Work Text:
“Okay, what time is it?” you ask in a hushed tone, as you and Christine come to a halt in the corridor a few feet from Leonard’s quarters. Christine glances at her comm and tells you the time; it’s roughly forty minutes since Leonard had gotten off shift, and you know that he’d been planning on crashing the second he was done, that he was exhausted after an extremely busy day.
“That should be enough time,” you whisper slowly, thinking. “I’ll check. If he’s still awake, I can just say I came to say goodnight, or something.” Christine nods and backs away from the door so she won’t be seen as you swipe the key card he’d recently given you and open his door. It’s dark inside, and by the dim sphere of light given off by your comm, you can see him lying in bed as you creep across the room.
“Leonard?” you whisper as you creep closer, but get no response. You repeat his name in a normal speaking voice, and still get nothing. He shifts slightly in his sleep, making you freeze in place, but then he begins to snore, and you know you’re in the clear. You carefully creep out of the room and poke your head out, nodding to Christine, who grins and darts into the nearby supply room. When she returns, she’s carrying a huge bundle of balloons held together loosely by a light plastic tarp. Grinning, you reach for the bundle and together you carefully manage to get it through the doorway without popping any of them. You release this bundle into the corner of the living area, covering his desk and the floor with the balloons. The two of you hurry out of the room and retrieve another bundle, emptying this one too until the balloons cover the desk and floor to waist height. Each time you’re about to scurry from the room, you check to make sure that Leonard is still sleeping soundly, not wanting him to catch you in the act.
“Where did you get all of these, anyway?” Christine asks you quietly as you return for the fifth bundle a little while later, having filled the opposite end of his quarters, near the bathroom.
“I ordered them ahead of time and picked them up last time we were in Yorktown,” you whisper as you open the door again and creep in. “Why?” Christine doesn’t answer as you empty your current bundle, waiting until you’re back outside and heading back to the supply cupboard to reply.
“Just wondering, I haven’t seen balloons in this material before. Is it latex?” she asks poking at one of them, and you nod.
“Yeah, the shop keeper said they’re hard to find on earth nowadays, but the ones they get in on Yorktown are all latex. He said they’re actually one of the best materials for balloons – stretchy but resistant to popping.” Christine nods as you head back into the room, and you giggle silently as you look around. By the tenth bundle, you’ve filled most of the living area and the kitchenette, and with the last two you have left, you manage to fill the entire quarters up to about waist height, including over the edge of Leonard’s bed, covering him in a single layer of the colourful balloons.
“That’s it,” you whisper, as the two of you stand in the doorway, admiring your handiwork and pushing the balloons that try to escape back into the room. “I can’t wait until he wakes up in the morning!” The door to his quarters closes and you and Christine high five, grinning at a job well done and imagining the look on Leonard’s face when he wakes, surrounded by a sea of colourful baubles.
Leonard groaned as he looked in the mirror. His face was covered in bright red spots, and when he lifted his Sciences blue tunic, his stomach and chest were covered in them too. Chicken pox?! How? It had been eradicated for at least fifty years, how could he possibly have contracted it?! He began to scratch at his arms and then at his face, even though the medical side of his brain was telling him to stop, that scratching would just make it worse in the long run, but he couldn’t help it. He was just so damn itchy. He clawed at his face, letting out a yell of frustration, flailing wildly as the itching became unbearable….
Leonard wakes with a start and a gasp, his eyes flying open at his abrupt return to consciousness. He yelps in surprise less than a moment later as he realizes that there’s… thingsall over him, things that he can barely feel but are nonetheless settled all over him. He flings his arms upwards, sending several of the colourful things flying, when the familiar weight and sound of his hand hitting them makes the word “balloons” pop into his head. Blinking in confusion, Leonard sits up and looks around, his eyebrows raising and his mouth falling open in shock as he takes in the sight of his quarters. He can’t see any of his furniture save the one tall bookshelf across the room. His couch, desk, kitchen table and chairs are simply gone, lost under a sea of colourful balls. Mouthing wordlessly, he shifts sideways in bed and puts his feet to the floor with difficulty, kicking aside balloons with his bare feet, but to no avail; every time he kicks one away, more rush in to replace it.
