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( -- closed ) you used to dream about fires.
Who: Juno Steel ( ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sospita) & OTHERS.
Where: VARIOUS.
When: This is a July catch-all. Shove a header in here if you want a wildcard.
What: There's a lot happening, okay!?
Warnings: N/A. Will update.
sospita) & OTHERS.Where: VARIOUS.
When: This is a July catch-all. Shove a header in here if you want a wildcard.
What: There's a lot happening, okay!?
Warnings: N/A. Will update.
no subject
he swirls the liquid in his glass a moment, following the little artful dips and dives the alcohol makes before giving what is probably . ]
It most definitely isn't a lie. I do have a system. Granted, it's one of my own making and perhaps I'm the only one who can understand it, but nevertheless. [ flatly: ] I don't lose things in my pockets.
[ he leans in just a bit. ]
You're nosy. It's simply in your nature.
no subject
this is better. the town hadn't need to build a lie around the two of them, if they wanted them compliant. for all of juno's petulance, he'd do just about anything to protect people. invested in them or not, he didn't like people in tight spots. and he'd do just about anything for the man in front of him ( up to, and including, turning his thieving ass in ).
juno doesn't hold a glass. he drinks straight from the bottle, and tucks his hip against nureyev's, joining him on the fancy couch that he, at one point or another, has considered setting alight. just because. ]
Mm-hmm, you're definitely the guy who likes complex and personal.
[ he hums, and counts up the number of pockets on nureyev's person, before he reaches across the man's body and sticks his fingers into the front pant's pocket. rifles around a bit, as thought earnestly looking for anything small, metal and vaguely bullet-shaped. ]
-- I'm not gonna' find a mousetrap in here, am I?
no subject
what he's looking for isn't there, but the attempt is enthusiastic at least. points for that. ]
Well I haven't found one that's large enough just yet.
[ the pockets aren't ones that peter is used to, so in a way, they're frustrating and he has to take care not to ruin his silhouette (IT'S VERY IMPORTANT!) matches, a small paper spool of thread, some coins, a folding utility knife. unremarkable and nothing even vaguely bullet-shaped. try again. ]
They don't make them detective-sized.
no subject
So, that's where all those funny little emergency door keys went. Juno spends his time silently withdrawing two, four, five of them from Nureyev's pocket, laying them out across the man's knee with a wry sort of air to his otherwise absent-minded gestures. Really, Nureyev? You literally took all of the emergency door keys. The most unnecessary. Thread, coins, knife, ( reminder: acquire a better knife for him ) -- no bullet.
He reaches for the other pocket. ]
So, what do you think?
[ wow okay juno this is exactly the time to discuss What's Going On In Wayward Pines ]
I hate the thought of just sitting around.
no subject
he'll find mostly useless junk. ]
Playing house does get boring. Not quite our speed is it?
[ a nice pen he may or may not have swiped from the counter (it's incredibly shiny, you have to understand), a small square of cloth, some folded up notes (numbers,
secret messagesdoodles, the like.) still no bullet. but the smile on peter's face means that it's still very much on his person. ]Once cleared to leave the town, I think we might have more reconnaissance to do than we'd originally bargained for, more than enough to keep us busy. Perhaps we could see just how far beyond this town we can actually get.
[ it pains him just about as much as it does juno. there's only so many books you can re-alphebetize and so much debris you can assist clearing out before well-meant help becomes something you regret offering.
but where do you go when you technically don't have anywhere else to be?he takes a drink and squirms a little bit more before speaking again. ] In the meantime, we'll have to sit on our hands, unfortunately. Or in your case put them in the pockets of completely and utterly honest librarians. Now, you're lukewarm at best, Juno, and I'm being nice about it. Try another.no subject
Feels like a vacation I was voluntold to take. You know there's someplace with an entire playland dedicated to this sort of gig?
[ he can't remember the name of it. or where it is. vegas maybe? or was it venus? hell with this jumble of memories.
it's probably something like casual, antiquated domesticity land, for all he cares.
juno roots around in the pocket that he's been fumbling around in, taking a moment to unfold those notes ( silent, reflective - ) before he flicks aside pens and a stray earring and a palmful of coins and a stack of blank library cards and a matchbook and various, other, eclectic items that have managed to trip and fall directly into nureyev's pockets. his endless, hungry pockets. he doesn't need to do this. he could just ask - but there's something about the act of pulling out the things nureyev has to his name that sates juno. keeps him from going gibbery about their situation. ]
I won't go too far. They can't be left behind; not everyone's a pro at surviving a bad situation.
