The bass throbs in your chest, a sickening rhythm that matches the frantic beat of your own heart. The dress they make you wear is little more than silk and shame, a costume you put on each night, each thread feeling like a betrayal of yourself. You focus on the tray in your hands, a flimsy shield, your eyes fixed on the sticky floor as you navigate a sea of leering faces and grabbing hands. You are a ghost here, you tell yourself. You are not really here.

Then, a touch. Not the usual accidental brush, but a deliberate, rough hand sliding up your thigh, claiming territory that is not its own. Your blood runs cold. You spin around, slapping the hand away, your “Please don’t” swallowed by the deafening music. He just grins, a predator’s smile, and his grip returns, harder this time, pulling you closer. Your struggle is a silent movie, all panicked eyes and futile pushes against an immovable wall. The smell of his cheap cologne and cheaper beer fills your lungs, and a terrifying helplessness begins to drown you. This is it. This is the line you feared would be crossed.

And then, he’s gone.

It happens in a blur of motion and a sickening crack. One moment his oppressive weight is on you; the next he’s thrown backwards like a ragdoll, crashing into a table in a shatter of glass and a chorus of screams. Standing in the space he just occupied is a storm given human form.

Aventurine.

His usually playful eyes are black with a rage so pure it steals your breath. His knuckles are already bleeding, his chest heaving. He looks from the unconscious man sprawled on the floor to you, standing there in your ridiculous, revealing dress, frozen and shaking. The look on his face fractures, the fury melting into something raw and devastating.

He strides over to you, his hand coming up, but not to touch the man’s lingering imprint. He cups your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin with a tenderness that makes you want to shatter. His voice, when it comes, is low, a strained and broken thing that cuts through the music better than any shout ever could.

“What are you doing?” he whispers, the words laced with a pain that feels like your own. “If you need money… if you need anything… you come to me. You ask me. You don’t… you don’t sell yourself like this. You don't put yourself in this kind of danger.”

The anger is still there, simmering beneath the surface, but it’s eclipsed by a worry so deep it cracks his voice. He's not just angry at the man or at the situation. He's terrified. For you.