Work Text:
Riona was surprised when she heard a knock at the door. The girls were all here; Anna was pouring the girls’ alcohol of choice. She got up and headed over to the door, opening it up just a small crack.
“Leonard!” she exclaimed, and she opened the door just a little bit more at the familiar face. “What is it?” she asked, tilting her head.
They were study buddies, and they sometimes ate together, but she wasn’t used to him just showing up, and she wondered if something was wrong. She hoped that it wasn’t the case.
“Jim kind of…took over the dorm. Mind if I come in?” he asked; his words were measured, and he couldn’t seem to decide what to do with his hands as he shifted on his feet.
“No, no!” Riona felt her heart melt a little; he just wanted to spend some time with her. “I have some friends over, but you’ll fit in great.” Riona opened the door wider and pulled him inside. “Ladies! This is Dr. Leonard McCoy; he’s one of Starfleet’s finest surgeons.”
Leonard made a small noise of protest, and when Riona looked up at him, he had the hint of a smile. Riona gave his arm a squeeze and gestured at the rest of her friends.
“Leonard, you know Christine already, but I’ll let the rest of them introduce themselves.”
“Gaila,” she said, twirling her hair. “You’re Jim’s friend, right?”
Riona couldn’t help but giggle a little; they had all heard stories about Jim Kirk from Gaila. Though Riona had heard equally as many from Leonard himself.
Leonard snorted. “Yeah. God help me.”
“Anna Basri.” Anna’s eyes twinkled, and she smirked at Riona.
Riona barely prevented herself from shooting daggers back at Anna. She’d had a bit of a crush on Leonard from the start, and she did not need Anna to be revealing that kind of information. She already felt like she was constantly second guessing herself with Leonard, and she didn’t want to make that feeling even worse.
“Uhura,” Nyota said with a somewhat pointed look.
Leonard smirked. “Jim still doesn’t know your first name, does he?”
She shook her head.
He drew an x over his heart. “Won’t tell him if you want to share it.”
Riona nodded solemnly. “He won’t. He’s a doctor. We take our promises seriously.” She looked over at Anna. “Have anything in a bourbon?”
“You know my drink?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Southern comforts. I pay attention,” she replied, smiling; it was something that she’d had to look up after he’d first mentioned he was from Georgia.
Anna handed him a glass of bourbon as well as a glass of wine for Riona. She watched as Anna distributed the rest of the women their alcohol as well. They’d been in the middle of deciding nail polish colors.
“Girls’ night?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Uhura replied. “We have to decompress from classes somehow.”
Riona offered Leonard a pillow. “Have a sit.” She patted it before moving her hand so that he could sit.
“I’m not a girl,” he said as he sat. “I can go to the library or somethin’ until Jim’s done locking me out of my own room.”
“No, no. You came here because you didn’t want to go to the library or back to the clinic. You can stay,” Riona insisted.
“Yeah, you can help us paint our nails!” Christine agreed. “And we can do yours if you want!”
“Oh, what color should we give him?” Gaila was suddenly examining the nail polish. “Blue maybe?”
Riona fluttered her wings with a small smile. “Do you know how terribly blue clashes with our cadet reds? Do we have something in a peach?”
She watched Leonard smile and shake his head. “Peach sounds lovely.” He looked over at Riona. “What color are you doing?”
Riona held out her purple, as dark as the night sky, and silver sparkles. “I need my stars.”
“And the rest of you ladies?” he asked, looking around the room.
“African Flower,” Uhura said, holding up the light shade of purple.
Gaila’s was a nice shade of red that matched her hair, and Christine was going with a silver. Anna had a very nice rose red and planned on adding little designs in black and green for the thorns and stem and such. Riona watched as Leonard settled in, took a drink of his bourbon, and accepted the peach color from Gaila.
“So, what did you mean that Jim locked you out of the dorm?” Riona asked.
“Well, he had company.” Leonard rolled his eyes and shook the nail polish. “We never really established any rules, so I suppose that I should do that whenever I get back.”
Riona snorted. “Sounds like you need to find a way to get a single.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind. He’s good company, most of the time. Who wants their nails done first?”
Anna took the spot, and he even decorated her roses for her; the designs sat perfectly against the solid red. Riona could tell that Anna was trying to get a read on him. Not with her empathic abilities; she knew Anna did everything she could to prevent getting in peoples’ heads. But Riona knew that Anna wanted to know why she liked him so much.
“From what I hear, it’s a good thing Kirk found himself friends with a doctor,” Anna said.
