short Sulu/Chekov
I had this idea while in bed and thinking about Terminator, lol. I mean I was thinking more of epic Marcus/Kyle plotlines than physics, but hey.
Title: Theoretically
Fandom: Star Trek
Pairing: Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sulu makes Chekov watch the classic American Terminator movies. Chekov has some thoughts.
Notes: Thank you to chlorate for taking the time to beta read this despite being extremely overworked. ;___;
Sulu is dreaming about school. More specifically, he's dreaming about failing, realizing too late that he's forgotten to show up for his Calculus class all semester, and the final is today, and he's completely fucked. Also dressed inappropriately, shirtless. So when Chekov nudges his nose up under Sulu's chin to wake him, he's not especially irritated, maybe even grateful. Still, it can't be 06:00 yet, and he needs his sleep; they've both got a really long shift on the bridge ahead of them. Sulu groans and rolls away, resenting Chekov a little for his seeming lack of any need for rest.
"Hikaru," Chekov whispers in Sulu's ear, his breath so hot. He nibbles at Sulu's earlobe when he doesn't get a response, and Sulu twitches, moaning irritably. Chekov is relentless, as always, and Sulu smiles through his half-sleep when Chekov sits up to rest his chin on Sulu's shoulder.
"Hikaru, I've been thinking," Chekov says, as if Sulu is wide awake and sitting across from him with a cup of tea, waiting to hear what he's been thinking about. "Those movies we watched last night, they make no sense, yeah?"
Sulu grunts noncommittally. Last night they watched the first two Terminator movies, because Chekov is gravely uneducated in the ways of great American cinema, and after about a fifth of Chekov's evil vodka Sulu thought it would be a great idea to order the movies and watch them in bed on Chekov's laptop projector. It was a great idea, actually, because they'd had absolutely raucous sex ten minutes into the first movie - pausing it out of respect, of course - and then slumped naked against each other for the rest of the viewing experience, Sulu drifting in and out of sleep while Chekov poked him and asked him inane but adorable questions.
"Here is what I do not understand," Chekov says. He sounds like a busybody student, standing up in class to correct the professor, and Sulu grins against his pillow, because he can picture it so clearly, the way Chekov must have been in school. It still breaks Sulu's heart that they did not meet while they were at the Academy. He fell in love with Chekov so fast, and he would have felt even more guilty about it if it had started when Chekov was fifteen instead of seventeen, but they're so sure of each other now that every day that they didn't know each other just feels like wasted time.
"If you consider the Novikov self-consistency principle," Chekov says, pronouncing the name of his countryman with special pride, "the conception of John Connor is technically possible, but if you accept Everett's many-worlds interpretation, as I do, then the history created by Kyle Reese's travel to the past must be mutually exclusive, and so how could John Connor ever have previously existed in order to send Kyle Reese back to the past?"
"Pavel," Sulu moans. "What time is it?"
"Time? Oh, I do not know, I have been thinking about this -"
"It's just a movie, Pavel," Sulu says, his eyes still shut against the pillow, Chekov still leaning on him like he's a podium in a lecture hall.
"Just a - how do you mean? I was also thinking about the relativity of simultaneity and how the four dimensionalism of the story, even if it is considered to be consistent within the universe of the first movie, cannot possibly extend to the second because of the destruction of the T-600-"
Sulu laughs into the pillow, both at Chekov in general and at the way he says the number six hundred: seeks hun-dhred. Sulu loves him way too much. So much that he doesn't even want to kill him for waking him up for this just a few hours before the alarm goes off.
"Why are you laughing?" Chekov asks, shoving Sulu a little, so that he feels like he's bouncing inside his own skin, jello-like. "You do not agree?"
"I'm laughing because you're, like, way overestimating James Cameron."
"This is the man who made the movies?"
"Yeah. I think he was more interested in boning Linda Hamilton than carefully researching theoretical physics. Not that, you know. The movies aren't awesome anyway."
