Chapter Text
Everything in Juno’s apartment is exactly the way he left it.
And why shouldn’t it be? He’d only been gone for a day, it’s not like that was enough time for dust to settle and rats to start moving in.
Although with Hyperion’s rats, you never really knew.
It’s a little cold, and he takes a moment on his way in to fiddle with the cracked thermostat by the door. It probably won’t do anything, but it’s worth a shot.
He drops his coat on the floor carelessly, and his communicator falls out of one pocket and skitters across the floor like an animal. One corner is crumpled in from where the speaker was stabbed, but the screen still works when Juno picks it up. It informs him that he has eleven missed calls, all from yesterday. He just sighs and drops it back onto the coat.
Everything aches, and he doesn’t want to try and pick out the differences between the injuries he still has from those goons a couple days ago and the newer bruises that were happily received. It’s tempting to just collapse onto the couch, but Juno hasn’t eaten since a couple appetizers at the Kanagawa’s last night and his stomach is protesting loudly.
Another thing that hasn’t changed in the past few days: his cupboards are empty, save for a couple of bottles of cheap liquor.
He snags one of those. Better than nothing, right? … He’s pretty sure they aren’t, but can’t dig up the energy to care.
There is something that’s different in his apartment, but Juno doesn’t see it - or rather, smell it - until he collapses onto his couch with the bottle.
He had forgotten that Nureyev had slept here, in that night between their first meeting as ‘Orion’ and going out for breakfast yesterday.
The couch smells like him, that same damn cologne he uses in every identity, subtle and intoxicating and far too much like home for Juno’s comfort.
His hand tightens around the neck of the bottle, and he lifts it to his mouth. Maybe if he drinks it fast enough, he’ll skip the part of being drunk when he closes his eyes and pretends that Nureyev’s here and get right to the blissful forgetting part of it.
Juno’s not that lucky.
He never is.
Rita doesn't call once that day. Why would she? He told her himself that everything was fine. So it’s just Juno, curled up on his shitty couch with his shittier alcohol while the sun trudges through the sky slower than Hyperion rush-hour traffic. He probably sleeps at some point, it’s a little hard to tell.
He definitely wakes up the next morning, though. Sleeping on the couch did nothing for his aches and pains, and the alcohol consumed did even less. Juno’s got a hell of a headache and an even worse gnawing in his stomach.
Cheap takeout helps take the edge off the gnawing, but whatever headache meds Juno might have somewhere have been expired for a long time. He takes one anyway and gets up to go to work.
Rita looks up the moment he walks in the door, beaming out from under the brim of a familiar felt hat. “Hi there, I’m Detective Ri- oh hiiiiii Mister Steel, welcome back! That was a fast case!” She grabbed the hat off her head and stuffed it under her desk. “I’ve been keeping up on files and everything, not that there were any new files because I definitely heard you tell me not solve any cases myself and I one billion percent listened!”
“Was that my hat?”
“You can’t prove nothing! Besides, I don’t see your name on it.”
“It has my name on the tag on the inside brim.”
There is a moment of silence while Rita glances beneath the desk, unsubtly checking for a tag on the hat. “Ha! There’s no tag on this hat!”
Juno sighs. “I’m only missing one eye, that doesn’t mean I’m blind. I saw you rip the tag off two seconds ago!”
“You ain’t got no proof of that, and I’ll never talk, never!”
“You know what, you can have this one.” He doesn’t have the energy to argue this, even if the familiar back and forth is comforting. “Get any new cases you haven’t solved for me?”
And so the day goes on. That day spins into weeks, weeks where Juno can’t get off his couch and weeks where Juno throws himself into any case that lands on his doorstep, from some rich kid’s missing goldfish to the time where he saved all of the orphans in Hyperion City, every single one. It’s not bad work, all told, but…
But he sleeps on his couch until it stops smelling like Nureyev. Every time he sees someone out of the corner of his eye with that dark hair and elegant build he can’t help but spin around, trying to get a better look at them. (It’s never him). He searches the tabloids in the checkout aisles of corner stores for any mention of Orion Datura or another suspiciously newly rich celebrity.
It’s a little pitiful, all told. God, at this point he could live with it if Nureyev never took him back, he knows that Nureyev needs to leave and Juno can’t do anything but stay. They’d never work in the long run and even that aside Juno doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve them . Not after leaving like that. He just wants to say sorry. To let Nureyev move on and be whoever he wants to be next, without the specter of Juno Steel over every shoulder.
