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Juno gets bad days sometimes, days where there’s a weight on his skin and his body bends around it like a rubber sheet, like he’s caving in. But Juno doesn’t get bad days anymore, not in the same way, ‘cause Juno doesn’t wallow anymore. He doesn’t drink all the sadness from his bones and call it something else, something other than an indulgence.
These days, he does something. Works on Ruby 7 with Jet, talks with Peter until his voices feels thin and scratchy, watches dumb detective shows with Rita.
It’s just that some days he gets tired, and some days there’s this ache in his bones like they’re gonna start splintering, and he just wants a nap.
So he makes something instead.
Vespa had poked Juno with the needle three times and only claimed it was an accident the first two, but there’s a smile on her face as she dutifully follows the blue lines of the pattern.
The hoop feels strange in his hand, and he’s not quite used to using sewing to make something beautiful instead of just fixing rips, but he’s making something. He can feel the bumps of it under his fingers, and the thrill of it makes something glow in his chest.
This isn’t the sewing his mother taught him, but he’s still using the same stitches, and if he closes his eyes he can remember when her fingers were gentle, even if it doesn’t replace all the times they were cruel.
But that doesn’t matter, because Juno Steel is trying something new. Juno Steel is going to be happy, and he is going to be kind, and he is going to dig all his kindness from his chest and wrap it around him.
So he is going to sit here, next to the small figure of Vespa, bent over with her tongue between her teeth, concentration etched into her forehead, and learn to sew something beautiful. He is going to hang it on his wall and marvel at it everyday, this tangible proof that he can, in brief moments, create something for the sake of beauty, for the sake of his own private joy.
He thinks Vespa gets that. He thinks they’d both put up with a lot of pricked fingers to be happy, to create. And they’ll do it in silence, because all their learned kindness can’t stop them bickering.
*
The Carte Blanche kitchen is a place of stainless steel and pristine surfaces, cupboards empty of everything but Rita’s salmon snacks. This is a disgrace to rival Rita’s singing or the finale of Fancy Vampires, which is saying something, considering Fancy Vampires finished with half of the cast dying from a ‘freak accident’.
He should hate rewatch that sometime.
“I’m only doing this for Buddy,” Vespa told him, “Since apparently this is one of your very few skills.”
“I could also teach you too shoot, if you wanted,” Juno offered, the picture of obnoxiously pleased generosity.
At least until Vespa growled and lunged at him, at which point his howls of pain were joined by the raspy sound of Vespa’s laughter.
“I used to bake for Benten, when I could,” Juno said, and Vespa is turned away from him but he can see the smudge of flour on her cheek, the brown roots of her hair.
“I never really… cooked,” Vespa said, “It’s nice, to make food for your family.”
Juno’s hands still, frozen against the bag of flour, but he shakes himself before he can wonder if she’s including him in that, “Yeah, yeah. Look, do you know how to measure things or not?”
Vespa summounded up her old glare, snatching the bag from his hands and sending a cascade of flour over their hands. Juno grimaces and wipes his hand absently on his coat, ignoring how it stains the already grimy brown fabric.
“Why do you even wear that thing inside?” Vespa asks, not waiting for an answer before pushing roughly past Juno to get the measuring spoons. Juno would have shouted after her, but the insufferably smug grin on her face stops him.
If he plays into her hands now she’ll win, but if he waits he can pull one over her. Really, it’s quite simple.
The measure out the ingredients in relative silence, and Juno allows himself to relax into the familiar sounds of clattering plastic and soft curses. Vespa, it turned out, could crack eggs perfectly, one clean break with no egg white spilling or anything.
Not that Juno was jealous.
In a few weeks time the kitchen felt warm and lived in, made somehow homier by the simple virtue that Juno had cooked in her. Had baked with Vespa, countless cookies and cakes and delicate pastries, on the days when Juno felt like a live wire, in the stretches when Vespa’s voice slipped out of her grasp. Juno made chocolate chip cookies when exhaustion weighed him down and brownies when Vespa’s emotions didn’t come, and their family ate what they made, laughing loudly over their food.
It was nice, even if they tended to have at least one explosive fight per baking session.
*
It’s a good day. Not a great one, or a perfect one, but good. Vespa’s mind hasn’t tricked her while she was patrolling the spaceship, hadn’t twisted in her hands until she was left crying from exhaustion and frustration.
