Star Trek fic: Things Left Behind
Title: Things Left Behind
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Chekov/Sulu
Warnings: None, really.
Summary: Prompt fill. Chekov and Sulu met in another lifetime. While on shore leave, they accidentally have those memories triggered.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, it belongs to Paramount and Gene Roddenberry.
A/N: My first Star Trek story for the reboot universe. It's been a while since I've played in this fandom, and it's just as much fun as I remember.
The bright white light of this planet's sun was warm on Chekov's back as he and Sulu browsed the main marketplace of Kthalios Majura's capital city. For once, the natives had been friendly and the planetary atmosphere capable of sustaining warm-blooded oxygen breathers, so Captain Kirk had authorized shore leave. Chekov had drawn his at the same time as Sulu, and it had been natural for the two friends to decide to spend their leaves together.
"Hey, Pavel. Check out that girl at the booth over there," Sulu murmured in his ear, nudging Chekov in the side and pointing at one of the stalls.
Chekov looked where Sulu had indicated, and saw the young woman - he presumed she was female - waving shyly at him. He smiled in return and waved back. She was pretty to human eyes, although no human had ever had that tiger-patterned skin. Her short hair, patterned in stripes like her skin, was more like fur, but it looked soft and glossy.
"Why don't you go talk to her? I'll, uh, just go look at that plant stall over there." Sulu waved vaguely in the direction of the plant stall, which was covered in the bluish-purple vegetation native to the planet.
"You are a bad influence, Hikaru," he accused his friend, smiling despite himself. "Okay, okay, I go, I go."
The young Kthalian's stall was full of crystals of all shades of the rainbow. Some were clearly manufactured, while others seemed to be natural. Some glowed from inside, the colours shifting as the noise levels in the marketplace rose and fell.
"Do you see anything you like?" the young woman behind the stall asked, tilting her head on one side. Chekov couldn't remember what that was supposed to signify in this culture, but he was fairly sure it was friendly.
"Ah, yes. I . . ."
"Excuse me?" One of the other Enterprise personnel leaned over, interrupting them. "How much is this one, please?"
Giving him an apologetic look - that one was fairly standard in all cultures - the seller transferred her attention to the other man. Chekov examined the crystals while waiting, fascinated by the constantly changing colours. He reached for one, but as he did, a white glow appeared under his arm.
Startled, Chekov pulled back, and the glow disappeared. But he wouldn't have been a Starfleet officer if he hadn't been as curious as he was intelligent, and he wanted to see if it would happen again. Sweeping his hand slowly over the area of the stall in front of him, he was rewarded with a return of the glow.
He leaned down to examine it more closely. It was a simple, clear pyramid, about half the size of his palm. Whenever he moved closer to it, it started glowing; when he pulled away, it stopped. Fascinated, Chekov didn't notice the Kthalian woman staring at him until he looked up.
"You . . . you are shai'ashke!" she exclaimed, mouth open. She looked surprised, more than anything, but those long canines weren't doing much for Chekov's peace of mind.
With visions of diplomatic disasters dancing in his head, Chekov started babbling. "I am sorry, I did not know it was wrong, I will go away now . . ." He stepped backwards, then spotted Sulu out of the corner of his eye. Relief washed over him. "Look, there is my friend, I will -"
"No, no, stay!" the young woman said, looking alarmed at Chekov's suggestion that he go. "It is good, it is very good! Please, stay there, I will fetch my grandmother. She will read for you." She slipped out from behind the stall and vanished into the crowd.
Sulu stepped up beside him, looking after her in confusion. "Pavel, should I be congratulating you? Did you just get engaged or something?"
"I do not know!" Chekov said apprehensively. "All I did was to reach out to that crystal, there, and make it shine!" He waved his hand over the crystal again, and it obligingly lit up.
"Huh. Can I try that?" Sulu asked. Chekov pulled back, and let his friend approach the crystal pyramid. It repeated its earlier performance as Sulu put his hand near it, and Chekov breathed a sigh of relief.
"Perhaps it just likes humans?" Chekov suggested. "Hikaru, you must show her this when she returns. Perhaps we can explain this."
"Yeah, sure." Sulu looked around. "Hey, here she comes now. Someone else with her - whoa, I don't think I've seen a Kthalian that old yet."
Chekov turned to face the approaching pair. The young woman was leading the older one, a Kthalian woman so old that her skin and pelt had faded to grey and white. The old woman didn't seem to have lost any of her mobility, however, and she was moving as easily as her granddaughter.
"Which of these two is the shai'ashke?" the old woman inquired harshly. The younger one gestured to Chekov, and the aged Kthalian grabbed his arm firmly before Chekov had a chance to move. Her fingers felt like steel on his bicep.
"Hey, wait!" Sulu protested. "I don't know what you think he is, but I think your crystal pyramid just likes humans. Look, it works for me too." He demonstrated, and the crystal obligingly brightened.
"Two of you!" breathed the young woman. "We are blessed to have two such people among us." Her eyes were wide.
Chekov felt the movement of the old woman from where she was still holding his arm, and saw that she now had Sulu in a similar grip. Only the thought diplomatic incident kept him from pulling out of the old woman's grip and calling for a beam-up.
The old woman laughed. "Do not be concerned, young shai'ashke. I merely wish to perform a reading of your lives. It is rare that such bright ones as yourselves visit our world."
"Oh, you're a seer? A fortune-teller?" Sulu asked, clearly relaxing. "Yeah, okay, why not?"
"Very well," Chekov agreed. What harm would it do to have his future told? "You know, fortune-tellers originally came from Russia," he added mischievously, causing Sulu to groan and roll his eyes.
* * *
The tent that they had been guided to was made of some kind of yellow fabric. It softened the clear white sunlight, turning it into something more like the two Earth-born humans were used to. At the centre of the tent was a plain wooden table with some stools scattered around it. There was also a pane of glass that was about the size of the tabletop, but set vertically, giving the impression of a very peculiar table tennis board. Chekov and Sulu were seated on one side of the pane of glass, the old woman on the other.
"So what do we do?" Sulu asked. Chekov could hear puzzlement in his tone, and shared the sentiment.
The old woman looked at the helmsman as if he was particularly dense. "You? You watch the glass for what your shai will reveal to me."
"Our futures?" Chekov guessed.
The you-are-being-very-stupid glare was levelled on him, this time. "No. Your pasts."
Chekov was about to protest that he remembered his past very well, thank you, when a flicker in the glass caught his eye.
* * *
- his plane was burning, the ground too close and not close enough -
- looking back at two planes, entangled and crumpled on the ground, a red star and a red circle visible through the soot and the fire -
- looking over at the unconscious man lying on the ground who was and was not Hikaru Sulu -
- exposed, cold, would anyone ever find him? -
- the language of flight, understanding that at least -
- so warm together, the slick slide of skin, this the most simple and real of all kinds of communication -
- the rescue party, finally, but they'll take not-Hikaru away, he's Japanese, an enemy pilot, he'll be a prisoner -
- ya tаk lyublyu tеbya, aishiteru, I'll find you, I promise I'll find you, not knowing if not-Hikaru understands, he's saying something in Japanese -
- sent to the German front, they need pilots -
- his plane burning again, and he can't pull up this time, and he'd wanted to find not-Hikaru but he's never seen him again and now he never will -
* * *
Chekov came back to himself with a gasp. The elderly Kthalian woman was gone, but Sulu was still sat beside him, looking as if someone had hit him around the back of his head with a board.
His communicator was beeping.
Chekov picked it up. "Chekov here."
"Chekov? Where are you, laddie? I've been trying to call you for the past half hour, you should have beamed up an hour ago. Oh, and if you find Sulu, tell him to get his arse back up here too."
Chekov took a guilty look at his watch. "I am sorry, Mr. Scott. I was, ah, unavoidably delayed."
