Fic: Best of Times (McCoy&Uhura, STXI, PG)
Title: Best of Times
Author: sail_aweigh /
sail_aweigh
Rating: PG
Pairing: McCoy and Uhura friendship, background Kirk/McCoy
Word count: 1825
Summary: Leonard McCoy needs a gentle reminder that life doesn't have to be all or nothing. Nyota Uhura provides the cluestick.
Warnings: Bones likes to swear
A/N: Written for lindmere who wanted McCoy/Uhura friendship fic at the party post on jim_and_bones.
Leonard stormed into his office, the door swooshing shut behind him softly but not before he had a chance to turn around and hurl the book he was holding in his hand out onto the medical bay floor. He didn't even care how childish it looked, because, damnit! He'd been looking forward to reading more of "A Tale of Two Cities" with Jim that evening. Jim had promised, only Leonard found out that Scotty had shanghaied him into helping tune up one of the relay panels that had been causing a .5% loss in engine power. Something Leonard felt Scotty and his staff were quite capable of doing on their own. Jim, however, sometimes took being the captain (and a certified genius) as an excuse to tinker in the wiring as if his touch was better than that of Midas. One of these days, he felt like telling Jim, the golden boy would find that he'd turned the ship to gold and his relationship to dross.
Crap. Leonard threw himself back into his desk chair and allowed it to roll backward, letting his head drop back to meet the wall with a soft thunk. He pressed the heels of his hands into his closed eyelids and just concentrated on breathing. Leonard didn't want to be jealous of the damn ship; he knew Jim was only trying to be the best captain he knew how. But it didn't mean he didn't miss being able to spend his spare time with the man, when they had such busy schedules and free time was at a premium. With a sigh, he leaned forward and reached for the bottom drawer of the desk. He'd have one glass from his stash and then retire for the night in the room he'd been hoping to already be relaxing in with his lover.
His musings were interrupted by the door swishing open, but he refused to look up. Disappointment was something he didn't deal with well and he knew it; he didn't want to say anything he'd regret later. The soft steps came to a stop at the edge of the desk and the book that had landed out in the medical bay was placed gently on the surface in front of him.
"That's not a very nice way to treat something so valuable, Len." Nyota moved to the chair facing his desk and sat down gracefully, tucking her skirt carefully under her thighs. She sat straight-backed with her hands clasped loosely, but precisely in the center of her lap. It was one of the things Leonard admired about her, that ability to maintain an aura of graciousness even when things were going to hell in a handbasket. Not that they were right this minute, except maybe in his own imagination.
"Quit sulking, Len. The pout may work on Jim, but it doesn't work on me anymore than his does. You two are like a matched set of salt and pepper shakers." She reached across the desk and picked up his glass of bourbon, taking a small sip after an appreciative sniff. Leonard could see her rolling the bourbon across her tongue, cataloging its nuances before she swallowed. No wonder Jim was so enamored of her; she had grit behind that beautiful face and form. She reminded him a little of Jocelyn in that respect. It caused a small shudder to go down his spine and he acknowledged that was why he could only ever be friends with this woman no matter how attractive he found her. Well, and he had Jim. Nor did he envy Spock in any way, shape or form except inasmuch as his relationship with Nyota didn't seem to be as fraught with as many pitfalls as his and Jim's. Until you looked closer and then you could see how all the expectations of being one of Vulcan's last prodigal sons was placing an almost insurmountable degree of pressure on Spock. No, there was nothing there for Leonard to envy and why he and Nyota had become such good friends. They had learned to support each other in the face of unreasonable demands on their significant others and from them, too.
"If we were, he wouldn't be down in engineering playing with schematics and frequency analyzers in the wiring. He and Scotty are probably raving about ample nacelles right now," he predicted, his lips twisted in disgust.
Nyota got up and walked over to his chair, shoving his shoulder aside as she sat on the arm of the chair. Leonard was forced to lean a little to the side to keep the chair balanced. He grunted in surprise when she took his chin in her strong fingers and forced his head up so she could look into his eyes.
"Len, did you or did you not get to spend two whole weeks on Omicron Delta V helping develop a vaccine against the Omicroid flu?"
"Yes, but that's my job," he protested.
