Chapter Text
“You better bring me back loads of swans, boss. Those tiny foil ones with lots of goodies inside—oh! or champagne-truffle amuse-bouches—no! Prussian caramel candies! Orrrrrrr—”
“I’m security detail, Rita. I’m not getting anywhere near the petits-fours.”
“Awwww, but booooooss—”
The earcomms are smooth and static-less, which means it’s close enough to having voices in his head to be eerily reminiscent of the THEIA; so Juno grits his teeth and remembers Rita is Rita and not XKRFT—, and does what a cop does: he walks the beat.
The beat is large tonight. Peace’s little shindig is hosted in one of the greater levitating mansions on IO-15’s Southern Coast: a behemoth flaring with a thousand neon bulbs, a maze of twining rooms soaked in odiously sweet perfume, an inferno of nameless cocktails and heart-stopping music. Twosomes and moresomes dance in convoluted sets, foxtrots, and tangos. Alcohol flows in small hot pink shotglasses, slammed back with a sprinkle of limesalt; the sugar glasses shatter on the floor, are ground up underfoot by thin stilettos and plump loafers. Bodies entwine in dark alcoves, hands slither under fabrics and pearls; secrets are whispered and bartered and lost. The air stinks of illegal incense and proto-drugs.
Juno, in his guard’s uniform, makes his way through the dancing clusters and the crowded doorways, escaping grasping hands. He tours the mansion’s great ballroom twice, marking escape routes; then walks up to a bruiser-looking bouncer, gets his stolen armband scanned, and gets the go-ahead to walk into the ballroom.
This part of the building is different. Bigger, for one, and brighter: the couples there are higher-class, swankier, and a hell of a lot shadier. The great ballroom is marble and gold, well-lit in its middle, falling into well-constructed shadows all around. He spots Buddy immediately.
Poised by the crystalglass doors that open out into the floating gardens, her great red hair spilling down her back like fire, Buddy Aurinko looks imperial. Her painted lips are curved in a faintly disdainful smile. On her arm leans Nureyev: pouty, pretty, a bored socialite looking for their next hit.
Juno avoids them carefully, but keeps an eye on their back. They’re working inward, gliding elegantly from group to group: well-heeled heiresses and ruined entrepreneurs, failed financiers and mighty galaxy-makers. They place a few well-phrased compliments, laughing the soft, polite laughter of guests who are not yet accepted within the inner circle—but soon mean to be. The crowd shifts and moves, and then Juno sees Ellery Peace: a grey-skinned man with markings upon his face and golden loops in his ears. Easy to recognize him. He commands the room, though he is short, and thick-set. He moves and talks with the sort of authority one is either born to or kills to get.
Juno sees the moment when Peace sees Nureyev.
It’s a complicated move, and Juno’s not entirely sure how Nureyev pulls it off. But Nureyev glances over his shoulder at Peace, turns back to Buddy, and then appears to have an epiphany, and looks right back. It’s an impossibly sensuous look: the long line of his bare back, the twist of his narrow waist. His eyes are dark, calculating, and his lips open, briefly, in the sort of sigh that makes men swoon—the sort of sigh Juno knows isn’t the sort of sigh Peter Nureyev makes, nor even Wren Starr—the look, the sigh, the smile, it’s all new. Ira Crimson, heir to the Crimson Inc. fortunes, spoiled and flighty, a blue-blooded debutante who has seen better days.
Juno leans against a black marble pillar and watches Nureyev whisper a word in Buddy’s ear. Buddy pats his hand indulgently, and then the two of them detach themselves from the little cluster of stars and wind their way round to the center of the ballroom. Peace is waiting for them—trying not to look like it, but getting more impatient with every single rotation they perform.
Their meeting is inevitable, and Buddy manages to make it look innocent; she bumps into Peace backwards, fluidly, and loses herself in heartfelt apologies. She fusses over him: has he spilled his drink? Should she get him another? She seizes the empty champagne flute. She leaves him in the company of her charming escort. A last movie-star smile, and she is gone—and Nureyev hangs onto Peace’s arm with evident relish.
