Chekov/Sulu, another another HSAU
Is anyone in this fandom in to Inglourious Basterds fanfiction? Donny/Utevich is calling to me in a big way.
In other news, HSAU is like a strong drug for me:| I promise I have actual semi-canonical fic almost ready!
Title: The Warmest Part of the Winter
Pairing: Chekov/Sulu
Summary: High School AU (my third in a month??): Hikaru, the boy with the motorcycle, won't stop bothering Pavel, the boy with the glasses. Pavel's entirely annoyed until an incident at Jim Kirk's house changes his mind for the better
Word Count: 6,867
Rating: NC-17, I suppose
Other: Underageness, perhaps overuse of semi-colons
“Stop looking at your feet; people will think you’re a farmer looking out for shit,” Pavel mumbles to himself, though he could have said it through a megaphone for all anyone would understand it, the phrase being Russian and everyone within a hundred miles decidedly Californian and non-Russian-speaking.
Gaila’s absent today, and without his only friend Pavel is left to walk home alone, counting his steps and the cracks in the concrete, murmuring crap his grandmother would say if she could see him, staring at his shoes. Shit, It doesn’t matter if he avoids eye contact; his grandmother is on the other side of the world and he’s alone.
He missed Gaila all day, the only girl in the whole school friendless and friendly enough to stick to his side since he moved here from Yekaterinburg in the fall. He even misses her bitching about Jim Kirk, the guy she’s been sleeping with for at least a month but who won’t own up to their relationship in public. Pavel isn’t surprised at his cruelty; Jim is popular and friends with everyone, Gaila lives in a trailer park and hasn’t had any female friends since her hips and bust exploded with puberty, too picturesque for even her ill-fitting clothes to hide.
So Pavel tries to keep his steps measured to twice per block of concrete and hops awkwardly to adjust his rhythm, trying not to think about going home to his duplex where the family on the other side can’t shut up for even an hour to let him finish his homework. He starts kicking pebbles and sticks, getting frustrated like he does so often anymore, when Sulu pulls up.
Pavel thinks Hikaru Sulu’s motorcycle is probably the cheesiest thing he’s ever seen, so he can’t explain the stupid thrill that dances around his spine whenever he hears the purr of the engine. He’s admired it before, with the pretense of scoffing at it with Gaila-across from the parking lot, watching Hikaru and Jim and all of their laughing compatriots gather after school has ended. It’s not that their group is so very impenetrable; Pavel’s talked to many of Hikaru’s friends for bits of time before, and approaching them wouldn’t be out of the question, but they still seem so monolithic, standing in their little circle, laughing so easily like somewhere they’re hiding perfect, detailed instructions to life and no one else will ever have them.
The fact of Hikaru’s occasional friendliness doesn’t keep Pavel from spying to his left and right, looking for friends of Hikaru’s who might be in on the joke. Then he takes off his sunglasses and asks loud over the engines:
“Hey, Russki. Where you headed?”
Pavel squints in to the sun over his glasses, ugly evidence of his parents’ minimal health insurance, and declines to answer. It may be that he’s lost his words.
“C’mon, you live around here, right?” he smiles and Pavel’s angry at how handsome it is before he’s simply turned on. Hikaru motions for the back seat, and says, so friendly, “Let me give you a ride.” Pavel notes the complete lack of helmets anywhere.
“No, that’s fine,” Pavel says, continuing to walk, avoiding eye contact.
Hikaru is unperturbed. “Are you sure, Pav?”
“Pav?” Pavel turns, quirking a brow. Hikaru hasn’t stopped smiling, even looks encouraged.
“Yeah! That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Pavel says, “though no one calls me that.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”
Pavel doesn’t even respond, so irritated with Hikaru’s persistence that he just slips his headphones back on and waits for the vibration in the air that means Hikaru has gone.
“I think it’s ridiculous the lengths you’ll go to just to deny that a boy might like you,” Gaila’s saying on the phone; they’ve been discussing Hikaru Sulu’s weird invitation for the past fifteen minutes while Pavel stares at a model of the solar system he made in the third grade. Gaila’s talking in her bathroom again; he can tell from the slight echo of her voice, and the fact that she always talks in the bathroom to avoid her extended family milling around outside.
“I think it’s ridiculous how you skipped class today just to go around sucking Jim Kirk’s penis,” Pavel says, twirling the paper mache sun, remembering how perturbed he was at eight years old that no one else’s planets were as perfectly proportioned as his.
“Shut up, Pasha, I like him,” Gaila says this at least once a day, now, to the point that Pavel’s started to subconsciously associate that indignant sound in her voice with the feeling of his family’s cordless phone pressed to his face. “Besides, he’s the only guy I see who doesn’t care about the other guys I see. I think I love him.”
Pavel rolls his eyes. “You love everyone. I think you should stick with girls,” he insists. “None of them want to steal you from all of my classes.”
“I think you just want everyone to be as gay as you are,” Gaila says, and there’s a bang like a knock on the door. “Shit, that’s my dad.”
“Oh, fuck. Do you think Hikaru knows? Is he just… y’know, because I’m so obvious?”
“Please, Pavel, there’s a ton of guys way twinkier than you. I have to go, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, bye,” Pavel says, hearing Gaila yelling at someone before hanging up. He feels kind of lost. He knows it’s stupid to think, but he kind of considers Gaila an authority on men, or really, on other people in general, because she gets around so much more than he does. Her lack of insight is strangely disappointing.
Gaila and Pavel walk together from school every day, but eventually there’s a crossroads. They chat together for five minutes or so but then have to split off where Pavel turns in to his neighborhood of potholes and illegally rented out basements and Gaila has to keep walking. For some reason, Sulu keeps showing up right after Pavel turns.
“How long is the walk from here to your house, anyway?” he asks one day, close enough to the sidewalk that Pavel can feel the heat of the engine.
Pavel shrugs; he doesn’t have his headphones, or anyway, it would be inconvenient to fish them out now. Hikaru seems to have perfected his timing. “Half a mile, I guess,” he says.
“Isn’t there a bus stop?”
Pavel rolls his eyes, “Fuck the bus.”
And Hikaru laughs, and offers him a ride, again, but Pavel keeps refusing. He doesn’t want to be indebted; he doesn’t want to get so close that Hikaru Sulu could turn around and embarrass him.
“You know I’m not gonna give up,” Hikaru says, shaking his head. He’s smiling; Pavel’s not.
“Whatever,” he says, and Hikaru speeds off, still chuckling.
But it’s not “whatever”. Hikaru bothers Pavel a great deal, and sometimes he chastises himself for not telling Hikaru to just take a long walk off a short pier. The problem is: Hikaru’s really hot. He’s more than hot, he’s gorgeous. He makes Pavel weak in the knees, kind of literally when he’s walking home, thinking of Hikaru on that bike, begging to give him a ride. He’s smart too; Pavel’s seen the class roster and heard Hikaru talk with friends, and knowing this only makes the whole situation worse, because Hikaru always seems so genuine and Pavel knows he can’t possibly be.
Because Pavel’s not stupid. He knows guys with motorcycles their parents bought for them don’t just decide one day to take on charity cases, don’t just decide to play nice. The only guy Pavel knows like that is fucking his best friend in the backseat of his Chevy every couple of days, and Jim Kirk’s slumming it just for the cheap thrill; Pavel knows it. If Hikaru thinks Pavel’s just going to drop his pants for a kind word, he’s out of his mind. Pavel will never get naked in the back of a goddamned Chevy, especially not for anyone’s conceited, giggling pleasure, especially not for Hikaru Sulu.
Pavel ends up in Jim Kirk’s house, anyway.
It’s been a few weeks since Hikaru Sulu started stalking him, and he has no idea what he’s even doing here. Gaila’s the one who invited him to this crappy party, but she’s not around-is probably off somewhere with Jim-and Pavel doesn’t know anyone else. He feels small and insignificant, miserable. Gaila assured him that there were tons of people who said they’d like Pavel to be there, but he’s quickly realizing that the only attraction he provides is as the village freak; no one talks to him except for asking if he’s got enough to drink, and he keeps catching half-drunk classmates in clusters making sideways glances at him, laughing behind their hands.
Pavel feels hot; there’s a pressure behind his eyes that won’t go away and he’s sickened with how bored he is even as his mind is racing, wondering if he should sit, where to stand, if he should just go home and spend all night on the computer. Sulu might be here. The thought keeps reoccurring to him every few minutes, and he hopes desperately they won’t run in to each other, while wondering constantly what will happen if they do, running scenarios through his head.
“Hey.” The voice startles him and the first thing he sees when he stumbles backward is teeth.
“Jim?” he half-yells, truly surprised. “What are you doing here?”
Jim snorts. “It’s my house.”
Pavel shakes his head out; the lighting must be getting to him. “Where’s Gaila?”
“Gaila?” Jim smiles, like he’s got some inside joke that Pavel will never be privy to, “She’s, y’know, having fun. You aren’t, though.”