"Yes, awesome, okay, but listen, Hikaru, even if you accept that Kyle Reese traveling through time is part of a predestination paradox, you're still not taking into account that, if they're using some kind of Tipler cylinder to travel through time, which given the apocalyptic nature of their future -"
"Pavel," Sulu says, rolling onto his back with a groan. He opens his eyes and sees Chekov staring down at him, looking very concerned, as if the Enterprise will stray off course if he doesn't work all of this out. Sulu reaches up to straighten Pavel's wild hair, which looks like Einstein's when he's fresh from rolling around in bed. "You should always say apocalyptic when we're in bed," Sulu says, his morning wood persisting through this conversation.
"I - what?" Chekov frowns. "Don't make fun." He still has this complex, mostly because of his age, this need to prove himself and be taken seriously. Sulu wants to tell him, so often lately, I am taking you as seriously as I possibly can, I am buying our fucking wedding rings in my head, every day.
"Haven't you ever heard of the temporary suspension of disbelief?" Sulu asks, leaning up onto his elbow. He's so tired, but he loves the way Chekov sinks beneath him automatically, even while he's scowling petulantly.
"Of course I have heard," Chekov says. "It is still interesting to me. Thinking of things more seriously."
"Oh, I know," Sulu says, breathing down into Chekov's mouth as he kisses him, both of them with sleep-stale breath, Chekov sinking down further, melting. Sulu slings a leg over him, climbing fully atop him.
"Hikaru," Chekov says, his breath coming a little faster now, though he's still staring up at Sulu as if he's mostly just annoyed. "You're hard."
"Um, are you surprised?"
Chekov breaks into the biggest grin imaginable, and Sulu quakes above him, blown apart by the sight.
"I think you get hard from me talking about physics," Chekov says, though he knows that Sulu gets hard with much less reason, whenever Chekov is involved. It's more of a proximity thing, though Sulu supposes that part of the reason Chekov sets him off like this is his intelligence, and his tirelessness, and the way he just cares so much about everything, his unending interest in the world. Chekov could be dumb as a stone, and if he still cared this much about time travel, Sulu would love him just the same. As long as he had those eyes, that easy grin, and the curls, the curls are essential. But Sulu can't really imagine doing without any half-particle of Chekov, can't imagine Chekov without the dazed look he gets on his face when he brushes his teeth, staring into the mirror, lost in thought, or the way he puts his palm against his temple when he's stressed out at work, or the way he says oooh instead of ohhh when Sulu is so deep inside him that he loses his mind.
"You're right," Sulu says, sliding down onto Chekov, their naked cocks dragging together. Chekov gasps, just a little, and presses his face against Sulu's neck. "You're right, it's the physics."
"Hikaru," Chekov says softly, twitching up against him in little thrusts that make the room throb around Sulu's ears.
"If you could travel back in time," Sulu says, licking Chekov's ear. "What would you do?"
"Oh, it is such a hard question!" Chekov says, his eyes flying open. "And I have thought about it of course, like anyone. There is the assassination of Ferdinand, would stopping that prevent the Holocaust? Would killing poor Lenin prevent the disasters that followed? Would you have to go so far back as Marx? Would things only be worse without them? So much to consider."
"You're noble," Sulu says, sitting up on his elbows. "You know what I would do?"
"Hikaru, don't tell me you would play the lottery."
"No, not quite. I would find you at the Academy, freshman year. Your freshman year, that is. God, you would be way too young to touch, but I would, I don't know. Sit near you. Make sure no one picked on you. Buy you lunch and stuff."
Chekov's smile is slow, and his eyes light up with it, just as slowly, as if he needs some time to sink into what Sulu is telling him. You, you are the one thing in the world that matters, now and before, in all four dimensions. Maybe he should feel guilty about it, selfish, but he doesn't. Chekov makes him feel like he is changing the world for the better, just by keeping close, though he knows he's only really changing his own world, making it into something brighter than he could have hoped for before he saw Pavel plunk down beside him at the console on the Enterprise.
