a/n:

time escapes me- translation, I've completely lost track of time, I'm very frustrated and overwhelmed by life right now, I wanted to get this chapter just right

side note: I always wished JD had actually been more present for Doctor Cox when Ben died, he talks about how this man is his hero and all but in the end his actions don't always follow through. anyway, I'm sorry if anyone feels like his apology about the ordeal was superfluous, but for me it was really, absolutely needed and I'm glad I included it in this chapter (...or is this just more projection on my part? obviously)

also, slight communication this chapter- yay!

but also deflection and misinterpretation of one's actions- nay!

. . .

Fold

JD thinks he might be on the verge of the most low-level, most unsettlingly ridiculous panic attack ever. Which is not only a load of crap, but a multi-dimensional load at that. Considering that on one hand, experiencing a debilitating emotional instability just generally sucks all around, no matter the circumstances. Not to mention he is currently on the clock, and hunched with his head in his hands over one of the cots in the empty on call room when he is supposed to be working- which he already feels he hasn't managed a great deal of, lately.

And here comes the cherry on top of the second hand's crapload, as it turns out you can never lay low long enough inside a hospital- and the person to unearth his (not very secretive) travesty of a haven is coincidentally the very same he has done his utmost to avoid like the plague.

"Did I just stumble across your new hiding spot or was the nearest supply closet already taken?" Doctor Cox inquires as apathetically as he would a medical question during rounds, maybe to solicit a rejoinder from him. Then again, maybe not.

But JD is too self-aware of the second degree smoulder of detachment ignited by the rift in between them, and far too worn at the moment to have a knee-jerk reaction to him.

"Is that what you tell all the girls or am I just the lucky one?" He manages back, around the hollow impression of amusement. It feels like a shot too wide of the mark, too phoney and flat, as the rest of every (mostly one-sided) conversation he has had with anyone else up until now.

There is a shred of cognizance pulling at his conscious, and he doesn't know if it's self-preservation or any other reservation he might have towards himself, or something else entirely, but it's acute enough to steer him away from the pretence that nothing is wrong; because something is definitely and undoubtedly wrong and it's scratching too dangerously close to his core.

"Care to share why you've cooped yourself up here during your supposed shift," Doctor Cox keeps on with a marginally widened grin, the slight tickle to his jaw, which might be annoyance as well as another subject matter altogether, is detectable even with JD's eyes sealed shut. "Or is that a hush hush topic you're only allowed to have with your sorority sisters while you braid each other's hair?"

JD exhales through his nose, another empty attempt at a chuckle escaping his parted lips. "So you're not into the false sense of security they lull you in under free recruitment and the cutthroat competition with the pretext of niceties? That's what you're saying? Shame, and here I thought you'd be interested in our little circle."

Doctor Cox decimates the back and forth of mindless question-on-question diversion with a retort that hits a little too closely a little too soon. "Now, that would imply I actually cared- and while I don't give a rat's ass about what anyone might conjure up in those empty little excuses of brain matter, I do try my very, very best to avoid this specific misunderstanding."

The pretence of a simper drops instantaneously swift from JD's face, as if scorched away from him. His fingers draw tighter across his scalp, knuckles fading white.

A sliver of him wants to talk right back, wants to bring up in accusal, wants to ask why is he here right now; but, like Doctor Cox put forth, that would imply the man does care, and JD can't allow himself the luxury of that delusion any longer.

"…Cake." He utters after a stifling silence, without needing to be niggled any further.

The absurd, ridiculous, pathetic reason for his abrupt need of escapism, is nothing other than one of the newer staff members' birthday, since being more than a decent human being many thought it would be nice to throw her an impromptu party. And on any other occasion JD would have also been there to celebrate, trying to be the life of the party, splurge on sweets and sugary drinks, maybe even try to stomp down his own jealousy at a colleague being at the center of attention and getting coddled by the staff, many of which he considers friends. At the moment, however, he can't muddle through much else but the feeling of a distant, flinching dread having taken residence inside his gut.

Doctor Cox pauses too, but his is a more 'is this moron seriously pranking me and what's his death wish' falter. Or at least, JD thinks so. "I don't think I caught that, run it by me again? Just make sure that it actually, you know, makes sense this time around."

