The Hollow Places (You Have Been)
Fandom: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series
Rating: FRT, for language and mild (nongraphic) sexual content.
Pairing: Chekov/Sulu
Length: ~2,500 words
Summary: The Federation is at war with the Klingons, and Pavel and Hikaru are swept up in it. They try to do their best by each other, but sometimes their best isn't good enough.
In the second year of the Klingon War, Hikaru is promoted to Captain and given command of the Excelsior. He doesn’t take Pavel with him.
They fight bitterly about it. Hikaru says it’s to avoid the appearance of favoritism. Pavel asks to see a single more capable navigator in all of Starfleet. Hikaru says accusations of fraternization will undermine his command authority. Pavel asks if he thinks being human will ‘undermine his command authority.’ Hikaru says he can’t afford to have Pavel as a distraction when he needs to focus on the welfare of his entire crew, and Pavel swears violently in Russian, because Hikaru is an absolute bastard to try to blame this on him.
They have furious, devastatingly good angry-sex, and afterward they’re both wrecked. They cling to each other in the cooling air of the room, aware of how little time they have left together. Hikaru breathes against Pavel’s curls like he’s trying to memorize their smell. “I love you,” he says, and his voice breaks with it. “I love you, Pavel, oh god, don’t you know how much?”
Pavel hums, and climbs atop Hikaru to press open-mouthed kisses against his sweat-slick skin. “Not enough to keep me,” Pavel breathes. He sews these words-and the weight of all his love behind them-into Hikaru with every kiss. “I will never see you again. Can’t you feel it? I’m going to die in this war. And then who will be there to save you?”
It’s in Russian, but maybe Hikaru understands some of it, because he stares up at Pavel with such naked fear, and he’s shaking, shaking. Pavel puts his hands on Hikaru’s face and leans up to kiss him and card fingers through his hair. “Shhh, shhh,” Pavel lies, “everything will be alright.” And, to seal the lie, finishes it with something he hopes is true: “You will be alright.”
You will be alright, he prays. He sleeps with his ear against Hikaru’s chest, over his heart.
Four months later, Pavel receives his own promotion: to Commander, and first officer aboard the Reliant.
Hikaru comms him on a priority channel, and Pavel expects congratulations, but instead Hikaru is furious. He tells Pavel that he’s being ridiculous for accepting the transfer, that he isn’t old enough, that he needs to stay on the Enterprise. Pavel-stunned, and wounded-shouts back that it isn’t for Hikaru to decide anymore. He lost any right to dictate Pavel’s life the minute he rejected Pavel’s transfer request to the Excelsior. They argue more heatedly than they ever have before, shouting spiteful, cutting things. Pavel snarls that Hikaru’s drunk, asks if this is how he captains his ship, such a fine example, and Hikaru throws a glass at the wall and it shatters spectacularly and he shouts, “You’re going to get yourself killed!”
So this is Hikaru’s opinion of him. Pavel reels. His face blooms with sickly heat, and his throat aches with swallowing the sudden well of something rising in his chest, and he pushes it all down savagely and locks it away, because he can’t afford this. He squares his shoulders, sets his jaw, blanks his expression.
All their love, and this is what it has bought them: the ability to cut each other in the deepest, most hurtful places.
War has ruined them. Or maybe they’ve just ruined each other.
“Captain Sulu,” he says, coolly formal, “I acknowledge your concerns regarding my command ability, and will take them into consideration. However, as my own immediate superiors have expressed remarkable satisfaction with my performance, please understand that I will not allow your opinion to hinder the advancement of my career.”
“Fuck. Pavel, wait, that’s not-“
“Good day, sir.”
Pavel terminates the call, and he’s aware as he does it that something is ending. This time there will be no make-up sex to smooth over the wounded edges, no apologies whispered fearfully to each other as they fall into sleep. There is only this: silence, and stinging accusations, and the rigid set of Pavel’s face that he’s too afraid to shed, that he hardens like a shield over his heart.
Somewhere toward the end of the fourth year of the war, the Reliant responds to a distress call in the Theta Aurae system. A Federation research outpost claims to have lost power, but upon arrival they discover the distress call is fabricated. There are four Klingon warbirds waiting in-system to overtake them.
