Okay, I just saw a post about how “Chief O’Brien can’t stand Dr. Bashir, let’s stick them together in every episode,” and the thought of it just cracked me up, like:
Maybe this is how you work your way into Miles O’Brien’s heart: by repeated, daily abrasion.
Maybe when he met Keiko Ishikawa on the Enterprise—on an ill-fated double-date? Who knows?—she was abrasive as hell and rode his ass about every little thing he did throughout the whole date and finished off by beating his ass at bowling, and when he got home he just shuddered, like, Thank God that’s over, because I cannot stand that woman.
But he kept running into her. Every day. The Enterprise is only so big, after all, and they both kept ending up in Ten-Forward at the same time, or sitting next to each other at concerts, or awkwardly running into each other at the gym, and of course they had the same friends, so he just couldn’t get away from her, and every time it was the same thing:
“Oh, hi, Miles.” With disdain.
“Nice shirt, Miles. Did you not know this was a formal event?” With a brow raised.
And he just grits his teeth and smiles. “Hello, Keiko.”
And it’s every day, every day, until one day he doesn’t see her, and that night he’s putting on his pyjamas and cleaning his teeth and climbing into bed and he can’t quite fall asleep, something’s wrong, something’s missing…
But the next day he sees her as he passes the botany lab. He leans in to wave a hello. She looks up at him and smiles for half a second before frowning. “Aren’t you going to be late for your shift?”
And he falls in love, right there. By slow, repeated, scraping abrasion, Keiko Ishikawa has tunnelled right into his heart.
And who knows. Maybe it’s the same with Julian. Maybe it’s I hate that guy, I hate that guy, over and over he sees him, God damn it, paired on another mission, and then one day Dr. Bashir’s gone off to do something and Miles says to Keiko, “Thank God, at least there’s one day I won’t have to put up with Dr. God’s Gift To Humanity.”
Keiko just smiles. She knows.
And then she gives him shit about something.
