[hatch log] i had a dream which was not all a dream

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :025 - DAY :026
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in the void between multiverses, a fresh clutch of Hosts hatches; getting them down to Hyrypia proves to be more complicated than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :025

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and the universe and you in it are suddenly different. --No. That's not right. You're you, the universe is as it's always been, and there's no 'suddenly' about it. But it's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or coming up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and yet everything is.

Here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small, faintly hexagonal chamber with a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been calmed. There's something peaceful about waking up here - like you belong. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills that peaceful void - fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety. A matching dread. An easy comfort. Some of these emotions might be yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party happening behind a nearby closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone. There are a handful others very like you here, all of them somehow intimately familiar.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room, the vast Station is quiet and still. It feels for all the world like a shell for some vast dark thing.

Eventually, a sensation manifests out of the hollowness:


PREPARE YOURSELF
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD is sound and sensation: a brilliantly warm shaft of sunlight through smoky glass - a gauzy curtain twitching in some summer breeze - the blooming pleasure of a familiar face after a very long time away. It says or feels like:

( Come meet with me, won't you? )
Where exactly this meeting is supposed to occur isn't immediately clear, but head in the direction that seems correct and eventually Station 72 gets you where you're meant to be: a small grassy lawn in the center of the lush, circular gardens where an aging woman waits on a stone bench. The pin straight sheet of her hair hangs like a graying curtain and the sensation from her is lovely and golden, real delight pouring through her like light through a pinhole camera. She smiles and sets aside the book in her lap.

"There you are. Unfortunately, you won't be here long but we'd like to answer as many of your questions as we're able before you leave this place."


THE STATION
WITH A LITTLE UNDER 24 HOURS before it's time to make the trip to Hyrypia, this is as good an opportunity as you're going to get to familiarize yourself with Station 72 before you leave it. There's plenty to see, but other than the people you woke up with there's a distinct lack of company to make conversation with. It's lonely and quiet and there's a sensation of dust gathering even where there is none. Maybe studying the briefing files on your databank is the most proactive distraction? Otherwise-- well there's plenty of places to get lost...

By the simulated morning, a strange archaic ship has arrived on the Hangar. Its very alien pilots are in the process of unloading-- bodies. No, scratch that, they're clearly still alive, though in some kind of comatose state. One of the pilots - a pale female alien who calls herself Rhan - says, "Well, this is awkward. We were supposed to be done with this already. Uh don't mind us, darling. We'll finish up here and get on our way. In the meantime, why don't you go through your packs and get changed?"

She nods toward two trunks on the hangar deck where assortment of pre-prepared packs are waiting for each new Host. In each pack is a series of items, including a set of beautiful and very all-encompassing robes. Better get comfortable. Not hot on the fabrics or patterns in your pack? Mixing and matching with your new best friends is totally acceptable.

Eventually, you leave the Station. If you're lucky, you might one day make it back.

HYRYPIA - THE RED COAST
LATE DAY :026

A PURPOSEFULLY SUBTLE WELCOME
UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS, Collector and Lyr make their way through the barracks where the Hosts on Hyrypia are meant to be sleeping. It's nearing whatever the Hyrypian equivalent of midnight is; if you're awake, all the better. If not? Expect to be roused (gently and silently by Collector, rudely and abruptly by Lyr).

"Get dressed. We're going for a walk."

There's nothing quite so suspicious as bringing a bunch of reinforcements to the planet in the aftermath of a rather public murder, which means a highly ritualized midnight procession of Carbasuchians into the highlands. It's easier to secret a handful of newbies in an anonymous group, right?

That meeting in the dead of night in the rocky wilderness above the Red Coast bears even a passing resemblance to the strange occurrence on DAY :010 is probably just a coincidence. Besides, there aren't any mystery circles burned into the stone and grass here: just a stealth ship materializing out of the black night and touching down in a stony outcropping where it disgorges the freshly hatched (or newly reawakened) Hosts.

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch on Day :025 as well as the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia late on Day :026. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find additional information pertaining to the Red Coast on the previous mission log (located here); newbies are welcome to utilize that log as well as it occurs within the same time period as the hatch.

