#star trek bones imagines
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Read the pinned post and I'm so glad you're still taking requests for Star Trek!! I was wondering if you could do something for Bones with loads of banter and friends to lovers? Like they work together on the enterprise and are super close. They're always flirting and making fun of eachother, etc until one day R gets hurt and they both confess. I'm a sucker for sick fics/hurt comfort.
'Stay Safe' - leonard 'bones' mccoy
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There’s never a dull moment when you’re up amongst the stars.
At times like this, when everything is going south, it’s important to remember that you signed up for this. You were the one who decided that a simple life back on your home planet was too boring for you. You were the one who chose to put yourself through the most rigorous courses you could find in Starfleet Academy. You were the one who somehow thought that pestering Jim Kirk (that’s Captain to you) to let you onto the Enterprise would be the best possible career plan.
And now you’re the one finding yourself hurled into danger for what feels like the dozenth time this week. At least you’re not twiddling your thumbs, hoping for something to do, but at least boredom doesn’t get you killed. At this rate, with Jim’s latest half-mad plan to get you all out of the latest crisis, you have no idea if you can say that about your position on the Enterprise.
The Enterprise’s latest incident is going to take place in a few hours. There’s been a situation on a backwater planet where an escape pod from an imploding shuttle was accidentally stranded without any chance of rescue. Unfortunately, the travelers in the pod managed to crash land on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, so they’ve been forced to stay inside their pod lest they breathe in the poisonous gas. They’ve only got a short while before their life support systems give out, which is why it’s time for the Enterprise to step in.
The only problem is that this planet is way more hostile than original scans made it out to be. What was meant to be a one man mission has quickly unraveled into a far more complex plan. More crew members will have to be sent down, and you’ll need contact with the ship so you can quickly beam everyone up before they get hurt.
You suppose you shouldn’t be surprised to receive a summons to the bridge. You’ve known Jim for a while now, and in turn he knows that he can rely on you in dangerous times such as these. You’ve more than proven yourself capable of handling extreme pressure and risks, so your caution and quick thinking pay off by plunging you back in danger again.
Jim wants a group to travel down to the surface and retrieve the pod with its survivors. You’ll go along with Sulu, Uhura, and your captain, as all of you work well together and can handle tough situations like this. Jim gave you the option to stay back on the Enterprise, of course, he’d never force you into something as perilous as this, but this won’t be the first time that you’ve risked your life to save innocent lives, and it certainly won’t be the last.
Jim had known that, but he’d still smiled with obvious relief when you agreed to take part in the mission. “Glad to have you with us,” he’d said, clapping you on the shoulder, “Now, we’ve got to get moving, and fast. You’ll have to swing by the med wing to get cleared for surface interaction. Meet us back here as soon as you can so we can finish going over details before we head out. And thanks again, Y/N.”
You’d waved off his gratitude with an easy smile. This is what you do best, after all. You accept the risks and you take the challenges. All in a day’s work. Still, the more difficult part has yet to come. This planet’s atmosphere is no joke. Even a few minutes of unadulterated skin contact on the surface of that planet could burn away your skin. That’s why you’ll need to head over to the medical wing so they can decide you’re in good enough condition to risk it, as well as give you necessary supplements to provide some protection against the acidity of the atmosphere. Besides, it’ll give you a chance to catch up with a friend, and you’ve never turned that down, either.
Your footsteps are quick as you hurry out of the bridge and down the sprawling corridors towards the medical wing. It’s as busy as ever, with blue-shirted figures darting in and out wherever you look. Still, in all of their chaos and yours, you manage to locate the one man you’re here to see in record time.
Doctor Leonard McCoy, known to some as the most intimidating medical professional on the Enterprise and to his friends as Bones, has just finished sending one patient on their way when he’s confronted with the sight of another one. Unlike most of the invalids to cross his path, though, Bones doesn’t greet you with an unhappy harrumph, nor even a sarcastic comment about what you did to land yourself in the med wing. Instead, he almost smiles.
“Y/N. Good to see you. I don’t suppose you’re here to help out or do something nice for me?” He says dryly.
You grin. “Afraid not, Bones. I need a favor.”
He arches a dark brow, crossing the room to replenish a container of syringes. “What favor? If it’s anything more than verbal, you’re going to have to join the patient waitlist.”
You wince. “See, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. I need you to clear me for contact with the planet. ASAP.”
Bones actually stops moving for once in his life just so he can stare incredulously at you. “Are you out of your mind? I thought Jim declared any activity on that planet to be a risk to life and resources.”
“He did,” you admit, “but that’s why I’m joining the party. The more the merrier, apparently. Uhura says she wants someone down there with functioning critical thinking skills so she can balance out Jim. We’ll be fine so long as we stick together, but I need you to clear me first.”
Bones folds his arms across his chest. “So all I have to do to stop you from going into a trap this big is to just refuse to check your condition? Done.”
You pull a face. “Bones, I’m not kidding. We have to do this.”
“Neither am I,” he fires back. “This is a stupid move and Jim knows that. I’m not letting him lose half the superior officers of this ship all at once. You’re all going to get yourselves killed. Hate me if you want, sweetheart, but I’m keeping you alive. That’s what the medical officer is supposed to do, by the way, in case you forgot.”
You sigh. “I appreciate you looking out for me, but we have to do this, you know that. Besides, if you won’t clear me, I’ll just find someone who will. Would it make you sleep easier at night if you refused to take a look at me so I made an intern give me the meds I need to breathe down there? I’m sure they’d get the prescription right on the first try.”
Bones blows a sharp breath out, but when it becomes clear that you aren’t willing to back down, he purses his lips and relents. “Fine. You’re too damn stubborn for your own good, by the way.”
You crack a grin. “From you, Bones, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He hems and haws while he runs the necessary scans, but when you walk out of the med wing, you do so with the perfect combination of supplements and injections to enable you to breathe the toxic atmosphere on the planet without dying. You’ll all be in thick suits anyway, but just in case, it’s important to take these steps to protect yourselves now. Hopefully, you won’t need them, but the downsides of skipping them are much worse than the inconvenience of a couple extra shots.
Bones makes sure to remind you of this before you go. He warns you to stay out of trouble, knowing full well that there’s no chance of that, but you nod along anyway. You glance over your shoulder right before you leave the med wing, and catch a glimpse of him staring after you, brow knit with anxiety. At this point, you have to return from this mission intact not just for your own good but his as well.
Jim and the others are finalizing the plan when you get back to the bridge. He feigns surprise when you walk in, although he can’t hide a broad grin. “Bones let you go that easily? Maybe he’s losing his touch.”
You arch a brow. “What does that mean?”
Your captain laughs. “It means he’s very protective of you. It’s cute.”
You make a face. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you call Bones cute, and now I wish I never did.”
Jim rolls his eyes. “I’m just trying to connect to you, Y/N. I thought you’d agree with that. You two only ever spend time with each other anyway, aren’t you—”
He’s studiously interrupted by Uhura calling everyone to focus so you can get down to the planet as soon as possible. You don’t miss the pointed look she gives to Jim the second they think your back is turned, but you’ve been seeing a lot of those lately, and they only get easier to ignore.
Contrary to what is apparently the popular belief on the Enterprise, you’re not in a relationship with Bones. It’s startling how many people here think you are, but you’re not. You’re just friends. No matter how many times Jim points out that Bones is oddly friendly and warm towards you, and offenses committed by Jim that earn hours of yelling only receive a small frown when you repeat them, the truth is the same. Jim may have a romantic goal for you and Bones, but it’s not happening.
What is happening, however, is the mission at hand. After conferring for a while longer, you have Scotty beam all of you down to the planet surface. The ground underneath your feet is rocky and uneven, so you’ll have to be cautious. One bad spill could leave you with a torn suit, and even with your medical boosters, you want as little contact with the toxic environment as possible.
You and the others quickly make your way to the downed escape pod. Once there, you spread out, spreading a connective net between all of you before setting it on the ground and activating it. A temporary shield forms a dome in the air, sealing off the ground from the poison clouds floating low through the air. Once the life support cycles through, it’s safe for anyone without a suit to breathe. It’ll wear out soon though, especially while taking a continuous beating from the noxious gas outside, so you’ll have to move quickly.
You hurry over to the pod, knocking twice on the side before calling for them to come out. Slowly, a hatch on the side retracts, and five travelers come out, eyes wide and scared. Uhura hands them some suits, urging the victims to put them on quickly. They don��t need to be told twice, hurriedly pulling on the suits while you count down the seconds before you need to move again.
Although helpful when combating the toxic atmosphere, you won’t be able to beam up while you’re in the shield dome due to the energy signature currently keeping you alive. You’ll have to slowly let people out of the dome and hope that their suits stay stable long enough for Scotty up above to lock onto their signatures and safely retrieve them.
