Chapter Text
The way he flips the switch looks practiced, knowledgeable, capable at first. But then he flips it again, and again. Face close to the control panel, inspecting for the full range of motion of the lever as he pushes it back and forth, then back and forth again. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. And then he’s done, and the computer recognizes the input, and the machinery whirs to life.
Pavel Chekov has a problem.
He can pinpoint when it began, when he was a child. On the very first transport from Moscow to San Francisco, to the Academy, he suddenly had an urge to lift his feet off the ground. There he was, hunched in his seat with his knees pulled up to his chest, listening to the droning of the craft, waiting for them to land safely. He couldn’t explain it–it was new to him, but it just felt right–but if he let his feet touch the floor, the transport would crash, he would die, and his dreams of Starfleet would go unaccomplished. His mother would mourn him, and his room in Moscow would sit empty forever. And before then, would he be crushed to death, or would he burn in an engine fire? Sweating and rigid with fear, Pavel held his feet up as his legs burned until the transport reached solid ground in San Francisco, landing safely in his new home.
It began dramatically, but now Pavel’s problem manifests in more subtle ways, he thinks. Flip the switch eighteen times. Check your quarters to make sure the lights are off. Step on corners with your right foot. Otherwise, people will die.
And what evidence do you have for that? Pavel asks himself as he checks his quarters for the third time. The doors open slowly, and the room beyond them is dark, like Pavel knew it would be, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure enough. What evidence do you have? he thinks sardonically. Well, people have died. And you killed them.
On his very first mission as an officer, during the Narada incident, he killed Commander Spock’s mother. He had the capability, the skill and the confidence to transport her off of the collapsing planet, and he failed. He lost her. Her life ended because in that moment, he wasn’t good enough. Now, when he mans the transport controls, he taps the corners of the display in quick succession, then lets his fingers ghost over a spot in the lower left quadrant, where her signal was when she fell from his grasp. Never again.
So Pavel has a problem; he’s aware. But it’s a necessary problem, one that keeps him and those around him safe.
He’s nearing the bridge when the urge hits him again. He has to check his quarters just one more time. Pavel is nearly late for his shift, but maybe if he runs….
Panting slightly, he arrives at the bridge a full four minutes late for his assigned shift. He ducks his head down as he relieves Lt. Riley, too full of shame to see the pointed look he knows Commander Spock is giving him.
The voice behind him startles him. “Ensign Chekov,” Captain Kirk says, “lateness will not be tolerated, do you understand?”
“Yes, Captain,” Pavel replies. He hears Captain Kirk hum in acknowledgement, then the issue is dropped. They’re observing cosmic phenomena from a safe distance for the next few days, so Pavel only has to make slight adjustments to the navigation–easy work.
And if Pavel lifts his feet off the floor once in a while, just to keep them all safe, then it’s nobody’s business but his.
He doesn’t notice Hikaru frowning at him until the shift is nearly over.
+++
Pavel and Hikaru Sulu are roommates, and this makes things complicated. Not because they don’t get along–Hikaru is one of the few people Pavel might call a friend–but because they are so close. As two of the very few cadets left after the Narada incident, as partners on the bridge, they had formed a sort of bond that Pavel takes some solace in. Hikaru had grown up in San Francisco and feels more or less at home in space, but he listens to Pavel talk about his homesickness, about all the wonderful things in Russia, on evenings when they’re both off shift.
But Hikaru also notices things. He notices when Pavel arranges the PADDs and trinkets on his bedside table just right. He notices when Pavel goes back to the room to check the lights when they’re both due on the bridge. And lately, Hikaru seems to be noticing that all the checking, all the arranging, all of Pavel’s little idiosyncrasies–they’re slowing him down.
“So what held you up this morning?” Hikaru asks as they enter the mess hall after their shift on the bridge.
His voice is soft and gentle as he asks, and he steps away from the line of people, motioning to an empty table for the two of them to sit. Pavel is grateful for his discretion, but that doesn’t stop the shame from rising in his chest.
“I lost track of time,” Pavel lies, looking away.
Hikaru frowns.
They sit at the table for a few minutes with nothing between them, waiting for the line of people waiting for food to die down. Pavel stares at the silver tabletop in front of him, keenly aware of Hikaru’s gaze fixed on him. He can sense the worry on his friend’s mind, and he hates it.
If the ship veers even a meter off course, the outside paneling could get sheared off by the surrounding energy, and they could all be sucked into space. Pavel spares a glance out the mess hall windows, at the cold darkness and silence awaiting him, and pulls his knees to his chest to keep it from happening.
