Chapter Text
The first thing Leonard McCoy became aware of was the sterile scent of antiseptics—his antiseptics, actually. The next was the hum of the Enterprise’s sickbay, the quiet beeping of monitors keeping track of a body that, unfortunately, seemed to be his own.
That was never a good sign.
He cracked an eye open, only to be met with the sight of Jim Kirk’s insufferably smug face hovering over him like an overgrown golden retriever.
“Well, well, well,” Jim drawled, arms crossed over his chest. “Look who finally decided to join the land of the living.”
McCoy groaned and tried to sit up, only to be met with the distinctive resistance of a medical restraint field. Damn. That meant he’d really done a number on himself.
“Let me up,” he grumbled. “I’m the chief medical officer, for crying out loud—”
“Affirmative, Doctor,” came a calm voice to his left. Spock, standing at his usual parade rest, one eyebrow raised in what McCoy had long since learned to interpret as Vulcan amusement.
“However, given your recent disregard for your own well-being, it would appear that you require medical supervision.”
McCoy scowled. “What the blazes are you two yammering about? I’m fine.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Bones,” Jim said, grinning way too much for McCoy’s liking.
“Maybe the part where you ran into a building that was literally collapsing so you could perform emergency heart surgery on a guy trapped under rubble?”
McCoy blinked, the memory coming back in flashes—an away mission gone wrong (as usual), an earthquake hitting just as they were negotiating with the locals, a critically injured scientist, and no time to get him out before the rest of the building caved in.
“I had it under control,” he grumbled.
“You had it under control?” Jim repeated, eyes wide with mock astonishment. “Because I distinctly remember having to beam you out just as the rest of the building came down, over your very vocal protests I might add. And you were not in great shape.”
“The last thing my patient needed was to have his atoms scattered all over the place when I had just barely managed to put him back together!” McCoy said, his point somewhat undermined by the fact that he was flat on his back in a biobed.
Kirk just hummed infuriatingly.
“How is he, by the way?” the doctor in him forcing him to ask.
“He is fine,” Jim assured him, voice taking on his very captain-y, patronizing admonition tone. “You, however…”
“Oh fuck you, Jim,” he groaned again.
Spock, ever the one to twist the knife with logic, tilted his head. “Doctor, you have repeatedly chastised both the captain and myself for what you perceive to be ‘reckless, harebrained heroics.’ And yet, in this instance, it was you who exhibited the same behavior.”
McCoy glared at them both. “That wasn’t reckless, it was a calculated risk. The man would’ve died if I hadn’t—”
“Uh-huh,” Jim interrupted, smirking. “Sounds like something I’d say. Except when I say it, you usually call me a damn fool and threaten to hypospray me unconscious.”
McCoy opened his mouth, then shut it. That did sound like him.
Damn it.
Jim leaned in, grinning like he’d just won a bet (which, knowing him, he probably had). “So, Bones, should I start using your own lines on you?” The Captain the proceeded to affect the absolute worst excuse for a southern accent Lenord had ever heard.
“‘Dammit, man, you’re not invincible’?”
McCoy’s scoff lacked its usual forcefulness. Damn stasis field.
Jim continued, “How about, ‘You’ve got to take better care of yourself’? Or maybe, ‘One of these days, you’re gonna get yourself killed, and I’m gonna be the one stuck putting you back together’?”
McCoy groaned and threw an arm over his face. “I hate you both.”
Jim patted his shoulder, way too pleased with himself. “That’s just the blood loss talking.”
McCoy absolutely did not wince.
Spock, ever the helpful one, added, “Doctor, you did, in fact, lose a significant amount of blood. I estimate that is affecting your mood by approximately twenty-three percent.”
McCoy peeked out from under his arm to glare at him. “I still hate you both.”
Jim and Spock shared a look.
“Love you too Bones,” Jim said cheerfully, patting him again, thankfully on his less injured shoulder this time. “Love you too.”