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McCoy stands on Dr. Boyce's front porch and stares at the door. It's painted red and not particularly interesting, but he's inexplicably afraid to touch his fingers to the annunciator. Well, maybe not inexplicably afraid; he and Chris are to join Dr. Boyce and his wife for dinner after Chris's class gets out at 1800, but Dr. Boyce called and asked McCoy to show up at 1730 instead. Right when his comm beeps, though, to tell him that it's 1730 and he's supposed to be somewhere, the door flies open, and there stands Commander Alicia Cortez.
"Dr. McCoy," she says. "Please, come in." She's wearing civvies, a sundress with a light sweater and sandals. It's been warm recently, a brief summery blast in early October, but McCoy himself is wearing long sleeves and dark slacks. He's never felt properly dressed in the Starfleet uniform, because the shirt doesn't have buttons or a real collar, and eating dinner with Chris's best friend, who also happens to be McCoy's boss of a sort, definitely qualifies as the sort of occasion where one should be properly dressed. His great-grandmother would agree.
He follows Commander Cortez inside and is abruptly reminded that his hands are empty. "Ah, Chris has the wine," he says as the door shuts behind him.
Commander Cortez nods. "That's fine. We've definitely got enough alcohol without it, if he forgets." She turns, and is suddenly a little too close; McCoy backs up against the door. "Just so we're clear, Dr. McCoy," she says, and he swallows hastily. "If you hurt him, I will wipe the floor with you."
He nods, and she steps back, smiling. Dr. Boyce is intimidating, but Commander Cortez—she's on her own level altogether. He shivers slightly.
"Phil's in the kitchen. I'll go get him."
That having been said, though, he realizes when she walks away that she is tiny: she doesn't even come up to his shoulder. When she returns with Dr. Boyce, also casual in jeans and a t-shirt, he sees that she doesn't even come up to his shoulder, and McCoy has a few centimeters on the other man. Her features are strong and a little angular, maybe more handsome than beautiful, which is a strange match for Dr. Boyce's classic looks, but they fit.
"Leonard," he says. "Glad you can make it." He pauses and raises an eyebrow. "Alicia, did you threaten him?"
"Well, someone had to," she says.
Dr. Boyce rolls his eyes, but the half-smile he sports belies any actual exasperation. "Anyway. Living room's that way, bathroom's over there if you need it, and I have to go let Groucho back in."
"I'll do it," Commander Cortez says and disappears. Dr. Boyce shrugs and leads him into the living room.
Their house is a ranch, with a foyer that's the size of a full room; straight through is a door that he suspects leads to the bedrooms. The bathroom is on the left, tucked between the door to the kitchen and a room that looks like an office. On the right of the front door is an archway leading to the living room, and he follows Phil through the arch, into a room largely decorated in warm, dark colors. It's a mix of traditional New England furnishings and the Mission revival style, and Leonard isn't in the least surprised.
"Something to drink? No, wait—I know already. Bourbon, right?" Dr. Boyce is already moving to the sideboard and getting out a glass as he speaks.
"Sure," McCoy says.
Dr. Boyce holds out a glass a moment or two later, and McCoy takes it with a quiet, "Thanks."
"Sit down, McCoy."
McCoy sits in a synth-leather armchair, and Dr. Boyce sits as well, in the corner of the matching couch. "So, it's been, what, a week? You and Chris?"
McCoy feels his face turn red. "Ah, closer to two weeks," he says. "Dr. Boyce, I don't think—"
"Phil," Dr. Boyce says, interrupting. "I'm Phil, she's Alicia, you're Leonard, and he's Chris."
Half the time Leonard doesn't even think of himself as Leonard, but if they're all doing first names, well, he'll live. "Phil," he says, and even though he's got a cousin named Phil the name sits funny on his tongue. "I'm not—" He stops.
"Not what?" Dr. Boyce—Phil asks, raising one eyebrow.
McCoy takes a swig of the bourbon to fortify himself, and pauses a moment to savor. It's good stuff—he's not really surprised, although he's heard from Chris that bourbon isn't Phil's drink. "Why am I here?" he asks carefully.
"Well," Phil says, shifting to slouch in his chair, "last time I checked, you and Chris were seeing each other."
Leonard raises an eyebrow back. He probably shouldn't try to out-sarcasm his—Chris's best friend in his own home. Especially not with Comm—Alicia here as well, although she hasn't returned yet. "The man himself will be here in about twenty minutes," he points out. "If you were going to grill me about my intentions, you might want to get to it."
Phil laughs briefly. "No, no questions about your intentions." He catches Leonard's eyes. "You're already past the one-night-stand mark, and you don't strike me as the sort to run when things get rough."
