For all the improbability of it, Sulu wakes up from the assault.
When he does he's on board the USS Melchior. The Reavers have left so many victims that the medical staff's had to convert the mess hall into a makeshift recovery ward, where Sulu lies at the edge of a long grid of sickbeds. He's weighed down by lead-heavy pain, barely able to move without feeling every break and gash he'd sustained, every faultline in his body where the doctors had regenerated him back together. His skin swells tight and hot with fever, as he's fighting off a bouquet of infections courtesy of the gore-caked blade that had cut into his forehead. Five minutes after returning to consciousness, he pukes all over his pillow.
But still, he wakes up.
Chekov's planted in a chair next to the bed. At the first flutter and roll of Sulu's eyes, he cries out such a shrill sob that it brings the room to a momentary halt. Chekov doesn't care, burying himself against Sulu's shoulder and crying and crying, while Sulu himself is too weak to offer much reassurance besides rolling his cheek against the curled crown of his head.
He's managed not to die again. Sulu learns he'd been beamed away a few minutes after losing consciousness, which had still given the Reavers enough time to nearly tear him apart. He's got a bandaged, partially-regenerated lump for a left hand, while the one he'd been born with now probably decorates the flesh of one of the Reavers somewhere. But they got you out before the gang rape, McCoy offers by way of queasy consolation. Sulu's still too dazed and sick to even start thinking about that part.
After McCoy administers a battery of hyposprays to calm his sickness, and the nurses have replaced Sulu's vomit-stained pillow with a clean one, Chekov resumes his hunched vigil in the chair.
"Y'... y'made it," Sulu says. His voice sounds like sludge.
It takes a second for Chekov to find words. "Of- of course I made it, after what you did, you stupid Cossack!" His face twists, turns dark red. "You will never do that to me again, Hikaru, I will not forgive you – it was an hour before they found my capsule and pulled me out, and all that time I could do nothing but imagine what was happening to you – next time let them kill me, just never do that to me again!"
Sulu rolls his head back and forth, shutting his eyes against that image.
"I'm sorry." Chekov's gone quiet and wavery, thumbing at his eyes. "I'm sorry, it was my fault, if I had been more careful, if I had not let myself be shot—"
"Nnnnn," Sulu interrupts, a groan from deep in his chest. "Pavel..."
His gaze meets Chekov's, then drops to indicate the space next to him on the bed.
"You wish me to-?" Chekov says, and recoils. "Hikaru, no. I will hurt you!"
Sulu coughs out a miserable laugh. "Think it'll... it'll really make a difference?"
Chekov's thin shoulders fall in defeat. He glances around the recovery ward, and when he's satisfied that no one's paying attention, slides out of his boots and lifts himself onto the bed. Carefully, carefully he lowers himself into the space between Sulu and the thick bedrail, settling down and pulling Sulu into the tightest embrace that he dares.
Despite Sulu's condition, they fit together like always. Chekov's head comes to rest beside his on the pillow, forehead resting against Sulu's temple and fingers curling around his shoulder. Sulu grunts, a helpless sort of noise, and turns his head. He lifts his mouth forward in the closest approximation of a kiss that he can muster, too feeble to do more than press his bottom lip below Chekov's eye. For his effort, he gets a full and vital and desperate kiss from Chekov in return, and another and another, soon with so much fervor that Chekov's got to cup Sulu's cheek to hold him in place.
After a few moments of this they fall still. Sulu thinks he could just stay like this forever, just feeling Chekov's chest rise and fall next to him, listening to his breath in the dark; just like this. His navigator is safe and whole and untouched and alive, a fact that pierces him deeper than any blade could ever hope to do.
=end=