Chapter Text
Reality, some time later
“ Then you ask a different question.”
— — — ℜ — — —
There is a man in the corner of the hotel lobby, scowling as he scans the crowd. His body language radiates irritation and exhaustion, enough that most people avoid meeting his piercing amber gaze. The last few hours have not been kind to Veritas Ratio, briefly trapping him in a horrifically large group chat and ensuring the time he spent on the Radiant Feldspar was wasted chasing down another Fool’s attempt at a game. They are not nearly as bad as the experiences of certain other parties, of that he is sure; but his day is about to get worse. He has finally found his target.
The Memokeeper emerges from the crowd like a shark swimming through a school of fish. “You seem displeased, doctor. I expected you to be relieved that so many pieces fell into place at the end,” she observes.
“What will it cost to return his memories?” Veritas demands, making no attempt to police his body language or his tone.
Black Swan hums, unbothered. “You care about his happiness, do you not?”
There is a reason he wears a plaster mask so much of the time. The professor’s expression reveals every complex, vulnerable emotion before he can school it back into a scowl.
“You’re evading my question. I asked you, what will it cost?”
She pulls up the remains of the Dream Bubble with a twist of her hand. “Eleven times he led you three to bloody defeat. And every time he was the last to die. Surely, he deserves to forget that.”
“Then you should take mine as well.” Veritas throws a look of his own over his shoulder at Aventurine where he bickers harmlessly with Topaz at the front desk. “It feels… cruel to be the only one to remember.”
“Ah. I see. A man of reciprocity.” Black Swan’s ever-present smile softenes. “I cannot go back on my deal with our dear friend. Not for anything you could give me.”
He watches the Stonehearts talk among themselves, lost in his own memories of failures, of missed chances, of yet another time he came up short. Couldn't shield him from Sunday, couldn't undo Order’s dream, couldn't even reclaim his lost memories.
“You still saved him, you know,” Black Swan says.
Veritas freezes. Were his thoughts so obvious?
“Your letter helped him keep moving in the sea of Nihility,” she continues, “and let him wake up again. Perhaps you could not destroy the Dream, but you helped save one life. That is significant.”
Veritas snorts but does not argue that point.
“There is truly nothing I can barter with?” he asks again.
The Memokeeper draws her tarot deck and shuffles the cards once more, pulling the card from the top and handing it over.
“Memories are never truly lost. Even the tightest lock will open with the right key.”
An illustration of Robin appears on the card; and as his fingers brush the surface, a song enters his mind with jazzy trumpets and a sweet, familiar refrain. At his touch it dissolves in a cloud of bubbles.
When they clear, Black Swan is gone, leaving him to fall into step behind the Stonehearts as they board their ship home.
— — — ℜ — — —
After his own debriefing by Jade, Veritas finds himself standing in front of the door to Aventurine’s private cabin, a bottle in one hand, a stack of shot glasses in the other, and a record under his arm. He raps on the door with his knuckles, takes a step back and waits.
Aventurine opens the door with a plastic smile that falters into shock as he takes in his visitor. “Uh. Hello?”
“Good afternoon. I need to ask you a few questions. I believe framing it as a drinking game will make the experience more enjoyable for you, will it not?”
“What. The fuck, Ratio.”
His confidence, which he had been working very hard to shore up, begins to dissolve. Veritas lowers his gifts. “A simple no would suffice. This hardly justifies such profanity.”
“That’s not— get in here,” Aventurine splutters, shutting the door behind them both and taking off his glasses. He looks younger without them, the dark circles under his impossible eyes more pronounced. “I’m just surprised. You don't like to drink.”
“I do not,” Veritas concedes. “But you do.”
Aventurine steps into Veritas’ personal space, studying him, reaching a hand up to brush his hair out of his eyes and— yanks.
The resulting yelp is undignified, and Veritas leans back with a glare. “That hurt.”
“Sorry. Had to make sure it was the real you and not that Fool Sparkle.”
They sit on either side of a little table underneath one window, stars streaming past them as the ship takes them far away from Penacony. Veritas sets the record down on the empty chair and pours the shots, hand only shaking a little, as Aventurine leans back and watches him with his chin in one hand.
