Leonard was updating diet cards for several of the crew members when Jim commed him and asked if he wanted to eat lunch with him in the mess. He looked at the time, and shifted in his seat. He'd get a few more cards finished before heading out. Maybe he'd alter Jim's a little, too. The man hadn't been keeping up with his health lately, so maybe Leonard would give him a little wake up call.
After he finished, he slid out of his chair and walked out of sickbay, waving at Christine Chapel on the way. She waved back with a pretty smile. The woman really was gorgeous. Leonard often thought about asking her to dinner, but it felt quite unprofessional since they worked so close together. Still...
He shook his head, continuing towards the mess. Beginning intimacies were for another day... or so he's been telling himself for the past few years. He entered the mess and avoided the small crowds of people as he got his food from a replicator. He got himself some fish with a side of salad and lemon slices.
As soon as he turned to find Jim, he was met with the blond's icy glare. He smirked and set course over to the table. As soon as he sat down with his food, Jim started complaining. "What, are you trying to call me fat?!" He gestured to his half-eaten salad, and Leonard snorted.
"No, I'm insinuating that you need to start taking better care of yourself. Try to set out more for time sparring in the gym, alright? Just like you used to." Leonard said, and Jim huffed and stabbed at his leafy meal.
"How about you come with me, and we'll spar together?" Jim asked, and Leonard gave him a skeptical look. "Hey, you'll get to oversee me exercising, and we can both work on our self-defense. It'd be great. We haven't hung out in a long time, Bones."
"I suppose I could spare a couple of my afternoons..." Leonard replied quietly, finally tucking into his fish. It was good. Nothing beat a nice grilled fillet of replicated salmon.
"Great! Then after we spar a few times, maybe you could just switch my diet card back to how it was. Right?" Jim asked, high with spirit now, shoving some spinach into his mouth. Leonard grunted a noncommittal noise back at him. "Oh, how's that one dating website going? You find any good pen pals yet?"
"Yeah, a couple." Leonard said after he was done chewing on a bite of fish. In reality, he had only been talking to one pen pal. The same I-Chaya that he had met weeks ago. He opened his mouth to turn the question back to Jim, but the blond spoke first.
"What kinda stuff do you talk about? Has it gotten personal yet? Dating anyone yet?" Jim asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Leonard glared at him and took a long drink of water before granting an answer, which made Jim look at him even more expectantly.
"... No. No dating yet-"
"YET?!" Jim yelled, making several people look over. Leonard apologized to the nearest table of people before turning back to the eager man.
"And by that, I meant: no, not at all." Leonard corrected, still glaring. "No dating. Not even close. Most of our conversations so far have been quite superficial... Actually, I'm pretty sure that superficial conversations are all that they can really handle. Every time anything gets deep, they kind of... just..."
"Shut down?" Jim supplied, and Leonard nodded. "Yep. Spock's the same exact way. I'll be talking to him about all sorts of things, but as soon as I try to talk about something emotional or from the past or highly philosophical, he just... either ignores me or changes the subject. Bastard."
"Yeah, well, Spock's a computer. I doubt he's even capable of processing a conversation about emotions." Leonard grumbled. "My pen pal's not quite like that, though. They can be pretty philosophical at times, and sometimes they talk about how they feel about things. It's just once in a blue moon, though."
"Why do you keep saying 'they'? You guys haven't said your genders or anything yet?" Jim asked, grimacing. "What if it's a guy? I know you're not really into dudes. Me included." Leonard gave him The Look.
"I turned you down because you're my friend, and way too promiscuous for me. Seriously, kid, you slept with more people than you could remember the names of." Leonard shot back, sighing at his nearly empty plate. "I thought about it too, and I thought maybe... if I got really close to someone, maybe it wouldn't matter if they're a guy. Don't know how to explain it. I just feel like this generation is past the whole black and white, gay and straight thing."
"That makes zero sense, but okay." Jim said, bobbing his head and totally rolling with it. Leonard sighed again, a little irritated.
"I think that if you meet the right person, it shouldn't really matter what they even LOOK like, you know?" Leonard tried explaining, and Jim shook his head.
"No, they have to look good for me, sorry." Jim said, making Leonard smile a little. Cocky bastard. "I mean, we both know that I don't give a shit about gender, but looks? They gotta look a least a little pretty if I'm going to be with them."
"Well sure, they should be a little bit pretty, at the very least." Leonard said, and Jim nodded in agreement. They continued to eat their meals in silence after that, which gave Leonard a little bit of time to think about things. Or... not, since Jim started talking out of nowhere again.
