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Chapter Text

"a little young to be drinking, now, aren't we?"

peter dragged his eyes, with some difficulty, up from the rim of the bottle he was rolling in an uneven circle around and around on the choppy wood of the back table. through hazy vision, he traced the wild plumes of red hair curling around and over the face of a singularly unforgettable person.

he smiled drunkenly, a genuine curl of the lips and flash of pearly teeth. "ms. aurinko," he said, pursing his lips in order to clip his words before they managed to slur out of his reach. "never thought i'd have... the pleasure."

"rest assured, darling, the pleasure is all mine." she paused. "or, by the look of it, all yours."

he set the bottle down. it wobbled a little in his hand. when she spoke again, her voice was softer. "really, now, i'd like to see some form of identification, or else i'm afraid i'll have to ask you to run on home."

his laugh was high and bitter, and rolled thickly from him. "don't have a home," he muttered, dropping his head. eyes cast into the wood grain, he poked at the bottle and snorted when it fell over. his other hand disappeared from the tabletop, reappearing a few seconds later to push a card across the table.

"sylvia regent," buddy read slowly. her eyes skipped across the card. it certainly looked authentic, and with reluctance she dropped it back in front of him. he tilted his head back up to her and smiled, his eyes lolling under a thick fringe of eyelashes. even with a clear layer of makeup and heavy contouring, his movements and eyes were frighteningly young. he laughed at the sound of his name being read aloud, but didn't say anything further.

she hesitated, and decided to push him. "now then, sylvia... do you have anyone looking out for you, as it were?"

he sat up and looked her in the eye. it was almost like he was sober when he said, quite seriously, "i don't need anyone to look out for me." he cocked his head, looking for a moment like a puppy as his teeth flashed again. "sylvia regent can take care of himself, ms. aurinko, and i do."

she left it at that, but that was far from the end of it.

Chapter Text

he hadn't managed to get drunk yet when she sat down in front of him. a green-haired woman--vespa ai, he knew from the far-reaching stories of their exploits, "there's a room upstairs," she informed him. her eyes were narrowed, suspicion rolling off of her like waves of heat in the summertime. "buddy says to let you stay there until you're back on your feet."

she appraised him then, seeming to be as aware of his overwhelming youth as buddy had been, before standing abruptly and dropping the keys onto his table. "stairs that way," she said in her low, thick voice, pointing sharply and then returning to the bar. he watched her go, and capped the bottle.

the stairwell was tight and dark, and wound upwards high into the echoing shadows at the top. he found his room off the second landing, by the thick cardstock with his latest moniker, sylvia, taped to the front of it. opening it, he found a small room, with a desk, a nightstand, a window, and a bed. the sheets were blue in the light cast by the stars and under the canvas lampshade. he shrugged the bag off his shoulders but hesitated before letting it fall to the floor. instead, he tossed the keys at the mattress and turned on his heel, leaving the door open.

and like he would for next few weeks, he sat at the top of the lighthouse and watched the horizon, drinking himself steadily into oblivion.

watched the stars rise. watched the moon reach its zenith. mourned the loss of everything he'd known. watched a knife disappear into the chest of his father over and over again until his eyelids grew sore from being pressed so tightly shut. right before he stumbled into bed, he heard the music from the square.

that month, he almost told buddy his name three times. every one of those times he had been lurking around the bar, listening to stories of the famed buddy and vespa's escapades, and trying to cobble for himself an idea of what was to come, and ending every thought punctuated in a sick feeling and the blood that seemed to cling to his skin so much time later. drunk out of his mind and desperation was sliding out of his reach, slick and cold and trembling, he cut his tongue on his teeth and choked the two deadly words back down. he always left for his room right after, terrified of what he'd do in his inebriation, and swore himself off of it each time. it only really stuck about a week before he gathered up the courage to leave.

unguarded, he thought he could trust buddy, with her strange turns of phrase and admirable boldness, he even thought maybe he could trust vespa, with her quieter, more anxious compassion once she had stopped regarding him with open suspicion. they asked no questions, but treated him with a sort of fierce protection he didn't understand.

he had thought he could trust mags.

and so he didn't trust anyone. not anymore.

