Yay! Thank you for the follows, review, and favorite! Chapters 2 and 3 are shorter ones, so I'm posting them at the same time. Hope you enjoy!
-X-
Chapter 2: Reminisce
"Pavel!" Hikaru was jogging in his attempt to catch up to his friend. "Pavel! Wait up! Please!" Hikaru glanced down the halls he was passing. They were finally deserted. He broke into a sprint and barreled down the passage after his friend's retreating figure. The second after Hikaru started to run, so did Pavel, and Hikaru would have cursed again except that he couldn't breathe. Between the two of them Pavel was the faster runner, and both of them knew that. Hikaru skidded around a corner just in time to see Pavel turn around the next one. 'When the hell did he get this fast?' Hikaru wondered. Then he exhaled loudly – at least it felt like it was loudly, what with all the air in his body leaving at once – and thought, 'This calls for drastic measures.' Bracing himself, he tripped over his own feet, tumbling down the hall and ending up lying on his back in the middle of the floor, groaning. 'I think this floor has gotten denser since the last time I had to do that…' His next thought was that it had been at least four years since he had intentionally tripped himself up and that he had probably just forgotten how much it hurt.
"Hikaru?" Pavel's voice was accompanied by soft footsteps. Hikaru just lay on the floor, gasping and trying to remember exactly what happened the last time he'd done this. "Hikaru, are you alright?"
"Fine," he puffed, rolling over to his stomach and pushing himself onto his knees. "Just knocked the wind out of me."
"So, you can space jump onto an incredibly small platform and get up and fight, but tripping over your own feet renders you useless, huh?" Pavel asked, crouching next to his friend. "Try again, Hikaru, and maybe I'll believe you. Not that I should, given the fact that you just stole my phone and faked tripping yourself up in order to get me to stop running." The pilot looked up at this friend and saw that there was something off… something not quite right. This was the look that Pavel got whenever he had to pull off a navigational miracle that shouldn't really be possible but the captain needed them to do anyway. It was Lieutenant Chekov's look, not Pavel's.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? That's why I had trip to make you come back, so I could apologize. I know I haven't been the best friend lately and I know that you're under a lot of stress, too. I'm sorry I took your phone and I'm sorry I didn't just ask you about, uh, Taylor. And I'm sorry I didn't notice that there's other stuff that's bothering you. Please, Pavel, can't we talk? I can tell there's something else wrong. It's not just having to break-up, it's not just McCoy, it's not just me being a crappy friend, and I'm pretty sure it's not just the mission. So what else? What else is bothering you?" Hikaru pleaded. Pavel crouched, silent, for just a second or two before he fell the final few inches to the floor and sat there, staring at his hands. Innumerable emotions flickered across Pavel's face in the span of a few seconds before it finally fell blank again. "Pavel?"
"You know me too well, Hikaru," he murmured and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. Then he smiled, it was small and a little unsteady, but it was there. "I'm really tired. We can talk, but… tomorrow?" he asked, his voice so soft and distant that Hikaru had to strain to hear it. The pilot had to pause and consider it for a minute. Yeah, Pavel was smiling, but… there was something in his eyes; a shadow that Hikaru had never noticed before. And there was tautness to his voice that was almost imperceptible, but couldn't be hidden by his accent. No, Hikaru didn't want his friend alone while that shadow was still there.
"We don't have to talk," Hikaru confirmed. "But could we hang out? I promise to avoid all heavy subjects and we could do our old Tuesday night tradition from the Academy. Come on, please?" Hikaru entreated, doing his best impression of Pavel' own puppy dog face and shoving his friend in the shoulder.
"We're going to be spending five years in a confined space together. Why should we hang out now?" Pavel's smile was wider and his eyes were a little brighter and Hikaru had to congratulate himself.
"Because!" he exclaimed and Pavel jumped at the sudden increase in volume. "The first few weeks will be ironing out all of the bumps and listening to the captain whine and McCoy gripe and Nyota do her best not to kill all of us. We won't have any time to hang out and relax, so we might as well do it now!"
"So, we're reviving Tuesday Night Silent Soap Operas?" Pavel asked. Hikaru grinned.
The first Tuesday night Silent Soap Opera had actually occurred on a drizzly Monday. Hikaru had awoken in the middle of the night on Sunday evening… or so he thought. When he rolled over, dragging the majority of his blankets with him, he had peered through sleep crusted eyes to see his digital alarm clock cheerfully blinking the numbers "2:36" followed by a solid and hateful "AM". Instead of Sunday night, it was Monday morning.
"You have got to be kidding me," he had said, rolling onto his back, only at the last second remembering his young roommate. Hikaru sat straight up and stared over to where the other bed was, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He really hoped that he hadn't woken the kid up. When his eyes could finally see past the end of his own nose, Hikaru blinked in surprise and rubbed at his eyes a little more to make sure he wasn't seeing things. The darkness obscured a lot, but what it did not obscure was the fact that there was no Russian whiz kid in the bed across the room. The comforter was thrown back and the sheets were rumpled, but to all appearances Hikaru was in his room alone.
