Archive of Our Own

When Nureyev accepts a position on Buddy Aurinko’s crew, he does so with the full expectation that it will be temporary. It’s not a conscious or exclusive decision, rather it’s one he makes every time he takes a job or makes living arrangements. He is, by nature, a temporary person. 

The longest job he’d taken in recent memory had been a 3-month stint on Venus that he did not aim to repeat. It had been… inconvenient, to say the least, and not nearly worth the pay. He expects the position under Aurinko to be much of the same, if lucrative enough to justify the inconvenience of upholding a single alias for such an extended length of time.

But then Juno Steel accepts the same offer he had and Buddy starts throwing around words like family and unbreakable trust and things progress far past Nureyev’s preferred brand of temporary before he has a chance to notice it. And by the time he does, it’s far too late for him to fall back on disappearances.

It’s an almost pleasantly average morning when it happens. As always, nearly everything in the universe seems to have a penchant for catching Nureyev in the handful of moments in which he’s completely off his guard, and he hates it.

It’s disgustingly simple, too- all it takes is Juno stumbling half-asleep into the Carte Blanche’s planning room, where Nureyev had spent most of the early morning pouring over maps and schematics for their upcoming job. It’s not even something that occurs to him until Juno is half-slung across his shoulders from behind, shoving a blueprint away to place two steaming mugs on the tabletop where it had previously sat.

“Brought you coffee,” Juno says, pressing a kiss to Nureyev’s cheek. “‘S even got that vanilla shit you like.” Something in Nureyev’s chest twists where it would usually flutter at the realization that Juno just knows how he takes his coffee. Resolutely, Nureyev tucks that feeling away in some file he may or may not choose to reopen.

“Thank you, darling,” he replies, turning just enough to peck Juno on the lips. He goes to rub a hand across Juno’s arm, but the fabric of Juno’s sweater catches under his fingers and it’s- velvet? Or velour, maybe, but regardless, with the exception of one evening gown, Juno doesn’t own either, so-

“Is this mine?” Nureyev asks, turning to face Juno. The sweater is a deep burgundy velvet embroidered with a metallic gold brocade pattern, and it fits Juno oddly; snug around the shoulders but long in the sleeves and torso, almost brushing the tops of his thighs. To be fair, it could be mistaken for something Juno would wear at a glance, but upon further inspection, it obviously isn’t his.

“Is what-” Juno starts, then stops when he notices Nureyev glaring at his sweater like it’d wronged him, specifically. “Oh, yeah. I guess.”

Nureyev raises an eyebrow incredulously. “You guess?” 

Juno bristles, but doesn’t protest when Nureyev takes his hands. 

“Yeah, I guess! Cut a lady a break, will you? I thought it was mine.” There’s none of Juno’s usual bite in his tone, and his nose scrunches up as he tries to suppress a smile.

“Is a lady aware that our closet is split into very obvious halves?” 

Juno’s brow furrows a bit. “My half is left, right?”

“Yes, love.”

“This was on the left.” Now that Nureyev doesn’t like. When he’d moved into their now shared cabin, he’d been meticulous about keeping their things separate- not because he cared if Juno wanted to borrow his things or wear his clothes, but because keeping their belongings separate meant that if Nureyev needed to pack his things and disappear, he could. If they’d intermixed enough for something of his to end up on Juno’s side of their closet, then-

“Hey, if it bothers you that much I can-” Juno starts, picking up on Nureyev’s anxiety almost instantly.

“No, no it’s no worry, darling. What’s mine is yours.” Juno squints at Nureyev the way he would a particularly difficult riddle. In a way, Nureyev is.

“Are you sure?”

“Perfectly sure. I dare say that color looks better on you anyway. You’re always stunning in jewel tones.” Juno huffs a flustered breath but settles back across Nureyev’s shoulders. Deflecting his scrutiny with a compliment feels dishonest, even for Nureyev. Regardless, though, it’s a welcome relief to have that too-knowing gaze directed away from him. He’s very decidedly not ready for the conversation that would undoubtedly follow if he let that gaze linger.

Instead, Nureyev convinces Juno to cross-check some of his notes and slips away as soon as he’s able to do so inconspicuously. 

He reaches their room with his heart in his throat. When he rushes to their closet and throws the double doors open, however, he finds…. nothing glaringly out of place.
The hanging closet organizer he’d insisted on using to divide the closet into halves hasn’t shifted, and both sides are still neatly organized and visibly different. Juno’s is nearly all black with an occasional metallic or renaissance color, whereas Nureyev’s ranges from rhinestone-littered white leather to pastels. 

Upon further inspection, though, Nureyev finds a sundress, tiered maxi skirt, and cropped turtleneck of Juno’s on his side, and a lace bustier top, pair of split-leg velvet flares, and several sweaters of his on Juno’s side. Reorganizing them only helps soothe the tightness in Nureyev’s chest until he turns around to face the rest of their room.

There are fairy lights strung over their bed’s canopy that Rita had custom-programmed to mimic Hyperion city’s light pollution, and Juno’s nightstand is littered with trinkets and jewelry that Nureyev had bought him.

Nureyev’s nightstand is bare aside from the 6-month anniversary gift Juno had given him; a framed picture of them on Ganymede, the night of the first real date they’d ever had. 

Now, it’s glaringly obvious that the room is not temporary, and likely wasn’t ever meant to be. It’s everything he’d ever wanted in some ways and his worst nightmare in others. Mostly, though, Nureyev just feels sick looking at it. 

The feeling doesn’t dissipate when he closes the bedroom door behind him. 

Days pass and that sense of unease sticks to Nureyev like a burr. The easy camaraderie he’d tenuously built with the other members of the crew starts to feel less like an achievement and more like a threat. Gradually, they’ve begun to notice little idiosyncrasies about him- likes, dislikes, habits, nervous ticks- that even Nureyev himself hadn’t been aware of, and it makes him want to crawl out of his skin.

Excluding Juno, it’d been nearly two decades since he’d willingly let anyone know him, even to that mundane extent, and that isn’t a mistake. It’s the result of a promise he’d made to himself after he’d left Brahma because leaving bits of yourself around like that is just as much as a threat as leaving behind names and DNA and paper trails. It doesn’t matter if you know someone’s name or not if you can still identify them from the peculiar way they sit, their tendency to pick at their cuticles, or their aversion to the smell of coriander.

He feels very much like a caged animal, some keyed-up, skittish thing constantly counting exits and cataloging escape plans he shouldn’t want to so badly to use.
That familiar restlessness grows until his nights are nearly all sleepless. The bags under his eyes can barely be covered by a layer of concealer thick enough to cake, and he wears a permanent, raw welt on the inside of his lip from biting it to ground himself too often. Eventually, he can’t remember the last meal he’d had an appetite for or the last time he’d managed to stomach something other than water without feeling nauseous. 

