Work Text:
Mars was cold, Dan thought during one of his twice daily walks between his botany lab and the Hub. Mars had always been cold, but there was something especially cold about it today. Maybe the seasons were changing. He genuinely had no idea what season it was now, or which season was up next, or how long it would last, or how seasons even worked on this planet. All he knew was Mars’s cold seeping under his suit and into his bones. He shivered all the way back to his semi-possibly-maybe-permanent home, and after going through the airlock and stripping off his spacesuit, he entered the common area to find Phil setting their table for dinner.
“I don’t know why you always get the plates out,” Dan said. They ate the same meal three times a day: glorified, nutrition-filled goop. Putting it on a plate or in a bowl before putting it in their mouths didn’t make that much of a difference.
Phil shrugged. “It makes it feel more like home, don’t you think?”
Dan ignored the implication that this was a home. That this was their home.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want it to be. Dan and Phil got along well. Their names went well together- Dan and Phil. Phil and Dan. They almost never argued, and when they did, it was almost always resolved in hours, or even minutes. They even had the same taste in anime, for god’s sake. They literally could not be more compatible as roommates. There was just one issue: Dan had a crush on Phil. He had for the six months they’d known each other. When it first surfaced, he had assumed it was a temporary thing that would be gone within weeks. Oh, how wrong he had been. Spending a month in a cramped spaceship with Phil followed by two months together on a deserted planet had not helped the situation. Dan had hoped he would become immune to Phil’s presence after this long, but he had no such luck. Being in Phil’s presence still made him feel that weird combination of warm, cold, and tingly all over. Eye contact was torturous. Physical contact was the best kind of hell.
If they were any other kind of coworkers or friends, Dan would have made his move by now. But they weren’t. They were literally the only two people on the planet, and if Phil didn’t feel the same way, or he did and it didn’t work out, things could get really awkward in the 100 square foot building Phil was calling their home.
It was better to say nothing. Hopefully this would all blow over.
Dan sat at the table. “What’s for dinner?” he asked, going along with Phil.
Phil smiled proudly. “Well, here we have liquified protein. Supposedly it comes from some kind of animal, but it definitely doesn’t taste like it.”
“Sounds delicious,” Dan said. He had been vegan back on Earth, he remembered. How far away that seemed now. He had known it probably wouldn’t be realistic for a space mission, and he had never been very good at sticking with it anyway. Still, he missed it.
“And here we have our vitamins and minerals! Again, suspended in some kind of liquid. I asked if they could make it flavored, like those fun vitamins they have so kids will eat them, but these do not taste like citrus, so I’m guessing they didn’t get the memo.”
“How unfortunate.” Dan could feel the fondness seeping into his voice. He shuddered.
“Really unfortunate,” Phil agreed. “And here’s this one. I’m not actually sure what this is. It doesn’t really matter, they all taste the same.”
Dan nodded. “I never thought I would say this, but right now I would literally die for a vegetable.”
“I mean,” Phil said. “That’s your job, right?”
Dan shrugged. “I don’t think we’re supposed to eat the plants I grow, Phil.”
“Then what are they good for?” Phil demanded.
“I don’t know. What are your rock samples good for?”
Phil puffed up his chest. “Science.”
“Then that’s what my plants are good for,” Dan said. “And maybe if we’re lucky, NASA will let us eat them once I’m done experimenting on them. We can’t eat rocks, therefore, I am the superior team member.”
“Oh, yeah?” Phil said, “Comet me, bro.”
Dan literally facepalmed.
“Get it?” Phil asked. “Come at, like, comet?”
“Phil,” Dan said. “Phil. I got the joke. You don’t need to explain it. It just wasn’t funny.”
Phil looked deeply disappointed.
“I guess I’m just not a puns person,” Dan confessed.
“How did I not know that by now?” Phil asked.
Dan just shrugged.
“You will be a puns person by the time I’m done with you,” Phil promised, and Dan’s heart did the little pitter patter thing it did whenever Phil did dumb shit. He ignored it.
“Phil, I promise I will not be,” Dan said.
