#shgsoufh thanks kabert for giving me the emotional support needed to write this chapter

[purple-sea-dragon]

yet another chapter of Cold For Years because i’m a weak bitch with no self control

yeah you read the post title you know what this is about

so chapter two is here!! man in glass part two inspired me to crank out another three thousand words or so. kabert out here giving the gays everything they want

here’s the ao3 link if you want to read it over there with all the tag warnings

Jet knows, in the grand scheme of things, very little about Juno Steel.

He knows the lady is thirty nine years old, and that before he joined up with Buddy’s family he had never before left Mars, and that he is light enough that Jet can pick him up like a sac of stolen creds. He knows that Juno, for a brief period, worked for Ramses O’Flaherty, and that the politician had given him one of the most expensive and invasive cybernetic prosthetic eyes on the market, and because he ripped that eye out of Juno’s head Jet knows that Juno had a twin brother named Benzaiten that had died when the two of them were just nineteen. Jet knows that Juno is a former cop, that he is an above average detective with the ear of almost every socialite in Hyperion city, and that he does not like tea, but he likes it more than being uninformed or the idea of killing another person. He knows quite a bit about how much Juno detests the idea of killing another human being. Juno wears his feelings on his face and his shoulders and his hands, worn thin through years of exposure.

Juno does not like that he wears his feelings, for all that he cannot help doing so. Jet knows this, too.

This smaller version of Juno wears his own identity like a caricature of the lady Jet has grown to respect. He’s snappish and vicious and somehow also painfully uncertain and withdrawn like a shadow of himself, quiet and nervous in a way Jet didn’t know Juno had the capacity to be, in a way that Jet doesn’t like. Their Juno, the thirty-nine year old one, knows how to take up space with his whole personality, and cry because he’s feeling so strongly for another person, and trade quips like he used to be able to trade blaster fire. He is gruff, but kind, in his way. He likes clever turns of phrase and solving puzzles and helping just because he can, even though he pretends not to. He is demanding and loud and settled in himself in a way that Jet admires, even if it is occasionally inconvenient.

He watches Juno from the counter as the eight-year-old finishes his mug of whiskey and somehow manages to hover slightly in Rita’s shadow, even as he’s sitting down. His eyesight isn’t what it used to be but if he squints hard enough, he can make out the individual bones in Juno’s wrists, and the finger-deep dips in his collarbones where there should be more of him, and the tiny divots of burned, glassy tissue where someone has put out almost an entire pack of cigarettes on his shoulder blades. His sweater is hanging off of one shoulder, Jet realizes. Eight year old Juno is significantly smaller than his usual counterpart. Are children supposed to be that small? Jet has very limited knowledge about children. It has been many decades since he was even close to being one himself. He thinks again about his ability to manhandle an adult Juno like a doll and wonders if it is a characteristic the detective will ever grow out of.

“-is that alright, Juno?” Buddy is talking. Jet gives himself the smallest of shakes, bringing himself back to the present.

“Yeah, I guess,” is the sullen reply, punctuated by another gulp of alcohol and a long, weighted pause. “I don’t think it’s smart, though.” Small Juno has the slightest bit of a lisp. Every ‘s’ sound he makes comes out with a very soft ‘th’. 

“Oh?” Buddy quirks her eyebrow. It’s the one hidden by her bangs, so the effect isn’t quite as dramatic as it could have been. “Whatever do you mean, darling?”

Juno shrugs. “Do you know anything about the pyramid other than it’s worth a lot of money and it made me tiny after I touched it?”

“Some,” Buddy admits. “Basic mythology, it’s role in ancient Venusian society. But not as much as I would like, in this current situation.”

Juno nods decisively. “How do you know that if I touch it again it isn’t gonna steal another thirty one years from me and wipe me out of existence completely?”

That’s a valid question, and not one Jet would like to consider at length. The idea of Juno dying is upsetting, to say the least. It appears that the rest of the crew feels the same way, based on the abrupt silence that descends upon all of them. Rita looks a second away from crying, and Ransom doesn’t look far behind her. Vespa looks, for the first time, visibly not upset, which says quite a bit about how upset she actually is.