As he stands there, looking around, still dumbfounded, Leonard realizes that he reallyis itchy – it hadn’t been just his dream. He frowns as he takes stock of himself, moving his thoughts from the shock of finding his room looking as though a parade had passed through it to what he’s currently feeling, physically. His arms and face are tingling a little, feel warm to the touch, and are itchy. His frown deepening, he looks down at his arms and sees that he had apparently been scratching in his sleep, as there’s long, thin red lines down his forearms.
Shaking his head, he’s trying to figure out what to do when he receives a message on his comm telling him he’s needed in the med bay and he sighs, looking around the room. Gritting his teeth, he wades through the balloons towards his closet, sending bursts of colour into the air as he kicks his way through, popping several and startling himself with the loud noises. He nearly topples over as he stands on one leg to pull a sock on, swearing out loud as several of the balloons he’d kicked away float back and stick to him, attracted by static cling. He dresses as quickly as he can and storms his way through the sea to his doorway. Grumbling, he opens the door and a good dozen of the balloons spill into the hallway, looking particularly colourful against the stark white of the walls and floor.
His comm buzzes again and he glares down at it to see “Happy birthday, Leonard! I hope you liked your surprise!” flash onto it. Oh, right. He’d forgotten it was his birthday. The balloons suddenly made a bit more sense, but how they made their way in there while he was sleeping is still boggling his mind. How had he slept through that?! He stomps off to med bay shaking his head, not even looking back as a loud crack echoes around the corridor as one of the balloons was crushed by the door sliding shut behind him.
You are already in med bay when he turns up, looking a bit surly, but it doesn’t deter you from rushing over to him and throwing your arms around him. You notice that his skin is looking a bit pink but you figure it’s probably just flushed from being warm, or maybe he just really liked your surprise.
“Happy birthday!” you say cheerfully, as he returns the hug, wrapping his arms around your middle for a moment. “Did you like the balloons?”
“Well,” he hesitates at the hopeful look on your face. You can tell he’d been about to grump at you, but now he’s feeling bad because you’re so excited. “It sure was a surprise, alright. How did you get them all in there?” He scratches at his forearms unconsciously as he speaks, trying to ignore how itchy his face is as well.
“Oh, Christine helped me!” you tell him, as you lead him towards bio bed seven, upon which the patient in need lay. “You were dead to the world, I bet I could have popped one and you wouldn’t have noticed!”
Leonard grunts in response, scratching his other arm now, frowning slightly. It probably isn’t a good thing that he’s such a sound sleeper, he muses, as he pulls on some gloves and a gown before entering the curtained off bed.
You giggle a little as you leave him to his patient and flounce off to do your other duties, imagining how happy he’ll be later when you give him the cake you replicated and decorated yourself, and the gift you’d gotten for him.
About an hour later, after finishing up with a couple of patients of your own, you catch Leonard coming out of the back room and stop dead, gaping at him.
“What?” he snaps, wound tight from the intensity of the itching, clenching his fists furiously at his sides in a desperate attempt not to scratch himself.
“Your- your arms… and your face… they’re bright red!” You say, staring at him in horror. His skin is bright red and shiny in blotches all over his arms and cheeks, one over his forehead, and a few on his neck. You can see that he’s twitchy, constantly shuffling his feet, which makes you think that if you took off his shoes and socks, there’d be blotches there, too. “What happened?!”
“I dunno,” he mutters, scratching at his already raw arm. “Obviously an allergic reaction but I’m not sure what to.” You reach out to grab his arm as his nails break his skin and blood starts to slowly bead in the wake of the scratch.
“You gotta stop scratching, look, you’re already bleeding,” you say in soft admonishment, making him scowl. “Come on, let’s get you looked at.” You try to tug him along but he digs in his feet, looking irritated.
