Sulu/Chekov Fic: Space Sickness
Title: Space Sickness
Fandom: Star Trek (new movie)
Pairing: Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Chekov is sick, Sulu is lost on an alien planet, Kirk is a cockblock.
Notes: Thank you so much to chlorate for the beta read! <3
Kirk calls him Kovy or Checkers when he wants to be obnoxious, and once or twice has called him Jailbait, which made everyone in the room uncomfortable. Sulu had to explain why later, because Chekov had never heard the term before. Most of the time Kirk treats Chekov the same way he treats everyone else, as if Chekov is privileged to receive the charity of Kirk's company, but when Chekov gets sick Kirk is suddenly over his shoulder every five seconds, asking him if he needs water.
"You sound like a waiter," McCoy says when he's in the middle of his cursory examination of Chekov, Kirk still hovering and still asking.
"He looks thirsty," Kirk says, shrugging. Kirk had ordered Chekov to go to sick bay after Chekov insisted he was fine for the tenth time, then escorted him there as if he didn't trust him to actually follow through on it. Or maybe he was just afraid Chekov would pass out before he made it off the lift. Chekov blinks heavily as McCoy reaches up under his shirt to move a stethoscope over his back. The cold metal makes Chekov shiver, and Kirk flinches toward him as if he's afraid Chekov is going to begin seizing.
"How long have you felt ill?" McCoy asks, smoothing Chekov's shirt back down. Chekov feels like an idiot, a baby, and he's determined to get back to the bridge and back to work.
"I am not ill, just a little tired," he says.
"Lee-tle," Kirk says with a grin, imitating Chekov. Chekov and McCoy stare at him with annoyance until the smile drains from his face.
"Sorry," Kirk says. "Sometimes I just can't help it."
"Jim," McCoy says with a groan.
"Well, is he okay or what?" Kirk asks, throwing out his hands. "He looks mighty fucking green."
"I can't find anything wrong with him," McCoy says. "Maybe he is just overtired."
"No, no, check again," Kirk says, taking Chekov's chin in his hand and turning his face toward McCoy, causing Chekov's lips to smoosh together like a fish's. "Look at this!" Kirk says, making Chekov blush, because he didn't realize he looked that bad, though it's true that he hasn't felt quite right since he got up this morning. "He's sweating, too," Kirk says, prodding McCoy, who grunts.
"What did you eat for dinner last night?" McCoy asks, narrowing his eyes. Kirk glances at McCoy and then narrows his eyes at Chekov, too, as if he wants to participate in the diagnosis.
"Um," Chekov says. He scratches his head and tries to come up with something. "Like, something from the cafeteria? Roast beef and potatoes?" He actually went to his room without dinner, feeling lethargic and lonely. He usually eats with Sulu, goes back to his room with Sulu, rubs Sulu's back and falls asleep with Sulu curled around him. Sulu has been down on the planet the Enterprise is currently orbiting for a week now, participating in some top secret mission with Spock that Sulu couldn't even tell Chekov about.
"Roast beef and potatoes?" McCoy says. He and Kirk glance at each other suspiciously, then look back to Chekov. "I thought they served lasagna last night."
"Oh, right, right!" Chekov says, nodding furiously. "It was before, the night before was the roast beef. And . . . potatoes," he says, deflating under the gaze of Kirk and McCoy, who obviously don't believe him.
"It was meatloaf the night before," Kirk says smugly, as if this alone proves he was right about Chekov's condition. He elbows McCoy. "You're admitting him, right?"
McCoy sighs and puts his stethoscope around his neck. "I guess so," McCoy says. "Better to be cautious and such."
"No, no!" Chekov says, climbing off the examining table. "I am fine, I am okay, just tired." He really doesn't want to be left alone in the sick bay with nothing but his worries about Sulu. The Enterprise hasn't received a transmission from him or Spock for two days, and there's been talk of sending in an extraction team. Chekov wants to be on that team more than anything, though he knows Kirk and the others would never allow it. Everyone treats him like a fragile child, asking him if he's getting enough to eat and reminding him to take his vitamin D supplements, and now his body is determined to prove that he really is a weakling who needs help with everything, because suddenly he can't even stand, and Kirk and McCoy have to catch him before he can tumble to the floor.
"Whoa, there, Jailbait!" Kirk says as he helps McCoy hoist Chekov back onto the examining table. Chekov feels as if his head is full of helium, and the room is spinning.
"How many ways do we have to ask you not to call him that?" he hears McCoy shouting at Kirk as the room goes dark. When Chekov comes to, Kirk and McCoy are leaning over him, patting his face, both of them talking loudly and at the same time, asking him if he's okay and slapping each other's hands away.
"Give him some room to breathe!" Kirk says, practically flailing at McCoy, who scoffs.
"Who the fuck is the doctor here?" McCoy says, glaring, and Kirk wilts. He looks at Chekov and reaches down to squeeze his hand.
"You're gonna be okay, JB," he says, and Chekov passes out again.
*
When he wakes up, the sick bay seems darker and quieter, as if the lights have been lowered for him in memoriam. He still feels weak and tired but not quite so dizzy anymore. Just moving his head on the pillow makes him groan with the effort, and he sees McCoy rifling through drawers to his left.
"How the fuck are we going through condoms this quickly?" McCoy mutters to himself. He sees Chekov moving out of the corner of his eye, closes the drawer he was looking through and hurries over to Chekov's side.
"You're awake," McCoy says, with his usual air of bombast and authority. He looks down his nose at Chekov, lifts Chekov's wrist and takes his pulse, looking very serious in the low light of the room, so serious that Chekov begins to worry about his condition.
"Have they heard from Spock and Sulu?" Chekov asks. McCoy frowns in surprise and shakes his head.
"Not that I know of," he says. "Sit back, lie down."
"What's wrong with me?" Chekov asks, coughing. He lifts his hand up to wipe the sweat from his forehead and sees that it's shaking badly. He feels disconnected from his body, as if he's floating above it.
"Some type of space sickness," McCoy says, helping Chekov to sit up by propping a pillow behind his back.
"What?"
"This is your first long journey in space, yeah?"
"Yes," Chekov says, feeling embarrassed and too young. He reminds himself that this is Sulu's first long journey in space, too, and the Captain's. Of course, they get to occasionally leave the ship to go on excursions. Chekov has so been looking forward to his first shore leave, which is coming up in a week, on Manus-4, a small planet dotted with islands that is a popular recreational stopover for Federation ships on long missions. He and Sulu were planning on getting a room at a little hotel on one of the quieter beaches, and Chekov was going to try begging Sulu to have sex with him yet again, in the hopes that a change of scenery would produce a different outcome. So far Sulu has refused on 'moral grounds,' and Chekov's eighteenth birthday is still three months away, which might as well be an eternity when they both get hard just from Chekov straddling Sulu's back and rubbing his shoulders.
"Well," McCoy says. "It happens sometimes, on the first journey, this sort of reaction."
"Is it serious?" Chekov asks, wishing more than before that Sulu were here to kiss his sweaty face and calm him down. McCoy leans in closer, frowning.
"Everything about space is dangerous and unpredictable," he says. "Particularly from a medical point of view. I've got people coming on and off this ship from all kinds of screwed up planets that we don't know much about -- can I predict what sort of germs and diseases and parasites they might be bringing back with them? No! Will Jim ever consent to mandatory quarantine after missions? Oh, of course not, that would mean he'd have to forgo his tradition of immediately getting laid after returning to the ship."
McCoy backs off and takes a deep breath, shaking his head. "Sorry," he says, and he pats Chekov's hair. "You're a good kid," he adds, as if that is somehow relevant.
Chekov is at a loss. McCoy has one of his assistants bring up a bowl of ice cream from the cafeteria and she presents it to Chekov, complete with rainbow sprinkles. Chekov stares down at it, aghast. He'll never talk Sulu into having sex with him if the others keep treating him this way, patting him and bringing him sweets, making him feel even younger than he is. He shuts his eyes and prays that he'll even have the chance to be turned down by Sulu again, shuddering. He tells himself that Sulu is fine as he grudgingly digs into the ice cream with his spoon, McCoy watching. Chekov wonders if McCoy has hidden medicine in it, thinking Chekov doesn't know how to swallow a pill. Maybe this is the same reason Sulu won't even let Chekov suck his cock.
*
Uhura is the one who comes to give him the news. Chekov wakes from a thin, uncomfortable sleep when his mattress shifts with her weight. She's sitting on the side of his bed when he opens his eyes, looking at him with such sympathy and concern that he would be humiliated if he weren't too exhausted to manage anything but weak discomfort. He's been in the sick bay for two days now, and he thinks his condition is getting worse, because McCoy has been avoiding his eyes and Kirk has been yelling at McCoy a lot, asking him to do something.
"Hey there," Uhura says, smiling at Chekov and smoothing his damp hair from his forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay," Chekov manages to croak out, a lie. Every breath feels like pushing a boulder up a hill, and he's got a powerful pulse of a headache that persists even through his sleep.
"Good," Uhura says, clearly not believing him. Her determined smile widens, then fades. She picks up Chekov's hand.
"Uhura," Chekov says. "Spock and Sulu -- have they -- are they back on the ship?" He knows that they aren't, because if Sulu was back he would be sitting where Uhura is sitting now, and Chekov would be poured into his arms, not caring about anything but the smell of Sulu's skin and the familiar warmth of his body. Sulu told Chekov early on that it wouldn't be a good idea if they slept in the same bed, too tempting for him, but Chekov isn't above trying to tempt him, and he would give up anything before those nights in bed with Sulu, who rubs his fingers over Chekov's back until he's covered in goosebumps and shivering happily, so flooded with comfort that he almost hates to fall asleep.
Uhura is chewing her lip and squeezing Chekov's hand, and he feels the last of the color drain from his already ghost-white face. Uhura is one of the few people on the ship who knows about Chekov and Sulu; she and Sulu have been friends since the Academy, and after three weeks of meeting after dinner to make out in the engine room, Sulu asked Chekov's permission to tell Uhura about what was going on between them. Chekov had been so happy, not only to learn that Sulu respected him enough to ask, but to find out that he wanted to tell his friends, as if he was actually proud of Chekov, who had been wondering if he would only be Sulu's dirty engine room secret.
"Spock has returned," Uhura says, her voice so soft, as if it matters, the decibel at which the news is delivered. "There were -- complications."
"What -- what?" Chekov asks, trying to sit up and wincing when his headache flares hard behind his temples.
"Just sit back, sweetheart, it's going to be okay," Uhura says, but from the look on her face Chekov can see that things are even worse than he feared. Sulu is lost, alone, maybe -- no, no, he can't be, it's got to be a fever dream. Chekov puts his hands over his face, beginning to hyperventilate.
"Hey!" McCoy shouts across the sick bay. "What are you doing? Upsetting my patient? Kirk told you not to say anything!"
"He has a right to know!" Uhura shouts back, and soon McCoy is upon them, pushing Chekov back onto his pillow and shining a little flashlight into his eyes.
"He's not strong enough to hear about that right now," McCoy says through gritted teeth, and the tears that leak from the corners of Chekov's eyes feel like they're on fire; suddenly he's hot all over.
"Please," he cries, reaching for Uhura as McCoy pulls her away. "Please is he - is he?"
"He and Spock were separated," Uhura says, yanking free of McCoy's grip. "He's probably fine, Pavel, it's just - we don't know where he is, or how to get in touch with him."
"Goddammit, that's enough!" McCoy says, and Uhura is gone when Chekov opens his eyes again. He can barely see straight between his tears and the increasing pound of his headache.
"Hang tight, buddy," McCoy says, and Chekov wishes he had the strength to rant about the nicknames. Buddy, Sweetheart, Kid, Jailbait. He loves that Sulu doesn't have a nickname for him, that he just calls him Pavel, and Sulu's voice, oh God, Chekov loves it so much, the way he manages to sound flippant and reverent at the same time, all the time, the way he says come here when Chekov is undressing for him before bed, trying desperately to seduce him, getting his hopes up when Sulu's eyes go dark with want. But then, when he gets there, even down to his underwear, Sulu only holds him, and it feels so good that Chekov always thinks, Okay, tomorrow, I'll try again, and settles in to sleep.
