-3-

Leonard McCoy is in a good mood. He's finally out in the open, away from that flying tin can, basking in the sun the way his granddaddy's old hound always did. This mission is a cakewalk: come down to a gorgeous planet and take some samples from the various alien flora to see if any of the plants might have possible medical applications. Leonard lets his gaze wander, allows himself to take in the scenery.

Off in the distance, he sees a massive cliff face rising from the ground. There's a field of blue wildflowers (or at least that's what they look like- with his luck they'd turn out to be sentient, or carnivorous, or full of sex pollen. Last time he had to treat almost the entire goddamn crew for KNIFE wounds, for crying out loud!)

Still, those flowers/beings/monsters/inhibition-lowerers are awfully pretty, a brilliant blue that reminds him of Jim's eyes.

…

Where did THAT come from?

Leonard shakes off all thoughts of Jim's eyes (gorgeous eyes, that he could just fall into forever andDAMMITLeonardgetaholdofyourself!), and blames his brief lapse into sentimentality on the fresh air and sunshine.

Yep.

That's definitely it.

He looks around for his colleagues, only to find himself quite a ways away from the others. Spock has drifted away from the landing site to look at this spikey green eggplant thing, and Lt Sulu has found a plant that changes colors every time he touches it. As for Jim…

Huh...

...Where'd he go?

Suddenly, Leonard gets pushed in the back.

"Race you to the cliff, old man!"

He really should stop leaving himself wide open for the idiot's antics.

Still. It's a beautiful day, a challenge has been issued, and Leonard will be damned before he lets the infant best him in a race. "Old man" indeed. Hmph.

Leonard takes off running after Jim, laughing for the sheer joy of it. He can't remember the last time he felt thisfree. No worries, no metal death trap, just him and the ground and the sky and nothing boxing him in.

And then Leonard falls into a hole. Irony can be such a bitch.

Jim's sprinting along, listening to Bones whooping and laughing behind him, when suddenly all he can hear is his own breathing. He stops dead in his tracks and whirls around. Bones is gone.

Shit.

Okay. Options. Beamed up by an alien transporter. Beamed up by the Enterprise's transporter. Sucked into a parallel universe. Fallen into a different time. Eaten by an invisible monster. Transformed into one of the flowers-

"DAMMIT, Jim, this planet was supposed to be UNINHABITED!"

Jim's jaw drops. No. Way. He stares down at the large blue flower in front of him. Was it there before? All the blue flowers look alike!

"Uh...Bones…?

Oh my God his best friend has turned into a flower and Jim's always been really bad with plants and what if he forgets to water it and then Bones dies and it's all his fault!

"Oh, Bones," he sighs softly, cupping one soft petal. "I am so so sorry."

"Where are you, you moron?! I could definitely use some help here!"

Jim looks up, startled, that his friend's voice seems to be coming from about 20 yards away, where a hole has magically opened up in the ground.

Oh.

Oh.

Jim quickly straightens, hoping like hell no one saw him petting a freaking FLOWER, and runs over to the hole.

As Leonard continues to shout, hoping that someone will hear him (the damn hobgoblin, at the very least, with his stupid super sensitive pointy ears), he mentally takes stock of himself.

He's lying at the bottom of a hole in the dirt, which, he can see now, had been carefully disguised by a layer of grass laid over the top. A trap. A man-made trap.

Plenty of time to yell at Jim later. For now, what kind of injuries is he looking at?

Headache. Fuzzy brain. Light concussion, at least.

Left leg lying at an unnatural angle, starting to bruise and swell. Probably broken femur. Doesn't hurt, though. (Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that this is a bad thing).

And, last but certainly not least, (because god forbid he ever forgo the goddamn icing on the goddamn cake) every single breath makes him feel like he's being stabbed in the chest. Bruised, maybe even cracked ribs. Fan-fucking-tastic.

It's nice to know he can still curse, though. That takes true talent. Not to mention, it's helping to keep him focused. Angry at the world is SO much better than panicking. Or unconsciousness.

Wincing, Leonard pulls himself into a sitting position. Well, close enough. Let's try and salvage some dignity from all this, hmm?

Jim finally runs up to the top of the hole, yelling about sentient flowers.

Great.

Now we can add hallucinations to the list.

...

