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It starts with a dull ache in his abdomen that Leonard immediately dismisses as stress. God knows he suffers enough from it already. So he pops a pain reliever and ignores it, so by the time it spikes into true discomfort in the middle of a surgery, it’s too late to do anything but grimace through the pain and continue extracting the jagged pieces of tubing from Ensign Jaro’s large intestine.
Leonard has long since given up on wondering how these things happen, especially in engineering.
"You all right?" Christine asks warily, as soon as he finishes closing up Jaro’s abdomen.
Leonard issues a low grunt and steps back to let a nurse swab at the sweat beading on his forehead. “Had a bad sandwich.” Or something, he’s sure. He can’t exactly remember the last time he’s eaten, with all the cases cropping up lately, but he’s sure his last meal had vaguely resembled a sandwich.
"You should have someone come look at the replicator," she says sympathetically. "I’m sure Scotty wouldn’t mind."
"Yeah? He better not, after me putting half his crew together." Leonard lets the rest of the nurses take over and steps out of the operation room, snapping off his bloody gloves and tossing them in a detox bin as he passes by.
He puts it out of his mind and worries about other things until later in the weekly staff meeting in his office, nurses perched on various pieces of furniture while he strides across the limited space left and gestures at charts of the latest service statistics. He’s halfway through his summary of supply restocks when suddenly the pain, which has situated itself somewhere in the right of his abdomen, flares out in a stabbing, white-hot pain that causes him to double over and curse fluently in Standard, Spanish, and undiluted Georgian swears. “Mother of-“
"Dr. McCoy!" It’s Christine’s hand on his forehead, another on his back, and he resigns himself to the fact that he’s probably picked the best place possible to have a physical breakdown. His nurses coddle him until he’s ready to bite off a few concerned heads before reluctantly assigning him to bedrest in his own quarters.
Appendicitis, Leonard thinks gloomily as he lies in his bed. Amateur. It’s a rookie mistake that he’d strangle Jim for if it ever happened to the kid, and only sheer embarrassment keeps him from straying too far down that path of thought.
Thinking about Jim in general seems to have a similar effect to invoking the devil, and he’s only proven right when, ten minutes later, Jim bursts into his room with all the tact and warning of a volatile two-year-old. Leonard swears loudly as his heart rate elevates a few notches, then groans when his abdomen screams in protest.
"Bones, holy shit, are you okay," Jim babbles, taking a couple of steps into the room before halting and swaying uncertainly where he stands. He looks a mess, hair all rumpled and his command shirt on backwards as if he’s come straight from bed. Probably has, Leonard thinks, noting the time on the wall chrono. "I heard your appendix blew up-"
"For God’s sake," Leonard grumbles, settling back into his pile of pillows as Jim finally ventures farther into the room. "It’s just appendicitis."
"It blew up," Jim says again, gesturing wildly at his own stomach for emphasis. "That’s bad.”
Leonard rolls his eyes, pulling the covers gingerly up over his chest. “Yes, I know, Jim, I’m the one with the medical degree, remember?”
"Then how-" Jim flaps his hands, trying to wrangle out the words he can’t seem to form coherently. "Why are you like this?!"
"Well, gee, let’s see." Pain seems to have diluted Leonard’s usual sarcasm filter, and he somehow can’t bring himself to give a damn. "Appendicitis goes untreated, appendix ruptures. Simple cause and effect sequence we’re dealing with here, kid."
Jim inches closer to his bed, eyeing Leonard warily as if afraid he’s going to pop another organ. “You all right now?”
Leonard sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to suppress the headache he can sense coming on. “I’ll be fine.”
"Are you sure?" Jim presses. He nudges a stool over beside Leonard and perches on it, sitting on his hands and tucking his feet up against the legs like a little kid. "You look awful."
"You tell that to all the ladies?" Leonard reaches over to the nightstand and gropes blindly for the array of hypos he had Christine set out beforehand. His fumbling hand knocks one onto the floor, and he winces at the clatter. "Damn it-"
"Here." Jim bends to pick it up, turning the hypo thoughtfully in his fingers as he straightens again. "Let me."
Leonard eyes him suspiciously, but the kid looks unusually earnest, eyebrows drawn together as he stares down at Leonard’s stomach with wide-eyed apprehension. “Okay,” Leonard relents, and he turns his head to the side to grant access to his neck.