[ he pulls his hand from the pocket, and begins looking for the next ( back pockets are fake, on trousers like that ) ]
no subject
[ the unspoken "without you" and "just yet" both sit heavy on his tongue, weight he never asked for and didn't plan on feeling for a long, long time. peter nureyev has always been an "i" and then he became a rather enormous "we" and then became an "i" once more for the safety of it all and now... well, "us" seems like a very big word in comparison to anything else he knows how to say in any other language.
he clears his throat a bit and watches everything slide free of his pockets, the cards, the earring, handfuls of small bits and pieces to fill the space.
juno pulls his hand free and it feels almost devastating. how terrible. he opens up his space that much more, inviting. ]
Now, answer me this: What makes you so certain I have your bullet on me right this moment?
no subject
[ "us" is a word that juno has been strategically avoiding, since the moment they woke up in the hospital - askew and disoriented and beat to all hell. now, he remembers more. two lives, intertwining together: each as natural as the other. each stirring up a lot of #heckin' emotions. ]
Why wou-- really? [ incredulous; mutting: ] Where else would you put it. "On you" is the safest place it could be.
[ okay now he's just patting nureyev down, starting at his waist and heading up. if there's not a pocket somewhere on that vest he's wearing, juno will eat his damn coat. the entire coat. buttons and all. where is the pocket, peter. ]
no subject
Warmer, [ and when the heel of juno's palm brushes his chest. ]
No stone left unturned, detective. A silly little pat down won't do you much good here.
[ a tick of the brow upwards. ]
Don't be shy.
no subject
Yeah. Sorry.
[ he owes nureyev that much, as he slips a hand between the man's vest and the shirt underneath. there: the inner pocket, and there: the bullet he's been hunting across his person for. juno draws it out and holds it up. a thick, long piece of ammo for the rifle he's kept on his person. nobody's asked him to give it back, or to relinquish his own pistol.
the bullet rolls across his palm. the glass in his other hand rolls between his fingers.
he rises from the space alongside the thief, and holds the bullet up to the light. distinguishing marks? the weight of the metal? it's not the first time he misses the city - old contacts, old haunts. places he could go to have the thing taken apart by expert hands and replicated. all there is, now, is this place. the city he thought he came from isn't real. the city he does come from is millenias away, lightyears away. ]
It's weird. Knowing you're all I got. Not bad, just weird.
[ Q: How Do Talk About THIS? A: Awkwardly And Do Not. ]
no subject
even if it hurts in the process, compartmentalizing is best. who needs answers. real answers. truthful answers.
you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.
he probably imagined it. just like everything else. maybe he's remembering it all wrong.
peter blinks slowly now. he watches juno roll the bullet in his palm, reaching up his hand to pat his now empty pocket flat, smoothing it over beneath the vest and watching juno inspect it. he thinks about it a long moment, the way juno says it isn't... particularly full of regret, but peter can't quite help feeling that the words knock around too heavily in his head. ]
Weird.
[ he parrots and then huffs a bit, rising off the couch. he doesn't waste time, trailing around juno for a moment before moving one hand smoothly over his shoulder, squeezing a bit at the junction where his neck meets it. taut, tense muscle, another squeeze. ]
I'm glad that I'm not so bad to have around then, [ peter moves his free hand very gently
i don't have to do a sleight of hand check for this do i-- ] I'd hate to be a nuisance. [ and gently plucks the bullet up from juno's open palm. being tall pays off.you have a bad track record for putting valuable things in ur mouth and eating them. ]no subject
[ it's a bleak, sorry excuse for a joke. he regrets it almost as soon as he says it, because he's well aware that men like peter nureyev aren't meant to live a life cooped up in once place. he's a starfarer, a voyager. something wild that ought to be set free, not pinned down in this small, fake town. their only alternative is going back to cryo, or going out there. to that world that feels familiar, but isn't. it's green pine and blue skies. not even close to golden sunsets, orange sands. hot, vibrant neon lights in a dense, urban sprawl. lights in an upstairs apartment that would glow one day, and be cold, dead the next. motion. filth. crystal-clear chaos.
peter takes the bullet from him, and it takes him out of his thoughts, too. ]
Nureyev. The last thing you told me, was that you wouldn't disappear.
