careful, sweetheart,”  he purrs, then sets that final sharp echo of themselves on the counter,  “wouldn’t want you to cut yourself, would we?”

“Funny you say that to me,”  she bites, but there’s no venom on her tongue,  “considering what you did to yourself with it.”

Blood drips down from the counter, his blood, spilling into the water pooled on the floor.

He smiles with no emotion.  “Better me than you.”

-

-

-

It feels like he did stab her, somewhere cold and deep that won’t ever heal.  Yet the pleasure is warm, full, heavenly.  He fucks her on that slippery marble floor, frantic but attentive.  Each thrust of his cock in her cunt makes her toes curl.  His breathless, beautiful moans make her lightheaded.  His hair is like golden silk and she selfishly entangles her hands in it, keeping him pressed close to her body so he has no choice but to kiss her all over.

“Feel good?”

“It always does, with you,”  she confesses, moaning against his throat as she comes.  Her teeth bite into the brand seared into his flesh there, and he laughs wildly, madly, the pounding of his hips against her becoming animalistic.

He likely didn’t hear her, is too out of it to comprehend the true meaning of her words.

“Gonna come soon,”  he groans, then fucks her so good that stars explode behind her eyelids.  The red light is dripping into her.  The bath water is overflowing and spilling under her, not as warm as he is, above her.

“Come inside me,”  she whines, and he obeys.  Heat pools low in her abdomen, and it’s familiar, it’s all him.  It’s a future neither of them will ever have.  It’s a bad decision to remember.  It’s the end and beginning of herself, the blood in her veins pulsing for him.

viii.  eyes

          aventurine ( ? )

“Staring into my eyes … This is different.  In the mood for intimacy?”

“You’re insufferable,”  she moans, her nails scratching at his shoulders.  The fabric of his dress shirt keeps her from leaving marks on his skin for him to admire later.  He considers taking it off, but knows he doesn’t have the freedom to.

Downstairs, the club is crowded with business executives and tycoons.  Investors the IPC has their sights on.  That the aventurine and topaz Cornerstones have been ordered to collect by whatever tactics necessary.  He’s played this game with her, teamed up with her so many times.  He schemes and manipulates as she charms and befriends.

Strategy.  Retrieval.

Routine.  Familiar.

It’s almost become too easy.  Boring to a point where he throws all his dice in the end, careless of the outcome.  He leaves the table and knows he’s won, the chips stacked all on his side.  Typical.  Expected.  He’s always been too lucky.  He’s called a cheater, but there’s no proof, because none exists.

With her, though?  That’s where the real thrill is.  The pleasure, these moments that he lives for.

Her alluring eyes, dripping with emotion for him.

All for him.

Only for him.

“ Pretty thing, isn’t she?  I bet she’d let you do whatever you wanted to her.”   The thought takes over, manifesting into the cruel echo of his own voice.   “Taking advantage of others is what you were made for, is it not?  Look at her.  Isn’t it tempting?”

He’s about to fuck her over a billiard table.  What else does he want?  The lights are dim.  He’s all alone with her.  She’s tipsy enough to want him at all.  Her body is warm and soft under him.  He’s shoved her dress above her hips, exposed her cunt to the smoky air.  He has a gloved finger under the garter around her thigh, pulling her legs further apart for him to fill the space.

What else could he take?  What else could he want?

“You know what you are.  Or, rather, who you act like.”   His hands tremble when he reaches for his belt buckle.   “How’s your reflection looking lately, gambler?”

In her eyes, he sees the faintest flicker of panic.  What must he look like?  Or can she sense his hesitation?  He drowns in pools of azure and wonders how  - or when, such a color became so beautiful to him.  He’s never known attraction like that, tender, achingly affectionate.

“Afraid of what you’ll become?  Or what you already are?”   His voice laughs at him, sharp and grating.   “Aventurine  - what a joke, becoming everything you once hated.  How is it you live with yourself, knowing you took on such a bloody title?  That you became the master you killed?  That all you ever do from anyone is take and take and take until  - ”

“Aventurine,”  she says, as though he’s far away from her, like he isn’t pressed against her,  “are you okay?”

“I  -  ”

You must be so tired of pretending.

What is it you’re chasing?

Where is it you’re going?  Where is your home?  Where is your family?  Where are those you once loved?

“Ah.  I’m sorry.”  He pushes himself off of her, lightheaded and burning too hot in his suit.  He’s suffocating.  It forms an idea and he latches onto it, desperate to rid himself of that damn voice.  Deftly, he undoes his tie.  His throat is freed, his collar looser.  Cold air licks at the brand burned into his neck.  “Take this and bind my hands together.”

