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When Leonard H. McCoy leaves Smalltown, Georgia for the Big Apple, the first thing he does is move into his small apartment, walking distance from Columbia University.
Next, he takes a walk: New York is a city of walkers, something he's taken for granted and it's a brisk early-September day and his legs are starting to freeze, so he ducks into a small coffee shop and gets a big mug and a donut and sits at the window to watch people.
McCoy is all set for four grueling years of med school to learn how to be a surgeon. The thought is cemented with the first sip of the rich brew, which slides down his throat and warms his bones. McCoy is ready.
The first year of med school is a flurry of orientations, lab work and so much dissection that McCoy wants to start dissecting himself. The smell of formaldehyde starts to permeate his apartment and he's taken to flinging open the windows. Christine Chapel, a friend from Nursing, brings him some candles but he can't be bothered to light them. His place is a firetrap.
It feels like a win when he gets past first year and the smell of formalin leaves after a couple of weeks. McCoy's ready and hungry for more. Every day he feels more and more like a doctor.
Of course sometimes he's exhausted and his head feels like there is no more room for more information. Sometimes, he's lonely and he dates once in a while, has fallen into bed with a classmate once or twice but it's never more than a casual fling or a one-night stand.
Med students are easy because they're all Type A single-minded types all concentrating on one thing only. If they want to fuck once in a while, there’s no pressure and not even a little awkwardness the next day usually, just same old, pass the scalpel and oh my god, that STD looks disgusting when it's magnified a thousand times.
On the toughest days—most days— McCoy heads to the same coffee shop he found on his first day, Delta Vega coffee. Janice, the warm-eyed owner always has a cup for him, all the regulars get their own special cup and a slice of apple pie that's almost as good as his mom makes. There are a lot of regulars who come at different times: Geordi's a mechanic who only ever comes in to take his coffee out and Professor Picard teaches public policy. He vaguely remembers a few more but everyone is mostly content to give each other a wide berth.
The coffee is good, the pie is delicious and Janice treats everyone like a son, which is why when his quiet little coffee shop is suddenly bought out and turned into a Starbucks, Leonard McCoy wants to stand on the sidewalk and scream bloody murder.
It bothers McCoy that no one seems to know where Janice Rand has gone of the fact that he knows he’ll never see his personal mug. New York is like that, the turnovers of businesses are fast and frequent but McCoy’s from a small town, he appreciates a little warning. He runs into Professor Picard a few times, standing across the street and looking at the Starbucks but he always just sighs, nods to McCoy and turns to leave. Open mic nights and walls covered with graffiti are replaced with stenciled swirls against deep green and the familiar logo.
It's not that McCoy hates Starbucks; on the contrary, he rather likes their peppermint mochas. It's this Starbucks that’s taken away a comfort zone, with just the right number of people and level of noise. Now it's stuffed to the gills with trendy freshmen with sunglasses that are exponentially increasing in size and trendiness and harried looking businessmen.
It rejects McCoy, unshaven med student of the masses and the thought drives him more than a little crazy. He thinks about this and decides to stop hanging out with Liberal Arts majors.
It's irrational, McCoy knows, it's just coffee and he can very well make his own but he can never get his coffeemaker to work right. Plus he really, really enjoyed open mic night, not that he'd ever participate in such a thing and when his professors keep asking him why his papers are stapled so firm, they're bending out of shape, McCoy doesn't want to tell them that it's because his daily caffeine intake hasn't been met.
On the other hand, it's just coffee but it still feels like betrayal.
McCoy spends a week drinking terrible McDonald's arabica. He's not a coffee expert but he knows there has got to more to life than this. Besides, he always feels obligated to buy a meal when he walks into a McD's and he's going to he a doctor, so he worries a lot about how long French fries are going to stay in his digestive tract. He tries the coffee in the cafeteria but spits it out immediately, staining his favorite sweater and has to dab his laptop keyboard with paper towels.
It's a miserable day in November when McCoy decides to give in and marches into the Starbucks like a man on a mission. Oddly, there's not another coffee shop that isn't a Starbucks for blocks; he's just not ready for that song and dance. He stands in line and spends a few moments balking at the prices.
Still, McCoy’s determined to see things through. It feels like betrayal but if it tastes like it too, then his hatred will be justified and complete.
McCoy stares at the menu and tries to piece together what he might want. It's stressful, kind of like surgery and McCoy wants to be a really good surgeon someday so if he's defeated by a cup of coffee, he might as well give up med altogether and work at the Gap.
