Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Hey! Watch it!”

Ratio gives him an exasperated look. “I have to measure your blood pressure before we begin. We can’t risk-”

“Seriously?!” Aventurine scoffs as Ratio tightens the device around his arm again. “Doc, this is the most ridiculous STI assessment of my life.”

Ratio’s lips press into a thin, unimpressed line. “Stop agitating yourself. You’ll disrupt the readings.”

“Stop agitating myself?” Aventurine repeats. “There’s a dildo in my ass.”

“And I’m sure that’s quite unfamiliar for you,” Ratio drawls sarcastically. “You agreed to aid this experiment,” he points out as he takes his readings.

And yes, Aventurine did. Mainly because the thought of anyone studying sex is so fascinatingly weird to him that he wants to be here to see Ratio’s mad science… And also maybe because the thought of Ratio studying sex with someone else made him anxious. Ratio is so easy to take advantage of, despite his smarts. He’s just so stupidly good-intentioned.

… And Aventurine needs him of sound mind for the IPC’s future endeavours, of course. That’s what he’s anxious about. Losing a reliable business partner to some scheme.

“Well you made a pretty compelling case about my suitability,” Aventurine grouses, instead of admitting that. “Really Doctor, I’ve never been called a slut with such big words before.” He deserves it. He is a slut. That’s why he can sit here, utterly naked in front of his fully clothed colleague, and smirk up at him. It’s armour of a kind, a breastplate he was hammered and tempered to fit into.

Ratio sighs, removing the device from Aventurine’s arm. “And you’re so proud of it too. As I explained, you happen to be the only person I am on speaking terms with who is quite so… what’s the colloquial phrase? ‘Up for anything’?”

“What, don’t want the other doctors to see you doing your freaky sex research?” Aventurine taunts.

Ratio simply rolls his eyes. “You’re also the only person who could give such riveting feedback while strapped to a sex toy.”

Yeah, well… training, Aventurine thinks to himself, but he doesn’t quip. It’s too honest, and it’s not worth the reward. Ratio has already proven he’s not going to get embarrassed about his off the record research.

After all, he didn’t stutter when he asked Aventurine to “Test the responses of the human body to prolonged arousal and engorgement of the something, something, latin." He didn’t hesitate when he invited Aventurine into his home lab, and he didn’t blush when Aventurine immediately began stripping. In fact, he curtly asked if Aventurine wanted to prepare himself or be prepared by him.

He didn’t so much as cringe when Aventurine laid eyes on the contraption and shot him a gleeful, scandalised look.

Aventurine has seen machines like this before. He wishes he hadn’t, but he wishes a lot about his life. There’s a black ‘seat’ elevated slightly off the ground for a user to sit astride, with a pale dildo protruding from it. (Ratio, comically thoughtful, has put a condom on it.) Aventurine’s feet touch the ground easily. There’s room to stand, to escape the dildo. There are straps on the side – currently holding Aventurine tight to the seat. They’re not knots or bondage, and his arms are unbound. The straps are there to catch you, to stop you from crashing to the ground when if the machine breaks you.

So Ratio’s machine is already different from the ones he’s been placed in before. Of course it is. Ratio wants to conduct an experiment, not punish him. But the familiar machinery still sends him back there. Back to the anvil.

Aventurine refocuses his gaze.

A sort of ‘handlebar’ is at head height with the user sitting on the machine. To lean on. Aventurine almost rolls his eyes just looking at the thing. Ratio’s ridiculous kindness. But it’s weighted to the ground by another device, a black box with a cock sleeve protruding from it. Aventurine’s soft cock sits inside this. He put it in himself. Ratio has been remarkably hands off. Respectful in a way that made Aventurine want to bite him.

Except for now, with various gadgets he’s hooked up to Aventurine. He’d applied each one of them with precise, careful hands. They didn’t linger, didn’t unprofessionally caress no matter how much Aventurine wanted them to. There are white sensor patches spanning up and down his torso, on his thighs too, things looped around his arm. All of them are connected to various machines by long, wrinkled wires.