“What?”

“You heard me,”  he murmurs, stepping back from her,  “come over here.”

He stumbles over to the sofa against the wall and collapses onto it, laying himself out for her.  She drops from the pool table and follows after, her legs a bit unsteady.  He lifts himself slightly from the cushions to let her restrict his arms behind himself, the fabric of the tie smooth around his wrists.

The knot he feels, however, is too loose.  “Tighter, sweetheart.”

“I don’t understand.”  She shifts on his lap, her core rubbing against his confined, aching cock.  “Why are you making me do this?”

“Safeguard.”

“Against what?”

“Myself,”  is all he tells her, blinking and staring off at nothing in particular.  He smiles in satisfaction when she does as he told her, tying the knot so tight it almost hurts.  Cutting off some circulation.

“Good.”   He doesn’t miss how she blushes at his praise.   “Feel free to do with me as you please.  Use me as you’d like.  I won’t mind whatever you choose to do.”

“You’re absurd,”  she says, but it’s sweet.  Pitiful, almost.

He doesn’t know what he expected her to do, but he’s surprised  - pleasantly, her hands roam and glide across his form, over his clothes, across his musculature.  Admiring him?  Or simply taking her time?  He feels a smile curve his lips, either way.  Heat blooms from within him out of his control, and he has to moan when she brushes her thumb over his lips, grinding her hips down.

“ Topaz.”   He locks his gaze with hers, the blue vivid in the low light.  “I’m getting a tad impatient, you know.”

“You said do as I like.”

His cock throbs in his pants when she pulls down her dress, letting her breasts spill free.  He checks behind her, once  - no one should bother them, but he can still hear the ambient chatter from the bar below.  He sighs and finds himself lost in how she stares at him, like he’s all that exists.

With measured breaths, he grins at her.  Straining against the knot of the tie.  “I did, yes.  Though, I am only a man with so much self-control.  I’ll finish far too early at this rate.”

Deliberately, she rolls her hips against him.  His head falls back and he groans, biting his tongue.  His hips instinctively thrust up against her, but she doesn’t let him have any more friction.  She undoes a few buttons of his shirt.  It’s tortuous and oddly blissful to feel so powerless, under her safe surrender.

“I need you,”  he tells her, pleading,  “need to  - to be inside you, please.  Fuck.”

He can smell her arousal, how wet she is for him.  Oh,  if only he could feel it for himself.  The slickness on her cunt.  He’s about to lose his mind.

Yet she doesn’t let him have her, not yet.  Her hands caress him all over, exploring his body.  He shudders when she brushes her fingers through his hair, touching his feather earring and the black stud in his other ear after.

“You’re going to ruin me,”  he tells her, and then she kisses him with a smile, slowly, delicately, and he tries to act like he doesn’t see the eyes on the walls, on the ceiling and floor, unblinking and miserable as they watch him.

What more could you want, gambler?

Do you want to disappear in her?

“Yes,”  he exhales, watching her undo his belt and pull down his zipper,  “ yes,  please  - ”

-

-

-

His hands are still bound.  She kisses the brand on his throat as he begs her to bite it off, to bruise and destroy it.  It’s ugly and he needs to be flawless, beautiful.  Yet she treats it like it’s something to be treasured, cherished.

Slave.

Kiss.  Touch.  Breathe.

Coward.

Bite.  Bruise.  Choke.

Killer.

He’s had his eyes shut for a while, he doesn’t remember when he did it.  The void of darkness isn’t difficult to be alive in, like losing himself in the azure of her piercing stare is.  Looking at her, he feels too alive.  Too much.  Overwhelming and too lovely for someone like him.

“Aventurine.”   Don’t look.   “Aventurine.”   Don’t be afraid.  “ Aventurine.  Look at me.”

He kisses her palm, then selfishly steals comfort from her by resting his head in the cradle of her gentle hand.  He can’t look at her, can’t listen to her.  Can’t open his eyes.  “Give me a minute.  One minute.  I’ll be fine in one minute.  That’s all I need.”

“Then what?”

“Then I will look at you.”   What is done will never be undone.  He must play with the hand he has been dealt.  To live with the eyes of a dead lineage.  Of a clan waiting for him in the afterlife.  He is the last survivor, and his reflection will remind him of that until he at last takes his final breath.  “I promise.”

ix.  drown in gold

            topaz

“Gambling is all about what you’re willing to let go of.  To risk.  To offer to the table.”

Another loss.  Unsurprising to her, but winning his damnable card games isn’t what she came to his office for.  His special dice is in her palm, heavier than it should feel.  His warmth lingers on it and fades into her.  Giving it a firm squeeze, she then sets it down gently on the clean surface of his desk.