"Well, if you're quite finished, I can get you from where you are now."
"Thank you, Mr. Scott. Oh, and Lieutenant Sulu is here as well."
"Thought he might be. Okay, laddie, up you go."
* * *
Chekov yawned as he headed down the corridor. He'd been on-shift almost as soon as he got back to the ship, with barely enough time to shower and change. The shift had been dull - they were still orbiting Kthalios Majura, which meant no navigational or tactical challenges to keep him occupied. Normally, in situations like this, he and Sulu would have played sneaky card games via their consoles, but they hadn't today. He'd been too busy thinking about the visions he'd had in that yellow tent.
The sensible thing, of course, would be to conclude that they'd both been drugged somehow and had made something up. But that didn't explain why his mind should have found itself back at the beginning of World War II - for, somehow, he knew that that was where he'd been - or why the man he knew was Sulu had looked so different.
Or why he was sure that in those visions, he'd been in love with the man he'd always considered up to now to be his best friend.
Shaking his head, he punched in the code to open his door and stepped inside. His bed was only a few staggering steps away, and really, it was far too much trouble to get to the bathroom when his warm, soft (lonely) bed was right there.
Chekov collapsed on top of the covers, asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. Had he been more awake, he might have been interested to know that a few doors down the corridor, Sulu was succumbing to the same exhaustion.
* * *
Dmitri Ivanov ran out of the airbase's main building and across to where the ground crews were frantically prepping his plane, neatly dodging the vehicles that were racing back and forth over the airfield. Why did the Japanese have to pick now, of all times, to attack Tamsak-Bulak?
With a nod to the techs, Ivanov flung himself up the side of the plane and into the cockpit. Around him, his wingmates were taxiing to the runway and launching into the clear blue Mongolian sky, heading for the dim shapes of the distant Japanese planes. The engine came alive under his hands, and he joined the rest of the aircraft waiting to get into the air. This was what he'd trained for - to reach for the sky, and perhaps, one day, beyond the sky.
* * *
Ivanov fired the machine-guns and had the satisfaction of seeing a line of holes chew their way across a Japanese plane's fuselage. Turning, looking for another target, he heard the unpleasant rattle of machine-gun fire behind him and cursed. His plane juddered with impact; pouring on the power to escape from his pursuer, he discovered that the tail of his plane was no longer responding very well to commands.
Looking around, he found that half his tail was missing, and that what remained was on fire. The ground was spiralling up to meet him, far too close and not close enough to be safely down. An enemy plane flashed across his vision, and he tried to fire, but the machine-guns jammed.
You're not getting away that easily! he thought. Fighting the unresponsive controls, he set a course for the Japanese plane. Even damaged, his aircraft was faster, but he was falling too quickly to be able to catch up. There were too many enemy planes out here - where were his wingmates? Had he been lured that far off course? He was going to crash out here, where his most optimistic calculations put him at over a hundred and fifty miles from the base, and nobody would know where he'd landed.
A silver ribbon of water snaked below. It was too small to be the Khalkha river - perhaps a tributary? It was coming up far too fast . . .
And then, suddenly, something smacked into his right wing. Squinting through his flying goggles, he could see another aircraft that had somehow, impossibly, hit him in mid-air. The other pilot's canopy was almost opaqued by smoke and dirt, meaning that he couldn't see the pilot all that clearly - and would explain why the other man hadn't seen him. Down here, below the fighting, he'd probably figured it was safe enough to fly half-blind.
The right wing of the other plane was inextricably mashed into Ivanov's own, both planes bound and spiralling uncontrollably. It was a Japanese plane, he noted absently. The dials on the instrument panel were going crazy, there was too much heat behind him, and here comes the ground . . .
The other plane took most of the impact, but the shock of hitting the ground was still more than enough to knock him senseless for a few seconds. He was almost surprised to find that he was mostly uninjured when he came to again, but a check of injuries would have to wait on getting away from his burning plane. Coughing in the smoke, he scrambled out, leather flying gloves and tough boots all that protected his hands and feet from the hot metal. The fire would probably reach the fuel tanks soon. He had to get away.
Wait. What about the other pilot? Yes, he was an enemy, but no pilot should have to die like that. He scrambled over the wreckage. Somehow, in the crash, the Japanese plane's canopy had been flung wide open. Well, at least that made it easier to find him - and yes, there he was, eyes open but clearly seconds away from returning to unconsciousness. Heedless of the danger, Ivanov reached in to unstrap him and hauled him bodily out of the mess of mangled metal that had until recently been an aeroplane. The other man said something, weakly, and then passed out.
Ivanov dragged the Japanese man away from the conflagration, hoping that -
Crump.
The sound warned him before his eyes did - the flames had made it to the fuel tanks. He flung himself over the Japanese man's body before his thoughts had time to catch up, shielding the unconscious man as best he could from the heat of the fireball. It was hot, too hot, too hot -
Gone.
Ivanov lay there panting for a moment, then rolled off the unconscious man. It might be summer, but it still got cold on the Mongolian steppe at night. And with no trees, they'd have no protection from the wind. They had to find shelter soon, or risk dying of exposure. And wouldn't that be irony, for two enemies who had failed to kill each other and failed to die in the crash to succumb to something as uncaring as the weather?
He looked back at the enemy pilot lying next to him. Japanese, that was all he could tell. Dark hair, golden skin, square face, sharp cheekbones, a wide mouth that was slack without consciousness to animate it.
- Hikaru, that's him, I know it, but it doesn't look like him -
The man groaned, blinking open brown eyes. He said something in what Ivanov guessed had to be Japanese, and the Russian waved at the two burning planes in explanation. His enemy lifted his head and looked over, then said something urgent-sounding. Whether it was who are you? or where are we? or we have to get out of here or none of the above, Ivanov didn't know.
"We have to find shelter," Ivanov insisted, more in the hopes that the other man could read his tone of voice than with any real expectation that he'd understand Russian.
The man simply blinked at him, clearly still dazed from the crash.
Ivanov decided to try a different way. "Dmitri Ivanov," he said, putting his hands on his chest, then extending them out to the other man. "You?"
- Pavel Chekov -
A flicker of understanding crossed his face. "Mihara Shinji," he replied. Ivanov knew just enough about Japanese names to know that they did it back-to-front, so 'Mihara' had to be the man's surname. This was good. Now he had a name to put with the face.
- Hikaru Sulu -
"We have to go," Ivanov repeated. Although if he was honest with himself, he didn't know where. Mihara looked puzzled, but pushed himself to his feet unaided, albeit with a wince of pain.
At that moment, Ivanov heard the faint bleating of a distant sheep. His head snapped up. Sheep meant farmers, and farmers meant shelter. He looked around to find Mihara staring in the same direction.
Without saying anything, they both began walking towards the sheep.
* * *
At Ivanov's best guess, it was past midnight when they stumbled into the tiny two-roomed farmhouse. Mihara had started limping an hour or so ago, and Ivanov had supported him when it became clear that he wouldn't be able to walk on his own. Somewhere during that long walk, Ivanov had stopped thinking of Mihara as 'the enemy', but he hadn't quite decided on what he'd become.
This had clearly been a crop farm, at least in part. The building was a permanent wooden construction, and there was another roofed building out there that Ivanov guessed was the barn. But the animals had dispersed, and the crops in the fields were infested with weeds. The house itself was dusty, and showed signs of its former inhabitants having packed and left. Fortunately, it would seem that they hadn't bothered taking the furniture with them.
Ivanov sat Mihara down on a thin cushion that the former owners had probably deemed not worth the trouble of taking, then went to investigate the cupboards. To his relief, the first thing he found was two candles and a half-empty box of matches. With a lit candle, it was much easier for him to investigate the cupboard.
Their luck was still in - there was canned food in there, although the vegetables in the bins had long since rotted and the bread had degenerated to green mould. There had been a stream out back that probably served for drinking water, so they'd do well enough.
