(no subject)
TITLE: tell me the story of how you ended up here (text only)
AUTHOR: eudaimon
RATING: PG13
PAIRING: Chekov/Sulu
SUMMARY: Epistolary.
A/N: Written for a request made by bzzinglikeneon here. thaursir is an awesome beta (but she knows that) and I love her deeply (and she knows that too). Chekov is supposed to have sort of awful handwriting and, you can find the image heavy version of the story here.
He's grown used to being woken by alarm, a soft a-tonal chiming in the dark. He stirs, his cheek against warm skin and blinks. The numerals on the clock glow gentle green in the dark and, not for the first time, it occurs to him that time means nothing in space. It means something because they say it must. He presses a sleepy kiss against Sulu's chest and rises, feels a familiar ache. Last night, Hikaru fucked him slow and deep, bent Chekov virtually double with his knees hooked over his shoulders. Chekov stretches both arms up over his head and smiles to himself in the dark. Usually, he's dragging himself out of bed at this hour so that he can make it back to his own room before anybody else is awake. It's not that they're ashamed, more than they both intend to be taken seriously in their careers and it's nobody's business, at all.
It's not that they love each other any less.
This morning, though, he gets up and puts his uniform on because there's a mission, because there's a shuttle leaving for a nearby space-station and Chekov is on loan, from Captain to Commodore. There are transporter pads to upgrade. It will only take a day or two.
He throws a couple of things into a bag, stifling a yawn against the back of his head, leans over the desk on one arm to write a note by the glow from the clock and then he's out of the door. He comes back to press a kiss to Hikaru's temple without waking him and then he's gone, really gone, leaving the man he loves sleeping in a rumpled bed that they've been sharing for five years, nobody to wake up with but a stuffed rhino with three legs.
But it's hours until he has to get up yet.
*
No time to wake you. I will write when I get there.
LOVE YOU.
P.A.C
*
My dearest dear you,
So sorry to leave the other morning without waking you, Hikaru. You looked so peaceful and we had such a late night, (!) and I will only be gone for a couple of days. The transporter pads at this base are in very need of updating and with Mr Scott on the Enterprise, it makes good sense for Captain Kirk to offer my services to Commodore Stocker.
Please tell me that you are not very angry with me?
The base is very nice but it is not the Enterprise. When you are next at the conn, tell the ship that I miss her.
I will see you soon, I think.
Yours,
Pavel
p.s sorry about coffee stain!!
*
Pavel,
I can't believe that this is fucking happening. We don't really have a choice - those people need help, and Kirk tried to hold on far as long as he could but we really are leaving without you. We'll be back in a couple of days and you can finish up what you're doing there and I guess we'll get you on the way back.
I'm enclosing all the stuff you might need for the next couple of days - figured you'd forgotten Tolstoy and not deliberately left him behind.
Shit, it's been two days and I miss you, baby. Be good.
H.
*
Love,
I am hoping that this letter finds you well or finds you at all. We are so distant now. I watch communications for news of the Enterprise. It does not sound like you will be home soon, my love. I suppose I will wait here. Since I was fourteen I have dreamed of being on a starship and now...now I just wish to be be anywhere that you are, my love. Any place where there is you.
Listen to me. I am growing ridiculous without you. I need to shower. I smell like grease and transporter parts.
Love, Love, Love.
Pasha.
*
Pavel,
This is all so ridiculous. It's at least sort of comforting that Kirk's almost as pissed off as I am. Don't worry: I'm trying to be subtle about it. Right now, it's looking like we're going to be out here for at LEAST two months - they're really not equipped to deal with this kind of epidemic here on IO. I'll admit - I'm a little nervous about being back here, but, so far, nobody's tried to put me in panties. The Queen's very pretty this year, too. But fucking scary. The only time I ever relax is when I'm in my quarters. I've started wearing one of your t-shirts to bed.
Basically, we're out here administering ryetalyn solution, monitoring, that sort of thing. Most of the time, anyone who isn't McCoy spends a lot of time twiddling their thumbs. The death-toll so far is 83, 000. SO I suppose, right now, we're not even winning. The first memeber of the rew died of Rigelian fever yesterday. Carter. I think his name was Carter.
I love you, but I'm sort of glad you're not here. The face masks don't do anything.
I love you. So. Much.
H.
