Work Text:
"Hello, Ian," Quinn said, barely restraining a chuckle into his cell phone.
It was a snowy Wednesday evening during the third week of January, and he had a bit of a surprise in store for his lad. As soon as the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, Quinn had started to think of Valentine's Day and how to celebrate it. He'd finally come up with a unique way to lead up to the holiday.
Since it was 2016, he wanted to make it a true "Sweet Sixteen" for Ian. He chose that night to put his plan into action, since he knew that Ian had been grading the first essay of the semester all day. His laddie needed an entertaining distraction.
Quinn was phoning from his home office, while Ian was working in the second bedroom, so he knew Ian didn't expect to get a call from him.
"Hey, Quinn," Ian answered, rolling with it anyway.
Quinn asked, "Would you like to go out for burgers and shakes on Saturday night?"
"Sure. Sounds like fun," said Ian, getting into the game.
"How 'bout I pick you up at 7 o'clock?" Quinn said.
"Okay, great," Ian said, suppressing a snorfle, and they both hung up.
They could hear each other laughing from their offices, delighted at the break in routine. Artoo and Sandy heard their dads' laughter in their dreams, which made them all the sweeter.
Saturday at 7 arrived before they knew it, and Ian grinned when he heard the front doorbell ring. Quinn was playing this to the 'saber hilt, and Ian wondered whether any curious neighbors were watching. If there were people looking at them, with a bit of luck, they would think Quinn had forgotten his key.
Their little love-games were strictly off-limits to anyone else.
Except, of course, Sandy and Artoo, who yipped when they heard the bell, but decided to stay on the comfortable couch, snuggling under their blanket.
Ian wore his best jeans and an ultra-soft lightsaber-blue pullover, guaranteed to make his date salivate, or at least parry his moves. After opening the door, it was Ian's turn to say hello first. "Hi, Quinn," he said, in an endearingly shy tone of voice.
"Hello," said Quinn, who was also wearing jeans, with a long-sleeved green shirt tucked into them, under his parka. He handed a packet of gift-wrapped Perugina Baci to Ian with a smile that was sweeter than the chocolate inside. "Hope you like them." The midnight-blue paper made a striking contrast to Ian's sweater.
"They're one of my favorites," Ian said. "Thank you very much." He realized that the Baci were a little pricey for the typical teenager, but he knew that Quinn was trying to indulge him.
"You're welcome," Quinn said, his lilt enhancing his good manners.
"Please come in," said Ian, stepping aside to let Quinn indoors. He threw the package on the little pie-crust table by the entrance.
As soon as he closed the door behind him, Ian made straight for his husband's arms. "Wow! That was hot," he said, reaching up for a kiss, which Quinn eagerly returned. "You sure know how to treat a fella on the first date."
Quinn beamed in pleasure, both at the kiss and at the compliment. "My pleasure, laddie, literally," he said, leaning in for another kiss. "Pretty soon, I hope we'll live in a galaxy where two teenagers, in any combination, feel comfortable going out with each other. We're getting there."
Ian nodded into his husband's chest, as he was held lovingly in his arms. "Can't wait," was his simple answer.
Quinn said, "This reminds me of that night at your folks' home, after they'd gone out of town for a couple of days. It was such a turn-on when we pretended to be 18 again, so we could have our first time as high-school kids." He smoothed back an errant copper hair from Ian's forehead.
"Oh, yeah! That was seismic," Ian said with a grin. "We had to wash our jeans twice to get all of the stains out." Winking saucily, he gave his husband another kiss.
Somehow, they made it out the door a short time after that, probably because of sheer Jedi will power only.
Quinn decided upon Rex's Diner as the perfect place for their little adventure in teen dating, since they hadn't been there in a while. Of course, he was driving the THX tonight, since he was the one who had asked Ian out.
Luckily, Rex gave them their usual booth in the back, giving them plenty of privacy for flirting and teasing. Rex would have been better off with four arms to manage all of the things he was carrying -- menus, bundles of silverware, straws, and napkins.
Their waitress came over with two glasses of water, and they were delighted to see it was Hermione Baggins, who had been a teaching assistant of Ian's a long time ago, in a classroom far, far away. He had been keeping up with her progress towards her doctorate, since she'd told Quinn and him that she would be focusing on Mary Renault, one of their favorite writers. Ian was hoping that she'd be able to earn her degree within the next couple of years.
After Hermione took their order of burgers and vanilla malteds, Ian started to catch up on the latest news with his former T.A.
"How's your dissertation going, Hermione?" Ian asked.
"I'm still slogging along," she said. "You know that Professor Peel's my thesis advisor, right?" At their nods, she continued. "He made a great suggestion: to go to Greece during my summer break. He thinks that visiting the various sites Renault writes about will enrich my diss."
"That sounds like a fantastic working vacation, Hermione," said Ian.
She beamed at him. "I can't wait. I've been saving up for it for months, and my folks are helping me out with it, as well."
"I'm sure it will be the trip of a lifetime," Quinn said with enthusiasm.
Hermione's smile widened to include both of them. "Hope so! I'm concentrating on "The Last of the Wine" and Lysis as the embodiment of the Socratic ideal," she said.
Ian said, "He's my favorite character in the book."
