Chapter Text
They've had disagreements at work before, and sometimes these make for tense evenings in their quarters, but Pavel can usually diffuse the situation by placing his chin on Hikaru's shoulder and pouting a little. If Hikaru is the one who was out of line he'll make it up to Pavel by rubbing his back with strong, soothing hands, until Pavel can't even remember why he was mad. Having time to cool down as the rest of their shift plays out helps. By the time they're alone together they're just annoyed, not livid.
On shore leave, things are different. They've never used their free time to fight before, but they've been together for four years now, and maybe they were due. It started when Pavel grudgingly agreed to go on a hike with Hikaru, who promised that he just wanted to take Pavel to a particular peak with a beautiful view of this planet's jungles. Pavel envisioned an afternoon of light-headed, high altitude sex, both of them wrapped into the blanket he'd tucked inside his pack, but by the time they made it to the peak Hikaru had meticulously collected no less than twenty-three samples of local flora, and Pavel was in no mood to even hold his hand. They fought all the way back down the mountain, Hikaru throwing out his arms and saying he'd never have another chance to visit this planet, Pavel telling him he would have happily just stayed at the hotel if he knew Hikaru was going to spend the whole day working. Back at the hotel, Pavel retaliated by mapping out a star chart for the entire evening, and Hikaru pretended not to care, seething in the corner as he cataloged his specimens. It turned into a competition, like so many things between them seem to lately, and neither of them would get into bed, even when their eyes were falling shut, Pavel cursing and rubbing his eraser over his miscalculations and Hikaru cutting himself on a glass slide.
When they finally caved -- Pavel first, because he knew Hikaru would sleep with his head on the desk before he gave in -- there was some not-quite-makeup sex, which felt more like a wrestling match at moments. Hikaru pinned Pavel and lifted his legs up to fuck him hard and deep, grunting with every thrust, hands like shackles around Pavel's ankles. Pavel flipped Hikaru and shoved him down, riding him until Hikaru lost control and came with an angry groan. Feeling victorious, Pavel soon followed, spraying his come all over Hikaru's chest. They kissed afterward, but not for long, and Hikaru rolled away from Pavel to nurse his wounded pride. There was a time when Pavel always came first, and then again, and again, and Hikaru would be unable to hide his boastful smile as Pavel cried with exhaustion beneath him. Pavel resents him, now, for liking that so much.
In the morning, Pavel wakes up after Hikaru, as usual, and winces at the sunlight through the curtains. Hikaru has the wall-mounted data screen playing a news story about the Klingon brewing festival, and Pavel holds his pillow over his head, groaning.
"It's almost ten," Hikaru says.
"So?" Pavel kicks at him. "We're on vacation."
"Don't kick me."
"I barely touched you! Don't be such a baby."
"God." Hikaru moans and turns the volume on the data screen down. "Fine. I'm hungry. Should I just go to breakfast without you?"
"Do whatever you want. The food on this planet is not good at all. You only wanted to come here for those plants."
"Like we've never indulged your hobbies on shore leave."
"When, when have we done this?" Pavel asks, suddenly wide awake as he throws the pillow away and sits up, glaring at Hikaru, who just stares at the data screen.
"Ha, you can't think of one example!" Pavel says.
"Yes, I can!" Hikaru narrows his eyes at the screen. "How about when we went to Russia?"
"Oh, to meet my family? I'm so sorry I put you through such an ordeal for the sake of my interests, Hikaru."
"Well, you ignored me half the time, speaking Russian to everybody --"
"I'm sorry my family didn't learn Standard to better accommodate you."
"That's not what I mean! Half the time it was like I wasn't even there --"
"I see you every day, I see them not for five years when we go there --"
"God, okay!" Hikaru holds up his hand, wincing. "I can't fucking stand hearing your broken Standard when you get upset, it sounds so affected."
That's what sends Pavel out of the room, not because the accusation actually has merit and therefore stings very badly, but because Hikaru used to love it when Pavel's accent thickened, or when he lost his words. He used to think it was adorable, the blush that spread over Pavel's cheeks when he struggled to say the right thing, and in bed he would moan when Pavel lapsed into Russian as the feeling of Hikaru inside him stripped him of everything but instinct.
"Where are you going?" Hikaru mutters as Pavel begins to dress.
"Nowhere. Don't follow me."
"Pavel, God, don't wander off, you remember what happened on Laraysus --"
"How dare you bring that up!" Pavel says, blushing when he realizes he just shouted that in Russian. Hikaru rolls his eyes and slaps his hands against his knees.
"Fine, curse me in a language I can't even understand, so I can't defend myself, that's fair."
"Fair?" Pavel shouts, back to Standard. "Fair? It is fair to bring up something that happened to me on shore leave when I was seventeen, still a child --"
"It's not the only time you've wandered off on an alien planet without thinking --"
"It was not my fault that we were not briefed on the planet's slave trade policies! They had not made them known to the Federation --"
"Yeah, well, there's a lot of alien culture that isn't made known to the Federation, that's why you shouldn't --"
"Don't tell me what to do!" Pavel shouts, in Russian, because he doesn't want Hikaru to hear how childish he sounds. He storms out of the room, angry tears burning at the corners of his eyes. It's just like Hikaru to bring up Laraysus, as if that disaster is representative of the way Pavel typically conducts himself. He was only curious about their marketplace, so full of wonder for the first alien planet he'd set foot on that he didn't notice that there were no other humans wandering among the stalls. He'd gotten himself kidnapped and locked up, and it was only because Hikaru was virtually stalking him that he was rescued. Of course, it hadn't felt that way at the time. When Hikaru rescued Pavel from the slavers and pulled him into his arms -- but that was a long time ago.
Pavel walks through the streets of the village that surrounds the hotel, not sure what he's looking for. Hikaru has planted that horrible memory in his mind and now he feels nervous, though there are plenty of humans around, including some of his crew members, who he nods to curtly as he passes. He thinks about getting something to eat, but has no appetite, and doesn't like to eat alien food without a chaperone, without Hikaru. Maybe he's become too dependent on Hikaru, who got to Pavel when Pavel was only seventeen, and after that horrible incident on Laraysus, when Pavel just wanted to be protected, hidden in Hikaru's arms at the end of the day. Now Pavel is older, more sure of himself, and maybe he should have his own life, without Hikaru always hovering around, getting his feelings hurt when Pavel outlasts him in bed.