Pavel shakes his head in answer, though he’s kind of shocked Jim’s being so up front, and that Jim is like, talking to him at all. He has other friends. Well, he has friends, period. Pavel’s just kind of floating around; he’s like the party sea monkey, purposeless. He sips his drink, though he knows he shouldn’t; he tends to really gulp things down when he’s nervous and doesn’t know what to say.
Jim offers him another drink, all in the name of being a good host, and Pavel takes it with remarkable ease. He should be wary; he’s never really been drunk before-Gaila jokes about his high Russian tolerance but he’s really a lightweight. He just tends to lie to her about how much he’s had so she won’t push him and call him a loser. He doesn’t like Gaila when she’s drunk. He doesn’t like Kirk either, not really, but he’s smiling so stupidly, so wide, reassuring Pavel with every blink of his eyes that this is exactly what he’s supposed to be doing-drinking is in the script and everything will go according to plan if he just takes this cup. Pavel notices beer is better tasting the more he has of it, anyway, and he feels nice, like there’s a lot he could say, to everyone, and all he has to do is say it.
Jim is talking to him as he feeds Pavel cup after can, and he’s being incredibly nice, not that Pavel’s ever given him a chance before. It gets to the point that Pavel can’t remember anything he’s said thirty seconds before, but they’re both laughing, so it’s not like he cares.
He hardly even notices when Hikaru shows up, but he’s so glad when he does. He’d been dreading it all night but now that he sees him, really sees him, he doesn’t know what he was upset about. Hikaru’s wearing a flannel shirt, standing next to the couch Jim and Pavel are sitting on, and Pavel’s never seen him in a flannel. He looks so relaxed, except for his face, which looks kind of angry, but he’s looking at Jim, he’s angry at Jim, so Pavel doesn’t care. He wants to be drunk around Hikaru; he wants it really badly. However annoying Pavel pretends he is in the daytime, Hikaru’s so cute, and so smart, and Pavel feels unburdened and like he could talk forever, if he could only look at something without his head swimming around on him.
Jim turns and laughs at him, and looking back to Hikaru, “He’s fine, see!” but Hikaru still looks a little pissed and Pavel’s kind of tired. His head drops on Jim’s shoulder, and he knows if he were sober he’d be mortified, but now Jim’s shoulder feels amazing; he could sleep here. His teeth are numb. His whole face is numb.
It’s ruined when Jim laughs, and when Pavel shoots up and opens his eyes. He forgot how sensitive his head was, his vision, and his stomach pitches with irritation. Jim’s still laughing at him, only now it’s not so pleasant, it’s annoying as hell. He wants to get up and walk away but he knows he can’t, which only makes him more mad, kind of humiliated.
“Woah, easy,” Hikaru’s suddenly at his side, which annoys Pavel to no end, because Hikaru was over there, what’s he doing over here? Pavel suddenly thinks Jim must’ve been getting him drunk on purpose. As Hikaru’s talking in his face, Pavel thinks Jim must’ve been handing him alcohol just so Hikaru could get his pants off somewhere, could take pictures of his helpless body and tell the whole school what a slut and a fag he is. Even as the anger is steaming between his ears, Pavel’s ashamed of how much he wants Hikaru too, now, how much he’s always wanted Hikaru, even before, when the sound of his voice was just a fantasy. It’s worse now. Why couldn’t Hikaru have stayed away? Why couldn’t he have left Pavel the fuck alone?
Hikaru is touching the side of Pavel’s face now, and even if Hikaru’s a jerk, even if Pavel is humiliated at the thought, he wants Hikaru inside him more than anything. His rage flares up at the thought and he can’t stand himself; he has to leave; he has to go.
When he stands up, Hikaru tries to stop him, but he shoves himself aside, running in to the coffee table and not caring.
“Hey! Pav!”
“Don’t call me that!” he yells, or at least he thinks he does. He hasn’t spoken in a while; he kind of forgot how to do it.
That and walking. His center of gravity is all over the place as he heads toward the back door, the sliding glass one that’s open to the outside. Jim has a big house. He’s so rich; Pavel’s so poor. Pavel’s vaguely aware of Hikaru walking behind him, calling his name, his fake name, his short name that Hikaru conjured up for him, the one that Pavel is pissed at him for because no one else fucking gives him nicknames, why should Hikaru?
He thinks for a little bit trying to walk down the porch steps: He walked through the woods separating the two suburbs to get here; he can get back just as easily. He can walk through Jim’s back yard, through the trees, back to his shitty neighborhood. Hopefully he won’t get mugged. He’s got nothing anyway. He’s halfway through the band of trees when Hikaru finally catches up to him.
“Pavel!” he yells, and it’s loud.
“What?” Pavel says, and wishes he didn’t. He hates his mouth right now; anything that comes out of it is damnation.
“You’re drunk,” Hikaru says, touching his shoulders, propping him against a tree when Pavel starts to stumble. Pavel couldn’t be more grateful; the sudden steadiness and the cold night air make him feel less sick.
Pavel’s head is lolling back and he can’t stop it. “So what?” he asks.
Hikaru sighs and Pavel holds his hands up. They’re tingling, at the tips. There’s a hot shot in Pavel’s stomach and suddenly there’s a surge of salt and saliva in his mouth, and he’s thrown up before; he knows what’s going to happen.
“I feel sick,” he says, and he wants to lean over the tree and throw up on the dirt, but Hikaru leads him inside. He can’t fight anymore, doesn’t know what he was ever intending to do that wasn’t letting Hikaru drag him back to the party.
He throws up as soon as his knees hit the tile, not a lot because he didn’t eat a lot beforehand, and didn’t they always tell him that was a bad idea? Hikaru’s rubbing his back and kneeling behind him. Pavel’s confused but doesn’t let himself think about it. Hikaru’s being nice.
He hears Jim’s voice, and Hikaru meets him at the door as Pavel’s head hangs over the toilet
“Oh, he’s fine, that’s just a little bitch chunk,” Jim’s saying, but Hikaru’s shushing him; Hikaru’s smart.
Pavel manages to stand up on his own, and Hikaru’s shoving him a toothbrush with the toothpaste already on it.
“It’s Jim’s,” he says, “take it.”
“I don’t want anything of Jim Kirk’s,” Pavel says, but he has to think a lot to do so.
“Yeah, you do,” Hikaru smiles, “c’mon, take it.”
Before Pavel knows he’s moved, there’s the bliss of clean sheets on his skin, and he’s taking off his jeans just to feel more of it; he knows he can sleep soon. Hikaru must be magic, to have conjured such an empty comfortable bed in a house full of horny teenagers.
“You’re so nice, Hikaru,” Pavel says, not wanting to seem ungrateful, now, though tomorrow, who knows.
Hikaru’s laughing and rubbing Pavel’s shoulder again, who holds his hand there, pulling Hikaru toward him.
“Hey, what-” Hikaru says, but Pavel knows he wants to sleep here. It’s such a big bed, and it’s so soft and clean.
“You’re sober,” Pavel says, suddenly realizing this; Hikaru is so clear-eyed, and he’s moving so quickly.
“I don’t drink,” Hikaru says, and Pavel would boggle at this in the daytime, but not now.
“Why not?” he asks, instead.
“Don't worry about it,” Hikaru says, “I’m just a lightweight,” and Pavel understands the words, but not the sentence, is too drunk to recognize it for the flimsy excuse that it is.
“Oh. In Russia, everyone has tolerance,” Pavel says, and it makes Hikaru laugh, so it must’ve been the right choice. He can’t speak, not very well. “How do you know this, then? How do you know, the taking care of me.”
“Being drunk is like being in love,” Hikaru says, and Pavel knows now he won’t remember this in the morning. “You’re trying to act normally, but you have no concept of what normal is.”
Hikaru moves under the blankets with him, and Pavel would be shocked, but he can’t see Hikaru. Not seeing him is enough not to be scandalized. He’s fine. The warmth of Hikaru’s body behind him should be uncomfortable, should make him want to throw up again, but it doesn’t, it feels ridiculously good. Pavel’s asleep faster than he’s ever been.
“So you woke up, and you just went home? That’s it?” Gaila’s asking him over the phone the next day. “You didn’t leave a note or anything?”
“What was I supposed to say? It’s not like we fucked, or anything,” he says back. He just took a shower, and it feels like the end of a chapter, the “First time getting wasted” section of his life.
“Do you know that?”
“Gaila, yes!”
“He just took care of you?” Gaila asks, “You should’ve left him a note, or something, at least. You should’ve thanked him!”
“He saw me throw up!” Pavel says, thoroughly indignant. He didn’t call for a lecture; he called because he’s mortified and had to talk to someone about this. He feels like telling the story a thousand times and suddenly understands the point of a journal.
“And?” Gaila says, “You should call him! I’ll get his phone number from Jim.”
“Gaila! Don’t. I just.. Fuck, I don’t get it.”
“Pavel, you slept with a boy. Hell, next to a boy. It’s happened before, just not to you. I think it’s kind of cute.”
“He had to brush my teeth for me,” Pavel says.
