Multifandom Imagines (and a Headcanon set here and there)

Everything Hurts - AOS!Leonard McCoy x Reader

(A/N: This isn't a request, but I'm writing this for a fellow Urbanite who, like me, has sleeping problems.  This happened to me this morning.)

You lay on your side staring miserably at the wall. You had detached yourself from Leo's embrace, because your entire body hurt, and his arms around you made it worse.  You hurt too much to move and check the time, but when you first woke up, it felt like the equivalent of 3 am.  You spent what was probably an hour to two hours shifting in little bits, trying to get comfortable and fall back asleep.  After that time, you gave up.  Your entire body felt numb.  That was when the overthinking started.  'Why can't I sleep?  Why can't I sleep?' repeated in your mind. Tears formed and fell from your eyes. You rubbed them away with your arm.  You lay there, in physical numbness and emotional pain, until you heard and felt Lenny stirring behind you.  "Mmh...(y/n)..."  he murmured, his arm coming down around your waist quite heavily.

"Ow!"  you gasped, flinching away from him, and gasped out another, "Ow!"  because even that movement had caused you pain.

That woke Leo up fully.  He sat up in bed and tentatively put his hand on your shoulder.  "What happened?"  he whispered; from past experience, you (and other patients, for that matter) preferred it when he spoke softer when you were in physical pain, because that usually meant that you had a headache as well.

"I've been awake since three..." you said hoarsely.  Your throat hurt as well, but that was because you had not drunk any water since you had first awoken.

His eyebrows furrowed.  "Again?  You were doing so well..."  When Leo first found out you had sleeping problems, he had tried setting a strict lifestyle for you, appertaining to what time you ate dinner; what time you went to bed, etcetera.  When even that did not work, he prescribed you sleeping pills.  You were able to sleep then.  You used them for a while.  However, Leo had recently tried to get you off them, so that you were not dependent on them.  You had been sleeping well on your own for the past three weeks.  So this was a relapse.

"I'm sorry, Leo..." you tried to say in a normal voice, to hide your crying.  You felt that you had failed him somehow, because you had broken progress.

He knew you well, and reached over your head to the nightstand.  He yanked a piece of tissue from its box and put it over your eyes.  You quietly took it from him and wiped your tears.  "You know I don't blame you for anything," he rumbled softly, moving your hair out of your face.  Bless him for his gentle doctor's hands, because any harder contact would have made your headache worse.  You were unable to come up with a response.  "You have to get up.  You'll feel better after some breakfast," he told you.

"It hurts to move..." you whined a little.  He sighed, pitying you. Then, you felt his hands on your shoulder, gently massaging it.  You tensed up and hissed in pain at first.  "Relax," his smooth voice rumbled, sending pleasant shivers down your spine, "It's worse when you're tense."  You did as the doctor ordered, and slowly begun to feel better under his careful pressing and rubbing.  "You know what to do, right?"  he asked.  When it came to aches due to lack of sleep, you had to inform him when you felt better, because unlike aches due to injury to the muscle, the receding of pain in sleeping muscles was not tangible.

"Mhm..." you sighed, your eyes closed and a relaxed smile on your face.

He raised an eyebrow at your sudden change in mood, and of course you felt his hands slipping away from your shoulder to massage slightly lower down your arm, much to your disappointment.  "It seems to me that that bit there is already better," he said as he did so.