Chapter Text
Peter Nureyev keeps track of time through the moments between laser flashes. He counts days by the length of his fingernails, and months by the length of his hair. He doesn’t bother counting years, though he knows they must be coming and going too.
Every day is mostly the same. He’s hungry until he successfully steals or begs for food, and if he isn’t able to do either then he just stays hungry. He's far from the only one in this position—there are dozens living on the streets of the small surface city he calls home. Some will steal your bedding in the night, but most will offer you a portion of their meal if they see you with nothing, despite being half-starved themselves. Through it all there’s a silent comradery, the unspoken solidarity of the mutually damned. Even when fights do break out in the back alleys, someone will always be there to pull the combatants apart, to point at the sky and whisper, "Remember your real enemy.”
Peter knows he must have had a life before this, but he recalls next to nothing from it. Only one piece of information about himself has remained strong in his mind.
“What’s your name, kid?”
He doesn’t recognize the girl who asks it, nor any of her companions who have decided to shack up under the same bridge as him. They must be new—travelers from another city. He can’t fathom why they decided to come here of all places, but he does know the answer to her question.
“Peter,” he says. “Peter Nureyev.”
“Nice to meet you, Peter Nureyev,” she says. “How old are you?”
That’s a more difficult question. He answers it truthfully. “I don’t know.”
“Judging by size alone, you look about six years old, but from your eyes… maybe seven or eight. Dunno. You got family? Parents?” she asks. He shakes his head. “Guess if you did, you wouldn’t be here. Do you have anywhere else to go?”
He doesn’t really understand the question. He can go anywhere in the city, but why would he? The bridge is a good place to hunker down, safe from the rain and the crack of the lasers. He shakes his head again.
“How would you feel about getting off the surface?” she asks, dark curls bouncing as she crouches down beside him.
That’s a confusing question, too. “You mean… going to New Kinshasa?” he says. That’s impossible, obviously. He could never gather enough creds for a ticket, and even if he did, he'd be kicked out of the place immediately after arriving. Only those with the right permissions and the right heritage are allowed to live in the city above the clouds. Everybody knows that.
An amused smile appears on the girl’s freckled face. “No, not New Kinshasa," she says. "How do you feel about them, though? The people living up above.”
“I think… it isn’t fair.” He's seen the shining screens displaying scenes of joy and decadence from up above. What did they do to earn that, that he didn't do? What did he do to earn this?
The girl's smile widens. “We feel the same way. That’s why we’re going to get out of here—not just off the surface, but off of Brahma entirely. We’re gonna go someplace new, and work to take down New Kinshasa from afar. Why don’t you come with us?”
She holds out a hand and he stares at it, struggling to understand her offer, until another member of the group says, “Lay off, Margot. He’s a kid. What good is he to us?”
She shrugs. “There’s enough space left in the shuttle for someone small, and look at him. He’s not going to last much longer living like this. We might as well bring him along.”
“You’ve gone soft.”
“You’ve gone hard. We’re doing this to help people like him, Zena. Don’t forget that, or it’s all for nothing.” She glares at her companion, then turns back to Peter. “What do you say? Will you come with us?”
It isn’t as though there’s anything keeping him here. He flinches as a siren rings through the air, followed by the sizzle of a laser piercing the asphalt nearby. He wonders if it hit anyone. He wonders how long it’ll be, before one of them hits him.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll come.”
Peter watches the freckled girl—Margot—slip a stack of creds to the pilot of the cargo shuttle. He catches some of the whispered words exchanged between them, enough to learn that the only ships allowed to cross the embargo into Sol territory right now are ones carrying goods for the armies. Brahma’s managed to stay neutral in the war by supplying both Outer Rim and Solar planets with the metals used to build army drones. This shuttle appears to be one such ship, loaded with precious materials, though he doesn’t hear what planet it's headed to. He doesn’t really care, either—anywhere must be better than here.
