Family

Part Four of Four

Greg went to wash his face and get ready for bed – they still had a few hours before Ishevsk began to wake up, and they both needed a rest – and Pavel took advantage of the silence to take his padd from his bag and write a quick message to his father.

Papa,

I have seen how horrible fathers can be, and I owe you more thank yous than I could manage in a lifetime. Now for Greg I owe you a lifetime more. He needs us, papa, and thank you for knowing that before I did, and for offering him a home before I knew he needed one so badly. I don't know how you always know the right things to say, but thank you a million times for it.

He sent the message off with a growing sense of melancholy.

There was no way to fix something like this. This wasn't like an argument, or a misunderstanding that needed a few minutes' talking to clear up. Greg wouldn't be healed with a few loving words from Pavel, or a visit to his father. Greg wouldn't be healed at all, maybe.

It was a hard thing to accept, that Pavel simply had to accept what those creatures had done to his Greg. Offering him a second family, and letting him now that their years of hostility and insults and hatred weren't his fault, those were patches. Bandages, not cure.

That wouldn't stop Pavel from offering them, of course, but it wasn't enough. Pavel's mind worked for solutions, not panaceas.

When Greg emerged from the bathroom Pavel was no more settled. He stood to greet him, determined to at least provide panacea if that was all that was available to him.

"Come on, moyo chudo. A few hours of sleep might help – Ishevsk is celebrating tonight, which means they won't let us sleep until the sun starts to rise."

Greg flashed an achingly small smile and crawled into the narrow hotel bed with Pavel, still tense all over but at least he didn't pull away when Pavel curled into him and held on tightly.

Silence fell, and though the sun still burned hot outside Pavel had drawn the blinds and pulled thin curtains over them, so it was dark enough.

Still, sleep didn't come. It felt too early – in Ishevsk it was still morning, still dark and silent. But Pavel hadn't shaken himself of being on starship time, and all this sunlight and heat didn't help.

Or maybe it was his own mind, working too hard and too loudly, that wouldn't let him sleep. He couldn't stop replaying events of the day.

He couldn't stop seeing that shift of Greg's shoulders when the words from his dad fell on him. He couldn't keep from wondering how long it took a boy growing up with a father like that before he showed no reaction to that father wishing him dead. Nothing but a twitch in his shoulders.

Pavel found himself tracing the pads of is fingertips over one of those broad shoulders, almost in sympathy, as if they really had taken a physical blow. The sun spilling between the lines of the blinds in the window let in more than enough light to see, and he almost smiled to see the scratches on his own knuckles.

He should have hit harder.

The light caught in Greg's eyes, drawing Pavel's attention and making him blush to see he was being watched.

"Did I wake you up?"

"I don't think I'm gonna get any sleep here," Greg answered quietly.

No surprise there, probably. Pavel sighed, wondering if he ought to suggest they pack up and leave, even if life in his own village wouldn't begin to stir for a few more hours. The shuttle from the transport station wouldn't even be running this early, but maybe waiting the hours out there would be better than waiting here.

Then again, he still felt rather unsettled, as if the day's work in Hubert, South Dakota wasn't done yet. Since he wanted nothing to do with anyone outside that door, though, that only meant he had something more to say to Greg that he hadn't thought of yet.

And this would be their last few hours alone, before being back in his father's small house.

Greg cleared his throat quietly, as if he'd just had the same thought. "I'm sorry about all this. I know you don't want to hear that, but let me say it anyway."

Pavel smiled faintly. "Alright."

"I shouldn't've brought you here." He hesitated, then flashed the smallest twist of a smile. "First thing they teach us to do when something bad happens – make sure nobody else gets close enough to get hurt by it. Should've remembered that."

"Greg." Pavel met his eyes, chastising. "I am no uninvolved spectator wandering into a crime scene. You warned me enough, and I made my choice. I want to be there for the unpleasant things. I am strong enough to stand with you."

Greg met his eyes. Suddenly his smile cracked, grew sincere. "Strong enough to throw a few punches, too."

Pavel blushed, curling in to hide his face against Greg's chest. "I can't believe I did that."

