Written for the letsdiscover community challenge over on LJ

Title: I Feel Like A Kid

Rating: R

Prompt: #14 Be Kids Again

Disclaimer: I own nothing, it all belongs to Bill Lawerence


He doesn't know how he got talked into this girly bullshit… Well, that's a lie, he does know how he got talked into this stupid expedition. It involved a pouting J.D., his cute ass, and the threat of a sex embargo…

"Either you go with me and don't complain, or you'll never see this again," He emphasizes his point by turning around and slapping his ass. "Booyah."

That was the problem of having a relationship with J.D. … There was just enough of a girl in him to be that cruel. Holy crap he'd thought it'd be easier to have a relationship with a guy… no need for cuddling, small talk, answering awkward questions ---

"Do these jeans make my ass look big?"

Those blue doe eyes fix on him and he freezes. How does he answer this question? If this were Jordan he'd tell her 'hell yes, your ass looks bigger than ever' --- but look how that relationship turned out. If this were another woman he knows that the standard answer is supposed to be 'no'; even if it is a horrendous lie and those jeans really ought to have a 'wide load' sign strapped across the back of them… and possibly a flag car to warn other motorists…

Yes, the jeans do make his butt look bigger, but if he tells him that then it'll send him into a shame spiral: he'll have to spend a half-hour trying to get him back out of the closet and then they'll have missed the movie. If he lies and one of his girlfriends tells him the truth (Carla never can keep her mouth shut when she has an opinion), then he'll get it for not being honest. It's not as if the jeans make him horrendously unattractive ---

"Yeah," he grunts, before grabbing a handful of ass and squeezing, "Don't change."

As J.D. gives him a goofy turned-on smile, he congratulates himself for giving the correct answer for once…

He stares at the round blank sheet of paper in front of him, and a tiny part of him wonders if all this is worth it. He used to spend his day off stretched out on the couch calling the commentators on ESPN idiots; now he was driving halfway across town to do art projects with his boy/girlfriend. People that used to be scared of him now snigger behind his back that he's just "compensating"; as if there's some sort of softy pushover he's been trying to hide behind his bad ass front.

It had been so much easier with Jordan; she'd never expected anything of him. She wasn't the romantic type. Sure there was the cheating and the mind games, but was that so bad in comparison to this? There weren't any stupid outings, or board game nights…

"Whatcha drawing…" J.D. asks, leaning across the table. Instinctively, he shields the paper with his forearm. "C'mon… I'll show you mine…" He holds up his paper… he can see a unicorn sorry, horse with a sword on its head… as if that magically made it less effeminate…, and two stick figures riding on it's back one with spikey brown and the other with a curly orange afro.

He opens his mouth to comment on the lack of artistic skill --- only to have J.D. snatch the paper out from under him. Tricky little bastard

"It's blank…"

"This is stupid."

"C'mon, you're taking this too seriously --- didn't you color as a kid?"

"I liked hide-n-seek better…" He grumbled.

J.D. gives him that look… the one where he turns and cocks his head like the damn RCA dog and squints at you, and you can see the little hamster wheels churning at max capacity behind his eyes as he tries to decide whether or not there's more to what you're saying than what's on the surface.

Then J.D. will start talking not-half-as-subtly-as-he-thinks about his family: how Dad was never there, how Mom was a whore (although J.D. will deny it to his last breath), how Dan was a terrible older brother --- trying to establish empathy in the hopes that he'll "open up" about his own past.

So his childhood was rotten, who cares? Childhood was overrated… honestly, he couldn't understand J.D.'s obsession with recreating it. Childhood was just that interminable period of eighteen long years where other people could punish you with impunity and drinking scotch was a something that could get you thrown in juvie hall. Why would he want to go back to that?

So why did he stay with J.D.? Why did he put himself through all the hassle of living with a god damned Peter Pan? Why didn't he just tell J.D. to blow this whole thing out his ass?

"Well, draw me then."

"What was that, Hildy?"

"If you can't think of anything else to draw, then you can draw me," J.D. said, batting his eyelashes obnoxiously as he posed. "Just don't draw me from the right --- it makes me look jowly…"

He heaves a put-upon sigh, picks up a black marker and begins marking out the contours of J.D.'s head; if only to shut him up for a few minutes.

He'd always hated art when he was in school, mostly because he'd been terrible at it… If J.D. laughed at this stupid drawing, so help him, he was going to rearrange his face until his drawing was a lifelike portrait….

The longer he draws though, the more he gets into it. He even finds himself trying to decide which blue marker was a closer match to the color of J.D.'s eyes. He never remembered art being so engrossing before ---

When he finally finishes, he realizes how awful it really is --- it looks like something a heavily inebriated 5 year old Picasso would draw. He's about to crumple it into a ball and make his way to the nearest bar to toast to his newest failed relationship when J.D. rips it out of his hands again.

He can feel all his muscles tense as he anticipates J.D.'s response. What's this supposed to be? It doesn't look a thing like me; this looks like a piece of shit --- Then J.D. will laugh and he'll be forced to kill him.

He's a doctor goddammit, why did he have to be good at anything else? You'd think being able to save people's lives everyday would cut you a god damned break. At least he didn't draw unicorns and then try to pretend they were manly. He wasn't in complete denial about his adulthood, trying to pathetically grasp on to the last strings of his childhood. Christ! Why the hell was he with this immature little kid ---

"I love it," J.D. says, after kissing him.

He watches J.D. go up and hand over the slips of paper, then flirt harmlessly with the girl in the apron behind the counter.

He just doesn't understand their relationship: It feels like every day he's ready to throw in the towel and go back to living alone; then J.D. does something and he can't believe he thought something so boneheaded in the first place.

J.D. returns a short while later, two warm plastic plates in his hands and a grin on his face.

"See, told you this would be fun," J.D. crows, holding out his plate to him.

He looks at J.D.'s mismatched eyes on the plate and still thinks the entire thing looks like crap. If he didn't know that J.D. was incapable of deception except in life threatening situations, he'd have thought he was placating him like a child.

Being with J.D. made him feel like a child --- starving for any scrap of approval. There had been a time where he'd been the same with Jordan; towards the end of their marriage he could feel her slipping away, but was at a loss over what to do about it. But this terrible hunger for affection was almost constant when he was with J.D. …

He thought he did a good job of repressing it most of the time; then J.D. would drag him off on some stupid outing. A part of him was always terrified that he'd do something wrong and irreparably damage their relationship, because if there was one other thing he was good at besides being a doctor, it was screwing up good things.

"Love you," J.D. whispers just before going in for another kiss. The only benefit of being so desperate was that J.D. gave his love so freely. He'd never been given such unconditional love before… which made him all the more determined not to fuck this relationship up.

"Whatever, Georgia…" He grunts, after finishing the kiss.