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Peter Nureyev was the kind of gentleman who kept his list of fears short and private, as far as Juno could tell. The image he meant to project to the outside world was that of a factory whose iron fence poked out of the ground like fifteen-foot teeth and whose dark exterior hid mechanisms secret to all but him. Fear itself knew that Peter Nureyev was more fearsome than it.
As such, Juno was fairly surprised when he heard Nureyev all but screaming bloody murder from the ship’s communal quarters.
“Ransom?” He called, words shaken by the effort of running. He could only pray whatever had made Peter’s voice jump up an octave was small enough that he could deal with it without removing the cucumber slice blocking his vision.
“Dear Lord, Juno, get in here,” Nureyev hissed the second Juno poked his head around the corner.
Juno didn’t need his eyes to know that Nureyev’s voice was coming from far too high up in the room, so with a reluctant sigh, he flicked the cucumber slice into his mouth and followed the sound of Peter’s labored breathing.
As expected, Nureyev was nowhere to be found. Juno had half a mind to start prying up the couch cushions when he heard the sound of a clearing throat from above.
“Up here, love,” Nureyev called, just in time for Juno’s eye to fix upon the missing vent grate and an all-too-familiar head sticking out of the ceiling, looking alive enough to quell some of Juno’s worry.
“Why am I even surprised anymore?” Juno groaned, pausing to swallow the last of the cucumber. “How’s the weather up there?”
“Freezing,” Nureyev huffed. “I’m regretting my decision already. You don’t happen to see it, do you?”
“I don’t know what ‘it’ is, and besides, I’ve had my eyes open for the last ten seconds.”
“About that,” Nureyev interrupted. “Do you only put the cucumber on one eye?”
Juno shrugged.
“Nobody’s gonna see it.”
“Dear—” Nureyev began to sputter.
“Are you gonna tell me about whatever the hell stabbed you or not?”
“Stabbed? My dear detective, it was merely a spider,” Nureyev returned lightly.
“Merely,” Juno snorted. “And I’m gonna guess you’re ‘merely’ a little afraid of them?”
“Afraid?” Nureyev huffed from the vent. “I’m merely—I’m only concerned that we could introduce the creature to an environment in which it might multiply freely, perhaps to an unhealthy extent.”
“And what’s so wrong with spiders multiplying on the ship?” Juno grinned. “The more the merrier, right? Just hanging out in the kitchen, breeding in the air vents—”
“Love,” Nureyev warned.
“I’m not gonna kill some bug just ‘cause you’re—”
Juno wasn’t exactly one of those people who got punished for his hubris often. However, when something unseen, crawling, and palpably hairy scuttled across his hand’s resting spot upon the wall, he didn’t have it in him to hold back a yelp.
Nureyev, the loving, caring partner that he was, burst out laughing. The onslaught faded as quickly as it came when he seemed to remember Juno’s comment about the air ducts, turning to a physical cringe while he tried to worm his way towards the mouth of the vent.
“Shut the hell up!” Juno tried not to chuckle as well, though he had a feeling his attempt was less sympathy towards Nureyev than shock at just how large the spider looked. “Where did it go?”
Nureyev’s torso swung down from the vent, arms folded and face knit in thought.
“I don’t see it.”
“That’s never a good thing.”
“Pete, Juno, what in God’s name is happening here?” Buddy interrupted from the door, arms crossed and her confused glare fixed on a bathrobe-clad Juno and a still swinging Nureyev.
“Captain—” Nureyev began to sputter out.
“Spider,” Juno finished.
“So you believed your best course of action was to climb into a vent?”
“Captain Aurinko, my sincerest—” Nureyev’s apology trailed off for two distinct reasons.
First, any attempt at a professional delivery was rendered useless by the fact that he was hanging upside down from an air vent while his face gradually went dark and his glasses crept their way up his nose. Second, Buddy had just stepped onto the nearest coffee table, heels be damned.
“What the hell are you doing?” Juno asked.
“I’m standing on a table, darling,” Buddy replied, easy professionalism wrapped around her like a fur coat. “I thought that much was obvious. Now, if I may inquire, where was this spider you mentioned before?”
“I’m afraid that’s the problem, Captain,” Nureyev sighed, pausing a moment to wrestle himself back into the vent in order to quite literally clear his head.
A thunk rang out from somewhere in the ceiling as one of Nureyev’s limbs collided with the side of the vent. Juno’s eye flickered up to follow the noise, making a quick detour at the sight of a brown smudge scuttling its way across the wall. Buddy’s vision must have followed the same path, for her heels clicked when she lurched at the sight of the arachnid interloper.
“Did you find it?” Nureyev called, emerging once more.
Before anyone could reply, a voice interjected from the hall.
“Ugh,” Vespa huffed. “Do I really wanna know?”
Vespa paused in the doorway long enough to squint at all three of them, as if blinking would change the fact that Nureyev was dangling out of a vent, Juno was staring at the wall like it had personally wronged him, and Buddy was standing on a coffee table with every iota of poise she still possessed.
“Vespa, darling,” Buddy started, “it seems we have an interloper in our midst, of a size and shape I feel you would be most adept to deal with.”
Vespa groaned.
“What bug do I have to kill?”
“Ha! I knew you were scared!” Juno laughed, though the sound trailed off under the harsh spotlight of Buddy’s glare.
“Those who live in glass houses,” Nureyev mused from the air duct.
“Oh, shut up,” Vespa cut him off. “It’s the thing on the wall, right? I took out my contacts.”