One by one, the members of the doomed escape pod leave the safety of the dome. You watch them get beamed up one by one, listening to your earpiece to know when to send up the next one. Finally, the last of them is ready to be sent up, and you breathe a quiet sigh of relief. At last, an Enterprise mission that goes according to plan.
See, you should have known better than to jinx it like that. It’s common knowledge around here that the moment you decide something is going according to plan, you’ll be proven wrong in a heartbeat, and the galaxy likes nothing better than to mess with all of you.
So, of course, not a fraction of a second later than the time you think you’ll be alright, you notice a gap between the dome and the ground. The surface of this planet is rocky, you noticed it when you first landed. One of the escapees must have knocked into the dome generator while you were pulling them out. It wouldn’t have taken much to disrupt the field, not when it’s been fighting the acidity of the environment around you for so long.
And, as you watch with horrified eyes, the toxic sludge from outside has already started to make its way in. All it takes is one drop. One drop, to start to wear away at the protective coating of the generators. One drop, to make its way inside the machinery. One drop, to cause a chain reaction that ends with the energy of the dome cycling back in on itself and exploding.
You have just enough time to shout for everyone to take cover before the thing goes nuclear. The last person stuck on the doomed escape pod is right beside you, and you fling your body over them to protect them from the blast. The impact slams into you a heartbeat later, knocking you to the ground. Your suit can take a beating from the toxic gas, but not a self destructing energy shield generator, and if it wasn’t already weakened from the blast, tumbling over sharp rocks is more than enough to tear holes in the side.
Instantly, the toxic gas rushes in. You scream out, feeling the poisonous fumes eating away at your skin. Everything is metallic and agonizing, the taste of copper radiating through your mouth. Somewhere in the background, you can hear Jim yelling for Scotty to beam you up now, but it’s hard to hear him distinctly when your vocal chords are taut in one constant cry of pain. You manage to endure another few seconds before blacking out, and although unconsciousness is always a bad sign when you’re on a foreign planet, your last satisfied thought before you pass out is that at least you won’t have to feel the pain anymore.
It’s quiet for a long time, dark and quiet. Peaceful, almost. You wake up slowly. It hurts to open your eyes because it’s so bright compared to the hazy blackness behind your lids, but it gets easier after a while. When you’re finally able to piece together the fact that you’re on a bed in the med wing, secluded from the main hustle and bustle so you can heal in privacy, you also realize that you’re not alone. Bones is sitting in a chair drawn up close beside you, head in shaky hands.
Bones. Oh, he must be irate. All those warnings about keeping you safe and then you went and hurt yourself like this. It wasn’t like you wanted to have your skin melted off by a toxic planet, but that’s how it goes when you try to save people. Bones, however, doesn’t care about the rest. He cares about you, as he’s put it plainly several times.
You reach over, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. “Everything alright, Doc?”
He jerks up, startled, although the panic in his eyes starts to abate when he realizes you’re conscious. “I think I should be asking you that. You’re the one who came back in a pool of your own blood.”
You wince. “How bad was it?”
“Very,” he says, and that one word contains with it the gravity of a lifetime.
You can imagine how it must have gone for him, then. Bones, biding his time up in the med wing, patching up patients to distract himself from not knowing what was going down on the surface of the planet. He would have told himself it would be fine because you said it would be fine, and just as he got halfway to believing it, Jim would have rushed through the doors carrying your unconscious, bleeding, actively diminishing body. What a ghastly scene.
“You patched me up pretty well, though. I don’t feel anything.” You tell him, mostly to try and lift that desperate look on his face.
Bones lets out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, well, that’s what a cocktail of painkillers will do for you. You’ll take a while to recover, though. I can’t stop that.”
From the way he keeps shooting nervous glances at your side, though, you can tell that he wishes more than anything that he could stop it. The two of you wait in patient, terrible silence, and then Bones gives in and says what he’s been holding back all this time.
“It’s just– Dammit, Y/N, I thought you were going to die. When they brought you in, you weren’t moving. Your heart was barely even beating. I can keep giving you pills and bandages when you need them, but that won’t be enough to bring you back from the dead. I can’t lose you, Y/N. I could lose the ship, I could lose the rest of the crew, I could lose myself, but I can’t lose you.”
Your breath is shallow in your chest, and not just because of the injury. “Why?”
“You know why,” he says, refusing to look at you.
“I want to hear you say it,” you tell him.
A silence. A drawn breath. “I love you,” he says at last, “I love you, Y/N. More than anything. Didn’t know it until I thought you were dead. Didn’t think I’d have to say it until you woke up.”
Bones is not one to beat around the bush, but he still waits a beat or too longer before forcing himself to look back at you. His eyes cut to you in one clean jerk, like ripping off a bandage. You’re not here to hurt him, though. Not anymore.
“I love you too,” you tell him. “Probably longer than you.”
“There’s no reason to make this a contest,” Bones chides you, but he’s starting to smile at last.
“Why not? Scared I’ll win?” You laugh.
Bones tries to glare, but the corners of his mouth refuse to tamp down into anything sober or serious. “Cut that out.”
“Make me,” you challenge him, and he takes you up on your word by leaning forward abruptly to kiss you.
Of all the things to make you go silent, that might be your favorite. It’ll take you a while to heal, but maybe it’s not the worst thing to be stuck in the med wing for a while longer. You and Bones have plenty of things to talk about in the meantime.
star trek tag list: @w1shes43
all tags list: @wordsarelife
#bones#bones imagines#bones x reader#bones oneshot#leonard mccoy#leonard mccoy imagines#leonard mccoy x reader#leonard mccoy oneshot#star trek#star trek imagines#star trek x reader#star trek oneshot#star trek bones#star trek bones imagines#star trek bones x reader#star trek bones oneshot
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Come on, Spock, what mysterious relative is it this time?
#star trek#star trek tos#spock#jim kirk#leonard mccoy#nyota uhura#bones mccoy#captain kirk#imagine-darksiders#switchnx#tumblr things#things i found on tumblr#did i ever tell you guys#no you never did#and i never will#the ultimate computer
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they'll transport just about anything on here!
#star trek#i was imagining that im one of the og 60s fans when drawing this#jim kirk#james t kirk#spock#nyota uhura#bones mccoy#leonard mccoy#pavel chekov#star trek tos#my art
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I could imagine an episode where they bring the tribbles here
@kiwim7 various Teletubbies situations
#while making the last image I imagined what that episode would be like but with teletubbies instead of the farmers#but that led me to think of Spock getting romanced by a teletubbie#sorry I’ve never seen the teletubbies#star trek#star trek tos#star trek the original series#leonard bones mccoy#spock#captain james kirk#nyota uhura#teletubbies#sun baby#t0ast post#silly star trek stuff
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I took part in the @sponeszine !
Go check out the other cool fanworks in the Zine :3
#star trek#spones#leonard mccoy#spock#a rare star trek piece again from me in the middle of my obsessions#thanks for organizing the zine!#Also the title was: First time working together#because i imagine once Bones learned what touching hands means he would be embarassed to do it again like this
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Mindmelds
#mindmelds must be so interesting#imagine being in someones head#star trek#star trek tos#star trek the original series#s’chn t’gai spock#mr spock#doctor mccoy#james t kirk#leonard mccoy#spock#dr mccoy#leonard bones mccoy#jim kirk#captain kirk#art#ink art#space husbands#triumvirate#mcspirk#spones#spirk#once again tumblr eating up the quality of my posts
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Then employ one of your own superstitions. Wish me luck.
#star trek#trekedit#startrekedit#tos#tosedit#tvedit#sd*#mine*#spones#sponesedit#leonard mccoy#leonard nimoy#bones#spock#deforest kelley#star trek tos#treksource#startrekgifs#are you okay? because i am not#this hurts me so much#absolutely love this pain but my god#whyyyy#he did not tell him. spock just goes on a sui*cide mission and asks bones to wish him luck#and bones does it when spock is not there anymore#have you seen the way spock leaves??? look me in the eyes and tell me he has no feelings#it's not int he gifset cos it would be too long and i already giffed entire scene like 4 y ago#but it;s just so... they are just so - im going insane here#imagine what's happening in spock's mind... and heart . he asked him SPOCK ASKED HIM and bones does it when spock cannot hear him#dammit bones aaaaaaaaaaaaaa tattoo this scene on me i love it
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Spock needed comfort, not that he said it. Bones isn't easy to fool, though. SO it a blanket, plushy and hot beverage situation!