Margot and her friends bundle into one of the anterior cargo holds, squeezing next to stacks of carefully labelled boxes. He folds himself into a crevice between two full pallets, breathing in the stale air. Margot spots him before taking her own place, and smiles. “Ready, fox cub?”
He nods. She started calling him that instead of his name yesterday, which he guesses is because of his teeth—a known genetic mutation in this area of space, but not an especially common one.
“This is one of the fastest shuttle models around, but the flight will still last ten hours,” she tells him. “Hang in there, and follow my lead once we land.”
“Okay,” he says, and then the door to the hold closes and her face disappears into darkness. He huddles further back between the boxes as the shuttle begins to rumble beneath him, squeezing his eyes shut. He’s never flown before, and there are no windows here, no way to watch the planet where he’s lived his entire life get further and further away.
There’s nothing for me there, he reminds himself. He used to dream about his family sometimes, to imagine that they were alive out there and that someday they’d find him again. When he has the time to think, though, like he does while spending ten hours crouched in a dark cargo hold… he can almost remember a man who’d looked like him. Peter’s sobbing on a nondescript curb, and the man is there, whispering his name into his ear and telling him to never forget it.
Then the man is apologizing, over and over again. “I can’t feed you,” he’s saying. “I can’t keep you. Someone will find you, Peter. Someone will take you in and give you a better life.”
No one ever did.
The memory might not be real, anyway—and even if it is, he doesn’t want to see that man again. It’s better to leave, better to go far away. So why does it terrify him, when he feels the shuttle finally touch down on solid ground again, to know he’s somewhere completely new? To know he might never return to Brahma?
“We’re here, fox cub,” Margot whispers from nearby. “The pilot will open the hold for us soon, and then we’ll be free. You can stick with us, or go wherever you want. If you’re with us, though, I promise we’ll take care of you. You can help us take down New Kinshasa.”
He likes the sound of that. Mostly, he likes the sound of not being alone.
“This is Mars. Hyperion City, to be specific,” she continues. “They do a lot of weapons manufacturing and they’ve sent a ton of soldiers off to war, but none of the actual fighting is taking place here. It should be pretty safe.”
Mars. He doesn’t know much about it, but he knows it’s the first colonized planet, and the one closest to humanity’s birthplace. He knows that it’s millions of lightyears away from Brahma, too, on the complete opposite side of the system. Millions of lightyears from the only home he’s ever known.
He covers his eyes as the back of the shuttle slides open and they’re bathed in the bright, artificial light of the hangar. Margot extracts herself from the crates and stretches, walking to the back where the pilot is standing—in front of a row of armed guards.
She freezes as soon as she sees them. “What’s with the welcome party, Volkov?”
Peter can’t speak, read or write Solar, but he can understand it to an extent—some of the people he grew up with on the streets of Brahma had been refugees from the Sol region, come to Brahma’s neutral ground to escape the war without knowing anything of the violence that New Kinshasa was waging on its own people.
Which means he understands the gist of it when the pilot turns to the guards and says, “This is them. These are the dangerous stowaways who broke onto my ship.”
“You cheating bastard!” Margot snarls. “We paid you. You promised us safe passage!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the pilot replies, and the next thing Peter knows, the guards have rushed forward and all hell has broken loose.
Stowaways leap out of the shuttle all around him, beelining for the exits. He shrinks back, watching the chaos through a crack between two crates as his hard pounds in his ears. He sees two of the teenagers wrestle a guard twice their size, watches as Margot swipes her leg under another and manages to slip out of their grasp. For a tiny moment he’s certain he sees her shoot a glance back in the direction of the plane, as though looking for him. Then she’s gone, sprinting out of the hangar.
Several of the other stowaways manage to break free and run after her, but still more are caught, their hands cuffed behind their backs. Peter can only watch as they’re dragged away, and the remaining guards go after the few who managed to escape the hangar.