He feels the warmth of Jim’s skin before light fingertips skid across the skin beneath his jaw, hovering over his pulse point briefly before sliding away again. He doesn’t want to think about it, and so he closes his eyes and recites the periodic table of elements until he feels the careful press of cold metal and hears the resulting hiss.
The pain recedes instantly to a dull ache beneath his belly button, and the headache fades away with a final warning throb. Leonard sighs involuntarily in relief, almost forgetting Jim’s presence until he speaks again.
"Is that better?"
"Mmm." He doesn’t want to talk, only wants to bask in the brief lull. The meds aren’t going to do much for long- at best, he’s only got about half an hour before the pain returns, and he’s only got two hypos left.
"Do you need anything?"
Leonard peeks at him contemplatively. Jim blinks back innocently, all blue eyes and stupid eyelashes, and Leonard suddenly misses the distraction of the pain. The drugs aren’t doing much to help his inhibitions, either. The kid’s always been too damn pretty for his own good, and Leonard’s always had an eye for the finer things in life. But Jim’s off limits, he told himself long ago. Some things just aren’t worth the risk.
"Bones?"
Now I’ve gone and worried him.
Leonard clears his throat gruffly. “I’m good.”
"Food? Water?"
"Can’t keep it down," Leonard says dismissively. "Don’t you have somewhere you need to-"
"Be right back." Jim bounds up to his feet and walks out of Leonard’s field of vision to the main chamber of his quarters.
"Hey!" he calls, suddenly suspicious of whatever Jim’s gotten up to now. "Don’t mess with anything, you hear?" He hears a strange rattling sound and tries to sit up. His abdomen complains sharply at that, and he clutches a hand to his . "Jim!"
"What?" Jim returns, juggling a bowl of ice in the crook of one arm and a stack of PADDs in the other.
Leonard watches warily as Jim settles back down beside him again, setting the bowl on the nightstand and plopping the datapads on the floor by his feet. Everything about the scene is looking strangely familiar, and he realizes abruptly that this is the usual setup whenever Jim was sick back in the Academy, groaning and aching and generally making Leonard’s life a feverish hell.
"Open up," Jim says cheerfully, leaning over Leonard with something clutched between his fingers.
Leonard feels the stinging cold of the ice chip against his bottom lip, and he glares sullenly up at Jim. “Go away.”
"C’mon." Jim takes the opportunity to slip the sliver of ice into Leonard’s mouth, watching him until he crunches down on it reluctantly. "You know, you’re supposed to suck on those," the kid says reproachfully.
"Suck on this," Leonard mutters, chomping down on the ice again defiantly.
Jim’s mouth twitches in a funny half-smile, and he bends over to pick up a PADD, leaning his elbows on the side of Leonard’s bed as he begins to read.
"Another?" Jim asks, when Leonard swallows the last of the ice chip.
Leonard thinks about it a second, eyes the bowl on the nightstand, then nods slowly. He watches Jim lean over, the edge of his shirt riding up above his waistband, and he drags his eyes away as Jim turns back towards him.
He opens his mouth without being asked this time, and if his lips brush against Jim’s fingers as the ice chip slides on his tongue, it’s completely unintentional.
"Does it hurt?" Jim asks after a moment. His fingers tap distractedly on the PADD’s casing, eyes fixed intently on the screen, but not moving.
"A bit," Leonard answers grudgingly.
"Want me to kiss it better?"
Leonard nearly chokes at the nonchalant offer. He splutters a bit, then forces himself to swallow the not-quite-small-enough chunk of ice in his mouth. Jim watches him, having completely dropping the pretense of reading by now. His hand slides innocuously across the bedspread, and Leonard can feel his knuckles bumping up against the edge of the bandages beneath the layers of sheets and clothing.
"You need to take better care of yourself," Jim says quietly. "Don’t make me worry about you."
"Don’t nag. It’s unbecoming."
The corner of Jim’s mouth lifts and falls again, so quickly that Leonard’s not sure that he sees it. He scoots forward a little, dropping his head onto the edge of the mattress by Leonard’s hand. “Mind if I stay?” he mumbles into the sheets.
Leonard stares down at the top of Jim’s head. His hand suddenly itches with the longing to touch, to caress, and he indulges himself in a brief brush against Jim’s hair with the back of his fingers.
"You can stay."