Or maybe Nureyev doesn’t even need that, maybe he’s already moved on and Juno’s the only one bogged down in memories of Nureyev’s eyes, Nureyev’s hands, everything about the other man burned into his mind. The expression on his face all those months ago when he’d told Juno he loved him versus the lack of expression he’d had when he’d told Juno to leave.
So maybe the urge to find him again, to apologize. Maybe that’s selfish.
Juno still can’t let it go.
These are the thoughts running through his mind as he zips up his coat and steps out of his building, glancing down at his repaired communicator. The audio’s a little more static and crackle than it used to be, but he can’t afford a new one.
Maybe he’ll get lucky and find a lucrative case today at work.
Juno Steel has forgotten one thing: he is never lucky.
Something heavy slams into the back of his head and Juno blacks out.
Wherever Juno is when he wakes up, it’s oddly comfortable. The detective could almost fall back asleep, if it weren’t for the swelling bruise on the back of his head and his inability to move his arms or legs. He keeps his eye closed, lets his head loll a little as though he were still asleep. The chair he’s tied to feels soft and expensive. Smells crisp, like it’s been recently cleaned.
He has a bad feeling about this.
Someone clears their throat. “Diana, I know you’re awake. Or would you prefer Mister Steel? Juno? Junebug? I can do endearments, too. Chickadee, sweetpea, anything you like.”
He can’t help but crack his eye open at that, meaning to glare at whoever is trying to ‘sweetpea’ him into doing anything.
The first thing he sees is a smirk, curling around its owner’s face smugly. “Hello, you,” Astrotia coos, and Juno regrets answering the phone that first night before all this. (He doesn’t, but pretending he does makes him feel a tiny bit better about being tied to a chair by Dae Astrotia).
“It’s Detective Steel,” he gets out, sitting up as straight as he can. His neck twinges at the movement. “And I’d like to know what makes you think you have the right to call me anything else.”
Astrotia laughs. “I suppose I don’t, Steel, but it’s polite to ask, isn’t it? You may call me Dae or Astrotia, whatever you’d like - as long as you’re calling me later.”
Juno does not have the emotional fortitude to be flirted with by another con artist. “Look, Astrotia, why don’t we just get down to business.”
“Aren’t we forward? I see why Cory likes you so much.” Astrotia flops down on hir couch and grins at Juno. “He likes it when people are a little mouthy,” xe says confidentially, eyes bright with mirth.
“Cory?”
“Oh, did he not tell you his name? I suppose you still think he’s Rex Glass when he’s not under a fake name. Well, his real name is Coriolanus, but I always called him Cory.” Astrotia seems almost gleeful with the idea that xe’s got something over Juno in this, and hir grin grows wider. “Did you not know?”
Juno is having a very hard time keeping a straight face. “You know, Astrotia, I really didn’t know that.”
Astrotia sits up, close enough to actually pat Juno on the shoulder. “Well, don’t worry yourself too much about it, Steel, Cory’s always been very closed off when he’s not acting the part. Did he tell you about how we met?”
“Can’t say that he did.”
Xe claps and grabs the back of Juno’s chair, scooting him closer. “Oh, good! This means I get to tell the story - he was always terrible at retelling it.” Juno’s tied too tightly to the chair to do anything but listen.
Listen, and try to subtly slide the plasma box cutter out of his sleeve. If he could cut the ropes on his hands before Astrotia noticed, he’d be willing to bet he could get in a couple good punches and knock hir out.
“We were on one of Jupiter’s moons - Callisto, I think. I was bored and trying to pickpocket some of the tourists to see if anyone had anything fun in their pockets. You know, notes from a lover, passwords, tickets to anywhere exciting. The usual things. Cory, though. He had so much stuff, I couldn’t believe it! And, well, I had to meet the person behind these pockets. So I let him catch me red-handed.”
“Sure,” Juno mutters. The end of the box cutter is only a few centimeters from his hand, but he can’t get to the threads holding it in place without twisting his arm noticeably.
“Doubting, my dear detective?” Astrotia leans into Juno’s space, taps his nose with one long finger. “You haven’t yet heard of my skills, so I won’t begrudge you some doubt. Regardless, I suspected that once Cory noticed me robbing him, he wouldn’t head straight to the police. I was right, as usual. He was far too intrigued by my skills - he said it was the first time anyone had snuck up on him in years! I challenged him to a game, and as I was soon to learn, Cory could never back down from a game.”
