Fic: Get off my lawn!
Title: Get off my lawn!
Beta: selinamoonfire and 7ofEleven
Word Count: 4,020
Rating: PG
Pairings, Characters: McCoy, Kirk, Sulu, Chekov, Spock/Uhura (implied), Rand, Chapel, Scotty, Cupcake and various other crewmembers
Warnings: slightly cracky
Disclaimer: Not mine, dammit!
Summary: The crew start observing some new behaviour from the Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise. What does this mean for the rest of the crew?
A/N: This piece of silliness started out from some comments on my journal from lesserpanda and selinamoonfire. Blame those two enablers for the suggestion that Bones is really Mr Wilson, which of course meant that Jim is Dennis the Menace.
No one was quite sure how it got approved, but a space on the Observation room was roped off and Dr McCoy started fussing over the layer of dirt that got put down. Anyone who came close to it was warned away in no uncertain terms by the grumpier than normal doctor.
Talk was rife on the ship as to what purpose the dirt was for. Sulu and the other botanists were asked but they just shrugged their shoulders in response and went back to watching the doctor like everyone else.
The only one game enough to ask Mr Spock was Nyota and in his own way he informed her that he was as unclear on the matter as the rest of the crew and his own foray into attempting to ascertain from the captain as the true nature of the placement of the soil on the Observation room was unsuccessful. Nyota translated that to normal speak as, “dunno and the captain wouldn’t tell me.”
Weeks became months and little shoots appeared and word got around that Dr. McCoy was talking to dirt. When word got back to the captain, he just smiled and didn’t say a word.
The crew eventually figured out that the doctor was growing a little patch of lawn. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone considering the other things on the Enterprise, but they still were. Bowling Alley anyone?
It finally got long enough and if you were doing rounds while on gamma shift, the sounds of a lawn mower might have greeted you as you wandered the hallways near the Observation room. There might even have been something strange that coming from any other human with a semblance of musical talent might have been called whistling.
The lawn was perfectly flat and green.
The first to test it out was the captain. Feet bare and just walking slowly across it. He picked a time where there was no one else in the room, towards the end of gamma but before the alpha shift all started moving about and getting ready. He also might have checked with the computer to ensure that a certain Chief Medical Officer was still asleep. Some might call him a ‘reckless idiot with no sense that god had god-damn given even an amoeba’ but he wasn’t stupid.
Next on the list, once he heard the captain had tried out the grass, was Sulu. He too decided on the bare feet, but he was a bit quicker across it. He was also shirtless but made up for that fact by the rapier that he held in his hand and was demonstrating a particular maneuver for the enjoyment of a group of ensigns.
The lights of the room were reflecting nicely off his sweaty skin which all of a sudden became considerably wetter.
Sulu stopped and spluttered as he spat water out of his mouth and then tossed his head back to try and move the wet, plastered hair out of his eyes.
He obviously wasn’t fast enough in his movements as another blast of water hit him, this time squarely in the buttocks.
“Hey!” He yelled and turned around to see who had squirted him.
That was the wrong move as he got another squirt of water. This time in the face.
“Ain’t your lawn,” McCoy growled at him.
“Now look here,” Sulu glared back and started to advance on the doctor, his rapier raised in en garde mode.
McCoy just squirted him again and raised one eyebrow.
“Off. My. Lawn,” McCoy said and made a motion that he might just emphasis his statement with some more water.
“Fine,” Sulu spat out and stalked off the lawn and out of the room. The ensigns trailing after him in a giggling gaggle of noise, all splitting up and going in their own directions once they exited the Observation room. Off to tell as many people as possible about the confrontation and the doctor who seemed to be considering the lawn his property and marking any who trespassed on it.
Unfortunately, their efforts of alerting all crew members managed to completely miss the navigator of the Enterprise.
Pavel Andreyivich Chekov was stretched out along the lawn contemplating the chess board in front of him. It was a standard Terran one level board. A present from his mother on his commissioning on board the Enterprise. Across from him, about to be annihilated completely in four moves was Lieutenant Henderson.
Pavel reached forward to lift up his bishop when a shadow fell across the board.
Pavel looked up into the shadowed visage of Doctor McCoy. He didn’t need to clearly see his face to know there was a not happy expression on it.
“Greetings, Doctor McCoy. The lawn is a wonderful addition to the Observation room. It reminds me greatly of the lawn my mother grew back in St. Petersburg,” Pavel told him.
“That’s nice, kid, but this lawn ain’t for games and it ain’t Russian lawn,” McCoy said.
“Actually doctor, all lawn species, Poaceae, can be traced back to fossilised records from Cretaceous dinosaur coprolite deposits found in Russia. So all lawn is inwented in Russia,” Pavel had sat up to expound upon his knowledge of all things Russian. His hands fluttering as he talked.
