Bones the Magical Pony
For Annime1231, with my gratitude.

       "...further supporting those questions posited by Keirkegard. Now, remember, this is 350 year old Terran philosophy we're studying here, it gives you a real sense of the scope some of these minds could explore."
       Leonard McCoy shook his head vigorously in an attempt to keep his eyes open. "This is stupid..." he growled under his breath. Begrudgingly scribbling a note that sounded like the sort of thing an idiot professor would put into a final exam.
       Next to him, Jim Kirk had not bothered to put up a fight against sleep, and was snoring softly in his chair. A thin ribbon of drool wound its way down his chin and neck and had begun to make a dark spot on the collar of his shirt.
       It was only a week into the class and already, Bones could feel his blood pressure spiking when he considered an entire term wasted, listening to the absolutely valueless ramblings of Professor Lawrence J. Manion, who, everyone knew, only had the job thanks to his Commodore uncle and his complete inability to succeed at anything else.       At least, if he was a failure in the classroom, no one would die. Except maybe of boredom, or, in Bones's case: stress induced heart attack.
       Jim suddenly gave a loud snort, jarring himself awake. Torpid though they were, the rest of the class glanced around, eager for an excuse not to focus on the professor. Jim blinked blearily at them all for a moment before realizing that he must have made some kind of noise. He gave a few phony, half-hearted coughs, and surreptitiously wiped the drool off his face.
       Not one to be derailed from listening to the sound of his own voice, Manion fixed Kirk with what he clearly thought was a perceiving stare, but which succeeded only in making him look constipated, before returning to his ramblings.
       Unable to go back to sleep, Jim reverted to his other favorite activity for staving off boredom: irritating Leonard McCoy. He leaned over his friend's desk to peer at what he had written. "What, are you taking notes on this garbage?" he whispered, though not particularly quietly. "Come on Bones, even you're not buying this 'ancient wisdom' bullshit, are you?"
       "Give me some credit Jim!" Bones hissed, indignant. "But we have to fill the requirements, same as everyone. There's going to be a final exam, and I intend to pass it. You just don't tend to notice little things like exams while you float through classes under that dirigible you call your head..."
       "You're just jealous that I'm smarter than you."
       "Being a delusional egomaniac does not make you smarter than everybody else, Jim."
       "I didn't say I was smarter than everybody else, I said I was smarter than you."
       "Alright, fine Mr. Genius. Next time your pod blows a gasket during a simulation, you'll be able to diagnose your own decompression sickness before you have a stroke, right?"
       Kirk looked momentarily hunted, and he shuttered as a particularly nasty memory cropped up. "That wasn't funny, Bones!"
       "Oh, you were just scared 'cause you thought the skin rash was an STD..."
       "Mintakin Nerve Distension leaves a very distinct pattern under the skin and is incredibly deadly!" Jim hissed defensively.
       "There's no such thing as Mintakin Nerve Distension you half-wit, that Mintakin girl made it up cause she didn't want to sleep with you."
       Jim looked at him with an air of utter confusion. He repeated the words a few times under his breath, then shook his head. "Okay, I understand all of those words individually, but they don't make any sense when you put them together in that order..."
       "Jesus. I don't even know why I was so worried about you having the Benz. It's not as if one tiny stroke would have had any effect on that bloated mass you call your head.        Now I would be a lot less likely to have a stroke if you would shut up and sit still for forty minutes." He grumbled, without much hope of success. "This class is annoying enough without you trying to make me crazy. Here." he pulled his prescription pad out of his pocket and tossed it and a pen onto Jim's desk. "Amuse yourself, draw some pretty pictures or something..."
       Jim looked at McCoy, then down at the note pad before obediently picking up the pen and beginning to doodle. McCoy was pleased to have a few blessed moments of silence during which to attempt to decipher the nearly incoherent chatter of the professor.
       It was only about a minute before Jim shoved the notepad, now adorned by a large pair of breasts, back onto the doctor's desk. He gave Bones a sunny smile that, on any one else would say: I am such a lovable scamp!   On Jim Kirk's face however, the message was more sinister: I want to see what your face looks like when your heart explodes!
       Bones glared at him for a moment, before knocking the prescription pad away and turning back to the lecture. Of course he resented the fact that nearly a decade of schooling prior to joining the academy didn't excuse him from taking such inane, useless courses. Of course he was concerned about the fact that while he sat in this room trying to force his eyelids open three of his most important patients were undergoing invasive procedures without the reassurance of their primary physician. These feelings, however much they increased his desire to physically harm Lawrence Manion, didn't stop him from wanting to get an acceptable grade in the course. If he was required to waste his time on useless classes, he'd prefer to only do it once.
       He took notes for several more minutes in peace. Then several more after that. He was surprised to find that Jim was not nudging him in the ribs every couple of seconds to show him more crude drawings. He glanced over at the younger man, who looked very intent on his work, eyes down, tongue just poking out the side of his mouth. Bones leaned over slightly to get a look at what he'd drawn.
It wasn't a bad little cartoon of a horse. A rather grouchy looking horse, who glared off the page at something unseen. As he watched, Jim drew a tiny speech bubble and wrote in the words: "Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a horse!" He then beamed up at McCoy, who's confused frown now matched the animal's. The younger man feigned shock, pointing back and forth between Bones and the horse, as if surprised to see the resemblance.
       McCoy couldn't stop himself from asking. "Why the Hell am I a horse? Wait-no. Nevermind. I don't care." He doggedly returned his gaze to the theatrically gesticulating professor.