For @starrycrowz
#star trek#star trek fanart#my art#doodle#spock#bones mccoy#moopsy#fluff#and mutiny#listen I'm tired as fuck so I want to imagine Spock scheming a mutiny AGAIN#while sick and drinking some hot comforting stuff#with a big moopsy plushy#under Bones' fond gaze#this stuff is#spones#space kisses to y'all
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@dig-jules 👀😩
#star trek#star trek academy#st tos cadets#linking the og post that inspired me :)#I prolly fucked up the concept sketches…they were too blurry so I just guessed what they were trying to show 🤠#yeah no I fucked up the outfits 😭#damn…imagine if we got this au irl smh#james t kirk#s'chn t'gai spock#leonard mccoy#captain kirk#commander spock#doctor bones#jim kirk#spock#star trek fanart#spirk#k/s#star trek tos#st tos young crew
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DeForest...please you're killing me here
PLEASE...GOD... LORD HAVE MERCY!
#deforest kelly dr mccoy#DeForest Kelly#deforest kelley#dr mccoy star trek#bones mccoy#dr mccoy#doctor mccoy#mccoy#leonard bones mccoy#leonard mccoy#dr leonard mccoy#star trek the original series#tos star trek#st tos#tos mccoy#tos#star trek tos#star trek#star trek imagine#bones mccoy star trek#star trek bones
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I started "Dreams of the Raven" and despite the synopsis being something that would lead you to believe this is a tense book it starts out with the Triumvirate getting held at gunpoint while discussing how to open conversations with aliens-
#star trek#jim kirk#star trek tos#tos star trek#bones mccoy#star trek novels#they all have no sense of self preservation#i love them for it#also I imagine Bones being wayy too pleased with the 'take me to your leader' line#he's a bit of a dork that way#not seen; the next page that has SOOO much Spones bickering
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Hey Lisa! I was just wondering if you could write a Leonard Mccoy (Bones) x reader. (Star Trek) But royalty / Bodyguard AU! Been a while since I requested something au haha.
The reader is royalty and Bones is the bodyguard and its the "we're not supposed to fall in love but we did anyways" type of thing.
He would save the reader from multiple things, attempted assassination, threats from other royals, whenever the reader is uncomfortable or needs help. Literally he would always be there to help the reader and that's what makes them fall in love with Bones. The reader would try and help Bones to be calmer in certain situations (you know he's a stubborn bean lol) and even hang out with him during training or whenever possible. And then some tragic attack happens and Bones gets injured protecting the reader or vice versa. And then they end up confessing to each other. You can decide the ending, I would love to see what you write about that!! <3
omg bless you for letting me write about star trek i had been HOPING someone would request
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Having a bodyguard is not supposed to feel like an insult, but somehow, it still does. You know that the bodyguard situation was to be expected; you are, after all, royalty, and that puts a target on your back unlike any other, but you had hopes that you’d be able to avoid all this. Yes, there are assassins out there who’d like nothing more than to end your life and reign in one pull of a trigger. Yes, the life expectancy for any monarch tends to linger around the youthful range due to the frequency of political murders. Yes, there is a reason for all this, and one you cannot avoid.
However, all you hear whenever you hear your advisors bring up the need for additional protection is that you are not capable of defending yourself. This is something that rankles more than it should, and has also been the reason you haven’t had a single soldier designated to follow you around in all your previous life. No bodyguard means that you can finally breathe without someone always watching you wherever you go, even when you try to rest. That’s what you’ve been fighting against all this time.
Once you ascended the throne, though, you knew that your claims to privacy were gone in a flash. Sure enough, the crown had hardly lingered on your head long enough to weigh you down before the nobles were eyeing each other nervously and starting to mention that it really was time for some additional security, now, wasn’t it? It’s not like they would dare say anything to your face, but someone should, and–
You endured their hemming and hawing for a couple of weeks before sighing and giving in. Of all the arguments to concede, this was the least obtrusive on your political plans. You told the head of your guard to find someone suitable for the task, and within the hour, almost as if they’d been waiting for this moment all their lives, they gave you a name.
Leonard McCoy. Top of his class. He originally planned on pursuing a career in medicine, but was convinced otherwise by a good friend of his, some rebellious fighter named James Kirk. You’d normally be doubtful of such a big switch in careers, but if General Pike says the guy is good, so be it. It’s his funeral. Or yours, if he messes this up.
Either way, it’s set in stone. You give a wary nod and Leonard is installed in your life as your bodyguard. That was years ago, and although you may have despised the change in routine back then, you have to admit that you’ve grown quite fond of the man. He may be hired only to save your life on a daily basis, but the two of you have become reluctant friends, and then there was nothing reluctant about it at all. Perhaps there would be more, if either of you were daring enough to look for it.
You aren’t, though. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. You know exactly what is expected of you in this marionette’s life of yours: a political union with some other royal, a successfully continued lineage that will be plotted out by your advisors. Still, when you feel like dreaming, you look up at the stars and pretend there is a chance you could ever be with the man you want most of all.
He’s not Leonard to you, not anymore. You tried calling him that the first day, alternating awkward first name usage with the occasional ‘Officer McCoy,’ but it didn’t work for either of you. You remember him frowning at the title, then gruffly muttering something about how he went by the nickname of Bones. His friend James gave it to him, apparently, and it stuck. You still haven’t bothered to ask if it came about from his medical history or because of his knack for killing as a soldier. Both work.
At first, most of your exchanges were like that, altered and stilted, full of glaring signs that this was never meant to be. You used every opportunity you could to remind yourself that this is why you hadn’t wanted a bodyguard in the first place. He could only ever serve as a wrench in your plans.
But then he started allowing himself to laugh at the jokes you murmured under your breath when you forgot he was listening, and the two of you began talking during journeys over to neighboring royals, and all of a sudden nothing was awkward anymore, but right, just right.
Now, you can hardly imagine that there had ever been a time in which the world had not orbited around the two of you. Bones is your shadow, your second skin; he walks as an extension of you, fights the battles with the fists you wish you had and does it all while managing to appear as unruffled as possible. You may have known him for years now, but that doesn’t stop him from wearing an icy demeanor as comfortably as someone else would a smile.
It works out for the two of you, though. You force the laughter at terrible jokes posed by foreign diplomats when he physically cannot do anything but roll his eyes, Bones glares at the overly reaching royals when you have to play by the rules of common parlor etiquette. It all makes sense. He’s your other half, the flip side to your pragmatic coin. You couldn’t imagine life without him.
The problem is that you’re never sure if he can return the sentiment. It is easy for you to forget just why Bones is there; after all, you’re not the one getting paid to be there, he is. No matter how many times you see him give in and chuckle at your terrible one-liners, or notice how long he lingers even after a given event is over just to make sure that you’re going to be alright both physically and mentally, it’s not real. Of course it’s not. This is a job and nothing else.
Yet you find yourself wondering sometimes if it could be real. You are a stormcloud of too much stress with a crown balanced on top, he is a hired sword just as solid as a castle wall, but somehow, somehow he has a way of making it seem like it’s just the two of you against the world. You would take on the toughest armies if you had him by your side.
Every now and then, you catch Bones looking at you when he thinks you don’t notice. In those moments, his gaze isn’t harsh or blunt as usual, but soft and quiet. He tilts his head to the side, thinking thoughts you could never understand. You try, though. You always do.
You’re at one of a thousand different royal functions right now, mind stuck on the same track of will-they-won’t-they as always despite the fact that you really need to be paying attention. Another royal has hosted you and a few other kings and queens to discuss a possible peace treaty to cement what had previously been unspoken agreements. It’ll be nice to get that done on paper, but it certainly makes for a tedious week.
Seeing as this is technically a peaceful mission, Bones hadn’t accompanied you on the way over. He had been busy with another military concern, and you told him that it wasn’t strictly necessary that he attend at all. That doesn’t stop you from missing him anyway, though. The assembly departs for a break in the afternoon and you walk out into the gardens, wondering why it suddenly seems so lonely to be by yourself when just years ago, you’d have traded anything to keep it that way.
An unfamiliar plant catches your attention and you pause by its rank in the endless rows of cultivated flora, furrowing your brow in an unsuccessful attempt to identify it. You’re decent with your plants, but this one escapes your knowledge.
A voice sounds from behind you, answering your unspoken question. It would have startled you if it was anyone else, but you recognize the speaker instantly.
“That’s echinacea,” Bones says, emerging from a nearby archway, “used in medicine fairly often. Decently potent.”
You watch him approach, unable to stop yourself from grinning.
“You came,” you breathe.
“It’s my job,” he says back, voice as gruff as always.
“That’s not the only reason, was it?” You dare to ask.
He pauses a moment, as if turning the words over and over in his head like yet another blade. “No,” he decides at last, “no, it wasn’t.”
It could be a confession. He says it with the force of an oath. Regardless, it is enough to stop the two of you in your tracks, and maybe that is why neither of you notice the attack until it is too late. This was supposed to be a peaceful excursion into a foreign kingdom. How foolish of you to believe that anyone would see something kind and be able to stop themselves from ruining it.