"Cake." JD enunciates a dash more forcefully, for the first time raising his head enough to look through the pads of his fingers, through the red rimmed circle of exhaustion below his eyes, at the silhouette laying a shadow over his curled form. "I've 'cooped myself up in here' because of… cake." He didn't think it possible, it sounds even worse said out loud, what the hell. "Because it's… when someone in our family- when they-" It seems his mouth has a mind of its own as it runs off, stumbling across words as if losing in an obstacle course. "when someone-" He grits his teeth, not wanting mere letters to wield this much power over him, and all the same almost choking on them. "-passes away, that's what we bring… cake." He lets his forehead fall on his open hand once more, feeling the worry lines of his expression dig into his palm. "It's what Dan brought me the day our…" And this is where he finally trails off with a waning tone, eyes trained on the ground and clenching shut of their own accord.

He can't see how the older man is taking his reply, or what expression he is showcasing, or if anything shows at all. He doesn't want to, either, when he feels the telltale pinprick of ignominy shudder down his spine. And how pitiful is it, confining himself inside the first four vacant walls he found because he can't even stand the sight of an everyday occurrence in everyone else's life. What the actual hell has his life turned into.

"Could you let it go just this once?" He finds himself trying to appeal to a scrap of the other man's mercy before he can even fully grasp his mouth is running again. "I'll stay here until…" Until what? Until the party is over? Until the day is over? Until the consternation subsides just enough for him to be able to walk without wanting to double over every stride, when he knows there are reminders of his personal tragedy every step of the way, when at home it just gets worse? "I'd really rather not hear about how pathetic I am right now, and I know it's a big favor to ask of you and you're free to tear me down later for as long as you want… but just not now."

"Newbie." Doctor Cox starts, something closed and guarded pigmenting his tone.

"Please." JD cuts him off, he's shaking his head, as if giving out a warning before he ends up combusting from the overload of emotion. Both hands cover his face, the heels of his palms are pressing in so hard against his eyelids he can see infinite, washed out dots streaking his darkened vision. "...I can't do this right now."

It's as if the admission is being punched out of him, and a new river of shame floods down his spine as his shoulders cave beneath the unseen rainfall of it all.

"...I'm sorry I was so shitty to you." He exhales all of a sudden in the rush of a strangled mumble.

The quietude that greets him in return should prevail in locking his jaw shut and let the rest of his speech fade, but it only seems to amplify the oppressive weight wrapped around him like a claok instead.

"When you..." The worst thing beyond all else, JD thinks, is the hopelessness of the guilt, sitting inside him like a phantasm he can't throw out, like an abstraction his fingers can only touch through; always a reminder, but never a concrete burden he can rid himself of. "-when you... lost your best friend." He folds in on himself, the cold shock of tears dampening the line of his eyes and clumping together his lashes. "...I should have been there for you." He should have. Like he should have been there when his father- "The actual truth is- I was... scared shitless. And I didn't understand-"

He didn't understand loss- not the way does now- thinking it was only an outside process people go through, a motion he felt entitled to keeping his distance from.

"Shit." He curses lowly through teeth grinding, through the cavernous pit in his ribcage blame swallows around of, through a stria of culpability that grows, that starts from a beginning but shows no end in sight. "Shit. I'm sorry. I should've- I'm sorry-"

On his end Doctor Cox has gone eerily quiet and JD sees the moment is as good as any to clamp his mouth shut when every uttered sentence only succeeded in leaving him emptier than he felt already. The resounding silence is as trying as it is peaceful, almost, and for as long as it lasts he revels inside it.

"...You're choosing to bring that up now, seriously." Doctor Cox poses in not much of a question, after perhaps a minute of nothingness; a nick of stitched sorrow bleeds open into his voice, into the rift between them. But he catches himself terrifyingly quick, reverting back into a more neutral, if cautious, ground. "Last I checked that wasn't your business to deal with."