*
Hikaru,
Is all this talk of IO supposed to amuse me? I remember the Queen of Spring and I Do not care if the new one is pretty or not. Do they still do these things when the whole planet is dying? In Russia, in the old days, they were obsessed with death too. Do they still burn her if everybody is dead or does she live to another spring? Stay on the bridge, Hikaru. Stay on the bridge & stay away from her. Let her have Captain Kirk if he's hunting, okay?
Should I talk about pretty girls too? I could tell you about the girl, very pretty, who talked to me in the coffee bar? She looked a little like a supermodel, with blond hair and very blue eyes. I talked to her for a little while and then I told her that I had a partner and I showed her the ring that you gave me. I did not tell her your name.
Oh! I spoke to your mother. She is very well and so is your sister's baby. They haven't chosen a name for her yet, though, I think.
Listen: I dream of you, always. I dream of simple things. I hope you dream of me.
Please stay safe. If that Queen looks a tyou, turn your back on her and think about coming home to me.
I love you always,
Pasha.
*
Pasha,
It's very late here, about half way done with Gamma shift and it's that time when the bridge goes quiet. We've got people down on the surface so the Helm needs to be manned so here I am, waiting. I wish that I was waiting for you.
I love this ship, you know? I love everything about her. I love it when it's quiet like this, all the lights turned down and everything's still buzzing, still going on around me, but up here it's still as space. From way up here, the planet's solid green. It just floats there like it's waiting for something, like Eden must have been back in the day, you know? I wish that was us. I wish we'd woken up in a place like that, all green, just me and you and the sun.
I wish you were sitting here with me now. I feel...lonely isn't the right word. I'm not lonely. How could I be lonely when the ship's here? What I wish is that I could leave the bridge and go and get into a bed wtih you waiting. You'd be sleeping and i"d slide in beside you, trying not to wake you and you'd be warm and full of sleep and i"d kiss you and tell you I loved you. I kiss a constellation on the smooth bare skin of your back. Or maybe you could sit here with me, share the chair, and we'd just sit here for a while and watch the planet spin around her sun?
It feels like forever since I saw you last, baby. How long have we been out here, anyway? It feels like it's been about a million years.
I love you so much. I'm coming home because I don't know how to be where you aren't, anymore.
All my love
(and it's pretty fucking endless)
H.
*
My love,
You make me miss it so much. I feel like I have been born twice in my life: once in St Petersburg, son of Andrei, son of Marta and once the first time I walked onto the bridge of the Enterprise and I know that I am home.
You came later. I am home there, too, I think. I am home when I am with you. My father felt this way about my mother, I think. He was always a little lonely after she died, I think, even with other women. All of his life after she left him, my father was lonely for my mother. What I am saying is: come back to me, Hikaru, so that I am not lonely for my whole life without you.
Did I tell you that I have been running here? It's another thing which is not the same without you. I remember that I used oknow how to run in St Petersberg, dear Piter, along the banks of the Neva like my Mama used to. I remember that, but I can never remember HOW after so many years of you keeping count for me.
That's it, my love, my love. You have ruined me.
I love you. I hope you're well. How is IO? At night, I close my eyes and imagine it shining green in space and I imagine you there and you safe.
Ever and always,
Pavel
*
Hikaru,
You do not think it is a little unfair? It has been a week since my last letter and I hear nothing from you. How am I supposed to know you are not fucking dead on that fucking planet? We hear that they are making mass-graves there now because there are so many bodies. Am I supposed to not care or do you try to worry me that you might be one of them? You want me to tell you that I dream of you dead?
Fuck you, HIkaru, if that is what you try to do. Write back to me. Write back because you fucking love me. Write back to tell me that you didn't GET the first fucking letter because Starfleet are many things but they cannot match Russian post-office.
Just write.
Pavel.
*
H,
I love you. Please write.
I just...I need...
Please write.
P.
*
OFFICIAL SUBSPACE TRANSMISSION.
TO: PAVEL A. CHEKOV (BASE X)
FROM: N. UHURA (ENTERPRISE)
Just looked at Sulu's aper mail. He's been in the sickbay for the last three weeks. Rigelian fever. He's very sick but he's fighting it. It's...Pavel, you might want to find a way to come back. Kirk would agree if he knew about you guys. Just find a way.
Be safe. I'll be with him.
Uhura.
TRANSMISSION ENDS.