“You and that damned country of yours! This lawn is Georgian, get it, Georgian not Russian!” McCoy had put his hands on his hips as he leaned over to growl at Pavel.
Pavel just beamed up at him, “But doctor, Georgia was annexed by Russia!”
“Ohhh!” McCoy threw his hands in the air in frustration and then he bent over and picked up the chess board and stalked over to one of the tables. He slammed it down, not caring that the pieces feel over like drunken sailors on shore leave after a long period out in the black. “Here! See! Here, is Russia. There,” at this McCoy pointed back at the lawn, “is Georgia. The Peach State! The Empire State of the South. It ain’t ever been Russian and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be in the future. Now get your skinny asses off my lawn and stay off!”
McCoy then stalked out of the Observation room, muttering under his breath about ‘damn impertinent children who should be out and running around elsewhere and not playing stupid games like chess on a perfectly nice lawn’.
A week went by and not one person was game enough to become the next victim of the doctor’s ire.
Whispers then started to fly around the ship about not one, but three people that had dared to set foot on “McCoy’s Lawn”.
Doctor McCoy called out for his head nurse, and when he got no response, he stormed out of his office to giver her a tongue lashing only to discover her not in the main area of sick bay at all! Talk about a full head of steam dissipating to become a little trickle of disappointment.
“Where’s Chapel?” he barked at the other medical staff in the bay.
“She had this shift off, remember?” Geoffrey M’Benga reminded McCoy.
“Humph,” McCoy responded and stalked back into his office. As he worked away at the back filing he could hear the discussions taking place out in the bay.
The door swooshed open to the main area and excited chatter started. Whoever was speaking was obviously trying to keep his voice down, but Leonard had lived with Jim Kirk for three years and he had learned a valuable lesson at knowing exactly what that man had planned, especially in light of treatments that would be required for some imminent piece of stupidity. The upshot of this was that Leonard learned that some fool had decided that sunbathing was the thing to do and the place to do it was his lawn.
McCoy stalked out of his office, via the separate door and headed for the Observation room. Those he passed along the way, quickly got out of his path and then doubled back to follow him. The upcoming confrontation was going to prove epic. No one wanted to miss it.
The door to the Observation room slid open as quickly as it could, as if the ship too was aware of not angering the doctor further.
McCoy blinked in surprise as he took in the sight before him.
There, lying on those little low room chairs, clad only in very skimpy bikinis, were the three women that the majority of the crew recognized as the ones that the three most senior male officers were scared of.
On. His. Lawn.
It was not to be borne.
His eyes narrowed as he looked around for the hose. It was nowhere to be seen. Just the other day it was wound up neatly by the valve on the far wall.
“Toodles! Leonard!” Uhura called out. She had raised her arm up in the air to waggle her fingers towards him. They were painted in a very bright orange today instead of her customary black.
“Nyota,” he responded as he walked slowly over towards the three women.
“Hey, boss,” Christine said as she glanced up from where she was leaning over while she painted her toe nails. A bright pink.
To make matters even more surreal, all three had their hair loose, hanging down their backs. Nyota’s black hair was sleekly highlighted by the lights of the room, whereas Christine’s and Janice’s were different shades of blonde which could be more easily determined because their hair was loose.
“This has to be one of your best ideas yet, Doctor McCoy. So relaxing,” Janice said as she too stopped what she was doing. In her case it was sketching something on a pad that she had flipped up to rest along her front. It could have been a case of modesty or it could have been that she didn’t want others to see what she was doing.
“Now, look, ladies,” Leonard started to say. He spoke through his teeth as he was trying to reign in his temper, his mama had taught him some manners, no matter what that green blooded elf implied.
“Yes, Leonard?” Nyota asked him, and if it didn’t beat all, he could have sworn she fluttered her eyelashes as she said his name.
“This lawn... Well, this lawn ain’t, well it is...” Leonard stumbled over his words as Christine had straightened up and given him a view directly down the front of her cleavage.
He was seriously trying to remember every word his mama and papa had taught him.
“It’s perfect, is what it is,” Nyota said as she ran her hand over the top of the grass. Her other hand was holding a page open on an old book. The cover proclaimed it to be a book of Andorian love poetry, he was able to read once he tore his gaze away from the Louisiana delicacies of Christine.
“Too perfect, Doctor McCoy,” Janice chimed in, opening her eyes wide as she smiled up at him. Her young face radiating pleasure. “It’s not often we get a little slice of home out here and while it might seem strange to sunbath with no sun, Nyota, Christine and I have much appreciated the ability to sit back, relax and enjoy. I’m sad I haven’t seen you enjoying it, doctor. Why don’t you sit down and join us? I’m sure Christine would be happy to have a helping hand with her toes there. Nyota has been reading us the most lovely poetry too.”
