A Tipsy Visit, Part II
Posted on Tue Feb 17th, 2026 @ 9:49am by Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman & Lieutenant Darius Korveth
1,575 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
What was Lost is Found
Location: Open Mess/Lounge, Deck 11
Timeline: Prior to Arrival at Kril'es
When his muddled mind couldn’t come up with an answer, Ryan simply leaned forward, placing a hand on Darius’s firm hip and moved in for a kiss. It was yet another misstep in a long series of missteps so far this evening.
“Goddamnit, Ryan, what the fuck are you trying to do? I’ve wanted to kiss you for two months now. But not like this. Not when you won’t remember what you did. What you’re doing.”
He paused then. “Sorry, Ry. I still love you, but you’re crossing a line here.”
Ryan pulled his hand back and steadied himself in the doorway. Somewhere under all that alcohol was a man who was still grieving their marriage. He knew why he darkened Darius’s door, but there was a difference between emotional attachment and the fleeting need for physical contact.
He nodded slowly, his mouth feeling so dry he couldn’t swallow. “I know, Ari. I don’t know what possessed me to come here. It seemed like a good idea.”
“You can come in,” Darius said after a long pause. We can talk. But I’m not going to be your drunken booty call.”
Ryan stood there for a few long seconds, swaying gently in the doorway, his six-foot-two frame trying to remain steady. He let out a small breath through his nose.
“No,” he said softly, closing his eyes slowly. “No, you’re right. That’s not… that’s not what I came for.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck, eyes drifting past Darius into the familiar shape of the Valkyrie’s standard crew quarters.
“I’m sorry,” he added. His words came out dripping with heaviness but they were sincere. “That was a helluva thing to do. Just showing up like that. I’m an asshole.”
He shifted his weight and caught the doorframe again before the floor could make any more attempts to disappear from beneath him.
Darius reached out a hand and took hold of Ryan’s arm. “You’re drunk,” he said, ‘that’s different.” He moved closer, not in the Intelligent Chief’s personal space but close. Why now? Is it just because you’re drunk, or is there something more?”
“And, you don’t have to leave.”
Ryan chuckled quietly. “I had a few, yeah,” he admitted, holding up two fingers, then squinting at them like they could be lying. “Maybe more than a few.”
He paused and found his eyes on Darius’s chiseled pecs. They meandered over to his biceps and then to the curve of his quads.
“I didn’t come here for that,” he said again, this time with more certainty. “I think I just… I think I just needed to tell you something.”
“I’m sorry,” came the reply, “I was assuming because you’re not exactly sober. That was my fault, and I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. What is it you want to tell me? I’m listening.”
He took a step forward, entering Ryan’s personal space. “Talk to me.”
Ryan looked at Darius for a long moment, almost as though he were trying to read cursive handwriting on choppy lake water.
The words were there. He could definitely feel them pushing upward somewhere in his esophagus. They’d been following him for the last few weeks–from the Starbase, to the Valkyrie, and right into the Mess where they sat beside him while I drank himself silly. Then they had stumbled down the corridor with him until he was propping himself against Darius’s door frame.
Now they had somehow fallen into a jumble and weren’t coming out in a straight line.
He swallowed and tried again.
“I don’t come here for the replicator,” he said, which was obvious enough to nearly be funny. “And I didn’t come here because I wanted… because I was lonely.” He paused and one end of his mouth turned upward briefly. “Well. I mean, I did. But that’s not the reason.”
His hand slid off the doorframe and came to rest against the bulkhead. He decided to keep it there since it was more neutral territory but also because he desperately needed to keep his surroundings from spinning.
“I needed to tell you something while I still had the nerve.”
Ryan let out a breath that trembled slightly.
“I’m still in this,” he said.
Air slowly escaped Darius’ mouth like it was leaking out of a balloon with a tiny hole in it. But it wasn't deflating him, it was having the opposite effect. It was buoying him.