He lies there crying and thinking of this, the way he used to sink into sleep with Sulu's breath on his shoulder, and of Sulu lost and frightened on an alien planet, maybe wounded. McCoy pumps some sort of sedative into him, still cursing Uhura under his breath. Chekov is glad that she told him about Sulu, because he already knew something was terribly wrong; he's known for days now. Part of it is just the feeling that he's had since Sulu first kissed him, in the lift on the way down from the bridge one night, after a long shift. Chekov had yawned, and when he reopened his eyes, Sulu was staring. Chekov laughed and asked him what? Sulu shook his head, and his cheeks went just faintly pink.
"I - " Sulu said, and then he crossed the small space between them, tipped Chekov's head back with both hands and lowered his shaking breath over Chekov's. Chekov had melted into the kiss, had wanted Sulu's mouth on his since he heard Sulu's voice from the back of his physics classroom when he was fifteen years old. But Chekov knew then, when Sulu pulled back and stroked Chekov's upturned face with his thumbs, that it was the sort of thing that was too good to last.
He just didn't expect it to end this horribly.
*
Chekov drifts in and out of consciousness, trying to fight against the sedatives that are pumping through his system. He hears bits and pieces of sick bay conversations and recognizes the clinical touch of McCoy, the overbearing grip of Kirk's hand on his shoulder and the softer press of Uhura's fingers on his forehead, as if she's taking his temperature. On the morning when he finally manages to fight his eyes all the way open, Spock is the one who is standing beside his bed.
"Are you lucid, Ensign Chekov?" Spock asks. Chekov lifts his hand and drops it back to the mattress.
"Yes," he says, and he hardly recognizes his own voice. The fact that Spock was with Sulu when things went awry on the planet below surfaces slowly in Chekov's foggy memory. He feels as if Spock is watching him remember, knowing this, and imagines that he looks regretful, though, really, Spock looks the same way he always looks.
"Uhura has told me that she informed you about what happened on the mission that Lieutenant Sulu and I --"
"She did not really tell me, sir," Chekov says, some strength returning to his voice. "She only said you were separated."
"Yes, well, the objective of the mission is still classified, so I cannot give you much more detail --"
"Please, just tell me if he's alive," Chekov says, and he would be shouting if he could manage it. Spock swallows a bit heavily, which is barely perceptible, but Chekov has become so tuned in to every nuance of the superior officers' gestures that it's obvious even from his death bed. Spock stands up straighter and folds his arms behind his back.
"Sulu and I were not able to perform our mission as planned," Spock says, and Chekov thinks he can see guilt in his eyes, but maybe it's only Chekov's own guilt, which he always sees reflected in Spock's eyes, since Chekov was unable to save Spock's mother. He thinks now we're even, and it makes him sick to his stomach.
"What happened?" Chekov asks. "Sir," he adds, not wanting Spock to think that he's angry with him, or that he blames Spock for whatever has become of Sulu. He feels deflated, as if he's been emptied of everything, all his tears and shock, everything but this feeling of uselessness that seems to be killing him somehow.
"We exchanged fire with certain parties," Spock says. "We were forced to retreat, and I was not able to locate or communicate with Lieutenant Sulu after I had reached safety. But this is not actually what I came to speak to you about."
Chekov lets out his breath, unable to imagine what else could matter. He shakes his head in exasperation and waits to hear why Spock has come. Spock's forehead is just slightly furrowed, as if Chekov is a spider he's not looking forward to having to kill.
"Uhura has also informed me that you and Lieutenant Sulu enjoy a certain degree of mutual romantic interest," he says, and Chekov actually snorts, because he can't imagine why Spock, of all people, would care.
"Yes, sir," he says, feeling guilty about the snort. "We do."
"I have a particular theory about your illness, in that case," Spock says.
"You do?"
"Yes. You're familiar with the concept of a psychosomatic illness?"
"Um." Maybe he'd know the word in Russian, but the English doesn't mean anything to him.
"When did your symptoms begins?" Spock says, as if he doesn't have time to explain.
"I don't know how many days have passed," Chekov says honestly. He's not sure if he's been in the sick bay for a week or a month. It feels like it's been years.
"Uhura seems to think you became sick on the first day that the Enterprise did not receive a transmission from Lieutenant Sulu or myself."
Chekov opens his mouth to respond to this, and then feels as if he's lost the last of his blood, any remaining warmth draining out of him. Now the crew thinks he's deathly ill just because he's upset about his boyfriend being in peril. He frowns.
"I'm not --" he starts to say, but he's not sure what he's about to deny. He's not so weak and ridiculous that he could become this ill only because he's upset. But it's not as if he's just upset. Sulu could be dead. Chekov's whole body aches at the thought, and he wonders if Spock doesn't have a point.
"Then what is the cure?" Chekov asks, his eyes filling with humiliated tears. "What is the cure if he -- doesn't --"
"You must simply recognize and control your emotions," Spock says. "I know that it is difficult," he concedes when Chekov only stares down at his hands.
"Why --" Chekov starts to say, but then he's got no idea how to continue. McCoy walks into the sick bay and spots Spock standing over Chekov's bed.
"Hey," he says. "What's going on?"
"I was speaking to Ensign Chekov about the possibility that his mysterious illness is simply a powerful bout of depression," Spock says. Chekov wipes at his face, wishing they would both leave. For the first time since he became sick, he would actually prefer the company of Kirk, who at least thinks Chekov is legitimately dying.
"What the hell's he got to be depressed about?" McCoy asks, scowling as if he's disgusted by the idea. Spock glances at Chekov, who hopes that Spock will catch the pleading look in his eyes. He doesn't want McCoy to know about him and Sulu, especially because he would probably pass the news along to Kirk.
"Personal matters," Spock says. McCoy frowns at Chekov.
"What's he talking about?" he asks.
"Exactly what the Ensign is depressed about is not important," Spock says, stepping between McCoy and Chekov.
"And you're an authority on depression?" McCoy says to Spock, laughing at the idea.
Embarrassed, Chekov turns away from them on his bed, toward the wall. They continue to argue, Spock with measured logic and McCoy with an increasing number of curse words. Chekov shuts his eyes tightly and tries to imagine Sulu, lost but safe on the planet below, crouching out of the sight of the Federation's enemies, his heart pounding, hungry and tired but alive, uninjured, and confident as he makes his way back toward the Enterprise. It doesn't help; Chekov still feels like even his organs are sore, as if he's been punched for a week straight, his skin flashing hot one moment and then going cold enough to make him shudder the next. No matter how many times he tries to visualize Sulu returning safely, it does nothing to erase the thought of Sulu never returning, of the universe and the Federation moving on without him, Chekov stuck forever in the horrible limbo he's been in since the Enterprise lost communication with Sulu and Spock.
"You're not helping," McCoy says to Spock.
"I -- am aware of that," Spock says, and Chekov must have drifted into a dream, because Spock sounds so openly regretful.
*
After Spock has informed Chekov that all of his suffering might be only emotional rather than physical, Chekov agonizes over every ache, wondering if he's only imagining things, or if he's just so pathetically in love with Sulu that he's going to be like this for the rest of his life, fainting into the arms of Kirk and McCoy every time Sulu is in danger. He would happily be that pathetic person if only Sulu would come back.
He sleeps, the sickness still clouding through him, moving about like a heavy thunderhead and waking him at moments, when he feels as if there is a vise around his chest and it's squeezing him tighter and tighter. He dreams about Sulu, that he returns to the ship and doesn't want anything to do with Chekov, that he's locked in quarantine and Kirk won't let him out, and that he is sitting on a beach with Chekov, weeks after this ordeal, laughing and kissing Chekov's ear, the world around them nothing but sun and soft breeze. This is by far the cruelest dream, and Chekov wakes from it still hearing Sulu's voice, the memory of it making his chest tighten until he's afraid his ribs will crack.
He tries to fight his slide back into consciousness, wanting to stay in the place where he can hear Sulu's voice, calm and deep and close. Failing to keep himself under, he hears McCoy's voice instead, and recognizes the echo of the sickbay around it.
"Can't figure it out for the life of me," McCoy is saying. Chekov wonders if he'll actually die from his broken heart. It would be an appropriate end for darling Pavel the boy wonder; people would speak of him at his well-attended funeral as adorable and hopeless, too soft for the real world. Chekov wakes wanting to start railing at everyone in the room: I smoked cigarettes with my brothers when I was nine years old, I won the Starfleet Academy marathon when I was sixteen, I could reduce every one of you to blubbering idiots if you tried to keep up with me in even the most casual conversation about theoretical physics, but when he opens his eyes and he sees Sulu sitting on his bed, looking down at him with concern, all of his anger drains away, his headache disappearing like a startled bird.
"Hikaru!" he says, praying he's not hallucinating as he sits up fast, and when his arms wrap around the solid shape of Sulu's shoulders he cries out in relief, burying his face against Sulu's neck. He barely had time to look at Sulu before clinging to him, but he did notice that Sulu has a cut on his face and that his arm is in a sling. Chekov pulls back, shaking as he takes hold of Sulu's face. He thinks of the day Sulu came back to the Enterprise after his fight with the Romulans on Vulcan, the way his cheeks were bruised, and how Chekov had pined for him even more when he was battle worn.
"They told me you were sick," Sulu says, pulling Chekov closer. "Are you alright?" He reaches up to stroke Chekov's cheek the way he did that first time, in the lift, as if Chekov is almost too delicate to touch. Somehow, coming from Sulu, this sort of attitude doesn't bother Chekov at all. He laughs and cries at the same time, shaking horribly with it, and hugs Sulu tightly again.
"Me!" he says. "I thought -- you were --"
"I knew you'd worry," Sulu says, as if this was the worst part of his misadventure. He rubs his fingers up the back of Chekov's neck and into his hair. "But I was fine, I just got a little turned around."
"Ahem," McCoy says, walking over to them. Chekov doesn't take his eyes off of Sulu, even when Sulu turns to McCoy. He can't believe Sulu is real, can't believe he ever was, that he's really lucky enough to be wanted by someone like him.
"Mind if I check his vitals?" McCoy asks, raising an eyebrow.
"My vitals are okay," Chekov says, still staring at Sulu, and it's true, he feels better, halfway cured, though still weak enough that he'd fall backward if Sulu wasn't holding him up.
"Let him check you out," Sulu says softly, and the words shudder all the way down through Chekov to the molten center of him. He grins stupidly, slumping in Sulu's arms.
McCoy examines Chekov while Sulu stands back watching, the sling on his arm somehow making his posture seem even more perfect than it usually does. Chekov wants more than anything to be released from the sick bay and surrendered to the care of Sulu, wants to hole up in his room for days just lying against him in bed, and he wants to get back to the bridge, too, to again sit in the spot where he feels like he fits into the world, finally. But apparently Sulu's return has not miraculously cured him, because McCoy still looks grave and Chekov is having a hard time keeping his eyes open, which is cruel, because he never wants to take them away from Sulu, even when he looks the way he does now, quietly terrified on Chekov's behalf.
"Is he going to be okay?" Sulu asks McCoy as he sets Chekov back against his pillows. The tight feeling in Chekov's chest has returned, and it doesn't make any sense, because Spock said it was his depression that was killing him, and he's so happy now that he can hardly breathe. Or maybe he can hardly breathe anyway.
"He doesn't, he looks --" Sulu says, starting forward, and McCoy is dragging some sort of machine over to the bed.
"I know, I know," he grumbles. "Garrett! Zamer!" he calls, and two assistants come running. Suddenly Chekov's chest is so tight that he feels as if he's breathing through a coffee straw, and though he can still see Sulu, the first slice of real panic strikes through him.
"What's happening?" Sulu asks, and Chekov hates to hear the even tone of his voice go frantic, spoiled by Chekov and his sudden inability to breathe without the mask that McCoy is strapping around his face. "What's wrong with him?"
"Give us some room, Hikaru!" McCoy says, and then there are strange hands on Chekov, not Sulu's, pulling down his blankets and shoving an IV into his arm. He doesn't want to lose consciousness, afraid that when he wakes up Sulu will have disappeared again, sent on some new suicide mission by Kirk.
Still, he can't fight it, doesn't have anything left in him, not even breath, and when he goes under, he goes under hard, the blackness that falls onto him like a dense, massive weight that he'll never be able to climb back over.
