#EXCEPT FOR NUREYEV OF COURSE

[maedre13]

[escapingarchives]

Relistening to Juno Steel and The Prince of Mars and in the cacophony of voices after Miasma talks to him you can hear Nureyev laugh and say “Juno”

I’m so normal about this

[ceaseless-watchers-special-girl]

peter nureyev is so fucking gay. like even when he's breaking up with his girlfriend.

"Only then can I rest easy knowing you're r-really gone."

sounds like he really wants juno gone, right??? wrong.

what does he mean by "rest easy"?? 's not like he's been up at night because he's afraid of juno. no, he's afraid something might happen to juno. he's been unable to sleep for fear of his lady love's safety, knowing that juno is following him right into the belly of the beast.

the only way to make sure that juno is safe is to make sure that he's "really gone." but the implications of that, and the knowledge of what he must to to ensure that juno stays well away from him, is what makes him stutter.

this section caught us all so off guard. partly because peter nureyev doesn't stutter. but that's because he has confidence in his ability to lie because almost no-one knows who he is — no-one except juno, of course. and now that he has to mislead juno, now that he has to make juno think he doesn't love him anymore, he's stuttering, because he's not confident he can lie about this. he's twisting the truth to make sure that he can even get the words out.

and what does it matter if he stutters when he says it? sure, peter nureyev doesn't stutter, but only juno really knows peter nureyev. well, juno did know peter nureyev. after this, no-one does. after this, juno's got no right to bother him. they never met.

[waters-and-the-wilde]

okay speaking of wrestling and also apropos of 'Rita drags him in by his tie', I was previously having Thoughts about imminently post Got His Ass wherein Rita is bound and determined to drag Nureyev kicking and screaming back into being family again so uh. scenario.

Rita corners Nureyev for A Conversation after they Get His Ass, like plot resolution denouement loose ends and stuff where he's in the clear debt-wise, made his peace with Slip however that looks, he and Juno Have Talked but they're like just on the other side of Having Talked. like Things Are Okay but also everything's just so raw and they're being So Careful with each other, it's like the early days on the Carte Blanche again and it's hard to shake the feeling that any more disturbance is going to topple whatever they're trying to rebuild

so Nureyev is just. his whole brain is full of fire alarms. he's vibrating in place like a greyhound that just got picked up at the shelter after it got spooked and ran away from home. this time he has no high ground as the injured party, he and Rita have known each other for a year now so there's a lot less of her initial 'sniff out the new beau' hesitancy, and sure he knows Rita well enough that it's obvious she's not gonna up and Ruin Him on purpose when she wholeheartedly volunteered to get him out of the mess he was in but still. she's the most unpredictable person he's ever met, he has no idea how this is going to go.

like logically he knows that he and Juno are working shit out and logically he knows that Rita's kinder than the people in her life deserve and might continue to tolerate him, but ultimately she's Juno's best friend who might well just be about to give him the mother of all 'you're on thin fucking ice' shovel talks, like she can't possibly still approve of him anymore right??

so he's scrambling to do preemptive damage control, he's throwing everything he's got into trying to Fix This. going on about how he knows what she must think of him and how sorry he is and that all he has to say for himself is that he only wanted to keep Juno safe, that he couldn't bear the thought of dragging him down with him, not when he was free and their family was together and he knows he should have ended it when Juno asked him to and he just wasn't strong enough and Rita's like. yeah that's nice i know Mista' Nureyev, hey can I tell you what I said to Mista' Steel when he told me about leaving you in that hotel?

and Nureyev shuts up and braces himself and nods very seriously and then she's like, actually you might wanna take off your glasses for this, and now he's extra confused and possibly even more terrified, and she waits until he's put them in a little case and set it on a side table and then there's just kind of a blur and a whole Rita NYEEERRRRRRAAaGGHHH!!!! noise and WHOOMP

pillow to the face

(for context. in my brain. I sorta presume that Juno told her about what happened with Miasma at some point in the aftermath of Newtown bc he owed her an explanation about both times he went missing, and yes she was glad that Juno didn't run away on an adventure across the galaxy without her but she knows a dick move when she sees one and also probably has the full context of baby Mista' Steel's self-sabotaging romantic choices (Juno said there was a whole thing about him walking out when he was with Diamond so I am assuming that Rita was privy to any number of related incidents over the course of those years). finding out that he passed up the chance to run away on a romantic adventure with the mysterious and dashing gentleman who he'd been mooning over for month, who was apparently also smitten with him the whole time and saved his life and tried to take care of him when he lost his eye?? she waited until he was staring into the bottom of his glass and then started whaling on him with a pillow)

anyway Nureyev doesn't get a chance to do much except yelp and sputter and get his arms up before she whacks him with the pillow again. and again. and starts yelling like 'YOu! are! such! a! big! dumb! baBY! Just! 'Cause! YOU! Think! People're better off! Without you! Don't make you! All! Noble 'n stuff!'

and he gets with the program pretty fast, which is to say that he's just on the floor letting her do her worst because that's just what's happening now

'alright I yield! I surrender! have mercy your honor!'

'DAMN! RIGHT! YOU! DO! DidN'T! Captain! Mom! Teach! you! aNYThInG! Big! Stupid! Tough guy! Tryin'a! Do it all! Yourself! We're! S'posed to be! FaMBLY! Now you're! Stuck with us! FoReVeR!!'

tackles him with the pillow. starts tickling him. both of them are shrieking. he vaguely registers that Juno has appeared and is slouching in the doorway 'my love i beg of you call off the attack i'll do anything' and Juno's like 'sorry honey i'm a little busy' and is holding up something that is probably comms-shaped and 'Nooooo, Juno how could you, JUNO SINCE WHEN DO YOU KNOW HOW TO RECORD THINGS'

(and the thing is Nureyev was just letting it happen because he assumed this was catharsis for Rita's sake and sure it's not not for Rita getting it out of her system but she processes things pretty fast you know? and she runs out of steam and goes off to get a snack and he's just there on the floor with his hair in his face kinda punch-drunk and Juno sidles up and sits beside him and whoops turns out Rita found the Release Feelings Valve and Juno's like 'yeah she does that. went a lot easier on me but I think that was mostly because I'd just gotten out of the hospital when i told her about all that.')

(a couple months later Ruby turns up to scoop Jet in the nick of time from a dangerous raid on Dark Matters and he asks what it's been up to and it pulls up the footage that Juno copied to the databanks. he gets a good kick out of the fact that Rita was on the same page about the whole 'he is solitary and overconfident and alone he can only fail' thing and that she got the opportunity to address it in the most rita way possible)

[francaistoutsimplement]

The political tides in Europe are turning against the Empire A radical change in mood among the people is more and more evident. Is it a tsunami in the making? (Alex Krainer's Substack)

On Sunday, 29 December 2024, Croatia held presidential elections. The incumbent President Zoran Milanović won the first round in a landslide against the pro-globalist challenger Dragan Primorac. Primorac was strongly backed by the ruling party, the Croatian Democratic Union, led by the Prime Minister Andrej Plenković who has been a loyal supporter of NATO, US, UK and EU policies. In winning the Presidency, the ruling party would have captured all of Croatia's key institutions of government.

(Another) Putin’s stooge wins

To push their candidate over the line the ruling establishment and the media relentlessly demonized President Milanović as Putin's stooge and a pro-Russian player on account of his unwillingness to engage Croatian troops in NATO's excellent adventures in Ukraine. Well, their cunning plan backfired spectacularly and Putin's stooge won nearly 50% of the popular vote vs. less than 20% for the pro-freedom & democracy challenger. That's about as close as it gets to a landslide in Croatian politics.

It would appear that, not only is there no appetite for the Empire and its military misadventures, but below the surface, the mood toward Russia is changing, and changing in a big way.

Ballet or twerking?

On Christmas eve, Milan's La Scala theater gave the performance of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet. This wouldn't seem exceptional: the ballet is a masterpiece and the music is among the most famous and most beautiful in our cultural heritage.

But barely three years ago, everyone across Europe was falling over themselves to cancel all things Russian, including the performances of Tchaikovsky's music and university courses in Russian literature. Last week La Scala not only presented Tchaikovsky's ballet, it did so based on Rudolf Nureyev's choreography and invited a Russian conductor, Valery Ovsyanikov of St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre to direct the orchestra. To boot, Italian national TV broadcast the whole performance.

I am not a ballet fan, but La Scala's production was done so beautifully that I ended up watching a good chunk of it. The music, the scene, the costimography and the music were a feast for the eyes and I remained glued to the TV for a good half of the performance (otherwise I never watch TV anymore). It was a wholesome contrast to the twerking and other such lewd spectacles like the opening and closing ceremonies of Paris Olympics - the kind of demoralizing cultural poison we've come to expect in the West.

Are the countercurrents gathering?

I couldn't help wondering if there wasn't something purposeful in La Scala's choice of production and artists this Christmas: a deliberate and explicit rejection of the Western devious junk culture as well as the forced, mindless hostility against Russia. If so, it seems that the same cultural countercurrents seem to be gripping many nations as the recent elections in the United States, Slovakia, Romania, Georgia, Hungary, France, Germany, Croatia and Moldova have shown (yes, Moldova too).

