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Do the Clothes Make the Man?
by Skazitelnitsky
"Calling it a night already?"
Sulu grinned around a yawn as he nodded.
Lt. Darby looked disappointed as he paused in the corridor near their respective quarters. "Not going to make it to the costume party?"
"Probably not," the helmsman replied apologetically. "I just pulled a double."
"You're really going to miss out," Darby warned, shaking his head as he headed for the lift.
"I'll make it next time," Sulu promised without a lot of conviction. Being a member of the bridge crew meant -- among other things -- that you could almost always count on missing all the most promising social gatherings. The Klingons had shown up just hours before the Science Department's infamous Christmas party this year. The Romulans had crashed Uhura's always entertaining birthday party just a few weeks ago. And now a blockheaded diplomat on a strict timetable was going to keep him from the costume ball hosted by engineering and held in the largest cargo bay available -- easily the bash of the year.
"How's a guy supposed to get laid?" the helmsman grumbled to himself as he keyed open the door to his cabin. As if there was any time for that....
He knew something was wrong as soon as he entered the room. The lights were off. He usually left one on dim to avoid walking into darkness. There also seemed to be the sound of soft breathing. Sulu's pulse quickened as he reached for the lights. Thankfully, in the place of any lurking alien anomaly with mayhem on its mind, the lights only revealed a familiar figure sleeping on his bunk.
Chekov made a discontented noise and rolled over onto his stomach, but didn't rouse.
The helmsman smiled and lowered the lights back down to a soft glow. 'Well, well, well,' he thought to himself as he ordered a drink from the replicator. 'Look who's been sleeping in my bed. If Mohammed can't go to the party, then the party must come to Mohammed.'
'Don't get excited,' the sensible side of himself scolded. 'His roommate probably kicked him out.'
Sulu sighed and wished that the sensible side of himself would be wrong more often as he settled into the room's only comfortable chair and activated a monitor. Might as well go through his mail while he waited.
He half-heartedly perused the contents of a letter detailing an old Academy suitemate's hiking trip through the Grand Tautens of Tarus IV. His eyes kept wandering to the figure on the bunk just beyond the ornamental room-divider.
Chekov looked even younger when he was asleep. His expression as he dreamed was simultaneously serious and vulnerable. One hand was curled childishly on the pillow near the ensign's cheek. Sleep made the navigator's half-parted lips particularly rosy and inviting...
As the ensign stirred, Sulu hastily redirected his attention to the monitor.
"Oh," Chekov groaned sleepily. "Sulu? Is that you? I've overslept."
"You're okay," the helmsman smiled.
Chekov slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows and surveyed his surroundings with bleary brown eyes. "I'm sorry. I meant to be gone by the time you arrived."
"It doesn't matter," Sulu replied with an amiable shrug. "I just got off duty. I've only been here for a minute. What happened? Some problem with Verdeman?"
The ensign smiled sourly at the mention of his increasingly obnoxious cabinmate's name. "He's acquired a girlfriend."
"Oh my," Sulu grimaced in sympathy.
"You don't know the half of it. His girlfriend is Yeoman Henri."
"The woman whose laugh can shatter glass from fifty feet?"
Chekov nodded grimly, "And you don't want know about the other noises she can make."
"You know, Chekov, I think it's about time you consider requesting a transfer to the next available cabin," the helmsman advised.
"But I was there first. Shouldn't he be the one who has to leave?"
"Pavel, if Verdeman hasn't had the decency to move out before now..."
Chekov made a stubbornly contemptuous noise as he rose and stretched.
"Would you like a drink?" Sulu offered to keep himself from focusing on the nicely muscled back in front of him too admiringly.
"What are you drinking?" the ensign asked, reaching for his boots. "Saki?"
Sulu momentarily felt disloyal to his heritage. Upon reflection, however, he decided his drink was nothing a native San Franciscan should ever feel ashamed of. "No, it's a highball."
Chekov twisted his mouth into an unenthusiastic knot as he pulled on a boot. "I wish I didn't have to go this stupid party tonight."
"The costume ball? It'll be fun."
"You aren't going?"
"Haven't decided." Sulu sipped on his drink to make it look as though this statement and his next question weren't connected. "What are you wearing?"
Chekov frowned. "Why must it be a costume ball?"
"Because it's fun to dress up."
"No, it isn't," the navigator contradicted firmly. "It's uncomfortable and you look ridiculous."
Sulu had to admit that at previous gatherings the ensign had tended to be somewhat overdressed. "You just need to learn to pick an outfit that's going to be simple and comfortable... Wait, I think I have something that would be good."
The helmsman got up and opened his wardrobe. He quickly located the garments he was looking for. After only a second's hesitation, he separated the outfit's leather pants from the rest of the ensemble.... Not quite ready to dive off the deep end just yet. "Here," he said, handing the ensign a shirt and vest. "You can wear this with your uniform pants and boots."
Chekov accepted the garments warily. "But this is yours."
"Oh, that's okay."
"Everyone will recognize it..."
"No." As he helped the ensign out of his tunic, Sulu grinned in remembrance of the wild night he'd had in this particular costume. "I've only worn this on shore leave a couple of times."
Chekov kept a dubious look glued to his face as he shouldered into the big, blousey white shirt, and soft buckskin vest, but they looked good on him. Without the scandalously cut leather pants and codpiece, the outfit looked quite respectable.
"Here let me get those," Sulu said, lacing the vest's intricate ties.
The ensign pulled discontentedly at the shirt front. "How does this fasten?"
"It doesn't."
"Oh." The navigator kept one hand protectively curled around the loose-fitting neckline as if he was embarrassed to have so much of his very masculine chest exposed.
"Look." Sulu steered his friend towards the mirror. "You look great."
