Work Text:
Peter
It's 10 AM, and I don't want to get out of bed.
I woke up nearly an hour ago, and since then I've been lying here awake, watching as the sunlight slowly creeps into the room in four squares sliding across the ceiling. I keep sitting up, then lying right back down again. Then sitting up, and lying back down, and repeating it, and repeating it. I don't want to get up, get dressed, go downstairs. I don't think I can find the energy.
The squares of sunlight stretch halfway across my ceiling, and the clock beside my bed reads 10:17 AM, when the door to my bedroom bursts open.
"Mornin', Mistah Glass!" chirps the eternally energized Rita, as she pads into my room. "I get that you wanna stay in your PJs all day, cause I feel like that too today! I mean, see my cute bunny slippers? But then I noticed you hadn't come down for breakfast, so I thought, hey, if he won't come down to breakfast, breakfast has to go up to him! So Mistah Steel and I are here for a breakfast-in-bed party! And we can do that, cause we're on vacation!"
"Where's the best place to put this?" asks that husky voice from behind her.
(And there he is.)
Juno Steel is wearing plain shorts with a big sweater, with no makeup except for the mascara smudged under his bright eyes. His hair is in a messy floof. (He's so beautiful.) He smiles shyly when he sees me and indicates the tray across his arms. There are three plates, glasses and mugs, a pitcher of orange juice, a carafe, and a small vase with a sprig of purple wildflowers inside.
I roll over. "I'm not hungry."
"Too bad! You're eating!" The bed shifts as Rita jumps up next to me, and then I hear Juno set the tray down across the end before he sits too. "C'mon, we brought you real nice stuff! We cooked for, like, an hour! And I didn't put any snack powder on anything, even though I reeeeeeally wanted to, cause Mistah Steel said you probably wouldn't like that stuff. So now you just gotta eat it!"
"Yeah, you should try it." Juno offers, a little meekly. "We even brought coffee." His voice sounds so hopeful. He wants me to sit up and accept this nice thing the two of them have done for me. He thinks I might come around. That he can fix me.
I lift my face to look back at the two of them, these two Martian ladies trying to heal me. They watch me - eager, but also apprehensive. I flicker my eyes to Juno's face, wishing so badly that I could be everything he wants me to be.
Well. I can try just this one thing.
I sit up. "Hmm," I say. "I suppose if there's coffee involved."
(And oh, the way he smiles...)
"Great! Here ya go, direct from the Rita-and-Steel kitchen!" Rita grabs a plate from the tray and hands it to me. There are fried tomatoes, salmon, scrambled eggs with some kind of savory sauce, and crusty rolls. None of it seems to be rehydrated.
"You mean, the Steel-and-Rita kitchen," says Juno.
"Uh, nope? Who walked her sweet self out all the way to the town and bought all this while you was sleepin', huh? Was her name Juno Steel? Nope, her name was Rita!"
"Yeah, okay, but who fried five tomatoes and burned his fingers a shit ton of times?"
"I told ya to be more careful!"
They're both laughing, teasing each other. And Juno... he looks so happy, to be playful and lazy like this, draped across my bed trying to spear a piece of salmon on the end of his fork. I remember suddenly that the last time I ate breakfast in bed was on Callisto - the moon where every drug is legal, where I landed myself as the paramour to a man who I later learned was working with Ramses O'Flaherty on the THEIA souls. A man who wanted to destroy Juno's city.
"Here," says Juno, breaking me out of my trance. "Coffee. How's the food?"
"Good." The coffee is good too - a little bitter, but sweet at the same time. Like him.
"Good." He waits, but I can't find anything else to say. We go back to eating, Rita chatting away all the while.
***
In less than two days, I know Rita's favorite colors in order, the streams she enjoys, the products she uses in her hair. She talks on as if she expects there's nothing I'd rather do than listen. I try hiding in my room, but she comes in and sits next to me.
"I want to be alone," I say.
"Nope, you don't. You wanna wallow."
"Rita, dear." I look at her and smile as angrily as I can. "Has anyone informed you that I am a dangerous criminal, and that I have a delicate temper?"
"You've got depression is what you've got. Look at you, you never get out of bed! You gotta smell the flowers, Mistah Glass! Eat food! Take walks! You can't just lie here in all your emotions or you ain't never gonna feel better!"
"I don't mean to sound rude, but how am I supposed to feel better if I can't hear myself think?"
"Okay, I'll be quiet if that's what ya need." And she plops down next to me, plugs in her headpods, and watches a stream. I'll never admit it, but having another person's presence is grounding.
Juno I see less of over the first few days. Rita demands that we eat "as a family", which I find amusing, and if I don't come downstairs for meals, the two of them barge into my room.
On the second night I'm feeling overwhelmed, craving a sleeping pill but unable to find where I put the bottles, and I end up huddled in the corner of my room choking on tears. Rita finds me and marches me downstairs, plants me on the couch, and hops up next to me. "Mistah Steel, we're watchin' a movie!" she shouts to him.
"I'm finishing the dishes."
"That means now, Mistah Steel!"
And within thirty seconds he's there, drying his hands on a towel, and he slings the towel over his shoulder and sits down on the other side of me. Rita drops her screen onto my lap, commands, "hold this while I pick!" and starts scrolling.
Juno looks at me. He must see that I'm shaky, that my eyes are still red. (I was never good at hiding things from him.) He gives me a slight, reassuring smile. And then Rita stops scrolling and we watch some ridiculous, forgettable movie that I think had a dog. I can feel the pressure over Juno's arm and shoulder against mine, the gentle weight of him pressed against me. And he's so warm.
(It's nice, it's wonderful, it's better than anything I deserve.)
But those moments are brief, and once they're over the feelings vanished, replaced by... nothing again.
(I keep thinking about my overdose.)
I like to sleep, because when I'm asleep I'm not awake.
(How I kept putting pills into my mouth, panicking, unable to stop even as I watched my hands fish out more pills -)
It's clear that Juno's worked so hard to get better in the time since I've last seen him, and I'm so proud of him for that. But it hurts, because it's almost as if we've switched places, and now I'm the broken one.
(How the world went black.)
He broke my heart last year, he saved my life this year.
(How I woke up in the medbay amazed to be alive.)
And I still can’t find my sleeping pills, which is truly unusual because I know for a fact that I buttoned them on the inside pocket of my coat, and they aren’t there.
I check all the pockets, check my bag, check the inside of my drawers, and under my bed. The bottle isn’t there. I’m on my knees lifting the curtains to see if it rolled under there when Rita and Juno come in.
“Hey, Mistah Glass! I had a really fun idea! Okay, so first time we met you, you had these super pretty nails, and so I thought maybe it would be nice to paint your nails now, and then I can do Mistah Steel’s and then he can do mine!”
