#I love Rita and Juno their so special to me :((

[lionmythflower]

Guys I don't think u understand how out of pocket Rita is

Like she is casually brings up that her mom made homemade bombs, that shes watched millions of streams, that she can figure out how to hack into a huge and fancy companies with super hightech security in a matter of minutes, and is able to find dark matters data and get away with it.

What an icon.

[kitsuna21]

JUST LISTENED TO THE NEW JUNO STEEL EPISODE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

[ananxiousgenz]

SONG FOR A CAGED LOVEBIRD: PART 9 (?)

i've lost track by now ngl. we're at over 9,000 words so i get a pass. this part is. ouchie central. so i am expecting a lot of people yelling at me in the comments and tags. this is fun for me.

LETS GO TPP CREW, ROUNDING THE CORNER WITH MY TPP CREW: @smidgen-of-hotboy @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @urjover @one-joe-spoopy @waters-and-the-wilde @demonic-panini (@the-private-eye i'm tagging you too bc i can :))

The silence was what finally woke him.

Juno had been solidly asleep, dreaming about things he couldn’t quite remember but that made his stomach twist. When he finally opened his eyes, the room was abnormally quiet. No rain, barely any wind, and… he rolled over to check. Nureyev wasn’t next to him in bed. That was not entirely out of the ordinary, as his insomnia often took him on long walks through the woods as he tried to find sleep, but this morning it set his teeth on edge. Something about it felt…  wrong. Like he had walked out of the door for the last time, and would never come back. 

Juno shook the thought away. It was a ridiculous notion. He loved him too much to let that happen. If Nureyev was having trouble, or looking to leave, he would have told him. Juno trusted him.

He dressed and washed his face and walked downstairs to grab some breakfast before starting to get the bar together for opening. Hopefully, the rest of the day would pass without incident, and he could chalk this nauseous, nervous feeling up to a nightmare that he couldn’t quite remember.

It was what he saw at the bar while half-way down the stairs that really made him feel sick to his stomach.

Buddy was leaned over a half-empty bottle of whisky, rubbing the bridge of her nose, tear tracks shiny on her face. That bottle had been full when he had replaced it on the shelf last night. She never drank this early in the morning, and never that much. Always said it made her unfit to serve the public or interact with any decent human being. Jet, the man she had employed as a bar bouncer when times were better, was standing next to her, a large hand on her shoulder. He was crying too. Buddy only called him when things were drastic, like when their latest whiskey shipment had been stolen by pirates on its way to the bar.

And then there was Rita.

Rita, who wore her heart and its many thoughts on her sleeve like a badge of honor for her humanity, was nearly silent. She was snot-nosed and puffy-eyed, like she had been crying for hours, and said absolutely nothing outside of the occasional sniffle and a quiet request for Jet to grab her a glass of milk from the kitchen.

Juno thought he might hurl right there on the stairs. A silent Rita was new. Juno had known her for years, and she had never stopped talking once.

What the hell had happened?

He cautiously came down the rest of the stairs and approached the bar. Buddy looked up at his approach and tried to wipe some of the tears from her face just as Jet returned from the kitchen with the milk for Rita. “Good morning, Juno.”

“Hey, big guy,” Juno responded, nodding in Jet’s direction before looking at each one of the weeping figures in turn. “What happened? You guys look like hell. Did we get another snowstorm in the middle of the night or something?”

The three of them exchanged a look that Juno couldn’t quite decipher before Buddy answered.

“I think Rita can answer that question better than Jet or I can,” she croaked before downing another swig of whisky.

Juno turned to Rita and reached out to wipe a stray hair out of her face. “Hey, Rita, what happened? It’s okay, it can’t be that bad, right?”

At that, Rita burst into tears again. “It is, it really is that bad, Mista Steel! You don’t get it! It’s the worst thing! It’s about Mista Nureyev!”

Juno’s heart dropped through the floor the second she said his name. “Rita. Rita, look at me. Rita. DAMMIT, I need you to tell me what happened to him.”

Rita looked at him then, with such a look of despair and heartbreak on her face that Juno’s heart ached for her. And then he realized. He knew that expression. It was nearly second nature to him. He had seen it every morning on his own face in the mirror after Benten had-

And then he knew.

He breathed in, breathed out. Took a step back. The floor was spinning. He dropped to his knees. “No. No it can’t- no, no, no, no, this can’t be right, Nureyev can’t be…”

Rita nodded, tears still flowing steadily down her face as she clambered off the bar stool to hug Juno. “He came back after dark last night, and I thought he was actin’ real sketchy, so I watched him for a while, and then when the sun started comin’ up, he packed up some stuff and left, but I followed him, only he didn’t know, ‘cause I acted real sneaky-like, and he went to a train station that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there before, and he met these big, creepy guys, and they gave him paypawork to sign, ‘cause I think they were makin’ some kinda deal, and once Mista Nureyev signed it, he fell down and started coughin’, and then one of the big guys said somethin’ about not havin’ enough time to wait for him to die, and then the otha one pulled out a huuuuuge knife, and then he- then he-”

She burst into sobs again on Juno’s shoulder. His ears were ringing and he knew his face was deathly pale. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

Buddy looked at him hollowly from the bar. “Rita said he called your name. It was the last thing he did before he… before they loaded his body up onto a train and left.”

‘He called your name. It was the last thing he did before he died.’ And Juno didn’t even hear him. He hadn’t been paying attention. How long had he been calling? How long had Juno been ignoring him? Why was he only now hearing his echo instead of his voice? How pathetic was he, that he prioritized a fucking song over his husband? What was wrong with him? But of course, as soon as he realized his problem, it was already too late to solve it. 

He never got to say goodbye.

Dimly, Juno realized he was shivering and tears were flowing down his face and Rita was apologizing profusely that she didn’t do anything to try and save him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so horrible about himself. 

Now, it was all over. He’d lost him forever, and it was all his fault.

He would never get to see Peter Nureyev again.

He sat there, curled up on the floor for a moment longer before a different wave of feeling crept over him.

No.

No.

This was not the end. He wouldn’t let it be the end.

He was going to get his husband back if it was the last thing he ever did.

He sat up, wiped the tears from his face, and grabbed Rita by the shoulders, lightly shaking her out of her self-deprecating ramble.

“Rita. Rita, look at me. I need you to tell me everything you know about the Underworld. It’s important. Really important.”

“Well,” Rita sniffled, wiping her face on the sleeves of her sky blue sweater, “I heard a while back about there bein’ a back door. A way to get in without havin’ to actually, ya know, die or somethin’.”

Jet nodded sagely. “This is true. I walked that road with a friend of mine years ago, trying to save people from unwise decisions.”

“It’s not easy though, Mista Steel. The road is reeeeeaaaaally long and difficult, and with the weatha bein’ the way is it, you could get caught in a storm and get hurt, and I don’t want you to get hurt, Mista Steel!!”

Buddy looked at Juno again, an odd kind of hollow despair marking her face, like she saw something in Juno’s set jaw and bright eyes that made her want to disappear. “I know what you’re thinking, Juno, and it won’t work. I’ve tried. Believe me.”

“I’m not going to give up on him this easily.” There was a defiant flame rising in him now, melting the shards of his broken heart back into a semblance of hope. “I can get him back. I know I can.”

Jet walked over from his perch next to Buddy and crouched on the floor next to Juno. “Rita is right, Juno. The road to Hadestown is not an easy one to take, which is why I must ask you: how far are you willing to go for your husband?”

The flame grew into a wildfire. 

“To the ends of the fucking earth.”

There was silence as Jet examined him for a moment longer, face expressionless, before letting out a small sigh and standing up again. “Very well then. Pack your things. I will take you to where the road to Hadestown begins. If you are going to make stupid choices, I will at least make sure you can begin making them safely.”

Buddy started shaking her head vehemently. “No, no, no. You can’t let him go, Jet darling, he’s just going to get himself killed too. It’s not safe.”

“And yet you took the same course of action all those years ago, Buddy. What does that say about you?”

A muscle in Buddy’s jaw twitched as she took another long swig of whiskey. Juno slowly stood up, like a prey animal caught between two predators trying to remain ignored. He desperately wanted to know what had happened between the two of them, but somehow got the impression that any requests to know would be soundly ignored. 

Buddy glared at Jet with one sharp eye, but said nothing.

Jet sighed again and put a large hand on Juno’s shoulder. “Go grab your things. We will leave in two hours.”

“Wait for me, Mista Steel! I’m comin’ too! I gotta go get my stuff and then I’ll go with ya! Lil old Rita isn’t as fast as she used to be! Wait up!”

Juno sprinted up the stairs, Rita’s voice carrying after him. And in spite of the loss he had just suffered, he was grinning.

Hang on, Nureyev. Just a little longer.

He was going to get his husband back. At any cost.

[junee-e]

NEW JUNO EPISODE OUT WOOO!!!!!

(MANY ALL-CAPS) ramblings follow!!!!!!! :DD (spoilers for the new penumbra episode obviously)

juno???? why are you in prison??? not again please????

AWW JUNO AND RITA THEY’RE BEING SO CUTE I LOVE THEM

THE RITA SPECIAL WHATS THE RITA SPECIAL IM SCARED

juno, solemnly: i’ll get the snacks. rita, also solemnly: and i’ll prepare the cocoon. LMAO i love them

what is this they’re being so silly???? i love it????

‘we dont talk about the second time’ JUNO WHAT DID YOU DO

i forgot how weird rita’s snacks were lmao

surviving for five days in a room with 6 blankets and only snacks for food just like me fr

rita literally snoring like *HONK mimimimimi* is the best thing i’ve ever heard

OoOoOooO SuMmAriSiNg mUsiC

love me a good rita-is-the-best-hacker-audio-montage

GRANDPAPPYS RECIPE LMAOO

juno sounds so annoyed every time he says grandpappy’s recipe lamooo

WHY IS THIS GUY SPEAKING IN FUCKING RUNES WHAT???

‘wow now that’s a guy’ JUNO YOU ARE LOOKING FOR NUREYEV OH MY GOD

‘i’m never gonna find my stupid moron boyfriend’ the happiness this brings me is of unquantifiable levels

is he gonna actually steal the thing? OH MY GOD HE IS LMAO

SO MANY SPRINKLERS PFFTT

he….he doesn’t know what the thing looks like. of course he fucking doesn’t i don’t know what i expected

ooooo skipper guys back hmmm. oh they’re a literal child. or are they just really smart and luring juno into a trap?

nope just stupid ok

‘smelled something familiar - no - someone familiar’ WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED

IS HE HERE OH MY GOD????

NO ITS NOT HIM GODDAMMIT

Serisvatian (that’s probably not how you spell it) orchids are you kidding me i’m crying

WAIT IS SKIPPER BACK WAS HE ACTUALLY SMART

WAIT ITS NOT

IS IT FUCKING NUREYEV????

OH MY GOD HES FUCKING HERE LETS GOOO

when he said ‘i saw who it was and by heart started pumping…’ and then that FUCKING THEME MUSIC IM SCREAMING

nureyev???? nureyev no wait what is he doing

WHEN IS HE JUST GOING TO TALK TO HIM OH MY GOD

‘until the day you tell me to my face that you want me to buzz off i will never stop looking for you’……i feel like this is setting me up for just so much pain later i’m so scared

awwww nureyev put juno in prison and not killing him such a good boyfriend

‘would he really let me rot in prison?’ NO HE WOULD NOT

WOOOOOO A PLAN (and a secret weapon??)

ITS RITA THE SECRET WEAPON IS RITA LETS GOOO

DETECTIVE RITA NEXT EPISODE OH MY GOD I AM SO READY FOR DETECTIVE RITA

WOOOOO i loved this episode!!!!!! i’m so exited for part 2 omg!!!! i’m also very scared for some considerable angst but y’know!!!!! denial!!!!!!!

[alwaysyourqueen]

Hey so. The Penumbra Podcast huh. I've written over 70k words for it in the past month and show no sign of stopping, so I decided to make a masterpost here. My AO3 is alwaysyourqueen and you can find all of my work there. There will be blurbs/summaries under the cut here to avoid spam. Always mind the content warnings!

Canon and/or Self-Contained

not very good company at the moment rated T | 1/1 chapters | 6.5k archive warnings: none Always use protection, kids. Peter Nureyev is freaked out by his body's rebellion, and what that could mean for a future for him. Vespa Ilkay has to look out for her least favorite patient. Juno Steel solves a mystery he really didn't want to have to solve.

Juno Steel and the Ransoms rated T | 1/? chapters | 5k archive warnings: none Juno Steel is not prepared for two mysteries wrapped in sharp teeth and intrigue to show up in his life. Then again, he's never been prepared for anything, so why should this be any different? The Carte Blanche crew has seven members — Juno Steel, Buddy Aurinko, Vespa Ilkay, Rita!, Jet Sikuliaq, Peter Ransom, and Liana Ransom.

Ponder the Manner of Things rated G | 2/2 chapters | 9.5k archive warnings: none Juno is rather suddenly ripped from his day-to-day when a piece of his past quite literally walks up to him. It turns out that he's not quite done with Diamond Hijikata — or her daughter.

Take Me Away (From This Shitty Planet) rated T | 1/1 chapters | 2.6k archive warnings: none In the age of Jedi and the Republic, one former Jedi is trying to leave Coruscant. He employs a smuggler to do so.

Detective Nureyev and Con Artist Juno (AKA Role Reverse AU)

never got over that dame rated E | 4/? chapters | 49k+ archive warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence Peter Nureyev, private eye, had a chance encounter with a brilliant, beautiful lady who left his head spinning. Nothing prepared him to face the lady down again, nor the catastrophe that could follow. He had to admit, though: he wouldn't trade it for all of Mars. author's note: Sex scene is optional, fic would be rated T if not for explicit content.

Spider-Juno and Black Cat Nureyev (AKA Spider-Man AU)

You Can Be Their Super Steel rated T | 1/1 chapters | 3.4k archive warnings: Major Character Death Juno's life changed when he became Spider-Man. He didn't realize just how much it could change after that.

Juno Steel and the Black Cat rated T | 2/? chapters | 10k+ archive warnings: Major Character Death The people of Hyperion City refer to the thief as the Black Cat. It’s a cute enough moniker, though he doesn’t wear cat ears or even claim to have a name. Spider-Man calls him many things, when they’re next to one another. Lips next to ears, masks pulled partially away, other things pulled more away. A name, a spider, a cat. A whole lot of messy, messy feelings.