Despite the fact that he makes every effort to hide that steady deterioration, it's incredibly difficult when he spends his every waking moment with five other people and shares a bed with one of them. He’s sure that at least Juno suspects- he’s asked if Nureyev is okay so many times that the words have all but lost their meaning. Sure, he drops the subject without complaint every time Nureyev waves him off, but he still hovers protectively close virtually every time they’re in a room together. Buddy’s gaze also starts to linger on him more obviously and frequently than he’d like, and the implications of that are almost more nerve-wracking than being trapped in the first place.

Things come to a head shortly after Nureyev had neurotically reorganized his and Juno's closet. He lies awake in bed, two days before their next heist. The job is a small, largely inconsequential one that, by design, has Nureyev as its lynchpin. It’s not something that would usually bother him- there’s very little risk compared to their normal fare, and being a key part of a plan usually makes him feel useful and competent. Somehow, this job, or, perhaps, the added stress of it, makes him feel the opposite. 

In the nights prior, he’d taken to lying as close to Juno as he could manage. As it turns out, shifting his focus to the even rhythm of Juno’s breathing and the warmth of his skin creates a welcome respite where he’d managed to get a couple of hour-long snatches of sleep. It’s unclear if it's the mounting exhaustion of several days running on empty or the added stress of the upcoming job that does it, it seems that strategy is a lost cause now. Nureyev’s fingers tremble where they trace a path up Juno’s spine, and Juno’s weight on his chest compounds the tightness in his chest rather than easing it. 

The fairy lights strung over their canopy flicker on and off in a fluid line, mimicking the headlights of a passing car. In the brief illumination, Nureyev’s eyes catch on the details of their room again- a jacket thrown over a chair, an empty mug perched on the desk, several more framed pictures.

He’s begun to notice the motifs of domesticity everywhere, now. He can see it in the hand-knitted throw draped over the stream room couch, the oddly specific tourist trap mugs in the kitchen cabinets, in the easy way the crew has come to relax around each other. There’s been a home made in the Carte Blanche, and Nureyev doesn’t know how to belong in it.

Juno shifts in his arms, curling closer to Nureyev’s chest with a soft, sleepy sound, and Nureyev sweeps a palm across his back until he settles.

He could wake Juno, and he’s considered it- Juno is and has always been adamant that he wants to be there for Nureyev, regardless of the circumstance- but it’s not as if forcing Juno to stay awake for his comfort would actually help the issue at hand. If anything, the both of them would lose sleep, and Juno would fuss. It’s not worth the trouble, Nureyev figures, even as his restlessness grows by the minute. 

A handful of minutes pass and Nureyev feels like he’s one wrong thought away from crawling out of his skin. His gaze skims over the room again, and he decides all at once that he can’t stand to lie there for another second.
Prying Juno off of him as gently as he can, he spares a moment to tuck the blankets back up around Juno’s shoulders before he slips out of their room and into the hallway. 

The hall is colder than the bedroom had been, and the chill helps ground Nureyev as he walks aimlessly through the Carte Blanche, mentally cataloging doors, blind spots, and exits. He’s done the same thing tens of times that week alone, but it’s one of the few routines that calms him, so he does it anyway. It’s not like he plans on using any of that information, but having it provides the same sort of comfort as the knives he keeps stashed in his shirt sleeves and the soles of his shoes. They’re contingency plans that assure he could disappear if he needed to. But they don’t assure that anymore, and that’s the crux of the thing. He could have as many blades and escape routes as he wanted, but nothing would change the mistakes he made in allowing himself to settle. To be known.

Nureyev loops the ship several times just for the motion of it before ending up on the observation deck. It’s a large room with curved, wall-to-ceiling windows on three of the four sides that all look out on the dark, star-speckled expanse of deep space. It had been empty, once, before Rita, Buddy, Vespa, and Juno had started using it for their monthly ‘lady’s nights’. Now though, the metal floor is littered with pillows, blankets, magazines, and nail polish bottles that Nureyev has to step around to get to the window. When he does, he curls up against the glass, knees tucked against his chest, and shudders through a deep, shaky exhale. 

When he was younger, just after Brahma, he used to seek out windows like this in spaceports and cheap transport ships when he started to get restless just so he could look out over the vast expanse beyond the fogged glass panes; a seemingly never-ending stretch of stars where no one knew his name or his face, where he could disappear on a whim and become anyone or anything he wanted, given a convincing enough set of lies.

But that’s impossible, now. Because he’s trapped on this ship, on this crew, and in this alias, whether he liked it or not, and even if he weren’t, there were five people- though one much more so than the others- who would still know him, would still recognize him from a mile away even if he took a different name or face. The view only mocks him, now. It taunts him, dangles all the freedoms and possibilities he’d once held in the palm of his hand, and reminds him that he can never have them again, not like this. It makes Nureyev want to throw himself at the glass until either he or it shatters.

Eventually, he folds that feeling up and heads back to his and Juno’s room, even more exhausted and jittery than he had when he’d left. If even his oldest tactics for handling the sharp, pressing sort of feeling that came with being in one place too long wouldn’t work, he figures he’d rather be miserable next to Juno than alone. 

But when he reaches their room, eager to crawl back into bed with his partner, he finds Juno sitting cross-legged on the mussed sheets of their bed with the lamp on his nightstand flipped on. It’s evident that he’s been awake for a while; he’s thrown on an oversized zip-up hoodie over the sports bra and sweatpants he’d gone to sleep in, and his eye didn’t have the soft, unfocused sort of look that it would if he’d just woken up. Nureyev’s heart drops like a stone.

“Hey,” Juno breathes, soft and hesitant, like he expects Nureyev to bolt. “You okay?”

Nureyev tries to bully his expression into something suitably blasé, but it’s difficult when he’s stripped down like this; without the pseudo-protection that makeup and elaborate clothing usually provided him, he feels like a mass of raw nerves laid bare under Juno’s scrutiny. Luckily, however, he is nothing if not stubborn.

“Just fine, dearest,” he says, sitting next to Juno, close enough that their shoulders brush. 

Juno turns slightly to look up at him, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “Where were you?”
“The bathroom,” Nureyev replies. It takes him less than 5 seconds to realize how bad a lie that is just from the look on Juno’s face.

“Are you sick or something?” Nureyev considers saying yes just to get Juno off his back, but if the goal is to avoid being fussed over, then- Well then he’s already lost, he thinks as he bats Juno’s hand away from his forehead.

“Wh- No, darling, I’ve already said I’m fine.” 

“I just,” Juno sighs, exasperated, “I can’t think of any other reason why you’d be out of bed for so long, because I woke up like 45 minutes ago, and you-” 

Inexplicably, Nureyev bristles at that. He has a right to privacy. Should he choose to get up at some ungodly hour of the night, what he chooses to do during that time is, while concerning, is his business.
“Drop it, Juno,” he snaps, and Juno recoils sharply. 