(...then I understand.)
“Rita,” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “Did you, by chance, take my sleeping pills?”
“Yep! Do you want red or black nails?”
I draw in a deep breath, try not to become enraged. “Rita,” I say. I stand up and walk over, looking down at her. She's at least three feet shorter than me. "Tell me where they are. Please."
"Nope."
"I don't know if you are aware of this, but I genuinely need those pills to sleep. I need you to give them back to me. Now."
"Mistah Glass, you've got a dependency on these pills, and it ain't healthy, so I've decided you gotta quit cold turkey. I mean, you overdosed! What if that happens again, how bad would that be?"
"That is not a decision you get to make!"
"Too late, I've made it!"
Juno watches as if debating whether to get between us.
"Rita -" I clench my fists at my side, trying not to explode with anger. She stands before me with her hands planted on her hips, glaring up at me. (And she is right, I don't want to be dependent on the pills, but I am, who is she to try and change that about me?) "Tell me where they are. Please. I can't sleep. I'm losing my mind."
"I can't. I flushed 'em down the toilet."
I feel a jolt run through me as if she slapped me. "You - what?"
"You heard me."
I can't believe this. She flushed out my exclusive, million-cred-worth sleeping pills down a toilet. They were prototypes made exclusively by my ex-lover. There's nowhere else in the galaxy that I can get them. I'm not going to be able to sleep again.
I sink to my knees and bury my head in my hands. "Why would you do that?" I ask, on the edge of tears. "Why the hell did you do that?"
"Because I wantcha to be healthy, Mistah Glass, and you're poisoning yourself with those pills, and you can't do that anymore." She kneels down on the floor next to me and lays a hand on my shoulder. "And I think you know I'm right. Now, do you want red or black nail polish?"
I hang my head. I want to lie down and weep. But she's still sitting here next to me, and her hand is still on my shoulder gently. Finally I say, "Neither. Purple." Mostly so that she'll reply she doesn't have purple, and then I can be left alone. But instead she smiles.
"Oh, okay, well I'll go get that then!" She bounds off down the hall. I lift my head to see Juno, still standing there. He's biting his lip and shuffling slightly.
"Yes?" I ask, a little surprised by the iciness in my own voice.
"I should confess something."
"By all means, confess."
"I, uh... I told her where to find the pills."
"You..." I'm so angry I can't speak.
"I knew they'd be in your coat." He scratches the back of his neck, taps one foot against the back of the other. He can't look at me. "So when she couldn't find them in your luggage I told her she should check there." I open my mouth, but he cuts me off - "Before you get all mad, lemme just tell you why, okay? I'm worried about you. I'm really worried about you, Nureyev. And on top of that, I'm selfish. I'd rather you go a few nights unable to sleep, than you overdose again and I go the rest of my life without you."
(And I'm floored. I'm gutted. I'm shaken to my core.)
His face is open, and sincere. He gives me a little sad smile, and at that I just... I want to bask in the warmth of that smile like a plant in sunlight. I want that warmth to melt me.
"Heeere we go!" Rita skips into the room, nail polish in hand. "Purple manicure coming up!"
Juno smiles at me again as he slips out of the room.
***
I let Rita paint my nails, and I let her braid my hair one morning (I'm not especially good at taking care of long hair, it seems), and once she asks to hug me, and I let her. But with Juno I'm more reserved.
When I think of letting him touch me, I become aware of all the ways I want him to touch me, and then as soon as I entertain those thoughts they're parted by memories of Christopher Tan. Who wanted me to trust him even as he unknowingly destroyed the one thing I loved most. I remember how he gave me the pills I would become addicted to, a gift - and how he kissed me after I accepted it. I remember how he pinned me down when we fought and squeezed my wrists until I dropped my knife. I can feel his hands on my body and suddenly I can't want Juno's anymore.
(But I want to want him. I want to. I want to.)
***
Juno
Nureyev's getting better physically, but I can tell that he's not quite right mentally still.
We've been here five days now. I'll be the first to admit: this vacation is really what I needed. It's a break from a lot of the things that have been stressing me out. Rita plays these garbage streams with terrible acting and forgettable plots, or some reality TV shows involving custody battles and wealthy celebrities. The air is crisp here. There's a town about a half hour's walk from here, and when we run out of food, we walk into town to get more. Sometimes I go alone and enjoy the time to myself. I feel refreshed.
I wish I knew how he feels. I doubt he feels much of anything, locked away in his room all the time.
I want to talk to him.
So one morning, after Rita and I have both slept in, when the sun is a little more than halfway across the sky, I work up the guts to do it. I go to his room and knock on the door. Seems like all I'm able to do these days is go check on him in his room. The door is already open a crack when I get there, but I wait a few seconds before pushing it in the rest of the way.
"Good morning, Rex," I say. He's got the covers pulled over his face. "Or, early afternoon, I guess." No response. "Cause it's the glorious hour of twelve PM." Still nothing. I go into the room and open his curtains. "You can stop pretending to be asleep whenever you feel like it," I say. Behind me I hear the blankets shuffle on the bed.
"How did you know?"
"Because I know what your breathing sounds like when you sleep, and that's not it. Don't give me that face." I finish with the curtains and turn around. He's sitting up in bed, pushing his long hair out of his eyes. His hair is... I'm not gonna lie. It's a little greasy, and on top of that, it looks like he slept in his clothes last night. The silk shirt is plastered to his body, his skirt creased. He squints in the sunlight.
"Honestly, Juno, I could have done that myself."
"Yeah? Well, then, why didn't you?"
"Because I didn't feel any desire to."
"Huh. So when's the last time you did feel a desire to?"
He purses his lips. "Did Rita put you up to this?"
"Nope. I'm here confronting you totally on my own. Amazing, I know." I turn back around again and lift up his window - it's stuck shut, since this house hasn't been used since god knows when, but I throw my shoulder into it and push hard. "Because - for the millionth time - I care about you and I want you to take care of yourself. But -" The window finally comes unstuck, so I push it up to let in the breeze. "- if you're not gonna take care of yourself, I guess that means I'm gonna have to force you into it. There, that's way better, isn't it?"
"Hmm."
"Want some pancakes? Rita slept in too, but she said she was gonna make pancakes for brunch. You ever had brunch?"
"Of course I have had brunch."
"Cool."
He frowns at me from his bed. It's killing me to see him like this. The saddest part is that this is an improvement - he hasn't been crying at night, he hasn't screamed for drugs, he hasn't begged for his sleeping pills, he's just been lying in bed. Pushing us away by insisting that he's tired, that he needs to think things through. It hits me too close to home, because I've had days exactly like that. Days where I was too deep in whisky and anguish to even shower.
