Title: The Doctor Is In
Character(s): Doc Worth
Other: This is AU. And it contains swears, oh no! And mentions of self injury. But this is the Doc we're talking about, so... At this time, currently a oneshot.
Summary: There's a lot of things Worth dreamed about being when he grew up. His current 'profession' was not one of those dreams.
There were a lot of things Worth had dreamed about being when he was a kid. There was a time in grade school when he wanted to be a fireman after a neighbor's house was destroyed by one. It was his passion for a whole month until he learned that fireman helped put out the fires and didn't actually start them. Where the fuck was the fun in that?
Then there was that time in middle school where he wanted to be a porn director. None of that Hollywood A-lister bullshit, but a down and dirty sex directing badass. Now that dream he held on to for an entire year. And all that porn he watched? That was what Worth called some good ol' fashioned research. His parents didn't quite see it that way when they caught him with his pants down in front of the computer, and that lead to one of his first trips to a shrink.
For a couple of days he thought that maybe being a shrink on the side of his porn directing business wouldn't be so bad because it'd be funny as hell to fuck with someone's head, but the idea lost its appeal when he realized he'd have to listen to people talk about their shit lives and have to pretend to give a damn. Pretending to give a damn wasn't exactly his strong suit. He did get an hour to live out his porn director dream, though, during one of his sessions. It wasn't long after that his shrink was smiling nervously at Worth's parents and telling them that he was just fine now and wouldn't need to attend anymore. At the end of that last session Worth slipped her the 'original' of the tape for keeping her end of the deal.
Oddly enough the dream of becoming a wrestler during his first year of high school wasn't his, but that of a few of his friends. Or what Worth could call friends, he supposed, though he didn't really give a fuck about them and he was pretty sure they just tolerated him so as not to get the shit beat out of them. He was good at fighting, though. So when one of them suggested that he be a wrestler for the twentieth time, none of them could understand why Worth punched the guy's lights out.
The thing Worth liked about fights was their unpredictability. No scripts, no rules, just fists and legs and whatever was lying around that could be used as a weapon. He didn't play fight, and if someone tried they were taught real quick that Worth wasn't into anything light. He fought as if his life was on the line, and a few times it was. There really was nothing like the sound and feel of bones cracking, or the look of a bruised eye change colors as it swelled shut and opened back up again. It fascinated him to no end.
Which is why Worth continued to fight after his parents took everything they could away from him and his room was nothing but plain walls and a mattress on the floor. Shrink number two gave up after a few months and told his family that he couldn't help their troubled son. Worth couldn't help the smile that would come as he talked to his parents about all his different wounds and how they felt and changed, their eyes darting to each other in worry. His younger sister didn't pay much attention to his talk and would just want him to keep his fucking weird-ass self away from her and her friends.
His senior year he decided his dream would be to become a doctor. It fit to him. Now he could study other people and their wounds. Not that it wasn't fun to watch himself bleed, but he could only cut himself so far and study how the wounds healed. He'd be a surgeon where they were paid to cut people open and, okay yeah, he'd have to fix their insides, but it was a small, inconvenient price to pay for what he would be privy to. Of course his parents thought it was all a joke until they actually saw him getting medical books from the library and reading them. Worth just decided not to share the fact that he was really just interested in what could cause the most damage without killing someone else, or himself.
So as he sat on the rooftop of one of the university buildings now that he was into his first year of pre-med, he could maybe see how he got into his current 'profession.' That understanding didn't keep him from thinking that maybe he was actually off his rocker. Maybe it was his light use of drugs or the alcohol or his chain-smoking that finally did him in, but then every other university student would be sitting up here thinking about their damn childhood while wearing leather and a mask.
The phone on his belt beeped and Worth nearly thanked the God that he didn't believe in for pulling him out of the damn near pity party he was about to throw for himself. As he read the good news he smiled and stood up. A group of highschoolers were planning to kick someone's ass, and one of the dumb as fuck members decided to post about it online. That suited Worth just fine, and he used their stupidity to his advantage to find out where they'd be.
He tucked the phone back firmly in its spot on his belt before running his fingers along the front, making sure he had everything. Five scalpels, five needled syringes filled with random chemicals he found in the labs and dorm rooms, two white clothes and a small bottle of anesthetic , a reflex hammer and a three long pieces of medical tubing. It made him damn near giddy feeling everything there, but he didn't have time for that.
Worth jogged over to the other side of the roof and took the fire escape down as quietly as he could. Once his feet hit the ground he ran the grounds, keeping off the cement paths and out of the light patches that cut into the dark campus until he reached his motorcycle in the parking lot. Out of one pocket he pulled out his home-made scrub hat, white to match his jacket, though the hat lacked fur trim. His other pocket held his gloves, and he put those on before getting on the bike and bringing her to life.
As he drove the few miles to his destination he fantasized what it would be like when he got there. He'd had his share of fights before, even in his new 'profession,' but each time was like the first time. Now he was even starting to get a bit of a reputation, but it was still small scale stuff. None of that shit really mattered. What mattered was the fight, and the feel and the after effects. Since it was high school kids he hoped there would be at least seven. High school kids tended to be shit fighters, at least in this area. Maybe they'd actually do some damage and he'd have a night where he wouldn't have to do it his fucking self.
Oh, and he supposed he'd save the kid who was going to get his ass kicked, too.
No more thinking about all the childhood crap or quite how he'd gotten to where he was. He was just here. Somehow, between wanting to be a fireman, a porn director and a doctor, Worth had ended up becoming some sort of fucked up superhero.