He hears Hikaru shift in his seat. “Are you all right?” Hikaru asks. He’s using that gentle voice again, and it makes the shame in Pavel’s chest grow.
Pavel lowers his knees. “I’m fine,” he lies again.
He hears Hikaru sigh.
They get food and sit at a table in the corner of the mess hall, next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. From his vantage point, Pavel can see the whole room. The crew members sit at every table, eating, talking, laughing, unaware of the danger nearby. Pavel imagines the phenomena they monitored earlier today throwing strange energy at them, compromising the integrity of the hull, sending them all hurtling into the vacuum of space. And what would Pavel do then? Would he hang onto the table while being pulled up and off, until his sweaty hands slip off?
“Not hungry?”
Hikaru is sitting across from him, setting his fork down in a half-eaten bed of replicated greens.
Pavel loosens the grip he didn’t know he had on the corners of the table. “No,” he says, “not hungry.”
“What’s the matter, didn’t like the food?”
“No,” Pavel replies. He drags a fork through the replicated potatoes in front of him. He looks up and sees Hikaru’s earnest face, wrinkled between the eyebrows by worry.
“Anxious,” he says quietly, half-hoping Hikaru doesn’t hear him.
But he does. His eyebrows raise up. “Anxious? Would you like to get out of here?” Hikaru turns around, looks at the crowd of crewmembers behind him. “I can’t imagine this is a very calming place.”
Pavel looks out the window again. “No, it’s not.”
+++
Pavel’s worries have always been a moving target. From the crashing Moscow-to-San Francisco transport to transporting failures to strange energy from cosmic phenomena, once Pavel begins to stop worrying about one potential disaster, another takes its place.
But while he’s worrying, it’s the number one thing on his mind.
Back in their quarters, Hikaru is making Pavel peppermint tea the old fashioned way. Having replicated hot water, he is now slowly–and messily–pouring it into a large mug over a tea bag he’d brought from home. “It’s so much better this way,” he tells Pavel before stopping to nurse a scalded thumb.
Pavel nods and murmurs agreement. Their quarters aren’t too different from a dorm back at the Academy: two beds against opposite walls with bedside tables, two desks next to each other at the foot of the beds, and a door to a small bathroom at the head of their beds. The only difference between an Academy room and an Enterprise one is a few extra square feet of space.
Of all the thoughts swirling around Pavel’s mind, the one that rises to the surface now is that Hikaru is too far away, that he wishes he were closer.
“All right, it’s ready,” Hikaru says, crossing the room to Pavel’s bed where he’s sitting, feet off the floor. “Careful, it’s hot.”
Pavel takes the mug and is immediately hit by the strong, minty aroma. For a moment, his anxiety lessens, though he can still feel it clenched in his gut.
“Now, I don’t want to make you do or talk about anything that makes you uncomfortable,” Hikaru begins. He sits on the bed next to Pavel, criss-cross-applesauce. “But what has you so anxious?”
Pavel freezes.
How does he even begin to explain?
He supposes he could lie again, pawn this off on stress from work, or homesickness, but that seems unfair. Hikaru notices. He knows Pavel’s quirks, and he might not accept anything less as an answer. But Hikaru might not react well to the truth–he might think Pavel’s crazy. And isn’t he? Doing unrelated tasks to keep his world from falling apart? Where’s the logic in that? What would Hikaru do if he knew–send him to Sickbay? He’d be found out, removed from duty–
“Pavel!”
Pavel snaps to attention. Hikaru’s hand is on the mug, holding the hot ceramic where Pavel had let go. He takes the mug back and holds it over his lap.
“I’m so sorry,” Pavel offers.
Hikaru frowns again, wearing the worried face he always seems to have around Pavel these days. “You’re fine. Just be careful. And Pavel–” he draws a breath. “About the anxious feeling. I don’t care if you tell me; that’s okay. But you should tell someone. This is clearly a big deal.”
He unfolds his legs and gets off the bed. He places the mug of tea on Pavel’s bedside table.
And something in Pavel breaks. Robotically he gets up and moves the mug of tea to the right spot on the table, relocating the PADDs and trinkets to accommodate the new object. But the placement isn’t right. He slides the mug over to one side, then back, then over again. It still isn’t right. The PADDs are straightened, then moved, then moved back. The trinkets–keepsakes from his mother that he displays to remind him of Russia–get moved, too; from the edge, to the middle, to the edge again. Eventually, he finds a position that he can tolerate, that won’t send his world spinning into disarray. He lets out the breath he was holding and turns away, where his eyes land on Hikaru.
“It’s getting worse.” Hikaru states it like a fact.
Caught, Pavel hangs his head.