Chapter Text
It was a Friday night when they met at the college bar. She was wild and liked to kiss strangers between dances and drinks. He was more of a wallflower, pressed somberly into the dark woodwork. She was studying a little bit of everything. He was working on his medical degree.
He knew of her; she had a bit of a reputation on campus. But she’d never laid eyes on him before that night, or so he thought. So one can imagine his surprise when the blonde in the gold shirt was suddenly standing before him. She had to repeat her question twice before he understood it.
She smirked, and he thought he felt his stomach flip. “You wanna dance?” One hand was on her hip, the other extended towards him. Her skin was lightly tanned, and her chipped red nail polish matched her lipstick. Bright blue eyes locked onto his, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away. They were like ice and fire brought together around the dark of her pupils.
Truth be told, he didn’t want to dance. He’d come to the bar for a couple beers and a few shots of whiskey, and then had planned on calling it an early night. But there was no accounting for Jamie T. Kirk.
“Oh, come on!” she said, smirk widening into a grin. “I get the feeling you could use some loosening up.”
“I’m plenty loose.” He found himself grinning a little back. “Besides, I don’t dance.”
“‘I don’t dance’,” she echoed, mimicking his hints of a southern accent. “That’s what they all say.”
“And then they meet you, I assume?”
Her grin returned once more. “More or less.”
He chuckled, looking down at his half-finished beer as the bartender set another shot of whiskey beside it.
“C’mon.” She grabbed up the beer bottle. “I’ll down this, you down that, and we’ll dance.”
He cocked a brow at her.
“Just one dance,” she promised, holding up her index finger before taking a swig of the absconded beer.
He sighed. “All right, fine, one dance.” If it’ll get this damn kid off my back...
Her eyes had a veritable sparkle to them as she smiled once more. Smiled at him. She finished off the beer in two more gulps while he downed his shot, then grabbed his hand and started pulling him toward the mass of bodies that had formed in the middle of the bar.
Her palm moved against his, and he was surprised to find her skin rough and calloused. She didn’t look like the kind of girl who was used to manual labor. But, through the already-forming fog of alcohol and nearby sweat and hormones, he remembered something about her growing up on a farm somewhere. A farm? She didn’t look like a country girl either. Well, she certainly didn’t act like he’d expect a farm girl to act.
Like he’d told her before, he didn’t dance. He was dreadful, to say the least. And every time she laughed, his blush only darkened.
“You’ve got two left feet,” she said, veritably giggling. He told himself that that was the alcohol making her laugh so much, not him.
But, despite his embarrassment, he noticed that she kept hold of one of his hands through most of the song, and the smile never left her face. Maybe she could tell that he was inexperienced, nervous.
“So what’s your name?” Something in her tone suggested that she already knew the answer, but just wanted to hear him say it.
“McCoy,” he replied. “Leonard McCoy.”
She held back a giggle, and also from commenting that he introduced himself like James Bond. “Nice to meet you, Leonard. I’m Jamie Kirk.”
“I know.” Why the hell did he say that?
She arched a slender eyebrow. “Ah, my reputation precedes me once again.” He started to blush again and she laughed. “Don’t worry; I sorta like being infamous.” What she didn’t add was, “It’s better than being ignored.” She didn’t think it was first-dance talk.
McCoy wasn’t sure how, but she somehow managed to talk him into a couple drinks with her, followed by a couple more dances, too. He hadn’t planned on getting full-blown wasted, but then he hadn’t planned on her either.
A few details came out that night. His more-than-recent divorce. Her father that was killed the day she was born. His daughter and his drive to do better and become a worthy father. Her absent mother, her faithful and loyal brother, her abusive shithead of an uncle. How getting close to people scared him. How being temporarily close to people was the only way she knew how to cope.
The alcohol and slurred voices dulled the pain of hearing their stories spewn out into the dim, heavy air between them. Their lives almost didn’t sound so bad, told that way. They could almost laugh about it. Almost.
They kept talking between shots, sometimes shouting to be heard over the music. And they kept dancing, hands clumsily searching for each other and feet doing their best to just keep them upright.
McCoy hadn’t planned on staying until last call. He hadn’t planned on finding himself still dancing with the blonde everyone on campus seemed to know. But a slow song was playing, and his arms were around her waist and her arms were around his neck. She leaned against him, and he leaned back. It was more for support than anything else; they were both ready to collapse onto the wood floor and not get up until the bar reopened the next day.
Both their eyes were closed; they didn’t say anything. His chin rested on the top of her head, and she was listening to his heartbeat more than she was the music playing. She wouldn’t admit it, even drunk as she was, but she wanted to stay there in his arms. He was rough and warm and a little broken. It was strangely comforting.
She’d probably never know that he was thinking the same thing about her.
When the song ended, though, Jamie was the first to pull away and start leading them toward the bar. She picked up an old leather jacket from the stool she’d been sitting on as the bartender said, “You better not be driving home tonight, Jamie.”
She gave a tipsy smile and slurred, “Don’t worry, I-I’ll get a c-cab.” She leaned in a little. “Make sure th-they don’t tow my bike, o-okay? I’ll come get it tomorrow.”
The middle-aged man chuckled, running a hand over his thinning hair. “Sure, Jamie, sure.” Sounded like a more than common exchange.
