Chapter Text
Nureyev’s lips really do feel like silk. Soft and smooth and everywhere, Juno could get lost all wrapped up in him. Long, slender hands with deft fingers, usually cool to the touch but now warm with the blood pumping through them. Juno can feel Nureyev’s heartbeat in the fingertips on his neck, on his cheek, pounding from what this is doing to him. What Juno is doing to him.
God, this never gets old.
Juno runs his hands across Nureyev’s back, scrabbling for purchase on his satin blouse. Nureyev makes content little noises into his mouth and Juno swallows them greedily, pressing himself closer as though they could consume each other if only they tried hard enough.
Juno runs his hands over Nureyev’s shoulders, feeling the muscles move underneath his skin as Nureyev wraps his arms around Juno’s waist, holding him tighter, firmer, until—
“Ow!”
“Juno, darling, are you alright?”
Juno pulls his hand down, glancing at the beads of blood on one of his fingers. He hisses at the sting, waving his hand about like he’s trying to shake the pain away.
“Ugh, stupid paper cuts. Must’ve gotten caught on one of your earrings. I keep reopening this one and I swear it hurts worse than a blaster wound.”
Concern immediately pinches Nureyev’s face, and he moves off the bed. “Oh, my poor, brave detective. I’m so sorry, let me grab a bandage, I’ll—”
Juno catches his hand. “Hey, where are you going?” He tugs, and Nureyev falls back down to the bed, disgruntled. Juno presses his face into his neck. “Stay here with me,” he mumbles pressing soft kisses to Nureyev’s throat.
“But Juno—”
“I’ll be fine.”
But hands are pressing insistently at his chest, so Juno pulls back. “Nureyev, I told you, I’m alright,” he says, but Nureyev just shakes his head. That’s not what’s on his mind.
“Juno. I—” Nureyev cuts himself off, and his eyes dart around the room. “I have an idea,” he whispers conspiratorially.
“Oh no,” Juno deadpans.
“I’m serious!” Nureyev exclaims. His eyes drift to the wall which separates Juno’s room from Jet’s. “I know our… activities have been upsetting our poor neighbour for a few days now.”
Juno rolls his eye, falling back down onto the bed which lets out a squeak in protest. He’s probably right, they should try and keep it down, but then again, Jet should be asleep right now. He probably is. Maybe. They’d know in the morning.
“Jet’s fine,” Juno says, like a liar.
“I’m afraid he is not, dear heart. So, tonight, I thought we might take this elsewhere?”
Juno scoffs. “What, like your room? Sorry, sweetheart, I don’t think a pile of dirty dishes really puts me in the mood.”
Nureyev shoots him a look. He clearly wants to make a retort, but he’s too excited about this idea of his. A sparkle enters his eyes as he speaks. “Not my room. The zero-g room.”
Juno’s eyebrows shoot up past his hairline. “The zero-g room? Buddy would kill us!”
Nureyev tuts at him. “Only if we get caught, love. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Uh, back on Mars, probably. Brought my will to live, though, how about we use that instead?”
“Juno.”
“Nureyev.”
Nureyev sighs, and sits back a bit. He looks down at his hands, twisting as though longing for one of his locks to pick. “If you don’t want to, Juno, I’ll leave it alone. I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”
“Hey.” Juno reaches out, and Nureyev twists their hands together. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m just… still reeling from when Buddy made us clean up that tennis game.” He shudders at the memory. “Won’t be much to clean up when we’re done, though, right?”
Nureyev raises an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, detective?”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Am I to understand that you are rejecting my late-night excursion plan?”
“Hey, I’ll try anything once,” Juno shrugs. He tries to hide how excited the idea makes him — the last thing he needs is to give Nureyev a bigger head.
Nureyev lets go of Juno’s hands and places them on his own thighs, sitting back. Juno misses the touch immediately. Nureyev knows it upsets him, the bastard, because his pout is just a little to pronounced to be genuine when he speaks. “Juno, really. If you’re not as enthusiastic about this as I am, we can—”
“Hey, who said I’m not enthusiastic?”
The barest quirk of Nureyev’s lips. “So, you are interested.”
“Shut up. Let’s just go already, what are we waiting for?” Juno’s had enough of this teasing, so he stands up and grabs Nureyev’s arm, pulling him towards the door.
“But Juno! I haven’t bandaged your hand yet!”
________________________________________
They reach the room giggling, and Juno’s barely pushed the keys to shut the door before Nureyev pushes him against it and kisses him senseless. Juno’s gasp echoes around the room and Nureyev presses the keys on the panel next to him, the other hand tangled in Juno’s hair.