Just when he thinks all the guards are gone and he has a window to escape, a shout rings out and he hears someone step onto the shuttle. The beam of a flashlight passes right over his head, and he sinks down as far as he can, clamping his hands over his mouth. He’s no stranger to this, though, well-accustomed to ducking into dark spaces to hide from New Kinshasa’s lasers. If there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s to stay still and quiet—and sure enough, the guard eventually exits the shuttle empty-handed.
Peter peeks his head up again, just far enough to judge whether or not there’s a clear path out of the hangar. There is, so he bolts from his hiding space, managing to make it out of the cargo hold right before the pilot closes it again, and heads straight to the door.
It opens into a huge room with a high ceiling, filled to the brim with people carrying bags and suitcases. The presence of so many strangers is a comfort—Peter is used to moving unseen through crowds, snagging wallets from pockets and food from outdoor restaurant tables. He makes use of that skill now, taking advantage of his small size to disappear into the hustle and bustle of the space port.
Mars may not be a true battleground for the war, but there are still soldiers everywhere, dressed in Martian camouflage and wielding blasters bigger than any Peter has ever seen before. Even more guards are on the floor too, looking for the other stowaways. Peter takes care to avoid them, moving in a zig zag towards the large glass doors leading outside.
Just when he’s certain he’s home free, he slams right into a pair of sturdy legs.
Peter looks up to find a big, bearded woman staring down at him. The woman furrows her brow and asks him something in a concerned tone. He may have a rudimentary understanding of Solar, but she’s speaking too gruffly and quickly, her voice partially drowned out by the din of the port around them. Peter has no clue what she’s saying.
“I’m sorry,” he says in Brahman without thinking. “I don’t understand.”
The woman’s eyes narrow, all the concern leaving her face at once. Why did he open his mouth? It was a stupid mistake. Peter hadn’t heard the guards make an announcement about the Brahman stowaways, but maybe he missed it, and now she’s going to grab him and turn him in—
The woman does raise an arm and call out to someone, but Peter doesn’t hear the word ‘Brahma’ or ‘plane’. All he’s able to make out is the Solar word for ‘Outer Rim’. Of course. It doesn’t matter whether the people here know about the others or not. No Outer Rim citizens are allowed in Solar space until the current embargo is lifted, so any Rim dialect will be seen as suspect. He’ll have to be careful not to speak Brahman again.
He’s long gone by the time the woman gets the attention of one of the guards, of course, dodging into the center of a huge family dressed in matching floral t-shirts. He sticks with them until they reach the exit, then breaks into a dead sprint the second he’s out the door.
He keeps running for as long as he can, until his chest is burning and his breath is coming out in gasps. He doesn’t know or care where he’s going, as long as it’s away from the space port and the guards and the woman who’d heard him speak. Maybe he’ll never be able to find Margot or the others again, but that’s all right. Not having to be alone anymore had sounded nice, but he can look after himself. He always has.
He’s halfway across an elevated highway when he finally lets himself rest, clutching the stitch in his side. For the first time since he started running, he allows himself to take in his surroundings. The first thing that he registers is that the road is very, very high up. It soars above dozens of other highways, relics of the first age of colonization before hover-car technology was perfected. The second thing he registers, as he stares out at the city over the guard rail, is that it’s beautiful.
Hyperion looks nothing like the city where Peter grew up. From so high up, it more resembles something out of a dream—or at least a postcard. Shining skyscrapers reach towards the dome, thousands of cars speed by on and above the roads, and a million tiny people bustle along the spotless streets on their way to work or shop or see their families. There are sprawling parks, gushing fountains, billboards spanning entire buildings that stream videos of a glamorous, neon-colored life…
It’s beautiful, and Peter Nureyev does not belong here.
There’s nowhere to hide, on streets that clean. No dumpsters to dig through, no dark crevices to hunker down in undisturbed, and nowhere to avoid the authorities.
No city is homogenously beautiful, though. Peter’s old home was ugly all the way through, but even there some districts had been uglier than others. He bets even New Kinshasa has its cobwebbed corners and back streets that everyone avoids, so this place must too—and it only takes him a moment to find them.