“No, I’m fine,” he insists, pulling his arm back from your grip. “I’ll just put some cream on it, I’m sure it’ll be okay. I have things to do.” He frowns as you scowl at him this time, crossing your arms angrily over your chest. “I’m fine.”
“The hell you are,” you snap, shooting one of his own favourite lines at him. He stares at you and you swear you see his lips twitching like he wants to smile, but he manages to keep his frown in place. “Look at you, you’re turning pinker by the minute. You’re getting seen, period.” You pull your comm out of your pocket and shoot a message to M’Benga to meet you at bio bed 3 to meet his newest patient.
“There, it’s done,” you tell him, shaking your comm before pocketing it. “M’Benga will be right over.” Leonard makes a grumpy noise of protest, but allows you to steer him towards the bio bed, muttering under his breath. You ignore this and gesture at the bed when you arrive with him, raising an eyebrow at him and indicate he should sit when he doesn’t move.
With a resigned sigh, Leonard hoists himself up onto the bed, scratching at his hands. You smack the hand that’s doing the scratching, pointing at him warningly.
“Stop,” you say firmly. Leonard grunts, his shoulders sagged as you wait with him, listening to the general chatter and beeping of instruments around you. You can see Leonard out of the corner of your eye, trying to stealthily scratch at his cheek. You turn back to him as he quickly withdraws his hand, looking vaguely guilty.
“Really?!” you say, stepping closer to him. “I look away for literally ten seconds…”
“Do you have any idea how itchy I am right now?!” he exclaims angrily, running the backs of his hands over the fabric of his pants in an attempt to relieve the itch. You grab his hands and hold them still, noticing that the solid red patches of skin are starting to break up into an bright red rash.
“I know, Len,” you say soothingly, trying to reassure him. “Contact dermatitis is a bitch, but you’re going to tear your skin off if you keep scratching.”
“Might be better that way,” he grumbles, and you bite your lip to stop yourself from chuckling a little. You feel absolutely horrible for him, of course, but you can’t help being amused at his surliness.
M’Benga appears a moment later, pausing with an eyebrow raised as he takes in the sight of Leonard on the bed, with you standing there, holding his wrists, him looking cranky and like he has a bad case of the measles.
“Wow, Leonard, what happened?” M’Benga askes calmly, with a hint of surprise, moving closer and examining the angry red rash peppering Leonard’s cheeks.
“Allergic reaction,” Leonard mutters before M’Benga can say anything else, avoiding his colleague’s eyes. “My vitals are fine,” he says, as the other doctor moves to pick up a tricorder. “My throat isn’t closing off, I’m just damn itchy.”
“Will you just let the man do his job?” you ask, exasperated, as M’Benga chuckles lightly.
“I’m just going to check, Leonard. I’ll be quick, I promise.” M’Benga begins to move the tricorder over Leonard’s face and arms and Leonard sighs heavily, staring moodily at the wall. Shaking your head, you pat his leg comfortingly after letting go of his wrists so M’Benga can scan them. Leonard doesn’t twitch as M’Benga takes some blood, though you can tell he’s slowly going insane from the itch by the desperation in his eyes.
“So do you have any known allergies?” M’Benga asks, as he inputs some information on the PADD he’s holding.
“None that I knew of,” Leonard says, in a defeated tone. “I don’t recall being exposed to anything I’ve never touched before either,” he says, sighing.
Your expression falls as you suddenly realized what could have caused it. The balloons. They were made of latex. On earth, most balloons are now made of another material that’s similar, but chemically different. Horror washes over you as you realize that the rash is concentrated over his arms and face – the parts of him that were exposed while he slept.
“Oh no,” you say softly, and they both turn to look at you. “I have a theory on the origin of the allergen, doctor,” you say to M’Benga. “I’ll go get a sample and you can send it in with the bloodwork for analysis.” M’Benga nods as Leonard shoots you a somewhat confused look, but you’ve already turned tail and hurried away, feeling guilt wash over you. If you had caused this, you were going to feel so incredibly bad. What a horrible surprise – Happy birthday Leonard, have some unbearable itching! You groan to yourself as you near Leonard’s quarters and see that there’s a few balloons hanging around in the hallway, clearly having escaped from his room when he’d left it. You scoop one up and rip a tiny hole into the base of it by the knot, squeezing it to deflate it as you walk back to the med bay.