You can find a more detailed overview of the host hatching process HERE and additional setting information about the Station HERE. Please be sure to review the MISSION: HYRYPIA ooc information if you're brand new to the game. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • GAME CALENDAR • MISSION: HYRYPIA • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[iuno]

[ it's like he can breathe easier around Nureyev, hearing him talk back to match Juno's words, leading him along as simply as ever; like everything makes a little more sense in the universe. even with everything else at play here. but he loses his breath again when a hand reaches out to him, brushes the stupid veil in a way that makes Juno's mouth go dry in a single instant, makes his throat close up with how desperately he wants. his own hand comes up as if to catch Nureyev's, and he hesitates — hovering just shy of touching, so still that it trembles. ]

New.

[ he wonders if Nureyev can feel the ache of it too, a bleeding of the feeling that his head is too crowded. the eye, the symbiote, Hyperion — all these roots digging in with barely any room left for Juno himself. he's not sure how much of him is an open book for any of these people. it's hard enough to sort through the things that filter in from around him, and even though he knows Nureyev's mind, he can't quite pick out the feelings there unless he pushes, which he won't. there's concern, that much is clear, but the rest is... muddled. maybe because Juno just doesn't want to know.

he closes his hand around Nureyev's at last, and brings it down from the veil. he doesn't let go. ]

I— took a job. It's been a few weeks since... I wasn't doing well. [ it comes out so much more plain than he thought. begrudging, but. easy. desperate to explain himself in some way, maybe, and since they're not talking about what they're both thinking about, he only has this to explain. and he hasn't really talked to anyone about the past few weeks yet. not that he often does, but he thinks he might have gotten used to it a little bit, between Nureyev and Alessandra. Rita. another pair of eyes for everything he's seen. ] Someone called me out after a case that I screwed up, and it was a politician, of all things. Ramses O'Flaherty; I looked into the guy, there's nothing on him. And I mean nothing. Like he appeared out of the desert one day to run for mayor.

[ neither of them are particularly fond of politicians, and Juno certainly isn't subtle about it, irritation prickling under his skin, uncomfortable and ill-fitting. he doesn't trust Ramses yet. not that it matters now, does it, but — he hadn't trusted Ramses. he'd just needed something, anything, to keep him going when he'd hit rock bottom, and Ramses was there offering it with a bow on top. too early to know whether it was a blessing or a curse, and— and it doesn't matter now. his thoughts keep coming back around to that bottom line, caught up in the tide of a whirlpool towards the dark thing Nureyev is trying to pull him away from. ]

Anyway. He said some things about me. [ the way he says it makes it obvious they weren't nice things, and so does the way he shifts, lets go of Nureyev's hand to rub at his chest through the layers of fabric as if there's a bruise there to dig his fingers into. the way he hurts, raw and aching. ] Told me he wants to make Hyperion City a better place, and, well — I don't know. [ he knows he's rambling. it's a monologue at this point, but he can't help it. ] I'm not going to save anyone, but maybe he can. Part of the deal was that he wanted to hook me up with a cybernetic eye, since I'm useless without one, and now I'm... barely a few days out of surgery.

[ that's everything laid out on the table, he's pretty sure. it doesn't make him feel any better to have it all out, because the unspoken way that story begins is I left you and I'm sorry and I'll never be able to make up for it. but having reached the tired end of it, his voice brightens a little, falsely conversational in his usual sarcastic way: ]

Haven't had time to test it out much, but it's got a virtual assistant in it. Annoying piece of junk. [ tense laughter in his voice, honesty scraping out of him: ] I kind of hate it.

[ hates all of it. the eye, the Theia, the fact that he lost his real one at all and it turns out he's completely worthless without that. that he took Ramses' deal. that he took this deal. ]

[stilettoes]

[ juno is clutching at straws, scraping the bottom of the emotional barrel and peter can taste it on his tongue, but reaches out no further, merely dams up what he can with the throbbing pain in his skull. he listens to juno in a way that he seldom does, because there is no space for questioning in juno’s story, not until he’s through and biting back the dull laughter in his voice. ]

I’ll agree on that. Eyes should be seen, not heard.