All you know is that the tranquility of the garden is suddenly destroyed by plumes of smoke rising out of nowhere, shouting voices, the clash of metal against stone and flesh. Bones is instantly alert, reaching for you to pull you out of the way of any attackers. They haven’t found you yet, mostly focused on the majority of the royals, which are still in the central part of the courtyard. You had been pensive and headed for a quieter part of the palace, which is what saved you from the initial violence.
It does not save you forever, though. A few enemy soldiers shout when they see you and start to run over. Bones starts to fight them off, shouting for you to run. There is nowhere for you to go, however, and it’s not like you could ever leave him in a time of terror such as this.
You’re still scanning the grounds for a safe place to go, and that’s when you see him, the archer on the roof. At first, you think he’s trying to shoot Bones’ attackers, one of the host royal’s guards, but you realize with a chill that you do not recognize the colors on his insignia. He’s not aiming to take down the enemy soldiers. He’s trying to kill Bones himself.
Bones, too busy getting rid of his opponents, does not notice. In fact, he won’t notice a thing until it’s too late. The enemy archer’s finger tightens on his bow, and all you know is that you must not let him die. You would not be able to live with yourself if you did nothing and watched Bones get killed, so you do something worse and make him live with it instead.
Bones is just straightening up, having dispatched the last of the soldiers, when you slam into him. He’s good on his feet, always has been, so he doesn’t move much except to stumble a little to the side. That’s all you need to get him out of harm, though, but it is also all it takes to put you directly in the path of danger.
For a moment, you feel nothing, just a sharp impact by your ribs. Then the pain hits, and you can’t stop yourself from crying out. That is when Bones realizes that something is wrong, and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to forget the look of horror that dawns upon his face when he learns what you’ve done. His head arches towards the sky and he throws a knife at the enemy archer. You hear the blade thunk into skin and bone up above you, the soldier slumping over in death.
You try to move, but your legs give out beneath you. The pain is unlike anything you expected from a mere arrow. Bones catches you before you fall, and you can hear him begging you to hear him, to keep your eyes open, to stay alive, please, and it occurs to you that this is a display of emotion unlike anything you’ve ever seen from him before.
You would love to think about it more, but it is getting awfully hard to focus. The darkness swimming at the edges of your vision is just too alluring, and even though Bones is asking you to stay with him, you just can’t do it right now. Maybe later, you try to whisper, but the words never make it past your lips.
It is dark for a while. You should be scared of it, you think, but thoughts are hard to come by. They appear and disappear in the depths of your consciousness like a child blowing soap bubbles, each one rising to the forefront of your eyes just to pop in a shower of light. The light grows by the second, though, and then you’re awake in a room full of brightness.
You’re not dead. Not yet, at least. When you open your eyes, it takes you a minute or so to realize that you’re in the hospital wing of your own kingdom. You don’t remember the return trip, or anything past losing consciousness in Bones’ arms, but he must have brought you back here in time to save your life.
Across the room, a nurse notices you’re awake and bustles over to your side. She greets you with a wide, beaming smile, and tells you how glad she is that you’re awake.
“I was starting to worry, Your Highness. Not for your health, I promise that was a quick and easy fix, but for that of your friend. Bones swore he wouldn’t leave until you woke up, but that was a couple of days ago and he’s still here.”
You follow her line of sight down the room, where you notice your bodyguard asleep in a chair. You laugh quietly. “He is rather stubborn when he puts his mind to it, isn’t he?”
The nurse smiles as well. “Yes, he is. I remember him being just as stubborn back here.”
When you frown at her in confusion, the nurse explains herself. “He used to be dead set on medicine. His friend James convinced him to try his hand at defense, and he changed his career. I used to wonder why, but it makes sense now. He’s still saving people, just doing it in a different way.”
You nod, wondering how many memories she must have of him that you never will. You cannot hold any claim to a past that is not yours, but wouldn’t it have been wonderful to see what Bones had been like before all of this, before his first kill, when he lived in a place like this and was not yours to know?
“I still feel bad for dragging him away from this life,” you whisper, “I know he chose to be a bodyguard, but I always wonder if he’d rather be here instead.”
The nurse shakes her head firmly. “Not a chance. Bones is happy now, I can see it. That’s due in part to you, you know. Almost every week he comes down and tells me how much he respects you for what you do. He hates all those politicking nobles and royals with every bone in his body, but you wrangle them into shape every time. He loves that.”
Her voice goes quiet at the end, as if full of the acknowledgement that she has shared something that was supposed to stay private. Still, you think you’re quite happy to hear it.
“Well,” the nurse says briskly, “he’ll be glad to see you’re awake. You gave him quite a scare, saving him like that. The wound will heal soon, but are you sure that you’re going to be alright apart from that?”
You pause a moment, weighing all that she’s said. Across the room, Bones stirs at the sound of voices and opens his eyes. He scans the room and his gaze lands on you. All at once, you can see a burden of stress and fear leave his shoulders. His face brightens immediately, and he starts to stand up and make his way over to you.
“Yes,” you answer, “I think I’ll be just fine.”
requested by @w1shes43, i hope you enjoy!
star trek tag list: empty for now!
#leonard mccoy#leonard mccoy imagines#leonard mccoy x reader#leonard mccoy oneshot#star trek#star trek imagines#star trek x reader#star trek oneshot#bones#bones imagines#bones x reader#bones oneshot#star trek bones#star trek bones imagines#star trek bones x reader#star trek bones oneshot#leonard bones mccoy#leonard bones mccoy imagines#leonard bones mccoy x reader#leonard bones mccoy oneshot
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Not A Doctor
Bones McCoy x Reader
Masterlist - Join My Taglist!
Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)
Fandom: Star Trek
Summary: Bones' SO hurts themselves on an away mission and has to stitch themselves up as well as they can to buy time for a med evac to the Enterprise
Word Count: 1,533
Category: Fluff, Humor, a little bit of Angst
Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.
"Shit," I hissed, pressing a hand to my side as I slid down the wall. When I finally got up the courage to pull my hand back and look, it came away with a lot more blood than I'd hoped to find. I'd fallen pretty far and managed to avoid any broken bones based on my pain levels, but the wound in my side was gaping and looked concerningly serious.
I could practically hear the extended bridge crew chorusing "I told you so" from here.
As if on cue, my communicator beeped. I grimaced, but managed to take it out of my bag and open it to respond.
"What's up?" I groaned.
"Y/N, where are you?" came the voice of Jim Kirk, one of my best friends and the captain of the Enterprise. "Scotty's reporting he can only find two targets to beam up."
Dammit. That figured.
"I'm... not totally sure. I was trying to follow the signature on my tricorder to that plant I've been looking for when the ground just gave way under me. I'm not sure how far I fell, but I hit something pretty hard on the way down and I've got... quite the gash in my side."
Silence on the other end for a few moments, then:
"Hang tight. We're coming to find you."
The communicator hung up with a click, and I sighed, ignoring the flare of pain in my side. I had faith in Jim's determination and ability to find me, especially with Spock here helping him, but I still needed to do something if I wanted to be alive when they found me.
Thankfully, I'd watched my boyfriend, Doctor Leonard McCoy, stich people up often enough that I felt fairly confident I could do a passable job on myself. I dug some sewing supplies out of my bag that I hadn't removed from my last away mission misadventure, and pulled the hem of my shirt up to get a better look at the wound.
I grimaced, gritting my teeth and trying to prepare for this. I'd been so excited to join Kirk and Spock on this away mission. This planet was supposed to have one of the rarest plants in the galaxy, and I'd been looking forward to finding it since I'd first heard we'd be coming here. And now, I was at the bottom of this pit or cave or whatever, slowly bleeding out, without even a picture of the plant to show for it.
Ugh.
I tried to focus on my breathing as I threaded a needle and put it to my skin. I knew the wound needed to be disinfected before I totally closed it, but I didn't have anything on me to do that with, and I knew Bones would be able to take care of it for me if I could manage to get back to him.
I took a few deep breaths to steel myself, then stuck the needle through. I swore loudly and kept up a steady stream of expletives as I sewed up the wound. I pulled it closed as tightly as I dared, then held my jacket to my waist to try to staunch the remainder of the bleeding.
I sighed, long and hard, then leaned my head back against the wall of whatever hole I'd fallen into. I had no idea how long those stitches had taken me, but it certainly hadn't been quick. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too much longer before I heard Jim and Spock stumbling down some passage towards me.
I focused on deep breaths as the pain continued to throb in my side, completely zoning out to the time and environment around me. Finally, I heard some shuffling movement from a slightly more gradual incline up ahead of me. The voices of my friends echoed out, curious and searching.
"Y/N!"
"I'm here!" I called back, my voice a little weaker than normal. I cleared my throat, then tried again. "Here!"