*
People come and visit him, and Chekov hears them talking. He's hyper-aware of his surroundings, except that he can't see anything, because he can't get his eyes open, and can't breathe without the machines that are still closed around him. McCoy talks with his assistants about Chekov's condition, which has apparently finally been determined to have been brought on by some type of spore from Lesser Bacchus, a planet the Enterprise orbited several months ago. Kirk was one of the officers who disembarked to Lesser Bacchus, and he shows up at least twice a day to lament about this to McCoy and Sulu, who are almost always in the sick bay.
"It's my fault," Kirk says. "God, what have I done, what was I thinking?"
"Now will you agree to quarantines after excursions?" McCoy asks, and Kirk consents. Sulu says nothing to Kirk or McCoy, and barely even speaks to Uhura. Chekov wishes he would talk more, because nothing comforts him through the thick veil of darkness like Sulu's voice, even if he's only telling McCoy that no, he doesn't want any whiskey. Sometimes, though, he does talk to Chekov, when the others have gone. He'll sit at the head of Chekov's bed and lean in close, stroking his hair and whispering in his ear.
"Pavel," he says one night, and his breath against Chekov's skin is like a dove with an olive branch, a sign that somewhere there is still dry land, a place where he can stand on two feet.
"You have to wake up," Sulu says. There is a shake in his usually even voice, but Chekov loves it anyway, never wants him to stop talking. "We've got our shore leave in three days," Sulu says. "You can't miss that. It'll be your first one. And I, I -- want to do everything with you, I was so stupid, like you're not old enough and smart enough to, to make that decision. Pavel, God, I just want to go back and give you everything, anything you want from me, it's yours, okay, just wake up, alright?"
Chekov tries everything he can to wake up, because he wants to tell Sulu that he's got no reason to feel guilty, that he's already given Chekov everything and it's enough just to know that there will be more someday. But trying everything he can consists only of wanting it very much, because he can't move or open his eyes or make any noise, no matter how hard he wishes that he could.
Time passes; it's hard to tell how much. Chekov wants to weep when he thinks of missing his shore leave, and he knows it's ridiculous, because things are bad and he might miss much more than that. There is talk of new medicine, differing treatments, and everybody weighs in. Sometimes the room is so full that it makes Chekov feel nervous and jumpy, though his body is not capable of jerking with anxiety when so many voices swarm around him. All he really has to look forward to is the quiet of the later hours, when Sulu is alone at his beside, kissing his temple with shaking lips and whispering his name, softer and softer as the hours pass. One night he actually drops to sleep beside Chekov, his head resting against Chekov's on the pillow, arms folded on the mattress, and Chekov counts Sulu's breaths as if every one of them is another pill he can swallow, something that will finally heal him.
The following morning, Sulu and Kirk fight. It starts when Kirk comes in and finds Sulu still asleep beside Chekov.
"Lieutenant," Kirk says sharply, in the voice he usually reserves for bullying negotiations with alien war lords. "You're needed on the bridge."
Chekov listens as Sulu sits up and moans, and he imagines he can hear him rubbing the sleep from his eyes, maybe yawning, the crack of his jaw. He can feel the presence of Kirk beside his bed now, too, though Kirk isn't touching him. He's beginning to recognize the distinct smells of all of his fellow crew members. Kirk's is like aftershave and Cheetos.
"Maybe you should take sick leave," Kirk says as Sulu stands, his hand sliding slowly from Chekov's arm, which he'd held onto in his sleep.
"I'm fine," Sulu says.
"I don't know if you're supposed to be sleeping in the sick bay."
"Well, you're the Captain, sir," Sulu says, and the tone of his voice makes Chekov's heart race. "You make the rules. So am I allowed to or not?"
Chekov prays that Kirk will say yes, but he doesn't answer at all, just sniffs derisively. Chekov can picture both him and Sulu so clearly, staring each other down.
"It's really not right, you being in here at all," Kirk says. "Since you weren't quarantined after you got back. I mean, you were in some pretty deep shit."
"And so were you, I suppose, when you brought this spore on board."
Chekov hears the beep of one of the monitoring machines he's plugged into as his heart rate skyrockets.
"What was that?" Sulu asks.
"Look, I don't need to be confronted with the way I failed this kid," Kirk says. "Don't you think it's already eating me up? Fuck, if Bones can't fix him --"
"McCoy!" Sulu shouts, ignoring Kirk. "Where is he?"
"Huh? Why?"
"This monitor, look at his heart rate. Go find McCoy, something's happening."
"What? You find him!" Somebody grabs Chekov's hand; it's Kirk. "That's an order!" he adds, and Chekov hears the slap of Sulu's boots as he runs across the sick bay. Chekov is annoyed, and he wishes he could pull his hand from Kirk's. And then, somehow, he does.
"Jailbait?" Kirk squawks, and Chekov pries his sticky eyes open, his vision still blurry but clear enough to show him that Kirk is standing before him with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.
"Don't call me that," Chekov tries to say, but it doesn't come out quite right. Suddenly a number of people are running into the room, and Chekov turns his head, which hurts, but it's worth it when he sees that one of them is Sulu.
"The rhymosol supplements must have worked!" McCoy says, putting two fingers against Chekov's neck to check his pulse.
"Is his heart beating too fast?" Sulu asks, and Chekov smiles a little, as much as he can manage.
"It's fine," McCoy says. He steps back, and Chekov's vision clears a bit. He wants to laugh at the way everyone is staring at him, gathered around his bed, even the Captain looking as if he's at a complete loss. Sulu's eyes are wet, and soon Chekov's are, too.
"Ensign, can you say your name for me?" McCoy asks.
Chekov grins, a little more widely this time.
"Jailbait," he says, and only Kirk laughs.
*
On the morning that the shore leave shuttle is scheduled to depart for Manus-4, Chekov is desperately trying to appear stronger than he feels. His recovery has been swift since McCoy determined the correct amount of the supplement that saved him to administer as a cure, but he still feels worn out, and his muscles shake all the time, as if he's been lifting weights in the gym. Still, there is no way he's going to miss his shore leave, so he puts on his healthiest face when McCoy evaluates him on the morning before the shuttle is scheduled to depart. Kirk appears halfway through the exam, and Chekov isn't sure whether this bodes well or terribly for his chances of being granted shore leave. He also isn't sure that the Captain should be allowed to just saunter in to his crew's medical exams when they're half-undressed on McCoy's table, and wonders if he tries it with anyone else. Uhura, maybe, but she'd be able to get rid of him with one cold stare.
"He's asking me if he can go on shore leave," McCoy says when Kirk stands beside him, arms crossed over his chest. They both look at Chekov, narrowing their eyes.
"I'm okay, really!" Chekov says.
"That's what you said last time," McCoy says.
"But I am, this time!" He looks to Kirk. "Keptin," he says pleadingly, hoping he can charm his way off the ship.
"Well, you're underage," Kirk says, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "So you'll have to go with a chaperone."
"Do you think Lieutenant Sulu would be an appropriate chaperone?" Chekov asks, tilting his head and trying to seem as innocent as possible. Kirk snorts.
"I thought you might say that." He grins. "Okay, okay. Just remind Mr. Sulu that you're still a minor, yeah? Catch my drift?"
"No," Chekov says, lying. Playing into the others' desire to view him as naïve and harmless works to his advantage more often than not, he's got to admit.
"There are certain rules," Kirk says. "You know. About underage sex and stuff."
"And the Captain has certainly never disregarded those rules while he's on shore leave," McCoy says, nodding with mock seriousness. Kirk elbows him, keeping his eyes on Chekov.
"May I go?" Chekov asks, as sweetly as possible.
"You're dismissed, Ensign Jailbait," Kirk says, jerking his head toward the sick bay's front doors. "Have fun. And don't eat any spores."
"Isn't there some kind of form Sulu has to sign?" McCoy asks. "Before he takes him off the ship?"
"Huh?" Kirk says. "He's not a library book."
Chekov jogs out of the sick bay; apparently he is stronger than he thought. He runs through the halls, girls in short red dresses gasping and jumping away, and he's got the biggest, most ridiculous smile on his face, because he never would have counted running through the narrow halls of the Enterprise among the things he missed most about being alive, but he did, he missed this so much.
*
Chekov has never been to a beach before, and he's too embarrassed to admit this when he walks out onto the sand outside of the room he and Sulu have rented on Manus-4. Russia isn't exactly known for its beaches, and Chekov's family was not well off enough to take holidays when he was a boy. Some of his classmates went on trips to the beach during breaks in school, but Chekov was always too preoccupied with one extra credit project or another, and anyway, no one ever invited him along. Now he doesn't know quite how to walk on the uneven sand, and he hopes that Sulu won't notice.
"We'll have to get some sunscreen tomorrow," Sulu says when Chekov is sitting between his legs, Sulu's arms wrapped around him, his chest warm against Chekov's back. It's around seven o'clock at night, and the last of the sun is disappearing out over the ocean.
"Sunscreen?" Chekov says. The meaning of the word seems self-evident, but he's never heard it in English before.
"Yeah, so you won't burn," Sulu says, squeezing him and kissing his ear. Chekov grins out at the ocean.
"I dreamed this," he says. "When I was sick."
Sulu stiffens a bit, and the wind from the ocean blows hard across them, pushing Chekov's curls up awkwardly. Sulu leans down to kiss Chekov's shoulder, and he sighs.
"You," Sulu says, and he shakes his head. "I thought -"
"I know," Chekov says. "Me too."
They've been too lucky, all their lives, and they're both waiting for the catch, especially since they found each other. Chekov turns back to kiss Sulu, holding onto his arms as they close tighter around him. The only thing that could take them away from each other would come out of nowhere, from the vast threat of space, or some alien on a hostile planet, or a spore brought on board by Kirk. It should be a comfort, having such security in each other, but it makes everything else so much more terrifying, the whole universe like an invasive species that might disrupt their delicate ecology.
"When I was asleep," Chekov says, his lips moving over Sulu's. "You said you'd give me anything."
Sulu reels backward and looks at him like he's crazy.
"You heard that?" he says.
"Da, I heard everything." Chekov leans onto Sulu's shoulder and looks out at the ocean. "I think you kept me close to the world, speaking to me the way you did. I might have drifted, without that, I might have gone."
"Jesus," Sulu says, burying his face against Chekov's neck. "Don't tell me that."
"Okay," Chekov says, and he smiles up at the pinkish sky. "Okay, sorry."
They go back to the room when the sun is mostly gone, the sky turning dark blue and the stars just beginning to show. They've seen quite enough of the stars, and though both of them have growling stomachs, they fall to the bed as soon as the door is shut, Chekov on his back and Sulu propped precariously above him. The sling has come off of his right arm, but it's still tender, and Chekov can relate, breathless beneath him.
"Are you -?" Sulu says. His heart is pounding hard, Chekov can feel it against his chest, and he wants to calm Sulu down somehow, but his heart is racing, too.
"Yes," Chekov says, nodding furiously, because he didn't even need two words to know exactly what Sulu is asking. The last of the light is sinking to nothing outside, and when Sulu pulls off his shirt Chekov stares up at him in awe, the fading daylight through the windows making Sulu look so regal, too worthy. Chekov whips his own shirt off, and Sulu grins at his enthusiasm.
"I've felt so guilty," Sulu says, unbuttoning his trousers while Chekov scrambles out of his own. "You don't even know, Pavel. The thoughts I've had about you." His face is red just from saying this, and Chekov laughs, scooting back onto the pillows and stretching out, wearing only his underwear now.
"Tell me," Chekov says as Sulu crawls onto him. Sulu kisses his way down Chekov's neck, and lets one hand roam over his chest, down toward the erection that is already straining against Chekov's briefs.
"How about I just show you?" Sulu says, and his voice is so deep that Chekov can feel it in his cock, as if the air has vibrated with it. Sulu brings his hand down between Chekov's legs and Chekov groans brokenly, because they've done at least this much before, and he's afraid he'll come just from the weight of Sulu's hot palm as Sulu cups him possessively. Then Sulu's fingers are moving in quick little rubs under his balls, and he's almost sure that he will.
"Hikaru!" he cries, grabbing Sulu's arms. "Wait," Chekov says, panting. "Wait, wait."
