When Hugh had invited Paul out to his favourite club, he admittedly had planned on asking Paul to come back to his place. But not so much in the way they had.
Hugh met Paul a few weeks before, in a café on Alpha Centauri, he'd been humming along to Kasseelian Opera which as it turned out, wasn't to Paul's tastes. A fact Paul made perfectly clear, by telling him to shut up or move. So, Hugh moved. To sit right next to the man telling him, quite rudely, to shut up. Partly it was an act of defiance, then after getting a look at the stranger, he wanted to know more about him. This strange, rude, yet hot guy who tells strangers to shut up.
Hugh should have known something would go wrong tonight, they'd been going wrong all week. First his phone cut off while he was negotiating a Semester on a Star Base, and when he finally got back through he was denied. Wednesday the power in his building tripped while he was asleep, knocking out his alarm clock – he really needed to buy a battery back-up one – so he was late for his shift in Sick Bay. Finally, today after his shift in the Junior Fleet Academy Sick-Bay a kid threw-up on his shoes as he was leaving. He knew the kid couldn't help it, but he'd changed out of his work shoes and he wasn't supposed to wear those outside unless strictly necessary. This, in addition made him late for his date with Paul.
He did manage to catch one break though, Paul was running late also due to an incident in the lab, so no harm done there. Just his poor shoes.
When they arrived at the club the look on Paul's face told him this wasn't somewhere the scientist would normally spend his time, but they had each agreed to do things that were out of their comfort-zone together. Clubs were something Paul disliked. The music pounded in his ears as they approached the bar and Hugh got them drinks. It appeared he knew most of the people working and some other people who greeted him warmly at the bar.
Paul drank his drink, his face betraying what his taste buds thought of the too sweet concoction. They drank their drinks, Paul slower than Hugh, put the empty glasses on the bar before Hugh pulled Paul onto the crowded dancefloor. Paul didn't hate crowds per say, but something about a large crowd of sweaty drunk people in his personal space didn't appeal to him. But for Hugh, he sucked it up for a while, excusing himself to the bathroom when it became too much. Hugh returned to the bar. He was worried that this was too far out of Paul's comfort-zone.
Lionel, his friend from behind the bar caught his eye, poured him a drink and asked him what was up. "Coming here was probably a mistake," Hugh shouted over the music, "I don't think he's into this place," he clarified.
"Then you gotta give him a reason to enjoy himself," he said, wiggling his eyebrows and pouring shots for the customer beside Hugh.
"Screwing in the bathroom is something neither of us are into," Hugh replied, rolling his eyes.
"Not saying you have to screw here, put some moves on him, turn the night around and take him home."
"It'd have to be a damn good move to improve the night we're having," Hugh challenged.
Lionel leaned over the bar, resting his chin on his fingers, and said with complete sincerity: "Boo, you need the Bend and Snap."
Hugh rolled his eyes, "do I even want to ask?"
"It's a move my mother taught me in Junior High and in my experience has a 98% success rate of getting a man's attention, and, when used appropriately, it has an 83% return on a dinner invitation," Lionel leaned in and explained. Hopping over the bar he stepped beside Hugh, wrapped a hand around his wrist and dragged him to the supply room.
"Lionel," Hugh protested.
"Please he went out for air, you've seen the bathrooms at this point on a Friday, now, watch," Lionel demonstrated the move, bending over gracefully and snapping back into an upright position. "Now you," Hugh rolled his eyes and gave a half-hearted attempt. "If you're not going to take this seriously I can take my teaching else-where."
Hugh held up his hands in surrender, Lionel was trying to help him. He tried again, seriously, attempting to remember what Lionel had done. They practised a few more times before Lionel declared him ready. "OK, so all you have to do is drop something and go for it." Lionel pushed him back out into the crowd, picking up some new Jack Daniels bottles so it looked like he was restocking and followed him back to the bar.
