Crossover ficlet 4 (Scrubs x X-Men movieverse)
Drabble for idontlikegravy (X-Men X Scrubs) Prompt: Rogue thoughts. Must have JD and Dr. Cox.
Setting Scrubs: Post season 5 "My Way Home." X-Men movieverse: pretend 3 didn’t happen.
My X Factor
On days like today I thought a lot about staying in bed and watching daytime television. I mean, the people on daytime TV always had lives that I'd never want to have, and that was some small comfort, because hello? Physical pariah?
So today, I went to the café and got a latte, because I had nothing better to do. I was fired from my last job for having skunk hair, as the manager put it, that I refused to dye brown. Professor X said that I could go teach at the school, but that would mean running into Bobby and Kitty and well, so much with the no there.
That left me, the barista, a cinnamon latte, and the Want Ads. And I'd already asked about t job at the café. They were full up. Who knew so many people wanted to be baristas?
When my cell phone rang, I was sort of surprised not because no one ever calls me (although no one does, except for Scott, once a week, to tell me how everyone is in that poorly nonchalant and very obvious way of his that just means that he's worried about me), but because I was pretty sure my service had been turned off. I only carried it around anymore because I might need the 911 function someday. Face it-I'd need that 911 function three times a week if I hadn't moved somewhere no one knew me.
I threw my change in my purse and groped for the phone. When I finally fished it out, I could see the barista sniggering at the ghettoness of it. Yeah, it was from 1999 and it had one ring. What else did I need?
"Yell-o?" I said and then I cringed. It was probably Scott, but I might have left my cell number on my resume, and this could be about a job. How nice that I just gave them a taste of what my phone skills were like.
"Hello, this is Nancy from Sacred Heart Hospital Looking for a…Marie D'Ancanto," said the voice.
I shuffled the phone to the other ear that was not next to the espresso grinder and stepped away from the service table. "You got her."
"We have your uncle down here in our ICU, an Uncle Logan….Logan. That's odd. I don't seem to have a last name." I heard papers shuffling and the clack of computer keys. "Do you have an Uncle Logan-"
"Yes, I do."
"Like I said," Nancy continued, "he's in our ICU. Apparently, he was in a bus accident with a bunch of tractors and-"
"Where are you located, please?"
***
Sacred Heart was about forty minutes from me. I slammed my foot on the gas so many times only to brake just as quickly so many times I was sure I'd done something to the ABS. That was okay. After I smuggled his healing factored ass out of the hospital, Logan could fix everything that was wrong with my car, and he'd do it for free, and he'd install a new sound system. And maybe paint it. With flames.
"Wolverine," I muttered as I clenched my teeth and hands, "pimp my ride."
And when I got to Sacred Heart, I noticed that this hospital, like all of the other hospitals I have been in (oh, god, so many), was under construction and in some places devoid of signs. I had learned not to ask nurses where things are; it wasn't that they didn't want to help you, it was just that when they weren't outside smoking in the ambulance bay, they were always running around with hands covered in blood.
I tapped the shoulder of a tall janitor. "Excuse me, but do you know what floor the ICU is on?"
Lord that guy was tall. He was putting the finishing touches on a taped up cardboard box and looked a little bit like I had caught him doing something bad. "Oh, uh, the fourth floor. Visiting?"
I shrugged my purse strap higher on my shoulder. "You might say that." I was really thinking that I was more like damage control, because once Logan woke up from being pile-driven by fifteen tractors, he was going to be cranky, and that usually meant drywall damage. "The fourth floor. Elevators?"
He pointed to the floor, and I saw a series of colored stripes painted down the center of the hallways. "Follow the blue stripe. It'll take you to the elevators and then the ICU." He frowned. "And surprisingly, despite the anticipation of its usefulness, this is the first time I think anyone has ever tried to use the colored line system. Huh. Hey uh, while you're up there, could you give this to a Dr. John Dorian?" He held out the small cardboard box. "I was gonna do it myself, but I'm really busy, and since you're on your way up there…"
I shook the box: something thumped inside. "No, no, it's okay. He's up there?"
