For Rine, inspired by our muses. And for De and Mary, without whom I could never channel my inner Bones.

"Lust tastes like tequila, love tastes like whiskey. Love burns for longer, warms you up on the inside and sometimes makes you do stupid things. Tequila just makes you wasted. You get wasted on lust and warmed on love."

For the longest time, Danielle Blake was convinced that Leonard McCoy was tequila.

Her addiction to the substance began in the most unconventional way, born of red satin and set to simmer on a desk as its contents clattered to the floor, the plinks and thuds echoing off the walls. Growls and gasps cut through the air in the moments thereafter, breathless moans taking up residence in the darkest, most lustful parts of her brain.

She'd sampled the spirit before. It was bitter and sour most of the time, filled with lingering loneliness when the shot glass was empty. Every time she tried the amber liquid, she was convinced it would taste better on the tongue. Yet, the aftertaste was still acrid, caused her stomach to churn for days, if not weeks.

So shortly after she packed up her possessions into two suitcases and asked her neighbor to keep an eye on the place while she was gone, Danielle Blake had sworn that she'd never consume the vile substance again. Her fledgling career in Starfleet was too fragile and not even the near-incineration at the hands of a particularly psychotic Romulan could change her mind, despite the inclination of many other cadets to jump in as many foreign beds as possible because the world could conceivably end at any time.

No, nothing could tempt Danielle Blake again.

At least, not until a year into her commission.

The McCoy label of tequila was particularly alluring. The bottle was tall and dark, with a sharp lip that dared connoisseurs to take a shot, to see if they could come away unscathed. Yet, its contents were syrupy and honey-smooth.

She'd resisted for a long time, used to being the pursued and never the pursuer, like a purveyor of the finest vintages of wine with the want to turn a profit, but never sampled the holy liquid herself. But somehow, under the painful haze of first-degree burns and the cooling touch of steady hands, she'd given into the urge to sate her thirst.

And damn it if it wasn't the best tequila she'd ever tasted. The buzz lingered longer than anything she'd ever consumed, carried her through the ship-wide festivities later that evening and ushered her back to his quarters on a cloud of desire. And just when her hangover started to take root, pricking at her temples with the first strands of morning curling around her limbs, the gentle caress of his digits over her bare skin warded it away.

Danielle had lain there for hours, letting him map out paths between her sparse freckles with the pads of his fingers until his lips and tongue took over and they'd rolled across the rumpled sheets into a rhythm that was startlingly familiar and foreign all at once.

The doctors had parted to get ready for their respective Alpha shifts, but the moment wasn't nearly as awkward as she'd have thought it would be. Even as a one night stand, Leonard McCoy was a generous, affectionate lover, chockfull of long, soft kisses that persisted right up until the moment you crossed the threshold and hurried down the hall to sneak into your quarters in nothing more than a wrinkled Playboy bunny costume. At least, that's how it was for her.

She spent most of her shift pointedly not thinking about how much concealer she'd needed to use on her neck and shoulders, how she could still feel the grip he'd had on her wrists as his chiseled body pinned her to the mattress and rocked against hers until she swore her vision curled white at the edges.

But just as Danielle had finally managed to shake their proclivities from her brain long enough to close her eyes and catch up on the sleep she'd been enthusiastically, and repeatedly, deprived of in the last twenty-four hours, her PADD beeped and ripped her brain from its idle state.

[PADD Message] Hope you had a good shift. I most certainly did. Don't remember the last time I was this sore… - L

[PADD Message: Leonard McCoy] Me either. Definitely made for an interesting eight hours.

[PADD Message] Well worth it. Would you consider allowing me the privilege and pleasure of your company again sometime? – L

This kind of tequila wasn't just some Hornitos or Jose Cuervo that seemed premiere to frat boys a few ticks of the hour hand past twenty-one, or even the Patron that any run-of-the-mill restaurant chain referred to as their top shelf bottle.

No, Leonard McCoy was Asombroso, forged from hand-picked, decade-old Blue Agave plants, aged five years in Port Wine barrels, and imparted with a nuanced sweetness to further soften the finish.