Their feet start to lift of the floor, and Juno pulls Nureyev closer to him. Nureyev braces himself against the wall…
And the action pushes them both away from the wall. Juno tries to grab onto something, but his hands only meet a smooth surface — in hindsight, they probably should have activated those handlebars. Nureyev floats away faster than Juno does, his hands scrabbling in the empty air.
“Juno, hold onto me!”
“How? You’re too far away, come back here!”
“How?! I can’t reach anything!”
Nureyev tries to kick at the air, and he ends up falling a good few metres, making an interesting noise while he does. Juno has never heard Nureyev squeak before. It’s an interesting bit of information. He decides he’ll save it for later.
“Okay, uh, let’s think. I’ll stay here near the wall, and when you get to a surface, you can… push your way back to me?”
“I suppose I can try, Juno.” Nureyev waits patiently, keeping himself very still as he waits to collide with a wall. He floats slowly towards the opposite wall, but before he reaches it, he stops. Right in the middle of the room. He stays there for a second, as if waiting for himself to start moving again. When he doesn’t, he starts flapping his arms, then kicking his feet, desperate to reach the wall, but he doesn’t manage to move. He does, however, manage to start spinning in a circle.
Juno starts cackling.
He can see Nureyev’s frown every time he circles back around to face him, and he wants to kiss that expression right off his face. If only he could get there…
“Juno? A little help?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Juno grumbles. He lets go of the wall for a precarious second, feeling eerily weightless as he places his feet on the wall behind him. “Alright, I’m gonna kick of the wall, crash into you, and the momentum should send us both to the far wall.”
“Must you crash into me?” Juno resents how sophisticated Nureyev manages to sound while spinning in mid-air.
“It’s the only way, Nureyev!”
Juno presses his feet flat against the wall, aims as best he can, and kicks himself off the wall, diving headfirst towards his boyfriend.
Or rather, diving headfirst towards the space of air just to the left of Nureyev. Really, with how many training sessions he’s already been through with Buddy, it’s embarrassing that he misses so badly.
Time seems to slow for a second as Juno passes him by, and Nureyev spins to watch his movement. Nureyev’s eyes widen almost comically, and he stretches an arm out to grab him, but Juno’s moving too quickly for his hand to properly grasp him, and then Juno looks in front of him, and the wall gets much too close much too quickly.
Yeah, diving headfirst was a really bad idea.
“Ow! Fuck, that hurt!”
“Juno! My love, are you alright? Why in the galaxy did you push off so forcefully?”
“I needed momentum if I was gonna take you with me all the way to this wall!” Juno retaliates, glaring at the wall in question. “Stupid wall,” he mutters, punching it with the hand he wasn’t using to soothe the ache on his head, and regretting it immediately. “Ow!”
“Juno! Darling, what happened?”
Juno turns around to face him. Schadenfreude isn’t the most ethical source of humour, especially when it’s at the expense of the man he loves, but in this galaxy, you take what you can get. And sure enough, when he whirls around, Nureyev is still spinning in place, only now he’s got his arms stretched out either side of him, the bright flashes of satin pyjamas making him look like the galaxy’s most human-shaped spin top.
“I punched the stupid wall!”
“…Why did you do that?”
“Because I was annoyed at it!”
“But, Juno… Juno! No! The wall!” Nureyev scrambles at the air, trying to get to Juno, as Juno realises far too late that he has floated away from the wall and right into the empty space in the middle of the room.
Great. Now they’re both stuck.
Juno drags his hands down his face. “Fuuuuuuuck.”
“Indeed,” Nureyev says, trying to grab hold of Juno to stop himself spinning around.
Juno sighs and grabs hold of Nureyev’s shoulders, pulling him close so he can at least hold onto something. They spin slowly, almost gently, definitely not as fast as Nureyev was spinning earlier. Juno’s grateful for that — his stomach doesn’t do well with speed.
They spin there for a while, holding each other close because there’s nothing else within reach. A quiet laugh builds in Juno’s chest at how ridiculous they’ve been and he chuckles to himself as Nureyev lets out a small sigh and buries his face into the crook of Juno’s neck. All of a sudden Juno feels a gentle contentedness wash over him, bringing relaxation with it, as if they weren’t stuck in a zero-g room, and undoubtedly going to be told off the next morning. As if he would be happy to stay here forever. As if everything in the world would be alright, so long as he had Peter Nureyev in his arms.
“Well.” Nureyev says, and though Juno can’t see him with his chin rested on Juno’s shoulder, he can hear the smile in his voice, “we may be stuck in the centre of a zero-gravity room with no obvious way out, but at least we’re together.” Nureyev pulls back slightly and smooths back the flyaways in Juno’s hair.