The janitor shrugged and waved a hand. "Yeah. Leave it at the nurse's station if he's not. He'll be back."
"Thanks, Mister…Mister?"
"Yan," he said, "Yan Itor. And thank you, pretty skunk haired lady."
I retreated before life became any more surreal. I felt like I was right in the middle of a Rozerem commercial, and all I needed was some animal to start giving me sleep advice.
But Yan Itor (…wait, oh ha ha funny) was true to his word and the blue line did indeed lead me to the ICU. The nurses at the station pointed at the end of the corridor for Logan's room, and with a few worried looks, told me that Dr. Dorian was his attending and was in the room. I could hear shouting as I went down the hall.
"Look Clarice, I'm sorry if you were planning on surpassing your record of completely overwhelming failure with another rejection from the New England Journal of Medicine for a case of cellular regeneration but sadly, nooooooooooooo, because this is a mutant. Should I say the word again for you? Mutant. The word should be familiar and I have long suspected that both you and your unattached Siamese twin in the surgery department hatched from the same clown car after it was gang banged by that VW station wagon that they used in the Partridge Family."
I moved faster.
"I just think that it-"
"ENNNNNT. I'm sorry, the stupid wasn't framed in the form of rational thought."
"What Bambi is trying to say is that he'd like the opportunity--"
I rounded the doorway and saw that the curtain was drawn. At least they'd put him in a single.
"The moment Kelso hears that he's up here he's going to materialize," said the older voice. "In fact, if we sniff we might smell the brimstone and sulfur stench of the dark lord's coming." He sniffed dramatically, and pulled the curtain back. "Or we could have Chanel and a person I've never seen before," he finished.
I jostled the box. "Logan?"
I'd seen him worse, much worse. In fact, that he wasn't awake yet was a testament to internal damage, really. The blood had been wiped away, and some poor soul had managed to cut his clothes off, probably the paramedics. It was lucky that his luggage was still in my car, and that I'd brought it in. It was also lucky that I was here before he woke up.
It's funny how they never manage to get the blood all the way out of the hair. I suppose it has to do with rudimentary bathing that occurs in hospitals, but his hair was wilder than normal, sticking up every which way. He wasn't on a respirator, thank god, but there were at least three IV feeds grouped about the bed. And he hadn't been restrained. All in all, lucky staff.
The nurse on the other side of the bed adjusted a pump. "Do you know this man?"
I used our ready-made relation. "He's my fiancée." It's amazing what fiancée would get you that niece or sister won't. Not that anyone would ever believe the sister part. I moved forward and set the bag down next to the bed. "Is one of you Dr. Dorian?" The younger doctor raised his hand. He had that cute dorky thing going, and his hair looked like John's had, before, back at school. I held out the box. "This is for you. Someone downstairs gave it to me."
Dr. Dorian smiled. "Gift shop girl, you shouldn't have," he muttered, and was about to open it when Logan, true to form, opened his mouth, screamed, ripped an IV out and lunged upwards in the bed all before he opened his eyes.
I really hadn't learned from the past, because I grabbed his shoulders and pressed on them, not enough to restrain him, but enough that he felt it. "Logan honey, It's Marie. Wake up."
I should have considered a career in calming rabid mutants. I could be the Mutant Whisperer. I could print up cards. Logan made eye contact fairly easily, and once that was accomplished, he let loose a stream of curses that made Dr. Dorian step back and slightly behind the older doctor.
"Logan, there was a tractor, or a bus or something, and you got knocked around," I said. Logan grabbed my wrists and seemed about to snap them when he stopped, sighed, and slammed back into the pillows.
"Yeah, the tractor. Fuckin' Belgians." Nothing followed to explain that remark, and I didn't press. Behind me, Dr. Dorian said something about waffles. Logan scratched his head and let out some sort of growl that was probably supposed to be a sigh.
The older doctor flipped open the chart. "Most people would ask how you're doing, and that would be a very valid question, considering that they brought you in here three hours ago with a crushed sternum, a punctured lung, multiple lacerations to the scalp, torso, oh hell," he glanced up over the chart to us. "I'm sure more of you was open than shut at that time."
Logan looked at the IV in his wrist. "Been there, done that."