"Do you need some help?" McCoy is interrupted by a voice that rubs him entirely the wrong way. It's attached to a face that possibly explains why the girls at the condiments counter are pouring sugar into their coffee at a snail's pace and McCoy cringes because why are you going to drink coffee if you're going to try and mask the taste with 800 sachets of white processed sugar, which is terrible for you, by the way.
Unfortunately, the face seems to be working for him too because even his basal instincts seem to be failing him. McCoy just grunts and slaps some money onto the counter and tells Blondie to give him, "whatever's on tap."
"This isn't a bar, so I'm not going to be able to talk you down if they've towed your car away or your wife's left you," Blondie says, reaching for the biggest cup, intuitively. McCoy thinks this puts him in the not-a-complete-idiot category.
"You look like you need it," Blondie fills the cups, caps it and pushes it over the counter. "My name's Jim," he winks at McCoy. "You have a nice day."
McCoy nods tersely and leaves, already busy sucking down drink and walking away from the counter.
And it sucks, it all just completely utterly sucks, McCoy thinks, as he drains his cup. Not the coffee, no definitely not the coffee— which is good, by the way, that much is obvious. Because he's allowed himself to fall for the spell that is Starbucks and Blondie who's name is Jim. He wants to go back there and take a quick peek, look through the window and then maybe try to talk to him. Or something.
"Spock, I'm in love,” James T. Kirk says. It’s what he always says when he wants to try and get a rise out of his best friend. Spock doesn’t even look up from the clipboard he’s consulting against the deliveries that have just arrived. He never gives Jim quarter, is never too gullible or too above returning the banter, even though it’s always tinged with long-suffering.
Spock is the branch manager and is never late or harried looking. He deals with customers with an even tone and fair hand and is always generous to the ones who look extra ruffled. He and Jim have been friends since Spock showed up at his door with a pristine print out of his Craigslist ad: ROOMATE NEEDED ASAP OR I WILL BE OUT ON MY ASS IN A WEEK!!1!11!
Spock is a grad student and a lecturer, a moneyed genius, estranged from his family. One time, Jim asked him about why he agreed to live with him; Spock said he would have lived anywhere, so long as they didn’t pry into his past. Jim is cool with that but over time, they have become best friends. The arrangement is perfect: Jim makes sure Spock isn’t wound up too tight (even though most of the time he does the winding) and Spock makes sure Jim eats his vegetables. It works out.
“Spock, I said I was in love,” Jim says again, prodding at Spock.
“Yes, I believe you have already stated this; however, I cannot bring myself to “give a shit,” Spock says, checking off a fresh batch of the signature breakfast blend.
“Spock,” Jim whines and crosses over to hook his chin over Spock’s shoulder. Spock doesn’t even twitch, which is both gratifying and annoying all the time.
“Jim, the chances that the doctor in a bad mood is returning to this particular store are slim. There are 10 Starbucks within a five mile radius of the University.”
Jim stutters and does a little frantic dance around Spock. “Wait, how did you know he was a doctor? How did you know he goes to University?”
Spock raises an eyebrow in exasperation. “Jim, if you had truly been interested in this fellow, you would have paid closer attention. He smelled distinctly and faintly like cadaver fixative, he was carrying a copy of Grey’s Anatomy and his bag had the logo of the school’s medical department.”
“You didn’t by any chance get his name?” Jim grins at him hopefully.
Spock puts down his clipboard and –heavens—looks a little surprised. “I assumed you would have taken his name for the cup.”
Jim groans and smacks his face with one hand. The signature move of his game and he flubbed it even before he’s started really playing.
McCoy, like all med students, gets sucked into the black hole of final examinations. All he can remember are generic names of medicines and diagnosis procedures and how to suture hard to reach areas like …he doesn’t want to think about it. He eats pop tarts and take-out for a week and washes it down with Red Bull but the good news is that he’s graduating at the top of his class and has promising internship offers in very interesting teaching hospitals.
One perk of being a TA is that he can get freshmen to grab his coffee for him and they do it willingly, in exchange for advice on how to skirt grumpy med-school instructors and proofing their reports. One student in particular, M’Benga, gets his coffee right every time and if he wants to suck McCoy’s cock between office hours, he is not going to complain. After he graduates, he shoves his diploma on top of his desk and sleeps through an entire weekend.
