Work Text:
Leonard McCoy hated parties almost as much as he hated dress uniforms. He tugged on the tight collar as loud music blared and sweaty bodies danced around him. The Nauranians seemed to enjoy dancing at parties even more than humans do, or at least humans other than McCoy. Among the lithe magenta aliens, he could see Uhura and Chapel dancing together, as well as Sulu and Chekov, although they were significantly less graceful than the ladies.
McCoy sighed. It wasn’t as if he’d dance with Jim and Spock if they were here, but he was lonely in the crowded room nonetheless. He hoped whatever business the Nauranian ambassador pulled them away for would be over fast.
Apparently, he got half of his wish. His head turned when he heard the commotion of several Nauranians hastily getting out of the way of a panicked captain.
“Bones! Emergency!” Jim called. Bones gasped, hand instinctively going to his medical kit, which he had insisted on bringing to the party. Jim reached him and put a hand on his shoulder, then bent over to catch his breath.
“What’s wrong?” McCoy asked, alarmed.
“It’s Spock! He’s… drunk!”
“What?” That was not at all what Bones had expected. “How? I thought alcohol didn’t affect Vulcans.”
“No, but it wasn’t alcohol.” Jim’s eyes were wide. “The ambassador gave us this drink- it’s their ritual for celebrating alliances, and now Spock’s all tipsy!” Jim was talking so fast, McCoy didn’t have time to congratulate him on getting the Nauranians to join the Federation.
“What was in the drink, Jim?”
“I dunno, it was sweet?”
Bones remembered something he’d read or heard from M’Benga about sugar compounds having an intoxicating effect on Vulcans. “Well, what do you want me to do about it? I mean, he’s not about to cause a diplomatic incident, I hope?”
Jim huffed. “No, but he’s gonna be so embarrassed! He was in front of the ambassador and everything, I don’t know-” Bones was about to interject and ask where Spock was now when Jim exclaimed, “Wait, I’ve got it! I’ll get drunk too!”
“What?” McCoy roared.
“Yeah, that way he won’t be embarrassed when he sobers up. There’s gotta be a bar somewhere in this joint.” Jim pat McCoy’s shoulder and then hurtled away before Bones could stop him.
“Wait!” McCoy gaped, trying to gauge where his boyfriend had gone. Apparently that drink had given him quite the sugar rush as well as making Spock drunk, he thought.
He tried to go in the direction Jim had gone, but suddenly the music changed and so did the alien’s dancing. Tall pink bodies were circling him in, and he couldn’t see any other Enterprise crew. Their cheering was raucous, and the lights were strobing to a point where he could only see silhouettes, swaying and leaping to the beat. Bones tried to pull out his communicator and call Jim, but he could barely hear his own voice, and then a Nauranian bumped into him and the device fell to the ground, where it was crushed by stomping hoof-like feet. McCoy fumed, trying to push away from the aliens, but they all stood several heads above him and couldn’t see him among the crowd of their own.
Bones finally pushed out of the mob once the song finished. Completely disoriented, he found himself in a different corner of the room. Trying to get his bearings, he stood up on a bench and looked for any sort of bar. He thought he could see one all the way across the room, behind the source of the music and flashing lights.
McCoy sighed and made his way across the crowded room as fast as he could, staying on the outside of the dance floor for the most part. He squinted against the bright lights and collapsed against the bar. “Hey,” he gestured at the Nauranian washing glasses behind the counter, “Has the captain come by here?”
The alien looked confused.
“Captain Kirk? The fella your ambassador was meetin’ with?”
The Nauranian tapped their mouth and made a gesture like a shrug. Only then did Bones realize that they must not speak Standard. He considered getting Uhura, but balked at the idea of going all the way back across the dance floor. He waved a hand at the alien, who went back to washing dishes. McCoy looked at the bottles of red, pink, and purple liquid that stocked the bar. He took out his tricorder and scanned the contents of the drinks. None contained alcohol. Jim wouldn’t have been able to find what he needed here.