“What’d you challenge him to?” Juno’s only half-listening, because he can feel the cool metal of the box cutter against one wrist and knows he’s only a few seconds from escape. Also, possibly a few seconds from taking off one of his fingers if he’s not careful enough. It’ll probably be fine.
“Mmmm, that’s a story for another day. I believe it’s your move, Steel. How did you meet pretty Cory? Did he sweep you off your feet in a bar after an exhausting case? Con you into sharing your life story and your bed?” Astrotia is dynamic as xe speaks, all sweeping gestures and exaggerated facial expressions.
“Jesus, are you the one who taught him to be such an idiotic romantic?”
Astrotia practically beams. “I would love to think so, Detective!” Xe’s up off the couch now, spinning around the room like a kid getting home after their first date and they’re pretty certain this is love. Juno has to tuck the box cutter back into his sleeve fast, wedging it into the fabric and hoping it’ll stay. Xe twirls back around to face Juno. “I was born on Venus, you know. They say the floating cities there are some of the most romantic in the world.” Xe sighs. “I wish Cory’d gotten wind of that. I wish he’d stayed.”
I wish I’d stayed , Juno thinks, but wouldn’t dare say. Actually, maybe if he phrased it right… “Rex never left me,” Juno says, bolder than he probably should be. “He tried, but he just couldn’t stay away.” Behind the chair once more out of Astrotia’s view, he flicks his wrist. Damn. The cutter’s jammed into the fabric a little too well. He keeps talking, trying to cover his efforts to free the plasma blade with natural gestures.
Or as close to natural gestures as he can get while tied to a chair.
“I’m sure Rex was different than Cory,” Astrotia’s saying over him. “The leaving in that case was just for another part he was playing! Like when he went by Dmitri while we were on Europa.” Hir eyes go a bit moony when xe says that, soft and happy. “Steel, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how lovely Cory is, but Dmitri was such a romantic! And to watch him switch back and forth between them, it was like magic. Cory’d do anything for me, you see.”
Juno’s feeling the metal against his wrist again, warming to his skin. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t do anything for him. I tried to get him arrested.”
Astrotia frowns. “That worked?”
“He came back to me.” And the next time, I was the one who left. “But I wouldn’t try that, I don’t think Rex would take it well from anyone but me.”
“It’s Cory,” Astrotia insists, quiet but adamant. “Coriolanus Quartz. That’s his name.”
Juno should really not be antagonizing the person who has him tied to a chair, but he can’t help himself. “That’s what he told you his name was.” He’s got the handle of the box cutter in one hand. The only thing now is the possibility that the blade’s facing the wrong way or is a little out of place in his hand and when he turns it on, it’ll slice through a couple fingers instead of the bindings.
“That’s his name! He told me, and Cory wouldn’t lie to me!” Astrotia takes a deep breath and lies back against the couch. “I apologize, Steel, I don’t mean to be rude in front of a lady like yourself. That is a Steel thing, yes? Not just a Diana thing?”
“That would be a ‘Steel thing’,” Juno agrees, “but if you think no one in Hyperion is ever rude to me, then you’ve got a whole lot more thinks coming. These thinks are wearing iron knuckles and swinging right for your nose.”
Astrotia pouts. “That’s rude.”
“That’s life.”
“Yes, I wasn’t born yesterday. I can’t help but wish it were different even so.” Astrotia’s a little icier now, a little less buoyant. Juno’s got to cut the bonds soon, but once he turns on the blade there’s no way xe won’t notice it. If xe would just come a little closer…
“Why are you here, Juno?”
The use of his name is startling, and Juno almost drops the blade. “What the hell do you mean? You knocked me out.”
“Technically, it was one of my guards (don’t worry, I dismissed them for the evening so we could have our little talk), but I take your point. That wasn’t really my question, though. Why you? Why would Cory go running and turn up again so enamored with someone like Detective Juno Steel, Oldtown orphan and failed police officer? There is nothing interesting about you, there are a hundred other people with similar stories! Where is your spark, Juno?” Astrotia is getting worked up, sitting up and leaning forward.
Juno bares his teeth, leaning forward as far as his ropes will allow him. “I don’t goddamn know, you ass! I’m a sharp-shooter with one eye who tried to get your darling ‘Cory’ arrested, got him hurt and wounded and desperate and then I left him alone on a hotel bed and didn’t look back and he still came back and I don’t know why.” Astrotia’s in Juno’s space now, and they’re just inches apart. Juno is poised to flick the switch on the blade when the window on the far end of the room slides open.
Nureyev steps in, eyes cold and voice flat. “Let him go, Astrotia.”