A moment later, my friends came into view. Jim grinned at me as Spock started scanning the space, probably trying to decide on the best way to get me out of here.
"How're you holding up?" asked Jim. I forced a smile.
"Living the dream."
He scoffed, then moved to crouch beside me and put one of my arms over his shoulder.
"Spock! Come help me."
"We'll need to get around the corner and most of the way back up the incline we came down to reach a spot where Mr. Scott can register us," said Spock as he joined us. "There seems to be some property of this rock that's prohibiting the transporter signal from reaching us."
"Great," I huffed, grimacing as my friends pulled me to my feet. Even resting most of my weight on them, I was still seeing spots. "This is gonna be great."
Between the three of us, somehow, we managed to get back into transporter range. I almost lost consciousness at one point, but we'd paused, and I'd managed to pull myself back from the brink. When the Enterprise's transporter room finally materialized before me, the relief was palpable, not least of all because Bones was waiting for me.
"Y/N," he said, jumping to attention and rushing onto the pad to replace Jim at my side. With Spock's help, we started moving immediately for the Med Bay. "What happened?"
"I was following the signature of the plant I was looking for on my tricorder. Then all of a sudden, the ground gave way underneath me. It wasn't a straight drop, I don't think, but I fell a pretty long way, bouncing off the rock slide and the walls of the cave I fell into on the way down. I'm bruised, but I don't think it's anything bad besides the cut on my stomach."
Bones nodded. "We'll get you to Med Bay and make sure."
Luckily, my boyfriend was very good at staying calm and focused in a crisis for his patients. He was completely in the zone as he and Spock helped me into a bed once we reached Med Bay, and then Bones started checking my vitals and assessing my injuries. I watched him carefully for any break in his usual bedside manner to tell me if I needed to be worried about something, but none came.
Hopefully that was a good sign, and not just because he was an incredible doctor.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity to me, Bones returned from his testing and reappeared by my bedside. His hands were on his hips, but he seemed calmer, and definitely out of intense doctor mode.
"Alright, the good news is you'll be just fine. But I'm still gonna need to disinfect the wound and stitch you up," he said. I gave him the best smile I could muster.
"Sounds like a plan."
He sighed, then gently lifted my shirt high enough to give him access to the gash in my side. The light touch of his fingertips sent goosebumps along my skin, but I did my best to ignore them, especially as Bones frowned.
"What the hell did you do to yourself?" he asked, not looking away from his work on my side.
"Uh... I slammed into a rock. We covered this already, remember?"
"No, I didn't mean your injury." Bones paused and looked up at me, the smallest smile tugging at his lips. "I meant these stitches. Yikes."
I scoffed and rolled my eyes, making Bones chuckle as he got back to work.
"Okay, whatever. I'm a biologist, not a doctor, dammit. I think I did a pretty good job, considering the circumstances."
"Mm, I guess so. Barely."
"Hey!" I laughed, hitting him lightly in the shoulder. "You better knock it off or I'm gonna start practicing my stitches on you."
Bones snorted, but I could see the smile on his face as he continued working. Thanks to the medical facilities of the Enterprise, it barely hurt as he undid my messy job and redid it with a much better one of his own.
"So... what are you doing after this?" I asked after a few long moments of letting him work in peace. He paused to look up at me again, one eyebrow raised.
"Don't tell me you're hitting on your own boyfriend after only the low-level painkillers I gave you?"
"I can and will hit on my own boyfriend whenever I want, no painkillers required. But I was mostly asking if you had other patients to deal with after me, or if you'd be free to come cuddle on the couch and eat junk food with me. I think it'd really help speed up my recovery process."
Bones' mouth quirked into a smile again as he put the finishing touches on my stitches.
"Well if it's for the wellness of a patient... I think Nurse Chapel might be willing to take over from me for the rest of the day."
"Thank goodness for Christine."
Bones and I shared a smile, then he returned to his work and I watched him contentedly. Obviously, life and death situations on away missions were never ideal—but I couldn't really bring myself to be upset about how this one had played out, even if I hadn't managed to get my plant in the end.
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Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989
#sophie's year of fic#star trek#bones mccoy#star trek fanfiction#bones mccoy x reader#star trek oneshot#star trek imagine#star trek x reader#bones mccoy fanfiction#bones mccoy oneshot#bones mccoy imagine#leonard bones mccoy#leonard mccoy#jim kirk#spock#star trek tos#star trek aos#dr mccoy#leonard mccoy x reader#leonard mccoy oneshot
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Me watching Star trek alone in my dorm while Kirk, Spock, and Bones do some gay ass shit: they're so baby girl 💅
#star trek#mcspirk#y'all i was willing to believe you about the gay shit but it was down played so bad#this show is so much gayer than i could've ever imagined#bird posts#jim kirk#spock#bones McCoy#mckirk#spirk
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TOS Bones as Alice.
Maybe I should try doing Spock as the white rabbit next🧐
#star trek fanart#star trek#leonard bones mccoy#leonard mccoy#deforest kelley#my art tag#lady put your middle finger down please#just imagine the bridge crew rehearsing alice in wonderland and bones was nominated to be the female lead lol
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failed romantics
Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Reader (original female character)
Summary: Secrets can’t be kept forever, and what better time to reveal them than the Enterprise night shift.
Word Count: 5,902
A/N: yay another chapter!! I have been so excited to write this one since I started this series, I hope you all like it. As always very special thanks to @lightning-writes without them these chapters would literally never get finished LOL immediately after finishing this plz go check out their bucky series; good heart (faulty machine of a man) it kills me in the best way.
anyways, thank you for reading plz like + comment if you enjoyed :)
Leonard can only barely make out Kirk’s face under the dim bulb, but he is pissed enough that Jim’s mug is the last thing he wants to see. The music is loud, so goddamn loud , loud enough that the whiskey did nothing for his headache.
“This is not what I had in mind when you said you knew a place,” he yells over the music, staring down the side of Kirk's face.
“What?” the captain calls back, still oblivious to Leonard's scowl. Kirk is absent, completely distracted by the crowd, more specifically the women . His gaze filters from person to person as they pass by the table, a dumb smile on his face the entire time. If steam could come out of Leonard’s ears, it would.
“I said this isn't what I had in mind for tonight.” He reaches across the table and firmly flicks his friend’s temple.
“Hey! What's your problem?” Kirk whines. Leonard is satisfied to have gotten his attention—finally.
“You said you knew a nice place– you said it was a bar!”
“Yeah and? This is both of those things!”
“This is a goddamned petri dish!”
It is. Leonard has refused to even allow his bare skin to touch the tabletop, weary of the unknown sticky substances covering it. There are so many bodies— human and otherwise— packed into the space, it's suffocating, and certainly a fire hazard. It's gross, downright unsanitary, and fucking loud.
“You’re dramatic, Bones, it's nice enough. Loosen up! Maybe try to meet somebody. We’re only in Yorktown for a day, y’know?”
Tipsy Kirk is a fucking idiot.
Leonard recoils at the idea. The captain has gained this…habit lately. This advice-giving habit where he tells Leonard to relax, to get out there, to get laid, and every time it passes through Kirk's lips, Leonard becomes nauseous. He abhors this subject, he really does. The only thing he hates talking about more than his dating life is why he doesn’t have one. Sure, he hasn't had much of one since the divorce anyway, but whatever he did have quickly reduced to nothing after meeting Sunshine. He feels so childish even mulling his thoughts over, and how it feels pointless to consider any other woman interesting since he has already met Sunshine, who is the most interesting. Interesting and pretty. Interesting and pretty and kind. He shakes his head before he starts down his mental list (again). Somedays, it feels like his feelings will swallow him whole. It has been so long since he felt it, the wanting . Wanting to talk to her all the time, or hold her hand, or just be around her. It all makes him feel so juvenile, like he’s a lovesick teenager. She makes him feel like a lovesick teenager. It is the single most frustrating thing he’d ever experienced.
“I don't wanna associate with anyone who willingly steps foot inside this shithole,” he snaps, “C’mon man, let's go.” Kirk protests, of course, even more so as Leonard grabs him by the ear and pulls him up from the chair. He tells himself he’s doing Kirk a favor, that the last thing he needs is a hookup— that he’s certainly not taking out his frustrations on his friend.
The pair weave through the bodies, with Kirk stumbling after his friend and out the door. The cool breeze hits them like a breath of fresh air, and Leonard takes it in. Kirk, on the other hand, furiously rubs his reddened ear.
“What the hell was that for? Are you out to get me tonight?”
Leonard feels a quick pang of sympathy, regretting lashing out.
“Look, I’m sorry, but that place had me sweating like a damn sinner in church, there’s other bars, and it's getting late anyways–”
Kirk would usually push it, and Leonard could tell he wants to, which makes him all the more thankful he doesn’t.
