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“This is goodbye then, gentlemen! Tataa~”
“What? Come back here, you filthy liar!”
Peter gave a wave and a big smile, before shaking his rope free, and letting himself drop toward the void, stopping right in front of a beautiful, marvelous sight.
“Oh, darling. You shouldn’t have.”
He made the transition seamlessly from his delicate suspension to the Ruby 7, lovingly caressing the panels as he closed the door.
“Your car fucking kidnapped me!”
Peter felt his neck crack ominously as he suddenly turned towards a very disgruntled PI, gripping on for dear life the seatbelt of his backseat.
“Juno!”
The car started again, and Juno shrieked, obviously trying not to eye the void over which the car was flying.
“Don’t Juno me, you lying, thieving…”
“Did you break into the Ruby 7?!”
“What?! How else would have I gotten in?! I’m an Old Town Kid!”
“You broke into the Ruby 7!”
Peter’s voice, he could hear, was getting embarrassingly high, but it hardly mattered considering the widened gap in the car’s loosened panel.
“I was looking for clues!” Juno shouted. “Why do you care about the stupid car?!”
“Were you spying on me?! And the Ruby 7 is way smarter than you give her credit for!”
“It’s stupid! And I wasn’t spying! If anything, Rita was spying: she told me you’d disappeared!”
“I disappeared?! This is what I do! Why do you care?”
“I thought you were dead!”
“Well I thought you’d left me!”
Juno’s mouth moved without a sound for a second.
He looked better than the last time Peter had seen in. His missing eye was covered by a sober, black eyepatch, and he seemed like he’d actually slept regularly in the last few days. He looked incredible, and Peter’s heart tightened in his chest: it felt like the Juno shaped hole that had been following him around was suddenly filled, and it was somehow as painful as carving it out had been.
“Oh, fuck this.”
A hand was suddenly hauling Peter forward and he half-fell half-stumbled from the front seat to the back row of the car, finding himself haphazardly sprawled on top of Juno.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes. Yes Ju…”
A pair of lips crashed brutally into his, cutting in half his favorite word in the world. That, however didn’t matter because then it seemed Juno was desperately trying to work his way into his mouth, forceful enough that Peter barely had time to respond before Juno’s lips left his. The whine that tore itself from his throat was entirely involuntary.
“Shit. Just…”
Peter felt strong hands take hold of his tights and haul him up, until he was pulled into Juno’s lap.
Juno’s mouth closed around the moan that escaped him and the lady shivered when Peter managed to bring his hands on his neck to tangle them in the slightly too-long hair there. After the initial fury of his first kiss, Juno seemed to melt a bit into Peter, and he could now savor the lips he had so missed, and feel the solid presence of his precious lady beneath him, radiating the warmth of a red, sandy planet.
Juno’s hands were still gripping his collar, but they loosened gradually, and finally let go of it so Juno could trace the line of Peter’s body, settling on his waist. With a newfound gentleness, Juno nudged Peter so he was backed up against the seat, where the lady could half-tower, half-sprawl himself over him.
Their kisses, barely interrupted when they needed to breath, had gone slower and more tender, but Peter could feel Juno start to shiver, until he finally broke away.
“Nureyev… I…”
Juno straightened up somewhat, shying away from Peter’s touch: he trembled like the air around them had suddenly become freezing, and his eyes shone with contained tears.
“I’m sorry, I…”
“Juno…”
“I didn’t know what to do, and I panicked, and I…”
“Juno!”
Peter did his best to sat up, which wasn’t the easiest thing, considering Juno was still immobilizing his legs. He caressed Juno’s face, wiping away the singular tear that had managed to slip over Juno’s cheek.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not! I fucked it up, and even now…”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
The look Juno gave him was almost scandalized.
“You said it yourself: I left you!”
“And it wasn’t… a nice experience for me, yes. But I wasn’t fair to you either. I knew… I was asking too much, and I… well, maybe it wouldn’ be extraneous to think I wasn’t quite ready for you to say yes.”
That left Juno apparently speechless, and he searched Peter’s eyes for an instant before averting his again. Peter let the silence stretch, taking Juno’s hand in his instead of talking, trying to soothe him with a light caress of his thumb. Juno’s eyes followed the movement, and they were still trained on the sight when he spoke again, something like fear transpiring in his voice.
“I’m not sure… I can. Yet.”
Something unknotted in Peter’s chest, something hot and painful, but smoothing out tension, letting him breath a bit more freely.
“That’s fine. I want to try… well, trying, for lack of a better word.”
Juno’s gaze stayed, unwavering, on their joined hands.
“Nureyev, you…” Juno paused, took a breath, started again. “Peter. You don’t have to put up with this. With me.”
Peter took a short breath, trying to asses the best words for this. It seemed incredinbly ironic and cruel that none of his mask had ever had a problem to find the best way to seduce, to convince, when Peter always found himself somewhat speechless in front of this beautiful, incredible lady.
That must have been, he thought, because never ever had anyone he met been quite as precious as Juno.
“Maybe... I don’t have to. But I want to.”
Peter wished Juno would look at him, so that he could convince him, plead with him, anything so he could whither away Juno’s fears and objections.
“I… Okay. That’s…yeah.”
Juno’s gaze went back up to meet his and Peter’s surprise must have shown on his face, because he huffed a short laugh.
“What? I learnt some stuff, recently. And I… don’t want to think you’re dead again.”
“Juno…”
It still amazed Peter how readily Juno surrendered into his hands, leaning easily toward him until he could taste those wonderful, gorgeous lips again.
“Sorry about criticizing your car” said Juno, a bit later, his head resting on Peter’s chest. The position wasn’t the most comfortable, considering they were, in fact, crammed in the back seat of a sports car, but Juno’s solid weight against more than made up for it.
The Ruby seven beeped joyously in response, apparently ready to forgive and forget.
“She said it’s fine.”
“Cool.” Juno’s voice was muffled by Peter’s chest, and despite the armrest solidly digging into his back, he never wanted to move again. “Where are we going anyway?”
The Ruby seven beeped again.
“Somewhere safe.” He passed a hand in Juno’s hair, gently massaging his scalp, and the lady hummed contentedly.
“Sounds nice.” He mumbled quietly.
This is home, thought Peter Nureyev. He didn’t need a whole planet, after all, or fame, or fortune, or a name everyone remembered. Not even the echo of a legend, the whispered story of a thief without a name.
As long as Juno Steel existed somewhere, sometimes, in the galaxy, Peter Nureyev could always come back home.