His Elevator Woes
Hey all, I've been over at Scrubsfic for a while now, but just now got to this lovely community. Thought I'd say hello and bring tidings of a fic (though some of you may have seen it as it's already been posted at scrubsfic). At any rate, this is a great comm, and I'm so happy to have found it!
Title: His Elevator Woes
Status: COMPLETE.
Rating: T for cursing and Janitor being creepy.
Categories: General, mostly. Humor. Uhm…little bit of H/C and fluff. Maybe?
Spoilers: This is a huuuuge alternate-ending for "His Story" (2 x 15) The rough transcript of which can be here: http://scrubs.mopnt.com/scripts/215.php
Pairings: JD/Cox friendship, with stabs at pre-slash.
A/N: My first go at Scrubs-fic. Worked really hard at trying to get their voices and movements right, but, well... I'll let you judge the success.
Summary: Alternate ending for "His Story". What if nobody had interrupted Janitor and JD on that elevator? What if Dr. Cox didn’t find JD until seven hours later? JDCox friendship bonding ridiculosity.
"Being stuck on an elevator is totally no fun. Stethoscopes, however, are.
"Prepare for re-entry." JD muttered into his stethoscope, his own voice magnified in his ears. "Our landing point has been compromised, and our final destination is uncertain."
Sometimes, things that seem bad, really aren’t. Because even though Janitor meant for this to be my punishment, now I could avoid my patients and my new attending. And stethoscopes really are totally awesome.
"In the event of a water landing--"
There was a sudden scraping noise, and JD looked up to see Janitor dropping out of a brand-new hole in the ceiling. "Incoming!" He landed heavily on the floor right in front of JD, and nodded. "How you doin’?"
Slowly, JD drew his knees tighter into his chest and stared up at the scary, scary man, horrified. "Did you just climb down an elevator shaft to torment me?"
The Janitor gave a little shrug in answer. "Well, sometimes in life you gotta do what you gotta do."
JD stood up, keeping his back tightly against the elevator wall as stepped away. He didn’t like it when the Janitor was in his touchie-bubble. "Look, I promise you the ‘door open’ button wasn’t working." Which was true. Since he’d never actually pushed the button, it hadn’t worked.
"No, it's okay." JD could tell it totally wasn’t, as he noticed the giant roll of duct-tape in the Janitor‘s hands. "We're gonna be able to work this thing out, seriously. Put your hands together." Janitor began peeling the tape from it’s roll. "Like you’re praying."
As if in a fog, JD complied.
For the record, it wasn’t ‘like I was praying.’ I was just praying. A lot.
The Janitor wrapped the tape around his wrists once. And twice. And a third time. Tightly.
"My fingers are tingly!" JD giggled his girly ‘I’m so nervous, I think I just peed a little’ giggle. Dr. Cox got to hear that one the most.
"Yeah," answered the Janitor, before giving JD a hard shove. "Sit." Without his hands for balance, JD toppled over with a squeak. "Good boy." And he began wrapping the tape around his ankles.
"Hey!" Janitor kept taping. "Should you really be using up all the hospital’s duct-tape like this? Won’t you, you know, like, get in trouble?" JD offered nervously, hoping maybe he could reason with him, even though a year and a half past experience told him otherwise.
The Janitor paused, ripping the tape with his teeth, and sat back on his haunches. He pressed his lips together, and JD knew he was in trouble. "So this just has to be ‘the hospital’s’ tape, huh? What, because I’m a janitor, I can’t even afford my own duct-tape? "
"N-no, that’s not--"
"You think I steal? Oh, because I’m just a dumb janitor, of course I steal from the hospital, right?" JD squeaked weakly. "Maybe it’s time for a little quiet-time so you stop hurting people’s feelings, huh?" JD squeaked again. The Janitor ripped off another strip of tape with his teeth, and slapped roughly over JD’s mouth, from ear to ear so their was no way JD could wiggle it off.