"You've got a trail of ghosts behind that stretches for ten blocks!" someone shouts at him suddenly, and Pavel stops to look down at a stout little native of this planet stares up at him with what looks like a smile. The aliens who live here are purplish and toad-like, intelligent but not particularly advanced.
"I'm sorry?" Pavel says. He heard something about ghosts. He isn't sure what their cultural significance is here, or if the word has some colloquial meaning.
"Don't be sorry!" The alien grabs his wrist. Her palm is course and dry. "It's fantastic! Do you want to meet them?"
"I -- do I want to meet who?"
"Your ghosts! I've never seen someone with so many. There must be some reason you've been hanging on to your corporal form for so long. Come in and find out! I won't even charge you."
Pavel allows her to drag him into a nearby hut, which is dark and fragrant with herbs that Hikaru would surely want to catalog if he were here. The hut only seems to have one room, which is piled with flat pillows that seem clean enough, herbs burning in ceremonial pottery all along the circular wall. Pavel is a little nervous, but the street outside is crowded and he can see sunlight through the cracks in the wooden planks that construct the hut, so how dangerous could this really be? In the end, he sits on the cushion the alien motions to just because he doesn't know how else he'll spend his time while avoiding Hikaru.
"Good, good!" she says cheerfully, bustling around in a wicker cabinet, gathering ingredients. There is an ornate, empty bowl in front of the cushion where Pavel is sitting, in the center of the room. The alien begins mixing things in it, and Pavel sighs, feeling detached from whatever is happening.
"Are you planning on drugging me?" he asks. That would show Hikaru for teasing Pavel about what happened when he was seventeen. Pavel sits with his arms folded tightly over his chest and fantasizes about Hikaru learning of Pavel's poisoning and weeping with regret over Pavel's corpse. For some reason this is a satisfying image.
"Drugging you, yes!" the alien says. She smiles up at Pavel. "So that we can both know your past lives, solve this mystery!"
"Past lives?" Pavel has heard about this, a feature of many alien cultures' spiritual beliefs, and plenty of ancient human beliefs as well.
"Yes, past lives! They are all here with you now, but they can't speak until you drink this. It will make you remember, and they will talk to me."
She offers Pavel the bowl, where crumbled leaves and bits of flower petals are floating in some kind of murky liquid that smells like very strong peppermint. Pavel makes a face and gives the woman an uncertain look.
"Please, drink this!" Her cheerful demeanor is oddly comforting. "I would never hurt an officer of the Federation! That would bring much trouble for me. I have a license in interpreting for ghosts if you would like to see it."
"No, no." Pavel drinks the stuff down, too depressed about what's happening with Hikaru to care about how recklessly he's behaving, or about how he's probably only proving Hikaru right. He winces as he gets the last of it down his throat, and the alien claps happily. She takes the bowl away and replaces it with a cushion, where she sits down with a huff, folding her legs under her skirts.
"Now what?" Pavel says. He feels like he drank strong tea on an empty stomach, the concoction swirling around uncomfortably inside him.
"Just relax, close your eyes!" the alien says. "You may lie down if you like." She gestures to the surrounding cushions. Pavel shakes his head, but then he begins to feel very heavy, and his neck and chest suddenly seem to be made of rubber, unable to support him in a sitting position. He moans irritably and leans down onto the cushions beside the one he's sitting on, then curls up there, feeling sleepy and peaceful and kind of like he's dying.
Images move behind his eyes, blurry and shapeless but somehow conveying feelings, or maybe memories. He fights for consciousness only for a moment, following the sensations that flood him down into a deeper dark, as if chasing a rabbit down a hole.
The first thing he recognizes as distinct among the others is Hikaru. They're together in the snow, running. This was sometime during the war. Pavel enlisted in the Russian army when he was sixteen. His older brothers were all dead. He got separated from his battalion at Mukden and was alone until Hikaru appeared out of the driving white snow and took Pavel to a cave where it seemed that Hikaru had been staying for some time. Pavel never learned Hikaru's name. He just knows, looking back now, that it's Hikaru.
At first, Pavel thought Hikaru was one of the Manchurians, and by the time he recognized the Japanese uniform it was too late. Hikaru had captured him.
Pavel is always waiting for Hikaru's battalion to return to the outpost where Hikaru was left by the others, but days pass and no one comes. Pavel isn't sure what it means to be the prisoner of one man instead of an army. He's been told that the Japanese don't take prisoners, and as time goes on he begins to wonder if that is even what he is to this man with frozen black eyebrows under his little blue cap. Pavel is surprised that Hikaru hasn't stolen his hat, which is warmer, lined with fur. Hikaru builds fires and cooks pots of rice, his supply dwindling. He eats half the pot and then gives the rest to Pavel. He's always talking, Pavel recognizing none of his words but nodding along with him to keep him happy, to keep himself alive. He thinks Hikaru must be insane from the isolation and wonders what he was posted here to wait for. He wonders who is winning, Russia or Japan, far away from here or maybe closer than they realize.
They sleep against the wall of the cave, near the fire, wrapped together out of necessity. Pavel sometimes stays awake and considers the smell of Hikaru's skin, which is different from anything he's ever been this close to. It's delicate, like the rice he cooks, but strong, too, stronger than the snow that threatens them everyday. Pavel wonders what his parents would think if they knew he was sleeping in the arms of a Japanese soldier. Only to survive the cold, he would tell them if they were here. But Pavel is so disoriented and out of his depth that he often thinks of Hikaru not as a Japanese soldier but as a fairy tale creature who has appeared in the blinding white of the snow to rescue him. He grew up hearing stories like this one; they always involved a war raging in the distance. He wakes up every morning feeling as if he's wandered into one of his mama's stories, the blank white landscape unchanging outside the cave, Hikaru's teeth chattering as he greedily presses his face to Pavel's neck for warmth. Pavel doesn't push him away. He's cold, too.
They spend their days scavenging for food, keeping close to the cave so that they don't lose it. If they come upon anything visible in the snow, Hikaru will point and say a Japanese word, and Pavel will answer with Russian. They smile at each other, understanding nothing, but grateful for the excuse to use their voices. Pavel had never seen a Japanese person up close before Hikaru. Sometimes he stares at him, and Hikaru doesn't seem to notice, staring back at Pavel just as curiously. One day, when they return to the cave with brittle branches for kindling, Pavel kneels down beside Hikaru as he breaks the branches apart and rubs the frost from Hikaru's dark eyebrows with his thumbs. Hikaru gives Pavel a soft, questioning look, then says something that seems to express gratitude before wiping at the corner of Pavel's lips with his thumb, as if there's some dirt there that has been bothering Hikaru for days.