The Klingons target their warp capabilities with a concentrated salvo, stranding them in the system. Captain Terrell places a distress call to FLEETCOM apprising them of their situation, but the nearest Federation starships are at Starbase Sigma Octans, which is almost a full hour at maximal warp-too far for rescue, only close enough for salvage.
Chekov works furiously from the tactical station, providing targeted counterfire and manipulating the shielding coverage to deflect damage to nonvital areas. Beside him Commander Beach struggles to maneuver the ship through the Klingon field of fire on damaged impulse alone. They both know the Reliant can’t be saved, but they’re fighting desperately to sustain her as long as possible. The crew will have the best odds of survival if they can wait to evacuate until the last possible minute, closest to when rescue will arrive.
They last forty minutes before the shield couplings finally fail. Chekov and Beach are both drenched in sweat and shaking from prolonged stress and adrenaline.
Captain Terrell orders a full evacuation, and instructs the shuttles to seek refuge on the surface of any nearby planet or moon in the system, where they can attempt to hide from the Klingons and await eventual rescue. The bridge crew remain behind as the emergency shuttles break away from the ship, their focus shifting from protecting the Reliant to using her as a living shield, tracking and attempting to intercept the Klingon torpedoes that are aimed at the shuttlecraft.
There are too many shuttles to protect them all, too many torpedoes to stop. Shuttles are blown apart as he watches, and Chekov can’t count them, he can only move on to the next, try to keep that one safe, and then the next. The ship shudders underneath him, and she’s coming apart, but he can’t think about that either.
The rear bridge bulkhead collapses in an awful wrench of metal, and when Chekov glances back, Captain Terrell and half the bridge crew are dead or dying, crushed beneath debris. He doesn’t think about it. He palms his console and opens a channel to FLEETCOM. He has to shout over the thunderous roar of the ship breaking apart. “This is Acting Captain Chekov of the Reliant. We have suffered catastrophic damage. We-“ The ship rocks with jarring force. He mutes the messages that pop up on his screen. “-have evacuated crew to Epsilon Aurae III, V, and V-a and -b. I repeat: We have evacuated crew to Epsilon Aurae III, V, and V-a and -b. Be advised that-”
A beam of molten heat lances through the bridge, melting the hull and shattering the viewport.
There’s an awful gasp of air from the room, and then Chekov is outside the ship and breathing down nothing but the black void of space.
His mouth works. His lungs burn and ache and seize in his chest like they’re still trying to find oxygen. He’s untethered, falling away to suffocate in the smothering black. He spasms and gasps soundlessly. It’s agony. It’s agony.
The Reliant disintegrates before his eyes, hemorrhaging the still-living bodies of her remaining crew into space as she goes. His lungs shrivel inside his chest, like paper caught in wildfire. His vision tunnels. This will be the last thing he knows; this will be his grave. He reaches out, wanting swim back to her, to not be alone.
Space shivers on the other side of the battlefield, and two Federation vessels sail into the fray, raining phaser fire and photon torpedoes down upon the circling warbirds. Their hulls are scarred from past battles, but Chekov reads USS Enterprise and USS Excelsior.
He shudders in his extremity, and fades. He closes his eyes.
In the darkness, voices:
“Did you- Did you get-”
“We’ve got him. We brought him back. He’s breathing. He’s alive.”
“Oh god. Oh god. I- I thought-”
“He’s gonna be okay. We’ve got him. You’re gonna be okay.”
When Chekov wakes up, he’s back on the Enterprise, in Sick Bay.
His entire body hurts. His joints are achy and weak, his skin feels scrubbed raw, and his chest burns with every ragged breath. And he’s so tired. But he’s alive, which is unexpected, and he could almost believe that it was all a dream-that the whole bloody war never happened-except for the way Hikaru is looking at him.
Hikaru’s eyes are swollen and red from crying, and he stares down at Chekov like Chekov has spent the last two years breaking his heart, instead of having his heart broken.
“Pavel,” he says.
No one has called him ‘Pavel’ in such a long time.
