Work Text:
Pavel’s getting sick.
He must be, Hikaru thinks, because he keeps coughing whenever Hikaru tries to talk to him. He’d say he’s faking it to avoid talking to him - the timing is oddly specific - but he really looks like he’s in pain. He can barely breathe when a fit passes.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to sickbay?” Kirk asks after Pavel’s third fit, taking the words right out of Hikaru’s mouth. Pavel shakes his head emphatically but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even open his mouth, probably afraid he’ll trigger another fit if he does.
“Pavel,” Hikaru says, leaning across the helm so he doesn’t have to speak so loud, “I know you don’t want to, but you’re sick. You’ll only get worse until you go.”
Pavel gives him a look that isn’t quite a glare, but is definitely uncharacteristically hard. Hikaru has to admire his determination, at least.
He goes back to monitoring the ship’s velocity and heading for a few minutes, and everything goes back to normal. Pavel talks to the captain, though his voice is a bit rough. He laughs at Hikaru’s jokes like normal. His coughing even slows down, coming only once every ten minutes or so.
Hikaru is about to lay in a velocity change for the captain when he glances over at Pavel and sees him glaring at something in his hand. He can’t help his curiosity, leaning over to get a look at what it is that’s earned Pavel’s ire - not that it’s particularly difficult at the moment, apparently - and opening his mouth to ask. He doesn’t manage to get the words out when he sees.
“Oh,” He whispers, though it comes out more like an emphatic breath than any kind of actual word. Pavel closes his fist and shrinks away, his eyes wide with panic and betrayal.
Petals. White and pink, shaped like delicate little leaves. In any other situation he’d be admiring their beauty, but all he can think about right now is what they mean.
Pavel has Hanahaki.
It makes so much more sense all of a sudden. Pavel’s coughing, his refusal to go to sickbay. He didn’t want them to know. He didn’t want Hikaru to know. He shouldn’t blame him - Hanahaki is painful for everyone involved, Hikaru knows - but part of him wants to scream. Doesn’t Pavel trust him?
“Sulu, warp 4,” Kirk repeats, and Hikaru comes crashing back to reality. Nobody else saw the petals. Pavel is staring at him pleadingly, while Kirk is giving him a concerned look.
Hikaru responds with a quick, “Aye, sir,” and lays in the change, but he can’t focus properly for the rest of the shift. He’s relieved when he’s finished and he can go back to his quarters to lie down for a while.
He doesn’t know what to do. He’s not sure he can do anything.
~~~~~
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hikaru asks, trying to keep his voice even and not show the mix of betrayal and worry he’s feeling. They’re sitting in Pavel’s quarters, sharing a replicated plate of... something. Hikaru stopped paying attention to it as soon as Pavel put it down. It doesn’t taste like much, but maybe that’s just him.
Pavel smiles at him sadly, “What good would it have done? It would just upset you more.”
Honestly, Hikaru doesn’t think he could be any more upset. His best friend is dying and it’s his fault, and he didn’t even tell him. “If being around me is hurting you, I want to know, Pasha. I know you won’t stop working, but I could take Gamma shift. You wouldn’t have to see me as much.”
“Not being around you hurts more,” Pavel says, quietly, and of all the heartbreaking things Pavel has said in the last hour, that’s by far the worst. He starts coughing, not bothering to hide it anymore, and Hikaru is shocked by how violent it is. He thought it sounded painful on the bridge, but that was nothing compared to this. It sounds like he’s trying to hack up a lung.
Pavel sneers at the petals in his hand, a mixture of the gladiolus from earlier and something purple that looks like iris. He throws them into the bucket beside him which is slowly filling with them.
“This is stupid,” Pavel says, glaring at the table, “Why does this disease even exist? It’s so unfair.”
Hikaru thinks about his mother, who said the same thing days before she died. He shouldn’t, because he doesn’t feel like it’s the same. The cancer didn’t happen for any reason, it just happened, and by the time they realised it, there was nothing left to do. But Pavel knows why he’s sick, that he was practically chosen to die, because of something he did. Hikaru doesn’t know which is worse.
He’s been all over the galaxy. He’s seen planets and creatures and all kinds of things that defy any kind of human explanation. He’s seen more than any human has any right to. But there’s nothing in this universe that he hates more than Hanahaki disease.
~~~~~
Pavel can only hide it for so long, and a few weeks later he coughs up a handful of petals on an away mission. The captain notifies Starfleet immediately - standard procedure - and has Pavel taken off duty straight away. The entire mission is called off, transferred to another ship a few days away.
Hikaru waits with Pavel in sickbay while Dr McCoy goes through his test results, even though everyone on board the ship already knows what they’re going to say. He’s not here to hear them, he just knows Pavel hates being in sickbay alone.
Predictably, McCoy tells them that he has two options: surgery or death.
Hikaru, selfishly, wants Pavel to choose the former. He knows what it does to people - how it changes them completely, as if they’re not even the same person anymore - but he doesn’t think he could live with himself knowing Pavel died because of him.
One of the nurses - Rodriguez, he thinks, but at the time he was too caught up in his emotions to really remember - had remarked on how strange it was, that Hikaru was so certain he was the object of Pavel’s feelings, but he told her it was a story for another time. Thinking about it now, he supposes it is unusual, but Hikaru’s known for years.
Long before they started this mission, back when they were just students thrown into a crew at the last minute, Pavel would follow him around like a lost puppy, just waiting for Hikaru to pay attention to him. It didn’t take long for them to become friends, and Pavel has never been subtle about his crushes. But Hikaru was engaged to Ben, so he did what only someone as genuinely kind and good as Pavel can do, and told Hikaru about his feelings so they could both forget they existed.