“What is it you do this for?”

“What do I do this for  - ?”  He laughs to himself, seeming distant for a while.  “  - Isn’t it obvious?”

She stumbles out of the chair she was in, crawls onto the desk between them and knocks pens, documents, playing cards and coins onto the floor.  The clatter distracts neither of them.  He leans back and grins at her, spreading his legs wider.

“No,”  she says, being honest for both their sake,  “it isn’t.”

He ruminates for a time, his deft fingers of cold leather playing with the garter tight around her thigh.

“I bet myself and all that I am to entertain others.”   He purrs when she grabs his tie and yanks it.  His hands are firm on her waist when she slides onto his waiting lap.  “I throw the dice and live for that briefest moment of fear, of excitement and thrill before the inevitable outcome.  Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter to me.  Win.  Lose.  Life itself is meaningless without those breathless seconds where I question if Heaven is about to become Hell.  If I have found my end.”

Her high heels drop from her feet.  “What kind of end are you after?”

The briefest hint of some unearthed emotion glints in his violet eyes, then is gone as quickly.

“I think it’s my turn to ask a question, hm?”

“Then ask it.”

He leans in to whisper in her ear.  “Why is it you came to my office wasted?”

Lying seems pointless, though all of this feels like a mistake.  It takes her too long to respond and it’s awkward when she finally finds her voice.

“I only feel safe around you.”

Genuine bewilderment breaks through his careful veneer.  The sincerity is too much for her, and so she kisses him out of fear, out of desperation to escape from whatever feeling is about to consume her.  Distracting him is easy.  Grinding her hips against him, twisting her hands in his dress shirt.

“You’re tempting danger, sweetheart,”  he murmurs,  “if you keep teasing me, I may do something we’ll both regret later.”

“Maybe I want you to,”  she challenges, delighting in how his desire for her is almost tangible, how she can feel it in the air around them.

“It’s the alcohol.  And your hormones.”  His tone is formal but his hand is under her dress, pressed against the soaked fabric of her underwear.  “Gratifying to know you’re so attracted to me, however.  You should see what you look like.  So pretty and desperate for me.  Rubbing yourself on my cock.  Your cunt dripping.”   His palm rubs her but the friction isn’t enough.  “Hopefully you don’t remember any of this.  I can’t imagine you’ll forgive yourself.  Or be able to look me in the eyes.”

“ Aventurine.  Aven -   Please  - ”

“Goodness.  You’re lucky I’m able to restrain myself.”

“I want you.”

“Mhm, because you’re drunk.”

Her hands find his belt but she struggles to unbuckle the clasp.  Acting needy for him isn’t beyond her, and she knows how quickly doing so unravels him.  “ Please.  Please.  I want you inside me  - ”

He groans, holding both of her wrists in one hand to stop her, his other drifting down between her thighs.  “I thought you hated me?”

“I do,”  she lies, inhaling the scent of his rich cologne.

“You’re begging me to fuck you,”  he points out bluntly, but the accusation doesn’t put her off as he likely intended it to.

“I’ll leave after.  I promise.”

“That’s not the issue here, love.”

Her body blossoms with heat and rosy color at the word.  Love.  Oh, if Aventurine loved her, it would be a nightmare.  

Yet it sounds like such a sweet dream to her addled mind.  Drinking herself into a stupor has that benefit.  It makes him sweeter, like sugary honey, addictive.  It makes her like him with no real explanation as to why.  It reminds her that he’s who she comes to in her loneliness, that it’s him who makes her smile when she’s about to cry.

What does he want to hear?  What is it that Aventurine wants most?  Considering that he has nothing to live for, she’ll have to make herself worth his time, but how?  It’s never clear with him what he’s after.  It could be that even he doesn’t know.  

-

-

-

“Didn’t I hear you had a date with someone else?”   He asks.  “Why are you here with me, letting me finger you like this?”

It feels good, too good.  He makes her feel like she’s worth something when he’s using her, like the contract she signed to sell herself forever didn’t take all of her with it.  Maybe he sees something in her that she’s blind to.  With him, she feels pretty, she feels adored  - and it’s immature, it’s not real but she can pretend it is for a while.

“C’mon, baby.  Tell me.”   His fingers still inside her, the denial so bitter she cries.   “Tell me or I’ll stop.”

“ Ah   - I - ”  Her hips grind helplessly down onto his hand, but he deliberately doesn’t move with her.  “I had to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because  - Because he wasn’t you.  I couldn’t stop thinking about you.  Dammit.  I hate you, Aventurine.  I hate you.  Let me come already!”

“Did he touch you like this?”

“No.”