No one has ever called him ‘Pavel’ the way that Hikaru does.
“Hikaru,” he starts to say, but he can’t finish the word. His voice is wrecked, his throat shredded and hoarse. And his tongue hurts.
“I heard you. We were- We were at the Starbase when the call came in. And- And then- We were on our way, and we were both on the channel when you- Oh god, when you-“ Hikaru’s voice tremors and breaks partway through, and he presses his hands to his eyes and shudders with suppressed sobs. “I heard you die. I heard-oh god, and I can’t, Pavel, I can’t-”
Hikaru shakes with the violence of his grief, and his sobs sound as rendingly painful as Pavel’s chest feels. Pavel doesn’t have the strength to sit up, or to speak. But he slides his hand across the mattress toward Hikaru, and Hikaru takes it up and clutches at it, pressing Pavel’s palm to his cheek and holding there, and it’s wet with Hikaru’s tears but Pavel doesn’t mind.
“God.” Hikaru sniffles, and wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve, still shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess, and you probably-want to know. We recovered eighteen shuttles from the planets’ surfaces, and Scotty was able to beam seven members of the”-he hesitates-“evacuated crew aboard.”
Evacuated. He doesn’t mean the crew that evacuated to the shuttles; he means the crew that were forcibly evacuated, like Pavel, as the hull tore open around them.
Pavel just nods. It’s too near for grief, just yet. He will think about the numbers and what they mean later; he will think about them until he’s sick with thinking about them, and then he will think about them some more. But for now-
For now, Hikaru is shaking, and if Pavel doesn’t have the energy to rise to greet him Hikaru will have to come down instead. He pulls, and Hikaru goes willingly, crawling into the biobed beside him and wrapping himself around Pavel like a blanket. Hikaru pushes his nose against Pavel’s neck, just beneath his ear, and Pavel can feel the heat of his face, the smell of his skin, and he thought he never would again.
“You died,” Hikaru moans. “You died, Pavel, and you can’t. You can’t. I don’t-I don’t know how to live without you. I only-I didn’t take you with me because I wanted you safe. I could send myself and my ship and everyone aboard her to death if I had to, if this god damned war demanded it, but I couldn’t send you. And-“ Hikaru chokes on emotion, has to stop and start again. “I knew that you’d be safe on the Enterprise. Kirk-he’s. He’s. He always finds a way, and I knew that you’d be safe here, with him, and I was so angry at you when you left, I was so scared, it was all I could think about, all the time, where you were, and whether I’d open the fleet briefing and find your ship on the casualty report, and, and-“
Hikaru breaks into great big jagged sobs and wraps around Pavel so tightly that it hurts, but Pavel doesn’t say anything, he just continues breathing, because the thinks that’s all Hikaru needs from him in this moment: to continue breathing.
“I heard you die,” Hikaru cries into Pavel’s chest, and it’s more a whine than actual words, but Pavel understands.
It doesn’t matter that Pavel’s alive now, that Scotty was able to pull him out of his grave and that Doctor McCoy was able to bring him back to life, because Hikaru will never be able to unlive that moment: hearing Pavel’s voice through the tinny speakers, the sound of the ship melting around him, pleading for Pavel to hang on just a moment longer, and then listening to him ripped away mid-thought, pulled to his death while rescue was only seconds away.
Pavel shushes him as best he can with his wrecked voice, and smoothes down Hikaru’s hair with gentle, calming strokes.
Hikaru’s sobs fade slowly, his grip on Pavel’s body relaxing by degrees. Pavel thinks that he’s fallen into sleep until Hikaru lifts his head and presses a kiss to Pavel’s temple, and whimpers, and it hurts because they both know they never thought they would have this again. Hikaru buries his nose in Pavel’s hair, and his breath is still slightly shocky and hitching, but it’s good.
Med Bay is quiet around them. The lights are dimmed, and there’s only one nurse on shift, and two of the other biobeds are occupied with crewmen from the Reliant.
Pavel asks, with his croaking, painful rasp: “Where-“ is your ship? He can’t finish the question-his voice breaks halfway through and never recovers-but Hikaru understands him anyway.