There. Not far in the distance lies a separate dome, one much foggier and more patchworked than what currently extends over Peter’s head. There’s a park there too, but it’s smaller than the sprawling patch of green that graces the city center, and even from a distance the tops of the trees look dull and lifeless.
If Peter wants to blend in, that’s where he’ll have to go. He summons all the energy left in him, and starts moving again.
Andromeda runs through the forest, helmet on her head, chain whip at her side and sword in her hand.
She faces today’s mission alone: her faithful sidekick has left on a journey of his own, abandoning her to battle the great frost dragon by herself. She can do it, though. She’ll take down the creature by herself, even as the harsh winds of the newly emerging ice storm buffet around her. There isn’t much time left, so she’ll have to be quick.
The dragon is quick too, though. She’d thought it’d be easy to beat, now that it’s been rendered wingless by their previous battle, but its many legs propel it over the ground at lightning speed. She sprints after it as quickly as she can, but frost is gathering in her lungs and she only just manages to avoid tripping over the writhing root of a sentient tree. She presses on anyway, determined. The dragon can’t be allowed to menace the people of this city for one moment longer.
She finally emerges from the woods, stepping out into the open beside the river of ice. A-ha. The dragon won’t be able to escape across it without its wings, will surely know better than to risk stepping onto such dangerous terrain. She’s got it cornered. She’ll be able to take it down and then get to cover in time to escape the piercing sleet of the ice storm. All in a day’s work, for the chainmail warrior.
“You will die by my blade!” she shouts—or she would, if only she had her voice. It was stolen from her today, ripped from her throat by an evil mage after she woke up this morning. She’ll get it back eventually, she knows. She always does. Right now, though, she can only scream the words in her mind as the dragon faces her. Its back is pressed up against one of the boulders bordering the frozen river, its teeth bared. It looks tough, but she knows its weak points, knows the exact places to stab with her sword and crack with her whip in order to incapacitate it.
She’s about to attack when she hears a noise from behind her—the shuffling of feet. Another adversary, this far into the frozen wilderness?! Perhaps it's a henchperson of the dragon, or the mage who stole her voice returned to attack her again. Yes, that must be it. She whips around, swinging her sword in an arch and bringing it to rest right at the mage’s neck.
“Ah!”
The mage lets out a very un-mage-like yelp of surprise. He’s way too short for a mage, as well, with ripped clothes and matted black hair. He scrambles backward, out of reach.
Juno lowers the stick and cocks his head to the side. The colander he’s wearing as a helmet goes crooked, and he moves it back into place, studying the strange boy. It isn’t often he runs into new people in Oldtown, since no one in their right mind would move here unless they had no other choice, but his priorities are elsewhere at the moment. He turns back around to face the dragon—or rather, common Martian millipede—again. It’s already scuttled away, though, and he kicks at the dirt in frustration. He’d had it trapped in the perfect spot between himself and the hover-bus stop bench. If this boy hadn’t decided to show up out of nowhere, he would have caught it for sure this time. Mick would’ve been so impressed.
The strange boy is huddled behind the sign displaying the hover-bus routes now, regarding him suspiciously. Juno takes a step forward and he flinches, tensing like he might bolt at any moment.
Juno opens his mouth, but words still won’t come to him. He huffs and jabs a finger at the sign, instead. On top of the route is written in red block letters: BUS STOP CLOSED. If the boy is waiting for a hover-bus to arrive here, he’s going to be sorely disappointed.
The boy’s eyes follow his finger to the sign. He squints at it, then looks back at Juno, no comprehension on his face. Dammit. He might not even know how to read. He can’t be younger than five or six, but Juno’s met plenty of kids in Oldtown who didn’t learn to read until they were already in middle school. He probably got lost and now has no idea how to get home to his parents—if he even has any.