Juno snorts, smiling despite himself. He just had to fall for the sappiest thief in the galaxy, didn’t he? “Sure, Nureyev,” he says pecking the tip of his nose, “at least we’re together.”
Nureyev’s smile stretches into a yawn, and he pulls a hand away from Juno to cover his mouth. “My, detective, you’ve barely even touched me, and yet you’ve managed to tire me out.” The words slur together and warm Juno’s heart so sweetly he worries he’ll need as many tooth replacements as Rita. His hand moves, as if it has a mind of its own, to Nureyev’s cheek, and he strokes the soft skin there, letting Nureyev lean into the touch.
“D’you reckon we could just fall asleep here?” Juno asks, as Nureyev’s head tips forward and comes to rest on his shoulder once more. He rests his head on top of Nureyev’s and feels himself begin to drift off too.
“Perhaps,” Nureyev murmurs into Juno’s neck, “although it might be bad for our backs.”
“Fuck our backs,” Juno retorts, though he doesn’t think Nureyev hears him. Nureyev’s breathing grows deeper, steadier, though the arms around Juno’s waist don’t slacken one bit. Juno pulls Nureyev impossibly closer and decides getting back to bed isn’t worth waking him up. He has no idea how they’d get back to bed anyways. Someone will come find them in the morning.
And just when Juno’s eyes begin to grow heavy, the door bursts open, triggering a shut-down of the room’s anti-gravity generators, and they both plummet to the floor.
“What the fuck?” a voice growls, and Juno looks up with a startlingly loud crack in his neck to see Vespa glowering at the both of them.
“Hey, Vespa,” Juno says, his voice strained from the multiple bruises he’s sure he got from that fall. “What are you doing up so late?”
“What are you doing in here?” Vespa asks, and it’s probably a sign of how stupid they’ve been that she sounds more confused than angry.
“Are you sure you wanna know?” Juno retorts, which silences Vespa for a moment. As she stares at them with disgust, which Juno’s mostly sure is exaggerated, he sits up and checks that all his limbs still function.
“Juno, darling, what… did I fall asleep?” Nureyev asks. “What just— oh, hello, Vespa.”
Vespa drags a hand down her face and groans. “I’m too tired for this shit,” she mumbles to herself, before taking a deep breath and looking Juno in the eye. “Are you hurt?”
Juno rolls his eye, standing up to let the crack in his knee make a point for him. “No, Vespa, I just fell like a metre and a half, but I’m peachy, how are you?”
“Nothing but a few bruises, Vespa,” Nureyev says cordially as he stands up. “I’m sure we’ll both be right as rain tomorrow. Thank you for letting us out of here.”
Vespa shrinks back a little at Nureyev’s tone. He sounds fine, polite, but he doesn’t sound genuine. Most people wouldn’t notice, but Juno knows him too well, and Vespa’s a much more experienced thief than either of them, so it makes sense that at the first sign of Nureyev throwing his guard up, she throws hers up too. It’s incredible how quickly Nureyev’s managed to put on the mask again, despite being asleep just seconds ago. Incredible, and worrying.
“Whatever,” Vespa shakes her head, “fine. Get your asses to bed. And go to your own rooms, for fuck’s sake. I don’t wanna hear Sikuliaq complaining in the morning. I’m gonna go get some water, and if you two don’t watch Buddy to catch wind of this, I’m not gonna hear a peep out of either of you for the rest of the night, got it?” Vespa asks.
Nureyev nods quickly, and with a quick kiss to Juno’s cheek, he darts off to his room almost immediately.
Juno doesn’t move for a second, rubbing his eyes and wondering if he should chase after Nureyev. He doesn’t know what he’d say, though. If Nureyev wants to keep his guard up around the crew, Juno doesn’t exactly have the right to tell him to stop.
“Are you just gonna stand there all night?” Vespa asks impatiently, her grip tightening on the door.
“Nah, think I’ve had enough of that room,” Juno says, stepping outside and watching Vespa close the door behind him. But he doesn’t leave just yet. “Why are you awake, Vespa?”
“Dammit, Steel, do you not understand how a threat works?”
“Sorry, if you wanna scare me, you’ll have to use something worse than Buddy giving me a talking to.”
Vespa glares at him the way she always does before growling, or threatening him, or pulling out a knife, but before she does, the fight seems to drain out of her. “Whatever. Just… go to bed.”
“Are—” Juno begins, but the doubt in his head makes him stumble over his words. God, he hopes he’s not overstepping. “Are you okay?
“What, do I have to chuck a knife at you to make you shut up? I’m not in the mood.”