Leonard was sure that there was a horrified expression on his face when the suggestion about painting toenails came up. It was made worse by Christine smiling at him and nodding her agreement.
“Yeah, well, no, um, I’m on duty. Dammit, I’m a doctor, not a pedicurist!”
“Oh well, maybe some other time then, Leonard,” Nyota offered as she opened her book again.
Leonard had been summarily dismissed, so he did what any male faced with the prospect of a female ignoring them did. He turned and walked away.
A few brave souls had, since the sunbathing event, made movements towards the grass but in every instance the Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise had magically appeared in the Observation room and glared at them until they backed away.
It was late into Beta Shift when the doctor walked in to look in on his lawn to find the Science Officer lying flat along the side of the lawn, observing it.
“Spock! What in tarnation’s name are you doing?” He barked out.
“I am, in your quaint idiom, watching the grass grow,” Spock calmly replied. “Please note that in respect to ensuring that you do not, as the captain is fond of saying, blow a gasket, I am not on the lawn, but at a respectful distance so as I am able to still observe adequately.”
“For Christ’s sake, it’s just some grass. You are the weirdest man,” Leonard replied as he walked towards Spock.
“Your reactions, doctor, prove otherwise that it is ‘just some grass’. The crew also have been displaying a marked preference for spending a longer than normal time within the Observation room. All of these situations have led me here to observe this ‘lawn’ to ascertain as to what properties it might contain that could prove of interest for further study.”
“You!” Leonard complained. “It’s just a nice flat piece of lawn, it ain’t for fencing on and it sure as hell ain’t for playing chess on so no getting ideas on that front. Then there were was those women!” Leonard had folded his arms across his chest as he listed his complaints.
Spock sat up and crossed his legs to better converse with Leonard.
“Yes, I did raise the matter with Nyota to ascertain her need to sit on the lawn when there are more comfortable seating arrangements available.”
“And what did you ‘ascertain’?” Leonard asked back, one eyebrow slightly raising.
“I ascertained, doctor, that as a species, you humans are beyond comprehension. Nyota expressed the reason that ‘it was pretty’,” Spock said.
“Yeah, well, welcome to the vagaries of the female mind. Even we don’t understand their thought processes,” Leonard grumbled.
“Yet you continue to manage to propagate the species. I must consider the matter further. Thank you doctor,” Spock stood up as he spoke. He looked back at the lawn and tilted his head to the side, “I do not see the attraction.” Spock then nodded at Leonard and walked across the Observation room and out the door.
It was a week later that Leonard discovered the next person to make use of his lawn.
Montgomery Scott was lying on the lawn. A glass balanced on his chest and it was half full of an amber liquid. Next to him, balanced carefully on the grass was the bottle.
“Scotty,” Leonard greeted him, his eyes narrowed as he took in the blissful smile on Scotty’s face as he stared up at the ceiling. Anyone else would have thought the man was just smiling at nothing, Leonard knew better. He was smiling at the damned ship.
“Ah, doctor,” Scotty said as he raised his glass up in a toast and then took a sip from the glass.
Leonard’s eyes were drawn to the bottle at the side. He contemplated it and then with careful but quick steps, walked onto the lawn, picked up the bottle and started to walk away.
“Now! Hey! Doctor! Where you going with my booze?” Scotty yelled after him.
Leonard had a slight smile on his face as he heard Scotty scramble off the lawn and started to follow him. The engineer had to be the easiest to deal with to get him off the lawn.
Two weeks later, after a tricky engagement with some wily Tellarites, the final person to play on his lawn was brought to his attention.
Leonard was back in his office. His shift was over and he had eaten in the mess hall with the others, but there was administrative work to be done, so back he went to spend a few hours before bed.
There was a tentative knocking at the doorway to his office. He looked up to see Lieutenant Burly standing at the door with a bit of hesitation showing on his face.
“Come in, Lieutenant,” Leonard said as he indicated the chair next to his desk.
“I would prefer to stand, sir. I just wished to let you know that I discovered some information on the security feeds that I thought should be brought to your attention. I have sent a link to your terminal,” Burly said as he stood at attention, arms at his side and staring at a point on the wall.
“And you felt you had to come and tell me about this right now?” Leonard asked, his curiosity a little intrigued.
“Yes, sir. It pertains to a situation that is currently occurring that I do believe you needed to be made aware of. If that is all, Lieutenant-Commander?” Burly was still refusing to make eye contact with anything but the far wall.
“As you wish, Lieutenant. Dismissed,” Leonard said as he turned to check what Burly aka Cupcake had sent him that he apparently needed to check out then and there.
On his screen appeared copies of security feed from the Observation room. Each one was stamped with the relevant stardate and time. Each one also showed something that had Leonard narrowing his eyes and angrily clicking through each and everyone.