“Fine, fine, whatever but we are drinking when we get back to the ship,” he settles, leading the way home.
Yorktown is cold and downright industrial. Leonard hates it. He would usually be thankful for a pit stop if it means he can feel non-artificial gravity, but, between the dirty club and Kirk’s antagonizing, he’s ready to be spacebound again. Both the Enterprise and the USS Endeavor are in Yorktown for the night, in the process of a personnel transfer. The streets are crawling with Starfleet members.
They walk in silence for most of the way, observing the larger-than-life city and the star crafts buzzing overhead. Leonard would be lying if he said he doesn’t feel a bit empty. Perhaps the low-lit, music-blaring monstrosity would have felt more tolerable if a certain lieutenant was with him and not stuck with the enterprise night crew.
“You know, I wouldn’t have even known that place existed if it wasn’t for Sunny,” Kirk laughs. Leonard scrunches his nose.
“She recommended that barnyard?” he scoffs.
“Oh god no, she told me to stay away from it. Said it was the grimiest place on this side of the universe. I just thought it sounded like a good time, y’know?”
Leonard stares, really stares, and wonders why he keeps expecting better of Kirk.
“You’re an idiot, and an ass. The woman gives you stellar advice, and you ignore it, and stick her with the skeleton crew.”
Kirk stops so abruptly, that Leonard stumbles over him.
“ I didn’t put her on the skeleton crew, she requested to be. You think I would make her work more than she already does? I’m not a tyrant, Bones.”
What?
“What?” Leonard says out loud. “Why would she ask to be holed up on the enterprise all leave?”
“I mean, I would too if the alternative was running into my ex and all his coworkers.”
Kirk laughs, Leonard’s head spins.
“Her ex?”
“Yeah her— she didn’t tell you any of this?”
“She said she wanted Jameson to oversee the transfer, give him more experience or something, so you put her on his night shift.”
“No? She wanted Jameson to do it because she used to be engaged to the Endeavors head of security.”
Leonard blinks. And blinks again.
“Dude, I don’t even know how to change the schedule,” Kirk adds.
Suddenly, despite talking to her everyday for close to a year, she feels unfamiliar. Engaged? He can hardly imagine it, nor does he want to. Pictures of Sunshine flash through his mind, and he clenches his fist.
“Didn’t know she had been engaged,” he feigns a casual tone.
Kirk furrows his brows.
“ You didn’t know? You of all people?” Leonard shrugs, as his stomach forms a knot. “She tells you everything, and she’s never mentioned Ryder?”
“Christ, his name is Ryder ?”
“I know! Douchebag name, right?”
He doesn’t respond for a beat, which turns into several beats. The gears in his head turn and turn. Engaged . He doesn’t understand why the idea eats at him. He himself had been married for years. So what if she was engaged? There is no reason for him to be upset that his friend—a coworker–had an ex.
He feels nauseous.
Kirk clears his throat, derailing Leonard's train of thought.
“You’re right, it’s late, we should head back,” he says, offering a reassuring smile. Leonard follows him, hands in his pockets.
“Do y’know what happened?” he asks finally. Kirk casts him a sideways glance.
“What, between them? Not a clue,” Kirk says with sincerity enough for Leonard to believe it. “She wasn’t really keen on discussing it.” He pauses and looks at the ground as they walk. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it though, Bones, I think everyone sees she’s only really got eyes for one person these days.”
“Don't start, Jim,” Leonard warns hotly, clenching his jaw.
“Start what? I’m not starting anything. I’m just laying out the facts.” Jim hiccups. “She adores you, man, like adores -”
“Sunshine ‘adores’ everyone she meets. We’re friends—good friends, but that's all.” His patience shrinks as his annoyance grows.
Jim laughs mirthlessly.
“No, Sunshine and I are good friends. Whatever you two are is something else entirely-”
“Anyone ever tell you you don't know when to shut up?” His tone is as cold as the night air, and Jim shuts up.
Leonard wishes Kirk would drop the subject, trip over a rock, or whatever it took to never have this conversation again. Really—what he truly wants is for everyone to stop dangling this hope in front of his face like a carrot. He’s not an idiot, he knows he spends more time with the lieutenant than his colleagues, hears her laugh more often, and knows her habits better.
He knows what it looks like. He also knows that he's a bitter emotionally closed-off divorcee—
He tells Jim that Sunshine is his friend because she is—and he denies wanting anything more because It's stupid to want things out of his reach.
Frustration heats his cheeks and begins to bloom into a headache. He knows Kirk means well, but that fact does little to comfort him.
“Alright, I’ll drop it,” Kirk surrenders, his voice soft. “But there is one last thing you should know,” He pauses at the crosswalk and turns to Leonard. Eerily stoic, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Leonard's breath hitched.
“Ryder’s got nothing on you in terms of looks, okay? Seriously he's like, 5’7, and his face isn't at all symmetrical-”
Leonard revs up and smacks Kirk in the back of the head harder than he ever had and feels no regret. Not even after Kirk's high-pitched “ Ouch!”
“Would you quit it! You gossip like a damn schoolgirl!”
The sign blinks at them to walk, and Leonard drags Kirk across the street, fingers digging into his arm.
“Ow, ow, I was just saying-“
“Wait a minute,” Leonard lets his friend go and smooths down his sleeve. “How do you know what he looks like anyway?”
Kirk puts himself at a safe distance from the Doctor, cradling his arm. “Well, the operations manager would usually talk to the department heads during a transfer, but Sunshine passed him off to me. I said no at first, obviously, because I hate managing, but then she finally told me she was almost Mrs. Ryder Denver. So yeah, I spoke with him a few times, just business. Have to say though, I couldn't imagine them together. He comes off as a bit of a douche.”
Leonard breathes deeply, reigning in the emotions that he doesn’t need Kirk to pick up on. The idea of Sunshine being engaged does enough to unsettle him without knowing that the man in question “ came off as a douche” . He feels something boil under the surface.
“Yeah?” is all he can strangle out.
“Yeah—He’s like a classic douchey security buff,” Kirk continues, unaware of his friend's white knuckles. “You know the kind– uptight, condescending, has one earring and thinks it's edgy-”
“Wears their uniform a size too small? Yeah, I know the type.”
“Exactly, and Sunshine is so…so-”
“Heart-of-gold?”
“Yeah! Opposites attract I guess, but I don't know, something was off.”
To Leonard, the entire thing is off. All of it. Everything . He doesn’t understand why Sunshine decided he doesn’t get to know, why it is a secret in the first place, why she almost married a douche, why he cares so damn much .
The enterprise comes into view like the sun on the horizon, and Leonard is relieved .
“Your arm’s all right?” Leonard asks, an apology without apologizing. Jim knows this and breathes a laugh.
“Yup, the ear’s fine too.”
The Doctor nods, but his eyes remain trained in front of him. Through the glass window panes, he eyes the ship, eager to hide away in the familiar place. He would have opened the door for Kirk, as a gesture, but of course, the Yorktown Federation Port has to have automatic doors. He huffs, and the artificial lights illuminate his red cheeks. They approach their home in silent tandem, their shoes clinking against the hard floors.
“You should talk to her, Bones,” Kirk breaks the quiet, head down while he taps the access code to the enterprise hull. “Ask her why she didn't mention the ex. I’m sure she has a good reason, probably one you'll wanna hear.”
Leonard wants to be mean. He wants to shake Kirk's words off with an insult and go to bed. But he swallows his pride, and it goes down like nails.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Hope. It bubbles up within his chest, and he pushes it down. Finally, the stark white enterprise interior greets him. He breathes a little easier.
Kirk stumbles over the first step— “ Woah ”-- and Leonard steadies him with a raised eyebrow. “Andorian ale finally catching up with you?”
“Pfft,” Kirk scoffs. “Couldn’t catch me if it tried.”
Leonard pauses, then laughs, the first genuine one all night, and it has Kirk grinning back.
The enterprise is empty, its residents still on the streets they just returned from. So, without restraint, they laugh, and Kirk stumbles, and Leonard forgets for a moment about the unsaid feelings under his skin.
Kirk is an idiot, and he’s a good friend.
He’s happy to banter about whatever comes out of Kirk's drunk mouth and to correct him when he takes a wrong turn in his own ship. Leonard claps his hand on his shoulder and drawls, “It’s this way, captain .”
“Uhh, no , Chekov keeps the good whiskey in his locker, this way,” Kirk insists with a point down the hallway, and Leonard is amazed at his eagerness to get blacked out the night before embarking.
“Are you out of your mind? No way. You can drink like a fish when you don't need to fly a starship in the morning.”
“What are you, my mom ?”
Christ.
“No, but I pity the poor woman,” he huffs and gestures down the hallway leading to his quarters. Kirk frowns and scrunches his nose.
