Stardate 2398.6

The shuttle ride from the Opportunity down to the surface of New Java went smoothly. After some initial squabbling, Hawthorne and Costa had settled into a more professional tenor and set to work on their survey mission to the ocean world. While Hawthorne’s specialty was social sciences, he was still a fully-trained science officer and found the prospect of a biological survey very stimulating. The island they’d landed on had nothing evident on the surface other than some algae, but after twenty minutes or so, Hawthorne’s tricorder began to pick up signs of much more complex life coming from a cave near the center of the island.

“I think there may be sentient life here,” Hawthorne told Costa. The pilot’s face lit up, and he charged into the cave entrance in defiance of protocol requiring a more thorough preliminary analysis. “Wait!” Hawthorne shouted, running after him.

“We’re going to be the team that finds something,” Costa replied, stopping short of a drop-off.

Costa wheeled around to grin at Hawthorne, but that turned into a face of shock as he lost his footing. They lunged for each other, and Hawthorne ended up slipping off the shaft’s sheer edge just inside the mouth of the cave. Wrapped in Costa’s arms, the sensation of falling seemed to go on forever before the two of them landed with a bounce on some squishy, glowing fungus in a chamber deep beneath the surface. Hawthorne was winded, but he could feel that nothing was broken.

“Are you okay?” Hawthorne asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” Costa said as the two of them disentangled from one another.

“Moron! This is why we are supposed to do a thorough scan first!” Hawthorne exclaimed, his concern vanishing when he knew neither of them were injured.

“You’d think the giant hole would have been the first thing you noticed in your scans,” Costa shot back. “I thought you said there was sentient life in here. All I see is this fungus.”

Hawthorne unfolded his tricorder and took a scan of the fungus. It had exactly the same readings as he was picking up on the surface, but as he studied them more closely, he realized that he’d misinterpreted the data. The only life he was picking up was the glowing fungus that had broken their fall.

“I may have made a mistake,” Hawthorne admitted. “But you’re still the reason we’re down here!”

“Stop panicking,” Costa snapped. He tapped his combadge. “Costa to Opportunity.”

The badge responded with the error sound.

“Comms are out,” Costa said, sheepishly.

“Yes, you nitwit, because the rocks here are seeped in the same radiation that keeps our transporters from getting a lock. That is why I am panicking!” Hawthorne shouted. He scanned the chamber again and then pointed at the hole. “That is the only way in or out of here.”

Costa stepped closer to Hawthorne and put his hands firmly right above Hawthorne’s elbows. “Relax, princess. We’re going to figure a way out of this, and then you can yell your pretty little lungs out once this is over. Agreed?”

Hawthorne nodded. “Agreed,” he said, almost embarrassed at how readily he complied with Costa’s order.

The two of them could hear faint shouting from up above, but couldn’t make out distinct voices thanks to the depth of the shaft and the poor acoustics. Hawthorne hoped that the rest of their team would be smart enough not to also fall down. After some bickering, they settled on a plan to use their phasers to cut a crude staircase into the sides of the shaft. It took an hour and a half to clamber back up to the surface, barely speaking and carefully supporting each other in essentially an extended side-hug. They collapsed exhausted and drenched in sweat on the rocky floor of the cave entrance just as they heard another shuttle landing.

“We are so fucked,” Costa muttered, looking up.

Hawthorne followed his gaze to the highly polished boots of Commander Michael Lancaster, then the first officer of the Opportunity, and even more of a martinet than he was as a fleet captain. Lancaster had repelling gear and a full security team, as well as a scowl.

“Are either of you injured?”

“No, sir,” the two lieutenants replied, scrambling to their feet.

“From what your team said, you ran in here like first-year cadets. Explain,” Lancaster said.

The two lieutenants went back and forth, interrupting one another and jostling for some way of making the story not seem like it was their fault.

