defies_reason | ⚔ i thought we might have a little chat.

[At the moment, Chekov's thoughts keep contradicting themselves. Nothing has changed and everything has changed since, prior to now, he was happy enough to turn a blind eye to anything about Isaak that made him uncomfortable. Stupid, yes, but denial has worked well for him in the City. Trouble only arises when he starts questioning things. Does it matter if Isaak's morals are very different from Chekov's? It didn't until he was given confirmation (however vague) that they are. And where did this feeling of betrayal come from? It's not as if Isaak has ever lied to him.

He sits in the indicated seat and attempts to keep his thoughts and emotions in check. Isaak, as usual, seems untroubled, but his somewhat withdrawn air doesn't go unnoticed.]

I am not sure what I came here to say.

[At least it's honest. Chekov picks up the glass closest to him, more for the sake of occupying himself with something than out of a desire to drink.]

That's all right.

[And it is. Isaak is in no hurry. He sets his notebook aside and leans back in his chair, hands loosely clasped and resting just at th edge of his desk. For any of a thousand reasons, Isaak is not the fatherly sort; but, he thinks, if he were, he would feel like this about it, about the necessity of making choices, of reconciling truths. He would want to lay out all the options and all the viewpoints and leave the decision to be made. That is what is more important in his eyes-- not that his son should share his views, but that he should be capable of choosing and accepting and living with his own.

He has no idea why this thought strays across his mind; Pavel Andreievich is his friend, not his son. (And yet the comparison seems a natural one.)]

If you have questions, I will answer them.

[There's a stretch of silence while Chekov tries to come up with questions that he actually wants the answers to. There aren't many, and yet he wants to know everything. Honesty is important to him, even when it is unpleasant.

Thinking turns into fidgeting which turns into the boy downing the provided vodka because it's there and he doesn't like doing nothing. Isaak doesn't seem to mind it. He could likely wait for hours while Chekov fidgeted in silence in an attempt to find words. But neither of them want that.

May as well go for the ones that don't involve body counts first.]

Why do you never tell me anything about you? Is everything so horrible?

[It is, somehow, not the question he was expecting. Too broad; Pavel's curiosity generally tends to more specifics. What and where and why. Isaak respects that; even when it is an overwhelming focus, he tends to look on it fondly.

There's an uncertainty to this question, though; there is something that strikes him as childish, and that really is all too appropriate. For all that he strives to treat Chekov as an equal, he does not forget how young the other man is, and how young men are. Headstrong and reckless and prone to teetering on the edge when grand plans go awry. He won't apologise for it. That is not in Isaak's nature. The nature of what he did has been unspoken, but he's never really considered it a secret. Still. Pavel has a right to his disappointment.]

Some of it is horrible, [he acknowledges evenly, because it would not be fair to claim otherwise.] But mainly, the things I do not tell you are things I do not find relevant. I've told you more about Viktor-- about losing him-- [and there's a pause, a blink and you might miss it kind of unsteadiness there, as there always is,] than I've told anyone here. My work... that was a means, not an end.

[Chekov feels a bit childish, coming here with nothing but indignation and cautious curiosity and utterly failing to ask about what he really wants to know. He doesn't usually want for directness. Then again, he doesn't usually fear the full truth, either.

But then Isaak mentions Viktor and Chekov's accusation (even if it wasn't meant to be accusative at the time) feels unfair. The boy never stopped to think that Isaak was already revealing more of himself to him than to anyone else. That's not the way things go; Pavel is never the close confidant who is entrusted with the secret stories of others. That revelation turns this conversation on its head. Surely Isaak, who likely had Chekov's moral alignment figured out from the first time they spoke and reveals so little about himself, wouldn't confide in someone who would be incapable of stomaching whatever truths might come to the surface.]

Everything is relevant. [He's still apprehensive, but this is someone who trusts him. He must be open to anything that Isaak is willing to tell him.] If work was not the end, what is?

[He considers that question with a soft hum, leaning back in his chair. He's not stalling. Isaak is usually honest; at least, more often than not, and when he must lie he keeps as close to the truth as he can. But having promised honesty, he intends to deliver fully, and in this case that requires some contemplation.]

Life itself is an end, sometimes. It's simple enough, and pleasingly neat, to imagine that anyone who leads a criminal life does so because of some inherent malevolence in their character, but I don't believe that is true. I became involved because, at the time, it suited my talents, and offered the greatest reward.