It may be that in spite of the loud banging of the war-drums in mainstream media, and among our political class, very different currents are gathering below the surface. These currents might continue to gain strength; it’s what our ruling establishments like to label as Russia's malign influence. More likely, the truth is that ordinary people got tired of the lies, hatred, hostility and the wars, as well as the intellectual and cultural junk food that's become the pervasive staple among Western nations. This is a hopeful sign, because escalating the wars could prove difficult for the imperial establishment. What if peace starts to break out all over the place in 2025? It’s a worthwhile idea to pray for and struggle for.

[ephemeralgalaxies]

nevermind, y'all. I ain't getting no sleep tonight.

just realized that the guitar song "A Thief Without a Home" (first of all, GOD that title compared to the upbeat "A Thief Without a Name" as his themesong) is in fucking C MAJOR. It's literally just a C Major chord song with accidentals scattered all throughout.

and I'm sorry but as a musician to my core, y'ALL THE IMPLICATIONS THAT GIVES,,, Like here he is in all his glory. The Thief Without a Name — except that's his weapon, his celebration. Peter Nureyev does not celebrate being without a home.

He mourns that, dreams of having it, still up in the clouds somewhere with a father that didn't exist and a dad that wished to in the wrong way. But whenever we hear that song play, the gentle guitar, it's been Juno thinking softly about/yearning for Nureyev, or Nureyev accepting his own love for Juno, or Nureyev in this city of New Kinshasa and believing he has a history here (and maybe, then, a future), or — the most recent, still based around New Kinshasa and Brahma — Nureyev and Slip recognizing that "it's okay to let go of dreams, at least we dreamed them." And something something this would suggest that Juno is his new (forming) dream and his new home if he would only accept it, and that Slip and New Kinshasa/Brahma might have once been home and it's alright if they're not anymore due to whatever reasons. "It's better that way to have that hole inside you, it means you're ready to fill it again." (horribly paraphrased from Slip Jackson, so sorry, but if I play that episode section again I will wind up relistening to the entirety of Sixteen Tons)

But this issue is: he's not accepting this new home. Even before: Brahma was a deathtrap and New Kinshasa was a hopeful fantasy, but they didn't really belong to him the way he wanted. And Slip, dear Slip... well, Nureyev never got the chance to really make a home with him. He did in a (literal) dream once, but that shattered the moment he became the Thief With a Name. And now, he pushes away our dear lady. Because he's still hung up on old dreams that have (slip)ped away? (I'm so sorry. it was RIGHT there ehe) Because he wishes to protect the little piece of a true home he's gotten with Juno and the others by keeping them far, far away from himself and his business? Or Because he is just simply terrified of what it would mean for the Great Nameless Thief to not only have a name but also stay with it? To live with it? To take all his baggage, decades of running and hiding and destroying himself for what he's done to the universe so he doesn't destroy the universe for what it's done to him and find that it was all quite pointless, because there are people willing to not just help him carry it but sift through it all and sort out all the "for future considerations" into what can actually fit inside his metaphorical suitcase?

And that, my dear friends, is what the accidentals are. Those moments in which Peter Nureyev still cannot quite accept it all, just how EASY it would be to let go and let the simplicity of complex love guide him through the music score.

But, of course, those accidentals also play a part in the song and how much we love it. His hesitations and pushbacks have histories of reason behind them, and his family will love them, too.

[unmechanism]

I DO ACTUALLY !

I like Pete's line because it comes from a place of frenzy and panic. Nureyev cannot control the Ruby like he thought he would be able to, they're in the worst situation they could be in and Juno is defending the quote, unquote car when, if he truly was trying to help, he should be urging it to bring the keys as well. I feel like this really shows that Nureyev has reached his breaking point.

I like the wording as well "you don't care [...] either, do you Juno ?" - he feels so deeply alone in his panic, in his loss, that any disagreement is a sign of betrayal. Sure Juno came to help, but at that moment he's just like everyone else. He cannot understand the lengths Nureyev is ready to go to bring Slip back, no one that hasn't been in this situation can. Therefore he loses his grip even more, because what if Juno tries to stop him ? What if if this all fails because he accepted his help when he should've gone alone ? The question is rhetorical, but at the same time it's not. Nureyev is gauging to see if Juno is ready to follow, if he can actually trust him when everything seems to be falling apart at the seams.

Juno is calmer, but he's on edge as well cause the situation obviously isn't good and freaking out isn't helping, so he tries beating some sense into Nureyev. It's scary for him as well, he's never seen the man so frightened and close to breaking down in such a high stakes situation before. He has to stay in control of this very bad spot they're in, keep the man he loves from acting out and worsening it, care for the injured member of the group (Ruby not doing well) when he can usually count on it for last minute saves. He feels utterly alone for a minute there. It's truly a test of every good reflex he developed this last year, of the work he put into being better.

But of course it hurts and more than that, it's frightening to witness Nureyev still thinking of Slip as the priority in this instant when someone could come in and kill them both at anytime. So he snaps back at him, tries to get him to rethink his priorities, to get into a rational mindset. But there's also disbelief in the question. Cause saving them should be the only thing on his mind right now, and that not being the case is definitely going put them in more danger than they already are in. He realizes how unsteady Nureyev is, how unprepared they are for this.

" Slip ? What about us ?"

And then Nureyev just doesn't reply, because that "us" is too problematic for him to even begin to think about. 1. He cannot express the fact that his own life doesn't matter as much as his debt to Slip does. 2. His life is currently tangled with Juno's, meaning that while Slip is his main preoccupation, he still couldn't let something bad happen to Juno and that creates the kind of unbearable tension he left to not have to deal with in the first place. 3. Hearing that "us" rubs salt in the wound of mixed feelings he's experiencing - it's not just "us" as the pair of them right now in this room, it's their entire relationship, the love they share and what Peter is willing to sacrifice for something he knows deep down to be an illusion, a con. And that's too much to think about right there.

So he takes it out on the Ruby, again. Trying to regain control on something, anything. Except Juno won't let it slide, because he knows first hand it's not only unfair to the oens he's taking it out on, but that it doesn't help with anything.

And I can't stop thinking about how Nureyev is so in over his head he doesn't realize exactly how much Juno has changed and how deeply it can be felt throughout this small exchange.

so yeah, I like these lines a lot ♡ @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl

[gncbutpi]

okay, I do wanna say. That penumbra poll about which season is the best is lovely and it's fun to put things into little numbers, but also:

The best thing about Penumbra isn't a specific season.

It's Juno and Nureyev's character arcs, as people opening up and finding a support system and living with intent.

With that framing, of course Seasons 2 and 3 are especially potent. We see Juno re-evaluate his behaviors and actions, and we see him start to lean on the people he loves, and we see him being honest and appreciating them.

Season 4 might not be as favorite, because it doesn't have as many of those heavy turning points or emotional reveals (excepting the finale), but it still reaffirms the thesis, strengthening it as Juno reconnects with old friends, as Juno (and secretly Peter!!) pull off the impossible to save the family that trusts them. And it culminates! With Juno actively making that decision of trust again after a deep vulnerability is revealed! He decides to be someone to lean on for the man he loves, knowing it might hurt. He decides to keep going. Emotional Bravery.

And because of that, I am so excited for Season 5. Because if I'm reading the parallels right, we'll be seeing how Nureyev finds his footing now that his past has been revealed, now that his secrets are laid bare.

Let's hope he makes the same decision Juno keeps making: to let himself lean on the people he loves. To trust them to make their own decisions. To live and love

[whumpdoyoumean]

Whumptober #7

xxx the way you shake and shiver

They’re all piled around watching one of Rita’s streams and Juno, nestled against Nureyev with the man’s arm around his shoulders, can’t help but think that things just feel...right. Yeah, Jett has a black eye and Nureyev nearly broke his hand, but they got the parts to fix the ship’s computer and now, here they are. The stream Rita’s picked is particularly outrageous (how she consistently manages to convince all of them to watch these things is beyond Juno, and he loves it about her), but nevertheless has them all in stitches--even Vespa can be heard adding to the pleasant din. Everything feels right…

Until it doesn’t.

It starts with a nosebleed. Juno doesn’t feel it until it tickles the top of his lip. 

“Aw, dammit,” he says under his breath, pinching his nose to stem the flow.

“You alright, darling?” Nureyev murmurs into Juno’s hair, following the question with a kiss to the top of the head. 

“Yeah, I’m alright.” Juno sits up, head tilted back. “Just a nosebleed, I’ll be right back.”

“You want me to pause it?” Rita asks around a mouthful of popcorn.

Everyone turns as Juno disentangles himself from Nureyev. He lets out a chuckle. “You guys, it’s just a nosebleed, I’m fine.” Except that as he stands, he’s hit by a wave of dizziness and almost falls onto Nureyev’s lap (not that either of them would have minded that), catching himself with a hasty hand to the wall. He grimaces. “I’m fine.”

That’s when the pain starts, everywhere and all at once, and Juno’s never felt anything like it, the force and sheer intensity of it rendering him breathless and voiceless as his legs (his whole body, really) give way beneath him.The blood in his veins has turned to shards of icy glass, his skin to white hot fire, muscle and sinew seem to be rending apart and Juno should be dead, he knows he should be dead (that would be easier than this) but he isn’t, fuck why isn’t he dead--and then it’s over. He draws in a scraping, heavy breath and looks up, which is strange because he doesn’t remember falling. Vespa is crouching over him, Nureyev kneeling at his head running his long fingers through Juno’s curls. 

