FIC: Better Than Romance (Sulu/Chekov, PG-13)

[katmarajade]

Title: Better Than Romance
Author: katmarajade
Prompt: I am always a sucker for Sulu/Chekov. It was my 8th Wedding Anniversary yesterday - what did Sulu & Chekov do for theirs?
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1800
Summary: Sulu wants a romantic night with his husband to celebrate their eighth wedding anniverary. Being captured on an away mission and spending their anniversary in an alien prison is definitely not what he had in mind. But as they reminisce about their time together, he realizes that maybe romance is overrated.
Notes: Written for the Second Annual Sulu-Off for a fantastic prompt by kittyjimjams. Thanks for the opportunity to write this pairing again, bb!


Sulu had had big plans for their eighth wedding anniversary. Flowers, a fancy non-replicated dinner, romance, sex. It would have been a night to remember.

Of course, this would also be a night to remember, albeit a far less romantic memory.

It had been a routine new planet analysis mission: beam down, take some samples, do some tests, beam back in time for dinner. But when were things ever routine on the Enterprise?

So here Sulu sat, huddled next to his husband of eight years, in a prison-like construct on an alien world. The air was cold and tasted like ozone. The wind, undeterred by the tough reeds that made up the walls of their containment, bit at his cheeks and painted them an ugly red. His heart flipped slowly as he watched Chekov fiddle with the communicator, which had taken a bit of a beating during their scuffle with the natives. Even after ten years in the black, fifteen away from the harsh Russian winters, Chekov remained blissfully oblivious to the cold, seeming somehow to derive a strange sort of energy from the bitter, freezing wind. His cheeks were tinged pink, the healthy flush of exercise and cool mornings, quite unlike Sulu's stinging, wind-chapped face.

Chekov glanced up when he felt Sulu shiver next to him.

"Are you cold, Hikaru?" he asked, seeming to realize the chill in the air for the first time.

"I'll be fine," Sulu responded briskly, not wanting to distract Chekov from the communicator. Chekov merely rolled his eyes and wrapped one thin arm around Sulu's shoulders.

"This is not exactly the way that I planned for us to spend our anniversary," Sulu muttered. Chekov let out a quiet snort.

"No, perhaps not. Although, it's not as bad as some of our previous away missions," Chekov mused, eyes on Sulu, though his thumb was still brushing soft patterns across the black plastic innards of the communicator.

"I guess this is a reminder of how we started," Sulu said dryly. "I still remember how scared I was when you fell to the ground that day. You weren't moving at all and I thought you were dead. I remember thinking that now I would never get a chance to tell you how I felt, never get a chance to kiss you, be with you. I remember wanting to kill your attackers and how I almost did."

Chekov smiled at him softly, recalling that day all too well. "Lucky for us both that the Keptin kept his head."

"Yeah, he showed up with decidedly un-Kirk-like rationality and struck up a conversation with them. Good thing too or we never would have realized that you'd been given that weird local sleeping potion and would never have been able to wake you up. It's amazing how many species will capitulate when faced with the charming Captain Kirk," Sulu said with an affectionate roll of his eyes.

"Yes, and I woke up and you were standing over me with a bruise on your cheek and your lip split, almost just like when I beamed you back from the Vulcan atmosphere. And I thought that no one had ever looked braver or more impressive," Chekov added, knowing that Sulu liked that part of the story.

"And you gave me that look, that sleepy, contented, trusting look like you didn't have a single worry in the universe, like you believed that I would protect you from every terrible thing."

"You would," Chekov said, the slightest touch of the almost-forgotten hero worship from their early days slipping into his voice, before quickly adding, "You know, of course, that I can save myself most times, but it's still a nice feeling."

"I know. You can save yourself. You save me. You save Kirk. You save us all, you crazy Russian genius," Sulu laughed, leaning over to rest his head against Chekov's, breathing in the familiar smell of Starfleet-issued soap and Chekov, mingled with dirt, sweat, and a faintly metallic smell from the mangled communicator in his hands.

"And then you kissed me, all intense and focused, and that was that," Chekov said dreamily, eyes distant as he recalled the moment so many years ago that they became Hikaru & Pavel, not just Chekov and Sulu.

"And of course we can't forget our wedding."

"Wedding!" Chekov snorted and shook his head.

"Well, I'd been planning on asking you anyway," Sulu reminded him. "But there we were in the middle of what seemed like an apocalyptic fire fight, with warring tribes shooting those shuttle-sized phaser cannons and huge chunks of the planet's moon raining down, all terrifying fire in the sky, end-of-the-world type stuff. It just seemed like a good time."

Chekov tapped the communicator mindlessly, a nostalgic smile nudging up the corners of his mouth. "I remember the fiery meteors all too well, Hikaru. Remember how one hit not twenty meters from where we were hiding in that valley?"