Acrobatics rated E | 1/1 chapters | 1.3k archive warnings: none No one goes into the superhero or other costumed personality business because they don't love an edge of danger. Spider-Man and the Black Cat decide to add a little something special to one of their acrobatics practices.

Dahlia Rose and his Duke (AKA Dahlia and Duke Rose are cover names for organized crime)

Heavy is the Head rated T | 1/1 chapters | 2.6k archive warnings: none Dahlia Rose protects his investment. His Duke, his newest right hand. To the rest of the world, his love.

Deny It To A King? rated E | 1/1 chapters | 3k archive warnings: none Duke takes Dahlia in his office.

[juliuscaesar-txt]

attention: tinnedtea penumbra post regaring juno steel and the april fool

i am. absolutely having thoughts about the april fools special (to which i was 10 days late and it's completely normal and irrelevant, thank you). spoilers ahead i guess

as mentioned in a previous post, puck falco actually belongs in a western and probably is in one. somewhere in the multiverse. it makes me happy

another thing that makes me happy: alessandra strong!! is she dead?? yeah probably. did i cry hearing her voice?? absolutely my face is still a bit wet as i'm writing this

it's likely that we'll get nureyev somewhere near the begging of season 5 i can't wait

mick mate i love you but you suck as a pi

rita is so. she's full of that specific flavour of autistic swag and i honestly can't get enough of her

me, in a facebook messenger chat, reacting live: good to know juno is still emo

going through that chat i've actually come across a wait we're going back to hyperion in s5??? and it's most likely not true but still a thought i had

[ceaseless-watchers-special-girl]

calypso darling you are not a shit journalist!!! i won’t stand for this slander!!

NINETY SIX HOURS??? did she pull out the rita special for calypso?? awwww!! i can just imagine rita getting herself a truckload of blankets and snacks all for herself and juno just sitting there like “…..rita what is going on”

“it wouldn’t be the first time that she’s let an older lady step all over her” *hisses in archivist voice* spill the teaaaaaaa

“Over my dead body.” eve baby no

“You’ll hear me sing and squeal before I tell you anything you want.” YOUR HONOUR I WOULD DIE FOR HER

“Their treatment is not as harsh as Aurinko Permanent Corrections” thank fuck for that. aurinko permanent was a fucking nightmare

“stop by the Skydeck: Edge of New Kinshasa and peer down at Brahma from up high” i despise this. more than words can convey.

“A “cygnet” is a word used to describe a baby swan” DAMMIT JAY YOU’RE AT IT WITH THE SWANS AGAIN

“you don’t find jewels like that out there anymore.” ……..interesting….

“Just how the fuck did he get ahold of Baird’s recordings” YEAH HOW DID HE GET THEM???

“Birdie, I’m not comin’ home,

I'm sorry to leave you all alone.” JAY STOPPPP I AM BASHING YOUR HEAD IN WITH MY MOTHERFUCKING FLUTE

fuck. is this why the constables captured cyrus? he got caught?

“Peter Nureyev”– Eve flinches– “scared them shitless” peter nureyev love of my life angel of brahma the myth the legend

“You and I both know what it's like to lose your parents. I don't want Baird to experience the same thing” *cries and shoots myself into the fucking sun*

“And despite all their hardships, Cyrus still married Eevee and then Iris. Josie still went on to have twins. Camilla and Eber brought a daughter into the galaxy. Charlie chose to go down singing. Cyrus went out singing. Eve echoed a song. And Baird kept his head high and trilled for their memory” jay stop it i don’t even have a name for this emotion in my chest

“we'll hunt down that Little Birdie of yours, pluck him from the nest, and make him sing us songs about how beautiful it is to be saved by New Kinshasa” DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE

“Let him go. Blame me for everything, say that I'm the Revolutionary's mother while you’re at it and publicly execute me” *sniffs* eevee bell i love you

“New Kinshasa thanks you for your candor” NEW KINSHASA CAN GO FUCK ITSELF

“There will be a free Brahma. There will be a free Brahma. Brahma will be—“ oh my god fuck yes. never stop saying it. added bonus it annoys the constables

“Charmed, though I don’t find you pretty enough to marry… maybe if you lost the scrappy beard” CYRUS DESROSIERS-BELL YOUR HAND IN MARRIAGE PLEASE

“My name is Peter Nureyev, and I am going to bring down New Kinshasa.” I’D FUCKING DIE FOR HIM

“Eve, my angel…” HIS ANGEL

“No song whistles from her lips as she levels the blaster pressing back against Cyrus’ head” she’s reminding me so awfully of the lifeup workers. jay. jay. new kinshasa isn’t fucking life upping people. right? jay. jay???

“My angel, my angel. Set me free.” JAY YOU CNA’T FUCKING DO THIS TO ME

“She presses her head between her legs gasping for lungfuls of air” calypso girlie breathe

“Maybe she ought to reach back out to Mister Mercury and try creative writing again” SMALL WORLD HUH

“pop out another fucked up kid like her and her mother, and pat herself on the back for not dying to cancer or radiation poisoning or whatever” rip this girl has issues

“How does Osiris Cygnet connect to all this?“ my question exactly

“What was the collar around Eve’s neck?“ eheh. ehheh. hehheh. my question exactly

“I pray to my Goddess that whatever the hell happened to Eve, they did not do to Cyrus” fuck they did didn’t they

“I pray that whatever they did to Eve, they did not improve and inflict upon Charlie” FUCK I DIDN’T EVEN CONSIDER THIS. JAY. JAY ARE YOU IN FACT PLOTTING MY LONG-DISTANCE MURDER

okay wait no hold up. the executives were on saraswati for some reason, and they found slip there and their whole project/con with nureyev began. c&p pharmaceuticals is in the outer rim as well, so it makes perfect sense for the executives to offer their technology to outer rim governments before the solar ones, and they’ve given it to new kinshasa because they’re assholes. *desperately tries to remember the timeline* baird’s still young when this happens though, right?? how long has it been since nureyev threatened new kinshasa?? the lifeup project was only just finished in canon, did they have time to get it to new kinshasa?? is it a prototype?? is it another corporation entirely???

ugh i knew we couldn’t be done with charlie (and by “knew” haha well. let’s justr say. i was sad adn couldn’t accept it) but i think this might be worse than death. can you imagine if baird met him after they’d lifeupped him (lifed upped him? lifed him up??) that would be devastating. i hope baird doesn’t see what they did to eevee. even if he deserves to know

i wonder if there’s a way to fix lifeup workers?? probably not but a girl can dream

*glances at all my red string* yup i’m getting nowhere. onto the calypso lore!!!

“Peachier than an Earthen Sunday morning” girl the sunday morning outside my window rn is grey as all shit

“six hundred cred coffee” *trembles* how…. how much… is a cred worth????? (in my mind it’s been about 1 cred = 1 pound because i have simple brain so this shook me lmao)

“there was nothing she could find about the man. He doesn’t exist. Just another legend” this is such absolute bullshit rita my love i adore you

“When Rita starts something she doesn’t know when to take a break. She puts her whole body into it.” ritas need their big rita naps after their phenomenal rita specials

“He’s a prick at best and an asshole at his worst. He’s taken her for granted a lot” *offended squeak* he’s getting better!! but yeah i do wish he treated rita nicer in the earlier seasons. or i wish we got more screentime of them being soft and kind, because if juno was that bitchy all the time rita should’ve left his ass ages ago

“let another kid like you come and drag her around the whole galaxy” heyyy i thought rita like travelling the galaxy

“my name is Calypso! I’m not your damn kid” it’s giving *alexander hamilton voice* call me son one more time!

the mommy issues are strong with this one

i love it when people call her ms. rita. like yeah. ms. rita who lives down the street and eats salmon snacks but always has yummy cookies just for you. ms. rita who’s best friends with that grumpy asshole no-one likes. ms. rita who your neighbour says hacked into dark matters once but you don’t believe them she’s so sweet— OH SHIT WHERE DID SHE GET THAT KNIFE

“If you reach out to Rita after today, I will cease to help you myself” oop that’s an ultimatum

“Your next decisions are going to shape how the end of her life are going to be” well. that isn’t terrifying in the slightest not at all no siree

“Everyone else found partners for this project at the start of the year” RIP I HATE GROUP PROJECTS

“Ms. Starr, that will be a demerit for you” *cries in desperate for approval*

“Alone. Shit writer. Parentless. Jobless. Flying by the seat of her pants and overpriced coffee grounds.” wow how did you know what i’d look like in a year (minus the parentless bit)

“Maybe she ought to go off and find a cold ditch to lie down in. Or a warm ditch.” BITCH I’M—

“And if not Calypso Starr to tell his story, to transcribe every last detail she can capture, then who else? Who else does that leave?” calypso queen i understand the responsibility you feel and it’s honestly admirable what you’re trying to do but. don’t burn yourself out pretty please

“With or without Frannie’s help” noooo frannieeee

jay i am. aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA. this is beautiful. it’s gorgeous. it’s heartbreaking. how in the hell did i inspire this

mmm i think puzzle pieces are clicking together. however i am unfortunately shit at puzzles i have been roasted about this by my latin teacher BUT. i have received some answers and will be nomming on them gladly until i receive more answers 

Our Angel of Brahma, pt. xi

Hello Travelers, before we begin I need to stress that this part of Our Angel of Brahma contains explicit violence. With that being said, consider this your warning for the following content: kidnapping (mentioned), assault, police brutality, interrogations, and some self-harm. I will be going back to add CW to previous parts and will update when those have been added in. If there are any warnings that you would like added to this part or any others do not hesitate to reach out in my ask box or DMs! Additionally: I am planning on transferring this series over to ao3 in the coming weeks. The google doc is starting to crash and that is my sign that this is no longer a self contained one shot au. It is a drabble. a nearly 19k long (and counting) drabble @ananxiousgenz @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @the-private-eye @demonic-panini

Calypso walks into her office. Coffee mug in one hand, and her comms in the other. She hadn't checked her emails yet and had only briefly skimmed the messages Frannie had sent her early in the morning. Most of which didn’t make much sense and had been sent five hours before she was awake, which was by her standards, five hours too early to be doing absolutely anything important. She booted up the computer and took a long sip of her coffee. Her comms rang and it was un-surprisingly Frannie. 

“Calypso Starr speaking–”

“Have you seen them yet?” 

“Frannie. Good morning to you too. I believe conversations start with hello.”

“Right– hello, did you see them yet?”

“See what?” She opens her email and smiles reading the subject line “RE: THE CASE OF THE MISSING ANGEL”. Rita was creative. Calypso would give her that. But she also seemed just as scatterbrained as Frannie did at times. They both knew their way around computers and comms. More than Calypso ever learned from her mom, so she was in no position to really judge either of them. If anything, they had every right to laugh in her face for not being able to do all the work on her own. Some shit journalist she was turning up to be. 

“The videos!” Frannie huffed and in the background, Calypso could make out the sound of a cabinet door opening and slamming shut. “Listen, I’m hanging up, and when you’re done with the videos and taking notes– and I mean all the videos, and all your notes– call me. Rita spent ninety-six hours trying to hunt all this down for you, kid. You better write the best damn article this side of the galaxy has ever seen! Because she ain’t helping you anymore after this, alright?” 

Calypso opens her mouth to argue but the call ends right then. She sets her comms on the desk in its designated spot next to her coffee mug and one of the glass swans. She isn’t a kid. She’s a grown adult just like Frannie. Frannie was however much, much older than her. And it wouldn’t be the first time that she’s let an older lady step all over her. 

Without anymore preamble, she takes a seat and opens the first video file. 

The video starts with a lone woman sitting at a table. The room is bare and poorly lit with no windows.  “State your name.” “Why should I? You already know who I am.” The woman’s dark hair falls out of her face revealing dark eyes and a few freckles. She glares at the camera. “And get that thing out of my face.” “No can do, now state your name.”  The woman huffs hanging her head low to the table. “Eve Bell.” “Full name.” “Eevee Bell.” She jerks her chin up and snarls, “Happy?”

Calypso pauses the video. This is Eevee Bell. Eevee the same night she was taken from her home.The same night she tucked Baird into bed and promised nothing bad would happen to her. Calypso flips open her journal thumbing through the pages until she finds her notes on the “Dad” recording. She reads back over them and flips to the next blank page. She rummages around her desk for a bit before finding a pen tucked into her newly acquired swan pen holder. She hits play on the video, and begins taking notes.

“Very,” a figure walks around the camera to stand behind Eevee. They’re dressed in a freshly pressed uniform. Their epaulets are black, with two embroidered stars in silver thread. A Constable of high rank. They place one hand on her shoulder and grip her chin with the other. “Now look directly at the camera, and tell them exactly what you did.” She clenches her jaw and tries to pull away. The Constable keeps her firmly pinned in place.  “Not gonna talk, huh.” “Over my dead body.” The Constable tsks and lets go of Eve’s face. Eevee, to her credit, rolls her shoulders as much as she could with her hands cuffed behind her back, and tilted her chin up higher. “You’ll hear me sing and squeal before I tell you anything you want.”  The Constable shakes their head and laughs, “We’ll see how you feel after today.” They exit out of frame and a heavy door can be heard opening. Eevee looks over and her eyes go wide as three other uniformed Constables walk into the room.  “Welcome to New Kinshasa, Eve.” The Constable says out of frame said. The video ends.

Calypso leans back in her seat. She glances down at her notes. Nothing. Blank. She puts her pen down and folds her hands over one another, leaning to rest her elbows on her desk. Her stomach does a strange thing, flipping up over on itself. The coffee is starting to kick in and give her heartburn. 

From her research and based on Baird’s recordings, the Constabulary does not treat its prisoners kindly. Their treatment is not as harsh as Aurinko Permanent Corrections. No, nothing could compare to Palomine Aurinko, and nothing will ever come close to Hoosegow. But there’s a good reason the Solar Planets consider the Guardian Angel System a war crime and New Kinshasa has been charged off and on for committing multiples since the Galactic Civil War ended. 

She grabs her comms and searches for anything she can find on the Constabulary on New Kinshasa and Brahma. She wasn’t expecting her quick galactic search to turn up anything. Just like everything else she’s been looking into privately, this too should have been a dead end. Instead, a tourism site hosted on a Saraswatan travelers guide comes up. 

