Title: From One Good Friend to Another
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: McCoy is a little tipsy but he’s not worried; he knows he is in good hands.
A/N: It’s Friday, muse. You’re supposed to enjoy a day of vacation!
Once again my muse, or what have you, has kept me up past my bedtime with a silly little idea. I can’t even give you a proper excuse for why I felt I had to write this.

He knew he shouldn’t have had that third mint julep, but it was as smooth going down as its predecessors. His body and his mind felt relaxed for the first time in a week, which had been nothing but long hours of stress and strain that came with the less pleasant side of his job as a senior medical officer. In all honesty, Leonard didn’t think he would make it to this little party because he had been so worn down by the time he was released from his last group conference (in a seemingly endless string of them) which he had had to attend as a department head, but a spritling of a nurse—or was it two nurses? he couldn’t remember—had persuaded him to drag his feet down to the meet-and-greet, the we made it through another impromptu Command inspection from the ninth circle of hell soiree somebody had had the foresight to plan.

Not to mention, Leonard thought, the gumption to host it when the vessel which had shuttled the Commodore who came poking around the Enterprise on behalf of Starfleet Command back to Starbase Nine had only re-docked an hour ago.

Some crewmen were still swooning from the onslaught of nerves, tension, and downright fear, but there were still plenty who attended the celebration for their own sanity or otherwise. In the company of some of his medical staff, Leonard had found himself at the open bar almost immediately, nursing one of his favorite drinks. Now it was a little difficult to keep from falling off his stool.

He glanced up to see a pretty redhead sidling in between two young male lieutenants not an arm’s length away in order to secure herself a refreshment. Leonard leaned far enough in her direction to shoot her a brilliant grin and drawled loudly over the chatter of the other patrons at the bar, “Why, fancy meetin’ you here!”

“Doctor McCoy!” Tonia Barrows said, seemingly pleased to see him.

He dismissed the formalities with a flap of his hand. “Leonard, darlin’. Call me Leonard. I’m not a doctor right now, just a man with a drink in his hand.”

“And a twinkle in his eye, I gather,” the young woman quipped, amused. Nevertheless, her body language told Leonard she wasn’t opposed to some good old-fashioned Southern charm (and therefore some flirtin’) so he slipped away from his bar stool, maybe wobbling a teensy bit in the process and sloshing his drink around too, to move closer to the pretty officer.

It was most unfortunate somebody chose that moment to get in his way; his coordination skill-set wasn’t up to par.

“Oops,” Leonard said, chagrined, to the shoulder he’d run into, “sorry ’bout that. ‘Sscuse me.”

But the shoulder shifted and blocked his path yet again. It took another second for Leonard to realize the shoulder was intentionally waylaying him.

He lost some of his good humor and told it, “Jusst—Just what are you doin’?” He had forgotten his hand held a glass and in trying to poke the rude body part splashed mint julep on it.

This made him unhappy. It wasn’t good to waste a fine mint julep on a shirt. He peered into his glass to make sure he had enough goodness left in it for himself—and swallowed the remnants of his fourth drink in one gulp.

The owner of the stained shirt plucked the empty glass out of his hand. “Doctor, I believe you are inebriated.”

Oh. Oh, he shoulda known. “Spock,” Leonard said, “weeell, howdy-do. Sure, I’ve had a drink.” He moved around the Vulcan. “Now kindly get outta my way so I can talk to that there lovely lady.”

Tonia had perched on a stool in the meantime and was watching him, legs crossed demurely and a smile playing about her mouth.

Leonard would buy her a drink. Oh wait, no need. It’s an open bar. Then they’d share a drink. Did she like mint juleps too?

He didn’t make it farther than a step or two towards her. Somebody pivoted him to face an entirely different view, which confused his brain and his balance enough that he staggered a little and consequently prompted the person to give him further assistance in moving along.

Except they were going in the wrong direction.

Leonard realized this belatedly once he was halfway across the rec room. “Waaait,” he said, planting his heels abruptly. “The bar!”

“No,” an implacable voice spoke from behind him, like he had asked for permission rather than wailed a protest.

Leonard didn’t like that. He spun around (a movement which was not good, not good at all, for an intoxicated man’s equilibrium) and met that darn shoulder again, this time sporting an unsightly green and still-wet stain. “Tonia,” he told it stubbornly. He blinked a moment later and looked up because, yup, there was a face attached to that shoulder.

Spock’s face. Oh, right.

“Going back now,” he told those bland features and reached out to pat the officer’s clean shoulder. “Glad we had this talk.” He paused, then added for posterity’s sake, “Good work.”

With an exhalation that was a not-sigh (Spock’s favorite kind, Leonard thought fuzzily), the Commander blocked his path for the third time and turned him around to face the exit. “Lieutenant Barrows does not require your company. You are inebriated, Doctor McCoy. It is time for you to rest.”