Grabbing two cans at random, he checked his pocket and grinned. He still had his heavy-duty field knife on him. He'd be able to open the cans without too much of a problem. Turning to Mihara, he waved the two cans in triumph.
Mihara grinned weakly, his breath dragging in and out as if he'd run those last few miles instead of walking. His tongue came out to lick his lips, and Ivanov was suddenly aware of a raging thirst. He hadn't seen water since flying over that tributary, and it had been a very long day.
Hurrying over to Mihara, he put the cans and the candle down and dropped the knife beside them. The other man recoiled for a moment, then looked at Ivanov's smile and relaxed.
"Mihara, can you open these cans?" he asked hopefully. "I go to fetch water." Before the Japanese pilot could say anything, Ivanov had grabbed the wooden pail by the door and stepped out into the rapidly-chilling night. The stream was easy to find, trickling noisily a few metres away. The winds had quieted for the moment, giving him the strange feeling that if he just listened hard enough, he could hear around the world.
Ivanov leaned down to the stream and drank from it thirstily - the cool water tasted good, if a little earthy, and it was clearer than the sky. The bucket was dirty, and required several rinses before Ivanov was willing to try carrying drinking water in it. By some miracle, it was mostly intact, the only damage a crack near the top that dripped water if he tried over-filling the pail.
By the time he got back inside, Mihara had not only managed to open the tins, he'd found some sort of metal container and had started a fire in the hearth. By the smell now reaching Ivanov's nostrils, the tins had contained beef and tomatoes.
"Ah! Mizu!" Mihara exclaimed, pointing at the bucket. Ivanov filed that one away - mizu must mean water. The man at the fire said something else, but the only word that Ivanov could pick out was his own name. Figuring that Mihara had dinner under control, he left the pail of water with him and went to investigate the second room in the house with the aid of the candle.
The second room proved to be a bedroom - quite literally. The only piece of furniture in there was a large, flattish wooden box with a pile of dusty fabrics in it. Ivanov considered the situation for a moment, then set down the candle and picked up the assorted bedding. There was another door to the outside here as well, and he'd be able to take it all outside and shake it free of the worst of the dust.
It took him several kicks to open the door - the place had been shut up fairly tightly by its fleeing tenants, which explained why he hadn't seen any signs of mice or other vermin in the other room. It was a well-built little place, with no drafts that he'd noticed yet.
Finally, the door opened, and he took the bedding outside and gave it all a good shaking. The mattress proved to be stuffed with rags and scraps of raw wool, the pillows likewise. The blankets - three of them, which suggested just how cold it would get here over winter - were wool, inexpertly knitted and lumpy but fairly thick. There were signs that moths had been nibbling on the fabric, but no bedbugs, for which Ivanov was grateful. He hauled it all back inside and laid it out in the box, only then realising that there was only one bed. Well, what of it? It was no worse than sharing a tent, surely?
"Ivanov," Mihara called from the other room, followed by something which probably translated as dinner is ready. Ivanov's stomach growled eagerly at the thought, and he abandoned the bedroom in favour of food.
The only cutlery available seemed to be a whittled wooden fork and a battered tin spoon. Mihara ceremoniously offered him the choice of spoon or fork, and Ivanov laughed before picking the fork. Mihara smiled in response, then gestured to the container that held their meal. Ivanov needed no second invitation, and dug in. It was surprisingly good, and he looked up and smiled at the other man in thanks.
In the end, they were both tired enough that neither of them cared about anything except getting under the blankets. They fell asleep fully clothed, their mutual body heat warming the air around them.
- but I've never been here, never slept in a bed like that -
* * *
It had been two days now, and Ivanov was wondering if there had been a rescue party dispatched at all. After all, he'd gone down in flames. It wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to assume him dead - and, really, would it be so bad out here? They'd found the vegetable garden now, although pests had made off with most of the produce and left them very little to harvest. And Shinji was good company, even if he could only understand a word or two of the other man's language.
Second thoughts, however, pulled him back to reality. Sooner or later, the cans would run out. Winter would come, and they'd starve out here when the snows came. Neither man was a hunter, and even if they had been, they had nothing to shoot stray cattle and sheep with. And there probably would be a rescue party dispatched, if only so they could bring back the body. When they found the two planes empty, they'd start searching in earnest. The only reason they hadn't found him yet was that there was a lot of steppe to search. Also, if the Japanese had won, the airbase would have more on their hands to worry about than one missing-presumed-dead pilot. Dead bodies could wait.
"Dmitri!" Mihara called, shaking him out of his reverie. The other man was over by the stream, waving a bar of home-cooked soap at him that they'd found that morning. It was the hottest part of the day right now, which meant the best time to wash. Ivanov couldn't complain - after the crash, the hike and the dust of the cottage, he was getting a little whiffy.
"Coming!" he called back, trotting away from the vegetable garden and towards the stream. Mihara had already started to strip down, and Ivanov's eyes couldn't help but follow every piece of newly revealed skin as he approached. Mihara's body was as golden as his face, lean muscles flexing under bruised skin. He still limped a little, legacy of the bone bruises he'd acquired in that crash.
Mihara ducked his head under the water, pulling out with a hiss that needed no translation. Ivanov shucked his clothes and left them in a pile next to Mihara's, jumping recklessly into the stream.
Ivanov barely stopped himself from yelping. It was cold, yes, but so were the rivers in Russia, and he could handle it. He reached for the soap, which a wide-eyed Mihara handed over, and scrubbed down. Hitting a particularly sore spot on his head, he couldn't help but cry out. Gritting his teeth, he was reaching up again when he heard a splash next to him. Hands took the soap away from him, and he turned to see Mihara shivering in the waist-deep water.
"Shinji?" he asked, surprised. Mihara simply beckoned to him, holding up the soap. Ivanov inched closer, and Mihara reached over his head to apply the soap to his hair. Mihara's hands were gentle, reducing the sting of the harsh soap, and Ivanov relaxed and closed his eyes. It was nice to be taken care of like this. Back at the airbase, it was five-minute showers and a queue of impatient soldiers waiting their turn. The water here might be cold, but it was all theirs.
A tap on his shoulder told him that Mihara was done, and Ivanov flexed his knees and immersed himself in the water. The current rinsed his hair for him and he exploded back out of the water, shaking his head to clear his eyes. The first thing he saw was Mihara scrubbing at the ingrained soot on his arms, and before he knew it, Ivanov had moved forwards and had taken the soap in hand.
Mihara gave him a questioning look as Ivanov took his arm, and then nodded in understanding as the Russian began to scrub the dirt off for him. The other man was pliable in his grasp, not resisting as Ivanov moved onto his shoulders, back, neck and hair. He seemed to be enjoying the indulgence as much as Ivanov had.
Before long, however, they were both shivering too much to stay any longer in the water. They hauled themselves out, the warm air seeming doubly warm when compared to the chill of the stream, and sprawled naked on the grass at the water's edge. They had no towels, but that wasn't much of a hardship when the sun was this warm.
They lay there lazily for while, enjoying the quiet and the peace. Ivanov was just drifting off to sleep when he heard Mihara say something.
Ivanov rolled over to look at his friend. "Shinji?" he asked curiously.
Mihara repeated the phrase, punctuated by gestures. Something about the sky, and the wind, and the surroundings, and being comfortable. Ivanov smiled, understanding. He was talking about flying.
"I know," he agreed. "A day like today, when the sky is blue and the wind is warm, is a perfect day to fly. I feel like I can fly right up there, past the sky and keep going." He waved a hand up at the sky, and Mihara nodded.
The other man twisted around so that they were face to face, then looked up at the sky. He said something that Ivanov felt he more or less understood - the equivalent of 'very good'. The longing in his tone resonated with Ivanov. The two of them belonged in the sky, not on the ground. He just wished that his beautiful blue sky didn't have to be filled with killing and death.