“Docked. We’re at Spacedock. Repairs, and sorting out the displaced crew.”
Pavel licks his chapped lips, and swallows. “And when-“ will you be leaving?
“When you’re ready to come with me.” Hikaru props himself up on an elbow and leans over Pavel, searching his eyes. Pavel doesn’t know if he finds what he’s looking for. Pavel doesn’t know what’s on his face, except blank surprise. Hikaru adds, “You still want to, don’t you?”
It’s like a pressure valve inside Pavel’s chest has been turned, something that has spent all this time apart slowly coiling tighter in his heart is now finally unwound.
“But-“
Hikaru reaches up and brushes back some stray curls on Pavel’s forehead before answering. “I can’t do that again. Please don’t make me. When I thought you were dead-“ He shakes his head. “So. You have to come with me.”
“Okay,” Pavel agrees, breathless.
Hikaru’s face folds into helpless happiness. “What, just ‘okay?’ You’re not going to tell me I’m an idiot for not taking you the first time?”
“Idiot,” Pavel supplies helpfully. He’s so tired, and finally it’s the good kind of tired, like he can sleep and actually rest and not worry about what might leap out at him from the darkness of space when his eyes are closed.
“Hell, they might make you captain, after what you did. God, Pavel, I don’t know how you survived. I thought- When they said it was the Reliant, and we were an hour out, I thought- Kirk and I both burnt out our warp drives trying to reach you, and I still thought- Forty-five minutes, Pavel, against four warbirds. They might promote you straight to admiral. Don’t you want to wait to see what they offer you?”
“Okay,” Pavel says again, feeling agreeable. But he’s not serious, and Hikaru must know it, because he settles back into the bed beside him, so close that Pavel feels wrapped in him. He can feel Hikaru’s hamming heartbeat.
“We could still die out there, you know. Even if we’re together.”
“Together,” Pavel hums, closing his eyes.
NOTES: This was written for the STXI Snapshots challenge, Prompt 01: Space. Don't ask me how it became a love story; I honestly couldn't tell you.
Rating: FRT, for language and mild (nongraphic) sexual content.
Pairing: Chekov/Sulu
Length: ~2,500 words
Summary: The Federation is at war with the Klingons, and Pavel and Hikaru are swept up in it. They try to do their best by each other, but sometimes their best isn't good enough.
In the second year of the Klingon War, Hikaru is promoted to Captain and given command of the Excelsior. He doesn’t take Pavel with him.
They fight bitterly about it. Hikaru says it’s to avoid the appearance of favoritism. Pavel asks to see a single more capable navigator in all of Starfleet. Hikaru says accusations of fraternization will undermine his command authority. Pavel asks if he thinks being human will ‘undermine his command authority.’ Hikaru says he can’t afford to have Pavel as a distraction when he needs to focus on the welfare of his entire crew, and Pavel swears violently in Russian, because Hikaru is an absolute bastard to try to blame this on him.
They have furious, devastatingly good angry-sex, and afterward they’re both wrecked. They cling to each other in the cooling air of the room, aware of how little time they have left together. Hikaru breathes against Pavel’s curls like he’s trying to memorize their smell. “I love you,” he says, and his voice breaks with it. “I love you, Pavel, oh god, don’t you know how much?”
Pavel hums, and climbs atop Hikaru to press open-mouthed kisses against his sweat-slick skin. “Not enough to keep me,” Pavel breathes. He sews these words-and the weight of all his love behind them-into Hikaru with every kiss. “I will never see you again. Can’t you feel it? I’m going to die in this war. And then who will be there to save you?”
It’s in Russian, but maybe Hikaru understands some of it, because he stares up at Pavel with such naked fear, and he’s shaking, shaking. Pavel puts his hands on Hikaru’s face and leans up to kiss him and card fingers through his hair. “Shhh, shhh,” Pavel lies, “everything will be alright.” And, to seal the lie, finishes it with something he hopes is true: “You will be alright.”
You will be alright, he prays. He sleeps with his ear against Hikaru’s chest, over his heart.