As the supply of rice shrinks, Hikaru begins to eat less before passing the pot to Pavel, who tries to pass it back, but Hikaru frowns and refuses it. He has some other supplies: dried fish that are frozen solid and dried mushrooms that taste even worse than the fish does. Pavel wants to wander further from the cave to try to find a frozen stream for fishing, but he knows it's dangerous, and every time he tries to widen their scavenging route Hikaru grabs him by the arm and pulls him back. It's irritating at times, but the look on Hikaru's face when he reclaims Pavel is so desperate and afraid that Pavel can't be mad for long, even if they'll likely starve because of Hikaru's reluctance to lose his way back to the cave, or to lose Pavel when he ventures too far.
When darkness falls they go quickly to Hikaru's blankets, the fire raging by then, their only defense against the bone-snapping cold that comes when the sun is gone. Hikaru has a good supply of wood deep in the cave, something he must have amassed in preparation for the winter. So he's been here for months, going mad with loneliness. Pavel pities him, and doesn't stop Hikaru from whispering Japanese words against his lips when they're huddled under the blankets together, Hikaru's eyes trained on Pavel's in the flickering firelight, pleading for understanding. Pavel is hardly surprised when Hikaru pushes his warm tongue between Pavel's lips one night, his hat going askew as he licks hungrily into the heat of Pavel's mouth, breathing hard. Pavel finds Hikaru's hand under the blankets and squeezes, telling him that it's okay to be crazy, to do crazy things. Pavel didn't want to fight in this war, and he doubts that Hikaru volunteered to be left in a cave while the others moved on. To hell with everyone but the two of them. They're going to die alone here, anyway. Hikaru can do whatever he likes.
Their days become strangely exhilarating once they begin to test each other's limits, and Pavel wonders if this is what all people who are stranded together eventually fall to, but when he's beneath the blankets with Hikaru it feels like more than desperation, almost like some kind of blessing. Hikaru's mouth is the only thing left in the world that is hot enough to warm him; even the heat from the fire doesn't feel this good against Pavel's numb skin. He moans when Hikaru kisses his neck, and hisses when Hikaru's cold hands sneak under his clothes. Pavel unbuttons Hikaru's uniform and feels his way over Hikaru's chest and back, his hands warming quickly. They stare into each other's eyes, breathless, nodding, finally speaking the same language.
"I love you, I want to marry you," Pavel babbles madly when Hikaru finally reaches between his legs one night, his fingers closing around the heat of Pavel's hardness. "Make me your wife," Pavel whispers into Hikaru's mouth, bucking his hips, laughing at himself. Hikaru smiles, his lips shaking, and when his thumb rubs in quick circles over the wetness that has been gathering in Pavel's underwear every night since they started touching each other, Pavel's whole body tenses and he screams with the kind of release he thought he would never know again, clutching at Hikaru, crying against his neck.
"Yes, yes, yes," Pavel whispers. "Now let me seal myself to you, too." He swallows heavily and rubs his face against Hikaru's while he strokes him, watching Hikaru's eyelids grow heavier and heavier as he fights to keep them open, to keep his eyes locked on Pavel's. Hikaru shudders and cries out when he comes, and Pavel wraps him tightly into his arms, moaning happily, draping a leg over Hikaru's side, getting him as close as he can.
"See, now we are married," Pavel whispers into the dark as Hikaru breathes in helpless huffs against his collar. "Like in the old stories, when a young girl marries a bear because he kept her warm when she was freezing. She loves the bear and he turns into a prince because of her love. You're already a prince, lucky for me. Maybe you were a bear until you saw me."
They kiss for a long time, not wanting to lose the heat of it, or the connection they have now that they've touched each other's most secret places. Pavel wants to touch Hikaru everywhere, wants to see him naked and stretched out on a bed, warm and relaxed, and he dreams about this when he finally falls asleep with Hikaru wrapped around him. He dreams that he's kneeling over Hikaru's lap in a hot spring, steam fogging the air as they kiss, grinding their bodies together, the stiff nipples Pavel felt under Hikaru's shirt rubbing against Pavel's, making him moan. He wakes up with more come in his pants.
Hikaru tries not to let Pavel see the paltry amount of rice that remains. Pavel isn't sure why Hikaru feels that he needs to protect him from the knowledge of their quickly approaching starvation, but he pretends not to notice, and refuses when Hikaru continues to try and give him the majority of the rice in the pot.
"I don't want to outlive you!" Pavel says, frowning as he pushes it back into Hikaru's hands. "Don't be cruel."
Hikaru persists, and eventually Pavel sighs and accepts his fate. Hikaru has been kind enough to share his rice with Pavel, so perhaps he does deserve to die first and leave Pavel to try in vain to draw warmth from his frozen corpse. With this on his mind, Pavel shoots a falcon the following morning, and as Hikaru helps him pluck its feathers back at the cave they both cry with joy and babble in their respective languages, their empty stomachs lurching painfully with hope. Hikaru leans over the bird to kiss Pavel a hundred times as they work, and Pavel knows that he's proud of him.
On the night that they eat the falcon, Hikaru climbs on top of Pavel under the blankets, and Pavel moans with gratitude, so incredibly warm under Hikaru's weight. Hikaru holds Pavel's face and kisses him, whispering in Japanese, and Pavel chokes out tears when he imagines what Hikaru is saying, that Pavel is his clever little wife, that Hikaru will keep Pavel alive until spring with his heavy body, that he'll turn back into a bear if he needs to, just to keep Pavel warm like this.
He reaches between Pavel's legs, but only strokes him a few times before moving lower. It feels good, and Pavel opens his legs wider; Hikaru is his honored husband and he can touch Pavel wherever he likes. When Hikaru puts two of his fingers in his mouth and sucks, Pavel thinks he must just want a last taste of the falcon, never expecting those wet fingers to push inside him. He shouts and Hikaru quiets him, kissing, pressing into him gently. Pavel sobs and holds Hikaru's arms, bucking away from his fingers and then back onto them, moaning as the feeling changes, flushing through him like hot water, like pale fire.