Juno keeps an eye on them for the next half-hour, tuning out Rita’s rambling updates in his ear. She and Vespa have arrived. She and Vespa have stolen past the security team on the top floor. She and Vespa have secured the mansion’s security station. She and Vespa are hacking into the security mainframe. Juno hmms and mm-hmms at the right moments. He breaks up a fight between a Venusian Countess and an Optics Ltd. shareholder, relieves a young-looking sentinel from duty, and dully contemplates his life.
Here he is: on IO, in one of the most select parties in the galaxy, watching the man he … has … sentiments … for flirt his way into someone else’s bed.
“Look alive, Steel,” says Buddy pleasantly.
He opens his eyes, wincing a little at the static. She is leaning against the buffet counter, twirling a thin glass of something bright red and sparkly between her fingers. “You don’t want to be shucked off for sleeping on the job.”
“Yeah, sure,” he mutters.
Over comms, Nureyev is laughing, a twinkling, tantalizing laugh, and Juno glances over between the twirling couples to where he’s ... gotten all up in Peace’s business.
His hand is on Peace’s hand. The distance between them dwindles by the second. Nureyev’s eyes are too bright, and for a brief moment of panic Juno remembers who the fuck Peace is, remembers the little brainwashing pills he confiscated back in the day, before reality reassesses itself, and he sees Nureyev’s delighted smile for what it is: a mathematical, calculated appeal to Peace’s preferences.
Still—there’s no reason why Nureyev has to be so close to him, is there?
They shift slightly away from the dancefloor, and Juno, irritated in spite of himself, moves closer. They are speaking about, of all things, Terran giraffes: there’s a black market for their fur now, and Peace is, apparently, a prime buyer. Good thing, too, as Ira Crimson personally has a stake in the giraffe hide market. “A match made in heaven,” says Peace, and Nureyev laughs and leans in even closer.
Juno doesn’t hear what is said next: it’s too quiet for the comms to catch. But he can guess. Nureyev gives Peace’s hand a tug, and with conniving smiles they slip together out of the ballroom, past a curtained hallway into what is undoubtedly Peace’s private quarters.
Juno takes a breath. Holds it.
“Well done,” Buddy murmurs. “Rita, dear?”
“One moment, boss!”
Some breathless typing.
“Is all well?” Siquliak inquires.
“Quite well, I hope,” says Buddy, and then Rita says: “Alriiiiight, here we go, thanks-Miss-Vespa, so! There’s good news, and then, um, there’s less good news.”
Of course there are.
“The good news is, we got in the mainframe easy-peasy, and the schedule’s all lit up and pretty right now, so that won’t be a problem, Miss Buddy, I can see it all nice and clear! The bad news is, Mistah Starr can’t hear us anymore.”
A beat. Juno swallows.
“—cause of the interference Mistah Peace has set up ‘round his private—bureau, ooh la la, fancy missy—this mainframe is a mess, Miss Buddy, you got no idea—but anyway we can’t talk to him and he can’t talk to us, and—”
“That is a complication,” Jet puts in.
“Perhaps,” says Buddy, voice light, “but not one we were unprepared for. I suggest you drive around to Exit 16, Jet, darling, under the laundry depository.”
“Bud … “
“I daresay Starr will hear the static in his comms and adjust to plan B accordingly.”
“That’s a hell of a presumption,” Juno growls.
“Quite. But nonetheless one we must work with. Unless you have a better idea, Juno.”
He doesn’t. He knows he doesn’t. Nureyev can, in any eventuality, protect himself—lethally, if he has to.
“Bud,” says Vespa, firmly. “There’s something else.”
“Oh?”
“The schedule. It looks different.”
“Very different?” Buddy’s voice has gone sharp.
“Too different. Steel was slated to go on rounds at twenty-six hours.”
“Correct.”
He’s memorized the schedule down to the second. The rounds are solitary, because moguls such as Ellery Peace cannot risk his security detail fraternizing; they are also thorough, and their timing is essential to the execution of the job. If the schedule has gone awry, their calculations are no longer relevant. And Peter Nureyev is alone in enemy territory with no means of communication.