A taste would set you back $65, a bottle $1,100. It was the type of tequila that would bring even the most discerning palette to its knees and she'd yet to have her fill.

[PADD Message: Leonard McCoy] I'd like that.

[PADD Message] How about tomorrow night? Around… 20:00? - L

[PADD Message: Leonard McCoy] Shall I leave the bunny costume at home then?

[PADD Message] I'd rather you bring an overnight bag… wouldn't mind having you to myself for an extra hour or two in the morning. Could be quite productive. - L

[PADD Message: Leonard McCoy] I'll see you tomorrow, Leo. xoxo

Danielle wasn't certain what to expect the next evening. Sure, she was craving another taste of what Leonard McCoy had to offer, but the practical aspects of a friends-with-benefits arrangement was still new to her. In fact, the normally-confident and self-assured scientist was downright nervous as she stood on his doorstep. But the moment the door opened to reveal the CMO in a pair of jeans and a navy v-neck tee, a crooked grin on his face, all of her earlier thoughts slipped.

"You clean up well, Dr. McCoy," Danielle remarked with a curl of her lips.

His mouth twisted into a smirk and he stepped aside, flicking his wrist towards the interior of his quarters. "I could say the same for you, Dr. Blake. Come on in… I was just about to attempt to throw together dinner."

"Dinner?" She slid her hands into her back pockets, tilting her head in slight surprise that didn't go unnoticed by her companion.

"I'm from the South, darlin'. It's practically engrained in my DNA how to treat a lady," he drawled demonstratively, stepping away from her to return his attention to the replicator. "A few months back, I programmed in the recipe for my mama's pot roast and peach cobbler. Figured now's as good a time as any to try it out."

"So…" Danielle trailed him over to the small counter and hopped up on the surface. From her perch, she watched as he slipped a card into the slot and tapped a series of codes into the keypad. "What you're saying is that I'm your guinea pig," she concluded with a raise of her eyebrows.

Laughter rumbled through his chest as he pressed the command key. "Well…"

"Wow…" She let out a scoff, accompanied by a roll of her eyes. "What was that about knowing how to treat a lady again?"

Leonard stepped sideways until he was directly in front of her. "You didn't let me finish," he countered while nudging his body between her legs. "If you had," he posited further, curling his fingers around her hips, "you'd know that I think you're an incredibly beautiful guinea pig, Dr. Blake."

Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip in an attempt to stifle her burgeoning grin "Am I now?"

"Oh yeah," he assured her with an impressed nod. Then he reached up to thumb at her bottom lip, tugging it out from her bite. "Don't do that, darlin'. I like your mouth." Leonard slowly leaned forward, closing the space between them at eye-level. "A lot, as it happens," he tacked on offhandedly before moving in for the kill, eliminating the remaining distance to take her lips with his own.

Danielle wasn't sure how long they stayed that way. At some point, the replicator beeped, indicating that their entrees were ready for consumption. So the best she could figure, they'd been making out like a pair of teenagers in the back of a movie theater for as long as it took to replicate a pot roast.

Dinner was pleasant, filled with casual conversation and red wine, anecdotes about their exploits during their respective days at Starfleet Academy. Or really their roommates' exploits considering that they each found themselves with a roommate they parented, rather than actually lived with.

By the time they got to the peach cobbler and the second glass of merlot, Danielle realized that she genuinely enjoyed having someone to hang out with at the end of a long day. And though she was concerned the sex wouldn't live up to the high bar set two days earlier, the blonde was pleasantly surprised (in more ways than one) that Leonard McCoy was no one-hit wonder.

And incredibly deserving of the Asombroso label.

They continued on like this for a long while, with nights spent in Leonard's quarters usually three times a week in the beginning. Then three turned into four and four turned into five and it was becoming harder for them to conceal their arrangement from their friends when they were on board the Enterprise.

Jim was the first to realize something was different about his CMO, who had just the slightest spring in his step on most mornings that had nothing to do with the man's coffee consumption. Yet, any attempts the captain made to get to the bottom of his fractionally improved mood were met with a sour twist of Leonard's lips and an office door shut in his face.