Juno’s still struggling to think of another way to communicate when a strong wind rises and knocks the kid against the metal bench. Sand finds its way into Juno’s throat and he hunches over, coughing. The ice storm that he’d been caught in the midst of while playing as Andromeda may not have been real, but the sandstorm growing around them certainly is. Juno had been about to head back home as soon as he slayed the ‘dragon’ to avoid the worst of it, but now… now this kid is here, clinging to the bench and looking around wildly like he’s never experienced a sandstorm before in his life.
Juno grinds his teeth. He has to talk to him somehow. He takes a gamble and plants himself in front of the boy, then moves his hands in the shape of a house. A year or two ago, his twin brother had decided they should both learn Universal Sign Language for times like this. Juno had protested at first, saying that if he couldn’t talk, he just wouldn’t. Ben had insisted, though, and eventually he’d given in. It’s admittedly pretty nice, still having the ability to communicate if he really needs to and can’t use his voice—and since Ma never bothered to learn the signs, it’s become like a secret language for the two of them.
Chances are the boy doesn’t know USL, but the symbol for house is pretty universal. Juno does it again, and then points at him, asking a question: Do you have a home? Can you go back to it?
It takes a few more repetitions, but the boy finally seems to get what he’s saying. He shakes his head.
Juno sighs and drops his hands. Dammit. He can’t leave the boy to fend for himself here, but he can’t take him home with him either, not when Ma was already in such a bad mood this morning. They wouldn’t be able to reach the apartment complex before the storm hits in full force, anyway. No, they have to find somewhere closer to hunker down—and thankfully, he knows the perfect place.
He doesn’t waste time trying to tell the boy to follow him. As the sand begins to swirl around them, he just grabs him by the wrist and pulls him into the trees.
Halcyon Park is full of real maples brought over from Earth centuries ago, and Juno and Ben used to climb them all the time, clambering up the bark until the park officials noticed and forced them to get down. He still doesn’t fully understand why they left that place; he just knows that one day they were living in Halcyon, and the next they weren’t. He knows that one day Ma looked at him and his brother like she loved them both the same, and the next she didn’t.
The trees in Oldtown Park are plastic. They’re a pretty good imitation of the real thing, but their branches don’t sway in the powerful winds as he pulls the boy through them. It’s only a few minutes before they reach the familiar grey concrete of the park bathroom, but the strength of the wind has already doubled by then, and the desert sand feels like it’s coating Juno’s throat. He lets go of the boy to clasp the handle of the door with both hands, yanks, and—it doesn’t open.
Juno lets out a stream of curse words in his head, ones he learned from Mick’s uncle and which would definitely earn him a smack if he said them in school or in front of Ma. The door’s locked. These bathrooms have been out of order for months; it makes sense that they’d lock the place down to keep out anyone looking to coat it with graffiti. It’s very bad news for them, though. The next nearest building must be twenty minutes away on foot, and by the time twenty minutes has passed, the storm will have reached lethal levels.
Right on cue the emergency sirens blare through the sky, alerting everyone to get inside. Juno looks around the surrounding woods desperately, as though he can possibly find an upturned log or patch of brambles to hide under in a park made of plastic. Seeing nothing useful, he turns back to the bathroom—only to find the door hanging open and the strange boy nowhere to be seen.
He slips inside, thoroughly confused. The boy must have figured out how to pick the lock somehow, but now that Juno’s entered the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind them, he’s vanished. Juno switches the light on and squints around the grungy exterior, trying to find him.
He’s opened all of the stalls, having grown increasingly nervous when each of them turned up empty, when he hears something shift in the direction of the sinks. It’s the tiniest of sounds, but Juno is very good at picking up on those. Some days, the only way he and Ben can exist in the same tiny apartment as Ma unscathed is if they’re totally silent.
Sure enough, he finds the boy huddled in a corner under the sink. Juno guesses that he was spooked by the storm and hid there in a panic—at least until he gets closer and realizes the boy isn’t shaking or crying. He’s staring forward with a level expression, like this is something he hates but has done a million times before. Juno makes sure his footsteps are loud on the tile, giving the boy ample warning as he approaches. He kneels down so they’re on eye level again and waves.