“The appointment’s been moved to twenty-two hours,” says Vespa, “ten minutes from now,” and Buddy curses, fluently and under her breath, with such depth of feeling Juno’s almost impressed.
“Abort mission,” says Siquliak immediately.
“No.”
“Buddy. It is the only course of action that doesn’t end with one of us imprisoned or killed.”
“Not while Starr is adrift. Get him back on the map and we’ll jeopardize the job quick as you please. So long as he operates on the understanding that we are continuing as planned, we are continuing as planned.”
Buddy Aurinko’s a born leader. Juno suppresses the bubble of panicked laughter that rises in his throat. “I’ll go.”
“No,” says Buddy sharply.
“You got another bright idea, feel free to share,” says Juno, already moving: on to the western doors of the ballroom, where two collossi are standing guard, belted and armed to the teeth. “Starr’s stranded and defenseless.” Never mind, he thinks, that Nureyev is as lethal as a switchblade in a Martian fist. “We gotta make contact before he starts powering through the plan and gets himself dead.”
“Mistah Starr does show up on the inframaps,” says Rita timidly.
Buddy pauses. Sighs. “Very well.” Suddenly she’s all business. “Rita, darling, you guide Juno to—wherever they’ve got to—mind, you’re not to kill anyone without provocation, Steel.” And, before Juno can object that that was his requirement: “And keep Starr from killing Peace, however great the temptation. You’ll be on your own: no comms. Work it out on the go. If you’ve time to take the specs, find the safe and purge it out. Then scram. Jet will be waiting.”
“Copy that,” Juno says, and offers a bright grin to the goliaths in charge. “Hi, fellas!”
“Mistah Starr and Mistah Peace are in the office four rooms to the left, boss,” Rita murmurs in his ear. “They haven’t moved for a real long time.”
That’s … good. He supposes. Honeypot missions are tricky business; toe the line a little too much, a little too far, and the whole seduction falls apart. God knows Nureyev is good at it. Nureyev seduced the socks out of Juno the day they met; and two years later a single gesture, a single look, a single sharp smile is enough to send fire coursing through his veins. Always will, probably.
“Left again—the other left—they’re just ahead, Mist—”
Rita’s voice cuts out with a squeak. Juno pauses in an archway, then slips through, the soft swish of the panel door slipping shut behind him. His comms have died in a whisper of static. He’s got within the circle of interference, then; Peace’s bureau is ten paces away. Juno waits till his right-eye vision accustoms itself to the bluish darkness, counts to twenty, then walks on, his hand on his blaster.
Another, greater archway to the right opens into what undoubtedly looks like the bureau of a space mogul: bookshelves heavy, full to capacity, sumptuous leather chairs, tall windowpanes—and, in the center of it all, a desk made of what looks like real wood, dark and polished.
Peace has pushed Nureyev up against it. His back is turned to Juno. As Juno falls back, he hears the slick, wet sounds of their kisses.
Juno makes himself quiet. Peace is in his line of sight, which means—means, he only gets to see part of Nureyev; just enough to know that his eyes are closed, his hands on either side of Peace’s face—spine bent to the smooth desk surface, one leg hooked round Peace’s hips. It’s such a move. Juno blinks quickly, and swallows back against a bitterness in his throat. Nureyev is making soft, soft sounds, small gentle sighs of pleasure. His hips rock slowly against Peace’s, and he seems absorbed, taken by force. Wholly, wholly focused.
For a moment Juno falters.
It doesn’t last. Perhaps he makes a noise: maybe his back meets the archway marble too harshly. Nureyev’s eyelashes flutter. He turns his head just enough that he can glance at Juno.
The bitter thing in Juno’s throat becomes all angles. He knows he is standing in the dark, waiting, barely visible; but Nureyev does very little to react, anyway. He kisses Peace harder, tightens his fingers in the greying hair. Doesn’t look away from Juno.
A second passes. Then Nureyev sighs, lets his eyes fall closed. He and Peace part, and he affects timidity, lets shyness fall over his damnably beautiful face, lets his body relax in Peace’s grasp.
“It’s alright,” says Peace, as soothing as it gets. Nureyev looks appropriately anxious.