Something bruises the inside of his lungs and he needs to let it out. "Oh, come on, Doctor Cox. You know as well as I do how much I idolize you." He emphasizes, and a veiled threat encompasses the normally affable meaning behind it. This truth sounds a little too splenetic to his own ears now. "And despite that I couldn't even- I wasn't there for you." When he had needed it most, when he had needed support, a silent shoulder to lean on, a safe place to grieve, and what had JD done? He'd just up and fucked off at the first chance that had landed at his feet. "How do you..."

JD pushes his dry lips against the clammy skin of his hands because he wants to scream- he is so disgustingly mad it's appalling, and all he wants to do is scream until his chest hurts, until his eyes run dry. Until he cannot feel anything else around the swallow of blame constricting his ribcage, anything at all.

"...God, how can you even stand being around me right now?" It's the most sincere thing he has pushed out of himself in days, in weeks, in months maybe, voice a pinch of self-deprecating rumble that cuts across the static inside his head. "I can't even stand being around me right now."

The other man has taken to crossing his arms as he observes the pitiful spectacle he's putting on, clicking his tongue in some sort of interwoven, ironic amusement. "I wasn't aware we were at the bitter 'shit talking myself' stage of the week just yet. Must have missed marking the date on my calendar." He sounds the posturing side of mockery he usually crests on, but the wrong shade of jaded too.

JD shoots him a glare, hardened by the onslaught of panic and tears and spleen. "I'm serious."

"So am I?" Doctor Cox hits back with the sharpness of his stretching half smirk.

But the very air feels puncturing, the cross of Doctor Cox's arms goes stiffening whilst JD's body is a seizing mass of anxiety, they're both coiled springs about to recoil- a callous comment out of place and the whole fragile structure of the house of cards winds up shattering.

Until Doctor Cox is breaking eye contact.

The man exhales a slow, long breath, quiet like the scorn edging around his chuckle. "...You're so damn naive."

God, he really is, isn't he?

His throat tightens around bubble wet laughter. "...yeah, guess I am."

Which is why it comes with the same shock of an ice cold shower when Doctor Cox is adding next, "Get up."

JD blinks, repeatedly, losing control of his limbs as his neck swiftly snaps up. "But-"

"Your shift is over." Doctor Cox swerves towards the door, pointing with a nod of the head. "Get up."

It's transparent to see the man is giving him a window, practically demanding he takes it. And, hesitant, and wanting to deny the offer of mitigation with every fiber of himself, JD… ends up taking it anyway.

.

.

.

He can't believe this.

He truly can't believe the two of them are walking in the same direction, toward the same destination, and out of Doctor Cox's own volition, when in three abundant years the most he got were scraps of his attention he drank up greedily like a soul starved for water. And all he could think back then was how fortunate he had been to even get that much. While all he can think now is how much he wants the sheer opposite.

The walk is brisk, somewhat awkward on his part, although the other doctor seems more than content with the lapse of silence.

It's one of those typical season days that lacks cloud, but the chill of the sun seeps into his pores all the same, the wilting scarlet of autumn is a fragrance of drooping leaves and splintery branches dappling the grit sidewalks and the enclosing scenery.

It doesn't take long at all- if due to his lack of focus or being within a short walking distance, JD is unsure- before they are standing outside the window view of a restaurant of sorts.

Doctor Cox unceremoniously pushes his way in, and after two beats of skipped trepidation, JD is following through, too. It's not a restaurant he finds out but some kind of sports bar, as far as he can tell, minus the pungent smell of alcohol, the sweaty and uncoordinated bodies and the loud string of swearing gibberish. It's… quiet, mostly. Maybe due to the hour, maybe it always is this way, he doesn't care enough to ask.

He ends up sitting across the other man at a corner table pressed in the nook of the wall, away from the wide ceiling to floor window, grateful for the small reprieve. Attention has been… particularly grating on his nerves, as of late.

Even though the place is decently heated on the inside, JD refuses to take his jacket off- as if an extra layer could miraculously protect him from whatever he is so frightened of being exposed to. The good news is, there is no sign of cakes, or pastries, or anything remotely syrupy and covered in glaze anywhere in sight, and his back slouches, if only a little, with the tension abiding like a tide pulling out of the shore.