"Me either, but...no one ever did anything like that for me. You know? And you...I know you're not a guy who hits first and thinks later, so...so you doing that..." His arms slipped around Pavel, holding him where he was. "Didn't hurt your hand, did you?"

Pavel laughed. "I had a good teacher, I was careful."

"Good."

His laughter faded. He tilted his head up to look at Greg.

Greg's throat worked, but he looked down and met Pavel's gaze. "What?"

"I don't understand. Why..." Pavel hesitated. "You were ready in an instant to protect me. Why do you never try to protect yourself?"

Greg frowned, but shrugged. "Never thought about it like that, but...come on, Pasha. You know by now I'm not ever gonna stand around and let someone come at you."

"I wish you would hold yourself as important in your mind as you hold me."

"Doesn't work like that."

"Why not?" Pavel frowned.

Greg smiled. "You charged at my dad and laid him out, Pasha. Have you ever done that because someone said something mean to you? All those bullies in the academy, hostiles on landing parties? You ever even thought about doing that before?"

"No." Pavel considered that, thoughtful. "But I came to you back then, to learn at least to defend myself. I doubt I would have ever attacked Matt Lepinski just because he was cruel to me, but I would have fought back if he attacked."

"You think I wouldn't've fought back if they'd come at us earlier?" Greg's smile was still steady, but his eyes were shadowed.

He knew, Pavel thought, just what Pavel meant, and that there was truth in it. But he obviously had no answers to give.

Maybe he would think about it, though. And Pavel would bring it up again, sometime when they were less close to all of this.

For now, he was tired of seeing pain in Greg's eyes. Everything couldn't be healed in a day. Sometimes just exposing the wound would have to suffice.

Pavel tilted his head up and brushed his lips over Greg's jaw. "You really ought to try and sleep. This will be a very long day."

Greg sighed. "I can't even get myself to relax, much less sleep. It'll be okay – at least we don't have to pull duty shifts for another week."

"That's true." Pavel leaned back and studied Greg solemnly. "But my Grischa needs to be healthy and well-rested whether he's on duty or not. So perhaps you'll let me help."

Greg's eyebrows lifted. "Help, huh?" His mouth quirked up.

Pavel tsked. "Don't think dirty thoughts. Roll over."

Greg laughed. "Kinda conflicting instructions there, Pasha."

Pavel had to fight back a delighted smile at the sound of laughter. "On your stomach, Greg. I'm going to help you relax."

Greg grinned but obeyed, slipping to the side and onto his stomach, curling his arms under his head. "Okay, chief, what now?"

Pavel slapped his arm lightly. "I heard what my papa said to you before we left on the shuttle, you know. That sometimes you should let me take care of you."

"Mmm." Greg dropped his head to the side, looking back at Pavel.

Pavel pushed back the sheets until they hung from the foot of the bed. "You remember I was a runner at the Academy?"

"You remember my ass being right at the finish line that last big race you won?"

Pavel laughed. "I'll take that as a yes. Anyway, the team was very good about making sure we were properly warmed up and cooled down. I haven't done this before, really, but I can remember being on the receiving end enough to fake it. I think."

Greg's brow furrowed, but he seemed to get it as Pavel slipped onto his legs, straddling his hips. He squirmed a little bit under him, but relaxed.

Pavel sat against Greg's ass, looking thoughtfully at the body spread out under him. "It would help if we had some sort of ointment, or...wait." He slipped off of Greg and the bed, going to the duffel bag nearly emptied on the floor.

He dug into the side inside pocket and pulled out a familiar and mostly-used tube of lubricant.

"Just happened to bring that?" Greg asked from the bed, a smile in his voice.

Pavel blushed but moved back to the bed without a word.

He slipped back into place over Greg, resting against his ass. It was a struggle to get enough lubricant from the tube to coat his hands – and maybe it was a good thing they were going to be in his papa's small house, since sex this week would be limited to quick and quiet meetings whenever they could get them.

He smiled to himself faintly and rubbed his hands together to warm them. "Did they arrange a masseuse for you in security training?"