“Good,”  he murmurs,  “you’re all mine.  Yeah?  Tell me you are.”

“Yes, I’m yours,”  she agrees, not deliberating on whether she truly means it or not.  It’s not as if she can think clearly anyway.

“My, my.  Whatever am I going to do with you?”  He finally, finally starts to thrust his fingers inside her again, the leather of his glove brushing against her aching clit.  “How am I supposed to keep professional when you act like this around me?”

“Forget that I was here,”  she says, her voice close to a sob,  “I didn’t want it to be you.”

“You want me,”  he reminds her, laughing low and soft.

“Not for more than this.”

“Have you ever considered what this is, exactly?”

If she did, it would ruin her.  It would mean something that she couldn’t logically explain.  Their blurred line of bickering coworkers would disappear, and then what?  

Luckily, someone calls her, and she’s rescued from having to contemplate what her true feelings for Aventurine are.  Not that propriety has much substance when he’s with her.

His fingers stay buried inside her, even as her phone rings and rings.

“You think I’m so disagreeable,”  he tells her, breathy and sticky,  “but are you really any different from me, dearest coworker of mine?”

Mine,  he claims her as, and curse whatever emotion it is that makes her believe him.  She lets herself be his.  If only for a fleeting second  - this moment coated in lust, a blink of time that will be severed once he’s bored of her.

“I’m not like you,”  she tells him, tells herself, tells the emptiness of his minimalistic office.

She comes undone, lying to herself that she belongs to him.  Her thighs quiver.  Her cunt pulses around his gloved fingers.  Her hands cling to his shoulders to keep herself from falling.

Her vision floods with color, with gold dotted in specks of emerald.

Floating on the waves of carnal bliss, she tangles her fingers in his soft hair, letting the tides ebb and flow and take her away somewhere unknown.

He stares at her all the while, studying her, and she feels a damp patch of liquid warmth under her, staining his pants.  He came untouched.  He made a mess of himself simply from watching her lose herself to the pleasure he gave her.

“Fuck,”  he sighs, glancing down,  “look what you’ve done to me.”

Her heart feels stuck in her throat so she’s grateful when her phone rings once more, vibrating incessantly on the desk.

In the dreamy haze, she squirms on his lap, tries to grab her phone but he stops her.  Kisses the insides of her wrists with a devilish smirk on his lips.  He’s caught her, trapped her, his skilled fingers in her cunt and his other hand keeping her from leaving.  Not that she considered doing so.

“ Aventurine,”  she whines,  “my phone  - ”

“Ignore it,”  he orders, and she shivers  - collapsing onto him, her head on his shoulder, succumbing to obedience.  

It’s dangerously easy to let herself fall into him and his fragrance of petrichor and dewy woods, of his velvet voice, of the safety she feels only in his arms, of the high of another climax he’s coaxing out of her.

He lifts her onto the desk effortlessly and lays her across it, her limp body at his every whim.

“I was aiming to be a gentleman, but I’m afraid I’m now feeling rather selfish,”  he exhales shakily, leaning over her, deceivingly in control of himself,  “so I’ll be keeping you all to myself for a few hours.”

x.  missing past

          aventurine

“Isn’t it rather coincidental how we keep getting paired together?”

Kissing her is like watching a sunrise, like breathing in clean air, like an opalescent drizzle of rain on the glass of a window.  He will never get tired of it.  The experience is always different.  The sensations are divine.  He’s waiting for the honeymoon ecstasy to wear off, but it never seems to.

“Stop talking,”  she admonishes affectionately, twisting her hand in his hair.

He moans into her mouth, uncertain of what exactly it is he’s doing as he presses in closer, his tongue licking at hers.

Minutes pass like that.  Locked together in a steadily flying starship set on autopilot directed to another galaxy, and he can’t remember how she went from leaning against his shoulder, half-asleep from too much space travel, to straddling his lap and eagerly biting at his mouth until he let her in.

Her fingers caress the feather dangling from his ear, her lips slowly parting from his.

“Something on your mind?”

“No.”

He sneaks his gloved fingers under the crimson bow tied at her waist, beneath her shorts.  “You’re a terrible liar, you know.  Looking away immediately is a dead give away that you aren’t telling the truth.”

She rolls her pretty eyes.  Then stares directly into his.  “You’re impossible to deal with.”

“Offering helpful advice, that’s all.”

“I don’t need it.”

He feels the heaviness of her sour mood like it’s tangible, looming over him.  Deciding to not tease her further, he holds her closer, more for comfort than out of sensuality.  She takes her earpiece out of her ear, even as it beeps with incoming calls.  Gloved hands cradle his face, her attention concentrated on him alone.