“So, you're saying that you're ready to work this out? Or at least you're no longer opposed to the possibility?
“And this is Ry talking, nottalking, not the booze?”
Are you talking about counseling or what?”
Ryan sighed, tasting the bourbon on his own breath. He stood there a moment against the wall, trying to keep himself steady.
“Ari, it’s me talking,” he said at a heightened whisper. “The booze just… took the limiter off.”
He let out another sigh and then looked at Darius properly this time. Not at his shoulders and not at his physical features, but right at his eyes.
“I don’t know what working it out look like yet,” he admitted. “But if you want to… we can go and book an appointment with the counselor tomorrow after our duty shifts.”
Darius held up one green index finger between him and Ryan.
“I would kiss you right now, if you weren't drunk, just so you know.”
“You could sleep it off here if you want “
“On the couch, that is.”
Ryan stifled a laugh and suddenly the alcohol seemed to show just how inebriated he was at the present moment.
“I think we both know I’d just wind up in your bed,” he muttered, grinning crookedly. “So… against my better judgment, I’m going to head over to my quarters and crawl into my own bed.”
He turned and with his eyes swimming, squinted down the corridor to his left for a long moment. Then he turned the opposite way–to the right–and squinted again, appearing lost.
Darius let out a sigh.
“I am either walking you to your place, or you're sleeping here. In my bed, I'm not going to let you wander off by yourself.”
“But, if you stay we're just sleeping.”
“Pffft,” came the sound out of Ryan’s mouth as though he were raspberrying the air. “I got here on my own and I’ll have you know–” he raised a finger and poked his ex-husband’s chest “--that I know exactly where I’m going.”
Ryan belched and covered his mouth with a closed fist. “Excuse me. But listen, Ari, this is Seduction 101 right here. I deliver myself to you in the middle of the night, you offer me your sofa, you say there’s no sex, and then–bang--next thing that happens is I’m late for shift and tired because of you.”
That brought a not-so-innocent smile to the half-Orion's face. “There is nothing wrong with being tired if it's for a good reason.”
He took hold of the other man's arm, but I want to make love to you, not just fuck you, and if we had sex now, as tempting as that is, that's all it would probably be.“
Ryan did exactly what drunk eyes do when confronted with temptation: they wandered.
They traced the curve of Darius’s biceps before drifting down over his chest, across the flat plane of his abdomen, lingering there momentarily–then at the line of his jaw. Then his gaze dipped lower. Much lower.
“Well,” he murmured with all the professional seriousness he could muster, “that’s… certainly a compelling argument.”
Then, as if he were suddenly remembering that gravity existed, he took a wobbly step backward. Luckily, the corridor kept him upright.
He lifted an index finger once again, though this time it wasn’t accusatory. It was more philosophical.
“You are… extremely distracting,” he informed Darius. “Historically speaking.”
Ryan swayed a little but caught himself.
“But,” he continued, and here is where his tone shifted. Warm, but more clear. “You hurt me.”
“I know.” He let go of Ryan’s arm and placed it on the right side of his neck. He was tempted to pull him closer, but resisted. Barely.
But, he did look fully into his eyes. “And I’m sorry. If I could take it back, I would. But I can’t.”
“But, I wasn’t trying to tempt you. Not tonight. What I’m saying is, you should go back to your place. I want our first time back together, physically, if that happens, to be special. Nor rushed, both of us sober. Both of us wanting it.”
Ryan stumbled a little but caught himself, gently pulling away from his half-Orion husband. “Tomorrow, Ari. We do it right. Okay?”
“Tomorrow,” Darius agreed, “let’s start with a date. Dinner together or something. You pick.”
Ryan saluted him lazily, blinking in slow motion, then stumbled down the corridor to where he had convinced himself a turbolift was waiting for him.
Lieutenant Darius Korveth
Chief Strategic Operations Officer
USS Valkyrie
Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Valkyrie
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