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Flower Symbolism

Summary:

Hikaru's in love. Pavel's confused. The rest of the crew are way too amused.

Notes:

Because I ship Chulu. :)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

Hikaru couldn't tell you when he started falling for Pavel, just when he knew when it'd already happened.

They'd always been close, of course. They were the pilot and the navigator. They worked side-by-side every day. Pavel had saved his life on Day One. So they'd always been friends. And since Pavel had come aboard when he was seventeen and Hikaru had been twenty-three, Hikaru had quickly adopted the "big brother" role. Especially after Sagacita. Obviously Pavel did not need physical protection and hadn't since he was thirteen. Emotional protection was a different story altogether. Hikaru had reamed Kirk out for the (unintentional) shit he'd pulled, and had been a heartbeat away from doing the same to Spock when Nyota had intercepted him and basically told him to calm the fuck down.

And then they'd started sparring together, and Hikaru had convinced all of the bridge crew to get Pavel those presents after he'd lost his butterfly knife, and Pavel had saved his skin a few more times. Which was a little embarrassing, because Hikaru was a goddamn fencing master and by all rights should've been the one doing the saving, but who cared? So, yeah. Definitely close.

Then Pavel went and almost got killed. He'd been kidnapped by Klingons and Hikaru's heartrate had gone through the roof when they'd been tracking the ship down. He didn't panic, he never panicked, but it'd been a close thing. And then Pavel had mostly gotten himself out, just needed a little help from Mr. Scott, but that damn Klingon had managed to beam aboard too and stabbed Pavel. And he'd flat-lined on the table and all Hikaru could think was I can't lose him.

Nyota had been the one to poke him in the right direction, after the surgery was done and Pavel was sedated on a biobed, Hikaru sitting next to him. She raised her eyebrows. "How long have you been here?"

Hikaru ran a hand over his face. His uniform was wrinkled and he had a dark five o'clock shadow. He felt like he'd been hit by a barge. "Since the end of Alpha shift."

"That was seven hours ago."

Wow. Time really flew by when your nerves were shot to hell.

"Go to your room," Nyota said gently. "Take a shower. Get some sleep. He'll still be here tomorrow."

Hikaru hesitated. He knew she was right, and that he looked like a train wreck and had to pilot the ship in about five hours. But the thought of leaving just made Hikaru's skin crawl.

"McCoy will take good care of him," Nyota continued. "And Chapel, too. He's not even going to wake up for another twenty hours, at least. You really want the first thing he sees to be your goatee?"

Hikaru put a hand over his chin. "I tried the goatee look a couple of years ago. It actually worked out pretty well. Made me look evil, though, so I got rid of it." He stood and stretched, wincing as his bones creaked. "All right, I'm going."

Nyota nodded. "And maybe tell him how you feel when he wakes up?"

Hikaru paused and gave her a strange look. "What?"

She gave him a look.

"No," he said, suddenly defensive. "It's not like that."

She raised an eyebrow.

"It's not! He's my best friend. I'm just worried about him."

She was clearly unimpressed. "You're smarter than that, Sulu."

Confused, tired, and sleep-deprived, Hikaru just went to his room. He thought about it as he showered, tried and failed to sleep, throughout his shift, and when he came back down to Medical. He fell asleep there, his head pillowed in his arms on Pavel's biobed. Pavel must've woken up at some point at least partway, because when Hikaru woke up Pavel was holding his arm, and Hikaru felt something warm and fuzzy unravel in his belly.

Shit, he thought. I'm a goner.

He didn't say anything. When Pavel woke up, they bitched about bad hospital food instead of feelings.

Because Hikaru had seen this before. They all had. Living in close quarters on a space ship for so long made emotions intense. People jumped into relationships, thinking the other person was the center of the universe, only to end up shattered and screaming at each other and transferred to different ships, not even following each other on social media. And a near-death experience only made things worse.

So Hikaru waited. He was nothing if not patient; one didn't become a fencing master, pilot, or xenobotanist overnight. He watched himself whenever he was in close proximity to Pavel, and watched Pavel, too, to see if he was showing any interest.

Pavel never showed interest, but Hikaru's only grew.

Especially after Pavel had saved his life (again), this time at an Andorian villa where the crew had gotten drugged and almost kidnapped. Hikaru's memories of the fight were hazy at best. He remembered breaking one of the would-be kidnappers' necks, and Pavel dragging him through the gardens as his limbs got heavier and heavier, and Pavel getting stained with Andorian blood as he kept fighting while Hikaru passed out.

Not the most attractive look. But Hikaru saw a picture of Giotto drooling into a bowl of soup while he was passed out on the table, so he didn't feel too embarrassed about it.

Hikaru went to the refresher courses that Pavel helped Giotto with, even the ones he didn't need to go to, because he knew Pavel was insecure as hell about showing his skills in front of crowds, too used to being overlooked and the protection that afforded. He listened and tried to understand Pavel's tangents whenever he got struck with a genius idea and tried not to concentrate on how curly his hair got when he'd gone without sleep for a while, or the dimples on his face and spark in his eye whenever he got excited. He got Pavel coffee in the mess (black, four sugars) when he was elbow-deep in equations and charts, and switched him to decaf without saying a word whenever Pavel hit hour 38 of no sleep.

Pavel had been pissed the first time Hikaru had done that. He'd dumped the coffee, walked out of the room, and hadn't said a word to Hikaru for the rest of the day. It took Hikaru all of five minutes to want to smack himself upside the head for being such an idiot.

The next day they'd found each other in the mess and said, "I'm sorry" at the same time.

Hikaru frowned. "Why are you sorry?"

Pavel looked down at his shoes. Given the bags under his eyes, he hadn't slept. "I owerreacted. You vere just trying to help and make sure I didn't fall asleep at the consol."

"Yeah, and I completely forgot that the last time someone messed with your drink, they were trying to drug and rape you," Hikaru retorted. "No, wait, the last time had been the Andorians who wanted to use us as ransom. You had every right to react that way."

"No, I didn't!" Pavel blurted. "I trust you, I do! I know you'd newer do something like that! I don't know vhy I freaked out about it."

"Probably because of the sleep deprivation," Hikaru said. "And the fact that decaf tastes horrible with sugar. That more than anything is why I'm sorry. I took a sip after you left and it is god-awful."

Pavel hesitated, then with a shy (adorable!) smile said, "Vell, maybe add some cream next time. That should help."

So now, whenever they were on hour 38 of no sleep and Hikaru handed him decaf (three sugars, two creams), Pavel would give him an annoyed glare, and Hikaru would give him the uncompromising eyebrow, and Pavel would sulk into the mug and drink the coffee, and still manage to stay up another five hours before passing out.

Now Pavel was twenty-one. They were almost three years into their five-year mission. And the interest was not going away. Not when Hikaru handed Pavel things--coffee, PADDs, snacks--and made sure their fingers brushed a few heartbeats longer than necessary. Not when they sparred and Hikaru managed to pin him down and think about doing that in a completely different context. Not when Pavel was halfway through an excited speech on quantum physics after two days without sleep and his curly hair a mess and a sparkle in his eyes and Hikaru couldn't keep a dopey smile off his face, because this, this was Pavel at his best, at his happiest, and it made that warm feeling in Hikaru's chest spread until it reached his toes.

Hikaru realized he was head-over-heels, clichéd soap opera, forever in love on no particularly special day. They were on the bridge, Alpha shift, same old same old. Hikaru heard Pavel humming softly as he did his calculations and thought, I love him.

So now, Hikaru had to do something about it.