“We will be missed,” he whispers. Ira Crimson’s accent is thick and lovely.
“By whom?” laughs Peace. “Your cavalier? Have some faith in yourself, my dear.”
“Mmm,” Nureyev purrs. His lips are still impossibly red. “Oh, I do.” And then, conversationally: “Shoot him, Juno.”
Juno obeys without breathing. The blaster is out of its holster before he can think, his finger on the trigger; the stun blast echoes, muffled and soft, and Peace crumples lifeless at Nureyev’s feet.
“Hm,” Nureyev says again. With a sigh, he removes himself from the desk. Puts himself to rights. “A good shot, detective.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Juno says, and walks over and pulls Peace over onto his back. It was a good shot. Peace is breathing, barely. He’s out of commission for the next hour and a half. Nureyev tilts his head, and prods his shoulder with the tip of a red stiletto.
“Stunned?” A soft sigh. “Such restraint, Juno. He is, you know, a very bad man.”
“You want him killed, do it yourself,” Juno snaps, working with precision: he secures Peace’s arms behind him, trusses him up like the proverbial turkey; leaves him propped against his own precious desk.
“So I would have, had you not … intruded.” There’s something odd in Nureyev’s voice, too: something bitter, so low, so low that Juno barely catches it. When he looks up Nureyev’s eyes have gone quite cold. “Is there any reason why you decided to compromise my cover, detective? I may promise you that my virtue was not under any form of duress.”
“We lost you on comms,” says Juno. Nureyev stares at him. His mouth thins.
“As we knew you might. Hardly a reason to jeopardize the job.”
“Yeah,” says Juno, “except we didn’t know the schedule’d be changed, alright?”
Nureyev blinks.
“Look, we got twenty minutes, maybe ten, tops. Schedule’s all fucked off. Either we get the specs right now or we get out of here. You got the codes alright?” “I was in the process of acquiring them, yes.”
Nureyev kneels with infuriating grace. “Until you—rather rudely, I may add—interrupted us.”
He proceeds to do something unconscionable to Peace’s eyeball. Peels back the lid and—eugh—pries an infinitesimal percentage of the film over his retina, applying it, with meticulous softness, to an artificial, portable protoplasm, which he wraps up neatly in gauze.
“Genetic code,” he says, catching Juno’s eye. “Mr. Peace is refreshingly old-school in his safekeeping measures, when you come down to it.”
“Long as you don’t pluck his eye out,” Juno says faintly.
Nureyev says nothing for a long moment, then stands. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Coming?”
“Isn’t his safe around here?”
Nureyev chuckles, leading the way. “Oh, no. Old-school, perhaps, but emphatically not an idiot. He keeps his private safe in his private quarters, as one does.”
That … makes sense. Goddamnit. Juno follows, grudgingly.
Nureyev must have memorized the floormaps: he leads them past dimmed doorways and through secret alcoves, one step ahead of Juno always, his slender form slipping through the shadows, adroit as a cat. Or a fox. Juno keeps his attention firmly above his waistline. It’s a struggle.
Past an ante-chamber, and then—
“This way,” Nureyev murmurs, at last, and effaces himself to let Juno in. The door falls to silently behind them.
It’s. An office. It looks no different to Juno than any of those they’ve seen on their way in, except—except it smells like rich people, like thick amber-rose incense, cloying in the throat. Nureyev is already pulling on those black gloves of his.
“One minute, now.”
“Sure,” Juno mutters, and sets up sentry at the door, peering through the embrasure. “Think it’ll be long?”
“Don’t be impatient, Juno.” Nureyev’s feeling along the bookshelves with a light touch, keeping the desk in his line of sight.
“We don’t have that much time,” Juno says, “Starr,” and is rewarded by a sudden bright smile, which Nureyev conceals immediately, ducking his head to inspect the lower shelves.
“Shouldn’t take more than five minutes.”
They feel like an hour. Juno determinedly turns his back: the sight of Nureyev bending over and murmuring soothingly to the furniture is a little too much. He waits, beside the door, keeping his breath even and slow, waiting for the moment when everything inevitably goes to hell.