"Oh, I don't know," Chekov says, his voice soft, his fingers in Sulu's hair. "I think that is noble, too."
"You're biased," Sulu says, leaning down to kiss him, and Chekov laughs into his mouth, his arms circling Sulu's shoulders. Sulu moves down to kiss Chekov's neck, which is so warm and fragrant from sleep; he moans against Chekov's skin. Chekov is whispering his name into the dark room, Hikaru, Hikaru, like it has some secret meaning that Sulu doesn't know.
"Hikaru, it's so sad," Chekov finally says, as Sulu kisses his way down Chekov's chest. Sulu looks up, his chin resting just above Chekov's trembling stomach.
"What's sad?" he asks, already aching to be inside Chekov, even if it means they'll have to go to the bridge without a shower, or breakfast.
"That movie," Chekov says, staring up at the ceiling. "The way the man died and the woman was left without him. Hikaru - I would go through every black hole in the universe until I found you again."
Sulu nods, his cheeks flushing, because he doesn't have a witty retort, or any worthy response at all. He leans up and kisses Chekov, his eyes shut tight, just barely wet at the corners. He will never, never, never figure out what he did to deserve this. It's okay by him, as long as he can keep what has somehow fallen into his lap, Chekov with his adorably stunned expressions and soft skin and inexplicable devotion. As if he should be the one going through black holes, searching. Sulu always imagines that it will be he who ends up on the losing end, though he knows that Chekov worries just as much, because Sulu is the one who goes on missions off ship. Sulu is always anxious while he's away, not for himself, not even if Kirk has gotten them into some diplomatic disaster involving natives wielding six foot spears. He worries that when he gets back to the Enterprise Chekov will have found someone else, someone new and shiny to satisfy his never-ending interest in research and discovery. Every time Sulu steps down from the teleportation platform and finds Chekov waiting for him, trembling for the chance to put his arms around him, he feels like he'll drop through the universe with the unfairness of it, because there's no way he's earned this, but he'll close Chekov into his arms gratefully anyway, trying to remain humble within the awareness of his luck.
"Go on," Sulu says, pushing the words past his choppy breath when he's buried inside Chekov, who is still wet with the come Sulu spent inside him while the movie was paused, its colors glowing onto their skin. "Say something smart, something about physics."
"You need that to - ahh, Hika-ru! - t-to get off?" Chekov stutters out, his eyes barely open as Sulu begins to push into him, so slow he's almost teasing.
"Yeah," Sulu moans, though he's going to get off pretty much no matter what, at this point. It's just that yeah is the only word he knows at the moment.
"Entangled photons," Chekov breathes out, and Sulu laughs, shaking both of them. Chekov beams, and it's just too good, what Sulu has, it's too perfect, he doesn't trust himself with it. "Delayed choice quantum eraser," Chekov whispers, and Sulu laughs harder, his dick pulsing with every jerk of his abs.
"Oh, ghod, I need you harder," Chekov says, grabbing Sulu's ass and morphing into the pushy little devil who shocked the hell out of Sulu the first time they fooled around, Sulu still damp from the rain on an alien planet and Chekov speaking mostly in Russian, because, as he later confessed, he was too shy to say the things he wanted to in English, knowing Sulu would understand. "Harder, Hikaru, please," Chekov begs, his fingernails biting into Sulu's skin.
"You want it hard?" Sulu asks, pausing in mid-thrust so that he can watch Chekov whine and thrash beneath him, the flush of his lingering embarrassment spreading across his pale chest.
"Please," Chekov cries. "Ooh, yes, I need -"
Sulu doesn't let him finish, pulls out and flips him over, Chekov crying out in some combination of approval and protest as he leans up to grip the cheap plastic frame of Sulu's regulation bed. Sulu's breath is coming so hard that he feels like it's someone else's, and he pushes into Chekov without much warning, making him moan with filthy gratitude as he slides back against Sulu's cock.