The boy doesn’t wave back; he just stares. Then his hand darts out faster than a sewer rabbit snatching a five cred bill and grabs him by the wrist, yanking him under the sink.
“Oof!”
Juno recovers from his surprise after a moment, but even once they’re both huddled next to the pipes, protected from the sandstorm by the thick concrete walls, the boy's posture doesn’t loosen. He stays deathly still, much tenser than he’d been when they were outside with the winds bearing down on them. He hadn’t seemed that scared of the storm at all, really… until the alarms sounded.
Juno pokes him on the arm. The boy jerks violently, but his eyes move to look at Juno. Once he has his attention, Juno points upwards to indicate the sirens still ringing through the air. He crosses two fists in front of his chest and then moves them out. Safe.
The boy peers at him incredulously, but he does relax ever so slightly after that—whether because he understood the sign language or because he’s taking cues from Juno’s reactions to assess their current danger level, Juno doesn’t know. He does force himself to stay as calm as possible, though, in case it’s the latter. He used to do that for Ben, too—when they were smaller, Ben had been terrified of the fireworks set off every year to celebrate the anniversary of Hyperion’s founding. The only way Juno had ever been able to calm him down had been to take his hand and point at himself. “Look at me,” he’d say. “I’m not scared, so you don’t have to be scared either.”
Juno had hated those fireworks, too. They were too loud and too bright, and made him want to throw his hands over his ears and scream. He never did, though, because the calmer he acted, the calmer Ben was.
The sirens stop after another minute, to his relief, and the sandstorm dies down not long after. The storms always hit Oldtown hard, slipping through the cracks in the damaged Dome and raging through the streets, but they seldom last very long. The boy doesn’t look scared anymore as they leave the bathroom, either, his expression changing to one of wary curiosity.
The sky is the same eerie beige color that it always takes on after a storm, the air hazy and filled with the smell of the desert. The park looks different like this, especially to someone who isn’t very familiar with it, so Juno takes it upon himself to lead the boy back to the bus stop. No hover-buses will ever arrive there, sure, but maybe he had been waiting for someone to come get him. Juno shouldn’t get involved.
The boy pads back over to the bench when they arrive. He leans over and shifts through the fresh layer of sand coating the sidewalk to pick something up. It’s the stick that Juno had left there when they’d run from the storm—a plastic one he’d illegally ripped off a fake tree months ago. The boy looks at him questioningly, and Juno can guess what he’s wondering: Why did you attack me with this earlier?
It’s a valid question. Half as an answer and half as an apology, Juno picks up the colander that had fallen beside the stick and plops it on top of the boy’s head. It's already too big for Juno’s, so it’s huge on the small boy, immediately slipping down to cover half his face. He pushes it back up and stares at Juno like he can’t figure out whether he’s being bullied or not. Juno wishes he could explain that this is actually the highest honor he can possibly bestow—even Ben has never been allowed to play the role of Andromeda during their games.
Juno holds up a finger to say one minute, then hurries a little ways into the woods. The boy follows him cautiously until Juno finds another branch on the ground, one that must have torn off its tree during the storm. Juno spins on his heel and points it at the boy, who reflexively raises his arm and blocks with his own stick. Juno grins.
He takes a step back, then lunges forward again, making a slashing movement with the stick. The boy blocks it and then jabs at Juno, who’s only able to dodge out of the way a second before the stick catches his shirt. They both freeze, looking at each other, and then a small, determined smile appears on the strange boy’s face. He may be smaller and younger than Juno, not to mention far less experienced in the art of stick sword fighting, but it’s clear he understands the game and has no intention to go down without a fight.
Over the next few sparring matches, Juno learns that the boy is quick and surprisingly strong for his size. There’s a sharpness in his eyes as their swords clash, so ferocious that Juno can almost see Andromeda in him too, just a little of the powerful warrior that graces the front of so many lunch boxes—and would have graced Juno’s too, if Ma hadn’t yelled at him about it being too expensive when he’d picked out her box in the store.
