Chapter Text
Waking up was a strange ordeal, and it happened in waves. I recalled coldness, hurried movement and harried voices. Suddenly I was warm. Then I felt pain again, sharp and all encompassing, only for it to fade away almost immediately. And a different kind of tidal wave taking me under once again.
The next time I wake up, it is somewhere soft, warm and dark. I take a deep breath, only to realize I am surprisingly able to do so without much discomfort. With my eyes still closed, I try to remember why this should come as a surprise.
Ah yes, I do believe the last thing I remember was lying in a puddle of my own blood awaiting certain death. I try moving each of my limbs in turn, and find all four of them seem to be intact and functional. I try to swallow, and my throat does feel a tad dry. A minor inconvenience all things considered. I believe I have been awake for the better part of five minutes now, no sound or light has interrupted my thoughts. This seems to feel like a safe place for me to be.
I open my eyes. The lights are out, and someone has taken out my contacts so the world is a blur, yet the safety glow around the walls makes it perfectly clear, I am on the medical bay of the Carte Blanche. But, we were a day away from the ship when I entered Davies’ compound to seek out Juno. Just how long have I been unconscious?
I look around me and there’s only one other person in the room with me: Juno. He’s sitting on Vespa’s chair, both legs stretched in front of him with his feet resting on the far end of my bed. And he looks to be sleeping soundly, if the sounds coming from him are any indication. My love always does snore when he goes to bed exhausted… or maybe it’s just the position he’s in. As he fell asleep sitting up, his head is falling forwards causing his neck to bend more than must be comfortable.
Maybe I should try and wake him up? Just as I’m pondering whether interrupting Juno’s rest will be worth it to prevent the crick in his neck he’s sure to have when he wakes up if he stays in this position much longer, he heaves a deep sigh and shifts in his seat. This brings his head back to a more comfortable position, and his face points directly toward me.
He looks drawn and tired, heavy bags under his eyes, with a pallor to his skin I am not used to seeing and hope never to see again. But he also looks peaceful, like whatever he is dreaming right now is enough to bring him comfort.
He looks utterly beautiful.
I decide I will let him catch his rest, and turn to my side so I can face him more directly. I can see my glasses sitting on the table next to the bed, and I’m thankful for whoever thought to place them there as I put them on. I think I know who it was.
I’m not sure for how long I stay, silent and motionless, just basking in the presence of my goddess. His eyes move behind closed eyelids, and then go still once more. His nose scrunches occasionally, but his brow is relaxed and his breath is deep and even. Every breath he takes is a priceless reminder that he’s still alive. He’s once more with me, safe and amongst his family. The past four days have been such a nightmare. Knowing him to be at the mercy of a sociopath. Believing him to be gone for good. Dreading that I would reach him eventually only to have a front row seat to his death at Davies’ hand. It was more than I could bear.
So I watch him sleep. Lord knows for how long. And eventually, with a sudden start and a groan, he wakes up.
“Oh dammit!” - the first words out of his mouth, and I can’t help but smile - “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep in this-” he looks up right then, his hand half way to his neck, and whatever he was about to say dies on his lips as he looks back at me. His face does a complicated show of several emotions in quick succession; a sleepy happy smile followed by an anxious frown, wet eyes and a guilty turn of his face to the side; that last one I fail to understand right now, as familiar as I am with both the sentiment and the expression. But I do not want him to look away from me, not right now.
“Hello, Juno.”
“Hey… are you… how are you feeling? Do you need anything?”
“I’m feeling quite well Juno, even more so now that I can hear your voice. Are you alright?”
“ Me ? Nureyev, I'm not the one that… nevermind.” The anxious scowl is back in full force, as his feet leave my bed and he leans forward, and I understand he needs to do something more than just talk right now. “Are you sure you don’t need anything? Water, some pain medicine? I can call Vespa, she said-”
“No need to wake up the good doctor, love. I’m sure I gave her more than enough trouble already. But some water would be nice?”