"Sometimes." Greg settled in to the pillow, resting his cheek on his folded hands. "They didn't really do the whole almost-naked straddling thing, though, so you must've got better ones than we did."

Pavel laughed. "I'm making up some of this as I go, actually."

"Good. I'd've started wondering why you didn't leave my ass for some good-looking massage guy back in school."

Pavel's smile faded, though he could hear the joke in Greg's voice. He answered seriously, honestly. "I never thought once about being with anyone but you."

Greg didn't answer.

Pavel sighed but settled in, slipping his warm, slick hands to Greg's shoulders and digging in to the muscles there firmly. "I wonder if you ever realized that about me. That I never thought about anyone the way I thought about you. It never even occurred to me."

Greg buried his face in the pillow, groaning softly as Pavel dug into the knots in his shoulders and back.

"I suppose," Pavel went on, feeling that it was important, "because of my age, a little, and because of my circumstances. I was there to learn, more than any of the other cadets. They made allowances to let me in, and it was made clear from the start that papa was only letting me go, and they were only letting me in, because I was hungry to learn and had the abilities they needed. I wasn't there with peers, I wasn't surrounded by friends. I never saw the other cadets as anything more than the crowd around me. Except, of course, when they made themselves into threats."

He smiled to himself faintly, slipping his hands lower, digging his palms in to follow the line of Greg's spine. "Even the nice ones, like Kirk and McCoy, were only nice strangers to me. But you...from the start you were different, and I'm not really sure why."

"We didn't meet in any kind of normal way," Greg pointed out, his voice low and gravely.

The massage was already working.

"No, but Kirk had come to my aid before. Not directly, he had never happened on a fight as it happened, but he had picked me up off the ground before and gotten me to help. I told you once before that it was the time I came to you to ask you to help me learn, the time you were so angry to see me hurt, when I realized I was attracted to you. But that I even thought to come to you, to seek out another student and ask his help...to think of you, as I did a lot. Even that was new."

"I'm glad it happened that way, even if you don't know why it did."

Pavel hummed his agreement. He shifted lower on Greg's legs, hands working the tension gathered at Greg's lower back.

"I think at first it was because of how you reacted. To me, and Lepinski, and the whole thing. Kirk...he took care of me as if it were an obligation. Because he was older and I was younger, and he was a fighter and I was obviously a scrawny child. He told me from the start that he would keep his eye out for me, that I might need him. Might need a protector. And you were different."

He shifted a little as he spoke – annoyed more than anything to find himself starting to react. To Greg under him, the slick warm muscles under his hands. This wasn't about getting off, but his body had this Pavlovian response to Greg.

He kept talking, hoping Greg wouldn't notice. "You were not cocky like Kirk. You were almost embarrassed, as if pulling Lepinski off of me was all you could give, and you were sorry for it. You spoke so uncertainly about yourself, but you were so incredibly strong to me. It made me see you from the start...not as another cadet, even a nice one. But as a friend."

He slipped his hand over the waistband of Greg's boxers almost regretfully. "I have never made friends easily. Outside of my village, the people who love me because I am one of them, I had never had a friend before you. You were amazing to me, Greg, from the very start."

Greg drew in a deep breath that Pavel could feel under his hands. "I'm not..."

Pavel spoke fast, firm. "Yes, you are. You were amazing then because I could see you as a friend, and I had never had that before. You are more amazing now, because I see now what your life was like before you found me. I see what you had to survive to become my friend."

Greg shook his head, breathing unsteadily.

"No one saw me behind my brain and my intelligence. No one saw you behind your size, your family." Pavel drew in a breath, his eyes burning again. "We found each other, Greg, don't you see that? You're the only one to ever take my mind off of learning. You're the only one who could have. And maybe back then I was the only one who could have seen into you. It seems absurd , but then what has always seemed obvious to me about you has always surprised everyone else, so maybe...maybe I'm right. Maybe this, us, was the only way things could have happened."

"Pasha."

"I'm sorry." Pavel stilled his hands at Greg's waist. "I'm sorry for saying it when you can't believe it yet, but I have to. You have to hear it, because you heard too many bad things for too long. You are wonderful to me. Perfect. I would change your family but I would never change you, my Grischa. Moyo chudo."