“Ah,” says Nureyev, softly.
“Ah?”
“Nearly there.” A snick. When Juno glances back, Nureyev is unfolding the protoplasm from the gauze, acting quick, before the specimen crumples in his hands, as such fragile materials are bound to do. There doesn’t appear to be anything different about the bookshelves.
Another few long minutes drip by. Excruciating. Juno pricks his ears: a soft tread is echoing, as though from far away, down the corridor.
“Hurry,” he breathes.
“I’m doing my level best, detective.”
“Someone’s coming,” Juno says, and his hand falls, instinctively, to his gun. It fits against his palm, body-warm and familiar. Nureyev hisses between his teeth, and works faster.
“One moment—”
“We don’t have one moment—”
Another soft snick, and Nureyev makes a sound—half a moan—the sort of sound Juno has only heard once, under the dark covers of a hotel room bed; the sort of sound that goes straight down to his cock. Then in a moment he is standing; a book is slipped gently back into place, and Nureyev is at the door, pushing Juno through, his hand on Juno’s shoulder. The contact is so sudden, so staggeringly intimate, that Juno near enough stumbles. “Come along,” Nureyev whispers, and finds his hand in the dark.
They wind their way through the shadows. Hell, this place is huge. No matter how far they go, though, the distant tread is getting no farther away from them: to Juno’s ear, it sounds like it’s getting close. They gotta have some sort of heat signature—something to follow them by—which, if they do, they’re fucked: how would they explain this? There’s little they could say to justify sneaking off alone in the dark; apart from—
“Damnit,” Nureyev says, under his breath, and then: “This way, Juno—”
They duck underneath a canopy of branches, and find fresh air. But it’s only a balcony, and disappointment rises in Juno’s throat at the exact same time nausea does: they are on the very fringes of IO, and the fall underneath them opens up into the void, the emptiness of space. The ring of Jupiter-IO’s dome shimmers silver in the distance. Beneath that is an endless, star-riddled chasm.
“This your way out?” Juno says, voice rising. “Because I gotta tell you, I’d rather cut off my own head than—”
“Juno, I would never do that to you,” says Nureyev.
A beat. Juno stares at him. Nureyev’s hand is firm in his, the fabric of his gloves warm and impossibly soft. But Nureyev isn’t looking at him; he is glancing away, behind him, sharp-eyed, his red mouth pursed.
“They’re almost here,” Nureyev says, and pulls Juno to him with a sharp tug. He meets Juno’s startled look, and cups his face in his hands. “Kiss me.”
“What!—”
But it’s body memory, it turns out: kissing Peter. Nureyev guides his mouth to his mouth, slips his fingers in Juno’s tangled hair, and Juno lets himself sink into it without thinking. Nureyev moans a very loud moan, and plasters himself to Juno’s chest, backing them both up against the banister.
Juno hesitates—and hears the approaching footsteps, and understands, and goddamnit if that doesn’t hurt any less than it ought. He throws himself into it, though. He’ll be enthusiastic about it if it kills him. It’s a sad, pathetic little story—the security newbie falling into the grasp of a bored socialite, breaking duty to make out in a dark corner with the pretty thing batting his eyes at him—but Juno knows sad and pathetic intimately, and kissing Nureyev is so easy. It’s shockingly, damnably easy. It’s good. It’s still so good.
Nureyev opens his mouth under his, bows his back under his hands, meets the wet heat of his tongue with his own. He moans again, and again. It’s so well-done Juno could weep with the pleasure of it. Nureyev is a professional—down to the bone. He kisses like a man possessed.
“Darling,” Nureyev whispers, between kisses, so soft surely, surely no one could hear.
“What the fuck,” says the guard. Juno tenses. But Nureyev’s hand is on his hand, halting it on the way to his gun—and Nureyev keeps kissing him, apparently so tangled up in the joy of it that he fails to notice the blaster trained on them both. When Juno, with unfeigned reluctance, begins to pull away, Nureyev follows his mouth with his own and makes a very soft, very displeased sound.