*
It isn't until he's there, until the Enterprise is in sight, that Chekov realises that he hasn't really thought this through at all. What will he do when they court martial him? What will he be, back in Russia, with his career over with and done? What if he doesn't get that far: if whoever is sitting in his seat is jumpy and shoots him out of the sky and he explodes in sparks over the green planet?
What if HIkaru is already dead?
He doesn't think about that. So tired that he can barely see, his head aching from the concentration of flying through empty space for so long (how does Hikaru do it, he wonders?) he thumbs open a channel. For a moment, he sways, eyes closed, listening to the static. There's something almost soothing about it. When he was a little boy he used to lie awake in his little bed and listen to the wind blowing through the eaves.
"Shuttlecraft Vespucci II to Enterprise..." he says, his voice hoarse because he hasn't used it in close to a week. "Requesting permission to come aboard."
There's this moment of silence when all that Chekov can feel is the aching throb of his heart.
"Enterprise to Shuttlecraft Vespucci II," says Uhura, unmistably her, her voice low and cool and only just starting to sound surprised. "Chekov? Is that you?"
"It's me," he says, wearily. "I..."
"Get your ass onboard, Chekov," says the Captain's familiar voice. "Bay two. We'll talk about it later."
He's so weary, so heart-worn, that he almost weeps, but he finds enough strength in him to pilot the shuttlecraft home. It's the first time he's ever really flown before. Hikaru taught him, but he never thought he'd have to go anywhere on his own.
Which shows what he knew.
Feet on the Enterprise, he feels like he's coming home. He stands for a moment, swaying on his feet, drags a breath in through his nose and pushes the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows and then he starts to walk towards the doors that lead to the ship proper. In his soul, in his heart, he wants to run but his legs won't let him. He trudges and it's the best that he can do. There's a part of him that knows if he couldn't do that, he'd crawl.
Kirk is waiting just beyond the door, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.
"You couldn't have called?" he says.
"Captain, I..."
Kirk holds up one hand, shaking his head. Chekov doesn't stop walking and Kirk falls into step beside him.
"Listen, Chekov. I've got Spock on the channel to the Commodore telling him that we're very sorry our crewman stole his shuttle and that we'll get it back to him in one piece. Hopefully, he'll decide that it really is best to let me deal with my problem in my way."
Chekov can't do anything but nod miserably. He doesn't even look at the Captain. He'll get what's coming to him, and he'll deserve it.
It'll be worth it.
Maybe when he goes back to Russia, he'll learn to be a carpenter, like his father is.
The doors of the turbolift open at sick bay and Chekov goes to walk out and Kirk catches his arm.
"Next time? Tell me when you're in a relationship so that when he gets sick, I know what to do," he says, quietly, just for Chekov to hear, even though McCoy is standing feet away. "And now I"m going to go help Spock beg Stocker for your ass, whizkid. I'll do this because I'm awesome." He pushes Chekov gently. "Go. Sit with him. Officially, you're not even here."
Not much further. He doesn't require much more of his weary bones. McCoy looks at him like maybe he thinks Chekov ought to be forced into one of the vacant beds and, maybe later he will be but, for now, there's only one thing that he needs to do.
In a bed at the end of the bay, Sulu lies sleeping. His face is paler than Chekov has ever seen it, circles of hot colour burning. The flush continues down to his chest. At the side of his bed, there's a pile of envelopes, arranged neatly and everyone one of them labelled,
"Will he live?" he asks McCoy wearily, holding onto the bed so that he doesn't drop down onto his knees. He's so weary. He feels like he ought to thank God for bringing him here.
"Yeah," says McCoy, gruff as ever and claps Chekov on the shoulder, squeezing. "Yes. I'm going to turn the lights down now, if you're staying."
Of course he's staying.
Chekov leans over the bed and kisses Hikaru's temple, not intending to wake him but, this time, he stirs. He blinks sleepily and smiles.
"I was dreaming about you," he says, voice hoarse and Chekov bends to kiss hist throat as he puts one knee up on the bed and climbs right up, toeing off his sneakers before he settles along side Sulu. He's skinny and he doesn't take up a lot of room. He curls in around Sulu as McCoy dims the lights for the night and he drifts off dreaming of walking with Sulu on the surface of the green planet and tonight there will be no alarm and nobody will wake him for hours and hours.