"So..." Jim said, puckering his lips in thought. "You only mentioned one pen pal. What about the others? You said you had a few, right?" Leonard blinked at him. He was caught. Even though it wasn't even a significant lie in the first place.
"Actually, it's just that one. I lied, since I wanted you to think I was being more social than just talking to that one person." Leonard shrugged, and Jim nodded, surprisingly unsurprised.
"What nickname did you choose? Just so I don't run into you on there." Jim smirked, and Leonard rolled his eyes.
"Please, the odds of us finding each other on there is like one in 9 billion." Leonard said, shaking his head.
"Ugh, with that sort of math talk you almost sound like Spock." Jim grumbled, and Leonard made a face.
"I don't wanna be compared to that guy. It's the statistic that the website says on the Frequently Asked Questions page." He said, annoyed, and changed the subject. "My nickname is Meonatio. M for McCoy, eon for Leonard, and atio for Horatio."
"That doesn't even sound good!" Jim laughed. "Why didn't you just put your actual name or something?"
"I didn't want it to be too personal. Personal information is for the real world, not a website." Leonard remarked, and Jim grimaced again.
"So I can't dress up my profile like a fancy young lady, and court you into sending some sexy pics?" Jim wiggled his eyebrows again, and it was Leonard's turn to grimace.
"Definitely not." He glared, and Jim grunted, still smiling a little. "Anyway, I gotta get back to work. Hopefully nobody's gotten dead yet in my absence." He got up, taking the last drink of his water.
"Mhmm, bye Bones." Jim said, getting up as well. They parted ways, and Leonard took off to Sickbay again so that he could drag his feet around biobeds and sit at a desk for the next few hours.
After getting dressed in some gym clothes, Leonard headed down to play with Jim. There were several people in the large room already, but Jim had already found them a secluded space on top of a soft black mat. Leonard could already smell the sweat in the room, despite how clean the air was on the ship.
"Alright, I haven't exactly done this in a long time." Leonard said, standing across from Jim on the mat.
"It's okay. You'll get the hang of it." Jim smirked, and got into a semi-crouched battle stance. Leonard did the same, his feet digging into the mat with each step.
Jim sprung forward first, but Leonard side-stepped and pushed him down. Jim gaped at him from his position on the ground, and Leonard chuckled at him. Jim recovered quickly, though, jumping up and approaching him slowly. Leonard kept his hands up and his stance low, ready any impact. Not ready enough, though- in a flash, he was brought painfully to the ground with a smack. He grunted in his throat and frowned up at Jim, who was straddling him with a smirk.
"Isn't it nice to see the view of what could've been, Bones?" Jim taunted, getting off of him with a laugh. Leonard got up as well, sniffing indignantly.
"You need to learn how to get over people. Only took me three slaps in the face to get over Jocelyn." Leonard said, and Jim scowled back at him.
"I am over you! And I'm over Spock now, too. You never asked who any of my pen pals were." Jim pouted, and Leonard snorted.
"I guess it's because I thought you weren't capable of starting a meaningful relationship!" Leonard taunted back, knowing he was crossing a line. Jim launched at him again, and Leonard met him with equal force. Grabbing each other's arms, they pushed against each other for a while before Leonard swung his arms and maneuvered Jim heftily to the ground. He held out his hand to help the man up, but Jim just slapped it and got up on his own. He was right where Leonard wanted him.
Throw after throw, Jim hit the ground with repeated thunks. He was getting increasingly pissed off too, and anybody could see it. He finally sprung at Leonard with a yell, kicking him over and knocking him down. Leonard groaned and laid there for a while, wiping the sweat off his forehead. Jim stood above him, glaring him down.
"You asshole." Jim grumbled before plopping down next to him. Leonard sat up and smiled charmingly at him.
"Feel better? I've noticed how tense you've been." Leonard asked, and Jim nodded and sighed.
"Yeah. Thanks. Even though you're still an ass. How'd that even work? Why do I feel so much better?" Jim asked, taking deep breaths still.
"Letting loose your emotions and exerting yourself physically are both ways to get rid of stress. I figured if I got you angry while still in a stable environment, you could blow off some steam without having to kill anybody." Leonard explained, getting up.
"Does everything you do have some sort of hidden meaning?" Jim asked as he got up as well, rubbing his eyes.
"Yes." Leonard said with (presumable) one hundred percent certainty, even though he doubted it was true.
"Uh, I'm done. We'll have to do this another time though." Jim said, clapping a hand on Leonard's shoulder. They smiled at each other for a while before setting off to the showers.