“I’m not going to ‘drop it’,” Juno replies, obviously fighting to keep his tone even with varying levels of success. “I know you aren’t sleeping, I barely see you eat. You’re jumpy and upset all the time and you won’t tell me anything and I- I’m just worried about you, okay?” 

Juno’s voice is so genuine that it hurts and he’s fixed Nureyev with this soft, doe-eyed look of concern that should make Nureyev feel better, not worse, but no one has ever looked at him like that and he’s exhausted and overwhelmed and it’s all too much to deal with. He just wants to tuck himself into the shelter of Juno’s arms and try to calm himself enough to sleep, not fend off an interrogation. 

“Juno, dear,” Nureyev says, voice tight, “can we please have this conversation some other time?” 

“I’ve been trying to have this conversation all week and you won’t talk to me!” Nureyev’s temper flares again, and he hardly has the energy to tamp it down.

“Juno-” he starts, but cuts himself off when Juno jackknifes up from the bed and starts to pace.

“Don’t ‘Juno’ me, we’re doing this now whether you like it or not,” Juno bites, roughly dragging a hand through his hair, “I’ve tried everything else and I’m frustrated and exhausted, and all you do is that- that thing that you do where you lie to my face and shut me out and tell me you’re okay when I know you aren’t and I- Please, Nureyev, I just need you to talk to me.” 

Juno fixes Nureyev with that same look again, and he almost folds to it. But it’s not- He doesn’t want to talk, can’t talk. If he opens that particular file now he’ll never be able to pack it neatly away again, and there is a reason that metaphorical file has been locked tightly shut ever since Brahma. Having Juno try to pry it open so suddenly feels as if a loaded gun has been pressed to his head. 

“And I need you to be my partner, not my therapist.” Nureyev’s expression shifts into something cold and closed off and not him and he makes no effort to correct it. If Juno notices that, it certainly doesn’t stop him.

“I’m trying to and you won’t let me!” Juno says, voice going high and pitchy like it does when he gets into a particularly nasty spat with Vespa. “We’re supposed to be- I don’t know- fucking communicating or something! You promised me we would!”

The last strand of Nureyev’s resolve snaps and his apathetic mask goes with it. 

“Well, forgive me if I don’t particularly want to hear you preach about communication after you proved so utterly incapable of it when you decided that walking out on me in the middle of the night was a better option than having a conversation!” 

Juno immediately folds in on himself, all of the fight visibly draining out of him as he takes a step back, towards the door. The wave of guilt that washes over Nureyev is so strong that it nearly flattens him. If pressed, he couldn’t even say what he had been so angry about.

He stands and takes a slow step towards Juno, who takes a step back in turn. 

Juno fumbles for the door handle. “I’m gonna- I’m just gonna go.” 

“Juno-” Nureyev tries, holding out a hand, and Juno flinches away from it.

“Don’t,” Juno warns, pushing the door open. “We can talk once we’ve both cooled down.” His gaze flickers back to Nureyev just once, then he’s gone. 

Nureyev wants to do something stupid and childish like chase after him, or maybe burst into tears. Instead, he paces back to the bed and sits on the floor beside it, leaning heavily against the frame. 

His breaths start to come too quick and uneven and he feels too hot and too cold all at once and it makes his skin hurt. From this angle, facing the door, Nureyev can’t see the pictures or the trinkets or the fairy lights but doesn’t help as much as it should, and the bite of the cold metal floor beneath his palms doesn’t ground him.

He wants Juno to come sit next to him and count through his breaths for him like he usually does on the rare occasions that Nureyev gets himself this worked up. Wants to wrap himself up in the gentle warmth that Juno’s voice takes on when he tells him deep breaths, honey, there you go.

But Nureyev can’t have that now, doesn’t deserve any of that, not after he’d practically bullied Juno out of the room for trying to help him. Now that he thinks about it, maybe he’d never deserved any of it. Not if staying enough to have it made some rabid, long-buried part of him flare up like this.

Vaguely, Nureyev feels himself close his mind up behind a door separate from his body. He buries his head into the crook of his arm to muffle the sound of the heaving, choked gasps that punch their way out of his aching chest and he doesn’t think.

He sits there, crumpled in on himself, there until the worst passes and he’s left shivery and wrung-out and swamped in a regret he could drown in. When Nureyev finally manages to drag himself up into the bed, he lies on Juno’s side and resolutely does not think about the fact that the sheets smell like him.

In the morning, Nureyev can barely find the energy to crawl out of bed and make himself look pseudo-presentable. ‘Presentable’ in this case is… rough. It’s far worse than he’d usually allow anyone to see, but the concealer he dabs under his eyes manages to hide the worst of the dark circles and the remnants of tear tracks he doesn’t remember crying enough to leave. He manages to throw together an outfit that’s equally as passable- velour sweats and a matching crop top that are, at the very least, presentable. He paces the length of the room until the clock hits around 8- later than he usually gets up, but still a little early for Juno to be out of bed.

At this hour, the kitchen should be empty, too late for him or Jet, but too early still for anyone else. He expects it to be empty.

The kitchen is not empty. Juno is sitting on the countertop next to the coffee maker as steam hisses out of it temperamentally, and Rita is standing in front of him, trying her level best to stay relatively still as Juno works an intricate braid into half of her hair. The other half is already tied off, but the braid is far messier than Juno’s work usually is. Nureyev doesn’t want to think about what that might mean.

Both of them look up when he walks in, and Rita glares at him- honestly glares, which is, from her, is terrifying- and Juno looks almost concerned, which is… Worse, actually.

“Hey,” Juno says, softly, to Nureyev, and then nudges Rita. “Mind if I finish that later?” Rita nods once, still staring daggers at Nureyev, and Juno ties off the braid at the base of her neck, so it hangs like a half-braided pigtail. Without saying anything to Nureyev, she whispers something to Juno and sweeps off. Her silence is incredibly disconcerting. Juno’s silence after she leaves is equally so. 

Juno’s gaze flickers over to Nureyev briefly, then falls to the floor and the countertop by his propped-up knee. He’s giving Nureyev time to speak first, if he wants to, not ignoring him. Nureyev figures that might be more helpful if he knew what he wanted to say.

“Juno,” he starts, then winces at how gravelly his voice sounds, and clears his throat. “I- I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean any of what I said, and I never should have said it, I just- I was overwhelmed and I wasn’t thinking properly, and I would never- have never- thought that what happened that night was the result of a flaw in your character, and to bring it up again when we’ve already gotten past it was cruel, and completely unfair to you.” 

When Nureyev pauses, he finds that Juno has looked up and fixed him with a soft, open sort of look- the same sort that Nureyev has seen him give Rita on the select few times Nureyev has seen her upset. Still, he doesn’t say anything, and Nureyev wants to scream. He knows Juno is just giving him space to air out whatever it was that had made him snap the night before, probably expects some better explanation that Nureyev doesn’t plan to give, but that doesn’t make the empty air feel any less like a death sentence.