“That’s it,” he says. “That’s it, my love, very good. Breathe.” 

“What the hell just happened, Juno?” Vespa growls, her false anger a thin attempt at veiling her concern. 

What the hell did just happen? That’s a fucking good question. “I-I dunno I just--”

And then it’s back, just as sudden and just as painful as before and this time, Juno screams. 

xxx 

Juno’s back arches, his limbs going rigid as he lets out a raw, guttural scream, eye rolling back, and Nureyev’s heart jumps painfully in his chest. 

“Vespa--” he begins.

“I know!” she snaps. “I need to get him to the infirmary!”

“I’ll take him,” Jett says, and Nureyev doesn’t want to let him, for a moment, wants to bundle Juno into his own arms, to protect him. But Jet is stronger and Nureyev can feel the panic turning his legs weak, so he moves away a step to give the big man space and as he does his gaze shifts to Rita.

Her eyes are wide as Jet carefully lifts the still screaming Juno, lower lip wobbling as she stares in silent horror. Buddy moves in front of her and pulls the small woman in for a hug, though Nureyev can also see that she’s been strategic, with one of Rita’s ears pressed against Buddy’s chest and the other covered by Buddy’s hand--an attempt to muffle the horrible, soul shaking wails.

“Alright, let’s go. Ransom, you too.”

Nureyev turns back to see that Jet’s got Juno in his arms now, Juno whose only moments of quiet are when he has to stop for a breath. He looks at Buddy, who nods once, and then back at Vespa.

“Of course.”

They move through the halls quickly, Vespa firing questions at Nureyev as they go--does he have any allergies, had Nureyev noticed any symptoms in the hours after they got back to the ship, and this one over and over again--Did anything, anything, happen on the heist?

The answer to every question is the same: No. No, Vespa, I’m sorry no. 

Nureyev feels utterly useless. The feeling persists as they make it into the infirmary--Juno’s gone quiet again by that time, the screaming replaced by loud, rasping breaths as Jet sets him down on the gurney. 

“What…” Juno says as Vespa starts hooking him up to monitors. “What the fuck.” He looks over at Nureyev, eye wide with fear. 

“It’ll be alright, darling,” Nureyev says, reaching up to touch his cheek. He’s alarmed to find that the skin there is hot, but he tries not to let his fear show. “Here.” He grabs a cloth and gently starts to clean the blood away from Juno’s still-bleeding nose. “How are you feeling?”

“Something’s--something’s wrong,” Juno says, and the red that’s been leaking from his nose begins to trickle, slowly, from the corner of his eye.

And the screaming starts again, Juno’s hands curling into fists as he writhes in agony. It makes Nureyev’s insides tangle into knots. He envelops Juno’s hand in his own as Vespa bustles around.

“What the hell!” she growls, almost to herself. “His vitals are all over the place, temp’s through the roof, and the bleeding...What the hell is this?”

“Can you give him something?” Nureyev says.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Ransom. I don’t know what it is if I give him something it could make things worse…”

The awful wailing sobs die down again, this time due to Juno’s losing consciousness, and Nureyev looks up at Vespa in alarm. 

“Whatever this is, it's putting his body through hell,” Vespa says, answering the question Nureyev was too afraid to ask. “It’s not unusual for him to be unconscious. Hand me those scissors, I need to get his clothes off, do a full examination.”

“What are you looking for?” Nureyev asks as he hands her the scissors. 

She glances up at him. “Anything.” She starts at the bottom of his shirt, cutting upward, and then she stops, sharply, setting the scissors aside. She reaches up and turns Juno’s head, squinting at a small, slightly inflamed spot on his neck. “Like that.”

Nureyev looks up sharply. “What is it?”

“Injection site…”

“So someone did this to him.”

Vespa nods. “Looks like. I’m going to take some blood, start doing tests. You all ran into some trouble on your way back, isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” Nureyev answers. He keeps his answer short, worried that if he speaks any more then his voice will give him away. Fury is building, familiar and unsettling and dark.

“You think you could identify the people you fought with if you saw them again?”

“I am certain I could,” Jet says from the doorway. Nureyev has been so worried about Juno that he’d forgotten the big man was even there. 

“Good,” Vespa says. “You two need to get back down to that moon and find the bastards. I’ll do what I can to figure this out in the meantime, but-”

“But if you can’t figure it out you’ll need whoever injected him,” Nureyev finishes grimly. “I understand.” He plants a gentle kiss on Juno’s forehead, letting his lips linger on the too-hot skin for a moment before he pulls away and straightens. His hands tighten into fists almost against his will as he turns away from his beloved. 

“Hey, Ransom,” Vespa says, and Nureyev turns. She’s looking at him sternly, more so even than usual. “That rage you’re feeling is a good thing. Use that. But I need them alive. Steel needs them alive.”

And I need Juno alive, he thinks, but he just nods and takes Juno’s hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’ll be back soon, love. Hang on.”

xxx 

[blue-mood-blue]

Juno realizing that their 'date' is a cover for Nureyev casing a joint

“This is… fancy.”

Fancy isn’t the word for the room Juno’s standing in. They left “fancy” behind a few minutes ago with their coats in the foyer and walked right into “ostentatious” through gilded double-doors, showcasing a room sparkling with cut-crystal chandeliers and sweeping views of the city beneath them past enormous windows. It’s the kind of place that’s so sickeningly expensive that even the air smells… rich. No, perfumed - Juno can spot high-tech diffusers puffing out little clouds of scented spray in recessed grooves lining the walls, because heaven forbid the upper crust of society should have to smell their neighbor’s dinner. Or their own. Or anything at all besides artificial roses.

The finest restaurant on Neptune is exactly the kind of place where Juno would like to cause a little chaos, except…

“Only the best for you, love.”

…except it’s date night. The first date night Nureyev’s managed to carve out for them in a month, and Juno has already decided he’s going to go along with whatever event Nureyev has been planning so meticulously that Juno didn’t feel him stumble into bed until four in the morning.

“So ‘the best’ Ceres had to offer was a dive-bar, huh?” Juno is rewarded with exactly the expression he was looking for - a little flicker of a wicked smile, as though the two of them are sharing a joke. Juno focuses on that smile while a waiter dressed in nicer clothes than anything Juno even owns escorts them to a table by the window; if he can keep that smile as his only focus, enough to crowd out everything else around them, maybe he can enjoy this. He can enjoy spending time with Nureyev. That’s the whole point.

“I remember it being a little nicer,” Nureyev admits, pulling out a chair for Juno - and even if that’s unnecessary it’s sweet, and if Nureyev keeps putting those butterflies in Juno’s stomach that are supposed to be the kind of feeling you only get as a dumb teenager, well. It’s kind of worth all the ostentatious extra, right? “But as I recall, we had fun.”

“We got kicked out,” Juno adds, grinning, but he doesn’t disagree. They’d had fun. Because Nureyev wants to show Juno the stars and everything in between, and Juno wants to let him. Because it’s probably all worth seeing, if it means seeing it with Nureyev. Because Nureyev is still smiling that private smile across the table from him when he sits down, and Juno likes the butterflies for once.

The butterflies are struggling a little by the second course. It might be the diffuser directly to Juno’s left, spraying forced elegance in his face every ten minutes, or it might be the way Nureyev keeps looking over Juno’s shoulder. Juno’s not going to look. He’s not. It’s their goddamn date night, it’s the first time Juno’s gotten Nureyev alone for any significant amount of time in a goddamn month, and he is going to look at his date and keep his date looking at him for five goddamn minutes.

Nureyev stares into his eyes over a glass of wine. His gaze drifts slightly to the right. Juno spins around in his seat to look behind him.

“…Juno? Love, what are you doing.”

“What do you keep looking at?” There are tables filled with the wealthy elite. Juno can see a busboy cornered and clearly out of his depth as someone wearing an abundance of pearls probably berates him about inadequate service. Waitstaff walk in and out of a simpler set of double-doors.

“I don’t know what you mean.” When Juno turns back around, he’s just in time to see a hint of strain on one side of Nureyev’s smile. “I assure you, you have my complete attention.”

Juno stares him down. Nureyev’s gaze doesn’t waver. The diffuser helpfully spritzes a romantic scent over the table amid the tense silence.

It takes another course before Nureyev slips again, and this time Juno is quiet about it. He raises his wineglass slowly, takes in the reflection of the room behind them; it looks nearly the same as before, with the busboy at another table and the waitstaff moving as smoothly and professionally as automatons. Nureyev could be looking at any of the tables, but he’s not. If Juno has to guess, he’s looking at the busboy - tall and gangly enough that his age is hard to pin, nervous enough to be new and not easily recognizable at a glance. His route to the kitchen takes him past the same, unmarked doorway every time.

Juno puts down the glass. “What’re you here for.”

“You.” Nureyev’s eyes are sparkling, guileless, the picture of innocence… and the exact same expression he made two days ago when Juno asked who took his favorite sweater right out of his closet.

“So you’re not going to excuse yourself from the table in, oh, ten minutes or so when that party of four next to us gets up to go, ambush the busboy, and use the time it would take for a bathroom break to empty some pockets?” Juno smiles too, the same smile he had when he found his sweater folded up in an unused suitcase in Nureyev’s room.

