Not a Brawler

"Do you think she's smiling at me?"

Now, you'd think being friends with Jim for close to a year now would have gifted McCoy a fairly reliable ability to recognize "famous last words" when he heard them; prime past examples of this included "What's the worst that could happen?", "No, I don't think the pie tastes weird", "We could totally jump that if we needed to!", and "I'm sure this probably won't come up, but just in case, you should know that I'm not allowed in the state of Idaho."

But, no. His common sense still seemed to have a blind spot wherever Jim was concerned. So there he was, blissfully unware he had just heard some "famous last words" in the making.

"Who?"

"The girl in the black dress."

McCoy looked up from his drink, squinting to the other end of the bar. He recognized her instantly and had to try very very very hard not to laugh.

/

"Wait," Sulu asked. "Why would you laugh?"

McCoy shook his head, glancing at Jim out of the corner of his eye; Jim, whose smile was slowly dropping as he began to remember why it was they didn't tell this story often. But it was Friday morning. Anything goes at Friday morning breakfasts with the crew, they'd established that long ago.

McCoy looked back across the table at Sulu.

"Oh, you'll see."

/

She was leaning against the far corner of the bar and she was smiling at Jim. And McCoy. And every other person.

But Jim didn't need to know that.

"You know, I think she is," McCoy said evenly. "You should probably go talk to her."

Jim looked away from her and back at McCoy. He was only partly drunk, for all that it mattered.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," McCoy smiled.

Jim smiled back, quickly hoping off his stool as he gave McCoy an extremely cocky salute.

"Don't wait up for me."

And then he was gone, stumbling through the bar over to the girl and McCoy turned back to his PADD.

/

"PADD?"

"Well, yeah," McCoy said, setting his coffee down. "I had a midterm the next day."

"And went to Mike's bar instead of studying?" Uhura said slowly. Sulu and Chekov shared a look.

"I went to Mike's because Jim went to Mike's and needed adult supervision," he explained.

Jim folded his arms, but didn't say anything.

/

He flipped through a few lecture slides on Orion copper deficiencies. Jim could drag him out to the bar all he wanted. Whatever. It's not like McCoy would expect anything different. But McCoy was going to study while he was there. He wasn't Jim; Jim was probably going to ace his ethics test tomorrow without even trying. Because he was a perfect asshole like that.

/

"It wasn't ethics, it was cartography," Jim muttered miserably.

"Oh right, cartography. He had his cartography midterm the next day, but there he was: not studying, at Mike's, talking to Stella."

"The girl in the black dress?"

"Yeah, Stella is her name. But Jim didn't know that then. So I'm sittin', going through my notes, when Mike shows up with another drink…"

/

On the other side of the counter, Mike shuffled over. He slid another club soda next to McCoy's elbow, staring across the bar at Jim and Stella with a frown.

"Isn't that…"

"Yep," McCoy said absently.

"Does Jim know she…"

"Nope."

"And you're not going to…"

"I would, but then he'd never learn."

Mike stared at the two for another second before shrugging.

"Alright," he said, walking away.

McCoy smiled.

He liked Mike. He didn't feel the need to care, which worked out great for McCoy. He also was one of the few people in the entirety of San Francisco to actually call him "Leonard" and McCoy appreciated that. It was refreshing to be reminded of who he was. Especially when he was stuck in classes he shouldn't have to take, relearning things he'd known for years.

/

"See, that's what I don't get," Jim cut in again. "Why were you studying? Why were you always studying, if you knew it all already? I don't get it. Like that one time, when we were at the laundromat and-"

McCoy cut him off with a laugh.

"Nice try, Jim. I'm still telling this story. Wait your turn."

Jim sighed.

"Anyways," McCoy said. "I'm sittin' there, studying, and I can hear Jim's laugh from across the bar. You know, that really high pitched one he gets when he laughs at his own jokes?"

Spock nodded.

"And then I hear glass breaking…"

/

Across the bar, a glass shattered.

McCoy looked up sharply, naturally focusing on Jim because that's what the whole "adult supervision" part of his job description called for.

"Jesus Christ."

A very large, very bald, very angry gentleman had Jim by the back of his neck, while another, even larger, even balder, even angrier gentleman was pointing a lot. Jim said something and gestured at Stella wildly. Her expression went from terrified to outraged and by the time McCoy had scrambled out of his seat, she'd slapped him across the face. As she stormed off, the angry men got…angrier, it seemed, and reacted by slamming Jim up against the counter. McCoy pushed roughly through the crowd that had turned to stare, just as the first guy raised a fist. Without even taking a second to process what the fuck he was doing, McCoy ran up to the guy, throwing his arms wide and tackling him to the hardwood right as he clipped Jim in the jaw.

They hit the ground hard and McCoy blinked slowly. He snapped out of it with a yelp as two angry fists hauled him to his feet.

