Chapter Text
Blood is bitter and metallic on Juno’s lips, and his hands ache and his head is heavy and he is so goddamned tired.
He takes one step at a time to get out of the bar, knowing that if he thinks any further ahead the task of walking outside and catching a hover-bus back home will seem insurmountable. Behind him, he leaves a gang of petty thieves spitting insults and making threatening gestures. They got what they came for in the end, made themselves feel better by shoving the interloper out of their crappy bar. Beat him up a little like one would a stray dog who they didn’t want begging for food.
Juno ignores them. He got in a few good punches of his own, after all. They won’t forget him any time soon.
The ride home is long. Juno wants to lean against the seat in front of him, but it’s full to bursting with a couple arguing, piercing with words like knives and Juno’s face is still bleeding.
He breaths as deeply as he can stand, the atmosphere of the bus heavy with the stink of unwashed bodies and the oppressive hopelessness that seems to sink into the skin of anyone who spends too long in the Oldtown district of Hyperion. Just a couple more minutes, he promises himself, and you’ll be home.
But Juno knows what home is, and what it isn’t. It’s not his empty bed and the bottle on the bedside table, self-prescribed medication for the icepick headache where he used to have a functioning eye. He tells himself it’s not the memory of Peter’s hands, strong and deft, pinning Juno’s wrists above his head. Not Peter’s cologne, long since faded from the apartment. Not Peter’s voice, lips, not the way Peter trusted him.
He’s lying to himself and he knows it.
When the bus finally arrives at his stop, Juno almost misses it. His head is lolling against the side of the bus, almost asleep, cold metal and jarring movements be damned. But he just catches the driver calling his stop name for the last time and drags himself off the bus moments before the doors close and it takes off again.
He trudges up the steps to his apartment, and the elevator is broken because that is exactly the sort of day Juno is having.
He doesn’t let himself think about what day it is or why he was in that bar in the first place.
The stairs up to his apartment make the bruises on his sides ache, deep down to his bones, and his migraine seems to pulse in time with every step he takes. Juno is fairly certain he’s going to just sit down and not stand back up again with each passing second. He makes it to his apartment, unlocks the door, and barely remembers to shove it closed behind him before he collapses onto his couch.
He isn’t planning to sleep but he does, curled up into a tight ball on his lumpy couch with one hand pressed to his forehead and the other pulled against his chest like he's protecting himself against an unknown enemy.
It's nighttime when Juno wakes. His sides still ache and the blood on his face and knuckles has long since dried. It cracks with his movements, itches where it covers unbroken skin. Some of it's not his. Too much of it is. He has no way to be sure until he's washed his face.
There's a bitter breeze coming through the spot where his window doesn't quite meet the frame, carrying with it flecks of Martian sand and the scent of the city below. It stinks.
Juno is used to that smell, though, and the prickling sensation of the scabbed blood on his face and sand stinging his exposed flesh. He’ll get up in a minute. He's just tired. A couple more minutes on the couch can't hurt, right?
A couple minutes turns into a couple more, and the first of Mars’ two moons has crept past his window by the time his communicator pings. The sound is coming from the floor, across his living room. If Juno wants to answer it he's going to have to get off the couch.
It could be a client, and another client is another month Juno can pay the rent. Another couple dollars he can stuff in the jar labeled with a stylized eye drawn on the note taped to it (courtesy of Rita). It's still mostly empty, and Juno knows he's going to have to deal with the lack of depth perception for a long while yet.
His communicator pings again, and at last Juno pulls himself up off his couch and stands on unsteady feet. He takes a moment to collect himself, and then another, and then a third, until his communicator beeps insistently.
It's lying on the floor at the door, half-inside one of Juno’s coat packets.
He sits down on the floor before he answers, steadies himself on the cold simwood wall. “Juno Steel, private eye,” he says before the caller can introduce themselves. “Business hours are nowhere near now, but depending on the case and the money involved I’m sure we can arrange something.”
The voice on the other end of the phone is familiar, and if this person is calling themselves nothing more than a client Juno is going to laugh until his lungs give out.