That was years ago. He’d been worried back then, as anyone would be, that Pavel’s feelings might end up here, but so much time has passed. He thought that Pavel would be safe now, but he should have known better. Hanahaki never does what you expect.
He hears a loud, choking cough and looks up at Pavel, who’s hunched forward, coughing into his hands. Hikaru has seen him like this a lot in the last few weeks, but he knows he’ll never get used to it. Pavel is supposed to be bouncy and happy and full of life, he shouldn’t be in pain.
This is all his fault.
What Pavel needs is simple, so awfully, painfully simple, but Hikaru can’t give it to him. He hates himself for that. Pavel deserves better, he always has, and Hikaru knows that if things had been different, if they’d met a few years later or earlier, then Pavel wouldn’t be lying in this bed right now, knowing he might only have months, weeks, left.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” McCoy says, drawing Hikaru’s attention back to him. He’s gripping his PADD so hard that his knuckles have turned white and his voice is definitely tighter than usual. Seeing the usually unflappable doctor so upset just hammers home how serious this is. “As a doctor, I have to recommend surgery, but it’s your choice. Take some time to think about it.”
McCoy gives Pavel a smile that’s far softer than his usual gruff demeanour would allow, and then leaves them be. Hikaru watches him go, and he’s not sure how long he stares at the door before he feels something touch his face.
“Don’t cry, Hikaru,” Pavel says, and Hikaru realises belated that yes, he is crying, isn’t he? And Pavel, sweet, kind Pavel, is wiping the tears from his face. What did he do to deserve a friend like him? “Everything’s going to be fine, I promise.”
He’d love to believe that. There’s nothing in the world he wants more than to believe that even after all of this, everything will go back to normal. But he knows better. He knows that no matter what, things can never be the same. Either Pavel gives up his emotions, or he’ll die. Things are going to change, and it won’t be for the better.
~~~~~
Uhura visits Pavel a lot. Hikaru is the only one who visits more. She tells him about what’s happening on the bridge, asks for his help with the captain’s current diplomatic problem. Pavel isn’t a diplomat, he’s a navigator. His solution to every problem is complicated transporter bullshit that everything Hikaru knows about maths tells him shouldn’t be possible, but Pavel insists it is and says he’s done it before.
“Transporters were invented in Russia,” he says, as if that makes a difference to whether he can use them to put someone in two places at once.
But Uhura involves him, and it means the world to Hikaru.
~~~~~
It’s painful, watching Pavel deteriorate. He was always so full of life, so eager and energetic, and to see that taken from him hurts in an almost physical way. He’s pale and thin and he can’t last more than a minute without falling into a coughing fit. Not in Hikaru’s company, at least.
Hikaru can’t see Pavel as much as he wants to, because every time they talk his condition gets worse. The others can all carry entire conversations - Kirk even let him on the bridge once, to help with navigating a particularly nasty asteroid belt - but when Hikaru’s around he can barely get out a whole sentence.
He’s asleep right now, which should be comforting, but the way his breath rattles won’t let Hikaru forget that he’s dying. Hikaru pushes some hair aside that’s sticking to his forehead and can’t help the tears that start to fall.
Two weeks, McCoy said. He has two weeks. Probably less, unless Hikaru stops visiting him altogether. Pavel Chekov is twenty-two, and he has two weeks to live.
~~~~~
“I’m sorry,” Hikaru says, even though he knows how much Pavel hates it. He always insists it’s not Hikaru’s fault, but he can’t help feeling like it is. He loves Pavel, he does, but not in the way he needs, and it’s literally killing him.
He squeezes Pavel’s hand in an attempt at a comforting gesture, and regrets it immediately when Pavel’s breathing hitches and he starts to cough. Horrible, hacking coughs that sound like he’s trying to tear his lungs out, blood flecking his lips and petals flying into the air.
Hikaru doesn’t call Dr McCoy. He used to, but now he knows there’s nothing he can do about it. They just have to let it pass. So he waits for Pavel’s breathing to settle back down, and he carefully gathers all of the petals into the bin. They’re lavenders again.
He wishes he didn’t know they mean I forgive you.
They throw Pavel a birthday party. It’s not his birthday yet, it’s not until next week. None of them really have the heart to celebrate, but they know they don’t have long left.
McCoy tells them, afterwards, that Pavel has days left. Hikaru decides to stay with him. Captain Kirk grants him leave for as long as he needs.
~~~~~
Pavel Andreivich Chekov is twenty-two years old when he dies.
It’s the last two days that are the worst. Pavel can’t speak anymore, it’s all he can do to keep breathing through the flowers in his lungs. He spits out lavender and gladiolus and daffodils and tulips. He coughs even when he’s asleep, and those are almost exclusively hyacinths.
Hikaru had hoped he’d be asleep when he goes, but he isn’t. He’s awake, and afraid, and Hikaru can’t do anything but hold his hand and tell him everything’s going to be okay, which it isn’t, they both know it isn’t, but he doesn’t know what else to do.
He somehow manages not to cry, until Pavel’s coughing suddenly stops. He thinks that’s it, but through his blurry vision he sees Pavel turn his head and hears him say quietly, so quietly he’s not even sure it’s real-
“I love you, Hikaru.”
And then he coughs one more time, and all of the machines are beeping, and Hikaru can’t even hear them because his eyes are on the last flower, sitting neatly beside Pavel’s head, as if it were carefully placed and not hacked up from a dying man’s lungs.
Cyclamen.
Goodbye.