“Yeah, alright, I’ll get you some water.” He stands up, evidently to fetch me a glass, and he keeps talking. “You really did give Vespa quite a workout, you know? Jet and her were operating on you for almost five hours.” I can’t help but notice, particularly when he turns around again, that he- “Apparently one of your lungs was out of commission, and you’d lost about five times as much blood as would be advisable or whatever.”
“Juno, you’re…”
“Not that losing blood is ever advisable, no matter the amount. Just so you know-”
“Love, your leg!”
“What about it?” At least the anxious scowl has morphed into an annoyed scowl, which may be considered an improvement. Still, I can’t believe I’d forgotten... “Drink your water.”
“Juno, you’re limping. Are you still in pain? Did Vespa not look at your leg afterwards?”
“I’m fine! My leg is fine , Vespa fixed it in less than thirty minutes. It’s just a little stiff, I’ll be fine.” He takes a couple shaky breaths and it seems he has more to say, so I give him the time while I sit up and take a sip of water. Then he keeps going, “I’m not the one that just fucking died two times yesterday, Nureyev.”
“What? Dear-”
“No, don’t dear me!” He’s almost shouting now, looking more scared than anything. “Vespa had to get you stable enough to endure surgery, and it took her the better part of a day. She started to fix you up in the Ruby, but you died once when we were moving you to the ship you all took to reach Ganimede faster. Then she brought you back, but you died again before we even reached the Carte Blanche! I… it took her a long time to get your heartbeat back that second time.” His voice had started out loud, but now he sounds so very small. “It felt like a really long time…”
“Juno, I…” I’m not sure what to say to this. I know what that feels like . Then his voice finally breaks down with one last line...
“I thought I’d lost you…”
And just like that, I’m moving. My body feels stiff and I get dizzy just standing up but I don’t care. I move to put my arms around my love, just as he begins to cry in earnest.
“Juno, dear, I’m right here. I’m here. I’m sorry.”
He’s crying into my chest and clinging to my shirt like it was a lifeline. All I can do is hold on to him even tighter until his sobbing eventually slows. Finally, god knows after how much time has passed, he looks up at me. “Shit, Nureyev. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled… and you shouldn’t be standing up, shit! You’ll pull some stitches or something!”
“It’s alright dear. Come, sit next to me, yes?”
He nods and, as we both go to sit back down on the bed, I can feel a soreness in my chest for the first time since I woke up. Still nothing major, I tell myself, as I silently offer what’s left of my water to Juno. He takes it sheepishly, downing it in one gulp. Even if he’s still sniffling a lot, he does look more calm, and he gives me a watery smile afterwards.
“I’m really sorry to have given you such cause for worry, Juno.”
“No Nureyev, don’t… you bought us enough time to get out of there without Dark Matters even looking at us. Probably saved us from some sort of undisclosed high security prison or something worse. And you were really impressive over there! Took out ten agents singlehandedly.”
“Only nine agents, love. One of them ran away. And anyway,” I say as I try rolling my left arm to soothe my sore back and chest, to no avail. “It clearly wasn’t impressive enough if I needed to be rescued afterwards.”
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone could be fast enough to actually dodge a blaster shot at that close a range, Nureyev. Not even you. Still, you almost did! Vespa said the blaster only grazed your side, and that’s why you got the burns but didn’t actually… you know…”
“Burns?” I check my skin beneath this shirt and it seems to be unscathed, besides the stab wound in my right side. “I don’t see any.”
“Internal burns, according to Vespa. Something about your lung nearly being cooked all the way through. She’s treating it somehow but it seems that’s the thing that’s gonna take the longest to heal.”
“ Oh .” Something about Juno being so well informed about my injuries and treatment makes me feel… safe. It’s a warm feeling, made warmer still by the fact that I no longer need to push it away or try to brace myself for the day it’s taken away. It suddenly hits me, there is no proverbial blade hanging over me anymore. I won’t endanger Juno by staying next to him.