“We do not know what will happen if Juno regains contact with the artifact,” Jet speaks for the first time since Vespa returned to the kitchen with Juno in tow and this family meeting commenced. “Therefore, we should conduct further research into this matter to see if we can uncover any hidden knowledge. I also believe we should keep Juno away from the pyramid until we are certain of its function.”

“I agree with Jet,” Vespa rasps. “Better safe than sorry.”

He catches Juno’s eye as the child is glancing between them all, giving him a small nod. Juno shrinks into himself the tiniest bit, turning back towards the table and curling even tighter around his empty mug like a cloud of nervous gas around a black hole.

Jet remembers the tears of the medbay and the fear in Juno’s voice as he spoke about his mother, thinks about the decades-long gaps in his knowledge and reminds himself that, in the grand scheme of things, he knows very little about Juno Steel.

It’s a well worn thought, at this point. The sting at accompanies it is profoundly new.

#

Juno likes familiarity.

He’s a simple gal, he thinks. He likes knowing what all his options are in every given situation, what the rules and expectations are, and how likely he is to get in trouble for breaking them and to what degree. In Oldtown that’s not a problem; It’s better to ghost your dealer than have an argument about switching suppliers, the bars don’t card you if you look older than about six, if you’re gonna steal food it’s better to hit up a big store than a small one, and if you even look at a cop the wrong way you’ll end up in a ditch if your lucky and your family will if you aren’t. These are rules Juno knows by heart, ones he hasn’t had to think about since Mama moved them all out to Oldtown and Mick and Sasha started looking after them.

Juno has to take a second and focus on anything that isn’t Mama, or Mick, or Benten. The feelings he knows are there are still just kind of nameless and amorphous and hovering on the edge of his thoughts. He knows if he gives them time to take shape they’ll be too big to come out of for a while, and he can’t do that while he’s here, on this spaceship, and he doesn’t know the rules. The Carte Blanche is so different from Oldtown that Juno has no idea if he’s going to be able to keep track of them all, or how often he’s going to mess up and how bad.

Did he have responsibilities on the ship? He must have, right? Nobody gets to just hang out on a spaceship and not contribute, he doesn’t think, not unless they have a whole bunch of money. Does he still have to do his thirty-nine year old jobs even though he’s eight? Are they gonna show him how to do them or does he just have to figure it out? Unless they just want him to stay out of the way, in which case he wouldn’t blame them. He’s probably a lot less useful as an eight year old. Should he leave the room if someone comes in to do something? Which rooms are okay for him to be in? Everything looks so different from all the buildings he’s been in before he doesn’t know what he should and shouldn’t touch. Just the thought of messing up something important because he couldn’t keep his stupid hands to himself is making him tremble a little. His fingers clench around the now-empty mug that Miss Vespa had given him in the infirmary. He doesn’t know how she knew he was craving a drink, but he’s not going to say anything. Talking about it might mean he doesn’t get anymore. Fuck. Alcohol is expensive, why would they give him any in the first place? Do they have different rules about what food is? Miss Vespa gave him juice in the med bay- do space pirates eat food, or do they only have drinks? Can he get food if they do have some? Does he have to get his own food? When is he allowed to eat? Is he allowed to eat? Are they the kind of people that will tell him he’s not allowed to eat but let him get away with if he can sneak it successfully, like Mrs. Mendoza in second grade computer class, or are they the kind of people that will beat his ass to martian dust if they notice something is missing? Mister Bartane who lives next to Sasha is like that, and they have to run away from him a lot when he gets it into his head that one of them has snuck into his yard and taken something. He’s got bony knuckles and he knows how to use them, and they’re well acquainted with Juno’s ribcage.

Juno needs to stop thinking before his mind goes to a bad place and he shuts down again. He already did that once today, two times would be nigh-unbearable. He’s already embarrassed enough about that, he doesn’t want to make anybody any more annoyed than they must already be by the fact that he messed up and made himself tiny.