Nureyev glances down at the kitchen’s metal paneled floor, unconsciously fidgeting with the stone on one of his rings. 

“And while I hope it doesn't, I-” Nureyev’s voice catches, “I understand if this- this incident might prompt you to reconsider the status of our relationship, or-” Juno looks at him like he’s grown a second head and immediately jumps off the counter, taking both of Nureyev’s hands in his.

“Babe,” he says, the tone of it soft in a way that means he really wants to say Nureyev, but knows he can’t. “Baby, I’m not- no. I’m not gonna break up with you over one argument, okay? I’d never do that.” 

The frantic pace of Nureyev’s heart slows a bit, and he interlaces his fingers more securely with Juno’s. 

“And I- I mean, I owe you an apology too,” Juno starts. Nureyev starts to object, but Juno waves him off. It’s clear that he won’t hear any protests.

“Look, the way you acted last night wasn’t acceptable, but I wasn’t being the best either. You set a very clear boundary for me and I saw it and still chose not to respect it. It was really, really shitty of me, and I should have known better.”

Juno exhales heavily and squeezes Nureyev’s hands, rubbing a thumb along the back of one. 

“Anyways, I just- I’m really sorry, and I’m going to work on it. I’m still here if you want to talk, but I’m not going to push you, okay?” 

Nureyev nods. “Thank you, darling. Hearing that is… quite the relief, actually, but still  I- I can’t express to you how sorry I am regardless-”

“Hey, hey,” Juno raises a hand to cradle his cheek, and Nureyev leans into it. “You don’t have to keep saying it, okay? We both fucked up, and we both regret it, and we’re both going to do better. End of, alright?”

“...Alright.”  

Juno seems like he’s turning a question over in his head for a moment, then shakes himself, like he’s frustrated to have doubted whatever he did, and asks, “Can I hug you?” 

Nureyev shudders through a sigh, relief and renewed exhaustion settling heavily over his shoulders in equal measure. 

“Please,” he says, and the word is barely out of his mouth before Juno surges forward and wraps himself around Nureyev. He has to press up on his tiptoes to tuck his face into Nureyev’s neck, but regardless, something about the way Juno hugs is inherently protective, inherently safe, like Juno’s placing himself between Nureyev and the rest of the world and won’t move until he feels like Nureyev was well enough to face it. The thought that he could have lost this over- over what? His own insecurity? It makes him sick to think about.

“I’m sorry,” Nureyev breathes, half-muffled into Juno’s hair. Juno shushes him and holds him a little tighter.

“I know you are, honey.” Juno pulls back a bit and presses a kiss to Nureyev’s jaw. “I know.” 

Eventually, the rest of the crew filters into the kitchen and settles at the table for breakfast. Juno pulls his chair close enough to Nureyev’s to lace their pinky fingers together beneath the table and refuses to let Nureyev near anything remotely caffeinated until he eats something. In the end, he manages to goad Nureyev into splitting a plate with him in exchange for several cups of coffee- light roast, black- and Nureyev pointedly does not think about the fact that Vespa doesn’t get on their case about PDA. He feels a little less like death warmed over by the time their usual post-breakfast family meeting starts, but it’s difficult, and focus eludes him. Every word being said around him slips through his mind like water through a grate, leaving behind only bare-bones comprehension. Focus is doubly hard to grasp when he notices Buddy glancing at him between every other sentence. It makes a sharp, hot spike of anxiety that rises in his throat.

Nureyev files it away. What’s important is that he’s paying attention to whatever it is Buddy is saying, not her side-eyed glances, or Vespa’s sudden apathy, or the way he should be speaking right now, probably, or the way Juno-

Juno’s taking notes. But he never takes notes -hardly even pays attention, usually- and yet he’s written out a perfect, bullet-pointed outline of Buddy’s plan in an abnormally neat, albeit lilting, scrawl. And more than that, there’s no reason for Juno to care about the specifics of this job anyway- he’ll be staying back on the ship anyway, so-

Nureyev forces his slightly blurry vision to focus on the notes themselves, and they’re- they’re for him. The parts of the plan Juno has written out are the same ones Nureyev would if he were to take the notes himself. And of course, Juno would know what points he’d want extra reminders on- Nureyev reviews his notes aloud in their room so often that Juno can usually recite at least half of them back by the day of a job. 

Nureyev nudges Juno’s shoulder a bit, and Juno pauses to tear out the full page of notes, then slides the page over to Nureyev. He doesn’t even look up before he starts another bulleted list at the top of a new page, this one about all of the camera placements in the cargo ship they’re planning to infiltrate. 

Nureyev shifts his hand beneath the table so he’s fully holding Juno’s and squeezes once. The corners of Juno’s lips quirk in a soft smile, and he squeezes back.

The rest of the meeting passes without incident and Nureyev ends up with a sizable stack of notes from Juno and his anxiety slightly abated. 

That anxiety returns with a vengeance, though, when Buddy calls him away from the group and into the empty hall, well out of earshot of the others. It’s not an abnormal thing for her to do, really. Occasionally she’ll want to review certain details of a plan in-depth with only the person they pertain to or give some more sensitive advice away from prying eyes. If anything, Nureyev expects to be scolded for not knowing the plan, or for not paying proper attention during their meeting, and then to be set loose to mope and pour over Juno’s notes.

What he doesn’t expect is for Buddy to lean casually against the wall, look him up and down with a furrowed brow, and say, “Are you quite alright?”

Nureyev stumbles over himself for a moment, then recenters. “Yes, Captain. I’m fine.” 

The answer is more of a reflex than anything approaching honesty, and he doesn’t doubt that Buddy knows that. He’s sure that she noticed his drifting focus during their meeting, and even if she hadn’t, he’s almost certain that the shake in his hands is violent enough to be visible.

“I’m not doing this for my health, Pete,” Buddy sighs, fixing him with a gaze reminiscent of the kind a parent would cast towards a particularly frustrating child. “I would like an honest answer.”

Nureyev fights the urge to bristle at her insistence. “I- I’ve been struggling with a few personal issues, but I assure you that they won’t affect my performance going forward.”

“I’m not concerned about your performance,” Buddy says, decisive,  “I’m concerned about you, darling.” There’s a heavy pause, and Nureyev shifts uncomfortably, heart in his throat. After a moment, Buddy sighs and continues.

“You’re allowed your own private foibles, and I trust that if you felt you weren’t capable of completing tomorrow’s assignment you would come to me about it. However, I also believe that you could manage a theft while half-lying on your deathbed if you wanted, so I’d like to make you an offer that I feel may alleviate some stress for the both of us.” Nureyev perks up a bit at that- it’s a prospect of an out, of an opportunity to escape from this conversation with little more than a bruised ego and a chance to prove his competency.

“While you are the most fit to execute the responsibilities I’ve given you, I do have contingency plans that exclude you entirely, and I would have no issue implementing one of those plans if you would like to stay back and rest tomorrow. No one will know about this conversation unless you choose to tell them, and I will not think any less of you and your abilities, nor will there be any penalty should you choose to sit this job out.” 

