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The first person who said it was Rita, surprisingly enough.
She and Nureyev were standing side by side, washing dishes that had been left over since the previous night in preparation for the family breakfast that morning- or rather, Rita was instructing Nureyev on how to wash the dishes, as he’d somehow managed to mess it up on his last attempt. This had been endlessly amusing to a certain lady, and Nureyev had had to stammer a defense about how There’s no reason to ever wash dishes when you spend your life hopping from one hotel to another, Juno! How was I meant to know where the dish soap went!?
They were the only two awake so far, Rita because there was an early morning stream she’d insisted on catching, and Nureyev because he’d fallen into the rhythm of rising early and intended to keep it. Consistent sleep schedules could do wonders for your skin, he’d heard, and his skin could use all the help it could get.
Rita was grumbling on about something that he couldn’t quite ascertain. He assumed it was just about another one of her inexplicable interests, but around thirty seconds in he realized that she actually seemed to be airing some grievance she had with him.
“I just miss that time with Mistah Steel, you know? I mean, I totally understand, it’s just that Friday night was always the night that he and I would-“
“…Rita, apologies, but whatever are you talking about?”
She clenched her teeth, drew herself up to her full four and a half feet of height and said, “I’m sorry, Mistah Ransom, but Friday is supposed to be Mistah Steel and I’s stream night, and last night he spent it with you instead.”
“That’s what this is about?” Nureyev said, an amused smile playing over his lips.
“It’s- well- I ain’t the type to complain and I know he’s in love with you which makes me really so so happy, of course, but I figured we could work out some kind of schedule, if you-”
She kept talking, but Nureyev had stopped listening. As soon as she’d said those words, his mind went completely blank.
He’s in love with you.
He didn’t know why he was reacting in such an extreme way. Rita saying it didn’t necessarily mean anything. She probably just figured that anybody who kissed somebody else had to be in love with them. She and Juno were close, certainly, but that didn’t mean Juno confided his every feeling with her. It wasn’t confirmation.
Since that night, since Juno’s apology and Nureyev’s decision to stay, they’d been good. They’d been…intimate. He knew there was something between them, something strong. He knew he was in love with Juno, that he’d fallen tumbling back head over heels the moment he’d seen him in that golden dress- no, he knew that the feeling had never actually left him. Not really.
But Juno loving him back?
He wasn’t so sure of that. Not yet.
He filed the hope away, because hope could be dangerous, and if he was going to believe it he’d have to hear it from Juno himself.
“Mistah Ransom?”
“Yes, Rita?” Nureyev said, irrationally annoyed about being pulled from his introspections.
“It’s nothing. Just that you- well, you put the dish soap in the wrong spot again.”
Nureyev looked down at his hands, which had apparently been moving without him paying them any attention. “…Ah.”
Juno did say it, and only a few days later.
He, Nureyev, Jet and Buddy were playing a round of cards in the lounge one evening. It was a simple enough game, and entirely luck based, both aspects that Nureyev had been sure to specify when deciding on a good activity for the evening. He knew that Juno wasn’t exactly a master of card games, and didn’t want him to get too frustrated or feel like he was at too big a disadvantage.
Despite his best efforts, however, both of these things happened nonetheless.
Juno slammed his hand down after Nureyev won his third round in a row. “How are you so good at this?!”
“It is impossible to be ‘good’ at a game like this one in the traditional sense, as it requires no skill,” Jet said, matter-of-fact as ever. “The thief having won three times now is simply due to luck.”
“So I’m just so unlucky that I haven’t won a single time, then? Yeah, right. You’ve rigged it somehow, Ransom!”
A smirk crossed Nureyev’s face. “However could I possibly do that?”
“I…I don’t know, but if anyone could, it’d be you!”
“You flatter me, Juno, but I’m afraid the cards are simply not in your favor this evening. Believe you me, had I rigged the game, I would have won more than three times now.” He waggled a cocky eyebrow in Juno’s direction and nudged his foot with the pointed heel of his shoe.
Juno groaned and slouched back in his chair, crossing his arms. “God, why do I love you?”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. He’d said them so casually, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like it was obvious.
“Peter? Are you feeling ill, darling?”
Buddy was looking at him questioningly. He realized that he’d suddenly gone very still and quiet, and was probably wearing a strange expression.
“Oh, no,” he said quickly. “My apologies. I simply got too caught up in thinking about my victories, I suppose. It distracted me. Shall we carry on?”
