#and when said friend decided to – in mccoy's opinion – to ruin his life by accepting a promotion and sit behind a desk mccoy

[lenievi]

a ‘verse where the reason why McCoy joined a starship was hope that it would allow him to find cures for diseases that still didn’t have any

until the moment when his father died, he didn’t take his service in Starfleet seriously. He joined on a spur of the moment after he was down from his divorce and saw an advert at the young age of 24, and he randomly jumped from assignment to assignment for years, helping where he could, living in the moment, never staying anywhere for long, never getting along with the commanding officers

until he returned to Earth, until he hopelessly sat at his father’s bedside, trying to find anything that would help with the limited capacities he had available, and failed to save his father

so when a word from his old friend came that he would offer him a ship’s surgeon position on a Constitution-class starship that would patrol and explore unknown or lesser known parts of their quadrant if he wanted it, he saw a new path for himself in Kirk’s words and offer and hope that perhaps he could find new cures while exploring and accepted