McCoy picked up his jacket as well, then looked down at her. “You wanna split a cab?”
She’d refrained from commenting all night, but the drunker he got, the more southern he sounded. And still, she said nothing about it and just smiled. “S-Sure. You headed downtown t-too?” she asked as they headed toward the door.
He was quiet for a brief moment. “Yeah, I am.” It was a lie. He lived uptown, but there was no taking it back now. It never occurred to him to blame it on his drunken state. He easily could have corrected himself, gotten his own cab, and called it a night. But he didn’t. Sometimes, even years later, he still wondered about it.
Neither was very talkative after the cab driver had confirmed her address; they were too busy fighting off passing out for most of the drive to make much conversation.
But McCoy finally asked. “So what’s this about your reputation?”
She smiled a little wider than she probably intended to. “Well... N-No matter what everyone else says, I make my own reputation.” Her swimming eyes met his. “Whi-Which means that m-me choosing to go home al-lone shouldn’t insult y-you.”
He stared at her as the cab came to a stop, its brakes screeching loudly.
Her hand rested on the door handle. “Though I-I should tell you.” Her gaze shifted downward for a moment. “I did l-leave something in your pocket a while ago.” Then, before McCoy could make any sort of reply, she leaned over to him and kissed his cheek. “Goodnight.”
All he could make out was her short blonde hair and the leather jacket as she climbed out of the cab. He could feel her lipstick smudged against his cheek, still smell her flowery perfume and her intoxicated breath.
“...? ...dy? Hey, buddy!”
McCoy blinked rapidly, trying to focus enough to recite his own address to the driver. The driver had probably done this countless times, driven some drunken pair downtown only to find one of them had lied and have to drive all the way back uptown. Such was life in the big city, it seemed.
As the cab pulled out from the curb, McCoy stared up at the apartment building, waiting to see a light turn on somewhere in its seven stories. He hadn’t planned on meeting her, and now he was in a cab outside her building trying to figure out which apartment was hers. But he couldn’t bring himself to say he regretted it.
Though he did regret all the alcohol when he woke up the next morning and realized he was late for work. Events of the night before were mostly hazy, but he remembered the talking and the dancing and the drinking. And the girl. He also remembered dragging himself up to his apartment, but that was about it.
Through his muttered curses and frenzied attempts to make himself presentable in last night’s clothes, he noticed something on his nightstand that made him freeze in his tracks.
His phone was laying on his nightstand—not unusual. But there was a folded piece of paper set next to it. Upon a quick inspection, he found a name and seven digits. His stomach did a familiar flip as he pulled up his recent calls. He wasn’t prone to drunk dialing, but, apparently, the events of last night had been the perfect mixture for it to happen. And, just his luck, the number he called before passing out last night was the one he’d most recently received.
He closed his eyes, pressing his phone to his forehead and sighing heavily. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time to berate himself for his idiocy. Praying that she’d never receive whatever message he’d intended to leave, he stuffed his phone in his pocket and grabbed a jacket on the way out the door, the scrawled name and number left abandoned on the nightstand. Abandoned—but not forgotten.
Days passed, and he didn’t so much as even spot her walking around campus. Had the drunken message been so awful that she was avoiding not only him but school altogether? No, that was his paranoia and past experience talking. Maybe she was busy with schoolwork. Or maybe she hadn’t gotten the message at all and was still waiting for him to call. But could he break down and call her first?
It was Wednesday afternoon before they made contact again. He was sitting at a table outside the cafeteria going over class notes. Or trying to to distract his thoughts with staring at the same page of notes for twenty minutes.
“I see I haven’t lost my touch.”
He almost jumped at her voice, wondering for a moment if he’d imagined it. But no, there she was, in all her glory. Again, she had one hand on her hip, an old backpack slung over one shoulder. Her red lipstick was gone, and she was dressed in jeans and a grey tank top.
McCoy started to stutter out a reply as she sat down across from him, dropping her bag to the ground at her feet. Her chuckling cut him off, and she just looked at him for a moment before the four words he’d been dreading left her mouth. “I got your message.”
His heart dropped. This was the part where she told him to back off and delete her number. But she’d try to do it casually, like she wasn’t really creeped out by the old guy calling her at four in the morning after countless shots of whiskey downed for courage he hadn’t known he’d need.
“I’ll admit, with a hangover, it was kind of hard to make out what you said. I think you were trying to tell me your number or something?” She laughed. “Anyway, figured you’d be a little more sober now, and wondered if you wanted to try giving it to me again?”
He stared at her, again wondering if she was some sort of hopeful hallucination he’d dreamed up while spacing out over anatomy notes. But no, the real-life equivalent of the diagram in his textbook was indeed smiling across the table at him, phone in hand, and not telling him to never speak to her again.
His head nodded. “Uh, yeah, sure.” After he’d recited his number to her, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. So it really hadn’t been anything to worry about. God, he’d stressed away hours of sleep for nothing.
It wouldn’t be until some time later that he found out the entirety of the voicemail he’d left. And, though she’d claimed that she didn’t understand most of its contents, three words were painfully clear, and made her greeting that Wednesday afternoon make all the more sense.
“I love you.”
He woke up cringing for days, never letting on that he knew. Or that he knew she knew.