"Pasha..."

Pavel had to fight to stop his jumble of words. He drew in a breath, let it out slowly.

Greg shifted under him, and Pavel lifted up enough for him to roll over onto his back. For a moment Greg just looked up at him, then he circled an oddly cautious hand around Pavel's hip.

"Would that be...okay? With you? If things were that way? I mean...if a guy like me is really the one you're meant to be with? Me, I went from this place and my family to you, and I still can't figure out what the fuck I did to deserve it. But you..."

Pavel gave him an uneven smile. "Me. I am an obsessive, strange little Russian genius. There have always been people practically lined up to despise me. You think I am a prize, and I try to be for you, but I will always count myself lucky that you want me so much."

Greg made a strange, muffled sound in his throat and hauled Pavel in, forcing him down and driving their mouths together desperately.

"God, I fucking love you," he growled against Pavel's mouth, driving in harder once the words were out.

Pavel melted into him, giving back as good as he got. Their legs twined together, and he was almost amused and almost relieved to find that the massage had stirred Greg up as much as Pavel.

Greg got his arms around Pavel and tensed, like he planned to roll them over, to cover Pavel with his body the way Pavel savored. But he hesitated, and pulled away, and his eyes were suddenly locked on Pavel's.

Something in them made Pavel flush, made his hips curl against Greg's. "What?"

Greg swallowed, but his voice was intense. "Fuck me."

Pavel stilled, utter shock making his response sharp. "What?"

"You heard me. I want...that's what I want."

"But..." God, there was no denying that his cock was instantly hard, and the idea of it made him a little weak-limbed. But Pavel had too good a memory and was feeling way too overprotective of Greg right then.

"But you don't...you've never..."

Greg's gaze stayed steady. "It doesn't hurt when I do it to you, right?"

Pavel might have laughed if the moment wasn't so serious. "No. Of course not, but...I remember what you said, what happened..."

"Pasha." Greg's throat worked. His cheeks flushed pink, but his eyes held. "When it's me...when I'm fucking you, it makes me feel like you're mine, like nothing can ever take you away from me. Like everything is fucking perfect because I've got you. I know, at least I can figure, that the first time I did something like that with some asshole I didn't even know, that was wrong, and it's not always like that. Not if you do it right."

Pavel swallowed. He nodded. "But..."

"I want...I want to belong to you. Tonight, right now, I want you to...to feel that. To know that nobody and nothing's ever gonna take me away if you don't want it. And I want to know how it feels to be on the other side."

Pavel studied him, wondering if that last part wasn't closer to the truth. Maybe more than anything Greg wanted to feel what it was like to belong to someone who loved him and would take care of him.

But there was a fear there, a doubt. Maybe this was some sort of penance for Greg, even unconsciously. Some kind of punishment. He spoke so tersely about that time in his past that he had let a man fuck him, and when Greg was terse it meant he was hiding whole oceans of feelings.

Then again, if it was some sort of punishment, Pavel only had to do it right, to take care and go slowly and make sure there wasn't any kind of pain in it.

He nodded after a moment. "If you're sure."

Greg's eyes locked onto his, no doubt in them. "I'm sure." He started to roll over onto his stomach again.

Pavel stopped him with a hand. "Wait." He licked his lips to wet them, looking Greg over. It was decided, it was happening, and he was shocked at the sudden protective, possessive heat that drove up inside of him. "We're going to do this my way."

Surprise and heat warred with each other in Greg's face, and he sank back on his back.

Pavel's hands were still coated in lubricant from the massage, so he was careful not to touch Greg as he slipped down his, nudging them apart to crouch between them.

Greg watched him, quiet now as the first snakes of apprehension seemed to pass over him.

"Trust me, moyo chudo." Pavel bent, kissing the curve of his hipbone, tracing a trail with his lips towards his ridged stomach.

Greg reached out, slipping a hand through Pavel's hair, burying his fingers in curls. Apprehension muted, if not silenced for good.

It was a start.