Leonard trudged back into his quarters, immediately dressing himself into some light sleeping clothes. After he was comfortable, he sat on the heavily padded chair at the computer. He quickly opened up his messages to see that there was one waiting from about two hours ago. Feeling some guilt, he typed up a reply.
"I-Chaya,
Sorry if my reply is so unexpectedly late. I know our messaging times are pretty regular. I was caught up sparring with a friend in the gym, though, and he made me walk him back to his quarters before I could come back to mine. It was a pretty long day.
To answer your previous question about predatory tendencies: I feel as though I'm not particularly entitled to too much of an opinion, considering I'm human, and we as a species have almost ruined our planet by preying on everything. We're one of the only species that actually preys on itself- not that cannibalism is really accepted in today's society. But if I were to relay my own isolated opinion, I'd say that it's okay, but only as long as it doesn't cause any species to become endangered or extinct. What about you? What do you think?
Meonatio"
Leonard sat back, popping his knuckles. He was kind of pleased, actually. It wasn't quite often that I-Chaya started up a conversation- and even less often that they started a conversation about personal opinions of morals. He felt like they were actually getting somewhere, and it was kind of nice.
A message popped up already, surprising him.
"Meonatio,
There is no need to apologize for your absence. It is understandable if either of are otherwise occupied and unable to access a computer. We are Starfleet Officers."
At that, Leonard snorted. That they were. And it was just about the only really personal thing he knew about I-Chaya. He read on.
"My opinion on the predatory natures of different species could also be counted as biased, considering I was taught never to kill another living being. My people were once encumbered by overwhelming emotions, and often warred on each other and other mammals on the planet. Now, we have evolved into a controlled people, and the idea of harming other beings is a... taboo, as you might say. As a result, I am strictly vegetarian, and the thought of eating meat is quite unsatisfactory for me. However, I do not hold judgment against those who do prey on other animals, so long as it is not in cruel standing.
I-Chaya"
Leonard licked his lips, taking a deep breath. He was finally learning something about this person, and he had no idea how to reply. Maybe he could still try to get something else out of them?
"I-Chaya,
Given both of our cultural history, I think that our biases are pretty justified. And in the end, it sounds like you wouldn't judge me for eating meat, and I certainly wouldn't judge you for being vegetarian. So really, it all works out.
I do have a question though, if you're willing to answer. What's the history behind your nickname? Mine is just random parts of my first, middle, and last names.
Meonatio"
He sat back and waited for a reply. And waited. He got up and grabbed himself some water (he was always drinking water), taking some long gulps as he watched the computer screen. But nothing showed up. Leonard frowned. Did he cross a line? Maybe he should send another message, apologizing about how personal the question was...
No, damn it. They've been talking for weeks. They should be able to talk about things that are a bit more personal than predators and Starfleet! Even the person's profile descriptions didn't reveal much! Occupation: Science Officer at Starfleet. Age: 30. Interests: Research, art, literature, martial arts. Honestly, all of it was just full of... nothing! It didn't really tell him anything, except that the person was a deep thinking science officer three years younger than him. What was he supposed to do with that?
Leonard sighed, and was about to go off to bed when a message popped up. He read it over quickly, relieved that he got a reply.
"Meonatio,
Admittedly, I was hesitant to explain the meaning behind my nickname, since explaining it would reveal multiple personal facts about me. However, I infer that it would now be appropriate to start revealing such personal things.
While I was a child, I had a pet sehlat, which were similar to the grizzly bears often found on Earth. The only notable differences between the two species is that sehlats had long fangs and a long tail, and that they can be domesticated as pets. It was quite common for the young children of my people to own sehlats, as it was a crude lesson for learning respect for other creatures early in life.
My sehlat was named I-Chaya, and was passed down to me by my father. He was cherished by my family, even though my mother was initially wary of him. After many years of following me around against my will, I-Chaya was killed as he protected me against the attack of a le-matya. There was no chance of saving his life. It was very regrettable that he had to be killed by my inability to defend myself.
I-Chaya"
Leonard blinked at the screen. So, obviously, this person was not human. He had never even heard of sehlats or le-matyas or anything like that. Maybe he had heard of them while at the Academy, but he obviously held no retention of it. He'd have to look into that later.
In the meantime, he typed up a reply, trying to convey his sympathies without sounding like a pitying ass. He really did feel bad though. He could only imagine what it felt like to have a childhood companion that died in order to save his life. It would be heartbreaking. His pen pal, though, seemed to have gotten over it by now. Even so, it's not like they were a particularly emotional person in the first place.