"I’m just joking," said the Janitor, standing up. "It is the hospital’s. Hmm." He tilted his head and looked down at JD, who was staring back with wide eyes, sitting helpless on the freezing elevator floor. "I’ll be back when you’ve had time to think about what you’ve done. Say in about an hour. Or twelve." The Janitor nodded, his lip jutting out. "Yeah. Alley-oop!" And he jumped up, grabbing the ledge of the hole in the ceiling, and pulled himself through, disappearing from view for a moment, before sticking his head back down, and waving at JD. "Have a nice day, Mr. Meanie-pants." And then he was gone, sliding the panel back into place, and leaving JD all alone.
"Mmmmffff!" JD yelled, which really meant "Aaaaah!", but the tape made it hard to talk. He’d kept praying the whole time, but obviously it hadn’t helped so far. He wondered if God was up there, watching him, waiting for the right moment to save his favorite earthling.
// The scene is dreamy and foggy, white clouds and gold everywhere. It’s obviously heaven. The view pans from the ground and the hem of white robes up, up, to the face of Jimmy Walker, who is laughing hysterically, a drink in his hand. There’s a big gold chain around his neck, with bling reading in big letters GOD. Kelso, Jordan, and Janitor are hovering around him, all with horns on their heads, surrounded by flames. They all cackle wildly, pointing down at JD, and toasting each other. Jimmy Walker shrugs. "Sorry JD, they’re just too funny! Saint Peter just never had any sense of humor."
Flash to a sweaty pale man, tied to a roasting pit, slowly being turned over a red-hot fire. "I’ve got jokes!" He wails. "I can be funnyyyy!"//
At least Turk would be glad to know his fantasy-God was black, JD thought, wiggling his feet to try and keep blood in them. This was almost sort of an adventure, except for the part where it was way too scary and quiet, and wouldn’t really make a very good story to tell other people. Although it might make Lawyer-Ted cry.
Actually, JD was freaking out a little himself. He couldn’t move, it was hard to breath with the tape over his mouth, his hands and feet were going numb, and he had an itch behind his knee he couldn’t get to. And Until Janitor decided to release him, or fix the elevator so somebody else could find him, JD was totally stuck. He could feel himself beginning to break out in a cold sweat.
And sometimes, things that seem really bad actually suck worse than you ever could have thought possible.
---------
Perry Cox’s day had gone from bad to worse. Kelso was back to being his normal pitch-fork wielding self, old Mr. Zimmerman in curtain three kept trying die on him, Jordan was being so hormonally cranky that he could feel her claws digging into his face all the way from home, and he’d actually made Nervous Guy wet himself. Okay, so the last one was really a good thing, but still.
And the elevator had been broken all day, so the hospital staff had been forced to use the stairs. This made for very short-tempered employees, who Dr. Cox would’ve loved to take his anger out on, except that the stairwell always seemed to be strangely empty every time he was in it.
// Flashback to earlier that day. Cox stands at the top floor-landing, his eyes even more googly than normal. "If anyone so much as thinks about getting in my way, so help me God, I will throw them over the railing! And believe me, you re-he-heally do not want that to happen, because then I’d be medically obligated to treat you brain-dead drones, and my hands might just slip and slide a scalpel right across your noise-making throats! We got that?" He grins at everyone menacingly, and all scatter.//
Okay, so not so ‘strangely’ empty, after all.
But the real problem was that he hadn’t been able to find Newbie all day. Granted, Patricia had a real knack for hiding like the scared little girl she was whenever Cox was on the warpath, but he’d always found the kid in the end, normally squeaking in terror in some dark corner.
But Cox had already checked all the usual hiding places, and even the unusual ones. He didn’t know whose services Newbie had switched out to, and Nervous Guy only cried whenever Cox tried to talk to him, so he couldn’t even wait around JD’s patients for the kid. And he had found, strangely enough, that he actually sort of missed the obnoxious idiot, girly gibberish and all.
Cox had actually planned to confront Newbie and ask him to come back, and it was really pissing him off that JD had the nerve to successfully avoid him. It wasn’t often Cox did something nice, and damn it all, he expected people to cooperate when he was preparing to act all out of character and disgusting. Obviously Madeline had missed the memo. It probably hadn’t been able to penetrate his brain through all that gunky, girly crap he put in his hair all the time.