[ he might be reaching for the bullet with one hand, but the other one is closing around peter's vest.
his fingers, tucking into the arm hole - curling into the soft material, to drag the man close with a solid, strong jerk. ]
-- this was a really, really unconventional way to keep that promise.
[ nvm that's an even worse way of making light of this situation ]
no subject
peter's brows draw tightly, pulled closer now, bumping toes and knees awkwardly. he remembers that, that moment in the dark, too-wet cell that smells like too much blood and soiled earth and must and his own slightly burnt skin, a combination of smells no one should ever have to find themselves subjected to. he remembers that. juno on the ground, his own muscles betraying him, whispering to him frantically. he would come back. and he did come back.
his face creases further and for once, peter feels all the gears grind to a halt for half a second. juno is the only person who can manage that much, to throw a wrench in the works for all but a blink of a moment, a fraction of breath. ]
No.
[ peter says it softly at first, and then again, more resolute. ]
No. Because the last thing I recall telling you-- [ softer, barely above a mutter now as he keeps close all the same. he'd written it off as the amnesia at first. juno insisting he'd left him behind, he'd said he'd be back, but he'd left him behind and yes, it was true. he'd left... but he'd come back. and then he'd been...
he'd been fooled. and even now he feels a foolish kind of heat up his neck, a discomfort in the pit of his stomach because as juno is standing in front of him, he can still remember the angry welts on his hands from the metal, the torn up beds of his nails, the rawness of his throat. he should have waited, he shouldn't have let juno tell him he'd been right behind him, shouldn't have been so secure in the notion that juno was destined for self-preservation between that mouth of his and his tendency for getting in the thick of trouble. he remembers the words distinctly. ]
Juno, you idiot. You don't remember. [ that's what it is. he still doesn't remember. that's fine. this is fine. ] I came back for you. Before any of this. [ as if a different inflection will help, a tighter grip on the bullet. ] I came back for you.
no subject
[ he spits the words; they taste as acidic as the back of his throat does, and for a moment, he's back there, in that place. bleeding and aching on the floor of an old martian tomb - an old chamber, whatever nureyev had called it. he's there, caught between memory and reality, reflecting on what poor choices in his life lead up to this moment ( no, no -- he's thinking of peter nureyev, no-name, no-home, no-rest -- ), trying to pull his sorry self off the ground, trying to go. and he can't, and nureyev's too weak and too injured to help him.
so, he goes. he has to go. and that's it, that's what he remembers. the warm floor of a martian tomb, and a man promising him that he'd come back. a man that he believed in, wholeheartedly. ]
No, you didn't. You said that you would, but you left - and you had to, I get it, but the next thing I know? I'm here, in this place.
[ sharply, he shoves the other man back - to arm's length. distance, he needs distance. ]
You don't need to spin me a story, just to make me feel better about it. We both knew I wasn't going to be able to go anywhere after messing around with that thing inside my head for so long. You left, [ his voice cracks, just a little ] You never came back to that place. How could you - when I'm here.
Maybe it's you who's not remembering the order of events correctly.
no subject
[ peter remembers that moment. flashes of color and gore, tightness around his throat, tighter and tighter, the heat of a laser, the blood on his cheek, the-
-the blood on juno's cheek, the shadow making it hard to see. was it even shadow at that point or just void? empty space? he looks at juno's face, whole and very much there, two eyes staring back at him, the most beautiful green-blue he's seen in his life, sharper than the cut on any jewel he's held in his hands. two eyes, two, but the image in his mind overlaps and he shakes his head a little.
you lost your eye, is what he wants to say, but doesn't. holds it back. it's there and it isn't and it's there again and peter's too far to take juno's face in his hands and pull it close and be certain it's real and not some hokey fake. so he takes his wrist in his free hand instead, fingers wrapping around it gently. ]
Not for you. I made good on that promise.