Astrotia rolls hir eyes. “Always with the formalities. Come on, Cory, don’t you remember me?”
Across the room, Nureyev is still as the grave. “I always hated that nickname.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cory,” Astrotia coos and then stands up, out of Juno’s reach. “You thought it was sweet.”
“Did I?” There’s a knife in Nureyev’s hand, blade flashing red in the Martian light. The scarlet gleam makes it look bloody.
“Of course, baby. You told me you did.” Astrotia takes a step towards him. Xe’s moving slowly, glancing at Nureyev from the corner of hir eyes like he’s a scared animal. “You can’t say you didn’t miss this! The thrill of the chase, the adrenaline rush. Then I let you capture me like always… Just like we used to be.” Hir words are honey-sweet, and Nureyev sways a little where he stands.
“Just like we used to be,” he repeats.
Astrotia’s almost across the room by now, and getting closer every moment. Xe reaches out, just close enough to let hir hand brush Nureyev’s cheek. “That’s it, Cory. Give me the knife.”
Nureyev is almost unmoving. Only his eyes move, caught between Astrotia and Juno, and his chest, slowly. Up and down. Breath in, breath out.
Astrotia reaches for the knife. “Cory, baby, just let go. I promise it’ll be okay, just trust me.”
“You know what,” Juno says, almost conversationally. “Fuck you, Astrotia.”
Xe glances at him, taken aback.
Juno turns on the plasma blade without a second thought, slicing through the ropes at his wrists and only mildly singing his skin. He ducks to cut his legs free and stands, glaring at Astrotia. “Step away from him or I kill you where you stand.”
Astrotia scoffs.
But xe also steps back. Nureyev would still be in arms reach if xe turned around, but it’s better than nothing. “What are you going to do with that toy, Steel, help me unpack some boxes?”
“Don’t test me,” Juno warns. He keeps his eye locked on Astrotia’s and raises the cutter-wielding arm threateningly. “If you make another move towards-” He can’t think of a name for a second, and Astrotia smirks.
“Towards who, now?” Xe almost turns back to Nureyev, but Juno shouts before xe can complete the motion.
“Towards Glass, you bastard! Rex Glass. Stop, or this plasma blade meets your face.”
Xe eyes him cautiously. Trying to figure out if he’s really this desperate. “Are you going to throw it at me? What if you miss, and hit Cory?”
“You know that’s not his name,” Juno growls. He doesn’t dare take a step towards Astrotia, doesn’t dare risk Nureyev getting hurt.
If he got hurt because of Juno, again… Juno shuts that thought down before it starts.
“You’re right, Steel,” Astrotia murmurs. “It’s not Cory, it must be Dmitri. Dmitri was such a romantic, you know. He’s just dragging the chase out as long as possible. He liked doing that.” Xe turns to face Nureyev before Juno can stop them, but Nureyev isn’t there anymore.
The thief is perched on the windowsill, almost fey in his lithe grace and cast in the orange light of day. “Don’t touch me,” he says, voice still almost emotionless. “Don’t ever touch me or Detective Steel. Not now, not ever.”
Astrotia huffs impatiently, and keeping a wary eye on Juno, walks closer to the window. “Throw that blade, Steel,” xe calls over hir shoulder, “and I can dodge. That windowsill looks a little too unstable for Cory to do much dodging.”
Juno can’t throw the knife. He can’t get over there fast enough to put himself in between them, either.
“Dae,” Nureyev says, more of a sigh than a name. “I almost loved you.”
“You did, Cory, you did,” assures Astrotia, and xe reaches up to pull Nureyev down from the windowsill. “Just give me the knife, and everything can go back to the way it was.”
“The way it was?” Nureyev asks.
“Yes, just the same. We’ll run away from all our troubles, loot the galaxy and move on to find a new one, steal the hearts from all the stars. Come on, Cory, can’t you see it?”
Nureyev is looking at Juno. “I see it,” he says, and then stabs Astrotia in the throat.
There’s a lot of blood before Astrotia actually dies. It’s messy.
Nausea rises in Juno’s stomach up into his throat, and he’s unsteady on his feet. He drops his box cutter on the ground, but he doesn’t know what to do after that. “Orion,” he manages at last. “I mean- Nureyev.” Astrotia is dead. Juno has seen people die in front of him, felt their blood warm and wet against his palms. He’s been certain at times that he was going to die, has felt his own blood crusting his face and seen it streaking his hands.
This is still a hell of a lot of blood.