"Hey, Nureyev?" I say. His eyes flash. "Sorry, Rex, my bad. Rex. When's the last time you showered?"
"Oh my god." He huffs out a laugh and rolls over, pulling the blanket above his head again.
"No, I'm serious!" I go over to the bed and pull the covers off of him. "You have to shower. I don't care how sad you are, there's some things that have gotta come before that, and this is one of them."
"You sound like Rita."
"Rita's the smartest person I know, so yeah, I sound like Rita." I hold the blankets away as he reaches to get them back. "I'm dead serious, Rex. You absolutely have to shower. It's not an option, okay? You don't get a choice."
He lifts one eyebrow and sets those gorgeous lips. The expression on his face looks like a challenge. "Make me."
I shrug. "Okay."
Nureyev's taller than me, but he's thinner and I'm strong, and I scoop him up off of the bed before he even has time to protest. "What - Juno!" he exclaims as I carry him out of his room. "What are you doing? Put me down at once!"
"Nope." I restrain him in my arms as he starts wriggling around like a snake, and I head down the hallway past his room towards the bathroom. "You said to make you."
"Juno, I swear -"
"You'll do what?" I nudge the door open with my hip and bring him in. "Stab me?"
"Don't be absurd. Put me down this instant. "
"Okay." I dump him unceremoniously into the tub, and he lands in a tangle of long limbs and angry glances. I stand over him with my arms crossed. "Well, here we are." I've caught him off guard, I can tell. But he recovers quickly.
He pushes back his hair and smooths out his clothes, says "Juno," and gives me his most dangerous smile. "I appreciate your concern, but I really don't need your input."
"Awesome. Take care of yourself and then I'll stop giving you my input."
"That isn't -" He huffs. "You are impossible. "
"Yep. I'm also blocking the door, in case you haven't noticed." I kneel down next to the tub. "Like I said. There are some boxes you've got to check off, and bathing isn't one of the skippable ones."
"You're mixing metaphors again."
"Whatever." I reach out, put my hand on the tap. "Are you gonna take your clothes off, or am I gonna have to ruin that super nice outfit?"
He blinks. "You - want me to take my clothes off?"
"I mean, that's kind of how a bath works, Rex."
"Oh." He grins, actually grins, in this semi-seductive way that I try really hard not to be drawn in by. "Well, detective, if you wanted to see me naked, you could have just asked. But I should warn you that I look different now."
"Oh my god, you think so much of yourself - I'm not even gonna look at you, alright? Just hurry up and do it."
He makes direct eye contact with me and rips his skirt off. And... the underwear underneath. And sure, he was right that he looks different - his drug addiction has left hollows under his ribcage, drawn his pale skin taut over his delicate bones - but he's still so beautiful, like a marble-chiseled sculpture of some ancient god, and I can feel my face burning. He grins lopsidedly as he finishes shrugging off his shirt. "You looked."
"Shut up." I turn on the water, grab a bottle of body wash and one of the fluffy cloths Rita left folded in the cabinet. This stuff is rose-scented. Leave it to Rita.
Nureyev watches me. "You know," he says. "You being here isn't exactly necessary."
"I know. But guess what I don't know? I don't know that you aren't going to, I don't know, drown yourself. Cut your wrists with a razor. Something stupid."
The flirtatious smile is gone from his face. He draws away from me when I reach out towards him. "I told you the overdose was an accident."
"I know." I wait for his small nod of assent before I lay the cloth gently on his shoulder. "But I'm scared, okay? Scared you'll do something that isn't an accident. When I was depressed, I thought about it." I run the cloth slowly along the slope of his back, and I can feel the tension of his muscles underneath my touch. "Relax, I've got you."
"I wanted to die for a long time," he says in a small voice.
"I'm... I'm so sorry."
"It wasn't your fault." He squeezes his eyes shut tight, but he's leaning into my touch now. I keep going, running the washcloth up his folded arms. "You hurt me, but then I hurt myself more. I... I know I need to take responsibility for my own shortcomings."
"Yeah." There's a small scar on the inside of his arm above the vein, from stabbing a needle in so many times. "Can - will this hurt if I touch it?"
"No." He sniffs and holds out his arm to me. "Go ahead."
So I do, and when he turns to me, I run the cloth along the slope of his clavicle, the planes of his chest. It hits me that I'm literally touching Peter Nureyev's naked body right now, and maybe that should feel weird, but it... doesn't. It's not sexual in any way, just intimate. Caring. I catch those dark eyes with mine as he looks up at me through his feathery eyelashes and I look right into them.
"I'm gonna tell you something," I say tentatively. "Something that's gonna be really hard for you to hear. But you've gotta promise me you'll listen, okay?"
"I promise."
"Good. Hear it is." I keep holding his gaze. "I'm not enough for you." He starts to talk, I talk over him. "Shh. Listen." I run the washcloth along his side, over an old bruise on his ribcage. "I'm not going to pretend I don't have feelings for you anymore. I do, and I think you know I do. And I'm not sure what you feel for me, but I'm pretty sure there's something. Correct me if I'm wrong."
His voice shakes. "You're not wrong."
"Okay." I draw a breath to steady my pulse. "Okay. But here's the thing. You're depressed. You're coming out of your withdrawal, but now you have to face all the other shit. You've gotta stand up against the big mean world outside, and you've gotta stand up against the little world that you make in your head, when it feels like your thoughts are tearing you apart and you've got no way of fighting through them. You've got to get better, but you've got to get better for you. So you can be happy. So you can go back to conning people and doing crimes." I set the washcloth down. "I'm gonna wash your hair now, okay?"
"Yes."
"Great." I lather up my fingers with shampoo and get to work. "I can tell you that you're the strongest man I know. And that you're a fighter. And that I know you can work through this. All of that's true, but it's also cliche bullshit -" That makes him smile. "- so we'll forget it. You can get better because you have to get better, because you deserve to get better. Whether you do or not is up to you." I turn his face towards mine as I run my fingers through his hair. "I'm here if you need support. I can manhandle you into a bathtub and put flowers on your nightstand. But all that stuff in your head, you have to work through now. You have to do it for yourself."
He sits there, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his wet hair down around his shoulders. His face is blotchy, his eyes are teary, but he looks at me. He meets my gaze and he looks at me.
"I want to live," he tells me shakily. I love him so much that I can't even stand it.
With my hands that are still tangled in his hair, I draw his face closer to mine, and tilt his head down, and I press my lips against his forehead. His whole body relaxes under the kiss, and his shaking slowly subsides. His skin is warm. I hold my lips there for a few seconds, eyes closed, and then I break it off as gently as I can.
"Then live," I say.
He keeps his eyes closed and lays back. I have my arms pretty much wrapped around him at this point, trying to get to the back of his scalp, and his face tips against my arm. I finish with the shampoo and get the conditioner.