“Hello, Detective,” Peter Nureyev says. His voice is - it's not Peter, Juno thinks. Rex, maybe? There's a gloss over it, one that draws to mind bedroom eyes and tousled hair and the smell of sex. Nureyev is hiding something, and Juno doesn't know if it's from him or from another threat. “I need your help.”
The last time Juno saw this man, Juno had left him sleeping alone on a hotel bed.
The next time he saw him, it would be very early in the morning in Juno’s apartment. They had come to an agreement on the phone - Nureyev had money, he was being tracked by an old enemy he couldn't seem to shake, and wanted Juno’s help.
Nureyev hadn’t introduced himself on the phone, hadn’t said a word about any of their adventures that had occurred after he'd left Juno that note all that time ago. It was like none of it had ever happened, except - except there was a hitch in his voice that hadn't been there before. Or maybe Juno just hadn't been able to hear it before, but he had begun to know Peter Nureyev back then and even now he knows what a lie sounds like on that man’s lips.
He doesn't say anything about it.
After all, he had been the one to leave that night after they took down Miasma.
Once the two of them hang up on each other, Juno hauls himself to his feet. His muscles protest, and he realizes he still hasn't checked if his ribs are bruised or just cracked, and there is a very real possibility that he has a concussion. There's also still blood flaking off the sides of his face, streaking his hands when he reaches up to brush it away.
A shower is in order. And a drink.
His hair is damply curling around his ears and he hasn't gotten that drink when the knock comes at his door.
Nureyev looks dramatically different - his hair, his clothes, everything down to his polished nails and the arch of his eyebrows says trouble neatly wrapped in a tight little dress. To be fair, the ‘trouble’ part of the whole equation hasn’t changed one bit.
It is unfairly sexy.
Nureyev didn’t mention a fake name on the phone, but there is no doubt that the person sauntering into Juno’s living room is another one of his personas. And if this is the way they’re playing it - if Nureyev’s going to cast his eyes about Juno’s room like he’s never seen it before, if he’s going to pretend his voice doesn’t catch on Juno’s name every time he says it - then Juno can play this game.
“You got a name?” he asks, and his voice is rougher than he expected it to be.
Nureyev glances over his shoulder at Juno and the move is so textbook Juno almost has to laugh. He doesn’t, can’t, not in the face of those dark eyes and the memory of those lips on his. When Nureyev smiles, Juno knows he’s doomed. “How forward, Detective. My given name is Orion Datura, but you may call me Orion.”
Orion - the sleek name fits this new persona with all the grace of a rich dame pulling on opera gloves before a night out. Still. Juno doesn’t think he’s going to be able to shake the habit of calling him ‘Nureyev’, at least in his mind. It’s gonna be enough of a pain in the ass to remember to say ‘Orion’ every time, especially after Juno had gotten used to calling this man ‘Nureyev’ aloud. But he’s lost the right to that name now. For the sake of the case, he’ll pretend he never knew it at all. “So, Orion,” Juno says, and he lets himself savor the curve of the vowels on his tongue. “I’m going to need some more details on this case of yours.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Nureyev sits on the back of Juno’s couch, and the contrast between the slick satin of his dress and the rough upholstery is jarring. He looks like a man out of time, lit in high contrast by the light of Mars’ second moon coming through the window. “There’s someone.”
“Isn’t there always?”
“Not like that, Detective Steel,” Nureyev assures him. Juno doesn’t believe him for a second. “I would not have called the two of us friends, but we were certainly not enemies. At least, not at the start. We worked together for some time, but xe proved to be,” Nureyev pauses, frowns. “How do I put this nicely? xe proved to be somewhat of a traitor to our cause. In the end, at least, we both received a very… just reward for our services.”
Juno has the feeling the other person involved in this did not get the reward xe had been hoping for. He walks over to kitchen and pours himself that drink. “Those are some great details, pal, but you still haven’t answered the real question here. What exactly is my purpose on this case? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little rusty on the whole sharpshooting deal at this point.”
Nureyev’s laugh is a little too sharp, too practiced. “I am well aware of this fact, and believe me - I have that side of the equation covered on my own.” He’s up off the back of the couch in an instant, and is sidling up to Juno in another. That dress of his bares a hell of a lot of skin, and it’s all just a hair’s breadth from Juno. “No, Detective, I need you for another facet of your skills.” The touch of his hand on Juno’s wrist is unexpected, so much so that Juno lets the other man pull him away from his drink to face each other. “I need you to live with me.”