"Mine, too," added Quinn.
"Poor Alexias," said Hermione, referring to the narrator of the novel. "Where is all the love for him?"
They all chuckled at her comment.
Ian reflected that this wasn't the only time that the hero of a Renault story was overshadowed by another character. His personal favorite of all of her creations was Ralph Lanyon from "The Charioteer," who he thought had completely stolen the show from Laurie, the ostensible protagonist of the book.
He looked over at Quinn, his own personal hero, and imagined him as the lead in a movie of their lives. His reverie was interrupted when Hermione asked him if he wanted sweet-potato fries, onion rings, or frizzled onions. Needless to say, he went with the sweet potatoes.
After she took their menus and headed for the kitchen, Quinn and Ian smiled at each other in anticipation. They had been looking forward to this date for days now.
"2016!" Quinn marveled. "Remember all of the science fiction that had astronauts on the moon in domes, not to mention exploring the solar system, by this time?"
"Yeah, what a letdown!" Ian said. "Computers are the only things that have lived up to my expectations."
Quinn said, "Predictions have a way of getting ahead of themselves."
Ian shook his head in annoyance. "Too true. On 'Space:1999,' they thought we would have a colony on the moon already 17 years ago. It's so frustrating that we don't even have one yet."
"I was in elementary school when that show came out on TV, and I wanted to live on Moonbase Alpha," said Quinn.
"It was before my time, but I caught it on repeats with Monty." Ian took a sip of his water.
"Writers have been guilty of the same mistake as that series made -- overestimating our progress. You know I love Ray Bradbury's stories, just as much as you do," Quinn paused at Ian's nod, "but he really dropped the ball with 'The Martian Chronicles'. They started trying to colonize Mars by 1999 in it, as well."
Ian sighed. "Well, at least it's optimistic to hope these advances are coming soon."
Quinn nodded. "Remember -- Arthur C. Clarke invented the concept of the communications satellite. So dreaming big pays off some of the time."
"You're right. That was an incredible advance," Ian said. "But just look at his '2001: A Space Odyssey'. Clarke predicted that we would have a moon base, also, but that was just the start. I'll never forget that rotating-wheel space station. It was breathtaking!"
"One of my favorites," Quinn agreed. "And remember, the station had a Hilton Hotel, too."
Ian grinned. "Definitely posh. All that, and Clarke believed that we would be able to travel to Jupiter by 2001." He sighed in frustration.
It was Quinn's turn to sigh. "Doesn't look like we'll be able to do any of this for decades. We don't have the technology yet, and what we do have is prohibitively expensive." He smiled at Hermione as she came back to their booth.
When she brought their food over, Hermione could tell that this was date night for the professors, just by looking at their table. No briefcases; no pens or magic markers of different colors; no papers scattered all over the formica surface; no bottomless cups of coffee. She didn't even hear any shop talk tonight, although they had congratulated her on her own academic progress. They were simply chatting about the space program tonight. Her smile grew even broader than the usual one she saved for them.
"Thanks, Hermione," Ian said, as Quinn chimed in, too.
Their burgers were cooked just the way they liked them, medium-well-done, and smothered in melted cheddar cheese. Lettuce, tomato, and avocado were stacked on top of the hamburgers, with Rex's signature pumpernickel rolls bracketing them. Chipolte mayonnaise added a hint of a kick to them, or "a bit of spice," as Ian liked saying to tease Quinn.
After they'd taken a couple of bites, they returned to their conversation and ate during pauses.
Ian said, "I'm glad that NASA is doing what they can with their unmanned spacecraft, like Ceres Dawn and Pluto New Horizons."
"Yes, indeed. Pluto just looked like a blur for decades, but now it's astonishing how detailed the photos are," Quinn said with enthusiasm. "It's become more real, almost as familiar to me these days as Jupiter and Mars."
"And, appropriately enough for our Valentine's dates this year, Pluto has a geological feature that's shaped like a heart." Ian chuckled.
"Quite the discovery, laddie," Quinn said, gazing into blue-green eyes. "You'd think it would be on Venus."
Ian groaned, knowing just how Quinn felt after his own quips. "Even with all of the rovers, telescopes, and probes, I'd rather we be out there, actually doing the exploring ourselves, like we did on the moon. It's much more exciting that way."
Nodding, Quinn said, "Someday, technology will catch up to our dreams."
"That's why it's so cool that 'Star Wars' is set in the distant past," Ian said. "Lucas didn't make the mistake of being over-optimistic about a possible future, like the others did."
Quinn ate the last bite of his burger. "Another of the 1,138 reasons we love 'Star Wars' so much."
Ian grinned, right down to his toes. "And it's cool there's a sense that this tech's been around before." He finished his milkshake first, prompting him to stick his straw into Quinn's shake.
Two straws.
Speaking of the distant past, both of them felt a profound sense of deja vu and not only because of visions of a Norman Rockwell soda fountain.
Heads together, chestnut hair brushing into copper strands, they sipped the malted until their straws brought up only bubbles of air. After they shared the shake, they shared a smile that held all of the love that had been twelve years in the making.
Their Valentine's Day celebrations had begun in earnest, thanks to Quinn's ingenuity and thoughtfulness, as well as Ian's spontaneity and good humor.