[ tonelessly unamused with the prospect of some ai in juno’s skull alongside the symbiote. he wonders for a moment if juno has had the time to truly, properly heal, but likely that he hasn’t, even more likely that juno muscled his way out of a proper dismissal from whatever hospital he’d been sent to. if his first encounter with him had told him anything, it’d been that juno steel would bully his way through just about any affliction against everyone’s better judgement.

peter fixates for a moment on the notion that juno has this new eye, that he’s been put to work by his strange politically aligned benefactor who’d given it to him in the very first place. there’s a stab of jealousy there, not painful so much as annoying and peter waves it off, letting his hands slide back into his robes. juno made a choice of his own free will, of necessity. the big mean world called to him and he answered and never so much said goodbye, but that’s always the way with these types isn’t it? that’s what peter tries to convince himself of anyways.

he hates how badly he wants to reach out to him, again.

hates it, loves it, misses it, and then goes back to hating it again.

because the truth of the matter is that there is no “type” like juno. no one to compare to. perhaps in the vaguest of facsimiles and moments, but never anyone so wholly like him. ]

I wish the circumstances for us meeting again were better than these, Juno, really, but part of me is glad that you’re here. [ he lifts a hand, the one juno had released before, and gestures again in a beckoning motion to follow him. they’ll be moving out soon, likely back to the barracks. best to not fall behind. his voice takes a lighter turn, as light as peter can be in the face of this. ] Step lively now, but not too lively. We’re playing a rather quiet bunch. Last thing we need is another Dahlia incident.

[ though at the mention of that, there is hardly any blame set on juno‘s shoulders. ]

[iuno]

[ Nureyev starts to move away, and even with the gesture for Juno to follow, longing strikes him with a suffocating intensity. he wants to just... to grab him and— he doesn't even know, he never imagined things going like this, he thought it would only hurt in a way he could try to be angry about. everything in him just wants to yell I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry and he'd fucking— he wishes he could get on his knees and beg. wishes it would help and wishes he could swallow his pride enough to do it.

he can't. he doesn't. if he tried, he thinks he'd just choke, or be sick, or... something. but he wants to so badly that his heart is twisting itself into terrible knotting aches, like he's been injured and his body doesn't understand where. he follows. ]

Hey, Dahlia wasn't my fault.

[ there's no vitriol in it, just his usual grumbling attitude. none of that was his plan and Dahlia Rose was maybe the dumbest thing he's ever done for a case, and everything that went wrong there is because Nureyev actually thought it would be a good idea to put Juno on display when he should know that would inevitably be a disaster.

using the symbiote to communicate is difficult, the least intuitive part of this when compared to Juno's experience, but he tries — less like directing his thoughts towards Nureyev, instead crawling inside the familiar and safe shape of Nureyev's mind and leaving his words there. it's more intimate, maybe, than sending along a wire, but until he figures out how to do that without just essentially shouting in a crowded room, this is better. it's secure. ]

( Speaking of Dahlia— ) [ because he knows Peter Nureyev, better than anyone else alive, keeps that so close to his chest that it leaves an imprint there, and he knows what a name means to him. even here, galaxies away from where it serves its purpose, he can't imagine Nureyev offering the name to anyone. Juno won't fuck that up, so he needs to know: ] ( Name? )

[stilettoes]

[ peter laughs, soft and deep as he looks over his shoulder a moment, waits for juno to meet him step for step and then continues. it was a disaster, but peter wouldn’t take it back for anything in the universe. before miasma, in arms together but with a battery of tension and mistrust. he’d prefer that same mistrust to now, a dull ache between his ribs.

juno mingles there in his mind, and he lets the sound of him settle over him, fold into the comfortable, dark places that juno knows so well. and that’s when a warmth seems to unfurl just a little more, blooming outward. juno knows.

juno knows him and that’s somehow biggest relief in all the world. peter can carry a cover without a problem, but god it

it would be nice to hear his name again.

to know that juno still maybe cherishes that small part of him even after having left, means more than most anything peter could steal for his own. he folds his arms over one another now, a smile peeking through the dark as he strokes back along the connection with a sentiment of tenderness he doesn’t mean to let go of, but can’t help because

you’re here, you’re here, it’s you. ]