"What's wrong?" Sulu asks, taking his hand away. Chekov whines, missing it already.
"I want to - last," he says.
"Why?" Sulu asks, smirking. "You'll be hard again in like, five seconds."
"Okay," Chekov breathes out, nodding, and Sulu pulls his briefs off, undressing him completely. Then his mouth, his mouth, is around Chekov's cock, and all it takes is one hum, the wet heat of Sulu's mouth vibrating with it, to make Chekov come so hard that the whole room seems to pulse.
"I want to do you," Chekov says as soon as Sulu sits up, wiping his lips. "But." His chest is still shuddering, and he feels so raw and pink beneath Sulu, who is all patience and sweetness, his cock poking Chekov's thigh through the boxers that he is still wearing, for some reason. "But I do not really know how."
"It's not hard," Sulu says, and Chekov grins. He reaches down and pushes his hand into Sulu's boxers, taking hold of him.
"Yes, it is," Chekov says, and Sulu doesn't really appreciate the joke, because he's thrusting slowly into Chekov's fingers and moaning. It's the smallest thing in the back of his throat, but it's enough to get Chekov well on the way to being hard again, particularly in combination with the feeling of Sulu's cock in his hand. Chekov has only ever touched him through his clothes, and even that was hard won. It shouldn't be a surprise that Sulu's erection feels so incredibly hot against Chekov's fingers, but somehow it is. Sulu pushes his boxers off and lowers himself completely onto Chekov, crushing him into the mattress and covering every inch of Chekov's skin with his own. Chekov lets himself be flattened, smiling up at Sulu, who looks like he's been drugged, eyelids heavy and mouth open.
"God, you feel so good," Sulu says, keeping his voice very soft, as if he's afraid to hear himself say so. "Pavel, fuck. I can't even remember what it was like not to want you all the time."
"You have me," Chekov says. He wraps his arms around Sulu's shoulders, which seem massive above him. "All the time."
"Are you sure you want this?" Sulu asks, watching Chekov's face like he's trying to find an indication that Chekov is just doing him a favor.
"Did you not want this when you were seventeen?" Chekov asks. Sulu smirks.
Sulu was right, giving a blow job is not hard, and to Chekov it already feels like second nature to have Sulu's cock in his mouth, to breathe around the thickness of it as his head bobs up and down, until Sulu is pulling him up and crushing his lips against Chekov's.
"I need, um," Sulu says, shaking and stuttering as if he's the one who's never done this.
"Okay," Chekov says, understanding and nodding rapidly. "Okay, yes, okay."
Sulu spreads Chekov back onto the mattress like a blanket, then leans over the side of the bed to fumble for his bag, from which he pulls a tube of lubricant. He pulls a ring of plastic from the cap, and Chekov's heart just falls open when he thinks of Sulu at the convenience store before they left the space station, shopping for Chekov's deflowering, carefully selecting the right product.
"Just try to relax," Sulu says, and Chekov lets his shoulders fall back, trying. Sulu nudges Chekov's legs apart, and Chekov feels uncertain for the first time since he realized that Sulu was finally going to give in to him. Maybe Sulu has been reluctant not only because of Chekov's age but because this is going to hurt very badly, the first time. Sulu leans up to kiss him, and Chekov breathes hard into his mouth, forcing himself to calm down.
"Ready?" Sulu asks, his face so close to Chekov's that their eyelashes almost touch. Chekov nods, though he's not really sure. He's as ready as he'll ever be, he supposes. Sulu slicks his fingers and reaches down between Chekov's legs, his face still hovering over Chekov's. Chekov keeps his eyes on Sulu's, both of them going red-faced when Sulu circles Chekov with one finger.
"Tell me if it hurts," Sulu says, barely getting the words out as his finger presses closer and closer, until it's pressing in. Chekov gasps at the sensation, and Sulu actually jumps, which makes Chekov laugh.
"Don't stop," he says. "I'm not so delicate."
"It's not that I think you're delicate," Sulu says, letting out his breath. "More like. Sacred."
Accordingly, the process of preparing Chekov for sex is excruciatingly slow, and by the time Sulu has two fingers inside him Chekov is begging for his cock. Sulu is flushed and breathing raggedly, and every time Chekov flexes his muscles to squeeze Sulu's fingers Sulu moans as if he can already feel it on his cock.
"Please, Hikaru," Chekov says, writhing against his fingers. "Please, please, I want you so much."
"Yeah," Sulu moans in agreement, seeming hardly coherent as he moves down between Chekov's legs and settles the tip of his cock against his entrance. They both groan tremendously in anticipation, and Chekov nods when Sulu looks up at him as if to ask permission.
Having Sulu inside him after all the teasing preparation feels nothing like the raw intrusion that Chekov had anticipated, not even on the first push. It feels so right, being filled up and stretched, and even the burn is good.
"Fuck," Sulu exhales when he's pushed all the way inside Chekov, leaning up over him with his hands spread on the mattress. Chekov's legs are thrown out around him as lewdly as possible, because he likes the feeling of being completely pulled open.
"Jesus, fuck, Pavel," Sulu says, staring down at him as if he's mesmerized, frozen. "I dreamed about this every night. And you were right there, and I would wake up from these dreams where I'd been fucking you so hard that you squeaked and then there you were, half-naked."
"Hard," Chekov says, the word rolling roughly over his flushed skin. "Yes, okay."
Sulu shakes his head. "You're so - oh, God, you're so tight, I - shit, I won't last long enough to fuck you hard. I think I'm gonna come as soon as I stop talking."
"So don't stop," Chekov says, beginning to relax into the feeling of Sulu pushed so deep inside him. He gives Sulu a squeeze and Sulu lets his head fall back, groaning up at the ceiling with his eyes shut.
"Say filthy things to me," Chekov begs, reaching down to stroke his cock. "I like it when you talk about fucking me hard." He's not even blushing anymore. Sulu snorts and looks down at him, his head still tipped back and his eyelids heavy.
"I want to do it at work sometimes," Sulu says. He's breathing hard, and Chekov can feel it all through his own body, they're so completely connected. "Over the console."
"Yeah," Chekov says, stroking himself faster. One of the few things that Sulu would allow Chekov to do before was jerk off for him, and Chekov loves to watch Sulu watching him.
"And I think about what you would sound like when you're getting fucked," Sulu says. "God, I've thought about it so much. I fucking love your voice."
"My voice?" Chekov has always been self-conscious about the accent and the fact that his voice isn't very deep.
"Yeah. Like the way you say computer, even, all I hear is come, and, Jesus, when I think about you going all high-pitched and screaming out my name and telling me you're gonna come, God, all I want to do is make you feel good Pavel, and see your face when you can't stand how good it feels when I'm fucking you -"
"Okay, okay!" Chekov says, nodding and pulling at Sulu's hips. "Please, now, please, okay?"
Sulu takes Chekov's hand from his cock and replaces it with his own, beginning to roll his hips and pump into him. When he pulls back Chekov cries out in Russian, c'mon, c'mon, fuck me hard with that big cock, because he's too embarrassed to say it in English. Sulu does so anyway, losing his rhythm and holding onto Chekov's spread-apart ankles, and when Chekov comes it pulls Sulu over the edge. Chekov has never appreciated the depth of Sulu's voice more than he does when Sulu moans ohhh as he comes, the word shaking through Chekov's entire body.
They lie together afterward, out of breath and sweating, their noses just barely touching. Chekov is smirking as if he's gotten away with something, and Sulu looks as if he could sleep for three days. Chekov kisses his face, just lightly, treating him as if he is the one who is delicate, who needs time to recover.
"I love the way you breathe through your nose when you're fucking," Chekov says. "You seem so serious, like you are lifting weights, doing reps."
"I love the way you say fucking," Sulu mumbles, and Chekov laughs.
"Hikaru, I'm so hungry," Chekov says, sitting up on his elbow. "Are you falling asleep?"
"No," Sulu says, but his eyes are closed and he's poured around Chekov, holding onto his hip.
"Your poor face," Chekov says, touching the cut on Sulu's cheek that he got while he was on the mission with Spock. It already seems so long ago, and Chekov never again wants to experience anything like the horrible, bottomless dread he felt when Sulu was gone, but he knows that he will. There will be other missions.
"When I got back and they told me you were sick," Sulu says, his eyes still closed and his grip on Chekov's hip tightening. "I felt so horrible. Like you needed me and I wasn't there."
"I did need you," Chekov says. "Everyone else tried to comfort me, and they were so bad at it."
Sulu grins. "Everyone wants to be good at comforting you."
"Well, you are the only one who is. Can we go eat dinner now?"
"Okay, world's shortest attention span," Sulu says, rolling onto his back and grinning. "Give an old man a minute to catch his breath."
They dress and walk down the road from the shabby motel where they're staying to a collection of restaurants that have colored lights strung on their outdoor patios. The island they're staying on has been designed to suit tourists from Earth, and most of the crew of the Enterprise has also chosen to begin their shore leave here before sampling the other islands. Chekov picks a restaurant at random, not really caring what he eats as long as it's not something from the Enterprise cafeteria or being pumped into him through a tube, which was how he did most of his eating during his illness. As he and Sulu are making their way toward the restaurant's crowded bar, Sulu groans.
"Oh, God," he says, tugging on Chekov's arm. "Let's go somewhere else."
"Why?" Chekov asks, and then suddenly Kirk is jogging over to them, and Sulu doesn't need to answer. Chekov spots Uhura and Spock at a table near the wall, both of them looking annoyed, a third chair haphazardly pulled up to the side of the table.
"Hey, the gang's all here!" Kirk says, slapping one hand onto Sulu's shoulder and the other onto Chekov's back, making him stumble forward. "Come sit with us."
"Thanks, but we were just going to have a quick drink," Sulu says.
"Oh, please, Hikaru, I'm so hungry!" Chekov says, not caring if they have to dine with the Captain. There is a basket of bread on Uhura and Spock's table, and Chekov's mouth is watering at the thought of butter.
"See, Jailbait's hungry, we've already got a table, c'mon!" Kirk says, slinging his arm fully around Chekov's shoulders and leading him over to the table. Chekov turns back to give Sulu an apologetic look as he follows. They cram two more chairs against the table and exchange hellos with Uhura and Spock.
"You're looking well," Uhura says, smiling at Chekov.
"Thank you, I am feeling much better," Chekov says. The table is so small that he's practically sitting in the laps of both Sulu and Kirk, who are squeezed around him. "May I have some of that?" he asks, staring at the bread.
"You may," Spock says. "And I wanted to extend an apology to you, Ensign Chekov," he adds as Chekov takes a bite of the bread. "I was incorrect about the origins of your illness."
"It's okay, sir," Chekov says.
"What?" Kirk cries with mock surprise. "You were wrong about something?"
"It happens," Spock says, giving him a withering look.
"What was your theory?" Sulu asks.
"He thought that I was ill because I was worried about you," Chekov says.
"Turns out it was my fault, though, not Sulu's," Kirk says, almost as if he's proud of this. "Jailbait here taught us all a very important lesson about quarantines."
"A policy that Doctor McCoy and I had been suggesting that we adopt for several months," Spock says.
"Yeah, yeah." Kirk stuffs a piece of bread into his mouth. "Where's the fucking waiter?" he asks, speaking with his mouth full. Chekov grins.
"What are you smiling about?" Uhura asks, laughing.
"Nothing," Chekov says. "I am just happy." He glances at Sulu, who is frowning at Kirk as he snaps to get the attention of the waiter. Chekov pats Sulu's leg under the table, feeling like he does when he's at the helm of the Enterprise, surrounded by his friends, Sulu at his side, exactly where he belongs. Sulu shakes his head at Kirk as he orders a bottle of Manusian cactus liquor for the table. He looks at Chekov and smiles back.
"Obviously we need to get Jailbait drunk," Kirk says, clapping his hand on Chekov's shoulder. "There is no drinking age on Manus-4!"
"Yes, brilliant idea, Captain," Sulu says sarcastically. "You're not the one who'll be taking care of him when he's sick all night."
Chekov has to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from laughing, because he's not even sure that Sulu meant to, but he's never heard anyone so successfully put Kirk in his place. Though it is embarrassing, Chekov kind of likes the idea of two men fighting over who will get to take care of him when he's sick, as if it's a privilege, and he's so glad that one of them is Sulu.
