New Fic: Better Living Through Chemistry

[jackwabbit]

Better Living Through Chemistry

Fandom: Star Trek Discovery
Rated: G
Category: Vignette. Culmets. Angst. Romance. Humor.
Word Count: 993.
Season: Post-two, Pre-three. (Probably? Inter-season speculation.)
Spoilers: General Series Knowledge Through The End of Season Two.
Summary: Paul wakes up in sickbay after the jump. That’s it. That’s the summary.
Note: Paul’s POV in “Natural Remedy.” Also, the right drug, in the right amount, is a wonderful thing. You’re welcome, Paul.

Also, this is part of the "I Rang The Bell With My Heart In My Mouth" series, and stories in this series are presented as inspiration strikes, not chronologically. See notes above for timeframe/related stories.

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Paul came to slowly – several times.

At first, he was only aware of sounds. Quiet rustlings, subdued whispers, and occasional louder hums or mechanical beeps intruded on him – but they were all muted, like he was underwater.

So he ignored them, and they always went away.

Then there was the light, making him see red through his eyelids.

It usually faded to black again after only a second, so he ignored that, too.

But eventually, his ears and eyes ganged up on him, and he couldn’t tune out their input anymore. The muted voices became actual words, and his eyelids fluttered slightly open without his consent. And when his back decided to get in on the game by cramping enough to make him shift on the biobed, he knew it was all over.

He was awake.

And judging by the sounds around him, that wasn’t a secret.

He heard someone call for a doctor. The hums and beeps intensified. And then, one voice rung out above them all.

Paul’s eyes flew open. His gradual return to consciousness was accelerated. He felt like he was in the mycelial network, such was his disorientation.

Because that warm, caring baritone? Paul didn’t need confirmation to know that was Hugh’s voice.

But he had it. Because as soon as his eyes adjusted to the now-much-too-bright light in sickbay, there he was. Hugh was hovering over Paul, and the worried mother hen look on his face was so accurate that Paul thought maybe, just maybe, he was real after all. Paul stared at Hugh, completely overwhelmed.

But no, thought Paul. Hugh was on Enterprise, nearly a thousand years in the past.

Hugh wasn’t there. No matter what Paul’s traitorous brain had tried to tell him when he’d gone under.

Paul suddenly broke eye contact and his gaze flew around the room. Everything else seemed normal. Until… there – there it was. Something that was conspicuous in its absence. Paul had experimented with enough mind-altering substances through the years (both intentionally and not), that he knew to look for what he called his “deal breaker” when he was unsure of reality. And the fact that no one else was talking to Hugh? The fact Hugh was by his side but no one was interacting with him? It could be chance, but Paul didn’t believe that for a second. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath (which hurt a lot more than he expected it to, but he’d worry about that later), told himself to get it together, then opened his eyes again.

Hugh was still there.

Paul didn’t know how to process that information, so he just stared. He thought maybe he heard Hugh say his name, but he couldn’t be sure. He was dimly aware of a rapidly increasing beeping from somewhere nearby. But all he could do was stare.

He stared until Hugh’s head whipped around – and he spoke to someone else.

Paul didn’t move then, but his eyes grew wider and his mouth opened slightly.

A moment later, Hugh was gone. A nurse took his place, and Paul waited for the reality shift he knew was coming. Only it didn’t come. There was no sudden change in scenery. There was no groggy, actual awakening to replace this pretend one. There were no spores or wormholes or mycelial whiplash.

When the nurse spoke to him, asking the most mundane of questions, Paul finally found his voice. He mumbled the most basic answers he could, hoping it would be enough to make the nurse leave, but he wasn’t so lucky. The nurse continued to poke and prod and talk. Paul wasn’t really interested in what the nurse was saying, so he looked around the room again while they ran their tests.

And when he saw Tracy Pollard bodily drag Hugh into the doctor’s office, his deal breaker fell apart.

Hugh was interacting with other people and the environment. And Paul had seen Tracy bust Hugh’s chops enough through the  years to know that whatever was happening in that office was real.

Paul continued to watch the scene in the office unfold until Tracy once again moved Hugh. This time, she pushed him gently toward the sickbay doors. Just then, Paul’s nurse jabbed him with a frigid hypospray.

“Hey!” snapped Paul, giving them a glare. “What was that for?”

“Just a standard treatment. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

“Yeah,” mumbled Paul. “Sure.”

The nurse shrugged and leaned over to get an instrument off a nearby tray. As they did, Paul caught sight of Hugh again. He was standing by the sickbay door, looking back at Paul.

Their eyes met, and Hugh smiled. Paul felt his whole body go numb, and he stared at Hugh for a long moment before reacting. All he could manage was a tiny nod, and because the nurse blocked his view again nearly immediately afterward, he never saw if Hugh responded.

But that didn’t matter.

The only thing that mattered was that Hugh was there. Paul couldn’t quite understand why, but he didn’t care. Just like he didn’t care that he didn’t know exactly how he felt about that. Or what his next step might be. Or about much of anything, really. Paul realized suddenly that he was very sleepy. And that his chest didn’t hurt for the first time since he woke up.

Paul laid back and did his best to glare at his nurse, who was rearranging instruments on the mobile table next to his biobed. He only managed a sloppy half smile, and if someone had asked him, he probably wouldn’t have been able to state his own name.

But names weren’t important, either. He knew only two things just then.

One, that Hugh was really still aboard Discovery.

And two, that whatever had been in that hypospray was no “standard treatment.”

Even that knowledge was transient, though, because a moment later, per Dr. Pollard’s orders, he knew nothing at all.