And then he's really home, and home to stay.
AUTHOR: eudaimon
RATING: PG13
PAIRING: Chekov/Sulu
SUMMARY: Epistolary.
A/N: Written for a request made by bzzinglikeneon here. thaursir is an awesome beta (but she knows that) and I love her deeply (and she knows that too). Chekov is supposed to have sort of awful handwriting and, you can find the image heavy version of the story here.
He's grown used to being woken by alarm, a soft a-tonal chiming in the dark. He stirs, his cheek against warm skin and blinks. The numerals on the clock glow gentle green in the dark and, not for the first time, it occurs to him that time means nothing in space. It means something because they say it must. He presses a sleepy kiss against Sulu's chest and rises, feels a familiar ache. Last night, Hikaru fucked him slow and deep, bent Chekov virtually double with his knees hooked over his shoulders. Chekov stretches both arms up over his head and smiles to himself in the dark. Usually, he's dragging himself out of bed at this hour so that he can make it back to his own room before anybody else is awake. It's not that they're ashamed, more than they both intend to be taken seriously in their careers and it's nobody's business, at all.
It's not that they love each other any less.
This morning, though, he gets up and puts his uniform on because there's a mission, because there's a shuttle leaving for a nearby space-station and Chekov is on loan, from Captain to Commodore. There are transporter pads to upgrade. It will only take a day or two.
He throws a couple of things into a bag, stifling a yawn against the back of his head, leans over the desk on one arm to write a note by the glow from the clock and then he's out of the door. He comes back to press a kiss to Hikaru's temple without waking him and then he's gone, really gone, leaving the man he loves sleeping in a rumpled bed that they've been sharing for five years, nobody to wake up with but a stuffed rhino with three legs.
But it's hours until he has to get up yet.
*
No time to wake you. I will write when I get there.
LOVE YOU.
P.A.C
*
My dearest dear you,
So sorry to leave the other morning without waking you, Hikaru. You looked so peaceful and we had such a late night, (!) and I will only be gone for a couple of days. The transporter pads at this base are in very need of updating and with Mr Scott on the Enterprise, it makes good sense for Captain Kirk to offer my services to Commodore Stocker.
Please tell me that you are not very angry with me?
The base is very nice but it is not the Enterprise. When you are next at the conn, tell the ship that I miss her.
I will see you soon, I think.
Yours,
Pavel
p.s sorry about coffee stain!!
*
Pavel,
I can't believe that this is fucking happening. We don't really have a choice - those people need help, and Kirk tried to hold on far as long as he could but we really are leaving without you. We'll be back in a couple of days and you can finish up what you're doing there and I guess we'll get you on the way back.
I'm enclosing all the stuff you might need for the next couple of days - figured you'd forgotten Tolstoy and not deliberately left him behind.
Shit, it's been two days and I miss you, baby. Be good.
H.
*
Love,
I am hoping that this letter finds you well or finds you at all. We are so distant now. I watch communications for news of the Enterprise. It does not sound like you will be home soon, my love. I suppose I will wait here. Since I was fourteen I have dreamed of being on a starship and now...now I just wish to be be anywhere that you are, my love. Any place where there is you.
Listen to me. I am growing ridiculous without you. I need to shower. I smell like grease and transporter parts.
Love, Love, Love.
Pasha.
*
Pavel,
This is all so ridiculous. It's at least sort of comforting that Kirk's almost as pissed off as I am. Don't worry: I'm trying to be subtle about it. Right now, it's looking like we're going to be out here for at LEAST two months - they're really not equipped to deal with this kind of epidemic here on IO. I'll admit - I'm a little nervous about being back here, but, so far, nobody's tried to put me in panties. The Queen's very pretty this year, too. But fucking scary. The only time I ever relax is when I'm in my quarters. I've started wearing one of your t-shirts to bed.
Basically, we're out here administering ryetalyn solution, monitoring, that sort of thing. Most of the time, anyone who isn't McCoy spends a lot of time twiddling their thumbs. The death-toll so far is 83, 000. SO I suppose, right now, we're not even winning. The first memeber of the rew died of Rigelian fever yesterday. Carter. I think his name was Carter.
I love you, but I'm sort of glad you're not here. The face masks don't do anything.
I love you. So. Much.
H.
