I don’t know guys, I’m sad so I wrote some sad podcast twins
Please leave a comment on Ao3!
Trigger Warnings: Underage Drinking
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Juno hated waking up more than any other part of his day. And, this morning, he hated it even more.
Dry mouth and cracking headache that had made its home, all nice and cozy like, right behind his eyes. The tacky, sour taste on his tongue that told him he’d thrown up last night and probably would again before the morning was through. A disconnected feeling in all his limbs, lying there in pieces, a dismantled puppet in too many parts. His head rocking like his bed was bobbing in the middle of the ocean.
And, already, before he’d even twisted his face into an expression of disgust, flashes of last night. A best bits clip show of all the ways he’d made a complete ass of himself in the previous twenty four hours, shoving him over the edge of these fresh ones with the heavy realisation that he’d probably fuck them up just as badly.
Juno finally got out his groan, turning his face to the pillow, taking a bleak assessment of all the smells on his breath. Gin. Beer. Vodka. What the fuck was that, was that vermooth? Where the hell had he gotten that from? Had he gone back in time to the 1920s? And overlaying it all the thicker smell of what it had all come back up. Hopefully not on someone else, hopefully not in the middle of his classmate’s living room. But Juno knew better than to hold out any hope.
He was grateful, for once, for the miserable drabness of his and Ben’s bedroom. No bright colours to make his eyes ache worse, no sunlight making it through the smog of Oldtown to sneak in through the broken blinds. Just the plain brown walls and the plain brown carpet, the dull stains on everything. He was glad Ben’s attempts to liven it up had died around the time they were six.
Ben. That thought snagged on something and he lifted his head to peer into the identical bed across from his own. He felt anxiety pinch for a second before he remembered it was Sunday and Sunday meant dance classes. Ben had three paper rounds to fund those classes and the bus to get him from Oldtown back up into Halcyon, he wasn’t going to miss them even if he was as wretchedly hungover as Juno. Which Juno doubted, Ben always had the good sense to drink water and all that crap before bed.
And, yeah, there it was. A glass left on Juno’s side table, gathering some dust now like anything left unattended in their house for more than five minutes. Ben’s way of tugging him towards some kind of functionality, even when he’d been too belligerently drunk to listen.
Juno sighed and drained the glass, of course it was exactly what he needed. He wiped off the thin trail that ran out the side of his mouth and sat up, the movement dragging a whine of pain through his teeth as his body protested. One glass of water wasn’t going to be enough to bring him back from the dead.
He was still wearing his party clothes under the duvet, the sequinned drop sleeve shirt and billowy skirt, his only nice clothes now rumpled and sweat stained. He couldn’t see but he had no doubt his make up was a state too. He brought a hand up and confirmed there was mascara congealing in clumps on his eyelashes, glitter shedding from his eyelids and…
Why was their lipstick halfway to his cheekbones? Had he tossed and turned enough to ruin it that much? But there was none staining the pillow as there should be if some nightmare had been throwing him this way and that, sending him cowering against the bed enough to rub off his lipstick. Juno winced. The only explanation left was that he kissed someone last night, kissed them hard enough and sloppily enough that he made this ruin of his face. As if this morning couldn’t get any worse.
He didn’t really want to know, there was no one at his school he’d be willing to admit he’d made out with, but Juno couldn’t help but run through the candidates anyway. Carlos, maybe, he was cute enough but he’d hated Juno’s guts since he wrecked their science experiment back when they were partners in freshman year and he’d cost them a final. Appoline could be a possibility, she’d been staring at him all night but he’d thought she looked more likely to punch him in the nose than kiss him. Maybe Dev but they’d been even drunker than he was, they hadn’t looked fit to stand, let alone make out with someone. Oh god, please don’t let it have been Sasha…
Juno froze, stomach clenching sudden and hard and he’d been positive for a horrible second that he would vomit all over his bed. Memories crashed down on him like an ice cold wave. Throbbing lights, music that barely qualified for the title, stolen champagne drying stickily on his fingers. Something making sense in the way things only did when the world was coloured by liquor. And a very, very bad decision.
The muffled sound of the front door slamming into the wall of the hallway made Juno jump. Not because that was an uncommon sound, that was how ma always came in whether she’d had a good day or a bad one. Juno jumped because he knew that wouldn’t be ma, not with the way his luck was going.
Angry, heavy footsteps in the hall, ones their owner was deliberately making audible for effect. And then, the bedroom door flew open.
“Juno, you asshole!” Benzaiten screeched.
The worst thing about an angry Ben was the tears. They came tumbling down his cheeks in an endless tide, making his skin a blotchy and furious red. That was the worst part by far, knowing you were the cause of those tears.
“Ben, listen…” Juno croaked, cringing back against the headboard.
“There were loads of people you could have kissed at that party!’ Ben threw the door back into its frame, nearly cracking the wood, “Loads of people! And the one you picked was my fucking boyfriend?”
Juno wanted to curl up in a ball so tight he would just disappear. He hadn’t kissed Sasha or any of his classmates. He’d kissed Mick. Mick Mercury. The tall, perpetually grinning idiot they’d been friends with since they’d moved to Oldtown. And his brother’s boyfriend.
“Ben, I’m sorry,” Juno closed his eyes tight against the headache and the tears that were building up. He didn’t have a right to cry right now, he knew that, “Listen, it wasn’t Mick’s fault…”
“Yeah, I know that!” Ben raged. He was still in his dance gear, curls kept back by a headband.
He usually looked so calm after class, the happiest he’d be all week, like there had been something building up inside him he’d only managed to shake off during those two hours. He’d walk on the balls of his feet like he didn’t see their shitty house and their shitty town and their shitty life, like sun shone out of his skin.
And Juno had taken it away from him with one stupid, drunken decision.