Juno can read the moment on Nureyev’s face when he gives up the pretense of denying it. “You’re too clever for your own good by far,” he mutters into his wineglass instead. “And mine. I simply saw a pearl necklace worn by someone far less deserving than you - aren’t I allowed to surprise you anymore?”

Juno waits.

“…and we’re two tables away from that politician from Saturn.” He doesn’t have to explain; the intercepted intelligence that certain government officials were looking to cut deals for blackmarket microchip technology that wasn’t quite as dead as Juno would have hoped after its brief popularity in Hyperion was all Juno had been able to talk about for days. Nureyev had listened to all of it with unwavering focus. “I would have told you, Juno, but… I did want to surprise you. More’s the pity.” Nureyev seems rueful, but not disappointed. He rarely seems disappointed to watch Juno pick apart his plans with brutal efficiency.

Juno would be pissed, if he didn’t feel like laughing instead. Trust Peter Nureyev to try and give him the universe in every way he didn’t think to ask for. “Is this…?”

“The deal. In about… oh, ten minutes or so.” Nureyev’s smile is wicked, like they’re sharing a joke. “Be my distraction, my dear?”

And Juno, grinning, gets up to cause a little chaos.

[treezxu]

YES!!! I CAN!!! saw this notif and kind of went insane i am SO GLAD you asked... this is gonna be really long im sorry in advance but i want to get all the points leading up to and after mega ultrabots of cyberjustice because i think its not touched on enough. also i have not finished s5 ive just finished the recipe for distaster

okay so this is mostly based on how she talks to juno especially regarding his ideas and plans and how much danger they put him in as well as how shes USED to this and she KNOWS how easy it would be for him to die or get hurt. in soul of the people first is before she really knows juno's changed and is worried he's throwing his life away, we have this

shes instantly against it, even before she suggests it she doesnt really want to use a plan that puts him in danger because she cant trust that he'll consider his own wellbeing (which obv comes from the FIFTEEN YEARS that hes been.y know. throwing his life away) she doesnt TRUST him to actually care about his own life and after he was missing for like. a week. she obviously wasnt really super excited to lose him again.

the way juno comforts her is by insisting he knows she can help him out of it. if you think about it, ritas always trying to help him.

especially hcpd era+directly after

she helps him a lot shes used to it. and shes still helping him in soul of the people except this time he knows and its the only reason hes doing it. so then hes not throwing himself away which is good progress. but shes known him for a very long time

cut to carte blanche. junos a lot different. but that doesnt mean she wont worry about him, more that she doesnt have to as often. she knows him and nureyev have their whole thing and are getting along and no doubt she can see hes a lot happier.

literally mentions its good for her heart and shes glad that juno has someone like him

but like. she still WANTS to help. shes literally a secretary and his hacker and his best friend whos seen him at some of his worst points like right after the hcpd.

in ultrabots, they dont really. need her help. shes very smart and shes very skilled and she works fast. so once shes done with her only job its like. yeah. okay. but she wants to help its what she does usually.

shes also BORED and LIKES helping and feeling useful and good. especially for her family

so theres the origin of her wanting to help everyone now when we go back to cyberbots, thats pretty much the gist of it i wanna say?

she mentions wanting to make everyone feel better. shes been mostly hanging around juno for the past fifteen years since they work together and all and hes been depressed for so long, of course she wants to make sure everyone is feeling good and not stressed out of their minds. while also wanting to be appreciated

which reminds me of these lines. when you find people who want you around, you want to be good enough for them especially if nobody takes you seriously. juno says several times that rita isnt stupid. because he knows she isnt. but people tend to not take her seriously because of how she acts and she feels like shes not good enough alone. and this whole trip was her thing alone which means its upsetting that it doesnt work out right.

her main issue in ultrabots is that she kept it secret. its that she wanted to do it alone to prove she could. she didnt get any advice from anyone else because she wanted to be the one helping her friends and keeping them safe, yknow? she wanted this to be her thing to both a) relieve stress ont he people she cares about, and b) feel like a useful and worthwhile member of the team.

and then she gets upset when it doesnt work and everythings kind of falling apart. someone saying one nice thing to her was enough to get her thinking again (which kind of happened in the scene where juno first meets her. he calls her back and shes instantly settled in again. she wants to help out!!)

once she figures out how to get htem out of that mess shes really excited and i think its very important that this focused on her hacking and not her robot shenanigans. because hacking is her thing

and she admits it!!! that she took too much onto herself (which she accused juno of doing in soul of the people) and that lead to tons of holes in the plan

and then we get to buddy ofc!!

if shed told buddy, it wouldve worked out! she talks to jet and he has his "things just worked out" line that i think is relevant to all this in a way.

then we have chill things. she invites him to watch a movie like in the hcpd.

very sweet. theyre back to how they were when they first came to the carte blanche.

she offers the idea to juno but she doesnt offer to come with him. just puts it out there for him!

this whole part makes me ill in general. but shes almost like juno was in soul of the people. assuring him she'll be careful and it won't take long and nothing bad will happen. shes only doing it because she feels like she has to and she understands why he might be concerned about her (in ultrabots she told literally nobody else about that plan as a fall thru in case it went wrong)

not only that but shes upset about having to do this and its less about feeling useful and more about getting in and getting it done so they can all be safe. she doesnt willingly throw her life away like juno before but rather she doesnt think plans all the way through. but she believes she has this one thought thru because its simple to her.

possibly not the best example of her development but i think just in general post carte blanche she takes things more seriously ILL GET TO THE GOOD EXAMPLES SOON please bear with me i have so much to say....

she also tries to explain what shes doing to juno here but he wont listen so thats on him 😭😭😭

so im skipping everything else because its not suuuper relevant? all the way up to the clean break

now rita hasnt heard from juno since his comms broke in infernal grind ofc. and this has HAPPENED TO HER BEFORE. where she lost all contact with him. where hes just gone for days and she has no way of talking to him. no way of knowing if hes safe. but she sits back and trusts him to act. its only wehn she feels like he might need helpthat she stepped in. and instead of doing some flashy plan, she simply called up the people. a call that could not just be easily traced back and one that could be brushed off because if juno and vespa HADNT needed it, it wouldnt do any harm to them.

she doesnt even hesitate! she trusts him now. so much more than she did in soul of the people.

itsnot super high stakes but in the vanishing act, she again just trusts him enough to leave him alone on the stakeout. the most she says is be careful after he got shot at which is typical of her. now that she knows the people she loves are safe and that juno especially is more careful with his life, she doesnt need to worry as much.

in this we know she discussed her plan with juno this time!! yay!!!

now i've run out of image space. uh. head in hands. i'll just have to copy paste quotes from here on out.

RITA: (MOUTH FULL) So what d'you think, Mista Steel? Did I do a good job? JUNO: Sounds great so far. And you checked out the crime scene for me, too?

This stuff is all discussed! She's open and listens to him and the deviation from it was literally just cereal. She's not working ridiculously hard to do everything on her own and prove herself. Which I also feel is partly because of being wiht just Juno instead of a whole family to worry about but yknow

JUNO (NARRATOR): She went off like that, chanting our three leads under her breath to make them sticky in her memory. I was antsy waiting for Rita to get back, but not because I was worried. Give Rita a direction and tell her to go and she'll nail it every time. You've just gotta be clear about the direction you ask her for.

^^^^ Just this whole thing tbh. Reinstating that she is trustworthy which she was not in mega ultrabots. (or prince of mars tbh!! Which was mostly just because of silly mistakes but still. he knows he can rely on her)

In the recipe for disaster she's very put together and does almost everything the way juno asked.

this stuff seems all very small but in the end Rita's not the kind of character who has a giant change like juno. her problems are generally smaller and less obvious. its little things that im pointing out and so some of this might be reaching. but its still there and i think its important. comparing her relationship w juno from season 1 to season 5 is very special to me. I think their trust all developed gradually and it shows if you ask me.

AND. YOU WANNA KNOW A GREAT AWESOME EXAMPLE OF THAT?

The rita minute. where she tries to fix the stature all alone. ritas detective agency. guess what ritas doing in that entire episode! Helping JUNO!!!! BY TAKING CONTROL OF THE AGENCY!!!!!! And she messes up because she refuses to listen to other people's ideas. so its not out of the blue its just more obvious and the rita minute for junos bday where she tries to put together a whole party all alone. in the fourth rita minute its way more focused on rita herself so we're not talking abt them but you catch my drift? all those and then mega ultrabots and then rita letting juno steer her when she needed it. the last line i have before i run out of examples (i'll come back to this once i finish the finale if theres anythign to add i promise <3) is first of all

JUNO: Don't worry about it. But... is this thing all set up? Am I ready to go in? RITA: You remember the plan? JUNO: Of course I remember the plan. It was my goddamn plan. RITA: All right, Mista Steel, then I'll be here waitin' for your call. Just... be careful in there, okay? JUNO: I will. Talk to you soon. RITA: Byeeeee.