Leonard blinked at the people milling in front of them, going in all kinds of crazy directions, it seemed, as long as it took them away from the First Officer, and thought about that. “But I’m not sleepy.”

“Nonetheless you are exhausted.”

He had been terribly tired, he agreed. But now he just felt—well, not good exactly, kind of floaty. Floaty was a word.

“Floaty,” he corrected Spock.

“…I see.” Spock didn’t sound like he saw the point of Leonard’s made-up word at all. But before Leonard could give him a definition or a roundabout explanation of it, the Vulcan inquired in his no-nonsense tone, one officer to another, “What is the recommended treatment for someone who suffers from such a condition?”

Well, for a drunk, exhausted person? That was easy! “Sleep,” Leonard said, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, ’cause he wasn’t a smart doctor for nothing! “‘N probably a bucket to puke into in the morning.”

“Then I shall walk you back to your quarters to sleep.”

Hm. “I guess that’s kinda logical, Spock,” admitted Leonard after some consideration. Now that he thought about it, he did feel a little unusual and while it wasn’t exactly scientifically proven, sleep could cure plenty of weird ailments in Leonard’s opinion. “You’re almost as smart as I am,” he congratulated the Vulcan with a measure of pride.

Spock’s response was muttered too low for Leonard to hear, but it couldn’t matter anyway. He was busy enough trying to keep track of his feet so he didn’t trip over them. Occasionally, he missed a step and stomped on Spock’s boot instead. The Vulcan bore his clumsiness without comment as they weaved their way from the crowded rec room and toward another part of the ship.

Leonard didn’t make it to his quarters because he got lost.

Okay, not lost, he mused as he rambled along a corridor. It had just seemed perfectly okay to follow that ensign out of the turbolift.

He’d been humming a tune (not under his breath because how’s that any good for sharing the joy of ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia‘ with Spock?), faltering once and a while as he forgot the next string of notes and had to backtrack to the beginning. The turbolift stopped to pick up a small group of crewmen. One of the young lieutenants, a science officer maybe, asked Spock a question. Since Leonard didn’t care to listen to that answer or to hear any of their very serious shop-talk at all, he closed his eyes and rocked back and forth on his heels and kept humming. The turbolift dinged. Naturally he got off when most of the others did, following the herd; there was no need to think twice about it. Until later.

Now he was a little bit lost and still a little drunk. Well, not lost, he reminded himself. He knew this deck. Somewhere on this deck were two of his good friends’ living quarters.

So Leonard ambled along, got turned around once or twice, or paused to stare with frank curiosity at some passers-by who had the audacity to stare at him first, until he finally located a familiar doorway. He stood there for a while (wasn’t the door supposed to open? did he need a key?) and was just in the process of leaning his forehead against the cool metal of the door so he could sleep upright, if somewhat slumped to the side, when a voice startled him from his drowsy, half-aware state.

“Doctor.” Sharp, similar to an exclamation for some individuals, but not quite at the level of a reprimand.

Spock had found him after all. And gee, the Vulcan didn’t sound too happy. More like annoyed. What did he do to annoy a Vulcan? He rolled his head around in order to look at Spock and had to suppress a jaw-cracking yawn. His brain deemed it appropriate to say, “It’s a poor herdsman who can’t keep track of his sheep.” That made him titter a little.

“Your quarters are not on this level,” Spock said evenly, following a moment of glowering, and levered Leonard into a proper upright position and off of the door.

Rather than about-facing as he was undoubtedly supposed to do, Leonard was struck with sudden inspiration on how to open the door. He punched in a code (some kind of overriding high-level security clearance code, a clear sign of his genius) and was very proud when the ship’s computer allowed him entrance. Leonard slipped out from under the hand that reached out to stop him, hurrying into the darkened quarters.

Damn, it was hot in here! And harder to move about too. Made him feel like molasses. He said as much to Spock.

Spock commanded, “Computer, lights, sixty percent.” He said something else to the computer that eased the atmospheric controls toward normal for Leonard, and then walked over to the comm unit by the door, saying something there as well. A new voice responded, but Leonard had moved away and was too preoccupied inspecting the available furniture to listen.

Where should he sit? There was the couch—but he couldn’t lie down on it, not really, it was sadly short in length—or the chair by the desk? He rubbed at his backside, recalling the discomfort of the bar stool, and cursed the existence of all hard substances.

Spock was speaking (or lecturing) now at Leonard’s back in that subtle, coaxing tone normally reserved for the mentally deranged; he wanted to relocate to another room but Leonard paid him no mind, fixating instead on a new thought that popped almost randomly into his head.

“You know, I got a bone to pick with you, Spock…” he said slowly, not slurring but not entirely coherent either, as he turned to his companion. “Sometimes it’s just not fair.”

Perhaps realizing Leonard was ignoring him, Spock paused in his speech and made a noise one might consider long-suffering. “What is unfair, Doctor?”