One of the main attractions to vacationing to Saraswati it turns out, is visiting New Kinshasa. Vacation to Saraswati, and set time aside for a three days, two nights trip to see New Kinshasa. Shuttle over on day one, and see New Kinshasa day two. Get to meet Constables, shake hands with Sergeants, and rub elbows with Inspectors off duty at hotel bars. Take a tour down main street and stop by the Skydeck: Edge of New Kinshasa and peer down at Brahma from up high. 

The photos on the website are orderly and well lit. More than likely staged pieces of propaganda meant to make the average person forget about what happened to Brahma. If Calypso were anyone else even she’d believe it. But Baird’s recordings exist and Brahma has been suffering. Dark Matters can successfully scrub all records from the galaxy but they never stood a chance at stopping something from slipping through the cracks. 

One of the photos on the website catches her eye. A Constable in uniform, with epauluets on their shoulders embroidered in silver thread. Perfectly stitched planets with tilted rings. They’re shaking hands with a man with grey hair and a peculiar mustache. A gold brooch with blue jewels is pinned to his suit. His wide smile reaches his eyes. 

Calypso scrolls down to read the caption at the same time she reaches for her mug. She takes a long sip of her coffee. 

Superintendent Constable Bishop shaking hands with art collector, Osiris Cygnet. 

A “cygnet” is a word used to describe a baby swan. So named after the swan-shaped constellation, Cygnus, and -et indicates smallness. 

If Calypso were the average person, she shouldn’t know this. As she leans back in her desk chair and stares at the swan pen holder, Calypso is reminded that she is not the average person. As she stands now running through her apartment, digging through a cardboard box for a gold swan brooch with sapphire eyes, she has not been the average person since childhood. 

The storage unit came from a deceased art collector. He had an affinity for collecting crystal swans and counterfeit paintings. She sold most of the glass swans back to collectors on Earth while on her visit to her mother’s grave. She held on to the pen holder as a memento and sought out a pawn shop to trade in the brooch when the shop owner said she ought to keep it, “you don’t find jewels like that out there anymore.” Or whatever that meant. 

“Shit shit shit shit–” she finds the brooch and races back to her office clutching it tight. Sure enough, it’s a good match. 

Osiris Cygnet, art collector that vacationed sometime within the last ten years to Saraswati and took a shuttle trip to New Kinshasa. Just how the fuck did he get ahold of Baird’s recordings?

Superintendent Constable Bishop, Eve’s prison guard, and most likely, her future executioner. And he was promoted. At some point in the last twenty years, he was promoted. Multiple times. 

The pin back on the brooch digs into her palm. Calypso clenches her teeth. She should let go before the wound is too deep and forms an ugly gash. She reaches with her free hand and hits play on the next video.

Eevee sits on the stone floor of a prison cell. She stares pointedly at the door. Occasionally her eyes flick up to the camera. Its hard to tell, but her face looks puffy. Her arms have bruises running from her elbows all the way down to her wrists. There are red marks on both wrists from wearing handcuffs. She pulls her knees up to her chest letting out a long groan of pain. The camera zooms in. It is just near inaudible, but the camera's microphone picks up her quiet voice.  I hear your tune,  like a songbird at noon. What a lovely trill, it makes me feel ill. Eve looks like she would curl tighter around herself if it were possible. Shrink into nothing. Make herself as small as a mote of dust.  Like chimes in the wind, we were destined. A full-body shudder wracks through her.  Birdie, I’m not comin’ home, I'm sorry to leave you all alone. A figure approaches the cell. They’re not in uniform but the way they approach Eve’s cell is not without confidence.  “It’s a good song.” Eve jumps with tears in her eyes as she blinks at the person in front of her. “Hey baby, I came to bust you out.” The figure shoves their hands in their pockets.  “Cyrus…” Eve slowly gets to her feet and crosses over to the bars of her cell. She holds a hand out. Cyrus takes it carefully, pressing his lips to her knuckles. She is nearly breathless as she asks, “What are you doing here?” “Like I said: busting you out.”  “I–” Eve shakes her head. “No, you can’t. What about Iris? What about Baird? They need you more than I do right now! How'd you even get in here anyways?” Cyrus shrugs and pulls a key card out from his pocket. “Snuck onto a shuttle, knocked out a Constable, stole their key card? C'mon, Eve, it's not that hard.”  “Not that hard– Cyrus! That's a death sentence! If you get caught–” “I won't get caught, alright? Peter Nureyev”– Eve flinches– “scared them shitless. They’re scrambling right now and too disorganized to notice me.” She's quiet, staring at their hands. “How long has it been already?” “Day five of the Warden Strike, second day without you. Camilla was the one who reached out to. Everyone else apparently was too afraid to, and the other Wardens are losing steam without someone to keep their morale up and minds motivated.”  “And what about Baird? And Iris? You left them alone to try and rescue me? Cyrus, I'm a prisoner, not a princess in a tower.” Cyrus clicks his tongue. “Iris has been alone for a long time, they’ll be fine. And Baird isn’t alone, the Spade’s are taking care of him.” He plays thoughtlessly with her fingers. “You and I only have each other though. I promised your parents I’d look out for you, and I intend to keep that promise, til’ death do us part and all that.”  Eve jerks her hand away to grip one of the bars. “Cyrus, look at me.” He lifts his head and flinches in response only slightly. “I came here willingly. And I’m not going to make it out of here alive. Eber and Camilla can barely afford to take care of themselves and Charlie. And Iris lost their family like you and I did. You and I both know what it's like to lose your parents. I don't want Baird to experience the same thing.”  Cyrus shakes his head. “Eve you're thinking this all backwards. I'm the one that dragged you into this, let me take your place and get you out of it.” The video ends. 

Calypso drops the brooch on her desk to run her hands through her hair. She tugs on the ends of her short bob. 

Eevee pushed Cyrus away because he wanted revolution. And he got it. He got a revolution and it took everything from Baird. 

These are real people. Not just voice recordings or a bedtime story a mother made up to soothe her distressed child. Baird, Eeve, Cyrus, and Iris. A real family. Charlie, Eber, and Camilla and their daughter, Evelyn. A spare family. Josie and the twins. Hank and Mrs. Darius. The Rats. Brahma was full of life. And it still is. Peter Nureyev is a legend to these people. Even if it turns out the name was fake, he was just as real as any of them. 

And despite all their hardships, Cyrus still married Eevee and then Iris. Josie still went on to have twins. Camilla and Eber brought a daughter into the galaxy. Charlie chose to go down singing. Cyrus went out singing. Eve echoed a song. And Baird kept his head high and trilled for their memory. 

The recordings from the comms were real. Are real. Calypso knows this. She doesn't have any faces to put to any names except now for Eve and a rough idea for Cyrus. They were alive. 

Calypso hesitates to start the next video. She's seen more than enough already. More than plenty. There are still two videos left. She already knows how this ends. Eevee Bell walked out of her apartment in the middle of the night so her son wouldn’t have to wake up screaming and watch her be dragged out the front door. She did everything in her power to safeguard him from a War she never wanted to bring home in the first place. And what did it get her? What good did it do when two years later Baird watched what happened to his father anyways? What good did any of it do when they broadcasted Charlie’s execution? 

Taking a deep breath, she hits play. 

“Songbird,” Constable Bishop stands in front of Eve's cell. They keep one hand on their blaster. Eve tucks her chin down while pulling away from the bars. “Tired of singing? That's a pity. You know, a few hours ago, I was alerted that someone came to pay you a visit. I had the cameras checked and we put the facility in lockdown. You'll never believe what we found trying to fly the coop.”  Two Constables drag a man into frame. It's Cyrus. Eve stands in place, her face drained of all its color. Cyrus tilts his head up. The two Constables flanking his side force him to stand, hoisting him up by his underarms. His hands remain pinned behind his back. .  “I wouldn't be all smiley right now if I were in your shoes, Desrosiers.” Constable Bishop pulls their blaster from its holster. They click the safety off and point it directly at Cyrus. “Now then, here's how this is going to play out. Ms. Bell, you're going to admit that you organized the Warden strike, you're going to take the fall and you're going to accept the consequences.” “And if she doesn't?” The Constables holding Cyrus pull on his arms. He hisses through his teeth.   “If she doesn't, then we'll blame you both. And then, with you both out of the way, we'll hunt down that Little Birdie of yours, pluck him from the nest, and make him sing us songs about how beautiful it is to be saved by New Kinshasa–”  “I did it.” Eve crosses her cell and reaches out as far as she can to grab the Constable Bishop’s uniform. Her fingers just barely reach their elbow. “I organized the strike. It was all my idea to begin with. I knew it was risky and stupid but I did it anyways. I poisoned the watering hole–” “Eevee–” “And Cyrus had nothing to do with it. Joining the revolutionaries and inciting the Dome Wardens was all me. Let him go. Blame me for everything, say that I'm the Revolutionary's mother while you’re at it and publicly execute me. Tear me limb from limb– just let Cyrus go and leave my son out of this.”  Constable Bishop holds her gaze. He lowers his blaster and gives her a curt nod, “I wasn't going to go that far, but if that's how you feel, well…” He put his blaster away. “I’m pleased you came around, Ms. Bell.” He turns to the other two Constables and motions for them to leave. “Escort the Pest off of New Kinshasa.” They grab hold of Cyrus’ jaw and force him to look up. “And if we ever catch you sneaking up here again, you’ll be publicly executed.” Eevee looks away as they drag Cyrus out of frame. His voice comes as a muffled shout that grows quieter and quieter.  “Don’t look so down Ms. Bell. You made the right choice. New Kinshasa thanks you for your candor.” The video ends. 

She lied. Eevee lied to Constable Bishop. Even if half of what she said did hold some truth to it, there were still lies she sprinkled in that they believed. At least they chose to believe them. And choosing to believe in something only grants it more power. It warps reality, and makes it more real. 

Baird’s first recording that Calypso heard echoes in the back of her mind. Some say that the legend isn’t true. Some say that Eevee Bell set the Dome Wardens on strike. At least one person believes that she is Peter Nureyev’s mother. 

Baird and Iris did not know everything. For whatever Cyrus was caught for finally, Constable Bishop made good on their promise and did eventually come back for him. They did not however publicly execute him. 

They got Charlie instead. 

With only one video left, Calypso hits play. She’s only slightly surprised to see Cyrus in a similar interrogation room to the one Eevee was in in the first video.

“There will be a free Brahma. There will be a free Brahma. Brahma will be–” “Do you ever, shut up!” Constable Bishop slams their fist against the table in front of Cyrus. His epauluets are different, now instead of two stars theres three. Cyrus winces clenching his jaw, but doesn’t draw away. “No wonder you got a divorce, I’d get one too if I was stuck married to you.” “Charmed, though I don’t find you pretty enough to marry… maybe if you lost the scrappy beard–” “Enough!” Constable Bishop drags a hand down their face, scratches at their stubble, and stares down at Cyrus. “All you have to do, is look at the camera,” they point to the one currently rolling, “and say exactly what you did.” “And then what? You’ll let me go scot free? You’ve already beat black and blue, I think I felt a tooth or two dislodge from my mouth. You willing to pay for my dentist bill?” “There are no dentist left on Brahma.” Constable Bishop circles around Cyrus and stands behind him. They grip his left shoulder, and guide his face up towards the camera with their other hand. “Now go on, tell them exactly who you are, and what you did.” Cyrus’ eyes are a muted green. His face is long and skin a darker shade of brown than Eevees’. He takes a deep, calming breath, and flashes a quick smile revealing a dimple on his left cheek.  “My name is Peter Nureyev, and I am going to bring down New Kinshasa.” Constable Bishop lets go of Cyrus to whip out their blaster. They crack the blunt end against the back of his head. Constable Bishop’s hand and blaster come away slightly bloodied, and the shout Cyrus lets out echoes in the small room.  “Think you’re so smart, huh? Try again.” “Cyrus Desrosiers-Bell, and when I get out of here,” Cyrus strains against his restraints baring his teeth in a sharp, sadistic grin, “I’m going to rip your fucking throat out!”  Constable Bishop clicks the safety off their blaster. They press it to the side of Cyrus’ head. “Go on, keep talking. We don’t need you alive, you serve no greater purpose to your revolution. You get caught in New Kinshasa once and I let you go, shame on you. You get caught sneaking around New Kinshasa a second time and get far enough back home just outside your front door, shame on me.” Bishop tsks rechecking their blaster. “One jolt. That’s all you need.” “Well go on then,” Cyrus lifts his chin. His brows squish together. A small gasp escapes his lips. “You don’t scare me. Not the first time you’ve pressed that thing to my head.”  After a moment, a comms goes off. The Constable checks it with a quick glance and relaxes. “You’re right,” they draw their blaster away from Cyrus but do not click the safety back in place. “I don't scare you enough. But she probably will.” A question forms on Cyrus’ lips but dies just as quickly as the interrogation room doors whirls open and close. Heavy bootsteps cross the room. A small shadow falls over Cyrus. His eyes go wide.  “Eve, my angel…” Cyrus shakes his head, tearing his gaze away. He grits his teeth. “No. You killed her.”  “Did we though? Constable,” the Bishop turns to the new arrival. They pass their blaster off to them. The new arrival walks into frame to accept the blaster. Standing beside Constable Bishop, is none other than Eevee Bell. The same dark hair, dark eyes, and constellation of freckles. A collar of some sort clasps snuggly around her neck.  It is as if the soul that bubbled to life inside of her has been snuffed out. This may look like Eevee Bell, it may move like Eevee Bell, but it is not her. Not anymore. No song whistles from her lips as she levels the blaster pressing back against Cyrus’ head.  “Eevee, baby,” the Constable places her finger over the trigger.  “Now then, any last words, Desroisers-Bell?” Cyrus licks his lips and stares into the camera. “My angel, my angel. Set me free.” The Constable pulls the trigger. Her arm absorbs the recoil as Cyrus’ body seizes and–

Calypso closes out of the video and turns away. She presses her head between her legs gasping for lungfuls of air. 