“... What?”
“Not for too long, I promise. I’m already being tailed by someone working for my enemy, but they don’t know that I know they’re following me. I don’t want to let hir know that I’ve spotted their agent just yet, and so I need someone else to keep an eye on them.” His hand on Juno’s wrist tightens, pulling him closer. “But as I mentioned, I don’t want hir getting suspicious that I’ve hired someone. And xe knows more than one of my names - xe knows an older name of mine the best, but xe knew of my escapades as Rex Glass and most importantly, xe knows that Juno Steel and Rex Glass had history.”
“What- Nu-Orion, this is insane! What are you even asking me to do here?”
Nureyev shakes his head, and when a piece of hair falls into his face Juno is tempted to reach up and brush it back behind his ear. “Isn’t it obvious? I need you to track whoever is tracking me by watching the people around me on my normal routine. Since I can’t have them realizing the tracker has become the tracked, I need another reason for you to be spending so much time with me.”
Juno gets it right around the time Nureyev’s hand slides up from his wrist to his shoulder, and his other hand is on Juno’s waist, pulling him in like the spider to the fly.
“Would you like to go out for breakfast tomorrow, darling?” Nureyev purrs, his lips dangerously close to Juno’s. “I’m sure we’ll be very busy tonight, reconnecting after the fallout from that case with the mask has settled down.”
When he kisses Nureyev, he tastes like blood and alcohol.
On second thought, that’s probably Juno’s fault. As Nureyev pulls away, his eyes are half-shut and his lipstick smudged. “You’re a natural, Juno,” he murmurs, like they haven’t played this record before. Like they’ve only ever kissed the once, and Juno can’t stand to remember how it felt to be alone in his apartment after that kiss so he pulls Nureyev down into another embrace.
After all, if the two of them going to convince this tracker that they’re in love, they’re going to need to practice.
The next morning dawns a murky burgundy, like rust creeping up the blade of an old knife. Juno wakes up when the light creeps into his bedroom, casting everything in that same red tone. Nothing in his room has changed, but something about the light quality and the fact that Nureyev is lying on his couch in the living room makes it feel emptier than usual, stripped down to its bones.
Juno feels stripped down himself, left bare by last night’s events. He and Nureyev had surprisingly not ended up in bed with each other… But Juno probably would have said yes, if Nureyev had asked. For a moment, he considers the possibility that last night was just a really vivid hallucination brought on by the combination of a head wound and alcohol. He continues to entertain the idea as he gets ready.
Nureyev can’t possibly be here. Even moreso, he can’t be planning to stay here, here in Hyperion City where ‘the grind’ could be a stranger dancing in a club or an industrial sander used by the Triad to convince unlucky mules to give up sensitive information. It’s just not a plausible scenario, and Juno almost has himself convinced that he’s right until someone knocks on his bedroom door.
He freezes, gaze flying to his gun on the floor before he comes back to his senses. Right. The universe, apparently, is out to get him and did bring Peter Nureyev back into his life. Juno pulls on his eye patch but doesn’t bother putting a shirt on before opening the door. He fixes Nureyev with a glare that he has been assured is, if anything, more frightening with the addition of the patch. “I did not agree to being woken up this early, Orion,” he growls.
Nureyev just shrugs, and literally no human being should look this elegant before noon. “We had breakfast plans.”
Juno sighs. “Of course we did.”
Nureyev is still in last night’s dress, now well-creased, and he hasn’t fixed any of his makeup that Juno may have smudged last night. There is also more than one hickey just under his jaw that Juno remembers leaving all too well. On anyone else, the look would definitely be categorized as ‘Walk of Shame’. This new persona of Nureyev’s wears it like a second skin, and Juno gets the feeling Orion Datura has no problem with public displays of affection.
God, this case is already a train wreck.
Juno lets himself be led out of his apartment, lets Nureyev push him up against the outside door and kiss his neck while Juno alternately scans the streets for the person tracking Nureyev and gets distracted by the feeling of Nureyev’s lips on his skin.