What he saw was his captain, early each morning going to the Observation room, pulling off his boots and socks and running across and around on the lawn. There was no sound but it appeared that Jim had decided that his little run around the lawn needed a sound effect to match. Leonard figured out from watching a few that what Jim was saying was, “wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“I always knew he was a five year old in a man’s body,” Leonard muttered.
“Computer, please inform me of the current location of Captain James Kirk,” Leonard asked.
“Captain James T Kirk is currently located on the Observation room. Sitting on the lawn,” the cool feminine voice of the computer told him.
“Thank you,” Leonard said before he did a double take at the computer on the precise nature of the directions he received.
“Dammit Jim!” Leonard said as he spun out of his chair and headed off towards his captain.
He stormed into the Observation room, ready to yell at Jim, when he stopped dead in his tracks.
Jim wasn’t on the lawn. In fact Jim was standing off to the side of the lawn, with his back to the doorway. There were others on the lawn though, and a sprinkler. A honest to God old style sprinkler and it was squirting water up into the air and various crew members were running around under it, pulling friends and foes under and generally having a gay old time.
Leonard just knew that Jim was smiling, even though he couldn’t see his face. In fact all he could see of Jim was his back, his naked back and naked legs. The sheen on his body proof that he had recently partaken of the water cascading out of the sprinkler. Jim was clad only in a very small pair of swimming trunks. Red.
Leonard about faced, ready to retreat from the room to discover Cupcake and a few of his fellow Security detail were standing in front of it, arms crossed and smiles upon their faces.
“Oh, Hell no!” Bones said as he figured out that he had been set up.
“Bones! Glad you could make it,” Jim called out from behind him.
The Security detail started walking away from the door and directly towards him. Leonard retreated away from them only to bump into Jim.
“Now really, Bones, were you going to leave without saying hi to everyone?” Jim smirked at him.
Leonard couldn’t see his face, but he knew every change of inflection in his voice and what it indicated. The tone Jim had just used did not bode well for Leonard.
“You planned this, you obnoxious brat!” Leonard hissed at him. “Letting everyone mess up my nice lawn.” His eyes narrowed as he watched the Security guys come to a standstill but listening in to their conversation and ready to pounce if Leonard tried to make a run for it.
“Bones, Bones, Bones,” Jim said as he turned him around. “This ship is one big family. Gotta learn to share things.”
Leonard tried to shrug Jim’s hands off of him. Jim took the hint and let go but there was still that smirk on his lips as he watched Leonard walk backwards from him.
“They are ruining a perfectly good lawn. Look at ‘em, crushing it down and everything,” Leonard complained as he kept walking backwards.
“Bones, things are meant to be enjoyed,” Jim shook his head at him, then there was a slight tilt to the side and Leonard was worried.
As he should have been. He was grabbed on both arms and bodily dragged towards the sprinkler, Sulu on one side and Chekov on the other. Scotty was behind him pushing and as he yelled and protested at being dragged fully clothed towards the water he could hear Christine, Janice and Nyota yelling encouragement.
Jim was just laughing.
They got him under the spray and he was soaked in seconds, his clothes sticking to his body, he stood there in resignation. The lawn was no longer his, but everyone’s. It probably had been everyone’s from the moment that Jim let him start to grow it.
He looked around at the smiles and laughter on the other crews faces. Not just at him, but at each other and just being relaxed. A hand on his cheek had him startle and look to his side. Janice was there, smiling happily at him, she leaned up and pressed a kiss on his other cheek.
“Thank you, Doctor McCoy,” she said before running off to chase a friend under the spray.
He blinked to clear his eyes and remembered back to the others that had enjoyed the lawn by being on it. They got as much pleasure from that as he had from growing and maintaining it.
As he shook his head to clear some of the water off his hair, which really was a stupid move as he was still under the water, Jim clapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, it’s all in good fun,” Jim said quietly. “The crew needed a bit of R & R after the last couple of weeks. You always tell me that we need a balance out here otherwise you will end up treating people who are starting to turn into you.”
“Fine, whatever,” Leonard conceded. Jim had set him up well and good, but he had allowed him to have it to himself for a little bit. His clothes were stuck to his body. “Can I get out of here now?”
“Nope! You have to stay here and be miserable because after your little trick with the hose I had to hide it and then the girls turned up in their bikini’s! I missed you getting them all wet, and it’s all your fault. Actually I missed seeing them in the flesh. Really Bones, that deserves some punishment.” Jim had moved his arm around Leonard’s shoulder and held him in place.
“Okay, okay, but one question,” Leonard said resignedly.
“Shoot,” Jim responded.
“If you wanted this for everyone to be able to use, why did you let me do it in the first place and chase people off?” Leonard had figured out this was Jim’s ultimate aim, to allow everyone to have a place to relax and be a little bit different to any of the other starships, but he still didn’t know why Jim had let him think of it as his own patch for that time.