"Dmitri?" Mihara asked, and Ivanov realised that he must have been broadcasting his thoughts on his face. He tried to smile, but Mihara was having none of it.
Mihara said something, sounding almost embarrassed, and his eyes flickered up and down Ivanov's nude form. Ivanov was suddenly, painfully aware that they were naked together, and closed his eyes in shame. Mihara - Shinji - had noticed how he looked at him. Mihara said something else, something reassuring, and Ivanov felt a finger under his chin. "Glaz," Mihara said, and where had he learned the Russian word for eyes? Reluctantly, he obeyed the gentle command and looked up.
Mihara's face was only inches away now, and Ivanov could see that his pupils were wider than the midday sun should have made them. He felt like he wanted to fall into those dark eyes forever.
"Dmitri?" Mihara asked again, his voice barely a breath against Ivanov's face.
Ivanov smiled, and let himself fall. "Shinji," he answered, reassurance and agreement and promise all bound up in that one simple word.
Then their lips met, and for a while, Ivanov forgot even his own name.
- Pa . . . Pavel. Chekov. Pavel . . . oh -
* * *
This was the morning of the fourth day, and Ivanov was fairly sure that he'd never been happier. It didn't matter that he and Mihara didn't share a language. They understood each other perfectly well without speech, most of the time. When he knew, without the other man asking, they they'd need more tinder for the fire, or when Mihara handed him the item he was looking for almost before he'd started to search . . . that was when he knew what a perfect partner he had in the other man. It was as if they'd known each other all their lives instead of less than a week, as if they moved as one.
Ivanov was out breaking up the now-useless fences for more firewood. There wasn't really much available out here, and they'd exhausted the scant stores the night before. Not that it had mattered - they'd simply snuggled together for warmth under those thick woollen blankets, and then done a bit more than snuggling when their proximity had triggered a hunger that neither wanted to deny. Ivanov smiled, remembering. He loved the taste of Shinji's skin, loved the little noises he made when they were in bed together. Loved Shinji, although he couldn't quite bring himself to confess it yet.
He was halfway down the fence when he heard the sound of an engine. He stopped to listen. A jeep, he decided absently, before the realisation of what this meant hit him. The search party. They'd found him, or would soon, and they'd take Mihara away. Mihara was the enemy, and they'd never see each other again. They might only have minutes left.
Ivanov dropped the piece of railing that he was holding and sprinted for the house. He could see Mihara in the garden, digging. Whether he was removing vegetables or putting them in didn't matter now. He barrelled up to Mihara and stopped, panting.
"Dmitri?" Mihara asked, alert and concerned in a way that said to Ivanov 'If something is hurting you, I will find it and stop it, and I don't care how.'
"Shinji, listen!" He tapped his ear and pointed in the direction of the noise. It wasn't quite in sight yet, but it would be as soon as it topped the low rise surrounding the farmland.
Mihara straightened up, listening, then looked at Ivanov in shock. Ivanov grabbed his partner's hand and dragged him into the house.
"Shinji, I love you so, please remember that." He had no idea if Mihara would understand, but he had to say it. "I love you, remember it. I'll find you. I swear I'll find you."
"Aishiteru, Dmitri." Mihara looked desperate. He rattled off a quick string of Japanese, then pulled Ivanov in for a kiss. Ivanov embraced him as tightly as he could, trying to fuse their bodies together. This couldn't be happening, he couldn't lose Shinji now.
They kissed until the sound of the jeep grew too loud to ignore. With one last, despairing look back, Ivanov stepped out of the door and saw the jeep heading towards them. A red star. It was one of the Russian ones.
Ivanov took a deep breath, and waited.
* * *
Pavel Chekov sat up abruptly in his darkened quarters, every moment of the dream-memory etched into his mind and every one of Dmitri Ivanov's feelings burned into his heart. He was here, on the Enterprise, and Hikaru Sulu
- Mihara Shinji -
was here with him. He'd kept his promise through all those centuries. He'd found him again.
Chekov swung his feet off his bed, noticing that he was still dressed, boots and all. Well, that made it easier. He'd go find Hikaru, find out if he had the same memory. How had he never noticed before that he and Hikaru worked together as if they shared a single thought? Pilot and navigator as a seamlessly functioning team, better than any other. Good enough to be part of the senior bridge crew of the Federation's flagship. "Lights," he ordered the computer.
He'd just reached the door when the annunciator beeped. "Pavel? It's me, Hikaru. I just had the weirdest dream. Can I come in?"
Chekov hit the 'open' button by way of reply, then stood aside and waved Sulu inside. Part of him wanted to grab Sulu and continue the kiss that had been interrupted three centuries and three minutes ago, but the rest of him had been trained by Starfleet and had enough self-control to squash that insistent voice.
Not sure of what to do, Chekov went to sit on his desk, swinging his heels like the teenager he pretended not to be. "You said you had a dream, yes?" he asked cautiously. "I have had one too. I would like to hear about yours."
Sulu gave him a surprised look that reminded Chekov of Shinji. "Uh, okay." For lack of anywhere else to go, Sulu went to sit on Chekov's bed. Chekov put extra restraints on Dmitri's increasingly frantic echo.
"I, uh. This is going to sound weird." Sulu took a deep breath. "I dreamed that I was a pilot, at the beginning of Earth's Second World War. And you were there, except you weren't. Your face was rounder, and you were older. You had brown eyes, and one of those - what do they call them? - pudding-basin haircuts. And you didn't have those curls." Sulu smiled, his eyes distant for a moment, and Chekov remembered that day when they'd bathed in the stream. "Your name was Dmitri, I think."
"And yours was Shinji," Chekov said softly, almost unaware that he'd said it until Sulu nodded.
"That's right. We were flying, and we crashed into each other. You pulled me out of my plane after the crash, and found us a little farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere. We, uh." Sulu blushed.
"Yes. In the stream." Now Chekov was as red as Sulu.
"We only had a couple of days before they found us, but . . ." Sulu trailed off. "Pavel, what does 'ya tаk lyublyu tеbya' mean?"
Chekov felt his cheeks grow even hotter. "The translation . . . it is, 'I love you so'." Biting his lower lip, he plucked up the courage to ask his own question. "Hikaru, what is 'aishiteru'?"
"Um. The same."
"We have to think about this," Chekov said, his sensible side holding on by its fingernails against the memory of Dmitri. "Could we have been drugged? Or, I do not know, perhaps the memories were given to us?"
"Maybe, Sulu said, face drawn in thought. "I doubt it, though. After all, what reason would they have had to play such an elaborate practical joke? The memories didn't hurt us or change us, really. We're still Hikaru and Pavel, not Shinji and Dmitri."
Chekov nodded, reassured by his logic. "I do not think it was drugs, either. After all, we have been back on the ship for many hours. I think we would have noticed any effects. And even if we have not, we can get Doctor McCoy to check."
"Also, I don't know about you, but I don't really know much about that precise period of history. But I knew everything, in that dream. I knew what kind of plane I was flying, I knew the terrain I was flying over." Sulu was staring at his knees, and Chekov realised that Sulu was fighting with Shinji's feelings as hard as he himself was struggling with Dmitri's.
"As did I." Chekov took a breath. "Hikaru, we are different people now, but perhaps there is still that connection there. Perhaps we should try?"
Sulu looked up, and then he was meeting Chekov in the middle of the room. Familiar/unfamiliar arms went around him, and familiar/unfamiliar lips met his in a kiss that he'd waited centuries to feel again. And with that kiss, the echo of Dmitri stopped struggling and began to fade, content to be with his partner again.
And then it was only Pavel, leaning in to whisper, "Ya tеbya lyublyu."
And it was only Hikaru who replied, "Aishiteru."