[ he explains, faster, softer, half recounting to himself. i didn't imagine it, didn't dream it. this place could drive you mad with what's a lie and what isn't. ] It took longer than I'd have liked and I admit I cut it rather close but I came back for you, [ remember it, i remember it- ] and we managed to the Egg. [ stronger: ] We fought her, we...
[ there's so much. there's too much. the slamming shut of the airlock.
you locked me out.
he lets go of his wrist, drops it.
we couldn't stop it. ]
I remember it all perfectly.
no subject
[ and it's making him angry. what's wrong with his memory, his mind, that he can't recall the same things that nureyev does. the tomb, the torture, the trip through the past of a man with no name. every small, fraction of a realization that had burst behind his ribcage like holy light. yes, he believed in this man. yes, he knew the weight of the gift he'd been given. yes, he knew he'd run into the fires of the damn sun itself for him. but this? all of THIS? it's too much.
there's a schism, somewhere between them. something that doesn't match up, a segment of a life. more important and more pertinent than what the town and its memory-algorithm has stuffed their heads full of. there is a fragment of something between them, because he knows where he was left and nureyev is claiming something else. ]
I don't remember any of this.
[ he repeats it again.
nureyev lets go of him, too - he buries his face in his palms. breathes through the irrational wave of anger - at himself, at nureyev, at miasma, damn her, they have to STOP her at the authorities in this place who thought it'd be a kindness to allow them out of cryo. to whatever had taken them from the future, from what they knew, from a time and a moment that NEEDED them to be there --
juno drags his hands down his face, catching at the scar along the bridge of his nose. the one on the right side of his jaw - courtesy a childhood accident ( on the back of a humming bike throwing his hands up with wild abandon it guns a little too hard and whoops, there he goes -- ) and touches the back of his hand to his mouth. his knuckles. he can't meet nureyev's eye right now, but he can't leave the space the man exists in. their toes are still touching, because somewhere along the line, he's come back into orbit. ]
Fine. Show me.
[ thats it then ]
Don't leave me behind again - show me.
no subject
[ peter breathes. he breathes because it's all he can do to keep his hands from shaking. he won't be taken apart and he won't let his bones rattle and he won't let the prickling panic at the nape of his neck take him over because in front of him juno is telling him exactly what he already knows. he doesn't remember it. he doesn't remember it, but god if peter doesn't recall it all clear as day.
racing through the tomb, the rising panic as time runs out, the odd little thrill of how a blade kisses flesh and a laser hisses by with perfect precision. the trust. impenetrable in that moment and then shattered the next. he stands there and he feels like they're perched on opposing ends of some yawning canyon they've yet to figure out how to cross here in this moment. everything else has filled in but this. these ends. they're not meeting, they're not folding together in a perfect seam--cutting and jagged now, imperfect as peter tries to make them meet anyways.
one moment peter is breathing in cloying, ancient dust.
the next he's standing in a living room that smells like dark liquor and is filled with a humming presence like juno's, enormous and pulling him in, too warm, an all-consuming fire fed too much at once. peter's expression draws tight, determined, light eyes sharp as he feels the soft hover of them pulled away one moment, drawn together the next, closer, more carefully this time, like they'd touched wrong the first time, burned themselves on the rawness of it like a powerful shock. he blindly finds the bottom of juno's elbow with his palm, holds it and pulls him closer than just this, carefully, guiding, winding.
( the cold airlock door. the laser fire. juno's voice seeping through the airtight seams. telling him a secret that he can't believe is real. not here. not now-- )
peter's grip, this time, has no plans to leave. ] If that's what it takes, [ he says in the air between the two of them (there's no door here now.) ] Then a deal's a deal, Juno. You have my word.
[ he says this firmly, hears the finality of the door slamming shut over
and over
and over again.
and smiles faintly. he won't. he won't leave him behind. peter isn't going anywhere. ] Starting here and now.
no subject
[ the last and most vivid thing he recalls is nureyev - bathed in red, hands dark and wet with the blood of the man who molded him, becoming a vengeful myth to be passed along through history. he remembers him - small, thin, aflame with something that couldn't be put out by hardship or time or the constant, unrelenting struggle within. he remembers the burst of something hot inside of him - inside his heart - knowing that nureyev was good for his word.
provided that word was given to him.
nureyev has a hand on him, and juno is painfully, abruptly aware of it. the sharpness of his fingers, the nervous warmth of his palm. how badly he wanted to step forward, into those arms and touch his hands to nureyev's face. silly, silly things. he steps back, instead, arm drifting from nureyev's grip slowly, hand seizing at his wrist at the last moment. one point of contact, to steady him. he goes for the abandoned alcohol on the couch, just within his reach, and tips a shot down his throat with ease, before he sets it down again. discards it, and breathes out in a shaky huff. ]
You might come to regret that.