“Because it made you smile,” Jim murmured in his ear.
Beta: selinamoonfire and 7ofEleven
Word Count: 4,020
Rating: PG
Pairings, Characters: McCoy, Kirk, Sulu, Chekov, Spock/Uhura (implied), Rand, Chapel, Scotty, Cupcake and various other crewmembers
Warnings: slightly cracky
Disclaimer: Not mine, dammit!
Summary: The crew start observing some new behaviour from the Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise. What does this mean for the rest of the crew?
A/N: This piece of silliness started out from some comments on my journal from lesserpanda and selinamoonfire. Blame those two enablers for the suggestion that Bones is really Mr Wilson, which of course meant that Jim is Dennis the Menace.
No one was quite sure how it got approved, but a space on the Observation room was roped off and Dr McCoy started fussing over the layer of dirt that got put down. Anyone who came close to it was warned away in no uncertain terms by the grumpier than normal doctor.
Talk was rife on the ship as to what purpose the dirt was for. Sulu and the other botanists were asked but they just shrugged their shoulders in response and went back to watching the doctor like everyone else.
The only one game enough to ask Mr Spock was Nyota and in his own way he informed her that he was as unclear on the matter as the rest of the crew and his own foray into attempting to ascertain from the captain as the true nature of the placement of the soil on the Observation room was unsuccessful. Nyota translated that to normal speak as, “dunno and the captain wouldn’t tell me.”
Weeks became months and little shoots appeared and word got around that Dr. McCoy was talking to dirt. When word got back to the captain, he just smiled and didn’t say a word.
The crew eventually figured out that the doctor was growing a little patch of lawn. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone considering the other things on the Enterprise, but they still were. Bowling Alley anyone?
It finally got long enough and if you were doing rounds while on gamma shift, the sounds of a lawn mower might have greeted you as you wandered the hallways near the Observation room. There might even have been something strange that coming from any other human with a semblance of musical talent might have been called whistling.
The lawn was perfectly flat and green.
The first to test it out was the captain. Feet bare and just walking slowly across it. He picked a time where there was no one else in the room, towards the end of gamma but before the alpha shift all started moving about and getting ready. He also might have checked with the computer to ensure that a certain Chief Medical Officer was still asleep. Some might call him a ‘reckless idiot with no sense that god had god-damn given even an amoeba’ but he wasn’t stupid.
Next on the list, once he heard the captain had tried out the grass, was Sulu. He too decided on the bare feet, but he was a bit quicker across it. He was also shirtless but made up for that fact by the rapier that he held in his hand and was demonstrating a particular maneuver for the enjoyment of a group of ensigns.
The lights of the room were reflecting nicely off his sweaty skin which all of a sudden became considerably wetter.
Sulu stopped and spluttered as he spat water out of his mouth and then tossed his head back to try and move the wet, plastered hair out of his eyes.
He obviously wasn’t fast enough in his movements as another blast of water hit him, this time squarely in the buttocks.
“Hey!” He yelled and turned around to see who had squirted him.
That was the wrong move as he got another squirt of water. This time in the face.
“Ain’t your lawn,” McCoy growled at him.
“Now look here,” Sulu glared back and started to advance on the doctor, his rapier raised in en garde mode.
McCoy just squirted him again and raised one eyebrow.
“Off. My. Lawn,” McCoy said and made a motion that he might just emphasis his statement with some more water.
“Fine,” Sulu spat out and stalked off the lawn and out of the room. The ensigns trailing after him in a giggling gaggle of noise, all splitting up and going in their own directions once they exited the Observation room. Off to tell as many people as possible about the confrontation and the doctor who seemed to be considering the lawn his property and marking any who trespassed on it.
Unfortunately, their efforts of alerting all crew members managed to completely miss the navigator of the Enterprise.
Pavel Andreyivich Chekov was stretched out along the lawn contemplating the chess board in front of him. It was a standard Terran one level board. A present from his mother on his commissioning on board the Enterprise. Across from him, about to be annihilated completely in four moves was Lieutenant Henderson.
Pavel reached forward to lift up his bishop when a shadow fell across the board.
Pavel looked up into the shadowed visage of Doctor McCoy. He didn’t need to clearly see his face to know there was a not happy expression on it.
“Greetings, Doctor McCoy. The lawn is a wonderful addition to the Observation room. It reminds me greatly of the lawn my mother grew back in St. Petersburg,” Pavel told him.
“That’s nice, kid, but this lawn ain’t for games and it ain’t Russian lawn,” McCoy said.
“Actually doctor, all lawn species, Poaceae, can be traced back to fossilised records from Cretaceous dinosaur coprolite deposits found in Russia. So all lawn is inwented in Russia,” Pavel had sat up to expound upon his knowledge of all things Russian. His hands fluttering as he talked.