She doesn't try to help. she trusts his judgement and lets him go in. just asks him to be careful and she trusts he will be (unlike in soul of the people) and then she steps in when she has to with the zero gravity room.

now not all of these are 100% reliable again. some are more high stakes than others (soul of the people is right after juno vanishes. and literally everyone there is trying to turn them into mindless robots) and some are definitely a reach. but i still think they play a part in their own little ways and i think its important to at least acknowledge she matures between season 1 and season 5. but i might just be insane about her. some of these also might just be redundant all i can do is hope i articulated myself well enough that you understand where im coming from at least! i love rita a lot im glad i have an excuse to talk about hre and i am so sorry for how long this ended up just to make a point that i think she got more reasonable in season 4 and 5.

and finally, the rita minutes. theres not one! not after the fourth. which wasnt about her need to do good and and keep people safe. it was just her struggling with her sexuality. i just. love her so soso much

saw someone say ultrabots didnt affect ritas characterization and i think its time for me to get normal and okay

[commander-minkowski]

I relistened to Man in Glass the other day, and I have a theory about Peter's debt. A few things jumped out at me when I heard this episode again:

Nureyev doesn't know what the Board of Fresh Starts is. This makes the idea of him having medical debt very unlikely, though it is a logical first guess. Even if he wasn't in debt to the Board specifically, with the oligopoly the pharma corps have, I have a hard time believing Peter "memorize every square inch of the building" Nureyev wouldn't have at least a passing familiarity with his debtors' major competition.

Brahma keeps coming up. "Floating city," "rule one of thieving," "when I was a child on New Kinshasa." Of all the things Nureyev has "filed away for future consideration," Brahma is a marked exception -- which is a little odd. It was a hugely traumatic experience; why not compartmentalize the heck out of it? Plus, the music in the final scene of Man in Glass part 2, when Juno is apologizing, is either identical to or is meant to closely evoke the music from the New Kinshasa square that played in Angel of Brahma. To me, this says that either a) Nureyev associates New Kinshasa music with Juno, because Juno heard it while in Nureyev's mind, or b) Nureyev generally associates New Kinshasa music with sentimentality, contrition, kindness, and love.

When Nureyev asks Buddy what his "calling card" as a thief is, she says: "An enduring moral core, coupled with a strong desire to excise that core completely. Demonstrated, of course, by a consistent pattern of pro-bono work followed up by a lot of con-bono -- like having a heart embarrasses you."

All this makes me think that Peter's debt has something to do with Brahma and New Kinshasa. And the more I think about it, the more I like this idea:

On a meta level, Takabert aren't likely to set us up with an unsolvable mystery. Sure, they've revealed small things with little-to-no set up, but all the big season arcs to date have been heavily foreshadowed. Brahma is the big thing we know about Nureyev's past -- I don't think it's unreasonable to expect it to come back into play during his Season 3 arc.

This scenario holds a lot of potential for juicy, character-driven conflict. Brahma ties into Nureyev's inner conflict over his moral core -- personally, I'm fond of the idea that he's bribing Brahmian officials to prevent things like the Guardian Angel System from happening; it's for a moral goal, but it doesn't have the "do-gooder" energy that, say, donating to a soup kitchen, has, and that Nureyev is probably allergic to.

Returning to his Brahma playbook in What Lies Beyond ("when trouble arises, I disappear") implicitly reinforces a parallel to his past.

Also, playing off the residual loyalty Nureyev has to Brahma vs. his new loyalty to the Aurinko Crime Family could be a very attractive angle for Dark Matters to exploit -- I would be all over that if I were them. And since, to quote Buddy again, "the nameless thief has made quite a name for himself," it's not a huge stretch that the Brahma incident is also on Dark Matters' radar.

And a conflict like this, between an old loyalty and a new one, would be a little spicier than Nureyev simply betraying the crew for a chance to pay his debts.

Now, this last point is a little bit of a stretch, but I'll still say it: along with the big cliffhanger of Dark Matters showing up, WLBp1 also left us with a little cliffhanger -- "who was Peter Nureyev's first love?" Like Juno, most of the audience (including myself) immediately assumed this was about romantic love, and again, this is a fine first guess. What if it's more metaphorical, though -- like the people of Brahma, or the planet itself? This sounds pretty cheesy even to me tbh, but I think it could potentially be a cool little twist.

Basically ... I think Nureyev's past with Brahma is gonna come back in a big way, and it's gonna be deliciously painful, and I'm SO READY.

[smidgen-of-hotboy]

Op you are right and valid and trust me you are not alone.

I have not been keeping up with SC this season (focused on Junoverse tho I am doing a SC relisten rn to catch up) but I was very fucking confused with Grandpappy's Recipe happened and both Juno and Rita where talking about Nureyev as some con-man who always seduces his targets. It felt very disingenuous to chalk him up as The Homme Fatale. Granted- Kabert has talked about Nureyev as being a homme fatale since season 1, but throwing this line in after season 3 felt so wrong.

There's a massive gap between the characters we met back in S1 to now. Juno has grown a bunch and his relationship with Rita has been so sweet to watch develop over the course of the podcast. The Rita Special feels like a detail that they've wanted to include for either: A) a long time now and had no good place time to use it or B) a new idea that they wanted to include no matter what.

In my opinion:

Slip Jackson (love him but he's gotta go) threw a whole monkey wrench into Kabert's writing. He is the corner they backed themselves into and are now desperately trying to write themselves out of. I literally do not remember much about Season 4 between Slip and Nureyev and the Dokana group.

Kabert did not expect to develop Junoverse or SC into five seasons. Penumbra started as an anthology. So of course now that we are five seasons in, the disaster that was S4 happened, and they're trying to end it- there's a lot of pressure probably to tie up as many loose ends as possible.

(Follow up to 1 and 2) The "Nureyev owes a lot of debt" plotline was not in mind during S1 when we first meet him. Not as Rex Glass, and not later on in Train from Nowhere, Angel of Brahma, or Final Resting Place. Slip was also not in mind at all during S1. He wasn't even a concept yet probably. Again, he is a corner they wrote themselves into.

Juno and Peter's dynamic has always been like this. They do have good chemistry together. They can work well with one another. I really just think we've taken Nureyev with his head up his ass and maxed it out so we (the audience) are getting this weird Juno perslective of him trying trying trying and getting nowhere. He said it himself "I always get my man" and most recently talking to Nureyev about how he rescued the others and brought them home all except for him, "You’re the last one." There's been a lot of talk this season "will the story end in tragedy??" bc Kabert's original mission statement was to write queer stories for queer audiences without tragedy. And I for one, am firmly in the field of "it will end with a time skip".

This season (at least with Junoverse, again, haven't caught up with SC) does feel janky. And it makes me frustrated trying to listen back, but in the moment during my first listen of each episode this season, I suspend my disbelief just long enough to get by. True justice for the Junoverse story at this point, I feel, would be to go back and re-master all of Season 1 and rewrite it. It might then make Nureyev’s current actions make sense. It would really fucking help the current plot.

Spoilers for Season 5 below!!

Okay I’m gonna say this with literally so much love for the Penumbra Podcast and everyone involved in the podcast but-

Season 5 is weird, right? I can’t really describe how it feels, not well, but…

It’s like… it’s like all of the characters and the storylines shifted to the left a bit, but we didn’t really get any reason for it? In the Juno storyline, the Grandpappy’s Recipe episode is where it stands out the most to me - Peter’s attempt at gaining the recipe opened an eye into some new dimension for me, for example. Genuinely convincing someone he’s in love with them, conning someone for literal months… that’s never ever seemed like Peter’s style. He’s an in-and-out man. And Grandpappy was so, so sure, too. When did Peter start manipulating people like that so effectively? I knew he was good, but… this feels bad. Like, he feels bad. I have never gotten the sense that Peter was a genuinely bad person before. Stuck in a terrible situation, yes. But… bad? No.

And the way Juno only lingers on Peter’s con for literally only a second feels so off to me too. Because by the start of the next episode, he’s gone straight back into business mode, and concentrated on finding Nureyev. Juno has become kinder in these years, but I have never felt he was a fool. And yet. He doesn’t… he doesn’t actually give any thought to it, not really?? Like. I don’t- I don’t get it. The way he handles the whole thing between Nureyev and Slip, too, especially after Nureyev says he doesn’t want to see him anymore.

And can we talk about how weird it is that the Docana group managed to go years without anyone finding out they’ve been up-lifing or revivifying or whatever they call it so many people? I genuinely didn’t understand the surprise there, I’m so sorry (this is not sarcasm, I’m genuinely sorry for making an overly bold claim).

And can we look at the way that Juno and Rita are somehow closer than they’ve ever been, but Rita is suddenly so much edgier than she ever was before. She’s so much less bubbly than she ever was before. “But!” You cry, “she just finished being an intergalactic fugitive, of course she’s edgy!” Except she was an intergalactic fugitive for a WHILE and she was still acting like… well, like a kid in a candy shop, mostly. And to me, there are instances where it seems like her character has almost been back-filled, like they’re trying to make it look like she’s always been this way. The “Rita Special” comes to mind (although I might be reading into this one, it just feels really weird to me).

Also, there are dialogue decisions that I can’t make sense of. The way that Warner Jane is literally talking about Freedom in Chains, and the Prisma Crystal Chimes, and THEN refers to it as “this other show I’m putting on” before re-describing it as Freedom in Chains? I don’t get that. Things like that have been happening a lot this season, at least from what I can tell.

I can’t make sense of the storyline. Every episode feels completely different from the last, and all the characters feel off. It’s… it almost feels like I’m trying to jump between really tilted and oddly-spaced steps when I listen. It’s like… it’s like the plot is setting us up for a breakup between Peter and Juno, but then the way they talk to one another / Juno narrates about Peter is like they’re still going to try to be together after everything? It’s… it’s weird.