Leonard blinks. "Well, no," he says. He's not particularly inclined to prevaricate, but he thinks that it would be pretty damned impossible to lie to Phil right now. "What, then?"
"I know it has to be hard," Phil says, but before he can say anything else, Leonard cuts in.
"Well, that's where you'd be wrong."
"Oh?" Phil raises his damned eyebrow again.
"It isn't hard," he says, and spreads his hands. "It's a hell of a lot more difficult being Jim Kirk's friend and sounding board, or a damned CMO on a ship out in the black, or a father with a daughter he rarely gets to see. I have more trouble convincing Chris that he isn't difficult than I do just bein' with him." Leonard tips his head. "I guess I have you to thank for that. Him not being difficult, I mean."
Phil shrugs. "Probably more Liz Dehner, really."
"Hm." Dr. Dehner is awfully good at what she does, but in his experience, friends like Phil are at least as helpful. Leonard figures it probably took a village, anyway.
All that isn't saying that it's necessarily easy; Leonard has a long-standing habit of saying what he thinks, and Chris's tongue is no less sharp. Chris's teaching schedule and McCoy's clinic schedule don't fit together terribly well, and it's not going to get any better when the Enterprise launches again—not that he thinks about that terribly often. It hasn't been long enough for them to find all the places that rub wrong, but none of that has to do with any leftover effects from the Narada.
"Well, anyway," Phil says, breaking into Leonard's train of thought, and pushes himself upright in his chair. "Alicia probably threatened to disembowel you if you break his heart, so I'm not going to try to frighten you more. If for some reason you need to talk to someone who maybe understands a little bit of what's going on, you know how to get a hold of me."
Leonard nods, and says, "Wipe the floor with me. She threatened to wipe the floor with me."
"I hope you believe her."
"I haven't been so frightened of someone since the last time I saw my great-grandma Winstead." Leonard sips more of the bourbon, and it's just as good the second time around. He'll have to ask what type it is, or maybe just hang around with the Cortez-Boyces more often.
He's about to say something when Alicia returns with an enormous dog of indeterminate breed, although one parent was most likely a Labrador retriever. The dog—Leonard thinks he's named Groucho—bounds up to him and skids to a halt on the carpet, sitting, one ear cocked, nose an centimeter away from his knees. "Jesus," he says, and reaches out to scratch the dog's ears. "What do you feed him?"
Phil gives a short, sharp laugh; Alicia smiles, and answers, "Everything."
Groucho decides he likes Leonard, apparently, and flops on his feet with a giant whuff. "Well," Phil says, confirming, "you must be okay."
Leonard might've responded, but the door opens, and he hears Chris's voice call, "Hello?"
He stands, and so does Phil; fortunately, Groucho apparently likes Chris, because he gets up, leaving Leonard also free to move.
"In here," Alicia calls, and a moment later, Chris's gray head appears through the doorway and a chorus of his sound.
Leonard watches as Chris walks into the room, slow but steady on his feet. He's fairly sure he's lit up like a Christmas tree, but who's going to blame him? It hasn't even been two weeks. It's not like Chris is any more subtle right now; he's grinning broadly at Leonard. Time doesn't slow down or anything, but it's a good moment, and Leonard starts to feel warm inside.
Groucho rushes up to meet Chris, also sitting down almost on top of his feet, and Chris laughs, skritching the dog's ears quickly before pushing around him. "I let them out early," he says. "The discussion was getting boring."
"For you or for them?" Phil asks.
"Both, probably," he admits. He kisses Alicia on the cheek, pats Phil on the shoulder in a way that somehow manages to look more affectionate than the gesture normally is, and slides a hand across McCoy's back before he sits in the armchair closest to the door, cane leaning against the side. "I left the wine in my office, damnit," he says.
"No problem," Alicia says, taking a seat on the couch; Leonard takes the other end, by Chris, and Phil takes the remaining armchair. "Like I told Leonard, we've got enough alcohol without it."
It's strange. Leonard's barely seen Chris interacting with anyone in a non-professional manner, and he really didn't know the man was tactile at all, until—and he remembers it vividly—the moment when they first held hands. But the way he touches Phil and Alicia, so casually, speaks of long familiarity and ease.
Of course, he also touched Leonard briefly, but it was enough for the still-new zing to run through him. Leonard's never been all that fond of the first few weeks of a relationship; it feels too much like a rollercoaster for him. He normally prefers the luxury of maybe three to six months in, when the hormones have settled down enough to let him get some sleep. He's enjoying it this time around, though, and isn't sure why.