It also suddenly becomes clear to me… I don’t need to lie to our crew anymore. I’ve told the truth to everyone, except Buddy I suppose… but didn’t I hear her call my real name before I fainted earlier? This realization leaves me dizzy. Or maybe it’s the medications.
Vespa comes into the room soon after, complaining about how our sitting up and moving around would somehow mess up all of her hard work. But she doesn’t make Juno go back to his own bed. Instead, she checks both our injuries and then calls Buddy to let her know I’ve awoken.
Suddenly I’m surrounded by, well, everyone.
Rita rushes in, a blur of bright soft clothes in quick motion, and before I can react I find myself enveloped in a vanilla scented hug. Vespa tells her to take it easy , but my darling Juno just shrugs and gives me a look I know to mean I might as well get used to this. Hugging back a sniffling affectionate Rita, it doesn’t feel like any sort of burden at all.
In walks Buddy next. She takes one quick look at the scene in front of her. Rita slowly disentangling herself from me. Vespa wearing a scowl on her face that’s nowhere near the intensity I know she can muster. And Juno, trying his best to hide the biggest grin on his face . And then Buddy is smiling herself as she walks right up to me, holding out her hand, and says:
“Peter Nureyev, welcome to our family dear.”
I take her hand, open my mouth but I’m not sure how I could possibly respond to a statement such as this. I am saved from figuring it out by Jet, who chooses this exact moment to come in. He’s holding an incredibly large tray with several water bottles and six huge bowls of Jovian Noodle Soup.
And just like that, all six of us are eating, talking, laughing. After the past four days it feels like taking a deep breath after a near drowning.
Buddy expresses some regret at not having been able to see my repartee with Davies in full. “I could only see the recorded stream, dear, but even with the selective censoring our Rita applied to it, I could still see your performance must’ve been impeccable. The look on that slimy rat’s face was priceless!”
Vespa has some less than impressed comments about my performance in that narrow corridor. “I mean, how many more knives were you holding, ‘reyev? Just do some throws and hit the blasters out of their hands before they can hit you ! You don’t need all that jumping and dodging if your opponents have all lost their blasters. And maybe a couple of thumbs too!”
But Rita has a different opinion. “Well, I think it was cool , Miss Vespa! Not the blood of course, or when he was hurt, but he moved real fast. Almost looked like a ballet dancer, and he also looked scary enough to make one of them run away! And anyway, he faced ten agents armed with blasters, all by himself, with just a couple of knives? That’s James Baud level of cool!”
I forget to ask just who James Baud is, as Rita goes on to explain how she could see everything quite clearly through the Camera Man’s eye once she hacked into it, and used it to go and pick me out of that place. Apparently she had to turn off some of it’s failsafes, as it was not built to move quite as fast as she needed it to. And her hacking it first was apparently faster than the thing would’ve been getting to me using it’s regular speed, which I tell her is quite impressive.
Jet agrees with my assessment, while also commenting that Cecil Kanagawa seemed very interested in how Rita was able to use his invention so easily. Seems we may be hearing from the Martian stream genius once the police are done interrogating him. No one seems too concerned about it.
“It seems he somehow got the HCPD to agree to having cameras present in every one of his debriefings, and in Min Kangawa’s interrogations too,”Jet informs us. “There has been some talk of an entire season of streams dealing with members of The Board, New Town and everything else they can think of in connection to this. I have been told there is quite an audience for it.”
Juno seems content just to listen to us all. He laughs and eats his soup, all the while keeping his hand holding mine. I feel… good. Even if I grow steadily both dizzier and more sore as we finish our meal. Eventually my eyes start drooping, and our doctor declares it is time for me to get some more rest.
“He’s got to spend at least one more night here in the sickbay, Steel. You’re all cleared to go, so you should go get some sleep too. Scoot!”
“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere Vespa. You scoot!”