"Who the hell are you?" the guy yelled, entirely too close for comfort. McCoy looked away from the guy, at Jim, who was sitting dazedly on the floor where he had slid as soon as he'd been released. He met McCoy's eye and grinned.

"Does it even matter?" McCoy sighed, throwing up an elbow and hitting him square in the nose. Jim had jumped up at the same time, surprising the second man, who had been staring at McCoy and his friend like he wanted to jump in.

With a yell, the guy dropped McCoy as his hands went up to cradle his face. McCoy didn't think he'd used enough force to break his nose, but he still felt bad. /

"Why do you always do that?" Jim said. "You just set up this beautifully badass story of you rushing in to save the day, and then you have to completely ruin it by feeling bad. I don't understand."

"It wasn't that guy's fault he was in the fight. It was yours. I wanted to apologize to him."

"Until he gave you the concussion?"

"Until he gave me the concussion, yeah."

/

McCoy stumbled over to Jim, who had the other man pinned to the ground with a knee to his chest.

"If I fail my midterm, I'm taking one of your kidneys."

Jim frowned, his lip split, as the guy beneath him struggled.

"That's a weirdly specific threat," he said.

"Well, it's—"

Something smacked the back of his head and everything went black.

/

"So Bones just drops, glass going everywhere," Jim was back in the story, sitting at the edge of his seat as he looked out at the table. "The guy had broken a bottle over his head. And then I'm freaking out because he's not moving."

"I was only out for like thirty seconds," McCoy added. "By the time I come to, the guy already has me against the edge of the bar and Jim's on the ground getting the shit kicked out of him."

"Yeah, I had everything under control until you let yourself get knocked out. I was trying to get to you when the guy rolled and kicked me in the ribs. He broke three of them in one hit."

"He fractured them barely, you drama queen."

"Whatever," Jim dismissed. "So the guy pins me to the ground and just goes to town. I'm bleeding everywhere; everyone was yelling and then Bones wakes up and starts fighting dirty…"

/

McCoy shook his head, trying to see straight. He felt his feet leaving the floor.

"Jim!" he yelped, just before the guy slammed him against the edge of the counter. He gasped, trying to breathe as he blurrily saw the guy raise a fist. He braced himself for the hit that still managed to make his whole body hum and set his teeth on edge. He tried to yell just as the guy hit him again. He felt a molar loosen. The guy was pressed so close to him that his arms where effectively pinned, but his legs were free. Before the guy could him again, McCoy raised a foot up and kicked him between the legs.

It was a cheap shot, but fair in the sense that he still couldn't see anything clearly, so he hadn't really been aiming there specially.

The guy dropped to floor and McCoy stumbled away from him. He looked around just as Jim came flying across the floor before landing in a heap at McCoy's feet. At least, the vague outline he could make out looked like Jim. Regardless, he reached down and pulled him to his feet.

"Not dead?"

"Not dead," McCoy assured him.

"Good," Jim said, before they both turned back to their respective angry bald gentleman.

McCoy's guy stood up straight with a bear-like like snarl before charging at him. McCoy sidestepped him and threw a wild right hook that actually managed to land. The guy rolled with it, though, and swung around, catching McCoy's arm and twisting it behind his back. Using McCoy's own weight against him, the guy shoved him to the ground. McCoy didn't have time to react as the guy grinned down at him, raising a leg.

/

"So I see that, right, and I'm like 'ohshitohshitohshit!'" Jim said. "The guy I was fighting is on the ground, I think I had dislocated his shoulder or something, so I just jump in."

"Yeah, he came out of nowhere and…"

/

Jim came out of nowhere and tackled the man into the crowd surrounding them and McCoy blinked up at the ceiling, wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve.

"Do I really have to call the police, Leonard?"

McCoy rolled his eyes until he could see Mike standing above him, shaking his head. McCoy held out a hand.

"No, I can handle it," he groaned as Mike pulled him to his feet. "You really couldn't have brought that out sooner?"

He nodded at the bat in Mike's hand.

"I could have, but then you'd never learn."

He let McCoy stumble over to Jim, who had the guy pushed against the wall.

"Time to go, Jimmy," he said, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders and pulling him off. Jim tried to push McCoy off, but McCoy held on until they had made it through the doors of the bar and onto the sidewalk.

They were going as fast as they could away from Mike's, which wasn't saying much. McCoy still was seeing double and every single inch of him ached. Jim kept stumbling into him as he ran and occasionally would spit blood onto the road.

Finally, they made it back to parking lot of the dorm. Neither of them particularly felt up for the stairs at the moment, so they dropped down to the bus bench. Jim put his hands on his knees as he bent over and breathed deeply, while McCoy flexed his hands and winced when it pulled on the split skin.

