Back with another Snow Patrol one shot. This one is inspired by the song, 'Open Your Eyes'. I'm suffering from a bout of writer's block on Stiletto Wars. I can't get the next chapter right, so bear with me people. Again, this is a standalone, not tied to anything I've written before. I'm going to go ahead and come out of the closet as McCoy/Uhura shipper. This will be set during the Academy and no they aren't together yet. The key word is yet. It's basically observations from the good soon to be doctor's point of view.
Disclaimer – I don't own them, but oh how I love the characters originated by Mr. Roddenberry.
Open Your Eyes
Leonard McCoy had few friends on the Starfleet Academy campus. He'd met James Kirk on the shuttle carrying new recruits and sparked a friendship in response to the hysteria he suffered as a result of his severe acrophobia. Once on campus they found they were assigned to the same quarters. Jim reminded him a lot of his cousins. The ones who were a few generations removed from inbreeding.
Where there was a girl in a short skirt, there was Jim.
Where there was cheap beer, there was Jim.
Where there was trouble, there was Jim.
That's where he saw her for the first time.
Everything about her read trouble. The dark eyes with long lashes that threatened to hypnotize if he stared too long. The lips that beautifully formed words each time they opened. Her hair that he imagined smelled like one of those fruity concoctions from the overpriced health store begged for his hands. Leonard was salivating while staring at her legs perfectly accentuated by black boots. Yes this woman was trouble; he had not spent more than a few seconds in quiet appreciation of the female form since his divorce. He did not like the very natural reaction he was having to her, but Leonard wanted more.
Possessively his hand reached out to pull Jim back as he approached the woman. The young idiot removed his roommate's hand and kept walking. Something about the woman's face, promised that this would not end positively for Jim. She was smirking and what a sexy smirk it was. She'd actually addressed Jim as farm boy. A young and dumb little boy he was to think that tacky pick up lines and good looks were all that it took to get her attention. Momentarily she glanced in his direction and held his attention. Her eyes were deep and full of interest not for his roommate but…
Leonard glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of the young Vulcan professor.
"Shit."
He turned back in the direction of Jim and the woman just in time to see her knee meet Jim's groin and the unsuspecting rookie fall into a pile of wet peanut shells.
"Kid will never learn."
Leonard walked past his fallen friend to the bar, he brushed shoulders with the young woman and it sent a current of electricity through his body. He threw two large bills on the bar, "Shot glass and a full body of Jack." The bartender looked at him, took the bills and filled his order. Yes it would take that and maybe more to drown the thoughts of her forming in his head.
***
Months later, the kid has grown tired of knees to the groin and taken to enjoying nights hiding under the young woman's roommate's bed. Gaila, Nyota's roommate, is Orion and has a sexual appetite larger than Jim's. Yet they work. Leonard finds himself sharing bad beer and good pizza with her while their roommates engage in foreplay that will eventually lead to Leonard or Nyota, sleeping on the other's couch.
She's intelligent; another quality that he adds to the long list forming in his head.
She listens when he speaks.
Her smiles are soft and warm him a place where ice has formed from all the hurt he's endured.
She was also unattainable; always looking just past his shoulder hoping for a glimpse of the Grinch that stole Christmas. Her eyes glaze over with adoration when he enters a room. If she wasn't in class hanging on his every word; Nyota was in the Communications lab waiting for a chance encounter with the academy's youngest professor.
Leonard has seen the professor's eyes linger on Nyota longer than necessary. They're lustful leers. Still, he was the one sharing a pint of ice cream with Nyota, when she tired of his Vulcan control and inability to get a clue. They were friends. Study partners, but he wanted to tell her how beautiful her eyes were. How her voice made every thought leave his mind. He wanted to kiss her passionately and push out what ever convoluted fantasy she harbored of that goblin.
Instead, Leonard McCoy nodded in silent agreement as she complained about men.
"Nyota, I'm a doctor, but my name is not Phil."
He could always make her laugh but all he wanted to do was cry in that very moment.
***
Leonard's observations had remained unspoken.
He felt like a stalker.
Staring from the shadows the night Nyota shared her first kiss with Spock. His heart shattered and Leonard questioned why he'd given up carrying around a flask for moments just like this. Anger surged within him as he watched the professor push her away. Refusing to listen to her pleas and spewing useless phrases about logic. What did logic have to do with a damn thing when Nyota Uhura was involved?
Her sobs were burning his ears.
Her pain cracking the very wall he'd built.
Leonard contemplated staying to comfort Nyota or running behind the Vulcan idiot and meeting death. Instead, he stood and watched helplessly as she continued to cry until there were no tears left.
He followed her home at a distance.
He watched her in silence the next morning at breakfast; careful not to alarm anyone with his gaze.
He opened the door for her enter to the building that held their classes.
He listened to everything she wanted to say, but didn't, as they strolled along the quiet halls. When she walked through the door of her class Leonard bit his tongue. The feeling lingered with him for the remainder of the day.
Jim chatted incessantly, but Leonard was only concerned with the look in Nyota's eyes when they parted before class. That night when he closed his own eyes to find sleep, the sadness of Nyota's was still there. Without another thought he pulled on his jeans, threw on a t-shirt, and pushed his feet into a pair of boots. He trekked across campus full of determination. His confidence built with each step. Yes, finally he would open her eyes. It was time for Nyota to stop wasting precious time on someone who didn't see her soul. The woman needed a man that could appreciate her fire and thirst for life.
That's when he spotted Nyota and Spock engaged in a loving embrace. Stealing kisses in the darkness and unaware of anyone or anything around them; especially not someone as insignificant as Leonard McCoy.
"Not tonight." Leonard whispered to the dark.