Remarkably, the doctor does not debate this. I think I even catch a rare smile on her face, though that may just be because Juno takes my glasses off so I can lie back down. I receive a new dose of pain medicine to help me through the night.
Everyone else makes their goodbyes, and as I relax in bed Juno strips down to his underwear then lies down next to me. The bed is not built for two people but he doesn’t seem to mind, and I certainly don’t either. I fall asleep feeling warmer and more at ease than I have since I can remember.
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I wake up an indeterminate amount of time later. As I open my eyes, the first thing I see is Juno looking back at me. He gives me a wistful smile.
“Hey.”
“Hello, love.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you. You should go back to sleep.”
But I do not feel tired. I mean to tell him I feel good. I mean to say that I love him. That Jet’s soup, Buddy’s acceptance, Vespa’s care and Rita’s cheer have all made their way into my heart, and made me feel better. Safer. I mean to tell him that he’s inside my heart. And now that I am free, all I want is to try and give him back everything he has given to me. And more. That is all I mean to say.
What comes out of my mouth, however, is -
“Will you marry me?”
Juno looks at me for a second, shock clear on his face, and then he starts giggling into the pillow.
“Juno? Dear, I know that was abrupt, and this isn't how I was planning on asking, but-”
“Babe, babe, I’m sorry,” He’s struggling to stop giggling, but he still looks utterly amused. Good lord, how can he look so beautiful even when he’s making fun of me? “It’s just… How much pain medicine did Vespa give you before we fell asleep? You’re high right now, aren’t you?”
“... I may be a little lightheaded right now, yes. But I stand by my question, dear.”
“Nureyev, maybe you should sleep on it, yeah?”
“Juno, my love, I have been sleeping on it for months now. I mean this. The only reason I haven’t asked before is… well, I was never sure how much of a life I had ahead of me. My future didn’t feel my own, so I hesitated in asking you to join me in it. But now? Well… Now we have our entire lives ahead of us. And I want nothing more than to share mine with you. If you’ll have me?”
Juno’s expression had sobered somewhere in the middle of that rambling speech, and I admit I may still be a little under the influence of something. But when I look at him I know, I feel more like myself than I ever have when we’re apart. This isn’t the proposal I had planned but I want this.
Juno is staring at me, with an open look of cautious wonder in his eye. Still no answer, but I find I am not worried. We’ll be together, married or not. I graze his cheek with my hand, and he takes a deep shuddering breath, like he had been holding his breath all this time.
“You don’t need to answer right now, my love. It’s alright if-”
I’m interrupted by soft warm lips touching mine, a gentle kiss as Juno puts his arms around me and holds on. He’s smiling as he pulls back and softly asks me, “Are you sure?”
“I have a ring in my room. I can go get it if that would help.”
“You have a ring? Since when?”
“Oh, about six months now? I bought it on that touristy moon we went to after the Saturnian Bank heist.”
“Six months?! Holy crap, Nureyev…”
“So to answer your question: yes Juno, I am sure. I have been for a while now.”
“Alright… alright. But no more close calls like this one, I don’t think my heart could take it. And no more hiding real problems! We work together, ok?”
“... Juno. Is that a yes?”
Somehow, Juno manages a beaming smile and tear filled eye at the same time. My chest suddenly feels like it’s two sizes too small for my heart. Is this actually happening?
“Yes, Nureyev, I’ll marry you!”
I kiss him again; I can’t not kiss him. Again and again. My hands on his back, his hand behind my neck. After everything we’ve just been through this moment is perfect.
Eventually we have to come up for air. As I dry my eyes and he does the same, he gives me a coyish smile and tells me, “Although, I may need to actually see this ring you… wait, did you say you actually bought me a ring? As in, paid for it?”
“Well… the money did come from my share of the profits on that heist, so the thieving spirit is still intact… But yes, I did pay for it dear. In full. I don’t know, it felt… right.”
He laughs at that, happy and whole and here, and it is a sound I hope to hear every single day for the rest of my natural life. Long may it be.