Tugging at his uniform, he stalked away from the bar towards the large double doors that Jim, Spock, and the ambassador had gone through to sign the treaty. To his surprise, he found them quite easy to open, and was relieved to enter the cooler, more brightly lit hallway.
There was no one to be seen except for a few Nauranians in what Bones guessed was some sort of catering uniform. He groaned, then turned a corner and almost ran right into Scotty.
“Geez, Scotty, what are you doing here?” Bones stared at the engineer, who was looking bereft holding a near-empty bottle of what was clearly liquor.
“This is all he left!” Scotty said miserably.
“Who? What? Wait, is that alcohol? Have you seen the captain?”
“Aye,” Scotty moaned, “and he drank almost all my stash!” Scotty swigged down the remaining liquid, then tucked the bottle under his kilt.
“He drank that whole bottle?” McCoy didn’t have time to chastise or complement Scotty’s method of smuggling alcohol to parties.
“Aye, he was running about, going on about Mister Spock and he saw me here about to have a wee bit of fun and he just took me bottle, drank it down, and ran!” Scotty looked like he was about to cry.
“Listen, Scotty, I’ll make it up to you, I’ve got some stuff in sickbay, but that’s not the point, where’d Jim go?”
Scotty pointed in the direction the Nauranian caterers had been coming from. Bones followed the winding halls to the entrance of a kitchen. Outside the kitchen, there was what looked like a large stone oven. Spock was sprawled on its roof. Jim leapt up from where he was collapsed against the wall when he saw McCoy.
“Booooooones! You’re here!” Jim slumped into McCoy’s arms.
“Jim, what the hell! Spock, get down from there!”
“No, ‘s warm,” Spock sighed.
Bones took a deep breath. “Okay, Spock, I know you didn’t mean to get drunk so I’m giving you a pass, but Jim, what were you thinking? You can’t just drink in the middle of a diplomatic-”
“But Spock woulda been all embarrassed!”
“Yessats a logical assumption,” Spock slurred.
“‘Sides, we finished all the dip-diplomy stuff, right? The ambassador’s partyin’ now.” Jim grabbed McCoy’s hands clumsily and tried to imitate a waltz. “Let’s party, Bones!”
Bones tore his hands away. “No, we are going back to the Enterprise before you two cause any more trouble.”
“Trouble?” Spock sat up. “Where’s trouble? Sensoars innicate coast is clear.”
McCoy wasn’t sure whether to find this annoying or endearing. He stood on his tip-toes and reached for Spock’s hand to help him down from the roof of the oven. As soon as he brushed Spock’s fingers, the Vulcan slapped his hand away.
“Doctor, I thought better of you! Ask first, you-”
“We’re dating, Spock!” Bones exclaimed. “Just get down from there.” Spock slid bonelessly off the oven onto the floor. Jim was still pretend-waltzing by himself, but he saw Spock crumple and tried to help him up but grabbed McCoy’s leg instead of Spock’s arm. Bones grabbed both his boyfriends by the arm and draped them over his shoulders.
“Okay, let’s go- damn, you two are heavy!”
“Rude!” Jim said.
Bones rolled his eyes. “Scotty! You better still be here!” He dragged Jim and Spock around the corner, wishing he’d asked for Scotty’s help to transport them up. “Scotty!” he yelled. There was a noise behind him, and Scotty tumbled out of the kitchen doors, holding a bottle and grinning wildly.
“Never say I can’t make do with what I have! Cooking wine!” Scotty took a large swig, then his eyes bulged when he saw the limp captain and first officer seemingly attached at the hip to McCoy.
“Scotty, can you call the Enterprise for a beam up?”
“Aye, sure,” Scotty laughed and pulled out his communicator, mumbling something about “poor lads can’t hold their drink” before hailing whoever was manning the transporter.
Scotty gave them a mischievous wave as the familiar tingling sensation engulfed Bones, Jim, and Spock. McCoy ignored his nausea as they materialized on the transporter platform in favor of making sure neither of his boyfriends threw up. Luckily, neither of them looked particularly green, or no more so than usual in Spock’s case. The crewman manning the transporter gave them an odd look as Bones hurried the three of them out of the room toward the captain’s quarters, which they shared since it was the largest room.