Chapter Text

decades later, peter nureyev did not hate juno steel.

alecto king did. and when king was laid to rest, sparrow wills resented him with something close to a bubbling anger.

but when he peeled off his shoes and shirt, and washed off the traces of people he only knew when he was drunk, and ran his callused fingers through his hair, and stared into his reflection like it had something to tell him, he knew that he didn't hate juno. and when it came down to it, he didn't even blame him.

he allowed this wretchedly honest feeling to last from the bathroom door to the medically-induced sleep he forced himself through every night, because it hurt like acid in a gaping wound and had the potential to keep him awake for hours. it was a feeling that was only alleviated in the brief and selfish hatred he maintained throughout his working days. he had never learned to survive heartbreak or loss before, and so he survived it the same way he survived anything else: hand-over-hand and refusing to look back, with the pitiable goal of survival.

if he moved fast enough, his thoughts, he reasoned (though not consciously), would inevitably get lost behind him. in the meantime, there was work to be done.

sparrow wills was buried when the job asked too much of him: a return to mars. a degree of avoidance, he thought, was owed. after all the shit peter put him through, it was an unnecessary cruelty to juno to run the risk of the detective seeing him.

he sat on a bench in one of the largest intergalactic space stations in the galaxy and stared up at the timetables as they scrolled along the piping. his chest tightened sharply, reflexively: there was a flight to hyperion set for the same time as the one to the outer rim that was printed on his ticket. letting his breath out carefully, he dropped his gaze and drew his finger across the fresh ink, watching it blur.

hyperion just--sounded like juno. it rung in his ears the same way his pulse did when it quickened--like it would when, every so often in his exhaustion, his eyelashes would shutter down and he would see piercing blue eyes behind them; the sound and smell of blood as it dropped to sand-dusted stone rising in him, and everything would become very loud very quickly. looking at the timetable now was like having life-saving medicine extracted painfully from his body. his chest ached with the force of the beast hibernating inside of it.

he wondered openly if falling in love felt universally like finding a magnetic north that a body is drawn to. he wondered quietly if falling reciprocally in love felt like finding a lodestone where he'd thought there was a heart, and heartbreak like even that being ripped from him. he pulled out a compact and examined his lipstick in it. he made a ring with his mouth and popped his nail in and out to ensure no traces ended up on his teeth. there was a lingering taste of printer ink on his tongue when he put the compact down, satisfied.

he had told juno he would leave him alone, if that's what juno wanted.

and it was.

of course it was.

and so when the boarding announcement came over the speaker that rang in his ears (like his pulse did--when it quickened--like it did when he heard gunfire just weeks ago, or when he made a visit soon after to a sterile white room that smelled like antiseptic and was small enough to be the room where faceless masks made him jerk and twitch helplessly under juno's tortured gaze) he took his bag in his fist, stood, and fixed a polite but harried smile to his face.

sparrow wills resented him, but christian spear didn't remember him at all.

Chapter Text

after five months dealing in various high-risk objects and meddling in bank accounts out of a high-rise building in the outer rim, christian got a call.

or rather, his secretary did.

but first: a word on christian spear.

christian was polite. christian was flighty, nervous, shifty. christian was very, very good at getting people to underestimate him.

christian had a husband and three kids back in the solar planets. he'd return home to them, soon enough. there was a picture of them on his desk, tilted so that the client would see more of it than he would. after all, he liked to brag about them--a proud family man, they were his greatest accomplishments and he detested being away for so long.

he especially missed his daughter. emilia. she had been in and out of hospitals since a young age, and was so young and shy that he worried about her constantly. her rough-housing brothers, a pair of twins, were younger than her and had been proven previously unable to grasp the delicacy of her nature. he loved them plenty, but leon understood them better. christian was best suited to quiet moments of adoration as she lay curled up in shafts of sunlight with a book, and the soft, precise sounds of her voice as she related to him everything he had missed while away on business.

on the day of the call, the clouds had finally cleared after weeks of heavy, acidic rain. the sun was slanting through his glazed windows, lighting up the papers strewn haphazardly across his desk--an un-christian-like mess, a rare piece of honesty. he hummed under his breath as he leafed through them, letting the sunlight take sweep his mind into unusually bright, optimistic thoughts. he'd been considering his next moves. he wasn't beholden to anyone or anything, and there was plenty to see in the universe, wasn't there? and he'd be making solid money from the con he was running now. the phone rang, not quite managing to shake him from his imagination.

his secretary took the call. through the heavy door that separated their offices, he heard her muted voice.

"good morning. this is the office of christian spear, how may i help you?"

he didn't pay much attention to her until she rapped at the door.

"come in," he called, setting down his papers. the door swung open with the help of samantha's elbow, as she carried the phone and receiver, and had a look of bemusement affixed on her weathered, sun-kissed face.

