Work Text:
“No no no no no! Don’t do this to me!” You tapped the screen of your comm wildly, but it was too late. The message had been sent. You stared at your screen with a mix of horror and betrayal. You’d meant to send the message to your friend with occasional benefits, Lee, asking if he wanted to come over for a bit of stress relief. Instead you’d sent to the one and only Leonard McCoy.
You only had Leonard’s comm number because you were assigned partners for a Xenobiology project, and you hadn’t even had chance to meet up for that yet. You groaned, pressing your hands to your eyes as you slumped back into your chair. What the hell would he think of you now? Your first contact aside from basic pleasantries was you asking for a damned booty call.
Maybe Leonard was on shift in the hospital. If he was, his comm would be off. Maybe you could get one of your tech genius friends to pull some kind of miracle and retrieve your message before it went through to his comm.
Another quick glance to your traitorous comm dashed those hopes before they could even truly form.
Not only had Leonard received your message, he’d read it too. You groaned again.
You should send another message. Say sorry and tell Leonard that it was a complete accident. Would that offend him though? Take it that you thought he was ugly? Which was definitely not the case. Leonard was gorgeous, but he was also way out of your league, so you’d never even contemplated voicing your feelings.
Three little dots appeared at the bottom of the screen, and your fingers hesitated before they could begin to compose your apology message. Maybe you could wait to see what he said before apologizing. It couldn’t do any more damage.
So you waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Those three little dots remained on your screen, but no message came forth. What was taking him so long? Was it some sort of essay he was writing? One long message saying he wasn’t interested, and that maybe you should ask to be reassigned partners?
You should put your comm down and go and do something productive, you told yourself. Staring at your comm was doing nothing to calm your nerves. You had just snapped the device shut, and set it down on the table, intending to do some studying, when it pinged. You hesitated. You wanted to read it, but you didn’t want it to seem like you’d been waiting for Leonard’s reply either. Of course there was always the chance that it wasn’t Leonard, and was just one of your friends.
Cursing, you reached over and grabbed your comm.
I usually prefer to be taken out to dinner first.
You gaped at the screen. Double, then triple checking it was actually from Leonard.
It certainly wasn’t the rejection you were expecting. Was this Leonard’s way of asking you out? Surely not. But what else could it be?
You tapped the screen to respond with something as vaguely flirty, but then stopped. What to say? Was this even a good idea? Maybe you should ask straight out? But if it wasn’t a subtle date invitation, and just Leonard’s way of very gently saying no, you’d make a fool out of yourself.
And you really, really didn’t want to make a fool of yourself.
More of a fool of yourself anyway.
You’d had a crush on Leonard since you first spotted him in your classes. Who wouldn’t? He was the literal embodiment of tall, dark and handsome, and despite the gruff mannerisms, he’d always been polite, and you just knew that there was a softie underneath the tough outer layers. It wasn’t until you noticed that Leonard wasn’t in any of your compulsory classes for first year med-students did you realize that he was the Leonard McCoy. The Doctor you’d spent countless hours reading about before you joined the Academy. The Doctor you were quite frankly in awe of.
The knowledge didn’t help deflate your feelings for him at all, if anything it only made it worse, knowing that he was both gorgeous and insanely intelligent. It did ruin your hopes that you’d ever have a chance with him though. There was no way such an accomplished Doctor would be interested in you, even if so far your class scores had been equal.
When you’d been assigned as partners by your Instructor, you were only barely able to stop yourself from jumping with joy. Academically, it was a dream come true, and after that class, when he approached you, you’d pushed all thoughts of crushes to the back of your mind. You weren’t going to let it stop you from working at your best with Leonard, even if he did smell ridiculously good. Clean and soapy with just a hint of mint.
Leonard had been the perfect gentleman in the few minutes you’d spent together. He’d introduced himself, and when you’d somewhat shyly admitted you knew who he was, and complimented him on his amazing work, thanked you and returned it by saying he found your presentation of non-humanoid genetics fascinating. If it had been someone else, you would have thought the compliment was for pure politeness, but you’d observed Leonard enough to know that he was honest, and didn’t suffer fools. If he hadn’t liked your presentation, he wouldn’t have said he had.
The two of you had gotten on well, extremely well, and while it had done nothing to quell how attracted you were to Leonard, your excitement about working with him still shone over it. You’d exchanged comm numbers, Leonard apologising that that he couldn’t stay any longer as he had a shift to work, and that had been the last you’d spoken to him. At all. With separate work to be completed far sooner than your project, you’d both been too focused to meet or even talk.
Until now.
Your comm pinged again. Another message from Leonard.
Hey, Y/L/N. It’s Jim Kirk. I’ve stolen Bones’ comm, and am currently hiding in the bathroom with it. So I’ll keep it brief before he knocks the door down and takes it back. Bones really likes you. A lot. Hasn’t stopped talking about you in weeks. He freaked out at your message, and it took me ages to convince him to reply. Now he’s freaking out again because you haven’t replied, and those dots are driving him insane, and he thinks he’s upset you or something. If you’re interested at all, please let him know. Bones is a good guy, and I really don’t want to have to strangle him because he won’t sit down for more than a minute.
You chuckled as you finished reading the message, picturing Leonard hammering on the door and threatening Kirk with a litany of punishments. Then you read the message again. Leonard liked you. And he was panicking over this whole situation as much as you were. You laughed again.
Another ping.
Shit, Y/N. I’m sorry. I only set my comm down for a second, and that damned infant stole it.
Your eyebrows raised as messages came in one after the other, in rapid succession.
Please don’t feel pressured into committing to anything because of Jim.
I’ll make him suffer for this, I promise.
He wasn’t lying though.
I do like you.
And I figured that message wasn’t meant for me, and I was just going to reply that you got the wrong number, but then Jim started going on about how this was the perfect chance to lay down a hint. Test the waters. And like an idiot, I went with it.
I hang out with him way too much.
But please don’t feel the need to say yes to any of this.
I hope this won’t interfere with our project either, because I’ve been looking forward to working with you.
I understand if you think it’ll be too awkward though. I can request a partner swap on Monday.
Shit, I’m sorry.
You were almost crying with laughter by the time the barrage of messages came to an end. Leonard was flustered. Doctor Leonard McCoy world renowned genius was flustered. Because of you. Because he liked you. You looked at the chrono. 20:00. Too late to go out dinner, and at this time on a Friday, all the bars would be packed.
Roommate won’t be back until late. Dinner and a movie at my place?
You sent the message before you could overthink it. Leonard must have still been holding his comm, because he began to reply immediately. It took a couple of minutes for the message to come through, and you smiled at the image of Leonard realizing you were just as interested.
I’ll get the food. Anything in particular?
You thought a moment before responding.
Thai?
Less than a minute now.
Where have you been all my life?
You laughed.
Waiting for you to come along and dazzle me your amazing texting skills, obviously.
A ping almost instantaneously.
Another comedian in my life. Just what I need. I’ll be there in half an hour.
You smiled at your screen warmly for a few moments.
Can’t wait.