Rita spent ninety-two hours digging through Goddess knows what just to dig up this. The tumbling feeling in her stomach returns full force. Combined a racing heart and the rising bile in her throat, Calypso isn’t so sure anymore if she wants to call Frannie back. Maybe she ought to reach back out to Mister Mercury and try creative writing again. Maybe she ought to quit writing and journalism altogether, shuttle home to Venus, find a nice well off spouse, pop out another fucked up kid like her and her mother, and pat herself on the back for not dying to cancer or radiation poisoning or whatever. It might also do her a whole lot of good to find a therapist. At least looking for one wouldn’t kill her.

She waits until her heart has stopped racing and stomach settled back into place. Her pen feels like it’s barely there as she scratches down quick notes:

Eve gave the constable’s idea for public execution, thus Charlie. 

Cyrus Desrosiers-Bell. He took Eevee’s last name? And then kept it after marrying Iris?

Cyrus was beat and taken away because he snuck on to New Kinshasa– twice. First time to try and save Eve (failed to) and second time for unknown reason (caught and tracked down). Could this be why/how Talia’s book club found a way to New Kinshasa?

Don’t know what song Cyrus sang as he was dragged away from Iris. Possibly some version of Charlie’s Lament? 

How does Osiris Cygnet connect to all this?

What was the collar around Eve’s neck?

Constable Bishop’s promotions: have something to do with what happened to Eve? With what he did to Cyrus? (SIDE NOTE: I pray to my Goddess that whatever the hell happened to Eve, they did not do to Cyrus.)

… I pray that whatever they did to Eve, they did not improve and inflict upon Charlie. 

She puts her pen back in the swan holder and examines the puncture wound in her palm. The injury is small, not a gash like she thought it might be. A bandage and anti-spetic and Calypso will be right as rain. Peachier than an Earthen Sunday morning. 

“I need to find a hobby.” Calypso glances at the swan holder. Perhaps– no. Absolutely not. 

She dresses her injury and calls Frannie back despite every part of her howling not to. Her coffee has long since gone cold. Normally this woudln’t be a problem. Just drop a few ice cubes in and presto. Or reheat the whole mug and presto. Today is one of those rare days where neither is an appealing option and the last of her six hundred cred coffee goes down the drain. Finally her call connects with Frannie.

“You finished the videos?”

“Frannie.”

“Right, hello. You finished the videos.” It’s not even a question anymore. Calypso hums turning away from her sink to lean her lower back against it. Slowly she lowers herself to the floor. “I’ll take that as a yes, okay! I asked Rita about Peter Nureyev like you wanted me to. And she turned back around within a day to tell me that there was nothing she could find about the man. He doesn’t exist. Just another legend.”

Calypso scoffs, “Well that’s impossible, I just saw the videos. Eve and Cyrus both mention him by name. Baird mentions him in his recordings by name. Camilla mentions him by name at some point. He has to be real.”

“Well I don’t know what to tell you, kid, but if Rita can’t find him, no one can. It’s impossible to find something or someone who doesn’t exist.”

“Or maybe he disappeared.”

Frannie hums, “Sure, maybe that. Look, kid,” Calypso bites her tongue, “I wanted to talk with you about asking for help. Remember how I said you won’t be asking Rita for anymore favors?”

“Yeah, yeah actually– Frannie what was that about?”

“Kid,” Calypso does not retain her inward groan, “Rita is a really good friend of mine. Me and her go way back to when we were just little ladies getting our noses dirty and toeses wet with cybersecurity. She went down the HCPD path, I went down a freelance one. 

“My point though is that me and her aren’t the same little ladies we used to be anymore. We’re little old ladies now. And us little old ladies need our rest and relaxation. When Rita starts something she doesn’t know when to take a break. She puts her whole body into it.”

“Don’t you mean mind?”

“No, body. Rita has been sacrificing her own health for the better part of three decades now trying to help her Boss. He’s a prick at best and an asshole at his worst. He’s taken her for granted a lot.” Well, maybe she should find a better Boss, goes unsaid. “Their relationship is better now, but I’m not going to let another kid like you come and drag her around the whole galaxy.”

“For fucks sake Frannie– my name is Calypso! I’m not your damn kid!” Calypso pants. The swooping feeling returns. “I’m not you’re damn kid, I haven’t been anyone’s damn kid in over ten years, so stop calling me a fucking child! If you don’t want me talking to Ms. Rita anymore fine. I get it. You don’t wanna hear about my requests to her that’s fine. I’ll cut you out of it and–”

“Calyspo Starr.” Her jaw clamps shut narrowly avoiding biting her tongue. “If you reach out to Rita after today, I will cease to help you myself. You can take your little comms and find someone else willing to help you for free. All I’m asking, Ms. Starr, is that you don’t involve Rita any further. Have I made myself clear, Ms. Starr?”

Ms. Starr, I’m sorry but there’s nothing more we can do for your mother. Your next decisions are going to shape how the end of her life are going to be. Have you got a will lined up already?

Ms. Starr, I can’t accept your solo proposal. Everyone else found partners for this project at the start of the year. Maybe you can join a group and be their editor? 

Ms. Starr, that will be a demerit for you. Let’s find you something more suitable in the lost and found. You wouldn’t want to mistaken for a ruffian, do you?

“Crystal.” Calypso ends the call before Frannie can respond. She calls back. Calypso decline the call and throws her comms across the kitchen. She watches as it skitters along the tile. 

Alone. Shit writer. Parentless. Jobless. Flying by the seat of her pants and overpriced coffee grounds. She was never cut out to be a journalist. Maybe she ought to go off and find a cold ditch to lie down in. Or a warm ditch. Whichever she stumbles across first. 

Just who is Calypso Starr? Who the hell does she think she is anyways? And what gave her the idea that any of this meant something to someone in the first place?

I choose to believe… 

Calypso takes a deep breath and starts counting back from ten. 

I choose to believe… 

As she slowly exhales, true clarity rings through her mind. Baird chose to believe. And it doesn’t matter how, his recordings made it off-planet. And if not Calypso Starr to tell his story, to transcribe every last detail she can capture, then who else? Who else does that leave? 

Calypso Starr, the rebel who didn’t wear the right uniform. The orphaned university student who scrapped by without any friends. And now, a Solar based, historical freelance journalist. Scratch that from the record: Galactic, historical freelance journalist. She’s worn half a dozen different hats over the years, but one thing has remained consistent: a Starr burns brightest before they go out. And if Baird Bell and Brahma are the undoing of her, then there’s nothing to be done about it. She’ll get to the end of the recordings and uncover the truth one or another. With or without Frannie’s help.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

What I love about the gender and sexual diversity in Juno Steel isn’t just that diverse characters exist. It’s that they live in a world where their existence is taken for granted.

So many science fiction stories make diversity A Thing, even if it’s a really small and subtle Thing, and I hate it. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of far-flung futures where people live in space and have amazing technology but culture is still massively cisheteronormative, and I’m even more sick of worlds where authors try to make it so culture isn’t massively cisheteronormative but don’t lay their social groundwork so somehow make it even more of A Thing, revealing their own biases.

Juno Steel doesn’t do that. Not only are characters who aren’t cis or heterosexual everywhere, there’s no underlying assumption that they should be cis or heterosexual. Juno’s a he/him lady and at no point is this any kind of problem for anyone. In the whole series I can think of two people misgendering him (because they just met him and, like anyone when meeting a new person, go on apparent physical and social cues) and in both cases the correction just isn’t A Thing. Early in the series, he’s fighting a random thug, who tells him to “fight like a gentleman”, and he responds with ‘I’m not a gentleman, I’m a lady’ as fighting banter, and it’s treated exactly the same as if someone had called him a dumb blonde and he’d whipped a wig off and said, “actually, I’m a brunette” -- it’s not A Thing. It’s just meaningless fighting banter and they move on.

The second time, he’s at a party, undercover with his boyfriend. The hostess gets into a discussion with said boyfriend about Juno, who’s wearing a very eye-catching golden dress and very much playing up being a lady, and refers to hims as ‘she’, and his boyfriend does NOT do that stupid fucking thing that cis people always do and stop the conversation to be like “AcTuAlLy, my love’s *preferred pronouns* are -- ”, he just continues the conversation calling Juno ‘he’, and the hostess proceeds to do the same (without doing the even more stupid fucking thing of stopping the conversation to apologise, which is obnoxious and The Worst). It’s just Not A Thing.

Said hostess of the party is also trans, and until the party, had presented as a man with the world’s most eye-catching haircut (she’s a rich eccentric). At the party, nobody recognises her until she reveals her identity, not because of her gender presentation, but because she had a haircut. (It’s also a running joke in the series that sometimes someone will mention an old Earth custom that nobody else has ever heard of, like the one character on Mars who celebrates Christmas. This hostess, who has a Russian surname, changes it to the feminine form of the surname as Russians do, and explains it’s an ‘old earth custom’, which confuses the hell out of everyone -- it must get pretty complicated, changing your surname every time you get a haircut.) Her gender is just straightup Not A Thing.

Very early in the series, we meet a celebrity crime family who make a living off crime and reality TV. Imagine if the Kardashians also ran the mafia, and owned a major TV channel and several prisons and mental health facilities where they were allowed to market footage of the people inside for entertainment, privacy laws just not being a thing (or a thing they have circumvented through exploitative contracts). Everything about these people is big and over-the-top they’re terrible on purpose and if somebody dies then that’s great for ratings.

Two of these are Cassandra and her twin brother Cecil. It’s very heavily implied through the story that the pair are identical twins, and given that their voice actor’s voice is definitely not affected by testosterone, reasonable to assume that Cecil is a trans man. We can’t be sure, though, because that never comes up in the plot. Cecil has an underground torture dungeon where he films a twisted quiz show, once got himself kidnapped by gangsters on purpose for TV ratings, lost his arm in the rescue and now has a cool robot arm. Absolutely everything about him is played up and out-there and over the top for those delicious reality TV viewers. At no point is him being trans ever mentioned, even in passing. It’s not part of his persona because it’s just not interesting or unusual. It isn’t A Thing.

The agender characters aren’t A Thing. They’re just there. The gay and bisexual characters aren’t A Thing. They’re just there. Most of what we know about the sexuality of anyone is speculation based on their dating history; nobody ever comes out to anyone because there’s no need to, there’s no assumption of heterosexuality so the lack of heterosexuality isn’t a surprise. Juno can kiss Peter in one episode and Alessandra a couple of episodes later and doesn’t have to explain to anyone that he’s bisexual. Alessandra can have a fling with Juno and then get engaged and there’s no assumption that her fiance is a man, or surprise that she’s a woman.

Only twice in the series does anyone explicitly state romantic or sexual preferences -- Rita, in a strip club, is asked whether she wants the company of a man or a woman and says “just give me whatever”. (This is a reasonable question to explicitly ask in a strip club.) And Jet, in conversation, once mentions not having romantic or sexual feelings for anybody -- this isn’t explained because HEY LOOK EVERYONE ASEXUALITY AND AROMANTICISM IS A THING, LOOK AT OUR DIVERSITY, WE HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT THERE’S AN ACE GUY HERE. It’s explained because Jet overexplains and overspecifies everything. It’s a core character trait of his, and his sexuality is neither exempt from this nor given special treatment, because it isn’t A Thing.

I’m tired of stories with space travel that unconsciously reflect our own cisheteronormativity no matter how socially advanced they try to be, in the same way that I’m tired of stories with dragons in them that unconsciously reflect our own misogyny no matter how gender equal they claim to be. It’s just nice to see someone get it right occasionally.

[jorts-lad]

My Thoughts During The Penumbra Podcast

Season 3:

3.01

- huh just right into the episode

- Nureyev being a bit mean to Juno, I mean it’s kinda far

- “Just like one big illegal family”

- YES

- it’s not surprising that he immediately trips

- Juno isn’t the brightest and i love him for it

- good first episode for the season

3.02

- Peter: knows every inch of this place, and exactly how every camera and guard are positioned, knows exactly what to do. Juno: has no idea what he’s doing

- “let’s find out, dip me”

- love that Peter conned someone out of her money by convincing her that Juno, who is very clumsily existing in the background, is a killer crime boss

- Peter i love this plan thank you

- “No questions, just start walking”

- oh no

- yay talking

- YAY more talking, i love when people are communicating

- awwwwwww

3.03

- aww

- oh no

- OH NO

3.04

- MARC AND DAMPIERRE

- aww he’s telling her about the Citadel

- oh no

Holiday Special: Mick Mercury and the Night Before

- awwwwww it’s when they were kids

- oh their names are all slightly different?

- Thanks Mick

- UUUMMMMM

- yeah Mick just changed their names

- awwwwwwww

3.05

- WE GET TO HEAR FROM JET NOW

- :(

3.06

- safe is not how i’d describe this situation, but okay i guess

- love how the Ruby 7 just showed up

- “It’s not smart, it is a car, and it’s called the Ruby 7”

- :((((((

- :’(

3.07

- Rilla says no, Arum says yes

- :(

3.08

- y’all need to not argue

- LISTEN TO HER PLEASE

- y’all stop

- SHE WOULDNT HAVE FELL IF YOU BOTH LISTENED

- okay?

- communication

- progress

- NOPE, leave her alone please

3.09

- oh the kids are fighting again

- a Vespa episode!

- Vespa no don’t leave!

- hmmmm intruders

- i love Jet so much

- oh they all can see that

3.10

- oh poor Jet

- Juno you are 100% acting suspicious right now :/

- UMMMM

- We’re just gonna leave it here?

3.11

- Sir Angelo!

- oh

- Oh no the REAL Sir Angelo

3.12

- oh no

- OH NO

- oh no Sir Caroline

3.13

- That is a title that sounds cool i guess

- Rita?

- Yes please, i really want Peter and Rita to work together

- AND JUNO GETS TO HELP

- Rita i love this thank you

- Strike a Pose by TWRP starts playing

- Juno continuing to not know how to use technology

- Oh no, Dark Matters

- “Um Juno, DEAR” yes thank you Nureyev

- y’all oh no

3.14

- RITA KNOWS

- oh no, people can just figure it out

- so they are actually looking for them

- “Be careful, please”

- oh no Rita :(

- are they okay?

- okay

- okay their almost done

- THEIR GONNA GET MARRIED!!!!ILOVESOMUCH

- “If somebody tells you what they want you to call em, that’s what you call em” PREACH RITA

- wholesome

- Nureyev what, no

- NUREYEV WHAT ARE YOU DOING

- i have to many emotions for the end of this episode

3.15

- yay it’s Sir Angelo!

