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English
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Published:
2020-10-20
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1,634
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1/1
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Elegy for a Thief

Summary:

Morning light refused to hide the year old scars that marred his skin and dignity in equal measure. As such, he had elected to keep his mornings to himself. Between his failing health and the measures required to keep it hidden, he felt like enough of an imposter amongst the crew already. The crew already didn’t trust Peter Ransom. He had no intention of giving them a more tangible reason to do so.

As much as he felt his crewmates, particularly poor Juno, deserved to know of the expiration date Miasma had all but seared into his skin, he supposed they might as well find out when the date came to fruition.

Notes:

Hey all!! Enjoy some angst for once :D Like usual with heavier stuff, I'm going hard on the content warnings just in case!

A general note on the illness/injury: essentially, the insinuation is that the aftereffects of the events in miasma's tomb have shortened nureyev's life expectancy MASSIVELY and he experiences pain (based loosely on experiences with nerve damage as described to me through family members) as a result. I'm trying to keep things vague because I don't know what kind of space nonsense he got zapped with. Long story short, not good. If any of that sounds distasteful, feel free to back out now

Content warnings for fatal injury, scarring, negative body image, nureyev-typical ageism, lack of communication, self-destructive behavior, i'll be real with you. i dont know what this thing is called. but it's when the doctor is like 'i diagnose you with going to die disease,' grief/mourning, death mention, disability, debt, minor internalized ableism

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Nureyev preferred to wake up in his own room, surrounded by the familiar stress of a familiarly cluttered room.

He never truly learned how to live somewhere, for even on his longer heists, he seldom unpacked his suitcases. He had tried to organize his dresser, though the effort had been entirely abandoned when it became the first bit overwhelming. The fact of the matter was that he was unsure of how to live somewhere and frankly, was too humiliated to ask for help.

After a few weeks of accustomation, he had found some comfort in the private corner of the ship he could call his own, where everything was hidden to any eye but his. There was security in mess, for someone searching for anything in particular would become lost or give up quickly, while Nureyev could merely memorize which mound of costumes and coats hid which plasmacutters.

His weaponry was far from the only thing concealed behind that magician’s cape of a door.

In his quarters, nobody had to see the half hour it took to rise from bed, nor the additional half hour of stretching he required just to get his traitorous joints and muscles and nerves to agree to work for the remainder of the day. Nobody had to see the medications that burned an aching hole in his wallet, nor the way his hands shook until he took them and continued to shake if he was too many minutes late.

Morning light refused to hide the year old scars that marred his skin and dignity in equal measure. As such, he had elected to keep his mornings to himself. Between his failing health and the measures required to keep it hidden, he felt like enough of an imposter amongst the crew already. The crew already didn’t trust Peter Ransom. He had no intention of giving them a more tangible reason to do so.

As much as he felt his crewmates, particularly poor Juno, deserved to know of the expiration date Miasma had all but seared into his skin, he supposed they might as well find out when the date came to fruition.

He had intended to wake up in his own quarters that morning, just as he had intended to keep the scars and the medication and the crushing stress of debt to himself. However, the night before, Juno had called him to bed with a tight embrace, and after a particularly bad day, Nureyev found himself too tired to argue.

He could pretend Juno didn’t feel his scars under his head when he first drifted off, and that, perhaps if he woke early enough in the morning, he might disappear off to his own quarters with a note and a kiss to the forehead before Juno even had time to miss him.

However, he couldn’t pretend the stupid, untimely wave of pain that struck him at an inhumane hour of the morning would just waltz away. He also couldn’t pretend that Juno’s position wasn’t worsening it.

Nureyev tried to bear the agony for as long as he could manage, though his heaving chest and the gritted noise he uttered once or twice seemed to have distrubed Juno far before he could muster any resigned words to ask him to move off of his arm.

“Nureyev?” Juno slurred out, a single syllable.

“Go back to sleep, dear,” Nureyev murmured in response, trying to corral his voice into a caricature of ease.

“What’s happening?” He yawned.

Juno rolled over to stretch, wincing at the complaining of his back in response. Nureyev would have given anything just to roll over and hold him tight, pressing consoling kisses over as much of his head and face as possible until Juno laughed and batted him away like an angry cat pretending not to adore the affection. Instead, the twitching of phantom electrodes sizzling against red burns long-since rendered white held him fast to the mattress.

“A cramp, my love,” Peter lied. “It’s of no worry.”

Juno sat up, and as much as exhaustion still tugged at his face, his eye blazed with the same focused deduction that had first caused Rex Glass to falter in what was meant to be a seamless heist. The responding pang in Peter’s chest was kinder than the remainder of the pain, for it ebbed, soothed when Juno’s gaze turned to worry.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he sighed, shaking his head as he turned to flick on the lightswitch.