Hikaru makes himself as wet as he can before pushing in, but it still burns terribly, and Pavel cries, kissing Hikaru with shaking lips as he's opened, their bodies locking together, uncomfortably at first. Hikaru whispers reassurances, and Pavel shuts his eyes, feeling as if he can translate, the words floating across the backs of his eyelids in Russian: Calm yourself, calm yourself, you will understand soon. Pavel nods and sighs wetly, wrapping his legs around Hikaru's back, inside his uniform jacket. Hikaru begins to move, and Pavel moans, forgetting the cave and the snow and everything, only knowing that Hikaru is inside him, setting the whole world on fire, the burn sinking lower and lower until Pavel pushes down to meet Hikaru's thrusts, grunting, nodding, understanding. He comes from the rub of Hikaru's rough uniform on his cock, and Hikaru shouts out as Pavel's body squeezes up tightly around him. When Hikaru quivers helplessly on top of him, mumbling warm words against Pavel's cheek, Pavel knows that he's come, too, and he captures Hikaru's mouth, moaning at the thought that Hikaru has emptied himself deep inside him.
They sleep like stones that night, their trousers still unfastened under the blankets, Hikaru's soft cock nestled against Pavel's bare ass. In the morning Pavel wakes to the feeling of Hikaru tucking him back into his trousers and buttoning them up for him, reaching around Pavel's side to do it. Hikaru kisses Pavel's neck when he sees that he's awake and gives him a little pat over the bundle of his cock, which Hikaru has put away for him. Pavel smiles against the sleeve of Hikaru's uniform, squirming back against him.
They find no more falcons. The snow keeps falling, nearly closing up the mouth of the cave, which they have to dig out every few hours to keep from being swallowed up by the earth. Pavel has nightmares and wakes up to Hikaru's soothing, but he doesn't believe the promises that he knows Hikaru is making: that things will be okay, that they will survive somehow. When his hand sneaks under Hikaru's clothes to press over his heartbeat, he can feel every rib, sharp along the way.
The rice runs out, and they lose the energy for scavenging. They sit against the wall of the cave with the blankets draped around them and try to keep the fire alive. The wood pile is nearly gone, too. Pavel puts Hikaru's shaking fingers in his mouth, wanting to make him warm. They have two gloves between them: before they ever met, both of them lost one from the sets their armies provided.
Pavel falls asleep and wakes up in Hikaru's lap. He can hear Hikaru's heartbeat under his ear, and it's not as strong as it once was. It seems to be slowing. He puts his cold nose under Hikaru's chin and nudges him until he groans a little and nuzzles back, his eyes still closed.
"Husband," Pavel whispers. "You can turn into a bear now. A big bear with lots of fat to keep us both alive until spring. I will still love you. I will love you even if you're a bear forever after. Oh, God, why can't you understand me?" Pavel sobs, delirious enough to believe that if Hikaru spoke Russian he would become a bear, his fear of losing Pavel's love dispelled. Hikaru holds Pavel's head against his chest and stares at the mouth of the cave, which is almost completely covered by snow. Neither of them has the energy to dig.
The night when the snow finally covers the cave mouth is pitch dark. They can't make a fire without suffocating themselves, and they haven't got the energy to move from beneath the blankets, anyway. Pavel doesn't want to sleep, but he can't stay awake. He dreams of falcons dropping dead from the sky, but every time he reaches one in the snow he sees that it's only a stone. He turns from the stones and can't find Hikaru.
When Pavel opens his eyes, the mouth of the cave is a wall of sparkling white snow. It's beautiful. He wants Hikaru to see it, but his ear is against Hikaru's chest, and he can't hear Hikaru's heart beating anymore. He doesn't move, because Hikaru's cheek is resting on top of his head, and Pavel doesn't want to disturb him. His tears freeze in the corners of his eyes as he clutches at Hikaru's cold body, trying to slide his exposed hand under Hikaru's shirt, to feel the last warmth of him before it drains away, but his hand is numb with frostbite and he can't move it.
"God, take me with him," Pavel begs, though he stopped believing in God when his brothers died, one after the other in this war. "Take me with him and keep me there always. I don't want to fight for any army that he is not a part of. I don't want to fight for any army at all. Just take me with him. Make him a bear and me a girl. Make him a falcon and me a tree. Make us two stones in the same stream. Anything, anything. Please take me now, take me with him, I just want to go where he goes."
~
Pavel is flung into a memory of his next life without warning. It feels harsh and unreal at first, but he slips into it as he narrows the focus of his mind, taking in his surroundings. He's an American now, but not quite. The child of immigrants. He joined the Marines when he heard about what was happening in Russia, where his parents were born, a country he's been taught to revere but one he's never been allowed to visit. He didn't understand why his parents, both Jewish, didn't see his enlistment as the noble gesture he intended it to be. He's eighteen years old, and the war is over, but he still owes the Marines three years of service. He's stationed in Tokyo, or what used to be Tokyo, and it's nothing like he expected. It doesn't feel noble.
He tries to fit in. The other men like him because he's small and harmless. Half the reason he joined the Marines, if he's honest with himself, is that he's tired of being thought of this way. He wanted to kill an enemy, a Nazi, to prove himself, to whom he's not sure. Instead, he's being taken to a whore house, the others laughing and asking him if he's a virgin.
"No," Pavel says, glaring at them. He's lying. They know this, and they laugh harder.
The brothels in Tokyo are run by the crumpled Japanese government. They're intended to serve as a buffer, absorbing the blow so that the Americans won't take honorable Japanese women by force. Pavel can't imagine a national consciousness that works this way, but he thinks his parents probably could. For the first time in his life he feels very spoiled, sheltered. Still, he doesn't write to his parents about the reality of this ruined place. He doesn't want them to know that he's made a mistake.
He knows he'll be teased if he doesn't at least feign in interest in what the brothel has to offer. He gets drunk at the bar in the lobby and laughs with the others, smiles at the girls. Whatever feelings they have about what they've been asked to do are remote from him, and he can't pity them because they won't allow it, their eyes steely and guarded. The mourning they do for their innocence is private, and this embarrasses Pavel more than anything, the fact that he wants to know them, or help them, and that they look right through him, as if he is a just a part moving past them on a factory line, a callous fool who will be pleased with a smile.