- he seems cool

3.16

- Sir Angelo no

- what, please stop talking Sir Angelo

- “I am not certain Sir Angelo, I cannot read”

- Olala is very done with him right now, and i am too

- Shut up please

- UMMMMM

- DID YOU STAB HIM

- Olala no

- :(

- the Patreon names made me laugh real loud, it’s 11pm the walls are thin oh no

3.17

- Yay Buddy

- The stream nights are great i love it

- Rita almost calling Buddy mom

- very concerned about what Peter is gonna do

- I love all of them so much

- Vespa gave Rita a knife, awwww

- “After all this is over, I’ll buy it an industrial supply of eyeliner and posters of sad young men”

- i don’t trust him either, as much as i want to :(

- i can’t tell how sincere he’s being and i hate this

- thats way to easy if an answer

- BUDDY

3.18

- Buddy :(

- :(

- “Juno, shut up thank you”

- i love them so much

- i’m cry, their so lovely, i love them so much

3.19

- TALFRYN

- “I’m not sure he knows about lower case letters”

- the patron names are so good

3.20

- Ale!

- SIR ANGELO

- The only voices i could hear from the memory restore were Arum and Quanyii

3.21

- Juno there is probably a good reason you didn’t get a job for the wedding

- i’m very happy to hear Juno’s thoughts again, and his theme

- it’s nice that their having a conversation were they are not about to kill each other

- 40 years ago, what Rita?

- Nureyev can play an instrument, huh

- i love this episode very much

- what no

- no not dark matters

- THERE LITERALLY HAVING A WEDDING WTF LEAVE PLEASE

- yeah it’s Sasha

- Sasha, what are doing?

- UMMMMMM

Holiday Special: The Miracle of Eight

- Yay their gonna have people over, that sounds wonderful

- It’s very weird to hear Arum use Damien’s name

- of course that’s what he was doing

- It’s very funny that Rilla is upset with Damien and Arum is the the one that’s chill with him

- why did Marc bring an air horn

- DAMPIERRE YES

- The Concierge?

- “Arum you’re eating a bowl of fruit, it’s supposed to be cold”

- “Well obviously the company is nice what do you take me for?” Awwwww

- i may have cried a bit this was so cute

3.22

- a Sasha episode?

- welp it was probably the thing Nureyev was doing

- Nureyev disappeared :(((

- yeah Buddy is upset you interrupted her wedding

- “My sleeping schedule is classified” thanks i hate it

- i hate the fighting

- Hell yeah Rita

- that was a great plan i love them all so much

- i’d like to take the time to say thank you to the mask i’m wearing that is preventing other people from seeing the big dumb grin on my face

3.23

- Olala thank you

- “Boys”

- I’m all caught up now and very exited for the next episode to come out

3.24

- this is the first episode i get to listen to on the day of release, but i’m big scared for the final

- oh no

- UM NO

- I hope everything turns out fine

- YESS ADVENTURE PARTY

- IM SO GLAD HE IS HERE

- YES THERE THEY ARE TAKING GAWAIN

3.25

- final for the season :’(

- the intro stuff is already about to make me cry

- yeah Nureyev probably took it

- Juno NO

- “Final Family Meeting” :’(

- Juno I don’t think we’ll see him till next season

- i’m gonna cry at the flashbacks

- no the family :’(

- i mean he did save himself

- is he gonna save them? i hope

- i’ll cry at this

- he knew :’(

- Juno that feel is to personal stop talking please

- Rita :’(

- Nope i’m crying

- NO YOU WILL NOT KILL THEM

- HEY SASHA, WHAT DID YOU DO

- Love trying killing your childhood friend and also the cure all of the universe, great job

- NUREYEV?!

- not Nureyev :’(

- Ruby 7 though

- what are you planing Juno Steel?

[detective-werewife]

@coffeepoweredlesbian I hope you choke on mustard and die a slow agonising death.

I'm in Love with my Roomba (Peter Nureyev x the Roomba Seven)

Nureyev slid into the garage with the confident ease of a master thief. Rita was watching a stream with Vespa, Buddy and Jet were on a mission, and Juno... Juno was peacefully asleep in their room. He would be none the wiser.

As soon as he shut the door behind him, he heard a familiar chirp, and he turned around with a huge grin on his face. "Hello, my dear beloved."

There she was. The Roomba Seven. Fastest getaway car in the galaxy, her metal a warm, vibrant shade of green. He lovingly stroked her sides, placing a kiss on her. "I missed you so much, baby."

The Roomba emitted a few high pitched whistles in delight, sucking inside of her Nureyev's headphones.

The thief laughed. "That's alright, I know it's your love language." He started rummaging in his pocket. "Today is a special day. Our two years anniversary! Can you believe it's been this long?" He pulled out some duct tape and one of his favorite knives. "You deserve a gift, my love."

As he strapped the knife onto his beloved, he remembered that all he got Juno for their anniversary was a bottle of ketchup from the discount supermarket they had robbed the night before. But he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry about it. Not with the most beautiful lady right in front of him.

"How about I take you for a ride?" He purred, sliding his hand on her smooth surface. "The galaxy is much bigger than the two of us, Roomba. We could start a new life, get married in New Vegas. Screw my debts, screw the Carte Blanche, screw Juno! It's you I want. And only you."

The Roomba affectionately ran over Nureyev's foot, and he chuckled. "I know you're thrilled, love. And we'll have the best wedding cake money can buy. Layers upon layers of ketchup. How do you feel about that?"

He hopped on top of the Roomba, careful not to stab himself with the knife (again), and was about to press a kiss on her, when the garage door opened.

"Hey, Ransom? Have you seen my-"

Everyone in the room froze. Juno was staring wide-eyed as he caught his boyfriend, the love of his life, his knight in stolen armor, cheating on him with a Roomba.

"Darling, I-I can explain." Nureyev jumped off the Roomba Seven. The latter was turning angrily towards Juno, pointing her knife at her. "It's not what it looks like."

"I knew it. I knew you were cheating on me. But I never expected it to be with this... this..."

"You stop right there!" Nureyev snapped, raising to his full height. "I won't let you slander the good reputation of the love of my life, the delight of my existence! She is gorgeous, and perfect, and caring, and is more of a lady than you'll ever be!"

Juno gasped, his eye watering with tears. Nureyev once thought his emotional side was endearing, but now it only looked pathetic. "How can you say that? After everything we've been through..."

"Did the Roomba ever abandon me in the middle of the night without saying goodbye? Huh? Did the Roomba ever shut herself in a room with a bomb, making me think that I would never see her again??"

Juno blinked, taken aback. "Please, what does it have that I don't?"

"I could stay here all day listing her values, but the stars await. It will be quite the adventure." Nureyev hopped back on top of the Roomba Seven, waving at Juno as she charged towards the open garage door. "I suggest you move!"

Juno rolled away just in time to not be stabbed by the Roomba's gigantic knife, as both her and Nureyev disappeared from his field of vision, towards a life of love, lust, and decadence across the galaxy.

[ananxiousgenz]

SONG FOR A CAGED LOVEBIRD: PART 13

this took. a while!! life has been busy recently lol. i feel it is important to note that this part 13 also cashed in at 1,666 words. this was not intentional, but uh. definitely has got some evil undertones.

reading some of the stuff peter says might get a lil confusing- just remember he is signing all of this!! i didn't want to write the word "signed" three million times and sign language is literally a language, just not a spoken one, so i used "said" instead

I SUMMON THEE TPP CREW: @smidgen-of-hotboy @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @urjover @one-joe-spoopy @waters-and-the-wilde @demonic-panini @the-private-eye

Way down deep in the pit of Juno’s stomach, a scaly rattlesnake of dread curled up and bared its fangs.

His muscles ached and his shirt was soaked through with sweat, and every few steps came with a cough from the horrible, black-dust air. He’d been searching the walls for hours now, looking for any sign of the tall, knife-thin figure that had sliced his world in half from the moment he walked into it. 

He’d seen a lot of workers. It took a lot of effort for him to not cringe at the sight of them. A hundred thousand faces, laying brick and chipping away at stone, each one looking as bone-tired and hopeless as the next. Some even looked vaguely familiar, distorted into someone he recognized through the dream-like haze in the air. But he hadn’t found anything of Peter Nureyev yet.

The rattlesnake shivered out a tense hiss. He was beginning to question everything. Had Rita remembered what had happened correctly? Maybe he’d missed him somewhere? Was Peter even here?

And suddenly all of Juno’s fear melted away.

There he was. A lone figure against the harsh lava glow of the factories behind him.

Just like he had the first time, he looked tired and disheveled, dirt on his face and a wall around his heart. His overalls were covered in mud and brick dust, his glasses were broken, and his eyes looked hollow and weary. But, gods, he might as well have had a gilded halo around his head for the way Juno wanted to fall down at his feet weeping and praying.

Blessed Saint Peter of the Workers.

Juno broke into a sprint.

“Nureyev?! Nureyev!!”

There was no answer. Peter just kept hacking away at the rock with his pickaxe, head bowed to the ground.

Juno scrambled up the rickety wooden ramp to the top of the wall as the rattlesnake slithered back into his gut. Peter barely noticed him. “Nureyev. Nureyev, please. Peter, please look at me!”

Nothing. Just that steady Hadestown rhythm of breathe, strike, lift. Breathe. Strike. Lift.

Juno grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. Peter’s eyes were completely empty, like the work here had sucked every last ounce of life out of him. Flashes of memory sped by in Juno’s mind. 

Peter laughing. Peter working out logic problems with Buddy. Peter telling stories with Rita. Peter fixing up the bar with Jet. Peter looking at him in wonder. Peter being alive.

He wasn’t alive now. The poorly sutured gash in his neck was evidence enough of that.

Juno was nearly crying now, scared and desperate, the world going blurry through the tears stuck in his lashes. The rattlesnake hidden in his stomach was letting out another steady hiss, it’s teeth bared in warning once more.

“Peter, please, you gotta remember me,” Juno whispered, pulling Peter’s head down to his. “I’m here to take you home.”

And then something strangely extraordinary happened.

Peter blinked. And it was like a miracle.

The hollowness cleared from his eyes in an instant. He squinted slightly through the dim light and broken glasses, and then recognition sparked in his eyes, and a grin more blinding than the sun snuck onto his face, chasing away the despair and melancholy. He looked at Juno, wonder and surprise and love in his eyes, and mouthed a single word.

Juno!

And then they were in each other's arms, holding each other like it was the only thing in the world that existed. Juno realized he was fully crying now, and Peter was crying too. His fist was clenched in Peter’s shirt that smelled like coal dust and sweat and fear but he didn’t care. He didn’t care. All that mattered was that they were here now, and they were holding each other, and he felt whole again. And it was like the world released a breath it barely knew it was holding back.

They stayed like that for a long time, crying and hugging and gently rocking back and forth, until both of them could breathe normally, like the sheer fact of the other’s presence could fix every problem they had ever known.

Juno pulled away from the hug first and kissed Peter hard. “You absolute DUMBASS. What the hell were you thinking, Nureyev? Getting yourself tangled up in the underworld?”

Peter made a slightly sour face and began signing something at Juno, too fast for him to understand.

“Wait, wait, wait. Slow down a minute. It’s been a while since I had to interpret sign, babe. You’re gonna have to sign slower than that.”

Peter sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, but planted a sweet kiss on Juno’s cheek before signing again, slower this time.

"How the hell did you get down here?"

“Jet led me. Apparently he used to work for Hadestown as a psychopomp or something. He wouldn’t go into it too much, though.”

"No, no, no," Peter said, snapping his fingers closed in slight frustration. "How did you get past the wall? No one gets in unless they come by train."

“Ah. Well, that’s interesting. There’s a backroad that I went down. And then when I got to the wall… I just. I sang. I asked it to let me in, said I needed to find you, and the stones just moved aside. I don’t know how.”

There was a pause. Peter was chewing on his lip now, looking at Juno with some emotion akin to reproach on his face. “What’s the matter, babe?”

"I called your name before I… left. And you never came for me."

Juno sucked in a pained breath through his teeth and looked at the rough-hewn ground. “You…. you did. I know.” 

Peter’s expression was rapidly approaching one that looked like it might burst into tears. "You knew? You heard me?"

“No, I didn’t know. Rita saw all of it. She…. she told me the story.” Juno sighed deeply, ran his hands over his face, and squatted down to the ground. “I’m so sorry, Nureyev. All of this is my fault. I should have been paying more attention to you, because you told me that you were hungry and I thought it would be fine, I just didn’t listen, and if I had listened, you wouldn’t be in this mess-”

Juno broke off as he felt Peter’s fingers under his chin, forcing him to look up. 

"Listen to me. This is not your fault," he said gently before giving Juno another kiss. His face had such a soft expression on it, soft like a magnolia petal in early spring with the kind of tenderness and care that only a very deep-rooted love can produce. 

Juno looked at that softness growing through the cracks of Nureyev’s walls and found himself falling in love with him all over again.

“It’s okay, though. I can fix this. I came to bring you home again. I can just sing the song again and the stones will let us back out- what’s the matter?”

Peter had begun shaking his head slowly. "Won’t work," he said, jaw clenched tight and face painted with varying shades of regret.

“What do you mean, it won’t work? It’ll work, I promise, Peter, I can get us out of-”

“You’re not from around here, are you?” 

A booming voice echoed across the wall in response, and Juno watched Nureyev go completely still, eyes wide and face stark white with fear and panic. Juno wasn’t sure who the man in the neat suit walking towards them was, but Peter’s reaction to his voice was enough to set Juno on edge in his defense.

He stood, back straight and eyes narrowed with as much confidence and menace as he could manage. “And who the hell are you?”

The man grinned, and something about his smile made Juno want to punch him. “An old friend of Petya’s. And the man who owns this city. You can call me Slip. You’d best be going, though. This city doesn’t take kindly to strays.”

Juno didn’t move a muscle. The man stared at him, eyes cold and clean and razor sharp.

“I said, you need to leave this city. Now.” 

“I’m not leaving without him.”

Nureyev stood then and turned to face the man, Slip, with a tension Juno had never seen in him before, and began shooting angry words in his direction. His hands were moving too fast for Juno to catch anything more than a few words: “alone,” “deal,” “my voice,” “take,” and “let him go”. Slip’s grin only widened.

