Chapter Text
Author: Crescent Dream
Series: Star Trek Alternate Original Series
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of its characters
Rating: M (language....other stuff I haven’t written quite yet)
Room With a View
A/N: Hello out there! This is a multi-chapter Reader x Mccoy fic, based around them being roommates at Starfleet Academy. They get off to a rough start but slowly fall for each other. I will update the tags as I go with any warnings that come up as I continue with the story.
I try to catch all errors or spelling mistakes, but it seems I always miss one or two no matter how many times I proof-read! I’ll fix them right away if I notice any.
Please enjoy!
Today was finally the day.
You made your way purposefully across the main quad of Starfleet Academy, clad in your new crimson uniform with a large suitcase rolling behind you and a duffel bag slung over your shoulder. It was your first official day on campus, where you would be able to check into your assigned dorm room, take your picture for the student holo-ID you had to keep on your person at all times, and register for the classes you would be taking that semester.
It was going to be a very busy first day, but at least there were no actual classes scheduled to take place. After you were finished rushing around and trying to find your way amongst the seemingly endless amount of impressive buildings strewn about the campus, you would actually have some free time to yourself to unpack, eat some lunch, and possibly venture back out to meet up with some of your friends who’d also been accepted to the Academy that year.
You felt the immense rush of energy surrounding you as hundreds of other students bustled about the main quad, wearing the same uniform as you and toting around various amounts of luggage with them. It was another beautiful San Francisco morning, and you felt the warmth of the sun trail it’s light across your face as you made a bee-line for the dorms.
As you neared the towering structure with its many windows facing the grassy area of the quad, you felt a nagging tendril of worry wrap itself around your current energetic mood. You hadn’t had enough money to request a private dorm room, and even if you had, they were few and far between, usually reserved for the more senior cadets. There was no avoiding it; you would be sharing your four years here on campus with a roommate----a virtual stranger to you as of right now.
You had absolutely no idea what they would be like, and your mind ran wild picturing multiple worst-case scenarios, ranging from a drunk slob who constantly berated you to someone with an affliction for setting your belongings on fire. Sure, you had filled out that roommate compatibility survey the Academy had sent over with your welcome package a few months ago, but that didn’t guarantee anything. You had never lived with a roommate before-----unless you counted the two weeks you spent hanging out at your ex-boyfriend's apartment, living out of a suitcase. And you didn’t.
Shifting the duffel bag you had slung over your shoulder, you guided the suitcase behind you carefully as you stepped into the dorm building, automatic doors closing with a swoosh behind you as soon as you entered. Multiple cadets milled around the brightly-lit foyer, most of them in groups, and you could see a few doors propped wide open as the occupants of those rooms drug in their belongings from the hallway. You stopped, quickly checking the room number you had haphazardly scrawled in ink across the top of your hand so you wouldn't forget. 218 .
You made your way to the elevator at the end of the hall, feeling the weariness increase in your shoulder as you hitched up the duffel bag by its strap yet again, thinking back to the Academy welcome packet you’d received a few months ago. In addition to the roommate survey, there had been a notice that the dorms had been turned co-ed for the upcoming year, due to the higher than normal level of new recruits this semester. Not only did the co-ed rule apply to the population of the building itself, it extended to individual rooms as well.
Ordinarily, roommates had always been assigned based on the gender they identified as---females with females and males with males. But, there had been an unexpected outbreak of Gryorakian flu in the Northern Hemisphere the year before, and the Academy had paused their entrance exams briefly. This year, to make up for the delay, Starfleet Academy had commissioned double the amount of entrance examinations they usually did and were trying to pack in as many students onto the campus as comfortably possible. It was encouraged for anyone who was able to make arrangements to stay off campus, but most cadets wanted the full Academy experience, even if it meant sharing a room with someone of the opposite sex.
You found yourself fitting into that category, although you couldn’t deny that you would feel extremely relieved if it turned out your roommate was a woman. The roommate survey had given you the option to decline a male roommate if you so chose, but there was also a disclaimer under this option, stating that while the Academy would try everything they could to fulfill your request, there was a chance they may not have room for you. You hadn’t wanted to take that chance, and decided to throw caution to the wind. Besides, both of you would be so engrossed in your studies that you would barely have time to get acquainted with each other, let alone spend large amounts of time together, so you weren’t too worried.
You hauled your things inside the elevator, thankfully sliding the duffel bag off your shoulder and onto your luggage for the short ride up to the second floor. The doors pulled open quicker than you anticipated and you frowned slightly as you shouldered the bag once again, slowly making your way down the long hallway until you found the door bearing the number plate you were looking for. You keyed the code into the keypad beside the door, thankful you had committed it to memory during the hovercar ride over to the campus grounds. You carefully turned the knob when you heard the click of the lock disengage.