“I thought I detected sentient life—”

“—And I didn’t want to lose that signal—”

“—So he ran in here—”

“—But he didn’t scan the cave—”

“—So Costa ended up pulling me down with him—”

“—And then Hawthorne’s sentient life turned out to be glowing fungus.”

Lancaster held up his hand. “Enough. I’m extremely disappointed in both of you. You’ve wasted a lot of people’s time,” the commander said, with obvious disdain. “We’ve been able to cut through the transporter interference with pattern enhancers. Beam back to the ship and I’ll finish this myself.”

Yet again, the two lieutenants had managed to let their animus towards one another land them in hot water with a first officer. The two of them fumed in silence as they walked to the beam-out point, and managed to avoid each other for the rest of their tour on the Opportunity. Hawthorne was absolutely shocked to find out the next year that they’d both been posted to Arcturus. That moment on New Java was always at the forefront of Hawthorne’s mind when he saw Costa after that, mostly because it had been his own failure that had led Costa to act impulsively.

⁂

Stardate 2401.4

“I…,” Hawthorne faltered, shaken out of his reverie when Costa clicked his tongue. “I never apologized to you for that. I don’t even know why I brought it up just now.”

Costa laughed, shaking his head in exasperation.

“Well, you brought it up because it lives rent-free in your head, even three years later,” he pointed out. “You look at me and can’t see past that, or whatever it was at the Academy that made you hate me. You’ve decided that I’m whatever monster you decided I was, and that was it. No chance for a second shot with you.”

“Those are two separate, distinct incidents: I did try, multiple times, to apologize to you for my behavior on Mellstoxx III. You wouldn’t hear it,” Hawthorne said, his heart twisting into knots at the thought of any aspect of what Costa had said being true.

“Yeah, well, I was angry with you for a long time. You had no reason to report me, and the captain was a Vulcan—he would have noticed my uniform without you saying anything,” Costa said. “All out of a desire to suck up.”

“No. No. That’s not what it was about,” Hawthorne said, leaning closer to him. “It’s because I knew that you would get away with it. It wouldn’t have been fair.”

“Guys like me? Pilots? You knew nothing about me.”

Hawthorne rolled his eyes.

“I knew you were tall—”

“We’re the same height.”

“—Handsome—”

“Says Mr. Alabaster Skin, Patrician Nose, and Square Jaw.”

“—And popular,” Hawthorne concluded, battling to get his list in with Costa’s interruptions.

“You think I’m handsome?” they asked in unison.

“I like men, and I have eyes,” Hawthorne muttered. “So, obviously.”

“Back at you,” Costa said, blushing slightly. The thrill of accidentally admitting his attraction and the unusual sight of Paulo Costa being caught off-guard were nearly distracting enough for Hawthorne to lose sight of the purpose of their conversation, but Costa kept talking. “Let me get this straight… you thought I was so hot that you decided to try to sabotage my career?”

“That is not how I would put it,” Hawthorne replied. “I made an impulsive decision because you reminded me of a thousand other men I’d seen skate by in high school while I’d been forced to work hard.”

Costa exhaled and put his hands behind his neck, leaning back in the jumpseat. The rhythm of their banter took a turn as he was clearly seething from that comment.

“Well, that’s some bullshit. I’ve had to work for everything I’ve gotten in Starfleet. Did you know I have an actual learning disability, but I still fly starships?” he snapped. “Meanwhile, you’re some fucking prince, I’m guessing. You definitely act like one—looking down on the rest of us because everything comes so easily to you.”

Hawthorne cleared his throat.

“I didn’t know that. And that is also not what I meant. I’m just saying that’s how I perceived you at the time. You’re obviously quite good at what you do, and I know that now,” he tried to explain. He frowned. “I’ve had to work just as hard as you have, Paulo. Do you think it’s easy to keep up with the rest of our class when I’ve never even been on the bridge of this ship?”

Costa’s expression softened from a scowl into a frown, which then morphed slowly into a smirk.