He needs fresh air. There's a patio in the back by a hot spring bath, and Pavel smokes a cigarette with a shaking hand, staring at the bath. It's empty, his friends inside with their women. Pavel leans against the fence on the far wall, wanting to go home. That's when he sees the girl on the second floor balcony.
It's just a little porch attached to one of the rooms. She's wearing a kimono, like all of them, and Pavel would bet that it's a cheap one, though he can't really tell the difference. It's pink, with multi-colored flowers patterned across it, and as Pavel narrows his eyes, studying this girl, he would bet that she didn't appreciate being handed a pink one when she came here out of desperation. That it was an added insult.
She's beautiful, trying to be hard but not quite pulling it off, though Pavel would be intimidated by her if they were standing face to face. Her hair is down, and Pavel wonders if there is a G.I. snoring in her room, her job done for the night. She's smoking a cigarette, too, squinting at the horizon. Pavel feels like he's seen her eyes somewhere before.
Now, looking back, seeing this from where he stands, he knows that it's Hikaru.
She sees him watching her and flips her perfect curtain of dark hair over her shoulder. Pavel feels like he should wave, or shout an apology, something. He ends up just lifting his hand, feeling nervous, and guilty for watching her, though she's not doing anything particularly intimate. He's afraid she's going to scowl at him and disappear back into the room attached to the balcony, and she seems to consider doing so for a few moments, her eyes narrowing, but then she just lifts her hand, waving back.
Pavel doesn't know if he should keep looking at her or if that would be rude. She's got her arms folded on the balcony's railing, her cigarette tipped between two fingers as she blows smoke from her bright red lips. She seems amused. Pavel feels like he should begin some sort of performance, dance around or make a joke, and then it feels like he doesn't need to, like she knows him and forgives him for having nothing to offer.
She goes back into the room and Pavel sighs. He puts his cigarette out against the fence that surrounds the hot spring and slips the butt into his pocket. He stands there waiting for a long time, for something, for that girl, then gives up and walks back into the brothel. He wants to go home, or at least back to the base, and if he doesn't lose his virginity here his friends will call him a fag, and might not be his friends anymore. He's staring at the floor, fretting about this, when he crashes into Hikaru.
"Hello," she says, thickly accented. Pavel realizes that he's got his hands braced on her shoulders and lets her go. She smells really fucking good, like oranges or something. Pavel remembers that he's drunk and shakes his head like a wet dog. She laughs, holding her hand over her mouth.
"I saw you," Pavel says, blinking rapidly. "On the balcony."
"Balcony," she says, speaking slowly, like she's never heard the word before. She takes Pavel's hands in hers and steps forward, puts her mouth against his ear. "Baby," she whispers. "This is you. Yes? Baby."
"I'm young," Pavel admits, shaking now. His hands are tight around hers. The lobby of the brothel is dark, the bartender wiping down his counter, a few girls muttering together in the lounge, having a post-coital smoke together while their customers saw logs upstairs.
"Baby – baby upstairs?" she asks, stepping back and batting her long, dark eyelashes. Pavel whimpers, and she laughs. They're still holding hands, fingers interlaced now.
"You don't have to," Pavel says, on the verge of tears for some reason. He feels like he can see into this one's eyes, though he knows that she's trying just as hard as the others to make herself inscrutable.
"Come," she says, and he lets her lead him up to the second floor. He's afraid she's going to have to kick some other Marine out when they reach her room, but there's no one there. The room is spare but cozy, and she sits Pavel down on her bed, then hands him a little cup of sake.
"Kanpai?" she says, asking him if he's learned this yet. He nods, and they click their glasses together. Pavel drinks, his other hand clawed around his knee. He doesn't want to take advantage of this girl, but he doesn't want to leave her, either.
So Pavel loses his virginity to a Japanese whore who laughs and kisses his cheeks as he screams out his orgasm, and then he goes back to America to marry the daughter of his mother's friend. He knows, when he comes home from work early one afternoon to blow his brains out in their bedroom, that it's for her, that girl in Japan who rubbed her face against his neck as he fell asleep in her bed.
~
Pavel grows accustomed to the changes more quickly than he expected to. Already he is a boy with skinned knees who is watching the Oriental family move in across the street. His sister is standing next to him, smoking a cigarette, saying There goes the neighborhood.
At school, Hikaru is picked on. Pavel, who has always been picked on, stares at Hikaru when he thinks he can get away with it. Sometimes Hikaru looks up at him, glaring. Pavel pretends to hate him like the others, though he hates Hikaru for not recognizing him as an ally, while the others just hate him on principle. Hikaru is almost as smart as Pavel, which is also irritating. They have two classes together, Biology and Gym. In Biology they are superstars, commended by their teacher and competitive with each other. In Gym they are pummeled, and the coaches laugh.
One day, Pavel skips Gym, walking through the woods behind the school instead, where he kicks pine straw around and thinks about his make-believe universe where he is the commander of a spaceship. The boys who pick on him are peons on this spaceship, and when the Galactic Empire encounters violent alien cultures Pavel sends these peons off to be torn asunder by space gorillas. He looks up when he's halfway to the playground and sees Hikaru sitting on a felled tree trunk up ahead, wiping at his eyes.
When Pavel comes to stand in front of him, Hikaru glowers at him. Pavel can see that he's embarrassed about crying, his face turning red. Pavel holds onto the straps of his book bag and waits for an explanation.
"Leave me alone," Hikaru says. It's the first time Pavel has heard him speak. Even in class, Hikaru answers with chalk on the board or nods. He doesn't have an accent, and Pavel isn't sure what sort of accent he expected. Hikaru is the first Oriental he's known.
"My grandparents were from Russia," Pavel says.
"So?"
Pavel shrugs. "My mom had to go to a church to learn English. They were mean to her."
Hikaru frowns and stares at Pavel like he's an idiot. Pavel's cheeks burn, and he looks down at the ground, nudging the pine straw with the toe of his sneaker
"Why aren't you at gym class?" Pavel asks, though he knows perfectly well why Hikaru is here instead. The gym teachers like to make them play dodge ball, so that the boys like Pavel and Hikaru get bruises from rubber balls that come at them like lightening rods. They want to teach boys like Pavel and Hikaru what the world is really like. It's the whole point of school. Pavel's mother told him this, sounding sad about it.
