Work Text:
Juno’s mind moves like a mile of molasses. He dog paddles his way to awareness one stroke at a time. The pain registers first: It’s like someone hammered a railway spike between Juno’s ears. Juno makes to grasp his head, but his wrists are trapped behind his back. He catalogues the course texture of rope against his skin; the telltale bite of a metal chair at his back; the damp smell of the underground.
So. He’s been kidnapped. Must be Tuesday. Juno runs his tongue over his lower lip. It’s split. From about a foot away someone says, “Name?”
Juno bites his cheek. He can still taste red wine on the roof of his mouth. Cold air raises the hair on his arms; he registers the pull of straps on his shoulders. A dress. The heist floods back to him all at once, and his alias slips out of his mouth like a reminder: “Barb Beau.”
“Your real name.” Someone flicks Juno across the nose. It’s enough for Juno’s eye to snap open. He’s greeted by a wall of purple—an overcoat, with a buttoned sash that probably cost more than Buddy’s ship.
Juno would recognize that gaudy color upside down and taped to a tilt-a-whirl. Because his day couldn’t get any better, he’s been captured by the THEIA corporation’s director of operations.
Elliot Harbringer drops the words like dumbbells on the floor: “Give. Me. Your. Real. Name.”
“Barbara Beau, then. Damn, did you ask your lackeys to blast me full of stun shocks, or are their manners as bad as their aim?”
Harbringer’s forehead wrinkles. He turns to address the space beside Juno: “You. Give me your real name.”
“Peter Nureyev.”
Juno goes rigid. A joint clicks as he snaps his head around—and yep, there’s Peter Nureyev. He’s bound to the chair beside Juno’s, glasses askew and tux-dress pocked with laser-fire. A nasty bruise swells on his left cheek. And those eyes…
They’re cold. Dull as the sky above Hyperion, with what should be a blanket of stars glazed over by city smog. Horror claws up Jono’s chest like a rabid animal. Even Miasma couldn’t dim the light behind Nureyev’s eyes, and she’d had over a week and a parrilla at her disposal. In contrast, within less than an hour Harbringer has snuffed out that signature glow like a cigarette butt under his heel.
It’s not hard to figure out how, given Harbringer’s line of work. The man makes a note on his comms and steamrollers on, heedless to Juno’s inner turmoil. “And what is this lady’s real name?”
Somehow Nureyev speaks with a personable tone, though his eyes remain lifeless as a doll’s: “Juno Steel.”
“And why are you two here?”
“To retrieve your access code to the THEIA nanotech blueprints.”
Harbringer pockets his comms. He claps his hands onto his hips. “So it works on you, but not your accomplice.”
Juno’s heart bashes against his ribs like a shoulder thrown against a bolted door. “If you don’t take that thing out of him right this second, I’ll stuff my blaster down your throat and light up your guts like a fucking fireworks show.”
Harbringer’s eyebrows are almost as thick as his mustache. At Juno’s words, they leap up on his brow like startled caterpillars.
A smart man like him knows a real threat when he hears one.
Juno can feel the moment Harbringer switches tactics. “Your friend here seems to care an awful lot about you,” he muses to Nureyev. He smooths down the wrinkled arms of his coat. “But then, it was obvious from the way he danced with you. You’re together, I presume?”
“No,” says Nureyev.
Juno lurches against the ropes. “You really want to tell me you and your goons lured us to a storage room, stunned us, hardwired us to million-cred THEIA bots and lugged us down to a cellar to gossip about our relationship status—”
“I’m surprised to hear that,” Harbringer forges on, all too pleased to have struck a nerve. “This side of the solar system, well—you don’t get that kind of blind devotion outside of streams. He obviously likes you.” He grins at Juno’s outraged face, and—like a cat with a prized heirloom on the edge of a shelf—decides to push a little farther: “Loves you, even.”
“Juno Steel doesn’t love me.”
The words are spoken with total conviction—like a fact of life. A comes before B. The sun is hot. Air is lighter than stone. Juno Steel doesn’t love Peter Nureyev.
Something like Nureyev’s name leaves Juno’s mouth, warped by the tightness of his throat. His fingers quiver where he bunches his nails into his palms. He can’t peel his eye from Peter’s face. The chair creaks as his bonds strain.