Nureyev winced, as if the light might sting even more harshly than the remains of his injury.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed tersely, as if those two words might speak for the thousand unsaid things behind them.

“Jesus,” Juno started as his eye fell back onto his partner. “Are those—”

“Miasma,” Nureyev confirmed.

Juno swallowed, internalizing one of several things Nureyev had meant to bring to his ever-approaching grave.

Juno opened his mouth through a look of righteous indignation, though he closed it. Nureyev had known him for long enough to decipher the meaning. He would argue some point about how Peter had no need to hate his appearance, for it was lovely, not to mention that at the core of the matryoshka doll, there lay something far sweeter than any alternate face he could ever put forward.

Nureyev didn’t know how to tell him that his vanity hardly fueled that obsession anymore. Now, every wrinkle was a visible inch closer to the year he was not supposed to live past. He hated his body because it failed, especially during those sweet moments that felt ever more numbered when he could not enjoy them.

After a moment, Juno tried to speak again, and this time, succeeded.

“What can I do?” Juno asked.

“Good Lord, I don’t deserve you,” Nureyev breathed, voice a disbelieving chuckle.

“That doesn’t help me help you,” Juno pressed. “What do I do to make this better?”

Nureyev prayed Juno couldn’t hear the sound of his heart breaking. He wished there were some better way to explain everything than to take both of Juno’s hands in his own and squeeze and explain that he could do nothing to fix this, that Peter was counting down days until the end to all things bright and beautiful, and that soon they would be torn apart by paths the other could not walk. He wished there were a way to say that he counted their lazy nights together like blessings because now, more than ever, they were terribly finite.

Instead, he sighed and fixed his gaze upon Juno’s face. His eyes had often traversed along those scars, some old, some new, and all equally lovely. His eyes returned to the line across Juno’s nose like children returning time and time again to a secret hideaway somewhere in a nearby wood. However, since their reunion, he had felt more and more like an adult returning to that broken-down secret hideaway in memory of those kinder days when life had seemed infinite and pain was an imaginary fiend.

“Not much for now, I’m afraid,” was all Nureyev could manage.

“Lights on or off?” Juno persisted.

“Off, if you don’t mind,” Peter replied with an apologetic wince. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Juno returned, voice a quiet little husk that broke Nureyev’s heart to hear. “Do you want me touching you or not?”

“I’ll tell you when you can,” Nureyev sighed.

Juno flicked the lights off and slid back into bed a few inches away, his gaze still burning a hole into Nureyev, who remained as sleepless as ever. The silence that filled the room had a way of creeping, like a large, slithering snake lining itself up alongside Nureyev to see whether or not he would be fit for devouring.

“Nureyev,” Juno finally began, the three syllables as much an olive branch as they were a break in the million mile gap between Peter and the lady he would soon be forced to leave behind.

“Yes, dear?”

“This isn’t—”

“It’s not your fault,” Nureyev finished all too quickly. “You never made Miasma—”

He heard Juno shake his head.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with it. Either way.”

“They’re just some aftershocks, dear,” Nureyev tried to smile. “Nothing of concern.”

“Still.”

Juno didn’t need to know that his first few months of recovery were fueled only by spite, for few other things could convince his muscles to move and his wallet to open to the new weight that sat upon his chest and choked him whenever it decided he had become too comfortable. Any time he relished holding Juno close or sharing a intimate moment with someone worth living for, his debt and the ticking timer of just how much longer his body could hold up against the damage done in that Martian tomb liked to whisper in his ear and tug on the corner of his feigned smile.

“I love you,” Nureyev murmured.

“Can I kiss you?” Juno asked.

Peter nodded. When their lips met, he couldn’t help but wonder if Juno even suspected that Nureyev had finished counting his life in forward-moving numbers. He counted down meals and mornings and times he had to do the laundry. He hated counting down kisses most of all.

Juno pressed his lips to his forehead before he departed back to the dent in the mattress mere inches from Nureyev’s side.

“I love you too,” he finally answered.

Nureyev tried to smile and thanked the gentle blanket of darkness for hiding his failure.

Eventually, Juno fell asleep, six inches and a thousand miles away. The distance cleaved by recurring pain and left open by the constant timer ticking in Nureyev’s head felt fitting. With their imminent separation creeping ever closer, it felt right that they should have a rehearsal or two before the final curtain.

Notes:

hoo boy congrats on making that all the way through with me i love you all so much go drink water ok? Also i say speculative but let's be real he probably just has like. a peanut allergy that he's really embarrassed by bc he hates that he could just get nerfed by a legume at any time

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