Pavel adored Greg's body, he really did. It was the most base, instinctual desire he thought he'd ever had before. The way he could watch Greg doing the most innocent thing and just want. He loved Greg's size, he loved the muscles he worked so hard to maintain. He loved the confidence Greg had in his body, confidence he didn't have over anything else in his life.

He loved the firm planes of Greg's chest and stomach. Loved that he couldn't get both his hands around one of Greg's biceps. He loved his legs, his ass – the man could fill a pair of track pants, and did, so often it was making Pavel rather insatiable – and he loved, in that base, instinctive way, Greg's cock.

Bigger and broader than Pavel's, like everything else about Greg. Thick and hard, flushed a deep red, and when Pavel pulled Greg's boxers down enough to pull him free that instant throb of hunger wracked him deep.

He took the base of him in his slicked hand, glancing up the line of Greg's body. Maybe another reason he loved Greg's size so much was that when he had it all under his control like he did right then, when Greg was shuddering and bracing from anticipation of what Pavel might do, it felt powerful in a way that only flying the Enterprise had compared to so far.

He bit back a wicked smile and bent low again, focusing on his task.

The feel of Greg hard and smooth under his hand, the hot and bitter and addictive taste of him, the breathless panting growling noises he made...Pavel thought now and then that if he dragged this act out long enough he could make himself come without ever being touched. It was still on his mental list of fun experiments to try when they had a day off together.

But now was not that time. He had a mission here.

He waited until Greg was leaking and rock-hard in his mouth before he slipped his other hand down, trailed his slick fingertips up and down in a gentle line.

Greg jumped a little, but he didn't tense. His cock throbbed under Pavel's hand, and his fingers clenched a little before sliding out of his hair.

Pavel shut his eyes, tasting and touching, savoring the softly repeated 'fuck' and 'Pasha' that dropped from Greg's mouth again and again.

He had a finger inside Greg before he seemed to even realize. Only the crook of that finger, the search and discovery of his prostate, seemed to get through Greg's pleasured haze.

"Jesus!" Greg's fists seized on the sheets.

Pavel smiled around his cock but didn't slow, didn't give either of them time to think. He worked his mouth over Greg's cock, worked his tongue in every wicked way he had ever learned that Greg liked. And he pushed his finger in deeper, worked him open slowly, cautiously.

This was a first for Pavel, too. Luckily he had weeks of experience on Greg when it came to opening a body up, thanks to his own thorough experiments on himself back before Greg had finally agreed to fuck him. It was only a little different, doing it to a body that wasn't his own, but easier.

He worked in a second finger, and slowly a third, without Greg tensing or losing his painfully hard erection. He angled and drove in deep so that he was stroking over Greg's prostate almost constantly.

"Pasha!" Greg finally, desperately, gave that whimpered gasp that served as a warning.

But Pavel didn't need warning. He was ready, hungry, working his mouth that much faster over Greg, clamping his lips that much tighter around his flesh.

Greg came with a strangled shout, arching up off the bed and into Pavel's eager mouth. The bed creaked and complained under them, not built, apparently, for the current activity.

Pavel wondered even as he swallowed Greg down, worked every bit of fluid from him, if they could hear it downstairs. He wondered if that woman behind the counter was making another scandalized call to her pregnant daughter.

The thought made him laugh, or at least made his throat vibrate around Greg's flesh, and he was rewarded with a pained, broken groan from the head of the bed.

Pavel forgot the woman downstairs, making careful work out of licking Greg's cock clean. He made sure to keep his finger where they were, buried deep, sliding in and out carefully so Greg got as used to the feeling as he could.

Greg sagged and panted for air under him, groaning when the ministrations got to be too much.

Pavel slipped off of him then, licking his swollen lips and swallowing to coat his throat – he loved the act of taking Greg in his mouth, but he needed to work on stamina. Maybe there were some sort of jaw and throat exercises a person could do, or...

He made a mental note to ask Gaila when he got back to the ship. Or Kirk, possibly. McCoy seemed like he would be a mouthful.

Another laugh rose up in his throat, but he pushed it down. He had important things to do, and the last thing he wanted was for Greg to think he was laughing at him in some way.