Juno was giving him a curious look too, like he had no idea what could have possibly thrown Nureyev off about what he’d just said. Somehow, that bothered Nureyev all the more. How could he not realize the weight of it? The significance of the words that he’d just expressed so easily-
Ah. Of course he’d expressed it easily, because he hadn’t meant it the same way Nureyev was thinking. Of course there’d been no weight behind it. It had just been a joke, the kind one might also make about a friend. Juno would likely have said the same in response to Rita doing something irritating. Nureyev was the one who’d mistakenly assigned something deeper to it, not Juno.
Still. He hadn’t minded hearing it, Nureyev mused, as he turned over a card and the table erupted into exclaims of shock and disbelief that he could possibly have just won a fourth round.
The next time it happened wasn’t so easy to explain away.
Nureyev had been injured on a mission- a simple enough wound, but a painful one nonetheless. Vespa had patched up his shoulder where the blaster fire had burned into it, and he’d reassured Juno over and over that he was all right, but when he rolled wrong in his sleep that night he found himself gasping awake, the area alight with searing pain.
Juno was beside him in the bed, having insisted on sleeping in his room that night in case he needed anything. Nureyev had protested that this wasn’t necessary, but he hadn’t protested particularly hard. He liked being near Juno, and Juno liked being near him. At first he’d felt a residual pang of fear every time they settled down in the same bed, an aching worry that he might wake up to Juno having left him again, but Juno never left and slowly the fear began to subside.
Juno was mumbling in his sleep, his eye moving beneath its lid. Nureyev watched him for a while, drowsy and affectionate. He didn’t mind the pain waking him up if it meant getting to look at that face a little longer.
The peaceful moment didn’t last, however. Nureyev jumped, startled, when Juno suddenly cried out in his sleep. He was twitching now, tears gathering in his closed eye, and Nureyev realized that he was having a nightmare. This was nothing new either, though he’d only been present and awake for them a couple of times before. Usually the only evidence of them was an exhausted, nervous look in Juno’s eye the morning following.
Nureyev was unsure whether wrenching him out of the dream was safe, but he couldn’t bear to watch him be in pain any longer. He put his hand on his shoulder, feeling his own twinge in protest, and shook him gently. “Juno! Juno, wake up!”
Juno’s eye flew open and he scurried away from Nureyev’s touch, body tense with fear. It hurt to be looked at like that, like a prey animal looked at a predator who was cornering them, but Nureyev understand that he wasn’t what Juno was seeing right now. He was still partway in the nightmare.
“Juno. Juno, love, it’s me. It’s Nureyev,” he whispered, careful not to make any sudden movements.
Slowly but surely the tension left Juno’s body and he started to breath normally again. “N-Nureyev. I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite all right. Is it okay if I…?” Nureyev reached out a cautious hand towards Juno, waiting until the lady nodded before he rested it on his thigh. “It was just a nightmare, darling. You’re safe. You’re with me.”
Juno nodded again. “Right. Right, I know.”
After a minute of just being quiet with each other, he sank into Nureyev’s arms, melting against his bare chest like a ragdoll. It meant a great deal to Nureyev that he felt safe there. That he saw Nureyev as something safe. He stroked Juno’s tight curls and hummed softly, a half forgotten tune from some planet or another. Juno shifted and sank even closer, burrowing his scratchy face into Nureyev’s neck.
“Ah!”
Nureyev let out an involuntary noise of pain and then immediately bit his lip, angry with himself for having allowed it to escape. When Juno had moved he’d pressed against Nureyev’s injured shoulder, and he’d been unpleasantly reminded of how fresh the wound still was.
Juno immediately jumped back, alarmed. “I- I’m so sorry, Nureyev. Christ, I’m an idiot. Here I am, needing to be comforted over some stupid dream, meanwhile you’re actually injured-”
Nureyev leaned over and pressed a kiss to his lips to quiet him. “Shh, sh. It’s all right, Juno. It was just a twinge. Besides, not all wounds are physical. Your pain is no less important than my own.”
Juno took a moment to process his words, then sighed fondly and shook his head. “God, I…I love you, Nureyev.”
There it was again.
This time he couldn’t pass it off as being the result of a misinformed secondary source, or just some joke. Juno Steel had just looked him in the eye and told him, dead seriously, that he loved him.
Nureyev knew what he was meant to say, of course. He knew what was true: that he loved Juno too. Of course he did. He’d fallen in love with him back in that Martian tomb, or maybe at that card table, or maybe the moment he’d had those handcuffs placed on him so soon after they’d first met. He loved Juno Steel more than anyone and anything.