“Then don’t chuck a knife at me,” Juno says, his pace only faltering a little at the threat as he follows Vespa into the kitchen.
“What do you want?” she asks, whirling around at him once they’re in the room. “Are you hurt? Do you want something for the pain? Or are you just annoyed at me?”
“Neither,” Juno says, stepping back and holding his hands up in front of him. “Just wondering how you knew we were in there.”
Vespa turns away from him and walks towards the table. “I heard noises. Went to investigate.” She doesn’t elaborate any further.
“Without a weapon?” Juno raises an eyebrow. “That doesn’t seem like you.”
“And what the fuck would you know about me, Steel?” The bite in her words is lessened somewhat as she collapses into a chair and rests her head in her hands, elbows on the table.
“Just seems odd,” Juno says, walking past her towards the sink. “If some strange noises woke me up in the night, you bet your ass I’d be grabbing a weapon.”
Vespa turns to watch him when he walks behind her, staring at him while he fills a cup with water. “I was already awake. I… I was pacing when I heard you two.”
Juno places the cup on the table in front of Vespa. “Nightmare?”
Vespa doesn’t answer. She eyes the cup warily, but after a few seconds, she drinks it. Juno takes this as an invitation to take the chair next to her.
They sit in silence for a while, just the sounds of breathing and occasional sips filling the air. Juno doesn’t move to leave, and Vespa doesn’t ask him to.
“Thanks, Steel,” Vespa says. The phrase doesn’t contain any of the reluctance he would’ve expected. He turns to her in surprise, and shoots her a small smile in return.
“Anytime. But, uh… how come you didn’t wake Buddy?”
Vespa chuckles, looking down at the floor, and Juno marvels at the most genuine smile he’s ever seen on her, even if it wasn’t directed at him. “Looked like she was having a good dream.”
Juno nods. “Fair enough.”
And hell, maybe Buddy’s system is working. A few weeks ago, Juno never would’ve imagined spending his night sitting side by side with Vespa Ilkay, their shoulders touching to remind each other they’re not alone. But now? It doesn’t seem so bad. He dwells on that for a second, wondering whether he could ever get as close to Jet, Buddy and Vespa as he was to Rita and Nureyev. If they could really be his family. He smiles again, this time, just for himself. Why not? Maybe sometimes, things can change for the better.
“You’re not gonna hug me, are you?”
Some things, though, will never change.
“Ew, no, I’m not gonna hug you. Unless…” Juno says, raising an eyebrow, “you, uh, want me to?”
Vespa snorts, and her expression twists in disgust as she elbows Juno’s arm with hers. “In your dreams, Steel.”
Juno laughs, and nudges her arm right back. “My nightmares, maybe.”
“Alright, enough dawdling.” Vespa stands up. “Go the fuck to sleep. Otherwise, you’ll be blaming me for keeping you up tomorrow.”
And as much as Juno wants to protest, he has to admit, she’s probably right. “Ok, fine, whatever, mom,” he teases, leaving the kitchen first and making a point of heading towards his room. “Night.”
“Night,” Vespa says, but before she leaves, she hesitates for just a second. “Steel.”
Juno turns back around. “Yeah?”
Vespa takes a deep breath, and looks at him with such sincerity that something in Juno’s mind clicks, and all of a sudden, he’s thinking yeah, she’s my family too.
“Seriously,” she says. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, Vespa. I mean it.”
Vespa nods, and then she turns back and heads to her room.
Juno sighs and opens the door to his own, eager to finally go to sleep, even if he will have to sleep alone. His eyes are barely open when he pulls back the covers and he’s just about to collapse onto the bed, when he realises it isn’t empty.
Laying there, curled up on his side, unconsciously pressing his face into the pillows to fend off the cold, is none other than Peter Nureyev, wrapped up in Juno’s hoodie.
“Nureyev?” Juno exclaims in shock, before he can stop himself.
“Hm?” Nureyev stirs, and one eye opens just slightly to see Juno, before shutting contentedly. “Ju…” he mumbles, reaching a hand out towards him.
Juno takes it and climbs into bed beside him. “I thought Vespa told you to go to your room?” he says, as quietly as he can in case Nureyev has already fallen back asleep.
“Couldn’t sleep.” Nureyev buries his face in Juno’s chest and wraps an arm around him. “Please don’t make me go back.”
“Course not, honey, you can stay,” Juno whispers. He strokes Nureyev’s hair to reassure him, and then he can’t help but twist his fingers through the silky strands, He plays with Nureyev’s hair until he’s snoring softly against his chest. Juno follows him soon enough, and falls asleep all tangled up in Peter Nureyev.