This was concerning. In the three weeks prior that they had both been in attendance at Starfleet's Academy, Hikaru had made one or two good friends. Pavel had not. In fact, except for classes he rarely left the dorm. Even for meals he spent as little time as possible outside of the room; he dashed out, stuffed some food into his mouth at the mess hall, and then dashed back to the room within the span of about fifteen minutes. Hikaru had actually been getting a little bit concerned during the second and third weeks of classes. Even if Pavel was young, he should at least be a little more social. But he wasn't, and that was part of the reason the Hikaru was concerned that Pavel was not in bed. The other reason he was concerned was that Pavel was not in bed at 2:36 in the morning was that their earliest class (they had remarkably similar schedules) was at 7:00 AM.
Hikaru clambered out of bed, pausing just long enough to drag his jacket off the back of his desk chair. He wrapped it around the ratty T-shirt and sweats he usually slept in and stumbled toward the door, yawning. When he tripped his way into the hall, he had to squint at the flickering blue light. It wasn't that bright; it didn't even come from the dimmed wall sconces that lined the hall. It came from the open archway that led to the common room for that floor. Figuring that would be the best place to start looking for his missing roommate, Hikaru staggered toward the light. When he finally reached the arch he had to pause for another minute to let his eyes adjust. The room didn't have much in the way of entertainment. There was a broken foosball table in the corner, a vending machine with the best snacks on the permanently-jammed slot C3, and an old television that got a maximum of twelve channels on a good day. Most of the time the actual numbered hovered around eight. The furniture was in about the same shape, if not worse. There was a threadbare grey couch that had a hole chewed in one of the legs, a recliner that could not recline, and four Parson Chairs around a card table with at least one leg each that was too short.
Peeking just over the top of the couch was a head of curly hair, its owner evidently watching the television. On the screen was a rerun of a soap opera that had been going on for ten years – only four of the original actors were left on the show. Apparently, that was what was shining that ungodly light down the hall.
"Hey," Hikaru murmured. The head whipped around and suddenly Chekov, Pavel Andreivich was peering over the back of the couch at him. "What are you still doing up, kiddo?"
"I could not sleep. I had... night… horse?" The kid looked down, sheepish, and shifted uncomfortably. Hikaru remembered a teacher telling him that Pavel was still learning Federation Standard, but as far as he could see all that Pavel was missing was the vocabulary. The grammar he had down, which was impressive considering how confusing it could get.
"I hate nightmares," Hikaru stated, walking around the couch. He hoped that it wouldn't seem like he talking down to Pavel. From what he could see he was a sensitive kid, but he was also very smart and seemed pretty nice when Hikaru could get him to talk.
"Da. Nightmare. I had a nightmare," Pavel confirmed, nodding once and shifting his attention back to the television. Hikaru shifted his eyes over to it as well when he sat down. The figures moved silently, pantomiming a drama that Hikaru didn't understand. "Do you know what is happening?" Pavel inquired. When Hikaru looked over at him in confusion, Pavel gestured at the television. "In the television show, do you know what is happening?"
"Ah, no. Sorry. I don't really watch soap operas," Hikaru said.
"Soap opera?" Pavel looked confused.
"It's a show that runs for a long time. It usually doesn't have a plot that all of the seasons follow. It just follows the lives of the characters and they can get in a lot of completely unrealistic situations," Hikaru explained, settling in as a Vulcan got into a shouting match with a human in clothes that looked like they came straight out of the 2100's. "See, a Vulcan yelling at someone. Unrealistic." Pavel snorted.
"Da. Unrealistic. We have these shows in Russia. I put the TV on silent and come up with my own words for what they are saying." Pavel smiled. "Sometimes my siblings or mother would do it, too. It was very funny."
"Want to try doing it in Standard?" Hikaru asked. "It could help you learn words you don't know. If there's something you don't know how to say, don't talk around it. Explain it to me and I'll help you find the right word," he offered. He didn't know what made him offer or how it would be received and breathed a sigh of relief when Pavel broke out into a wide smile.
"Da. Yes. That would be nice."
They stayed up straight through the night and both fell asleep in their early morning class. Because of scheduling issues, they moved Silent Soap Opera Night (as it came to be called) to Tuesday and bought a small television so they could watch in their room instead of the common room. As Pavel's Standard got better, it became less a learning experience and more a competition for who could come up with the most ridiculous lines that still made sense in context. The situation usually deteriorated quickly into senseless laughing and popcorn throwing.
"Yeah. We're reviving Tuesday Night Silent Soap Operas," Hikaru confirmed. From farther down the hall there came footsteps and McCoy came around the corner, holding a blue umbrella at his side.
"Why are ya'll sitting on the floor?" he asked. Hikaru and Pavel scrambled up and grinned simultaneously.
"Hikaru tripped over his own feet," Pavel chirped and dodged out of the way when Hikaru swung a hand at his head.
"I don't get paid enough for this," Hikaru heard the doctor sigh. McCoy grabbed Hikaru and Pavel by the back of their shirts and held them apart. "Play nice," he said loud enough for them both to hear, dropped their collars, and then walked off toward the elevator.
"Come on. Let's go rent a stupid soap opera," Pavel said.