Four months later, Pavel receives his own promotion: to Commander, and first officer aboard the Reliant.
Hikaru comms him on a priority channel, and Pavel expects congratulations, but instead Hikaru is furious. He tells Pavel that he’s being ridiculous for accepting the transfer, that he isn’t old enough, that he needs to stay on the Enterprise. Pavel-stunned, and wounded-shouts back that it isn’t for Hikaru to decide anymore. He lost any right to dictate Pavel’s life the minute he rejected Pavel’s transfer request to the Excelsior. They argue more heatedly than they ever have before, shouting spiteful, cutting things. Pavel snarls that Hikaru’s drunk, asks if this is how he captains his ship, such a fine example, and Hikaru throws a glass at the wall and it shatters spectacularly and he shouts, “You’re going to get yourself killed!”
So this is Hikaru’s opinion of him. Pavel reels. His face blooms with sickly heat, and his throat aches with swallowing the sudden well of something rising in his chest, and he pushes it all down savagely and locks it away, because he can’t afford this. He squares his shoulders, sets his jaw, blanks his expression.
All their love, and this is what it has bought them: the ability to cut each other in the deepest, most hurtful places.
War has ruined them. Or maybe they’ve just ruined each other.
“Captain Sulu,” he says, coolly formal, “I acknowledge your concerns regarding my command ability, and will take them into consideration. However, as my own immediate superiors have expressed remarkable satisfaction with my performance, please understand that I will not allow your opinion to hinder the advancement of my career.”
“Fuck. Pavel, wait, that’s not-“
“Good day, sir.”
Pavel terminates the call, and he’s aware as he does it that something is ending. This time there will be no make-up sex to smooth over the wounded edges, no apologies whispered fearfully to each other as they fall into sleep. There is only this: silence, and stinging accusations, and the rigid set of Pavel’s face that he’s too afraid to shed, that he hardens like a shield over his heart.
Somewhere toward the end of the fourth year of the war, the Reliant responds to a distress call in the Theta Aurae system. A Federation research outpost claims to have lost power, but upon arrival they discover the distress call is fabricated. There are four Klingon warbirds waiting in-system to overtake them.
The Klingons target their warp capabilities with a concentrated salvo, stranding them in the system. Captain Terrell places a distress call to FLEETCOM apprising them of their situation, but the nearest Federation starships are at Starbase Sigma Octans, which is almost a full hour at maximal warp-too far for rescue, only close enough for salvage.
Chekov works furiously from the tactical station, providing targeted counterfire and manipulating the shielding coverage to deflect damage to nonvital areas. Beside him Commander Beach struggles to maneuver the ship through the Klingon field of fire on damaged impulse alone. They both know the Reliant can’t be saved, but they’re fighting desperately to sustain her as long as possible. The crew will have the best odds of survival if they can wait to evacuate until the last possible minute, closest to when rescue will arrive.
They last forty minutes before the shield couplings finally fail. Chekov and Beach are both drenched in sweat and shaking from prolonged stress and adrenaline.
Captain Terrell orders a full evacuation, and instructs the shuttles to seek refuge on the surface of any nearby planet or moon in the system, where they can attempt to hide from the Klingons and await eventual rescue. The bridge crew remain behind as the emergency shuttles break away from the ship, their focus shifting from protecting the Reliant to using her as a living shield, tracking and attempting to intercept the Klingon torpedoes that are aimed at the shuttlecraft.
There are too many shuttles to protect them all, too many torpedoes to stop. Shuttles are blown apart as he watches, and Chekov can’t count them, he can only move on to the next, try to keep that one safe, and then the next. The ship shudders underneath him, and she’s coming apart, but he can’t think about that either.
The rear bridge bulkhead collapses in an awful wrench of metal, and when Chekov glances back, Captain Terrell and half the bridge crew are dead or dying, crushed beneath debris. He doesn’t think about it. He palms his console and opens a channel to FLEETCOM. He has to shout over the thunderous roar of the ship breaking apart. “This is Acting Captain Chekov of the Reliant. We have suffered catastrophic damage. We-“ The ship rocks with jarring force. He mutes the messages that pop up on his screen. “-have evacuated crew to Epsilon Aurae III, V, and V-a and -b. I repeat: We have evacuated crew to Epsilon Aurae III, V, and V-a and -b. Be advised that-”
A beam of molten heat lances through the bridge, melting the hull and shattering the viewport.