He looked up at Greg then, smiling at his closed eyes and slack, dazed face. "See, I told you to trust me."

Greg laughed, flushed and lax. "If 'trust me' means 'let me give you a hummer that'll make you see spots' I'll trust you any damned time you want."

Pavel giggled, dropping his face to Greg's stomach to muffle it. He didn't miss the shudder in Greg's body when his still-probing fingers caught his prostate again, and he looked up once more. "Is this...?"

Greg hummed, eyes still closed, and shifted a little uncertainly. "It's...weird, a little, isn't it? Feels weird, but...yeah. It's okay."

Pavel smiled, remembering his own first time trying out his own fingers. The way he had felt like he'd been lied to about sex altogether for the first few strange, invasive minutes. Some people, he knew, took to it better than others. But if Greg wasn't as affected by it as Pavel that was perfectly fine – Pavel didn't intend to make this switch anything like permanent.

Greg opened his eyes, looking down at him with a tired, crooked smile. "How do you want me?"

Pavel returned the smile. "Do you want the sappy answer or the practical one?"

Greg blushed and the grin stretched wider. "Let's stick with practical. There's been enough sap for one day."

"Roll over," Pavel said obediently, slipping his fingers free of Greg's body. "Wait..." He slipped up Greg's body and kissed him, quick and easy. "Okay. Now. Over. And get rid of the boxers. Honestly."

Greg grinned and obeyed, peeling off his boxers and rearranging himself on his stomach. He folded his hands under his head again, noticeably less tense than the first time he'd laid down for Pavel this way.

Pavel slipped back between his legs and found himself almost instantly distracted. Greg's back gleamed from the earlier massage, the thin coat of lubricant over his muscles that hadn't entirely rubbed into the sheets under him.

He slid his fingertips up the accentuated plane of muscles, tracing the lines of his back. "God, you are the sexiest man in the entire universe, I think."

Greg chuckled. "I think you're a little biased. Or insane. Either way."

"Hush, Grischa." Pavel's hand slipped down his side, dragging smoothly against slicked skin. "I am a genius, I don't need anyone's help confirming my opinions. Just agree with me."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry, you're right. I'm the sexiest guy in the whole universe. You got it."

"Much better, if I choose to ignore the sarcasm in your voice." Pavel thought about it, seeing the profiled trace of a pleased smile on Greg's face. "I think this time I'll ignore it."

He tracked his fingers down, curving over the swell of Greg's deliciously muscled ass, and slipping between his cheeks again to find his opening.

Greg started to tense but only for a moment, as if he instantly talked himself out of feeling strange about the whole thing. He shut his eyes against the pillow, breathing steadily.

Pavel tried not to feel any misgivings, but it was intimidating being on this end. Being in control. He had focused more on the other side during his research.

Luckily it didn't take him long before instinct took over. It wasn't long before his easily-probing fingers and Greg's increasing soft sighs told him where no textbook could have that it was time to do this.

Pavel had never been inside of anyone before. He had come in Greg's mouth, in his hand, against his body, but never was it anything like this.

He had to work, had to squeeze some desperate last millimeters of lube out of the poor used-up tube they'd brought from the ship to ease his way that much more. Had to push into Greg's body just a little, then pause, then push in deeper. And it was like nothing else he had ever felt. The grip around his cock was fierce, almost painful. The heat of Greg's body, the way he felt shuddering under Pavel's body.

And when he sank in, when his hips were flush against Greg's ass and he couldn't have pushed in any deeper, he was shocked at the feeling of it. Not just the physical, the grip of heat, the pleasure wracking through him even still as he was. Not just that, but the mental feeling. The way he felt when he pushed his eyes open and looked down between them at where their bodies joined.

Or when he looked up at Greg's face, at the furrowed brow but tensionless mouth. The familiar, adored profile of the man he loved. The man he was inside of.

A voice in his head, loud and strong, voice one word when he looked down at Greg.

Mine.

He wondered if that was what Greg meant when he said that being inside Pavel made Pavel belong to him. Was it a voice like that, or just this rising fierce devotion welling in his chest. This feeling that if they had done this the night before, and today had happened as it had, Pavel would have happily not stopped punching Greg's father until he was bloodied and limp.