It's remarkably unsexy, and Aventurine is desensitised – physically at least - to thick, impersonal weights in his ass. The sensation is almost boring. So he doesn’t even wriggle as Ratio stands. “I’ll make a note of your vitals before we start, to be compared with those from the duration and the aftermath.”

Then he’s gone, crossing the short distance to his desk and computers, and he takes all the air in the room with him.

It’s not- He doesn’t- Aventurine doesn’t like Ratio. Doesn’t trust him, doesn’t trust anyone. But… There’s a difference between being sat in this thing with his rude colleague right next to him, bickering like it’s any other day, and being sat in this thing alone. One could only be happening in the present. The other could be a memory.

It is a memory.

Aventurine shifts. Suddenly, this doesn’t feel like such a good idea. Too cruel even for him and his penchant for taking pleasure and hurting himself with it. He clears his throat, just to remind himself he can speak, that it’s allowed. “So how long am I going to be in this thing?”

“Until you’ve had enough, or an hour passes. Whichever happens first,” Ratio says with utter disinterest. He fiddles with his devices with one hand and makes notes with the other. He does not spare Aventurine so much as a glance. It’s calming, actually, how clinical Ratio is. The contrast between his detached manner and the weight of the dildo in his ass is bizarre, almost comical. It’s so odd, so Ratio, in the worst and best ways. Nobody else would truly be interested in the science of this and nothing else.

If anyone else tried to strap Aventurine down to a machine like this again he’d bite and claw his way off it… Then he’d probably get back on it and torture himself, but that’s different. That’s him giving himself what he deserves, the best feeling he can get these days. Anyone else would be using him, would be trying to mould him into another shape where the angles don’t add up. They’d be leering and drooling.

Ratio isn’t like anybody else.

Aventurine considers him for a moment. He’s utterly engrossed with his instruments, eyes flicking rapidly from screen to screen. Then he looks over at his notes and makes more markings with a pencil – wherever he got such a thing from. Ratio’s brow pinches with concentration and his hair falls over his eyes, hiding them from Aventurine.

“You have a perfect heart,” Ratio says softly.

Aventurine’s ears ring. He almost chokes on air as his whole body tenses up, accidentally gripping the dildo. “What?” He fights through the tingling sensation, focused on the words he surely didn’t hear correctly.

Ratio finally glances up at him. He looks nonplussed. “Your resting heart rate, your blood pressure. We could use it as an example of a perfectly healthy heart.”

“Oh.” Aventurine is disappointed, and then furious with himself for the disappointment. He swallows the emotion down, masks it with a bored yawn. “Are we almost ready to start Doctor? It’s cold over here.” And he needs a harsh reminder of what he is, a punishment for the way his heart fluttered just then. He needs to submerge again. At least there he knows his place, the limits of what he can have.

Ratio sighs. “Alright, alright. If you’re that eager to debase yourself.” He turns to the screen connected to the machine, not Aventurine. “Both attachments have a vibrator function. It should kick in once you’re fully aroused. When you feel yourself getting close, tell me. We’ll attach the ring.” He spares Aventurine one more detached glance. “Remember, we can stop whenever you’ve had enough… But do try to last the hour. The more data we can collect. the better.”

The hour will pass first. Aventurine doesn’t think he’s capable of having enough, between the way his body craves sex like a killing drug or the memory of what asking for mercy gets you. But Ratio doesn’t know that, doesn’t know any of it, and Aventurine would rather die than tell him. So he nods and braces himself. Ratio stares at him for a moment – almost a hesitation – and then clicks something and sits back to watch.

The dildo comes to life with slow, gentle thrusts, like it’s feeling its way. Aventurine shifts on the seat, breathing through his teeth at the shift of pressure. The cock sleeve simply sits there, a slick tunnel keeping him warm.

The dildo is thick. It was easier to ignore when it was still. Now it grinds against his walls and retreats, and every time it does Aventurine is made keenly aware of the space it carved for itself, of the loss of weight. His breath picks up. Across the room, Ratio makes a note. Aventurine rolls his eyes-

And immediately does so again, his eyelids fluttering this time, as the cock sleeve begins to move and suckle at him. Like someone’s taken him into their mouth. Like he’s buried deep in someone and they’re thrusting their hips back, clenching and unclenching, begging him to fuck them harder. Aventurine is helpless to it. He so rarely gets to… Well. People look at him and assume, and he’s in the business of trading people the things they want.

