Just a little one to whet your appetites. Definitely worth writing, even if it is tiny. Enjoy, my darlings – reviews always greatly appreciated and worshipped!

Chapter Thirty-One – Bad Habits

Dr. Cox POV

With his head on my chest and his hair (annoyingly) tickling my chin, he finally spoke into the silence. "That was... out of this world."

I rolled my eyes, shifting the covers over our bodies so that we were both covered. "You said that last time."

His head lifted off of me and swivelled until he was awkwardly able to face me. "Yeah but... it was! Don't deny it, Perry, you loved it."

I shrugged. "It was okay."

"Okay?"

"I don't know what you expect me to say."

Newbie leant up on his elbows, blue eyes wide as he stared at me in disbelief. "It's not what I expect you to say, it's what I want you to say! You should know this by now!"

"Hmmm." I shut my eyes so that I wouldn't have to meet his frustrated glare, trying not to smile. "Sorry to disappoint you, kid, but 'okay' is about as far as I'm willing to go."

He huffed loudly, twisting his head back around and pressing his cheek against my chest once more. "You're stupid."

I threw my hands up into the air. "What, I'm not going to lie just to make you feel validated! All I'm saying is, I've known better!"

"Finding Nemo is a classic!" he protested, punctuating his exclamation with a kiss to my abdomen. "You just don't know something good when you see it."

Though I knew his words weren't implying a sentiment towards our... relationship... I still found my arms tightening slightly around his slender form. "At least I'm trying."

He froze slightly. "I wasn't referring to... me."

My thumb began to idly stroke the warm skin on his back. "I know."

The silence stretched on for a few minutes, his own fingers idly playing with my nipple as his breathing got a little faster. I couldn't suppress my grin this time.

"Easy there, Newbie, otherwise I just might have to jump you."

I felt his smile quirk upwards. "Sorry. It's turning into a bad habit."

"I wouldn't call it a bad one."

"I was just thinking..."

"Yeeeees?"

"Are we... are you my boyfriend now?"

I stiffened – and not in a good way. Although I knew he'd leap upon my professing our situation as a 'relationship' someday, I hadn't expected it to be tonight. I'd hoped that watching that god-awful film would distract him and make him sleepy again but hell, apparently I was wrong.

He picked up on the tension, slowly shifting until his head was facing towards me, his eyes zeroing in on mine. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it or anything but I just figured that we might as well talk about it."

I nodded curtly. "Make your case."

"What?"

"Well, if you're so determined to put a title to it I want to know your reasons as to why we can't just keep on going as we are."

He bit his lip. "I didn't realise you were so.. averse to it."

I sighed. "It's not that I'm averse to it, JD, I just -" I caught the quickest of smiles flash across his face. "What now?"

"You called me JD."

Groaning, I rubbed a hand over my face. "Are you ever going to get over that?"

He grinned. "I hope not."

"I'm not against us having titles or whatever the hell it is you're after, but... I'm still married." This was said with hesitance. I knew it to be true, I just knew how much he hated being reminded. His smile quickly disappeared. "Don't look like that, you know how things are with me and Jordan. It's just... I know that putting a title to it would make it clearer for you, but for me it would just make things even more unclear."

For a moment, everything was silent.

"You... you still love her, don't you?"

I couldn't lie. "I do."

He shifted until he was sitting upright, looking at me. "Then... and I can't believe I'm saying this, but... are you really sure this is where you want me? Where you want our relationship to be?"

Growling low in my throat I shut my eyes. "Didn't we just go over this outside of the hospital?"

"Well yeah, but -"

"But what?"

He looked down. "I just don't want you to feel like you're making a mistake."

I needed to do this right and needed to do it so he absolutely, 100% understood where we stood on this matter. I wasn't one for being gentle, nor was I one for carefully choosing my words but at that moment in time I knew that if I did this wrong, Newbie would misunderstand either way and it would all probably end horribly wrong. I sat up slowly, leaning back on my hands.

"JD."