And then Second Citadel!

They’re dealing with a literal apocalypse, and it’s like… everyone was losing their minds in the standard way, and then it’s like they took an invisible off-ramp from the highway.

Can we talk about Quanyii? What HAPPENED to them? I know they lost their mind in the Mirrored Plains. I get it. But they strangled Damien? But the insanity that is killing the child they’ve literally known for going on 8 years? What? Caroline fighting her own wife?? Excuse me???

And Damien in the Indomitable Duelist is OFF. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but something is very obviously WRONG with him. He started acting nutty the second he got to Rilla and Tal in the Senate’s dungeons. Like… so desperate? And crazy? The high-pitched voice, the losing track of sentences, the distraction - all of it is so wrong to me. (That might be a plot device for later, so please don’t yell at me)

Arum is locked in Mark’s basement, which like - don’t even get me started on that, because I will literally never stop screaming about it, but even that feels wrong. How can Mark - the same guy who rescued Olala, who treated her as the child she was, and recognized her as such, straight up imprison his best friend’s love interest? I know it’s been 8 years. I know. But it’s really, really weird.

And that’s not even focusing on the actual plot line, which is, for the record, WILD. I love it, I really do, I also don’t get it and I don’t know if I ever will. I cannot fathom how they will save their entire universe from the attack that is coming. I do not get it. We are playing with forces beyond my ken, but it seems to me like the situation is… literally hopeless. The entire rest of all the universes, however many there are, are dead set on the destruction of this one, tiny universe. How can anyone possibly hope to fight that? I understand that our characters have no choice except to fight. But we as listeners - we have to recognize that it’s like… kind of futile, right? Is that what this ending is leading to? Futility?

I just. I really can’t figure out how either of these stories are supposed to go anymore.

One of the things I have always loved about the Penumbra Podcast is that while you never get the ending you expect, it always ends sort of hopefully, or at least with some kindness. Yes, Juno walks out at the end of Season 1, but he’s not leaving Hyperion. Second Citadel season 2 has everyone in a really bad spot, but the gang leaves the citadel for better lives. It’s sad, but it’s better, because life moves on and people move on. In this season… I feel like I can’t find that. I feel like I’m expecting some dramatic out of character 180 (in Juno) / a huge over-powered magic trick (in SC) to fix the plot, or else both plots are going to end in heartbreak and futility and sadness.

I feel like I never left the April Fool’s episode.

Please, please understand, I love this podcast so much, I am not trying to hate on anyone or anything. This podcast means so much more to me than I can possibly express. I’m just really confused, I guess? And I’m wondering if anyone else is also confused? Or if someone can explain things? Please, please, if I am wrong, or confused, or completely stupid - someone please tell me what I am missing. Please tell me I’m interpreting things wrong, and how to see it right.

[stubbornjerk]

gods and men

Consider being a king: having power over people, your birthright, not having to deal with the intricacies of choices. 

Consider having a surplus of things instead of having debts.

Rex Glass carries the power of a commanding king who doesn’t deal with the fallout and has the wealth to show for it. It distances him, keeps him above the norm.

Now, consider a king meeting a goddess and, for the first time in his life, he kneels. He yields. He lets go of the real and thinks about the fantastic. “Who knows what kind of trouble we could cause?” “It will be quite an adventure. I’ll be waiting for you to join me.”

Rex Glass fumbles and off trips Peter Nureyev from his throne.

He tries to recover, of course, but he can’t quite climb back up to that, that level of distance from his foundation. Juno Steel is a goddess among men and Nureyev wants to be as close as he can.

A Duke is much closer, thinks. He pays his dues to a higher power, still lives lavishly, spends grandly, but he is much closer to man.

Calling Juno a duchess feels like a cop-out. Of course, nothing could be as pretty as Juno but perhaps the symbolism of a Dahlia could do. A rose red one for power and strength, for commitment and other such things. It would have gone better if they got to play the parts for longer but ah, c’est la vie. One can never hide the prowess of a god under something as flimsy as a flower.

Except. Juno doesn’t want him to play at Duke. Calls him Nureyev, reminds him of his status, his place. He’s fallible before he becomes powerful and standing any higher will topple him quicker.

So, he returns to form, stays on his foundations. And instead of staying, Juno leaves.

Nureyev regresses further back, bitterly remembering that above all– a king, a duke, a person– he is a thief. He was a son. He was someone who’d succeeded his title and maintained his status. Nureyev doesn’t know what he wants. Nureyev has been dead longer than he was alive Nureyev isn’t even an entire person. 

But Peter Ransom was. 

Peter Ransom wants a place to call his own, wants to thieve his way across the galaxy, wants notoriety and the approval of someone more experienced.

Peter Ransom wants and is given... the chance to pretend at royalty. A Dauphin, son about to inherit something grand. Ransom is forced to confront this idea of what master thieves do and don’t do, are and aren’t, to look his past in its dead eyes and try to romanticize it. 

And he can’t. Thieving is coming to bigger and grander things and Peter Ransom– no. Peter Nureyev wants more.

Peter Nureyev wanted a father and a purpose, wanted to mean something to someone. And after everything that happened, Peter Nureyev wants a home. He wants to belong, to be a part of something bigger than himself.  And this place, this ship, had given it to him. Steal a legend, save the universe.

So, when his goddess comes knocking on his door, soft-eyed and wary and apologetic and in love and so temptingly human, Peter Nureyev stays himself, a fallible man, with nothing to his name but debts and a cracked foundation, and thinks of rebuilding.

[solarianvoidthearoace]

Excerpt#3 of JuPeter Vampire!AU

CN/TW: friendly insults/mocking, discussion of past brawl, misunderstanding of said friendly insults/threats, brief implication of Juno being a trophy wife, friendly challenging

“So you are the lady that occupied the best thief in the entire region for over two months now”, she rested her elbows atop the counter, leaning in to scrutinize Juno. After a while she nodded in apparent approval,

“Alright, come right around Pete, the family’s waiting in the back room.” Straightening back up to her full height, she made her way to said door behind the bar counter. Curious and a bit intimidated, Juno followed by Nureyev’s hand. The back room was surprisingly better lit than the main room of the tavern, a small round table dead center, with three people waiting for them.

“Thief! Long time no see, what brought your mug back in here this time?”, a woman with green hair greeted. It was the fond kind of depreciation that carried in her raspy voice.

“As you can see, I brought lovely company I felt the need to introduce to you. Though I apparently was wrong about all of us being criminal socialites, as he doesn’t recall having heard of the Captain”, Nureyev sat down first, in a room where everyone except for him and Juno seemed to be armed purely by habit. Okay, Juno didn’t know wether Nureyev wasn’t armed, it was a habit he shared, after all, but he at least left his revolver in the mansion.

“Told you not to call me Captain, Pete, I never was your captain and haven’t carried that title in years”, the bar owner sat down next, without leaving a chair empty between her and Nureyev.

“I suppose introductions will be in order then, since Ransom’s companion does not seem to have been told about us beforehand”, the remaining person, a giant of a man, joined them at the table, leaving one chair to the Captain’s left and another one between him and Nureyev.

Juno looked cautiously around the table, his eyes locking on that green-haired woman for a bit, before he took his seat next to Nureyev.

“Doctor, would you kindly join us? I remember you being the one to establish the rule that everyone has to sit if one person sits down first. Wasn’t it about fairness in case a fight breaks loose?”, he waved at the remaining chair.

The doctor scoffed,

“And who’s fault is it we needed that damn rule, eh, Ransom? You’re lucky we work well together and my wife likes you”, she slumped into the seat, crossing her arms.

“So, introductions. I think I should disclose something first”, the Captain smirked a bit,

“I know who you brought along, Pete. One Juno Steel, vampire hunter and detective. I had Jet look into him back when he wasn’t yet agreeing with himself whether to ever leave Hyperion. So, Juno, darling, you seem to be the only one at a disadvantage of knowledge here”, the Captain leaned back.

Nureyev rolled his eyes, sighed and smoothed out his waistcoat before turning to Juno,

“Apparently the honors are mine to introduce what I already told you is this town’s ragtag gangle of criminal legends. This red-haired lady here is Captain Buddy Aurinko”, the Captain’s glare at the title didn’t go unnoticed,

“And next to her is her prickly but highly competent wife, Doctor Vespa Ilkay. And last but not least, Mister Jet Siquliak. As to what our areas of expertise are -“ Juno’s raised hand interrupted him.

“The Captain Aurinko you have been talking about like an old friend for months is Buddy Aurinko? The Buddy Aurinko?! And Vespa Ilkay, as in, the Vespa, infamous assassin and other half of legendary criminal duo Buddy and Vespa. You are on first-name-base with the legendary Vespa and Buddy and you didn’t feel the need to tell me?!” The room fell silent at that.

It was Buddy who spoke first,

“So you have heard of us, darling, that’s good to know.” Juno rubbed at his temple,

“Of course I have heard of you! Sure, I worked as a monster hunter, not exactly a career where pirates and thieves concerned me, but obviously I have heard of you. I mean, who hasn’t? Your desertion from the naval fleet was before I even picked up my first gun but, wow, yea, definitely a criminal legend!”, he turned to Vespa next,

“And you’re basically legendary for revolutionizing field medicine, pretty much every monster hunter in business fell back onto your methods to make it out at one point. And yea, I have heard about some of the kills you managed, holy hell, some of that still sounds impossible to me.” When he finished, Juno noticed the others’ expectant look on him and blinked.