“See? He’s practically in love with you.”
Gaila lectures him for a few more minutes, but eventually hangs up. Pavel feels more messed up than before, now he just has all this information. As he does his homework for the weekend, he just keeps remembering more things, more irritating tidbits, and adding them to the pile he’ll never really get through.
Monday at school, he sees Jim, sees Hikaru, and never makes eye contact. He’s so embarrassed and every second he thinks Jim will approach him and start regaling all of his peers with tales of the Drunk Russian Kid, or ask about his hangover, which didn’t exist. Strangely, what he fears most is Hikaru’s eyes, the stare he’ll have for Pavel when Pavel grows the balls to look at him. And he thought so little of Hikaru, last Friday.
That afternoon, Pavel takes the bus for the first time in years. It’s hot outside, almost as hot as inside of the bus, where kids’ limbs are pressed against him for the entire twenty minutes, and he almost forgets where his stop is. Gaila calls him to complain about missing their walk, but Pavel just says he was feeling sick, and Gaila believes him, tells him she could’ve wrangled them a ride in Jim’s Chevy. He can’t work up the nerve to tell her that’s exactly what he was avoiding.
Tuesday, he doesn’t take off his headphones, even when Hikaru rolls up, he just waves in greeting and waves him on, shaking his head and smiling, pointing to his headphones when Hikaru tries to speak. He won’t meet his eyes for more than a second and when Hikaru speeds away the whole ordeal feels like an apparition. Pavel can pretend it didn’t actually happen, and he feels better for it.
Wednesday, he goes to Gaila’s place. The clouds are a shiny gray, hiding the sun so expertly, and he walks with an arm around Gaila’s waist, playing that he’s safe from his irritating guilt over Hikaru just because he’s an inch taller and can play the man for once. Gaila asks about Hikaru at first, but mostly they talk about school and teachers. Gaila has a thinly veiled crush on their spazzy CAD class’s student teacher, a man with an accent that hardly anyone can understand once he gets going. Most of the class thinks he’s a shitty teacher, and they might be right; Pavel thinks the man should go back in to research and academia, but when Mr. Scott really goes off and really gets interested, he’s one of the best teachers Pavel’s ever had. Not to mention, he’s okay looking, really. Gaila’s fawning is a nice distraction, and he almost forgets about Hikaru by the time he walks home at ten, hungry and tired.
Thursday, Pavel can hardly see.
It’s raining, the kind of rain that pounds off of the pavement and creates a mist just above the ground, only that mist is everywhere on the hills of his hometown. He wonders if his headphones are safe in the constant water but he can’t think to take them off. He’s got to get home quickly; his clothes are wet down to the skin, his shoes squashing with every step he takes.
Hikaru doesn’t show up, and it’s not rational to assume he would; after all, it’s raining and Hikaru’s just got his bike. He’s probably gotten a ride in Jim’s fucking Chevy. Pavel doesn’t know why this makes him so upset.
When Pavel finally gets to his door, he’s so relieved and already looking forward to stripping off all of his clothes and taking a shower, immediately. There’s no real awning or anything over the door, and fat drops of rain fall off of the roof and onto his head, dripping in to his eyes and down the back of his collar as he fishes around for the key to the front door. The longer he can’t find it, the more frustrated he gets. No one’s home next door and his father obsessively locks every other door and window, checking on them with constant paranoia. Pavel’s locked out. It’s raining, there’s a mile and a half between him and Gaila’s trailer. He’s beating on the door and close to tears, so he doesn’t even notice the rumble of Hikaru’s bike before he’s being turned around by insistent hands on his shoulders. Pavel’s headphones are still on.
He can’t believe it. Hikaru Sulu is standing in front of him, and his mouth is moving but Pavel can’t hear anything. They’re both soaked, the fantasy shoots through Pavel like fire: he wants to take Hikaru inside, peel off his wet jeans and make him stand in front of the radiator, staying close with the excuse of warming him up, rubbing his arms with the excuse of drying him off, taking care of him the way Hikaru did, at the party so long ago. He could die for the chance to stand looking at the wet spikes of Hikaru’s hair, inches from his damp skin, breathing in his cold, moist air. He clamps his eyes shut to get rid of the image, but Hikaru grabs the sides of his face and makes Pavel’s eyes shoot open. Closing them was a bad idea; now he sees Hikaru afresh and it’s painful how gorgeous he is, the rain on his skin rolling toward his neck.
Hikaru yanks off his headphones.
“Why are you ignoring me?” he shouts over the pounding storm, blinking to rid his eyes of the raindrops.
“I don’t know!” Pavel shouts back, and he doesn’t, he has no idea. “Why are you fucking stalking me?!”
Hikaru looks at him, his eyes shifting to look into both of Pavel’s, and it always annoyed him how people do that, why can’t they just focus on one? Why can’t they just leave him alone? But Hikaru keeps insisting, he’s always there.
“I’m sorry,” Pavel says, because he can’t think of anything else, and he really is sorry, sorry he doesn’t know how to maneuver around Hikaru, how to talk to him or be nice to him without betraying himself. He has no clue when it comes to Hikaru.
Hikaru shakes his head. The front of his t-shirt is wet with rainwater.
“Come on, let me give you a ride,” he says, and this time Pavel nods. He has nowhere else to go.
When Pavel wraps his arms around Hikaru’s waist he feels surreal, because he’s had this opportunity so many times but he’s never really acknowledged it, never thought about actually straddling Hikaru’s hips, not knowing where to put his feet, or his chin, or his hands.
He doesn’t say anything as the bike starts up, just sniffs and licks the rain off his lips occasionally, and Hikaru’s quiet, but it’s not like they could hear each other over the storm anyway. His body’s relaxed and warm under Pavel’s grip, and their wet jeans are pressed together, cold between their skin.
Pavel expects to turn in to Jim’s neighborhood, to stop in front of one of those lavish houses with the sprawling green front yards; he’s always imagined Hikaru and Jim as neighbors, friends since childhood, sheltered by their collective privilege. Instead they pass that suburb, and Gaila’s trailer park. They drive all the way down the highway and they stop in a neighborhood like Pavel’s, dank and gray, bare of flower gardens or new cars. Pavel thinks it must be a joke when Hikaru stops; there are no shutters or curtains on Hikaru’s windows, the path is all cracked with ancient concrete. It’s still raining, so they run inside, they and all of their twenty pounds of water, and Hikaru’s house smells like cigarettes and potpourri.
“It’s small,” Pavel says, not meaning to be rude, but he’s shocked.
“So’s yours,” Hikaru says, taking off his jacket and his shoes. “Here,” he says, since Pavel hasn’t moved, “You can take your shoes off. Stay a while.” And he disappears down a hallway. Hikaru looks too artful against these bare walls.
He comes back in gym shorts and he’s putting on a t-shirt; Pavel’s fantasy of stripping him down is ruined, but this is better. Hikaru’s tanned, but he’s not cut or defined or anything. He’s just there, nice skin, warm body, the smile off his face but ready to come back any time.
“Here,” he says, handing Pavel a pair of shorts, and Pavel’s still in all of his clothes, dripping on Hikaru’s carpet, his damp socks chaffing his ankles. He can’t do anything but stare.
“You’re being so nice,” he says, and Hikaru just shrugs, still holding out the shorts, too shiny and blue for Pavel to ever consider wearing on his own.
“I’m sorry,” Hikaru says, and it’s the last thing Pavel expected. “I know I kind of.. I was kind of creepy. I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t… you were kind of creepy,” Pavel says, “but it’s okay.”
“It’s just that-it works for Jim,” Hikaru says, “and I don’t know.”
“I’m not a girl,” Pavel says, indignant. “I’m not Gaila.”
“I know,” Hikaru says, and Pavel’s not used to him like this, he looks so apologetic, so not-perfect, like at the party, like those glimpses of him at the party, the moments Pavel remembers.
“I just wanted to take you out,” Hikaru says, “I just, I saw you, walking, and I liked you.”
Pavel stares. It’s unfair, that he’s saying all of this, just as he’s gotten under Pavel’s skin. Now Pavel feels like a jerk, like if he just played along, things would’ve gone differently. But why should he have trusted Hikaru? Why trust anyone with a pretty face?
“Please,” Hikaru says, “take these,” he thrusts the shorts forward, and also a white t-shirt that looks too big for either of them.
“Okay,” Pavel says, and Hikaru leads him to the bathroom. It’s so cold in the house; Pavel can’t believe he didn’t notice until now. He folds all his wet clothes and tries to dry off his arms and his hair with the hand towel in the Sulus’ bathroom. He wishes he could take a shower, but he would never ask.
Hikaru’s sitting on his couch with his feet on the coffee table, flicking through channels and there’s hot tea sitting for the both of them. When he notices Pavel, he shoves a cup toward him with his foot, and Pavel sits, tense and awkward, as Hikaru settles on Discovery.
“Everything fit?” he asks, and Pavel nods, though the shorts keep falling off of him; he thinks Hikaru must’ve given him huge clothes as to not offend his modesty, or something. The slippery mesh feels weird on his ass and his junk and his thighs, but it’s not unpleasant. “Awesome,” Hikaru says, “Have some tea.”