Paul was there waiting, Hugh told him Lionel needed someone to push ahead in the crowd with the new bottles and the bar was too busy for anyone else to go with him. Whether Paul believed him or not remained unclear. Hugh slipped his hand into Paul's and rubbed the back of his hand with his thumb. They bought more drinks, Paul chose something he thought he'd enjoy better this time and stood near the bar, in a quieter corner. As they talked quietly, their night improving slightly, Hugh could see Lionel watching them from behind Paul at the bar. Lionel continually tried catching Hugh's eye, Hugh mostly ignored him. On the times he did look he could see Lionel mouthing the words 'BEND AND SNAP' looking more irritated each time he was ignored. He looked from Lionel, to Paul and back, Paul looked bored, Hugh had to kick it up a notch if he wanted to save this night. Swallowing his pride Hugh let the stirrer from his drink slip through his fingers.
Sheepishly he bent down to pick it up before snapping, his head colliding with something painfully on the way back up. Looking around he saw Paul, cradling his face, drops of blood seeping through his fingers. "Oh fuck," he cursed, "Paul, I'm so sorry, shit," Hugh panicked, Paul's eyes were watering, and he didn't look amused. "Let's get outside, I can transport us back to my dorm," he said, he had a pretty good first-aid kit, hopefully he could patch Paul up with no need to go to Sick-Bay and explain anything. Outside Hugh engaged his personal transporter, it could take him and up to three people to a pre-programed location. Hugh's had his dorm and work programmed in, and only really used it when he was running late. "Here, sit down while I get my first-aid kit," Hugh said pulling out a chair at the table. As a third year Hugh shared an apartment with some other people on the medical track. They were all on shifts or out at the moment, so he could tend to Paul privately.
Setting the kit on the table he tentatively moved Paul's fingers away, swearing silently, he could tell what the damage was right away, he'd broken Paul's nose. "I'm so sorry," he said.
"Hugh, calm down, it was an accident," Paul assured him.
"I know, but I still did this, I'm gonna have to reset it," he declared after checking it over. "You want a pain hypo?" Paul nodded, he heard the hiss and felt it pierce his skin. He closed his eyes as Hugh pulled on some gloves and gave him some tissues to catch the blood before it got to his shirt. "OK, on three, one, two-"
"Ah fuck!" Paul pulled his face away from Hugh.
"Sorry, they say it hurts less if it's a surprise."
"Well I've never had it done before, but I can say that hurt like hell," he said, mopping up some blood. "How come you stood so quickly anyway?"
Hugh blushed as he worked on Paul's nose, "it's stupid, I was trying a move Lionel taught me. He called it the Bend and Snap."
"You broke my nose doing a Bend and Snap?" Paul asked in disbelief and certainly less impressed.
"You've heard of it?"
"Hugh, it's from a movie made over 200 years ago. Hugely popular, how don't you know it?"
"I was never really into movies," Hugh shrugged, feeling even more foolish. "OK, you're all patched up, you'll need half an hour with the regenerator to clear up the bruising though. I have a mini in my room, come on." Paul laid on Hugh's bed, the regenerator in place. "Do you want your phone to listen to anything, I know you don't like most of my music."
"No, it's fine, that movie's on my Netflix list if you're curious, if you put it on now I can join you around the all-important scene," Paul teased him.
"You know what? What the hell, why not."
A while later, Paul took the regenerator off as he heard the scene begin, his face was still a little tender, but the bruising was gone. He sat up beside Hugh who was watching it, PADD in his hands, leaning closer to him to enjoy the film and his company.
…Years later…
After Hugh had broken Paul's nose the Bend and Snap had become an inside joke for the pair of them. Whenever one of them did the move jokingly the other would snap his gaze in their direction, to fill in the joke. After Hugh had died Paul couldn't bring himself to even watch the movie that used to bring him so much joy. Once Hugh had been resurrected he still couldn't find it in him to watch it without him.
Paul was in the Spore Drive working on putting it back together after Control had taken over Airiam. Tilly and Jett were under the flooring, as they could fit better down there once everything had been put back and their arms were more slender and able to reach into places without knocking the delicate machinery. [Also, if something down there connected to and shocked his arm-ports once more he was going to scream].
The doors opened, and Hugh came in, going over to an engineer with a mini-regenerator to fix his broken-looking fingers. Without thinking Paul bent down to pick up the next piece of circuitry and snapped back up gracefully. Hugh's face snapped in his direction autonomously and their eyes met. Neither spoke, both too stunned to do so.
In the floorboards Tilly looked to Jett. "The Bend and Snap; works every time," Jett spoke softly, shaking her head in disbelief, while Tilly mouthed the word 'wow' several times to herself.