Nureyev is knelt on the ground, curved over Astrotia’s cooling body. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” he’s saying, but he doesn’t seem to be hearing it. “It does get easier over time. Or at least, I thought it did.”
“Nureyev,” Juno whispers, and he’s made it over to Nureyev’s side and is kneeling next to him. “Peter, shit. Peter, I’m so sorry.”
“Juno,” Nureyev says. And he looks up from the bloody corpse that used to be Dae Astrotia, looks into Juno’s eye. “Xe never knew my name.” Nureyev leans against Juno, and he does not cry but he’s shaking almost imperceptibly. “Even if I’d told hir, xe wouldn’t have believed me.”
Juno risks reaching out, taking Nureyev’s hand.
It’s sticky with blood.
“What do you want?” he asks. “Anything.”
And in this moment, it is true. Juno would leave Mars a thousand times, and later he’d regret it and spend the rest of his life finding his way back to this goddamn planet. But right now, he would leave without another thought.
“I want to go home,” Nureyev whispers, and leans against Juno so hard that he almost falls over.
“I can get a cab, we can get back to your apartment in no time.” Juno stands, and Nureyev goes with him.
“No,” Nureyev murmurs. “Take me home , Juno.”
Oh . Juno isn’t sure what Nureyev is asking, and he doesn’t dare hope. “You asking for a ticket to Brahma, or....” Nureyev is shaking his head. “Do you wanna come with me?” Juno asks, heart beating like a rabbit seeing sunlight through a sewer grate for the first time. He knows he doesn’t deserve this, Juno Steel is not the kind of lady anyone should try and make a home out of.
But god , he wants it.
“I have never wanted anything else,” Nureyev tells him, and it’s the first thing he’s said with any sort of emotion since he dropped in through the window.
Juno wants to cry. He doesn’t, he can’t, not yet. One of them has to keep going.
Getting out is a chore. They don’t touch the body. Juno takes the knife when Nureyev’s not looking, planning to dispose of it later. Between the two of them and the shower in Astrotia’s apartment, they get most of the blood out of their clothes. Nureyev helps them out of the window again, and there’s a hovercycle idling at the rooftop.
They go home.
It’s mid-evening by the time they get back to Juno’s place. Rita knows he’s in and out these days, and there’s no worried messages from her on his comm. There’ll probably be some tomorrow, if he doesn’t show up or call in, but dealing with that possibility will have to wait.
Nureyev heads straight for the couch, dragging Juno along in his wake.
Neither of them speak for what feels like eons but can’t be more than five minutes. The only sounds are those of their shared breathing - Nureyev’s, ragged and unsteady, and Juno’s, measured and rhythmic. Juno just barely has his breathing under control, and he can feel his heart beating too hard in his throat and wrists. Nureyev pulls Juno closer, till the detective is sitting more on him than on the couch beneath them. Even after everything, Nureyev is here, real and solid in Juno’s arms.
He smells like iron. Thick and sharp and blood-metal-tang. But Juno pretends he doesn’t know why that is, pretends none of the past day had to happen in order to get the two of them here, and tucks his face against Nureyev’s neck where he can still smell the other man’s cologne.
They remain that way for a long time. The sky darkens outside the window, the last gasp of daylight fading from the window all too quickly. Nureyev’s breathing barely slows, and more than once Juno worries he’s going to hyperventilate. But he doesn’t. He just holds Juno so close, so still. Juno doesn’t dare imagine what he’s thinking, but he hopes more than anything that this is helping.
There’s no moon tonight, and the ambient light of Hyperion drowns out most of the stars. It’s dark in Juno’s living room, and with his face still hidden against Nureyev Juno can’t see a thing. Nureyev begins to breath more slowly, more regularly. He presses his face against Juno’s hair, and he’s not shaking anymore.
It’s only then that Juno can get up the nerve to say anything. He should probably ask how Nureyev’s doing, if he’s hungry, how he knew to come to Astrotia’s apartment. He doesn’t say any of those things. “I’m sorry,” he says, barely audible. “I’m sorry I left you.”
“I know,” Nureyev whispers. “Saying sorry doesn’t mean it never happened.”
Juno nods, trusting Nureyev to feel the motion. “I fucked up, Peter, I know I don’t-” Talking gets a little harder, but Juno has to say this, Nureyev has to know. “I don’t deserve you - this, any part of it. You should go. Like you said you were going to. Like you did after I left, except this time you don’t come back. I’m-” He has to stop, catch his breath, pretend he’s not two seconds from crying. “Peter, I’ll never be able to go with you. You don’t, you shouldn’t, you. I don’t want to trap you here.” Juno can’t pretend he’s not crying at this point, but he can at least be quiet about it, keep his breathing normal and blink back as many tears as he can.