“Raincheck, Kirk, c’mon.”
He begrudgingly obliges, having given his friend a hard enough time tonight anyway. The yawn that crawls out of his mouth a moment later corroborates Leonard's decision. He is tired, and Kirk shouldn't drink anymore, but he’d be lying if he said those were his only motives to end the night early.
“You win this one, Bones, but next time I swear we'll be out till sunrise,” he says between another yawn and a hiccup.
“Uh-huh. Try not to trip.” Leonard reminds himself of the virtue of patience and keeps walking.
Kirk manages to type in his room's access code all by himself, with only a moment of squinting, and a break to roll up the black sleeves of his turtleneck. Leonard is impressed, and the bar is low.
“Drink a bottle of water, and get some sleep, We’ll talk tomorrow.” he crosses his arms over his chest and waits for protest.
Kirk only hums. “You headed to your room?”
The doctor's fingers drum against the doorframe. “Was thinking I’d check in on Sunshine,” he says, blinks, and rushes out, “and the rest of the Skeleton crew, of course. Maybe medbay too, then I’ll hit the hay.” He fleetingly wonders if that sounds believable, or at least casual.
Kirk smiles a genuine smile. “Sounds like a good plan, Bones. See ya in the morning, and tell her I said hi .” Before he can react, his friend waves, and the door slides shut. Then, he’s alone in the hallways, and he has to put his money where his mouth is.
Shit .
The way to the bridge feels daunting now, like climbing Everest. Like climbing Everest with the shittiest rope ever. Like climbing Everest with the shittiest rope ever, several pounds of emotional baggage, and a Starfleet captain breathing down his neck. He considers just going to bed, pretending he never even mentioned the whole thing. Maybe even pretend he doesn't care to get answers. He can just leave it be.
The desire to see her trumps all of it.
The halls are deserted, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t need anyone around to watch him squirm in the elevator. A deep breath, a punch of the open elevator button and—
“I told you I don't have any threes! Go fish, again .”
He sees the back of the captain's chair first, then Starfleet-issued black boots hanging off of it. The whoosh of the door draws the attention of the room to him. Eyes sweep through the vaguely familiar faces of the night crew, all six staring at him like they are waiting for an explanation, which he doesn’t really have. The heeled black boots plant themselves on the ground, the captain's seat swivels around. His heart works double time.
“ Leonard ? Hi! What are you doing here?”
Sunshine’s got a hand of cards between her pointer and her thumb, and a sweatshirt pulled over her uniform dress, and it distracts Leonard for longer than it should. He clears his throat, and it shakes loose the feelings stuck there.
“Just thought I'd check in on our hard working night crew, who is surely on task.” He descends the bridge steps.
“Well, then, you'll be happy to hear that I am, in fact, glancing at my station every 20 minutes, and I’m the undefeated go-fish champion.”
She waves the cards at herself like a fan, legs crossed and smile wide.
“Undefeated, huh? Glad to see your talents going to good use.” Her smile gets a bit brighter, and she does a quick breathy laugh with her nose. For a moment there's quiet, and Leonard begins scrambling for a way to ask her the thing he wants to ask her. The bridge is crowded, for a skeleton crew, he thinks. The redshirt to Sunshine’s left breaks the silence before he can.
“I’m not sure if I’d call it talent…I’m pretty sure she's cheating,” they grumble, and Sunshine doesn't spare a moment, whipping the chair around. He can almost see the panic fill her eyes, like she’s just been accused of a heinous crime.
“I’m not! Are you still thinking about that last round? Because that was—”
Even Leonard winces a bit at her shrill tone, and he’s pretty sure she just woke the navigator who had fallen asleep at his station, so he claps his hands on her shoulders.
“Sounds to me like this card game has you wound like a spring,” he interrupts her before her voice jostles anyone else awake.
She pouts, lip jutted out and everything.
“Let's go for a walk,” he suggests. He doesn’t even let his nerves talk him out of it. She looks at him curiously, her eyebrows drawn.
“I dunno, I probably shouldn’t leave…”
“I’m sure someone else can deal cards while you’re gone,” he tells her, already offering his arm.
The Ensign, Leonard still doesn’t know their name, waves her off. “Go, Lieutenant, It's fine. I’m sure we can handle a few minutes without you.”
She bites her lip and cautiously loops her arm around his, leaving the captain's chair to her subordinate.
“Alright, but don’t start a new game without me,” she warns lightly.
Leonard doesn’t get nervous with her arm looped around his, really he doesn’t. He’s headfirst into this thing now, no room for nerves.
She drinks her whiskey neat, he learns, and it surprises him. Surprises him even more when she downs it like a shot.
The walk there had been quiet mostly, except for when Sunshine regaled the stories of her card game wins.
“Did you have a nice time with Kirk?” she asks politely.
“I dunno if I’d say that, but maybe Jim would disagree.”
She laughs lightly, and her finger traces the lip of the whiskey glass. He doesn’t know if it’s the best idea, but he refills her cup.
There is a beat of silence, and the conversation with Kirk pushes to the front of his thoughts. There's a heaviness on the tip of his tongue, the desire to ask why . Without really knowing how to.
“Wish I could’ve gone with you guys,” she says, her gaze downcast. There's a rare melancholy to her tone, something vulnerable woven into it.
“You could’ve,” he tells her, and her eyes pull from the table.
“I had--”
“Yeah, I know what you– I just mean–I’m sure Kirk would have given you the night off if you asked… God knows he owes you enough favors.”
“I guess,” she shrugs, “it wasn’t really the best night for it, though.”
He could go along with her lame excuse, vaguely agreeing that, yeah, there will be other nights. But the ache to know what exactly goes on in her pretty head has words tumbling out of his mouth.
“Yeah, Kirk mentioned somethin’ like that,” he mumbles, nerves permeating the sentence.
“...what?”
Shit.
“I mean, he may have-”
“What exactly did he mention?” Her tone holds a sharp undercurrent of something rare for Sunshine– anger.
Leonard runs a hand down his face, suddenly thinking of all the much more tactful ways he could have begun this. The gentle buzz of alcohol still in his bloodstream keeps him from panicking.
“Nothing terrible, just that there was someone in town you wouldn’t wanna see.”
“As if ,” she scoffs. “Kirk’s never been that vague in his life.”
“…fair enough.”
She groans miserably, fitfully pulling the sleeves of her sweater over her hands and burying her face in the fabric.
“You were not supposed to find out like this,” she says, muffled.
“And how was I supposed to find out?” He asks quietly, like the question will frighten her away.
A sniffle comes from behind her hands–the sound tugs at his heart.
“ I don't know. Maybe someone could have told you when I’m dead and then we’d never have to have this conversation.”
He reaches for her slowly, taking her wrists in a gentle hold and pulling them away from her face, revealing her reddened nose and watery eyes. Her hands are cold, and grow stiff under his touch.
“Sunshine. It's an ex , not a damn intergalactic scandal. There are worse conversations to have,” he reasons.
“You don't get it,” she tells him matter-of-factly, pulling her hands from his touch. Embarrassment quickly heats his body, and he wipes his palms on his pants.
“I’d get it a lot more if you talked about it.” He flexes his jaw, frustration bleeding into his voice.
She narrows her eyes, punctuating her glare with a sniffle.
“If I wanted to talk about it, I would’ve.”
“With Kirk? Because he seems to get it.”
“Why are you acting so—”
“Concerned? Oh, I dunno because you’re my friend?” Exasperation colors his tone.
“I was gonna say entitled,” she grits out. Her anger comes out half-heartedly, sounding more like watery sadness than anything. “I don't tell you everything, and I don't have to. You’re not my-” She sighs. “Why does it matter? I was engaged for like, a year, and now, I’m not.”
You’re not my–
Her half sentence sticks in his mind and sends blood rushing to his head. He thinks of all the things that he is to her: a colleague, a doctor, a friend. All the things he isn’t feels like a gaping hole.
He watches her clench her fists and force her tears back.
“It matters because it upsets you enough to work the night shift,” he sighs, the anger he’s been holding seeps out of his hands like water. “I’m not pressing you for the latest gossip, Sunny. I’m asking because it would be lousy of me not to.”
She says nothing, taking in his words.
“I’m no stranger to this stuff, y’know,” he prods her gently. “My ex-wife sent me running all the way to space .” He says lightly, and the corners of her mouth twitch up briefly.
“He didn't send me running, I sent him,” she confesses, shaking her head.
“ You ?”
“Me. The thing is,” she shrugs, “it should have worked, y’know? Like on paper, it was perfect. Ryder and I were academy sweethearts, liked all the same shit, were top of our classes, blah, blah, blah.” She rolls her eyes. “Our friends used to tease us, say that it wasn't fair, and we were too in love.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” she says, sighing. Her eyes drift nowhere in particular. “It didn’t feel nice after a while though. It felt suffocating. I was half a person with him, we were Ryder and Sunshine–and that was one entity.” Her tears dry on her lashes, as she becomes entrenched in the memory.