(His teeth are sharp, scraping skin and it almost hurts but Juno is still grasping at Nureyev’s shoulders, pulling him closer, asking for more.)
Nureyev pulls away with that fox’s smirk and his lipstick is well and truly ruined. It’s probably all over Juno’s neck now, splotches of blood-red over flushed skin and bruises from last night. “Shall I call a cab, darling?” he asks, and Juno almost doesn’t catch the words, he’s too distracted. He nods anyway, and Nureyev pulls out a sleek communicator from somewhere.
The cab is easily called, and the drive there flies past in a whirl of Nureyev’s hands on him and Nureyev’s voice in his ear, whispering details he’s gleaned about his tracker, their habits, and the places they might be watching from. Juno takes it in with more calm than he thought he would, his hands still and his mind cool. He can’t afford to get attached, he reminds himself, but every time he sees that smile on Nureyev’s face, remembers those teeth like fire against his skin… His resolve weakens just a little more.
In the end, by the time the cab has pulled up outside an artsy cafe with prices only the Kanagawas wouldn’t flinch at, Juno has made a decision. He’s still very much attracted to Nureyev - persona or no, the man wields sex appeal like a weapon and Juno’s shields are down. But he’s not about to let anyone say Juno Steel is anything other than stubborn as hell, and he can deal with his attraction like a mature adult without remembering (or more importantly, feeling) any pesky emotions.
Besides, there’s no way Nureyev wants him back now.
That said, Juno can deal with his own attraction by taking full advantage of this false relationship and getting his hands on Nureyev whenever he wants. Juno grins at the thought, and when Nureyev glances over he raises an eyebrow at the expression - it’s not a common sight on Juno. “Something on your mind?”
Juno doesn’t say anything, he just reaches over to pull Nureyev into a heated kiss.
This case is a disaster, but Juno is going to enjoy it anyway. The cabby doesn’t even seem to care that they’re necking like teenagers in the back of his car, just idles in front of the cafe while Nureyev goes pliant under Juno’s hands and whines into his mouth. Juno is leaning over the middle seat between them, seatbelt long forgotten and about two seconds away from climbing into Nureyev’s lap, witnesses be damned.
Nureyev pulls on his hair, tips his head back till he’s whispering against Juno’s neck. This is great and all for keeping whatever he’s saying a secret, except that he probably wants Juno to actually understand his words. It’s more than a little difficult to do so with Nureyev paying so much attention to Juno’s neck, already sensitive in general and even moreso with the events of last night and this morning. Juno is gasping, scrabbling against the cheap simleather seats and totally, totally lost in the feeling.
“Juno!” Nureyev is whispering into Juno’s ear, now, having paused his efforts to take Juno apart in the backseat of a cab. “The tracker! They’re outside the car, seated at the cafe. Orion likes to take his conquests here, and they know it. Let’s go.” He tosses a wad of cash at the cabby, who catches it and doesn’t even check its authenticity before nodding and letting the two of them step out onto the pavement.
“Just how rich are you, Orion?” Juno asks, following a few steps behind the man as he leads the two of to a central table. The rectangular table looks like real glass, paired with an umbrella that’s somehow remained a purposeful pastel rather than some washed-out shade. Two flimsy, wicker-looking chairs are set to either side of the table, and Juno sits warily.
Unsurprisingly, Nureyev shrugs. “I’m not sure, really. Enough.” He leans forward across the table, like he’s sharing a secret. “It’s mostly my late wife’s, to be honest. She did always adore me so! Such a pity she died so young.” His voice is all airs and innocence, the voice of someone who definitely murdered their wife for her fortune.
Juno is pretty certain that he shouldn’t be turned on by that.
He kind of is.
Throughout the meal, it’s a struggle to keep his focus divided. Part of him has to remain focused on the illusion, focused on the smell of Nureyev’s cologne in the air and the way he gesticulates with his hand. The other half is on guard, sharper than Nureyev’s teeth and warier than a rabbit in a den of foxes.
