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It was Tegan and Nyssa’s first Christmas on Terminus (at least approximately, because Tegan hadn’t quite kept track of Earth dates), so Tegan wanted to make it as nice as possible, especially since Nyssa had never experienced Christmas before. To her amusement, Nyssa was doing Christmas research in her spare time, to immerse herself a little more in human culture. Tegan didn’t know quite what she was researching specifically, but sometimes Nyssa would come back to their quarters at night, delighted by the idea of Christmas lights, or gingerbread cookies.
Tonight, she had come back, and instructed Tegan to immediately close her eyes. Tegan didn’t do this quite yet, wondering what exactly Nyssa was on about.
“You’re not testing anything on me, are you?” She joked, hoping Nyssa would explain.
“Don’t be silly. I’m just going to try something I learned,” Nyssa said, and before Tegan could object, she continued, “to do with Christmas, not medicine. Don’t worry. Now close your eyes.”
“All right, all right.” Tegan closed her eyes obligingly, expecting Nyssa to have added a little Christmas tree to the decorations already in their quarters, or something equally sweet. She felt Nyssa take her hand to guide her up, and she followed obligingly, wondering what Nyssa was going to do.
“Open your eyes and look up,” Nyssa said, and Tegan did so. Mistletoe hung above her, and Tegan couldn’t help but smile. She supposed she should have expected this, once Nyssa found out what mistletoe was.
“From my research, I found a tradition which I thought was rather nice. It said that in traditional human culture, humans prefer to kiss each other under leaves of the plant Viscum album. So.” Nyssa cut herself off and leaned forward to kiss Tegan on the lips, who couldn’t help but smile and laugh a bit. If there was anyone who could be scientific about kisses, it would be Nyssa.
“I’ll phrase it a non-scientific way - people kiss under mistletoe to be romantic.” Tegan laughed, but before she could say anymore, Nyssa was kissing her again, and soon, the mistletoe was forgotten.