Pavel snorts, “You make quite the hostess.”
“That’s Jim,” Hikaru says, “he said he’s sorry, by the way, about you getting sick. He didn’t realize you never really drank before. Gaila gave him a raft of shit for it.”
“It’s okay,” Pavel says, playing with his thumbs. The TV is talking about nebulae, and he’d be fiercely interested, but Hikaru’s foot is still in his line of vision, and honestly a foot has never been so appealing. “It was my fault. I never thanked you, for watching out for me. So, thanks.”
Hikaru shakes his head, “Don’t worry about it. It must’ve been weird, y’know. Waking up in the same bed and everything.”
“No, no. Um, it was kind of, it was sort of nice, you know?” Pavel can feel the heat of his face as he says this, he’s got to be redder than a beet.
“Yeah?” Hikaru says, and the grin on his face is priceless. He nods, looking back toward the television. “Sweet, then.”
“Yeah,” Pavel agrees, picking up his tea, and they relax.
Hikaru eventually offers to change the station, but Pavel shakes his head, and it turns out they’re both more interested in the stars than either of them realized. Hikaru wants to go in to Aerospace Engineering, and has no idea how he’ll afford it and Pavel’s in the same boat. They talk about their parents, Pavel explaining that his folks are asleep when he wakes up and at work for long after Pavel’s gone to bed. Hikaru’s mother is a cook who works strange shifts, and his father skipped town a long time ago.
Hikaru’s amused at Gaila’s various crushes and tries to tell Pavel that Gaila’s not so much a sex object for Jim, but more of a good friend with various and frequent benefits. He tries to convince Pavel that Jim’s really a good guy, but Pavel sees when he mentions their conversation at the party that Hikaru’s still kind of wary of Jim’s sexual prowess, at least where Pavel’s concerned. They shift closer on the couch, their shoulders touching and their knees knocking together, even as they apologize every time they touch. It’s gotten warmer, no doubt an effect of all their incessant yammering in the tiny space.
At one point, Hikaru looks behind him, out of the huge plastic window.
“It’s stopped raining,” he says, and it has. Several hours have passed, and the sun has disappeared. The road is shining almost gold with the yellow streetlights, and the massive puddles are no longer dimpled with the raindrops.
Hikaru rises, and steps shoeless out of the door; Pavel follows, looking over his shoulder and close enough to smell the heady, teenage-boy scent of him. The concrete is gritty and cold on his bare feet and he wishes for the comfort of Hikaru’s carpet, but Hikaru himself is enthralled.
“Look, it’s so peaceful,” Hikaru says, soft. He seems mystified by the quiet, and the yellow of the streetlamps lights up his skin and reflects off the wet of his open mouth.
They step back inside when they hear sirens, a common nuisance in both of their neighborhoods.
“I wish it would start up again,” Hikaru says, closing the door and flicking on the lights in the front room.
“The rain?” Pavel asks, smiling. “Why?”
“So I could keep you here,” Hikaru smiles, shit eating grin intact.
The TV is talking about Newton’s laws when Pavel kisses him. He can’t know what he’s doing; he only hopes Hikaru does; he can’t believe he didn’t miss his lips all together, but God, he’s lucky he didn’t.
“Pavel,” Hikaru breathes, his full name, his real name, and just for this Pavel opens his mouth to him, letting Hikaru hold his face and lick his lips tentatively open.
When Hikaru touches his tongue to his, Pavel’s instantly hard against Hikaru’s shorts, hard for Hikaru’s tongue and his hands gripping Pavel’s waist and the heat between his legs that Pavel can’t help but press closer to.
“I like you,” Hikaru says, “I really like you,” and Pavel wishes he could say something back, but anything would sound stupid and he closes Hikaru’s mouth with his own instead. He can’t believe a kiss could feel this good, can’t believe he’s spent sixteen years of his life not knowing.
“’Karu,” it slips from his mouth in an errant breath as he locks his arm around Hikaru’s neck, trying to drag him closer.
Hikaru laughs, “God,” he says, “You’re so cute,” and he grabs Pavel’s hips, making him gasp when he feels the heat of Hikaru’s erection. They’re still standing in front of the door, and Pavel’s still wearing Hikaru’s clothes.
“I want to lay down with you,” Pavel says, truly, it’s all he’s been able to think about since the last time, “Like at the party.”
“Okay, okay,” Hikaru says, nodding against his lips and pulling Pavel so that as they walk, they’re never more than a foot from each other’s faces. Pavel’s hands can’t stop wandering, he’s stuck on that image of half-naked Hikaru, all of his skin out there, and it makes him go weak.
Hikaru’s bed is small and stuck under a window in the corner, bathed in shadow save for the yellow slats of light from the blinds. It creaks when Pavel sits down.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Hikaru says, looking down at Pavel, who’s pulling Hikaru in by the waist, wanting to feel his body all aligned with his, wants it so badly.
“Me either,” Pavel laughs, and Hikaru kisses him, spreading him out on the gray sheets as his knees dip between Pavel’s, holding him up. “Please,” Pavel says, yanking him downward.
Hikaru falls on his side, pulling Pavel with him so they’re close, breathing each other’s air. Hikaru fishes his arm under Pavel’s shoulder and his other hand goes to the small of his back, and Pavel’s never felt warmer or more sheltered, cloistered under the limbs of Hikaru Sulu.
Pavel’s hands find their way under Hikaru’s shirt, and his skin is so soft and so expansive, his nipples sensitive enough to make him breathe out and nudge Pavel’s face with his cheek when Pavel brushes over them.
“Can I?” he says, when his hands drift over the waistband of Pavel’s shorts, and Pavel nods, breathing through the fine spikes of Hikaru’s hair, so hard for him it feels like his whole spirit, his whole brain, has migrated to his hips and is working on finding a way out.
He lays back and closes his eyes when Hikaru touches him, catatonic with pleasure for whole moments, knowing he should probably reciprocate but helpless to move save for small thrusts of his hips. Hikaru’s name is falling out of his lips like drops of water, and when his hands regain life they’re frantic, grabbing on to Hikaru’s shoulders and sheets, and finally burrowing their way between Hikaru’s legs, fisting his cock before he can think about what he’s doing, relishing in the rigid feel of it, knowing it’s hard and yearning for him. Hikaru speeds up when Pavel starts on him, and sucks air through his teeth, nipping at Pavel’s mouth like nothing else has ever mattered.
Pavel’s stunned when Hikaru comes before him, the jerky movements of his whole body following the warmth on Pavel’s hand, the pulsing and panting of him the only thing Pavel can absorb. His face is entirely open then, beautiful and heavy, and when he recovers, Pavel only lasts about two strokes before he’s shaking in Hikaru’s hands, curling himself in to his warm body.
“Fuck,” Hikaru says, watching him fall, “I could watch you do that forever.” Pavel only nods, unable to speak.
His mind should be racing, his thoughts complicated and keeping him up all night, but with Hikaru’s hand on his back it’s difficult to even remember where he is.
“You can sleep, Pav,” Hikaru says, “It’s okay. It’s so late.” His face is so peaceful, his eyes closed and his mouth slack.
“You’re so nice,” Pavel says, and falls asleep breathing in Hikaru’s scent, cradled against his body.
Pavel wakes hours later, the fluttering and shifting of him waking Hikaru as well. Around midnight they take a shower, pressing their slippery bodies together, embarrassed of their sleepy skin in the fluorescent light. Hikaru’s careful not to push him to do anything, but Pavel’s all in now, encouraged by Hikaru’s sensitivity, the way he looks when his face is creased with sleep.
He wants to stay, incredibly badly, and looks longingly at Hikaru’s bed even as he convinces Hikaru it’s the smart thing to take him home. He feels invincible as the clean night air whips around his face, as his arms clamp around the cool leather of Hikaru’s jacket.
Ridiculously, Hikaru walks him to the door, which is open, his mother having gotten home, probably passed out in front of the tv, but his father yet to arrive. He gets a kiss on the cheek for all of his trouble, a hug, and a promise to see each other soon. The stairs to his bedroom feel like air when Pavel walks on them, his bed like a cloud.
The next day, Hikaru’s not at school. The rain is heavy again, the clouds unsatisfied with yesterday’s offerings.
When Pavel splits off from Gaila, a motorcycle pulls up. The boy without a helmet, with his hands on the handlebars, smiles at Pavel like being a skinny, damp boy is the best thing Pavel could have done for him in a lifetime’s worth of work.
Pavel laughs, “Why weren’t you in school?” but Hikaru only shrugs, shaking his head.
“Inclement weather,” he says, pointing at the sky.
When Pavel approaches him, Hikaru’s hands shoot out like he never thought he’d get the chance to pull Pavel close like this, to press their wet faces together and lick the rainwater from each other’s lips. The hair raises on Pavel’s arms, and not because of the cold.