“You and that damned country of yours! This lawn is Georgian, get it, Georgian not Russian!” McCoy had put his hands on his hips as he leaned over to growl at Pavel.
Pavel just beamed up at him, “But doctor, Georgia was annexed by Russia!”
“Ohhh!” McCoy threw his hands in the air in frustration and then he bent over and picked up the chess board and stalked over to one of the tables. He slammed it down, not caring that the pieces feel over like drunken sailors on shore leave after a long period out in the black. “Here! See! Here, is Russia. There,” at this McCoy pointed back at the lawn, “is Georgia. The Peach State! The Empire State of the South. It ain’t ever been Russian and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be in the future. Now get your skinny asses off my lawn and stay off!”
McCoy then stalked out of the Observation room, muttering under his breath about ‘damn impertinent children who should be out and running around elsewhere and not playing stupid games like chess on a perfectly nice lawn’.
A week went by and not one person was game enough to become the next victim of the doctor’s ire.
Whispers then started to fly around the ship about not one, but three people that had dared to set foot on “McCoy’s Lawn”.
Doctor McCoy called out for his head nurse, and when he got no response, he stormed out of his office to giver her a tongue lashing only to discover her not in the main area of sick bay at all! Talk about a full head of steam dissipating to become a little trickle of disappointment.
“Where’s Chapel?” he barked at the other medical staff in the bay.
“She had this shift off, remember?” Geoffrey M’Benga reminded McCoy.
“Humph,” McCoy responded and stalked back into his office. As he worked away at the back filing he could hear the discussions taking place out in the bay.
The door swooshed open to the main area and excited chatter started. Whoever was speaking was obviously trying to keep his voice down, but Leonard had lived with Jim Kirk for three years and he had learned a valuable lesson at knowing exactly what that man had planned, especially in light of treatments that would be required for some imminent piece of stupidity. The upshot of this was that Leonard learned that some fool had decided that sunbathing was the thing to do and the place to do it was his lawn.
McCoy stalked out of his office, via the separate door and headed for the Observation room. Those he passed along the way, quickly got out of his path and then doubled back to follow him. The upcoming confrontation was going to prove epic. No one wanted to miss it.
The door to the Observation room slid open as quickly as it could, as if the ship too was aware of not angering the doctor further.
McCoy blinked in surprise as he took in the sight before him.
There, lying on those little low room chairs, clad only in very skimpy bikinis, were the three women that the majority of the crew recognized as the ones that the three most senior male officers were scared of.
On. His. Lawn.
It was not to be borne.
His eyes narrowed as he looked around for the hose. It was nowhere to be seen. Just the other day it was wound up neatly by the valve on the far wall.
“Toodles! Leonard!” Uhura called out. She had raised her arm up in the air to waggle her fingers towards him. They were painted in a very bright orange today instead of her customary black.
“Nyota,” he responded as he walked slowly over towards the three women.
“Hey, boss,” Christine said as she glanced up from where she was leaning over while she painted her toe nails. A bright pink.
To make matters even more surreal, all three had their hair loose, hanging down their backs. Nyota’s black hair was sleekly highlighted by the lights of the room, whereas Christine’s and Janice’s were different shades of blonde which could be more easily determined because their hair was loose.
“This has to be one of your best ideas yet, Doctor McCoy. So relaxing,” Janice said as she too stopped what she was doing. In her case it was sketching something on a pad that she had flipped up to rest along her front. It could have been a case of modesty or it could have been that she didn’t want others to see what she was doing.
“Now, look, ladies,” Leonard started to say. He spoke through his teeth as he was trying to reign in his temper, his mama had taught him some manners, no matter what that green blooded elf implied.
“Yes, Leonard?” Nyota asked him, and if it didn’t beat all, he could have sworn she fluttered her eyelashes as she said his name.
“This lawn... Well, this lawn ain’t, well it is...” Leonard stumbled over his words as Christine had straightened up and given him a view directly down the front of her cleavage.
He was seriously trying to remember every word his mama and papa had taught him.
“It’s perfect, is what it is,” Nyota said as she ran her hand over the top of the grass. Her other hand was holding a page open on an old book. The cover proclaimed it to be a book of Andorian love poetry, he was able to read once he tore his gaze away from the Louisiana delicacies of Christine.
“Too perfect, Doctor McCoy,” Janice chimed in, opening her eyes wide as she smiled up at him. Her young face radiating pleasure. “It’s not often we get a little slice of home out here and while it might seem strange to sunbath with no sun, Nyota, Christine and I have much appreciated the ability to sit back, relax and enjoy. I’m sad I haven’t seen you enjoying it, doctor. Why don’t you sit down and join us? I’m sure Christine would be happy to have a helping hand with her toes there. Nyota has been reading us the most lovely poetry too.”
Leonard was sure that there was a horrified expression on his face when the suggestion about painting toenails came up. It was made worse by Christine smiling at him and nodding her agreement.