"I hate school," Hikaru says, glaring, like Pavel is the one who forces him to attend. "I hate this town. I want to go back to California."
"California?" Pavel sits down beside Hikaru, still holding onto the straps of his book bag, flapping his arms a little and making himself stop when he remembers that his sister told him that he looks like a chicken when he does that. "Where movie stars are?"
"How old are you?" Hikaru asks. His eyes are still narrowed like he can't believe Pavel has the nerve to speak to him.
"Fifteen."
"Then how come you're in junior level Biology?"
"They made me. They said I tested in."
"So you're just a freshman?" Hikaru sits up a little straighter, as if this he will accept, Pavel's lesser qualification.
"I guess."
"You guess?"
"I mean – yeah! I'm a freshman, okay? Geez."
They're both quiet for awhile, listening to the sound of the forest that stands between the high school and the suburbs, woodpeckers knocking against dead trees high above them.
"So did you see any movie stars?" Pavel asks. "In California?"
"No, dummy. We lived in San Francisco. Hollywood is way south of there."
"Yeah? So. Who's your favorite movie star?"
"I don't know." Hikaru scoffs like it's a dumb question. "Henry Fonda?"
"Henry Fonda!"
"From Once Upon a Time in the West."
"Oh, that guy." Pavel shrugs. He feels kind of warm through his chest, and he thinks this might be why his mother is always begging him to try and make friends, so that he'll be able to feel this way. "Have you seen 2001, though?"
"That space movie?"
"Yeah."
"No. My mom wouldn't let me see it." Hikaru makes a face. "She says it's too scary."
"It is!" Pavel grabs Hikaru's arm, then lets it go, blushing. "I mean. It's good."
"Well." Hikaru shrugs. "I'm not allowed."
"My sister works at the movie theater!" Pavel's heart is pounding, his whole face flushed, and he's kind of scared of friendship, if this is what it's like, but that's not stopping him. "She would let us in for free!"
So Hikaru and Pavel walk to the movie theater, and though Pavel's sister isn't working, her hippie friend Robbie lets them in for free. Pavel's eyes are glued to the screen, and he's so excited about being able to see the movie again, and during the school day no less, that he doesn't notice that Hikaru is fast asleep until it's almost over.
"That was the most boring movie I've ever seen in my life," Hikaru mumbles as they're walking back toward school together. Hikaru is still bleary from sleeping in the theater, blinking heavily. Pavel's feelings were hurt, a little, when Hikaru slept through the movie, but now Pavel is kind of glad that he did, because he can stare at Hikaru while he's like this, tired and soft.
"It's my favorite movie ever," Pavel says, beaming up at the cloud-covered sky, thinking about space. Hikaru laughs, and Pavel blushes, but when he sneaks a look at Hikaru, his laughter doesn't seem entirely malicious. He's grinning at Pavel, shaking his head.
"You're so weird," he says, but it seems like a compliment.
They're allies after that, calculating exactly how many gym classes they need to attend without failing, happy with their findings when they realize they can skip twice a week. Some days they just hang out under the bleachers at the football field, talking about spacecraft. Hikaru wants to design planes, or maybe rockets, he hasn't decided. Pavel wants to make movies about space, aliens and astronauts, and he tells Hikaru all about his plans as he jots them down, sci-fi comics scattered between them. Hikaru tells Pavel he's a dork, but if Pavel relies too heavily on a deus ex machina, Hikaru will offer other suggestions for his movie plots.
When the school year ends, they have three whole months to spend together, and because neither of them has any other friends, they are almost constantly in each other's company, lying on the floor in Pavel's basement and reading comics, sneaking into movies for free, and swimming down by the lake when the cool kids aren't there to pick on them. One day, half the football team suddenly comes thundering up to the lake in their trucks while Pavel and Hikaru are sunning themselves on the shore, and they hide under the dock, certain that their fate will involve a severe beating if they're caught here, alone together in their swim trunks. Neither of them is unaware of what is going on and exactly what other people will think about it. When they huddle under the dock together, standing on the muddy lake bottom with their shoulders just barely under the water, they hold on to each other, breathing hard but as silently as possible. They're are both shivering by the time the others leave, chased off an hour later by cops who were called by the owners of the houses that overlook the lake. As the lake goes quiet again, Pavel's heart pounds, his hands still on Hikaru's slippery skin, underwater. They stare at each other, and Hikaru reaches up to touch Pavel's cheek.
"You're cold," he says, stuttering, and Pavel gets the impression that he started to say something else and lost his nerve. Pavel nods and they climb out, going for the towels they hid under the dry part of the dock when they heard the others coming. They walk home with their teeth chattering and say goodbye when they come to their separate houses. Pavel takes a long, hot shower, staring at the avocado green tile with his mouth hanging open and his eyes lidded, his hand on his cock as he dreams about Hikaru's hands moving on him under the water at the lake. They were just the slightest movements, careful adjustments, but every time Hikaru's thumb shifted over Pavel's hip bone or his fingers tightened on Pavel's side, it lit Pavel's adrenaline-fueled nerves up like a rocket leaving the atmosphere. And then there's the matter of what their eyes were doing to each other. Fucking each other, practically, Pavel thinks with a grin, his stomach pinching up with the memory of Hikaru's dark eyes boring into his. He comes onto the wall of the shower, not sure what will happen now, how things will change.
Two days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. Pavel watches with Hikaru's family; Pavel's father is boycotting the broadcast because he was rooting for Russia. Hikaru and Pavel sit on the floor, Hikaru's sisters on the couch behind them, eating popcorn. Pavel can't eat; he has no appetite, his stomach in knots. He's afraid he's going to witness something horrible, a sudden alien attack. When the broadcast ends with just some fuzzy words from space, he finds himself feeling disappointed. Hikaru's parents head outside to grill hamburgers and his sisters disperse to their rooms. Hikaru looks over at Pavel and grins.
"Was it everything you thought it would be?" he asks.
And that's the moment when Pavel knows that if he doesn't kiss Hikaru soon, he'll die.
Pavel spends the night at Hikaru's house, sleeping on the floor by Hikaru's bed, as he's done several times already this summer. No one seems to notice or care; Hikaru's parents think Pavel is odd but harmless, and Pavel's family is too preoccupied with his sister's out of wedlock pregnancy to worry about the time he spends with the family across the street. Pavel once corrected his sister at the dinner table when she called Hikaru Chinese, which is what most everyone calls him if not 'Oriental,' and she glared at him and asked what the difference was before bursting into tears, which is pretty much all she does since Robbie the hippie knocked her up.