“He called me and told me everything, he told me you came up to him when he’d been drinking and wouldn’t be able to tell us apart and you didn’t speak so he wouldn’t know and you kissed him,” it all came rushing out of Ben like a burst pipe, the tears still dripping from his chin onto Juno’s blanket, “And I believed him because he isn’t a fucking asshole, like you. I can’t believe you’d do that to me, Juno!”
“I didn’t think like that, I wasn’t trying to hurt you!” Juno’s heart wrenched, “I just…”
What had he been thinking? Why had he done it?
“I don’t want to hear it,” Ben snapped, hand reaching for the first thing he could grab. It ended up being a pillow, thankfully, because he pitched it right at his brother’s head. His headache didn’t take kindly to that, pain exploding at the base of his skull.
“I don’t want to hear excuses, I don’t want to hear apologies because guess what, it isn’t going to be enough this time!” Ben scowled, reaching again, “He’s my boyfriend, Juno, after everything I told you about how much he means to me? You’d go and try and take him?”
“I wasn’t!” Juno managed to lurch away from the book that came flying at him next, “I...I just…”
“Shut up!” Ben yelled, sitting down on his own bed, head in his hands, “Shut up and let me be pissed at you!”
Juno bit his lip, guilt hot and prickling under his skin. The only thing he’d ever been good at, the only thing he’d ever strived for, was to be as decent a big brother as he could be. It was written on every one of his cells, right down in his DNA. He was the eldest so he had to do everything he could to protect Ben, to put his happiness above his own. It was all he could do to keep going sometimes.
And he’d hurt him worse than anything ever had. Worse than Ma, worse than the bullies at school, worse than the bad luck that clung to them like oil that never washed off.
Juno knew he’d been told to shut up and that for once he should listen but he couldn’t help it, “Benzaiten, you should be angry at me, I’m never going to tell you you shouldn’t. I fucked up so badly.”
“Yeah,” Ben mumbled tearfully, shoulders shuddering, still not looking at him, “You did.”
“But I didn’t do it to hurt you. I’d never hurt you, Ben. I mean, I know I did and I know I’ve done it before and I said sorry and it meant less than dirt…” God, he was crying, sobs building up in his chest, making himself even angrier at himself.
He could feel Ben’s gaze on him, not angry but wounded. Wanting answers, in spite of what he’d said.
“I didn’t do it because I want to take away what you and Mick have,” Juno tried to say things he only knew were true but it was hard to pick them out of the roiling mess in his head, “He’s good for you, he knows I’d break his jaw if he wasn’t.”
“Then what were you trying to do?” Ben sniffed, rubbing at his eyes like he was six rather than sixteen.
Juno forced himself back into those memories, even as he wanted to recoil away from what he’d done. He remembered the flute of champagne he’d stolen from some senior girl who was busy sucking the face of the girl hosting the party. He remembered going out into the front yard, where Mick was sitting, watching the cars go by as he liked to do when he got tipsy and moony eyed. He’d turned when he’d heard heels on the wooden porch and his whole face had lit up with such pure and uncomplicated joy, the way he’d always looked at Benzaiten…
Juno took a deep, shuddering breath, “I...when he saw me and thought it was you, he looked at me so...well, like a guy in love. And it was so nice and soft and...and it hit me that no one is ever going to look at me the way he looks at you. No one is going to love me like that. And...and I just wanted to keep hold of it for a few moments because I’m stupid and selfish and awful. Okay?”
Ben didn’t say anything, looking at his brother through tear beaded eyelashes.
“We kissed but he realised it wasn’t you,” Juno continued thickly, “And as soon as he did, he pulled away and he was apologising and crying and he ran away. He really didn’t mean it, Ben. He really cares about you.”
“I know that,” Ben murmured, shoulders slumping as some of the tension left him, “And someone will care about you too, Juno. But it won’t happen until you stop thinking it won’t, y’know? You treat yourself like crap and it makes you do stuff like this...and yeah, then people are going to think you’re a dick if you act like one.”
Juno rubbed at his eyes, mascara coating the heel of his hand, “Maybe I am just a dick, has anyone ever considered that?”
“No because it isn’t true,” Ben aimed a kick at him that wasn’t really a kick at all, just a nudge with his foot, “You’re not a dick. Just apologise to Mick and maybe don’t drink too much and kiss other people’s boyfriends?”
Juno sighed, plucking at his blanket, “I mean, I’ll do my best. I sure as hell won’t kiss yours anymore.”
Ben rolled his eyes, red rimmed now but the tears had stopped. He threw another kick in his brother’s direction, one that meant a little more business, “Don’t do it to anyone! Maybe you’re done with parties for a little while.”
“Yeah,” Juno admitted, running a hand through his hair, “I feel like shit.”
“You look like it too.”
“Shut up…”
Ben managed a rough laugh, leaning back against the wall. Juno sank back onto his side, wincing again, wrapping his arms around his pillow and trying to find a position where his head wouldn’t throb so badly.
After a while, he mumbled, his voice barely more than a whisper, “Ben?”
“Yeah, Super Steel?”
“Just...promise that when we’re grown up and you and Mick are married and you’re off being the solar system’s most famous dancer somewhere on another planet...just promise you’ll still call me?”
He couldn’t see Ben’s smile but he heard it, “What makes you think I’m not gonna bring you with us? I’m not going anywhere without my brother.”
Juno smiled crookedly into his pillow, hoping he wouldn’t see the relief on his face.
Spent about an hour and a half with @queenofyoursoda rewriting the whole Juno Steel verse (all 3 seasons) if Sara Steel actually got the Northstar promotion and Ben lived
looking for alaska au where benzatien is miles halter, mick is alaska young, julian dimaggio is chip martin, cecil is takumi hikohito, and khan is mr. starnes
