Title: My Poison
Summary: JD and Dr. Cox at a bar together. They both try to get to know the other person a little better and a few things are resolved between the two.
Notes: There is dangerously low levels of Dr. Cox angst on I'm just not going to stand for it any more! This is set somewhere around season one I guess.

It was pretty unusual for us to be at a bar together.

It was damn unusual, but then I knew that like most times when Dr. Cox actually wanted my company it was because he didn't have anything better to do. Or maybe he didn't want to burden those real friends of his with his excessive drinking. That's one thing that bugged me, he had all these friends he called upon to share all the games with, invite them to his place, get drinks and food in and have a great time, but me, I wasn't good enough for those events, just the guy who got to be with him in these moods.

"Same again." He told the bartender.

I wouldn't mind so much, but he never even talks to me when we come out here. He sits here getting more drunk and depressed, then he stumbles off home. I don't understand how he can go day to day like this, because no matter what he'll act like tomorrow, I know there's something deeper in him that knows there's something wrong.

The bartender places the scotch down in front of him and one in front of me, which I never drink. Cox knows I won't drink it, so he does once his finished his. He knows I'll drink appletini, but he doesn't want me here as his drinking buddy, he just wants someone here. I guess it doesn't matter who it is.

Turk thinks I'm an idiot for not standing up for myself and always coming out to bars at some stupid hour of the night with him, and I guess his right, because Dr. Cox has really done anything nice for me that's not part of his job, but I guess I want to be here, and that's all that there is to it. Elliott feels pretty much the same way. Carla's the only person who seems beyond the person that Dr. Cox puts out there. He's not the scary boss, well, he is, but there's more to him than that.

Dr. Cox takes the drink in front of me, downs it and bangs the glass back on the table. "I'm done." He hands me over his wallet, something that I made sure I got after the first time I got landed with one of his huge drinking tabs, and he walks away.
I hand the barman several notes, enough to cover the tab and a little extra. It's not like Dr. Cox even cares. I rush out to catch up with him, knowing that as much alcohol he's consumed, he's still able to walk very straight and very quick. When I do, I match his pace as he makes the journey back to his apartment. I decide that if I'm going to come out with him on these depressing drowning sessions I deserve to know what it's all about.

"You know what I don't get about you, Dr. Cox? Why you always drag me along for these trips. I mean, you don't like me enough to invite me into your life, but getting drunk is different in some way?"

"Why do you always want to be in my life? What do you think I have that Gandhi doesn't?"

I ignore his question, I asked first! "Seriously, why me? Why not anyone else? You get on with Carla."

"Is it because I seem like a 'grown up' to you?" Dr Cox continues with his own questions, ignoring mine. "Is it just because I do push you away that you come right back?"

"You have a group of people outside of work that you invite over to watch some football game with, but you never ask them to come out and get drunk with you, don't you want them to see you lose control? Maybe you're worried because you think they'll lose respect for you if they see the real you."

"Do you see me as a father figure, or am I more like the type of doctor you think you'll end up being?" Dr Cox suddenly stops walking looking at me. His eyes are glassy and I figure the drinks obviously taking affect on him. "Either one, you don't want me in your life. I'm like a poison that'll destroy you. I'll eat away at you slowly and kill your spirit. And then you'll end up like a dead rotten corpse walking around the hospital, putting on an act so everyone thinks that you're such a prick that they won't ever want to know you. Why doesn't that even work on you?"

"My first day I thought you were a jerk, but you came through for me in the end."

"It's my job. Honestly newbie, you couldn't do anything. It was either take the softly approach which you react so well to, or kick your ass outta there because you had just failed on day one of the job. You know what you've done since then? Continually under-achieved. I actually thought maybe you'd end up a great doctor, but everything scares you and you always end up running to me."

Dr Cox has a way of lashing out in moments like this. I ignore the comments that are supposed to throw me off guard and focus on the matter at hand.
"I always run to you because you always help me. And not even in a 'it's my job' way. Whether I need a lecture or the 'soft' approach, you know what I need and you do it. I know that you'll never really accept me into your life. I know we'll never be friends and I know you'll never admit you're my mentor. But that doesn't matter to me if I never hear you say it because to me, you already are all those things. You're everything that I need to get me through working at the hospital. Maybe if you'd ever let me in I could help you out more than on these drinking trips, you might get something outta this too. But you already know that you'd only have to say the word and I'd do whatever I could to help you."

Dr Cox didn't really say anything at first, he looked down for a little while and then looked in the direction of his apartment. "It might not be the way you deal with things, but doing this... drinking at bars in the middle of the night, even if I don't say a word... that's what helps me." He looks at me then. "And, from everyone at that hospital and all the guys I invite to my apartment to hang out with, there's not one of them I'd rather have there with me than you. And I don't even know why."

With that, Dr Cox carried on walking back to his apartment.
And I didn't follow him any more because right then, I knew he'd told me something that he wouldn't have told anyone else.
And suddenly, I didn't feel like such an idiot coming to the bar and watching him drink all night. Maybe next time I'd make sure I took my wallet and treat myself to a few appletini's and buy Dr Cox a scotch or two.

Because we may not be friends like me and Turk are, but there was something there.
And just like Dr Cox didn't know why he liked having me with him at the bar, I don't know how to define out friendship because I knew things would be the same as usual tomorrow at the hospital. But that was okay.
That's how I liked it.

Fini