Estranged Breakfast, Part 1

Posted on Thu Oct 23rd, 2025 @ 7:18pm by Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman & Lieutenant Darius Korveth

1,684 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: What was Lost is Found
Location: Darius' Cabin
Timeline: MD 6 0600

It had been a month since Darius and his estranged husband had been on board and they had barely spoken to each other. They had passed each other in the halls several times, even shared a turbolift once. When they did have a conversation, which hadn't happened enough where Darius was concerned had been professional. They had been civil and polite, but they hadn't actually talked.

So, Darius had gotten tired of waiting, patience may have been a virtue, but it wasn't one that Darius actually practiced.

He had invited Ryan for breakfast. nothing fancy, just fried egg sandwiches, country potatoes and juice. To his surprise Ryan had accepted and said he would be there.

Ryan arrived on time, which was something he still did out of habit, even when his heart wasn't entirely in it. The door to Darius's quarters opened with the same ubiquitous sound it always made, and the first thing that hit him was the smell--eggs, pepper, coffee. It was ordinary and domestic. For some reason, that alone almost undid him.

When Darius had met him at the door, Ryan tried to push away those old familiar feelings upon seeing him. He looked good--he always looked good--but out of uniform, there was a something that took Ryan back to their old life together. A breakfast had seemed nice and neutral; no expectations and nothing that promised a reconciliation. It was simply nice to share a meal with the man he loved.

"Smells good," Ryan said, because it was the safest kind of sentence you could throw across a chasm.

Darius almost retorted with a comment that would have been a smart ass one, it was the most natural thing in the Universe for him. It was just part of his nature. But, he stopped himself. He wanted to show Ryan he was changed, or at least was in the process of changing.

"Thanks, I'm trying to."

"I'm trying to keep things simple. You know?

"You still like your coffee black right?"

"I take it with Rigellian oat milk now," he said, almost sheepish, glancing toward Darius. "Picked it up last year on the Resistance. But black's fine, too."

He didn't mean it as a test, but somehow it felt like one. Little details had become the fault lines between them--how he took his coffee, how he signed-off his messages.

"I'll fix it the way you want it," Darius replied trying to keep his tone neutral.

He put the mug he'd been about to hand Ryan down /=\Replicator, one coffee with Rigellian oat milk and one green tea./=\

Then he turned back to Ryan. "I'm glad you came."

"Glad I came," Ryan repeated, though his voice carried more than just agreement. "I wasn't expecting much, honestly." He paused a moment to gauge Darius's reaction.

The half-Orion handed him a plate. and indicated the small table and chairs. "Have a seat," he invited, "I wanted to talk."

Ryan settled himself into the chair. He could smell the pepper in the eggs, the subtle sweetness of the juice. Ordinary things. Domestic. When it had felt like home.

He shifted a bit, straightening his back. There was a part of him that still had hope. Still hoped that breakfast like this might be... something. Not a reconciliation, nor a surrender. Perhaps a bridge.

He told himself that, anyway. He repeated it quietly in his head. A bridge. A bridge. Keep it simple.

But even as he did, he felt the old ache behind his ribcage. A dread that had nothing to do with eggs or coffee and everything to do with the man sitting across from him. The man who had loved him once, and who had hurt him.

"It's been a month, Ari," Ryan said plainly, cutting a portion of his eggs with the edge of his fork. "How are you feeling about being here--on the Valkyrie?"

"As you said, it's been a month. She is a good ship though I like the Captain, he seems like a decent guy and he's fair. and I like the rest of the senior staff. My staff? Well that's kind of a different story. Most of them are fine, but I have this new kid. His name is Marcus Chen. He's... Well let's just say he's driven and ambitious and then I've got a Petty Officer that dances on the line of insubordination."

"What about you?"

Ryan set his fork down, the tiny clink of metal against ceramic sounding louder than it should have. He leaned back slightly, studying his husband--not in the way he used to, when the admiration had been effortless, but in the quiet, careful way of a man trying to recognize someone he once knew by heart.

