Jessie was young, handsome, the star quarterback on his high school football team and yet somehow he managed not to be a total meat head. In for an ACL repair that'd salvage his chances at a football scholarship. A simple surgery, hell he was only turfed to medicine for the surgery prep and post-op.
He should've been out and gone within a few days, just another almost faceless patient in the sea of people he gets to look and just barely touched.
Except, stupid him, he got attached. So of course the kid catches MRSA and dies.
So he's here at the bar and seriously reconsidering the advice that the elder in Egegik gave him about completing his unfinished business and returning to medical school. Because even though he's just an intern, he should've been checking that wound more carefully, he should've been careful about who they placed in the room with him –
He shouldn't have liked the kid. He shouldn't have seen a shadow of himself at that age, all young and irrepressible and not embittered yet by what a shit factory the world really was.
Sitting in the bar, drowning his sorrows, he decides to hand in his resignation tomorrow – because this, this is bullshit that people come to hospitals and get sick because of things that only grow within hospital. It was bullshit that he had to break it to the parents just what had happened to their shining son – that all the things they'd dreaming for him would now be just dreams.
Even more bullshit was the fact that he couldn't tell anyone about it – certainly not his fellow interns (Lucy would try to kill him with comfort and Cole was about as deep as puddle and he'd be going to jail for murder if the jackass even tried).
He should be able to turn to Denise – after all she was the more experienced physician of the two of them. Except they were also fucking and Denise had this weird thing for a girl where she didn't want to talk about her feelings. Which he was cool with, most of the time –
-- Except he'd like to talk to her about this without her calling him a pussy.
Since he's going to fuck things up anyway, he gives 'the look' to one of the tipsy college girls clinging to the edge of the bar. Her face lights up and she begins making his way towards him.
She's almost to him – god he can smell the tequila on her breath, this is going to be one of those mistakes that he's going to remember for a long time – Denise is going to inflict some permanent wounds for this insult –
A man stands between them, and he's so drunk it takes a few moments to realize that he knows the man.
"Move it along you little skank, this one's taken," the red haired man growls, before taking a seat down beside him.
He watches the bar skank – his fuck up – stumble away, the worlds come tumbling out of his mouth:
"WHORE!"
Sharp blue eyes flick over to him even as that hand with it's band of gold around the finger motions the bartender to bring over two more scotches.
"What did you call me?"
He doesn't know why Dr. Cox has chosen him as his number one med student and now intern (the pink shirt is in it's tenth generation and has acquired glittery paint), but he knows that he's let his little tic slip in front of the worst person possible. Cox is never going to let him live this down. Ever.
"It's – uh, it's something I say when I'm angry," He mutters, accept the glass of scotch pushed towards him.
"Reeeehheeaaalllyyy," Cox drawls out, the glass of scotch raised to his lips. "Wonder how that charming little phrase came about," A hand rises up to stop words that aren't even coming, "Wait, wait, don't tell me, you're the whore."
"…sometimes," He grumbles, downing half the scotch in glass. "You're going to punish me aren't you?"
Cox raises an eyebrow that clearly says "You have to ask? You're dumber than I thought". Funny, Cox's eyebrows could communicate paragraphs clearly while most people were still stumbling to get the words out of their mouth.
"I thought you were with Mahoney," Cox says after a pause, his eyes focused on the scotch glass, which he appreciates.
"Not after tonight… although I'm going to have to find someone else to fuck it up with since you chased Cindy away."
"You knew her?"
"Naw, but she looks like a Cindy."
"You realize Mahoney will make your life a goddamn hell for cheating on her – take my word, you don't fuck around on women like her. They can fuck around on you," Dr. Cox suddenly looks bitter as he takes another swig. "You don't fuck around on them."
"Yeah, well, I don't plan on sticking around long enough to castrate me. Guess I'm an assassin just like you said."
"This isn't about that kid, is it," Cox says in an almost bored voice and all the sudden he's so angry. God forbid they have an actual mentor-student conversation – If he wanted to be blown off he would've just gone to Denise and told her how he 'felt'.
"Yes, yes it is about that kid, that kid who was going to play for goddamn Notre Dame and now is never going to because I killed him. I knew coming back to school was a mistake – I knew it and I let myself get fooled into thinking that I was something other than the screw up I've always been. And before you start into that bullshit about having to deal with this as a doctor, you tell me how many people you've killed and –"
"Four, actively. Plus god knows how many on accident," Cox responds without a beat, eyes glowing oddly in the dimly lit bar. "Four people aren't walking around because I was too impatient to wait, or I made the wrong call – not because some opportunistic infection that only came about because the idiots we help don't listen."