That was the end of it, he thought. They went through multiple Martian days following their usual routine, and Phil didn’t make any more puns. In fact, Dan and Phil didn’t even see each other that often. Phil was busy with some sort of issue with their rover, and one of Dan’s plants was looking like it was about to sprout, so he was spending way more time than his circadian rhythm found acceptable in the lab.
This was the first plant to grow on Mars. He couldn’t let anything go wrong.
Of course, sometimes it wasn’t up to him. He woke up the next morning to blaring alarms.
It took a moment for reality to set in. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but the sky was pitch black outside his window. He couldn’t even see the moons.
Dan stumbled out of bed. Phil was waiting in the common area.
“Dust storm,” Phil said, his face pale and his voice deathly quiet.
Dan froze. “I mean, it can’t be that bad- It’s just a storm-”
“I don’t know. But the alarm-”
“What does the control console say?”
Phil ran his hands through his tangled brown hair. “I didn’t check,” he admitted.
Dan turned to the control console. He took a deep breath. “That’s a lot of red.” Dan took another deep breath. Where to even start? Another deep breath.
Thankfully, Phil seemed to know what to do. “Error 4962,” he read from the main screen. “What does that mean?”
Dan’s mind raced. Two was an even number, which meant it was a technical error. Four was an even number, too, so the issue was with hardware somewhere, not software. He searched quickly through the secondary screen. “Airlock breach in Laboratory A.” He sucked in a breath. His laboratory. The plants.
“Dan,” Phil warned.
“I have to suit up,” Dan said.
“It can wait. Dan, I-”
“I’m sorry, Phil. My plants-”
“Your plants can wait,” Phil snapped.
“No they can’t,” Dan said. “Phil, they’ll die.” Exposure to the Martian atmosphere would kill anything given enough time. Even plants. He wouldn’t let them die. Not his plants. Not after all the hours he had spent nurturing them, coaxing them into growth. Not now.
“You can’t go outside right now.”
Dan quickly stepped into his spacesuit, strapping his boots on and then working his way up. “Phil, if these plants die-”
“Dan, you are literally the only person on this planet. I cannot lose you.” Phil’s voice wavered.
Dan stopped.
“Please don’t go,” Phil said, his voice breaking. “Please.”
Dan sat down on the floor. “My plants,” he said.
Phil sat down next to him.
“I’m sorry.”
Dan’s eyes burned. He swiped at them with the back of his hand. “It’s not your fault,” he muttered.
Phil didn’t reply, just folded his arms around Dan and let him cry. Dan allowed himself to fall back into Phil’s arms, shaking and crying a lot more than what was socially acceptable for a man his age to shake and cry. They stayed like that, even when Dan was calm again, until the storm died down and Dan sat up awkwardly.
“I should probably check the lab,” He said.
Phil let go of Dan. Maybe he imagined it, but it Phil’s hands seemed to linger on his body. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Dan shook Phil off. “I’ll be fine.” He didn’t need Phil to see him have another breakdown over the death of a bunch of plants.
“Okay.” Phil didn’t push Dan, but his eyes were much softer than normal. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Dan nodded. “I will.”
The lab was just as much of a disaster as he expected. Even though the breach in the airlock was barely visible to the human eye, the sudden burst of air escaping had sent lab equipment scattering across the room. The fine, powdery dust that covered the Mars surface had also gotten into the lab and spread across the previously pristine, white tables and floor.
His plants were dead. Of course they were. He had known they would be. But there was something heartwrenching about seeing them like this, torn and uprooted.
Dan scowled. First the whole thing with Phil, and then his plants, and they weren’t even halfway through the mission. If the mission was ever even going to end.
Dan cleaned up what was left of his plants. He swept up all the Martian dust on the floor before resealing the airlock, waiting for the room to re-pressurize, and planting the backup seeds. Then he walked back to the Hub, his mind numb and exhausted. Phil was waiting for him.
“Hi,” Phil said. The sun was rising. Now that Dan could see Phil’s face in natural light, he realized how tired Phil looked.
“I’m going to go back to bed,” Dan said.
Phil nodded.
“Good night, Phil.”