//
Fandom: Star Trek (new movie)
Pairing: Sulu/Chekov
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Chekov is sick, Sulu is lost on an alien planet, Kirk is a cockblock.
Notes: Thank you so much to chlorate for the beta read! <3
Kirk calls him Kovy or Checkers when he wants to be obnoxious, and once or twice has called him Jailbait, which made everyone in the room uncomfortable. Sulu had to explain why later, because Chekov had never heard the term before. Most of the time Kirk treats Chekov the same way he treats everyone else, as if Chekov is privileged to receive the charity of Kirk's company, but when Chekov gets sick Kirk is suddenly over his shoulder every five seconds, asking him if he needs water.
"You sound like a waiter," McCoy says when he's in the middle of his cursory examination of Chekov, Kirk still hovering and still asking.
"He looks thirsty," Kirk says, shrugging. Kirk had ordered Chekov to go to sick bay after Chekov insisted he was fine for the tenth time, then escorted him there as if he didn't trust him to actually follow through on it. Or maybe he was just afraid Chekov would pass out before he made it off the lift. Chekov blinks heavily as McCoy reaches up under his shirt to move a stethoscope over his back. The cold metal makes Chekov shiver, and Kirk flinches toward him as if he's afraid Chekov is going to begin seizing.
"How long have you felt ill?" McCoy asks, smoothing Chekov's shirt back down. Chekov feels like an idiot, a baby, and he's determined to get back to the bridge and back to work.
"I am not ill, just a little tired," he says.
"Lee-tle," Kirk says with a grin, imitating Chekov. Chekov and McCoy stare at him with annoyance until the smile drains from his face.
"Sorry," Kirk says. "Sometimes I just can't help it."
"Jim," McCoy says with a groan.
"Well, is he okay or what?" Kirk asks, throwing out his hands. "He looks mighty fucking green."
"I can't find anything wrong with him," McCoy says. "Maybe he is just overtired."
"No, no, check again," Kirk says, taking Chekov's chin in his hand and turning his face toward McCoy, causing Chekov's lips to smoosh together like a fish's. "Look at this!" Kirk says, making Chekov blush, because he didn't realize he looked that bad, though it's true that he hasn't felt quite right since he got up this morning. "He's sweating, too," Kirk says, prodding McCoy, who grunts.
"What did you eat for dinner last night?" McCoy asks, narrowing his eyes. Kirk glances at McCoy and then narrows his eyes at Chekov, too, as if he wants to participate in the diagnosis.
"Um," Chekov says. He scratches his head and tries to come up with something. "Like, something from the cafeteria? Roast beef and potatoes?" He actually went to his room without dinner, feeling lethargic and lonely. He usually eats with Sulu, goes back to his room with Sulu, rubs Sulu's back and falls asleep with Sulu curled around him. Sulu has been down on the planet the Enterprise is currently orbiting for a week now, participating in some top secret mission with Spock that Sulu couldn't even tell Chekov about.
"Roast beef and potatoes?" McCoy says. He and Kirk glance at each other suspiciously, then look back to Chekov. "I thought they served lasagna last night."
"Oh, right, right!" Chekov says, nodding furiously. "It was before, the night before was the roast beef. And . . . potatoes," he says, deflating under the gaze of Kirk and McCoy, who obviously don't believe him.
"It was meatloaf the night before," Kirk says smugly, as if this alone proves he was right about Chekov's condition. He elbows McCoy. "You're admitting him, right?"
McCoy sighs and puts his stethoscope around his neck. "I guess so," McCoy says. "Better to be cautious and such."
"No, no!" Chekov says, climbing off the examining table. "I am fine, I am okay, just tired." He really doesn't want to be left alone in the sick bay with nothing but his worries about Sulu. The Enterprise hasn't received a transmission from him or Spock for two days, and there's been talk of sending in an extraction team. Chekov wants to be on that team more than anything, though he knows Kirk and the others would never allow it. Everyone treats him like a fragile child, asking him if he's getting enough to eat and reminding him to take his vitamin D supplements, and now his body is determined to prove that he really is a weakling who needs help with everything, because suddenly he can't even stand, and Kirk and McCoy have to catch him before he can tumble to the floor.
"Whoa, there, Jailbait!" Kirk says as he helps McCoy hoist Chekov back onto the examining table. Chekov feels as if his head is full of helium, and the room is spinning.
"How many ways do we have to ask you not to call him that?" he hears McCoy shouting at Kirk as the room goes dark. When Chekov comes to, Kirk and McCoy are leaning over him, patting his face, both of them talking loudly and at the same time, asking him if he's okay and slapping each other's hands away.
"Give him some room to breathe!" Kirk says, practically flailing at McCoy, who scoffs.
"Who the fuck is the doctor here?" McCoy says, glaring, and Kirk wilts. He looks at Chekov and reaches down to squeeze his hand.
"You're gonna be okay, JB," he says, and Chekov passes out again.
*
When he wakes up, the sick bay seems darker and quieter, as if the lights have been lowered for him in memoriam. He still feels weak and tired but not quite so dizzy anymore. Just moving his head on the pillow makes him groan with the effort, and he sees McCoy rifling through drawers to his left.
"How the fuck are we going through condoms this quickly?" McCoy mutters to himself. He sees Chekov moving out of the corner of his eye, closes the drawer he was looking through and hurries over to Chekov's side.
"You're awake," McCoy says, with his usual air of bombast and authority. He looks down his nose at Chekov, lifts Chekov's wrist and takes his pulse, looking very serious in the low light of the room, so serious that Chekov begins to worry about his condition.
"Have they heard from Spock and Sulu?" Chekov asks. McCoy frowns in surprise and shakes his head.
"Not that I know of," he says. "Sit back, lie down."
"What's wrong with me?" Chekov asks, coughing. He lifts his hand up to wipe the sweat from his forehead and sees that it's shaking badly. He feels disconnected from his body, as if he's floating above it.
"Some type of space sickness," McCoy says, helping Chekov to sit up by propping a pillow behind his back.
"What?"
"This is your first long journey in space, yeah?"
"Yes," Chekov says, feeling embarrassed and too young. He reminds himself that this is Sulu's first long journey in space, too, and the Captain's. Of course, they get to occasionally leave the ship to go on excursions. Chekov has so been looking forward to his first shore leave, which is coming up in a week, on Manus-4, a small planet dotted with islands that is a popular recreational stopover for Federation ships on long missions. He and Sulu were planning on getting a room at a little hotel on one of the quieter beaches, and Chekov was going to try begging Sulu to have sex with him yet again, in the hopes that a change of scenery would produce a different outcome. So far Sulu has refused on 'moral grounds,' and Chekov's eighteenth birthday is still three months away, which might as well be an eternity when they both get hard just from Chekov straddling Sulu's back and rubbing his shoulders.
"Well," McCoy says. "It happens sometimes, on the first journey, this sort of reaction."
"Is it serious?" Chekov asks, wishing more than before that Sulu were here to kiss his sweaty face and calm him down. McCoy leans in closer, frowning.
"Everything about space is dangerous and unpredictable," he says. "Particularly from a medical point of view. I've got people coming on and off this ship from all kinds of screwed up planets that we don't know much about -- can I predict what sort of germs and diseases and parasites they might be bringing back with them? No! Will Jim ever consent to mandatory quarantine after missions? Oh, of course not, that would mean he'd have to forgo his tradition of immediately getting laid after returning to the ship."
McCoy backs off and takes a deep breath, shaking his head. "Sorry," he says, and he pats Chekov's hair. "You're a good kid," he adds, as if that is somehow relevant.
Chekov is at a loss. McCoy has one of his assistants bring up a bowl of ice cream from the cafeteria and she presents it to Chekov, complete with rainbow sprinkles. Chekov stares down at it, aghast. He'll never talk Sulu into having sex with him if the others keep treating him this way, patting him and bringing him sweets, making him feel even younger than he is. He shuts his eyes and prays that he'll even have the chance to be turned down by Sulu again, shuddering. He tells himself that Sulu is fine as he grudgingly digs into the ice cream with his spoon, McCoy watching. Chekov wonders if McCoy has hidden medicine in it, thinking Chekov doesn't know how to swallow a pill. Maybe this is the same reason Sulu won't even let Chekov suck his cock.
*
Uhura is the one who comes to give him the news. Chekov wakes from a thin, uncomfortable sleep when his mattress shifts with her weight. She's sitting on the side of his bed when he opens his eyes, looking at him with such sympathy and concern that he would be humiliated if he weren't too exhausted to manage anything but weak discomfort. He's been in the sick bay for two days now, and he thinks his condition is getting worse, because McCoy has been avoiding his eyes and Kirk has been yelling at McCoy a lot, asking him to do something.
"Hey there," Uhura says, smiling at Chekov and smoothing his damp hair from his forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay," Chekov manages to croak out, a lie. Every breath feels like pushing a boulder up a hill, and he's got a powerful pulse of a headache that persists even through his sleep.
"Good," Uhura says, clearly not believing him. Her determined smile widens, then fades. She picks up Chekov's hand.
"Uhura," Chekov says. "Spock and Sulu -- have they -- are they back on the ship?" He knows that they aren't, because if Sulu was back he would be sitting where Uhura is sitting now, and Chekov would be poured into his arms, not caring about anything but the smell of Sulu's skin and the familiar warmth of his body. Sulu told Chekov early on that it wouldn't be a good idea if they slept in the same bed, too tempting for him, but Chekov isn't above trying to tempt him, and he would give up anything before those nights in bed with Sulu, who rubs his fingers over Chekov's back until he's covered in goosebumps and shivering happily, so flooded with comfort that he almost hates to fall asleep.
Uhura is chewing her lip and squeezing Chekov's hand, and he feels the last of the color drain from his already ghost-white face. Uhura is one of the few people on the ship who knows about Chekov and Sulu; she and Sulu have been friends since the Academy, and after three weeks of meeting after dinner to make out in the engine room, Sulu asked Chekov's permission to tell Uhura about what was going on between them. Chekov had been so happy, not only to learn that Sulu respected him enough to ask, but to find out that he wanted to tell his friends, as if he was actually proud of Chekov, who had been wondering if he would only be Sulu's dirty engine room secret.
"Spock has returned," Uhura says, her voice so soft, as if it matters, the decibel at which the news is delivered. "There were -- complications."
"What -- what?" Chekov asks, trying to sit up and wincing when his headache flares hard behind his temples.
"Just sit back, sweetheart, it's going to be okay," Uhura says, but from the look on her face Chekov can see that things are even worse than he feared. Sulu is lost, alone, maybe -- no, no, he can't be, it's got to be a fever dream. Chekov puts his hands over his face, beginning to hyperventilate.
"Hey!" McCoy shouts across the sick bay. "What are you doing? Upsetting my patient? Kirk told you not to say anything!"
"He has a right to know!" Uhura shouts back, and soon McCoy is upon them, pushing Chekov back onto his pillow and shining a little flashlight into his eyes.
"He's not strong enough to hear about that right now," McCoy says through gritted teeth, and the tears that leak from the corners of Chekov's eyes feel like they're on fire; suddenly he's hot all over.
"Please," he cries, reaching for Uhura as McCoy pulls her away. "Please is he - is he?"
"He and Spock were separated," Uhura says, yanking free of McCoy's grip. "He's probably fine, Pavel, it's just - we don't know where he is, or how to get in touch with him."
"Goddammit, that's enough!" McCoy says, and Uhura is gone when Chekov opens his eyes again. He can barely see straight between his tears and the increasing pound of his headache.
"Hang tight, buddy," McCoy says, and Chekov wishes he had the strength to rant about the nicknames. Buddy, Sweetheart, Kid, Jailbait. He loves that Sulu doesn't have a nickname for him, that he just calls him Pavel, and Sulu's voice, oh God, Chekov loves it so much, the way he manages to sound flippant and reverent at the same time, all the time, the way he says come here when Chekov is undressing for him before bed, trying desperately to seduce him, getting his hopes up when Sulu's eyes go dark with want. But then, when he gets there, even down to his underwear, Sulu only holds him, and it feels so good that Chekov always thinks, Okay, tomorrow, I'll try again, and settles in to sleep.
