A Collection of Julian Bashir One-Shots

Twenty-One Hundred Hours

Summary: Once you complete the repairs on the Defiant's impulse engines, you plan on heading back to your quarters and having a quiet evening to yourself. However, you encounter your boss along the way who you've gotten quite friendly with—Chief O'Brien. You two have a quiet chat about his family and your dismal love life, until the very topics of both conversations collide in one place.

Content Notice: Bisexual reader, though that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Mostly just platonic dialogue between the reader and O'Brien, though not entirely bereft of some element of romance between the reader and Bashir.

***

I stretched out my back with a contented sigh of victory. It had taken an extra two hours, but the repairs I'd been told to complete on the Defiant's impulse engines were finally complete. It would have been faster if my partner hadn't made the mistake of rupturing a force field while examining the fusion reactors, but I finished it all the same. Lucky bastard had the chance to get beamed directly to sickbay and he got the day off, to boot. I packed up my tools and cracked my neck, taking solace in the fact that at least I'd get some preferential treatment next time.

The starship felt surprisingly empty at 21:00 hours, as most other personnel had gone home long ago. I had to traverse a Jeffrey's Tube to get to main engineering, and when I popped out, I expected there to be at least a couple engineering officers, but everything was just... quiet.

Which is why, when I passed by the pulsing blue light of the warp core, I was startled when I saw something, or more likely, someone shift. My heart exploded with frenzied motion at the sight of a human shape and I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from making any noise, but once my heart calmed down I crept a little closer. I peered curiously through the low light at the humanoid figure, wondering who exactly it could be. They were at an access port for the warp core. Cleaning duty, maybe?

"Lieutenant, I can feel you staring at me," a familiar voice said curtly. I jumped. It was Chief O'Brien.

"Sorry. I thought I was the only person still here," I said, embarrassed.

"Not to worry, according to the work roster you should have been. But Captain Sisko wants to have warp drive by tomorrow," O'Brien said, an edge of bitterness to his voice. I chuckled to myself. Starfleet captains were always demanding things like that.

"Even after the scuffle with the Ferengi merchant ship yesterday?" I asked. "I heard they managed to fuse the plasma conduits."

"Every damned one," O'Brien grumbled. He pulled his body out of the access port and fiddled around with his tools. "But I'm nearly done. Just need to finish up recalibrating these last few," Chief O'Brien said with a strained voice as he went back in.

"Need any help?" I asked, taking a couple steps forward and kneeling down next to him.

"Sure. Hand me that thermal regulator." He stuck out his hand and I plucked the device from the ground, placing it in his palm. He grunted out a quiet thanks and I heard the thermal regulator emit a gentle hum as he tried not to burn himself.

"That should be it!" He said victoriously, and slid out of the port.

"Heading home then, Chief?" I asked as I helped him tidy up his tools.

"Just need to check that the interface is responding to the calibrations, then I'll be good to go," he said, and he stood up with the box of tools. "Then, I can look forward to putting Yoshi to bed while I just hope he doesn't chuck up some abhorrent mashed pea substance Keiko programmed into the replicator."