“Here you go,” you say to M’Benga, meeting him before you get back to Leonard’s bed.
“A balloon?” asks M’Benga, taking the wilted purple thing from you and staring at it. “I’m sure he’s touched a balloon before, Y/N.”
“These ones are latex, though. Apparently, Yorktown only has old school balloons.”
“Ahh,” says M’Benga slowly, as though with dawning comprehension. “That would actually explain a lot, latex allergies can be pretty volatile, from what I remember in my training. Okay, thanks. I’ll send this up with his blood right away.”
Nodding glumly, you head back towards Leonard as Christine approaches, smiling brightly at you.
“Hi! How did Leonard like his balloons?” Christine asks cheerfully, as you halt, only a few feet away from Leonard’s bed. You’re unable to stop yourself looking over at him, sitting there trying to ignore everyone around him, and Christine inevitably follows your gaze.
“Woah!” Christine exclaims loudly, her eyes widening. Leonard’s head swivels in her direction glaring at her, and she immediately seems apologetic for how loud she’d been. “Sorry, I mean… wow, Leonard, what- what happened?” You sigh and resist the urge to bury your head in your hands as she approaches the bed with you and Leonard scowls at her.
“I think it was the balloons,” you say miserably, looking up at Leonard with apology swimming in your eyes. “I’m so sorry, Leonard.”
“I can assure you, I’ve touched plenty of balloons over my lifetime,” Leonard says, frowning. “I don’t think-”
“They’re latex, not the same material as the ones you probably touched as a kid,” you explain. “Have you ever touched latex before?” Leonard’s eyebrows raise and then knit as he scratches his neck thoughtfully, clearly wondering. You gently tug his hand away from his neck, and he sighs before he answers.
“Not that I can think of, no,” he says finally, and Christine wrinkles her nose in sympathy as you hang your head, feeling incredibly guilty.
“Well, that probably is it, then,” you sigh, shaking your head. You’re about to apologize again when M’Benga returns, holding his PADD.
“So, you were right,” he says to you. “It was the balloon. What I can’t understand is how touching a single balloon could possibly cause all this,” he says, gesturing to the breadth of the rash over Leonard’s arms, shoulders and face.
“Well, we… um…” you begin, cringing, and Christine finishes your thought, patting you on the arm.
“We filled his room with balloons, thinking it’d be fun for his birthday. We had no idea he was allergic to latex,” she explains, with you nodding morosely behind her. M’Benga smiles, wincing slightly, as he turns the situation around in his head.
“Ah, that explains it,” he says with a nod. “Well, thankfully the reaction is not anaphylactic. Leonard, you should be fine within a couple of hours. I’ve got a shot of corticosteroid here for you.”
Leonard sighs heavily and your eyebrows knit in sympathy as he automatically shifts so he’s lying down with his back to M’Benga. Christine stifles a giggle and Leonard shoots her a dirty look.
“Don’t you have other patients to see, Nurse Chapel?” he asks her grumpily, and she grins.
“Alright, alright, I’ll leave,” she says cheerfully. “I hope you feel better, Leonard.”
As Christine leaves, Leonard reaches down and pulls the waistband of his pants down a bit, exposing the top part of his butt with a sigh. You reach out and stroke his arm, trying to sooth him while averting your own gaze from M’Benga approaching with a lethal looking, corticosteroid-loaded syringe. Leonard winces as M’Benga quickly and skillfully injects the substance into his upper buttock. Thankfully it’s over in only a few seconds and you immediately and gently massage the area to allow the steroid to absorb better into the muscle. When you’re done, he pulls his pants back up, still looking incredibly sullen as he sits up.
“If you’re prepared to monitor his vitals for me, you can take him back to his quarters,” M’Benga says to you, handing you a tricorder. You nod, and Leonard slips off the bed, looking like he would like to sprint out of the room and never return. M’Benga hands you a small bottle of calamine lotion as well, and you start to lead Leonard out of the med bay.