McCoy gets a great internship at New York-Presbyterian and is exhausted at the end of the week. But he has to admit it’s also incredibly thrilling. His colleagues are driven and interesting, the residents know what they’re doing and McCoy really feels like he is a doctor. He feels at home.
There are parts about he doesn’t like, of course. The chief of staff runs a tight and unyielding ship and nurses are gossiping fools but there is a Starbucks in the lobby of the hospital. McCoy likes the way his ass looks in scrubs. He also stands out among the other interns because he gets lost in the work and doesn’t mind running labs or doing research. Most of the people he encounters at the clinic or the ER are truly in need of his help and he likes saving people’s lives.
McCoy hasn’t lost a person yet and he’s determined not to. But just as he’s steeling himself for the possibility, there is a eight car pile-up and he’s suddenly lost two people before he could even try to save them.
“Leonard!” Dr. Bashir, the trauma resident barks at him and McCoy snaps into action. Bashir takes the bigger injuries into the OR with his team and McCoy is expected to clean up scrapes and comfort people, which he’s still sort of terrible at.
“Everything is going to be fine,” McCoy tries, as he carefully cleans road rash on a weeping young lady. There is a baby cradled in a detachable car seat, sleeping blissfully like a real, live miracle but in the OR, Bashir is trying to valiantly remove the steering wheel half embedded in her husband’s chest. Leonard is not sure the man is going to survive.
He sends her off with a nurse for some tea and comfort and to let her get some rest in the waiting room and scans the room for any other activity. It’s wound down after the first four or five frantic hours but McCoy wants to be sure before he sneaks off to observe the steering wheel extraction.
“Um, hi,” a familiar voice echoes and McCoy looks up from his clipboard into blue, blue eyes. Blondie from the Starbucks is looking at him with a sheepish, earnest grin and holds out his hands.
“Jesus Christ!” McCoy says, way too loudly, a combination of shock at seeing Jim, in person, and Jim’s hands, which are burned.
“How come one’s looked at this yet?” McCoy demands, dragging Jim to a sink and running water over them. It’s mostly superficial; first to second degree burns on the palms of his hands.
“It seemed other people needed help more,” Jim shrugs and winces in turn. “I wasn’t in the crash, I was just helping some people out. It got hot.” He adds. “Hi.” Jim absolutely recognizes McCoy, that much is obvious.
It takes all of McCoy’s crazed, caffeine-fueled adrenaline and A-typed concentration not to turn bright red. He hasn’t gone back to that particular Starbucks since he graduated six or so months ago but he has thought of bright blond hair and blue eyes and that mouth about his dick in the shower. It was okay; it was safe, since he didn’t think he was going to see Jim again anyway.
“Haven’t seen you around the Starbucks in a while,” Jim says lightly, while McCoy is examining his hands, dabbing them dry and making sure no residue is stuck to them.
McCoy grumbles. “You always remember all your customers?”
Jim laughs and it takes all of McCoy’s will power not to blush. “Just the cute ones,” Jim says and when McCoy risks sneaking a look at his face, his eyes are sparkling with amusement. He looks incredibly young, sitting across from Leonard with his palms up, and vulnerable.
They stare at each other for a long time; Jim, challenging and McCoy, equal parts mesmerized and agonized. And then they both jump when something starts vibrating like crazy. Five seconds pass before McCoy realizes it’s not him and Jim asks, ruefully. “That’s mine. Could you maybe, grab it out of my pocket?”
Of course, it’s Jim’s. Only someone like Jim, with his mischievous pale eyes and that smirk would use Lady Gaga’s Telephone as his ring. McCoy’s already stripped his gloves off and is reaching over when he realizes that Jim’s pants are very, very tight. Jim is aware of this too and McCoy is not going to allow himself to be fazed by the way Jim just spreads his legs out and cocks his hip a little to let McCoy slide the iPhone out of his pocket. There a picture of a very pale and chagrined looking man on the screen and the caller ID says “Spock calling.”
“Hello?” McCoy says, after two failed attempts to press buttons where there aren’t any.
“You are not Jim,” the voice on the other end says evenly.
“No, hello, I’m sorry. This is Dr. McCoy from Presbyterian.”
“Is Jim alright?” The voice demands and there are some murmurs in the background.
“He’s fine. He attempted to play hero and help victims of a car crash we are currently dealing with. Unfortunately, he’s suffered burns on the palms of his hands. Very minor and should go down in a few days. Mr. J—ah,” McCoy looks at Jim.