"Hikaru, Hikaru -" It's the only word Chekov knows when he's getting close, and when Sulu reaches around to grasp Chekov's cock Chekov bucks into his grip like he's completely lost control, liquid movement in Sulu's hand, and under his body.
"Oh - God - how, how bad do you want it?" Sulu asks, trying to hold on, because he doesn't want this to end, the long stretch of the two of them in bed, the talk about movies and this, the thing that makes him feel even more alive than piloting a giant ship through space.
"So badly, so badly," Chekov is murmuring mindlessly, Sulu barely able to comprehend, he's so close to gone. He strokes Chekov's cock, feeling it grow to a familiar bursting point, so tight and hard in his hand, so wet at the tip. Chekov shouts out some mangled form of Sulu's name when he comes, squeezing around Sulu's cock with every pulse of his orgasm, making Sulu forget everything but how to instinctively slam forward into Chekov's opened-up body, until he's growling more than groaning, his own climax ripping out of him like a supernova, the whole room exploding around him. He's barely conscious as he falls forward onto Chekov's sweat-slicked back, and the first thing that reaches him as he comes to is the drag of Chekov's harsh breath, then the smell of Chekov's hair at the back of his neck, then the insane heat of their skin.
Sulu pulls free, Chekov groaning in relief and sorrow, slumping over onto his side, his eyes shut as if he could sleep for weeks. He's shaking with the only exhaustion Sulu has ever glimpsed on him, the post-sex daze, when Chekov is so well-fucked that Sulu wonders if he remembers his own name, though he wouldn't be surprised if Chekov could still somehow recite the properties of any obscure theory about physics he was asked about.
"Every black hole in the universe," Sulu says as he strokes Chekov's sweat-damp hair, hoping Chekov will know what he means, because Sulu still hasn't said anything close to I love you. His parents didn't really raise him to say so out loud and he just doesn't know how he could ever get the words out.
The alarm goes off, blaring through the dark bedroom like the end of the world. Sulu groans and Chekov sort of sobs; Sulu is briefly triumphant, proven right somehow: Chekov needs sleep after all, and now he hasn't had enough.
"There, see," Sulu says, leaning down to lick Chekov's neck, which smells like sex, his skin so hot under Sulu's mouth. "Tonight, no movies after the shift, right to bed."
"Mmm," Chekov says, wrapping his arms around his pillow as Sulu smacks the snooze button. They've got a little time. "But what about part three?"
"Eh, part three sucks."
"And part four?"
"It's okay, I guess," Sulu says, not even sure that he's ever seen it. He settles around Chekov, shutting his eyes against the soft bed of Chekov's curls, pretending that they can sleep for hours, that this is their shore leave and they'll wake up only to have sex again before hunting down food and returning to the bed. Their last shore leave was on a heavily forested planet, and they stayed in a tree house, eating foamy mushroom soup for every meal. Chekov had watched birds through the windows with a little pair of binoculars, and he sketched them in a notebook while Sulu watched, propped beside him on the pillows. Sulu could watch Chekov watching birds for the rest of his life and be perfectly content. It's kind of terrifying, all the time, knowing that he needs Chekov that much.
The alarm runs out its snooze-time allowance and Sulu punches it again. Chekov curls against him gratefully, as if Sulu has just slain a dragon for him.
"We'll get coffee," Sulu says consolingly, scratching his fingers through Chekov's hair. He's actually never seen Chekov consume caffeine, and while he seems almost completely immune to alcohol, Sulu is willing to bet that coffee will affect him pretty profoundly. He grins, imagining Chekov talking so fast over the ship's intercom that Scotty will come shouting back at them, asking Sulu to translate.
"Time to get up," Sulu says, but he doesn't move, and neither does Chekov, and though they'll have their pay docked if they're late - Kirk is a total bastard about punctuality, shockingly - it feels so good to linger, because however time really works, whichever theory is correct, whether it's a loop or a helix or a pointless blinked-away instant, everything actually moving at the speed of light, this moment is worth holding on to, and Sulu lets it stretch out around them, tucking Chekov in close and living inside these irreplaceable seconds for as long as he can.