"I'm trying," he whispers eventually, abruptly.
"Sometimes that's all you can do," I reply.
***
I'm making bread the next day. The repetitive motion of folding the dough around is soothing. Just press, and fold, and press, and then repeat a bunch of times. I can focus on that and not focus on anything else, and the therapeutic motions of it used to comfort me when I got into a bad place back on Mars. Mick gave me a recipe book.
Rita's sitting at the kitchen island, reading a magazine. Through the open windows, I can smell the pine trees of the forest, hear birds singing. There aren't pine trees or birds on Mars. It's so different from Hyperion City's noisy maze of neon streets. The sounds are suddenly joined by the noise of the back door sliding open and shut, and Rita drops her magazine to look at me.
"You don't think -"
"Is he trying to leave?"
"We'd better go check."
"I'll go." I push aside the bowl. She frowns, but doesn't say anything as I leave the kitchen. I go through the living room to the back door and then out onto the deck in back that really doesn't look capable of functioning as a deck anymore. But past it, past the flaky red paint on the wood, and the splintery railing, I see him standing up to his knees in the overrun wildflower garden. At first I feel a jolt, when I see the knife clenched in his hand, but then I notice the rose stems dangling from his fingertips. He turns to look at me and smiles.
"Hello, Juno." He indicates the roses. "I found something worth going outside for."
"They're nice," I agree. "What are you gonna do with them?"
"Hmm. Place them in a vase, perhaps." He runs the end of his knife gently along the stems to carve off thorns and flashes another smile at me. The flowers ripple like water as he wades through the garden back to the deck. "Except for this one." He takes out one from the bunch and tucks it gently into my hair. "I'll be upstairs arranging these if you need me."
He goes back inside. But he gets a vase from the kitchen before he goes up to his room.
That night I fall asleep with the rose under my pillow.
***
Peter
To exist is profoundly painful, but it's also all there is to do.
(There is a scar on the inside of my arm, and weakly repressed memories of a bitter lover in my mind.)
But the sunlight filters through the leaves -
(There are nights where I'm unable to sleep in the restlessness of my own thoughts.)
But the rain on a windowsill -
(There are days where I feel numb to the world.)
But the glow of the moonlight in the sky -
And these things need to be experienced rather than passed by. The grass deserves to be bent as I lay across it to map out constellations in the sky. (There is no light pollution here.) Rita asks to join me if I go out a second night, and so I do.
I sharpen my knives and practice throwing them into a tree, again and again until my weakened arms feel sore. The sting of that soreness feels uncomfortable, and it feels satisfying too somehow, and it feels.
"I've had a thought," I tell Juno when he pokes his head into my room to see if I want breakfast one morning. I'm sitting in front of my mirror, doing my makeup. He smiles when he sees me out of bed.
"What's that?"
"I've lost track of how many days we've been here."
His forehead does that cute crease thing to show he's been thinking. "Oh. Me too."
"I have also realized I am okay with that. Breakfast would be lovely."
He beams at me and disappears out the door again.
When I can't sleep, which is often, I doodle. I press flowers. I rearrange my makeup. I hum the lyrics to old songs I heard on various planets, snatches of music I can't entirely remember.
When I can't find the energy to do anything other than lie around, I make myself get out of bed. I get a blanket and go downstairs and lie on the couch, because it's better to be there than to be alone up in my room.
When I can't bear how crowded my head feels I go for a walk.
There are some old paths worn through the forest, not quite overgrown, but on the way to it. I learn all of them. There's something strange about the familiarity of them. With my former life of switching aliases and jumping from planet to planet, I never had the ability to become familiar with anything. Now I can.
I stand in the center of the forest with my eyes closed and simply listen, and breathe in, and breathe out.
The paths are beautiful, every one of them. So beautiful that I never tire of them. Sometimes Juno or Rita join me, but often I go alone and I let myself take as much time as I need to.
I'm lying on the couch one morning with a mug of tea when Juno comes and sits next to me. He has coffee, the steam coiling in front of his face.
"Did you sleep well?" he asks.
"I did. A full seven hours."
"That's great."
"Mmm. Could be better." It is an improvement, though, certainly. I watch him sip his coffee.
And then (like a teenager on a first date) I put my free hand into the space between us and let him decide what happens next. He covers my hand with his. I turn my palm over and our fingers entwine together, and it is... comfortable. Nice.
(What an odd couple we make: the alcoholic and the addict. The detective and the thief. The goddess and the sinner.)
We sit there and hold hands with his calloused thumb drawing slow circles on the back of my wrist. We stay like that for a long time.
***
"Rita, we're going for a walk!" Juno walks over from the bottom of the stairs and smiles at me as he pushes the back door open. "So, which way are we going?"
"Follow me." To get to the forest, we need to walk through the overgrown flowers in the garden behind the house. They come up to my hips, which means that they come up to Juno's stomach. The annoyed look on his face is amusing. The flowers eventually fade away, like waves lapping at the edge of the forest. He shivers as we start down into the shadows beneath the trees.
"Don't think I've been this way before."
"It leads up to a lookout at the top of the hill. I've been wanting to show it to you."
I see his lips quirk into a smile from the corner of my eye. "Sounds like what we used to talk about."
"Hmm?"
"You know. How we were gonna go adventuring across the galaxy and you'd show me the world." The scuffed toe of his sneaker sends a spray of pebbles kicked over the path. "Before I went and messed all that up."
I'm not entirely sure how I should reply to that.
We keep walking, silent for a little while. I hear Juno's breath slowly get heavier as the path slopes upwards into a hill. "You gonna say anything?" he asks eventually.
"I haven't decided yet."
"Cause I've gotta tell you, Rex, if we're gonna really talk about what happened, I think this is a pretty good time.
(Rex.)
"I've changed my mind," I decide aloud.
"Come again?"
"You can call me Nureyev again if you wish."
He laughs a little. I feel him step closer to me, and I feel the warmth of his hand hesitate in the air near mine. When our fingers slot together it feels natural. "Can you do something for me?" he asks.
"Of course."
"Can you tell me if you've forgiven me or not?"
"Whatever for, detective?"
I hear him stop beside me and feel him draw back enough to loosen his grip on my hand. "For walking out on you," he says. "I thought that was obvious. I didn't know if it was right to ask before. But if you've thought about it, I hoped..."
"I've forgiven you."
He looks at me in surprise.
"You - you mean you already have?"
"Yes, Juno. I already have. I did a long time ago." I squeeze his hand. "It will always be true that you hurt me. But it won't matter anymore. That's also true, do you see?"
"I..." He shakes his head. "Wow. Yeah, I think I do."
"Excellent." I continue walking up the hill. "If that's all, then you can follow me."
