After Spock and Leonard settled into a harmony with each other, they remained private about their relationship. McCoy may have expected the other to come to the infirmary without as much of a fuss, and Spock in turn may have expected to granted leeway in not doing so; as such the only visible display of their affinity for one-and-other were debates ranging from Free Will vs. Determinism to Newtonian vs. Quantum mechanic importance, with the most vicious being Aid vs. Prime Directive. Nyota, of course, knew that they were successfully together—and she had said as much to Montgomery Scott to spark his interest in pursuing her, because she and Spock had not spread the information of their own separation. Captain James T. Kirk, frequent visitor of both men's quarters and a neighbor to Spock's homestead, however, did not know the details of this arrangement.
Until it happened, of course, that he did.
McCoy meandered in to Spock's quarters, recognized intimately by the bio-sensors. "Hun, you have any plans tonight?" He plopped himself onto the synthetic leather couch, waiting for the water in the washroom to stop running before repeating his question, voice raised to reach through the walls. At receiving no reply on his second attempt, Leonard paced up to the thin door which gleamed as though wetted by the water on its insides.
He knocked against the metal panel, his knuckles pounding against their mirrored ones, sound reverberating with a ping in the hull of the ship. Sure that he had knocked loud and long enough to garner the others attention, he casually drawled, "I said, wanna have a date night?"
A slight thump sounded, as though a tube of toothpaste had landed on the tiles, making McCoy frown. "Spock, are you fine in there?" His heart rate sped at the continuing lack of an answer, and the image of the burned skin he'd only today had to scrape off a poor ensigns hand swam to the forefront of his mind. "Okay, I'm coming in." With those words McCoy pressed his hand against the door controls, appendages scrambling to the side to press it as he couldn't turn his eyes away from what he was expecting to find.
The door slid open none other than Jim, flushed red and staring wide eyed at him, towel held together by hand.
". . . Jim."
"Bones."
Suddenly acquiring a dry throat, McCoy coughed, head turning downwards into his hand. "I think I'm catching something, so I'll, uh, just leave you to it."
From the side of his eye McCoy saw Jim shake his head slowly side-to-side. "Nooo. No. I'm done." His mouth hung open, "What was that about dating?"
McCoy licked his lips, trying to give them some type of liquid courage from which to speak. "Spock—Spock and I. That is, me and Spock are . . ."
Jim bunched up the portion of the towel in his right hand and tucked the ball into that side under his left. Newly freed, his hands hung limply down from his shoulders. "You and Spock are dating?" McCoy gulped, catching reflected from his view of the floor the imagine of Jim's hand fumbling around for purchase on nothing. He nodded once. "Oh. Okay." Jim's hand pressed against the door controls on his side, sliding it shut.
҉
McCoy lied suspended on the couch, the fabric sticking to his skin and sucking him in. The large metallic door to Spock's quarters propelled open and yet he didn't move. In monotone he said to the owner of the room he was in, "You're late."
"I had thought to work a double shift tonight, allowing me to help with the backlog the labs are undergoing." Spock walked up to the couch and hovered above McCoy, seemingly shimmering with the wetness the other was viewing him through.
"That's nice."
Spock encouraged McCoy's legs to move to occupy only one side of the small seating by using his hands to lift them up and turn the other around with, then set them to rest on the floor. He proceeded to place himself next to his partner. "I would have arrived sooner had the captain not recently forestalled me with a dinner request." Spock settled in then to waited, having stolen from Nyota that tigress—in his case panther—like method of waiting for his prey to ware itself out before striking.
"I didn't mean to let it slip."
Spock raised his brow then, and bent down at his waist to again reach McCoy's calves. Picking them up, he returned McCoy to his original position, only this time draped partially across him. "I was not aware you had physically injured yourself—if so Jim was negligent in explaining to me the situation. He seemed shocked but mostly unconcerned, which I am sure would not be the case were he worried for your health."
McCoy started kicking his feet then, pressing them slightly at the supportive weight under them. After a few moments, in which he was allowed to do as he pleased, he asked, "Ya sure?"
"Yes Lenard." Spock spoke, the vulcan he had switched to translating in delay to the universal translator behind McCoy's ear. McCoy shifted up slightly to scratch at the tingling always—psychosomatic, he knew—caused when Spock did this around him. "Your shield-brother will be here shortly. All will be fine."
McCoy swatted once at his own ear, and used his feet pushed up against Spock to sit himself straight. "Jesus. It ain't even five yet." McCoy stood, overcompensating for lowered blood pressure as he adjusted for the new vertical position and stumbling over Spock's booted feet. "You couldn't have talked him into pushing it off?" McCoy strode to the kitchenette. He called from across the living space, "And how about you come over here and help me cook, instead of treating me like an invalid."
Spock rose, "Agreed," he started moving, "now that you no longer are acting like one."