“He hasn’t told you, has he?” he asked, leaning slightly to see Juno’s face.

Juno looked at Peter, a sick feeling beginning to snake back into his gut. “Tell me what, Peter?”

Peter looked at him painfully before staring wide-eyed at the ground and chewing on his lip.

The rattlesnake buzzed out a tremor of fear. “Peter, what did you do?”

“I told you I own this city, and that includes the people in it. My darling Petya here signed a contract for a job, and now he belongs to me. I was initially going to keep him from having to work out here, but since he decided he would rather keep company with my workers than me, I decided to let him do some of the work himself,” Slip shrugged, walking forward and resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

It was like the world was collapsing in on itself.

“It isn’t true,” Juno breathed, eyes widening. “It can’t be true. Tell me it isn’t true.”

Peter wouldn’t meet his eyes. He simply nodded and said nothing else.

The rattlesnake’s hiss crescendoed. Juno felt like he might throw up.

“Executives? Would you mind showing this young man here what we do with trespassers?” Slip called.

Suddenly, two large, identical men dressed in brown coats appeared behind Juno. Before he could say a word or move in defense, there was movement, a sharp pain radiating through his skull, and then Juno Steel knew no more.

[gothritaredacted]

God I’ve seen quite a bit of content for chronic pain/illness Juno and Nureyev and its fantastic but like - how about chronic pain/illness Rita?

Like this hc mostly comes from me being disabled and being like ‘mood’ to some of the offhand things Rita says/does - like her saying that all her plans avoid standing cause standing is awful and her having issues holding/dropping things

Rita with shooting pain and numbness in her wrists and hands, numbness that makes it hard for her to hold onto things sometimes. Rita with wrist braces with funky covers. Rita with ring splint jewelry. Rita with colourful and light-up ergonomic keyboards/mouse/computer set up for her hacking.

Rita with varying levels of aches and pains in her knees and ankles. Rita using walking-aides, different ones depending on the day/her pain (a cane, arm crutches, a walker, a wheelchair) each decked out and bedazzled to be as bright and cheerful as she is. 

Rita’s love of streams coming from the intersection of chronic pain/illness and ADHD, streams are definitely her special interest/hyperfixation, but it started when she was younger and bedridden. Cause I don’t know if any of y’all have ever been bedridden with ADHD but its awful, even with the pain, fatigue and general unwellness, the boredom, being so dreadfully unstimulated is honestly the worst. Especially if issues with your hands/lack of spoons make it hard to do things like hold a book/pencil/knitting needles/whatever else is required for hobbies that can be done in bed. Podcasts being so accessible has honestly been a godsend to me and I hc that streams are like that for Rita. 

Just

Disabled Rita

[ivyontheholodeck]

You know I gotta ask for Peter Nureyev

How I feel about this character: 

He’s a mess. He’s a nightmare. He needs a nap. He writes horny poetry about Juno with car metaphors that make Jet distrust him around the Ruby 7. He’s got grabby fingers like a raccoon and he’s definitely carrying too many knives. He should not have shaved his head. He’s absurd. He’s a wreck. How the fuck does he have sex appeal. And yet he does. He has so much and it doesn’t make any sense. I love him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

Juno Steel, crime queenMy non-romantic OTP for this character: 

Buddy Aurinko. Peter Nureyev needs to have Captain Mom drag him every now and then to keep him humble. At some point he ironically gives her a piece of macaroni art that he made while bored during a heist at a fancy dinner. Buddy unironically hangs it on the Carte Blanche’s refrigerator and Nureyev wants to die (but actually he’s on the verge of tears because Mom likes it? Mom likes his gift??)

My unpopular opinion about this character: 

Nureyev doesn’t wear Axe body spray anymore. Don’t get me wrong, he did when he was a teen (too much of it, which nearly got him caught on a few heists), but he decided to change his whole brand after New Kinshasa. 

No, Peter Nureyev wears Old Spice. 

He’d used it on a whim for the Rex Glass case because antique deodorant seemed like the kind of thing an agent specializing in ancient curses would wear. But then Juno liked it, and Nureyev had to keep wearing it. The problem? Old Spice is, once again, an antique product from the twenty-first century. Bars are worth more than their weight in diamonds. Nureyev accrued his billions in debt by buying the damn things.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: 

I want Nureyev to come across Rita’s notes. Juno finds him staring at a drawing of an octopus applying mascara and starts to explain, but Nureyev cuts him off: “Did the suspect tell you what her third cousin had been doing in the boudoir on that night? I see all the others were accounted for in the drawing room, but-“ 

Juno blinks at him. “You can read the notes?”

“They’re clear as day, detective. Can’t you?” 

[skysybil]

Penumbra Superlatives: Most Likely To Be A Dark Matters NPC

The people demanded it, and I am indeed a magnanimous conspiracy theory machine, so here is my incredibly ridiculous reasoning behind my “who is in the dark matters simulation and who is fake” ranking, found here. Thank you to my partner for listening to me yell about this for 24 hours straight now. Man, I am gonna look like an idiot if this isn’t a Dark Matters induced simulation or dream in the end with how all-in I’ve been going with this.

Also, if you guys ever want me to lay out every fucking tiny detail I’ve seen that I think points to it being a simulation, I’ll do that too. Please validate me.

This is insanely long, it’s like two to three paragraphs for every member of the space family. This is kind of shameful, I almost feel bad. I’ll be your best friend forever if you read it all. Also, I’m putting it below the cut for everyone’s sanity. Anyway, let’s go lesbians, let’s go!

First, in the “definitely an active participant” category: Rrrrrita!

I’ll admit, it’s genuinely really hard to tell what discrepancies in the story are suspicious simulation details and what is just Rita being a particularly unreliable narrator. However, my first general point towards Rita being an active participant/player/whatever you want to call it is the fact that we’re experiencing this through her perspective! I think it would be really cool to tell the story from the perspective of a caricature puppeted by Dark Matters, but I feel like it would be way more obvious in gaps in her thinking patterns if she was fake. Honestly, I personally think it would be impossible to run it from the perspective of one of these NPCs (as i’m calling them) anyway, because... you know, they probably don’t have much in the way of thoughts in the first place. 

Plus, out of everyone in the group, she is most likely to be plucked out of a group of criminals by Dark Matters to recruit. Sasha knows her (or at least knows of her) and how good she is at her job. I’m sure she’s got a target on her back as someone that’s too powerful (seriously, I pray for the universe the day Rita realizes just how quickly she could take over the world--see: my THEIA Rita AU that i came up with this morning which I might post about later), but I’m also pretty sure killing Rita would be seen as a wasted opportunity. This could just be another test, just like Day That Wouldn’t Die but in an even more controlled environment. The perfect trap, the perfect test--hopefully for perfect results. And with how she tends to get caught up in glamour and drama or get distracted so easily, she’s one of the easiest members of the group to trick into not questioning the little discrepancies that comes from living in a lie.

---

Next, Vespa. Love of my life and the only other member of the Carte Blanche crew that I’m almost totally sure is sharing space in this simulation.

She’s in a similar position that she’s a valuable asset for Dark Matters to try and take on--especially if they can use her past debts as blackmail or something along those lines. She’s a damn good assassin and they tend to specialize in making people disappear. Why wouldn’t they seize the opportunity to test her and see if she could truly work for them? Dark Matters also seems to lack an ethical core, to say the least, and if they consider her past trauma and her illness to be an issue, I’m sure they wouldn’t be against trying to “fix” her in their horribly scummy ways just so she could be a better killer for their organization. It could also be related to her skills as a doctor with the crew, to be fair--while Rita is off building robots and trying to break into a super secret base, Vespa is repairing the entire medical wing, an incredibly suspicious task when apparently enough of the ship survived that Rita’s computers are okay, the entire crew is unscathed, and the Ruby isn’t a warped hunk of metal.

Though she is also very likely to be nabbed by Dark Matters as an opportunity, the main condemning thing against Vespa being an NPC is the conversation we overhear with Buddy. No one else knows that Vespa considered or decided on leaving the crew. We can’t say that’s a part of Rita’s mind affecting the simulation around her because Rita doesn’t know, and it’s not information that could be hacked, either. It was just in her mind. Unless Dark Matters has their hands on new mind reading technology (oh god, not this shit again), there’s no way that the scene with Vespa and Buddy could exist unless Vespa is also inhabiting the simulation. Every scene they choose to include is deliberate. To rule Vespa out of the plan, all it would’ve taken was likely just Vespa being her normal defensive self. Why would they include a scene with a look into that vulnerability if it didn’t matter?

Speaking of the Vespa and Buddy scene--but why would Vespa snap at Rita that badly if she’s real, you might ask. You’re right, Vespa is aggressive but not that aggressive normally, and it stood out in the few interactions we saw. In Vespa’s defense, if she is participating in this simulation, she is understandably freaked the fuck out. Vespa spends every day of her life hyperaware of what might be real and what might be fake around her. She’s most likely to figure out that something is very wrong first simply because of that trait. How much of her mind is Dark Matters manipulating? Would DM have to simulate her hallucinations, or would that come naturally along with her mind being stuck in this simulation? I imagine that for every discrepancy we’ve picked up on, she’s picked up on six--but she no longer has the explanation of it being a hallucination. I imagine it’s frustrating and terrifying for her. I’d be on edge, too!

---

Moving into our next category: “probably in the simulation”, with our only candidate Buddy.

Buddy is my question mark character. We barely interacted with her this episode. From what I can tell, most of what we saw from her seems in character, and she had some wicked fucking lines. I’m sorry, I refuse to give Dark Matters credit for the line “If you imagine all that could go wrong, all you’ve done is drag yourself through a thousand disasters. And even in the worst-case scenario, you will only need to live through one.” Because it genuinely made me feel better in real life, goddammit.

Buddy is mostly in this category for lack of evidence, both with the lack of interaction and with how Rita kind of glazed over the family meeting with her distractions. So, it’s hard to say. I’d love to hear others’ theories on Buddy’s place in this.

---

Now, we cross the threshold into those that are probably not in the simulation, or are acting incredibly suspicious: the “on thin fucking ice” category. First, Peter. 

Can this bastard decide on his personality for two whole minutes so I can get a handle on the little intricacies of the new Ransom persona? No? Goddammit. It’s hard to tell how much of the way he acted was genuinely suspicious and how much of it is the mask he’s put on for Peter Ransom. While he’s adopted the old name, he hasn’t adopted his old personality, so it’s near impossible to get good points of comparison on this new view. We’ve seen inside his head with this persona, sure, but we can’t compare the way he spoke and acted in his head with how he holds himself in front of Rita--he’s always going to choose his level of vulnerability based off of the least trusted person in the room. He’s not to that place with Rita yet. He’s going to have walls and facades up that he won’t have in front of Juno, or in front of himself. He can’t make it easy on him.

But that does not mean I can’t be suspicious of him, because I am. Fuck you, Nureyev, I’m still coming for you. Mainly, I’m squinting at his reaction to Rita’s plans and his lack of reaction to her openly talking about the two of them in an established relationship. We know damn well that Peter and Juno are not at that place yet. Why, do you ask? Because I trust that Sophie and Kevin wouldn’t take that moment from us. We’ve had three and a half years of slowburn buildup on Jupeter! We would not skip from “tentatively talking and trying to learn communication through ‘’’’’’poetry’’’’’’ and shit” to “established lovey dovey relationship” without being let in on it. I doubt Peter would let comments like the ones Rita made really slide in front of Juno--after all, the last time he admitted he was in love, Juno fucking left, and I bet there’s a lot of reluctance or trauma surrounding that. Yet he let it slide anyway.

Still, because Peter is a wild card, there’s still a possibility that his non-reaction was a defense mechanism or part of the Ransom facade (after all, he had to pretend he was in better standing with Juno than he actually was at first to keep his place in the family). The most suspicious thing he did in that conversation, in my opinion, was agree not to let anyone else know about the plan. He knows damn well that he is on thin ice with everyone in the crew except for Juno and Rita. Trust is in short supply for him and keeping his position in the family is incredibly important to him, both so he can find a way to pay off his debts and so he can pursue this shaky relationship he’s started to piece back together with Juno. Yet he hops right in with barely any pushback when it comes to keeping this Incredibly Vital And Important Plan a complete secret. Plus, you know, he supposedly couldn’t even stand, yet walked all the way to the computer cave. Sure, maybe Juno carried him, but I’d fully expect something like Juno picking him up to be a joke written into the script. I feel like it was deliberately left out.

Still, the only real glimpse of Peter that Dark Matters has ever had was of Rex Glass, and Peter definitely isn’t acting like his Rex persona, so how would they really know to get his personality around the Aurinko family to where it is? I suppose that could be attributed to Rita, Vespa, and/or Buddy shaping the simulation around them.

Tl;dr on the Peter section: He’s almost definitely an NPC but nothing is certain with a man whose entire sense of self is based off of an elaborate web of lies and inconsistencies.

---

Also probably an NPC, but I’m not sure, thus on thin fucking ice: Jet.

You cannot tell me for one fucking second that Jet doesn’t know the Ruby 7 inside and out. That car is his baby. He’s torn the car apart and repaired it more than anyone else, and you’re telling me he doesn’t understand the core functions of the car--the engine, the fuel tank? No fucking way. I don’t have 3.5 paragraphs of speculation for Jet, I’m just so hung up on the fucking car thing. His personality fits well, which is the one string I’m holding onto that makes him maybe possibly an actual human being, but I feel like Dark Matters fucked up by trying to fill in the blanks on the Ruby 7. That’s where I think the issue comes from--the reason there’s a part in the Ruby that Jet doesn’t understand is because DM doesn’t know how the Ruby works, and they tried to put in what they imagined could power it or fuzz over the details. But I will cry if the Ruby was actually destroyed in the crash, there’s no recovering from that.

---

And finally, if you’ve made it this far and not left after whispering to yourself holy shit, she’s insane, she’s absolutely insane, how much does this woman talk, we have the final category: unfortunately an NPC. And holy shit, is Juno 100% not in this simulation or being almost entirely puppeted by Dark Matters.