“Y/N… my quarters are full of balloons,” Leonard says suddenly, and you stop short, your mouth falling open as the fact hits you.
“Oh crap, they are, too,” you groan. “There’s no way I can clear that out fast… Okay, you can just come to my quarters instead.” Leonard sighs but doesn’t argue and you lead him away, farther along the corridor. Your quarters aren’t very far from his and you’re there before you know it, opening the door and ushering him inside. Thankfully, you’d already thrown away any remnants of the balloon preparations, so your room is clean as you lead him inside and over to your bed.
“Sit, just let me wipe down the tables and stuff, just in case,” you say, and he sits a little hesitantly, looking down at the bed first, as though he’d be able to spot any lingering traces of the latex on your blanket. You glance over at him as you wipe down the table and counters, watching him stare in disgust at his arms.
“I’m so sorry about all of this,” you say, biting your lip, feeling so bad as he seems to be making an extreme effort not to scratch. “I had no idea you were allergic to latex.”
“It’s fine,” he says, his voice gruff, and you think he’s just humoring you at first, until he looks up and gives you a tight half-smile. “How could you’ve known when I didn’t even know? I don’t blame you.” His voice is strained but you can tell he’s being genuine, which makes you feel at least a little bit better. You still feel horrible, of course, but you’re relieved that he’s not angry with you. You toss the cloth you were using into the sink and sit down beside him on the bed, reaching out and rubbing his back, trying to be soothing.
“If it’s any consolation, you don’t look as bad as you think you do,” you say, with a cheerful lilt to your voice. You know he sees right through you as he glances at you with an eyebrow raised high, and you let out a tiny laugh. “Okay, it does look kind of bad,” you concede, and he snorts.
“I look like I’ve got the worst case of measles this side of galaxy,” he gripes, rubbing the back of his hand on his pants. You take his hand gently and he sighs in frustration.
“I know it’s itchy,” you say softly, stroking his speckled hand. “But you can’t-”
“Can’t scratch, I know, I know,” he grumbles.
“Let’s use this calamine lotion, okay?” you say, getting up to retrieve some cotton pads from your bathroom. “Take your shirt off, and your shoes… it’s on your feet too, isn’t it?” you call to him from the bathroom, and hear him grunt in agreement. When you come back, he’s removed his shirt and is working on his shoes, his fingers clumsy from the swelling and tenderness. You hurry forward, dropping the pads on the bed and untie his shoes for him, pulling them off and removing his socks as well.
“Thanks,” he sighs, eyeing the bottle of calamine lotion as you pick it up. “Can I just pour that all over me?” You laugh, opening the bottle and loading up a cotton pad with the pale pink liquid.
“If we had a lot more of it I would absolutely let you do that,” you tell him, as you begin to slowly move the pad over his nearest shoulder, observing the whiteish pink streak left behind. He sighs, this time in relief, as you cover most of his shoulder and across his upper chest. You work on his arms, dabbing all the large, angry areas thoroughly first before running a thin film over the less inflamed bits.
“Tilt your head back,” you tell him and he obeys without hesitation, allowing you to spread the lotion all over his neck. You scurry to the other side of him on the bed, load up a second cotton pad with the lotion and carefully smooth it over his other shoulder and down his other arm. You take one of his hands in yours and carefully and meticulously dab at all of the dark red spots there, covering them up and watching Leonard sag visibly with relief. You do his other hand, and get him to tip his head back forward to normal again.
“Do you want me to do your face, too?” you ask, a little uncertain as to whether he wants you that close to his eyes and mouth, but he nods without pause so you carefully dab at his cheeks, then over his forehead, then the one big angry patch over his left temple.
By the time you’re done, aside from his hair, he looks as though the top of him has been dipped in paint, but he is also clearly less agitated and seems more relaxed, which makes you happy and hopeful.
“Is it working already?” you ask softly, smiling. He nods, opening his eyes up again to look at you.
