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It was late, ship time - near midnight, likely, when the family finally began drifting back to their personal quarters. The Carte Blanche had been drifting through the expanse past Pluto for over a day now, celebrating and avoiding attention after their last successful score.
More than successful, actually, as many of the crew had noted. This last job had been a supply run more than anything else, if one truly out of the ordinary. Buddy had set her sights on some corporate research outpost, a small operation on an underdeveloped moon focused on reproducing Earthlike conditions for indoor farming. Compared to their normal fare, the food and more importantly the alcohol they’d stolen tasted better than anything any of them had had in months.
They’d known all of it wouldn’t be perfect, after all, it was experimental. However, between research and Vespa’s checks beforehand, it should have been clean. (They weren’t even eating all of it, given they had someone to pass the information off to at their next stop.)
If it was all clean… Why was Juno Steel presently leaning against him, groaning?
Nureyev knew what Juno was like drunk, and quite fortunately, it usually wasn’t this. No, in many ways this was the opposite - his detective should have been cattier than ever, and if not that, certainly staring into the middle distance lost in thought. Instead, Juno was the pained sort of the quiet, the sort where it was clear words were slurred because something else hurt.
Hurt enough that Juno collapsed onto his bed at the first opportunity, curling in on himself and gathering the blankets around him.
“Juno, do you know what is--”
“Stomach hurts.”
“Oh! Love, is it that bad? Do you-- Do you need anything?” Nureyev was tipsy, perhaps a little more than that, actually, with how much wine he’d had. Between the two of them, though, he was the more equipped to help. If it became truly dire, well, Rita was undoubtedly still awake and drunk on nothing but soap opera streams.
Continuing to look over Juno, he hadn’t responded, merely groaned again and started scratching at his upper arms incessantly.
“Urgh… I-- I dunno, ‘Reyev, I haven’t--” With very minimal stumbling, Peter was sitting at Juno’s side, trash can dragged with him. The lady sounded downright nauseous. “Felt this shit since… I was a kid.”
“Ah?”
“Well-- Have. But not… Ow. Like this.”
“I’m sorry, Juno.” Those words would sound a lot more sincere if he hadn’t hiccupped right as he finished, but he really meant them.
“Fucking. Allergies.”
“Allergies?” Nureyev tentatively placed his hand on Juno’s side.
“What were they… Tasted damn good but--” The detective groaned again. “Real plants?”
“Yes I-I believe they used ‘real’ plants? Your point, dear detective?”
“Shit…” It was at that moment, before any further explanation, that Nureyev began to stand up and rummage through his own things in the nightstand drawer. Bottle after unmarked bottle was discarded until the thief’s hands grasped the smallest one yet, full of miniscule, blue-white tablets. In the background, Juno is rambling on and on. “Mick stole something real expensive, uh, imported or-- Real agave in the tequila. Stomach hated it, Ben wouldn’t stop making fun of me…”
There’s a glass of water still sitting around from the night before, fortunately, which the thief now gently nudges into one of Juno’s hands as he tips a single tablet out of the bottle.
“You are sure this is an allergy, Juno?”
“What else-- Hey, hey wait.”
Nureyev stops, bottle in one hand, tablet and cap in the other.
“‘Reyev, what’s-”
“This is allergy medication, dear.”
“Shouldn’t you… Ask Vespa?”
“Over-the-counter. You don’t have more allergies, do you?”
“N-No, it’s just…”
“It is only an offer, detective. I find they tend to mitigate my own body’s reactions under similar circumstances.”
Juno’s eyes don’t meet his, drifting towards the floor as he continues scratching at his arms, legs tangling further in the blankets.
“No pills.” The reaction is immediate. The pill is back in the bottle, the bottle is back in the drawer, and Nureyev is sitting next to his girlfriend again.
“Perfectly fine, love. Anything else? More water?” His gaze drifts over the rim of his glasses to Juno’s arms. “Lotion, perhaps?”
“...Yeah. Thanks.” Juno finally takes the smallest sip out of the glass he’d been handed, shakily propping himself on one arm. It doesn’t last long, as the other is already attempting to arrange the pillows for him to lie back on.