There’s an awful gasp of air from the room, and then Chekov is outside the ship and breathing down nothing but the black void of space.
His mouth works. His lungs burn and ache and seize in his chest like they’re still trying to find oxygen. He’s untethered, falling away to suffocate in the smothering black. He spasms and gasps soundlessly. It’s agony. It’s agony.
The Reliant disintegrates before his eyes, hemorrhaging the still-living bodies of her remaining crew into space as she goes. His lungs shrivel inside his chest, like paper caught in wildfire. His vision tunnels. This will be the last thing he knows; this will be his grave. He reaches out, wanting swim back to her, to not be alone.
Space shivers on the other side of the battlefield, and two Federation vessels sail into the fray, raining phaser fire and photon torpedoes down upon the circling warbirds. Their hulls are scarred from past battles, but Chekov reads USS Enterprise and USS Excelsior.
He shudders in his extremity, and fades. He closes his eyes.
In the darkness, voices:
“Did you- Did you get-”
“We’ve got him. We brought him back. He’s breathing. He’s alive.”
“Oh god. Oh god. I- I thought-”
“He’s gonna be okay. We’ve got him. You’re gonna be okay.”
When Chekov wakes up, he’s back on the Enterprise, in Sick Bay.
His entire body hurts. His joints are achy and weak, his skin feels scrubbed raw, and his chest burns with every ragged breath. And he’s so tired. But he’s alive, which is unexpected, and he could almost believe that it was all a dream-that the whole bloody war never happened-except for the way Hikaru is looking at him.
Hikaru’s eyes are swollen and red from crying, and he stares down at Chekov like Chekov has spent the last two years breaking his heart, instead of having his heart broken.
“Pavel,” he says.
No one has called him ‘Pavel’ in such a long time.
No one has ever called him ‘Pavel’ the way that Hikaru does.
“Hikaru,” he starts to say, but he can’t finish the word. His voice is wrecked, his throat shredded and hoarse. And his tongue hurts.
“I heard you. We were- We were at the Starbase when the call came in. And- And then- We were on our way, and we were both on the channel when you- Oh god, when you-“ Hikaru’s voice tremors and breaks partway through, and he presses his hands to his eyes and shudders with suppressed sobs. “I heard you die. I heard-oh god, and I can’t, Pavel, I can’t-”
Hikaru shakes with the violence of his grief, and his sobs sound as rendingly painful as Pavel’s chest feels. Pavel doesn’t have the strength to sit up, or to speak. But he slides his hand across the mattress toward Hikaru, and Hikaru takes it up and clutches at it, pressing Pavel’s palm to his cheek and holding there, and it’s wet with Hikaru’s tears but Pavel doesn’t mind.
“God.” Hikaru sniffles, and wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve, still shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess, and you probably-want to know. We recovered eighteen shuttles from the planets’ surfaces, and Scotty was able to beam seven members of the”-he hesitates-“evacuated crew aboard.”
Evacuated. He doesn’t mean the crew that evacuated to the shuttles; he means the crew that were forcibly evacuated, like Pavel, as the hull tore open around them.
Pavel just nods. It’s too near for grief, just yet. He will think about the numbers and what they mean later; he will think about them until he’s sick with thinking about them, and then he will think about them some more. But for now-
For now, Hikaru is shaking, and if Pavel doesn’t have the energy to rise to greet him Hikaru will have to come down instead. He pulls, and Hikaru goes willingly, crawling into the biobed beside him and wrapping himself around Pavel like a blanket. Hikaru pushes his nose against Pavel’s neck, just beneath his ear, and Pavel can feel the heat of his face, the smell of his skin, and he thought he never would again.