///
Title: Theoretically
Fandom: Star Trek
Pairing: Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sulu makes Chekov watch the classic American Terminator movies. Chekov has some thoughts.
Notes: Thank you to chlorate for taking the time to beta read this despite being extremely overworked. ;___;
Sulu is dreaming about school. More specifically, he's dreaming about failing, realizing too late that he's forgotten to show up for his Calculus class all semester, and the final is today, and he's completely fucked. Also dressed inappropriately, shirtless. So when Chekov nudges his nose up under Sulu's chin to wake him, he's not especially irritated, maybe even grateful. Still, it can't be 06:00 yet, and he needs his sleep; they've both got a really long shift on the bridge ahead of them. Sulu groans and rolls away, resenting Chekov a little for his seeming lack of any need for rest.
"Hikaru," Chekov whispers in Sulu's ear, his breath so hot. He nibbles at Sulu's earlobe when he doesn't get a response, and Sulu twitches, moaning irritably. Chekov is relentless, as always, and Sulu smiles through his half-sleep when Chekov sits up to rest his chin on Sulu's shoulder.
"Hikaru, I've been thinking," Chekov says, as if Sulu is wide awake and sitting across from him with a cup of tea, waiting to hear what he's been thinking about. "Those movies we watched last night, they make no sense, yeah?"
Sulu grunts noncommittally. Last night they watched the first two Terminator movies, because Chekov is gravely uneducated in the ways of great American cinema, and after about a fifth of Chekov's evil vodka Sulu thought it would be a great idea to order the movies and watch them in bed on Chekov's laptop projector. It was a great idea, actually, because they'd had absolutely raucous sex ten minutes into the first movie - pausing it out of respect, of course - and then slumped naked against each other for the rest of the viewing experience, Sulu drifting in and out of sleep while Chekov poked him and asked him inane but adorable questions.
"Here is what I do not understand," Chekov says. He sounds like a busybody student, standing up in class to correct the professor, and Sulu grins against his pillow, because he can picture it so clearly, the way Chekov must have been in school. It still breaks Sulu's heart that they did not meet while they were at the Academy. He fell in love with Chekov so fast, and he would have felt even more guilty about it if it had started when Chekov was fifteen instead of seventeen, but they're so sure of each other now that every day that they didn't know each other just feels like wasted time.
"If you consider the Novikov self-consistency principle," Chekov says, pronouncing the name of his countryman with special pride, "the conception of John Connor is technically possible, but if you accept Everett's many-worlds interpretation, as I do, then the history created by Kyle Reese's travel to the past must be mutually exclusive, and so how could John Connor ever have previously existed in order to send Kyle Reese back to the past?"
"Pavel," Sulu moans. "What time is it?"
"Time? Oh, I do not know, I have been thinking about this -"
"It's just a movie, Pavel," Sulu says, his eyes still shut against the pillow, Chekov still leaning on him like he's a podium in a lecture hall.
"Just a - how do you mean? I was also thinking about the relativity of simultaneity and how the four dimensionalism of the story, even if it is considered to be consistent within the universe of the first movie, cannot possibly extend to the second because of the destruction of the T-600-"
Sulu laughs into the pillow, both at Chekov in general and at the way he says the number six hundred: seeks hun-dhred. Sulu loves him way too much. So much that he doesn't even want to kill him for waking him up for this just a few hours before the alarm goes off.
"Why are you laughing?" Chekov asks, shoving Sulu a little, so that he feels like he's bouncing inside his own skin, jello-like. "You do not agree?"
"I'm laughing because you're, like, way overestimating James Cameron."
"This is the man who made the movies?"
"Yeah. I think he was more interested in boning Linda Hamilton than carefully researching theoretical physics. Not that, you know. The movies aren't awesome anyway."