"Do I get any?" Chris asks plaintively, and Phil rolls his eyes.
Alicia laughs, and asks, "Soda or juice?"
"A Shirley Temple," he says. "If I'm stuck pretending I'm not old enough to drink, let's go all the way. Don't skimp on the maraschino cherries, please."
"Do we have any?" Alicia asks Phil, who shrugs. "I guess I could get 'em out of the replicator, if not." She stands. "Anyone else want anything from the kitchen?"
"No, thanks," Leonard says.
Phil stands as well. "Ought to check on dinner."
A moment later he and Chris are alone, and it wasn't the most subtle way of leaving them, but it worked. "Hey," Leonard says.
"Hey," Chris says, and smiles. "You come over here."
There's all of two feet separating them, but McCoy stands and leans over, lips brushing gently before settling in for an actual kiss. He's pretty sure the kissing-without-tongues thing bothers Chris more than it bothers him; Joss wasn't a big fan of having her tonsils explored, but he certainly knows better than to explain that one.
Besides, a good kiss isn't just about simulated sex; it's about taste and smell and closeness and the way Chris's hand rests on the back of his neck, warm and heavy. This is, by any standard, a very good kiss.
They break apart, resting their foreheads together. Chris smiles; it's different, much more private than the grin earlier. Not a bedroom smile, no, but intimate and warm in a way Leonard really prefers.
Well. Outside of the bedroom, at least. Inside, all bets are off, and Leonard flushes, just thinking of how they spent the night before. Chris's smile turns a little bit dirtier and a lot more knowing, but before he can say anything, there's an ostentatious cough.
"Still dressed?" Phil asks, leaning against the doorframe. He's holding a glass full of transparent pink liquid, complete with several maraschino cherries at the bottom.
Leonard knows he's turned about as red as the cadet uniforms, and also that there's nothing he can do about it, so he sits back down in his corner of the couch and takes another sip of bourbon.
"You had to interrupt us," Chris says in mock complaint. He accepts the drink from Phil and takes a slurp.
Alicia joins Phil, sliding an arm around his waist; he wraps an arm around her shoulders, and they stand for a moment. He drops a kiss on her head absently, and she pulls away from him to return to her seat.
"How's dinner?" Chris asks, and pops a maraschino cherry into his mouth; he speared it with the straw after a few tries.
"Not burned yet," Phil says cheerfully, and admits, "Alicia made most of it."
"Oh, so it's not enchiladas."
"I didn't say that," Phil said, and Chris grins.
Leonard had met Admiral Pike-the-elder and Dr. Pike on Sunday, over lunch, and it was—very different. He had the feeling that Chris and his father just plain didn't speak the same language, although it all sounded like Standard. Afterward, Chris said, "They may be my parents, but Phil and Alicia are my family, you know?"
Watching them interact like this, no brass and no rank—yeah, he did know. If it wasn't obvious from Alicia's overt threat and Phil's veiled one, this was more of the meet-the-parents than the previous meal had been.
He hopes he's done all right.
Something in the kitchen makes a beeping noise; Alicia jumps up. "That'll be dinner," she says, and Groucho follows her out of the room.
"It smells wonderful," Chris calls after her. It does; Leonard can't pick out individual spices or anything but it's definitely enchiladas, and if forced to guess, he'd say green sauce, although part of that is that he knows that Chris likes green enchiladas better than red.
Phil stands as well and stretches before he ambles toward the door.
Leonard raises his eyebrows at Chris, who nods; he stands and lets Chris use his forearms to pull himself up, and hands him his cane once he's standing.
Phil hasn't made it out the door yet, and he gives McCoy a tiny nod when Chris isn't looking.
For a moment, Leonard is furious; he feels like Phil is offering him a medal or something for doing what any reasonable person should do. He isn't a saint, damnit, for falling for someone who happens to need a little help getting out of chairs of a certain height. He's just . . . not being an asshole.
Which, to be fair, is the only face Phil—Dr. Boyce, really—has known him to display.
He still doesn't like it, and frowns at Phil as Chris passes in front of him. They hang back, letting Chris get far enough ahead for his super-sensitive hearing to be overwhelmed with Alicia slinging plates and silverware in the kitchen. Leonard is about to say something when Phil touches his arm, just above the elbow and says, "You're right, Leonard. Whatever's between the two of you—it's a hell of a lot smoother, easier than I expected."
Oh. An acknowledgment, not a cookie. He nods, not sure what the proper verbal response would be, and Phil pats him on the shoulder before preceding him into the kitchen, where Chris waits.
No. It's not difficult at all.