Harbringer seems content to let Juno flounder for a moment. He rummages around within the purple sea of his coat. A knife emerges between his fingers, and Juno’s heart stops—but Harbringer only moves to clip the ropes around Nureyev’s wrists. Harbringer kneels, and then Nureyev’s ankles are freed from their respective chair legs.
“Take this knife,” Harbringer tells Nureyev. “If Juno Steel tries to harm me or run, you can slit your own throat. Understood?”
“Understood,” Nureyev echoes. His hand has already closed around the knife handle. Those dull eyes follow Harbringer’s progression to Juno’s chair. Juno feels the pull of fingers against his own ropes.
“Mm,” Harbringer grumbles. “A lot harder without a knife.”
“Make him cut me loose, then.”
“And place him right at your feet, where you can grab the knife before he hurts himself? Do you know, I’d rather not.” A line of rope tickles Juno’s wrist. “Why aren’t you affected by my THEIA bots? And do be honest, or I’ll make your friend cut off a finger.”
Juno’s stomach bunches up like a clenched fist. “I don’t fucking know, all right?” he snaps. “I overloaded one or something a couple months ago.”
Harbringer’s fingers pause. “Overloaded—do you mean to say you…regained control?”
“If you count ripping a THEIA Soul out of my trapezius with my bare hands, then yeah. Sure. I regained control.”
“And how did you…do that, exactly?”
Juno sees himself and Rita on his office couch, the room dark but for the blue haze of Rita’s pad screen. He hears you’re fired and Mista Steel! Don’t!—and then pain bursts up his spine like a spark along a line of kerosene. In sense memory, a muscle twinges at the back of Juno’s neck. A scar discolors the skin there—a divot where the THEIA once sat.
Juno clears his throat. “Would you believe me if I told you it was the memory of a movie called Werewolves in Orbit?'"
Harbringer finishes with the knots around Juno’s wrists. He deposits the rope on the floor. “Depends on how well you sell me on your explanation.”
Juno dares to flex his freed fingers. He’s all too conscious of Nureyev’s grip on the knife a few feet away. “Look—it was my secretary. The memories of her. They snapped me out of it long enough to nearly rip out my spinal chord, and then I got carted off to a doctor before I could bleed out all over the floor. Haven’t exactly felt a burning desire to test my resilience to THEIA-tech since then.”
“It’s possible that you’ve become immune to our programming,” Harbringer muses. He’s at Juno’s feet now, picking apart the knots at his ankles. “By overriding our tech in the past, you could’ve trained your brain to…resist its pull. Given it a protocol, so to speak…similarly to how a vaccine teaches the body how to react to a virus.”
“Fascinating stuff, Elliot. You should really drop the whole trillionaire philanthropist stunt—start up a lecture series.”
“Given your current predicament, I’m not sure you’re in a place to be giving career advice, Mr. Steel.”
“Yeah, well. ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ right?” The last rope falls from his ankle. “Great—now I’m free. What’s the next step of your dastardly plan, Harbringer?”
“Well.” Harbringer braces a hand on his knee and clambers to his feet. He gestures for Juno to do the same; with Nureyev’s life on the line, Juno complies without complaint. “You know, I had you both brought down here and tied up at a coworker’s behest. ‘In case something goes wrong,’ she said. I told her she was being ridiculous. It didn’t even cross my mind that you might…resist the THEIA tech. Of all things.” His palm returns to his hip; his fingers drum little wrinkles into the coat fabric. “At this point I was supposed to have ordered you two out of the building. But our ransom only requires one crewmate—and in light of your apparent immunity I’d like to propose an experiment.”
In a surprise move Harbringer turns his back to Juno. He walks away from the two chairs, towards the back of the room. “Peter, was it?” He says to the far wall. “You are to give Juno Steel exactly ninety seconds to talk you down. Then you are to kill him.”
All the air leaves Juno’s lungs. His knees go weak. “What?”
Harbringer doesn’t pause: “Juno is allowed to defend himself however he sees fit, but you are still to kill yourself if he attacks me or tries to leave the room.”
Nureyev’s fingers go taut around the knife handle. “Very well.”
The world teeters under Juno’s feet. “Nureyev—”
“Ninety seconds, Juno.” Juno hears Harbringer’s coat move where he leans back against the wall. “Let’s see if you can replicate your success with that last THEIA, hmm?”
“Go fuck yourself. You know I can’t do this under a fucking minute and a half—”
Harbringer taps the skin of his wrist—a hurry up gesture. “Your time starts now.”