I genuinely can’t get into all my reasoning behind Juno being a puppet here without going on forever and doubling the length of this post, and I’ve put you through so much already. But every inch of Juno is suspicious, down to his tone of voice. Look, I’m happy to see him happy. But it just seems like a jump--just like as I discussed in the Peter section with the Jupeter relationship. It feels like we skipped something, or missed something. This is my theory: Juno has been crafted based off of how Sasha Wire knew him when she saw him last. He doesn’t have reactions that are quite right to the computers, to Peter, to anyone, really. Everything felt just a little off--until he got frustrated. Then he became more realistically Juno. I think this might be because Sasha is basing a comfortable and happy Juno (the one she assumes he must be around the people on the ship, especially Peter if she knows they’re romantically involved) off of the Juno she interacted with when they were younger, which is just off in comparison to the Juno we know now. She can build a more three dimensional Juno in the situations she’s familiar with, like a bored Juno, a frustrated Juno, or an angry Juno. She’s got the one-liners down, I’ll give her that.

I’m also just in general not surprised if Sasha is just keeping him separate from the rest of them. Possibly to try and talk him out of the family, get him untangled from the Dark Matters mess? Plus, he’s incredibly perceptive, and might be considered a risk to the simulation if he was in it. 

Also, the out-of-universe evidence: I am 100% convinced that the reason the episode script came out late is because it had to be edited to remove some of the directions, possibly suspicious things like “too cheery”. Specifically, I think one of Juno’s significant directions is missing. It’s hard to put exactly what kind of direction is missing into words because I don’t know anything about script writing, but I just... I have a feeling. Trust me on this. I’ve seen other people on Twitter talk about it too, I’m not the only one. I stand by it.

---

Anyway, since I want to keep my Juno-specific speculation as short as possible, that’s all, folks. If you stayed this long, genuinely I love you so much and I would give my life for you, message me or mention it in the tags that you made it all the way and maybe we could be mutuals or friends!! I love to ramble about this kind of thing. Follow me for more aimless speculation, hopefully not 2.5k words next time. If you have any questions or other stuff to discuss also mention it and I might post about it later!

Update: If you’re interested in the simulation theory, here’s the link to a post I just made laying out all my conspiracy theory evidence for it.

[lurking-umbra]

Bad things happen bingo fill #10: Eating Disorder TW: disordered eating, abusive relationships

When Juno and Diamond were together, Diamond had two rings that they wore all the time, one on each hand, one gold, one silver. Juno still remembered the coolness of them against his cheeks when they cradled his face in their hands, after a nightmare about Ben or when they were apologizing for something they did. Juno hadn't dated anyone who wore rings since, at least not until Nureyev. Nureyev wore an assortment of rings on his fingers, of varying sizes, but somehow they always felt warm against Juno's skin rather than cold like Diamond's. Nureyev took all of them off when the two were in bed together, which helped make it feel different than Diamond.

When Juno and Diamond's relationship started to go bad, if it hadn't been bad to begin with and Juno was just too blind to see it, Diamond began to get rougher and rougher with him. Diamond had always had a temper, blowing up at Juno for small things. Juno still remembered the feel of those rings knocking against his face. As their relationship started to get worse, when the yelling and fighting became closer to once a night rather than only on occasion, Diamond complained that Juno had never bought them anything.

At the beginning of their relationship, Diamond had showered Juno with gifts: skirts and dresses, earrings, alcohol; all more expensive than what Juno could afford with his starting salary at the HCPD. Diamond had been born into money, and when they bought Juno lavish things he could never even hope to afford, they always said it was a gift, because they loved him. Looking back, at some point the gifts had turned from spontaneous delights to apology bribes, given whenever Diamond got really angry and broke his things or hit him.

Diamond had never asked for anything in return, but there wasn't much Juno could buy them that they couldn't get themselves much quicker and easier. Or at least they hadn't asked until things were getting really bad, around the same time they were planning their wedding.

When Diamond demanded for him to buy them something special, Juno had wanted to protest, to say that even though he rarely, if ever, bought them things, he did other things to show he loved them instead. He cooked them elaborate dinners when they were home from work late, he cleaned the apartment they shared from top to bottom, planned extravagant date nights in, and ran them warm baths and gave them massages when they came home with their muscles sore. Things he could do without spending the small amount of free creds he had that didn't go towards necessities. But they wanted more, and Juno was tired of the fighting and getting knocked around. He was tired of being so afraid of treading wrong in his own home, of feeling like he had never really left Oldtown and Sarah Steel. He missed Benten and the ability to hide behind his brother on the rare occasions when he allowed it to happen.

So when Diamond asked for him to buy them something, anything, in time for them to receive it before their wedding, Juno started saving everything he could. It wasn't enough at first, not nearly enough for anything that Diamond would accept, and so he looked at his budget and tried to figure out what he could afford to lose. Most of his salary went towards the rent Diamond charged him for living in their apartment. He often purchased the groceries for the two of them as well, and it didn't take long for Juno to realize that the food would last longer if he didn't eat, like he and Ben would do sometimes when money was tight and their mother hadn't managed to attend work that week. Eating only the bare minimum, making his money stretch further by not purchasing as much food, Juno could do that for Diamond. He could sacrifice the occasional lunches eaten out at the HCPD, eat less on the few times when Diamond insisted on sharing a meal together. If being hungry was what it took to make Diamond happy, Juno didn't mind starving to death, if that was where this was headed.

He could tell Rita worried when he started working through lunch, and he tried to reassure her that he had a big breakfast, or that he would eat while he worked, or that he was saving room for a big fancy dinner date with Diamond. 

Juno wasn't sure when skipping meals to save money became a habit, but he had saved up enough money to buy Diamond a very nice engagement ring, a sign of his commitment to the relationship, within a few months. Diamond had been so happy and things were really good for a short time. They continued to be good, up until the week before the wedding, when everything fell apart so rapidly. 

Some of the details from then were still a little foggy to Juno, the lack of food catching up to him all at once, it seemed, and the stress of both the wedding and Diamond's own stress doing much to continue to keep him from eating. Juno had passed out at work twice in that week, and was once so dizzy while on a foot chase that he had run into a wall.

Even now, years after all of that had happened, Juno still found himself eating less when he thought someone was mad or frustrated with him. It happened less often than it had while he was with Diamond, but Juno had yet to be in any relationship where things were perfectly smooth all the time. So when Nureyev was mad at him for nearly sacrificing himself on a job, Juno stopped eating.

He wasn't sure how it was supposed to help, but it did mean that Juno could avoid being in public spaces with Nureyev. He didn't need to go into the kitchen to eat with the rest of the crime family when he had a small stash of non-perishables hidden in his room that he could eat from when the dizziness started to impede his ability to work. Both Rita and Buddy made mention of seeing him less often in the days since his sacrifice attempt, and to appease them, Juno went back to eating at least one meal a day with the crew, though that was often the only meal he would eat that day. When he thought he could get away with just moving his food around his plate, he did so. His missed meals didn't come to a head until nearly two weeks later when Nureyev stumbled upon Juno half collapsed in the middle of a hallway as he waited for the dizziness impeding his visual field to go away.

"Juno?" Peter asked, and Juno did his best to ignore the way his head throbbed when he attempted to look up at him, only for his field of vision to be the barest of pinpricks surrounded by odd bursts of color. "What on earth are you doing in the middle of the hallway?"

"Can't a lady spend some time alone in a hallway?" Juno asked as he leaned into the wall and pulled himself up to his feet. He startled badly at the feel of hands on his arms, banging his head into the wall and sending his vision into utter darkness.

"Juno?" Peter repeated, and Juno could hear the concern in his voice even as he remained the only thing keeping Juno upright at the moment.

Juno's vision cleared slowly and he could finally see Peter's face and the worry that lined it. He hadn't seen Peter very often since they had their disagreement and he found his heart lifting at the sight of his face. "Hey hon," Juno said with a grin, as he finally gained his footing once more rather than leaning on Peter. The dizziness had finally faded, although the pounding of his head that replaced it wasn't really any better.

"Do you… need to see Vespa?" Peter asked slowly, looking Juno up and down. "How hard did you hit your head and what happened before that?" 

"I'm fine," Juno assured him, stepping out of Peter's grip and moving in the direction of his room. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, and that was probably overdoing it. He could grab a granola bar from his stash and he would be fine for the next day or so.

"Juno, you just nearly passed out when I touched you," Peter said, trailing behind him and reaching out for him once more. Juno forced his muscles to stiffen rather than flinch back like he wanted. Diamond had not been so gentle when they were angry with him, even though Juno wasn't sure why he was thinking about them so much or when it had even started.

"It would ease my mind if you would get Vespa to look at you, at the very least."

"Yeah, I will," Juno said despite making no move to turn and head towards the infirmary.

"That's not in the direction of the infirmary."

"I know!" Juno snapped, turning around to face Peter head on. His head gave a particularly bad throb at the rapid motion, but his vision remained clear at least. "I'll go later, okay?" he offered in a softer tone.

"I would much prefer that you go now." 

"I've barely seen you at all recently and now you decide to care about my wellbeing?"

"I would have seen you more if you didn't seem so intent on avoiding me," Peter said with a frown. "The little time we've spent together isn't for lack of trying on my part."

"Oh," Juno said softly. He wasn't quite sure of what to do with the fact that Peter still wanted to spend time with him. "But… aren't you... mad at me?"

Peter stared at Juno for a long minute. Juno resisted the urge to fidget, though he found that he couldn't quite meet Peter's eyes. 

"I am… frustrated with you, yes," Peter began haltingly. "But I am coming to realize that speaking with one another would do much to improve the situation."

"You've been talking with Buddy, haven't you?" Juno asked, a small grin stretching across his face.

"She does tend to offer advice an awful lot for someone who claims not to be a therapist, though I can't help but agree with her in this case." Peter reached out to touch Juno's arm gently and slowly, telegraphing his intentions clearly. This time Juno didn't flinch away, wasn't startled or scared by it. This was Nureyev, the man who trusted him so much that he gave him his name, not Diamond. "Would you be agreeable to us talking?"

"Sure."

The two of them moved down the hall once more, this time in step with one another. Peter let Juno choose where to go, and so he led them into his room. Juno thought about grabbing a granola bar once they were inside, but the thought of trying to eat anything while having a serious conversation about their relationship tied his stomach into knots. Later, then. Peter sat down on the bed and Juno took a seat beside him, just barely within arms reach.

"I must admit that I am not entirely sure of why you were avoiding me," Peter started, once it was clear that Juno was not going to say anything. "I was upset the first few days afterwards, but when I wanted to speak with you, you made yourself difficult to get alone."

"I…" Juno trailed off as he realized that there really was no reason for him to have avoided Peter. He had fallen into old habits from a relationship that hadn't existed for years. "I'm sorry, Nureyev. I wasn't… I wasn't thinking."

"Well you always seem to be thinking something, my dear. You don't have to answer, but perhaps it would help if you shared your thoughts? Or told me what I did wrong at the very least, so that I can do my best to avoid doing so again."

"It's not something you did wrong. I messed up. I knew you were angry at what I did, so I…" Juno huffed, running a hand over his hair before standing up to pace. "It's been years since then, but for some awful reason this reminded me of--" Juno cut himself off before he said their name, as though saying their name would bring them back into his life somehow. He knew it wouldn't and yet he felt terrified at the thought of speaking it out loud. "Someone I dated," Juno continued. "And when they were angry at me they… they weren't nearly so nice."

"Oh Juno," Peter said softly from the bed.

When Juno spun around to face him, the dizziness from before came back with a vengeance, sending him collapsing to the floor as the pounding in his head drowned out all sound for a few long moments.

When Juno came back to awareness, he was sitting on the bed, leaning into Peter's side. Peter held him to his side and upright with one arm as he tapped at his comms with the other.

"What're you doing?" Juno slurred, sitting up slightly even though the movement made his head throb.

"Asking Vespa to come look you over."

"I'm fine," Juno said, reaching out clumsily for Peter's comms. He lifted it easily out of Juno's reach and so he slumped back into Peter's side in defeat. "Just a little dizzy. Nothing a granola bar won't fix."

"Juno, you passed out," Peter said, placing the comms down and wrapping his other arm around Juno as well. Juno melted into the embrace. He had missed this. "I'm worried that you may have given yourself a concussion."

"It's not a concussion," Juno mumbled into Peter's chest. 

"I'll be the judge of that," Vespa rasped from where she stood in the doorway.

"That was fast," Juno muttered as Vespa moved towards the bed. She took out a pen light and shined it into Juno's eye, watching the pupil contract and expand. She then had Peter move away from Juno to perform a few other tests.

"You seem fine," she grumbled once she was satisfied. "You probably don't have a concussion, but Ransom here said you passed out twice."

"It wasn't twice," Juno protested. "Just the one time, the first time I was just very dizzy." 

Vespa narrowed her eyes at Juno. "And have these dizzy spells been happening often? I know you don't have any other conditions that would cause that."

Juno very carefully did not look at either of the other occupants of the room. "I… I may have not been eating enough. ...These past few weeks."

"Juno!" "Steel!" Peter and Vespa yelled his name in admonition simultaneously and Juno winced at the combined volume. 

"I didn't mean to," Juno snapped. "I just… fell back into bad habits."

Vespa eyed Juno warily. "And what are you going to do now that you've realized?"

Juno shrugged. "Do better next time, I guess." 

Vespa nodded. "Eat some food so you don't pass out. A real meal, with balanced nutrients. There's some leftovers from last night still in the fridge." That said, Vespa left, the door closing behind her.

"She has such a wonderful bedside manner, don't you think?" Juno joked.

"Juno." Peter had been frowning since Juno mentioned the reason for his dizzy spells, and Juno realized how much he disliked seeing that expression on him, especially when he was the one to put it there.

"Would it help if I say I'm sorry?" Juno asked hesitantly.

Peter sighed wearily. "It's a start, I suppose, but Juno, why haven't you been eating? I understand why you wanted to avoid me now, but why would you not eat?"

Juno focused down on the edge of the sheets on the bed, flipping it back and forth between his hands. "Back when I… when I was dating…" Juno cut himself off with a huff and tried again. "The person I mentioned before? At one point they… we… I… they wanted me to buy something I couldn't easily afford. But I wanted to be good for them, I wanted things to be good between us and so I… I cut out what expenses I could."

"And food was one of them," Peter extrapolated with a frown.

"And food was one of them," Juno echoed with a nod. "You can make food stretch longer if you eat less of it, and that saves creds. It… was not a concept that I was unfamiliar with, and it worked. And for a while after things were much better than they had been for a long time, and so I just… kept going, in the hopes that they would stay that good."