His cock fills quickly from the unfamiliar sensation, from getting any attention from something other than Aventurine’s own hand. Ratio used too much lube on the damn thing. It’s wet, hot, and oh so perfect. He pants harshly, hands clenching into fists.

“Is it comfortable?” Ratio asks, breaking through the haze of pleasure. Aventurine laughs, and then that laugh turns into a choked moan as the dildo and cock sleeve begin to vibrate.

His body lurches, hips jerking forward to escape the sudden onslaught only to jerk backwards again as that grinds the sensitive head of his cock against the walls of the sleeve. The noise he makes is sharp, quick, and honest.

Ratio says something but Aventurine doesn’t even hear him as the dildo begins to rotate, constantly moving. He can’t predict when the vibrations are going to hit his prostate, when it’s going to grind into his walls or pull back and leave him wanting. The sleeve ripples around his cock. It’s see-through in places. He can watch his cock and the sleeve work together, churning the lube, how it bubbles as the sleeve vibrates faster.

He's panting before he’s ready to be that gone, leaning forward and gripping those embarrassing handlebars for purchase. It helps to hold something, to remember his hands aren’t bound even though part of him wishes they were.

He’s so caught up in pleasure he doesn’t hear Ratio approaching. Stupid. Careless. Dangerous.

A hand touches his hair. Aventurine rears back, bracing to be struck across the face. Instead he finds Ratio standing there, pushing his hair out of his eyes and holding a ring in his other hand. “Time to put this on I think,” Ratio says, and then both hands are on Aventurine’s cock.

Aventurine exhales through his nose, holds back the noises the machine is trying to force from him, and tells himself he will not come from Ratio’s fingers around the base of him. He will not think about it later. Will not fantasize about Ratio pushing the sleeve away and taking him in hand, stroking him to completion in real, hot, human hands. He stays completely still, even as the vibrations pulse through him, as Ratio fits the cock ring.

Ratio pulls away and nods, satisfied. Aventurine, finally safe to react again, whines in the back of his throat.

Ratio stays at his side. “Is it that good?” He asks, after a long, intense staring session.

“It’s-” Aventurine shudders, clenching around the dildo as it grazes his prostate but doesn’t quite get it. “It’s so-” The cock sleeve buzzes even faster now. Surely this is the highest speed. “Fuck, Ratio,” he moans breathily, and tells himself he wasn’t moaning Ratio’s name but cursing him.

Ratio inhales sharply. Aventurine doesn’t hear it because the dildo bullies its way back inside of him and nails his prostate this time and- and-

“Ngh-!” Aventurine smothers his distressed cry in his hand as the machine stops immediately. His cock pulses in the ring, in the sleeve. The dildo retreats just far enough that he can’t even grind it into his prostate anymore. He shivers, twitching because he’s right there and it would only take the smallest touch, the slightest graze.

Ratio watches him for another moment. Aventurine, panting raggedly, hunched over, looks up at him from beneath his fringe. Ratio is unreadable at the best of times, and Aventurine has no idea what he’s thinking. So his brain helpfully fills it in.

Miserable little whore.

Ratio turns on his heel without saying anything and goes back to his machines and notes. He scribbles down results from the screen with rapt attention and leaves Aventurine, envious, marinating in the aftermath of his denied orgasm.

The room is silent, without Ratio’s voice or the buzzing of the machines. There’s room to breathe, room to think. Room for miserable little whores to feel their aching, denied cock, and remember.

This is how it felt. No. This is how it feels. Pleasure that never peaks. Aventurine knows, terribly, what comes next. Those machines rev to life again and push him back to ecstasy, and then they wrench it away again. It goes on and on until his eyes roll back into his head, until he’s sobbing. Until he begs for the climax he said he didn't want, promises to do things he swore he would never do if they just let him come please, please Aeons, please I can’t take it I’ll be good I’ll do anything.