Leonard sniffed and pointed at the Vulcan’s chest. “That. How human-proofed you are!”

Spock just looked at him, unblinking.

Leonard inched closer. You had to be extra sneaky with a suspicious person like Spock. “Your stupid Vulcan personal space bubble. It’s real, real stupid.”

“You have repeated that sentiment twice in the past three seconds.”

“Well, I don’t like it! C’mere!” To prove his point, he leapt in a surprise attack, only to subsequently fail at the leap itself by tripping over his own feet, and fell forward, planting his nose against Spock’s collarbone.

Spock smelled strongly of incense and mint. And he was made of sharp angles.

“Bony,” Leonard complained, wrinkling his smushed nose.

The Vulcan reeled back and Leonard obligingly went with him since he really wasn’t good at standing on his own two feet anyway, turning their hug into an indecorous tangle of limbs.

Somewhere behind them a door slid open with a whirring noise. “Spock, what is—ooh.”

Leonard hadn’t expected a visitor to his new abode, hadn’t even realized who Spock would call for backup (let alone that Spock would consider himself in need of backup because of one silly human), but he could recognize that voice anywhere.

“Jim!” the man cried, finally letting Spock push him away.

Well, thank god! Jim didn’t have issues with personal space like Spock, and Jim certainly wouldn’t mind a hug. Without knowing he had voiced this opinion aloud, Leonard hastily and gladly traded the Vulcan for his dear captain friend. An arm came up to wrap across his back and secured him against wobbling. Leonard pressed his face into Jim’s shoulder with a small sigh of relief.

“Hey, Bones,” Jim said, sounding amused but unsurprised.

After a moment, a hand started to fondly pat Leonard on the back. Leonard murmured his appreciation of the petting and drifted on a wave of contentment. Over his head, Jim was saying, “…have called me sooner.”

“A call would not have been necessary, Captain, if the doctor had not refused my attempts to redirect him to his own living quarters. It seems intoxication only exacerbates his ornery nature.”

Jim let out a short laugh, and Leonard would have laughed too if he had had the presence of mind because that was a great big lie. Leonard was a pleasant drunk; he’d been told that many times!

“I’m sorry for your trouble, Commander,” Jim said in his friendly way. That was the kind of attitude Leonard appreciated. “…And you, ah, have a little something on your shirt…”

“Drool, Captain. Not my own, I assure you.”

Even drifting on a wave of contentment, Leonard twitched at the mix of dry humor, resignation, and disgust.

The hand patting him stopped its repetitious motion. Leonard woke up with a hmm? as his body was shifted.

“C’mon, Bones, let’s find a place to settle you.”

He was too sleepy to protest. Besides, with Jim’s arm around his shoulders Leonard knew instinctively he wouldn’t be steered wrong. “Bed?” he asked, meaning Spock was right, sleep is good, a bed sure would be nice for this old country doctor. He didn’t feel the need to say all that, so he just repeated the one word hopefully.

“Captain, do you need assistance?”

“No, it’s fine, Spock, I have him—whoa there, Bones!”

Still uncoordinated, Leonard had swayed too far in one direction, taking Jim along with him, and knocked one of his shins into an unyielding object. Jim prevented him from falling over as he stumbled.

A bed, Leonard realized, glaring blearily at the offending thing which had gotten in his way. His affront faded.

Oh. It was a bed.

It seemed smart to lie down upon it. Leonard did so, unmindful of the sudden insistent tug at his arm and the “Bones, no!”

Damn but this bed was as uncomfortable as all the rest of the furniture on this flying tin can. Like sleeping on a lump of rocks.

Leonard found a pillow near his head, snorted into the pillowcase and then curled around it. It was invitingly soft. For several seconds afterward blissful silence filled the room. Somebody had given up on trying to shift his limbs.

He heard, as if from a distance, a murmuring and a sincere apology.

“It’s my fault, Spock.”

“There is no blame to be placed, Jim, except perhaps upon the unwise officer who repeatedly served the doctor doses of potent alcohol.”

“But where will you sleep?”

“There are reports I must complete before the next transmission to Command. I do not require rest at this time.”

“…In that case, I’m game for a rematch if you are.” A pause. “Do you think he will be all right alone?”

“Given the ardor of his snoring, I do not doubt it, sir.”

No one said anything else or made loud noises but Leonard was vaguely aware of someone removing his boots. Later he would awaken to a blanket tucked securely around his shoulders and (praise all that’s holy) a bucket by the bed, left by a true friend—or in this case, a pair of them.

-Fini

Related Posts:

• Follow Me Dark – from November 30, 2023
• Say a Little Prayer – from November 10, 2021
• Twist and Take – from October 31, 2021
• Clear from the Battle (But Not the War) – from October 11, 2021
• Consider Me Accounted For – from October 3, 2021