“Are you ready?” Hikaru says, and Pavel nods, climbing on the back of Hikaru’s bike for the second of many times.
In other news, HSAU is like a strong drug for me:| I promise I have actual semi-canonical fic almost ready!
Title: The Warmest Part of the Winter
Pairing: Chekov/Sulu
Summary: High School AU (my third in a month??): Hikaru, the boy with the motorcycle, won't stop bothering Pavel, the boy with the glasses. Pavel's entirely annoyed until an incident at Jim Kirk's house changes his mind for the better
Word Count: 6,867
Rating: NC-17, I suppose
Other: Underageness, perhaps overuse of semi-colons
“Stop looking at your feet; people will think you’re a farmer looking out for shit,” Pavel mumbles to himself, though he could have said it through a megaphone for all anyone would understand it, the phrase being Russian and everyone within a hundred miles decidedly Californian and non-Russian-speaking.
Gaila’s absent today, and without his only friend Pavel is left to walk home alone, counting his steps and the cracks in the concrete, murmuring crap his grandmother would say if she could see him, staring at his shoes. Shit, It doesn’t matter if he avoids eye contact; his grandmother is on the other side of the world and he’s alone.
He missed Gaila all day, the only girl in the whole school friendless and friendly enough to stick to his side since he moved here from Yekaterinburg in the fall. He even misses her bitching about Jim Kirk, the guy she’s been sleeping with for at least a month but who won’t own up to their relationship in public. Pavel isn’t surprised at his cruelty; Jim is popular and friends with everyone, Gaila lives in a trailer park and hasn’t had any female friends since her hips and bust exploded with puberty, too picturesque for even her ill-fitting clothes to hide.
So Pavel tries to keep his steps measured to twice per block of concrete and hops awkwardly to adjust his rhythm, trying not to think about going home to his duplex where the family on the other side can’t shut up for even an hour to let him finish his homework. He starts kicking pebbles and sticks, getting frustrated like he does so often anymore, when Sulu pulls up.
Pavel thinks Hikaru Sulu’s motorcycle is probably the cheesiest thing he’s ever seen, so he can’t explain the stupid thrill that dances around his spine whenever he hears the purr of the engine. He’s admired it before, with the pretense of scoffing at it with Gaila-across from the parking lot, watching Hikaru and Jim and all of their laughing compatriots gather after school has ended. It’s not that their group is so very impenetrable; Pavel’s talked to many of Hikaru’s friends for bits of time before, and approaching them wouldn’t be out of the question, but they still seem so monolithic, standing in their little circle, laughing so easily like somewhere they’re hiding perfect, detailed instructions to life and no one else will ever have them.
The fact of Hikaru’s occasional friendliness doesn’t keep Pavel from spying to his left and right, looking for friends of Hikaru’s who might be in on the joke. Then he takes off his sunglasses and asks loud over the engines:
“Hey, Russki. Where you headed?”
Pavel squints in to the sun over his glasses, ugly evidence of his parents’ minimal health insurance, and declines to answer. It may be that he’s lost his words.
“C’mon, you live around here, right?” he smiles and Pavel’s angry at how handsome it is before he’s simply turned on. Hikaru motions for the back seat, and says, so friendly, “Let me give you a ride.” Pavel notes the complete lack of helmets anywhere.
“No, that’s fine,” Pavel says, continuing to walk, avoiding eye contact.
Hikaru is unperturbed. “Are you sure, Pav?”
“Pav?” Pavel turns, quirking a brow. Hikaru hasn’t stopped smiling, even looks encouraged.
“Yeah! That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Pavel says, “though no one calls me that.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”
Pavel doesn’t even respond, so irritated with Hikaru’s persistence that he just slips his headphones back on and waits for the vibration in the air that means Hikaru has gone.
“I think it’s ridiculous the lengths you’ll go to just to deny that a boy might like you,” Gaila’s saying on the phone; they’ve been discussing Hikaru Sulu’s weird invitation for the past fifteen minutes while Pavel stares at a model of the solar system he made in the third grade. Gaila’s talking in her bathroom again; he can tell from the slight echo of her voice, and the fact that she always talks in the bathroom to avoid her extended family milling around outside.
“I think it’s ridiculous how you skipped class today just to go around sucking Jim Kirk’s penis,” Pavel says, twirling the paper mache sun, remembering how perturbed he was at eight years old that no one else’s planets were as perfectly proportioned as his.
“Shut up, Pasha, I like him,” Gaila says this at least once a day, now, to the point that Pavel’s started to subconsciously associate that indignant sound in her voice with the feeling of his family’s cordless phone pressed to his face. “Besides, he’s the only guy I see who doesn’t care about the other guys I see. I think I love him.”
Pavel rolls his eyes. “You love everyone. I think you should stick with girls,” he insists. “None of them want to steal you from all of my classes.”
“I think you just want everyone to be as gay as you are,” Gaila says, and there’s a bang like a knock on the door. “Shit, that’s my dad.”
“Oh, fuck. Do you think Hikaru knows? Is he just… y’know, because I’m so obvious?”
“Please, Pavel, there’s a ton of guys way twinkier than you. I have to go, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, bye,” Pavel says, hearing Gaila yelling at someone before hanging up. He feels kind of lost. He knows it’s stupid to think, but he kind of considers Gaila an authority on men, or really, on other people in general, because she gets around so much more than he does. Her lack of insight is strangely disappointing.
Gaila and Pavel walk together from school every day, but eventually there’s a crossroads. They chat together for five minutes or so but then have to split off where Pavel turns in to his neighborhood of potholes and illegally rented out basements and Gaila has to keep walking. For some reason, Sulu keeps showing up right after Pavel turns.
“How long is the walk from here to your house, anyway?” he asks one day, close enough to the sidewalk that Pavel can feel the heat of the engine.
Pavel shrugs; he doesn’t have his headphones, or anyway, it would be inconvenient to fish them out now. Hikaru seems to have perfected his timing. “Half a mile, I guess,” he says.
“Isn’t there a bus stop?”
Pavel rolls his eyes, “Fuck the bus.”
And Hikaru laughs, and offers him a ride, again, but Pavel keeps refusing. He doesn’t want to be indebted; he doesn’t want to get so close that Hikaru Sulu could turn around and embarrass him.
“You know I’m not gonna give up,” Hikaru says, shaking his head. He’s smiling; Pavel’s not.
“Whatever,” he says, and Hikaru speeds off, still chuckling.
But it’s not “whatever”. Hikaru bothers Pavel a great deal, and sometimes he chastises himself for not telling Hikaru to just take a long walk off a short pier. The problem is: Hikaru’s really hot. He’s more than hot, he’s gorgeous. He makes Pavel weak in the knees, kind of literally when he’s walking home, thinking of Hikaru on that bike, begging to give him a ride. He’s smart too; Pavel’s seen the class roster and heard Hikaru talk with friends, and knowing this only makes the whole situation worse, because Hikaru always seems so genuine and Pavel knows he can’t possibly be.
Because Pavel’s not stupid. He knows guys with motorcycles their parents bought for them don’t just decide one day to take on charity cases, don’t just decide to play nice. The only guy Pavel knows like that is fucking his best friend in the backseat of his Chevy every couple of days, and Jim Kirk’s slumming it just for the cheap thrill; Pavel knows it. If Hikaru thinks Pavel’s just going to drop his pants for a kind word, he’s out of his mind. Pavel will never get naked in the back of a goddamned Chevy, especially not for anyone’s conceited, giggling pleasure, especially not for Hikaru Sulu.
Pavel ends up in Jim Kirk’s house, anyway.
It’s been a few weeks since Hikaru Sulu started stalking him, and he has no idea what he’s even doing here. Gaila’s the one who invited him to this crappy party, but she’s not around-is probably off somewhere with Jim-and Pavel doesn’t know anyone else. He feels small and insignificant, miserable. Gaila assured him that there were tons of people who said they’d like Pavel to be there, but he’s quickly realizing that the only attraction he provides is as the village freak; no one talks to him except for asking if he’s got enough to drink, and he keeps catching half-drunk classmates in clusters making sideways glances at him, laughing behind their hands.
Pavel feels hot; there’s a pressure behind his eyes that won’t go away and he’s sickened with how bored he is even as his mind is racing, wondering if he should sit, where to stand, if he should just go home and spend all night on the computer. Sulu might be here. The thought keeps reoccurring to him every few minutes, and he hopes desperately they won’t run in to each other, while wondering constantly what will happen if they do, running scenarios through his head.
“Hey.” The voice startles him and the first thing he sees when he stumbles backward is teeth.
“Jim?” he half-yells, truly surprised. “What are you doing here?”
Jim snorts. “It’s my house.”
Pavel shakes his head out; the lighting must be getting to him. “Where’s Gaila?”
“Gaila?” Jim smiles, like he’s got some inside joke that Pavel will never be privy to, “She’s, y’know, having fun. You aren’t, though.”