"I'm fairly sure that metal skeleton of yours did its job," the older doctor said as he held the x-ray up to the light. And by the speed of your healing, I'm willing to bet that's something else you got in the bank."
Logan grunted noncommittally. Hospitals pissed him off. It wasn't personal, oh wait, yes it was. I bent down and unzipped the bag. "So, you can discharge him," I said matter of factly.
There must have been an earlier consensus. The older doctor whistled. "And I'm out of here. Colleen, sign the good man's discharge form and stop wasting his time." He tossed the clipboard like a Frisbee over the bed and left, not even waiting to see if anyone caught it.
"It's nothing personal," the nurse said softly, "but they're afraid of the property damage from bringing mutants in here. Sometimes they wake up, and they're not…happy." Her eyes moved to Logan's forearms and what lay inside them. No doubt the x-ray had shown them something they'd pass about for a while in the staff room.
I shrugged. "We know." It was useless to argue or apologize. We were what we were and there was nothing to do about that. I dug about in Logan's rucksack for a pair of jeans.
Logan hopped out of the bed and didn't bother to cover up as he reached for his jeans. I closed my eyes and stretched out my arm.
"So, I'd try to tell you not to leave," Dr. Dorian said cheerfully, "but since you're already pretty much stitched back together here-"
"Yeah," Logan grunted. "Thanks. I don't think I need this-" he grabbed the IV tubing and pulled. "And-"
"Carla could you take out his cathe-nope sorry he's already gotten that."
"Did I hear we needed a surgical consult up in here?" said another voice before a young black man turned the corner of the room, eyes wide, hands rubbing together in excitement. "Because I hear there's a mu-"
Dr. Dorian made a face and a cutting gesture under his throat. "Ssshhht shhhhht! Ix-nay on the-"
I sighed. "Is there anyone in the planet that doesn't speak pig Latin?"
The surgeon looked sheepish and shrugged. "I can understand it, I just can't speak it off the top of my head, okay?" I almost felt guilty for saying anything until I heard Logan snort and zip up his pants. Oh that's right. We're leaving, and thank god.
Dr. Dorian patted his back. "It just takes practice, Brown Bear."
"Well," I said, waving my hand in a rainbow kind of way. "Thanks for taking care of him." Logan snorted and I nudged him in the stomach.
"Yeah, thanks for taking care of me." He winked at Carla and I tugged on his elbow. I wanted out before security showed. Really, hospitals didn't like us. At all. We sauntered from the room while he was still shrugging on his jacket. No one even asked or demanded that he ride down in a wheelchair. I guess when you walk away from a fifteen-tractor pile up, chances are you're a mutant, and that meant that you could take care of yourself. Oh how wrong they always were.
"If I were a mutant," Dr. Dorian said quietly behind us, "my power would be to transform into a unicorn and use my powers of rainbow flight. You?"
"Dude, you KNOW what I would do!" Turk whispered.
"Is this the fart thing?"
"Hell YEAH."
"Oh we are NOT having this conversation!" shouted Carla as they left the room behind us. I grabbed onto Logan's arm and walked him down the hallway. He was pretty steady, but now that the drugs were out of his system, the healing factor was revving up. By the time we hit the lobby he'd be fine.
"Baby, I could fly, and I'd have to-"
"No. No, no no and no."
I glanced at Logan as I pressed the down button at the elevators. "So a bus and a bunch of tractors?" He shrugged. "Tractors? What were you doing? Protesting farming subsidies?"
Logan shrugged again and dug around in his very torn up jacket. He looked like he had just gotten off shift at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights. "We all know that protestin' doesn't accomplish nothin' darlin'." He pulled a pack of Sherman cigarillos out of his pocket and sighed. The whole pack was covered in blood and bent in half. "I owe you."
By the time the elevator doors opened, he was in pretty good shape and could get on himself without limping. I pushed the button for the ground floor, but just before the doors opened I heard a high pitched girlish scream and someone else say "is that a squirrel?"
"Oh yeah, you owe me, tractor man," I murmured.
Logan stuffed the pack of cigarillos back in his pocket, for lack of a trashcan. "I'll buy you dinner."
