New Fic: Softie

[jackwabbit]

Softie

Fandom: Star Trek Discovery
Rated: G
Category: Culmets. Fluff. Domestic Not-Quite-Bliss. Again I Regret Nothing. Might Be Crackfic. But Not Really? Paul is a Softie. So is Hugh But Paul Takes the Cake.
Word Count: 751.
Season: Three.
Spoilers: General Series Knowledge Only.
Summary: Michael is in a tight spot. So Paul helps her out. Much to Hugh’s chagrin.
Note: Written for a random word prompt of “sound.”

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Hugh cocked his head to one side and listened hard.

He couldn’t place the sound he was hearing, but he knew he wasn’t imagining it.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

Paul looked up from his plate, chewing on a bite of broccoli, and gave Hugh a blank look.

“Hear what?”

Hugh waited for the noise to repeat, then turned his head toward their bathroom.

“That,” he said, suddenly narrowing his eyes at the bathroom door. The closed bathroom door.

He stared at the door for a moment, then his eyes slid slowly over to Paul, who stabbed another piece of broccoli and shoveled it into his mouth.

“Paul?”

“Hmm?”

“Why is the bathroom door shut?”

Paul shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You never shut the door if you’re not in there, and I’ve been home all of ten minutes. I didn’t shut it.”

“Oh?” Paul asked, entirely too innocent.

Hugh gave him a look, then got up slowly and walked toward the bathroom.

“Hugh…” muttered Paul.

Again with the look from Hugh, and Paul shrugged.

“Whatever you find in there, just remember you love me?”

Hugh sighed and pulled open the door – only to be met by a large, furry ball of energy that knocked him to the floor.

“Paul!”

“Easy,” said Paul, pulling the furball off of Hugh. “Sorry. She’s just excited to see you.”

“She?”

“Yes. Hugh, meet Stella.”

Hugh glared up at Paul from the floor as Paul attempted to control the beast. “Stella?”

“Not my idea!” said Paul waving his hand in front of his body in innocence. “No. Tilly named her.”

“I don’t care who named her, Paul, what is she doing here?”

Paul grinned as he threw a knotted-up sock across the room. Stella charged after it in bounding leaps as he answered. “Well, see, Michael needed a place to keep her and it turns out Tilly’s allergic, and…”

“And a containment bay wasn’t good enough?”

Paul looked affronted as Stella charged back toward him with her sock prize. Paul grabbed the dangling end of the sock and started a game of tug-of-war with Stella as Hugh climbed to his feet.

As he tugged on his end of the sock, Paul shouted over his shoulder at Hugh. “She’s just a baby! She needs stimulation and room to move and grow! I’m not putting her in a box!”

“Paul! She’s a sehlat!”

Paul let go of the sock and looked at Hugh like he was a simpleton.

“And?”

“And what do you propose we do with a sehlat on a starship?”

“It’s not like we’re going to keep her,” said Paul, as if that was a given, though to Hugh, who was used to Paul tending wayward or ailing fungi like children, it very much was not something he’d assumed. “It’s just until we rendezvous with Book. Michael found Stella near a crashed transport ship on that last planet we scouted, and she’s tame, so she took her in until she can get her to Book for rehoming.”

Hugh stared at his husband for a moment, then shook his head in resignation.

“And I suppose, since Tilly’s allergic and all, you volunteered to keep her here until then.”

Paul shrugged. “Well, I mean…we have talked about getting a pet…”

“A cat, Paul. We talked about getting a cat. Or fish. Not a sehlat.”

“But… did I mention she’s a baby?”

Hugh sighed, and Stella took that moment to drop her sock toy at Hugh’s feet. Hugh looked down, then back up at Paul.

“Is that my sock?”

Paul grinned sheepishly.

“Yes?”

Hugh sighed again, then slowly bent down and picked up his sodden sock.

After a moment, he tossed it across the room. Stella went running after it, and Hugh kissed Paul lightly on the cheek.

“It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” he muttered.

Then he stepped past Paul and into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him.

“So, she can stay?” asked Paul.

Hugh’s head popped back out of the door.

“Only until we meet up with Book. And no more of my socks.”

Then the door snapped shut again, leaving Paul grinning like an idiot.

And unlike most parents who agree to a pet, Hugh made sure both of those stipulations were kept. Stella stayed with Paul and Hugh for only a week, and Paul only let Stella play with his things from then on.

But as for Hugh’s other, later rules, such as no sehlats in bed, well, they never stood a chance.

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A/N: This one is all Rick Moyer’s fault, because of his song “Think Like a Vulcan,” which contains the lyric “go home and pet our sehlat on the deck, and watch volcanoes with multiple sunsets.” And if you don’t know what a sehlat is (no shame there), do a google. Good times. Oh! And google Rick, too. He’s wonderful!