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His fingers are drumming the table in a way that used to make his ex-wife scream. He can’t help the habit, formed from the need to keep his hands busy. He didn’t know why he’d agreed to this. He’d only been at the at the academy for a couple of weeks, and his roommate, who most days he hated on principle, had set him up on a blind date with his friend from the command track. He’d not thought to ask much more, or even argue against it. Now, he wished he was in the library buried under text books. At least that was going to be more productive.
He resisted the urge to check his watch- for the fiftieth time- and instead took a huge gulp on Andorian Ale, as blue as the Andorrans themselves. And just as bitter. He forced himself to stare at the table and his ale, rather than puppy-dog-hoping every time he heard the door. 40 minutes late. What a joke. Making up his mind, he slurped the rest of his ale dejectedly and rose to move.
“Here,” came a gruff, friendly voice, “I got you another.” Leonard looked up and was surprised to see the irritating cadet he thought he’d managed to shake the second he got off the shuttle.
“Aw, hell,” he grumbled as he sat back down. He wasn’t disappointed in his roommates choice in date, after all the cadet, Jacob? James?, was good looking enough. He just had an air of being high maintenance. Not to mention irritating. The cadets mouth split into a grin and Leonard could feel the curls of something in his stomach.
“Do you mind if I,” he gestured and Leonard growled and nodded. The man sat with a thump, sipping on some sort of cocktail with a shit eating grin. “Thanks, Leonard, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling more awkward than ever, his fingers starting up their drum.
“James Kirk,” the other guy said politely, not at all ruffled, “most people call me Jim.”
“Time do you call this, James?” The name tasted odd in his mouth, it didn’t quite fit the guy in front of him.
“Well it depends which planet? On Vulcan it’s only 5 after 9.”
“On planet earth it’s 40 past 8.”
“My bad,” James shrugged and Leonard sighed. Ready to cut this date short.
“So command track?” He asked for something to say.
“Aw hell, Lenny, don’t pretend to care!”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Len, then,” Leonard’s stomach twisted at the all too familiar nickname.
“James,” he warned.
“Jim,” he was corrected.
“Bit awkward if we are both called Jim,” Leonard grumbled. James, or Jim, stared at him for a long moment before bursting into belly laughs. Leonard couldn’t help the rush that shot through him.
“I like you, Bones!”
Leonard wasn’t sure he could ever find his eyebrows again. “Bones?”
Jim scrunched his face up and took on a growly voice, “all I got left is my bones.”
Leonard rolled his eyes.
“What you say, we dump this place and hit somewhere a little more,” James searched for the word, “grimy.”
“Oh hell yeah.”
They spent the rest of the night in the crummiest dive they could find. And at the end of a night, a drunk, and all too confident Leonard Bones McCoy snogged a surprised Jim Kirk.
He stumbled into his room with bruised lips and stuck up hair.
“Have a fun night with Gerard?”
Leonard blinked, “who the fuck is Gerard?” He mumbled as he collapsed onto his bed to dream of the blonde with blue eyes and a shit eating grin.