They’re all still sitting in the kitchen, long after their “family meeting”, as Miss Buddy calls it, is over. Miss Buddy, he knows, is in charge because she’s the captain. That alone is enough to make Juno wary of her. A title means authority means power means pain. She’s very tall and very pretty and she calls him “Darling”, but she calls everyone darling. Nothing about her makes Juno feel safe. Juno thinks that he shouldn’t touch her, or her stuff, or anything that looks important, because she might get mad at him and shove him out of an airlock. That’s something space pirates do, right? When he can bring himself to look up even a little bit, his eyes catch the way the lights glint off her manicure, a bright carnelian red.

He thinks about clawed, painted fingers and cigarette smoke and decides that today has been too much already, and that he very much would like to get out of here while nobody is trying to stop him.

He sets his mug on the table and shuffles forward until he can hop off the edge of the chair, pushing it in with both hands and then taking the mug to the sink. He can feel eyes on him as he stands on his tip-toes to reach over the counter, and pretends he doesn’t. He keeps his gaze on the floor, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, especially Mister Jet, as he shuffles back to the table.

Mister Jet is another person Juno thinks he’s not going to touch or talk to or look at if he can help it. He’s just- he’s very big. He’s so large that there might not be enough room for Juno in any room that Mister Jet is also in. He’s very tall and he has big, rough hands that look like they could get a real good grip on any part of Juno he pleased. Juno remembers the way Mister Jet had picked him up in that fancy gold room with one hand and then threw them both out of a very high window into a big green car that Mister Peter was driving, and the way he had loomed over him in the med bay, and decides very quickly that he doesn’t want Mister Jet to touch him ever again thank you very much.

He reaches out and catches the end of Miss Rita’s sleeve, giving it a little tug to get her attention. She turns and smiles at him. “What’s up, Little Mistah Steel?”

“‘M tired,” he mumbles, eyes still on the floor. She hums.

“You wanna go to your room?” she asks. He nods. She stands and holds out her hand to him, and after a moment he shakes his head and grabs the end of her sleeve again. Her shirt doesn’t have chip flavor powder all over it, after all. She doesn’t make a big stink about it, which he’s grateful for. If he got yelled at for something that small he doesn’t know if he could handle it right now. They exit the kitchen, and Juno turns over his shoulder to throw a shy wave at Miss Vespa, who smirks back at him.

The bedroom Miss Rita takes him to is about as big as the room he shares with Benten, but it’s filled with a lot less stuff, even though it’s just as messy. The walls are gunmetal gray like the rest of the ship, bare with the exception of a small mirror and a shelf above the bed. He can see a few sets of clothes in the open closet and almost all of his drawers are open in some form or another, but he’s too tired to sift through thirty one years worth of decisions he doesn’t remember making, so he lets Miss Rita lead him to the single bed pushed into the corner. He collapses on the already rumpled sheets, pulling one of the pillows over to cling to. It smells like laundry soap. Miss Rita tugs the covers over him, carding one hand through his hair. Just this once, he thinks that’s fine. He doesn’t want to look at her though, he feels bad enough having to bear the weight of everyone’s disappointment so early on when he knows it’s just gonna be worse later, so he just stares at the only closed door on the wall across from him. It’s probably a bathroom.

“If you need anything, you come get me okay?” she says, taking a step backwards towards the door. “I mean it, Juno. I don’t care what time it is.” He nods and gives her a very small thumbs up. She smiles that big, toothy grin of hers again and turns to head for the door. “Goodnight, Little Mista Steel. Sweet dreams!” She hits the light switch on her way out the door and the mechanism shut with a soft hiss, and then Juno is alone in the dark.