( Hadrian Black. )

[ like the emperor, like his great wall. ]

( I am but a humble traveler. )

[ he’s anything but. the cover for hadrian is simple, neat, not elaborate stories, things easily plucked so as to not to make it seem like too grandiose a lie. in a place where details bleed softly sometimes, it’s best to keep it short and sweet. ]

[iuno]

[ he doesn't recognise the name's origins or how it fits Nureyev's pattern, and he doesn't need to: the information is there, an inherent knowledge underlying the words when he says them. and alongside that, something warm and gentle, this feeling that Juno wants to just wrap around his hand and never let go of — and then guilt guilt guilt coming over him like ice, and he startles back from it, hurt and so fucking desperate for something. everything in him reaching for Nureyev, keening so loudly and with such want he's sure everyone in the Nest can hear it, and he's holding it back by the throat.

Nureyev shouldn't have to settle for him. that's— Juno will be whatever he needs, but he shouldn't be a choice Nureyev only makes because there's no one else. Juno Steel is no better a choice than this whole raw deal, this join us or die shtick. if Nureyev can't trust anyone else enough to share his identity with them the way he did Juno, then that's probably because Juno betrayed his trust in the first place. ]

( Humble. Uh-huh. ) [ well, at least he's always been good at keeping this under the surface, playing at confidence until the misery filling him up cracks open his chest and finds a way out. he can pretend. he'll just have to get used to it hurting. ] ( Well, that makes it easy enough for us to have met already. You got mixed up in a case, or... or something. )

[ because he's not an idiot. there's no way they could possibly make it believable that they've only just met for the first time now. but he'll have to try and keep details under wraps, then, if Nureyev is avoiding his thief reputation. swallow them down even from his own Brood — he doesn't care if they want to fight him on his own secrets, none of them are getting Nureyev's through him. ]

[stilettoes]

[ peter doesn’t leave him altogether, not when juno pulls back, but he doesn’t go chasing after him either. he is extended between the both of them, like fingertips glancing off a bare shoulder in the dark, marking out the outline of scars against the pads of them until he has shale and texture memorized. what’s left here is brittle, but not broken or unforgiven. quite the opposite, but peter doesn’t let his mind dwell on it, finding another corner of his mind to stow it away it, shoving it in a glove box like a discarded handful of napkins. let them be. he’s felt enough recently, with juno around it’s doubly important that he doesn’t.

the emotion that he does lay down like a royal flush is singular and strong, unfrayed, uncut as much as juno perhaps had intended to saw away at it (maybe he didn’t, peter isn’t sure he’ll know unless he digs thumbs into that old wound). trust shapes itself like something immovable, cemented quietly in relation to juno and refusing to break or even buckle.

he lifts his head up just a bit higher. ]

( Oh, exceedingly so. Why, I hardly recognize myself sometimes in the process. All I ask is that you keep it simple on your end. )

[ he’ll leave juno to suss out what’s best, the kind of omission he can deal with (being a bad liar is an admirable trait, but one that nureyev is glad he himself doesn’t possess). details will ultimately come later on, but for now, while peter prides himself in his storytelling and elaborate masks, this one must remain simple, easy to guard. it’s there for juno to peruse, like leaning over and sharing the first of a new hand of cards—(small things, black’s voice falls sweeter and more golden where nureyev’s is more of a sigh, cool, but not cold). because there’s a likelihood that hadrian might never come off, which sends a prickle down his spine, but that’s the way isn’t it? some strange hub in the middle of space, an even stranger planet inhabited by life far beyond humans. perhaps it isn’t home, but it’s not worth the risk at least not this early on.

he’s about to speak again, but his temples beat in another rallying surge and he lifts a hand to touch the side of his veil, pressing in a little. he doesn’t like how it’s far more effortless with elliot than it is with juno, how it feels like you’re knees deep in a slurry of emotion that doesn’t fit to your own, that doesn’t wind around your brain the way you’d think it deserves to and it aches in a way that’s catches on the previous note from before, a soft call and respond of “i’ve missed you.” ]