“But the person we were wasn’t me . Because he never thought my jokes were funny, or my hobbies were interesting or my friends were cool, so I was willing to throw them all out. Eventually all that was left was him. His ideas, his wants, his needs. I was backed into a corner. I should’ve left when I realized but I loved him… and I was really scared of being alone.”
She pushes her hair behind her ears and lets out a shaky breath.
“I was a coward, and I couldn’t leave. I wanted to try and fix it, figure out who I was, and then maybe Ryder could love that person,” She shakes her head. “I was naive. Ryder always wanted someone I couldn’t be. Someone quieter or someone better at being a person. I’m always so all over the place you know? Too much for him.”
“You’re not–”
“It's okay, Len, you don't have to say anything.” she says, meeting his eyes again, taming the budding fire in his heart.
The idea of Sunshine being anything but completely herself unnerves him. Her jokes are funny, he can’t recall ever laughing as much before she boarded the enterprise. Her ramblings about xenobotany and classic earth songs never fail to catch his attention, even when he barely knows what she's talking about. Being around Sunshine is as easy as breathing, and he’s starting to need it as much too.
“Anyways, he proposed our senior year, like we weren’t a sinking ship, and I said yes and pretended like the ring wasn’t a last-ditch attempt to bring us back to life.”
Her teeth sink into her lip, her eyes dragging to her lap.
“I don't know what it was, but one night I just…broke. I couldn’t keep pretending to be someone I wasn’t, or beg to be loved.”
A few tears slide down her cheeks, she scrubs them away with her sleeve.
Leonard wants to tell her that she should never have to beg for anything in the first place, least of all love; he wants to tell her that she's worthy just the way she is. His fingers twitch with the desire to take her by the shoulders and tell her over and over that she’s perfect, that she couldn’t be too much if she tried. Sunshine has always had a magnetic pull to her, drawing in everyone she meets with her warmth. The idea of anyone taking that away from her pulls his heartstrings tight enough to snap. He holds back his anger, refraining from telling her that Ryder is an asshole who didn’t deserve a second of her time.
The wiser part of him knows that's not what he needs.
“We had planned to be on the USS Endeavor together, but I rescinded my application. I signed up to do on-planet research instead. I wrote a long letter, left it on our bed, packed up my things, and left.”
She coughs in a way that he knows is covering up a sob and takes a deep breath. The sound sends a pang of emotion through him.
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. We were engaged, for Christ's sake, and I couldn’t even look him in the eye when I left him. And don’t even get me started on the fallout. We had all the same friends, and our families were so close… it was all so humiliating . Everyone expected us to live happily ever after, and then, there I was, giving him back his ring in a coffee shop.”
She knocks back the rest of her drink, like a consolation prize for getting all the words out.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Len. I never wanted you to think of me like that, as someone who would do that.”
“ Sweetheart ,” he says like a plea, calling her attention. “No one in their right mind would think differently of you for leaving something that wasn’t good for you– or at least they shouldn’t.”
She's shaking her head before he finishes his sentence.
“But I–”
“I know. You didn’t go about it the way you maybe should’ve– or the way you wanted to. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you any less… good.”
She hiccups, her chest rising and falling rapidly as another stream of tears drips down her cheeks. He can't help himself – and even if he could, he doesn’t want to – he brings both hands to her cheeks, wiping away the salty tears.
“It's alright,” he says gently, swiping his thumb under her eye again. “You’re alright.”
She nods, breaths finally evening out, and his hands reluctantly fall back onto his lap.
He remembers well the storm of feelings his divorce left him with. The gulit, the lonliness, feeling like the world was ending.
“I get it, y’know. The shitty relationship, becoming somebody you don't wanna be,” the barstool squeaks as he leans on the counter. He hasn't talked about his marriage since he told the story to Kirk years ago. It feels odd to tell it again.
“My ex and I met in college, fell head over heels, and I proposed a year later. I thought… well, we both thought we were soulmates. There was this connection between us that I’d never felt before, and I thought this must be it.”
“After a year ?” she gawks. He casts her a sideways glance and chuckles.
“A perfect year, mind you. Not a single disagreement, not a bad date– every day was straight out of a damn love story or something. Until we got hitched, that is. Then it was all disagreements.”
He anxiously taps a rhythm on the bar top. The memory still burns him now, of the fiery conflict, of the sleepless nights.
“We were the same in all the worst ways, stubborn, headstrong, prideful. We couldn't settle an argument to save our lives. It probably didn't help that I was in the middle of residency and pulling 100-hour weeks. It was miserable. I hardly recognized myself… I know I don’t have the best temper, but I never wanted to be an angry person.”
He lets out a slow breath, “I was mad as hell when she called it quits, said a lot of stuff I regret. But she was right to do it. We brought out the worst in each other, I was just too narrow-minded to see it. All this to say, I’m sure I would have taken the night shift to avoid her too.”
Sunshine rests a comforting hand on his shoulder, her thumb pressing circles into the muscle.
“I’m sorry, Len.”
He leans into her touch without thinking about it. “These things happen,” he tells her decidedly. “When something’s not right, there's nothing you can do to change that. You do the best you can with where you’re at, that's all.” He pictures himself, young and full of fire, holding onto something that had already slipped away. “Which you did, Sunshine. I know it’s hard to see now, but I promise it gets easier.”
When he drags his gaze from the mahogany bar top back to Sunshine, she's watching him curiously.
“What am I supposed to see?”
“That you were young, and scared, and you did what you needed to for yourself. Even if it's not shit you’re proud of, it makes you who you are. You learn, and it makes you better.”
She says nothing, silently considering his words for several moments. “Well, it better get easier soon, because it sucks .”
He chuckles, “That it does.”
She reaches right past him and grabs the half-empty bottle of whiskey.
“We should toast,” she says, the melancholy in her voice fading away, probably tucked back behind a wall. “To failed marriages.”
She’s already refilling their glasses and lifting hers to bump with his.
“Thought you ducked out on the whole wedding thing?” he teases.
“Fine then, to failed romantics,” she impatiently shakes the ice in her glass, “Just do it.”
He knocks his glass with hers and agrees, “To failed romantics, and night shifts, and all the other shitty stuff.”
Her face pinches as she finishes her drink. Gingerly, she takes both of their glasses and stacks them behind the bar.
Like ripping a bandage off and letting the wound breathe, Leonard feels lighter. As Sunshine hops off the bar stool and straightens her uniform skirt, he can see on her face that she does too.
“Thank you for the drink, and the talk, Len,” she says, and he waves her off.
“Don't mention it.”
“ Totally gonna mention it,” she grins, “and when the schedule suddenly gives you two days off in a row, you’ll know why.”
He laughs, and shakes his head, “I don’t think that's allowed, Lieutenant.”
“I have my ways,” she says innocently, as she saunters to the door.
He watches her go, everything she’s told him still buzzing in his head. He can hardly make sense of everything he’s feeling at once, but there's one thought that sticks out among the rest, that sits on his chest, demanding to be heard.
“Sunshine?” he calls before she’s gone, giving into his relentless mind.
“Yeah?”
When she turns around, he’s flooded with everything he’s ever wanted to tell her. How she has seeped into every part of his life since he met her, despite his once armored heart. How she doesn’t see it, but she's changed the entire atmosphere of the bridge, pouring life into it with her energy. How she's taught him how to be a better friend, a better man, even a better doctor. How she’s not too much, she's everything.
“You should know, you’re never too much, that's ridiculous. Anyone on this ship would agree in a heartbeat. Don’t know what I’d– what we’d do without you,” he rushes out. “I hope you never think you need to be anything other than who you are.”
She goes still in the door frame and observes him for a moment. He flounders in her silence, wondering if he should have just kept his mouth shut. She suddenly moves from the doorway, quickly striding towards him, the sound of her boots clacking on the floor. He has no time to react before she gently places her hand on his chest. She wastes no time, leaning down and pressing a warm kiss to his cheek.
“Thank you,” she says meaningfully, searching his eyes for a brief moment before she turns heel again. She’s out the door without him even mustering up a word to say.
His skin heats where her lips had touched him, a crackling feeling left in their place. He lifts his fingers to the skin, ghosting over the sticky remnants of her lipgloss.
He sits, dumbfounded, knowing he’s gone somewhere there's no coming back from.
#guys new chapter whaaattt#theyre so close to kissing I swear#leonard mccoy x reader#leonard mccoy x you#bones x reader#leonard bones mccoy#star trek imagine#star trek alternate original series#star trek#on a cloudy day#leonard mccoy#james t kirk#star trek aos#star trek fanfiction#karl urban#chris pine
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