✧ Honkai star rail oneshots ✧

✧ Permanence - Aventuratio ✧

Genre: HEAVY ANGST

Warnings: Alcohol misuse, abandonment issues, symptoms of sexual trauma (from aventurine), flashbacks to his past, BIG SPOILERS FOR PENACONY

Aventurine was used to spending his nights at the bar. Drink after drink he would pour down, usually just to cloud his mind and have some fun. However, tonight was different. Tonight he felt empty.

He picked up his empty glass and studied the ice inside, listening to the tinkling of it hitting against the walls of the glass. Sighing, he folded his arms and rested his head on the bar counter. He was buzzing so hard it made him nauseous, yet for some reason his mind felt all the same. It was as if nothing could distract him from his own head.

A pang in his temple sent his vision hurtling in circles. Resting his head against the bar counter, he tried to breathe through the pain.

Drip.

Drip.

The blood dripping onto his face tastes so bitter.

Could that be his sister's blood? His friend's? His enemy's?"

All of it tasted the same to him as he trembled inside the crawlspace, watching as the blood of Sigonia seeped through the floorboards and into what would soon become his grave. He could hear them getting closer... The footsteps felt so quiet compared to the screams in the distance, yet he heard them clearly.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

This was it. This was where he would die.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

They're getting closer now.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Hold your breath Kakavasha.

The darkness of his memories suffocated him, the back of his eyes stained red with all he had seen, all he had done, all he had failed to stop. It was so dark, and there was no way out for him. There never would be. No way out, no way out, NO WAY OUT-

...

Then it was light again.

The bar was still the same as it has been a few moments ago, save the metallic stench that Aventurine could feel clogging his sinuses with its sickening taste. His skin felt dirty too- invisible bloodstains, sticky all over him, choking him like a wet chrysalis of death. He shuddered and stood up to go to the bathroom, hasty to scrub off the layer of tainted skin from his body.

Aventurine groaned; his temples were throbbing now, and he looked around hazily to try and spot any familar faces he could find comfort in. Surprisingly, his usual bar pals werent around... Instead, a tall gentleman with violet coloured hair was leaning over a pool table, his eyes laser focused on the game infront of him. That was, if you could call it a game. After all, the man seemed to be playing alone.

"Mmnm, Ratio-" Aventurine slurred, sliding out of his stool and stumbling over to the doctor. "Why'r you... here s'late?"

Ratio turned at the sound of thr IPC mans familar voice, and he had to stop his jaw from dropping as he took in his disheveled state. His blonde hair was ratty and tangled, strewn across his face carelessly and sticking up like a madmans. His eyes seemed sunken, dark circles etched deep into yellowishly-pale skin that was clinging around his face like a dying person's. Additionally, Aventurine was thin; beneath the cocky grin and expensive clothes, he seemed to be withering away.