This is the anvil. This is the burning, destructive forge. Begging for a mercy he swore he wouldn’t ask for and then begging for death when it didn’t come.

“Doctor,” Aventurine grits out through his teeth, defiant. “Speak to me.”

For a moment Ratio says nothing. Aventurine holds in noises and keeps his eyes closed, because if he opens them and he’s dreamed these years of his life...

“About what?” Ratio asks, puzzled but calm.

It brings him back again. Back to the present, to Ratio’s piercing, assessing gaze, to the weight of instruments attached to him for monitoring his health, to keep him safe. Aventurine shudders with the resurfacing. He hangs his head as his eyes open. It’s too much – false security and pleasure flaring helplessly to life in his veins. He wants to go back under even as the wave of relief hits him.

“I don’t know Doc,” he sighs, reluctant for anymore comfort than the barest confirmation that Ratio is there. “You’re the smart guy. Tell me… tell me about your research.”

Ratio hums to himself, and the dildo hums to life again beneath Aventurine. He slumps forward, resting his head on Ratio’s stupid, thoughtful handlebars and biting back a groan. Beneath his head, his cock twitches in the sleeve.

“Well,” Ratio begins. “To speak truth, it’s hardly my desired area of research. I’m doing this for the Guild. Or, more accurately, for some idiot in the guild who proposed the idea but was too afraid of scandal to pursue the research. I cannot tolerate the loss of potential scientific gains for one man’s puritan sensibilities. But it’s at least unfamiliar enough to me that I’m not completely bored.”

Aventurine hates the way his shoulders relax as he listens to Ratio talk. But he listens, more to Ratio’s voice than the words he speaks, and anchors himself as the cock sleeve begins to buzz, pushing him back towards that peak he won’t be allowed to tumble over.

“Of course the basic science of denied orgasms is well agreed upon,” Ratio continues, sounding almost bored. It makes Aventurine shiver, in a good way. “But people are so obsessed with reputation and politeness that actual data on live subjects is difficult to come by.”

Come. Aventurine licks his lips. His hips jerk into the cock sleeve’s torturous massage. He’s not supposed to chase his own pleasure. He’s supposed to take what is given. But no, that's the past. This is now, and he's got the blood on his hands and his conscience to prove it. Ratio is here, lecturing him the same way he always does, and he can do whatever the fuck he wants. So he humps the cock sleeve and silences the internal command to be still. He fights. Aeons, Aventurine is tired of fighting.

“It doesn’t hurt to…” Ratio pauses. Aventurine fights through the heavy fog to raise his head. Ratio is staring at him, watching him fuck the sleeve. It’s so hard to focus with the vibrations around his cock, against his walls, but through his hazy eyes he thinks Ratio’s eyes are darker than usual.

Ratio averts his eyes to his notes and clears his throat. “To expand the available data. It improves the accuracy of the conclusions.”

“Conclusion, yeah,” Aventurine whines, quietly, as the dildo thrusts harder, nailing his prostate. “Am I – ah! – ‘m I good data, Doctor?”

“… Very good data,” Ratio affirms, and Aventurine squirms, trying to fuck himself back on the dildo. “You’re doing very well.”

Aventurine hates, despises, that it’s those words that push him so close to the edge that he can almost touch it. Pathetic, empty praise that he doesn’t deserve, that hits him like lightning.

(“Good boy,” they crooned, saccharine, full of laughter and promising misery.)

Ratio scribbles more notes as the machines halt and Aventurine exhales – more shout than breath - and remembers that Ratio might mock, but he doesn't lie. Not even on his taxes, though Aventurine has been trying to teach him. His praise is always genuine. “2 edges already,” Ratio notes. “That’s excellent.”

“How- How much longer till the hour?”

Ratio licks his lips. Or maybe Aventurine imagines it. “Another 45 minutes.”

Oh. That’s embarrassing.