Nureyev turns the idea over in his head for a moment. He would appreciate having some wholly unstructured time to rest, but he sincerely doubts that he’d fall asleep long enough to warrant setting a day aside for it. And even if he could, he didn’t want to spend another day on the ship when he could be out occupying himself and his ever-racing mind with something far more useful. Something that was familiar in a way that didn’t scare him.

“I appreciate the offer, but I feel it might be more beneficial to me if we move ahead as planned. Truthfully, the distraction inherent in the preparation and execution of a job is a very welcome one at present.”

Buddy considers him for a moment, then nods. “Alright. I appreciate your being honest with me, and that offer is still on the table until late tonight if you change your mind.” 

“Right. Thank you, Captain.” Buddy pats his shoulder lightly in a display of casual affection that Nureyev hardly feels deserving of.

“Of course, darling. You are always a member of this family first and an employee second, understood?”

“Understood.” Buddy smiles a bit and Nureyev can’t help but mirror it, if shakily. She dismisses him after a handful of other pleasantries and Nureyev slips off to his and Juno’s room feeling only slightly wrong-footed. 

When he gets there, he finds the bed made and his desk devoid of the clutter he usually leaves there; everything has been reorganized to a T with the stack of notes Juno took for him sitting neatly in the center next to an unopened water bottle, the plastic still covered in condensation from the fridge. Despite himself, Nureyev appreciates the gesture.

The notes are incredibly thorough- maybe more so than Nureyev’s usual ones- and he feels far more sure of himself once he’s run over them. Buddy had been right in saying that he could- and had- completed even full-scale heists in worse conditions than his current one. There’s no reason to believe that he couldn’t pull off what was really just a glorified supply run now.

It would be fine, surely. Above anything else, Nureyev promises himself that.

Initially, he’s able to keep that promise. The server farm they’ve planned to infiltrate isn’t half as secure as it should be, especially considering the steep price that the confidential, corporate files stored there earn on the black market. There are only two guards working at any given time- one for each floor of the warehouse itself. Effectively, the only real hurdle is the fact that the security system has to be manually disabled via the motherboard on the top floor.

Said top floor is, however, very easily accessible if you know how to pick the type of padlock kept on the roof’s service hatch, which, of course, Nureyev does. Once he’s entered the top floor through the hatch, all he has to do is disable the security system, keep watch as Vespa and Jet wire away the files they’d come for, and escape without detection. It is, objectively, the easiest job he’s been a part of in several years. His borderline-paranoid habit of creating worst-case scenarios for nearly everything notwithstanding, Nureyev can’t really think of a way he could fail, even if he’s practically dead on his feet.

Or, rather, he can’t until he does. He manages to pick the lock, enter through the hatch, and drop down into the middle of the hallway adjacent to the security room without issue. But, when he goes to take his first step away from the ladder, his vision swims sickeningly, like the world’s been flipped upside down and left him hanging. He trips, and barely catches the wall to steady himself.

There must be a room on the other side because the metal makes a loud, hollow clanging sound as he slumps into it. 

There’s a chance the guards hadn’t heard, he thinks. There’s a chance they’re both on the lower floor, or that they’re used to the idle shifting sounds of pipes and air conditioning and will shrug it off. 

A heavy set of steps echoes from the opposite end of the hallway, and Nureyev freezes for a moment, then slips a knife from a sheath on his thigh and peels away from the wall. The blade is a thin, wickedly sharp needlepoint one, and the familiar weight of it in his hand is a comfort as he waits for the guard to round the corner.

Somehow, taking them down is as easy as breathing, and Nureyev does it without thinking, like it’s nothing more than a particularly messy knee-jerk reaction. He lingers a moment too long, trying to force his intermittently blurring vision to focus on the neat line drawn across the guard's throat as blood begins to bead up along it. Nureyev only realizes this to be his second mistake when an arm locks around his throat, the polished metal of a blade flashing in his periphery. His reflexes are bogged down so heavily with exhaustion that he only manages to pry it away once it’s already clipped him, dragging what would have been a stab into a long, drawn-out blow that carves across his side and chest, blade skittering across his ribs with a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

The pain of it is sharp and blindingly hot, and Nureyev shudders violently enough that he almost drops his knife before he manages to twist in the second guard’s hold, burying the whole length of the blade into the underside of their jaw. 

He wrenches the blade back out and blood rushes from the wound in torrents, the smell of metal and sickly rust filling the air. It’s potent enough that Nureyev has to stumble away from the two still-warm bodies just to take a breath that doesn’t make him want to gag.

Nureyev sheathes his knife at his thigh and steadies himself with one hand on the wall. Resolutely, he ignores the sticky feeling of blood welling between his fingers and dripping down his side as he takes pained, staggering steps towards the security room.

Somehow, he manages to get there and follow the instructions he’d memorized to switch the security system off before he lets himself collapse against the wall, curled around his wound. Vaguely, he hears a door swing open and shut on the lower floor, and Nureyev feels a weight slough off his shoulders at the thought that, even if it had been at his own expense he had done his job. At the very least, he could be sure that he hadn’t made himself a burden through his own incompetence.

Still, that doesn’t ease the shame he feels as he sluggishly turns on his comms and tells Buddy that he’s been compromised. It doesn’t make him want to apologize any less when Vespa and Jet have to rush through transferring the files, or when Jet carries his dead weight back to the Ruby 7.

The feeling hasn’t dissipated by the time he’s been carted off to the medbay. Everyone had been shuffled out of the room so Vespa could stitch and bandage him properly, and the silence left in their wake is suffocating. Nureyev still hasn’t gathered the courage to speak beyond a couple of essential sentences by the time Vespa's finished patching him up.

“I'm not gonna keep you here overnight,” she says, her back to Nureyev as she tucks various tools back into their places. “You need to take it easy, though, seriously. You came real fucking close to getting dead out there, and I’m not gonna patch you up if you pull some stupid shit and open that wound back up, got it?” 

Nureyev nods once, sharply. “Understood.” 

Vespa sighs, drumming her fingers on her metal work table. It’s a nervous tick, and one of her only tells. She stops abruptly and turns to face Nureyev, leaning on the worktable and gripping the edge so hard that her knuckles go white.

“Listen, I’m not saying this because I care what you do, because I don’t. But Bud and Steel do, and you scared them half to death today. So-” Vespa huffs, shifting her glare from Nureyev to the floor and then back up. “Whatever the fuck this is has to stop, got it? You have to talk to them.”

It’s odd to see Vespa be so genuine. Sure, Nureyev’s seen flashes of it- mostly with Buddy- but it’s never been directed at him, and for all she denies it, Nureyev can tell by the tone of her voice that she very much does care. Vespa- who doesn’t trust him, who objectively doesn’t even really know him- cares about him like family. Cares about him just like Juno and Buddy and Rita and Jet and maybe that’s the most terrifying part of it. The knowledge that, for the first time in his life, if he went running, someone would follow. 