“Ah, so I take it you haven’t heard of Jet, darling”, Buddy took over, leaning onto the table and looking at Juno, who shook his head.

“Jet here used to be someone”, she seemed to be searching for a word,

“Dangerous. There are several novels based around what he was up to in his youth but to us the past is past and all you need to know is that he’s a very capable thief and burglar.”

“So, ageless thief”, Vespa spoke up,

“Why did you bring your lady here? If he’s with you it can’t be that he’s desperate to get a job.” Nureyev grinned at that, a hint of danger in the way he showed his teeth,

“If what my grandfather Peter Nureyev accumulated in wealth can sustain me easily enough, why shouldn’t my lady love profit from that as well?” Juno had to suppress a shudder at how easily Nureyev lied about his true name. Also it didn’t sit right with him that Nureyev put up the facade of a rich kid born into wealth. Juno knew better, after all.

Because the memories he had seen of Nureyev were before he even reached adulthood and therefor probably one and a half decades before he was turned. It hadn’t been pretty, Nureyev had grown up as poor as can be, barely scraping by before being taken in by -

“Juno?”, Nureyev gave him a quizzical look.

“I’m sorry, I got hung up on a thought. What did I miss?”

“Pete just mentioned you would like to get back into shooting”, Buddy gave him yet another scrutinizing look,

“I heard you were brilliant with a revolver and I’m sure we might just be able to get you back on track towards former glory. I would be your training partner, coaching you through getting confident with a gun again.” At that she brushed back her hair, uncovering half her face and the eyepatch that had lain hidden behind the red curls. Juno didn’t miss a beat,

“That’s such a great offer, thank you.” Vespa snorted,

“If you happen to really become half-decent again, we might be able to get you even more of a way to kill time. Getting you out of that ratty old mansion and back out into the world. Might even earn enough to gain independence from that cocky, posh rich kid.” Peter simply rolled his eyes at that, probably used to insults regarding his supposedly inherited wealth in context of his career choice.

Juno on the other hand couldn’t help but growl,

“I’m staying with him because I want to. Because of him, actually. I would probably be three towns over by now if we hadn’t run into each other in this very tavern. Unexpected reunion? Sure. But you can stick what you’re implying there right up your -“, Peter clearing his throat interrupted him.

“Juno, dear, thank you very much for defending both our honor but rest assured, Doctor Ilkay was just bantering”, he gave Vespa a side-eye and his tone changed,

“Probably even trying to look into your intentions with me. A protective sentiment, as unnecessary as it may be.”

“But -!”, this time Vespa’s snort and cackling broke him off before he could get on with it.

“Loosen your tighty whities, Steel. You know why you couldn’t place it if Ransom even mentioned me by the name of Doctor Ilkay? Is because it’s recent”, she shrugged, leaning forward in her chair and onto the table,

“I would’ve to be real stupid to get up in arms against the man who financed me finishing my medical degree. Also from what I heard his grand-daddy Peter Nureyev was from a similar shithole to the one that spat me out, tried changing the system back there, became a folk hero and ended up here, somehow.”

Vespa shook her head, as if trying to make sense of that, before she gave a one-armed shrug and gesture by way of what have you,

“And yea, I called Ransom a cocky arse, because he is, but somehow it’s almost as if he remembers his old man’s roots. Posh rich kid, sure, but somehow with those ideals and morals the old Nureyev had. Not that I ever met the man, though Buddy and I sure are old enough that we should’ve ran into him at least once.” From Juno’s point of view there was a whole lot to unpack in just those last sentences. He felt like he needed to ask Nureyev how the hell that even worked out if Buddy was the one supplying him with literally bottled blood.

But for now, Juno somehow felt really welcome between these people he had only heard of before today. And that reminded him,

“I came to town with my research expert and best friend, Rita -“, Jet cut him off this time.

“Yes, Miss Rita has been introduced to us. We offered her to stay at the rooms in the back of this building, living along with us. Captain Buddy already gave her something to work on which is why she is not with us to greet you.” Surprised as he was, Juno made a noise of acknowledgment.

“Darling, if the Registry does get back to her, you’ll be the next person to know of it. As you might have noticed, word travels fast in small towns and even faster in this one with an established criminal network.” At Buddy’s words, Nureyev smirked and rested his chin on his palm,

“The wondrous ways of the Cerberus Province, isn’t it lovely to be a criminal socialite?” His teeth and his glasses glinted sharply in the light of the room, Vespa snorted, Buddy sighed and Juno felt that maybe this was some sort of family to Nureyev. A family that he had been anxious about for Juno to meet them.

A family, as it turned out, that was all too happy about it’s newest two members. Juno and Buddy made a habit and a statement of meeting twice a week for their firearm training. Rita and Jet became rather inseparable, at least Juno couldn’t remember the last time he had seen one without the other around the Lighthouse. Even Vespa warmed up to the occupational monster hunter, in her rough way of showing it.

“Peter is treating you well, isn’t he, darling?”, Buddy casually started between rounds of shooting. Juno raised a brow, for someone who he had barely met two months ago, she was rather motherly towards him in particular.

“He’s taking good care of me, yea”, Juno couldn’t help his smile if he had wanted to,

“To think he had offered me this life a year ago already, it’s a dizzying thought. But I also think I’m fine with how things went.” Buddy gave him a once-over, looking for something apparently. Whether or not she found it, or even what it was, he couldn’t tell when she spoke again.

“You have made yourself quite the powerful friend, darling. I hope you know as much besides your obvious appreciation for the rest of all that he is”, she leaned back on her stool, relaxing against the table behind her.

“The way I see it, it’s powerful friends. Plural. I never would have thought to even get to meet you and Vespa and now see where I’m standing”, Juno shrugged,

“I’m happy and appreciative to have met all of you. Rita was the only family I have known for so long and now I get to have -”, he had to take a breath, wiping at his eye and resting those fingers against his temple,

“I finally have a family again.” From the warm smile Buddy directed at him, she knew that very sentiment, having carved out her own corner of the world, planted her feet and declared it the Buddy Aurinko Crime Family.

“Ransom should be on his way back by now, what do you say we wrap this up for today?”, she stood, walking past him to the target area of what they had gradually made into a decent shooting range.

“Of course after you hit this”, she held up a playing card for him to see, before taking one of her hairpins and fixing it to the target they had been using. Juno saw her counting the steps on her way back, while he slowed his breath and readied his revolver.

“A two-and-a-half by three-and-a-half inch playing card. To be hit from a 32 feet distance”, she held up the rest of the deck,

“I’m not gonna be picky, darling, I just want you to hit it at all. Afterwards you can go, run off to that dear lover of yours returning home”, if her voice was more teasing than usual, so be it.

“Come on, don’t be shy. Two days ago you managed to hit the target at 25 meters distance dead center. A lady who can celebrate is a lady who can get a shot in on a playing card”, with that Buddy went back to the table, taking her seat. Juno huffed, a snarky reply on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t as if she had invited him on a drink for that bull’s eye or anything, was it now?

[gerrystamour]

hi! I loved your first jupeter fill, your writing with them being sweet together is so heartwarming <3 I was wondering if you'd write Juno waking up from a nightmare about what happened in the Martian tomb and Peter comforting him? (maybe in an AU where Juno didn't leave or they somehow reconciled pre S3, or on the carte blanche and he just hasn't gotten over the whole thing yet, whatever background context you'd like :D)

Thank you so much for your request!

A FEW NOTES:

The scars I describe on Nureyev are similar to the Lichtenberg figure scars that nex_et_nox described in their amazing fic get up, shake the rust which y'all should read immediately.

There is a brief discussion about depression and canon past suicidal thoughts and Juno's attempt to end his own life.

-

Peter was awoken by an elbow slamming into his gut and knocking the wind from him.

His hand slid under his pillow instinctively, only to find his knife missing. No, not missing—Peter hadn’t slept with a knife under his pillow since he started spending the night in Juno’s quarters weeks ago. 

So he forced himself to wake up fully, sitting up and readying himself for a fight. However, when Peter managed to blink the sleep from his eyes and squint around the dark room, he couldn’t see anything that could explain the blow that had woken him up. For several moments, Peter panicked thinking another shape-shifting bot had ended up on board, except this one was sent to kill them.

Then Juno twitched and moaned next to him and his attention immediately shifted.

Juno was usually a fairly steady bed partner, warm and soft and perfect for snuggling up to and keeping the chill from Peter’s bones. The former detective didn’t keep a decent sleep schedule by any means, and he slept lightly most nights, but he was usually very still. He said it came from stake-outs, when he had to spend long hours in uncomfortable places where he could only take power naps.

But now, his entire body flinched and writhed with whatever dream occupied him. If Peter hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought it was one of those very good dreams, with the way Juno panted and whimpered. But Juno’s eyebrows were pinched together, sweat beaded across his forehead and upper-lip and coating his throat and chest. There was a downward tilt to the corners of his mouth, and when he opened it to groan, the sound was pained and mournful.

“Juno, love,” Peter said shakily, hesitant to touch him lest he wake up violently. 