I'm facing away now, but I can tell that he's smiling too.
We make it to the top of the hill, and then the path runs towards a bare spot in the trees up ahead. It stops on a ledge atop the hill, overlooking the forest below. Juno and I stand there in the opening, still holding hands, looking down together at the trees below. They ripple in the breeze.
"It's so... lush," he whispers. "I'm so used to the red deserts on Mars, but this, this is just... so much green."
He is a flowering rosebush; he is a sun-tossed sea. He is a goddess, with his dark hair and his bright eye and the lovely scars criss-crossing his skin. He is more beautiful than anything else in this forest, on this planet, in this universe, and suddenly I don't want to look at anything other than him.
(And I want -)
"Juno," I whisper. He turns his head to look at me.
(Desperately -)
I let go of his hand and reach out to him, but my hand shakes. He smiles and steps close to me. He guides my hands onto his sides.
(To feel -)
"It's okay," he whispers back, and he reaches up to cup my face, slowly, slowly. "Trust me."
"I do." He goes up on his tiptoes, and I close my eyes.
(-Alive.)
We kiss.
It's softer and more tender than anything I could have imagined. With his hands cupping my face and mine pressed against his ribcage, I can feel the pulse in his wrists and the shift of his lungs as he breathes. And, oh, I can feel him smiling under my lips, his breath soft in my mouth, his body warm against mine... it's better than anything in the entire galaxy.
His lips part against mine, just once, and then close before he breaks it off. We stand looking at each other, still cradled lightly in one another's hands. I wrap my arms around him and pull him close to me, letting his forehead fall against my chest, with my chin on the top of his head.
"I love you, Juno," I whisper finally.
"I love you too, Nureyev," he sighs. I want to weep.
(So I weep.)
I press my teary face into his hair and hold him closer. "Call me Peter, darling."
"Peter." He tips his face up from my chest and smiles at me. "Peter." His lips peck against mine once, so softly I barely feel it. "Yeah, I think I can get used to that."
***
Juno
When I was at my worst, I had this bad habit where I'd catalog all of the bad things I had to worry about. I figured, hell, if I needed to worry about them, I might as well do it all at once. But when I walk back to our house with Peter, I search my brain and I can't think of a goddamn thing I'm worried about right now. Not a single one.
That could be because my brain is still foggy from the kiss. I decide not to push it and let the thoughts drift away.
Rita smiles when she sees us holding hands. "Hey there, you two!" she exclaims, giving me a look that says I'll be telling her all the details later. "You have a fun walk?"
And I do end up telling her all the details that night, sitting in my room after Peter's gone to bed, like a teenage kid at a slumber party - "Oh my god, Rita, he's such a good kisser. Seriously, I forgot how good he is. And he loves me. Can you believe that? He seriously said he loves me, I'm actually gonna die."
"Least now we know you ain't gonna die of sexual frustration."
"That's... okay first of all, I wasn't sexually frustrated just because I thought he'd stopped loving me -"
"I'm pretty sure ya were -"
"And then second of all, we only kissed."
"So far." She waggles her eyebrows at me.
It's weird, though, I reflect lying in bed later that night, not even bothering to try and sleep since I know I won't be able to stop thinking about him. It's weird how well we still understand each other even after all the things we went through. I knew he was trying to kiss me even though his hands were shaking. I knew that I couldn't ask for his forgiveness before while he was still in the worst of his depression. And he knew exactly what I wanted from that kiss. It was as perfect as anything is able to be. I've been alive for almost forty years and I've never had a kiss as good as that.
I think - I hope, I really hope - that this means we'll work things out.
That we can be together.
"Together" with Peter Nureyev. I'm not sure what that would look like, but suddenly, desperately, I want to know. I want those adventures he promised me and the relationship that goes with them. I want to chase sunrises and con bad guys and hold his hand and kiss his mouth and wake up. I want to be there for him when he needs me, and I want to find out how he likes tea in the morning, and I want to have sex and talk things through and whatever it is that normal couples do in a normal healthy relationship, the kind I've never quite had before. I want it so badly that it aches in my chest.
It turns out I don't have to wait all that long for one thing on that list.
We're sitting on the back porch near the end of the next day, that weird time that blurs the line between evening and night. The sunset that we were watching has faded from all the multicolored patches it was before into a single line of violet on the horizon. He has his head on my shoulder and his eyes closed. All around us there are sounds: crickets chirping in the garden, bullfrogs in some small pond nearby, the creak of the porch swing we're sitting on as it sways back and forth. His breath on my shoulder is very, very distracting. I have Peter Nureyev's head on my shoulder right now.
Then something occurs to me.
"Hey," I say, nudging his side gently with my elbow. "Hey, can I kiss you again?"
"Hmm?" He sits up, which sends his hair tumbling down over his neck again. God, he is so sexy. "Of course." He slings one of his long legs over mine, cradles my face gently between his hands, and kisses me so sweetly that I think I'm actually going to die. The kiss is gentle. I enjoy it, but suddenly as it lingers, I want more. I want so much all at once.
I bury my hands in his hair and pull his face harder against mine. He allows it, with a satisfied noise, and then his tongue is in my mouth and his fingers creep along my chest. I feel them playing at the edge of my shirt. He leans into me more, the weight of him on my ribs pushing me back, so that he's basically lying on top of me on this swing. We break off, panting, and then without hesitation his lips move over to my neck.
"Do you -" I interrupt my own sentence with a whimper as his sharp teeth nibble the base of my throat. "Do you wanna take this inside?"
He lifts his face and pushes back his hair with the hand not slipping inside of my clothes. When he smiles I feel ready to melt. "Oh, darling," he murmurs. "I'd like nothing better."
We get up from the swing, but I can't resist him even a second longer, so I throw myself against him for another kiss. We stumble backwards, across the porch, crashing through the door, into the living room, towards the direction of my bedroom, which is luckily right nearby and even more luckily on a different floor from Rita's. I have my eyes closed. He navigates me around the furniture, strong hands pulling me by my clothes and pushing me by my shoulders, lips moving against mine all the while. Once I trip backwards on the corner of an ottoman, but before I can fall his graceful arms catch me and he fluidly turns the momentum of my stumble into a dip kiss. Then he spins me to rights again. Then we fall through my bedroom door.
Then I'm against the wall, and clothes are coming off. He smiles when my shirt hits the floor. "You," he murmurs, pulling me to the bed. "Are so beautiful."
"Look who's talking. Mind losing that shawl for me?"
"Anything for you."
"And the shirt."
"Of course."
"And the pants."
"Goodness, you are an impatient little thing." He leans across me and bites my bottom lip. "Give me time, darling. Let's savor this, shall we?"
And so we do.