Leonard sighed, and he just nodded. “He’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but when he’s not doing stupid shit like that, he is a good friend. He makes sure I have coffee going for me in the mornings.”
“Oh, he’s one of those people.” Uhura shuddered. “How, when he stays out the way he does?”
Leonard shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, honestly.”
Riona giggled. “Some people just need less sleep.”
“Yeah, Sweetheart, there’s a difference between not sleeping eight to ten hours and not sleeping. The amount of times I see you on shift at the clinic is not healthy.”
“I keep telling her that she needs to get that looked into,” Christine agreed.
“I am a Star Faerie. I can literally feel the stars pulling at me. You try sleeping when they’re bright and whispering and loud.” Riona crossed her arms.
“Okay, what about the day time?” Leonard looked at her.
“You know what else is a star? That is so close? The Sun.” Riona looked at him pointedly, chewing on her bottom lip.
He laughed, and he scooped up her nail polish and held out his hand to her. Riona accepted, and she tried not to react to how his hand felt against hers. He held her with careful precision, using his thumb to nudge her fingers a little further apart when needed. She lost track of the conversation as she just tried to focus on her breathing.
“Does that look right with the stars?” Leonard asked her, gesturing to the nail he’d added her silver sparkles to.
“Yeah. That looks perfect. Thank you.” She smiled.
He smiled back and took another nail to add the stars to. She knew she would be thinking about this for a long while. It was terrifying to her. And it was a relief when he was done and moved onto Uhura. They started talking about medical terminology, as Uhura was in a class, and she was struggling with some of the words. They were just hard to keep in her brain.
“Look at them like their own language. You know the general categories. So, figure out how to make everything fit together like a language,” he told her. “Once you memorize all the base terms and know when to swap in cardio or osteo or neuro or whatever it is, then you’ll be able to keep everything else straight and remember what’s a disease or a body part or a procedure or an instrument.”
“Thank you,” Uhura said.
“He’s a great study partner,” Riona told her. “Psychology was the worst for me, but he was able to get me to understand how to piece it all together.”
“Well, don’t count out your own abilities. It’s all about making the information accessible. We all learn differently, and that’s not a detriment.” He smiled at them both.
“I like you,” Anna said.
He laughed and took a sip of his bourbon. “I like y’all, too.”
Gaila was very relaxed when it was her turn, and she was just observing him. Riona wasn’t sure what that was about, but Gaila, even if she told them who her flings were with, never gave them much about what happened. She had to assume that Jim Kirk talked about Leonard as much as Leonard talked about Jim Kirk. It was good to see that Leonard did have a friend. Riona was sometimes worried about how much time he spent working, even if he had called her out for the same thing.
Christine had him recounting some stories from clinic, telling them about his impressive surgeries, his interesting approach to bedside manner, and how he had saved quite a few patients who should have been goners. Leonard and Christine both were very careful about the details given out, as confidentiality was huge, and they were all still cadets. They interacted with a lot of the people that they saw at Starfleet Medical.
As it turned out, Leonard truly did have the steadiest hands in Starfleet, and maybe the entire Federation. He very precisely painted each of their nails for them, and he never had to get the nail polish remover out to fix anything. They were all even and layered precisely, and it was a beautiful masterpiece. Leonard was quiet as the girls talked, and Riona found herself distracted by the way that he listened and observed them all. She kept glancing at him, and she was grateful that Gaila could talk enough for all of them, because it let her not have to keep the conversation going. But they all were at ease, and she kept having to fight herself to not lean against him as he settled back in beside her.
“Okay, so you’re going to come every week, right?” Gaila asked, blinking at her perfectly done nails.
“Well, if you’re going to have bourbon,” he replied, grinning at them.
“Riona, why have you been hiding him?” Gaila gave her a look.
Riona flushed a little, but her wings fluttered joyfully; she enjoyed that she had this relationship with him. “I wasn’t. He’s just like us. Bit of a workaholic, maybe. He takes on more clinic hours than anyone else.”
"It is nice to see you relax, Dr. McCoy,” Chapel agreed.
“Please call me Leonard when we’re not on-shift,” he told her. “It is nice to relax. This is nice.”
“Now you understand the purpose,” Uhura said. “Life is hard enough when you don’t take the time to rest.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Leonard grinned and toasted Uhura. “Wise words, Uhura.”
“Call me Nyota,” she told him.
Leonard turned, and Riona couldn’t tell if it was the warmth of the alcohol or the way he smiled at her that made her flush the way she did, but her breath caught in her throat.
“Thanks for havin’ me,” he said.
“Always,” she replied.