Chapter Text
The drive from Anchises is done in silence, through a transparent tunnel of a highway that snakes its way across the craggy, untamed hills and slopes of the Venusian surface. Nureyev keeps glancing back in the mirror, but Juno is always looking out, watching the swirls of thick, roiling clouds outside the tunnel.
As they approach Adonis, Nureyev notices Juno’s intake of breath. He can’t resist the half-smile that creeps up on him. Adonis is one of the largest domes in the galaxy, several times larger than anything on Mars; he is expecting Juno to say something, perhaps a snarky joke about size (it wouldn’t be the first he’s heard from the detective), but nothing is said from the back seat.
“We’re approaching the hotel,” Vespa says, from beside Nureyev.
“Do you remember the directions, detective?” Nureyev asks.
“I know how to read a map, Kingston.”
“Alright. Give it about fifteen minutes before you try and find us —”
“I’ve been tracking cheating spouses through hotels for a decade,” Juno snaps back. “I know what I’m doing.”
Nureyev doesn’t offer a response. The Ruby 7 whistles, and a crawl space opens beneath the back seats. With one hand on the wheel and only half his attention on the road, Nureyev watches Juno lower himself down, until he’s perfectly hidden in the belly of the car.
The Ruby 7 slips up to the curb, and Nureyev steels himself, affecting the persona he’s decided on for this particular interaction. A valet opens his door for him, and Nureyev giggles. “Why, thank you!”
He secures the keys for a reservation for two under the name of Julius Castle and Venice Katrovasis, and offers a hand to Vespa, letting another breathy giggle escape. “Shall we, Venice, my dear?”
Suddenly, Nureyev wonders if Juno can hear.
He tips the valet with a couple creds and a kiss on the cheek.
They make their way up the many, many levels of the hotel, up to the fifty-first floor, where a suit awaits them. Julius Castle does love the mints left atop the pillow. Julius Castle also loves the bathrobes, and takes a shower immediately to wash off the dust from the trans-dome tunnels, but also just to be able to wrap up in the robe afterwards.
He’s applying a moisturising mask to his hair, towel slung low on his hips, when Vespa strides past, a hotel towel of her own wrapped around her, under her arms. She makes eye contact for a moment in the mirror, and says, “I’m sleeping on the couch.”
She’s in the shower before Nureyev can reply.
With a sigh, he finishes his evening routine and tugs on underwear and slides his slip on, tying the robe over the top. He’s replacing his dangling ear piece with sleepers for the evening when the door opens.
“Room service?” Castle calls, but an irked grunt is the only reply. Nureyev smiles. Tousling his hair with the towel, he walks back to the bedroom to see Juno, dishevelled from hiding in the Ruby 7, digging through the overnight bags Vespa had carried in.
“Detective. Excellent. No issues, I presume?”
Juno looks up long enough to fix him with a withering glare. “Well, the ironing room wasn’t exactly where you said it would be, but I made it work,” he says drily, and extracts his clothes for the morning from the duffel, along with a pair of spare underwear and … cat slippers?
“This is why we need you, detective,” Nureyev says airily, slipping his glasses back on. “Your ingenuity when confronted with a misplaced ironing room is simply unparalleled.”
“Oh, ha ha, Kingston.”
Nureyev can’t resist a sardonic laugh. He will never get used to the sound of one of his alias’s slipping from between Juno’s lips. He's grown used to hearing his name from the detective.
Turning away from Juno, he unties the robe and lets it fall atop the blankets of the bed. He can feel Juno’s gaze, and he smiles. This is something he’s been doing for years, and practice has made him very, very good at it. Moving slowly and languidly, he adjusts the straps of the slip, running a hand over his own shoulder and stretching, luxuriating in the simple fact that he has space to do so.
Behind him, Juno huffs. Nureyev flashes a grin over one shoulder, a hip still cocked. Juno has tossed the slippers onto the couch and is avoiding his eyes.
“Oh, that spot is taken, detective.” Nureyev lets the slightest tinge of glee slip into his words.
Juno turns slowly, fixing Nureyev with an acid glare. “Taken?” he grinds out.
Nureyev grins. He loves getting Juno riled like this. “Vespa is an attached woman, detective. I thought you might have noticed by now.”
“I know?”
“It would hardly be proper! And she has no desire to force us both to share the couch, so she’s graciously offered the bed to us. After all, you’re not a taken lady, are you?”