“Aventurine.”  Her thumb brushes over his lips.  “Do you have a family waiting for you to come back to them?”

He arches a confused brow at her.  “Odd question.”

“We warped past my homeworld earlier.  It made me wonder about yours.”

“Haven’t read my files yet?”

“No.”

“How come?  You’ve got the clearance to do so with your latest promotion.”

The ambiance of the vacant starship hums in their shared silence.  He blinks at her, waits for her, but she never answers his question and he doesn’t force her to.  He lets it pass by.  Curiosity plucks at his mind but it isn’t his place to poke into her private thoughts, or whatever her true feelings are.

“I need a distraction,”  she tells him, her expression pained.

“Is that what you’re kissing me for?”

“ … Sort of.  I guess.”

“Hm.  I’m more than happy to help, but I may ask for something as compensation later,”  he sighs, but there’s an uncertainty bothering him.  He can’t shake it off.  He kisses the corner of her mouth but can’t bring himself to go further, his hands motionless atop her thighs.

The breath is stolen from his lungs when he looks into her eyes, noticing tears brimming in the pools of azure that she doesn’t seem to notice about to spill out.

“Hm.  Am I really what you need?”  He asks, quietly.

“I think so.”

“I need you to be certain.”

Her hands settle on the fur of his coat.  “Why?  What does it matter?”

“It matters to me,”  he explains, kissing her cheek softly.

“Since when?”

“Always.”

She frowns, contemplative.  “You can cut me off.”

He rests his head on the wall behind him, closing his eyes to suppress the compulsion to continue touching her.  Yet her hands still roam over his body and he doesn’t stop her, too conflicted.  He isn’t what she needs.  He’s what she wants, and it is temporary as any quick stimulating high in life is.

“I could, yes,”  he sighs,  “but I like you too much to do so, unfortunately.”

Her mouth is under the collar of his shirt.  She kisses the brand forever burned into his neck.  Gentle, feather-like teases of mercy upon his flesh that he doesn’t deserve and didn’t ask for, but is somehow quite fond of.  Her fingers undo his belt.  His pluck at the button that holds her blouse together, exposing her chest to him.

This, her  - he thinks, this, he wonders what it is, succumbing to it unintentionally, carelessly, fatally.  Goodness.  It feels far too much like falling into a welcoming abyss.

-

-

-

“I thought you didn’t like me,”  she says, confused.

“Oh?  That’s not true at all.”   He shuffles a deck of his personal, unique cards in his hands.  The heady smell of sex and body heat still lingers in the ventilated air of the starship.  “To be candid, I adore you.  The others are too incompetent or unpleasant to be around.  You’re my favorite , precious colleague, Topaz.”

“Your favorite  - ?”

He grins at the rosy hue of color that blooms over her face.  

“Yes.  How could you not be, hm?  You’re all mine, remember?”  Claiming her as his is typically an indulgence he reserves for when he’s fucking her, not in the aftermath, but it’s fine  - out in the cosmos, it’s only them and their mutual isolation.  “Keep that between us though, yeah?  Wouldn’t want anyone to think I have something I’m afraid to lose.”

“I’m not a plaything for you to keep and flaunt.”

He flinches but tries to hide his discomposure.  The expensive, gold watch on his wrist feels heavier, the rings tighter, all uncomfortable as he realizes that’s how she thinks he sees her, a decorative item to collect.

“I’m well aware.”

“Then what am I to you?”   It blurts out of her, unbidden.  “Another insignificant gamble?”

“No,”  he whispers, quieter, feeling further from her than he is, younger, fearful and fragile,  “I don’t know what you are to me.  An aberrant factor, for certain -  ”  he flicks his gaze to her, then laughs and looks away, as it hurts to see the anxiety unfolding in her expression,  “  - I know you’re my coworker, sometimes my lover.  I know the Cornerstone that you sold yourself for.    I know your rank.  I know what the IPC values you in Credits.”

“I suppose that’s all I know about you, too.”

He fans out the deck to her, spreading the cards in a neat order.  Plucking a card from those on offer, she checks it without showing him and then slides it back into his hands.  “ … Shall we get to know each other a little better, then?”

“I guess it wouldn’t do any harm.  As long as you are honest with me.”

He purposefully locks his eyes with hers, surprised when she stares directly back at him and doesn’t look unnerved.  He breaks the trance after only a few seconds, this manner of tension not what he is used to  - it’s an emotional, vulnerable suspense that leaves him with the sensation of his lungs being crushed and his heart torn to shreds.

“Oh, my lovely coworker,”  he sighs, watching the cards as they flutter through the air, pinching one between two gloved fingers,  “I’m  always  truthful with you, believe me.  I know how much you appreciate integrity.”