"I suppose I would be remiss if I said I didn't understand the concept as well," Peter said with a sigh. "I only wish you hadn't felt the need to fall back into bad habits."

"Like I said, Nureyev, it wasn't entirely intentional. But once I realized what I was doing, it felt like it was too late to stop. It was… surprisingly easy to pick up again and now I have to remember how to stop it."

"We can help. The whole crew can ensure that you get adequate food and nutrients." Peter stood up from the bed and held out a hand for Juno to take.

Juno rolled his eye but took the offered limb, leaning into Peter a little more when his head spun dizzily as he stood. "I sure hope you don't intend to be supplying any of those meals."

Peter squawked indignantly but didn't make any other protest. Juno grinned up at him as he leaned back into his side before leaning up on his tiptoes to press a kiss to Peter's cheek.

"Thank you for being so understanding. And supportive. I…" Diamond wouldn't have been much of either. "It's been a while since I was dating someone who cared about me like this."

"And you deserve that and more, Juno. You are a wonderful lady," Peter said with a frown, pausing at the door to the kitchen. 

"Why thank you, Ransom," Juno said with a grin. He lowered his voice and his smile fell slightly. "I'm trying to remember that myself sometimes."

"Well rest assured, I will do everything in my power to remind you of it when you need it."

Juno leaned up and pressed a kiss to Peter's lips, leaning into the kiss when Peter kissed back. When they finally pulled back, Juno was unsure if his dizziness was due to the lack of food or the lack of oxygen. "Thank you in advance."

"Oh it's my pleasure. Now which of our leftovers would you like?" Peter punctuated his statement with a wave of his hand in the direction of the refrigerator.

Juno opened the door to look at his options, and felt his mood sinking at the thought of eating any of them. He knew that he should, knew that he needed to, but he hadn't been lying to Peter when he said that he had to remember how to stop this habit all over again. He grabbed a container randomly, grimacing down at it when he realized what it was. He put the container back and grabbed for one that had some kind of noodles. Noodles were safe, some of the first meals Juno had cooked for himself and Ben when they were younger. The soup that had been in the other container on the other hand, well, Juno had been avoiding soup ever since his trip into Miasma's mind. There was just something about the whole experience that had set him off soup entirely.

Juno took the container to the table where Peter was sitting, a plate and fork set in the place across from him. He used the fork to scoop out some of the noodles from the container, feeling Peter's eyes on him. Instead of feeling reassured, as Peter likely intended, he just felt watched and judged.

"You don't really want to just sit there and watch me eat, do you?" Juno asked half jokingly, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. He turned to put the plate in the microwave, more to do something than because he had any interest in the food, despite the fact that it had been a while since he'd last eaten. 

"Is that all you're eating?" Peter asked rather than answer Juno's question.

Juno stiffened in response, not needing to turn around to know that Peter had a frown on his face. He turned to face Peter slowly, having to remind himself that he wasn't Diamond and that this was different. Peter asked because he cared and was worried. 

"I figured I'd start small," he replied softly. "I can always warm up more if I'm hungry after." The microwave dinged before Peter had the time to respond and Juno was able to turn away from Peter once more. "I've done this before, remember?"

Peter hummed agreeably and Juno grabbed the plate and moved to sit in the seat across from him. He stirred the noodles on his plate, eyeing it warily. He knew from experience that despite his body's insistence on additional food, actually eating would be a bit of an unpleasant chore at first. He also knew that pushing his food around on his plate wouldn't work when there was nothing to distract Peter from his eating habits. He sighed softly before taking a small bite, feeling hyperaware of his chewing and the sensation of the noodles and sauce in his mouth. He swallowed his mouthful down against the wave of nausea that washed over him. This was the worst part of this process, forcing his body to adjust to regularly getting food again.

Juno looked down at the plate of food still left for him to eat and resisted the urge to sigh heavily at the sight. Even that small amount of food felt like an insurmountable task. He glanced up at Peter from beneath his eyelashes, training his gaze back on his plate when he saw Peter watching him intently.

"Juno," Peter drawled, causing Juno to look up at him once more. "Did I ever tell you about the time I stole the ring of Saturn?"

"You stole one of the rings?" Juno asked flatly.

Peter grinned in a way that showed off the points of his teeth. "Not one of the planetary rings, my dear. This was a physical ring, though quite ostentatious, even for my tastes."

Juno snorted. "And just how showy is that? You have a very high bar."

Peter continued to speak, weaving the tale of his heist bit by bit, leaning into the dramatics even more than usual. Juno wasn't sure why until his fork scraped across the bottom of the plate and found nothing. He looked down and realized that all of the contents were gone, and looked back up to see Peter smiling gently. 

"Did you want more, dear?" He asked.

Juno shook his head and stood to place his plate and fork in the washer. "I see what you did there though. … thank you."

"Anytime, dear. Now shall we retreat to your room or mine?"

"Mine, I guess," Juno said after a moment of thought. "If I get hungry again, I have a store of granola bars."

Peter nodded and offered his elbow to Juno. "Away we go."

It didn't take long for the two of them to arrive at Juno's room once more. Juno sat on the bed, pulling Peter up behind him, and rearranging until they were leaned up against the headboard with Juno curled up to Peter's side, Peter's arm around his shoulders.

"Thanks again for everything," Juno managed after a few moments of comfortable silence.

"Any time my dear."

"I'm sorry that I get stuck in my head so easily. I don't…" Juno trailed off as he tried to figure out how to say what he wanted. "I know you're not them. You're very different, but sometimes my brain… sometimes I forget that."

"Well, I will do my best to remind you, I suppose."

"Doesn't it bother you?" Juno asked, his nose wrinkling in a frown. "I shouldn't need you to remind me that you're not… them."

"Juno," Peter said sadly and Juno turned his face slightly to bury it in Peter's shoulder. Peter ran a hand over Juno's head and down his back. "If it makes things easier for you, I am willing to do whatever you need. I don't mind. I know you would do the same for me." Peter's hand slowed in stroking Juno's back as he hesitated for a second. "I would rather not see you pass out from not eating again."

Juno hummed noncommittally in his throat, opening the eye that had closed at the soothing sensation of Peter stroking his back. He stared at the fabric of Peter's shirt, achingly aware of the fact that he didn't want to have this conversation. "I… I'm not sure I can make that promise. You can ask Rita, back when I tried to kick the habit the first time it was… not easy. Sometimes I'm going to forget."

"Like I said before, Juno, I'm willing to step in and remind you, or check in to make sure that you've eaten recently, if that's what you need."

"Yeah, that… that sounds good." He closed his eye once more, focusing on the gentle feel of Peter's hands on his body, one stroking up and down on his back as the other came to rest gently on top of his hair.

He hadn't eaten much, but he already felt a little better, the constant throbbing in his head receding and the dizziness gone. Curled up in Peter's arms, he felt safe, like he could rest for the first time since all of this happened. Peter wasn't angry with him, and even if he was, he wasn't Diamond. Juno didn't have to worry about jumping through hoops in order to salvage their relationship. Juno could relax and know that he'd be okay, that they would be okay, and if they weren't, they would talk about it. 

"Are you falling asleep on me, dear?" Peter asked amusedly, after a long but comfortable silence.

"Maybe," Juno hummed, already partway there.

"Are you aware that it's the middle of the day?"

"Don't you know that that's the best time for napping, Nureyev?" Juno asked, looking up at Peter with a sappy grin. 

"I can't say I've ever had the chance to try it."

Juno's grin widened. "Try it with me now. You can see how nice it is and we can both wake up to the rest of the crew calling us for dinner, confused at what day it is."

Peter was quiet for a few pointed moments. "And you call that good?"

"Oh, yeah. The best kind of naps are the ones that make you forget where and when you are when you wake up."

Peter grimaced. "I'm not sure I see the benefit, but feel free to take a nap if you feel the urge."

"Already on it," Juno replied, snuggling further into Peter's side. He felt more than heard the soft chuckle Peter let out at his response. 

"Sleep well, Juno."

[ernmark]

If you’re still accepting prompts, I’d love to see Juno accidentally using his mind-reading powers in s1 to understand how Nureyev sees him, and trying to come to terms with the difference between Nureyev’s perception and his own

What’s funny is that I’m not entirely sure about how Peter felt about Juno at the time. We know how he felt a year later, but a lot happened between the tomb and the Carte Blanche. A lot of the dismissal and disdain Peter had for Juno in the latter reminds me of the bitterness we feel toward someone who falls off the pedestal we put them on. I’m not certain if that’s entirely the case, but hey, it’s fun to write, so that’s what I’m going with. 

—–

There’s a word for what Juno is: a coward.

Everyone already knows that, even though they keep asking him the same goddamn question. He knows it, too, even though he keeps dancing around the answer like he’s one of his brother’s clumsy students.

That’s why he’s refused to look up Peter Nureyev all this time, no matter how many chances he had. That’s why he turned his back on Nureyev over and over again.

Because he’s afraid of what he’ll find.

He’s afraid of what he’s already found, when Miasma dragged him into the shallow end of Nureyev’s memories at knifepoint. Beyond that there’s more, there’s reason and motive and the things Nureyev felt in the moment, and once it’s all uncovered there’ll be no more hiding from it. There’ll be no more pretending it’s not there or that there’s some angle he’s missing. He’ll know.

He’ll know, just like he knows what happened to Ben. 

He was so desperate to find out, back then, when he still had a closed door between him and the body. When he could still take refuge in the hope that possibly, somehow, despite all the evidence otherwise, Ben might still be breathing on the other side. That hope vanished when he turned the knob and opened the door, and Ben was gone forever.

Here, in the liminal space between his mind and Nureyev’s, he feels another door rising up before him. He feels the knob, easy and unyielding. A turn, a push, and he could know.

And every maybe will be gone forever, and he’ll be left with inescapable certainty.

He hesitates. His hands are shaking– with effort or with fear, he’s not sure anymore– but slender fingers curl around his and ease them still. 

A picture forms– not behind the door, but in the space between them. Nureyev’s mind isn’t empty or clear. His attention is laser-focused. His eyes are open and fixed intently on the form in front of him.

The cynic in Juno wants to roll his eyes and complain about the view– who the hell wants to stare at his ugly mug?– but it looks… off. He’s seen his face in the mirror thousands of times, brushing his teeth or shaving or smearing on makeup on the few occasions when he still bothers to try. He knows what he looks like, and it’s nothing like this.

It’s the angle, he tells himself. It’s because Nureyev is so much taller than him– high angles always were the most flattering, right? Or maybe it’s the lighting. The harsh glow of the tomb walls hit him just right to contour his features and sharpen his angles, to catch on his scars and glint off the trail of blood trickling from his eye. 

Or it’s the concentration as he’s trying to focus on the task at hand. That’s why his jaw is so hard. That’s why his features look so harsh. 

Morally outraged, are the words that drift into his head, wistful and longing and more than a little bit afraid. 

Reflected in the thought is a memory– an elegant suit, the soft light of a smoke-filled room, a lip curled into a sneer as Juno accused Engstrom of cheating. A surge of heat that had nothing to do with cigars and everything to do with close quarters, before it was caught and filed away under For Future Consideration. Later, Nureyev promised himself. Later, once we’ve gotten out of this alive, later, later, later, I’ll treasure this later.

Another reflection, another moment in time, another memory filed away and brought out again for special occasions: four in the morning, blood loss and exhaustion and smoldering rage illuminating Juno’s face the way the bars of streetlights-through-blinds could never manage– and all of it barely an ember compared to the fire that blazed in his eyes as he stared down Min Kanagawa. 

I was right about you, whisper the recesses of Nureyev’s mind, glowing with that same heat. Protectors and guardians. A goddess of justice.

And under the fire: fear, so deep and intense that Juno has to believe it is his own, until he looks into the shadows of it and finds Nureyev hiding there. Because Nureyev knows the tales of goddesses and kings, of hubris and damnation. He knows what will happen if Juno looks at him, truly looks at him, and sees the whole of Nureyev’s faults and failures. When all that moral outrage is turned against him.

Juno can’t take it anymore. A gasp sputters between his chapped lips and he doubles over, shaking so hard he can’t breathe.

“Juno,” Nureyev starts as he leans in, and suddenly Juno remembers those stupid streams Rita watches sometimes, the sword-and-sandal adventures with the scantily-clad oracle fainting out of a trance and into the arms of the noble hero. And there he is, right on cue: Nureyev catches him and tries to steady him, and that just makes Juno laugh even harder.

“You think– you think– I’m a– what?” he wheezes, before he runs out of breath and starts into a coughing fit. 

He doesn’t need to be in Nureyev’s mind to feel his confusion and his wounded pride. “Juno, are you laughing at me?” 

Juno can’t stop laughing long enough to form words for a solid minute, but Nureyev is polite enough not to drop him while he composes himself. And sure, he looks pretty goddamn put out by the whole thing, but it’s kind of cute.

Him. Juno Steel, private eyesore, is supposed to be some kind of paragon of justice? 

“Jesus, Nureyev,” he says, wiping tears and a bit of blood out of his eyes. His head is aching and he’s feeling delirious, but it’s better than he’s felt in a long time. “All this time you’ve been worried about what I was gonna think of you? Me?” He doubles over laughing again, bracing himself against the floor. “I thought you said you researched me.”

“I did,” Nureyev says stiffly. 

“Then where the hell do you think I’ve got any room to go around judging you? Have you seen how much I’ve fucked up?” 

“You didn’t seem to have much trouble with it just now.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just me fucking up all over again. I do that.” 

He’s the farthest thing from a goddess there is– hell, there are days when the word ‘monster’ doesn’t seem too far off the mark. As much as he wants to go around saving the world, Juno still keeps finding himself working jobs for the likes of the DiMaggios and Valles Vicky and the Kanagawas.

“But you’re right about one thing,” he says, finally wiping the blood off his face with the back of one hand. “I was being an idiot. We can get all philosophical about right and wrong and past and future and all that, but first we need to get out of here alive.”

“Agreed.” The hurt and confusion drains from Nureyev’s expression, leaving only a professional intensity in its wake. “Did you have something in mind?”

“No,” Juno says. “But you might.” Nureyev’s gotten in and out of countless scrapes before. There’s got to be something in one of those that could come in handy here. And if Nureyev can’t find it, Juno might. “Mind if I take a look?”