Leonard was woken up with a too-small hand shaking his arm and not-blue-enough eyes staring at him. "Doctor McCoy? Leonard? It's almost ten."
"Shit…already?" He got up and stretched; his back popping in a few places. Getting to old for this crap, falling asleep on a couch, he thought and rushed upstairs and took a shower before changing. Leonard checked on his dad and hurried to the car, taking the protein bar that Jocelyn held out to him. He drove faster than he normally would have (so the speed limit) and parked in his space. He ran in and took a seat at his desk and took a deep breath.
Kaur walked in and smirked. "Running late this morning, Doctor?" she asked as she handed him a PADD that contained updates on patients he was currently seeing.
"Why isn't Kirk on here?"
"He was changed to general care since he doesn't require a specialist and you were just on E.R. duty yesterday."
Leonard frowned and remembered what his father said. "Put him back on my patient list. I want to oversee his care." She nodded and walked out, leaving him to go through his messages and reports. He made his rounds, smiling at his patients as well as he could and took a few minutes to chat with them and some of their family members. He walked in to check on Jim and saw that he was still sleeping so he merely checked the readings and machines. Leonard couldn't stop himself and ran his fingers through his hair before walking out and going to the labs.
He spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon setting up and conducting experiments, taking notes, and looking for something that would point him in the right direction. That afternoon he met with the board and went over the research that he and his team had been conducting, showing them the progress that they had made even if it was miniscule. When he left he was scowling, the men and women had looked doubtful about the progress that they had been making. Once again he walked the wing, making his way to his patients and finding Jim had finally been moved to a room closer to his office.
This time, Jim was awake and trying to sit up. When he saw Leonard he frowned and fell back. "I thought these things were supposed to make this faster, not torture me."
The Doctor laughed and checked the machine. "If you didn't move around so much you'd be done with this part." His eyes scanned Jim's body briefly before meeting his eyes. "I've heard that you've been terrorizing my favorite nurse."
"Kaur?" he asked, trying to appear innocent. "I can see why she's your favorite."
"Oh? And why is that?"
Jim shrugged and closed his eyes as Leonard ran his hands over his skin. "She's pretty is all." He jumped when the Doctor's hands brushed a ticklish spot. "Don't you have a scanner to do that for you?"
Leonard laughed and nodded. "I do, but I don't trust them. I use them to back up what I find and to double check. My dad did it this way and it worked for him." He could feel his voice soften and falter as he mentioned his father.
"What happened to him?"
"Huh?" Leonard asked taking a seat and finishing his notes.
"Your dad."
"Oh, he's sick. That's my primary focus right now, the research into the cure. I don't see many patients at the moment." He looked up and saw the bright blue eyes staring at him. "What?"
Jim looked down when he found the hazel eyes staring at him with curiosity. "Nurse Kaur said that you wanted to be my doctor." When Leonard nodded Jim looked him fully in the eyes again. "Why?"
He paused, trying to figure out a way to put it without sounding creepy. "Well, it's refreshing to have a patient that doesn't require surgery—plus I noticed that you seem to dislike doctors, so I figured that having you passed around to whoever was on duty wouldn't do you much good."
The blush he felt must have been showing on his face because Jim smiled widely saying, "Aw, Bones, you do care."
"Don't push it, kid," he mumbled but a gruff smile appeared on his face. "Now, how are you really feeling today? Don't lie."
Jim frowned. "I wasn't going to lie." At the look on Leonard's face he rolled his eyes. "Okay, so I was going to twist the truth a bit. I feel like shit—to put it nicely. Everything hurts, especially my back and head. If I had to rate my pain on a scale on one to ten, I'd give it a seven."
The Doctor raised his eyebrow. "That all?"
"Maybe an eight."
Leonard softened his look. "Been through this before, Jim?"
He shrugged, "Once or twice."
The older man pulled his chair closer to the bed and leaned forward so that he could rest his elbows on his knew and focused his eyes on Jim. "Care to tell me anything about you?"
Jim smiled and his eyes lit up. "Well, my middle name is totally embarrassing, I'm around six-one, like to read old fashioned books, and I do odd jobs to earn a few extra bucks."
"Really?" he caught the laugh the bubbled out of Jim as he raised his eyebrow again.
"Yeppers?" It raised higher at the word and Jim's smile softened. "Like I said, I've been through this before. I'm not going to be sent to some shelter or random home. I'm not going through that again."
"There's nothing in your file about that."
"It happened either way."
Slowly, he lifted one of his hands and rested it on Jim's arm. "I want to help you."
The younger man stared at Leonard, looking at him as if he was a puzzle that he just couldn't figure out. "We'll see."
"Look, I won't let them send you to a shelter. You seem like you take pretty good care of yourself and if you don't want that I won't bring protective services in. You can trust me." Leonard watched him and Jim nodded gently.
"Thanks, Jim," he said. He put his PADD down and leaned back in his chair. He pulled his outer coat off and rolled up his shirt sleeves. When he looked back up, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt, he saw Jim gazing at him again. "What?"
"What're you doing?"
"I'm off, my shift ended thirty minutes ago."
Jim leaned forward slowly, stretching his back but not taking his eyes off of Leonard. "Then why did you come to see me?"
"You're my patient, I wanted to check up on you."
"Why are you staying?"
"I'm hoping that you'll tell me something about you."
He nodded and smiled. "So, everything I say now is off the record?"
Leonard nodded. "Yeah, why?" he asked looking confused.
"Because, you're looking pretty hot, Bones."
The Doctor rolled his eyes but he couldn't help the blush that crept up his face or the thrilled feeling that he got in his gut. The damn-it Jim that came out had the younger man laughing.
Over the next few days Leonard found himself looking forward to his time with Jim. He would examine him, run him through a few tests and let him know about his recovery and then he would stay after his shift and just chat with Jim. He tried learning things about him but he never got too far and the conversation always seemed to turn to him. So far he had told Jim about his childhood and the research he was conducting. All the he had learned about Jim was that he was smart, probably too smart for his own good but Leonard thought it was refreshing.
Nurse Kaur had pointed out that he was dressing differently; he was wearing his shirts opened a little more, his sleeves were always rolled up and his pants clung a little more. Leonard blushed and just said that he felt like changing things up a bit. No one seemed to mind, especially Jim. Leonard wouldn't admit it, but he loved the happy, bright eyed look that Jim would get when he walked into the room. The appreciative glance and hungry gaze definitely didn't have anything to do with it.
At home, Leonard didn't have time to think about his blond patient, but he did anyway. He was kept busy with his father and Jocelyn was always there to give him a smile. He'd follow his routine but started spending more time with his father and half the time he couldn't stop talking about Jim and David could see the change in his son when they talked about him. At first Leonard would have the guilty look at talking about a patient that way but the smile was never far away, especially when David would drop hints that he had no problem seeing his son with another man. It always left Leonard with this feeling and he knew that he would have to make some sort of decision soon.