Nureyev moves away and for a moment Juno tenses, sure that he is right and Nureyev sees it and this, this is the last time he’ll ever be here on this couch with this man. But something is glistening on Nureyev’s face, just catching the light from outside. He stays close to Juno; they keep their arms wrapped around each other.
“Juno, you idiot,” Nureyev gets out, and he is crying too. “You absolute idiot, I will always come back. Every time, from every planet, no matter how far I go. I promise. Why do you think I asked you to pretend to date me to ‘fool the tracker’? That’s a ridiculous plan, even for me.”
There are still tears staining Juno’s face but he’s laughing a little, choked off and gross teary laughter that fills a void in his soul he hadn’t even realized was there. “Peter, I’d been moping like a fool for months, did you really think I was gonna pass up the opportunity to kiss you again?”
“I was counting on the fact that you wouldn’t,” Nureyev admits, and pulls Juno forward until they’re tucked against each other. “I missed you,” he murmurs into the side of Juno’s head. “More than I would prefer to admit.”
There’s a note in his voice, something melancholy at the edges of his words. It damn near breaks Juno’s heart and he sits back to catch Nureyev’s gaze with his own. He knows what he’s going to say right up until he opens his mouth to say it and the phrase catches in his throat. “Hey,” he just says instead, and tips his head forward till their foreheads touch.
Nureyev doesn’t say anything, just closes his eyes and smiles and Juno can catch the gleam of his teeth even in this lack of light. He’s beautiful and solid and real, and Juno knows that if he doesn’t say something now he might never get up the courage again.
“Nureyev, Peter, I-” He breaks off to hide his face in Nureyev’s neck. “Shit,” he mumbles into the gap between Nureyev’s shirt and skin. “This is hard.”
Gently, Nureyev’s hand is on his face, guiding him back until the two of them can meet eyes again. “Something you’d like to say, Junebug?” he murmurs, and he’s still smiling at Juno and Juno gets the feeling there are very few people who see this smile.
“I love you,” he blurts out, and then again, slower. “I love you. I never said it before. I wasn’t really in a place where I could. But I kept thinking after I left, that I’d never be able to say it again and you’d never know and I missed you so goddamn much. I didn’t-couldn’t-let myself think that you’d come back. So. You’d never know.” He risks a smile back at Nureyev, small and maybe a little too self-deprecating but real.
When Nureyev tilts his head to press his lips to Juno’s, it’s softer than either of them have dared to be since the last time they were genuinely together. “I guess that makes both of us fools, then,” he whispers. He presses a kiss to Juno’s cheek, feather-light. When he tells Juno that he loves him too, his voice is quiet enough that if he and Juno weren’t literally on top of each other there’s no way Juno would have heard.
He doesn’t blame Nureyev for not wanting to voice the words. The last time he did, Juno disappeared in the morning.
Juno’s not planning on disappearing again, now or ever. He stands, even if he’s still weak for the sad sound Nureyev makes at the loss of Juno’s weight on him. “Come on, Peter, it’s late,” he says, tone brooking no refusal. “Let’s get some sleep. This couch’ll give you a hell of a neckache.”
“Inviting me to your bed already, Detective Steel?” Nureyev asks, and stands. They’re close enough to kiss, but they just smile at each other like a pair of saps. “How forward of you.”
The two of them barely fit in Juno’s bed. They make it work.
Nureyev still falls asleep faster than Juno, but this time Juno doesn’t lie awake. He doesn’t need to make this memory now, doesn’t need to try and memorize this image of Nureyev in anticipation of never seeing it again. He closes his eye, lets Nureyev curl into him on the bed. He’s allowed to have this, allowed to fall asleep feeling the weight of Nureyev next to him and hearing his soft breaths and smelling that cologne.
It’s nice. Juno could get used to nice.
Tomorrow, life will go on. Someone will find Astrotia’s body and someone will suspect Orion or Juno or anyone they can try to pin the crime on, but if the case goes the way most of Hyperion’s murders do then nothing will come of it. Juno will solve cases and Nureyev will fly across the solar systems but always, always come home.
Tonight, it’s just them. Just Juno and Peter, the scrappy orphan from the dregs of Hyperion City and the revolutionary conman always on the run from his past. Tonight, that’s enough.