But…
“Think nothing of it, dear,” he said gently. “Now, you should get back to sleep, shouldn’t you? A lady needs his beauty rest. I think my shoulder could use the rest, too.”
Juno looked temporarily wrong-footed, like he’d been walking down a flight of stairs and then missed a step, but the expression was quickly replaced with a smile. “Yeah. Yeah, all right.”
“Good night, Juno.”
“Night, Nureyev.”
One evening a week or two later, they were sitting by one of the windows, which currently looked out over a beautiful nebula. Juno was reading a book that Jet had lent him and Nureyev was leaning his head against the glass, staring out at the sky and mentally categorizing all the stars he could see.
“Nureyev…” Juno said, in the soft, cautious voice he tended to use whenever he was about to ask for reassurance or help or something else he still wasn’t quite sure he deserved. He’d set his book down on the floor of the ship without marking his page.
“Mm?”
“Do you…not love me?”
Nureyev didn’t know what he’d been expecting Juno to ask, but it certainly hadn’t been that. For a moment he just stared at the ex-detective blankly, unsure how to react or what to think. “…What?”
Juno looked suddenly ashamed, averting his gaze. “I- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung that on you out of nowhere. I guess…I’d just assumed you still did, but…I want you to know that if you don’t feel that way anymore, that’s okay too.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
It was Juno’s turn to look taken aback. “Well…you’ve never said it. I’ve said it to you, but you never…not since we’ve gotten back together. You never say it back. I figured you needed time, and that’s okay. I was just…look, forget I said anything.”
Of course I love you, Juno, you idiot. Nureyev wanted to grab him and scream that at him, but the words got trapped in his throat, caught by the same ever-present fear that had been plaguing him since he and Juno had gotten back together. He chewed his lip. He hated the pained, nervous look on Juno’s face, but he still didn’t know if he could get the words out.
“Juno…if I told you that I love you, what would happen then?”
Juno finally met his eyes again and frowned. “What do you mean?” he said. “I donno. It…well, it’d be a relief. To know you feel the same way.”
“You’d be all right with that?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Nureyev swallowed, suddenly feeling much more vulnerable than he ever cared to be. “I thought…in the months since that night, I thought perhaps…it was why you left,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “The last time I told you I loved you, I woke up to an empty bed.”
Juno’s eye widened.
“I spent a long time wondering why you did it,” Nureyev continued. “In the end, I decided that it must have been that I…made you feel overwhelmed. Trapped. That you interpreted my confession as some sort of…ultimatum. Something you needed to run from or you’d be stuck with me forever.”
Juno looked so sad, then. So guilty. He loathed that he was the cause of that expression. “Nureyev…”
“What was I supposed to think?” Nureyev said, suddenly defensive. “It was…it was the last thing I said to you before I fell asleep, and then when I woke up-”
“It wasn’t your fault. What I did then had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me.” Juno let out his breath. “You’re not wrong, though. That was part of it. I was so scared that you loved me, not because it made me feel trapped, but because I didn’t feel deserving of it, and it made me realize I was only going to hurt you. I…I didn’t want to hurt you. It was stupid, but I guess I thought…it would hurt less if I left then than if I stayed and messed things up later.”
“And now? How do you feel now?”
“I’m not scared anymore. I’m still not sure I deserve the care you give me, and I still worry I might hurt you someday, but I love you too much to let that get in the way. I love you so much, Nureyev.”
A hush fell over them for a long, breathless moment, and then…
“I love you too, Juno.”
The words hung in the air, and this time they both were able to appreciate the full weight of them. By saying them again, for the first time since that night, Nureyev was placing his trust back in Juno’s hands. It was a fragile, cracked, thing, but he could tell by Juno’s expression that he intended to handle it with care.
Juno pulled him into his arms, holding him like he was the only thing in the entire world that mattered.
“I love you,” Nureyev said the words again, then again and again. “I love you, I love you, I love you-”
He said them like he had to make up for every missed opportunity, as though they’d been building up in his chest demanding to be let out every time he’d wanted to say them but been too afraid to and now that they were given the chance, they were all going to come tumbling from his mouth whether he wanted them to or not.
Juno stayed quiet until he’d gotten them all out, gently stroking his back and pressing kisses into his dark hair. There were tears on both of their faces now. They were tears of relief and joy and regret- of the overwhelming feeling of loving and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are loved just as much in return.
“I’m not going to leave you,” Juno said. “I promise that I’m never going to leave you again.”
For the first time, Nureyev truly believed him.