Originally posted 9/10/08This story was written for the Fourth Annual Beach Bash at Terra Firma. Somehow the concepts of critters and creature features lead the muses to this piece of fluff. Many thanks to imloco2, shipsister, and MadScientist for light betaing and to Auna and Crash for a drive by. The hardest thing about this one was coming up with the title, and it probably still isn't the best, but I guess that's the way it goes....
Rating: G
Setting: about 5 cycles after PKW
Spoilers: Not much
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, no money being made....
I hope this brings a smile!
The Problem with Puffits
It was well into night cycle on Moya, and John Crichton was fast asleep. Gradually a sound oozed its way into the dim recesses of his mind, demanding his attention.
"Mommy!"
In the depths of dreamland, John tried to ignore it, but the sound came again, with more urgency.
"Mom-my!"
Groaning, he crawled to consciousness. After blinking in the dark for a few microts, during which the call was repeated, he poked his wife. "D wants you, babe."
Aeryn turned her head to face him. "We had an agreement," she said flatly. "I do the baby, you do D'Argo."
Yeah, well, that was when he'd figured that D'Argo, at age 5, wasn't going to be yelling for him in the middle of the night. If he'd been more awake, he probably wouldn't have taken his life in his hands, but as it was, he tried to reason with her. "Yeah, but he's calling for
you."
Aeryn shot him a look that was just shy of lethal, and rolled over without a word.
Counting himself lucky that he hadn't gotten a pantak jab for his troubles, John sighed loudly and got out of bed. He contemplated putting on a shirt, but settled for adjusting the drawstring on his pajama bottoms, and headed down the corridor for D'Argo's room. Apparently Pilot had also noted the noise their firstborn was making, because John was accompanied by the whirring sound and bobbing headlights of a couple DRDs.
He stubbed his toe just as he reached D's grillwork door. He hissed sharply, more annoyed than hurt, and rubbed his toe for a microt before he pulled the door open and tugged back the curtain. Putting on his best cheerful face despite having been dragged from his bed, he peered into the room. "Hey, sport, what's up?"
D was huddled in the middle of his rumpled bed, knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. He didn't look particularly happy to see his father. "I want Mommy!"
"Well, you got me, D!" John snapped. "So either tell me what's up, or I'm goin' back to bed."
The boy thought about it for a microt, and then inhaled. "There'samonsterundermybed!"
It took John's sleep-fuddled brain a moment to separate the words.
Is that all? he thought when he finally had it sorted out.
Okay, how had his dad handled monsters under the bed or in the closet? "Monster, huh?" he said matter-of-factly to his son.
D'Argo nodded vigorously.
Okay.... "Pilot, can I have lights at 20 in D's room?" When the lights came up some, he glanced around the room looking for something to "arm" himself with, and then strode over to D's toy shelf and picked up a handmade wooden baseball bat. He pointed his free hand at his son. "Okay, you stay where you are and let me look."
With D watching his every movement, John hefted the solid bat and made a show of drawing up the covers that were hanging down to the floor. Almost enjoying himself, he bent down and looked under the bed....to find three eyes staring at him from the shadows, reflecting red in the dim nighttime light. "What the—" He told himself it was a DRD and looked again into the dark recess under the bed. His heart was pounding as he concluded that it wasn't yellow, it wasn't mechanical, and it
was furry. Aw, frell. Whatever it was, it
wasn't one of Moya's little helpers. As he watched, something – hand, tongue, foot, who knew? – darted towards him.
John yelped in surprise. Without thinking at all, he jumped up on the bed with D'Argo. "Get behind me!" he hissed. When D complied and scrambled safely behind him, John took a huge breath and bellowed, "Aeryn!!!"
* * * * * * * *
Aeryn skidded into the room, pulse pistol at the ready. At first glance, nothing appeared to be wrong – except that John, bat in hand, was in the middle of D'Argo's bed with the child behind him, obviously keeping his body between their son and some unseen danger. She frowned, and looked at John in question.
"Under the bed," he said softly, nodding towards the floor.
"Under the bed."
"Yes," he repeated, a touch of irritation in his voice. "Under the bed."
Her frown deepened, and she walked forward, boots clanking on the deck. She squatted down and used her pulse pistol to lift the covers that had slid unevenly off the top of the bed. She bent down and peered under the bed.
"Frell!" she announced in disgust. "Out!" she snapped at the creature that had taken up residence beneath her son's bed. She had no doubt it recognized her weapon for what it was, and it gave a slight hiccup, before it bounced and rolled out into the center of the room.
John looked at the round ball of striped gray fur. It had three eyes set in a triangle with its apex pointing up, and it had tiny arms and a hint of a tail, too, if you knew where to look, which John obviously didn't. He stared at it wide-eyed and without looking up at her asked, "You know what that is?"
"It's a puffit," she told him as the frelling thing turned all three nervous eyes on her. She kept her pulse pistol in her hand to prevent the puffit from running. "I haven't seen one for cycles," she allowed, and for D'Argo's benefit, she added, "It's not dangerous. It must have gotten aboard our transport pod on our last supply run and then rolled off when we arrived back on Moya."
"You're telling me it followed us home?"
"More like it followed our food."
John observed the puffit curiously for a few more microts, while D'Argo, fear abated, climbed around him and onto his lap to have a better view of the creature. "What does it do, Mommy?" D'Argo asked.
"Do? It rolls," she said, shaking her head, and wondering whether there might be more of them on board somewhere. She sighed. "And it eats. We're going to have to check all our supplies to make sure they haven't been devoured or fouled." This single creature was going to cause a lot of work!
"You say it's not dangerous?" John asked with a tone in his voice that made her instantly suspicious.
"It sheds worse than Jool," she told him, watching with a sinking feeling as D'Argo abandoned his father's lap to climb down on the floor next to the puffit. The creature rolled back slightly so it could observe D'Argo.
John cleared his throat, and Aeryn looked up to see him watching her with that assessing look in his eye, the one that said he was going to try to talk her into something. "Can it be house trained?" he asked.
"Trained?"
"You know. Can you teach it where to do its duty?" He mimed what she finally realized was a cat, scratching in a litter box.
For the love of Cholok! He was serious! "John," she said, trying one more time to get him to see how much of a nuisance the creature was. "It contributes nothing of value! We will have to watch it all the time to make sure it's not eating our stores. The DRDs will have to clean up its fur continuously!"
"D and I will take care of it, won't we D?"
D'Argo agreed earnestly: "Yep, me and Dad will take care of it, Mom, we will!"
Aeryn looked down at her son and saw that she'd already lost the argument. D'Argo was holding the puffit in his lap, petting it gently. The frelling creature was purring, just like an earth cat, and D'Argo's eyes were shining with delight. Frell. She hadn't known they did that. She looked back at John. "You'd better," she told him grudgingly.
"We will."
She sighed and holstered her pulse pistol. "It's the middle of the night. I'm going back to bed before the baby needs me. Find it a place to sleep," she directed, and turned her back. She stalked towards her room, listening to the excited talk from her son's room behind her. She shuddered and called sharply, "Not on your bed, D'Argo!"
"I'm on it, Aeryn," John yelled back.
Fine. Just fine. It wasn't enough that she had a husband and two small children. Now they had a puffit on board the ship. How had her life come to this?
Back in her own room, she pulled off her boots, stuck her pulse pistol under her pillow, and climbed back into bed. As she dropped back into sleep, her mind replayed the picture of the stowaway fur ball sitting in D'Argo's lap, purring. She smiled. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all....
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