Nureyev’s mysterious tracker is smart. They’re in a table off to the side - not so much in a corner as to be suspicious, but far enough that they have a good view of all the tables and no one else has quite as good of a view as they do. Tall, Juno notes in between Nureyev stealing bites of Juno’s ridiculously expensive croissant, but not especially so. A little slimmer than average, maybe, he guesses, but they’re wearing a heavier coat and Juno is distracted by Nureyev licking chocolate off of a strawberry in an unnecessarily suggestive manner.
He can’t get a good view of their face, not without paying too much attention to someone who is, to Juno Steel, supposedly another random stranger.
The breakfast date whips past quickly, and before Juno realizes it, Nureyev is signing a check and standing up.
“Are you ready to head back to my place, darling?” he asks, extending a hand confidently. Juno gets the feeling not many people say no to an invitation from Orion Datura.
He likes the idea of being the first. “I do have a job, ‘darling’,” he says, in a mocking imitation of Orion’s arched accent, and folds his arms across his chest. “I can’t spend all my time christening our relationship in the back of a cab.”
Nureyev pouts, drawing his hand back to his chest in dramatic offence. “You’re breaking my heart, I hope you realize.”
Juno shakes his head. “You’re ridiculous. I should call a cab.” And then - just because he wants to, and now he can, if they’re pretending to be what they are and Nureyev is pretending to be who he is - Juno smiles, and closes the distance between him and Nureyev. They’re chest to chest and all Juno can see is Nureyev’s face, all he can feel is the press of their bodies, all he can smell is Nureyev’s cologne in the air. “Unless… You think you can convince me otherwise.”
“Oh, detective,” Nureyev drawls. “I would love to.”
Nureyev’s argument consists of three things: the way he bites his lip before he kisses Juno, teeth sharp and white against red lips, the pressure of his hands on Juno’s waist, slipping under his shirt to ghost over his skin, and the dangerous sensation of something unbearably sappy curling in the pit of Juno’s stomach.
It is extremely convincing.
So he kisses Nureyev back, winds his hands into the other man’s hair and pulls. Juno barely even notices when Nureyev’s mysterious tracker takes out a notebook, writes something down, and leaves.
But he does notice, long enough to pull far enough away from Nureyev that the smell of him was no longer quite so intoxicating, his lips were not irresistibly magnetic. “Are we leaving or not, Orion?” he demands. There’s less ‘steel’ in Juno’s voice than usual, and he blames all of it on the way Nureyev is still gazing at him like he wants to devour him. “I think we need to get to know each other a little better.”
He’s right, of course. If Juno Steel doesn’t learn enough about Orion and the differences between him and Nureyev to fool someone paid to tail him, he’s bound to blow their cover at some point.
Nureyev calls another cab like the service isn’t pure extortion, and the flight to his high-rise apartment passes like a kidney stone - which is to say, slow and excruciatingly painful. This driver clears their throat loudly when Nureyev reaches over to take Juno’s hand, and scoffs at the money Nureyev offers them in an effort to convince them to look the other way.
“Honor,” they insist, “cannot be bought.” And they turn up the commercials blasting through the distorted speakers and sneer whenever they check on Nureyev and Juno in the rearview mirror.
They can, however, be bribed to drop them off on the roof of the skyscraper instead of on ground level. So much for honor. This area of the city is technically zoned for multi-level flight, but no one is supposed to land on rooftops without proper permits.
With enough money, a person could write “I can do what I want” on a piece of paper and have it serve as any permit they like.
Nureyev leads Juno out of the cab with a gentle hand on his arm, only to abruptly change directions once the door of the vehicle was shut. He pins Juno up against the hot metal, mouthing along his jaw. “That cab driver could have gotten a tip and a show,” he muttered against Juno’s skin, “so it’s really their loss.”
The driver in question takes off without waiting for the two of them to stop, and Juno almost falls on his ass before Nureyev grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him back to his feet. They still almost fall over, but the end result comes out in favor of Nureyev’s grace and dancer’s strength, rather than Juno’s solid muscle and Mars’ gravity.
Juno follows Nureyev into the building, a quick swipe of a keycard all it takes to unlock the door. Rich folk in rich neighborhoods, unworried about the crime that haunts the rest of the city until it steals the keycard out of their silk-lined pockets and the expensive art right off their walls.