*
Hikaru,
Is all this talk of IO supposed to amuse me? I remember the Queen of Spring and I Do not care if the new one is pretty or not. Do they still do these things when the whole planet is dying? In Russia, in the old days, they were obsessed with death too. Do they still burn her if everybody is dead or does she live to another spring? Stay on the bridge, Hikaru. Stay on the bridge & stay away from her. Let her have Captain Kirk if he's hunting, okay?
Should I talk about pretty girls too? I could tell you about the girl, very pretty, who talked to me in the coffee bar? She looked a little like a supermodel, with blond hair and very blue eyes. I talked to her for a little while and then I told her that I had a partner and I showed her the ring that you gave me. I did not tell her your name.
Oh! I spoke to your mother. She is very well and so is your sister's baby. They haven't chosen a name for her yet, though, I think.
Listen: I dream of you, always. I dream of simple things. I hope you dream of me.
Please stay safe. If that Queen looks a tyou, turn your back on her and think about coming home to me.
I love you always,
Pasha.
*
Pasha,
It's very late here, about half way done with Gamma shift and it's that time when the bridge goes quiet. We've got people down on the surface so the Helm needs to be manned so here I am, waiting. I wish that I was waiting for you.
I love this ship, you know? I love everything about her. I love it when it's quiet like this, all the lights turned down and everything's still buzzing, still going on around me, but up here it's still as space. From way up here, the planet's solid green. It just floats there like it's waiting for something, like Eden must have been back in the day, you know? I wish that was us. I wish we'd woken up in a place like that, all green, just me and you and the sun.
I wish you were sitting here with me now. I feel...lonely isn't the right word. I'm not lonely. How could I be lonely when the ship's here? What I wish is that I could leave the bridge and go and get into a bed wtih you waiting. You'd be sleeping and i"d slide in beside you, trying not to wake you and you'd be warm and full of sleep and i"d kiss you and tell you I loved you. I kiss a constellation on the smooth bare skin of your back. Or maybe you could sit here with me, share the chair, and we'd just sit here for a while and watch the planet spin around her sun?
It feels like forever since I saw you last, baby. How long have we been out here, anyway? It feels like it's been about a million years.
I love you so much. I'm coming home because I don't know how to be where you aren't, anymore.
All my love
(and it's pretty fucking endless)
H.
*
My love,
You make me miss it so much. I feel like I have been born twice in my life: once in St Petersburg, son of Andrei, son of Marta and once the first time I walked onto the bridge of the Enterprise and I know that I am home.
You came later. I am home there, too, I think. I am home when I am with you. My father felt this way about my mother, I think. He was always a little lonely after she died, I think, even with other women. All of his life after she left him, my father was lonely for my mother. What I am saying is: come back to me, Hikaru, so that I am not lonely for my whole life without you.
Did I tell you that I have been running here? It's another thing which is not the same without you. I remember that I used oknow how to run in St Petersberg, dear Piter, along the banks of the Neva like my Mama used to. I remember that, but I can never remember HOW after so many years of you keeping count for me.
That's it, my love, my love. You have ruined me.
I love you. I hope you're well. How is IO? At night, I close my eyes and imagine it shining green in space and I imagine you there and you safe.
Ever and always,
Pavel
*
Hikaru,
You do not think it is a little unfair? It has been a week since my last letter and I hear nothing from you. How am I supposed to know you are not fucking dead on that fucking planet? We hear that they are making mass-graves there now because there are so many bodies. Am I supposed to not care or do you try to worry me that you might be one of them? You want me to tell you that I dream of you dead?
Fuck you, HIkaru, if that is what you try to do. Write back to me. Write back because you fucking love me. Write back to tell me that you didn't GET the first fucking letter because Starfleet are many things but they cannot match Russian post-office.
Just write.
Pavel.
*
H,
I love you. Please write.
I just...I need...
Please write.
P.
*
OFFICIAL SUBSPACE TRANSMISSION.
TO: PAVEL A. CHEKOV (BASE X)
FROM: N. UHURA (ENTERPRISE)
Just looked at Sulu's aper mail. He's been in the sickbay for the last three weeks. Rigelian fever. He's very sick but he's fighting it. It's...Pavel, you might want to find a way to come back. Kirk would agree if he knew about you guys. Just find a way.
Be safe. I'll be with him.
Uhura.
TRANSMISSION ENDS.