"No, Len. You're job is to keep the ship's complement healthy and to be an ambassador for Federation medical practice on first contact planets. Helping develop vaccines for Federation members is a hobby for you. No one ordered you there; you had to request to be allowed to help."
"Well, yes, but…"
"Ah! You were having fun in your spare time, admit it."
"Yes, but…"
"Tchah! Len! Could you be any more like Jim Kirk than if you came out of the same womb? You're both overachievers who stop at nothing until a solution is found and the people you are helping are safe. What is Jim doing right now?" She pinched his chin even harder, as if expecting him to read her mind through the contact. He thought Spock was definitely turning into a bad influence on her, maybe he should…another squeeze brought his attention back to her eyes. She was looking at him with more than a hint of exasperation in her expression.
"Oh, alright. He's helping keep the ship in tip-top shape so we can run away from Klingons when they pop out at us from behind their cloaking devices." Leonard jerked his chin away from her grasping fingers and rubbed at his jaw. Damn, the woman had adamantium bones, he'd swear to it.
"And how long will you be apart while he does this?" Nyota laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. Leonard slumped a little in his chair.
"A couple of hours, maybe." He picked at the seam of his pants with one hand. This woman had handily absorbed Spock's ability to pare an equation down to the essentials with logic and never failed to make him squirm. But at least it wasn't a Vulcan making him feel this way.
"Do you think he'd like some company while he works down there?"
"He's got company! Scotty and whoever is on gamma shift is with him." And he was sitting here, well, not as alone as he had thought he was going to be. That was all well and good, but he had really been looking forward to the alone time with Jim.
"But he's not with you any more than you are with him. Don't you think that maybe he would still like your company?" Her questions gave him pause. He'd never thought of it that way: that he could still be doing something he liked with Jim, while the other man was doing something else he liked. They already did that in their quarter sometimes; he would work on his reports on one end of the couch, while Jim worked on duty rosters on the other end. It was a way of making distasteful tasks pass quicker. This was a little different, but the principle was the same. Leonard couldn't understand why he hadn't seen it before, but now that he was aware of the possibility he couldn't wait to implement it.
"Nyota, you are a pearl before swine. I don't know what I'd do without you to knock a little common sense into me occasionally." He pulled her down into a hug and placed a quick kiss against her cheek.
"I'm going to go down to engineering and do what I'd intended to do originally: read another chapter of this book out loud for Jim. Hell, he may be so grateful he'll actually…uh, well, never mind." Leonard gave Nyota a hand to steady herself on while she stood up from the arm of the chair. She shook her skirt out and smoothed it over her thighs, before walking over to the door. As it slid open in front of her, she turned and gave him a mischievous look over her shoulder.
"Leonard, you are a very smart man, but I think sometimes you let things fester so long that you lose all sense of proportion of their individual importance in the grand scheme of things. In the words of a very significant cultural icon: You must chill." Her skirt seemed to give an extra smug little flip as she left the room.
He snatched up the book sitting on top of the desk and caught up to her just outside the door to his office. "Did you just Dobbler me? I can't believe you just Dobblered me. Only Jim does that. How do you know that?" Leonard babbled at her as they walked toward the turbolift.
"Not just a pretty face, Len. A xenolinguist has to know all sorts of cultural references, from opera to street mime to kabuki theatre to Homer and the Odyssey. It's all relevant in one way or another," Nyota rebuked him.
"You're right, I humbly apologize." Leonard gave her a sweeping bow as they entered the turbolift.
Once they were inside, she gave him a punch to his bicep.
"Ow! What was that for? I apologized." Leonard rubbed at his arm. Her knuckles were pointy!
"For doubting me in the first place." Nyota sniffed.
"Okay, okay. What do I owe you?"
She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. "Hmmmm. The recipe for your mother's peach cobbler?"
"Highway robbery, but it's yours."
She smiled at him and helped rub out his bicep, giving it a little pat when the turbolift came to a halt on the engineering deck.
"Got get him, tiger." The door swished open and Leonard gave her hand a quick squeeze before he exited the turbolift.
"Thanks, Nyota. Next time I'm being a dolt, feel free to remind me that logic just needs a little sugar taken with it to make it go down easy." With a last wave, he loped down the hallway toward the main engineering bay. It surely wasn't the best of times, to be spending his off-duty time in an engine room, but neither was it the worst since he'd be spending it with Jim. Nyota really did deserve that recipe for peach cobbler.