They don’t speak as they fight. Juno keeps waiting for the boy to say something, to ask him why he’s being so quiet and tease him when he can’t answer, but he never does. After ten respective matches, neither of them have said a word. Juno’s ahead by two wins, and the streetlamps lining the road have come alive, bright against the darkening sky. He hadn’t realized it was getting so late.
They stumble apart, both breathing heavily. The boy steps into the light of one of the lamps, its warm glow illuminating his tousled hair and dark eyes. Juno is struck by the sudden desire to stay here forever, to live on the sidewalk by the park and never return to that cramped apartment where stepping on the wrong floorboard at the wrong time makes him a monster. He knows he can't, though.
Juno tucks his stick under his arm and does the symbol for house again, hoping the boy will grasp what he means by it this time: I need to go home now. Ma has been getting back to the apartment late in the evening these days, but if he doesn’t get there before she does, she’ll kill him.
The boy just shakes his head, however. Juno can’t tell if it’s because he doesn’t understand, or because he doesn’t want Juno to go. Either way, Juno doesn’t stop the boy when he trails behind him, following him all the way back to the parking lot of the building where the Steel family has lived since leaving Halcyon.
Juno points a finger at himself, then the apartment building, and does the symbol yet again. This time the boy must get the message, because his face falls and he takes the colander off his head. He hands it to Juno along with his stick, then takes a few steps back, staring at his feet. Juno accepts the items with a grateful nod, then runs up to the entrance of the building, pulling his keycard from his pocket.
His hand is already raised to swiped the card when he stops and looks back at the boy. He’s still standing at the entrance to the parking lot, as though someone might come yell at him if he goes any further. There are a thousand things that Juno wants to ask him: Do you have somewhere to sleep? Did you run away because there's someone in your house that scares you, too? Are you hungry? Are you safe?
He can’t ask any of those things right now, not when his voice is absent and he's just noticed Ma’s car pulling into the lot on the other side of the building. Even if the boy did need help, Juno couldn’t give him any.
Still… he can probably manage one word. He puts a hand on his chest and speaks out loud for the first time since this morning. “Juno.”
The boy cocks his head. After a pause, he slowly raises a hand to his own chest and says, “Peter.”
Their eyes linger on each other until Juno hears a car door slam and knows he can’t wait any longer. He waves goodbye, then jams his keycard through the scanner and dashes into the building without waiting for the wave to be returned. He tosses the colander and the two sticks behind a bush in the courtyard with the rest of his stash before hurrying to the stairs. The number above the elevator indicates that it’s currently on floor twelve, and it always takes an age and a half to move from the top floor to the bottom one. He might be able to make it to the apartment before her if he runs.
He takes the steps two at a time, his legs burning after an entire day spent on his feet and his lungs still rough with sand. He reaches the top, chest heaving, and doesn’t allow himself a moment’s rest before sprinting down the hall toward their apartment. He barely believes it when he manages to unlock the door, dart inside, and slam it closed behind him. He actually made it.
“Juno.”
Juno freezes in his tracks, face to face with Sarah Steel.
She’s still wearing her coat, and she drops her bag on the dining room table before walking slowly over to him. He must have been only a minute too late. For a brief moment, Juno’s certain she’s going to hit him across the face. He braces himself as she raises a hand—and then pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.
“Oh, thank god,” she says into his shoulder. “Oh, Juno. When I came home and you weren’t here, I… I was so sure you’d been caught in the sandstorm, but you’re okay. You’re okay, right!?”
He nods into her hair. She keeps hugging him for what feels like forever, the too-sweet smell of their shared shampoo filling his nose, before finally moving back and studying him. Her expression is drawn, hard lines etched even deeper into her face than usual and dark circles bruising her eyes. He knows she hates the job that she’s working now, despises the long hours spent stocking produce in the back of Oldtown mart. He and Ben have learned to dread the days she works overtime, when she comes home ranting about her coworkers and managers and the universe itself and they’re left to clean up the remains of the wine glasses she smashes in the sink.