“You died,” Hikaru moans. “You died, Pavel, and you can’t. You can’t. I don’t-I don’t know how to live without you. I only-I didn’t take you with me because I wanted you safe. I could send myself and my ship and everyone aboard her to death if I had to, if this god damned war demanded it, but I couldn’t send you. And-“ Hikaru chokes on emotion, has to stop and start again. “I knew that you’d be safe on the Enterprise. Kirk-he’s. He’s. He always finds a way, and I knew that you’d be safe here, with him, and I was so angry at you when you left, I was so scared, it was all I could think about, all the time, where you were, and whether I’d open the fleet briefing and find your ship on the casualty report, and, and-“
Hikaru breaks into great big jagged sobs and wraps around Pavel so tightly that it hurts, but Pavel doesn’t say anything, he just continues breathing, because the thinks that’s all Hikaru needs from him in this moment: to continue breathing.
“I heard you die,” Hikaru cries into Pavel’s chest, and it’s more a whine than actual words, but Pavel understands.
It doesn’t matter that Pavel’s alive now, that Scotty was able to pull him out of his grave and that Doctor McCoy was able to bring him back to life, because Hikaru will never be able to unlive that moment: hearing Pavel’s voice through the tinny speakers, the sound of the ship melting around him, pleading for Pavel to hang on just a moment longer, and then listening to him ripped away mid-thought, pulled to his death while rescue was only seconds away.
Pavel shushes him as best he can with his wrecked voice, and smoothes down Hikaru’s hair with gentle, calming strokes.
Hikaru’s sobs fade slowly, his grip on Pavel’s body relaxing by degrees. Pavel thinks that he’s fallen into sleep until Hikaru lifts his head and presses a kiss to Pavel’s temple, and whimpers, and it hurts because they both know they never thought they would have this again. Hikaru buries his nose in Pavel’s hair, and his breath is still slightly shocky and hitching, but it’s good.
Med Bay is quiet around them. The lights are dimmed, and there’s only one nurse on shift, and two of the other biobeds are occupied with crewmen from the Reliant.
Pavel asks, with his croaking, painful rasp: “Where-“ is your ship? He can’t finish the question-his voice breaks halfway through and never recovers-but Hikaru understands him anyway.
“Docked. We’re at Spacedock. Repairs, and sorting out the displaced crew.”
Pavel licks his chapped lips, and swallows. “And when-“ will you be leaving?
“When you’re ready to come with me.” Hikaru props himself up on an elbow and leans over Pavel, searching his eyes. Pavel doesn’t know if he finds what he’s looking for. Pavel doesn’t know what’s on his face, except blank surprise. Hikaru adds, “You still want to, don’t you?”
It’s like a pressure valve inside Pavel’s chest has been turned, something that has spent all this time apart slowly coiling tighter in his heart is now finally unwound.
“But-“
Hikaru reaches up and brushes back some stray curls on Pavel’s forehead before answering. “I can’t do that again. Please don’t make me. When I thought you were dead-“ He shakes his head. “So. You have to come with me.”
“Okay,” Pavel agrees, breathless.
Hikaru’s face folds into helpless happiness. “What, just ‘okay?’ You’re not going to tell me I’m an idiot for not taking you the first time?”
“Idiot,” Pavel supplies helpfully. He’s so tired, and finally it’s the good kind of tired, like he can sleep and actually rest and not worry about what might leap out at him from the darkness of space when his eyes are closed.
“Hell, they might make you captain, after what you did. God, Pavel, I don’t know how you survived. I thought- When they said it was the Reliant, and we were an hour out, I thought- Kirk and I both burnt out our warp drives trying to reach you, and I still thought- Forty-five minutes, Pavel, against four warbirds. They might promote you straight to admiral. Don’t you want to wait to see what they offer you?”
“Okay,” Pavel says again, feeling agreeable. But he’s not serious, and Hikaru must know it, because he settles back into the bed beside him, so close that Pavel feels wrapped in him. He can feel Hikaru’s hamming heartbeat.
“We could still die out there, you know. Even if we’re together.”
“Together,” Pavel hums, closing his eyes.
NOTES: This was written for the STXI Snapshots challenge, Prompt 01: Space. Don't ask me how it became a love story; I honestly couldn't tell you.