Abandoned blog.

The ensign smiled at Sulu's words, mostly from hearing the pilot saying I love you, words that caused a stirring in his chest. Giving a lazy head butt to his shoulder, he mumbled "Shut up," with a quiet chuckle at the man's modesty.

For what it was worth, he was relieved to see that smile, even if it didn't light up as much as he knew it could. He wouldn't have been able to if it had been Kevin in Sasha's place. He would have shut down, but that was just another example of how much stronger Chekov could be. The Russian was so young, yes, but he was more than that. He was so many things that Sulu wished he could be.

The navigator leaned into Sulu as he waited for the doors to open, feeling comfortable enough to go to sleep, even standing upright. For a moment, he rested his eyes, flashing them opening when he felt himself suddenly pulled from the ground. Had anyone else attempted this, Chekov might have yelped and given a confused struggle before he understood the situation. Yet, his arms reflexively wrapped around the pilot’s neck to avoid falling before he even realised the man had picked him up to carry him.

Sulu hadn't even been sure how helpful he was being until he heard those gentle mutterings in Russian. He turned his head, inclined, and listened until he heard those words he couldn't understand but knew entirely what they meant. The ones that Chekov timidly had him repeat even before he realized what they meant. Even before Chekov realized that he was speaking in his native tongue, Sulu was providing him with weightless smile, fingers tracing absent, invisible patterns along the inside of his partner's elbow.

Jim turned, focusing entirely on decoding his young third. He scrutinized the man’s expression, the slouch of his shoulders, the curve of his back. The way the man’s hair was messier than usual, uncombed tufts in the back as though someone had recently run their fingers through it. Mostly he focused on the movement of his fingers, the play of emotions across his face. Despair, confusion, exhaustion, uncertainty, shame, disappointment, self-conscious blame.

His focus was in and out of the room, everywhere and nowhere, but mostly keen on some hidden sense of approval that he felt he desperately needed. A guiding hand, not purposefully for praise, but for reassurance. In his wildest dreams, he was a Starship Captain. He commandeered a vessel that protected hundreds of lives. A family, just like the Enterprise. And in his worst nightmares, he condemned them all. 

She wasn’t sufferig he wanted to object, but didn’t have the energy. Chekov took a long, shaky inhale, taking in the smell of sweat oh his partner, which was a strangely comforting scent. “Da,” he mumbled, but didn’t budge. He held the embrace, closing his eyes as he collected himself. There was certain kind of solace from holding Sulu that managed to calm his nerves. The navigator felt a his head swimming slightly, the burst of emotion mixed with vodka causing a headache.

There was bound to be snags, he realized, bound to be times where Chekov would think about her and want to curl into himself, but that's what Sulu was there for. He could be a crutch in times like these, glad that they had each other at the end of the day. They both had that much to hold onto.

He laughed weakly at the familiar response of denial, that which he had displayed when Evelyn had tried to tell him. The ensign almost regretted insisting the engineer took him to see the body. It wasn’t something he could easily shake off. Chekov fell into the embrace, the contact crumbling the thin barricade held against the tears, now free flowing as he returned the hug. Shoulder shuddered as he buried his face into the lieutenant’s shoulder.

Even now, in his precision-clear mentality post exercise, his denial was a sticky mess but he knew it was real. It was valid, it had to be. Chekov would have had to personally seen the woman's body in order to be this stage of grieving, something he could personally attest to after he lived through Klingons attacking the Federation colony he'd lived on for a few years growing up. Dead, in the blink of an eye, dead like several others in the past few weeks. An icy chill had started to settle in his gut, so frequent that he was used to its touch by now.

Chekov's limbs suddenly were weak as his smile dropped instantly. A shot of horror flashed through his eyes as Sulu's word revealed his ignorance. A chill overtook him despite the warmth of his partner's embrace, "Nyet, Hikaru," he whispered, his voice quiet as his breath suddenly became scarce. Buy that jacket. He gave a nervous, hysterical laugh, opening his mouth to form words that didn't come, lips twitching into a pathetic smile, turning into a frown. "Sasha's--" He choked on the words, the scene in the snow coming back to him and the way her frozen body felt.

He knew he'd said something wrong the instant the light died from his partner's eyes. Something hollow and cold settled in his stomach, sent a shiver of anxiety traveling like needles up his spine until he could feel the block of air in his throat, a rock against his windpipe. Sulu's brows knitted together to convey his initial confusion, then his disbelief, then his denial. Chekov's tears were the only thing suddenly keeping him grounded, even with the weakness in his knees. He suddenly felt the wave of the younger man's despair and it took all of his willpower to keep from staggering. "No, she can't--," he couldn't even finish the sentence, couldn't deny Chekov's certainty from the anguish on his face.

Exploring the ship had been on his first priorities. Well, maybe helping to fix the ship had been his first, bu exploring was near the top of his list. He had never been on anything so big and mobile before, accustomed to starbases and small thirty man ships, this place was incredible. Around every corner there was something new. The main mess hall, a few recreational rooms, laboratories after laboratories, the engineering decks were endless, and his latest discovery was the gym.

He was at a point where he knew he was out of breath and he only gave himself enough to pursue his exorcising goals, something that he had passed likely over an hour ago. Rather than calling it a day, though, he toughed it out, never skipping a beat in a room he had assumed he had all to himself. The gym was usually deserted around this time, anyway. Officers chose to eat over visiting the gym this early in the day, and since he had a full day to waste before he had active duty on the bridge, he felt he had no where else to be.

"Next time, suggest it to him, then time his lecture on Vulcans needing less sleep than humans. If it goes over ten minutes he’s being pedantic and clearly needs a break." Jim laughed quietly, shaking his head. He still couldn’t quite… understand, interpret his link with Spock in his mind. His brain hadn’t adjusted to the seventh sense quite yet. He wondered if the first officer could tell that Jim was thinking of him in that moment.

From his obvious stiffness, Sulu visibly deflated, his expression taking on a fonder light while he recalled their first few intense assignments aboard the Enterprise, back when he had only been a fill-in for a woman he wasn't all that enthusiastic about. "That's different," he tried to argue, a little quirk to the corner of his lips while he shifted on the edge of Kirk's bed. "You were already filling out the shoes for captaincy. All I end up doing is second guessing my every thought. I go from being confident about my suggestions for the sake of the ship to gear-shifting the moment I sit in the chair."

Some Figures and Facts || Sulu & Chekov

When he was training, at least, the rest of the world slipped away. Rain on glass, where nothing could interrupt his concentration. The feeling was different when he used that energy on everything around him. In a real fight. Now, even footsteps were nothing to the pounding of his own blood in his ears, against the even-stepped but ragged breaths and every prattle of his own feet against the padded floors. Sulu was just himself and nothing else but the extension of his own arms, his legs. Nothing until the sound of his own name on someone else's tongue broke his sync. 

[MESSAGE]: Hikaru, take a personal day tomorrow!! Olivera's going to cover for you!

[MESSAGE]: Hikaru, take a personal day tomorrow!! Olivera's going to cover for you!

[MESSAGE]: Hikaru, take a personal day tomorrow!! Olivera's going to cover for you!

[MESSAGE]: Hikaru, take a personal day tomorrow!! Olivera's going to cover for you!

[MESSAGE]: Hikaru, take a personal day tomorrow!! Olivera's going to cover for you!

[MESSAGE]: Hikaru, take a personal day tomorrow!! Olivera's going to cover for you!