“Yeah, the lotion combined with the shot is at least lessening the urge to rip my skin off,” he says, and even his voice sounds less strained. You drag a chair over to the side of the bed and sit in it, then pat your lap.
“Foot,” you say, indicating for him to prop his foot on your legs.
“Oh, you don’t want to smell that…” he says, shaking his head. “They’re fine, they’re not that itchy.” You raise an eyebrow and glance down to see him very suddenly still his feet, clearly trying to convince you that he hadn’t just been rubbing them on the rug at your bedside.
“Uh huh,” you say, unimpressed. “Foot.” Seeing that you’re not to be deterred, his rolls his eyes and lifts one of his feet, resting it in your lap. You wrinkle your nose slightly just to bug him (they really don’t smell that bad) and begin to dab at the rash over his feet and ankles.
By the time you’re done both feet, he looks so relieved that he’s practically limp, his eyes half-closed and his hands relaxed in his lap. You quickly cap the bottle and throw the pads sodden with the lotion away, before returning and gently touching his hair, letting your fingers play with the strands for a moment before you speak, a small smile curling his lips as you stroke his hair.
“I think you need to rest a bit, now,” you say gently, and to your surprise, he doesn’t argue.
“It would probably be best,” he says, opening his eyes and narrowing them as he looks at you. “Don’t look so surprised, I can be perfectly practical,” he says grumpily, and you hold in a giggle. “If I don’t sleep this off, I’m just gonna to try to rip this rash clean off once the lotion stops being effective, so it’s best that I sleep.”
“That’s very reasonable of you,” you tell him, both proud of him for being sensible for once and also deeply amused that he looks very unhappy about it. You think it’s also likely that he doesn’t want to be walking around medbay with an extremely red rash all over his face, attracting far too much attention while he attempts to work. He grunts at you in both agreement and annoyance and you laugh.
“Lie down, then,” you tell him, retrieving another blanket so he can just lay down on top of the one he’s already sitting on.
“If you get a couple of towels, I can sleep on the couch-” he starts, but you frown at him and he stops. He gestures wordlessly to the calamine lotion coating his skin and then your bedding, but you shrug.
“Leonard, please stop trying to be a gentleman. Just lie down,” you say firmly. “It’s not hard for me to change the sheets and blanket later.” Leonard looks like he wants to argue, but after seeing the stubborn look on your face, he seems to think better of it. He lies down and once he’s settled you cover him with the blanket you’re holding, pulling it up to his bare shoulders to keep him warm. You sit back down in the chair and slip your fingers over his wrist, feeling his heart beating steadily beneath your touch. You count in your head as you glance at the timer on your comm. You use a tricorder to take the rest of his vitals. He doesn’t comment on your manual approach, but you think you can detect an air of approval from him, which makes you smile.
“Alright, rest now,” you say, as you read the findings of the tricorder and deem his vitals to be perfectly acceptable for now. He lets out a small noise of sleepy agreement and you smile, stroking his hair a few times as his eyes close and he relaxes.
“Hey Y/N?” he asks a few minutes later, yawning a little, his voice sleepy.
“Yeah?” you reply softly, still gently playing with his hair.
“Next time can you just give me a card or something for my birthday?”
“Of course,” you say, chuckling. “Sleep, now.” He nods and lies still, and within minutes his breath evens out and you can tell that he’s asleep. Letting out a heavy sigh, you quietly rise from the chair and return to the kitchen, where you then retrieve the cake from your small fridge and set it on the table. You take the wrapped present you’d gotten him and set it beside the cake, with a card in front, the enveloped marked “Leonard” with a heart around his name.
You message M’Benga, letting him know that Leonard’s vitals are fine, and ask him if you’re to report back to med bay, but he tells you it’s okay, that you can have the rest of your shift to look after Leonard. Smiling, you thank him and sit back down in the chair beside Leonard, watching his rash- and calamine-covered, yet peaceful, face. You hope he sleeps well, because you really want to make up for this accidental calamity you’d caused, hoping you’ll be able to salvage what’s left of the day and give him an excellent birthday, rash and all.