Chapter Text
Leonard had seen the young male teacher in the hallways once or twice, but he did not know the man had electric blue eyes until he showed up in the doorway in the closet that Leonard was supposed to operate in as a goddamn medical facility at Pike Memorial Elementary School.
“Dr. McCoy, right?” the kid said, shoulders high and square.
“Yes?” Leonard said, swiveling in his chair to face the door.
“Just what the hell are you doing here?”
Leonard’s mouth fell open. “Excuse me?”
“I said,” the kid--and he was not really a kid, but he had this cowlick of blond hair that stuck out over his forehead and slim-cut pants, so that the first impression he gave off was that he belonged in the high school across the street. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I am an M.D., kid,” Leonard laid stress on this, hackles rising despite himself, “and in case no one’s told you, I volunteered to fill in for the nurse at this school out of the generosity of my goddamn heart, since your last nurse quit a day before the school year started.”
“Okay,” the kid said, holding up a hand. “First off. You are volunteering but that generosity came after at least ten calls from Principal Uhura. Second, I know what you’ve been asked to do. What I want to know is why Eli Goddard went to your office with a stomachache and came back to my class in tears.”
Leonard sighed and looked skyward. “He was faking it. I thought as a teacher you would have noticed that.”
The kid actually stomped his foot. “Haven’t you heard of bedside manner? That kid is 6 years old!”
“Well Mr…?”
“Kirk.”
“Well Mr. Kirk I know you probably just left your parents’ house, but I actually am a parent and guess what? Kids aren't always telling the truth.”
The kid’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Well excuse me, sir, but no shit.”
Leonard could not believe the guts on this kid. Storming into his office all high and mighty.
“Now see here....” Leonard stood up and was ready to give the guy a piece of his mind, when Kirk sighed.
“I’m sorry, Doc. I’m nothing if not impulsive,” Kirk said, and ran his hand through his hair. “Can we start over?” The kid turned those impressive blue eyes on Leonard once again. “It’s been a long day and everyone in the school knows Eli’s parents, and we’ll be hearing about it, trust me.”
Leonard frowned. “Well, you’ll just have to tell them their kid learned a lesson about faking sick. He’s fine.”
“That’s...not exactly how it works.” Kirk folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “Look, I know you don’t have any experience in elementary ed, but there’s a certain kind of parent that’s the worst. Their kids can do no wrong. If you tell a parent that, my job would be a living nightmare.”
“Well, that’s just a load of horseshit. I would never raise my daughter like that. Joanna messes up, she actually has to deal with the consequences.”
“Wait, wait wait. Your daughter is Joanna Darnell?”
“Yeah...and?” He didn’t need to have another teacher comment about his daughter.
“Um, you’ve never heard the name Mr. Kirk before?” He looked amused now.
“No dammit! As you have already pointed out, I’m new. Nice to meet you Mr. Kirk, but this conversation is over, goodbye.” Leonard’s patience had worn out and he stood up to push him out of the small office.
“Come on, dude. I’m your daughter's teacher.”
Leonard gave up and sat down with his head in hands. “Dude? Dude?? My daughter is being taught by a juvenile delinquent.”
Improbably, at this point, Kirk began to laugh, big and open-mouthed and frankly, kind of ridiculous. Leonard dragged his hands down his face. “Delinquent!” Kirk gasped. “Oh man. You gotta take it down a notch, old man. This young whippersnapper can’t keep up with you.” He wiped his eyes. “Seriously, though, Joanna’s a good kid. Feisty. I like her. She’s gonna do great in second grade.”
“Eh,” Leonard mumbled, taken aback and mollified by the praise for his daughter. “Good. Because she is a great kid.”
“I can tell.” Jim winked, annoyingly good-humored at Leonard’s name-calling. “I like you too, doc. But seriously, help a juvenile delinquent out and tread a little more lightly with the kids. See you around.”
He was out the door, leaving Leonard blinking after him in the tiny, inadequately stocked office.
Jim walked into Pike Memorial the next day smiling and waving at his coworkers as he walked through the halls. “Hey, Linda, how’s it going?” “Hey Patti! Have a good night?” He walked towards the 4th grade classroom of the only other young male teacher, Hikaru Sulu, and went right in.
“Oh man, Sulu, have you met that new doctor we have here?”
Sulu looked up from the stack of papers he was grading with a smile. “No, what’s he like? I’ve heard a few things from the kids.”
Jim smiled, thinking back to his conversation with McCoy the day before. “Oh, Sulu, Sulu. I’m gonna have fun with this one. He’s like a crotchety old man, but doesn’t even look like he’s out of his 30s yet.”
Sulu shook his head, making a mark on a paper from his pile. “Oh wow. Well, don’t forget to play nice. Uhura can’t always save your ass.”
“Oh, Sulu, always worrying. Oh hey, get this. He’s the father of Joanna, in my class.”
“Which one is she again?”
“She’s the one that’s a 40-year-old trapped in a 6-year-old’s body. It totally makes sense! This guy would be her father.”
“Well I gotta finish this up before the kiddos come in.” Sulu fixed Jim with a knowing stare. “I know you’ve got a thing for the older dudes, but hands off.”
