After Midnight

Posted on Sat Jul 19th, 2025 @ 4:49pm by Sub-Lieutenant Osirin Acainus & Ensign Kash th'Kaasniik

2,307 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Gone, Without Ever Knowing the Way
Location: Astrea Corridors
Timeline: Two days priror to MD 00

It had been a little over three days inside of the Expanse, and something about the place had Kash feeling... twitchy. That was the best word he could come up with to define it. The last couple of nights, the dreams had been enough to make him decide to forego sleep for the evening, which is how he found himself strolling the halls of Deck 10 at 3:00 in the morning.

Akadians, like most sentient races, needed to sleep. They just needed to sleep a lot less. When they did sleep, they rarely dreamed. Since entering the Expanse, Osirin had seen those two things reversed. He was sleeping seven or eight hours a night and falling asleep earlier and earlier. And when he slept, he had vivid dreams that were mostly benign or even enjoyable. Dreams he wanted to prolong since he experienced them so rarely normally.

Then, on the third day into the Expanse, one of those dreams turned into a nightmare. His parents rejected and disowned him, his friends abandoned him, all because he had chosen to take the posting with the Astera. Then the nightmare turned worse. He was trapped in a building, and no matter how many doors he went through, how many twisted corridors he walked down there was no escape.

Then, he was attacked by a knife-wielding, vaguely familiar looking Akadian.

Mercifully, before he found out who won the battle, he woke up with no desire to attempt sleep again.

After taking a quick sonic shower, and wishing for the real kind. He left his cabin and started to wander the corridors.

He'd been exploring for about ten minutes when he saw Kash, someone he'd once known as intimately as one person can know each other. Mostly physically, but there had been something more than that at one time. He almost turned back and went the other direction. That would have been easier. Instead he moved toward the Andorian. The two men were shipmates now. They had things to discuss.

"Kash," he said in a low voice as he crossed the distance between them. He wasn't in Kash's personal space. Not yet anyway. But he was close.

Despite himself Kash smiled when he heard Osirin's all too familiar voice say his name. The corridors were dark, the lighting low for delta shift, and there wasn't another crew member in sight. Though the two had danced around the idea of catching up at some point, neither had followed through, and as the distance closed between them Kash was keenly aware that this was the first time that they'd been alone together since that summer they had met - since they'd discovered they were shipmates.

He tried to forget about the dull ache in his head that had been nagging at him from too little sleep as he tried to think of something meaningful to say.

Unable to come up with much more than a simple greeting, he simply looked up at Osirin, his head slightly nodding, a subtle gesture, a simple acknowledgment for Osirin to keep walking closer as Kash did the same.

"Hi..."

Osirin hadn't been sure how his old lover would greet him, with a hug or an ushaan through the chest. The relatively neutral response was a relief and at the same time a puzzle that needed to be solved.

"Hello, yourself. I have to be honest with you, you're the last person, I expected to see here. Starfleet is a huge organization But, I guess the Universe is smaller than I thought. I am glad that I found you again."

"You are?" Kash's face didn't betray the surprise he felt. "I thought... Well, I don't know what I thought," he admitted. "You ah, going somewhere?" Kash glanced down the hallway in the direction that Osirin would have been walking.

"I, I had a nightmare, I'm not used to that. I'm not going anywhere, just wandering really," Osirin replied.

"To answer your question, yes I am glad. I would not have said it otherwise. I, I don't know how to explain it really, but with all the people I've slept with since that summer, they're just, how do Terrans put it, numbers. I've never been able to get you out of my head."

The words seemed to hang in the air as Kash processed what Osirin had said. "I didn't think you... Nightmare, you said. I've been having those too. That's why I'm out. Also, just wandering."

The Akadian nodded. I am not used to nightmares, or dreams for that matter. I think it's this damn Expanse. It's fucking with our minds."

Then he continued, shifting his focus, letting down a wall. "That's a dangerous thing for me. If my shields drop too much, then I'm done for. Put me in a padded room, done for."

"What do you do? To protect yourself, I mean?" Kash asked. "Have you been in a situation like this before?"

Osirin sighed, "I've gotten pretty good at building my shields around me. Terrans, Andorians tend to wear their emotions on their sleeve. So, I've gotten good at blocking off those thoughts. But this is an entirely different kind of thing. Right now I'm good. Well, not good, but I'm surviving. But if I sleep, I can't maintain my shielding, not in the same way. I'm in new territory here."

Kash smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about that." He reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. "Anything I can do to help

"You can be there for me. Maybe not like before. But still there for me. Would you do that for me?"

Kash nodded as he swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah, of course. You want to grab coffee or something?"

"That would be great, though not coffee, I don't know how you people drink that stuff." As they walked Osirin paused before continuing, "I think maybe I need you for after the Expanse too."

Kash chuckled. "It keeps you awake," he said with a shrug. "So what will it be then?"

Osirin paused as the two men were walking his left brow rose. "Would it freak you out if I said I wanted to start over? You and me. You know..." he let his voice trail off.

"You want to... After all of my bullshit?" Kash turned to lean against the wall of the corridor. "I didn't think you even felt that way..."

Osirin reached his hand out like he wanted to take the Andorian's hand. Then stopped himself, letting the arm fall to his side. He turned though to look at Kash fully. "It was as much my bullshit as it was yours. Monogamy scares the shit out of me. It's so foreign. But I'm willing to try. No, I want to try if you do."