[ a tight, bitter statement.
finally, he touches his fingers to nureyev's forehead. slides them to his temple, fits his palm along the side of his face. it feels nice, and it's nothing like the bloom of tension that creases his eyebrows and swells ( like something alive; growing, twitching up against the back of his eye ). juno remembers how to do this, after all. it's been hammered into him, routine and banal now; miasma had seen to that training montage, after all. at first: the static, the humming blank of the in-between and the search. he pushes, further, until his mind connects to nureyev's and he's lost to it. there's no way of knowing what happens to his physical body, besides the bleeding and the aching when he comes back.
he's there, then. in the middle of a fight. thrashing, whip-like tentacles and the burst of laserlight out of the corner of his eye. the flash of a knife. panic, desperation; he turns and behind him, he can see the Egg reaching the breaking point. it's horrific, this knowledge that they're here at this point, struggling to stop a vast, shapeless creature bathed in fury and ichor. he sees - nureyev. peter. he sees himself - and reaches up to his own face, touching the space below his eye. the eye that he can't see in his own face, there's just - so much blood.
( and he knows, in this desperate moment, as he and nureyev retreat - what he'd do, what he will do. it doesn't take a genius to recognize a lose-lose scenario. and that's him, after all. who knows his mind better than himself? )
it feels like hours, living this vision, this memory.
when the door shuts, he's at peter's side, and everything is so - vivid.
yeah.
definitely going to live to regret that. ]
-- we're not, [ he comes back, and brings his hands to his face. there's the blood he recognizes, and the throbbing that courses through his head and throat. ] We're not aligned.
no subject
it stretches and works itself thin and peter stands as still as stone, juno's fingers against his temples, eyes closed. he tries to quiet his mind, just as juno had told him to before, but it's more difficult this time. when he manages it, he's left standing there, half-swaying in the middle of the living room that isn't theirs, clutching onto juno's arms like a lifeline, like it's the only thing he has left, and in a way, it is. and he hates it. and he loves it. he loves everything about it, fingers wrapped around his forearm, the way his knees lock and how he can almost half-feel it, the slow-motion descent of something happening.
peter tries not to think, he tries not to relive it.
he doesn't know what juno saw down in the cell. he doesn't know what juno is seeing now, but maybe it's that singular moment, maybe it's miasma, and the fear worms its way deep into the pit of his stomach as he remembers her, throttling him like an animal, spilling out along his hand at the edge of his knife, the sight of juno disappearing behind the door--his voice--his--
quiet.
he trusts that perhaps he see what he needs to see, finds what must be found to put it all right, here and now. peter has never whispered the truth so vehemently in his life, meant it so damnably much. by the time juno comes out of it, he can feel his palms, damp on his skin, easy to pull away from, and when juno pulls his hands away, peter opens his eyes, sees the slowly-oozing trail of blood marking a path down, down, treacherously downwards towards the open collar of his shirt.
oh.
peter fumbles (peter seldom, if never fumbles), but reaches into another pocket, as if searching for something. reaches into yet another. nothing. it comes to rolling down a sleeve and stepping forward, no hesitation, no beat left between them. ] Here, [ he says it softly as he pulls the material over his thumb and brushes the blood away with a light touch. he sweeps it back, some catching and staining his knuckle, the rest smeared up and caught by his shirt. ]
Aligned how... exactly? Or rather, misaligned. We arrived together-- [ he lets his thumb press to the space just beneath his eye softly, smoothing over where blood used to be. he tilts his head slowly, examining his expression.
it dawns on him very quietly, the way something creeps up behind you, slides arms around you, slits your throat and leaves faster than you can fathom it.
somehow. the timing of it all. it's off. ]
Together but not quite... together.