Pavel shakes his head in answer, though he’s kind of shocked Jim’s being so up front, and that Jim is like, talking to him at all. He has other friends. Well, he has friends, period. Pavel’s just kind of floating around; he’s like the party sea monkey, purposeless. He sips his drink, though he knows he shouldn’t; he tends to really gulp things down when he’s nervous and doesn’t know what to say.
Jim offers him another drink, all in the name of being a good host, and Pavel takes it with remarkable ease. He should be wary; he’s never really been drunk before-Gaila jokes about his high Russian tolerance but he’s really a lightweight. He just tends to lie to her about how much he’s had so she won’t push him and call him a loser. He doesn’t like Gaila when she’s drunk. He doesn’t like Kirk either, not really, but he’s smiling so stupidly, so wide, reassuring Pavel with every blink of his eyes that this is exactly what he’s supposed to be doing-drinking is in the script and everything will go according to plan if he just takes this cup. Pavel notices beer is better tasting the more he has of it, anyway, and he feels nice, like there’s a lot he could say, to everyone, and all he has to do is say it.
Jim is talking to him as he feeds Pavel cup after can, and he’s being incredibly nice, not that Pavel’s ever given him a chance before. It gets to the point that Pavel can’t remember anything he’s said thirty seconds before, but they’re both laughing, so it’s not like he cares.
He hardly even notices when Hikaru shows up, but he’s so glad when he does. He’d been dreading it all night but now that he sees him, really sees him, he doesn’t know what he was upset about. Hikaru’s wearing a flannel shirt, standing next to the couch Jim and Pavel are sitting on, and Pavel’s never seen him in a flannel. He looks so relaxed, except for his face, which looks kind of angry, but he’s looking at Jim, he’s angry at Jim, so Pavel doesn’t care. He wants to be drunk around Hikaru; he wants it really badly. However annoying Pavel pretends he is in the daytime, Hikaru’s so cute, and so smart, and Pavel feels unburdened and like he could talk forever, if he could only look at something without his head swimming around on him.
Jim turns and laughs at him, and looking back to Hikaru, “He’s fine, see!” but Hikaru still looks a little pissed and Pavel’s kind of tired. His head drops on Jim’s shoulder, and he knows if he were sober he’d be mortified, but now Jim’s shoulder feels amazing; he could sleep here. His teeth are numb. His whole face is numb.
It’s ruined when Jim laughs, and when Pavel shoots up and opens his eyes. He forgot how sensitive his head was, his vision, and his stomach pitches with irritation. Jim’s still laughing at him, only now it’s not so pleasant, it’s annoying as hell. He wants to get up and walk away but he knows he can’t, which only makes him more mad, kind of humiliated.
“Woah, easy,” Hikaru’s suddenly at his side, which annoys Pavel to no end, because Hikaru was over there, what’s he doing over here? Pavel suddenly thinks Jim must’ve been getting him drunk on purpose. As Hikaru’s talking in his face, Pavel thinks Jim must’ve been handing him alcohol just so Hikaru could get his pants off somewhere, could take pictures of his helpless body and tell the whole school what a slut and a fag he is. Even as the anger is steaming between his ears, Pavel’s ashamed of how much he wants Hikaru too, now, how much he’s always wanted Hikaru, even before, when the sound of his voice was just a fantasy. It’s worse now. Why couldn’t Hikaru have stayed away? Why couldn’t he have left Pavel the fuck alone?
Hikaru is touching the side of Pavel’s face now, and even if Hikaru’s a jerk, even if Pavel is humiliated at the thought, he wants Hikaru inside him more than anything. His rage flares up at the thought and he can’t stand himself; he has to leave; he has to go.
When he stands up, Hikaru tries to stop him, but he shoves himself aside, running in to the coffee table and not caring.
“Hey! Pav!”
“Don’t call me that!” he yells, or at least he thinks he does. He hasn’t spoken in a while; he kind of forgot how to do it.
That and walking. His center of gravity is all over the place as he heads toward the back door, the sliding glass one that’s open to the outside. Jim has a big house. He’s so rich; Pavel’s so poor. Pavel’s vaguely aware of Hikaru walking behind him, calling his name, his fake name, his short name that Hikaru conjured up for him, the one that Pavel is pissed at him for because no one else fucking gives him nicknames, why should Hikaru?
He thinks for a little bit trying to walk down the porch steps: He walked through the woods separating the two suburbs to get here; he can get back just as easily. He can walk through Jim’s back yard, through the trees, back to his shitty neighborhood. Hopefully he won’t get mugged. He’s got nothing anyway. He’s halfway through the band of trees when Hikaru finally catches up to him.
“Pavel!” he yells, and it’s loud.
“What?” Pavel says, and wishes he didn’t. He hates his mouth right now; anything that comes out of it is damnation.
“You’re drunk,” Hikaru says, touching his shoulders, propping him against a tree when Pavel starts to stumble. Pavel couldn’t be more grateful; the sudden steadiness and the cold night air make him feel less sick.
Pavel’s head is lolling back and he can’t stop it. “So what?” he asks.
Hikaru sighs and Pavel holds his hands up. They’re tingling, at the tips. There’s a hot shot in Pavel’s stomach and suddenly there’s a surge of salt and saliva in his mouth, and he’s thrown up before; he knows what’s going to happen.
“I feel sick,” he says, and he wants to lean over the tree and throw up on the dirt, but Hikaru leads him inside. He can’t fight anymore, doesn’t know what he was ever intending to do that wasn’t letting Hikaru drag him back to the party.
He throws up as soon as his knees hit the tile, not a lot because he didn’t eat a lot beforehand, and didn’t they always tell him that was a bad idea? Hikaru’s rubbing his back and kneeling behind him. Pavel’s confused but doesn’t let himself think about it. Hikaru’s being nice.
He hears Jim’s voice, and Hikaru meets him at the door as Pavel’s head hangs over the toilet
“Oh, he’s fine, that’s just a little bitch chunk,” Jim’s saying, but Hikaru’s shushing him; Hikaru’s smart.
Pavel manages to stand up on his own, and Hikaru’s shoving him a toothbrush with the toothpaste already on it.
“It’s Jim’s,” he says, “take it.”
“I don’t want anything of Jim Kirk’s,” Pavel says, but he has to think a lot to do so.
“Yeah, you do,” Hikaru smiles, “c’mon, take it.”
Before Pavel knows he’s moved, there’s the bliss of clean sheets on his skin, and he’s taking off his jeans just to feel more of it; he knows he can sleep soon. Hikaru must be magic, to have conjured such an empty comfortable bed in a house full of horny teenagers.
“You’re so nice, Hikaru,” Pavel says, not wanting to seem ungrateful, now, though tomorrow, who knows.
Hikaru’s laughing and rubbing Pavel’s shoulder again, who holds his hand there, pulling Hikaru toward him.
“Hey, what-” Hikaru says, but Pavel knows he wants to sleep here. It’s such a big bed, and it’s so soft and clean.
“You’re sober,” Pavel says, suddenly realizing this; Hikaru is so clear-eyed, and he’s moving so quickly.
“I don’t drink,” Hikaru says, and Pavel would boggle at this in the daytime, but not now.
“Why not?” he asks, instead.
“Don't worry about it,” Hikaru says, “I’m just a lightweight,” and Pavel understands the words, but not the sentence, is too drunk to recognize it for the flimsy excuse that it is.
“Oh. In Russia, everyone has tolerance,” Pavel says, and it makes Hikaru laugh, so it must’ve been the right choice. He can’t speak, not very well. “How do you know this, then? How do you know, the taking care of me.”
“Being drunk is like being in love,” Hikaru says, and Pavel knows now he won’t remember this in the morning. “You’re trying to act normally, but you have no concept of what normal is.”
Hikaru moves under the blankets with him, and Pavel would be shocked, but he can’t see Hikaru. Not seeing him is enough not to be scandalized. He’s fine. The warmth of Hikaru’s body behind him should be uncomfortable, should make him want to throw up again, but it doesn’t, it feels ridiculously good. Pavel’s asleep faster than he’s ever been.
“So you woke up, and you just went home? That’s it?” Gaila’s asking him over the phone the next day. “You didn’t leave a note or anything?”
“What was I supposed to say? It’s not like we fucked, or anything,” he says back. He just took a shower, and it feels like the end of a chapter, the “First time getting wasted” section of his life.
“Do you know that?”
“Gaila, yes!”
“He just took care of you?” Gaila asks, “You should’ve left him a note, or something, at least. You should’ve thanked him!”
“He saw me throw up!” Pavel says, thoroughly indignant. He didn’t call for a lecture; he called because he’s mortified and had to talk to someone about this. He feels like telling the story a thousand times and suddenly understands the point of a journal.
“And?” Gaila says, “You should call him! I’ll get his phone number from Jim.”
“Gaila! Don’t. I just.. Fuck, I don’t get it.”
“Pavel, you slept with a boy. Hell, next to a boy. It’s happened before, just not to you. I think it’s kind of cute.”
“He had to brush my teeth for me,” Pavel says.
“See? He’s practically in love with you.”