While the navigator considered his reflection, the helmsman smoothed the back of the vest, permitting himself to enjoy the way Chekov's surprisingly broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist and flat boyish hips. After a pleasurable moment, Sulu became aware that his friend was being very quiet. "Don't you like it?"
The ensign wouldn't meet his eyes. "It's somewhat uncomfortable," he mumbled, his cheeks looking suspiciously pink.
"We'll try something else then," Sulu suggested cheerfully, despite the fact that he was puzzled by this reaction. What had he done to embarrass Chekov? Just when he thought he was being so good.... "How about an old-fashioned tuxedo? You'd look great in a tux."
"Perhaps," the navigator agreed noncommittally.
"Here... Try this. And let me have that vest." Hoping to ease the ensign's sudden attack of shyness, Sulu peeled off his tunic and undershirt. As Chekov was tentatively pulling on the starched white shirt for the suit, the helmsman donned the vest and the plain black mask that completed the costume. He struck a dramatic pose. "Ta-da! What do you think?"
The navigator couldn't keep from smiling. "You look good."
"Thanks." Sulu handed him the white mask for his costume. "I think you're going to like this suit."
"Yes." Chekov was now at the point where he had to take off his pants. He hesitated, then straightened with an air of resolution. "Sulu, people talk about the two of us."
The helmsman's gut twisted. The conversation he had begun to alternately dread and long for had commenced without any of the preliminaries he'd anticipated. "What do you mean?" he said -- instead of saying any of the clever things he'd rehearsed in his mind for the past several months.
"Some people speculate that we are... more than friends."
"Oh, well..." The helmsman tried to calm down, but his feelings were hovering firmly somewhere between nausea and giddiness. That highball had definitely been a mistake. "That's no big deal, really."
"To me, it is." Chekov put the suit coat and pants down on the chair beside him. "I almost didn't come to your cabin to sleep because of conclusions people might draw."
Sulu sat down on the edge of the bunk to relieve his spinning head. "When you say people, do you mean Verdeman?"
"He may have said things to my face," the ensign admitted. "But others say things when my back is turned... And have been saying them for quite a while."
"Chekov... I... I..." Sulu stammered helplessly, wondering on what planet his carefully planned speech for just such an occasion was vacationing.
"Forget it," the navigator interrupted abruptly. As if to illustrate how quickly and completely he'd dismissed the subject, the ensign pulled off his pants. "I shouldn't have brought it up. It's not your fault."
Although the long tails of the shirt hid the ensign's underwear -- or lack thereof -- the gesture did make Sulu's eyes open wide enough to make him realise that he'd been wearing a mask through what was almost one of the more intimate conversations of his life. "Well, I... uh..." he said, hastily removing it.
Chekov had already stepped into the legs of the suit pants and was tucking the shirt tails in. "I never realised we were so close to the same size," he said quite casually.
"Chekov, I.. uh..." Sulu was still trying to mentally resurrect his prepared spiel.
The ensign turned to him with the ends of the white bow tie in hand. "Can you do this?"
"Sure." Sulu was relieved to find that his co-ordination hadn't departed on the same field trip as his brain obviously had as he rose to the ensign's aid. He tried to tie the bow from a discrete distance, but the tie was not co-operating. The helmsman finally had to step in so close that his chest nearly touched the navigator's. A warm, clean smell emanated from the Russian's body. "Chekov..." Sulu began, feeling heat rise in his face.
"Forget I said anything," the ensign advised dimissively. "What does it matter what people might say? It's not as though we are suddenly going to look one another and lose all...."
Their eyes met. Sulu could feel the impact of the navigator's meltingly clear brown-eyed gaze tingle all the way down his spine. That highball had most definitely been a mistake, he thought, knowing that his gaze was giving away all too many of the feelings he'd kept carefully dampened and hidden for the eternity of the past few months. He felt completely naked.
In just the same inexplicably abrupt manner he'd just claimed he'd never react, Chekov's emotions seemed to overflow as well. He leaned forward and claimed the helmsman's mouth in a ravenous kiss.
Sulu's mind reeled. However since his memory had been playing the traitor, the helmsman decided to reward his loyal body instead and embraced the ensign rapturously.
Their clothing came off as quickly as it had been put on. In a few breathless moments, they were entwined on the bunk, their lips enmeshed, their hands insistent. Sulu found himself lying on his back with Chekov on his hands and knees above him, exploring his body with his mouth, tongue, and teeth.
Sulu's hands rumpled through Chekov's short, silky hair as the ensign's lips brushed lightly against the skin of his stomach. He drew his knees up as he felt Chekov's warm breath against his inner thigh, and moaned aloud as a soft and agile tongue flicked across his erection.
"Oh ... " He moaned aloud, and reached down to caress Chekov's head, his cheek, his soft hair ...
The navigator paused. "I never thought I'd do something like this."
"For Gods' sake, don't stop to think!! " Sulu half laughed and half shouted, as he pushed the boy's head back to its appointed task.
Soon, he felt the orgasm building in him. Before he knew what was happening, Chekov's mouth was replaced with a hand, which brought the climax to a head ... and the mouth appeared on his own, crushing Sulu's lips with a ardent kiss. Sulu writhed under it, insensible to all but the fiery explosion between his thighs.
Chekov's lips did not leave his until climax had subsided, and Sulu gasped for breath. "Oh, God. That was ... incredible."
"I am glad you liked it," Chekov said, politeness -- as usual with him -- covering a growing discomfort. "Now... I...I suppose I should go."
"You're not going anywhere," Sulu replied restraining the navigator within his arms.
"But... the party..." Chekov protested weakly.
"Pavel, my dear," Sulu said, turning his new lover over gently, but firmly. "The party has just begun."
De End