Juno merely gasped at the sound of Peter’s voice and whimpered. 

“No,” Juno moaned low in his chest before he let out a sob and lifted a hand to cover his right eye, or where it had been. “Quit it.”

“Juno you have to wake up!” Peter said firmly, hovering a hand over his lover’s shoulder, ready to grab and shake him if he didn’t wake up or settle on his own. “Juno, please!”

When Juno yelled in a way Peter hadn’t heard him do since the Martian tomb, it clicked—the last thing they had discussed before bed had been the weeks they spent at Miasma’s mercy together. 

Juno had traced the branching burn scars where the electrified diodes had been attached to Peter’s arms, back, chest, and stomach over the course of their imprisonment. Of course, he hadn’t sustained all of the injuries at the same time. It was a new wound, a new burn, and a new scar for every day he stayed there. 

Back then, they had been angry, ugly things, surrounded by further branching where his blood vessels had burst, almost like bruises across his skin. After nearly two years, the parts of his injuries Peter had actually thought were perhaps pretty if he squinted had faded away, and he had been left with the raised, discoloured burn scars.

Juno had stared at the map of pain across his skin earlier that evening, seeing them for the first time since they were fresh and angry. He touched each scar gently with sure fingers, guilt etched across his face and quiet apologies falling from his lips, which Peter refused to accept.

“If I didn’t screw up so much—” 

“Juno, she would have hurt me regardless. She was very angry with me.” 

“But I—” 

“Do not carry what she did to me, Juno. I did not blame you then, nor did i blame you after, and I certainly do not blame you now.”

When Peter had drifted off to sleep, Juno had been tracing the scars on his chest, his expression serious and thoughtful. At least, at the time Peter had interpreted it as thoughtful, but in hindsight he knew it had been guilt still eating Juno up from the inside.

With a calming breath, Peter grabbed Juno’s shoulder and shook him. “Juno—ah!”

Juno woke with a flurry of movement, a hand flashing up to grab Peter’s wrist and flipping them. Now straddling his stomach and pinning his wrist to the pillows, Juno loomed over Peter with wild eyes and his chest heaved with his panting breaths. Peter laid still beneath him, not for a second concerned for his safety, and waited for Juno to shake off the dusty, Martian tomb.

“‘Reyev?” Juno asked as he returned to the present, his brow furrowing as he swallowed and looked around his quarters. He looked back down at Peter and, realizing the position they now sat in, gasped out, “Oh shit, what happened?”

“You were having a nightmare, my love,” Peter said softly, reaching up with his free hand to cup Juno’s cheek soothingly.

Juno blinked down at him, with one deep blue eye and the smooth white face of his implant, and said nothing as those eyes filled with tears. 

That alarmed Peter more than anything else had since waking. He was not unused to Juno’s tears, and had discovered that the sensitive detective was prone to having intense emotional responses. But that was normally after hours of discussion when Juno’s nerves were shot and he was wrung out from holding things together.

To be in tears already meant the nightmare had been truly something awful.

With a shuddery breath, Juno dropped forward to bury his face into Peter’s chest and shook with the force of his emotion. Without even a moment’s hesitation, Peter wrapped his arms around Juno’s back as he quietly shushed him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

He wasn’t sure how long they laid there, Juno crying silently into his chest while Peter held him and rubbed soothing paths up and down his back. Eventually, Juno sucked in a jerky breath before releasing it in a gusty sigh, all of the tension in his body disappearing. Only then did Peter finally allow himself to breathe again.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Peter asked quietly, stopping the movement of his hands on Juno’s back so he could just hold him instead.

Juno seemed to think about it before shaking his head, sighing when Peter kissed his silk cap again.

“Would you like me to talk about something?” Peter continued.

There was a long pause before Juno shook his head.

“Can I see you, my love?” Peter asked softly, wanting to see for himself that Juno was settled and okay after all of that. 

It was slow, but Juno eventually lifted his head to meet Peter’s gaze, eyes puffy and cheeks damp with drying tears. Peter cupped Juno’s jaw and smiled warmly up at him. When the former detective attempted a weak smile in return, Peter gently stroked his cheek with his thumb, wiping a newly fallen tear away.

“May I kiss you?” Peter requested, and Juno nodded with a soft, needy sound and met his mouth halfway.

They moved against each other, tender and sweet with Juno sighing into Peter’s mouth as he shifted his hand to hold the back of his neck firmly. After some time, Peter gently rolled them onto their sides, holding Juno tightly as he deepened the kiss a bit. As searching as it was, it lacked all heat and urgency, serving merely as a point of connection, an anchor for each of them in the present. When they parted, Juno whimpered and chased after Peter’s lips, capturing him again.

Peter chuckled softly into the kiss and reached up to cradle the back of Juno’s head. When Juno pushed to deepen it, Peter pulled back, pressing two of his fingers to Juno’s lips when he surged forward for more.

“Juno,” Peter said firmly when he huffed in annoyance, meeting a glare through the darkness with a soothing smile. “You don’t have to talk about the nightmare, but we’re not doing that tonight.”

There was a long moment when Juno looked like he was about to argue with him, his mouth pressed into a tight line and his nostrils flaring. Then, all at once, he let out a gusty sigh and deflated against the mattress.

“You’re right,” Juno whispered, letting his eyes flutter shut tiredly. “You’re always right.”

“Not always, love,” Peter chuckled a bit, pressing a soft kiss to Juno’s forehead with a warm sigh. “Only usually.”

Juno snorted. “So modest, too,” he muttered, snuggling in tighter. Then he said, “I know it wasn’t my fault.”

Peter didn’t have to ask what he meant. “That’s good,” he said simply, kissing Juno’s forehead again.

“I know you never blamed me, and you never will,” Juno added before letting out a slow breath. “It’s… hard. To not blame myself. I mean, I’ve been blaming myself for pretty much everything for most of my life. It’s a hard habit to break.”

“I can imagine,” Peter said solemnly, and he found he actually could. 

There were big boxes in his mind labelled ‘Mag,’ ‘Brahma,’ and ‘Miasma,’ all full to bursting with his guilt. The fact that Juno blamed himself at all about what they went through together when it had been Peter’s fault the entire time was steadily filling another box named ‘Juno’.

“I—” Juno started, his voice choking off. After a moment, he said, “I can still hear the way you scr— the way you sounded in that tomb. And the way you comforted me every night when you were the one being tortured—”

“Juno, I would hardly call what you went through less torture than—” Peter started, but Juno made a sharp noise.

“Nureyev, you have burn scars all over your body,” Juno snapped a bit. “What did I walk away with to show for it?”

Peter said nothing as he lifted a hand to blindly trace a finger along the outer edge of Juno’s right eye while he shifted his lips to kiss one of the several scars that circled his head like a crown. At least most nights when they were finally taken back to their cell, Peter would be on his feet. Juno was rarely conscious, and he was always covered in so much blood. Every night, as he sat in agony with new burns to coddle, watching the hitching rise and fall of Juno’s chest, Peter decided he would withstand however much he had to.

Leaving had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.

“Neither of us left that tomb unscathed, my love,” Peter whispered against Juno’s forehead, kissing him again and closing his eyes. “But we both survived. That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah,” Juno sighed, and laughed a bit, sounding sleepy. “I’m actually… happy about that. The surviving part, I mean. I wasn’t back then, and I wasn’t for a long time. I am now, though.”

Peter couldn’t say he understood that; even at his darkest points he never wanted to die. But he was trying to understand it, or at least trying to be supportive in a way he wasn’t back then. Of course, Juno reassured him on that front as well—“Even if you knew what to say, I wouldn’t’ve thanked you. Probably would’ve left you at the clinic in Olympus Mons.”—but still, finding out how poorly he had misread that entire situation had been a wake-up call.

“I’m glad,” Peter said simply, even if he wanted to say so much more to his beautiful lady. 

He wanted to tell him how much he loved Juno, and how good it was to want to live and how proud he was. But Juno had confessed that being praised for staying alive did more to frame his grey days or low points as ‘bad’ than his conscious decision to recover as ‘good.’ 

“Me too,” Juno agreed, and when he tilted his head back, Peter was ready to accept the kiss the former detective had for him.

“What can we do to avoid something like this in the future, love?” he asked when they parted again, rolling over and pulling Juno close so he was sprawled on top of him.

“I dunno,” Juno mumbled tiredly, yawning loudly before adding, “Maybe don’t end on something so heavy?”

“So… more tickle fights before sleep after heavy topics?” Peter suggested, just to hear Juno’s snort.

“Not really what I—”

“Tickle fights it is!” Peter interrupted with a smile, dragging his fingers up Juno’s ribs teasingly and delighting in his muffled squeal.

“Stop’t!” Juno whined, grabbing at Peter’s wrist and huffing a bit when he evaded capture easily. “Seriously, ‘Reyev, I’m about to pass out.”

Peter paused to listen closely to Juno’s breathing and tone, and figured that for the most part he sounded okay. 

“Alright, love,” Peter said, kissing the top of Juno’s silk cap and settling back against the pillows. With a sigh, Peter said, “Good night, Juno.”

“Night, ‘Reyev,” Juno mumbled back, and Peter could feel the small smile against his chest.

Just as Peter was drifting off again, he heard a very soft “I love you” and felt a gentle kiss against one of the scars on his chest.