"How soon do you think we'll live in space?" Pavel says.
"You and me?" Hikaru says. Pavel can hear his smile, and he grins up at the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling of Hikaru's bedroom, left there by a previous tenant.
"I mean people," Pavel says. "You know what I mean."
"I don't know, maybe in the year 2000? There will at least be, like, vacation colonies on the moon. Maybe Mars, too. Resorts, you know?"
"What else do you think will be different?" Pavel asks, fingering the edge of his sleeping bag. This particular question as been on his mind all night, while he ate hamburgers with Hikaru's family and watched the Twilight Zone with them after dinner. "I mean, about society."
"Well. Maybe you'll be able to pick what kind of baby you want to have. You know? Like what eye color, how tall. Stuff like that."
"What about natural selection?"
"I'm not saying I think it will be good. I'm just saying you'll be able to. Aw, people are fucked, anyway, don't you think? It'll be like 1984."
"No. No way!" Pavel's fingers curl around the edge of his blanket. "I think people will just keep getting better. Smarter. And do you think – I mean – like, there used to be arranged marriages, and we don't do that anymore. So, in the future – do you think – people will just – love whoever they want? More than they do now?"
Pavel's cheeks are burning. That all sounded much more eloquent in his head. Hikaru is silent up in his bed, and then he leans over the side to look at Pavel, and Pavel's eyes water, because Hikaru always knows what he means, even when he's clumsy with his words.
"I think people already love whoever they want to," Hikaru says. His voice is soft, like this is a secret, and it is, oh, God, it is. "I think they always have."
Pavel whimpers, and Hikaru scoots over in his bed, holding the blankets up. Pavel doesn't need to be asked twice. He climbs into the bed and slides into Hikaru's arms as Hikaru pulls the blankets up over them, almost over their heads. It's cozy and frantic at the same time: neither of them has kissed anyone before, and as they try to figure out how, licking at each other and panting, their bodies are grinding against each other as if they've got wills of their own, skinny knees bumping as they rub their erections together desperately. Finally they get close enough to give up on kissing, Pavel tucking his face against Hikaru's neck and Hikaru squeezing Pavel's ass into his hands, and when the slits in their boxer shorts slide open at the exact same moment, for one millisecond the skin on Pavel's flushed cock touches the skin on Hikaru's, and they both come like they've been pushed off a cliff, crying out and clutching at each other, hips pumping, skin searing hot with pleasure. Pavel goes limp on top of Hikaru, feeling as if he's glimpsed heaven, or maybe just the vast beauty of the universe, something he could never capture in a sci-fi movie even if he had the world's biggest budget. Hikaru leaves one hand on Pavel's ass and slides the other up to the back of his neck, rubbing him there like he needs soothing. Pavel kisses Hikaru under his jaw. He's never felt so warm, so happy.
"Do you think they heard us?" Hikaru whispers, meaning his family.
"They'll just think we were laughing or something," Pavel whispers back. He clings to Hikaru, unwilling to move, and Hikaru tucks the blankets up around Pavel's shoulders. Hikaru wraps his arms around Pavel under the blankets, tight, like he'll never let him go.
"You are so cute," Hikaru says. He sneaks a hand up under Pavel's t-shirt and strokes his back, making him shiver and moan. "Do you even know?"
"Don't call me cute," Pavel says, though he really doesn't mind it. "I'm not innocent like everyone thinks. I've jerked off to you. Thinking about you, I mean."
"That's still cute," Hikaru says, and then they really are laughing, shushing each other.
What follows is the best month of Pavel's life. Even while it's happening, even at fifteen years old, he knows that nothing that comes afterward will even come close. He and Hikaru spend every long summer day together, going on hikes, Pavel's head on Hikaru's shoulder as he makes meticulous lists and sketches of the trees and wildflowers they encounter. Pavel keeps a list of the birds: Yellow-rumped Warbler, Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Black-Capped Chickadee. They're hoping to win the prize their Biology teacher offers to the students who observe the most local flora and fauna during their summer vacations: an expensive scientific calculator. At night, they sneak out of their bedroom windows and walk down by the lake, where there's almost no light pollution. They stare at the stars and Hikaru listens to Pavel's sci-fi stories, which are now mostly about a crew of space pirates whose navigator and pilot are secretly in love. At one point he decides that it's not a secret, that the whole crew knows, because by then it's a normal thing.
"Space married," Pavel says one night, curled up against Hikaru's side, staring at Hikaru while Hikaru stares at the stars. "That's what they'll call it when two guys are in space together for a long time and they sleep together every night and all that. Space married. But then, when they get to ports and stuff, they don't go off with other people. They stay together, because even though they're these tough guys and everything, they're in love."
Pavel blushes and wilts a little. Hikaru is two years older, and Pavel knows he sounds very young to Hikaru sometimes, and that sometimes his enthusiasm and tendency to talk nonstop for hours at a time can be annoying. Hikaru looks over at Pavel and pulls a crunchy leaf from his hair.
"I love you, too," he says.
They sleep in Hikaru's bed, under the glow-in-the-dark stars, curled around each other and smelling like the woods around the lake, or sometimes like the lake itself if they dared to swim in the moonlight. Hikaru gets better and better at touching Pavel, slow and gentle, keeping him calm enough to last longer than a few minutes. Pavel doesn't try to match Hikaru as he improves, just drools on Hikaru's pillow and lets Hikaru's hands open his legs and rub his hard nipples, making Pavel feel like he's a willing captive of the natives on a pleasure planet. He sleeps so deeply in Hikaru's arms, melted against the mattress under the weight of Hikaru's body, and hates the dawn, when he has to kiss Hikaru's cheek and sneak out the window.
All of this happiness isn't without an attendant anxiety. Pavel worries constantly that they'll be caught, either by someone who stumbles upon them by the lake or by their families. Pavel's parents are still too caught up in his sister's pregnancy drama to notice anything different about him, but his sister grabs his arm in the kitchen one morning as he's running out the door to meet Hikaru, a piece of toast in his mouth, and when she glares at him Pavel can see the dangerous envy in her eyes.
"Don't think I don't know why you're so damn cheerful," she says, in Russian, which they have not spoken to each other since they were very young.