Jim smiled. “Moi? Oh Sulu. Such a dirty mind! Doctor McGrumpypants is safe from me. Now you, on the other hand--”
“Get outta here!”
“Kirk out.”
McCoy’s name caught Jim’s ear later that day on lunch duty, striding between rows of chattering children. Well, not his name so much as--
“Don’t go to the new doctor,” Eli was telling his table. “He’s so scary. And he has a big whole bones in his office, like at Halloween except it’s not Halloween. You shouldn’t go to him.”
Bones? It took Jim a moment before he remembered the plastic skeleton model he’d seen yesterday in that tiny nurse’s office and laughed out loud, filing this away for future reference.
The kids all nodded their heads quickly. “Real bones?? I bet he took them out of that kid who went home yesterday!”
McCoy’s daughter Joanna was sitting a few seats down. Jim didn’t know her that well yet, but he wasn’t surprised to hear her chime in.
Joanna had her nose in the air. “Hmm. You know they’re not real bones right? He’s not even scary at all. He’s smart and if you cried, well then you’re just a baby.”
Jim snickered and turned the other way when one of his kids looked at him. He didn’t like to get involved in kid drama--he preferred to let them play it out themselves.
“Well if you don’t think he’s scary,” Eli continued, “then why don’t you go and see him if you’re so smart??”
Joanna scoffed. “I don’t need to. He’s my dad.”
All the kids gasped dramatically. Jim turned his snicker into a fake cough.
“Well if he’s your dad then you must be scary too!”
Joanna gave a long-suffering sigh more characteristic of someone twice her age. “Well you’re still a baby!”
At this point someone spilled a carton of milk on the floor at the table across the room and Jim was forced to abandon the conversation for damage control.
Two nosebleeds and a skinned knee kept Leonard occupied the afternoon and then he had to do paperwork that was really poorly laid out and so he was totally occupied until a familiar voice floated around the corridor. “Hey Mr. Scary Bones.”
He looked up. Kirk was leaning against the door again, hands in the pockets of his well-tailored gray pants, looking like the cat that ate the canary.
“M’name’s McCoy,” he growled, “in case ya forget since yesterday.”
“Oh nope,” Jim said, shit-eating grin stretching wider, “that’s not what I hear. See, word is on the street that that poor shmuck,” he nodded at the model skeleton hanging behind Leonard, “is all that’s left of your three o’clock yesterday. Mr. Scary Bones.”
“That’s Dr. Bones to you, kid,” Leonard snapped, and watched Jim’s eyes widen, first in surprise and then in delight. “And this, for your information, is Asclepius. He is a professional-grade full-scale replica of an adult human, which certainly disqualifies it from being any of my patients here at the school.” He paused to smirk. “Now, before this. That I can’t say.”
“You managed to scare them real good,” Jim informed him.
“I thought the kids would think it was cool,” Leonard admitted. “And I could point to different things if they needed to see them.”
“What are you doing here?” came Joanna’s voice from the hallway. Her suspicious little face appeared next to Jim’s waist.
“Don’t be rude to your teacher,” Leonard said automatically. “And he’s just leaving. Wasn’t he.”
Kirk grinned. God, nothing fazed this kid. “Okay Joanna, you better take your dad home,” he said. “See you tomorrow. And you, Dr. Scary Bones. Take care.”
Joanna still looked suspicious as Leonard stood, stretching the kinks out of his back and reaching for his briefcase.
“So that’s your teacher, huh,” he said to her. “What do you think of him?”
Joanna shrugged nonchalantly. “He’s weird. But I haven’t decided yet.”
Leonard smirked. “Me either, Jo-Jo. Me either.”
A week later, it was clear this kid was not gonna leave him alone. And worse, he had kept calling Leonard “Dr. Scary Bones,” shortened eventually to just “Bones,” and he. Would. Not. Stop.
“Hey Booones,” Kirk drawled, leaning on his doorway yet again.
Leonard shuddered. He was never a fan of nicknames. His ex-wife had always called him “Len.” He should have known from the start that wasn’t gonna work out.
“Hello, Mr. Kirk.”
“Come on, Bones. It’s Jim.”
“Well then you can call me Leonard, not that godawful nickname.”
Kirk smirked and sat down in the little chair reserved for McCoy’s patients. “Leonard?? But that’s so lame.”
“It was my great-grandfather’s name.”
Jim made a face. “I feel that pain. I have a terrible middle name from family too--”
“--My name isn’t terrible, Jim--”
“--which no one at the school knows and you will never, ever hear.” He folded his arms, slouching ridiculously in the tiny chair. “What’s yours?”
“A name no one at the school knows and you will never, ever hear,” McCoy parroted right back.
Jim sat up. “Wait, really?”
“Yes, really, kid. And there’s no use itchin’ my ass about it, you won’t get it outta me.” Leonard could see the gears turning in Jim’s altogether too-quick mind.
He still smiled, though. “You called me Jim.”
McCoy rolled his eyes and turned back to his desk of paperwork. “Get outta here, Mr. Kirk.”
“You called me Jiiiimmmm,” Jim sing-songed as he skipped out of the room.
McCoy couldn’t help the small smile that appeared on his face.