Truthfully, Danielle was more than a bit perplexed by their arrangement. She had no complaints regarding Leonard McCoy's sexual prowess, more than willing to attest to the fact that he undeniably had the best hands in all of Starfleet, but there was a strange facet to their "relationship" that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Or maybe she could. Though no one would know that there was anything more than a professional cordiality between the scientist and the doctor just by looking at them in the corridors, their pre and post-coital interactions behind closed doors were the complete opposite. When Danielle agreed to their arrangement, she'd been expecting one-track visits and sneaking out to her quarters under the cover of darkness to shower and then sleep, not dinners and movies on holovids and swapping stories of the ridiculous antics of junior officers. She certainly hadn't been expecting him to sling an arm around her while watching said holovids on his couch or keep her back firmly pressed against his chest as they drifted off to sleep in his bed.

"Can I ask you something?" she inquired one night roughly six months into their arrangement. Leonard's body was half-slung over hers so that he could trace his fingertips over the ruddy marks spotting her neck and chest. "And I'm going to be honest, there isn't exactly a polite way of saying it."

"What?" McCoy cocked an eyebrow at her, a highly-amused smirk gracing his normally-hardened face. "You afraid you're going to offend my delicate Southern constitution?"

"No," she mumbled. "I'm just usually a lot more tactful."

He snorted. "Sweetheart, I spent nearly four years living with Jim. It'd take a hell of a lot to offend me at this point."

The corner of her mouth lifted. "Weren't you the one who once told me that with a naked woman in your bed, the last thing you wanted to think about was Jim Kirk?"

"No," he corrected her, tapping a particularly dark mark on the column of her throat. "I think I said with a beautiful, naked woman in my bed, the last thing I wanted to think about was Jim Kirk." His tongue darted out to whet his curled lips. "And I also think you're stallin', Darlin'."

"Fine." She tilted her head, as though she was already evaluating him in anticipation of an impending change in his demeanor. "Why do you ask me to stay?"

Leonard merely blinked at her in response. "Why do I ask you to stay?"

"Yeah." She dipped her head. "When I think about no strings attached sex… friends with benefits… whatever you want to call it…" Danielle waved her hand flippantly. "It's one and done." A raise of Leonard's brows caused a flush to creep up her cheeks and she couldn't help but smile. "Alright, a few times and done," she corrected herself to his smug satisfaction, which earned him a playful smack of his shoulder. "But you understand what I'm saying, Leo. This isn't how it's supposed to be."

"Why? Is there some manual or handbook that I don't know about?" he retorted with an upturn of his left hand, Academy ring glinting in the light of his bedroom. "Just because we're having fun doesn't mean it has to be like that. To me…" His hand came to rest on his heart momentarily. "Sex is more than just the act itself. It's the build up and the foreplay, no matter what ninety-five percent of the human male population thinks…" Leonard grunted at the notion. "And that's just as important to me as sharing the afterglow and enjoying that high together as long as possible. The reason I ask you to bring your bag isn't for the sake of keeping up appearances, Danielle. It's because I genuinely want you to stay."

Danielle couldn't help but look at him incredulously. She'd always known that Leonard was a far different person off-duty, but never realized how introspective he was when it came to relationships. In that moment, she chalked it up to a man burned by divorce with a new perspective of what it meant to care for someone, even if you were just friends and enjoying more intimate activities while shrouded by starlight.

So if the next time Danielle Blake kissed Leonard McCoy, his lips tasted a little less spicy, burned with the taste of something much richer, she pretended not to notice.

A/N: This is my first foray into the Star Trek fandom, AOS or otherwise. I absolutely adore Leonard McCoy, both DeForrest Kelley's and Karl Urban's portrayals. Concerning AOS Bones, I've always felt as if the man has taken quite an emotional beating in life and has a hell of an abandonment complex that's rather understandable. Thus, I wanted to explore what it would be like for him to find a kindred spirit.

I have a few chapters of this fic in the can, so I should be able to update at least once a week for a while. I sincerely hope you enjoy this story and would love to hear any/all feedback. I promise to respond.

Thanks for reading!