Gaila lectures him for a few more minutes, but eventually hangs up. Pavel feels more messed up than before, now he just has all this information. As he does his homework for the weekend, he just keeps remembering more things, more irritating tidbits, and adding them to the pile he’ll never really get through.
Monday at school, he sees Jim, sees Hikaru, and never makes eye contact. He’s so embarrassed and every second he thinks Jim will approach him and start regaling all of his peers with tales of the Drunk Russian Kid, or ask about his hangover, which didn’t exist. Strangely, what he fears most is Hikaru’s eyes, the stare he’ll have for Pavel when Pavel grows the balls to look at him. And he thought so little of Hikaru, last Friday.
That afternoon, Pavel takes the bus for the first time in years. It’s hot outside, almost as hot as inside of the bus, where kids’ limbs are pressed against him for the entire twenty minutes, and he almost forgets where his stop is. Gaila calls him to complain about missing their walk, but Pavel just says he was feeling sick, and Gaila believes him, tells him she could’ve wrangled them a ride in Jim’s Chevy. He can’t work up the nerve to tell her that’s exactly what he was avoiding.
Tuesday, he doesn’t take off his headphones, even when Hikaru rolls up, he just waves in greeting and waves him on, shaking his head and smiling, pointing to his headphones when Hikaru tries to speak. He won’t meet his eyes for more than a second and when Hikaru speeds away the whole ordeal feels like an apparition. Pavel can pretend it didn’t actually happen, and he feels better for it.
Wednesday, he goes to Gaila’s place. The clouds are a shiny gray, hiding the sun so expertly, and he walks with an arm around Gaila’s waist, playing that he’s safe from his irritating guilt over Hikaru just because he’s an inch taller and can play the man for once. Gaila asks about Hikaru at first, but mostly they talk about school and teachers. Gaila has a thinly veiled crush on their spazzy CAD class’s student teacher, a man with an accent that hardly anyone can understand once he gets going. Most of the class thinks he’s a shitty teacher, and they might be right; Pavel thinks the man should go back in to research and academia, but when Mr. Scott really goes off and really gets interested, he’s one of the best teachers Pavel’s ever had. Not to mention, he’s okay looking, really. Gaila’s fawning is a nice distraction, and he almost forgets about Hikaru by the time he walks home at ten, hungry and tired.
Thursday, Pavel can hardly see.
It’s raining, the kind of rain that pounds off of the pavement and creates a mist just above the ground, only that mist is everywhere on the hills of his hometown. He wonders if his headphones are safe in the constant water but he can’t think to take them off. He’s got to get home quickly; his clothes are wet down to the skin, his shoes squashing with every step he takes.
Hikaru doesn’t show up, and it’s not rational to assume he would; after all, it’s raining and Hikaru’s just got his bike. He’s probably gotten a ride in Jim’s fucking Chevy. Pavel doesn’t know why this makes him so upset.
When Pavel finally gets to his door, he’s so relieved and already looking forward to stripping off all of his clothes and taking a shower, immediately. There’s no real awning or anything over the door, and fat drops of rain fall off of the roof and onto his head, dripping in to his eyes and down the back of his collar as he fishes around for the key to the front door. The longer he can’t find it, the more frustrated he gets. No one’s home next door and his father obsessively locks every other door and window, checking on them with constant paranoia. Pavel’s locked out. It’s raining, there’s a mile and a half between him and Gaila’s trailer. He’s beating on the door and close to tears, so he doesn’t even notice the rumble of Hikaru’s bike before he’s being turned around by insistent hands on his shoulders. Pavel’s headphones are still on.
He can’t believe it. Hikaru Sulu is standing in front of him, and his mouth is moving but Pavel can’t hear anything. They’re both soaked, the fantasy shoots through Pavel like fire: he wants to take Hikaru inside, peel off his wet jeans and make him stand in front of the radiator, staying close with the excuse of warming him up, rubbing his arms with the excuse of drying him off, taking care of him the way Hikaru did, at the party so long ago. He could die for the chance to stand looking at the wet spikes of Hikaru’s hair, inches from his damp skin, breathing in his cold, moist air. He clamps his eyes shut to get rid of the image, but Hikaru grabs the sides of his face and makes Pavel’s eyes shoot open. Closing them was a bad idea; now he sees Hikaru afresh and it’s painful how gorgeous he is, the rain on his skin rolling toward his neck.
Hikaru yanks off his headphones.
“Why are you ignoring me?” he shouts over the pounding storm, blinking to rid his eyes of the raindrops.
“I don’t know!” Pavel shouts back, and he doesn’t, he has no idea. “Why are you fucking stalking me?!”
Hikaru looks at him, his eyes shifting to look into both of Pavel’s, and it always annoyed him how people do that, why can’t they just focus on one? Why can’t they just leave him alone? But Hikaru keeps insisting, he’s always there.
“I’m sorry,” Pavel says, because he can’t think of anything else, and he really is sorry, sorry he doesn’t know how to maneuver around Hikaru, how to talk to him or be nice to him without betraying himself. He has no clue when it comes to Hikaru.
Hikaru shakes his head. The front of his t-shirt is wet with rainwater.
“Come on, let me give you a ride,” he says, and this time Pavel nods. He has nowhere else to go.
When Pavel wraps his arms around Hikaru’s waist he feels surreal, because he’s had this opportunity so many times but he’s never really acknowledged it, never thought about actually straddling Hikaru’s hips, not knowing where to put his feet, or his chin, or his hands.
He doesn’t say anything as the bike starts up, just sniffs and licks the rain off his lips occasionally, and Hikaru’s quiet, but it’s not like they could hear each other over the storm anyway. His body’s relaxed and warm under Pavel’s grip, and their wet jeans are pressed together, cold between their skin.
Pavel expects to turn in to Jim’s neighborhood, to stop in front of one of those lavish houses with the sprawling green front yards; he’s always imagined Hikaru and Jim as neighbors, friends since childhood, sheltered by their collective privilege. Instead they pass that suburb, and Gaila’s trailer park. They drive all the way down the highway and they stop in a neighborhood like Pavel’s, dank and gray, bare of flower gardens or new cars. Pavel thinks it must be a joke when Hikaru stops; there are no shutters or curtains on Hikaru’s windows, the path is all cracked with ancient concrete. It’s still raining, so they run inside, they and all of their twenty pounds of water, and Hikaru’s house smells like cigarettes and potpourri.
“It’s small,” Pavel says, not meaning to be rude, but he’s shocked.
“So’s yours,” Hikaru says, taking off his jacket and his shoes. “Here,” he says, since Pavel hasn’t moved, “You can take your shoes off. Stay a while.” And he disappears down a hallway. Hikaru looks too artful against these bare walls.
He comes back in gym shorts and he’s putting on a t-shirt; Pavel’s fantasy of stripping him down is ruined, but this is better. Hikaru’s tanned, but he’s not cut or defined or anything. He’s just there, nice skin, warm body, the smile off his face but ready to come back any time.
“Here,” he says, handing Pavel a pair of shorts, and Pavel’s still in all of his clothes, dripping on Hikaru’s carpet, his damp socks chaffing his ankles. He can’t do anything but stare.
“You’re being so nice,” he says, and Hikaru just shrugs, still holding out the shorts, too shiny and blue for Pavel to ever consider wearing on his own.
“I’m sorry,” Hikaru says, and it’s the last thing Pavel expected. “I know I kind of.. I was kind of creepy. I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t… you were kind of creepy,” Pavel says, “but it’s okay.”
“It’s just that-it works for Jim,” Hikaru says, “and I don’t know.”
“I’m not a girl,” Pavel says, indignant. “I’m not Gaila.”
“I know,” Hikaru says, and Pavel’s not used to him like this, he looks so apologetic, so not-perfect, like at the party, like those glimpses of him at the party, the moments Pavel remembers.
“I just wanted to take you out,” Hikaru says, “I just, I saw you, walking, and I liked you.”
Pavel stares. It’s unfair, that he’s saying all of this, just as he’s gotten under Pavel’s skin. Now Pavel feels like a jerk, like if he just played along, things would’ve gone differently. But why should he have trusted Hikaru? Why trust anyone with a pretty face?
“Please,” Hikaru says, “take these,” he thrusts the shorts forward, and also a white t-shirt that looks too big for either of them.
“Okay,” Pavel says, and Hikaru leads him to the bathroom. It’s so cold in the house; Pavel can’t believe he didn’t notice until now. He folds all his wet clothes and tries to dry off his arms and his hair with the hand towel in the Sulus’ bathroom. He wishes he could take a shower, but he would never ask.
Hikaru’s sitting on his couch with his feet on the coffee table, flicking through channels and there’s hot tea sitting for the both of them. When he notices Pavel, he shoves a cup toward him with his foot, and Pavel sits, tense and awkward, as Hikaru settles on Discovery.
“Everything fit?” he asks, and Pavel nods, though the shorts keep falling off of him; he thinks Hikaru must’ve given him huge clothes as to not offend his modesty, or something. The slippery mesh feels weird on his ass and his junk and his thighs, but it’s not unpleasant. “Awesome,” Hikaru says, “Have some tea.”