Juno’s pulse thuds against his skin. Blood roars between his ears. He searches Nureyev’s face for a glimmer of recognition—some sign of the man he knows and loves.
There’s nothing. Just a facade. Juno wilts under Nureyev’s hollow stare.
“Nureyev,” Juno rasps. His voice comes out all wrong, so he starts over: “Nureyev. Listen to me, okay? Budd—I mean, the others are gonna’ find us soon. So you don’t have to beat that thing. Or…things, since they’re nanobots or—whatever.” He takes a step closer to Nureyev’s chair. Nureyev hasn’t even gotten up yet. “If you can hold out for another couple minutes, we’ll be fine. We’ll get out of this. Like we always do…”
Nureyev doesn’t respond. Juno doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know how to reach this person he turned his back on. Once upon a time Juno was gifted a way over Nureyev’s walls, but that offer has long since been rescinded, and now Juno’s stuck outside an empty house.
Nureyev’s thumb shifts along the knife handle. The metal edge catches the light, and Juno swallows. Something between bravery and panic seizes his body. He closes his hands around Nureyev’s wrists.
“Hey,” he murmurs. He kneels so they’re at eye level. “It’s gonna’ be okay, Peter. Just…” He squeezes Nureyev’s arms. This close he can smell his cologne. “It’s gonna’ be fine. Try to remember the crew. Any positive memories you have with them. Anything that can…ground you. The THEIA’s gonna’ tell you not to think about anybody but the target. But I know you. You’re curious right now, aren’t you? About the things the THEIA doesn’t want you to see?”
“Fifteen seconds,” Harbringer warns.
Juno pushes on. “Just try. And whatever happens—fuck, Nureyev, I’m not like I was when I left. I’m not gonna’ let you kill me. But…” Juno’s throat goes dry. He makes sure his next words carry weight: “But whatever. Happens. To me. Won’t be your fault. All right?”
Nureyev only stares. Juno weighs his chances. He has less than ten seconds to make a decision. In the end he takes advantage of their final moments of neutrality; Juno uses his grip on Nureyev’s wrists to swing him out of his chair.
The chair hits the ground with a clatter. In a flurry of party clothes Juno pins Nureyev to the floor, face-down and spread-eagled. Juno’s thighs bracket Nureyev’s sides; he loops one arm under Nureyev’s to clap his palm around the back of Nureyev’s head. It’s a type of pin they taught Juno back at the academy. With all his weight on Nureyev’s torso, he should be able to restrain him for a short time—until the THEIA decides to override Nureyev’s bodily functions and supercharge him with adrenaline.
“Time!” Harbringer calls.
Nureyev lurches upward. He never let go of his weapon; he waves the blade up towards Juno’s head. Juno still has one hand clutched around Nureyev’s wrist. He does his best to balance his weight between Nureyev’s shoulders and his hand. Juno manages to keep the blade away from his face and arms, but only by a needle’s-breadth.
Juno knows once the THEIA takes over he won’t stand a chance.
“Drop the knife!” Juno demands. He’s done his research; he doesn’t have the authority to make THEIA commands, but under such extreme circumstances he feels obligated to try. “Nureyev, stop!”
If anything, Nureyev thrashes harder. Juno fights to keep his arm pinned to the floor. “All right, okay, I don’t know what I expected.” A surge of strength nearly flings Juno off Nureyev’s back. “Fuck–Nureyev, I need you to focus! You can do this! You don’t want to kill me.”
At least Juno hopes he doesn’t. They still haven’t had That Conversation yet. Juno scrounges around for something useful to say—something to snap Nureyev out of his stupor. He draws blank after blank. It’s not like with Rita, where Juno had a well of memories to draw from. Nureyev’s memories of Juno won’t be valuable enough to him to make a dent on the THEIA nanobots, and Juno knows next to nothing about Nureyev’s adventures with the rest of the crew…
Juno has taken steps to reign back his negative self talk since the THEIA surgery, but now he can’t be bothered to curb the dread that swarms his mind. This is never going to work. I’m going to die here. Nureyev’s going to kill me. I deserve th—
Nureyev’s arm shoots up with the force of a missile. The THEIA has possessed his limbs. Juno barely has the mind to roll off Nureyev’s back before the blade can slice through his carotid. He staggers to his feet and rushes across the room.