"Yes, awesome, okay, but listen, Hikaru, even if you accept that Kyle Reese traveling through time is part of a predestination paradox, you're still not taking into account that, if they're using some kind of Tipler cylinder to travel through time, which given the apocalyptic nature of their future -"
"Pavel," Sulu says, rolling onto his back with a groan. He opens his eyes and sees Chekov staring down at him, looking very concerned, as if the Enterprise will stray off course if he doesn't work all of this out. Sulu reaches up to straighten Pavel's wild hair, which looks like Einstein's when he's fresh from rolling around in bed. "You should always say apocalyptic when we're in bed," Sulu says, his morning wood persisting through this conversation.
"I - what?" Chekov frowns. "Don't make fun." He still has this complex, mostly because of his age, this need to prove himself and be taken seriously. Sulu wants to tell him, so often lately, I am taking you as seriously as I possibly can, I am buying our fucking wedding rings in my head, every day.
"Haven't you ever heard of the temporary suspension of disbelief?" Sulu asks, leaning up onto his elbow. He's so tired, but he loves the way Chekov sinks beneath him automatically, even while he's scowling petulantly.
"Of course I have heard," Chekov says. "It is still interesting to me. Thinking of things more seriously."
"Oh, I know," Sulu says, breathing down into Chekov's mouth as he kisses him, both of them with sleep-stale breath, Chekov sinking down further, melting. Sulu slings a leg over him, climbing fully atop him.
"Hikaru," Chekov says, his breath coming a little faster now, though he's still staring up at Sulu as if he's mostly just annoyed. "You're hard."
"Um, are you surprised?"
Chekov breaks into the biggest grin imaginable, and Sulu quakes above him, blown apart by the sight.
"I think you get hard from me talking about physics," Chekov says, though he knows that Sulu gets hard with much less reason, whenever Chekov is involved. It's more of a proximity thing, though Sulu supposes that part of the reason Chekov sets him off like this is his intelligence, and his tirelessness, and the way he just cares so much about everything, his unending interest in the world. Chekov could be dumb as a stone, and if he still cared this much about time travel, Sulu would love him just the same. As long as he had those eyes, that easy grin, and the curls, the curls are essential. But Sulu can't really imagine doing without any half-particle of Chekov, can't imagine Chekov without the dazed look he gets on his face when he brushes his teeth, staring into the mirror, lost in thought, or the way he puts his palm against his temple when he's stressed out at work, or the way he says oooh instead of ohhh when Sulu is so deep inside him that he loses his mind.
"You're right," Sulu says, sliding down onto Chekov, their naked cocks dragging together. Chekov gasps, just a little, and presses his face against Sulu's neck. "You're right, it's the physics."
"Hikaru," Chekov says softly, twitching up against him in little thrusts that make the room throb around Sulu's ears.
"If you could travel back in time," Sulu says, licking Chekov's ear. "What would you do?"
"Oh, it is such a hard question!" Chekov says, his eyes flying open. "And I have thought about it of course, like anyone. There is the assassination of Ferdinand, would stopping that prevent the Holocaust? Would killing poor Lenin prevent the disasters that followed? Would you have to go so far back as Marx? Would things only be worse without them? So much to consider."
"You're noble," Sulu says, sitting up on his elbows. "You know what I would do?"
"Hikaru, don't tell me you would play the lottery."
"No, not quite. I would find you at the Academy, freshman year. Your freshman year, that is. God, you would be way too young to touch, but I would, I don't know. Sit near you. Make sure no one picked on you. Buy you lunch and stuff."
Chekov's smile is slow, and his eyes light up with it, just as slowly, as if he needs some time to sink into what Sulu is telling him. You, you are the one thing in the world that matters, now and before, in all four dimensions. Maybe he should feel guilty about it, selfish, but he doesn't. Chekov makes him feel like he is changing the world for the better, just by keeping close, though he knows he's only really changing his own world, making it into something brighter than he could have hoped for before he saw Pavel plunk down beside him at the console on the Enterprise.
"Oh, I don't know," Chekov says, his voice soft, his fingers in Sulu's hair. "I think that is noble, too."