There is one place in the ship where nobody else ever is. This is mostly because Vespa had designed it that way, tucked it away from tampering and nosy morons.
Vespa likes the sound she makes as she walks, the clank of boots planted solidly on metal, the footsteps of someone who isn’t worried about being heard. Because she isn’t, because it’s a good day, because Vespa is determined to be happy.
The door swings silently open under her touch, and even as she checks for bugs and ignores the flickers of shapes in the corner of her eye, Vespa can feel the tension in her shoulders easing. Not much, not enough, but enough that she can rock back on her heels and breath in the smell of dirt and plants.
Stupid, a voice whispered in her ear as Vespa moved to the table she’d shoved up against one wall, What kind of moron relaxes on a ship full of liars?
Vespa tugs on gardening gloves that are stiff and dirty at the fingertips and tries her best to dismiss the voice. They fit her well, even if they’re a neon pink that Rita said matched her hair. It didn’t, not really, because Rita had only picked it out because she liked bright pink things, but Vespa sorta liked it anyway.
She was getting used to sorta liking things.
Vespa looks over the plants carefully, checking for spots twice over in case her brain decides to take even this away from her. Last time the rosemary had been looking wilted from neglect, but it had seemed to perk right up. Steel would like that5 - he’d been whining about not having any rosemary to cook with, and even if Vespa wasn’t sure that he wasn’t poisoning them all, she hated to hear him complaining about it day and night.
It’s the empty pot that’s the main event here though. The [plant] she’d been cultivating was finally ready to be transferred to another pot, and Vespa can’t help but feel a little proud. Buddy had said it would be good for her, and Vespa had doubted it even if she couldn’t refuse her, and now here she was.
Vespa Ilkay has grown something.
Careful hands dig around the roots of the [plant] as Vespa sings, raspy voice mangling some dirty old tune from Ragnia. There’s something in the shadows of the small, undecorated room that she’s trying not to look at, and rows of plants grown in artificial environments that are alive because off her.
Vespa sinks her hands into the soil of the new pot and closes her eyes, let’s herself breathe in the smell of dirt and what she thinks is mint.
There’s something in throat that feels like it’s choking her, and for a moment her heartbeat spikes before she feels her eyes stinging, the curl in her stomach. She only really realises what it is when she feels her tears dry on her cheeks as she pats the soil down around the [plant].
Vespa Ilkay is crying over a stupid garden, dirt smudged on her face and something in her chest easing ever so slightly. It’s a miracle.
*
“I do not think they should get together,” Jet tells Rita gravely, and she doesn’t tell him about the smudge of orange dust on his upper lip because he looks ridiculous and it’s nice to giggle about it, knowing that he won’t really mind when she’s a little mean. “Nadia is far better suited for Miriam.”
“You’re wrong!” Rita says, nearly knocking over the metal bowl of popcorn in her shock, “(Generic) was the one who comforted her through her dark transformation into a creature of the night! They’re made for each other!”
Jet turned from the brightly coloured stream to give her a look that Rita knew meant he thought she was wildly, indisputably wrong. “Nadia was the one who ultimately reversed her dark transformation,” he said in a voice of great respect for her intellect, if not her taste in streams, “I think the problem lies in the programs tendency to ignore character motivations in favour of cheap drama.”
Rita contemplated this as Miriam discovered that her curse had not in fact disappeared, but instead morphed her into a different dark creature of the night. “I suppose they never did explain exactly how she got that curse,” she said slowly, brow furrowed, “or what a dark creature of the night is…”
They watched in silence as Miriam rampaged in shadowy, poorly plotted glory. “Nadia’s flare for the dramatic rivals Ransom’s,” Jet said at last, once Rita had failed to defend this particular stream, “Though her sense of fashion is more tasteful.”
“Jet!” Rita squealed. “I never knew you had it in you!” She said in the same high pitch, those this was rather blatantly false, before leaning in conspiratorially, “Though now that you mention it…”
Jet listened attentively, and he didn’t laugh or grin at her mean comments (well, except the really funny ones), but Rita knew that he cared. Rita could always rely on Jet caring about her, just like she could rely oh Juno’s love, just like she could rely on the rest of her crime family. In a shockingly short amount of time these facts had become some of the things Rita’s life revolved around, certainties like not-that-bad-really streams and salmon puffs and her own hacking.