“Yeah,” Phil said, smiling wryly at the sunbeams shining through their window. “Good night. I’ll wake you up if I need you.”
“You’re not sleeping?”
“Something’s still wrong with the rover. I haven’t figured out what. People who know what they’re doing are supposed to be running diagnostics today. I have to be awake in case they need anything from me.”
Dan nodded. “You’ve been working so much lately.”
Phil shrugged. “You have too.”
Dan laughed bitterly. “And look how well that worked out.”
“I know. But it’ll be okay. You planted the backups, right?”
Dan shrugged. Technically Phil was right, but he didn’t want to think about starting over right now. He just wanted to sleep.
-
By the time Dan woke up, the sun was setting again.
He wandered back into the common area. Phil jumped, a spoon clattering from his hand onto the floor. Dan jumped too. “Sorry,” he said, rubbing his arm sheepishly.
“Yeah, you just startled me,” Phil said, picking his spoon up.
“Why are you eating nutritional goop with a spoon anyway?” Dan asked.
Phil shrugged. “It makes me feel less sad about it,” he said. The tips of his ears were red.
“Sorry about delaying your vegetables,” Dan said.
Phil shrugged again. “It’s not your fault.”
Phil still looked tired. Dan was struck by a sudden urge to protect Phil from everything around him- from the harsh Martian landscape, from the long hours, from the toll being so far away from his family and friends was slowly having on him.
“Hey Phil,” he said. “What did the head of NASA say about that Russian meteor strike?”
Phil looked up. “I don’t know. What?”
“No comet.”
Phil laughed. Dan smiled triumphantly.
He regretted it the next day when the puns started up again. Honestly, they were cute the first time. The twenty-seventh time? Not so much.
After Phil made a particularly egregious joke about Dan remembering to update his spacebook, Dan decided that enough was enough. He went through his duties for the day, eating quickly on his own once he was done (Phil had figured out what was wrong with the rover and was trying to repair one of its circuits. Dan, who failed an electrical engineering class in college, chose to stay out of Phil’s way).
When Phil came back, Dan gave him just enough time to eat before confronting him. “Phil? We need to have a talk,” Dan said.
“Wow,” Phil said. “You look so serious. Sa-turn that frown upside down.”
“See, that’s what it is,” Dan said. “Your space puns are driving me literally insane. Also, I might be in love with you.” He froze. “Uh, I mean, just the first one. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t have a crush on you. I’m actually straight, very straight, I don’t know if you knew that-”
“Dan,” Phil said. “We’re friends on spacebook. I know you’re not straight.”
“Uhhhh,” Dan said, his eyes crossing.
“And between you and me, I’d always hoped that our relationship might become more than plutonic.”
“Uhhhh,” Dan said.
“I think you’re out of this world, actually.”
That finally snapped Dan out of it. “I am literally going to kill you.”
“Come on. Why do you have to take everything so Sirius-ly?”
Dan squinted. “Did you just say Sirius, as in the star?”
“Maybe?”
Dan sat down on the ground. “I need a nap.”
Phil patted his shoulder, sitting next to him. “How do you get an astronaut baby to fall asleep?”
Dan looked up. “Are you calling me a baby?”
“What? No! Unless you want me to? And the answer is you rocket, by the way.”
Dan let his head fall again.
“Dan, I’m just trying to show you that I’m over the moon for you.”
“Show it by using less space puns please,” Dan mumbled.
“I’m Neptune-ing you out,” Phil said. “It’s important to ignore the haters.”
Dan sighed. “Phil. I have something really important to tell you.”
“What?”
Dan beckoned Phil closer. “It’s really important.”
“I’m listening,” Phil said, eyebrows furrowing.
Dan looked him dead in the eyes. “Get outer my space.”
Phil’s lips parted as he stared at Dan. Dan stared back. “That was the best pun I’ve ever heard,” Phil said breathlessly. He pulled Dan into a passionate kiss.
Outside, the sun was beginning to set. Dan knew it must be his imagination, but with golden light playing across his body and Phil’s lips pressed against his, he felt just a little bit warmer.