Kash caught a glimpse of Osirin's hand lifting up, and he started to take a step toward the Akadian, but Osirin's hand dropped before the Andorian could react, causing Kash to remain standing where he was.

"Or, maybe I don't push that on you. Jealousy isn't a good look in any culture, at least not any I'm familiar with. Certainly not mine. I'm not proud of how I acted. I had no right."

"It was new to both of us then; we were both younger. I get it. I may not have then, not fully anyway, but I do now. Or at least I understand it better. Let's be honest here. I wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue. I'm sorry for what I said, for what I did."

"I will say that kiss you saw, it didn't mean anything. It wasn't like when I kissed you. There was no connection. No spark. It was just a kiss. I thought it was harmless, but it hurt you."

Kash dismissed the comment with an awkward chuckle, eager to change the subject. "You know you can get something other than coffee. It was really just an invitation to go somewhere. Not here. "

Osirin's brow unfurrowed slowly. Not all the way, but a bit. He didn't try to read Kash's thoughts, even the surface ones. He didn't need to. He could tell Kash wanted to talk about something else, anything else, with his natural intuition.

"Where else would you like to go?" he asked an expression that could have been a smirk on his face.

The Andorian shook his head as he took a step closer to Osirin. His eyes glanced down toward the hand that Osirin had started to offer a few moments before, and he reached out his own hand, letting his fingertips brush up against the Akadian's.

"Somewhere quiet... somewhere loud. I really don't care."

Osirin's facial expression shifted once more as Kash's hand touched his. His smirk became a warm smile that reached his eyes. He entwined their fingers together. "We could go back to my place," he suggested. "Just to talk, if you want. No pressure."

"Yeah, sure. I'd like that." Osirin's hand, intertwined with his, brought a warmth that Kash hadn't been expecting. Maybe there was more behind the Akadian's words. Maybe Kash was worried that once they got back to Osirin's place, he wouldn't care. Already, the memories were coming back - the better ones.

Osirin was still on edge, not because of anything going on with Kash, they were in the process of fixing things, or he hoped they were anyway. He was tense because the Expanse was still messing with his mind. But being with the other man, holding his hand had caused some of the stress to disappear.

"How did you get here. on the Astrea?" he asked

"Luck, I guess," Kash shrugged. "It was my first assignment out of the Academy. They were finishing up the refit and starting to staff it, so a handful of people from my class in most departments ended up here. It was a new commission so they needed people."

"Why did you want to know that? Did you know I was here?"

The second question had been on Kash's mind for a while, but he'd been too nervous to ask it.

"Curiosity," Osirin stated. Paused. Continued "No, that's not entirely true. "I just wanted to know if this was just happenstance or something, or someone planned it."

"I didn't know you were going to be here. I didn't check the duty roster. But I knew you were here the minute I got on board. You've got a unique spirit? mind? I don't know the right Terran term, but you're unique."

"I was scared shitless if I'm being honest, I wasn't sure how you'd react when you saw me. Whether you'd push me away, ignore me, or what."

Kash chuckled, "Well, ah. I'd say you're pretty unique yourself. It surprises me to hear you say you were scared. I didn't think much scared you. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't have any reason to ... I wouldn't have any reason to."

"I was surprised when I saw you. I had no idea you were on board until I was standing face to face with you," Kash admitted. "So, if I seemed... it was just that I wasn't prepared. I hadn't thought I would see you again. Not like this anyway."

"Weren't you and Tyler starting to hit it off?" Kash asked, his hand still holding onto Osirin's, their fingers interlocked. "He seems decent."

"He is, more than decent as a matter of fact. But I realized something. It took me a while. Longer than it should have, but I decided I wasn't willing to try to change myself for him. To be something other than what I am now."

"But, I am willing... not just willing, but wanting to change for you. Not entirely. I'm still going to be me. Just hopefully a better version of me."

Kash stopped walking and turned to face Osirin. "No," he said, shaking his head as he let go of Osirin's hand. "All this talk of changing yourself."

Kash looked directly into Osirin's eyes, his gaze piercing as he tried to discern why Osirin was talking this way. Was it really about them, or was he just lonely - the Expanse had been digging up old demons for a lot of people on board.

Kash took a step closer, his hand reaching up, gently brushing against Osirin's jawline. "Let's just focus on tonight," his voice now lower, becoming more gravelly with desire as he let loose his inhibitions.

The frown Osirin had been wearing slowly eased, and his brow became less furrowed. His expression transformed into one Kash was intimately familiar with. A smirk. "Well," he said, "If we're going to focus on tonight, we're probably not going to do much talking. Or sleeping."

In one swift motion, Kash's hand moved to the base of Osirin's neck, and Kash stepped forward and pressed his lips hungrily against Osirin's, his left hand finding a spot on Osirin's back and pulling the Akadian's body closer toward his own. Months of built up desire, tension he'd been holding back, building since he first noticed him on Astrea so many months ago, combined with the longing of a lost love that never really got off the ground, all finding their release, here now, starting with one kiss.

Osirin hesitated for the briefest of moments. Not because he didn't feel the same way. He did. Perhaps with everything else going on in his life since coming on board, it had been more subtle, but it had been there just under the surface. Then he leaned into the Andorian, feeling the firmness of his chest, and another firmness that was familiar as well. He let the kiss deepen and grow, knowing from experience just where it would lead.

Finally, he pulled away just long enough to whisper "Yes," into Kash's ear.

RSS Feed