It's been a long, long time since I slept with Peter Nureyev. Since then I've gained scars from my fights with the THEIA/Ramses/Pilot battle, and he's lost weight from the sleeping pill/drug abuse/depression battle. But like I noticed when I washed him off last week, he's still so incredibly beautiful. He tells me that I'm beautiful, too, as he guides my eyepatch off. He tells me so much.
I know there are more memories that he isn't sharing with me just yet, and while I'm not sure what they are, something in them has made him cautious with me. But I let him take his time. I cradle his face and kiss his mouth and tell him that I love him; and when he moves on to trail kisses down my chest, and my stomach, and my legs, I know that all of this was worth waiting for, worth every second we gave ourselves to heal first.
He's got me, and I've got him. We're together now. Every breath of the way, we're together.
"I love you," he gasps into the curve of my neck.
"I love you," I answer. We say it again, I lose track of how many times.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
There are so many things in my past that hurt me. There are things I know I'll share with him soon, and things I'll wait on. But I'm going to tell him everything in time. I'm going to give him every piece of me that I can, and I'm going to treasure everything he gives to me.
We're not perfect. We're not all the way better. But we're okay - we're here, and we're okay.
When it's over we lie together in the sheets and I watch him fall asleep again. I watch him in the dark for what feels like hours. Then I cuddle against him, duck under his arm, lay my head against his chest and let his rhythm lull me.
"I love you," I whisper one more time, and then I drift off to sleep.
***
In the morning I wake up before him, curled into his chest. I shift my head against his warm skin to glance at the clock. 6:27 AM, and he's sound asleep. I press a kiss against his sweaty forehead and untangle my limbs from his quietly. He shifts in the bed, mumbles "Juno," and reaches out for me. I smooth back his hair until I see him relax again. "I'll be right back," I whisper. He goes still, so I climb out of bed and slip on my boxers.
I leave the room as quietly as I can, go to the bathroom, and am just heading back when I hear Rita from the kitchen table. "Psst, Mistah Steel. Can you come here for a minute?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure." I go over and sit down at the table across from her. She considers me over the rim of her mug like a judge staring down a convicted felon.
"Want some coffee?"
"Sure."'
She pushes the carafe and a mug towards me, then folds her hands and leans forward. "Mistah Steel. Listen. I'm really, really happy for ya. I totally am. I know you love Mistah Glass a lot, I'm happy he feels the same way about you, and I hope you'll both be super happy together for like, a real long time! I do! But, you should remember that right now, the two of you are sharin' a house with me, and -"
"Oh my god." I can feel a blush creeping over my entire face and neck. "Oh my god, Rita -"
"-and listen, I get that you're both adults, and I'm not trying to be bossy or anything -"
"Rita..." I bury my face in my hands. " Could you hear us? "
"Not really, Mistah Steel, just a little bit, and plus, Mistah Glass's room is up near mine and I never heard him come back inside, so I just kinda put two and two together -"
" Rita -"
"I'm just sayin', Mistah Steel, if you two wanna have -"
"Please, I'm actually begging you, please don't say what you're about to say."
"Fine then, if you two wanna smash -" I groan and hit my head against the table "- then next time, can ya please wait until I'm out of the house? Or like, later at night? I leave a lot to go to town for groceries, so maybe then-"
Before she can finish her sentence or I can combust from embarrassment, Peter Nureyev flounces into the kitchen - wearing his pants and his shawl, practically glowing, eyes bright and hair disheveled, with about a million hickeys on his neck and his bare chest. He looks very, very pleased with himself.
"Coffee made? Good morning, darling," he adds, dropping an almost chaste kiss onto the top of my head. "Rita, you're a saint."
***
A few days pass. I hold hands with him when we go outside. He kisses my forehead before we part ways to go to our separate bedrooms. I want to grab him and pull him into my room and let him into my bed with me, just to sleep cuddled up with him. But I'm worried that once I got him there we wouldn't be able to keep our hands off each other, and then Rita would lecture us again. So I spend the nights alone and wistful. I spend the days happy just to share a house with him, and sit with him, and be with him.
But Rita suddenly seems to have this desperate desire to get out of the house. Even though the pantry is pretty full, she talks on and on about going to the store in town.
"Like, we need sooo much food, so I'm gonna go to town, maybe, tomorrow? Or hey, why not today? We'll say sometime around noon-ish? Oh gosh, but then I just might get hungry so I'll be forced to go out to lunch, and gee, that would mean I'm not back until four or maybe even four thirty!"
She keeps repeating all this, about how she's gonna be out for a while, and how there's just so much she'll have to get, and how while she's at it she might go and get some new clothes, while she puts on her shoes and gets her purse. "You don't mind, right? If I make a day of it?"
"Course we don't," I say. Peter, who is sitting at the table reading a book, suddenly seems to get an idea. He hops up, kisses me quickly on the cheek, and then sprints upstairs. Rita shakes her head as she hooks an umbrella over her arm.
"Huh, wonder what's gotten into him? Anyway, you have a nice day, okay, Mistah Steel? I'll see you in a couple hours. Or maybe four-ish hours. We'll see. Bye."
"Bye."
She heads out the door. I clean up the kitchen, because of course Peter left his lunch plate on the counter without rinsing it off first. We're gonna have to work on that. I put all the dishes in the dishwasher and wipe down the counters, move his book to the living room table, wipe that down too. He still hasn't come back downstairs. Maybe he wanted me to follow him up.
Oh, wait.
Rita... is going to be gone. For four hours.
Oh.
I set the dishtowel back in the sink, and I go upstairs to his room. Knock once on the door.
"Come in."
I go in, and I instantly start laughing.
***
Peter
I take the rose out of my mouth. "There you are, darling."
"Oh - oh my god, I can't -" He breaks off laughing again; the hand not bracing his shaking body against the door frame covers his mouth to stifle the giggles. " Peter. Babe. What the actual hell?"
"Don't tell me you're not impressed." I lean forward slightly from where I'm lounging across my bed, which I've covered in flower petals. I'm wearing thigh highs with garters and the shortest shorts I own; also a lace robe that I arranged across the bed artfully. Dark bedroom eyes, blood red lipstick, hair down around my shoulders.
(I want to look fantastic for him.)
"Nope, I'm definitely impressed. This is the greatest moment of my life, just... wow." He shakes his head and steps into my room, letting the door slide shut behind him. "You don't go halfway, do you?"
"Well, how else was I going to seduce you?" I ask. He walks over to me and stands next to the bed with his hands on his hips, looking me up and down, and he's blushing. I forgot how much fun it is to flirt with him. I cross my legs. "It seems I've stopped you in your tracks."
"Nah, I just like looking at you."
"Mm. Do I look good?"
"You look like a three course meal is what you look like."