"Do I remember?" Hikaru scoffed. "I remember being thrown all the way across that valley from the blast and you holding onto that tree trunk and screaming at me and I could barely hear you over the ringing in my ears."

"Yes, that was not so good. And then you crawled back all dizzy and I thought perhaps you had brain damage because you kept blinking and not saying anything."

"I said something!"

"Yes, two minutes later! Two minutes is a long time in that sort of situation! Two minutes later you gave me that crazy look and said, No, this is not how I'm going out. I'm going to live and you're going to live along with me. Let's get married. Let's get married right now!"

"Well, you agreed, didn't you?"

"The world was ending, Hikaru!"

"Well, yeah, but I like to think of it as more of a romantic apocalypse theme wedding."

"Yes, so romantic! As we scrambled through underbrush and tried to avoid getting killed by enemy fire looking for that little village where all the women and children were hiding."

"Women, children, and priestesses," said Sulu, smile twitching at his lips.

"Yes, and somehow you convinced them to marry us, only they did the ceremony in a language we didn't even understand! I still wonder sometimes if that was really a marriage ceremony or if it was just her giving us directions out of there."

"Nah, it was real enough. Starfleet recognized the union, which means it was totally legit."

"Yes, Starfleet is never wrong about alien rituals," Chekov said sarcastically, shaking his head.

"It was real to me," Sulu said quietly.

"It was real to me too, Hikaru," Chekov responded immediately, pressing his impossibly warm lips to Sulu's cold cheek.

They stared out past the living walls of their prison. The thick, fibrous reeds were woven together in a way that no human could break through. Their captors had confiscated their weapons, leaving the communicator, which they hadn't seemed to view as a threat. Just outside their captors had a large fire burning brightly. Children were running around laughing. There were several spits of food bubbling merrily in the flames. Families and friends chatted cheerfully. No one seemed to notice or care that there were two freezing prisoners mere meters away from their festivities.

"What a way to spend our anniversary," Sulu sighed, despondently thinking that the food he'd specially ordered and shelled out more than a week's salary for was going to waste. He hoped that some of the kitchen crew enjoyed his efforts at romance.

"You always want these beautiful romantic moments," Chekov mused, reaching over to grab Sulu's hand. "I love that about you, you know that, but we don't need fancy meals or beautiful flowers to celebrate our life together. We've come so far, we've survived so much, and we're still here, still fighting, still loving each other. I want to celebrate our life by living, Hikaru. I don't care if we eat grass and sleep in the mud and can't have sex because it's too damn cold out for you to get it up,"

"Hey!" Sulu objected, blushing. Chekov laughed and stroked Sulu's flushed face absently, a familiar, calming gesture that was now as natural to both of them as breathing.

"Yes, can you believe that you still love me?" Chekov teased. Sulu didn't bother to answer, just leaned in to kiss him, slow, deep, and unhurried.

They broke apart but Chekov leaned his head against Sulu's shoulder, turning his attention back to the communicator. Chekov brushed his finger over one of the data ports again and suddenly there was a crackling sound. They both looked down at the communicator, holding their breath, waiting to see if it was going to work or just get their hopes up and die again.

"Nant Sulu … come in …" Uhura's voice was breaking up a little but unmistakable.

"This is Chekov," muttered Chekov into the speaker, trying to keep his voice down in case the bonfire party heard the electronic beeping.

"Sulu! Chekov! How're we doing?" Kirk's voice came booming over the communicator.

"Same as always, sir," responded Sulu dryly.

"That bad, huh?" Kirk answered. "What are your approximate coordinates? Let's get you two home."

Chekov replied in a rapid string of numbers that Sulu barely followed and less than five minutes later they felt the familiar tingle of the transport beam swirling around them.

Sulu reveled in the relative warmth of the transport room, which he found a bit odd as the engine areas were kept far cooler than anywhere else on the ship. Chekov grinned at him, that heady, full-fledged, dangerous smile that still made Sulu's belly twist.

"So, how was your trip? The rest of the away team came back hours ago. Why is it that you two always manage to find yourself in these situations?" Kirk shook his head. "I'll keep the debrief short, because I know that it's a big day." Kirk made a ridiculous smooching noise and batted his eyes, and Sulu couldn't help but laugh out loud. Chekov joined in, both of them still a little punchy from their planetside debacle.

They'd debrief with Kirk and then they'd head back to their quarters. Sulu imagined that the meal he'd planned was long gone, but they'd replicate something. They were both so hungry from not having eaten all day that it probably didn't matter how good the food was anyway. They'd be together, alive and together. It might not be romantic or the stuff epic love poems was made of, but Sulu thought that surviving this long, still being together and this much in love after eight years and throughout everything they'd faced … well, that was somehow better than romance.

From the look that his husband gave him as they followed Kirk onto the turbolift, Sulu was pretty sure that Chekov thought so too.