Angels (Pavel Chekov)

78 - Mere Mortals

Vienna's new roommate shows up at her door nervously and introduces herself as Fae-Amadis. She definitely looks alien and she shakes Vienna's hand softly. Vienna helps her carry a box in and asks where she comes from.

"I was born and raised in Yorktown but my parents are from Jonastide 14. Hence the skin," she says, looking to the pale purple colour of her arms. She has is shaped eyes that are a stunning shade of dark purple and Vienna feels like they'll get along.

Pavel told Vienna he'd come over in the afternoon but doesn't appear and Vienna goes to Erik's dorm looking for him. Selwyn is there and so is Erik's roommate.

"I'm Saxon Finch," he says, shaking her hand. He has bright green eyes and is almost a foot and a half taller than Vienna. His eyes are a stunning pale green and he looks reasonably human. He's studying engineering and Vienna wonders if he'd know Pavel.

"I was looking for Pavel," Vienna says, once she's sitting down. "He hasn't answered any calls and he said he'd come over this afternoon."

Erik rolls his eyes and sighs. "Reason number three hundred and forty fucking seven my brother is a total freak of nature," he starts. "You guys are doing the physical training course, yes? Obstacle courses, hand to hand combat, phasers and all that. General fitness, you know? Anyway, back in Russia, Pavel used to run every day. Like he'd get up when it was still dark just to run laps around the neighbourhood and keep our dad quiet about him looking after his physical health. He'd run barefoot in the summer. Total weirdo if you ask me but he hasn't run since joining Starfleet and he wants to get back into it to keep his GPA up."

"Are you telling me my complete nerd of a boyfriend is out running??"

"Indeed," Erik replies. "Hard to believe he even talks to us mere mortals but anyway."

"Mortal?" Selwyn laughs. "Hardly. I've got a good half millenium left in your years."

Erik, Vienna and Saxon look at him and he just grins. Vienna's phone buzzes and it's from Pavel. He tells her he'll be over in half an hour after he's showered and she tells him to come to Erik's dorm instead.

Pavel shows up and Vienna has a dozen questions for him. He tries his best to answer them all. Her main one is why he never mentioned it earlier. He has no real answer to that, just thinking her got too caught up in study to really worry about his physical health. She ruffles his hair and he rolls his eyes at her.

Vienna takes Pavel back to her room to study a while and they find Fae-Amadis with two books in her hands. Her eyes can move separately and Vienna finds it fascinating to watch.

"Hey," Vienna greets, watching as both of her roommate's purple eyes snap up to her. "That's pretty awesome, reading two books at once."

Vienna introduces her to Pavel and they seem to have a similar personality. She works in medical and seems to already know anything and everything about the anatomy of just about anything. Her brain seems to move just as fast as Pavel's does and Vienna wonders how that's even possible.

Pavel decides not to stay over until he can gauge whether Vienna's roommate is okay with it or not. They both feel as though she wouldn't mind. She seems rather relaxed and calm about everything.

Classes are harder with more expected from the remaining students from the Nerada incident and the new recruits. Vienna finds herself spending minimal time with Pavel in comparison to what she did the term before. He's working hard on his physical health as well as studying. He spends a lot of time with Selwyn and his roommate working on hand to hand combat and sparring. Hikaru Sulu is a fantastic swordsman and teaches both Pavel and Selwyn. Vienna joins them to watch one time and realises why Pavel felt the need to put so much effort into getting better at hand to hand combat. Selwyn can't use a weapon of any kind but he's fantastic with just his hands. Vienna did a few years of kickboxing in highschool and spars him, realising she might have to work on her combat skills too.

Selwyn has everyone over in his dorm on Friday night and they drink after their first successful week of classes. They drink and Sulu joins, a glass of some sort of watermelon liquor in his hand. Vienna takes a few moments to remember when she only had Pavel to spend time with. She remembers telling him that they both needed to find friends. She smiles looking around at their group now. Erik, Selwyn, Pavel and now Saxon and Hikaru as well. She looks to Pavel and sees his soft smile. She's honestly is so glad she has so many people in her life now.

Pavel and Saxon end up the most drunk. They keep talking to each other about engineering concepts and laughing. Saxon asks why he never sees him in classes and Pavel just laughs again and he tells him he's not even officially in engineering. Erik mutters a sarcastic 'surprise' under his breath and Pavel grins stupidly.

Saturday morning they're all back in Selwyn and Hikaru's room. They're having a big group study session and Pavel is in his element. He's commandeered part of the wall and he's explaining something to Hikaru and Saxon using projections on the wall.
"Jeez, give it a year or two and you'll be a professor here, Pavel." Saxon taps his pen against the edge of the table and Pavel just grins in response.

Midday passes and Vienna feels like she's made significant progress. Selwyn is writing in what Vienna suspects is his native language and she asks if she can have a closer look. He shows her and she widens her eyes a little, noticing that it looks a lot like Korean writing.

"My alphabet has thirty eight letters. It's not too hard to learn."

Erik leans over and looks at the writing. "Russian only has thirty three."

"Japanese has two alphabets with forty six letters plus kanji which has a few thousand is maybe stick to either of those two," Sulu laughs, stretching out in his seat.

He goes to say something else when Selwyn suddenly stands up and before anyone can ask what's happening the whole dorm starts shaking badly.
Everyone's on their feet in seconds and Hikaru's holding up a cabinet with a multitude of plants in it.

"Earthquake?" Saxon suggests, looking to everyone else.

"Why is the ground shaking?! What is happening??? Is the planet under attack?!" Selwyn asks, his hair turning to a pale pink.

"It's probably just an earthquake," Vienna mutters, trying to calm him. "Seismic activity, tectonic plates, you know?"

The shaking comes to a stop and Pavel looks a little ill. Saxon turns on the TV and the news is on, reporting tremors all across San Francisco. They all take a deep breath and Hikaru checks his plants for damage.

"Pav?" Erik asks, not getting a reply. Pavel isn't moving and Vienna goes over to him placing a hand softly on his shoulder. He jumps a little and she asks if he's okay. He shakes his head the tiniest bit and takes her hand, pulling her into the bathroom. She looks at him waiting for an answer and he bursts into tears.

She wraps her arms around him and tries to calm him down. "Pasha, it was just an earthquake. You're safe now, it was just an earthquake..."

He tries to dry his eyes and take a few deep breaths. "I know is just earthquake," he mutters, his English slipping. "Enya, I thought it was the Romulans again. I thought it was another drill. I was so sure, I just froze..."

She hugs around him until calms down a little and he mumbles to himself in Russian. He rubs his eyes and takes a drink of water from the sink. He takes her hands and thanks her for calming him down. She can see he's still stressed but he goes back out of the bathroom and Erik asks him in Russia what happened.

He doesn't give an explanation, just muttering that he's fine and going back to studying. Saxon is sitting with Selwyn and asking about the natural disasters and weather that occurs on Kelzenone. Selwyn explains that they don't have earthquakes, hence why the experience was frightening for him. It was a magnitude five and Vienna mentions that they could get aftershocks from it.

(Author's Note)

This piece is nearing 90k words. Give it a few more weeks and it'll be my longer piece ever. My longest (Sanctus) sits at maybe 112k so not far to go now.
Enjoy ♪