“So you’re virtuous only when it suits you?”

“You could take it that way.”  He kisses the card, doesn’t even look at what it is, then smiles and shows it to her.  “Or you could take it as you being special to me.”

Aeons, he likes the glimmer of hope his words elicit out of her far too much for his own good.

Ignoring that daunting awareness, he waves the card enticingly.  “Is this your card?”

Her brows wrinkle together, her frown somehow endearing.  “Yes.”  Her lips pout.  “How do you do that?  Is it really all luck?  Or is there some trick to it?”

“Who knows?  Perhaps I’m blessed.”

“You know, I would believe that.  Sometimes I can’t understand how it is that you're still alive.”

“Am I?”   He inhales, holds his breath, then sets the neat deck of stacked cards onto her palm and holds them there.  “Alive?  Or am I a ghost wandering among the living?”

Her hand grasps onto his when he tries to pull it away.  “Aventurine  -  ”

He cuts her off, shaking his head.

“No one is waiting for me,”   he confesses, after minutes of silence amid the stars,  “no one but me is left  - I remember, vividly, the moment I was told so.  That was also when I had received the aventurine Cornerstone.  I had crawled my way out of the depths, finally, and for what?  I didn’t know.  I still don’t know.”

Enduring eye contact with her is close to painful, but there’s a hint of understanding buried in it that he’s desperate to unearth.  He can risk digging his past from its grave, if it’s for her.

“There are no Avgins left.”

His hand trembles in hers, and he hisses out a deranged laugh because he can’t control or stop it.

“I’m the last lucky dog , I’m afraid.”  He collapses onto her, his head on her shoulder.  “It’s only you that ever waits around for me, Topaz.”  He clutches onto her uniform, scrunching the fabric in his shaking hands.  “So to answer your question from earlier:  I have no home to return to.  No family expecting me.  No one knows I exist.  It’s only you.  Funny, isn’t it?”

The humor is lost on her.  There is no laughter, no smile.

Only sorrow.

He hates it.  He aches to tear it out of her, to rip it off of her heart like it’s an affliction that will kill her.

“Aventurine.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

Sweet.  She’s too sweet.  Sticky to him like honey.  He’d spit her out if he didn’t like the taste of her company.  “It’s been a long time.  I’m over it.  Or I should be.  No,  I - I am.  I am over it.”

Cradling his head in her hand, she caresses her fingers through his hair, and he’d dare to call it affectionate.  Her other hand still has the deck of cards in it, a fragment of what he is.  “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”

“Hah.  Of course you are.”

“I am.  I wish I could do something.”

“Hm.”  He hums, considering her offer.  He’s not a man to deny a tempting proposition.  “How about you keep waiting around for me, then?  Stay as my partner.”  He lifts his head languidly and brushes his lips against hers.  “That’s all I’ll ask of you.  In return, I’ll protect you from whatever it is you’re running from.  Deal?”

“How do you know I’m  - ?”  Exhale.  Then he feels her kiss his temple, but doesn’t believe it was real.  “Nevermind.  Fine.  We have a deal.”

“Splendid.”   What a favorable outcome.  He expected her to immediately shut him down.  “I look forward to our fruitful cooperation, my dear,”  and then he kisses her, sealing their verbal contract with the burn of his cinder, corrupted lips on hers.  It feels hollow and overflowing all at once.

xi.  all or nothing

          topaz

“  … bet you wish I was there with you, don’t you?”

“Aeons.  You’re so full of yourself,”  she mumbles, but his pleased chuckle tells her that he heard her.  

Slender fingers drift down the flat of her stomach to the apex of her thighs.  Wanting.  Wishing he was with her.  Yes,  wishing so dearly that it’s shameful.  His voice is soft and strange on the phone, like he isn’t real.  He’s too far, and touching herself while thinking of him only makes him feel more distant.

“I know what you want to hear.  I’ll profess those three pretty words we all want to be told.”   Wet, lewd noises of him touching himself become louder on the other end of the line.  “You about to come?”

“Mhm.”

“Me too.  So listen to me.”  His low voice becomes clearer, sober, and all at once he’s the essence of her existence, seeped in the marrow of her bones.   “Listen,  Jelena  - I love you.  I love you so profoundly.  It’s driving me insane.  All I ever think of is you.”

He’s projecting.

He has to be.

He loves someone else.  Not her.  He loves someone else that he can’t have and he’s pretending she’s whoever it is.