Epilogue
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Chekov/Sulu
Warnings: None, really.
Summary: Prompt fill. Chekov and Sulu met in another lifetime. While on shore leave, they accidentally have those memories triggered.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, it belongs to Paramount and Gene Roddenberry.
A/N: My first Star Trek story for the reboot universe. It's been a while since I've played in this fandom, and it's just as much fun as I remember.
The bright white light of this planet's sun was warm on Chekov's back as he and Sulu browsed the main marketplace of Kthalios Majura's capital city. For once, the natives had been friendly and the planetary atmosphere capable of sustaining warm-blooded oxygen breathers, so Captain Kirk had authorized shore leave. Chekov had drawn his at the same time as Sulu, and it had been natural for the two friends to decide to spend their leaves together.
"Hey, Pavel. Check out that girl at the booth over there," Sulu murmured in his ear, nudging Chekov in the side and pointing at one of the stalls.
Chekov looked where Sulu had indicated, and saw the young woman - he presumed she was female - waving shyly at him. He smiled in return and waved back. She was pretty to human eyes, although no human had ever had that tiger-patterned skin. Her short hair, patterned in stripes like her skin, was more like fur, but it looked soft and glossy.
"Why don't you go talk to her? I'll, uh, just go look at that plant stall over there." Sulu waved vaguely in the direction of the plant stall, which was covered in the bluish-purple vegetation native to the planet.
"You are a bad influence, Hikaru," he accused his friend, smiling despite himself. "Okay, okay, I go, I go."
The young Kthalian's stall was full of crystals of all shades of the rainbow. Some were clearly manufactured, while others seemed to be natural. Some glowed from inside, the colours shifting as the noise levels in the marketplace rose and fell.
"Do you see anything you like?" the young woman behind the stall asked, tilting her head on one side. Chekov couldn't remember what that was supposed to signify in this culture, but he was fairly sure it was friendly.
"Ah, yes. I . . ."
"Excuse me?" One of the other Enterprise personnel leaned over, interrupting them. "How much is this one, please?"
Giving him an apologetic look - that one was fairly standard in all cultures - the seller transferred her attention to the other man. Chekov examined the crystals while waiting, fascinated by the constantly changing colours. He reached for one, but as he did, a white glow appeared under his arm.
Startled, Chekov pulled back, and the glow disappeared. But he wouldn't have been a Starfleet officer if he hadn't been as curious as he was intelligent, and he wanted to see if it would happen again. Sweeping his hand slowly over the area of the stall in front of him, he was rewarded with a return of the glow.
He leaned down to examine it more closely. It was a simple, clear pyramid, about half the size of his palm. Whenever he moved closer to it, it started glowing; when he pulled away, it stopped. Fascinated, Chekov didn't notice the Kthalian woman staring at him until he looked up.
"You . . . you are shai'ashke!" she exclaimed, mouth open. She looked surprised, more than anything, but those long canines weren't doing much for Chekov's peace of mind.
With visions of diplomatic disasters dancing in his head, Chekov started babbling. "I am sorry, I did not know it was wrong, I will go away now . . ." He stepped backwards, then spotted Sulu out of the corner of his eye. Relief washed over him. "Look, there is my friend, I will -"
"No, no, stay!" the young woman said, looking alarmed at Chekov's suggestion that he go. "It is good, it is very good! Please, stay there, I will fetch my grandmother. She will read for you." She slipped out from behind the stall and vanished into the crowd.
Sulu stepped up beside him, looking after her in confusion. "Pavel, should I be congratulating you? Did you just get engaged or something?"
"I do not know!" Chekov said apprehensively. "All I did was to reach out to that crystal, there, and make it shine!" He waved his hand over the crystal again, and it obligingly lit up.
"Huh. Can I try that?" Sulu asked. Chekov pulled back, and let his friend approach the crystal pyramid. It repeated its earlier performance as Sulu put his hand near it, and Chekov breathed a sigh of relief.
"Perhaps it just likes humans?" Chekov suggested. "Hikaru, you must show her this when she returns. Perhaps we can explain this."
"Yeah, sure." Sulu looked around. "Hey, here she comes now. Someone else with her - whoa, I don't think I've seen a Kthalian that old yet."
Chekov turned to face the approaching pair. The young woman was leading the older one, a Kthalian woman so old that her skin and pelt had faded to grey and white. The old woman didn't seem to have lost any of her mobility, however, and she was moving as easily as her granddaughter.
"Which of these two is the shai'ashke?" the old woman inquired harshly. The younger one gestured to Chekov, and the aged Kthalian grabbed his arm firmly before Chekov had a chance to move. Her fingers felt like steel on his bicep.
"Hey, wait!" Sulu protested. "I don't know what you think he is, but I think your crystal pyramid just likes humans. Look, it works for me too." He demonstrated, and the crystal obligingly brightened.
"Two of you!" breathed the young woman. "We are blessed to have two such people among us." Her eyes were wide.
Chekov felt the movement of the old woman from where she was still holding his arm, and saw that she now had Sulu in a similar grip. Only the thought diplomatic incident kept him from pulling out of the old woman's grip and calling for a beam-up.
The old woman laughed. "Do not be concerned, young shai'ashke. I merely wish to perform a reading of your lives. It is rare that such bright ones as yourselves visit our world."
"Oh, you're a seer? A fortune-teller?" Sulu asked, clearly relaxing. "Yeah, okay, why not?"
"Very well," Chekov agreed. What harm would it do to have his future told? "You know, fortune-tellers originally came from Russia," he added mischievously, causing Sulu to groan and roll his eyes.
* * *
The tent that they had been guided to was made of some kind of yellow fabric. It softened the clear white sunlight, turning it into something more like the two Earth-born humans were used to. At the centre of the tent was a plain wooden table with some stools scattered around it. There was also a pane of glass that was about the size of the tabletop, but set vertically, giving the impression of a very peculiar table tennis board. Chekov and Sulu were seated on one side of the pane of glass, the old woman on the other.
"So what do we do?" Sulu asked. Chekov could hear puzzlement in his tone, and shared the sentiment.
The old woman looked at the helmsman as if he was particularly dense. "You? You watch the glass for what your shai will reveal to me."
"Our futures?" Chekov guessed.
The you-are-being-very-stupid glare was levelled on him, this time. "No. Your pasts."
Chekov was about to protest that he remembered his past very well, thank you, when a flicker in the glass caught his eye.
* * *
- his plane was burning, the ground too close and not close enough -
- looking back at two planes, entangled and crumpled on the ground, a red star and a red circle visible through the soot and the fire -
- looking over at the unconscious man lying on the ground who was and was not Hikaru Sulu -
- exposed, cold, would anyone ever find him? -
- the language of flight, understanding that at least -
- so warm together, the slick slide of skin, this the most simple and real of all kinds of communication -
- the rescue party, finally, but they'll take not-Hikaru away, he's Japanese, an enemy pilot, he'll be a prisoner -
- ya tаk lyublyu tеbya, aishiteru, I'll find you, I promise I'll find you, not knowing if not-Hikaru understands, he's saying something in Japanese -
- sent to the German front, they need pilots -
- his plane burning again, and he can't pull up this time, and he'd wanted to find not-Hikaru but he's never seen him again and now he never will -
* * *
Chekov came back to himself with a gasp. The elderly Kthalian woman was gone, but Sulu was still sat beside him, looking as if someone had hit him around the back of his head with a board.
His communicator was beeping.
Chekov picked it up. "Chekov here."
"Chekov? Where are you, laddie? I've been trying to call you for the past half hour, you should have beamed up an hour ago. Oh, and if you find Sulu, tell him to get his arse back up here too."
Chekov took a guilty look at his watch. "I am sorry, Mr. Scott. I was, ah, unavoidably delayed."
"Well, if you're quite finished, I can get you from where you are now."
