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“You promised you wouldn’t laugh!” you scold Chris, though your smile and look of false indignation eggs on his fit of laughter as the two of you sit outside the wreckage of your spacecraft and enjoy another evening sunset on this alien planetoid. You’ve been swapping “most embarrassing” stories of your Academy days, and you even let him coax you into telling him about the botanical gardens fiasco. You were brand new to the academy and in such a hurry to get to class, you ran straight into a landscaping automechanical, knocking the unlucky robot off of the sidewalk and into the waters of the Japanese gardens. The robot fizzled and short circuited, everyone was staring at you, and you’d rushed to the administration building to confess your crimes, convincing yourself the entire way that you were about to be expelled.
Of course, you weren’t, and you got through the rollercoaster of Academy life, graduating with honors, winding your path through life until the fateful day you were assigned to the Enterprise, under Christopher’s command. “I’m s… sorry!” Chris mumbles through stifled laughter, his athletic form shaking with amusement, and he begins to regain composure.
“I’m never telling you anything again!” you lament, still smiling and enjoying the banter. This has become your evening routine now, at least on days of agreeable weather. Days like this, the two of you have your replicated dinner together in the small, rocky courtyard you’ve fashioned outside the entrance to your ship. A couple of large, flat-topped rocks serve as benches for you both, the surface of the rocks smooth and almost glossy, worn down from the frequent sand-storms the planetoid is privy to on at least a weekly basis. During these storms, the two of you hunker down inside the ship, waiting for the violent offense to pass and comforting each other as the treacherous winds beat and batter your makeshift home.
“I’m sorry! Please, forgive me,” Chris pleads to you, and one look at his impish grin and adoring eyes and you know you can’t ever stay mad at him.
“I don’t know, you’re going to have to make it up to me…,” you tease, and suddenly he’s closing the space between you and pulling you onto his lap. Your arm comes around his shoulders and you sit sideways on his lap, one of his arms holding you firmly at your waist, the other resting temptingly on your thigh. You lean in and kiss him, your free hand coming to his jaw and you stroke with the grain of his wiry facial hair. Christopher deepens the kiss, his tongue longingly finding yours and you moan softly into his mouth, sending electricity coursing through you both.
Finally, you pull apart, and the amber rays of the evening sun cast long shadows around you as you close your eyes and enjoy these last moments of sunset. You take in the moment, the orange glow of the sunlight through your eyelids, the slight breeze playing with your hair, Chris’ hand sliding gently up and down your thigh, the strength in his grip on you, like part of him is afraid that if he lets go, you’ll float away from him.
He needs you, more than he ever knew. Not just because you’re the only other sentient being on this lonely rock, and not just because of the undeniable connection between the two of you. He didn’t even know what he was missing in his life until the two of you got romantically involved. He’d been so focused on his career, on exploring new horizons with Starleet, on boldly going… Sure, he’d been romantically involved before, and he knew he wanted that again. But with you… He had no idea what it could be like. What true connection, true synergy and passion could be like. What love could be like.
The final rays of solar radiation fade away, and you notice the absence of the subtle warmth on your skin. The temperature changes quickly here, though nights are still well within the pleasantly habitable range. Christopher nuzzles into you, his lips pressing against your collarbone and neck as he peppers you with a few affectionate kisses. You smile autonomously, loving the feeling of him all over you.
The two of you clean up your dinner remnants, putting them back into the replicator compartment to be de-materialized into stored-potential matter. Chris grabs a foil emergency blanket and the two of you make your way back out of the ship, walking just outside of the courtyard and setting the blanket down on the rocky terrain to do some stargazing (but mostly cuddling).
You lie down beside each other, your hand coming behind your head and you look up at the star-spattered expanse above. It’s a sight to behold indeed. White and greyish-purple nebulas have begun to appear in the darkening sky, and you can make out details on the moon, much closer in comparison to that of Earth. It’s a beautiful night sky, one of the most breathtaking you’ve seen, but it’s not home. It never will be. You miss your familiar constellations. You miss Orion, Aries, Cassiopeia… You miss the brightness of Venus in the night sky. All your life you’ve wanted to be out here, among the stars, experiencing things humans only dreamt of for generations. Yet now, you wonder why Earth wasn’t special enough on its own.
Chris grunts beside you, snapping you from your partially-formed thoughts as he tries to get comfortable on the hard ground. The thin mattresses of your bunks have not been good for his back, especially after the trauma of your crash landing here. Scar tissue has formed from the injury to his ribcage, and the adhesions are painful and limit his movements at times. He needs a thorough medical exam and a subdermal regenerator. You just hope no further complications arise, as there’s not much you can do with your limited resources here…
Chris sits up, frustrated at the discomfort in his torso; it’s been bothering him for weeks now. You sit up and scoot behind him, your warm hands coming to his shoulders and neck. “Here,” you state empathetically, and he feels your warm skin against his neck, your caring digits working through the tension. You slowly work your way down his neck, alternating thumbstrokes into his flesh and Chris sighs and bows his head a bit, relaxing into your touch.
You smile a little to yourself, happy to be helping him, and you work your way along his knotted traps, shoulderblades, and then along his outer arms and biceps, squeezing and kneading gently into the rough fabric of his worn uniform jacket. You dare not touch the scarred areas where he was injured, as experience has taught you to avoid these. But you can still work the tension out of the rest of Christopher’s physique, and you really don’t mind doing it at all.
You finish massaging him and nestle yourself against his back, placing a tender kiss at the base of his neck, his unruly salt-and-pepper hair brushing against your nose as your lips make contact with the nape of his neck.
“Mmm… You’re too good to me,” Chris’ words waft along the breeze and into your ears, his deep voice making you grin against him.
“I think I’m just good enough,” you reply, and you feel Chris shift in front of you. He turns into you, one arm coming to your back, the other to your stomach and he gently pushes you down, his hand sliding up to your neck and supporting your head as you lie on the blanket. Christopher carefully props himself up beside you, and you can see him beaming down at you even in the dim lighting of nightfall.
His fingertips come to your jawline and he traces along your skin, relishing in the sensation of you beneath his touch. “You’re more than that, [Y/N]…,” he trails off, getting lost in you, in his feelings for you. “I’m falling in love with you,” he confesses, his usually deep and confident voice now low and barely audible, but his words are amplified as you process them.
“Chris… I’m falling in love with you too…,” you whisper, your words almost swept away by the nocturnal breeze, but he absorbs every syllable, and his lips descend upon yours, his adoration and caring for you evident in the passion of his kiss. You pull him closer, deeper into you, your hands now entwined in his hair.
Only unnamed constellations and the lonely moon above bear witness to your exchange, as the two of you lie entangled under the nighttime sky, forgetting for a moment your precarious predicament, and focused only on each other and the love blossoming between two weary souls who have finally found each other.