The door swung open with a squeak and your eyes slowly swept across the floorplan, taking in the room’s contents. Two twin beds stood in the center of the room, pushed against the wall on opposite sides, their headboards facing the door. You stepped in a bit and tilted your head around the door, glancing at the tiny kitchenette off to the left equipped with a food replicator, stove, and a bar fridge. Off to the right was a cramped little sitting area with a circular table and two dining chairs, along with some built-in overhead cupboards for storage. There was a narrow hallway just past the sitting area, leading to a bathroom and a linen closet, with a full-length mirror hanging across the door. A window facing out into the grassy quad stood between the twin beds directly in front of you, letting the sunlight hit the hardwood floor at your feet. It was small, but it would do. As your mother would say, it was quaint .
To your relief, you didn’t see anyone else’s belongings set anywhere in the room yet, and you felt your anxiety ease a bit. Looking around again, you took the opportunity to pick out the bed you wanted—both mattresses were the exact same, but the bed closer to the hallway had a shelf built into the wooden headboard that would be perfect for holding the old-fashioned pictures you had printed off of your family before you left for the Academy.
Letting out a sigh of relief, you let the duffel bag tumble off your aching shoulder and onto the mattress. Wheeling your luggage to the foot of the bed, you straightened up and listened as you heard the muffled voices of other cadets down the hall and the sporadic thumps against the walls as they hauled in their belongings. Excitement bubbled through you and you stepped to the window, placing a hand on the window frame as you looked out across the campus at the quickly moving forms over the grass below. The insignia of Starfleet stood tall and proud on the face of the main building at the center of it all, and you smiled to yourself. You made it------you were officially a member of Starfleet Academy.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
All your belongings had been carefully unpacked and sorted, and you were starting to feel a bit more at home. The tedious chore of unpacking luggage had never appealed to you before, but this time you had actually enjoyed yourself--- choosing the cupboards you wanted to claim as your own, packing away your clothes in the tidy under-bed pull out organizer your mother had gifted you before you left home (which you now were endlessly grateful to her for, it was a wonderful space-saver), and placing a few pictures of your family across the shelf of your headboard. It had only taken you about half an hour to fully unpack and inspect your new living quarters---there wasn’t a whole lot to see. But, it held the basic necessities for busy student life, and you enjoyed the view from the window nonetheless.
Pulling your arms above your head, you arched your back in a full-body stretch, deciding to take a break from all the unpacking. You folded yourself on top of your bed, which you had covered with your favorite thick quilt and a few fluffy pillows, making it a perfect spot to lie back and relax. You grabbed up your PADD and logged into the Starfleet Academy database, wanting to look up tomorrow’s itinerary. You had a faint idea of what your schedule looked like, but you wanted to double-check the specifics.
You were going to be majoring in Communications, a choice you had made even before you had arrived at the Academy. Language was your passion, and you were already quite fluent in a few, besides Earth Standard. Ever since you had gone to a career day at your high school, you had known that helping other races understand each other was your calling, and you felt lucky to be so sure of your career goals so early in life.
But, even with a chosen major, all cadets still did their rounds through every main division of a starship, learning the basic fundamentals of each---Medical, Sciences, Security, Engineering and Navigation. The classes were merely introductory and only touched on the most important points, but they were by no means something to brush off. You expected a challenge from every division, especially medical. Learning anatomy had never been your strong suit-----languages you could pick up on almost instantly, but trying to figure out which artery was a tributary into a certain vascular bed or how to correctly inject someone with a hypo.....you were as good as lost.
The first few months of Academy life were based around these introductory classes, but soon you would dive right into the bread and butter of your chosen major. You couldn’t wait to study the languages of space, decipher scrambled signals and learn the unique hailing frequencies of each starship. You leaned forward and swiped across the student schedule currently on your PADD screen with a finger, looking ahead a few months and feeling the corners of your mouth pull up into a grin as you got more and more excited with each course summary you read.
A few hours slipped by with you hardly noticing them pass, and you finally looked up and saw the time, realizing your legs had grown numb from the position you had pretzeled yourself into. The bustling activity outside in the hallway had lessened somewhat, and you briefly wondered when your roommate would choose to announce themselves to you. The registrar's office would only be open for a few more hours, so whoever they were, they were certainly taking their sweet time. Not that you minded, really. It was nice to spend some time alone with your thoughts, getting used to your new surroundings.
You sat down the PADD on the bedspread and wiped away the irrational hope in your mind that maybe, just maybe, you had hit the jackpot and you hadn’t been paired with a roommate after all. But you recognized that as purely wishful thinking. There was no way in the world that would ever happen----the campus was practically bubbling over with new cadets. Still.......
Your thoughts wandered away from you as you picked up your PADD again, considering the possibility with growing excitement. You would have so much more room for all your things, and you wouldn’t have to worry about wearing clothes all the time (you usually slept with the bare minimum for pajamas....sometimes nothing at all if it was a particularly hot night). The tiny dining table would be all yours, and you could set it up as a make-shift study area if you wanted, maybe even bring in an extra chair or two. You had just decided how you were going to use the left-over cupboard space when you heard heavy footfalls just outside your door.