“Need I state the rules?” Veritas prods, concealing his unease with his typical acerbic tone.
“Just to make sure we’re on the same page, doc.”
Veritas clears his throat. “One person asks a question. If the other cannot or will not answer truthfully, they take a shot. Then it is their turn to ask. I shall start.”
Aventurine sweeps a hand between them, indicating the metaphorical floor is his.
“How… are you feeling,” his tongue is thick in his mouth, his words uncharacteristically uncertain, “after your encounter with Acheron?”
His companion starts to lift the cup to his lips with a wry smile.
Veritas continues with a carefully softened tone. “Please.”
Aventurine looks up and lowers the glass. “Different,” he starts. “I’m not being vague on purpose, Ratio, it's just… I feel hollow. And old. And hopeless.” He rubs the heel of his hand along one cheek. “I don't know what part of that is IX and what’s everything that happened before that. Sunday’s interrogation brought up a lot of nasty memories.”
If they had still been in the dream, Veritas could have done something about the misery on his companion’s face; a touch, a reassurance, a distraction. As they have woken up, he has to watch Aventurine rebuild his mask in real time and mourn the retreat of the man underneath.
“My turn,” says Aventurine, recovered enough to smirk. “Was it worth it to sell me out to Sunday?”
“No.” Veritas crosses his arms. “That deluded zealot never sent me the files on the Stellaron he promised before he ended up in custody.”
Aventurine snorts, amusement giving his cheeks a warm glow. “It's fun to hear you insult someone who isn't me.”
“Another reason why you should attend one of my lectures sometime. Assuming you can sit in the back and refrain from being disruptive, of course,” he adds.
“Maybe one day.” Aventurine chuckles. “Next question, doc.”
There is a script he needs to follow, a road he needs to walk again; mistakes he made he must rectify, and trust he must earn. Veritas weighs his words carefully like ingredients for a reaction, and speaks with surety this time.
“What do you remember from when Acheron’s blade cut into you and when you awoke?”
“None of these are gonna be fun, huh?” He gives a wry smile. “I’ll answer, but I want a shot anyway.”
Veritas raises an eyebrow but withholds his protests. Aventurine tosses back the drink and exhales slowly, melting into his seat.
“It was cold. Dark. Every step I took was through shallow water that never seemed to get my socks wet but still splashed every time I moved. On the horizon there was a— blindingly bright sun perpetually blocked by the darkness. The shadow of IX, I think.”
He stares out into space beside them, his eyes empty just as they had before.
“I walked for— I don't know how long. Days. Months. Years. It was hard to tell if I was making progress or even going the right way, it was always just… shallow, dirty water and that blotted out sun. I tried to drown myself in it, once, but it wasn't deep enough to do that, either. So I kept walking.”
“And then?”
Aventurine tilts his head up, squinting at the ceiling. “A Knight of Beauty woke me up, and I…”
He blinks, his eyes suddenly turning into empty, blue-tinted mirrors, as though they had been turned into Memoria.
“... I waited for you to join me. And don’t think I didn’t notice that extra question, Ratio. That’s your third one and you only poured six shots.”
His last question is the most important one. Veritas pours two more glasses. “Eight. Four questions each. Your turn.
The Stoneheart stretches his legs out under the table, barely avoiding kicking Veritas in the shins. “How did you learn about Dormancy, anyway?”
“A member of the Bloodhounds was a little careless with some of their documents. I took the opportunity to read it while I was waiting for my first audience with Sunday.” Strange. He feels like he remembers talking to someone about it, too.
“Did you steal?!”
“I have made my aversion to knowledge being locked behind university doors and paywalls very clear,” he replies, stone-faced, enjoying the shock and spreading delight on his companion’s features. “Opening a locked cabinet door and returning the document minutes later is hardly an act of larceny.”
Aventurine cackles, throwing his head back on a full-bodied, genuine laugh that has Veritas’ own expression softening.