Like Jet, stretched out and relaxed, monotone voice never breaking even when he was a little mean, in the same way Rita could be.
She loved him, really and honestly. It was like a little warm weight in her stomach, anchoring her to this spaceship, to him. Rita loved it when things felt simple like this, like a good stream and the elation of hacking into something, all curled up in her chest.
*
Buddy is not used to feeling out of place anywhere. She enters most rooms with the assumption that people either want her to be there, and if they don’t, well. Usually that’s according to her plan.
She feels out of place, waiting at a fish-and-chip shop for their order. Wven with Vespa’s hand in hers, even dressed-down as she was, there was something unsettling about the domesticity.
The familiarity of it, maybe, of watching the ruddy-faced woman at the counter hand the greasy white bundle into Vespa’s hands.
But sitting here, watching Vespa get tomato sauce stuck in the nail beds of her brightly painted nails - neon colours she knows come from Rita, because they have graced her nails just as they have graced Juno’s, and Peter’s, and Jet’s.
Rita likes the rhythm of it, the art of it, and Rita liked to share the things she liked.
Buddy liked salty chips and potato cakes that are just scraping by the right side of crispy, the crunch of the sand that gets stuck in the chips. It’s private, the little corner away from the sting of the wind on their cheeks, filled only with the rasp of Vespa’s voice. They could see the expanse of this planet’s ocean, glittering waters reflecting strange skies, rough sand on her feet.
Vespa sat there, hunched over and laughing at Buddy’s dumb joke, and Buddy thinks I love her . This is not an unusual thought; Buddy used to think it over and over again during their whirlwind courtship, crystallised it when they were apart, and then thought it so many times that it became a sort of background noise, like the hum of the Carte Blanche.
Buddy’s love for Vespa is a part of her, something constantly changing just as Vespa is constantly changing. It has room for her habit of not washing her toothbrush when she’s done, for her hallucinations, for her terrible singing in the shower. It makes room for all of her, because Buddy is used to thinking I love her , but it stills strikes her sometimes, when Vespa’s eyes crinkle with her smile or her voice gets that slow, sappy quality, that Buddy could tape it and play it over and over until the sound of her voice becomes as essential to her as her heartbeat.
Of course, that is unnecessary. Buddy has outgrown those lofty notions of not being able to live without someone, but she does want a life with Vespa. She wants to enjoy a thousand strange skies with her, wants to enjoy just one over and over.
Buddy, if given the time, would like to trace over every one of Vespa’s wrinkles, to kiss the corner of her smile and trace the lines on her palms. So she made the time, carved out a space in the world where they could have a family, and a home, and each other.
It felt greedy, but Buddy’s a thief, and greediness is in her nature.
*
Rita gets days where she’s sad, but not really sad, y’know? It’s like there’s this buzzing in her skin that goes all the way up her throat, but when she opens her mouth instead of a scream words come out, a great big waterfall of sparkling, pretty words.
It’s like jewelry, kinda, like something precious is just within her grasp, so she tries to make herself pretty, puts glittery eyeshadow on and bright lipstick and doesn’t dig her nails into the soft flesh of her skin.
It’s hard some days, when her hands shake on the eyeliners and she keeps on thinking she’s going to cry, but it’s late and she doesn’t want to disturb anyone. Rita is a good crier, really, big loud blubbering sobs that shake her shoulders and make her eyes go all red-rimmed and blurry.
But Peter is an observant fellow, which must be why Boss likes him, all glittery eyes and big swampy coats. When Rita started to spill out of her skin and all her words trip over each other he knows just what to do. So does Jet, and Juno, and Buddy, and Vespa, all in their different ways. Juno was kinda awkward about it, but he made her some nice food and watched a stream with her, and Jet showed her how to make things, and Buddy sat her down and talked her through it, and Vespa let her paint her nails while they talked about Rita’s steamy romance novels.
Rita felt kinda swaddled by all their love, like it would run away, so she’d gotten into the thinking she had to be good enough for it.
She knew that was silly. But still she sometimes thought , when she really couldn’t help it. That’s where Mister Ransom cones in.
“Purple or pink today?” He asked, swabbing the eyeshadow on her skin to demonstrate. It sparkled when Rita turned her hand this way and that.