[He takes a sip of his drink, collected once again, his gaze never straying from the young man's face. That often unnerves people; Isaak believes it unnerves people because most people look away when they lie, or when they tell difficult truths.]

Those who have always lead a comfortable life have the luxury of being surprised at the things others will do to attain one for themselves.

[This is all very novel for Chekov, who has not given a great deal of thought to the motivations of the Bad Guys. Nero was destroying planets, he was bad, end of story. The Khan incident was not so black and white when Khan assisted them and Admiral Marcus attempted to destroy the Enterprise, but, ultimately, good and evil were relatively well-defined. That decent people choose to live unsavory lives because that is the best choice for them... what kind of sense does that make?]

The reward was enough to encourage you to kill?

[Chekov maintains eye contact, laser-focused, until Isaak mentions comfortable lives. He has never felt guilty for having the life he has; it wasn't full of wealth or free of sorrow and difficulty, but it was never necessary for him to do anything he found morally questionable.

He doesn't have a response for that.]

[He can't help a short, humorless laugh at that.]

They save assassinating innocents for your second week,

[He says softly, wryly enough that it ought to be clear it's joke. Inappropriate, to be sure, but not without its point.]

In general, I have no call to harm people who aren't doing their best to harm me. Nor do I make a habit of wasting tears over those who are.

[In general. He won't claim total innocence-- lying never provides a permanent advantage, least of all when he's laying his history bare-- but he will slant the conversation. And, he thinks, it's not unjust. Isaak could have chosen a more virtuous path, but he lacked a compelling reason; by the time his tasks became truly objectionable-- anything beyond defense and intimidation-- he was already deep enough into it that leaving would have been a greater risk, and the rewards only increased.]

Of course.

[It is not funny, but Chekov did bring that upon himself. Unfortunately, he's much too busy thinking right now to so much as smile.]

Then it is a matter of survival, and of protecting your interests. [This is something he can put into a context that he understands.] The same as Starfleet. It's similar to the Enterprise destroying an enemy ship that is threatening Earth and not regretting the lives lost.

[And it's in that moment that Chekov realizes how many people die when enemy vessels are destroyed. When he's manning tactical and firing, he's not just aiming for the psychotic villain who wants to destroy everything in his path; he's also aiming for the people serving under him. What are their motivations?

Hold on, Isaak. Crisis of morality.]

[And that, Pashen'ka, is why he speaks to you of strategy with such authority, such experience. Isaak's is not the only business with a concept of collateral damage.]

I would not say it is the same, but.

[There is a gentleness to that; not sadness nor regret, because Isaak has lived long enough with his choices to accept them. It would have been better, perhaps, if it had never come to this.]

Every man does what he feels he must.

Similar enough. Starfleet is more... dogmatic, I think, than individuals.

[Which, oddly enough, is something that he has been aware of for some time. He just hadn't bothered questioning Starfleet's agenda until Khan, and even then it seemed as though Starfleet was in the right. Chekov is very still for several moments.]

I have never felt that I must murder people who are following orders much the same as I am, but I have, and I've been praised for that. Not murder the way that some do--close, where you can see faces--but killing from a distance, where there are no faces, only a hostile vessel on a viewscreen. I understand that there are differences. Ultimately, though, I think I have killed... hundreds, thousands of people, or assisted in their deaths.

[He isn't going to break down over it. It's his job; he takes orders. He works for the organization that best serves his needs, and this is something that he is going to have to think about. Out loud, even.]

Then what is the difference between a hero and a murderer? Vantage point?

Vantage point is a lot of it. Every hero must be a villain to his enemy, after all.

[Isaak takes another slow sip of his drink, considering.]

Most men, I expect, are neither. But once one begins to make such choices, to do things that are unpardonable, or are pardonable only because of the cause they serve, it becomes much less clear cut. I think I am a better man than some of my fellows because I provide for the families of the men who serve beneath me, because the clubs I own treat their women better than the ones in Saudi Arabia do. [He gives a small, wry smile.] But perhaps those are only the motes in others' eyes.

[Isaak is so calm about this. But of course he is; unlike Chekov, he doesn't have some lofty sense of duty or righteousness blinding him to the facts of his business. Frankly, Chekov wouldn't mind going back to blind devotion to the Federation. If he remembers any of this once he's home, opening fire on an enemy vessel is going to come with a good deal of moral complexity.]