“I-” Nureyev starts, feeling equally as uncomfortable as Vespa clearly is. “I apologize, my intent wasn’t to worry anyone. But I… I see your point and I’ll try to talk to them. This won’t happen again.”

Vespa seems happily surprised with his answer, probably having expected him to push back. To be fair, if he was any less tired or hurt or so completely overwhelmed, he might have.

“Well,” she snaps, “Good. ‘Cause you’re gonna start right now.” Nureyev’s head shoots up. As far as he knew, he was free to leave as soon as Vespa finished checking him over, and he fully intends to do just that. His emotions feel like a glass full to the brim and one drop or wrong shift from overflowing, and he cannot afford that. Not after the utter embarrassment of his failure, of his being injured, and of his worrying the whole crew.

“What?” Nureyev asks, and, despite his efforts, his voice comes out sounding just as panicked as he is.

“Bud wanted to talk to you before I let you go,” Vespa says, looking at him with something almost akin to concern. It’s not exactly a comforting look on her. “She’s not like… pissed at you or anything, she just wants to talk. You don’t need to act like she’s coming in here to shoot you.”

Nureyev barely has time to start formulating a suitably dismissive response before a knock echoes from the medbay’s doors, and he starts, wincing at the spike of pain that runs through his still-fresh wound at the movement. 

Vespa side-eyes him once, then goes to open the door. Sure enough, there’s Buddy, looking as put together and, honestly, intimidating as ever. She pauses briefly to exchange a few hushed words with Vespa, then kisses the top of her head and shuffles her out of the door.

The door slides shut with a soft click, and Buddy begins towards him, stiletto heels clicking against the metal-paneled floor. Nureyev has to force himself not to flinch with her every step. The air is so thick with tension that Nureyev swears it could crawl up his throat and clog his lungs like heavy smoke. 

“Ransom,” she says, leaning against the metal work table just as Vespa had, though with a touch more flair and a swishing of red silk. Nureyev tries, with varying success, to look her in the eye.

“I know that my Vespa has already looked you over, but I’d like to hear it from you. Are you alright, darling?” Nureyev feels his chest tighten and release like his breathing wants to speed up, and he forces the feeling back down. There’s no need to make things worse.

“Yes, I- I’m managing fine,” he replies, carefully culling the weaker, threadier notes from his tone. “My apologies for-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Buddy snaps, taking on a slightly harsher edge. Nureyev’s jaw snaps shut with an audible click. 

“While I do feel that you have a couple apologies in order, I am most certainly not the person to which you owe one.” She pauses, twisting a neat, red ringlet around her finger in a rare show of uncertainty. A part of Nureyev insists that she’s faking it to put him more at ease, to lure him into baring some vulnerable and honest part of himself, but Buddy has never been that calculating or disingenuous. Not to her crew. Not to her family. 

She sighs deeply, fixes her hair back into place, and starts again.

“Firstly, I’d like to make it absolutely clear that no one, least of all myself, is upset with you for what happened today, and that we are all very aware that this is not a reflection on your ability or your competence. What we are is concerned for you. And I dare say that at least Juno and I have been for quite a while.” White-hot guilt slices through Nureyev’s chest like a blade, and his eyes burn. He blinks several times in rapid succession and hopes that Buddy either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore it.

“It was because of that concern that I asked you if you felt well enough to work this job, and, as I’m sure you recall, you assured me that you were. I trusted that answer because I felt that you knew your own limits and would be honest with me about what would and would not cause undue strain. After today, however, I don’t think that that’s true.” 

The feeling in Nureyev’s chest twists, but doesn’t bite. He’s used to people distrusting him. Maybe, in this case, it’s for the best. If Buddy feels he isn’t reliable, that he’s a loose cannon, she could discharge him. She could cut the tethers to these people and this place that has become a steadily tightening noose in past days. And if the thought of being cut free from that almost hurts worse than the noose itself, then… Well. Nureyev supposes he deserves that. It’s his fault for allowing himself to become attached at all.

Sensing his discomfort- probably because Nureyev is just overwhelmed enough that he can’t keep from wearing it on his face- Buddy abandons the work table to sit next to Nureyev on the rickety medbay cot. She’s just close enough that Nureyev can feel her warmth, but she gives him distance, still far enough that he could move away if he felt crowded. Nureyev is grateful for that.

“I don’t think you intended to lie to me, darling, I do think you thought you could complete your job, and, technically, you did. But you did so at your own expense, and that, to me, is not an acceptable price to pay. And if anything worse had happened, if that blade had hit just an inch or so higher and struck your lung, well… That blood would have been on my hands.”

“Captain-”

“Hush, Pete, I’m not done.” Nureyev wants, desperately, to snap back, or protest somehow, or do something to make it clear that his failure, his injury, and his shortcomings were his and his alone, but he doesn’t. His eyes are watering dangerously now, and he knows that if he spoke, it would be ragged and strung out in a way that only Juno and Mag had ever heard. 

“Now, I understand that this will be difficult for you, but I feel that, both for your safety and the safety of this crew, you should refrain from doing any boots on the ground work until whatever it is you’re struggling with is fully resolved.” Nureyev feels like the floor has been ripped out from underneath him, and he clenches his hands into fists so tightly that his manicure cuts into his palms. Buddy doesn’t trust him- doesn’t trust his ability, doesn’t trust his skills, doesn’t trust the rapidly crumbling mask that is Peter Ransom and she isn’t wrong for it. That rejection hurt, really hurt, and Nureyev doesn’t have the energy to even attempt to find a file that will fit it. He realizes, acutely, that he is a ticking time bomb; the longer he’s stuck in this conversation, the closer he inches towards having a complete nervous meltdown in front of Buddy, which is not an option.

Buddy’s voice filters into Nureyev’s conscience as if it’s wrapped in gauze, a steady hum lurking at its edges. 

“-dear? You’re shaking.” She asks, placing a hand on Nureyev’s shoulder. The touch is grounding, and Nureyev forces himself to take a steady breath before he speaks.

“I- I’m just a bit… Overwhelmed, I suppose.” Buddy hums sympathetically and pats his shoulder once, then stands.

“Well, I won’t keep you, then. We can finish this conversation when you’ve gotten some rest, yes?” Nureyev nods once, numbly, stands, and exhales heavily with relief when his legs don’t shake. 

He walks back to his and Juno’s quarters in a haze, half catatonic with exhaustion and half feverish with anxiety. When he finally slides their door open with a trembling hand, he finds Juno sitting on their neatly made bed scrolling through something on his comms. He looks up when the door opens, and smiles softly, almost hesitant. 

“Hey, baby,” he says, “you alright?” Juno tilts his head a bit like he does when he’s struggling to puzzle something out, and whatever it was that had tentatively been holding Nureyev together suddenly snaps clean in half. He shudders in a breath and sobs.