It was close to 2 in the morning and everything was quiet.

Everyone on campus was either studying or sleeping, so it left Jim and McCoy entirely alone to soak up the fact that they were still relatively intact. It was, if McCoy was to be honest, quite a nice moment.

Then Jim started laughing.

He laughed and laughed, great, hysterical noises as he dropped his head against the back of the bench. McCoy leaned back too, kind of losing all motivation to remain upright as Jim continued to giggle like the child he was.

"Holy shit, Bones," he said. "Holy shit."

"I know."

Jim reached over and pulled a chunk of glass from McCoy's hair.

"That was awesome," he marveled. "You are awesome. We're awesome."

"I think I have a concussion," McCoy mumbled absently, swatting Jim's hand away.

"But you had fun, didn't you, Boneeesssssssssss," Jim dragged out with a smirk. McCoy punched him in the arm.

"You're bleeding," he said angrily. "A lot. And I'm bleeding. A lot. We need to get back upstairs so I can get my medkit."

"I think we should just stay here," Jim sighed, closing his eyes. "That seems like a good idea."

McCoy wanted to protest but he kinda couldn't argue with that logic. Not moving did sound like a good idea. He folded his arms.

"You…you gotta wake me up if I fall asleep," he said weakly. "I think I have a concussion."

Jim's head dropped onto his shoulder.

"Okay, but you have to wake me up first."

"I…okay. I will."

"Okay," Jim repeated. "Sounds good."

/

"So neither of us woke each other up," McCoy said, shaking his head. "We woke up when the city bus showed up the next morning."

"And we scare the shit out of everyone waiting for the bus because we both just jump up at the noise," Jim added. "There was a thirty second delay where we just looked at each other before realizing we were going to be late for the midterms."

"We just booked it," McCoy said, throwing his arm wide. "But we still have blood coverin' everything. Jim's ribs are cracked, I've got a concussion, we've got matching black eyes, we're bruised like you wouldn't imagine and we are sprintin' through the campus like jack rabbits on fire."

"Then we split up," Jim cuts in. "Bones heads to Sterry and I jolt through the door of my lab in Boone with 30 seconds to spare."

"Our professors both look at us like we are fucking insane," McCoy stresses. "But you know what?"

"What?" Chekov asked excitedly, having followed the whole story from the edge of his seat.

"Bones got a 98 on his test and I got a 99," Jim grinned.

"I would have gotten a hundred if I had been in my right mind," McCoy protested. "But whatever. So we finish our exams and meet back up at the dorm. I patched us up the best I could and then we went for pancakes at a diner down the road."

"So, back to your question, Sulu," Jim said, smiling as he twisted his fork through the rest of his breakfast. "Those were the best pancakes I ever had in my life. I've had some good pancakes before, but they were not even close to those."

"Yeah," McCoy sighed, nodding slowly as he leaned back in his chair. "We've even been back to the same diner. Those were once-in-a-lifetime pancakes."

They lapsed into wistful silence.

Except for Sulu, who slammed his hand on the table.

"Am I the only one who wants to know who the girl was?" he asked as he looked around the table.

McCoy grinned.

"Go on, Captain," he said, nudging Jim with his elbow. "Tell'em."

Jim folded his arms and gave McCoy a desperate glare.

"She was…an escort," Jim mumbled, dropping his eyes to his plate.

"She was a prostitute," McCoy corrected quickly.

Their reactions had been just as McCoy had suspected:

Sulu and Uhura grinned.

Chekov went red.

Spock frowned.

And McCoy just laughed.

"But I swear I didn't know!" Jim said.

"You…you just thought she liked you?" Sulu said.

Jim glared at him.

Uhura reached out and patted his arm with a sympathetic smile.

"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard, Captain," she said, barely keeping the laughter out of her voice. Jim jerked his arm out her reach and used it to punch McCoy right in the stomach.

"You just love telling that story, don't you?" he snapped.

"What was I supposed to say?" McCoy shot back. He gestured at Sulu. "The man sits down and says 'hey, what are the best pancakes you have ever had?' and you think I wasn't going to tell that story?"

Jim kicked back his chair as he glared around the table.

"No more stupid questions before 9 am," he snapped. "And no one gets to ask Bones anymore questions ever again."

"'Anymore questions ever again,'" McCoy smirked. "Really, Jim? Please, tell us how you plan on issuing that as a formal order."

Jim grabbed his plate.

"I don't know. But I will," he said. "Good day, Leonard."

McCoy gave a mock salute.

"James," he drawled.

Jim clenched his jaw as he stalked away from the table, leaving McCoy to chuckle into his coffee and the other four to stare after their captain.

There was an awkward silence.

"Uhhh," Chekov said quietly. "I like my pancakes with jam."

McCoy's smile dropped.

"That's disgusting, kid."