And so there are no heroes or villains, only actions that are justifiable in some way, to someone, and actions that are not.

I think that you must be a decent man. [It's a gut conviction. The boy's beyond being able to look at Isaak and his actions objectively.]

[They've spoken about the price of command; there is a price, too, to serving someone else. Blind devotion is by far the easiest route, and the price then is often paid after. Regret. Retaliation. Isaak is of the opinion that it's a weak defense to claim one was simply following orders; ignorance does not make innocence. A man-- be he a good man as Pavel Andreievich is, or a decent man as Pavel believes Isaak to be, or (most simply) a man who wants to be able to meet his own eye in the mirror-- must accept that he is acting, must weigh his actions against his conscience, or at the least against the consequences.

Ideals, too, have a place in this. A man may fight and kill to protect his ideals as surely as he does so to protect himself. But a good soldier does not lie to himself about what he does. Whether a good man can be a good soldier is a question Isaak does not feel qualified to answer; and, strangely, one he is reluctant to delve into too deeply. He hopes the answer is yes.]

Your word on the matter means more to me than most.

[That is diplomatic, as to try and claim clean hands is surely beyond him, and Isaak of all people knows his own biases. But Pavel is a good man at heart, and a friend's word is better than a stranger's.]

[These are all things that aren't covered at the Academy. Simulated scenarios remove the human element--the emotions, the knowledge that there are actual lives at stake on both sides. There are no classes dealing with the conscience. If anything, Starfleet subtly encourages a suppression of the conscience in battle.

But Pavel will find a way to balance conscience and idealism with reality. He's off to a good start.]

Because you trust me, or because it is important to you that I think so?

[There's a teasing smile that renders an answer unnecessary, if Isaak doesn't care to comment.]

This is more than an academic matter to you. You've a moral position already, but you're willing to consider other points of view. [He tilts his head very slightly.] That is rarer than you might imagine, and I respect it.

[And Isaak is at the least a good enough man that he'd rather a good man think well of him than the alternative. And he likes Chekov. That is perhaps a more arbitrary reason, but not untrue.]

[This isn't an answer, precisely, but it is a compliment. Compliments from Isaak are important because Pavel knows he wouldn't give one insincerely (at least not to him). That Isaak respects some part of his personality is even better.]

As are you. I think that our general opinions on morality aren't as different as I believed them to be.

[It's odd how fleeting his earlier sense of betrayal and disappointment was, and he's aware of that. Isaak has turned what Pavel thought he knew about good and evil on its head and, strangely enough, the new perspective is more in line with what Chekov has believed for some time now than what he would have claimed to know.]

I aspire to be as wise as you are someday.

[It's only not a direct answer because the question isn't relevant. This has never been, for Isaak, a matter of trust. To say that Isaak trusts Chekov is axiomatic; this conversation would not have come so far if he did not. Granted, that is in part because Chekov wears his ideals like his uniform, and because he has little aptitude for deception. (Isaak, on the other hand, has a great aptitude for seeing through deception, so that as all things are relative.)]

It doesn't come easily, [he says simply, which of course must also be evident by now. Still, there is nothing rueful about that; it is a fact, and true of all wisdom. He sips his drink.]

I'm glad I've not wholly disappointed you.

[That sounds like a joke, and it is. It also isn't. He'd understand and accept it if Chekov never spoke to him again, but he'd be displeased.]

I think that, if I had expected to be wholly disappointed, I would not have come here.

[It's true; if he hadn't been convinced that Isaak is a decent person, past actions aside, he would have been unable to inquire further. He's still rather solemn and thoughtful as he attempts to recalibrate his moral code to fit Isaak's conduct.]

Hmmn.

[So, in a sense, the decision was made in advance of the justification.

(Though also, of course, it was not.)]

Well, I'm pleased that you did.

Maybe not so pleased as I am.

[He's trying to figure this out--why it's so important to him that Isaak remain a man to trust and admire when he has done many things that Pavel would find appalling.]

Isya. [Testing the informality. It sounds right.] I have told you more about what troubles me than anyone else, in any universe. I cannot say why, but I'm glad that you have listened.

[While it is Isaak's opinion that advice exists independently of its giver-- that good advice can come from bad sources-- there is a certain faith one wants to have in one's confidante.]

I've enjoyed our talks, Pasha.

⚔ i thought we might have a little chat.

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