Night Terrors

1

Curtis awoke to the familiar sound of a ticking clock accompanied by stale silence. It was often an uncomfortable thing to wake up to when you had a nightmare or uncontrollable night terrors like he did, but it was home anyways.
He squinted through the darkness and reached over to his lamp, turning it on to glance at the time. The small clock on his nightstand read "4:30 AM". He groaned, both out of frustration and exhaustion. This was the third time this week he'd woke up much earlier than usual.
He'd been taking meds to control his night terrors ever since he joined the crew on the Atlas, and it helped him sleep all night, so that couldn't be why. Was something on his mind? No, that wouldn't make sense. Everything at work was relatively calm and he didn't have any major deadlines to complete, so that couldn't be what was waking him up.
But maybe it was because there was someone on his mind.
Captain Shirogane had been eyeing him for a week now and it was really starting to freak him out. He never said anything, but Curtis always caught him staring. He didn't know if the captain was checking him out, mad because he had done something wrong, just zoning out, or if it was somehow a mixture of all three options. Most time he assumed it was a death stare, simply because in his heart he didn't believe the captain could like him. Furthermore, he hadn't done anything particularly out of the ordinary that would impress the captain enough for him to be staring at him so much. Curtis wasn't the type to be checked out by people like Captain Shirogane in the first place. He was relatively quiet, did his job, and mostly kept to himself. He was an all-around ordinary individual, he was just good with technology and just happened to get sent to space on a big ship.
Plus, Curtis never figured that the man was gay- it was rumored that he had a fiancé back on earth who was killed when the Galra attacked, but if he did, the gender of said fiancé was never mentioned, at least not to Curtis. Did Curtis like the captain? Well, yes and no. He did think he was incredibly handsome, kind, and genuinely nice. He would most definitely jump on the chance to date the man if he provided that option, although he'd never admit to having a genuine crush on him. But being the person he was, Curtis constantly denied himself the ability to act on those feelings for three reasons.
The first of those reasons being that he felt Captain Shirogane was way out of his league. It wasn't that the captain was frightening, or oppositely, that he was seemingly too popular. It was because the man radiated such power and demand for respect that he felt it wouldn't even be acceptable to simply develop romantic feelings for him.
Further, the younger figured that he was still recovering from the loss of his fiancé, and he didn't want to intrude on the time he was sure the captain needed to grieve. The attack on earth had been a few years ago, but with those you deeply love it is always especially harder to let go. If Captain Shirogane was going to marry this person, he probably wouldn't ever forget them. He knew the man needed time, but with the constant staring, he wondered in the back of his mind if he was finally moving on. However, that hardly seemed likely.
But the third and final Reason Curtis Williams would absolutely never approach the captain of the Atlas in a romantic way was this: He was afraid of the rejection he had received from his parents and family members when they had discovered his sexual orientation. He didn't want to be shunned by both Captain Shirogane and the crew members because he had the nerve to approach a captain who he wasn't sure even felt the same way about men that he did, and tell him that he wanted to date him. It would be absurd anyway, they had plenty of things to worry about besides how Curtis felt about the captain. Honerva, the Altean colony, planets being eaten, there were so many troubles in the universe. But why couldn't his dang heart just stay out of it and let him do his job in peace?
He knew something like this had only ever gotten him in trouble, and in the history of the four confessions Curtis has ever given in his life, zero out of those four people had ever reciprocated his feelings. With someone much higher ranking than him, the odds were even lower. He lay back onto Hello mattress, staring at the ceiling.
'My feelings will always be nothing but a hassle.'
He thought to himself as he drifted back to sleep.
'I can't allow them to interfere in the captain's schedule, he has enough to worry about without me taking away from the more important issues at hand.'