"Let me go," he says, yanking his arm free, but she grabs it again. She's beginning to get fat now, the bulge of her pregnant stomach hanging over the waistband of her skirt. Robbie the hippie has skipped town.
"Mom and Dad think you're such a little saint," his sister says, her eyes narrowing. "How would you like me to tell them that you're climbing in that chink's window every night to do God knows what with him?"
"They'd know you were lying," Pavel says, pulling free again. "They know you're a crazy bitch."
She tries to slap him but he ducks it and runs out of the house. He doesn't tell Hikaru about what she said, not wanting to worry him, but Hikaru senses that something is wrong, and puts his arm around Pavel as they're walking through the woods together, Pavel holding the hand-drawn map he's been working on.
"What's the matter?" Hikaru asks, giving Pavel's shoulders a shake.
"Nothing."
"You're so quiet."
"Sorry."
"That's okay. Want to stop for lunch?"
Pavel nods, and they sit at the bottom of a rocky cliff to eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Hikaru packed for the day. Something about the little thermos of apple juice that he passes to Pavel between bites breaks Pavel's heart, and he has to blink back tears.
"You ever think a bear might live in that cave?" Pavel says, nodding to the dark cave mouth at the foot of the cliff, which he and Hikaru have considered venturing into, though they haven't yet worked up the nerve.
"I doubt it," Hikaru says. "Probably just a bunch of bats. But maybe a bear."
In the moment, Pavel would rather they get eaten by a bear together than go home to face his sister's accusations. But he suffers no wrath from his parents that evening; they eat dinner in front of the television as usual, Pavel's sister sour-faced in the recliner where his father usually sits, Pavel's heart pounding as he forces himself to swallow down bites of Salisbury steak despite his complete lack of appetite. When the meal is over he goes to his room, trying to feel relieved, but he can't shake a feeling of acute doom, and falls asleep dreaming about bear attacks and bats getting caught in his hair. He wakes up panting, and Hikaru is climbing in through his window, looking concerned. Hikaru sits on Pavel's bed and pulls him into his arms without a word, stroking Pavel's hair as he comes out of his dream. Pavel squeezes his eyes shut against Hikaru's shoulder and just clings to him, not sure what else he can do.
Two weeks later, Pavel goes over to Hikaru's house in the morning as usual and finds Hikaru sitting on the front steps, hugging his knees and looking terrified. He doesn't hop up to meet Pavel halfway down the front path as usual, and he doesn't have his pack ready for their day of collecting specimens for the Biology prize.
"What's wrong?" Pavel asks, freezing at the foot of the stairs, afraid to move. Hikaru gives him a wounded look and crosses his arms tightly over his chest.
"My parents had a big fight last night," he says. His voice is scratchy and his eyes are red-rimmed. "My mom hates it here. Someone said something to her at the market yesterday, and – and my sisters hate it here, too. We're the only – there's no one else like us here – people act like –" Hikaru rubs a hand over his face and sighs. He seems embarrassed. Pavel can't move. Something is about to go very wrong. He's felt it now for weeks.
"We're moving back to California," Hikaru says. His voice shakes as he says it. Pavel feels like he's been pushed over, but he's still standing. "They want to leave next week, so my sisters and I can start the school year over there. I – I'm going to be a senior, I can come back here for college, it'll be okay – Pavel, oh, please, God, don't cry."
Pavel does cry, almost nonstop for a week as he watches Hikaru's family pack their things into brown boxes, everything in Hikaru's room disappearing until only the glow-in-the-dark stars are left. Hikaru promises to write and call and visit and come back to the east coast for college. He spends his last night in Vermont in Pavel's bed, and he takes Pavel's virginity while they both cry, their bodies shaking with it. It hurts a little at first, but then it feels so good, which just makes Pavel cry harder, cling tighter. In the morning, Pavel's skin and sheets smell different, more like Hikaru, less like the boy Pavel used to be. Hikaru dresses in the blue light of dawn and kisses Pavel goodbye, and Pavel closes his whole body around the pillow that smells like Hikaru's hair as he listens to the moving van bump noisily over the end of the driveway across the street. For the rest of the summer, he sneaks into Hikaru's empty room every night and stares up at the fake stars, feeling dead, like a stuffed toy that tumbled out of a moving box and got left behind.
Twenty-four years later, Pavel moves back into his parents' house, into his childhood bedroom. His sister is now living in Pittsburgh with her third husband, and his father is dead. It's just Pavel and his mother. When she knows that Pavel doesn't have much longer, when he's struggling to keep down chicken broth and lift his head from his pillow, she finally shows him the five unopened letters that came from Hikaru twenty-four years ago. She knows now that Pavel is going to die of the thing she thought she could save him from when she hid the letters in a shoe box in her bedroom closet, and it's too late for apologies, so she doesn't offer any, just hands him the letters. Pavel tries to read them, but he's too weak to even hold them for very long, so his mother reads them to him, her voice trembling and breaking in places, and Pavel wishes she would have censored the parts where Hikaru begs Pavel to write back and wonders if Pavel hates him for what happened just before Hikaru left, that night that Pavel would close his eyes and remember desperately whenever some other man was inside him, but she doesn't censor anything.
"I drove to Utah last night," his mother reads when she reaches the bottom of the last letter, her voice strong again. She's determined to finish, to do this for him. "I got all the way to Salinia before I turned around. I know I would get there and you would just tell me to go. I know I screwed up. I thought you were crying because you didn't want me to leave, Pavel. I'm so stupid. I didn't know I hurt you that night. I must have. I'd never done it before either and it was stupid to even try. I thought I was being romantic by not talking, but I was just being horrible, thoughtless, a monster. I'll never forgive myself for it. I guess you won't, either. You know what I found the other day when I was packing for college? That list I made of all the plants we saw that summer. I guess you still have the list of birds. I hate the thought that they're not together. I sat there crying like an idiot because I didn't leave my half of the list with you, because you didn't win that calculator."
His mother takes a deep breath, and Pavel knows, like he knew when she read to him as a little boy, the blankets pulled up to his chin as he fought to keep his tired eyes open, that she's coming to the end now.
"I know now that I'll never see you again," she reads. "But I'll never stop thinking about you, and dreaming about us on our ship in your movie, space married. I miss you every time I see a bird, a wildflower, every time I see the stars. Every single day."