[iuno]

[ the way that Nureyev lingers, almost politely, doesn't entirely surprise him; and neither does the way his mind sits flat and serene like a pond, only disturbed by the occasional ripple of a feeling, diminished by the time it crosses the distance to Juno. what makes him flinch, though, is how plainly Nureyev lays out this bedrock of trust for him — for him, of all people. he screwed up with Nureyev and he chose to do it deliberately so that he wouldn't have to wait for it to happen, because it always does.

and it always goes the same way. it has ever since Mom. they realise that he's betrayed them, they never trust him again and there's no going back, no forgiveness. even the people that stick around, they're different because of him, colder and crueller, and they don't look at him the same way anymore. the pattern is so consistent he could probably make a calendar from it. finding Nureyev's trust for him as unbroken and certain as ever — no. no, no, that doesn't fit. that's not how this goes. ]

( You don't have to tell me to keep it simple. I— )

[ whatever else he'd been about to communicate, settling into that familiar bickering that feels so easy it's like letting himself sink into quicksand, is sharply derailed when Nureyev winces, obviously pained even with the robes to obscure him. and Juno's mind doesn't change by halves or creeping degree; the entire thing shifts, redirected full-force into concern and attention and a paler shade of the protective panic he'd unearthed from himself in Miasma's tomb. he hadn't known it in the weeks after without Nureyev around, but he doesn't think he's managed to untangle himself from that mindset yet, something (trauma) he hesitates to name.

he startles into motion, half-reaches before he thinks better of it and just stops there, caught— ] Shit, you alright?

[ his head hurts so much already from the deafening noise of the Nest and the Theia's new grip on his nerves that any further building pain doesn't even register for him. it's all just ache, and right now he's dealing with that from his heart to his bones, everything from heartsick to exhausted. another headache on top of that isn't worth reacting to. ]

[stilettoes]

It's fine—

[ two words, easy enough. the ache between the both of them throbs in unison for different reasons and it takes peter a good moment to make the entire panging in his head wind down from white hot to a dull red like the end of a cooling poker. resettling, like cards riffling back into place. it's done as quickly as he can manage it, but even that feels... marginally much slower than before. still. he thinks about reassuring him in the stillness of their minds again (it feels close, it feels warm, he wants to touch it again) but the choice overall doesn't seem wise. even the impulse to do so aches like a warning beacon again.

he wants to. it feels safe there despite the blatant divide.

but definitely, not wise.

softer now: ]

I'm fine, Juno.

[ where juno hesitates to pull back, peter doesn't with his own hand, reaching out past halfway to catch his elbow again in his fingertips, guiding him by his side down the path without a beat to lose between the actions that follow. he tries not to let it linger, pulling a hand back as soon as they get into step with one another, however long it might take.

the initial call had been so incredibly loud and desperate, he's glad he's at least managed to wind it down to this, to hopefully keep him from that spiraling panic while the time settled in to process at least some of their situation at hand. ]

We'll find somewhere quiet for you for now. [ the noise can be deafening in the nest, can take time to acclimate too. if anything, peter had had the luxury of arriving at a funeral (dour, muted, most of the hosts on lockdown from an emotional flood.) sure, the new hosts were loud, but it wasn't a clamoring nest herding out in the dark. ] And I'll do what I can to answer any other questions you might have.

[iuno]

[ you're not fine, he wants to snap, because he can feel it and it makes him angry. it's not in his own head the way the Brood feels, but it lingers on the periphery of his awareness, exists in the background of a sense he shouldn't have. Nureyev is hurting. he hates it. doesn't know if it's his fault, if his mental landscape is just broken glass and toxic spills the way he imagines it to be and Nureyev is the one dealing with it; or if it's just the effort of reaching out, that same pain Juno always experienced with the pill.

he falls into step with Nureyev, but there's a restless concern vibrating on the edges of his mind, the impression, sharp, that he's watching for any other signs of distress. there will be time to untangle himself from this later. right now, the image of Nureyev pale and shaking from torture is still carved too deeply in him, and that panic welling up from the gouge too near the surface. ]

Right. Questions.