"Thank you, Mr. Scott. Oh, and Lieutenant Sulu is here as well."
"Thought he might be. Okay, laddie, up you go."
* * *
Chekov yawned as he headed down the corridor. He'd been on-shift almost as soon as he got back to the ship, with barely enough time to shower and change. The shift had been dull - they were still orbiting Kthalios Majura, which meant no navigational or tactical challenges to keep him occupied. Normally, in situations like this, he and Sulu would have played sneaky card games via their consoles, but they hadn't today. He'd been too busy thinking about the visions he'd had in that yellow tent.
The sensible thing, of course, would be to conclude that they'd both been drugged somehow and had made something up. But that didn't explain why his mind should have found itself back at the beginning of World War II - for, somehow, he knew that that was where he'd been - or why the man he knew was Sulu had looked so different.
Or why he was sure that in those visions, he'd been in love with the man he'd always considered up to now to be his best friend.
Shaking his head, he punched in the code to open his door and stepped inside. His bed was only a few staggering steps away, and really, it was far too much trouble to get to the bathroom when his warm, soft (lonely) bed was right there.
Chekov collapsed on top of the covers, asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. Had he been more awake, he might have been interested to know that a few doors down the corridor, Sulu was succumbing to the same exhaustion.
* * *
Dmitri Ivanov ran out of the airbase's main building and across to where the ground crews were frantically prepping his plane, neatly dodging the vehicles that were racing back and forth over the airfield. Why did the Japanese have to pick now, of all times, to attack Tamsak-Bulak?
With a nod to the techs, Ivanov flung himself up the side of the plane and into the cockpit. Around him, his wingmates were taxiing to the runway and launching into the clear blue Mongolian sky, heading for the dim shapes of the distant Japanese planes. The engine came alive under his hands, and he joined the rest of the aircraft waiting to get into the air. This was what he'd trained for - to reach for the sky, and perhaps, one day, beyond the sky.
* * *
Ivanov fired the machine-guns and had the satisfaction of seeing a line of holes chew their way across a Japanese plane's fuselage. Turning, looking for another target, he heard the unpleasant rattle of machine-gun fire behind him and cursed. His plane juddered with impact; pouring on the power to escape from his pursuer, he discovered that the tail of his plane was no longer responding very well to commands.
Looking around, he found that half his tail was missing, and that what remained was on fire. The ground was spiralling up to meet him, far too close and not close enough to be safely down. An enemy plane flashed across his vision, and he tried to fire, but the machine-guns jammed.
You're not getting away that easily! he thought. Fighting the unresponsive controls, he set a course for the Japanese plane. Even damaged, his aircraft was faster, but he was falling too quickly to be able to catch up. There were too many enemy planes out here - where were his wingmates? Had he been lured that far off course? He was going to crash out here, where his most optimistic calculations put him at over a hundred and fifty miles from the base, and nobody would know where he'd landed.
A silver ribbon of water snaked below. It was too small to be the Khalkha river - perhaps a tributary? It was coming up far too fast . . .
And then, suddenly, something smacked into his right wing. Squinting through his flying goggles, he could see another aircraft that had somehow, impossibly, hit him in mid-air. The other pilot's canopy was almost opaqued by smoke and dirt, meaning that he couldn't see the pilot all that clearly - and would explain why the other man hadn't seen him. Down here, below the fighting, he'd probably figured it was safe enough to fly half-blind.
The right wing of the other plane was inextricably mashed into Ivanov's own, both planes bound and spiralling uncontrollably. It was a Japanese plane, he noted absently. The dials on the instrument panel were going crazy, there was too much heat behind him, and here comes the ground . . .
The other plane took most of the impact, but the shock of hitting the ground was still more than enough to knock him senseless for a few seconds. He was almost surprised to find that he was mostly uninjured when he came to again, but a check of injuries would have to wait on getting away from his burning plane. Coughing in the smoke, he scrambled out, leather flying gloves and tough boots all that protected his hands and feet from the hot metal. The fire would probably reach the fuel tanks soon. He had to get away.
Wait. What about the other pilot? Yes, he was an enemy, but no pilot should have to die like that. He scrambled over the wreckage. Somehow, in the crash, the Japanese plane's canopy had been flung wide open. Well, at least that made it easier to find him - and yes, there he was, eyes open but clearly seconds away from returning to unconsciousness. Heedless of the danger, Ivanov reached in to unstrap him and hauled him bodily out of the mess of mangled metal that had until recently been an aeroplane. The other man said something, weakly, and then passed out.
Ivanov dragged the Japanese man away from the conflagration, hoping that -
Crump.
The sound warned him before his eyes did - the flames had made it to the fuel tanks. He flung himself over the Japanese man's body before his thoughts had time to catch up, shielding the unconscious man as best he could from the heat of the fireball. It was hot, too hot, too hot -
Gone.
Ivanov lay there panting for a moment, then rolled off the unconscious man. It might be summer, but it still got cold on the Mongolian steppe at night. And with no trees, they'd have no protection from the wind. They had to find shelter soon, or risk dying of exposure. And wouldn't that be irony, for two enemies who had failed to kill each other and failed to die in the crash to succumb to something as uncaring as the weather?
He looked back at the enemy pilot lying next to him. Japanese, that was all he could tell. Dark hair, golden skin, square face, sharp cheekbones, a wide mouth that was slack without consciousness to animate it.
- Hikaru, that's him, I know it, but it doesn't look like him -
The man groaned, blinking open brown eyes. He said something in what Ivanov guessed had to be Japanese, and the Russian waved at the two burning planes in explanation. His enemy lifted his head and looked over, then said something urgent-sounding. Whether it was who are you? or where are we? or we have to get out of here or none of the above, Ivanov didn't know.
"We have to find shelter," Ivanov insisted, more in the hopes that the other man could read his tone of voice than with any real expectation that he'd understand Russian.
The man simply blinked at him, clearly still dazed from the crash.
Ivanov decided to try a different way. "Dmitri Ivanov," he said, putting his hands on his chest, then extending them out to the other man. "You?"
- Pavel Chekov -
A flicker of understanding crossed his face. "Mihara Shinji," he replied. Ivanov knew just enough about Japanese names to know that they did it back-to-front, so 'Mihara' had to be the man's surname. This was good. Now he had a name to put with the face.
- Hikaru Sulu -
"We have to go," Ivanov repeated. Although if he was honest with himself, he didn't know where. Mihara looked puzzled, but pushed himself to his feet unaided, albeit with a wince of pain.
At that moment, Ivanov heard the faint bleating of a distant sheep. His head snapped up. Sheep meant farmers, and farmers meant shelter. He looked around to find Mihara staring in the same direction.
Without saying anything, they both began walking towards the sheep.
* * *
At Ivanov's best guess, it was past midnight when they stumbled into the tiny two-roomed farmhouse. Mihara had started limping an hour or so ago, and Ivanov had supported him when it became clear that he wouldn't be able to walk on his own. Somewhere during that long walk, Ivanov had stopped thinking of Mihara as 'the enemy', but he hadn't quite decided on what he'd become.
This had clearly been a crop farm, at least in part. The building was a permanent wooden construction, and there was another roofed building out there that Ivanov guessed was the barn. But the animals had dispersed, and the crops in the fields were infested with weeds. The house itself was dusty, and showed signs of its former inhabitants having packed and left. Fortunately, it would seem that they hadn't bothered taking the furniture with them.
Ivanov sat Mihara down on a thin cushion that the former owners had probably deemed not worth the trouble of taking, then went to investigate the cupboards. To his relief, the first thing he found was two candles and a half-empty box of matches. With a lit candle, it was much easier for him to investigate the cupboard.
Their luck was still in - there was canned food in there, although the vegetables in the bins had long since rotted and the bread had degenerated to green mould. There had been a stream out back that probably served for drinking water, so they'd do well enough.