He lies there crying and thinking of this, the way he used to sink into sleep with Sulu's breath on his shoulder, and of Sulu lost and frightened on an alien planet, maybe wounded. McCoy pumps some sort of sedative into him, still cursing Uhura under his breath. Chekov is glad that she told him about Sulu, because he already knew something was terribly wrong; he's known for days now. Part of it is just the feeling that he's had since Sulu first kissed him, in the lift on the way down from the bridge one night, after a long shift. Chekov had yawned, and when he reopened his eyes, Sulu was staring. Chekov laughed and asked him what? Sulu shook his head, and his cheeks went just faintly pink.
"I - " Sulu said, and then he crossed the small space between them, tipped Chekov's head back with both hands and lowered his shaking breath over Chekov's. Chekov had melted into the kiss, had wanted Sulu's mouth on his since he heard Sulu's voice from the back of his physics classroom when he was fifteen years old. But Chekov knew then, when Sulu pulled back and stroked Chekov's upturned face with his thumbs, that it was the sort of thing that was too good to last.
He just didn't expect it to end this horribly.
*
Chekov drifts in and out of consciousness, trying to fight against the sedatives that are pumping through his system. He hears bits and pieces of sick bay conversations and recognizes the clinical touch of McCoy, the overbearing grip of Kirk's hand on his shoulder and the softer press of Uhura's fingers on his forehead, as if she's taking his temperature. On the morning when he finally manages to fight his eyes all the way open, Spock is the one who is standing beside his bed.
"Are you lucid, Ensign Chekov?" Spock asks. Chekov lifts his hand and drops it back to the mattress.
"Yes," he says, and he hardly recognizes his own voice. The fact that Spock was with Sulu when things went awry on the planet below surfaces slowly in Chekov's foggy memory. He feels as if Spock is watching him remember, knowing this, and imagines that he looks regretful, though, really, Spock looks the same way he always looks.
"Uhura has told me that she informed you about what happened on the mission that Lieutenant Sulu and I --"
"She did not really tell me, sir," Chekov says, some strength returning to his voice. "She only said you were separated."
"Yes, well, the objective of the mission is still classified, so I cannot give you much more detail --"
"Please, just tell me if he's alive," Chekov says, and he would be shouting if he could manage it. Spock swallows a bit heavily, which is barely perceptible, but Chekov has become so tuned in to every nuance of the superior officers' gestures that it's obvious even from his death bed. Spock stands up straighter and folds his arms behind his back.
"Sulu and I were not able to perform our mission as planned," Spock says, and Chekov thinks he can see guilt in his eyes, but maybe it's only Chekov's own guilt, which he always sees reflected in Spock's eyes, since Chekov was unable to save Spock's mother. He thinks now we're even, and it makes him sick to his stomach.
"What happened?" Chekov asks. "Sir," he adds, not wanting Spock to think that he's angry with him, or that he blames Spock for whatever has become of Sulu. He feels deflated, as if he's been emptied of everything, all his tears and shock, everything but this feeling of uselessness that seems to be killing him somehow.
"We exchanged fire with certain parties," Spock says. "We were forced to retreat, and I was not able to locate or communicate with Lieutenant Sulu after I had reached safety. But this is not actually what I came to speak to you about."
Chekov lets out his breath, unable to imagine what else could matter. He shakes his head in exasperation and waits to hear why Spock has come. Spock's forehead is just slightly furrowed, as if Chekov is a spider he's not looking forward to having to kill.
"Uhura has also informed me that you and Lieutenant Sulu enjoy a certain degree of mutual romantic interest," he says, and Chekov actually snorts, because he can't imagine why Spock, of all people, would care.
"Yes, sir," he says, feeling guilty about the snort. "We do."
"I have a particular theory about your illness, in that case," Spock says.
"You do?"
"Yes. You're familiar with the concept of a psychosomatic illness?"
"Um." Maybe he'd know the word in Russian, but the English doesn't mean anything to him.
"When did your symptoms begins?" Spock says, as if he doesn't have time to explain.
"I don't know how many days have passed," Chekov says honestly. He's not sure if he's been in the sick bay for a week or a month. It feels like it's been years.
"Uhura seems to think you became sick on the first day that the Enterprise did not receive a transmission from Lieutenant Sulu or myself."
Chekov opens his mouth to respond to this, and then feels as if he's lost the last of his blood, any remaining warmth draining out of him. Now the crew thinks he's deathly ill just because he's upset about his boyfriend being in peril. He frowns.
"I'm not --" he starts to say, but he's not sure what he's about to deny. He's not so weak and ridiculous that he could become this ill only because he's upset. But it's not as if he's just upset. Sulu could be dead. Chekov's whole body aches at the thought, and he wonders if Spock doesn't have a point.
"Then what is the cure?" Chekov asks, his eyes filling with humiliated tears. "What is the cure if he -- doesn't --"
"You must simply recognize and control your emotions," Spock says. "I know that it is difficult," he concedes when Chekov only stares down at his hands.
"Why --" Chekov starts to say, but then he's got no idea how to continue. McCoy walks into the sick bay and spots Spock standing over Chekov's bed.
"Hey," he says. "What's going on?"
"I was speaking to Ensign Chekov about the possibility that his mysterious illness is simply a powerful bout of depression," Spock says. Chekov wipes at his face, wishing they would both leave. For the first time since he became sick, he would actually prefer the company of Kirk, who at least thinks Chekov is legitimately dying.
"What the hell's he got to be depressed about?" McCoy asks, scowling as if he's disgusted by the idea. Spock glances at Chekov, who hopes that Spock will catch the pleading look in his eyes. He doesn't want McCoy to know about him and Sulu, especially because he would probably pass the news along to Kirk.
"Personal matters," Spock says. McCoy frowns at Chekov.
"What's he talking about?" he asks.
"Exactly what the Ensign is depressed about is not important," Spock says, stepping between McCoy and Chekov.
"And you're an authority on depression?" McCoy says to Spock, laughing at the idea.
Embarrassed, Chekov turns away from them on his bed, toward the wall. They continue to argue, Spock with measured logic and McCoy with an increasing number of curse words. Chekov shuts his eyes tightly and tries to imagine Sulu, lost but safe on the planet below, crouching out of the sight of the Federation's enemies, his heart pounding, hungry and tired but alive, uninjured, and confident as he makes his way back toward the Enterprise. It doesn't help; Chekov still feels like even his organs are sore, as if he's been punched for a week straight, his skin flashing hot one moment and then going cold enough to make him shudder the next. No matter how many times he tries to visualize Sulu returning safely, it does nothing to erase the thought of Sulu never returning, of the universe and the Federation moving on without him, Chekov stuck forever in the horrible limbo he's been in since the Enterprise lost communication with Sulu and Spock.
"You're not helping," McCoy says to Spock.
"I -- am aware of that," Spock says, and Chekov must have drifted into a dream, because Spock sounds so openly regretful.
*
After Spock has informed Chekov that all of his suffering might be only emotional rather than physical, Chekov agonizes over every ache, wondering if he's only imagining things, or if he's just so pathetically in love with Sulu that he's going to be like this for the rest of his life, fainting into the arms of Kirk and McCoy every time Sulu is in danger. He would happily be that pathetic person if only Sulu would come back.
He sleeps, the sickness still clouding through him, moving about like a heavy thunderhead and waking him at moments, when he feels as if there is a vise around his chest and it's squeezing him tighter and tighter. He dreams about Sulu, that he returns to the ship and doesn't want anything to do with Chekov, that he's locked in quarantine and Kirk won't let him out, and that he is sitting on a beach with Chekov, weeks after this ordeal, laughing and kissing Chekov's ear, the world around them nothing but sun and soft breeze. This is by far the cruelest dream, and Chekov wakes from it still hearing Sulu's voice, the memory of it making his chest tighten until he's afraid his ribs will crack.
He tries to fight his slide back into consciousness, wanting to stay in the place where he can hear Sulu's voice, calm and deep and close. Failing to keep himself under, he hears McCoy's voice instead, and recognizes the echo of the sickbay around it.
"Can't figure it out for the life of me," McCoy is saying. Chekov wonders if he'll actually die from his broken heart. It would be an appropriate end for darling Pavel the boy wonder; people would speak of him at his well-attended funeral as adorable and hopeless, too soft for the real world. Chekov wakes wanting to start railing at everyone in the room: I smoked cigarettes with my brothers when I was nine years old, I won the Starfleet Academy marathon when I was sixteen, I could reduce every one of you to blubbering idiots if you tried to keep up with me in even the most casual conversation about theoretical physics, but when he opens his eyes and he sees Sulu sitting on his bed, looking down at him with concern, all of his anger drains away, his headache disappearing like a startled bird.
"Hikaru!" he says, praying he's not hallucinating as he sits up fast, and when his arms wrap around the solid shape of Sulu's shoulders he cries out in relief, burying his face against Sulu's neck. He barely had time to look at Sulu before clinging to him, but he did notice that Sulu has a cut on his face and that his arm is in a sling. Chekov pulls back, shaking as he takes hold of Sulu's face. He thinks of the day Sulu came back to the Enterprise after his fight with the Romulans on Vulcan, the way his cheeks were bruised, and how Chekov had pined for him even more when he was battle worn.
"They told me you were sick," Sulu says, pulling Chekov closer. "Are you alright?" He reaches up to stroke Chekov's cheek the way he did that first time, in the lift, as if Chekov is almost too delicate to touch. Somehow, coming from Sulu, this sort of attitude doesn't bother Chekov at all. He laughs and cries at the same time, shaking horribly with it, and hugs Sulu tightly again.
"Me!" he says. "I thought -- you were --"
"I knew you'd worry," Sulu says, as if this was the worst part of his misadventure. He rubs his fingers up the back of Chekov's neck and into his hair. "But I was fine, I just got a little turned around."
"Ahem," McCoy says, walking over to them. Chekov doesn't take his eyes off of Sulu, even when Sulu turns to McCoy. He can't believe Sulu is real, can't believe he ever was, that he's really lucky enough to be wanted by someone like him.
"Mind if I check his vitals?" McCoy asks, raising an eyebrow.
"My vitals are okay," Chekov says, still staring at Sulu, and it's true, he feels better, halfway cured, though still weak enough that he'd fall backward if Sulu wasn't holding him up.
"Let him check you out," Sulu says softly, and the words shudder all the way down through Chekov to the molten center of him. He grins stupidly, slumping in Sulu's arms.
McCoy examines Chekov while Sulu stands back watching, the sling on his arm somehow making his posture seem even more perfect than it usually does. Chekov wants more than anything to be released from the sick bay and surrendered to the care of Sulu, wants to hole up in his room for days just lying against him in bed, and he wants to get back to the bridge, too, to again sit in the spot where he feels like he fits into the world, finally. But apparently Sulu's return has not miraculously cured him, because McCoy still looks grave and Chekov is having a hard time keeping his eyes open, which is cruel, because he never wants to take them away from Sulu, even when he looks the way he does now, quietly terrified on Chekov's behalf.
"Is he going to be okay?" Sulu asks McCoy as he sets Chekov back against his pillows. The tight feeling in Chekov's chest has returned, and it doesn't make any sense, because Spock said it was his depression that was killing him, and he's so happy now that he can hardly breathe. Or maybe he can hardly breathe anyway.
"He doesn't, he looks --" Sulu says, starting forward, and McCoy is dragging some sort of machine over to the bed.
"I know, I know," he grumbles. "Garrett! Zamer!" he calls, and two assistants come running. Suddenly Chekov's chest is so tight that he feels as if he's breathing through a coffee straw, and though he can still see Sulu, the first slice of real panic strikes through him.
"What's happening?" Sulu asks, and Chekov hates to hear the even tone of his voice go frantic, spoiled by Chekov and his sudden inability to breathe without the mask that McCoy is strapping around his face. "What's wrong with him?"
"Give us some room, Hikaru!" McCoy says, and then there are strange hands on Chekov, not Sulu's, pulling down his blankets and shoving an IV into his arm. He doesn't want to lose consciousness, afraid that when he wakes up Sulu will have disappeared again, sent on some new suicide mission by Kirk.
Still, he can't fight it, doesn't have anything left in him, not even breath, and when he goes under, he goes under hard, the blackness that falls onto him like a dense, massive weight that he'll never be able to climb back over.