I laughed. "I don't think so, Xzibit."
END
Setting Scrubs: Post season 5 "My Way Home." X-Men movieverse: pretend 3 didn’t happen.
My X Factor
On days like today I thought a lot about staying in bed and watching daytime television. I mean, the people on daytime TV always had lives that I'd never want to have, and that was some small comfort, because hello? Physical pariah?
So today, I went to the café and got a latte, because I had nothing better to do. I was fired from my last job for having skunk hair, as the manager put it, that I refused to dye brown. Professor X said that I could go teach at the school, but that would mean running into Bobby and Kitty and well, so much with the no there.
That left me, the barista, a cinnamon latte, and the Want Ads. And I'd already asked about t job at the café. They were full up. Who knew so many people wanted to be baristas?
When my cell phone rang, I was sort of surprised not because no one ever calls me (although no one does, except for Scott, once a week, to tell me how everyone is in that poorly nonchalant and very obvious way of his that just means that he's worried about me), but because I was pretty sure my service had been turned off. I only carried it around anymore because I might need the 911 function someday. Face it-I'd need that 911 function three times a week if I hadn't moved somewhere no one knew me.
I threw my change in my purse and groped for the phone. When I finally fished it out, I could see the barista sniggering at the ghettoness of it. Yeah, it was from 1999 and it had one ring. What else did I need?
"Yell-o?" I said and then I cringed. It was probably Scott, but I might have left my cell number on my resume, and this could be about a job. How nice that I just gave them a taste of what my phone skills were like.
"Hello, this is Nancy from Sacred Heart Hospital Looking for a…Marie D'Ancanto," said the voice.
I shuffled the phone to the other ear that was not next to the espresso grinder and stepped away from the service table. "You got her."
"We have your uncle down here in our ICU, an Uncle Logan….Logan. That's odd. I don't seem to have a last name." I heard papers shuffling and the clack of computer keys. "Do you have an Uncle Logan-"
"Yes, I do."
"Like I said," Nancy continued, "he's in our ICU. Apparently, he was in a bus accident with a bunch of tractors and-"
"Where are you located, please?"
***
Sacred Heart was about forty minutes from me. I slammed my foot on the gas so many times only to brake just as quickly so many times I was sure I'd done something to the ABS. That was okay. After I smuggled his healing factored ass out of the hospital, Logan could fix everything that was wrong with my car, and he'd do it for free, and he'd install a new sound system. And maybe paint it. With flames.
"Wolverine," I muttered as I clenched my teeth and hands, "pimp my ride."
And when I got to Sacred Heart, I noticed that this hospital, like all of the other hospitals I have been in (oh, god, so many), was under construction and in some places devoid of signs. I had learned not to ask nurses where things are; it wasn't that they didn't want to help you, it was just that when they weren't outside smoking in the ambulance bay, they were always running around with hands covered in blood.
I tapped the shoulder of a tall janitor. "Excuse me, but do you know what floor the ICU is on?"
Lord that guy was tall. He was putting the finishing touches on a taped up cardboard box and looked a little bit like I had caught him doing something bad. "Oh, uh, the fourth floor. Visiting?"
I shrugged my purse strap higher on my shoulder. "You might say that." I was really thinking that I was more like damage control, because once Logan woke up from being pile-driven by fifteen tractors, he was going to be cranky, and that usually meant drywall damage. "The fourth floor. Elevators?"
He pointed to the floor, and I saw a series of colored stripes painted down the center of the hallways. "Follow the blue stripe. It'll take you to the elevators and then the ICU." He frowned. "And surprisingly, despite the anticipation of its usefulness, this is the first time I think anyone has ever tried to use the colored line system. Huh. Hey uh, while you're up there, could you give this to a Dr. John Dorian?" He held out the small cardboard box. "I was gonna do it myself, but I'm really busy, and since you're on your way up there…"
I shook the box: something thumped inside. "No, no, it's okay. He's up there?"
The janitor shrugged and waved a hand. "Yeah. Leave it at the nurse's station if he's not. He'll be back."
"Thanks, Mister…Mister?"