Author: sail_aweigh /
sail_aweigh
Rating: PG
Pairing: McCoy and Uhura friendship, background Kirk/McCoy
Word count: 1825
Summary: Leonard McCoy needs a gentle reminder that life doesn't have to be all or nothing. Nyota Uhura provides the cluestick.
Warnings: Bones likes to swear
A/N: Written for lindmere who wanted McCoy/Uhura friendship fic at the party post on jim_and_bones.
Leonard stormed into his office, the door swooshing shut behind him softly but not before he had a chance to turn around and hurl the book he was holding in his hand out onto the medical bay floor. He didn't even care how childish it looked, because, damnit! He'd been looking forward to reading more of "A Tale of Two Cities" with Jim that evening. Jim had promised, only Leonard found out that Scotty had shanghaied him into helping tune up one of the relay panels that had been causing a .5% loss in engine power. Something Leonard felt Scotty and his staff were quite capable of doing on their own. Jim, however, sometimes took being the captain (and a certified genius) as an excuse to tinker in the wiring as if his touch was better than that of Midas. One of these days, he felt like telling Jim, the golden boy would find that he'd turned the ship to gold and his relationship to dross.
Crap. Leonard threw himself back into his desk chair and allowed it to roll backward, letting his head drop back to meet the wall with a soft thunk. He pressed the heels of his hands into his closed eyelids and just concentrated on breathing. Leonard didn't want to be jealous of the damn ship; he knew Jim was only trying to be the best captain he knew how. But it didn't mean he didn't miss being able to spend his spare time with the man, when they had such busy schedules and free time was at a premium. With a sigh, he leaned forward and reached for the bottom drawer of the desk. He'd have one glass from his stash and then retire for the night in the room he'd been hoping to already be relaxing in with his lover.
His musings were interrupted by the door swishing open, but he refused to look up. Disappointment was something he didn't deal with well and he knew it; he didn't want to say anything he'd regret later. The soft steps came to a stop at the edge of the desk and the book that had landed out in the medical bay was placed gently on the surface in front of him.
"That's not a very nice way to treat something so valuable, Len." Nyota moved to the chair facing his desk and sat down gracefully, tucking her skirt carefully under her thighs. She sat straight-backed with her hands clasped loosely, but precisely in the center of her lap. It was one of the things Leonard admired about her, that ability to maintain an aura of graciousness even when things were going to hell in a handbasket. Not that they were right this minute, except maybe in his own imagination.
"Quit sulking, Len. The pout may work on Jim, but it doesn't work on me anymore than his does. You two are like a matched set of salt and pepper shakers." She reached across the desk and picked up his glass of bourbon, taking a small sip after an appreciative sniff. Leonard could see her rolling the bourbon across her tongue, cataloging its nuances before she swallowed. No wonder Jim was so enamored of her; she had grit behind that beautiful face and form. She reminded him a little of Jocelyn in that respect. It caused a small shudder to go down his spine and he acknowledged that was why he could only ever be friends with this woman no matter how attractive he found her. Well, and he had Jim. Nor did he envy Spock in any way, shape or form except inasmuch as his relationship with Nyota didn't seem to be as fraught with as many pitfalls as his and Jim's. Until you looked closer and then you could see how all the expectations of being one of Vulcan's last prodigal sons was placing an almost insurmountable degree of pressure on Spock. No, there was nothing there for Leonard to envy and why he and Nyota had become such good friends. They had learned to support each other in the face of unreasonable demands on their significant others and from them, too.
"If we were, he wouldn't be down in engineering playing with schematics and frequency analyzers in the wiring. He and Scotty are probably raving about ample nacelles right now," he predicted, his lips twisted in disgust.
Nyota got up and walked over to his chair, shoving his shoulder aside as she sat on the arm of the chair. Leonard was forced to lean a little to the side to keep the chair balanced. He grunted in surprise when she took his chin in her strong fingers and forced his head up so she could look into his eyes.
"Len, did you or did you not get to spend two whole weeks on Omicron Delta V helping develop a vaccine against the Omicroid flu?"
"Yes, but that's my job," he protested.
"No, Len. You're job is to keep the ship's complement healthy and to be an ambassador for Federation medical practice on first contact planets. Helping develop vaccines for Federation members is a hobby for you. No one ordered you there; you had to request to be allowed to help."