Not that Juno would ever rob someone. A good, law-abiding citizen like himself would only dream of punching those entitled jerks in the face, and would never act on those dreams. … Unless given good enough cause.
Walking in, Juno has to stop himself from rolling his eye. Of course Orion Datura wouldn’t settle for anything less than the best money could buy: his apartment is one of a very small number that share the top floor of the building, spacious rooms and wide windows, modern art pretending to be furniture, and omnipresent white light that seems to come from no particular source. It’s over-the-top, ridiculously expensive, and exactly what Juno expected.
“Be a dear, Juno, and help me get out of this dress?” Nureyev calls over his shoulder, and Juno abruptly stops thinking about the apartment. Nureyev is standing at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, washed in the shifting lights of the city and the ruby sun. “I want to slip into something more comfortable.”
Juno walks over to Nureyev and stands at his side. The other man remains focused on the view of the city below them, eyes following hover-cabs and petty crime, gaze catching on the red smog that erased the horizon and the neon signs plastered every other foot. Juno has seen it all a million times, but it changes every day.
Today he isn’t giving the city a second glance. Nureyev is still performing, even in his own apartment, and it’s magnetizing. The flirty head tilt, hair roguishly falling to one side, the precisely timed glances at Juno. It’s all Orion, all someone who’d only known Juno for two days but was already willing to push him up against walls, cab doors, to slip his hand up Juno’s shirt in public just to let everyone else know only he was allowed to do it. All someone who would wreck Juno like a speeder caught in the middle of a Martian sandstorm.
“Are you ever going to help, angel, or are you just going to stare at me all day?” Nureyev leans forward, voice low and husky. “I know I’m a very pretty sight, but I promise I’m even prettier underneath.” He taps Juno on the nose before turning his back to the detective.
Juno swallows. The dress cuts low across Nureyev’s back - and by low, Juno means that if the fabric cut any lower Nureyev would be getting written up for public indecency. The front of the dress is much higher, ending in a thin strap of that same dark satin that wraps around Nureyev’s throat. The whole thing is held on a simple clasp at the back of Nureyev’s neck.
All Juno has to do is undo the clasp.
Nureyev is still in front of him, like a marble statue of some ancient earth deity. Juno reaches forward, fingers just brushing against Nureyev's skin. Nureyev is warm, his skin smooth under Juno’s hands. Juno can't seem to get the catch on his first try, fumbling the thin strip of fabric.
Maybe he's a little distracted by the way the light patterns across Nureyev’s bare back, but no one has to know that.
The clasp slips free, and the top half of the dress falls to hang low off Nureyev’s hips, tugging the fabric down. For a second Juno sees nothing but skin and there’s so goddamn much of it, and he’s reaching for where the fabric ends without thinking and he can’t think better of the action till his hands are already brushing against Nureyev.
Juno’s hands are cold, and Nureyev is burning up.
He really should back away, should go stand under a cold shower and think about sewers and blood and things that break other things in an ugly way, except now Nureyev is glancing over his shoulder at Juno and Juno is the thing breaking in an ugly way. He settles his hands on Nureyev’s waist, pulls the thief back till their bodies press against each other.
The dress slips a little further, and it’s painfully obvious that Nureyev isn’t wearing anything at all underneath it.
Which is an idiotic thing to do, but nothing about this was smart to begin with.
Nureyev leans into him, and his breathing is hushed and he’s rocking back and forth on his heels, slowly, rhythmically, and Juno is making the most embarrassing sounds he’s ever made in life. His hands have to be digging into Nureyev’s hips by now, have to be leaving marks like paint smudges or hickeys and - and Nureyev doesn’t seem to care at all, grinding back against Juno and moaning a little when Juno lets his hands reach a little further forward, a little farther down.
Juno curses, loud and harsh and only because if he hadn’t he might have said something unforgivable like Peter, Peter, please. Nureyev’s answering grin has none of Orion’s slick sex appeal, just his own fox-wit and slyness. He’s got Juno right where he wants him, and he knows it.
And Juno, he can’t find it in himself to want to be anywhere else.