[ does he really have any questions yet? taking that hand just felt like... giving up. not caring what came after, an end to six months of existing as a ghost after he closed that airlock door on himself like a coffin. his exhaustion is bigger than him — the size of stars, of planets, eclipsing his thoughts and leaving them impossible to grasp. he'd done very little but sleep for weeks after they escaped Miasma's tomb, between the aftermath of their torture and the heavy emotional weight on his chest, and he feels that way again now. like if he laid down he might never want to get back up again. six months should have been long enough, because he's not a goddamn child. it isn't long enough at all.

the shape of Juno under the robes is a miserable slump of fabric, his twitchy hand movements, the way he shifts his weight, all of it smothered. more distinct is him rubbing at his eyes through the veil, a sigh that hisses out of him as he deflates. he should be glad that the high point of desperation is passing, but it had been adrenaline to keep him on his feet, and now it's gone and he's... god. he's just tired. ]

Kind of waiting for my brain to start working again so that I can actually come up with some.

[stilettoes]

[ the ache in his head isn't... nearly as bad as the time he'd spent without a shred of sunlight, so far from juno but so damnably close. but the faintest tremor of a panic is palpable and peter wants to smooth over it, wants to reach out like a hand over scuffed up knuckles. instead, he turns to him, their steps slightly off, but in time just enough that almost feels like some kind of habit, like peter can adjust his steps to accommodate juno's sturdier stride that isn't quite as long as his, but is determined enough to be.

he rests his hands together. ]

There's plenty of time for it.

[ translation: don't rush. don't press yourself for it. it was a suggestion, not a command. peter knows his own mind well enough that he'd raced for answers as soon as he's rolled out of his strange little pod, slid down the ladder, found the only little link of his brood reading out for him. he's a malleable creature, one that despite discomfort, conforms to his circumstances to survive. it's not an option, it's a perquisite to life. surviving, surviving, surviving.

peter doesn't precisely touch him, but his robes. a soft tug of a scarf before letting fingers go. grabbing his attention without flicking at that little twist of mindlink to mindlink because it's like someone drilling a hole between his eyes. the tactility increases if only for this (and secretly because for peter, it's felt like forever even if it's not even been that long for him.)

a soft sigh. ]

Not to worry, Juno. You'll find that it catches up in no time. [ he believes that much in juno, and more, but he'll hardly say it. not in this moment. not now. ] There's an adjustment period, like with all things. [ as if! he didn't! have his own!!! he watches the motions juno passes through, as he always does, as is habit - the way he lifts his hands just slightly beneath his veil, the way he slopes forward in a way that peter can identify as the kind of exhaustion that is deep from too much all at once. he doesn't mean to hover so closely, but it happens regardless, as if it's an instinct that's been embedded into him the moment he knew he'd fucked juno over the minute miasma rolled up in the damned ruby 7. there's a part of him that knows none of this would have happened if he'd just left him well enough alone.

but he doesn't linger on it, but physically lingering is another story. ] It's simply a case of too much all at once. You were so overwhelmed coming down, I'm hardly surprised you've gone and huffed and puffed yourself all out.

[ in truth, peter has too, chasing circles around panic, around anxiety, around the sound of his name unspoken but felt. that, perhaps, hurts the most. that he could feel it, the search for his name, for him so far away. ]

[iuno]

[ if there's one thing people learn quickly about Juno, it's that he rarely takes soothing well. he doesn't like other people trying to tell him what his problems are, whether they're right or not; hates their kindness, their gentleness, for something that he more than likely deserved. he started taking kindness as condescension when he was a teenager, because he felt like he had something to prove, building defences out of sharp things and certain that one mistake would bring the whole thing down.

he hasn't changed since then, still quick to leap to anger in the face of concern, baring his teeth to protect his wounded pride. but this is worse — this particular comfort just tastes like guilt. it's how much Juno wants it, wants more; how he's sure that Nureyev is doing this either through gritted teeth or out of some misguided sense of obligation, and neither of those are what Juno wants from him. the edges of Nureyev's presence are warm and soft and it can't be true. it's too much, doesn't make sense, in a situation where nothing seems to make sense anymore. he lost the last of something when he walked out of that hotel room.