"Yan," he said, "Yan Itor. And thank you, pretty skunk haired lady."
I retreated before life became any more surreal. I felt like I was right in the middle of a Rozerem commercial, and all I needed was some animal to start giving me sleep advice.
But Yan Itor (…wait, oh ha ha funny) was true to his word and the blue line did indeed lead me to the ICU. The nurses at the station pointed at the end of the corridor for Logan's room, and with a few worried looks, told me that Dr. Dorian was his attending and was in the room. I could hear shouting as I went down the hall.
"Look Clarice, I'm sorry if you were planning on surpassing your record of completely overwhelming failure with another rejection from the New England Journal of Medicine for a case of cellular regeneration but sadly, nooooooooooooo, because this is a mutant. Should I say the word again for you? Mutant. The word should be familiar and I have long suspected that both you and your unattached Siamese twin in the surgery department hatched from the same clown car after it was gang banged by that VW station wagon that they used in the Partridge Family."
I moved faster.
"I just think that it-"
"ENNNNNT. I'm sorry, the stupid wasn't framed in the form of rational thought."
"What Bambi is trying to say is that he'd like the opportunity--"
I rounded the doorway and saw that the curtain was drawn. At least they'd put him in a single.
"The moment Kelso hears that he's up here he's going to materialize," said the older voice. "In fact, if we sniff we might smell the brimstone and sulfur stench of the dark lord's coming." He sniffed dramatically, and pulled the curtain back. "Or we could have Chanel and a person I've never seen before," he finished.
I jostled the box. "Logan?"
I'd seen him worse, much worse. In fact, that he wasn't awake yet was a testament to internal damage, really. The blood had been wiped away, and some poor soul had managed to cut his clothes off, probably the paramedics. It was lucky that his luggage was still in my car, and that I'd brought it in. It was also lucky that I was here before he woke up.
It's funny how they never manage to get the blood all the way out of the hair. I suppose it has to do with rudimentary bathing that occurs in hospitals, but his hair was wilder than normal, sticking up every which way. He wasn't on a respirator, thank god, but there were at least three IV feeds grouped about the bed. And he hadn't been restrained. All in all, lucky staff.
The nurse on the other side of the bed adjusted a pump. "Do you know this man?"
I used our ready-made relation. "He's my fiancée." It's amazing what fiancée would get you that niece or sister won't. Not that anyone would ever believe the sister part. I moved forward and set the bag down next to the bed. "Is one of you Dr. Dorian?" The younger doctor raised his hand. He had that cute dorky thing going, and his hair looked like John's had, before, back at school. I held out the box. "This is for you. Someone downstairs gave it to me."
Dr. Dorian smiled. "Gift shop girl, you shouldn't have," he muttered, and was about to open it when Logan, true to form, opened his mouth, screamed, ripped an IV out and lunged upwards in the bed all before he opened his eyes.
I really hadn't learned from the past, because I grabbed his shoulders and pressed on them, not enough to restrain him, but enough that he felt it. "Logan honey, It's Marie. Wake up."
I should have considered a career in calming rabid mutants. I could be the Mutant Whisperer. I could print up cards. Logan made eye contact fairly easily, and once that was accomplished, he let loose a stream of curses that made Dr. Dorian step back and slightly behind the older doctor.
"Logan, there was a tractor, or a bus or something, and you got knocked around," I said. Logan grabbed my wrists and seemed about to snap them when he stopped, sighed, and slammed back into the pillows.
"Yeah, the tractor. Fuckin' Belgians." Nothing followed to explain that remark, and I didn't press. Behind me, Dr. Dorian said something about waffles. Logan scratched his head and let out some sort of growl that was probably supposed to be a sigh.
The older doctor flipped open the chart. "Most people would ask how you're doing, and that would be a very valid question, considering that they brought you in here three hours ago with a crushed sternum, a punctured lung, multiple lacerations to the scalp, torso, oh hell," he glanced up over the chart to us. "I'm sure more of you was open than shut at that time."
Logan looked at the IV in his wrist. "Been there, done that."