"You're biased," Sulu says, leaning down to kiss him, and Chekov laughs into his mouth, his arms circling Sulu's shoulders. Sulu moves down to kiss Chekov's neck, which is so warm and fragrant from sleep; he moans against Chekov's skin. Chekov is whispering his name into the dark room, Hikaru, Hikaru, like it has some secret meaning that Sulu doesn't know.
"Hikaru, it's so sad," Chekov finally says, as Sulu kisses his way down Chekov's chest. Sulu looks up, his chin resting just above Chekov's trembling stomach.
"What's sad?" he asks, already aching to be inside Chekov, even if it means they'll have to go to the bridge without a shower, or breakfast.
"That movie," Chekov says, staring up at the ceiling. "The way the man died and the woman was left without him. Hikaru - I would go through every black hole in the universe until I found you again."
Sulu nods, his cheeks flushing, because he doesn't have a witty retort, or any worthy response at all. He leans up and kisses Chekov, his eyes shut tight, just barely wet at the corners. He will never, never, never figure out what he did to deserve this. It's okay by him, as long as he can keep what has somehow fallen into his lap, Chekov with his adorably stunned expressions and soft skin and inexplicable devotion. As if he should be the one going through black holes, searching. Sulu always imagines that it will be he who ends up on the losing end, though he knows that Chekov worries just as much, because Sulu is the one who goes on missions off ship. Sulu is always anxious while he's away, not for himself, not even if Kirk has gotten them into some diplomatic disaster involving natives wielding six foot spears. He worries that when he gets back to the Enterprise Chekov will have found someone else, someone new and shiny to satisfy his never-ending interest in research and discovery. Every time Sulu steps down from the teleportation platform and finds Chekov waiting for him, trembling for the chance to put his arms around him, he feels like he'll drop through the universe with the unfairness of it, because there's no way he's earned this, but he'll close Chekov into his arms gratefully anyway, trying to remain humble within the awareness of his luck.
"Go on," Sulu says, pushing the words past his choppy breath when he's buried inside Chekov, who is still wet with the come Sulu spent inside him while the movie was paused, its colors glowing onto their skin. "Say something smart, something about physics."
"You need that to - ahh, Hika-ru! - t-to get off?" Chekov stutters out, his eyes barely open as Sulu begins to push into him, so slow he's almost teasing.
"Yeah," Sulu moans, though he's going to get off pretty much no matter what, at this point. It's just that yeah is the only word he knows at the moment.
"Entangled photons," Chekov breathes out, and Sulu laughs, shaking both of them. Chekov beams, and it's just too good, what Sulu has, it's too perfect, he doesn't trust himself with it. "Delayed choice quantum eraser," Chekov whispers, and Sulu laughs harder, his dick pulsing with every jerk of his abs.
"Oh, ghod, I need you harder," Chekov says, grabbing Sulu's ass and morphing into the pushy little devil who shocked the hell out of Sulu the first time they fooled around, Sulu still damp from the rain on an alien planet and Chekov speaking mostly in Russian, because, as he later confessed, he was too shy to say the things he wanted to in English, knowing Sulu would understand. "Harder, Hikaru, please," Chekov begs, his fingernails biting into Sulu's skin.
"You want it hard?" Sulu asks, pausing in mid-thrust so that he can watch Chekov whine and thrash beneath him, the flush of his lingering embarrassment spreading across his pale chest.
"Please," Chekov cries. "Ooh, yes, I need -"
Sulu doesn't let him finish, pulls out and flips him over, Chekov crying out in some combination of approval and protest as he leans up to grip the cheap plastic frame of Sulu's regulation bed. Sulu's breath is coming so hard that he feels like it's someone else's, and he pushes into Chekov without much warning, making him moan with filthy gratitude as he slides back against Sulu's cock.
"Hikaru, Hikaru -" It's the only word Chekov knows when he's getting close, and when Sulu reaches around to grasp Chekov's cock Chekov bucks into his grip like he's completely lost control, liquid movement in Sulu's hand, and under his body.