In an odd lurch of limbs Nureyev rolls up off the floor. He arranges his glasses, changes his grip on the knife, and follows like a bull after a cape.
There’s not much space to maneuver down here, but Juno’s used to the hug of Hyperion alleyways. He can handle a storage room. There’s a clack of fancy shoes on cement as he and Nureyev bob and weave across the room. Juno dares to turn towards Nureyev. He ducks as Nureyev slashes the knife down towards his head.
“Peter!” he shouts. “Please! Come on, you can—”
Nureyev doesn’t so much as pause. In a silver arc he swipes at Juno’s arm. It’s a feigned blow; Juno dodges to the left, and Nureyev pivots to meet him halfway. The blade tears through Juno’s dress.
Fuck. Blood spurts from Juno’s chest. He reels backwards.
“I know you’re in there, Peter!” Juno declares. “Otherwise I’d already be dead. You’re fighting those things! Just hang on a bit longer—”
But the blade meets Juno’s chest: not as a scrape this time, but a stab. Peter knows not to let Juno keep his weapon. He plunges the knife deep into Juno’s upper pectoral, then wrenches it free for a final strike.
Pain slams Juno like a wall. It’s like a knot of hot glass exploded under his skin. He trips on his own feet, and the floor rushes up to meet him. Juno makes to catch himself on his hand; the muscles around his stab wound stretch and contort with the angle of his arm. Agony rips up his torso like a rusty cleaver. Juno’s can’t find the air to scream. He lays there on the ground, prone.
Nureyev strides forward with purpose.
“Peter—” Juno rasps. He can barely speak. “Don’t…”
The click of shoes stops. Nureyev towers over Juno, ready to kneel and thrust the knife between Juno’s ribs. He raises his hand, and—oh. He’s going to throw the knife down, then.
Blood pours from Juno’s chest. He doesn’t try to stopper the flow. There’s no point. How can he hold off Nureyev when he can barely move?
In that split second before Nureyev releases the knife, Juno comes to a decision.
He doesn’t want to die. And he doesn’t want Nureyev to believe he doesn’t care about him. Juno has the ability to rectify one of those two regrets.
“Peter,” Juno coughs. Peter’s fingers are poised to leave the handle. “I love you.”
And—there. A spasm. Something tiny and bright flashes behind Nureyev’s eyes, like a firefly behind frosted glass. Nureyev fumbles to catch the knife. His fingers find the handle, and they hug the wood tight enough to bleach his knuckles.
Juno wheezes. Nureyev’s whole body hitches at the noise.
“Ju…” Nureyev chokes out. He sounds dazed. He doesn’t lower his arm, but the appendage starts to shake with strain. A muscle contracts along his forearm. “Ju…no…”
Footsteps sound from the far wall. “Peter!” Harbringer commands. “Throw the knife!”
Juno fears Nureyev’s arm will shake apart. “Juno…”
Harbringer’s voice booms across the room, full of authority: “Throw the knife! Now!”
It’s enough. That gray curtain slams down over Nureyev’s eyes. The muscles of his arm steady; the knife leaves his fingers at a calculated angle.
Juno curls backwards on the floor, away from Nureyev’s hand. Pain erupts across his chest. Juno’s throat snags on a plea. He feels the hot rush of blood down his dress—tastes copper—hears someone’s knees hit the floor.
And…wait. Juno turns his head towards the sound. Through a hazy lens Juno observes Harbringer’s crumbled form across the room. The man grasps weakly at the knife that protrudes from his chest, chokes once, then collapses face-first onto the floor.
Juno’s mind stutters like a broken record. He looks down at his own chest.
No knife. The pain must’ve come when Juno moved away on the floor; he would’ve strained his wounds. Blood beads off his split lip and onto his tongue.
Juno’s heart lurches. He cranes his neck to peer up at Nureyev. The room spins like a top; he can barely make out Nureyev at his feet, his fingers fanned out where he let the knife fly. His eyes are glazed—but there’s a manic flicker behind the fog.
Juno needs to get to him. He clenches his teeth and claws at the floor, desperate for leverage. Blood darkens the cement. “…Peter.”
Nureyev's eyes find Juno's face. In fits and starts he lowers his hand.