Juno leaps up like he’s been burned and is at Nureyev’s side in a matter of seconds, gently holding his waist with one hand and his cheek in the other, hurriedly wiping away mascara-stained tears.

“Woah, hey, hey, hey,” Juno soothes. “What’s the matter, honey? What’s wrong? Does something hurt?” Nureyev shakes his head. He leans into Juno’s hand, cool and comforting against his flushed skin.

He tries to respond, but when he reaches for some collection of polished, manicured words to offer up he finds none. He can’t run, and he can’t lie, and he has never worn a mask with Juno, and the one he was meant to wear around the rest of their family no longer fits right, and what is left behind is only Nureyev. It is everything he had trained himself not to do and he knows it. But it’s difficult to listen to that decades-old voice when Juno’s looking at him like he’d hung the stars, holding him like he’s something precious and breakable. And casting his mind back to Buddy’s gentle reassurance, to Vespa’s thinly-veiled concern, to Jet and Rita and their family, well. It’s everything he has ever wanted, and he knows that, too.

Nureyev sobs harder despite himself because everything he’s filed away is rushing out at once and he is powerless to stop it. His wound pulls with every heaving breath, and Juno has taken to eyeing his chest and side warily.

“Let’s get you sitting down, honey, come on,” Juno says, carefully backpedaling towards the bed while steadying Nureyev, whose knees nearly buckle on every other step. Eventually, they manage it, and Nureyev immediately crumples forward into Juno’s chest. Juno wraps him up in a hold that’s just the right kind of tight without missing a beat.

“Can you try to calm your breathing down a little bit, ‘reyev? I’m worried about you pulling your stitches heaving like that, okay?” Shuddering, Nureyev nods weakly against Juno’s collarbone, and Juno rewards him with a kiss to his temple.

“You want me to count?” he asks, and Nureyev nods again. 

Juno ghosts a hand up Nureyev’s back, whispers, “In, one, two, three, hold-” counts to seven, then runs his hand back down Nureyev’s back. “Out,” he coaxes, counting down from eight. It takes several more tries before Nureyev can properly mirror Juno’s breathing, but when he does the exhale takes all of his energy with it, and he slumps completely against Juno. He’s still crying, but it’s silent and exhausted, almost an afterthought.

Juno carefully maneuvers them so that he can sit partially propped up against the pillows with Nureyev curled into his chest. They stay there for a while, silent aside from Nureyev’s quiet sniffles and the rasp of fabric as Juno continues to rub his back. 

Eventually, Juno sighs, props his chin on the top of Nureyev’s head, and breathes, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Nureyev busies himself with tracing the outline of a spiderwebbed scar on Juno’s bare shoulder. “Buddy has effectively removed me from any future jobs out of concern for my safety.” A beat, and another tear inches down his cheek before he can think to stop it. “Indefinitely.”

Juno hums sympathetically, tracing the ridge of Nureyev’s spine. “But that’s not all this is about, is it?” 

“It’s not.” There’s silence again, and Juno doesn’t push. If he were to stay silent, Nureyev knows Juno wouldn’t ask, and they would go to bed without talking about it. But Juno would worry, and Nureyev wouldn’t sleep. He takes a breath.

“I’m afraid I don’t- I’m not quite sure how to explain it.” It’s a hell of a thing, Nureyev’s found, attempting to spin feelings he’s spent a decade neatly filing away into words that will come across clearly to someone who hasn’t spent the same decade holed up inside his head. He feels himself start to drift, like he’s recoiling from his own thoughts, and reels himself back in with the smell of Juno’s skin- all vanilla and spice and warmth. Juno takes his hand and threads their fingers together, tracing a path across the back of Nureyev’s hand with his thumb and Nureyev knows that the gesture means take your time, I’m not leaving.

“I’ve never stayed in one place- in one group, in one alias- for more than a handful of months. It was never safe enough to stay any longer, or at least it didn’t feel like it was after- '' Nureyev cuts himself off, deliberately redirects his focus to what’s tangible. Warmth radiating from the press of Juno’s body against his, a hand threading through his hair, the ever-present rumble of the Carte Blanche beneath them. He forces air in and out in the rhythm Juno had counted for him and begins again. “After Brahma. And it… It still doesn’t feel safe now. It’s kept me on edge and I-” His breath hitches- once, then again- and Juno hushes him softly.

“I want to stay, I want to be part of what’s been built here, I do, I just-” Nureyev’s voice comes out sounding like shattered glass, and he’s not sure if he’d started shaking again, or if he just hadn’t stopped. “I don’t know how, and I’m so, so tired.”

He’s crying again, now, but it’s a quiet and subdued thing, and his face doesn’t even flush in ugly pinkish-red blotches. Juno tugs him closer, almost impossibly so, and presses kisses into his hair. 

After a moment, Juno says, “You are part of what we’ve made here. You’re a part of this family- not Ransom, you- and this is your home just as much as it’s mine. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here, either, but that’s okay. You’re allowed to be scared, and you’re allowed to not know, and you’re allowed to want this anyway.”  

Hearing that is some unique blend of comforting and terrifying, but Nureyev knows that the comfort of it is slowly starting to eclipse the threat of it entirely. A week ago, that sentence might have sent him into a panicked spiral, and now it only made his stomach curdle a bit. With time, Nureyev thinks the thought of having a home and a family- of wanting that- might not scare him at all. But then again, that hope might only be some hastily patched-together product of exhaustion. It’s hard to say. 

“Look, we don’t have to do this right now,” Juno starts, easing Nureyev away from his chest so he can look him in the eye. “I mean, we probably shouldn’t, you’re too exhausted to think straight anyway. Let’s just get you cleaned up and go to bed, okay?” 

Juno starts to stand, and, before he can think, Nureyev grabs his arm and blurts out, “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“I can’t sleep,” Nureyev replies, cursing himself as his voice cracks.

 Juno tilts his head a bit, covering the hand on his arm with his own.  “Nightmares, or-?”

Nureyev shakes his head. “No, I mean I can’t. I can’t make myself relax enough.” He knows he should elaborate, knows that Juno wants to know more than that, but he can barely string semi-coherent words together as it is. The wound in his side still burns weakly when he breathes and his face is hot and sticky with sweat and tears and probably snot. 

Disgusting, he thinks, pathetic, letting yourself go like this. He likes to pretend that voice doesn’t sound like Mag’s. 

“-reyev, hey.” Suddenly Juno’s talking to him again, had been for some time, and he’s knelt in front of him, cradling his cheek with one hand. “Where’d you go?” 

Nureyev shrugs weakly and Juno stands to wrap him in a hug again, briefly, kissing the top of his head as he pulls away.

“The pain meds Vespa gave you should knock you out pretty well for tonight. We can worry about everything else later.” There’s something about the surety in Juno’s voice that Nureyev wants to drown in; a heavy warmth that tells him he could just stay right where he is and be safe because someone else has pledged to keep him so. 