“So, just to put it in terms my tiny walnut brain can grasp: the reason you’re a jerk to me is because you want my dick so bad that you’ve got to performatively treat me like shit to cope with having a hardon for a peasant as if we were middle schoolers and not officers in the most elite space service in the history of civilization?” the pilot asked.

Hawthorne, for once, was left stunned into momentary speechlessness.

“Yes,” the scientist agreed simply. He looked at his hands for a few moments and then up into Costa’s amber eyes. “That is an infuriatingly apposite quip, Paulo.”

“And ‘apposite’ means…?” Costa asked, his ignorance sounding credible to Hawthorne for only a split second. “Just kidding—I know it means ‘seductive.’” he added with a wink.

Hawthorne rolled his eyes because of how Costa seemed to be deflecting from their serious conversation with humor but then pinched the bridge of his nose to drive his feeling of irritation away so that he could get back to his point.

“Paulo, I’m sorry I’ve treated you poorly. There’s no excuse,” Hawthorne said. “You’re absolutely right—I’ve been acting like a child.”

“I forgive you, Tristan,” Costa said without hesitation.

“Just like that?”

“A tiny part of me wants to string you along a little, but it takes two to tango, and I know there have been moments where I’ve earned some of—a lot of—the negative feelings you’ve had for me over the years,” the pilot admitted. Of all of the things Hawthorne had thought about Costa over the years, he’d never perceived him to have an ounce of guile or deceit, so he had every reason to take in that olive branch as genuine. “I’m sorry I never gave you a second chance at the Academy. Letting one moment define a relationship is immature. Can we start over?”

“Agreed,” Hawthorne said, a sense of lightness and relief washing over him.

“Good. I can’t promise I won’t stop teasing you, though. I’ve honestly been pushing your buttons on purpose because you are so beautiful when you’re mad, Your Grace,” Costa added, smirking.

Hawthorne laughed, rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of that comment. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, as he’d built up the dislike the two felt for one another so strongly and concretely in his mind that there was no way Costa could really be so sanguine with all cards now on the table. The scientist cleared his throat and feigned seriousness, deciding to lean into being teased for a change.

“Actually, my lineage has claims to several dukedoms that would have traditionally borne with them the title of ‘your grace,’ but only in terms of agnatic-cognatic primogeniture, and as the younger son, I would have to murder my brother and father for your barb to be accurate,” he said. Costa started to interject, but Hawthorne held up his hand. “However, matrilineally, I am descended from one of the original families that settled Hysperia and still holds princely rank for all dynasts, though my branch of the family doesn’t use that title. If my membership in Starfleet didn’t automatically disqualify me from hereditary titles, and if we were on Hysperian soil, it would be appropriate to address me as ‘your highness,’ so I must insist if you are going to tease me about my heritage that you do it correctly,” he finished.

“As you wish, Your Highness,” Costa replied, affecting a near-perfect impression of Hawthorne’s posh English accent.

“No!” Hawthorne said though he couldn’t stop himself from laughing again. “There is a line, Paulo. You may not do the accent.”

“Fair enough,” Costa replied, eyes glimmering with the reflection of the stellar nursery beyond the viewports. He slid a little closer to Hawthorne. “I’m shocked that you just willingly gave me a new button to press, though.”

“I don’t always hate it when you’re a pest, Paulo.”

Hawthorne felt his cheeks reddening, so he turned away from Costa towards the expanse of swirling dust beyond the nose of their vessel. While he scrambled to think of something else to say, Costa cupped his cheek in his hand and pulled him back. The touch was warm and unexpected. Before Hawthorne could parse that gesture and fully put it into context, Costa closed the distance between them and planted a kiss on his lips. It was the type of kiss that would have registered as a temporal distortion, for the way Hawthorne was lost in the moment there as the feelings he had for Costa finally came into full resolution. Costa pulled back, and Hawthorne found himself automatically leaning forward to try to catch his lips again.