While Doctor Cox orders, JD wastes time by paging through the menu, perusing until he finds something with enough grease and taste to drive himself into a possible food coma, hopefully disengaging his brain enough to stop thinking for even the split of a single second. But he knows that's just wishful thinking and nothing more.

On a whim he ended up ordering a beer too, listing off the first name that caught his eye, which he is immediately served. It's an average glass, with a deep, amber maroon liquid sloshing inside, frothing around the rim. And he hates this. He can already tell he'll despise the taste too, and still is envisioning himself downing it in one go. His nails scratch against the condensation chill of the clear glass, fingerpads coming wet with it.

All he can think of is how much he wants to crush something in his fist the same way his world did around him, leaving him a husk, a broken shell of dust particles and not much else. It's a blistering compulsion that won't leave.

There is a piece of him, he can't tell if it's as large as the body of the Atlantic ocean, or as small as a grain of sand in the vacuum of the Sahara, that just wants to get up, to spit in Doctor Cox's face to fuck off, to stand on his own shaky feet and march away to his offbeat heart, and literally put as much distance between them as he humanly can. See Doctor Cox's features as they twist in those familiar tendrils of rage he has come to know so clearly over the years. As if he could just blame this urge on a mood swing, on the depression of a changing season, and not the single-handed event that is the sole reason for his dropping weight and lack of focus and ailing and insomnia.

But this the strike of panic taking hold of him, JD is aware enough to recognize it, and to notice the anger simmering underneath. He doesn't remember the last time he has felt this copper hot taste of anger sizzle down his throat every time he swallows around the day's ending, like coffee black dregs of undiluted bitterness washed down the sink. Not like this. It's never been like this.

Out of the blue, motion is catching the corner of his eye, and he mindlessly turns into it. There's a man at the counter, swaying exaggeratedly, laughing, saying something to the kid perched on top of his shoulders, who laughs along.

JD thinks of his dad.

The thought has him abruptly recoiling, breath cutting off. Even if this line of thinking is a constant, the hurt drives in a little deeper.

Now Doctor Cox catches his eye, his line of vision, and they're both thinking it.

The air between them is charged with a thick clot of tension, it's the unpleasant sort. It's a reminder of that night in his living room, where he was begging his mentor not to leave him alone with the torture of double-edged thoughts and his father ten days into the ground.

Now it's just gotten worse- just keeps getting worse.

But even through the haze, even though he is blinded to the outside world by his own pain, through a sliver- the angry, irrational part of him- JD can see, that for some unprecedented, indecipherable reason, Doctor Cox is trying.

Maybe it's selfless as far as his intentions go, or maybe this is all an elaborate ruse to get back at him, or publically humiliate him, or have the last laugh at his expense. He does not know, and right now doesn't have it in himself to care enough to find out. But there is nothing else deserving of taking up space inside his mind that is not his father's passing. He owes him this, at least.

Thus, he pushes down the low brunt of the panic, and washes it from the back of his throat with the bitter taste of distasteful alcohol, managing to down half the glass before it gets too much.

Doctor Cox grins a tad as he watches him, mouth pulling in a curve of assuredness that is just a little mellowed, just a little menacing. "Careful with the alcohol intake, wouldn't want to wipe you off the floor after one glass."

JD huffs. His head is buzzing, he still feels in pieces, still feels wrong. And maybe this is what's gotten him a loose tongue today. "You know, you're pretty into this whole 'I'm so much older and wiser than you' schtick when you're only fifteen years older than me."

At first the man seems like he wants to rebut the 'only', but then he is raising an almost surprised, almost amused brow at the non sequitur. "You know how old I am?"

"What, you think you're the only one who does their research?" JD mutters lowly, feeling slightly aggravated and a little bit wronged- by the world, by everything.

But Doctor Cox is still here, still sitting across from him, with the threadbare brink of a cutting smile, akin to the blunt edge of a knife slicing through soft tissue and brittle bones as if they were smooth butter.

And while it's useless, while knowing no distraction this life supplies him with will work against his mind, JD begrudgingly lets himself slump back into the booth, lets himself get swept up in this window Doctor Cox is willing to provide anyway.