Nobis ✴︎ Pavel Chekov

Chapter Seventeen - Chocolate

Pavel gets a message from Scotty and works down in engineering for a while, rewiring a circuit board whilst the Scotsman yells at a few ensigns for throwing things at one another. Pavel isn't even sure what they're throwing but they're making life difficult for Scotty. Some of the new recruits in engineering are idiots and Pavel's glad he doesn't have to deal with them as frequently as Scotty does. He thinks he'd probably just snap after a short while. Scotty takes a seat besides Pavel and inspects one of the panels he's rewired. He places it back down and takes out his PADD, making a start on his report.

"The Enterprise is nearly ready to go back into space."

Pavel swallows uncomfortably and nods. "Do you think you'll be okay going back out there? You still seem tense, laddie."

"I should be okay," he mutters, not entirely sure if he's right or not. "I should do some more practise simulations though."

"You should. We'll run through some tomorrow. You're going to have to beat those idiots' times by two solid minutes though."

"Shouldn't be too hard," he laughs. He holds some pretty good times for the engineering simulations. He hopes he can get similar times after everything that happened. Scotty thinks he'll be able to but he figures he won't know until running the simulation again.

Returning to his dorm, Pavel finds it a little louder and a lot more crowded than he's used to it. Alec has a bottle in his hand when Pavel finally finds him and seems to be pretty drunk already. Alec says he decided to throw a party and Pavel can only roll his eye in response. He goes into his room and checks his PADD, not really wanting to stick around the loud music and copious amounts of people drinking. He has a message from Emory and reads through it, a little confused.

"Can you please bring me chocolate?"

"Now?"

"Preferably."

"As in a like a chocolate bar or?"

"Anything with chocolate. I don't really care. Please just bring me something."

He figures there's little point in asking anymore questions and takes his jacket off the end of his bed. He retrieves his toothbrush and a few other supplies in case he does stay over and he makes sure to lock his room, not wanting any strangers appearing in his bed the next morning when he returns. He swings by the campus 24 hour store and picks up a variety of things with chocolate in them, even a bottle of chocolate milk. He isn't entirely sure why she's craving chocolate but he has a pretty good guess.

"You actually brought me chocolate. Thank you so much Pavel."

"Well, you did ask me to," he says with a laugh, taking a seat on the couch beside her. She looks a more pale than usual and he hair is messily tied on top of her head. "Should I ask why you're craving chocolate or is it best to not ask?"

"I'm bleeding," she says flatly. "I need chocolate to keep me sane."

"I thought the whole chocolate thing was a stereotype?"

"Not in the slightest. I could eat like three cheeseburgers and a hotdog right now but I'm paralysed from the belly button downwards."

"I thought most girls just took the medication to regulate it? I thought, you know, pain from it was pretty uncommon?"

"I had a reaction to the medication. Like a really bad reaction. I'm too scared and a little too lazy to try any others."

Pavel smirks. She shuffles closer to him and lies in his lap, not saying anything. He places a hand gently in her hair and plays with it slowly. He feels freakishly relaxed and she seems to be too. He can't see her face and isn't sure if she's asleep or not but continues anyway, mainly because he enjoys it.