*
People come and visit him, and Chekov hears them talking. He's hyper-aware of his surroundings, except that he can't see anything, because he can't get his eyes open, and can't breathe without the machines that are still closed around him. McCoy talks with his assistants about Chekov's condition, which has apparently finally been determined to have been brought on by some type of spore from Lesser Bacchus, a planet the Enterprise orbited several months ago. Kirk was one of the officers who disembarked to Lesser Bacchus, and he shows up at least twice a day to lament about this to McCoy and Sulu, who are almost always in the sick bay.
"It's my fault," Kirk says. "God, what have I done, what was I thinking?"
"Now will you agree to quarantines after excursions?" McCoy asks, and Kirk consents. Sulu says nothing to Kirk or McCoy, and barely even speaks to Uhura. Chekov wishes he would talk more, because nothing comforts him through the thick veil of darkness like Sulu's voice, even if he's only telling McCoy that no, he doesn't want any whiskey. Sometimes, though, he does talk to Chekov, when the others have gone. He'll sit at the head of Chekov's bed and lean in close, stroking his hair and whispering in his ear.
"Pavel," he says one night, and his breath against Chekov's skin is like a dove with an olive branch, a sign that somewhere there is still dry land, a place where he can stand on two feet.
"You have to wake up," Sulu says. There is a shake in his usually even voice, but Chekov loves it anyway, never wants him to stop talking. "We've got our shore leave in three days," Sulu says. "You can't miss that. It'll be your first one. And I, I -- want to do everything with you, I was so stupid, like you're not old enough and smart enough to, to make that decision. Pavel, God, I just want to go back and give you everything, anything you want from me, it's yours, okay, just wake up, alright?"
Chekov tries everything he can to wake up, because he wants to tell Sulu that he's got no reason to feel guilty, that he's already given Chekov everything and it's enough just to know that there will be more someday. But trying everything he can consists only of wanting it very much, because he can't move or open his eyes or make any noise, no matter how hard he wishes that he could.
Time passes; it's hard to tell how much. Chekov wants to weep when he thinks of missing his shore leave, and he knows it's ridiculous, because things are bad and he might miss much more than that. There is talk of new medicine, differing treatments, and everybody weighs in. Sometimes the room is so full that it makes Chekov feel nervous and jumpy, though his body is not capable of jerking with anxiety when so many voices swarm around him. All he really has to look forward to is the quiet of the later hours, when Sulu is alone at his beside, kissing his temple with shaking lips and whispering his name, softer and softer as the hours pass. One night he actually drops to sleep beside Chekov, his head resting against Chekov's on the pillow, arms folded on the mattress, and Chekov counts Sulu's breaths as if every one of them is another pill he can swallow, something that will finally heal him.
The following morning, Sulu and Kirk fight. It starts when Kirk comes in and finds Sulu still asleep beside Chekov.
"Lieutenant," Kirk says sharply, in the voice he usually reserves for bullying negotiations with alien war lords. "You're needed on the bridge."
Chekov listens as Sulu sits up and moans, and he imagines he can hear him rubbing the sleep from his eyes, maybe yawning, the crack of his jaw. He can feel the presence of Kirk beside his bed now, too, though Kirk isn't touching him. He's beginning to recognize the distinct smells of all of his fellow crew members. Kirk's is like aftershave and Cheetos.
"Maybe you should take sick leave," Kirk says as Sulu stands, his hand sliding slowly from Chekov's arm, which he'd held onto in his sleep.
"I'm fine," Sulu says.
"I don't know if you're supposed to be sleeping in the sick bay."
"Well, you're the Captain, sir," Sulu says, and the tone of his voice makes Chekov's heart race. "You make the rules. So am I allowed to or not?"
Chekov prays that Kirk will say yes, but he doesn't answer at all, just sniffs derisively. Chekov can picture both him and Sulu so clearly, staring each other down.
"It's really not right, you being in here at all," Kirk says. "Since you weren't quarantined after you got back. I mean, you were in some pretty deep shit."
"And so were you, I suppose, when you brought this spore on board."
Chekov hears the beep of one of the monitoring machines he's plugged into as his heart rate skyrockets.
"What was that?" Sulu asks.
"Look, I don't need to be confronted with the way I failed this kid," Kirk says. "Don't you think it's already eating me up? Fuck, if Bones can't fix him --"
"McCoy!" Sulu shouts, ignoring Kirk. "Where is he?"
"Huh? Why?"
"This monitor, look at his heart rate. Go find McCoy, something's happening."
"What? You find him!" Somebody grabs Chekov's hand; it's Kirk. "That's an order!" he adds, and Chekov hears the slap of Sulu's boots as he runs across the sick bay. Chekov is annoyed, and he wishes he could pull his hand from Kirk's. And then, somehow, he does.
"Jailbait?" Kirk squawks, and Chekov pries his sticky eyes open, his vision still blurry but clear enough to show him that Kirk is standing before him with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.
"Don't call me that," Chekov tries to say, but it doesn't come out quite right. Suddenly a number of people are running into the room, and Chekov turns his head, which hurts, but it's worth it when he sees that one of them is Sulu.
"The rhymosol supplements must have worked!" McCoy says, putting two fingers against Chekov's neck to check his pulse.
"Is his heart beating too fast?" Sulu asks, and Chekov smiles a little, as much as he can manage.
"It's fine," McCoy says. He steps back, and Chekov's vision clears a bit. He wants to laugh at the way everyone is staring at him, gathered around his bed, even the Captain looking as if he's at a complete loss. Sulu's eyes are wet, and soon Chekov's are, too.
"Ensign, can you say your name for me?" McCoy asks.
Chekov grins, a little more widely this time.
"Jailbait," he says, and only Kirk laughs.
*
On the morning that the shore leave shuttle is scheduled to depart for Manus-4, Chekov is desperately trying to appear stronger than he feels. His recovery has been swift since McCoy determined the correct amount of the supplement that saved him to administer as a cure, but he still feels worn out, and his muscles shake all the time, as if he's been lifting weights in the gym. Still, there is no way he's going to miss his shore leave, so he puts on his healthiest face when McCoy evaluates him on the morning before the shuttle is scheduled to depart. Kirk appears halfway through the exam, and Chekov isn't sure whether this bodes well or terribly for his chances of being granted shore leave. He also isn't sure that the Captain should be allowed to just saunter in to his crew's medical exams when they're half-undressed on McCoy's table, and wonders if he tries it with anyone else. Uhura, maybe, but she'd be able to get rid of him with one cold stare.
"He's asking me if he can go on shore leave," McCoy says when Kirk stands beside him, arms crossed over his chest. They both look at Chekov, narrowing their eyes.
"I'm okay, really!" Chekov says.
"That's what you said last time," McCoy says.
"But I am, this time!" He looks to Kirk. "Keptin," he says pleadingly, hoping he can charm his way off the ship.
"Well, you're underage," Kirk says, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "So you'll have to go with a chaperone."
"Do you think Lieutenant Sulu would be an appropriate chaperone?" Chekov asks, tilting his head and trying to seem as innocent as possible. Kirk snorts.
"I thought you might say that." He grins. "Okay, okay. Just remind Mr. Sulu that you're still a minor, yeah? Catch my drift?"
"No," Chekov says, lying. Playing into the others' desire to view him as naïve and harmless works to his advantage more often than not, he's got to admit.
"There are certain rules," Kirk says. "You know. About underage sex and stuff."
"And the Captain has certainly never disregarded those rules while he's on shore leave," McCoy says, nodding with mock seriousness. Kirk elbows him, keeping his eyes on Chekov.
"May I go?" Chekov asks, as sweetly as possible.
"You're dismissed, Ensign Jailbait," Kirk says, jerking his head toward the sick bay's front doors. "Have fun. And don't eat any spores."
"Isn't there some kind of form Sulu has to sign?" McCoy asks. "Before he takes him off the ship?"
"Huh?" Kirk says. "He's not a library book."
Chekov jogs out of the sick bay; apparently he is stronger than he thought. He runs through the halls, girls in short red dresses gasping and jumping away, and he's got the biggest, most ridiculous smile on his face, because he never would have counted running through the narrow halls of the Enterprise among the things he missed most about being alive, but he did, he missed this so much.
*
Chekov has never been to a beach before, and he's too embarrassed to admit this when he walks out onto the sand outside of the room he and Sulu have rented on Manus-4. Russia isn't exactly known for its beaches, and Chekov's family was not well off enough to take holidays when he was a boy. Some of his classmates went on trips to the beach during breaks in school, but Chekov was always too preoccupied with one extra credit project or another, and anyway, no one ever invited him along. Now he doesn't know quite how to walk on the uneven sand, and he hopes that Sulu won't notice.
"We'll have to get some sunscreen tomorrow," Sulu says when Chekov is sitting between his legs, Sulu's arms wrapped around him, his chest warm against Chekov's back. It's around seven o'clock at night, and the last of the sun is disappearing out over the ocean.
"Sunscreen?" Chekov says. The meaning of the word seems self-evident, but he's never heard it in English before.
"Yeah, so you won't burn," Sulu says, squeezing him and kissing his ear. Chekov grins out at the ocean.
"I dreamed this," he says. "When I was sick."
Sulu stiffens a bit, and the wind from the ocean blows hard across them, pushing Chekov's curls up awkwardly. Sulu leans down to kiss Chekov's shoulder, and he sighs.
"You," Sulu says, and he shakes his head. "I thought -"
"I know," Chekov says. "Me too."
They've been too lucky, all their lives, and they're both waiting for the catch, especially since they found each other. Chekov turns back to kiss Sulu, holding onto his arms as they close tighter around him. The only thing that could take them away from each other would come out of nowhere, from the vast threat of space, or some alien on a hostile planet, or a spore brought on board by Kirk. It should be a comfort, having such security in each other, but it makes everything else so much more terrifying, the whole universe like an invasive species that might disrupt their delicate ecology.
"When I was asleep," Chekov says, his lips moving over Sulu's. "You said you'd give me anything."
Sulu reels backward and looks at him like he's crazy.
"You heard that?" he says.
"Da, I heard everything." Chekov leans onto Sulu's shoulder and looks out at the ocean. "I think you kept me close to the world, speaking to me the way you did. I might have drifted, without that, I might have gone."
"Jesus," Sulu says, burying his face against Chekov's neck. "Don't tell me that."
"Okay," Chekov says, and he smiles up at the pinkish sky. "Okay, sorry."
They go back to the room when the sun is mostly gone, the sky turning dark blue and the stars just beginning to show. They've seen quite enough of the stars, and though both of them have growling stomachs, they fall to the bed as soon as the door is shut, Chekov on his back and Sulu propped precariously above him. The sling has come off of his right arm, but it's still tender, and Chekov can relate, breathless beneath him.
"Are you -?" Sulu says. His heart is pounding hard, Chekov can feel it against his chest, and he wants to calm Sulu down somehow, but his heart is racing, too.
"Yes," Chekov says, nodding furiously, because he didn't even need two words to know exactly what Sulu is asking. The last of the light is sinking to nothing outside, and when Sulu pulls off his shirt Chekov stares up at him in awe, the fading daylight through the windows making Sulu look so regal, too worthy. Chekov whips his own shirt off, and Sulu grins at his enthusiasm.
"I've felt so guilty," Sulu says, unbuttoning his trousers while Chekov scrambles out of his own. "You don't even know, Pavel. The thoughts I've had about you." His face is red just from saying this, and Chekov laughs, scooting back onto the pillows and stretching out, wearing only his underwear now.
"Tell me," Chekov says as Sulu crawls onto him. Sulu kisses his way down Chekov's neck, and lets one hand roam over his chest, down toward the erection that is already straining against Chekov's briefs.
"How about I just show you?" Sulu says, and his voice is so deep that Chekov can feel it in his cock, as if the air has vibrated with it. Sulu brings his hand down between Chekov's legs and Chekov groans brokenly, because they've done at least this much before, and he's afraid he'll come just from the weight of Sulu's hot palm as Sulu cups him possessively. Then Sulu's fingers are moving in quick little rubs under his balls, and he's almost sure that he will.
"Hikaru!" he cries, grabbing Sulu's arms. "Wait," Chekov says, panting. "Wait, wait."
"What's wrong?" Sulu asks, taking his hand away. Chekov whines, missing it already.