"Well, yes, but…"
"Ah! You were having fun in your spare time, admit it."
"Yes, but…"
"Tchah! Len! Could you be any more like Jim Kirk than if you came out of the same womb? You're both overachievers who stop at nothing until a solution is found and the people you are helping are safe. What is Jim doing right now?" She pinched his chin even harder, as if expecting him to read her mind through the contact. He thought Spock was definitely turning into a bad influence on her, maybe he should…another squeeze brought his attention back to her eyes. She was looking at him with more than a hint of exasperation in her expression.
"Oh, alright. He's helping keep the ship in tip-top shape so we can run away from Klingons when they pop out at us from behind their cloaking devices." Leonard jerked his chin away from her grasping fingers and rubbed at his jaw. Damn, the woman had adamantium bones, he'd swear to it.
"And how long will you be apart while he does this?" Nyota laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. Leonard slumped a little in his chair.
"A couple of hours, maybe." He picked at the seam of his pants with one hand. This woman had handily absorbed Spock's ability to pare an equation down to the essentials with logic and never failed to make him squirm. But at least it wasn't a Vulcan making him feel this way.
"Do you think he'd like some company while he works down there?"
"He's got company! Scotty and whoever is on gamma shift is with him." And he was sitting here, well, not as alone as he had thought he was going to be. That was all well and good, but he had really been looking forward to the alone time with Jim.
"But he's not with you any more than you are with him. Don't you think that maybe he would still like your company?" Her questions gave him pause. He'd never thought of it that way: that he could still be doing something he liked with Jim, while the other man was doing something else he liked. They already did that in their quarter sometimes; he would work on his reports on one end of the couch, while Jim worked on duty rosters on the other end. It was a way of making distasteful tasks pass quicker. This was a little different, but the principle was the same. Leonard couldn't understand why he hadn't seen it before, but now that he was aware of the possibility he couldn't wait to implement it.
"Nyota, you are a pearl before swine. I don't know what I'd do without you to knock a little common sense into me occasionally." He pulled her down into a hug and placed a quick kiss against her cheek.
"I'm going to go down to engineering and do what I'd intended to do originally: read another chapter of this book out loud for Jim. Hell, he may be so grateful he'll actually…uh, well, never mind." Leonard gave Nyota a hand to steady herself on while she stood up from the arm of the chair. She shook her skirt out and smoothed it over her thighs, before walking over to the door. As it slid open in front of her, she turned and gave him a mischievous look over her shoulder.
"Leonard, you are a very smart man, but I think sometimes you let things fester so long that you lose all sense of proportion of their individual importance in the grand scheme of things. In the words of a very significant cultural icon: You must chill." Her skirt seemed to give an extra smug little flip as she left the room.
He snatched up the book sitting on top of the desk and caught up to her just outside the door to his office. "Did you just Dobbler me? I can't believe you just Dobblered me. Only Jim does that. How do you know that?" Leonard babbled at her as they walked toward the turbolift.
"Not just a pretty face, Len. A xenolinguist has to know all sorts of cultural references, from opera to street mime to kabuki theatre to Homer and the Odyssey. It's all relevant in one way or another," Nyota rebuked him.
"You're right, I humbly apologize." Leonard gave her a sweeping bow as they entered the turbolift.
Once they were inside, she gave him a punch to his bicep.
"Ow! What was that for? I apologized." Leonard rubbed at his arm. Her knuckles were pointy!
"For doubting me in the first place." Nyota sniffed.
"Okay, okay. What do I owe you?"
She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. "Hmmmm. The recipe for your mother's peach cobbler?"
"Highway robbery, but it's yours."
She smiled at him and helped rub out his bicep, giving it a little pat when the turbolift came to a halt on the engineering deck.
"Got get him, tiger." The door swished open and Leonard gave her hand a quick squeeze before he exited the turbolift.
"Thanks, Nyota. Next time I'm being a dolt, feel free to remind me that logic just needs a little sugar taken with it to make it go down easy." With a last wave, he loped down the hallway toward the main engineering bay. It surely wasn't the best of times, to be spending his off-duty time in an engine room, but neither was it the worst since he'd be spending it with Jim. Nyota really did deserve that recipe for peach cobbler.