Then Pavel started moving, starting to push out and thrust back in to Greg's firm, amazing body, and he didn't think about that or anything else for a long, long time.

The silence around the transporter pad was deceptive. But Pavel didn't realize it until they got themselves situated and Greg hauled their duffel over his shoulder, and they stepped from the warm building into the cold air that would take them to the shuttle.

"Dabro pazhalavat!" came the near-roar the moment the doors opened.

Pavel blinked at the crowd of red-faced, familiar bodies, and found himself beaming almost instantly. His papa said he would keep this second return quiet. But then, it was his papa, after all.

"Pasha! Gregor! Finally!"

Speaking of Papa, suddenly he was right there at the door, sweeping his arm around Greg's shoulders and steering him instantly down into the mass of people. The duffel was taken from him instantly, of course, and Papa took him directly to the greeting handshake of Pavel Vladimirov, one of his oldest friends.

Pavel blinked to realize he had been left behind, but there was Nikolai and Irina Viktorovka and a hundred other welcoming faces calling to him.

The mass managed to drag itself to the shuttle somehow, and before Pavel had said hello to everyone who wanted to say hello (and who seemed to forget that just yesterday they had done all of this already) the shuttle was pulling to halt and half of Ishevsk stood waiting to greet the half on the shuttle.

He hadn't warned Greg suitably, Pavel realized with nothing less than a laugh. He had told him the party would be today, but he hadn't warned him what that would mean.

His eyes caught, as he was being dragged from the shuttle and a glass of cider was pushed into his hand, on a sign being held above someone's head. Of the wording on that sign.

He looked around instantly, finally spotting Greg still with Papa. He made his way through the crowd to them, taking Greg's arm before anything could distract him.

"Hey! This is wild!" Greg was already pink-cheeked from the cold and his cider, and maybe something else under it all.

Pavel pointed out at the back of the small crowd, at the wilting sign. "In case you wanted to know what your name looks like in Cyrillic. You are the very top line."

Greg squinted out at the sign, and surprise made his eyes widen. He turned an already darker blush to Pavel. "That's...really? What does it say?"

Pavel rolled his eyes. "'Gregor and Pavel, heroes of Ishevsk.' As dramatic as always."

Greg stared at that sign, and didn't seem to be bothered by the dramatics.

A hand landed heavy on Pavel's shoulder, and he knew it was Papa before the voice spoke in his ear.

"Your message, my Pasha. I got the feeling Gregor might need a proper welcome home."

Pavel turned instantly, jumping into Papa's arms and thinking suddenly, absurdly, that Greg was the only person in the universe who made him feel as safe as his own papa's hugs did. "Thank you," he whispered against Papa's beard.

Papa pulled away and held him out at arms' length, studying him with his usual focus – he said that Pavel's brain was miraculous, but Pavel knew for a fact that Papa's mind caught absolutely everything, and held on to it.

"This was not easy, then?"

"Easy?" Pavel wanted to cry, instant and sudden. He wanted to crawl back into his papa's solid hug and sob and demand to know how people could be so cruel to the ones they were supposed to love.

Perhaps later he would. It wouldn't be the first time the mysteries of the world made him beg his papa for understanding. Or maybe he would let this week go by as happily as he could, and save his angry tears for Hikaru and Nyota. They understood human nature better than he did, and talking to them about this might help them see even more clearly why Pavel adored Greg as fiercely as he did.

"Not easy," he said almost absently. "Horrible. But it doesn't matter, not right now."

He looked out at the crowd, watching Greg's study of that sign. The amazed smile on his face. Watching as it turned to a sheepish grin as Pavel Vladimirov came up and slapped his back, pushing at his forgotten drink in admonishment.

He watched Greg drink, watched him grin and talk with Pavel Vladimirov, and then Pavel's wife Anna as she joined them. He watched Greg smiling as he was welcomed home by Pavel's small, ragged little village family.

"That is what matters now." And he knew without looking back that his papa agreed.

Papa always knew, somehow.