And what’s more embarrassing is how it goes on, is how Aventurine loses himself in it. Until he’s thrusting back against the dildo and moaning with every breath, head thrown back and hands shaking too hard to grip the handles anymore. Nothing more than a sex-crazed, desperate thing. And he's proud of it. Machines like this were supposed to subdue him, to teach him to be quiet and withstand. Now he rides it eagerly, taking his pleasure with little regard to what anyone (Ratio) thinks of his loud moans.

There’s almost no gap between peaks now. It’s just a constant edge that defies time. The hour could have passed, days could have passed, and Aventurine wouldn’t know the difference. The machines whir to life for seconds rather than minutes and then stop, leaving his cock throbbing in the soaking sleeve. Everything beneath his waist aches.

Aventurine screams when they pause again. His cock is red and painful, raw from stimulation but still twitching for more. His abused prostate aches in sympathy, the two of them pulse with his racing heart.

“Another edge,” Ratio notes aloud. He makes his notes slower now, looking more at Aventurine than the computers. “We have time to reach one more, with how sensitive you are now.” His voice is strained, maybe because of how much he’s been talking. Aventurine would suck his cock right now if he asked. Not even asked. If he just presented it, slapped it wetly against his cheek. Aventurine would open his mouth obediently. He wants to make Ratio feel this good, this awful, too. He wants touch.

“Hit me,” Aventurine slurs.

“No,” Ratio says, curt and unbothered. Aventurine has asked him for a lot of fucked up things in the last forty minutes. Maybe Ratio thinks he’s rambling nonsense. Maybe Ratio thinks a whore that gets off on being edged by a machine doesn’t deserve to get what he wants.

Aventurine doesn’t care. He takes the thing that was used against him and masters it. He moans like a whore until it’s a title, not an insult. He floats, absent from his painful body and life. He watches himself and feels sick with disgust. Aventurine hates it and loves it. Pleasure is always like that for him – sex or any other kind. He never knows if he’s hurting himself or helping himself until it’s over.

Before he can think himself into more spirals, the machine whirs to life again. Aventurine doubles over, hands scrabbling uselessly at the seat as he slumps, held up by the leg restraints. His desperate moan is almost painful in his raw throat. He’s the toy, not the machine. A helpless vessel that it thrusts into and sucks on, playing with his weak body.

(“Nice and obedient now it’s too tired to move, isn’t it?”)

Aventurine moans louder just to shake off the memory, just to make a point that he can be as annoying as he wants now.

The squelching of the sleeve is disgusting. Pre-cum and lube leak from the top, coating his cock and that damn ring in filth. It’s wet and sloppy, and the way it ripples around Aventurine’s cock is so exquisite, so cruel, that he sobs, moaning wetly.

It doesn’t take long to get to the edge again. Drool spills from his mouth as the dildo rotates, grinding into his prostate like it wants to punch a hole in him. He pants desperately. It’s so good, but it’s going to get ripped away, and just the thought of it puts tears in his eyes.

“… Ratio,” he pants out as he fucks the sleeve. He needs his grounding rod. (Needs Ratio’s rod, he thinks to himself half-hysterically.) Normally he would die before asking Ratio for anything, let alone begging him. He’d never expose his weakness. But this is what they do with these machines. They keep you on the edge until you’ll do anything, even things you swore you’d never do, just to come. “Ratio please.”

Ratio stirs, alert suddenly. “You want to stop?”

“Wan- Aghhh! Ha!” The dildo rotates. “W-Wanna come!”

Ratio considers him for a minute. Aventurine’s vision blurs, but he can feel the weight of Ratio’s stare. Finally, the Doctor comes to a conclusion. He clicks his tongue. “We’re almost done, then you can-”

“Noooooo,” Aventurine whines, desperately trying to resist the vibrations, the dildo that fucks into him like he’s the cock sleeve. He’s going to break if he doesn’t come. Again. And for a second he does, and he forgets where he is, that he can stop this whenever he wants. He's back on the anvil. Back where he broke before. “Please. Please, pleashe lemme come,” he slurs. "Anything. I'll do anyyyyyy- ohhhh FUCK!" He thrashes on the seat as the sleeve milks the head of his cock. It's too good. It's too fucking good. He'll be good. He'll be anything to make it stop. No. Not stop, his edge drunk brain begs. Never stop. Keep going and going and going until he comes. Until he comes so hard, so many times that he can't anymore. Fuck just the thought of it makes his thighs clench around the machine, humping it like a desperate animal. He won't be allowed to come. He knows this, but he can't stop himself chasing his pleasure, can't think of anything else. He barely remembers his own name. All he knows is that he needs to come.