“Kirk. Jim Kirk,” Jim smiles and waves Leonard over to press the phone to his ear.
“I’m sorry, I was on the way,” Jim protests. “I know you cooked a killer meal,” he says, while turning to McCoy and making a gagging face. “I’m sure the bean salad was delicious. I know I promised to kick Sulu’s ass in Mario cart but I guess we have to put that off while I can’t use my hands. What? Dance Dance Revolution? Spock, please shut the Russian up.” He laughs. “Yeah. Yeah, no, I don’t need to be picked up.”
When Jim says this, he locks huge blue eyes with McCoy’s wary ones, licking his bottom lip in a very distracting manner. McCoy gets the sinking feeling that he’s being played.
“So,” Jim says. “Since I can’t possibly manage the subway now, with these hands and all. Can I get a ride?”
McCoy scowls. “No, I won’t drive you home.” He starts to say just as (traitorous, horrible) Head Nurse Christine Chapel comes around the corner and cheerfully goes, “Dr. McCoy, Dr. Bashir has asked that you go home and rest and come back to help monitor steering-wheel guy.”
“I can monitor him now!” McCoy protests. Christine shakes her head.
“You’ve already been on-call for almost 70 hours, Leonard,” she shakes her head at him, disapprovingly and McCoy swears the glint in her eye means she knows what she is doing. “Go home, take a real shower,” she pauses to wrinkle her nose. “And come back after you’ve slept at least eight hours.”
“Great,” Jim says. “Now you can take me home.”
Jim lives in a stylish three-bedroom, two-bathroom in a trendy part of town. It was a parting gift from a rich ex-girlfriend, no hard feelings, which is the reason why Jim is desperate for roommates to split the bill with him. One room is Spock’s, even though he spends a lot of time at Uhura’s these days and Hikaru Sulu, a fashion model and weirdly, a botanist, occupies the other room.
Jim was on his way to an epic food and video games shindig when the car crash happened and he knew Spock wasn’t going to be happy about it. His best friend had been dying to test vegan cupcakes on them or whatever and everyone had stalled long enough. Jim didn’t like vegan cake, which was just wrong by the Universal Law of Pastry but he loved Spock like a brother and he loved Spock’s eggplant parma even more than his own life.
He hadn’t planned on getting burned but he couldn’t stand the thought of not helping, either. But since karma apparently loved him, it paid off with one very grumpy-but-still-cute Dr. Leonard McCoy driving him home, the same face he’d been daydreaming about for months and hoped to see walk into his Starbucks again. It never happened but it was still highly entertaining to tell Spock elaborate fantasies about the good Doctor during their shift breaks.
The doctor was both very much like and unlike the imaginary personality Jim had applied to him in his dreams. Fantasy doctor was buff and had strong, calloused surgeons hands. He may have rescued Jim from a tiger attack in a jungle wearing only a loincloth then healed his wounds with his cock or was an innocent, clueless librarian who Jim ravished in the darkest corner of a library.
Dr. Leonard McCoy was grumpy and growled at people (so hot) and moved with efficiency at work. But off-duty, he was endearingly scowly and got directions to Jim’s house using a road atlas even though there was a perfectly good GPS in his car.
“I don’t like it when it talks back,” McCoy said, when Jim bugged him about it later.
“Okay, get out,” McCoy said, pulling up in front of Jim’s apartment building. Jim grinned at him.
“Come up with me, doctor.”
“No,” McCoy said, trying to stare Jim down and losing.
“Relax, my friends are here. Have something to eat, take a load off…” Jim said, positioning himself so his hands in a way that Leonard meant he was trying to appeal to his First Do No Harm vow. “Spock made an eggplant parma. It’s so good. It’s like crack.”
McCoy opened the door on Jim’s side after five minutes of waiting for Jim to try and fumble with lock, wincing in pain. Spock buzzed them in and as soon as the door opened, a skinny, bright-eyed redhead with an accent, said. “Jim! Are you okay?” and then turned to stare at McCoy. His eyes widened and he squeaked. “You’re real!”
Jim winced and McCoy narrowed his eyes at him. “Pavel, I don’t think you want to head there yet…Bones, here—I can call you ‘Bones’—y’know, since you’re a doctor?”—haven’t gotten to know each other that well yet. Let’s spare him the details.”