Grabbing two cans at random, he checked his pocket and grinned. He still had his heavy-duty field knife on him. He'd be able to open the cans without too much of a problem. Turning to Mihara, he waved the two cans in triumph.
Mihara grinned weakly, his breath dragging in and out as if he'd run those last few miles instead of walking. His tongue came out to lick his lips, and Ivanov was suddenly aware of a raging thirst. He hadn't seen water since flying over that tributary, and it had been a very long day.
Hurrying over to Mihara, he put the cans and the candle down and dropped the knife beside them. The other man recoiled for a moment, then looked at Ivanov's smile and relaxed.
"Mihara, can you open these cans?" he asked hopefully. "I go to fetch water." Before the Japanese pilot could say anything, Ivanov had grabbed the wooden pail by the door and stepped out into the rapidly-chilling night. The stream was easy to find, trickling noisily a few metres away. The winds had quieted for the moment, giving him the strange feeling that if he just listened hard enough, he could hear around the world.
Ivanov leaned down to the stream and drank from it thirstily - the cool water tasted good, if a little earthy, and it was clearer than the sky. The bucket was dirty, and required several rinses before Ivanov was willing to try carrying drinking water in it. By some miracle, it was mostly intact, the only damage a crack near the top that dripped water if he tried over-filling the pail.
By the time he got back inside, Mihara had not only managed to open the tins, he'd found some sort of metal container and had started a fire in the hearth. By the smell now reaching Ivanov's nostrils, the tins had contained beef and tomatoes.
"Ah! Mizu!" Mihara exclaimed, pointing at the bucket. Ivanov filed that one away - mizu must mean water. The man at the fire said something else, but the only word that Ivanov could pick out was his own name. Figuring that Mihara had dinner under control, he left the pail of water with him and went to investigate the second room in the house with the aid of the candle.
The second room proved to be a bedroom - quite literally. The only piece of furniture in there was a large, flattish wooden box with a pile of dusty fabrics in it. Ivanov considered the situation for a moment, then set down the candle and picked up the assorted bedding. There was another door to the outside here as well, and he'd be able to take it all outside and shake it free of the worst of the dust.
It took him several kicks to open the door - the place had been shut up fairly tightly by its fleeing tenants, which explained why he hadn't seen any signs of mice or other vermin in the other room. It was a well-built little place, with no drafts that he'd noticed yet.
Finally, the door opened, and he took the bedding outside and gave it all a good shaking. The mattress proved to be stuffed with rags and scraps of raw wool, the pillows likewise. The blankets - three of them, which suggested just how cold it would get here over winter - were wool, inexpertly knitted and lumpy but fairly thick. There were signs that moths had been nibbling on the fabric, but no bedbugs, for which Ivanov was grateful. He hauled it all back inside and laid it out in the box, only then realising that there was only one bed. Well, what of it? It was no worse than sharing a tent, surely?
"Ivanov," Mihara called from the other room, followed by something which probably translated as dinner is ready. Ivanov's stomach growled eagerly at the thought, and he abandoned the bedroom in favour of food.
The only cutlery available seemed to be a whittled wooden fork and a battered tin spoon. Mihara ceremoniously offered him the choice of spoon or fork, and Ivanov laughed before picking the fork. Mihara smiled in response, then gestured to the container that held their meal. Ivanov needed no second invitation, and dug in. It was surprisingly good, and he looked up and smiled at the other man in thanks.
In the end, they were both tired enough that neither of them cared about anything except getting under the blankets. They fell asleep fully clothed, their mutual body heat warming the air around them.
- but I've never been here, never slept in a bed like that -
* * *
It had been two days now, and Ivanov was wondering if there had been a rescue party dispatched at all. After all, he'd gone down in flames. It wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to assume him dead - and, really, would it be so bad out here? They'd found the vegetable garden now, although pests had made off with most of the produce and left them very little to harvest. And Shinji was good company, even if he could only understand a word or two of the other man's language.
Second thoughts, however, pulled him back to reality. Sooner or later, the cans would run out. Winter would come, and they'd starve out here when the snows came. Neither man was a hunter, and even if they had been, they had nothing to shoot stray cattle and sheep with. And there probably would be a rescue party dispatched, if only so they could bring back the body. When they found the two planes empty, they'd start searching in earnest. The only reason they hadn't found him yet was that there was a lot of steppe to search. Also, if the Japanese had won, the airbase would have more on their hands to worry about than one missing-presumed-dead pilot. Dead bodies could wait.
"Dmitri!" Mihara called, shaking him out of his reverie. The other man was over by the stream, waving a bar of home-cooked soap at him that they'd found that morning. It was the hottest part of the day right now, which meant the best time to wash. Ivanov couldn't complain - after the crash, the hike and the dust of the cottage, he was getting a little whiffy.
"Coming!" he called back, trotting away from the vegetable garden and towards the stream. Mihara had already started to strip down, and Ivanov's eyes couldn't help but follow every piece of newly revealed skin as he approached. Mihara's body was as golden as his face, lean muscles flexing under bruised skin. He still limped a little, legacy of the bone bruises he'd acquired in that crash.
Mihara ducked his head under the water, pulling out with a hiss that needed no translation. Ivanov shucked his clothes and left them in a pile next to Mihara's, jumping recklessly into the stream.
Ivanov barely stopped himself from yelping. It was cold, yes, but so were the rivers in Russia, and he could handle it. He reached for the soap, which a wide-eyed Mihara handed over, and scrubbed down. Hitting a particularly sore spot on his head, he couldn't help but cry out. Gritting his teeth, he was reaching up again when he heard a splash next to him. Hands took the soap away from him, and he turned to see Mihara shivering in the waist-deep water.
"Shinji?" he asked, surprised. Mihara simply beckoned to him, holding up the soap. Ivanov inched closer, and Mihara reached over his head to apply the soap to his hair. Mihara's hands were gentle, reducing the sting of the harsh soap, and Ivanov relaxed and closed his eyes. It was nice to be taken care of like this. Back at the airbase, it was five-minute showers and a queue of impatient soldiers waiting their turn. The water here might be cold, but it was all theirs.
A tap on his shoulder told him that Mihara was done, and Ivanov flexed his knees and immersed himself in the water. The current rinsed his hair for him and he exploded back out of the water, shaking his head to clear his eyes. The first thing he saw was Mihara scrubbing at the ingrained soot on his arms, and before he knew it, Ivanov had moved forwards and had taken the soap in hand.
Mihara gave him a questioning look as Ivanov took his arm, and then nodded in understanding as the Russian began to scrub the dirt off for him. The other man was pliable in his grasp, not resisting as Ivanov moved onto his shoulders, back, neck and hair. He seemed to be enjoying the indulgence as much as Ivanov had.
Before long, however, they were both shivering too much to stay any longer in the water. They hauled themselves out, the warm air seeming doubly warm when compared to the chill of the stream, and sprawled naked on the grass at the water's edge. They had no towels, but that wasn't much of a hardship when the sun was this warm.
They lay there lazily for while, enjoying the quiet and the peace. Ivanov was just drifting off to sleep when he heard Mihara say something.
Ivanov rolled over to look at his friend. "Shinji?" he asked curiously.
Mihara repeated the phrase, punctuated by gestures. Something about the sky, and the wind, and the surroundings, and being comfortable. Ivanov smiled, understanding. He was talking about flying.
"I know," he agreed. "A day like today, when the sky is blue and the wind is warm, is a perfect day to fly. I feel like I can fly right up there, past the sky and keep going." He waved a hand up at the sky, and Mihara nodded.
The other man twisted around so that they were face to face, then looked up at the sky. He said something that Ivanov felt he more or less understood - the equivalent of 'very good'. The longing in his tone resonated with Ivanov. The two of them belonged in the sky, not on the ground. He just wished that his beautiful blue sky didn't have to be filled with killing and death.