"Only three?" I shrug one shoulder of my robe lower, enjoying the way his blush deepens. "Hmm. Well. In that case, you'll have to... eat me."
He bursts out laughing again, which makes me smile. "Sure thing," he grins. "Um, where did you get those socks?"
"That isn't important, now, is it?" I twist my hair innocently around one finger. "If you don't like them, come take them off."
"Never said I didn't like them." He sits down on the bed. He looks irresistible, in that purple lipstain and matching skirt, with a mesh shirt that teases all the lines of his torso underneath. His warm, calloused hands settle on the skin between my shorts and my socks, and I feel a thrill run through me as those rough hands slide down my thighs. He tries to get the garters off, gets his fingers tangled in the straps, tries again. "Goddammit." He moves closer and straddles me. My soul temporarily leaves my body. "How do I get these off?"
"There's a clasp -"
"Yeah, shut up." He kisses me and slides his hands up my legs, running them playfully along my hips and then over my sides until they stop at my shoulders. He pushes off the robe and kisses me again. In this position, his arms are hooked around me and we're chest-to-chest. I can feel his sweat against my skin. "Yeah, I can't get these things off. You mind leaving them on for me?"
"Not in the slightest... Juno?"
He's nibbling thoughtfully on his lip, looking away from me as if studying this position we've gotten ourselves into. When he brings his face back to mine there's a devilish glint in his eyes. "Hey, you know what? Let's switch."
(I think my heart actually stops.) "Wh-what?"
He grabs me by my hips and leans in very close to my ear. "Let's switch." I find that I can't think of a single response, so I just nod mutely. He catches my earlobe between his teeth and twists it, and then he leans back and pushes me into the bed, still straddling me. He takes off the mesh skirt. "Okay." His warm hand presses into the exact center of my chest. "Okay. Yeah. Did I mention you look really really good?"
"I think you mentioned it," I gasp.
"Sweet." He tries to pin my wrists back above my head, but his arms are too short, so he pins them next to my ears instead. "Is this good? If you don't like something, you can tell me."
"Somehow I don't think that will be a problem."
"In that case, great." He lies down on top of me and cups my face in his hands for a kiss. "Mm. You taste great. Oh - shit, I forgot to actually take your shorts off."
"...Juno?"
"Yeah?" He tries to bite my neck, but he can't get his face at the right angle. (He's so awkward at this, and he's trying so hard. For me.)
"Have you ever done this before?"
"Have you ever done this before?" comes the counter, his hands reaching down to take my shorts off. (I'm in love with a total idiot.) "Shut up and let me be sexy and dominant here."
"Sexy, certainly, but dominant -"
"I'm getting there, okay?" He pulls me up for a kiss by my hair and then shoves me down into the bed. I watch while he finishes taking his clothes off, after which he takes my hands in both of his and kisses my palms, my wrists, my knuckles. He sucks absently on my little finger for a moment and then leans down and kisses my stomach. "Anyone ever tell you you have great abs?" I try to hide my smile. (Juno is so many things, but poetic has never, in my experience, been one of them - and unless I'm mistaken he's about to start praising me. This should be interesting.) "Yeah. Don't give me that look." He runs his fingers down my chest. "Wanna know something? The first time I ever saw you, the second you started speaking, I noticed your lips. I saw them and I thought, damn, I want to kiss him, and then that night when you did, it was like coming alive into a new universe. Your mouth is like silk. Your body looks like it was chiseled out of marble."
(Oh no, he's amazing.)
"Juno-"
"- and your eyes, Peter, don't even get me started, they're like ink, like twin suns, and when you look at me I feel like... like... yeah, I don't know. I just feel really good." He kisses the insides of my thighs, and well, I suppose this is it, this is how I die, lying on a bed with my heart completely stolen and his head between my legs. I reach down to stroke his hair; I'm actually going to die, this feels so good, nothing in all my life has ever felt this good, and I'm screaming now through my clenched teeth, this is better than anything has ever been. He lifts his face, whimpering, and then moves again so he's sitting above me: "- you look at me and it's like you've taken the entire galaxy and strung it on a necklace for me. You told me I was beautiful. Almost no one tells me that."
"Juno."
"Ooh, you're gasping . Wouldn't have expected that from you." He pumps his eyebrows and then forces my head back by my hair again and leans in to kiss the base of my neck. "You - you're beautiful, and handsome, and exquisite, and every other adjective I can think of. You're just, you're so amazing, you're so beautiful, and I can't believe, I can't believe you're actually mine... ."
"I'm all yours," I gasp. "I want - I want to be with you, Juno, for us to stay together. I want to - ow!"
"Sorry!"
"That doesn't mean stop." I wrap my legs around his waist and pull his face against mine again in another kiss, harder, a little rough, and his tongue crushes into my mouth with a faint whimper. "Please don't stop, in fact. I'm begging you."
His laugh rumbles against my chest. I think my heart is going to burst. I've never seen him this happy before.
(I did it, I realize. I got through withdrawal.)
"I'm begging you," I repeat.
"I like you begging," he purrs, or rather tries to purr, and then he says my name with the inflection that I use to say his name: "Oh, Peter. Nope, that didn't work, did it?"
"Not quite, but I certainly appreciate the effort." We kiss again.
"I," he whimpers into my mouth. "I love you -" He interrupts himself with another kiss. "I love you so much ."
"I love you too."
"Fantastic." He kisses me again, both lips closed around my top one before slowly sliding off, and he grasps my hips in his hands. "I'm gonna go down on you now."
"Please do."
And he does, and it's amazing, and by the time we're finished with each other I am so irrevocably in love with him that I can't stand it. I feel like the love I feel for him is greater than the space in my body; that it will fill up all the corners of my skeleton and infuse my bloodstream, till every essence of my being is his.
I go into the bathroom to get cleaned up, and when I come out he's lying across the blankets wearing my shirt. It looks like a tunic on him. I lean down to kiss him before I put my shorts back on and take off the garters so the leather doesn't hurt my thighs. "You're cute," he tells me, and gives me a light peck on my nose. His arms reach out with his fingers beckoning in these little grabby gestures. "C'mere."
"Hmm?"
"C'mere." He pulls my back against his chest and slings one leg over both of mine from behind.
"Juno, darling, light of my life, what are you doing."
"Spooning you."
"You are a foot and a half shorter than me, love."
"I'm spooning you." If our arrangements were switched I'd nuzzle his neck, but that won't work considering our height difference, so instead he smushes his face against my back. "Hey, we have some time before Rita gets back if you wanna go again."
"Tempting." I cover his hands with mine as his arms wrap around me. "But no, I'd rather do this. Just cuddle with you."
"Sounds great. Did you have fun?"
"What do you think?" I reply. He chuckles and presses his lips to my vertebrae. "You're much more skilled than I anticipated."