The footsteps halted, and the sharp beeps of the keypad made their way to your ears as your face fell, all hopes of living alone dying away as quickly as they had appeared. You kept your eyes to the PADD in your lap, feigning nonchalance as your insides crawled with anticipation.
The door was suddenly swung open, and a figure appeared in the doorway, a scowl adorning his face and an over-stuffed duffel bag clutched in one hand. You raised your eyes to the stranger as he stood there rigidly, taking in the room for a split second before making his way to the center of it in a few long strides.
“Good god , this place is a sardine can.” His voice dripped with disapproval as he let his bag fall unceremoniously onto the unoccupied bed. “Leave it to Starfleet to pack you into any damn space available.”
He tossed a glance your way, and you realized your mouth was hanging open slightly. You quickly snapped it shut.
“I see you’ve already taken the liberty of choosing where to sleep.” His words were biting as he turned to his bag, roughly unzipping the top flap and shoveling out his clothes onto the mattress beside it in a heap. “I’ll just fit my things wherever you’ve seen fit not to use.”
You swallowed, his harsh tone putting you on edge. Setting your PADD down again, you straightened up a bit and swung both legs over the side of the bed, facing his back as he continued to shovel out his belongings. His shoulders were tensed up with agitation, and you couldn’t tell what exactly had set him off. You cleared your throat a bit and decided you might as well jump in and introduce yourself, sensing the sinking feeling in your gut at the knowledge that your roommate was in fact a male.
“I’m Y/N. I guess we’re roommates, huh?” you offered up weakly.
He paused his sorting, turning back to face you. You finally got a good look at his face, still pulled into a brooding scowl. His hair was short and well maintained, and his eyes were dark and intense. His cadet uniform was slightly wrinkled, and you noticed a tiny pin next to his Starfleet Academy insignia, in the symbol of a caduceus; two serpents intertwined along a short staff. It was the pin worn by a Starfleet doctor-in-training. You knew from talking with your friends that med students only got that pin after their third year at the Academy. You guessed he was older than you, but you couldn’t tell by how much.
“Yes, I guess we are.” He looked back at you and you could practically feel the force of his annoyance radiating across the room. “But, I tell you, it isn’t by choice. I had a decent room in another dorm, spent three years there, in fact. Then suddenly, the geniuses at headquarters decided to ram the campus full to the gills.”
He grabbed up one of his shirts, attempting to fold it in his hands before quickly giving up and tossing it back onto the bed. “Now, they decide to move me in with a lowly first-year cadet, clear across the damn campus, with barely more than a how do you do ?”
His anger was already clearly visible, so visible in fact that you were pretty sure someone with visual impairments and hearing aids would still be able to sense it. The prominent Southern twang to his voice seemed to amplify it even further. You felt like you were stepping through a mine field—one wrong move and you’d set him off for good.
You bit the inside of your cheek and fiddled with the uniform cuff at your wrist. "I--If you want to change beds, I can move my stuff….”
He gave out a humorless chuckle. “Don’t waste your time. You already made yourself at home.” His words were heavy with accusation.
Your eyebrows furrowed, a spark of agitation flaring up in your stomach. You understood how frustrated he must be, moving all his things from a dorm room that he was alone and comfortable in to somewhere smaller and with a roommate on short notice---but he didn’t have to be such an ass about it. You were making sacrifices, too. It wasn’t exactly your first choice to shack up with a stranger. A male stranger, at that.
You heaved out a breath and crossed your arms. “Well, this isn’t exactly what I planned, either. Everyone has to make allowances....it’s not that bad in here, really.”
“Not that bad?” He cocked up an eyebrow and spread his arms wide. “I can almost touch both walls from the center of the room! Not to mention this sorry excuse for a kitchen.” He made his way over to the kitchenette and you glared at his back. His incessant ranting was beginning to wear thin with you.
“Well, at least it’s functional. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on making any three course meals while I’m here.” You crossed your arms tighter across your chest defiantly.
He propped himself against the countertop with his hands behind him, leaning back as he looked down his nose at you. “You would think this is adequate, I suppose. You are only a first year.”
You bit your lower lip, anger slowly rising within you again. “Well, at least I still have manners! I don’t even know your name. You haven’t told me.”
He raised an eyebrow again, looking you dead in the eyes. You felt yourself shy away unwittingly, and you sensed the heat creeping up through your skin at the agitation he was causing you.
“It’s Mccoy. Leonard Mccoy,” he muttered, dropping your gaze as he suddenly crossed the room again, this time to his opened duffel bag. He rooted around in its remaining contents, finally digging out his PADD and making his way over to the door.
“Don’t wait up,” he threw over his shoulder at you as he pulled open the door, letting it shut with a loud thud behind him.
You sank down onto the foot of your bed, arms crossed and expression drawn up into a frown. Whatever you had expected your roommate to be, it certainly wasn’t this. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
A/N: Thanks for reading! I plan on lots more chapters ....I’ll try to update every week or two at least.
Let me know what you think! I love comments and kudos---they give me life! Haha . But, seriously. I smile like a crazy person every time I get an email notification. It’s bad, guys.