Pavel snorts, “You make quite the hostess.”
“That’s Jim,” Hikaru says, “he said he’s sorry, by the way, about you getting sick. He didn’t realize you never really drank before. Gaila gave him a raft of shit for it.”
“It’s okay,” Pavel says, playing with his thumbs. The TV is talking about nebulae, and he’d be fiercely interested, but Hikaru’s foot is still in his line of vision, and honestly a foot has never been so appealing. “It was my fault. I never thanked you, for watching out for me. So, thanks.”
Hikaru shakes his head, “Don’t worry about it. It must’ve been weird, y’know. Waking up in the same bed and everything.”
“No, no. Um, it was kind of, it was sort of nice, you know?” Pavel can feel the heat of his face as he says this, he’s got to be redder than a beet.
“Yeah?” Hikaru says, and the grin on his face is priceless. He nods, looking back toward the television. “Sweet, then.”
“Yeah,” Pavel agrees, picking up his tea, and they relax.
Hikaru eventually offers to change the station, but Pavel shakes his head, and it turns out they’re both more interested in the stars than either of them realized. Hikaru wants to go in to Aerospace Engineering, and has no idea how he’ll afford it and Pavel’s in the same boat. They talk about their parents, Pavel explaining that his folks are asleep when he wakes up and at work for long after Pavel’s gone to bed. Hikaru’s mother is a cook who works strange shifts, and his father skipped town a long time ago.
Hikaru’s amused at Gaila’s various crushes and tries to tell Pavel that Gaila’s not so much a sex object for Jim, but more of a good friend with various and frequent benefits. He tries to convince Pavel that Jim’s really a good guy, but Pavel sees when he mentions their conversation at the party that Hikaru’s still kind of wary of Jim’s sexual prowess, at least where Pavel’s concerned. They shift closer on the couch, their shoulders touching and their knees knocking together, even as they apologize every time they touch. It’s gotten warmer, no doubt an effect of all their incessant yammering in the tiny space.
At one point, Hikaru looks behind him, out of the huge plastic window.
“It’s stopped raining,” he says, and it has. Several hours have passed, and the sun has disappeared. The road is shining almost gold with the yellow streetlights, and the massive puddles are no longer dimpled with the raindrops.
Hikaru rises, and steps shoeless out of the door; Pavel follows, looking over his shoulder and close enough to smell the heady, teenage-boy scent of him. The concrete is gritty and cold on his bare feet and he wishes for the comfort of Hikaru’s carpet, but Hikaru himself is enthralled.
“Look, it’s so peaceful,” Hikaru says, soft. He seems mystified by the quiet, and the yellow of the streetlamps lights up his skin and reflects off the wet of his open mouth.
They step back inside when they hear sirens, a common nuisance in both of their neighborhoods.
“I wish it would start up again,” Hikaru says, closing the door and flicking on the lights in the front room.
“The rain?” Pavel asks, smiling. “Why?”
“So I could keep you here,” Hikaru smiles, shit eating grin intact.
The TV is talking about Newton’s laws when Pavel kisses him. He can’t know what he’s doing; he only hopes Hikaru does; he can’t believe he didn’t miss his lips all together, but God, he’s lucky he didn’t.
“Pavel,” Hikaru breathes, his full name, his real name, and just for this Pavel opens his mouth to him, letting Hikaru hold his face and lick his lips tentatively open.
When Hikaru touches his tongue to his, Pavel’s instantly hard against Hikaru’s shorts, hard for Hikaru’s tongue and his hands gripping Pavel’s waist and the heat between his legs that Pavel can’t help but press closer to.
“I like you,” Hikaru says, “I really like you,” and Pavel wishes he could say something back, but anything would sound stupid and he closes Hikaru’s mouth with his own instead. He can’t believe a kiss could feel this good, can’t believe he’s spent sixteen years of his life not knowing.
“’Karu,” it slips from his mouth in an errant breath as he locks his arm around Hikaru’s neck, trying to drag him closer.
Hikaru laughs, “God,” he says, “You’re so cute,” and he grabs Pavel’s hips, making him gasp when he feels the heat of Hikaru’s erection. They’re still standing in front of the door, and Pavel’s still wearing Hikaru’s clothes.
“I want to lay down with you,” Pavel says, truly, it’s all he’s been able to think about since the last time, “Like at the party.”
“Okay, okay,” Hikaru says, nodding against his lips and pulling Pavel so that as they walk, they’re never more than a foot from each other’s faces. Pavel’s hands can’t stop wandering, he’s stuck on that image of half-naked Hikaru, all of his skin out there, and it makes him go weak.
Hikaru’s bed is small and stuck under a window in the corner, bathed in shadow save for the yellow slats of light from the blinds. It creaks when Pavel sits down.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Hikaru says, looking down at Pavel, who’s pulling Hikaru in by the waist, wanting to feel his body all aligned with his, wants it so badly.
“Me either,” Pavel laughs, and Hikaru kisses him, spreading him out on the gray sheets as his knees dip between Pavel’s, holding him up. “Please,” Pavel says, yanking him downward.
Hikaru falls on his side, pulling Pavel with him so they’re close, breathing each other’s air. Hikaru fishes his arm under Pavel’s shoulder and his other hand goes to the small of his back, and Pavel’s never felt warmer or more sheltered, cloistered under the limbs of Hikaru Sulu.
Pavel’s hands find their way under Hikaru’s shirt, and his skin is so soft and so expansive, his nipples sensitive enough to make him breathe out and nudge Pavel’s face with his cheek when Pavel brushes over them.
“Can I?” he says, when his hands drift over the waistband of Pavel’s shorts, and Pavel nods, breathing through the fine spikes of Hikaru’s hair, so hard for him it feels like his whole spirit, his whole brain, has migrated to his hips and is working on finding a way out.
He lays back and closes his eyes when Hikaru touches him, catatonic with pleasure for whole moments, knowing he should probably reciprocate but helpless to move save for small thrusts of his hips. Hikaru’s name is falling out of his lips like drops of water, and when his hands regain life they’re frantic, grabbing on to Hikaru’s shoulders and sheets, and finally burrowing their way between Hikaru’s legs, fisting his cock before he can think about what he’s doing, relishing in the rigid feel of it, knowing it’s hard and yearning for him. Hikaru speeds up when Pavel starts on him, and sucks air through his teeth, nipping at Pavel’s mouth like nothing else has ever mattered.
Pavel’s stunned when Hikaru comes before him, the jerky movements of his whole body following the warmth on Pavel’s hand, the pulsing and panting of him the only thing Pavel can absorb. His face is entirely open then, beautiful and heavy, and when he recovers, Pavel only lasts about two strokes before he’s shaking in Hikaru’s hands, curling himself in to his warm body.
“Fuck,” Hikaru says, watching him fall, “I could watch you do that forever.” Pavel only nods, unable to speak.
His mind should be racing, his thoughts complicated and keeping him up all night, but with Hikaru’s hand on his back it’s difficult to even remember where he is.
“You can sleep, Pav,” Hikaru says, “It’s okay. It’s so late.” His face is so peaceful, his eyes closed and his mouth slack.
“You’re so nice,” Pavel says, and falls asleep breathing in Hikaru’s scent, cradled against his body.
Pavel wakes hours later, the fluttering and shifting of him waking Hikaru as well. Around midnight they take a shower, pressing their slippery bodies together, embarrassed of their sleepy skin in the fluorescent light. Hikaru’s careful not to push him to do anything, but Pavel’s all in now, encouraged by Hikaru’s sensitivity, the way he looks when his face is creased with sleep.
He wants to stay, incredibly badly, and looks longingly at Hikaru’s bed even as he convinces Hikaru it’s the smart thing to take him home. He feels invincible as the clean night air whips around his face, as his arms clamp around the cool leather of Hikaru’s jacket.
Ridiculously, Hikaru walks him to the door, which is open, his mother having gotten home, probably passed out in front of the tv, but his father yet to arrive. He gets a kiss on the cheek for all of his trouble, a hug, and a promise to see each other soon. The stairs to his bedroom feel like air when Pavel walks on them, his bed like a cloud.
The next day, Hikaru’s not at school. The rain is heavy again, the clouds unsatisfied with yesterday’s offerings.
When Pavel splits off from Gaila, a motorcycle pulls up. The boy without a helmet, with his hands on the handlebars, smiles at Pavel like being a skinny, damp boy is the best thing Pavel could have done for him in a lifetime’s worth of work.
Pavel laughs, “Why weren’t you in school?” but Hikaru only shrugs, shaking his head.
“Inclement weather,” he says, pointing at the sky.
When Pavel approaches him, Hikaru’s hands shoot out like he never thought he’d get the chance to pull Pavel close like this, to press their wet faces together and lick the rainwater from each other’s lips. The hair raises on Pavel’s arms, and not because of the cold.
“Are you ready?” Hikaru says, and Pavel nods, climbing on the back of Hikaru’s bike for the second of many times.