And when would they get to know each other better? McCoy wondered, as he inhaled his second serving of eggplant parma. There was a lot of it and Jim had looked mournful, turning to McCoy to feed him because he couldn’t bend his fingers. Leonard adamantly refused.
Aside from Spock and the Russian kid, who was Sulu’s friend from work and a closet genius, there was Sulu, who paid for half of the apartment because of the balcony they’d converted into a fully functional greenhouse; Montgomery Scott, who was an engineer and Scottish; and Uhura, Spock’s girlfriend, an impossibly gorgeous forensic linguist. She curled up on the couch half on Spock’s lap and fed Jim the eggplant parma after he swore to clean out her garage or something. It wasn’t awkward, kind of nice, actually, despite the fact that McCoy’s fight or flight was seriously being tested.
“Hey,” Jim nudged McCoy after a particularly intense round of DDR that he’d lost, returning to the couch a sweaty, gasping mess.
“Huh?” McCoy said, his nose smudged with cheese.
“Come on, take a nap in my room,” Jim said, genuine concern. “You’re not good to drive and,” he added ruefully, “Neither am I.”
McCoy could protest, he really could. But he was stuffed with vegan cupcake and eggplant parma and Jim nudged him to his room and the bed was wide and clean smelling and he was really, really tired.
McCoy woke with a jolt to the beeping of his phone and dug it out under a pile of discarded sheets on the floor. Next to him, Jim stirred and rolled over, throwing one bandaged hand over McCoy’s waist. McCoy looked down, processed the moment and then freaked the fuck out.
“Sorry, sorry,” McCoy said, grabbing his white coat from his locker and throwing it on. Dr. Bashir shook his head and handed him a pile of charts. “Steering wheel guy, that is, Mr. Archer has stabilized but hasn’t woken up. We’re hopeful but it’s 50/50 at the moment. Gaila, the redhead with internal bleeding is awake but let’s keep her comfortable, she’s very tender. Concentrate on those two for now while I check in Intensive Care.”
McCoy winced at that because he knew three siblings were up there, with distraught parents but he nodded and did his job and tried not to think of the way Jim had wrapped him in blankets and rubbed at his head until he fell asleep.
It would have been weird, if they had been strangers but it hadn’t felt like they were. It was comfortable and kind of sweet and there was potential for a relationship there, McCoy knew. He didn’t leave a note, or a number but Jim knew where to find him now and McCoy was sure that he was married to his job and would be pretty much forever.
“Hey, it’s him,” Chapel said, pointing a finger at the entrance of the Cafeteria. Jim is striding across and he beams when McCoy turns to look.
“Quick, pretend to be my girlfriend,” McCoy hisses at her. Christine studies him for a moment and then throws back her pretty head and laughs and laughs.
“Hey, Bones,” Jim says, sitting down next to him and sticking his hands out. “I think it’s time for a check-up.”
“Jim,” McCoy says, and then fumbles a little as Christine announces it’s time for her to take-off.
“Bones,” Jim says, grinning. “I know you think I’m a little creepy—“
“—very creepy,” McCoy corrects. “You’re very creepy.”
“Very creepy, okay,” Jim says, agreeably. “But I have been dreaming about you since you walked into my Starbucks the one time and I’ve been hoping you would come in and I could get your name. But check it, my hands are kind of messy right now—“
“—not my fault,” McCoy protested. “If you hadn’t been too impulsive and tried to play hero, dragging people out of burning metal wreckage and let the professionals deal with it—“
“—Bones, you left before I could kiss you,” Jim cuts him off, grinning widely at him. McCoy stops and gapes at him. “And,” Jim adds. “I was seriously waiting for the opportunity to jump you yesterday.” Jim is frank and earnest and impulsive and stupid and crazy hot and driving McCoy insane, carefully and methodically.
McCoy sighs and gives up, leans over to shut Jim up and presses their mouths together.
Jim tastes like coffee. He makes enthusiastic noises and fumbles at McCoy’s neck with his hilariously pathetic bandaged hands. When they pull apart, Jim’s eyes are bright with triumph and he pulls something out carefully from behind his back. It’s a cup of coffee with the Starbucks logo wedged in a carrying tray.
“So, I brought you some coffee in case, you know, no hard feelings,” Jim carefully turns the cup and there on the side, in wobbly script is Jim’s name and number and a flirty “call me” with a heart on the side. He leans over and kisses McCoy on the cheek before getting up to leave.
The coffee, of course, is delicious.
- END -