"Dmitri?" Mihara asked, and Ivanov realised that he must have been broadcasting his thoughts on his face. He tried to smile, but Mihara was having none of it.
Mihara said something, sounding almost embarrassed, and his eyes flickered up and down Ivanov's nude form. Ivanov was suddenly, painfully aware that they were naked together, and closed his eyes in shame. Mihara - Shinji - had noticed how he looked at him. Mihara said something else, something reassuring, and Ivanov felt a finger under his chin. "Glaz," Mihara said, and where had he learned the Russian word for eyes? Reluctantly, he obeyed the gentle command and looked up.
Mihara's face was only inches away now, and Ivanov could see that his pupils were wider than the midday sun should have made them. He felt like he wanted to fall into those dark eyes forever.
"Dmitri?" Mihara asked again, his voice barely a breath against Ivanov's face.
Ivanov smiled, and let himself fall. "Shinji," he answered, reassurance and agreement and promise all bound up in that one simple word.
Then their lips met, and for a while, Ivanov forgot even his own name.
- Pa . . . Pavel. Chekov. Pavel . . . oh -
* * *
This was the morning of the fourth day, and Ivanov was fairly sure that he'd never been happier. It didn't matter that he and Mihara didn't share a language. They understood each other perfectly well without speech, most of the time. When he knew, without the other man asking, they they'd need more tinder for the fire, or when Mihara handed him the item he was looking for almost before he'd started to search . . . that was when he knew what a perfect partner he had in the other man. It was as if they'd known each other all their lives instead of less than a week, as if they moved as one.
Ivanov was out breaking up the now-useless fences for more firewood. There wasn't really much available out here, and they'd exhausted the scant stores the night before. Not that it had mattered - they'd simply snuggled together for warmth under those thick woollen blankets, and then done a bit more than snuggling when their proximity had triggered a hunger that neither wanted to deny. Ivanov smiled, remembering. He loved the taste of Shinji's skin, loved the little noises he made when they were in bed together. Loved Shinji, although he couldn't quite bring himself to confess it yet.
He was halfway down the fence when he heard the sound of an engine. He stopped to listen. A jeep, he decided absently, before the realisation of what this meant hit him. The search party. They'd found him, or would soon, and they'd take Mihara away. Mihara was the enemy, and they'd never see each other again. They might only have minutes left.
Ivanov dropped the piece of railing that he was holding and sprinted for the house. He could see Mihara in the garden, digging. Whether he was removing vegetables or putting them in didn't matter now. He barrelled up to Mihara and stopped, panting.
"Dmitri?" Mihara asked, alert and concerned in a way that said to Ivanov 'If something is hurting you, I will find it and stop it, and I don't care how.'
"Shinji, listen!" He tapped his ear and pointed in the direction of the noise. It wasn't quite in sight yet, but it would be as soon as it topped the low rise surrounding the farmland.
Mihara straightened up, listening, then looked at Ivanov in shock. Ivanov grabbed his partner's hand and dragged him into the house.
"Shinji, I love you so, please remember that." He had no idea if Mihara would understand, but he had to say it. "I love you, remember it. I'll find you. I swear I'll find you."
"Aishiteru, Dmitri." Mihara looked desperate. He rattled off a quick string of Japanese, then pulled Ivanov in for a kiss. Ivanov embraced him as tightly as he could, trying to fuse their bodies together. This couldn't be happening, he couldn't lose Shinji now.
They kissed until the sound of the jeep grew too loud to ignore. With one last, despairing look back, Ivanov stepped out of the door and saw the jeep heading towards them. A red star. It was one of the Russian ones.
Ivanov took a deep breath, and waited.
* * *
Pavel Chekov sat up abruptly in his darkened quarters, every moment of the dream-memory etched into his mind and every one of Dmitri Ivanov's feelings burned into his heart. He was here, on the Enterprise, and Hikaru Sulu
- Mihara Shinji -
was here with him. He'd kept his promise through all those centuries. He'd found him again.
Chekov swung his feet off his bed, noticing that he was still dressed, boots and all. Well, that made it easier. He'd go find Hikaru, find out if he had the same memory. How had he never noticed before that he and Hikaru worked together as if they shared a single thought? Pilot and navigator as a seamlessly functioning team, better than any other. Good enough to be part of the senior bridge crew of the Federation's flagship. "Lights," he ordered the computer.
He'd just reached the door when the annunciator beeped. "Pavel? It's me, Hikaru. I just had the weirdest dream. Can I come in?"
Chekov hit the 'open' button by way of reply, then stood aside and waved Sulu inside. Part of him wanted to grab Sulu and continue the kiss that had been interrupted three centuries and three minutes ago, but the rest of him had been trained by Starfleet and had enough self-control to squash that insistent voice.
Not sure of what to do, Chekov went to sit on his desk, swinging his heels like the teenager he pretended not to be. "You said you had a dream, yes?" he asked cautiously. "I have had one too. I would like to hear about yours."
Sulu gave him a surprised look that reminded Chekov of Shinji. "Uh, okay." For lack of anywhere else to go, Sulu went to sit on Chekov's bed. Chekov put extra restraints on Dmitri's increasingly frantic echo.
"I, uh. This is going to sound weird." Sulu took a deep breath. "I dreamed that I was a pilot, at the beginning of Earth's Second World War. And you were there, except you weren't. Your face was rounder, and you were older. You had brown eyes, and one of those - what do they call them? - pudding-basin haircuts. And you didn't have those curls." Sulu smiled, his eyes distant for a moment, and Chekov remembered that day when they'd bathed in the stream. "Your name was Dmitri, I think."
"And yours was Shinji," Chekov said softly, almost unaware that he'd said it until Sulu nodded.
"That's right. We were flying, and we crashed into each other. You pulled me out of my plane after the crash, and found us a little farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere. We, uh." Sulu blushed.
"Yes. In the stream." Now Chekov was as red as Sulu.
"We only had a couple of days before they found us, but . . ." Sulu trailed off. "Pavel, what does 'ya tаk lyublyu tеbya' mean?"
Chekov felt his cheeks grow even hotter. "The translation . . . it is, 'I love you so'." Biting his lower lip, he plucked up the courage to ask his own question. "Hikaru, what is 'aishiteru'?"
"Um. The same."
"We have to think about this," Chekov said, his sensible side holding on by its fingernails against the memory of Dmitri. "Could we have been drugged? Or, I do not know, perhaps the memories were given to us?"
"Maybe, Sulu said, face drawn in thought. "I doubt it, though. After all, what reason would they have had to play such an elaborate practical joke? The memories didn't hurt us or change us, really. We're still Hikaru and Pavel, not Shinji and Dmitri."
Chekov nodded, reassured by his logic. "I do not think it was drugs, either. After all, we have been back on the ship for many hours. I think we would have noticed any effects. And even if we have not, we can get Doctor McCoy to check."
"Also, I don't know about you, but I don't really know much about that precise period of history. But I knew everything, in that dream. I knew what kind of plane I was flying, I knew the terrain I was flying over." Sulu was staring at his knees, and Chekov realised that Sulu was fighting with Shinji's feelings as hard as he himself was struggling with Dmitri's.
"As did I." Chekov took a breath. "Hikaru, we are different people now, but perhaps there is still that connection there. Perhaps we should try?"
Sulu looked up, and then he was meeting Chekov in the middle of the room. Familiar/unfamiliar arms went around him, and familiar/unfamiliar lips met his in a kiss that he'd waited centuries to feel again. And with that kiss, the echo of Dmitri stopped struggling and began to fade, content to be with his partner again.
And then it was only Pavel, leaning in to whisper, "Ya tеbya lyublyu."
And it was only Hikaru who replied, "Aishiteru."
Epilogue