He whimpers."Pleeeeeashe! I can't! I- I can't!!" Can't come can't take it can't remember why he ever resisted something that feels this good.

Ratio inhales sharply. His hand clenches in a fist around his pencil. It brings Aventurine back to the surface again. He can't break. Whatever Ratio - optimistic and sickeningly well intentioned - pieces him back together into will be softer, weaker, vulnerable. Someone else will come along and hurt him.

But then. “You can wait,” Ratio finally says. “You’re not an animal, are you?”

Aventurine shivers, the right part of his brain scratched by those words. That’s it. If Ratio keeps itching there, maybe he can hold on. He forces his thick tongue to form the right syllables again. “Yeah… Yeah, yeah, yeah! Ohhhh be mean to me Doctor."

There’s another pause while Aventurine shivers. Then Ratio puts his pencil down and emerges from behind his desk. “Is that what you want?” Aventurine nods furiously. It will make him feel worse, which is what makes him feel better.

Ratio approaches him. There are measured, careful clicks against the polished tile of his lab floor, and a backdrop of Aventurine’s desperate whimpers. “Would you like to hear how embarrassing you look right now? How whoreish?”

Aventurine can’t get the words past his thick tongue so he just nods eagerly. This, he knows what to do with. The cruel words that he’s twisted into pleasure, weapons thrown at him that he’s picked up for himself.

“You’re a mess you know.” Ratio stands next to him, watching as he squirms on the seat. His chin tilts up with arrogant disgust. “Covered in drool and sweat. Do you really like this so much? Being fucked stupid by a machine?”

Aventurine gasps at the curse. He’s never heard it from Ratio before.

“And as if the rest of you wasn’t shameful enough,” Ratio continues, “you like it when I tell you how vulgar you are?”

Ratio’s scolding rings in his ears. The dildo fucks him harder, faster. The sleeve jerks him off in wet, sloppy thrusts. He’s a mess. Ratio will never respect him again. But he doesn’t care because nobody respects him anyway, and Aventurine is right there, right there, so fucking close, if Ratio would just let him -

Ratio leans in, his breath brushing Aventurine’s ear. “Would it have the opposite effect, then,” he whispers, “if I told you how stunning it is to watch your vitals spike when your orgasm is denied? If I told you how the machines light up like a dying star?” Ratio’s hand trails down his sweaty, bare stomach. The slight touch is overwhelming after so long without. It pins Aventurine in the present. “Would it stop your orgasm, Gambler, if I told you how beautiful you are right now?”

Aventurine makes a noise that he couldn’t begin to describe.

With one hand, Ratio unclasps the ring. With the other, he fiddles with the machine’s settings. The dildo moves faster, churning him, fucking him so hard Aventurine jolts with it. The sleeve – impossibly, Aventurine was sure this was the worst it could be – vibrates harder.

Aventurine howls.

“That’s it,” Ratio praises, or maybe instructs. Not the mocking, sadistic clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer, but the gentle encouragement of a professor.

He tries to bear it. He doesn’t want to come with Ratio’s praise in his ear, doesn’t want to come with false hope and softness and the proof that it doesn’t have to be so…. But the sleeve is just milking him, the dildo is bullying his prostate, almost violently, and he’s been denied for so long. His cock aches for release. He fucks the sleeve furiously, even as he bites his lips and tries so hard to fight.

As he begins to tip over, he tries to stand, to push himself away from the pleasure. But his legs are shaking and he slips, which only thrusts the dildo harder into him, only buries his cock deeper into the sleeve. And to make matters worse Ratio catches him, saves him from bruising his ass on the fall. The warm, human touch after an hour of nothing but the cold machine is like a brand on his skin. Aventurine gasps past the one on his throat.