Perhaps that was a touch too far. He sees the flush that creeps into Juno’s dark cheeks, and he abruptly spins on his heels, every movement stiff and furious. Nureyev feels the familiar glow of sadistic satisfaction, but as he watches Juno struggle with the buttons on his shirt, he hears those words again.
I loved it, Nureyev, but I loved you more.
He brushes them away. Bullshit, he wants to declare, but he keeps these particular frustrations to himself. His smile is gone.
He busies himself with the tablet containing a copy of the blueprints, but peers over the edge occasionally to watch Juno. He’s hung most of the clothes up beside Vespa’s in the closet, stripped down to underwear and undershirt. A nice undershirt, with lace along the neckline.
The urge to fill his fists with that shirt and pull Juno very tightly against him wells up. Like an old addiction, one he thought he had kicked, but every now and then that nagging desire for another hit creeps up silently and with the force of an asteroid. He wants the taste of Juno on his tongue, the feel of every inch of him underneath his body. Nureyev prides himself on his control, but this is an addiction that makes every nerve beneath his skin burn.
Vespa exits the bathroom, and Juno brushes past her and out of Nureyev’s sight without a single word.
__________
It’s nearly a quarter of an hour later when Nureyev, lying in the darkness listening to Vespa’s heavy breathing, hears the pad of slipper-clad feet pause on the edge of the bed. After a few seconds, the glow of the bathroom light fades as it switches off automatically. Nureyev is left on his back, staring with sightless eyes at the ceiling and can feel every dip and movement in the mattress as Juno clambers on the other side. There’s a tug; he’s taking back blankets.
Hours pass. He can’t sleep and he doesn’t hear the deepening of the detective’s breaths either.
__________
Vulcan comes into view, and though it isn’t quite the sprawling mega-metropolis of Anchises, it is massive. The tallest sky scrapers peak in the centre of the dome, and the outlying suburbs are full of squat modern buildings of polished steel and copper, metallic and glinting and fulled with reflections of the sulphur-yellow clouds just beyond the dome.
From this distance, Nureyev can see their target. The Centre for Venusian Federal Affairs is a massive needle piercing the highest strip of airspace within Vulcan’s violet dome. Above, the sky is a furnace hot enough to melt lead, the winds blustering at hurricane force, and gusts of acidic clouds completely obscure the moonless sky.
As he pulls through the dome’s checkpoint and they exit the trans-dome tunnel from Adonis, Nureyev is acutely aware of Juno’s rustling in the back seat. He is handcuffed. Vespa actually applied the cuffs; Nureyev doesn’t trust himself enough for that. His self-control has been on a tight, tenuous leash all night.
The Ruby 7 is silent on the busy Venusian streets. They flit through traffic, past busy foot traffic, ignoring thousands of people dressed in the finest fashions. Venus is the galaxy’s centre for art, fashion, design, architecture — every prettily useless way to spend money.
Nureyev loves all of it.
He finds himself categorising accessories he sees in the streets, listing them according to worth and how easy they would be to smuggle, sorting through the impressive fakes and the potential one-of-a-kind pieces at a glance.
It’s a fun game, and the best distraction from the click-click of Juno playing with the chain connecting his cuffs.
Eventually the spire of the CVFA looms above them, until the barbed-wire topped wall fills Nureyev’s vision.
“State your name and guests,” comes an automated voice from a speaker.
Vespa leans out her window, tugging off sunglasses to stare into the retinal scanner. “Neomi Zemke, Dark Matters. Guests — Thaddeus Page, Dark Matters. Dahlia Rose, detainee.”
“Which sector, or sectors, of the Centre will you be visiting today? If you require an audience in multiple sectors, list them in the order you wish to be seen.”
“The Bureau of Venusian Criminal Affairs, Inter-Planetary Division.”
The speaker unit beeps affirmative, and three passes, each with an attached lanyard, slide from a metal slot. Vespa passes one each to Nureyev and Juno with a terse, “Put it on.”
The gate whispers open, and Nureyev sends the Ruby 7 gliding through. He pulls up beside the main doors to the office building, and opens his door with the energetic zeal befitting a newer agent. He bounds to Juno’s door and opens it for him, keeping a firm hand around Dahlia Rose’s bicep and ensuring he doesn’t fall.
Keeping Rose ahead of him, Page holds the keys out to a valet, glancing over his sunglasses at the man. “I am entrusting you with Dark Matters’ property. Take the appropriate care, my good friend.”
The valet, likely no more than twenty, gulps visibly, but takes the keys. Page grins and slaps him on the shoulder, and then, holding Rose in front of him, follows Vespa’s lead into the building.