Juno steps away suddenly, out of reach, putting distance between them that leaves him cold. his voice goes hard, those sharp defences of his, that flaring animal warning of stay away — all bark and no bite, bargaining for space more than anything. begging: don't be kind to me. ]

I'm fine. [ he's not. he knows that. he hasn't been fine in a while now. but what he bristles at is overwhelmed, angry at himself for the emotional stress he's feeling when he wants it to be a simple matter of exhaustion. ] I just have three different kinds of headache and three hours of sleep in as many days.

[ which is true. there's just a lot more than that in his head too. ]

[stilettoes]

Of course you are. You've been busy, after all, with your work.

[ the distance is met with a half-catch and then the sensation of drawing back. all the way. each bit curled inward now, flower closing petal by petal in slow motion as thought uncertain. juno pushes out for space and peter responds with the least verbal form of "ok" as if maybe he just expects that. maybe he's too fast and he's too eager and the sound of juno's voice means more than all the stars in the known universe, the one familiar thing he can cling to and trust that knows him the way he wants to be known by only one person.

if juno wants a wide berth, then so be it. let him have it. a lady needs his space, doesn't he? to breathe and to accommodate and peter begins to settle into the realization that he's...

too close.

much too close right now. that's it.

here and now with juno all teeth bared and sharp points tempered only in the minutes they've shared since the ship had touched down, it's not right to just go filling juno's space as much as he'd like. were they strangers, it'd be a different sort of story, but juno knows him for what he is. who he is. they've history, short and wild and unfinished, left with an em dash instead of a period. a question mark unanswered.

no, he'll fold. for once. he's too tired for this as well, woken up in the middle of the night and aching now in more ways than he can count, a thing that wraps itself up in a tangle of a gradually extending brood that he can feel beginning to peel downwards to invite more in. his mouth twitches under the veil as he offers juno a nod. sentiment is a sheet of opaque dark glass, made lighter, thinner by the feeling of juno being there. ]

I can leave you to it on your own if that's what you'd prefer.

[ tight, but not unkind. frustrated, but unwilling to leave him altogether, a contrail left behind when he pulls away completely.

you were calling for me. i wanted that. there, present, hovering too closely atop the skin. ]

[iuno]

[ that's the heart of the problem, isn't it; he can't survive Nureyev being near, and he doesn't want him to leave. for all that he bristles, curls up in his mind away from him, Juno doesn't want him gone, he just— god, he's such a mess. there are too many things crowding his head, an awful knotted mass that he can't pull apart because he doesn't have the patience or the clever fingers for it. if Nureyev goes, Juno will be miserable and fine, he'll live, but. that doesn't mean he can actually tell him to go, even if he really should, for both of their sakes. ]

I mean, if you've got — [ Nureyev can't see the way his face scrunches up, but he still gets the impression of distaste; Juno hates that he's about to say this, all the terminology here that's lifted straight from one of Rita's crappy sci-fi streams: ] ... Brood... things to do, don't let me keep you.

[ with a vague hand gesture to match that vague bullshit he just pulled out. he honestly doesn't know whether there are things Nureyev needs to do; he knows what a Brood is by now, and he figured out the shape of that connection with Darlene, but there very well could be upkeep, some kind of tedious socialising that Nureyev feels the need to do because he takes much more care than Juno does with a situation.

not that it makes what he said any less of an excuse to avoid being the one who makes a decision here. ]

We're all headed to the same place, aren't we? [ delivered so casually. like they're anywhere else, like they're two people who have ever been in a situation together that wasn't high stakes and high adrenaline. and like Juno's ribcage isn't in danger of cracking from the force of his heartbeat, the thing clawing at the insides of him begging don't go don't go, desperate not to lose Nureyev. not again. ] If you want to make the rounds, I can find you later, hear your opinions on this whole mess.

[ not to mention see his face when they're finally somewhere where it's safe to remove the robes, because god, he wants to see him. there's an anxious feeling strung wire-taut in him that won't let up until he can actually confirm with his eyes that Nureyev is alright and unchanged and — and. and, honestly, he just wants to see him for no other reason than that: than seeing him. ]