"I'm fairly sure that metal skeleton of yours did its job," the older doctor said as he held the x-ray up to the light. And by the speed of your healing, I'm willing to bet that's something else you got in the bank."
Logan grunted noncommittally. Hospitals pissed him off. It wasn't personal, oh wait, yes it was. I bent down and unzipped the bag. "So, you can discharge him," I said matter of factly.
There must have been an earlier consensus. The older doctor whistled. "And I'm out of here. Colleen, sign the good man's discharge form and stop wasting his time." He tossed the clipboard like a Frisbee over the bed and left, not even waiting to see if anyone caught it.
"It's nothing personal," the nurse said softly, "but they're afraid of the property damage from bringing mutants in here. Sometimes they wake up, and they're not…happy." Her eyes moved to Logan's forearms and what lay inside them. No doubt the x-ray had shown them something they'd pass about for a while in the staff room.
I shrugged. "We know." It was useless to argue or apologize. We were what we were and there was nothing to do about that. I dug about in Logan's rucksack for a pair of jeans.
Logan hopped out of the bed and didn't bother to cover up as he reached for his jeans. I closed my eyes and stretched out my arm.
"So, I'd try to tell you not to leave," Dr. Dorian said cheerfully, "but since you're already pretty much stitched back together here-"
"Yeah," Logan grunted. "Thanks. I don't think I need this-" he grabbed the IV tubing and pulled. "And-"
"Carla could you take out his cathe-nope sorry he's already gotten that."
"Did I hear we needed a surgical consult up in here?" said another voice before a young black man turned the corner of the room, eyes wide, hands rubbing together in excitement. "Because I hear there's a mu-"
Dr. Dorian made a face and a cutting gesture under his throat. "Ssshhht shhhhht! Ix-nay on the-"
I sighed. "Is there anyone in the planet that doesn't speak pig Latin?"
The surgeon looked sheepish and shrugged. "I can understand it, I just can't speak it off the top of my head, okay?" I almost felt guilty for saying anything until I heard Logan snort and zip up his pants. Oh that's right. We're leaving, and thank god.
Dr. Dorian patted his back. "It just takes practice, Brown Bear."
"Well," I said, waving my hand in a rainbow kind of way. "Thanks for taking care of him." Logan snorted and I nudged him in the stomach.
"Yeah, thanks for taking care of me." He winked at Carla and I tugged on his elbow. I wanted out before security showed. Really, hospitals didn't like us. At all. We sauntered from the room while he was still shrugging on his jacket. No one even asked or demanded that he ride down in a wheelchair. I guess when you walk away from a fifteen-tractor pile up, chances are you're a mutant, and that meant that you could take care of yourself. Oh how wrong they always were.
"If I were a mutant," Dr. Dorian said quietly behind us, "my power would be to transform into a unicorn and use my powers of rainbow flight. You?"
"Dude, you KNOW what I would do!" Turk whispered.
"Is this the fart thing?"
"Hell YEAH."
"Oh we are NOT having this conversation!" shouted Carla as they left the room behind us. I grabbed onto Logan's arm and walked him down the hallway. He was pretty steady, but now that the drugs were out of his system, the healing factor was revving up. By the time we hit the lobby he'd be fine.
"Baby, I could fly, and I'd have to-"
"No. No, no no and no."
I glanced at Logan as I pressed the down button at the elevators. "So a bus and a bunch of tractors?" He shrugged. "Tractors? What were you doing? Protesting farming subsidies?"
Logan shrugged again and dug around in his very torn up jacket. He looked like he had just gotten off shift at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights. "We all know that protestin' doesn't accomplish nothin' darlin'." He pulled a pack of Sherman cigarillos out of his pocket and sighed. The whole pack was covered in blood and bent in half. "I owe you."
By the time the elevator doors opened, he was in pretty good shape and could get on himself without limping. I pushed the button for the ground floor, but just before the doors opened I heard a high pitched girlish scream and someone else say "is that a squirrel?"
"Oh yeah, you owe me, tractor man," I murmured.
Logan stuffed the pack of cigarillos back in his pocket, for lack of a trashcan. "I'll buy you dinner."
I laughed. "I don't think so, Xzibit."
END