“Was that okay?” Costa asked.

“Yesverymuch,” Hawthorne managed, his words tumbling out in a jumble of half-formed syllables. “Why did you do that, though? Until a minute ago, we could barely even be civil to one another.”

“Well, we’re starting over, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not an actual answer.”

The pilot smirked, rubbing his thumb along Hawthorne’s cheekbone. That glimmer in his eyes was back, and he took a few moments to compose a reply.

“You seemed like you needed it, and I wanted it. Want you, Tristan,” Costa started, which pushed Hawthorne from feeling a slight heat on his skin to fully blushing. “We have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow. Our bosses have a plan, but no one’s ever had to deal with a situation like this before. So, carpe diem, right?”

Their tête-à-tête had driven the mission and what was likely to be a fierce battle out of Hawthorne’s mind entirely. Costa was absolutely right—while all indications were that Arcturus would be able to neutralize the threats they faced, this could be the one and only night the two of them might have together.

“I cannot impeach that logic,” Hawthorne agreed. He kissed him back, finding the vulnerability of finally succumbing to his attraction both exciting and terrifying. They broke apart after a few moments. “It’s infuriating how good you are at that,” the scientist whispered.

“Yeah? You’re really going to hate me when I’m through with you, then,” Costa said with a glint of fire in his eyes.

The two young men lunged at each other again, hands all over one another in complete disregard for the setting they found themselves in. Costa’s skin was white-hot and unexpectedly soft over his considerable muscles—Hawthorne had no remaining ability to play coy at his sheer lust for his long-time rival, ending up straddling the other man’s thigh as the two of them were finally able to transmute their animus into something productive.

Neither of their brains was in control as Costa pulled Hawthorne’s sweatshirt off and sent it flying over the science station. Now on an equal sartorial footing, Hawthorne was momentarily self-conscious at his slimmer, paler physique laid bare for Costa’s inspection, but that impulse vanished when the other man started kissing the base of his neck and his exposed collarbone. The kisses evolved into Costa’s canines pressing carefully but firmly into Hawthorne’s skin, causing him to grip the pilot’s dark hair to dissuade him from stopping.

Hawthorne let out a gasp of surprise when Costa put a hand in the center of his chest and pushed him into the center seat, the red leather feeling both cold and luxurious on his back.

“What–?”

“Computer, retract the steering column,” Costa ordered, smirking as he swiveled the chair around so that Hawthorne was facing forward. He slipped into the space vacated by the flight yoke between Hawthorne’s legs and the nose of the runabout. “Still okay?” he asked after kissing him on the lips again.

“Still very okay. But, P-Paulo, maybe we should slow down,” Hawthorne said haltingly. Parts of his rational mind were starting to return to focus, and the risks of being caught and/or moving too quickly and botching an already complex relationship began to set off alarm bells in his head. But he wanted Costa. Desperately. “Or, rather, I think I should clarify that I am not usually this easy,” he hedged.

“We can take this as slowly as you’d like,” Costa said, reassuring through his immediate deference to Hawthorne’s anxieties. “I definitely don’t think that you’re easy, though—considering it’s taken over eight years of torturing each other and ourselves to get this far,” he added, smirking at him.

“Fair point,” Hawthorne agreed. He reached out to caress Costa’s cheek. “This may sound trite, but I’m realizing now that I’ve always felt a sense of trust in you, even though I’ve often found you absolutely infuriating. You’re a very genuine person, even if you are also a menace.”

Costa kissed Hawthorne’s neck, then slid lower to kiss the center of his chest before locking eyes.

“To clarify: are you saying ‘I trust you. Please keep going, Paulo, you amazing stud,’ or ‘I trust you to respect my boundaries, Paulo, and I’d like to cool it and possibly resume our carnal relations at a later date’?” he asked.

“The former,” Hawthorne replied, trying to conceal his amusement at Costa’s self-aggrandizing phraseology.