“You’d be correct,” Buddy returned, giving Vespa’s hand a parting squeeze. From the tenderness of the gesture, Juno would have thought that a war was separating them, rather than two feet and a probably harmless arachnid. “Do you happen to have something to kill it with?”
Vespa crossed her arms over her chest, staring down the spider. The interloper froze, knowing better than to cross Vespa Ilkay when her mind was running through the list of potentially deadly objects in the room.
“The remote’s too small, so if somebody’s got something kinda big and flat—” Vespa’s words trailed off as her sharp eyes flicked up to the vent, just in time for a winning smile to part her glare. “Hey, Ransom, you wanna pass me that grate?”
“Would you be able to reach it if I held it down?” Nureyev returned, testing his theory by swinging a few dangerous inches out of the vent.
Nureyev’s eyes went wide as he froze, a cartoon parody of a fall. Every iota of Juno wanted to shove the table and Vespa and hell, even the spider out of the way to catch him, but the closest path to Nureyev’s ever-nearing fate upon the floor was much closer to the spider than he’d rather be.
Instead, Juno was forced to take the long way around the coffee table, launching himself over a few too many chairs in an attempt to come to Peter’s aid. Nureyev, thankfully, seemed to be doing a decent job keeping himself aloft, but a few more bangs rang out from somewhere above and his attempt at a calm veneer began to shatter. When one of the noises rattled the spider enough to send it racing down the wall and somewhere behind the couch again, Nureyev all but yelped, the last of his resolve gone along with his grip strength.
Juno didn’t remember the actual fall, though he was aware that one moment, he had his arms almost readied, and the next, he was somewhere on the floor with a spider on the loose and all sorts of sharp bones and limbs and glasses jabbing different parts of his body.
“Hey Ransom,” he wheezed when Nureyev’s elbow prodded between his ribs, “you doing okay?”
“Still alive,” Nureyev swallowed.
“Mistah Steel! What happened?” Rita called from the door before Juno could respond.
“I believe that Ransom fell out of the vent and on top of Juno while attempting to hand Vespa the grate,” Jet answered, somewhere behind her.
“I got that, but—”
“Spider,” Vespa answered, eyes going wide when her gaze fell back upon the table. “Bud, don’t move!”
“Good heavens—”
Nureyev managed to roll to the side in time for Juno to get a good look at Jet cementing himself in all of their good graces by placing a mason jar upon the coffee table and sliding the spider into a different, larger container before Buddy could do more than take a handful of stuttering steps away.
“Huh,” Juno breathed. “It doesn’t actually look all that big in the jar.”
“Love,” Nureyev groaned.
“The hell did I do?”
“I think they’re kinda cute,” Rita offered. “All those widdle legs and eyeballs!”
Nureyev stood and cleared his throat, as if poise would do anything to patch over the injury sustained to his ego.
“What am I, chopped liver?” Juno snorted before Nureyev could even open his mouth. His teasing only widened when Nureyev huffed and yanked him to his feet.
“Little or not, Rita,” Nureyev began, “any non-native creature with the potential to survive in a new environment also has the potential to upset the balance of the ecosystem.”
“Says the guy who invaded the ecosystem of the vent,” Vespa snorted.
Both Juno’s exhaustion at the harrowing ordeal and the part of him that wanted to preserve each and every one of Nureyev’s affectionate glares forever won out against the urge to stifle a laugh. He’d barely smiled before he received the exact look he was expecting, to which he replied with a kiss to the cheek that left Nureyev’s visibly set jaw fighting back a smile.
“Ransom is correct,” Jet returned. “That is why I have my terrarium. The next planet we are landing on is not a habitable environment for these arachnids, so my intent is to keep them contained until we land on a planet where it is safe to release the spiders.”
“More than one?” Juno sputtered.
“He’s got a whole bunch!” Rita elaborated. “I coded all the locks and everything!”
“Well then,” Buddy grimaced, still atop the table, “on that note, I’ll be making my exit.”
She offered a hand to Vespa, who used it to guide her down from the table while Buddy’s other hand remained on the skirt of her gown which, miraculously, had seen neither head nor tail of the eight-legged stowaway.
“And you’re just okay with having a spider zoo onboard?” Juno choked.
“Dear, you heard Jet,” Nureyev grinned. “It’s best for the environment.”
It was Juno’s turn to glare.
“You, sir, can shut the hell up,” he huffed.
“I could,” Nureyev shrugged.
When Buddy turned to address the crew, Juno’s mouth, open with a half-formed retort, fell shut.
“Now, as you all know, this has been a deeply upsetting experience for those involved,” she began. “I believe it would be in all of our best interests to call an impromptu movie night. Until then, I’ll leave you all to your affairs.”
Clearly not wanting to spend a second longer in the room with the spider, Buddy departed, leaving Rita to bounce stream ideas off of Jet while Nureyev licked his wounds as surreptitiously as possible.
When Peter finished brushing the vent dust off of his pants, he sighed, fixing Juno with the kind of world-weary look that would have sent him into a gale of laughter if it had not been woven upon his brow with such conviction.
“My love,” Nureyev lamented, “I believe I’m going to stop at the infirmary.”
“What?” Juno started, eyes raking over Nureyev for any sign of injury. “What’s hurt?”
Peter grimaced.
“My pride.”
Juno earnestly tried to stifle a snort, but with his heart still pounding and his brain still buzzing, all he could do was let his head fall into Nureyev’s shoulder and muffle his laugh there, feeling far less guilty when he heard the smile on Peter’s voice.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“You’re so stupid.”
Nureyev squeezed his hand.
“I love you too, dear.”