“Yeah, well, no, um, I’m on duty. Dammit, I’m a doctor, not a pedicurist!”
“Oh well, maybe some other time then, Leonard,” Nyota offered as she opened her book again.
Leonard had been summarily dismissed, so he did what any male faced with the prospect of a female ignoring them did. He turned and walked away.
A few brave souls had, since the sunbathing event, made movements towards the grass but in every instance the Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise had magically appeared in the Observation room and glared at them until they backed away.
It was late into Beta Shift when the doctor walked in to look in on his lawn to find the Science Officer lying flat along the side of the lawn, observing it.
“Spock! What in tarnation’s name are you doing?” He barked out.
“I am, in your quaint idiom, watching the grass grow,” Spock calmly replied. “Please note that in respect to ensuring that you do not, as the captain is fond of saying, blow a gasket, I am not on the lawn, but at a respectful distance so as I am able to still observe adequately.”
“For Christ’s sake, it’s just some grass. You are the weirdest man,” Leonard replied as he walked towards Spock.
“Your reactions, doctor, prove otherwise that it is ‘just some grass’. The crew also have been displaying a marked preference for spending a longer than normal time within the Observation room. All of these situations have led me here to observe this ‘lawn’ to ascertain as to what properties it might contain that could prove of interest for further study.”
“You!” Leonard complained. “It’s just a nice flat piece of lawn, it ain’t for fencing on and it sure as hell ain’t for playing chess on so no getting ideas on that front. Then there were was those women!” Leonard had folded his arms across his chest as he listed his complaints.
Spock sat up and crossed his legs to better converse with Leonard.
“Yes, I did raise the matter with Nyota to ascertain her need to sit on the lawn when there are more comfortable seating arrangements available.”
“And what did you ‘ascertain’?” Leonard asked back, one eyebrow slightly raising.
“I ascertained, doctor, that as a species, you humans are beyond comprehension. Nyota expressed the reason that ‘it was pretty’,” Spock said.
“Yeah, well, welcome to the vagaries of the female mind. Even we don’t understand their thought processes,” Leonard grumbled.
“Yet you continue to manage to propagate the species. I must consider the matter further. Thank you doctor,” Spock stood up as he spoke. He looked back at the lawn and tilted his head to the side, “I do not see the attraction.” Spock then nodded at Leonard and walked across the Observation room and out the door.
It was a week later that Leonard discovered the next person to make use of his lawn.
Montgomery Scott was lying on the lawn. A glass balanced on his chest and it was half full of an amber liquid. Next to him, balanced carefully on the grass was the bottle.
“Scotty,” Leonard greeted him, his eyes narrowed as he took in the blissful smile on Scotty’s face as he stared up at the ceiling. Anyone else would have thought the man was just smiling at nothing, Leonard knew better. He was smiling at the damned ship.
“Ah, doctor,” Scotty said as he raised his glass up in a toast and then took a sip from the glass.
Leonard’s eyes were drawn to the bottle at the side. He contemplated it and then with careful but quick steps, walked onto the lawn, picked up the bottle and started to walk away.
“Now! Hey! Doctor! Where you going with my booze?” Scotty yelled after him.
Leonard had a slight smile on his face as he heard Scotty scramble off the lawn and started to follow him. The engineer had to be the easiest to deal with to get him off the lawn.
Two weeks later, after a tricky engagement with some wily Tellarites, the final person to play on his lawn was brought to his attention.
Leonard was back in his office. His shift was over and he had eaten in the mess hall with the others, but there was administrative work to be done, so back he went to spend a few hours before bed.
There was a tentative knocking at the doorway to his office. He looked up to see Lieutenant Burly standing at the door with a bit of hesitation showing on his face.
“Come in, Lieutenant,” Leonard said as he indicated the chair next to his desk.
“I would prefer to stand, sir. I just wished to let you know that I discovered some information on the security feeds that I thought should be brought to your attention. I have sent a link to your terminal,” Burly said as he stood at attention, arms at his side and staring at a point on the wall.
“And you felt you had to come and tell me about this right now?” Leonard asked, his curiosity a little intrigued.
“Yes, sir. It pertains to a situation that is currently occurring that I do believe you needed to be made aware of. If that is all, Lieutenant-Commander?” Burly was still refusing to make eye contact with anything but the far wall.
“As you wish, Lieutenant. Dismissed,” Leonard said as he turned to check what Burly aka Cupcake had sent him that he apparently needed to check out then and there.
On his screen appeared copies of security feed from the Observation room. Each one was stamped with the relevant stardate and time. Each one also showed something that had Leonard narrowing his eyes and angrily clicking through each and everyone.