It’s a lie.  He told her it’s a lie.  She knows it’s a lie.  Yet that fabricated confession undoes her, has her cunt pulsing around her fingers and her mind a blank white Heaven.  She moans into the pillow and feels her warm saliva stain it.  Her hips grind down against her hand but it’s not enough to satisfy her.

It’s humiliating.  Terrifying  to realize she needs Aventurine.

Needs him to fuck her, to be near her.  If only he was at least on the bed, if she could be in his presence or if she had his wretched fur coat to inhale the scent of  -

“ Fuck.  Ah  - ”  He’s gasping for air, breathless.  He must have came when she did.  The frantic, muffled sounds of him stroking his cock are gone.  “  -  I almost ruined this suit because of you.  How am I supposed to go into the meeting now?  Tsk.”  Her thoughts burst like dying stars.  “I should hold you accountable for this.”

Her breasts ache.  Her clit is throbbing.  It’s embarrassing but thinking of him locked in some dark closet in a busy corporate building with his cock out and cum all over his hand because of her is ruining her sanity.

“I’ll  - I’ll owe you a favor,”  she says, still writhing on the bed.

“Good.  I’ll redeem it after I’m done here.”

“What do you want?”

“Keep yourself wet for me,”  he breathes into the phone, and she hears the rustle of fabric and a zipper, then the metal clink of a belt buckle,  “and send me the coordinates of your hotel and the room number.  Are you staying close to a starship port?”

“Yes, but  - ”

“You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”

She bites her tongue and inhales through her nose, squeezing her slick thighs around her hand.  “I hate you.  Never call me again.  I can’t believe we did this.”

“You’re telling me,”  he mutters, though he doesn’t sound truly upset.  Rather, he sounds amused, excited, even.

Her heart is pounding with adrenaline.  Her blood is hot imagining what he looks like, attempting to clean and compose himself in the dusty darkness of some confined space.  He’s in such a state because of her.  He wanted her so badly that he lost control of himself, of his desire for her.

Fingers still moving inside of her cunt, she lets out a soft moan.

“Fuck.  Don’t  - ”  He groans.  “ -  entice  me.  Behave yourself and wait until I’m done here.  Or I will seriously forget this meeting and come fuck you senseless instead.”

She rubs her stiff nipples against the sheets.  “ Aventurine.”

He laughs, dangerous and seductive, and she has to hold her breath to keep from whimpering.

“Enjoying teasing me, are you?  Cute.  I’ll make you pay for this later, rest assured.”

“You’re not very threatening, you know.  So far away.”

“In a playful mood?  How unusual for you.”   His phone is moved around, likely to his other ear or hand.  “Fine.  I’ll let you have your fun.  Just remember, once I’m there  - you’re all mine, and I won’t be leaving until I’m satisfied.  Doing this only made me want you even more.”

His voice is pure sin.  

His promises drip into her like poison.

Closing her eyes, she envisions him behind her, fucking her, pinning her to the bed, pounding his hips against her ass and filling her cunt with his cock.  The shame is heady and she burns hotter, her cunt clenching.  Her palm rubs her clit and she whines.  

Nothing she could do alone or with someone else could compare to Aventurine, damn him.

He’s silent for a time, then,  “you’re still touching yourself, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you have a meeting to go to?”

“How am I supposed to hang up when you’re making such pretty sounds for me?”

Enticing him further, she moans his name into the pillow, muffled, but the sudden inhale he takes tells her he heard it.  It’s maddening and thrilling to know that she has this power over him, like he does over her.

“Topaz.”  He exhales shakily.  “I’m going to end this call.  Then I’ll attend the meeting I’m already late for.  Then I’m taking the first starship to your hotel and coming to you for the favor you owe me.  Leave the door unlocked, yeah?”

Normally she’d be averse to him demanding things from her, but in this situation, she finds it attractive.  “Can you bring some wine?”

“After what you’ve done to me?  I’ll think about it.”

“The one with the gold vines on the label.”

“Mhm.  I know what you like.”   A door handle clicks.  Then there are distant voices and dinging noises.  “So be ready for our affair later, dear coworker.  I expect you to be prepared.”

The forced professionalism of his tone almost makes her laugh.  “Good luck at your meeting.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to concentrate, but thank you.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

He makes some kind of choked, stifled sound.  Close to a swallowed moan, paired with a hushed  fuck  under his breath.  Then the call ends abruptly and she smiles into the pillow, already missing him and his voice.  What an addiction she has.  It’s possessed her in a way she could have never predicted or wanted to begin with.

Not knowing what to do with herself, she lays there and thinks of him.

What a disaster.

Her vision is tinted in hues of pink as she touches herself in his absence.  Her limbs feel as though they’re being pulled on strings controlled by him, each of her movements a consequence of all that he has done to her.  Of every touch.  Of every kiss.  Of every smile directed at her, of every whisper in her ear, only for her to ever hear.