He took a sip of his coffee, tasting the oat milk. Somehow, the Rigellians had mastered an infusion process that made the milk thicker and tastier.

"I'm doing what I've always done. I settle in. I keep to myself." His eyes drifted toward the viewport, where the stars streaked past. "It's strange, though. I thought being assigned here would be a huge job at Intelligence Chief. So far, it's been quiet."

He picked at a corner of toast, then looked up again. "I didn't expect to be... with you again, if I'm honest." He spoke the words quietly and almost sadly.

Anyone other than Ryan, would have seen Darius maintain a neutral expression. Almost as if he wasn't bothered by his husband's words But Ryan noticed, not because of his training, but because he knew the other man so well. His left twitched fractionally.

A tell.

A tell that he was fabricating the truth, or covering up his feelings

"I didn't arrange this you know. I had nothing to do with it. I was as surprised as you were."

"But Ryan, I have apologized, I don't know how many times for what I did. And I meant everyone of them. But how many times do I have to say it? I'm getting a little tired of it. We have to find a way to move on."

Ryan nodded. "I know you meant it," he said, attempting to keep his voice even and measured. "I know that. I can hear it in the way you say things now. And... I've heard it before, too." He paused, looking down into his coffee. "But words, Ari--they don't always match the hurt. You should know that."

The twitch became more noticeable. He closed his eyes then reopened them. "So, what do we do? Are you ever going to be able to forgive me? I mean really forgive me, because you say you have but it doesn't feel like it."

"I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm just trying to be honest."

Ryan drew in a slow breath. The coffee had gone lukewarm in his hand, but he didn't set it down. He kept it there, as it gave him something to keep hold of.

"I did forgive you," he said, keeping his voice calm and conversational. "Or I've tried to, anyway. But forgiveness isn't the same thing has forgetting, Ari. It's not erasing the part of me that flinches when I remember how it all fell apart."

Darius blinked furiously, and rubbed at the corner of his eye. "You're life isn't the only one I fucked up. On a good day, I can pretend it didn't happen. No, not forget, more like I'm able to push the memory down so it looks like I'm normal. On a bad day, well, I don't even want to talk about a bad day."

"How do I fix this. How do I make it right? Can I make it right?"

He looked up then, met Darius's eyes--violet blue with that faint, strange light they always seemed to carry. "Ari," he said softly. "This isn't something that can be fixed by some kind of intervention. It takes time."

Ryan found himself exhaling a little too heavily--this isn't what he had planned to discuss over breakfast. Perhaps that notion was a little too naive. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and placed his fork and knife down on the plate before meeting his husband's gaze.

"Listen to me, Ari," he began. "You hurt me. You didn't just step out on me--you made me question if I'd been enough. If what we had had ever meant what I thought it did." Ryan's tone remained calm and small. Not accusing nor bitter. Just the truth laid flat between them, like an old photograph neither had the courage to throw away.

Leaning back, Ryan rubbed his jaw and continued. "And I've carried that longer than I should have. I know that. I've built a life around the space you left, and damned if I didn't try to fill it with duty, or work, or the next assignment. But it doesn't work the way you think it does. You can't just reassign grief."

Darius had hardly touched his food during the discussion. He'd picked a little at the potatoes, but that was about it. He stood to his feet and turned to the viewport.

"So, does the Universe contain enough time for your pain to go away? Are we going to end the separation, and make things official."

Ryan looked up from his eggs and just stared at the back of Darius's head. The words make things official repeated in somewhere inside him. He put his coffee down a little too firmly. "Official?" he repeated. "You think that's what this is about, Ari? Some form we sign, some switch we flip, and--poof--we're back to what we were?"

He stood now too, his chair ruffling the carpeting. "Three years, Darius. Three years of trying to unlearn the sound of your voice when you lied to me. Three years of waking up every morning and forcing myself not to check for messages that weren't coming."

~TBC~

Lt. Darius Korveth
Chief Strategic Operations Officer

Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman
Chief Intelligence Officer

 

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