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McCoy scrubs his hands again, swallowing down something he refuses to acknowledge, and washing away the blood he can no longer see from between his fingers. The crew needed him, needed him to remain gruff, needed him to remain ‘Doctor McCoy’ for just a little longer.
He could be Leonard in his quarters, but he could never be Leonard in his sickbay. He cannot break here, cannot damn them that way.
He slides his gloves on and turns around with a practiced scowl, “Sit still cadet, you're gonna tear your bandages.”
The crewmen in question relaxes, despite McCoy’s huffy tone, and stops squirming long enough for McCoy to finish caring for them.
Because it was McCoy, because it was Bones, and because he was a Doctor who was always composed (despite his complaining, with which they had come to associate and depend on him for, for complaining, was better than worrying), and because he always did his utmost with every patient he was given.
By God McCoy had even cured a rock, had patched up the Horta when he had no prior medical skill in the matter, and that in itself, should've been a medical commemoration.
But people died in starfleet everyday, people had died today, and McCoy could only do so much.
It ate at him, that McCoy was only human, and it ate at him that there was blood on his hands-
If he had only found a cure quicker, if he had only been smarter, if he only knew the things he knew now-
But those were thoughts for Leonard, thoughts for later, and so McCoy sucks it up, and does his job.
The sickbay smells like iron and antiseptic, and when everything is finally said and done, he checks on his staff, before heading to his quarters.
His room is cold, and colder still when he strips out of his clothes and stumbles into his bathroom. The water is scalding when he steps into the shower, buring the shift off of his skin, and Leonard covers his mouth and chokes on 14 hours worth of blood, and rot, and too late cures.
He doesn't hear the knock on his and Scotty's conjoined bathroom door, doesn't hear it open-
“Leo?” It's a soft call that startles him, and he looks away when the engineer pulls back the curtain.
There's a short silence that passes between them, and an understanding that makes McCoy feel ashamed, before Scotty gently reaches in front of him and turns the water down.
“ ‘S too hot for me,” He says, not pressing when he knows Leonard needs this, and slipping out of his clothes.
They had talked about it before, a few times, but Scotty had learned that just joining him did more good than trying to talk him down. McCoy did a job Scotty could never bring himself to do, a hard, bloody one, and so when Leonard fell apart, Scotty could always admire him for getting back up and doing it again.
The water is a comfortable lukewarm now, and when Scotty slips into the shower behind him, he runs gentle hands over the splotches of red on his partner’s skin, and noses against his neck. “ ‘S alright, it's over tonight, you can relax.”
It wasn't really over, they both knew that, but it was a small comfort all the same, and Leonard takes a breath, and leans into the engineer behind him. He's tired, he's upset, he's angry, and he just wants to get the blood off of his skin.
There was none now, not really, but McCoy could feel it on him, thick and metallic, and it made him feel sick to think it was getting on Scotty now too.
McCoy was making him dirty, was soiling someone too good for, and too good to him. McCoy was-
There are hands in his hair, gently scrubbing in shampoo and brushing out tangles. The scent is distinctly Scotty’s and Leonard tilts his head back into it, and grins when soapy hands trail down to squeeze his shoulders.
“I'm not fragile.” McCoy complains, light heartedly, and Scotty laughs.
The engineer already knows how today went, the whole ship knew, but only he knew how McCoy was really doing.
It was only Scotty that knew the extent of McCoy's grief, and so he presses a kiss against the doctor's ear, against his cheek, and neck, and he murmurs about his day down in engineering, about the oil on his skin, and the malfunctions he fixed-
He distracts Leonard because he loves him, distracts him because that's what McCoy needs, and the Doctor relaxs, slowly, in his arms-
McCoy was so tired, McCoy felt so dirty, and McCoy could feel the weight of crewmen younger than him on his shoulders, could feel the weight of his own life in comparison to all those who should've had far more time, of families with no bodies to bury-
Scotty washes his back, trails soapy hands down his sides, massages the knots in his shoulders and when McCoy's breath hitches, the engineer pushes down on them, lightly, and his weight is real.
Scotty was not a trick of his mind, nor a consequence of the doctor’s conscience, and when the tears finally fall, Scotty kisses them away and promises McCoy that he's, “all clean.”
And in that moment, it's all McCoy needs, it's a truth he clings to, he's clean, there's no blood, or dying men begging him to save them-
There's no one asking why he got to live while his patient's died, there's nothing but Scotty turning off the water and helping him step out.
Leonard's room is cold, and Scotty's is always a comfortable degree of warm, and it's messy, a little cluttered, a very visual proof that Scotty was alive and took up his own space and-
McCoy loved it, loved him, and despite his complaining found himself curled up with him on any night their shifts allowed.
Scotty was comfort, Scotty was real, and Scotty was Leonard's.