The realization dawns on her slowly. Juno is reminded of a stream about tsunamis they’d been shown in his geography class last year—watching her now is like watching the waves ebb away. If you’re close enough to see the ocean dry up, the narrator had said, you’re too close to have any hope of outrunning what will happen next.
Her hand is still on his shoulder. He’s far, far too close.
“Why weren’t you home?” she asks. “Why would you scare your mother like that? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Do you really hate me that much, little monster?”
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. She’s the very mage who stole his voice from him in the first place—when she’d screamed at him this morning over something he doesn’t even remember, and he’d suddenly become unable to do anything but stand there silently and try not to cry.
“Say something, goddammit.” She grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. “Why won’t you say anything!?” Her eyes move to his waist as she scours him, and Juno realizes he’s forgotten to remove the strip of hemp rope he’d looped through his belt to imitate Andromeda’s chain whip. Suddenly her hands are vices, her nails digging through his shirt into his skin. “Don’t tell me you were playing that stupid game again. You scared your mother half to death because that damn game, didn’t you? Answer me!”
He tries again, but he only manages a quiet, strangled noise. Even if he could talk, no words would be able to calm Ma now.
“My own son won’t even speak to me.” She shakes her head violently, like someone trying to chase away an annoying insect. He wonders if the insect is him. “Fine. If you really hate me so much, I might as well give you a reason to. You don’t get any dinner tonight, or—or tomorrow. No breakfast or lunch, either. If you really don’t need me, then you don’t need the food I pay for by working in that hellhole, do you? Now, go to your room.”
She stands up and whirls away from him, storming off to the cramped kitchen. He hears her curse and slam her fist into the counter, then curse again at the pain in her hand. He retreats to his and Ben’s room, feeling a little relieved. He’s earned much harsher punishments from Ma in the past, and he’s certain that tonight’s minor reprieve is only because she’s too tired to do worse.
He feels a little less relieved when he finishes changing into his sleep clothes and crawls into bed only for his stomach to growl loudly, but… it could be worse. He just has to keep reminding himself of that.
“Hey. Super Steel.”
He startles at the whisper from the top bunk; he’d thought his brother was already asleep. “Mm?”
“You were gone,” Ben says.
So were you, Juno thinks. If anything, Ben runs off more often than he does, always slipping away to meet up with school friends or dance in empty parking lots.
Ben must guess what he’s thinking, because he says, “At least I got home before Mom. I… I heard what she said. You’ve gotta be more careful.” He leans over the bunk to peer down at Juno, and Juno knows he’s being offered the opportunity to reply by signing.
He takes it. I’ll be okay, he says, hoping the signs are visible enough in the low light that Ben can read them.
They must be, because Ben immediately rolls his eyes. “You always say that.”
Didn’t say anything, Juno points out.
“Ugh, shut up.”
I am.
“I hate you so much.” Ben sighs. “Did you at least have a good day, wandering around in the sandstorm and making Ma pissed at you?”
Juno hesitates, considering what to say. He doesn’t know how to express everything that happened in USL, and he’s not sure he wants to, anyway. He wants to hold that moment under the street lamp in his chest, to keep the chance encounter private for at least a little while longer. In the end, he forgoes signs altogether and just nods.
“Guess that’s good,” Ben says.
Something clashes loudly in the kitchen, and the conversation grinds to a halt. Ben rolls back under his covers and says goodnight, which Juno responds to with two knocks on the wood above him. Then he curls up in his own blankets, counting backwards from a thousand in a vain attempt to distract himself from the ache in his empty stomach.
When he finally manages to fall asleep, he dreams of ice storms mixed with sandstorms, of dragons that transform into mages and shake him by the shoulders. He has his sword, though, and he refuses to back down. His brother stands by his side through it all—and on his other side, there’s a small, dark-haired boy named Peter.