“What the fuck,” says the guard again—he sounds young, untrained, which: shit—trigger-happy, the younger cops always are—and the blaster shakes in his grip. “Unhand him!”
“Hmmmm?” Nureyev says, dreamily. He peers over Juno’s shoulder. His voice falls into a purr. “And who are you?”
“I’m—”
“I shall rephrase,” says Ira Crimson, tossing their head. Their hands stroke down Juno’s shoulders to his pectorals. “If you’re not joining us, why are you still here?”
The guard falters, opens his mouth, then closes it. He stammers the words out. “Shouldn’t be here, Mr—”
“Crimson. Ira Crimson. This is—oh, what is your name, darling?”
“Uh.” Nureyev meets his eye with a steely smile and a tight grip round his waist. “Mateo Polina,” Juno improvises.
“Fraternization between security detail and the guests in the grounds is strictly forbidden,” the guard recites, by rote, wilting under Ira Crimson’s interested stare. “So. Um.”
“Ah, but we’re not in the grounds now, are we?” Crimson throws an arm out. “Behold! The infinity of the void below us—around us! Could we, truly, be considered to be in the building? I think not.”
“... right,” says Juno. “Definitely not in the ballroom anymore.”
“It’s private property,” the guard says, staunchly and desperately.
Ira Crimson launches into a very deep, very heartfelt groan. “Ugh. Very well.” He detaches himself from Juno, stretches long enough that their bare shoulders and back are exquisitely displayed, and saunters past the guard into the corridor, trailing Juno by the hand. “And where is the exit? Come now, chop chop. I have a vibronic limo waiting, darling. We can … resume our activities there.”
“I see,” says Sikuliaq. “A proper plan of action, indeed.”
“It was all I could think of,” Nureyev says, yawning. The Ruby 7 purrs very gently around them. There are five distinct inches of space between Nureyev and Juno, and Juno is very, very intent on keeping it that way.
He can still taste Nureyev’s lipstick. It tastes of cherry liqueur.
“I SEE,” says Rita, beaming. “You remembered the twist in The Lovesong of Valentina, the Lost Earl of Theseus, boss!”
Nureyev leans his cheek upon his hand, smiles at her, and doesn’t say a word.
“I … see,” says Buddy. “A classic.”
Vespa, up in the pilot seat, fails in smothering a laugh.
“A subtler approach than you’re used to, is it not? Kissing your way out, rather than shooting your way out. I’m impressed, Juno.”
“Look, I’m really tired,” says Juno.
And then, of course, because the universe has it in for Juno Steel, he can’t sleep a wink. In the artificial nighttime dimness of the ship, he kicks off his blankets and stares at the ceiling for so long that even Rita’s streams next door gently slow into silence. And then the claustrophobia kicks in—it really is like being swallowed by some gigantic space-whale—and he can no longer stay in bed; he pads outside, wearing nothing but his pajama pants, and makes his way down to the living quarters.
There’s brandy in the booze cabinet. He pours some in a thick, cool glass, and wanders over to the great observatory deck.
The ship is gliding far above a gigantic moon.
It’s full, and silver-white, and pristine in the way that only uninhabited planets still get to be—maybe the core is radioactive, or the air more toxic than all the corporations in the galaxy have learned to neutralize yet—and it hangs in the starless sky like an immense world, untouched and remote. It’s a nice fantasy, at least. Deep down, Juno knows that automated bots are probably drilling into its depths, extracting metals and gases. But, from afar, it looks … cold. Beautiful, in its own way.
He’s not sure how long he stays there, not even drinking, just—looking. But eventually the ship goes into a long, smooth dive, and something else comes into view. A tall structure, an old, old structure, blinding silver, like an endless, endless waterfall, dropping into the unknown.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Juno yelps. Nureyev steadies his hand just in time to keep his grip firm on his glass.
“I—” He stares. “Er. Yeah. I guess.” He swallows, and forces himself to look away. Nuyerev is wearing loose black pants and a soft-looking sweater, and he gives Juno a wry look before leaning his elbows on the windowsill. “What are they, anyway?”