"Oh - God - how, how bad do you want it?" Sulu asks, trying to hold on, because he doesn't want this to end, the long stretch of the two of them in bed, the talk about movies and this, the thing that makes him feel even more alive than piloting a giant ship through space.
"So badly, so badly," Chekov is murmuring mindlessly, Sulu barely able to comprehend, he's so close to gone. He strokes Chekov's cock, feeling it grow to a familiar bursting point, so tight and hard in his hand, so wet at the tip. Chekov shouts out some mangled form of Sulu's name when he comes, squeezing around Sulu's cock with every pulse of his orgasm, making Sulu forget everything but how to instinctively slam forward into Chekov's opened-up body, until he's growling more than groaning, his own climax ripping out of him like a supernova, the whole room exploding around him. He's barely conscious as he falls forward onto Chekov's sweat-slicked back, and the first thing that reaches him as he comes to is the drag of Chekov's harsh breath, then the smell of Chekov's hair at the back of his neck, then the insane heat of their skin.
Sulu pulls free, Chekov groaning in relief and sorrow, slumping over onto his side, his eyes shut as if he could sleep for weeks. He's shaking with the only exhaustion Sulu has ever glimpsed on him, the post-sex daze, when Chekov is so well-fucked that Sulu wonders if he remembers his own name, though he wouldn't be surprised if Chekov could still somehow recite the properties of any obscure theory about physics he was asked about.
"Every black hole in the universe," Sulu says as he strokes Chekov's sweat-damp hair, hoping Chekov will know what he means, because Sulu still hasn't said anything close to I love you. His parents didn't really raise him to say so out loud and he just doesn't know how he could ever get the words out.
The alarm goes off, blaring through the dark bedroom like the end of the world. Sulu groans and Chekov sort of sobs; Sulu is briefly triumphant, proven right somehow: Chekov needs sleep after all, and now he hasn't had enough.
"There, see," Sulu says, leaning down to lick Chekov's neck, which smells like sex, his skin so hot under Sulu's mouth. "Tonight, no movies after the shift, right to bed."
"Mmm," Chekov says, wrapping his arms around his pillow as Sulu smacks the snooze button. They've got a little time. "But what about part three?"
"Eh, part three sucks."
"And part four?"
"It's okay, I guess," Sulu says, not even sure that he's ever seen it. He settles around Chekov, shutting his eyes against the soft bed of Chekov's curls, pretending that they can sleep for hours, that this is their shore leave and they'll wake up only to have sex again before hunting down food and returning to the bed. Their last shore leave was on a heavily forested planet, and they stayed in a tree house, eating foamy mushroom soup for every meal. Chekov had watched birds through the windows with a little pair of binoculars, and he sketched them in a notebook while Sulu watched, propped beside him on the pillows. Sulu could watch Chekov watching birds for the rest of his life and be perfectly content. It's kind of terrifying, all the time, knowing that he needs Chekov that much.
The alarm runs out its snooze-time allowance and Sulu punches it again. Chekov curls against him gratefully, as if Sulu has just slain a dragon for him.
"We'll get coffee," Sulu says consolingly, scratching his fingers through Chekov's hair. He's actually never seen Chekov consume caffeine, and while he seems almost completely immune to alcohol, Sulu is willing to bet that coffee will affect him pretty profoundly. He grins, imagining Chekov talking so fast over the ship's intercom that Scotty will come shouting back at them, asking Sulu to translate.
"Time to get up," Sulu says, but he doesn't move, and neither does Chekov, and though they'll have their pay docked if they're late - Kirk is a total bastard about punctuality, shockingly - it feels so good to linger, because however time really works, whichever theory is correct, whether it's a loop or a helix or a pointless blinked-away instant, everything actually moving at the speed of light, this moment is worth holding on to, and Sulu lets it stretch out around them, tucking Chekov in close and living inside these irreplaceable seconds for as long as he can.
///