But at least he can yell at a hallucination. Particularly a Jim-shaped hallucination.

"Jesus, Jim, who ran the scans on this planet, because they definitely need a lesson or two in, oh, I don't know, telling the difference between no people on a planet versus goddamn people on a planet. It can't be hard. One gives you a blank scan, the other has lots of little dots for life signs. Maybe your scan operator is blind! I think I broke my goddamn leg- can the scans detect THAT?! When I get back up to the ship, whoever failed to notice that someone-"

As Bones settles in for what looks to be a long rant, Jim feels the tension drain out of his body. Bones has to be fine if he feels good enough to rant, right? He looks down at his friend. I mean, yeah, his leg looks a little weird, but broken legs hurt. He distinctly remembers falling out of a tree and breaking his leg when he was younger, not to mention that skirmish last year when the natives of an ice planet captured Chekov and tried to shave his (adorable) curly hair. So, since Bones is not screaming in pain, Bones is exaggerating to make the most out of his rant.

Therefore, Jim is perfectly within his right to tease Bones. Ipso facto, QED, and all that jazz.

A smile spreads over his face as he has a ridiculous thought.

"Bones! Hey Bones!"

Bones stops mid-rant and looks up at Jim. Jesus, if looks could kill, Jim would be just a scorched pile of captain ashes lying on the ground.

Still. Never let it be said that James Tiberius Kirk kowtows to bullies.

"Ohmigod, Bones! You broke your leg?! You know what that means?! You're my BROKEN BONES, BONES! Jeez, Bones, maybe you should look where you're going next time. The bones of Bones are broken bones! Bones's broken-"

Jim's still staring down at his friend when all of a sudden, Bones's eyes roll up and he slumps down to the ground.

Shit.

Leonard slowly surfaces from sleep. He's very warm and comfortable. There's a steady beep in the background, coming from his left somewhere…

...his heart rate!

Which means…

Leonard's eyes snap open to see his Sickbay. His beautiful, wonderful, clean Sickbay- his domain, his oasis in a rattling death trap of a tin can.

And WHAT is that godawful sound?!

He turns his head to find his idiot of a captain, head on the biobed. snoring like there's no tomorrow. And drooling. Dammit, where's his PADD?! This is excellent blackmail material!"

"So," he drawls, "I guess I should be glad no one came at us with spears."

Jim jerks awake, already in panic mode as he jumps up from his chair and starts to dart around the room. "Oh my GOD, Bones are you okay? Should I get Christine?! Are you thirsty? How about I get you some ice chips. Are you cold? I can go get another blanket too, if you want. Bones, I am SO sorry, I would never have teased you if I knew that you were actually injured! Where's the pain? Does it hurt? Let me go-"

"Jesus Christ, kid, you're making me exhausted just watchin' you! SIDDOWN!"

Jim sits.

"So, yeah, um, the planet was, in fact, not uninhabited, so, uh, good call there, I guess? Spock and Uhura are down on the planet right now trying to make first contact with the natives. Now that, you know, we know they exist. Apparently they hunt some weird cat-thing for food? You fell into one of the traps, and, um, do you actually remember anything?"

"Well, Jimbo," Leonard drawls out slowly, "It's all kind of a blur. I remember running, and flowers, and falling, and then I woke up here."

That is a total lie. Leonard remembers exactly what happened. He can't believe that sonofabitch didn't believe he was hurt! (He's a fucking doctor! He knows what injuries feel like! Did Jim think all of those years of medical school were to train him in dispensing hypos ninja-style? THAT was a skill he picked up all on his own, chasing after infant captains scared of a tiny vaccine booster, thank you very much.) And then…

THEN.

That idiot called him a BROKEN FUCKING BONES.

It's definitely payback time.

"Well, uh, yeah Bones, that's basically what happened. I found you and called for an emergency beam-up, and, um, that's it. Yes. Nothing else."

Leonard is having way too much fun watching Jim sweat. He cocks an eyebrow and, in the most innocent voice he can muster, asks Jim to lean over so that he can tell him something important.

Jim looks around knowingly and nods. "Don't worry, Bones, I understand not wanting to let all of Sickbay hear something private." Jim leans in until his face is only about 6 inches away from Leonard's.

Leonard slaps the idiot upside the head.

Damn, that felt good.