“The Iron Falls of Ganymede.” Nureyev’s voice is soft. Tired. He has taken off his make-up, and his hair is looser, falling in his eyes. It’s a little longer than it used to be. “The Sixteenth Wonder of the Galaxy. It was built by Terran pioneers in the 22nd century, when they tried to harvest liquid iron from its core—before, of course, the Coup of the Unseen destroyed the local political system, and Ganymede was left behind. The structure crystallized. Froze in space.”
“So it’s a space fossil.”
“Space waterfall, certainly.” Nureyev does not look at him. “There was a time, once, when I thought we would see it together, Juno.”
A pause.
“I must confess, I never imagined it would be like this.”
And … yeah. Juno’s throat closes up, and he looks down at his glass for lack of anything better to do; Nureyev sighs, shifts, and does not glance at him, either.
“Look,” Juno says, finally. “Hmm?”
“You don’t have to do this like … this.”
“Do what, detective?”
“This—politeness—thing. You’re mad. At me.”
Nureyev gives him a slow, appraising look. Juno becomes, all at once, intensely aware that he doesn’t have a shirt on. “That’s certainly an interesting assessment of my behavior.”
“Oh, cut the crap,” Juno snaps. “I get it. Alright? I fucked up, I left, it’s all on me—whatever. You get to be angry. Bully for you.”
“I’m glad I have your permission to be angry, Juno,” Nureyev says, icily. “You certainly didn’t take my feelings into account when you decided to leave me in our bed. Without a word. Without a note. Without so much as a goodbye.”
“Yeah, okay—I left, and I’m sorry—look, I just … couldn’t. Leave. With you.”
“Oh, that clears it right up, then.” Nureyev is infuriatingly calm.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Juno says, suddenly feeling very, very tired. “A city like—that. It was mine, and sometimes it was all that was mine, and … cities, planets, places, whatever they are—when you’ve put your entire life into them—” What had Buddy said? You can’t break apart without leaving some of yourself behind.
Except, he thinks now, that’s true for Peter Nureyev, too. He’s left something behind in that hotel room. Something of himself; something deep and true; something he didn’t realize was gone until Peter Nureyev was in front of him again, making it quite, quite clear he wasn’t getting it back.
“And here you are now,” says Nureyev, looking away. He looks exhausted, Juno realizes. He, too, was wandering the ship, unable to sleep. “A great many light years away from Hyperion City.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugs; swallows in one gulp what’s left of his brandy. “Back then I couldn’t leave. Now I—couldn’t stay.”
It is too great a task to explain Hyperion City to someone who has never met Ramses O’Flaherty, to make him grasp the horror of the THEIA, the cold dread of seeing Mick Mercury with a glassy happiness in his heart. Nureyev has never understood quite how much of Juno’s identity was tangled up in Hyperion City; how could he, when he dances from one planet to the next, never stays in one place, never puts down roots? Nureyev has the universe at his well-manicured fingertips. One city is only one city out of many.
It sounds foolish, stupid, to say: she doesn’t need me anymore.
Nureyev hums, a little distantly. He maintains his silence for a long, enduring moment. Then says: “You broke my heart, Juno.”
Juno isn’t sure what to say to that. He isn’t sure he can speak. “I—if it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure I broke mine, too.”
A soft laugh. “I see. You’ve only got yourself to blame.” With a sigh, Nureyev pushes off from the windowpane. “I ... believe I will turn in now.”
He does not look at Juno as he moves away. But Juno does—turns, and reaches for him, uncertain what he’ll say, knowing only that he must do something, before it all goes to hell.
His fingers brush Nureyev’s wrist, and Nureyev jerks it back to him like an electric shock.
“Nureyev—”
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t say that name aloud, detective. You never know who might be listening.” Then he shrugs, a sloping, unhappy motion, and looks back, hands in his pockets. “At any rate, I shed that identity long ago.”
Juno feels the familiarity of that moment—the wrongness of it in his mouth—in his lungs—and knows, deep down, that he deserves every damning word.
“I left Peter Nureyev in a hotel room on Mars,” Nureyev says, softly. There's only sadness left in his face. “And I’ve very little intention of ever letting him out again. Goodnight, Juno.”
Juno watches him go.