Chapter Text
Observation Deck 2 was one of the smallest decks on the ship, tucked away in a corner. Almost nobody came here. Pavel loved it. He came here a couple of days after poker night to read on his PADD, knowing that nobody would bother him.
So he was surprised when Sulu came.
Then again, since he and the rest of the bridge crew had recently been in Pavel's mind, maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised.
"Hey, are you doing anything after 1600 hours tomorrow?" Sulu asked.
"Um...I vork in Engineering until 1700 hours," Pavel replied cautiously. "Vhy?"
"Because my usual sparring partner sprained his ankle and I need a new one."
Pavel blinked at him. "You vant to spar vith me?"
Sulu shrugged. "We've both gotta stay in practice. And we can probably learn a few things from each other."
"Sulu, you're a fencing master. You'll cream me."
Sulu drooped. "Is that a no?"
Pavel leaned his head back against the couch and sighed. People said he had the puppy-dog eyes of the ship, but Sulu was the real master of guilt-tripping others. "Blades or fists?"
Sulu grinned. "Both?"
--
Sulu did win the sparring session with Pavel. Barely.
"Okay," he huffed, lying flat on his back on the matt. "If that's you empty-handed, I'm not sure how I feel about fighting you armed."
Pavel giggled. He was lying opposite Sulu, their heads inches apart but their feet in opposite directions. Endorphins were rushing through his veins from the exercise, but without the terror of a life-or-death situation. It'd been weird, fighting without the need to survive, knowing that if he lost he wouldn't be dead or seriously injured. There had been a moment where Sulu had pinned him, and panic had raced up Pavel's spine because this was it, but then Sulu had released him and offered his hand to help him up ("Go again?") and that had been more disorienting than any Judo-flip. It'd been fun, just spending time together, learning from each other.
"Vhy did you choose the sword?" Pavel asked. "Vouldn't phasers make more sense?"
Sulu shrugged. "It looked fun when I was a kid, so I signed up for fencing classes and...I don't know. I just fell in love with it."
"Really?" Pavel thought about that for a moment. He'd never really liked fighting. On the street, in the pits, that had all been survival. Necessity. Doing it for fun? As often as Sulu did to get that good? Pavel just couldn't wrap his head around it. This, right here, was just because Sulu had asked him, and because he liked the idea of having a friend to spend time with.
Sulu must've read something on his face, because he said, very seriously, "It's not like with you, Pavel. I didn't need to know it. Before Enterprise, it was a sport. It was my favorite sport, but it could've been football or soccer. I never thought I'd have to use it in real life. Not until Narada."
"And now?" Pavel asked.
"Now? I'm very glad I learned it. Because I need it to protect my friends." Sulu looked back at the ceiling. "I'm sorry you had to learn all of this the hard way."
"Fighting isn't a sport, Hikaru," Pavel said. "It's not fun. It's not a game. If you keep pretending it's fake, you forget that it's real."
Sulu gave a grim smile. "I don't think we'll be able to forget that in our line of work." He rolled onto his side and got to his feet. He offered a hand to help Pavel up. "Come on. Let's go again."
--
Uhura cornered him in the mess three days after their last poker night. "All right, Pavel, I hate to do this, but you need to talk to Spock."
Pavel froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. He carefully set it back on his pasta. "I don't think I can do that, Lieutenant."
"Nyota," she corrected. "And you can. You've dealt with much more challenging things than having one conversation with a Vulcan."
Pavel tugged at his curls. "It's not...I can't...he..."
Uhura studied him. "You know he's not an abuser."
Pavel couldn't deny that.
"You know he hasn't been physically violent to anyone who isn't Khan or a threat to the crew since the Battle of Vulcan, which both he and Jim have forgiven and forgotten."
"I know," he mumbled.
Uhura tipped her head, meeting his eyes. "He was your mentor for three years. He never raised a hand to you, said a cruel word, or hurt you in any possible way--"
"I know!" Pavel snapped. He hunched his shoulders when a few people stared at them. "I know," he repeated, quietly. "But I just...I did ewerything but openly accuse him of..."
"And he feels terrible for making you think that way," Uhura replied, putting a hand on Pavel's arm. "He hasn't slept since Sagacita. And he'll never admit it, because it's emotions, but he feels personally guilty for making you as uncomfortable on this ship as you are."
"Then vhy hasn't he said anything to me?" Pavel challenged.
Uhura raised an eyebrow. "Would you believe him?"
Pavel slumped his shoulders. He shook his head. "Nyet."
She squeezed his arm. "He knows that. If you want to fix this thing between you two--and I know you do--you're going to have to take the first step."
Pavel swallowed. After a minute, he nodded. "Okay."
--
It took Pavel a week to work up the nerve to talk to Spock. He knew he wanted to do it before the project in Engineering was done and he'd have to go back to the bridge. (He wanted to go back. As much as he liked Engineering--the machines, Mr. Scott and Keenser--he missed seeing the stars as he worked, charting courses and graphing maps. And he wanted to do that without keeping half an eye over his shoulder at the science station.)
He didn't spend that week just wringing his hands, though that did happen quite a bit. He did his research. It'd been a year and a half since the Narada incident. Turned out, a Vulcan science officer could publish an awful lot of papers in that time.
A part of Pavel wanted to have this talk in private. In one of the labs, or maybe an observation deck. But there wouldn't be as many people around. And while Pavel intellectually knew that Spock would never hurt him, his gut still clenched just as the mention of his name and his body went into survival mode, ready to grab the knife or run out the door. So he approached Spock during lunch in the mess, when it was crowded with over fifty people; public place, dozens of exits, security nearby, etc.
Spock was sitting alone, as he usually did this time of day, eating a salad and reading from a PADD, probably reports, or lab results, or research. Pavel fortified himself with a deep breath, and dropped onto the seat across from him. "I hawe a question about a paper you vrote."
Spock paused, then looked up at him. Pavel was pretty sure that if he hadn't kept the Vulcan standards, he would've smiled.