       Another several minutes passed with no comment from Kirk, and the Doctor hazarded a tiny glance at the notepad. A new page was now home to a series of tiny scribbles. They all depicted the same surly horse, who now sported one of those old-timey mirrors, that doctors of antiquity used to wear on their heads. It said things like.        "Yes, moron, you've got lung worms!" and "Stop being such an infant, at least you didn't loose both your legs!"  and "Yep. You're gonna die." This last was spoken to a small child, who was openly weeping.
       McCoy grunted uncomfortably, and shifted in his chair. Okay, so he wasn't Doctor Cuddles, but he cared, damnit! He looked away from Jim and focused with all his might on the professor's flailings, doing his best to ignore the rather harsh and uncalled for criticism presented by the cartoon horse.
       It was quite some time before Jim finally nudged him, and placed a new masterpiece in front of him. Now the horse, still scowling, stood in the middle of a crowd of scantily clad women, whose fawning attentions were torn between the crotchety equine and its rider-a burly man with a winsome smile who Jim clearly thought to be a good representation of himself. A rainbow spread out above them, and a sun-improbably wearing sunglasses-grinned over the tops of their heads. "The Adventures of Bones the Magical Pony!" the rainbow-which doubled as a banner-proclaimed.
McCoy reached out and snatched his notepad back from his younger friend, stuffing it into a jacket pocket.
       "Would you just go back to sleep already!" he snapped, more loudly than he had intended.
       "Mr. McCoy!" Though upset that his lecture had once again been interrupted, Professor Manion was nonetheless relieved to find that the disrupter wasnot James T. Kirk, or as he had come to think of him: The Tormentor. In his mind, anyone who wasn't James T. Kirk was fair game to give his Professor Speech to, and he was keen to use it on the cadet now sitting to Kirk's right.
       What he had failed to notice, however, was the look in McCoy's eyes. Something had clearly snapped. McCoy could handle the useless lesson, he could handle the drain on his time and resources, he could even handle a full term of suffering through Jim's special little cartoon hell, but he'd be damned if he was going to sit there and let that little pinhead call him Mister!
       "This is a classroom, Mr. McCoy, not a playground. This is a place of Higher Learning! Or, do you think-
       "That's Doctor McCoy you insufferable little idiot! I didn't spend the last seven years of my life up to my elbows in every fluid the human body is capable of producing, so that I could sit in a stuffy classroom and get lectured about Stupid Age Terran philosophy, by a "Professor" who couldn't find the front end of a phaser with both hands, and who certainly couldn't draw any logical connections between the class he is trying to teach and the academy he is supposedly teaching for! Christ, man, this is Starfleet! How about some philosophers from, I don't know, the stars?  I'm sure Vulcans have philosophers! They're probably duller than the ones we've got now, but just try broadening your horizons! The sky's the limit! Only it's not, cause we can go into space now!"
       Few people could withstand the awesome power of a true Leonard McCoy onslaught, and Professor Manion was no exception. He stared at the wild-eyed Doctor, who was red in the face and glaring down at him with frightening intensity. Manion wondered vaguely if "Crazy Eyes" was a diagnosable symptom of some kind of psychological ailment, because the Doctor certainly had them. Next to him, Jim Kirk looked positively gleeful as he waited for the massacre to continue.
       "Now, I've had enough of this. You can either excuse me from this class, on account of my being a doctor and having better things to do than sit on my ass listening to you flap your gums, or I can spend the rest of the term in here, wasting time that would be better spent tending to my patients."
       The word "patients" had a certain emphasis, the implied threat being: I am an unhinged Doctor, and I have access to your medical file.
       Manion swallowed, considering. He had, of course, the option of running to the admirals, but he doubted they'd be keen to go after one of their valued senior medical staff. Rumor had it that McCoy was a shoe-in for duty aboard the Enterprise, upon her completion, which meant that he probably had some kind of relationship with Captain Pike. The same Captain Pike who had been trying to get Lawrence Manion kicked out of Starfleet for nearly three years. He thought all of these things very quickly as he made up his mind.  He then attempted to salvage the lecture with as much dignity as possible.
       "Very well Dr. McCoy, considering your, er, special circumstances, I shall certainly overlook your little outburst here today and sign the appropriate documents excusing you from the requirement..."
       "Thank you." McCoy growled. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go reattach a man's leg before infection sets in." He stalked out of the lecture hall and made his way toward the base's hospital. Before he made it through the front doors, however, an eager, young first-year cadet sprinted up the steps toward him.
       "Dr. McCoy, Dr. McCoy!" he shouted, though McCoy was clearly looking right at him. "Mr. Kirk sent this for you, sir. Said it was urgent!" The youth gave a very sharp salute, desperate for some kind of recognition for a job well done. McCoy sighed. He wasn't usually one for pandering to the gullible, but it wasn't this kid's fault that Jim was an idiot. Besides, he was feeling pretty good about himself.
       "Yes, thank you. Uh...good work, kid." He thumped the youth firmly on the back. "As you were."
       Disappointed that he wouldn't get to hear the message, or be a part of any action that may have resulted from its contents, the cadet drifted off listlessly.
       McCoy unfolded the paper, which Jim had clearly borrowed from another classmate since Bones's prescription pad was back in his pocket. Scribbled onto the paper, the surly horse now stood erect, with its front hooves on its hips, though it had long since passed surly and moved straight into batshit crazy. It was screaming obscenities and next to it, the burly figure who had been riding it in the previous drawing now had both hands clasped in front of him, eyes wide with awe.
       My hero!
       Bones crumpled up the paper and dropped onto the steps before continuing inside, into the soothing chaos of one of Starfleet's busiest hospitals.