“Beautiful,” Ratio repeats in his ear.

Aventurine comes in Ratio’s arms, with Ratio’s praise in his ear and a desperate, humiliated, ecstatic cry on his lips. He throws his head back, or maybe his neck goes limp, his head lolling onto Ratio’s shoulder. For a moment his vision whites out, his eyes rolling back into his head and his ears ringing like a bomb has gone off. His whole body goes taut, every muscle lighting up in ecstasy. Finally. Finally. His cum spills out of the sleeve, making its wet noises even sloppier. So much pre-cum and denial, finally leaking free. It drips onto the lube and spit that splatters the floor.

Aventurine’s desperate cry tapers off into even more desperate little “ah, ah, ah”s, as the sleeve keeps vibrating, keeps milking him through every second of his orgasm. The dildo stops thrusting but keeps grinding, keeps vibrating and rotating right against his prostate until he’s spouting gibberish and shaking like a leaf. “Ra- Ngh! Ah! Ratio! P-Please!” He’s not sure if he’s begging for it to keep going or for it to stop.

Ratio stares at him like he’s a fascinating formula he’s trying to unravel, or those dying stars. Aventurine feels like one as he quivers. Any second now he could explode. He can barely make out Ratio’s face.

Ratio, still holding Aventurine upright, messes with more buttons. The machine stops. Aventurine slumps even further into his arms as the room goes blissfully, wonderfully quiet. For a few minutes neither of them moves. Aventurine pants and realises, distantly, that Ratio is breathing heavily too.

Sticky. That’s the first conscious thought Aventurine has. He’s so sticky, and tired. He groans, trying to pull away from the wetness of the cock sleeve. He only manages to shuffle an inch before he moans and goes limp in Ratio’s arms again. More cum and lube spills from the sleeve.

Ratio shushes him. “Stay still a moment. Catch your breath.”

“… Ratio,” Aventurine breathes. Ratio turns to look at him. Like this they’re close enough to kiss, closer than Aventurine likes to get to anyone. Ratio is flushed. His eyes drop to Aventurine’s lips and linger.

“Yes?” He breathes his question across Aventurine’s mouth. For a second, just a second, anything could happen. Roll of the dice. Change your life.

Then he remembers who he is. He remembers the terrible power of Ratio’s praise. He remembers how much was taken from him the last time he was in one of these machines, how horrible it would be to have something that could be taken away from him again. The only advantage a gambler can ever have, is having nothing left to lose.

Aventurine swallows and adjusts the mask the vibrations have shaken loose. “Get this thing out of my ass.”

Ratio blinks. He seems to suddenly remember where he is, what he’s doing. Awkwardly, he nods and starts to pull away. He quickly undoes the straps and detaches the wires. “Yes, of course. I’ve prepared the aftercare regime detailed in the ethical disclosure pamphlet.”

“The what?” Aventurine asks, wincing as Ratio carefully lifts him off the machine.

“The-” Ratio glowers at him. It’s undercut by the blush on his face. “Did you not read any of the materials I provided? Did you agree to this without due diligence? You- You… Gambler!”

Aventurine grins, fond and too tired to stop himself. It’s hard not to feel lazy and satisfied as Ratio scoops him up in his arms, carrying him like a weightless cat. He rests his sweaty head on Ratio’s chest and listens to a – racing – heart. The praise was a test, and he has passed.

Primary Hypothesis: Orgasm denial or 'edging' produces biological responses in subjects in line with the results of previously cited studies.

Secondary Hypothesis: Prolonged denial of orgasm will produce psychological benefits in subject. Drawing out the release of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin will allow for greater honesty and relaxation.

Data: -Several more pages of Veritas Ratio’s handwriting-
Note – All computer data wiped.

Conclusion 1: First Hypothesis correct. Second Hypothesis incorrect. Regrettably.

Conclusion 2: Aventurine is beautiful.

New Hypothesis: Veritas Ratio is in love.

New Hypothesis: Veritas Ratio is a foolish, sentimental coward.

Further Steps: Observation. Patience. Self-discipline.