Finally, finally, he lets the feelings come, and shoves his face into the pillow as wave after wave of- god, something heavy settles in his chest, weighing him down like a big boulder, being eroded by screaming sandy wind in the middle of an unforgiving wasteland. Everything is wrong, everything about him and this situation and the world around him. How can anything be okay again? Benzaiten is dead. His baby brother is cold in a grave next to his Mom on a planet he never should have left a billion, billion miles away from where he is. Everything he knows is so far away it might as well not even exist anymore. How many days has it been, since Benten died? Juno thinks his older self probably knows, probably counts every birthday and holiday and every second Saturday and knows exactly how much of his life has been lived alone. That’s not the kind of thing he would forget. Not when the only person in the universe that actually matters is six feet under the rust, older and smarter and kinder and better than Juno will ever get to be, and still gone and never coming back. He lets the pillow absorb his tears, wishing he could smother himself but knowing it would be pointless. If thirty nine year old Juno hadn’t managed to do it, eight year old Juno didn’t have a chance in hell.

Without Benten’s comforting warmth at his back, it takes him a long, long time to fall asleep.

#

Rita wanders aimlessly towards the rec room, steps heavy and tired and feeling her age as this absolute mess of a day comes to a close. She collapses on the couch, reaching for the remote and flipping it between her fingers, not bothering to turn on the monitor. For once she doesn’t feel like watching a stream, at least not alone, and she doesn’t think anyone else is in the right headspace to watch “Comet Island Adventure 4: The Leviathan Has a Bomb Now and Demands to be Taken Seriously”.

Little Mistah Steel is completely different at eight years old than he was at twenty three, and it’s a different that makes Rita sick to her stomach. At least when Juno was an adult he had some coping mechanisms, even if they weren’t in the same star system as healthy or safe. But baby Juno is just- small. Not just physically, either. Small in a way he hasn’t been for years, like he’s afraid to take up space and make decisions and ask for anything. Small like he doesn’t think he deserves anything. Small like he was after Diamond, but worse now because he’s a child, he’s a baby, and she’s the one that did this to him. She’s the one that sat down and stared him down in both of his eyes and told him that his brother is dead and his mother is responsible and that his dreams of being a police officer don’t work out and that his life is nothing like he ever wanted it to be.

She doesn’t realize she’s shaking until Jet is there on the couch next to her, taking the remote from her trembling hands and turning on a random stream. He settles in next to her, close enough that she can feel his warmth but far enough away that she could lean away and it wouldn’t be a big deal. She feels a thread of warmth for her large friend, letting herself fall sideways until she collides gently with his arm.

“Are you alright, Rita?”

She sighs. “Yeah. No. Yeah.” He moves his arms out from under her head, moving it instead to wrap around the back of the couch. She rests her head on his ribcage instead.

“Those are conflicting answers.” His voice rumbles through the entire side of her head.

“This has been a pretty conflict filled day, Mistah Jet,” she shrugs, letting her eyes watch the stream but not putting any real effort into paying attention to it. “I had to tell Little Mistah Steel about a lot of real terrible stuff that happened to him today, and I know it hurt him pretty bad to hear. I don’t think he’s okay, and if he’s not okay I can’t be okay, y’know?”

Jet nods. “I understand. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah,” she mumbles. “Not tonight. I just want everything to go back to normal and I want Juno to be better again.” She lets out a little huff of air that could be a laugh but probably isn’t. “None of you except maybe Mistah Ransom know how bad Mistah Steel was, before he lost his eye for the first time. The amount of progress he made in the last year is- gosh, Mistah Jet, it makes me wanna cry just thinkin’ about it. He’s a completely different person. He apologizes for thing now, when he’s made a mistake. He stopped drinking in the office, after that debacle in Newtown. He even talked once about thinkin’ about goin’ to a professional for his issues, which is more than he ever did in all the years I’ve known him.” She sniffs, wipes away a tear and disguises it by tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “And now all of that is gone, and he might not ever get it back, and things were just starting to turn around for him. It ain’t fair!”

“Juno will be fine,” Jet says, patting her shoulder. “All of us are determined to return him to his correct state. We will resolve this issue eventually, and in the meantime we will make sure that Juno is safe and as happy as we can make him. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I sure hope so, Mistah Jet,” Rita says, finally settling completely into the couch and focusing on the stream, letting it carry her thoughts away from the terrible, terrible day they’ve all had.

Unseen in the doorway, Peter Ransom turns and pads silently down hall back towards his room.