“Peter,” Juno parrots. “You gotta’…get Harbringer’s comms. Buddy has that private frequency, right? You…” Black spots swarm Juno’s vision. He slinks back against the floor. “Fuck…”
Shivers wrack Nureyev’s body. “I don’t…”
“Call for help,” Juno begs him. The world slips out between his fingers. “I…Peter.” His own voice sounds very far away. “I’m sorry. I’m…”
“Juno.”
“I’m so…I…”
There are fingers on his face. Juno drifts away to the warm press of Nureyev’s hands—the spiced aroma of his cologne.
Voices float down to Juno from above. He hovers, curled somewhere soft and dark beneath the ground. At some point arms loop under his pliant body. Air rushes past his arms and legs. Another moment and he’s on a padded surface. A green blur bobs across his periphery—Vespa. There’s the sting of a needle, and then the void.
Juno comes to an hour or a year later. He doesn’t open his eye right away. He tests the give of the pillow under his cheek—the texture of the sheets over his shoulders. Juno swallows and tastes stale air. He groans. His shoulder aches. His fingers curl up to trace the bandages across his chest—and that’s when he registers the weight on his left palm.
Juno opens his eye. The world swims for a while; long enough for the weight—a second hand—to vanish from over Juno’s. Juno tilts his head so he can see past the lip of his pillow.
Nureyev. He’s on the cot next to Juno; Vespa has lined them up side by side. Like Juno, Nureyev lies on his side with a blanket tucked over his shoulders. His eyes are wet and shadowed—but they shine like stars under the wall lights.
He’s really back. Juno’s shoulders sag with relief.
Nureyev doesn’t move for a long time, his face partly obscured by the folds of his pillow. Then his chin quivers. He turns his face down against the fabric.
Juno’s chest goes tight like a spring. His hand moves without conscious permission; he grasps Nureyev’s shoulder. He can feel his muscles strain under his palm.
“Hey,” Juno whispers. Sleep turns his voice hoarse. “Hey. You’re okay. We’re okay.”
Nureyev makes a wounded sound. “I nearly killed you. I nearly…” He wraps his long fingers around the sheets of his cot. “Again. I nearly murdered another person I…”
“But you didn’t.” Juno pretends he knows how to do this—grabs Nureyev’s clenched fingers before he can lose his courage. “You stopped. You stopped.”
Nureyev turns his head to look at Juno. New tears roll sideways onto his pillowcase. His gaze finds their laced fingers; the taut line of his mouth goes wobbly along the edges.
“Don’t,” he pleads, though he doesn’t make to remove his hand from Juno’s grip. “I won’t hold you to what you…told me, underground. You thought you were—you were about to die, you—”
It’s two parallel conversations laid on top of one another. “It was true,” Juno tells Nureyev. “Both times. I was scared shitless before that I’d chase you off, or hurt you, or—” Juno stops. He feels the scratch of bandages against his wounds and shudders. “I deserved to be miserable. Dead, probably. That’s where my head was at, back then. I ruined us on purpose before I could do it on accident. Felt like my choice that way.” Juno feels heat grow behind his own eye. “It was stupid and childish and I…dammit, Nureyev. I’m so sorry. I walked out on you because I hated myself, not because I…” It takes Juno another beat to rip the last coils of fear off his throat: “Nureyev. It wasn’t you. I love you. I need you to know that.”
“You don’t love me,” Nureyev gasps out. His fingers quake between Juno’s. “You don’t.”
Juno scoots closer on the cot. “I do. I only took so long to tell you because—because I thought you wouldn’t want to hear that from me, after what I did. But I do. I love you, Peter Nureyev. ”
“Juno…”
Juno shoots Nureyev a tiny smile. “And you know—that doesn’t make me a fool at all. It makes me so goddamn lucky.”
Nureyev’s fingers spasm. He shakes his head. Juno’s not sure whether he hears a sob or a laugh.
“I’m sorry,” Nureyev manages at last. “For then. When I didn’t consider your love for the city or your friends, or your reaction to…the bomb. When I pressured you to run away with me. And—today. I could’ve…”
“You didn’t.”
“I love you too.” Nureyev clutches at Juno’s fingers like a lifeline. “More than I could ever say.”
Juno’s sure his heart will burst. He wraps his other hand around Nureyev’s and pretends he doesn’t sniffle.
“Okay,” he forces out. “Okay.”
Nureyev turns his face back down against the pillow. He squeezes Juno's fingers. Juno curls closer.
When Vespa comes to check on them, she finds Juno and Nureyev wrapped around each other, fast asleep.