“Purple,” she decided at last, “And not just ‘cause it’s the sparkliest!”
Mister Ransom laughed. Rita closed her eyes so he could apply the eyeshadow then, but she could see the way his eyes went all crinkly, and it made her habds flutter with excitement.
She wasn’t normally one for doing makeup with other people, except maybe Franny, but Peter let her talk. And that’s just what she did, until all the jitters left her throat and she had bright makeup on and Mister Ransom was laughing, loud and unreserved.
*
Rita had, once family stream night was suggested, automatically demanded complete control. Juno had desperately begged not to be forced into hours upon hours of badly written thrillers, but apparently the whole crew was against him or something, because every Wednesday they sat on an array of crappy chairs and couches and watched crappier streams.
At least he got to cuddle with Nureyev.
They watched a series of honestly kinda terrible streams until they could sing the theme songs by heart, Jet’s voice low and strong, Vespa’s scratchy and oddly genuine. Something about it had made Juno want to hug them, or something stupid like that.
*
Mistah Steel sings when he bakes, a slightly off key tune that Vespa always mocks him about over dinner. Rita has always liked it though; it feels familiar to her, the way he sings along with the song, swaying gently and mumbling the lyrics he isn’t sure of. She’s never been one for singing herself, not really, though she really has tried. Got a fair amount of complaints to boot, but she’s never let other people’s opinions stop her.
Well, not her neighbours anyway, and Mistah Steel whines on reflex. It’s a habit of sorts, she guesses, to pick at something minor, let his mouth run off without his head. She can understand that, even if her rambles tend to include less complaints and more detailed recounts of streams.
He’s nervous now. Rita isn’t, because they can’t both be nervous, it’d be like that time she wore the same dress as Frannie to the premier of Ghouls in Trains: The Movie .
She kinda misses Frannie now that she thinks about it, but she isn’t even kinda nervous, even though she really isn’t that good at baking either, much worse than her singing.
Plus she’s pretty sure she messed up to measurements for flour. It’s her first time baking challah and all, even though her mother used to all the time, and Agent-Mister Ransom is right there, and Juno’s all jittery like he’s trying to prove something.
Which he might be, because he’s fired her three times now and she ain’t even employed by him anymore, though that hasn’t stopped either of them.
Maybe it’s because they’re making bread for the whole crew. Juno get weird about baking for people, even though he has tons of times before. Maybe it’s because it’s Friday night and they’re running on a guesstimated time limit of the sunset back on Earth, and Juno hasn’t baked challah in awhile either.
She can tell he’s getting the hang of it again, can tell that it’s because Peter is there, all bright smiles and dumb jokes and soothing touches. She can tell that it's not that big of a deal, really, that Juno’s got other people now.
Rita likes it though, like the feeling of power in her shoulders, the warm memories of her mother’s always slightly burnt Shabbat dinners. She likes getting to share it with her crime family, likes getting to feel all domestic with the people she loves.
*
Juno hasn’t had a proper Shabbat dinner in so long that the prayers feel oddly out of place in his lips, heavy on his tongue and slowly falling from his lips. But the room is warm, and Rita lit the candles, hands over her eyes, though Juno would bet good money on her being able to sense Jet’s gentle smile anyway.
So he said the prayers, and cut the bread, breathing in the smell of it deeply, tearing into the softness of it in between terrible jokes and arguments with Vespa.
Shabbat dinners always make rest seem easier, a promise of a day when you can read a book curled up by a window, can spend a lazy evening curled up in bed. It reminded Juno of when Sarah used to tell him how divinity can be found pressed into every syllable, told him to replace the final syllable of hallelujah because of the godliness there. He misses those Shabbat dinners sometimes, even if something in his throat twists at the thought of them.
But then Peter takes his hand and Jet tells him that the bread is ‘good, but was bit mishappen’ as if Juno hadn’t worked for hours trying to awkwardly mould the sticky dough. Or well, not hours, but twenty minutes at least and-
Buddy has to stop the argument before Vespa joins in, and Jet takes another two slices to dunk into the chicken soup so he’s a hypocrite and a liar anyway.
In times like this, Juno could almost believe that G-d lingers in small spaces, that He spills through his cupped hands and rings in the high pitch of Rita’s laugh, in the smiles of his family.