"call for you, mister spear," she said lightly. "says she's an old friend of yours--and couldn't wait for me to take a message."

christian spear liked the piano, and liked it even better when his husband played. he enjoyed watching sports but was apathetic about teams. he graduated with an MFA in financial analysis, and didn't like what drinking did to his nerves.

he'd talked with leon several times about visiting mars someday--he'd never been, but leon's parents were from there. he'd heard that hyperion city was the most beautiful place in the galaxy. maybe when he finally retires... god knows leon wishes he would...

"hello, sylvia darling. it has been too long."

christian spear opened his mouth and smiled. it was a smile that managed to expose each of his knifelike teeth without ever reaching his eyes. had samantha lingered a few minutes in the doorway, she would be looking at a stranger.

"yes, ms. aurinko," purred peter nureyev (or not quite). "it has been ages, hasn't it?"

Chapter Text

shutting down the office on laertes was easier than leaving most jobs. leon had finally coaxed mr. spear into retirement. the machinery that had been steadily winding up in the shadows of his high-rise office ground to a conclusion in which billionaires stupid enough to open dealings with spear lost the edges on their savings and found them scattered to the masses' pockets. in the midst of chaos and front-page headlines, peter slipped offworld to balder.

there was a four-star hotel close to the space station on this planet. buddy had arranged the tickets, the lodgings, the bus, his arrival. she'd offered to pay for his new identity, but he declined. he owed her enough already, and besides, an identity was best overseen by one's self.

he checked in as carter fierro, a quiet, unnerving man who wore expensive clothes, cologne, and smiles. he often checked into nice hotels under this name, appearing at random across the galaxy. among the dearth of information readily available were a few scattered expensive properties, creating the impression of a business man who valued his privacy. easy enough to slip into and easy enough to leave behind. intimidating enough to keep heads down and questions unasked.

he heard the woman at the desk quietly ask her coworker why on earth anyone would wear sunglasses inside. he smiled, turned and slung them at the heavy marble counter, the glass cracking like a gunshot. still smiling, he pulled a new pair out of his coat pocket, shook them open, and slid them on over his violently green eyes, victims of colored contacts. her eyes widened and she backed away imperceptibly. he didn't stay to solicit a further reaction and ducked into the elevator.

he wasn't feeling good. he leaned against the mirror and watched the number change above the panel of buttons. he wondered how it would feel to work with a team, as he hadn't done in years, really, and wondered if he would ever take a vacation. he figured he would work until he died. months spent static sounded impossibly aimless, and worse, lonely.

he'd gotten used to himself. sometimes, when he worked jobs where he didn't see people frequently, he lapsed into the habit of talking to himself. he even loved the solitude, some weeks. when he could fit it into a character, he would wake up early to walk to the cafe by his hotel, just to order bad coffee and watch the sun rise. or, when he was nobody at all, he'd crank up the radio in the summer heat, drowning out the cicadas and the stars in some shitty motel where he'd paid extra for the discretion. alone did not mean lonely. not always.

the elevator opened. he stepped out onto the top floor and strode down to his room, drawing the card from his pocket in a crisp motion. the door to the balcony was propped open. pressing his fingers to the walls, he slid them along the edge of the mirror and over the doorframe until he was satisfied there were no bugs. he tucked his luggage against the foot of the bed and collapsed into the covers, feeling the air leave his body and be replaced by the sweet, high notes of birdsong and a crisp breeze.

some days, being alone was not so bad.

some days, emptiness sat heavy in his chest, filling him up in some breaths with oceanic longing.

was this all there was for him?

truth be told, he had not thought about juno in some months, maybe not since he'd taken on the mantle of christian spear. it was a painful luxury.

truth be told, he had not told the detective his name on the day they met because of some wild risk-taking brand of infatuation. of course, his intuition was good. he was almost certain juno would not sell him out. and he was, of course, intrigued, and surprised, and delighted, to have met his match--someone with wit as sharp as his intellect, and a depth of character that was as compelling as it was intoxicating. but peter had been living this way for decades. if he didn't give his name to buddy all those years ago, or the countless others he'd been baited into trusting, he certainly wouldn't be fool enough to do such a thing for juno. trust was not a word he understood.

no. peter had had nothing left to lose, and a steadily growing desperation that outlasted the very last of his self-preservation instincts. loneliness was made of corrosive stuff. he closed his eyes. the birds kept singing.

he had forgotten what it was like to have something to lose again.

he had forgotten what it was like to lose it.