“Say it, then,” Costa insisted.

The audacity of the request was simply stunning, and Hawthorne found his mouth reflectively tightening into a pout. He hated that he liked Costa’s audacity, as this was an instance of alpha male bravado where he actually thought that this man could put his money where his mouth was, so to speak. There was a beat not of hesitation but defiance, and that only made Costa smirk.

“Americans,” Hawthorne muttered, rolling his eyes theatrically. “I trust you. Please keep going, Paulo, you amazing stud.”

⁂

A while later, it was late enough at night or early enough in the morning that the two lieutenants were risking being discovered by their crewmates. Hawthorne had a hard time caring about that, though, as the high he’d gotten from Costa was not coming down. Hashing things out had certainly helped defeat his insomnia, though.

“You are the most annoying man in the universe, Paulo Costa,” the scientist noted, Playing with Costa’s dark hair while the two of them were entangled together in the pilot’s seat. “How dare you be as talented as you are arrogant?” he teased with mock outrage.

“Yeah?” Costa replied, brushing his thumb along Hawthorne’s bottom lip as he stared at him intensely. “I have to say… A+ on your end, too. No notes. You’re as stunning as you are stuck-up.”

“We would say ‘top marks,’ dear,” Hawthorne replied, though the compliment made his heart race. “I suppose it’s good that we now know a foolproof way to shut each other up for half an hour, too. If this does turn out to be a temporary détente, anyway,” he hedged again.

“Nah… Don’t get me wrong, I’m never going to forget the time I finally got to see your o-face or look at this chair the same way again, but I didn’t make nice just to get you naked,” Costa demurred. “I don’t want this to be a blip.”

“Good. Excellent. I feel the same way,” Hawthorne replied. He chuckled nervously. “Does this make us friends now?”

“No, I have many, many unspeakable things that I still want to do to you that I don’t do with friends,” Costa replied, intriguing Hawthorne somewhat with his vagueness. “There’s too much heat between us. Maybe that’ll cool off, but as of right now, I think we have two options: to be enemies or lovers.”

“Yet again, a succinct, if vulgar, analysis of our situation,” Hawthorne agreed, now grinning ear-to-ear. “I would submit one correction, though: I’ve never considered you to be my enemy. Just my rival.”

Costa chuckled. “It’s not always annoying how precise you are. Rival is more apposite, yeah,” he said. “I, um, think it would be simpler if we didn’t let Fox and Andretti in on… this. I just have a feeling they’d find some way to use it against us.”

“Indeed,” Hawthorne said. “They may start asking impertinent questions like ‘Which surfaces in the command module are safe to touch?’ or ‘Why weren’t we invited?’ and I simply do not wish to deal with that,” he added, mimicking a fairly standard American accent for his imaginations of their colleagues’ sentiments and eliciting a laugh from Costa.

“Hey, wait. Why do you get to do my accent, but I don’t get to do yours?” Costa asked.

“Well, that’s a complex issue, darling, but mainly it boils down to life not being fair,” Hawthorne said, taking pains to belabor the pronunciation of the word ‘issue’ with absolutely the most perfect received pronunciation as he could muster. “I wasn’t even mimicking you, though. Your accent’s a little different, though. Lower. Slower. More costal. And, like, super freakin’ dope, dude. Mad gains and a sick cut, bro,” the blond continued, slipping into a near-perfect rendition of Costa’s Los Angeles accent—at least in his own mind—complete with a flex of his smaller but still toned biceps at the end.

“You are the worst. You’re crazy. I do not sound like that,” Costa replied, though he laughed anyway. “No one’s ever called me ‘darling’ before.”

“Oh. Did… I call you that… Aloud?”

“Yup. You did.”

“Hoisted by my own petard,” Hawthorne muttered, blushing.

“I like it. A lot of people have called me a lot of things, but that’s a first,” Costa said, smiling. “Your Highness,” he added, that smile turning back into a smirk.