His eyes flickered up to meet mine.

"Over the years... Jordan and I have given each other a lot of space. There are more times than I can count on my fingers that I've let Jordan go off and figure out what she really wants from this life, from me, from her future. Our relationship, it's not like the ones you see elsewhere where the husband loves the wife and the wife loves the husband so they work through everything as best they can. We just... we don't work like that."

Newbie nodded slightly.

"I know that, no matter what she does and where she goes, there will always be a... a part of her waiting here for me. She'll always love me and, more to the point, she'll always come back."

"So why -"

"Let me finish," I interrupted gently. Far gentler than I was used to. Damn this kid required a lot of patience. "She's given me space too, but I've never quite gone off and done what she does. She'll sleep with guys, sometimes even start to try and make a life with them – yeah," I could see the surprise in his eyes, "it's not always just about sex. Sometimes our relationship isn't what you see in the halls. Sometimes we damage each other. Sometimes we're not good for each other - just like every other couple in the world. The difference between me and Jordan and everyone else is that we'd rather see the other get it out of their system and then have one another come back just like everything's normal again."

I went quiet, knowing he had questions. "So... is that what you're doing? Getting me out of your system?"

Again I knew I had to be careful. "I won't lie to you, it's sort of like that – or at least, it was."

"It... was? It's not now?"

Was this the moment? Was this when I was going to say it?

I bottled, opting for the somewhat safer option. "We've both said it now, Newbie – the 'r' word. We're in one now, in a relationship. We're sleeping together, spending time together and, as much as it pains me to admit it... we need each other."

It didn't matter that I couldn't feel his heartbeat against my chest anymore – I knew it had sped up at my words just by the flush that reached his cheeks. "You need me?"

My voice was gravelly as I answered him. "I need you. I didn't come to the hospital because I thought you needed help – I went there because if I didn't see you I'd spend the entire night wondering why my bed felt so damned empty." I hoped to Lucifer that he knew exactly how difficult all of this was to say. I didn't even say stuff like this to Jordan, but then if I was being frank to myself I knew that she didn't need to hear it. Not like he did. "So yeah, Newbie, maybe this is about getting you out of my system... but for all I know, for all you know and for all Jordan knows... you won't be out of it until the day I die."

With alarming speed, he threw himself off of the bed and towards the bathroom – I felt both frustration and panic work its way through my veins, spurring me to swing my own legs off of the side of the bed and hit the ground running, following him as he tried to slam the door in my face. I wedged myself in, instantly on his case. "Newbie, what? What?" He didn't turn to face me – the frustration grew alongside the panic, forcing me to reach out and grasp him hard by the shoulders and whip him around until he was facing me. His eyes as they flew open were revealed to be bloodshot and full of tears. My heart damn near exploded. "Newbie, what the -"

"You think you might love me forever?"

Unable to stop myself, my hands gripped even tighter and pulled him hard against me, pressing my forehead against his temple as I felt his tears begin to fall. "Why is it that whenever I say stuff like that you always cry? Why do you always have to cry?"

He hiccuped a laugh in my ear. "You don't say stuff like that, it just catches me off guard -"

"...catches you off guard? That's why you always cry?" My voice was half-growl, half-rumble. "I don't know whether I'm going to stop loving you tomorrow or if I'll never stop," I murmured harshly against his skin, holding him so tight to me that I could feel him straining for breath. "But right now I love you so fucking much that if you don't stop crying I'm going to have to kill you."

He buried his face into the space between my neck and shoulder, tears hot against me as they escaped in my embrace. His whisper was so soft that I almost didn't hear it at all.

"If it's going to be tomorrow that you stop loving me, please kill me now."

With great precision and as gently as I could, I pulled myself away from him and, as I had outside of the hospital just hours ago, cupped my hands against his face and met his shimmering gaze with my own slightly harder stare.

"JD?"

He hiccuped again. "Yes?"

"Don't count on it."

I was pretty sure that as far as bad habits went, loving him was bigger than nipple-tweaking.