"I want to - last," he says.
"Why?" Sulu asks, smirking. "You'll be hard again in like, five seconds."
"Okay," Chekov breathes out, nodding, and Sulu pulls his briefs off, undressing him completely. Then his mouth, his mouth, is around Chekov's cock, and all it takes is one hum, the wet heat of Sulu's mouth vibrating with it, to make Chekov come so hard that the whole room seems to pulse.
"I want to do you," Chekov says as soon as Sulu sits up, wiping his lips. "But." His chest is still shuddering, and he feels so raw and pink beneath Sulu, who is all patience and sweetness, his cock poking Chekov's thigh through the boxers that he is still wearing, for some reason. "But I do not really know how."
"It's not hard," Sulu says, and Chekov grins. He reaches down and pushes his hand into Sulu's boxers, taking hold of him.
"Yes, it is," Chekov says, and Sulu doesn't really appreciate the joke, because he's thrusting slowly into Chekov's fingers and moaning. It's the smallest thing in the back of his throat, but it's enough to get Chekov well on the way to being hard again, particularly in combination with the feeling of Sulu's cock in his hand. Chekov has only ever touched him through his clothes, and even that was hard won. It shouldn't be a surprise that Sulu's erection feels so incredibly hot against Chekov's fingers, but somehow it is. Sulu pushes his boxers off and lowers himself completely onto Chekov, crushing him into the mattress and covering every inch of Chekov's skin with his own. Chekov lets himself be flattened, smiling up at Sulu, who looks like he's been drugged, eyelids heavy and mouth open.
"God, you feel so good," Sulu says, keeping his voice very soft, as if he's afraid to hear himself say so. "Pavel, fuck. I can't even remember what it was like not to want you all the time."
"You have me," Chekov says. He wraps his arms around Sulu's shoulders, which seem massive above him. "All the time."
"Are you sure you want this?" Sulu asks, watching Chekov's face like he's trying to find an indication that Chekov is just doing him a favor.
"Did you not want this when you were seventeen?" Chekov asks. Sulu smirks.
Sulu was right, giving a blow job is not hard, and to Chekov it already feels like second nature to have Sulu's cock in his mouth, to breathe around the thickness of it as his head bobs up and down, until Sulu is pulling him up and crushing his lips against Chekov's.
"I need, um," Sulu says, shaking and stuttering as if he's the one who's never done this.
"Okay," Chekov says, understanding and nodding rapidly. "Okay, yes, okay."
Sulu spreads Chekov back onto the mattress like a blanket, then leans over the side of the bed to fumble for his bag, from which he pulls a tube of lubricant. He pulls a ring of plastic from the cap, and Chekov's heart just falls open when he thinks of Sulu at the convenience store before they left the space station, shopping for Chekov's deflowering, carefully selecting the right product.
"Just try to relax," Sulu says, and Chekov lets his shoulders fall back, trying. Sulu nudges Chekov's legs apart, and Chekov feels uncertain for the first time since he realized that Sulu was finally going to give in to him. Maybe Sulu has been reluctant not only because of Chekov's age but because this is going to hurt very badly, the first time. Sulu leans up to kiss him, and Chekov breathes hard into his mouth, forcing himself to calm down.
"Ready?" Sulu asks, his face so close to Chekov's that their eyelashes almost touch. Chekov nods, though he's not really sure. He's as ready as he'll ever be, he supposes. Sulu slicks his fingers and reaches down between Chekov's legs, his face still hovering over Chekov's. Chekov keeps his eyes on Sulu's, both of them going red-faced when Sulu circles Chekov with one finger.
"Tell me if it hurts," Sulu says, barely getting the words out as his finger presses closer and closer, until it's pressing in. Chekov gasps at the sensation, and Sulu actually jumps, which makes Chekov laugh.
"Don't stop," he says. "I'm not so delicate."
"It's not that I think you're delicate," Sulu says, letting out his breath. "More like. Sacred."
Accordingly, the process of preparing Chekov for sex is excruciatingly slow, and by the time Sulu has two fingers inside him Chekov is begging for his cock. Sulu is flushed and breathing raggedly, and every time Chekov flexes his muscles to squeeze Sulu's fingers Sulu moans as if he can already feel it on his cock.
"Please, Hikaru," Chekov says, writhing against his fingers. "Please, please, I want you so much."
"Yeah," Sulu moans in agreement, seeming hardly coherent as he moves down between Chekov's legs and settles the tip of his cock against his entrance. They both groan tremendously in anticipation, and Chekov nods when Sulu looks up at him as if to ask permission.
Having Sulu inside him after all the teasing preparation feels nothing like the raw intrusion that Chekov had anticipated, not even on the first push. It feels so right, being filled up and stretched, and even the burn is good.
"Fuck," Sulu exhales when he's pushed all the way inside Chekov, leaning up over him with his hands spread on the mattress. Chekov's legs are thrown out around him as lewdly as possible, because he likes the feeling of being completely pulled open.
"Jesus, fuck, Pavel," Sulu says, staring down at him as if he's mesmerized, frozen. "I dreamed about this every night. And you were right there, and I would wake up from these dreams where I'd been fucking you so hard that you squeaked and then there you were, half-naked."
"Hard," Chekov says, the word rolling roughly over his flushed skin. "Yes, okay."
Sulu shakes his head. "You're so - oh, God, you're so tight, I - shit, I won't last long enough to fuck you hard. I think I'm gonna come as soon as I stop talking."
"So don't stop," Chekov says, beginning to relax into the feeling of Sulu pushed so deep inside him. He gives Sulu a squeeze and Sulu lets his head fall back, groaning up at the ceiling with his eyes shut.
"Say filthy things to me," Chekov begs, reaching down to stroke his cock. "I like it when you talk about fucking me hard." He's not even blushing anymore. Sulu snorts and looks down at him, his head still tipped back and his eyelids heavy.
"I want to do it at work sometimes," Sulu says. He's breathing hard, and Chekov can feel it all through his own body, they're so completely connected. "Over the console."
"Yeah," Chekov says, stroking himself faster. One of the few things that Sulu would allow Chekov to do before was jerk off for him, and Chekov loves to watch Sulu watching him.
"And I think about what you would sound like when you're getting fucked," Sulu says. "God, I've thought about it so much. I fucking love your voice."
"My voice?" Chekov has always been self-conscious about the accent and the fact that his voice isn't very deep.
"Yeah. Like the way you say computer, even, all I hear is come, and, Jesus, when I think about you going all high-pitched and screaming out my name and telling me you're gonna come, God, all I want to do is make you feel good Pavel, and see your face when you can't stand how good it feels when I'm fucking you -"
"Okay, okay!" Chekov says, nodding and pulling at Sulu's hips. "Please, now, please, okay?"
Sulu takes Chekov's hand from his cock and replaces it with his own, beginning to roll his hips and pump into him. When he pulls back Chekov cries out in Russian, c'mon, c'mon, fuck me hard with that big cock, because he's too embarrassed to say it in English. Sulu does so anyway, losing his rhythm and holding onto Chekov's spread-apart ankles, and when Chekov comes it pulls Sulu over the edge. Chekov has never appreciated the depth of Sulu's voice more than he does when Sulu moans ohhh as he comes, the word shaking through Chekov's entire body.
They lie together afterward, out of breath and sweating, their noses just barely touching. Chekov is smirking as if he's gotten away with something, and Sulu looks as if he could sleep for three days. Chekov kisses his face, just lightly, treating him as if he is the one who is delicate, who needs time to recover.
"I love the way you breathe through your nose when you're fucking," Chekov says. "You seem so serious, like you are lifting weights, doing reps."
"I love the way you say fucking," Sulu mumbles, and Chekov laughs.
"Hikaru, I'm so hungry," Chekov says, sitting up on his elbow. "Are you falling asleep?"
"No," Sulu says, but his eyes are closed and he's poured around Chekov, holding onto his hip.
"Your poor face," Chekov says, touching the cut on Sulu's cheek that he got while he was on the mission with Spock. It already seems so long ago, and Chekov never again wants to experience anything like the horrible, bottomless dread he felt when Sulu was gone, but he knows that he will. There will be other missions.
"When I got back and they told me you were sick," Sulu says, his eyes still closed and his grip on Chekov's hip tightening. "I felt so horrible. Like you needed me and I wasn't there."
"I did need you," Chekov says. "Everyone else tried to comfort me, and they were so bad at it."
Sulu grins. "Everyone wants to be good at comforting you."
"Well, you are the only one who is. Can we go eat dinner now?"
"Okay, world's shortest attention span," Sulu says, rolling onto his back and grinning. "Give an old man a minute to catch his breath."
They dress and walk down the road from the shabby motel where they're staying to a collection of restaurants that have colored lights strung on their outdoor patios. The island they're staying on has been designed to suit tourists from Earth, and most of the crew of the Enterprise has also chosen to begin their shore leave here before sampling the other islands. Chekov picks a restaurant at random, not really caring what he eats as long as it's not something from the Enterprise cafeteria or being pumped into him through a tube, which was how he did most of his eating during his illness. As he and Sulu are making their way toward the restaurant's crowded bar, Sulu groans.
"Oh, God," he says, tugging on Chekov's arm. "Let's go somewhere else."
"Why?" Chekov asks, and then suddenly Kirk is jogging over to them, and Sulu doesn't need to answer. Chekov spots Uhura and Spock at a table near the wall, both of them looking annoyed, a third chair haphazardly pulled up to the side of the table.
"Hey, the gang's all here!" Kirk says, slapping one hand onto Sulu's shoulder and the other onto Chekov's back, making him stumble forward. "Come sit with us."
"Thanks, but we were just going to have a quick drink," Sulu says.
"Oh, please, Hikaru, I'm so hungry!" Chekov says, not caring if they have to dine with the Captain. There is a basket of bread on Uhura and Spock's table, and Chekov's mouth is watering at the thought of butter.
"See, Jailbait's hungry, we've already got a table, c'mon!" Kirk says, slinging his arm fully around Chekov's shoulders and leading him over to the table. Chekov turns back to give Sulu an apologetic look as he follows. They cram two more chairs against the table and exchange hellos with Uhura and Spock.
"You're looking well," Uhura says, smiling at Chekov.
"Thank you, I am feeling much better," Chekov says. The table is so small that he's practically sitting in the laps of both Sulu and Kirk, who are squeezed around him. "May I have some of that?" he asks, staring at the bread.
"You may," Spock says. "And I wanted to extend an apology to you, Ensign Chekov," he adds as Chekov takes a bite of the bread. "I was incorrect about the origins of your illness."
"It's okay, sir," Chekov says.
"What?" Kirk cries with mock surprise. "You were wrong about something?"
"It happens," Spock says, giving him a withering look.
"What was your theory?" Sulu asks.
"He thought that I was ill because I was worried about you," Chekov says.
"Turns out it was my fault, though, not Sulu's," Kirk says, almost as if he's proud of this. "Jailbait here taught us all a very important lesson about quarantines."
"A policy that Doctor McCoy and I had been suggesting that we adopt for several months," Spock says.
"Yeah, yeah." Kirk stuffs a piece of bread into his mouth. "Where's the fucking waiter?" he asks, speaking with his mouth full. Chekov grins.
"What are you smiling about?" Uhura asks, laughing.
"Nothing," Chekov says. "I am just happy." He glances at Sulu, who is frowning at Kirk as he snaps to get the attention of the waiter. Chekov pats Sulu's leg under the table, feeling like he does when he's at the helm of the Enterprise, surrounded by his friends, Sulu at his side, exactly where he belongs. Sulu shakes his head at Kirk as he orders a bottle of Manusian cactus liquor for the table. He looks at Chekov and smiles back.
"Obviously we need to get Jailbait drunk," Kirk says, clapping his hand on Chekov's shoulder. "There is no drinking age on Manus-4!"
"Yes, brilliant idea, Captain," Sulu says sarcastically. "You're not the one who'll be taking care of him when he's sick all night."
Chekov has to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from laughing, because he's not even sure that Sulu meant to, but he's never heard anyone so successfully put Kirk in his place. Though it is embarrassing, Chekov kind of likes the idea of two men fighting over who will get to take care of him when he's sick, as if it's a privilege, and he's so glad that one of them is Sulu.
//