Some Date Night

Posted on Sat Feb 8th, 2025 @ 3:09pm by Lieutenant Adrianna Baciami

1,343 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Stars Around the Well
Timeline: Past

Vance and Adrianna barely made it back to the ship before patrols swarmed the docking bay, forcing them to abandon their usual escape route. With no time to reach the bridge, they had one option left—the smuggling compartment.

It was a tight fit.

Vance had wedged himself in first, his broad frame taking up most of the narrow space. Adrianna had scrambled in after him, pulling the hatch shut just as boots thundered past outside.

Her heart pounded out of her chest, but she let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding as the footsteps went right past their hiding spot.

The compartment was barely big enough for one person, let alone two. Adrianna was practically pressed against Vance’s chest, her back against the cold metal of the wall, his arm caging her in as he braced himself to avoid crushing her completely.

The silence stretched between them, thick and unyielding. The only sound was the low hum of the ship’s systems and the distant, muffled voices of the patrol outside.

“This is cosy,” Vance exhaled slowly, his breath warm against her temple, “did you manage to.do the drop?”

“Not how I pictured spending my evening,” Adrianna huffed a quiet laugh, “but yes, the credit receipt is in my back pocket. I'd give it to you but– you know.”

Vance smirked, but the amusement didn’t quite reach his eyes. She could see the tension in his jaw, the lingering frustration from the mission gone wrong in terms of Fleet finding them, even though they'd technically succeeded and got paid.

They had worked together for months, fallen into a rhythm that made jobs run smoothly. This time though, things had unravelled too quickly. A contact had sold them out, their exit had been cut off, and now they were lying in the dark, waiting for the danger to pass– inside their own ship. And with nothing to do, nothing to focus on– there was only them.

Adrianna shifted slightly, but there was nowhere to go. Her thigh brushed against his, and she felt him tense. “I can’t move,” she muttered.

“I noticed,” Vance said, his voice lower than usual.

Silence settled again, but it was different this time. He was close– too close. Every breath he took, she felt it; every tiny shift, every flicker of movement, sent a whisper of tension curling through the air between them.

They never really spoke about it. Whatever this was. But they were silently committed to each other, in love, though neither admitting it or doing much about it. But here, crammed into a space so small she could count the hairs on his chin, there was no avoiding it. Vance swallowed. She saw the way his throat bobbed, the flicker of restraint in his expression. “This could take hours,” he murmured.

Adrianna nodded, “Si, but all we need is for the patrol to wait outside the ship and we can run to the bridge and get us out of here. I don't mind the company waiting with me though.”

She should have said something else. Should have made some joke, lightened the moment.

But she didn’t.

Because, for the first time, neither of them looked away.

The silence stretched between them, thick with everything they weren’t saying.

Then, inevitably, Vance broke it.

“You know,” he murmured, shifting just enough to ease the cramp in his shoulder, “this wasn’t exactly how I planned to spend my evening.”

Adrianna huffed a quiet laugh, “Oh? You mean you didn't have big plans to crawl into a smuggling compartment with me?”

He smirked, the tension in his jaw easing just slightly, “not exactly. Though I have to say, I’ve been in worse places with worse company.”

“Flattering,” she deadpanned.

Vance chuckled under his breath before his expression turned thoughtful, “I had planned to take you to dinner after this mission.”

Adrianna blinked, “Wait. Really?”

“Yes.”

She exhaled a soft laugh, “So instead of a real meal, I get to spend the night suffocating in a metal box with you? What an upgrade. Very romantic, amore mio”

Vance grinned, “I know. Try to contain your excitement.”

Adrianna shook her head, amused despite everything. She hadn’t actually expected him to remember– he’d made the promise offhandedly weeks ago– some half-serious remark after she’d complained about the lack of decent food on the ship. ‘I’ll take you somewhere nice’ he’d said, ‘a real meal. A proper date’.

She had rolled her eyes at the time, calling his bluff, but apparently, he hadn’t been bluffing at all.

“Where were you planning on taking me, then?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

Vance smirked, “Anywhere with food that doesn’t come out of a ration pack– maybe Bernie's.”

“High standards,” she teased, “the best chicken on Freecloud… at least he says it's chicken. That would have been a night my intestines would remember for years to come.”

“Only the best for you,” he teased back but then the teasing ended, “honestly, I was thinking of taking you to that place on Fifth Street. I wanted to really treat you to real food, and I wanted to take you on a real date. I wanted to show you what you mean to me.”

Her breath caught for half a second. He said it so easily, so naturally, the words slipping out like they belonged. But he didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he covered it well. Instead, he shifted slightly, letting out a low sigh, “Guess this means I owe you another one.”

Adrianna raised an eyebrow, having lost focus for a moment, “Another what?”

“A proper date.”

She studied him for a long moment, the dim light catching the flicker of something unreadable in his expression. Then she smirked, “I’m holding you to that, Capitano.”

Vance chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, yeah.”

Outside, the muffled sounds of the patrols began to fade.

But neither of them went to leave.

Vance, in a feather-light move, managed to move his fingers softly up her arm, tracing up her neck to cup her cheek. His thumb ran over her bottom lip in a silent promise of a kiss, “perhaps, I'll finally get to kiss you.”

Her breath hitched, her lips parting a little, as her gaze fixed on his. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, as if waiting for him to close the distance but just as their breath was mingling, there was a loud bang followed by shouts of ‘they’re over here'. The footsteps got more and more distant as the patrol filed out.

Vance and Adrianna both pulled back, waiting for a few moments as if to gauge whether or not they were safe. She looked back at Vance, “sorry to cut the moment short, amore mio, but I believe we have an opportunity to get out of here. If you're lucky, I'll even say get to a date tonight, if you get us back to Freecloud quick enough.” There was a slight disappointment in her eyes as the moment ended.

Vance’s eyes seemed to map her face, as if memorising the way she was gazing up at him and how disappointed she looked. He could see that she loved. “I'd say ‘two more minutes’, but we may not have that and I really would like to take you on a real date,” he murmured with a sigh.

Adrianna offered a sympathetic smile before breaking his gaze. She slowly and cautiously opened the hatch and poked her head out. Her eyes spotted a single member of Starfleet security that had waited behind. She looked back at Vance putting her finger over her lips as a hint for him to stay quiet as she pulled herself out of the space.

Vance followed her lead, shutting the hatch behind him silently. The pair snuck out of site, closing the cargo bay quickly and firing up the engines properly for a quick escape.

 

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