“Okay?” Juno asks, and Nureyev shudders through a heavy sigh.

“Okay.” 

When Juno helps him take off his ruined makeup and bundles him up in an overlarge hoodie- emblazoned with a peeling HCPD logo and stained with Rita’s neon pink hair dye- he does with a careful sort of reverence, like Nureyev is a piece of fine china that he couldn’t stand to break. It makes Nureyev’s heart swell with something warm and indescribable that he barely knows how to hold. Despite everything, though, he thinks he could get used to this. Desperately wants to get used to it. And maybe that’s what ‘healing’ is, really; not some ever-elusive, perfect thing that makes you into someone you don’t recognize, but rather just a want and a drive to do and be better. To glue your broken pieces back together, even if you have to leave the edges ragged.

Nureyev tries to cling to that thought as Juno drops a twin pair of pain pills into his hand, and clutches frantically at that tiny, flickering hope as they settle into bed. Juno tucks Nureyev protectively into his chest and, finally, he feels the edges of his consciousness start to slip into the fuzz of synthetic sleep.

He must tense up with the same instinctive panic that had kept him up in the nights before because Juno pulls him closer and threads a hand through his hair in just the way he knows makes Nureyev melt.

“You’re alright, baby,” he murmurs, “I’ve got you. You’re safe.” For the first time in nearly a week, Nureyev lets his eyes flutter shut, and he sleeps.

When Nureyev wakes, he’s warm and relaxed in a way he hasn’t been in weeks- maybe months, maybe ever. His body and mind feel pleasantly far away, like he’s melted into little more than a puddle on the mattress. There’s a familiar, calloused, hand running through his hair, and he can feel the steady rhythm of breathing where Juno’s- or at least he assumes it’s Juno, no one else had or would ever hold him like this, he wouldn’t trust them to- chest rises and falls against his cheek.

Nureyev would stay here forever if he could- safe and warm and just the right kind of dazed, cocooned in the mountain of pillows and throw blankets that have slowly accumulated on his and Juno’s bed, with Juno watching over him.

Goddess of protectors, he thought, almost bemused. Funny how that worked out.
The hand in his hair stills, tucks a few longer strands away from his face, then traces a line along the sharp angle of his jaw.

“Baby?” Juno calls, voice barely above a whisper. “You ‘wake?” Nureyev makes a drowsy, noncommittal sound and turns his face further into Juno’s stomach. 

“Oh, only technically,” he says, words still slurred together with the edges of sleep. “How did you know?” 

When Juno replies, Nureyev can hear the smile in his voice. “You- God this is gonna sound so fucking weird but like, you breathe different?” 

“I- what?” 

“No, there’s no way I can explain this without sounding absolutely insane but if you’re like, asleep-asleep it’s like… deeper? Well, duh, but it’s-”

Nureyev cuts him off with a laugh, shifting to wrap his arms around Juno’s waist. 

“And do you regularly study my breathing, dearest?” 

“Well, I mean,” Juno started, tone suddenly serious as he tucks the sheets back up around Nureyev’s shoulders. “You did just sleep for almost sixteen hours, and I was awake for maybe half of it, so-”

“I what?” Nureyev asks, shooting up from Juno’s lap to prop himself up on one hand. “What time is it?”

Juno steadies him with a hand on his shoulder. “Almost 2.”

“...In the afternoon?” 

“Mhm,” Juno hums, stroking Nureyev’s hair back from his face. “You needed it, though. And we have the day off anyway.” To be fair, Nureyev can’t argue with that. He feels miles and miles better just having slept, and he can’t say that he wouldn’t have spent most of the day in bed with Juno if he’d been awake.

He lets himself tip forward until his head rests on Juno’s shoulder, and Juno reflexively sweeps a hand over his back. Nureyev lets himself rest there for a moment before sitting back up, facing Juno.

“Well, I suppose I must have. I haven’t slept for that long in at least several years if I remember correctly.”

“Do you think it helped, though?” Nureyev thinks for a moment and finds that not only does he feel physically better- his head and eyes don’t ache anymore, and for the first time in nearly a week he feels hungry without being simultaneously nauseous- but the anxiety that’s clung to him as closely as his shadow is little more than a low buzz now, as compared to the deafening roar it had been. 

“Oh, more than,” he says. “But you helped more than any rest could have, love. I can’t thank you enough for-” Nureyev stumbles over himself for a moment, dropping Juno’s gaze in favor of scrutinizing the woven pattern of their comforter. “I don’t know. For just… being with me. For not shrugging me off.”

Juno looks heartbreakingly sad for a moment, and Nureyev genuinely doesn’t understand why. Before he can apologize, though, Juno gently tips his head up.

“Nureyev. Look at me,” he coaxes, fixing Nureyev with a soft look so full of love and concern that it barely feels real.

 “That’s my job, hon. Me helping you- taking care of you- when you need it is the absolute bare minimum, I-”

“Juno-”

“No, it is. I mean,” Juno huffs a laugh, “how many times have you had to help me with my bad days, or bad weeks, huh? And I know I’ve puked on you at least once.”
“That’s hardly the same thing. This was just me being… dramatic.” 

“If that was you being dramatic, God knows what I am.” Nureyev starts to protest, but Juno presses a finger to his lips and shushes him with an almost laughable level of aggression.

“You didn’t think I was being dramatic when I freaked out after I broke a glass in front of Buddy? Or when I just have really bad days out of nowhere?” To Nureyev, it’s a complete non sequitur. Juno had been through hell and back- several times over, honestly- but everything Nureyev had ever been through had been of his own making. Regardless, he decides to let Juno make his point.

“Of course I don’t, darling. None of that is something you can control.”

“And you can’t control whatever it is that makes you feel like you have to run either, can you?” He.. can’t, obviously, but that’s only because he's never really been able to control his emotions like he should be able to. He’s always regarded that as a shortcoming- something to be fixed and swept away from view. But with Juno and the rest of the crew all bearing open wounds and trauma and hurt that may never fully heal, and wearing it all with grace? The love they have for each other feels untouchable, but... Maybe he can afford to feel that way, too.

“I can’t,” Nureyev says, “And more than that, I- I don’t think I can handle this alone anymore. I don’t want to.” 

Juno smiles- bright and perfect and indescribably beautiful- and scrambles forward to hug Nureyev, so tightly that it almost hurts.

“You don’t have to. And you won’t have to ever again. You’re not alone anymore, okay?” Some old, flighty part of Nureyev still wants to run when he hears that, but a larger, stronger part of him is happy. 

If there was anything Peter Nureyev had ever wanted- before Brahma, before the names and the blood and the disappearances- it was a home and a family, and he had one now. Even if it scared him, even if he wasn’t sure how to be part of a family, he had one. And they weren’t going anywhere.

Nureyev hugs Juno back just as tightly, eyes stinging slightly with tears, and he smiles.