What he saw was his captain, early each morning going to the Observation room, pulling off his boots and socks and running across and around on the lawn. There was no sound but it appeared that Jim had decided that his little run around the lawn needed a sound effect to match. Leonard figured out from watching a few that what Jim was saying was, “wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“I always knew he was a five year old in a man’s body,” Leonard muttered.
“Computer, please inform me of the current location of Captain James Kirk,” Leonard asked.
“Captain James T Kirk is currently located on the Observation room. Sitting on the lawn,” the cool feminine voice of the computer told him.
“Thank you,” Leonard said before he did a double take at the computer on the precise nature of the directions he received.
“Dammit Jim!” Leonard said as he spun out of his chair and headed off towards his captain.
He stormed into the Observation room, ready to yell at Jim, when he stopped dead in his tracks.
Jim wasn’t on the lawn. In fact Jim was standing off to the side of the lawn, with his back to the doorway. There were others on the lawn though, and a sprinkler. A honest to God old style sprinkler and it was squirting water up into the air and various crew members were running around under it, pulling friends and foes under and generally having a gay old time.
Leonard just knew that Jim was smiling, even though he couldn’t see his face. In fact all he could see of Jim was his back, his naked back and naked legs. The sheen on his body proof that he had recently partaken of the water cascading out of the sprinkler. Jim was clad only in a very small pair of swimming trunks. Red.
Leonard about faced, ready to retreat from the room to discover Cupcake and a few of his fellow Security detail were standing in front of it, arms crossed and smiles upon their faces.
“Oh, Hell no!” Bones said as he figured out that he had been set up.
“Bones! Glad you could make it,” Jim called out from behind him.
The Security detail started walking away from the door and directly towards him. Leonard retreated away from them only to bump into Jim.
“Now really, Bones, were you going to leave without saying hi to everyone?” Jim smirked at him.
Leonard couldn’t see his face, but he knew every change of inflection in his voice and what it indicated. The tone Jim had just used did not bode well for Leonard.
“You planned this, you obnoxious brat!” Leonard hissed at him. “Letting everyone mess up my nice lawn.” His eyes narrowed as he watched the Security guys come to a standstill but listening in to their conversation and ready to pounce if Leonard tried to make a run for it.
“Bones, Bones, Bones,” Jim said as he turned him around. “This ship is one big family. Gotta learn to share things.”
Leonard tried to shrug Jim’s hands off of him. Jim took the hint and let go but there was still that smirk on his lips as he watched Leonard walk backwards from him.
“They are ruining a perfectly good lawn. Look at ‘em, crushing it down and everything,” Leonard complained as he kept walking backwards.
“Bones, things are meant to be enjoyed,” Jim shook his head at him, then there was a slight tilt to the side and Leonard was worried.
As he should have been. He was grabbed on both arms and bodily dragged towards the sprinkler, Sulu on one side and Chekov on the other. Scotty was behind him pushing and as he yelled and protested at being dragged fully clothed towards the water he could hear Christine, Janice and Nyota yelling encouragement.
Jim was just laughing.
They got him under the spray and he was soaked in seconds, his clothes sticking to his body, he stood there in resignation. The lawn was no longer his, but everyone’s. It probably had been everyone’s from the moment that Jim let him start to grow it.
He looked around at the smiles and laughter on the other crews faces. Not just at him, but at each other and just being relaxed. A hand on his cheek had him startle and look to his side. Janice was there, smiling happily at him, she leaned up and pressed a kiss on his other cheek.
“Thank you, Doctor McCoy,” she said before running off to chase a friend under the spray.
He blinked to clear his eyes and remembered back to the others that had enjoyed the lawn by being on it. They got as much pleasure from that as he had from growing and maintaining it.
As he shook his head to clear some of the water off his hair, which really was a stupid move as he was still under the water, Jim clapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, it’s all in good fun,” Jim said quietly. “The crew needed a bit of R & R after the last couple of weeks. You always tell me that we need a balance out here otherwise you will end up treating people who are starting to turn into you.”
“Fine, whatever,” Leonard conceded. Jim had set him up well and good, but he had allowed him to have it to himself for a little bit. His clothes were stuck to his body. “Can I get out of here now?”
“Nope! You have to stay here and be miserable because after your little trick with the hose I had to hide it and then the girls turned up in their bikini’s! I missed you getting them all wet, and it’s all your fault. Actually I missed seeing them in the flesh. Really Bones, that deserves some punishment.” Jim had moved his arm around Leonard’s shoulder and held him in place.
“Okay, okay, but one question,” Leonard said resignedly.
“Shoot,” Jim responded.
“If you wanted this for everyone to be able to use, why did you let me do it in the first place and chase people off?” Leonard had figured out this was Jim’s ultimate aim, to allow everyone to have a place to relax and be a little bit different to any of the other starships, but he still didn’t know why Jim had let him think of it as his own patch for that time.
“Because it made you smile,” Jim murmured in his ear.