It took them longer than usual to reach their quarters since Bones had to continue supporting Jim, who kept poking McCoy’s nose and whispering “boop”, meanwhile Spock had regained control of his legs but was making random inspections of the various labs they passed.
When they finally got to their quarters, Bones let Jim flop onto the bed and immediately went to take off his stifling uniform. Spock came up behind him, and McCoy squealed in a rather undignified manner when he felt a long hand slip under the hem of his shirt.
“Spock, what the-” Bones swatted Spock’s hand away and pushed him onto the bed. Who knew Vulcans got handsy when they were drunk? Spock batted his eyes innocently while McCoy rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay, just get changed, you two.”
He stepped into the bathroom to change into pajamas in peace. Not as soon as he had and was moving on to brushing his teeth, he heard a loud thud. Bones leapt back into the room to see that Jim had tripped over his pants. Biting back a laugh at his space-patterned boxer briefs, McCoy pulled Jim’s pants and boots off. Jim hopped up quickly, and now Bones did laugh because his shirt was still stuck to his head by the collar like a bizarre wig.
“Thanks, Bones! Hey Spock!” Spock lifted his head from where he was curled on the bed like a cat, apparently having stripped to his undershirt and underwear without complications. He made an inquiring noise that sounded like “mrrrp?” which McCoy had to admit was adorable.
“Spock, let’s fuck!” Jim jumped onto the bed enthusiastically, and Spock looked like he was about to pounce on top of him before Bones yelled “No!”
“Aww, why not, Bones! C’mon, you don’t hafta join, I know you’re ace- asexy- a sexy bitch.” Bones snorted.
“You guys are going straight to bed. Besides, I’m not about to let y’all fuck in the same bed we sleep in.”
Spock sat back, looking grumpy. “I’ve fucked loads of people in this bed,” Jim insisted.
“Ew!”
“Please, Leonard?” Spock asked. “Lenny? Can I call you Lenny?”
“No, you can not,” McCoy said, groaning. He ripped the shirt off of Jim’s head and threw it aside, then he grabbed a pillow and swiped it at Jim.
“Hey!” Jim shrieked. Bones felt a soft force collide with his lower back, and found that Spock had thrown a pillow at him, looking quite determined. McCoy stared at him, affronted, then swung the pillow at Spock, mussing his usually-perfect bangs.
Now it was on. Jim grabbed the third pillow, and a full-on pillow fight broke out. Bones was much more coordinated than his drunken boyfriends, so he managed to avoid getting hit for the most part. Normally he would have found this ridiculous, but he did look forward to seeing Spock’s sober reaction to being informed he had exhibited the focused fierceness of a warrior to pummel the captain with pillows.
Jim was bouncing up and down excitedly, but he tackled Spock to the ground when the Vulcan expertly struck his bare chest with the pillow. McCoy threw his pillow between the two of them, and then Spock was hurling two pillows in rapid succession, knocking Bones over. Then both Jim and Spock were kneeling over him and whacking him softly with pillows. McCoy giggled, pushing them away to stop the tickling sensation. He was glad that they were likely too drunk to remember what would have certainly been an opportunity for them to tease him. He smacked them each with a pillow, then noticed that they both looked pretty tuckered out.
“Up, up, let’s go to bed,” Bones grabbed Spock and Jim’s arms and deposited them on the bed, putting the pillows back in their proper places. He smiled as Spock curled up and fell asleep immediately. “So much for Vulcans not needing as much sleep,” he whispered. He slotted himself in between Jim and Spock. Usually, Spock was in the middle, he was actually oddly possessive of the position, even if he claimed it was just for “temperature regulation”.
Jim yawned and wrapped his arms around McCoy. He leaned down and kissed both Jim and Spock on the forehead. Spock murmured softly and placed a hand over McCoy’s heart. As he heard the breathing of the two men he loved become steady, Bones smiled in the darkness. That could have gone a lot worse, he supposed. And hey, if it ended with Jim and Spock snuggling him from either side, maybe they should get drunk more often.