*
It isn't until he's there, until the Enterprise is in sight, that Chekov realises that he hasn't really thought this through at all. What will he do when they court martial him? What will he be, back in Russia, with his career over with and done? What if he doesn't get that far: if whoever is sitting in his seat is jumpy and shoots him out of the sky and he explodes in sparks over the green planet?
What if HIkaru is already dead?
He doesn't think about that. So tired that he can barely see, his head aching from the concentration of flying through empty space for so long (how does Hikaru do it, he wonders?) he thumbs open a channel. For a moment, he sways, eyes closed, listening to the static. There's something almost soothing about it. When he was a little boy he used to lie awake in his little bed and listen to the wind blowing through the eaves.
"Shuttlecraft Vespucci II to Enterprise..." he says, his voice hoarse because he hasn't used it in close to a week. "Requesting permission to come aboard."
There's this moment of silence when all that Chekov can feel is the aching throb of his heart.
"Enterprise to Shuttlecraft Vespucci II," says Uhura, unmistably her, her voice low and cool and only just starting to sound surprised. "Chekov? Is that you?"
"It's me," he says, wearily. "I..."
"Get your ass onboard, Chekov," says the Captain's familiar voice. "Bay two. We'll talk about it later."
He's so weary, so heart-worn, that he almost weeps, but he finds enough strength in him to pilot the shuttlecraft home. It's the first time he's ever really flown before. Hikaru taught him, but he never thought he'd have to go anywhere on his own.
Which shows what he knew.
Feet on the Enterprise, he feels like he's coming home. He stands for a moment, swaying on his feet, drags a breath in through his nose and pushes the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows and then he starts to walk towards the doors that lead to the ship proper. In his soul, in his heart, he wants to run but his legs won't let him. He trudges and it's the best that he can do. There's a part of him that knows if he couldn't do that, he'd crawl.
Kirk is waiting just beyond the door, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.
"You couldn't have called?" he says.
"Captain, I..."
Kirk holds up one hand, shaking his head. Chekov doesn't stop walking and Kirk falls into step beside him.
"Listen, Chekov. I've got Spock on the channel to the Commodore telling him that we're very sorry our crewman stole his shuttle and that we'll get it back to him in one piece. Hopefully, he'll decide that it really is best to let me deal with my problem in my way."
Chekov can't do anything but nod miserably. He doesn't even look at the Captain. He'll get what's coming to him, and he'll deserve it.
It'll be worth it.
Maybe when he goes back to Russia, he'll learn to be a carpenter, like his father is.
The doors of the turbolift open at sick bay and Chekov goes to walk out and Kirk catches his arm.
"Next time? Tell me when you're in a relationship so that when he gets sick, I know what to do," he says, quietly, just for Chekov to hear, even though McCoy is standing feet away. "And now I"m going to go help Spock beg Stocker for your ass, whizkid. I'll do this because I'm awesome." He pushes Chekov gently. "Go. Sit with him. Officially, you're not even here."
Not much further. He doesn't require much more of his weary bones. McCoy looks at him like maybe he thinks Chekov ought to be forced into one of the vacant beds and, maybe later he will be but, for now, there's only one thing that he needs to do.
In a bed at the end of the bay, Sulu lies sleeping. His face is paler than Chekov has ever seen it, circles of hot colour burning. The flush continues down to his chest. At the side of his bed, there's a pile of envelopes, arranged neatly and everyone one of them labelled,
"Will he live?" he asks McCoy wearily, holding onto the bed so that he doesn't drop down onto his knees. He's so weary. He feels like he ought to thank God for bringing him here.
"Yeah," says McCoy, gruff as ever and claps Chekov on the shoulder, squeezing. "Yes. I'm going to turn the lights down now, if you're staying."
Of course he's staying.
Chekov leans over the bed and kisses Hikaru's temple, not intending to wake him but, this time, he stirs. He blinks sleepily and smiles.
"I was dreaming about you," he says, voice hoarse and Chekov bends to kiss hist throat as he puts one knee up on the bed and climbs right up, toeing off his sneakers before he settles along side Sulu. He's skinny and he doesn't take up a lot of room. He curls in around Sulu as McCoy dims the lights for the night and he drifts off dreaming of walking with Sulu on the surface of the green planet and tonight there will be no alarm and nobody will wake him for hours and hours.
And then he's really home, and home to stay.