"Yeah. Well, I mean you did just make, like, fifty of my fantasies come true."
I laugh and hug the blanket closer around us. It's warm. I don't think I've ever been this happy in my whole life. "Thank you for loving me."
"Thank you for..." He yawns. "Letting me top you in thigh highs."
"Just wait until I can break into a store. Then I'll steal some truly scandalous things."
"Get cologne."
"Oh, of course. Just for you."
"Sounds..." He yawns again, his face sliding lower down my back. "Sounds great."
"Darling, are you sleepy?"
"Little bit. You've worn me out." I laugh at that remark. It seems like my sense of humor is rubbing off on him already. "Guess I could take a nap."
"Go right ahead." I roll over onto my side and scoop him against me. Our legs tangle together, and he gives a contended little sigh and tucks his face into the hollow of my neck.
"Don't ever leave me, Peter."
"Never, darling."
"Love you..."
"I love you too. Sleep, dearest." I hum a lullaby to him, a Brahmese song that's been lying deep and hazy at the back of my memory. I hum it until his breathing relaxes, and then I give him two more kisses, one on each eyelid.
Maybe, I think, this is life. This is what it is, and I can accept that. He is worth living for.
We are worth living for.
I am worth living for.
***
"So." Rita clears her throat and lifts her handkerchief to her eyes again. "This is a real emotional goodbye."
"Don't cry, Rita." Juno wraps an arm around her shoulders. "If anyone should be upset, it's me."
"I got every right to be emotional, Mistah Steel! This is really sad!"
"Okay, sure, but he's my boyfriend. This is more emotional for me than for you."
"Honestly, you two." I roll my eyes. "It's just a haircut."
I'm sitting on a chair in the bathroom, with a sheet spread across the floor underneath and a towel tied around my neck. My hair is damp, freshly washed, and spread over the towel. Rita and Juno are standing behind me. Juno is holding my hand. Rita is holding a pair of scissors.
"Yeah, but it's a lot more than that!" Rita insists. "This is symbolic, Mistah Peter Nureyev, it's a gesture to signify how far you've come in your recovery! But it's also sad cause you looked real pretty with your hair like that."
"Hmm."
We decided a few days ago that this night will be our last in the vacation house. After this, we'll rejoin the rest of the team in the ship. After three weeks I am not perfect, I am not flawless, I am not without problems. But I am so much better than I was before, and even more, I'm ready for a stable relationship with the lady I love.
I grew my hair out on Callisto when I developed my addiction. So now, after deliberation, I've decided I want it gone. I don't want to look like that person anymore.
(I squeeze Juno's hand.)
I want to start again. With him.
"Okay." Rita sniffles and sets down the handkerchief. "Anybody wanna say a few words before we do this?"
"I will." Juno runs his free hand over mine. "Never thought I would be giving a eulogy to my boyfriend's hair." (My heart lurches at the boyfriend word.) "But here we go. It looked really nice around his shoulders, and also when he put it up into a bun, and also in a braid. And it was really fun to pull on in bed -"
"MISTAH STEEL!-"
"-but it's also a symbol of his time being an addict. So he's decided that he wants to get rid of it. And I'm so proud of him." He brings my hands to his lips. "I'm so proud of you, and I'm pretty sure you'll be just as good in bed without it."
"Please don't ever make me listen to that again. You wanna say a few words, Mistah Nureyev?"
I hold Juno's hand and close my eyes. "Good riddance."
When I hear the first snip I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. Rita's assured me that she gives haircuts all the time, that she can handle Juno's unkempt mess of curls, so I'm nothing by comparison. But it's still a lot to trust her with.
"Relax," says Juno. "You look great."
I can hear a soft pat with each lock of hair that falls onto the floor. Rita works quickly, moving in semi-circles around me to clip at the front of my hair. I wince as I hear her start an electric razor behind me. "Don't worry," she repeats. "I'm real good at this." The blades tickle my scalp for a moment, and then she's running a comb through my hair, followed by a dryer. "Hand me that gel?" she directs Juno. I hear him shift, and then feel Rita's hands against my head again.
"How does it look?" I ask.
"Amazing." I can hear the grin in his voice.
"And now you can see for yourself!" Rita's practically hopping from foot to foot. I crack an eye open tentatively as she spins my chair around the face the bathroom mirror.
I look like I did before all of this - before Miasma and the tomb, before Callisto and Christopher Tan, before sleeping pills and withdrawals and overdoses. I look like the man I was when I met Juno for the first time in a badly-lit detective office, watching him try to climb out a window with no idea what we would become to each other. She's done it almost exactly how I had it before - short in the back, longer on top of my head, with that one stray curls that falls across my brows.
I look sharp. I look good.
I get up from the chair and turn around. "Thank you."
"Do you love it?"
"I do." And I hug her. She giggles and squeeze me tight around my waist, yells, "Group hug!" and then pulls Juno in. I feel the warmth of his breath as he leans his face against my chest, his hand reaching up to cradle the back of my newly-exposed neck.
"We're gonna be okay," he whispers, and I nod.
"Yes, we are."
(We're all going to be okay.)
***
Epilogue: Juno
We're lying in bed, in the room that used to be mine. It took some explaining to Buddy, Vespa, and Jet, but they got it in the end, so now the room is ours. Mine, and Peter Nureyev's.
His eyes are closed, that one piece of hair mussed in front of them. He's so goddamn beautiful. One of his soft hands rests warm on the curve of my waist, the other tangled up in mine on the pillow between us. We should be getting dressed for our upcoming heist, or unpacking those bags we still haven't gotten to since returning from Earth a full week ago. But I'd rather do this. I love to just lie here with him and watch him breathe.
The intercom buzzes, Buddy's annoyed voice interrupting our intimate moment: "Paging Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev. Darlings, we're all glad you love each other, but please come to the launching bay or my wife will likely kill you for being late. Again. Over and out."
Peter shifts beside me and opens his eyes. When he sees me he smiles and gives my hip a little squeeze. I could go through a thousand lifetimes and I'd never get tired of that smile. "Hello, my beautiful one," he murmurs.
"Hey," I reply. "You ready to go?"
"Oh, of course." He sits up and pushes back that lock of hair, tosses my clothes to me. I shrug them on quickly and watch as he finishes getting dressed, and once he's done, with that fabulous supple body of his wrapped in a beaded dress, he scoops me back into his arms. Those strong, clever fingers reach around me to do up my dress's zipper, and then his face draws back and he smiles at me. "You're exquisite," he says, his hands cupping my waist.
When he kisses me everything feels so right.
"I love you," I tell him, relishing every syllable.
"And I love you." His eyes sparkle as he presses his forehead to mine. "Come along, darling," he murmurs against my lips. "Let's go do crimes."
The End