The heat in her core simmers, burns, dripping out in liquid warmth between her thighs onto the mattress.

It’s similar to being intoxicated  - except instead of the numbness of alcohol in her blood, it’s Aventurine flooded in her veins.  Inside her.  Throughout her.  Leaving her squirming and helpless and wanting more of him until she drowns in all that he is.

He said he loves you.

How come he sounded like he meant it?  How did his lie sound like an accidental truth?

The pink is transforming into blue when she hears a knock at the door, taking out of her reverie.  How long has it been?  It couldn’t be -   it certainly couldn’t be him, unless he left the meeting early.  Which he wouldn’t do.  Not for her.  Not simply because he wanted to be with her.

Another knock.  Impatient.  

“I believe I said to leave the door unlocked, did I not?”

It’s his voice.  Oh,  it’s him.

The pinks and blues burst and bloom in her vision.

To sapphire, violet  -

To colors that he looks at her with, that shimmer and glisten in his eyes  - eyes that no one else in the entire universe possesses, that are unique to him.  That have taken control of her completely.  That have become the reason she can’t ever think straight.

Her hand is still covered in her arousal when she rushes to the door, opening it with her clean one.  He’s standing there, out of breath with droplets of sweat on his forehead.  His blonde hair is tousled, wavier than normal.  His suit isn’t as neat and proper as he usually keeps it.  His hat is nowhere to be seen and his glasses are tucked into a pocket.

Two bottles of the wine she asked for are in his hands, with a single fresh, dewy rose that matches the ends of her hair.  

Hiding herself behind the door, because she’s naked, she glares at him,  “Aventurine.  Did you  - ?”

“Jerk myself off in some cramped closet because of you?  Yes.”  He enters the room and shuts the door, then locks it.  His dress shoes and fancy socks come off.  He sets the wine and rose down on a small table then hurriedly sheds his suit jacket.  “Leave that tedious meeting?  Yes.  After I skipped all the small talk and got straight to business, of course.  I wouldn’t leave a deal unfinished.”

Gone is his tie and vest.  Then his shirt.  His golden watch and rings come off, too, some of them clinking onto the floor in his haste.

It’s unfair, how handsome he is.  How he looks so attractive even when she’s sober, when her mind isn’t numb.  It shouldn’t be like this.  It shouldn’t feel so good to know that he’s all hers, that he keeps choosing her, over and over.  He’s made her addicted to the thrill of this unspoken power play they chase after.

Thinking of his compliments of her, of how she rose through the ranks, how she stands with him  - sometimes higher, if their positions fluctuate for special projects.  That she could ask or demand something of him and he’d comply and she’d helplessly do the same for him.

He’s bad for you.

He’s made for you.

Possessiveness isn’t like her, not until it comes to him.  Then she’s no longer herself.  Or, maybe this  - this is her most honest self, and he lures it out of her.  In her wildest dreams, she clings to Aventurine outside of hotel rooms, she’s latched onto his arm and he’s only looking at her as they pass through worlds together, oblivious to anyone but each other.

In her fleeting moments of weakness, of dangerous longing  - he calls her his, and she lets him.  He takes her somewhere far away to a place that is only theirs, where no one will ever find or know of them.

Covering herself with her arms out of a peculiar, sudden sense of  shame, she watches as he bites off his gloves.  “You’re insane.”

He smirks at her, tilting his head knowingly.  “I did say I wouldn’t keep you waiting.”

Relief overwhelms her, mingled with incredulity.

He is insane, but why is she so into it?  Into him?

He’s with her, he came to her, he ran to her, he’s  -

“ Aeons.  I can smell how turned on you are.”  His hands are swiftly undoing his belt buckle as he closes in on her, invading her space until she’s collapsing onto the bed.  “Do you know what you do to me, hm?  Do you have any idea what a problem this is becoming for me?”

Her tongue is heavy in her mouth.  “Aventurine  - ”

He grabs her hand and makes her feel the bulge in his crotch, how hot and swollen his cock is, straining in his pants.  Her face and ears burn with a different kind of heat than what she had felt by herself.  His eyes shut for a moment and he sighs in pleasure.  Her palm squeezes him harder out of impulse.

The emerald feather of his earring sways as he leans down and brushes his lips against hers.  A pendulum to decide the constant beat of her fate, tied to his.  “I missed you.”

“I -  ”  

Choking on the words he stole from her throat, on the edge of crying in bliss at having him with her, she smiles with what feels like the final breath she’ll ever taste in her lungs.

“I missed you too.”