Chapter Text

"sylvia," buddy calls. she doesn't have to wait long; she knows he's just in the next room, and the walls are paper-thin. without raising her voice or changing her inflection, she says, "sylvia, jet is collecting the last two members for this little escapade, if you would care to listen in with me."

he slinks into the room, light and lithe as a cat. this is not how peter nureyev walks--no, this is how peter nureyev walks, just when he is putting on a show--playing himself up, perhaps, just turning up the volume. sylvia regent has, after all, been his most honest facade. "i'd be delighted to," he says breezily. "any particular reason you have to suspect these individuals, ms. aurinko?"

"please, darling..."

"old habits die hard, m..." he catches himself on the last word before repeating the title and settles for a brief, genuine smile.

she returns it, and then swivels to sweep her hands dramatically over controls and dials. "not a bit," she says, in response to his earlier question. "but juno was just so stubborn with his conditions on our last job together that i'd quite like to ensure that they will be met this time as well. we cannot afford..."

her last words die out into the background as all of the liquid in peter turns to ice. he stares at her, heartbeat pounding in his ears and bringing the rattle and hum of machinery to a muted roar in his nerves. the staccato reverb of his panic brings a pure rush of thrilled fear and hot, repressed anger through his body in place of his momentarily-suspended functions--those like breathing.

buddy looked up, expression changing when she saw the nearly vacant look in his eyes. around them, the static crackle of a wire being activated echoed in the hollow of peter's throat, bringing him back into a smooth, if glassy-eyed, smile. buddy had just opened her mouth, concern scrawled across her face, when jet spoke.

"i am approaching juno's office," jet intoned distantly, audible but tinny over the device. peter swallowed back a choked sound.

"sylvia," buddy began. he waved her off, regaining composure by the second--straightening his spine and his smile by the millimeter.

"a story for tonight, i think," he said lightly, and laced his fingers together. it was an assurance that this would not go undisclosed--he owed it to her, as his employer, after all. buddy accepted this silently, and with good reason: it was only seconds before jet's next words.

"juno," jet greeted, and despite his best efforts peter's heart spasmed painfully at the sound. he closed his eyes, bracing himself. "i hope our current meeting is more enlightening than your comms call."

"happy to see you too, big guy." a brief pause, in which the air was ripped soundlessly from peter's lungs. "and don't worry. i know what i want, and either i get it or you leave. "

the familiar cadence of juno's voice, if not the strangely confident, self-assured quality, was like an anvil to his carefully composed heart. he wondered if he would live every day of this mission hearing that voice like that life-saving antidote held tantalizingly out of reach. he wondered if there was a way to cut out his heart and keep his nervous system taped to the floorboards of his body, for the sake of, say, his discretion. dignity. professionalism, maybe.

juno, or a distant, flimsy approximation of the voice that continued to saw at peter's chest, laid out his conditions. bile filled peter's throat at juno's insistence that he will not be made a murderer. ("that's just my rule, and you have to deal with it.")

peter is a murderer.

he pictured the ruby 7 as it blasted through the garage doors, and had a brief, silent war with the fucked-up urge to laugh.

he had almost managed to space out to the point of collecting only the words and none of the sound when juno invited someone out, bringing jet and his silent audience to condition number three. something reared in his chest--a molotov cocktail of jealousy, and guilt, and something more terrible and painful that he's never quite felt and can't quite place.

then it became obvious that this was his secretary. a more practical voice in peter's head asks the obvious, practical obstacles to his secrecy this now brings up. he chokes it down.

buddy clicked her tongue upon hearing rita's voice, and peter glanced over, startled. he had almost forgotten her, having nearly mentally escaped the dark, cool room with glowing knobs, buttons, controls, and the speakers trotting out peter's death warrant. the dialogue continued on into lighthearted territory: juno's voice becoming high-pitched and indignant when jet introduces himself, demanding unnecessary answers. he hadn't been half as concerned with peter's name, peter thought, and smiled humorlessly to himself. the resentment he had buried with sparrow wills began to bubble through the cracks of his foundation, and he swallowed it down with a lingering taste of bile.

when buddy hit a button and the feed cuts away, she turned to look at him. the stars are shining through the skylight, illuminating her pale skin and lighting up her eyes.

"i take it you know this man," she said lightly. he closed his eyes for a count of three and let the thoroughly overwhelmed, rising tears drain back into his head. he looked at her again from under a heavy fringe of eyelashes. in some ways, he felt like he was sixteen again, rolling a bottle glimmering in starlight between his fingers, the heavy edges of his consciousness laden with blood and guilt and desperation.

"in some sense of the word, yes," he said, in a voice of polished glass that carried in it no trace of emotion.

at least he still had that.

at least he still had his bitter craft.