“Qlipoth’s tits, ” he wheezes when he finally comes down. “You really gotta say shit like this in meetings. No one else believes me when I say that you’re funny.”
Veritas almost asks about that — you speak fondly of me to others? — but catches himself just in time. “Three and two. Next question.”
“Hey, now, look at all this liquor going to waste!” Aventurine gestures at the little glasses between them. “You gotta have at least one. I’ll even join you.”
He raises a glass. Veritas stares at it.
“Those are not the rules.”
“We’ve broken enough rules this weekend anyway. What's one more in a game of our own making?”
He raises an eyebrow and pushes the issue just because he can. “You are aware that we did not exclude rhetorical questions as questions, and that may very well be your—”
“So you’re drinking no matter what, great, now cheers me.”
Their glasses clink together in a toast, a little liquid sloshing over the rim of Aventurine’s cup. Veritas tosses his back and it’s horrible, burning like pure ethanol all the way down. He coughs, shaking his head as the fumes run through his nasal passages.
“That is disgusting. ”
“You’re just out of practice. I’ll help you shop for a smoother one next time.” This time, when Aventurine’s foot meets his leg under the table, it’s deliberate. “Your last question.”
Veritas takes a moment to gather his composure (scraping it off the floor, as he gags again from the aftertaste of the liquor) and his eyes fall on the record beside him.
“I had an encounter with a Memokeeper at the Reverie, and it made me… curious about something.”
Aventurine raises an eyebrow. “Before I die of old age here.”
“If you could forget your past, both the painful parts and the kinder ones, would you?”
The Stoneheart sits back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. He takes another shot, but it does not seem like his response so Veritas continues to wait, silence stretching out between them.
“No,” Aventurine says at last. “No, I’d— I’d keep them. As horrible as some of them were, they made me… well, me. Forgetting them wouldn't absolve me or anyone else of their crimes. The dead would still be dead.”
He blinks, trying and failing to conceal the miserable glassy cast to his expression. “Well, I don't have any more questions so I’m gonna finish the rest of these and try to take a nap— hey!”
Veritas snatches the next glass and tosses it back, the rim clacking against his teeth, and coughing again as it goes down. “No,” he manages, shaking his head against the alcohol’s effects. It is rancid and uncomfortable and he despises the way it makes him feel less in control. “That is too much for someone of your size.”
“My size? I can drink you under the— stop, stop, you’re gonna make yourself sick, doc!” Aventurine’s palm slams the next glass back down onto the table, preventing Veritas from drinking it as well. “Fine. No one drinks the last two. We’ll pour them back into the bottle.”
“And I am taking the bottle with me.”
“And you're taking the bottle with you. Sheesh.”
Veritas manages to stop coughing by the time Aventurine pours the last two shots back into the bottle, head swimming only a little. The memory of his mission grounds him, and he retrieves the record.
“A gift,” he says as he holds it in Aventurine’s field of view. “Listen to it when you are ready.”
The Stoneheart accepts it, expression askew with confusion. “One of Robin’s older albums? Um. Thanks?”
“You are welcome. And thank you as well,” he adds as he rises from his chair.
“For?”
“For coming back alive.”
Veritas watches something light up in Aventurine’s expression, breaking through his face like sunlight piercing through the rain, refracting off every surface in the room and turning a simple moment into something worth remembering forever. He basks in the moment, unmoving, and watches Aventurine’s hopes soar… then sink again.
Of course it would not be that easy.
“You’re welcome, Ratio,” and in contrast to the glory of moments before, his voice is grey and empty, miserably mundane.
Perhaps—
“My name is Veritas. You may use it, if you needed permission to do so.” He picks up the bottle and makes sure he has Aventurine’s attention before continuing. “If we are to continue to work together, we might as well call each other by name.”
There. That is as much of a push as he dares.
With a dip of his head, Veritas makes his exit, walking down the hall of the IPC’s ship with a bottle of liquor in his trembling hand, snapping his plaster bust over his head to conceal his compromised, inebriated state; and to prevent himself from straining to hear the jazzy opening notes of a song played on loop in a dream.
They can always make new memories, after all.