Well, when you put it like that it does seem rather silly.
"I'm going to fuck it up with Denise anyway, so I--"
"Jesus, you're a miserable fucking drunk. If I'd have known you were going to be such a goddamn Chatty Cathy I would've just gone to the liquor store and drunk myself to sleep in my own home," Cox snarls, but in contradiction to his words he grabs his wrist, throws down a wad of cash on the bar, and yanks him off the stool and drags him outside. He's only now learning how and when to expect these sudden turns of attitude from Cox – although 'expect' is a rather generous because Cox's moods shift faster than a bipolar with crack withdrawls.
Somehow – he's too drunk to be really paying attention to anything more than not throwing up on the bottom of the cab – they end up in what must be Dr. Cox's apartment. He gets the feeling that weirdo doc his first year in med school here – what's his name – would be jealous.
"So your plan was to what – fuck some bar skank and tell Mahoney all about it?"
"Pretty much."
Cox rolls his eyes in an exaggerated gesture that says "You're a fucking moron, god, why are you stealing my oxygen".
He stumbles as Cox shoves him against the wall, their chests just barely touching. Cox's eyebrow is raised critically, and he feels himself being weighed and measured again – and it pisses him off so he shoves him back.
Cox snarls and pushes him back against the wall with far more strength than a man of his age should.
He pushes back.
They lash out at each other in some weird sort of wrestling – they have an unspoken agreement to no punches, and after he bites down on Cox's shoulder and the man doesn't return it, no teeth.
Then the wrestling becomes decidedly Greco-Roman when he realizes that despite Cox's age he's got a weight and strength advantage. He reaches down for a cheap shot to Cox's groin to try and throw the man off him – and is shocked when Cox's hip rises up to greet it. So surprised that he lets out a groan when Cox returns the favor.
Soon they're both rutting against each other and Drew wonders if he comes first if that means he's lost the fight. He doesn't mind though as the heel of Cox's palm grinds down.
His orgasm comes quick and sharp, and is done before he can even savor the sensation. Cox collapses beside him and he realizes hazily they're still in the hall – damn.
Really, this has to be the best mistake he's made in awhile – sleeping with the bar skank would have been a big mistake – with Cox he's in the clear. Because what they did wasn't gay – at leastaccording to his cell mate – and Cox wasn't going to mouth off to Denise, because he's got a wife –
Oh god, they're in his apartment – where his family lives.
"Where's Mrs. Cox--" He asks, because they are in so much shit if she's here – he's heard stories about Cox's wife, and she is apparently the last person you want to cross.
"San Francisco."
"Vacation?"
Cox snorts. "More like forever, this time."
His eyes drift down the wedding band still around the man's finger, and he frowns. The gossip pool at Sacred Heart is vicious and quick to spread the juiciest morsels amongst it's schools of sharks– and he's never heard of Cox's wife leaving him.
"You haven't told anyone."
"No, because what's the goddamn point," Cox grumbles, "It's the same god damn story every fucking time."
Cox sits up, staring down at him with distant eyes. "Now, go home and tell Mahoney how you feel."
"Jesus, she'll murder me. She'll tell me exactly what you told me – stop being such a goddamn pussy."
Cox sneers and rolls his eyes like he's being obtuse and he feels his smoldering anger flare again ever so slightly.
"Then have her tell you about the time she overdosed a patient with heparin, and then tell her how you feel. You two are good for each other, work out your problems now before you both are too damaged."
Cox stands and heads down the hallway to what must be the bedroom, leaving him lying on the floor with cooling semen on his jeans.
"What do you know about it?"
Cox pauses, looking at him over his shoulder.
"Know why I like you more than all those other kissups?"
"Because I'm your '#1'?"
"No, because you're just like me – only you've got a chance at getting it right."
"Really – being a 37 year old intern just says responsible citizen doesn't it?"
"I could've been Chief of Medicine a full ten years earlier if I'd pulled my head out of my ass – and if Jordan and I hadn't spent a good fifteen years ripping each other to pieces we might have made it this time. Keep going the way you're going in fifteen years you're going to be me."
"…does that make you jerking me off narcissism?"
Cox's eyebrow rises in an amused sort of way and tells him to lock the door on the way out.
***///***///***