That was a pretty good line, actually, Cox mused, as he walked down the hall towards the stairs, ready to go home. He’d have to use it on the kid sometime.
He stopped as he passed the elevator, glaring at the contraption with his angriest stare. "Work!" He snarled threateningly, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t have to walk down all those stairs again. He jabbed the button sharply, eyeing it, daring it to disobey him.
The button lit up obediently for the first time all day, and he could hear the pulleys squeak behind the door. Excellent. At least some things knew their place around here.
After a moment, Cox heard the satisfying ‘ding’ and the doors slid open smoothly. He stepped in, pushed the button for ground floor and the waited for the elevator to start moving again. As it did, something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Startled, he jerked his head left and down, only to stare in horrified shock at the sight before him.
Eyes closed, lying very awkwardly on his side on the ground, his face and scrubs drenched in sweat, his feet and hands bound tightly, and his mouth covered by a strip of duct-tape, was Newbie. He wasn’t moving.
"What the hell?" Cox yelped (in a manly way), taking two strides forward, and falling to his knees in front of Newbie. "Kid?" He shook the younger man’s shoulder roughly. "Newbie!" He shook harder, his other hand coming up to check for a pulse on the kid’s damp throat, as something like panic swelled in his gut. "JD!"
And Newbie jerked awake, looking around frantically, breath coming in loud burst from his nose. When his dark eyes finally landed on Cox, his entire body practically melted with visible relief, and he let out an ecstatic "Mmmf!"
"Good God, Scarlet, what happened?" Cox asked, ignoring the fact that his tone wasn’t nearly as condescending as he’d being going for, and it was maybe even a little shaky.
"Mmmf," Newbie said, and Cox rolled his eyes, reached down, got ahold of one end of the tape covering his mouth, and yanked. Hard.
"Holy shit!" JD yelled as soon as his mouth was uncovered, his whole face contorted in pain. He moved his lips and jaw around in ridiculous ways to work out the sting, still wincing. "Owie."
Relief suddenly giving way to irritation, Cox swiped at his nose, though he stayed squatting over the kid, his other hand still on his shoulder. "Now for Christ’s Sake, would ya like to tell me just what in the hell you’re doing lying here like the damsel in distress you so obviously are? And if you say one thing about waiting for a knight to rescue you, Jezabelle, I’m gonna have to hurt you, I re-he-heally am."
Newbie’s eyes got all glassy then, and Cox knew he’d just been put on the back of a horse in a shiny suit of armor. He also had a sneaking suspicion the kid was probably in a dress. A pink one. With ruffles. "Gallop away!" Newbie muttered, a stupid dazed grin on his face, and Cox grimaced, rolling his eyes.
"Oh for God’s sake." He whistled sharply, and the younger man jerked back to the present, a sheepish smile still on his face. "Try to focus here, would ya? ‘Cause I’m starting to feel oh-so-tempted to stick this tape back over your foundation-covered face, and walk away, walk away, walk away!"
The elevator dinged suddenly, and the doors began to slide open. Some non-existent part of him suddenly feeling a little worried about the kid’s dignity, Cox reached up, hit the ‘close’ button, and pulled the emergency stop. A very faint ringing filled the elevator.
"Dr. Cox, do you think you could help me sit up?" Newbie asked him, apparently oblivious to what the older doctor had just done, looking a little embarrassed. "I’d do it myself, but I can’t feel my hands."
Cox actually couldn’t think of anything smart-assed and cutting to say to that, so instead, he just did as the kid asked, keeping his hands firmly on the kid’s arms, when it was obvious Newbie was a little dizzy. "Thanks," Newbie said a little weakly, his eyes rolling a little like he might pass out.
Cox decided to give him a minute, scanning his body with a medical eye as he waited. No bruises, no obviously broken bones or other injuries. His cheeks and lips were painfully red from the tape, and the left side of his face had imprints from the tile on the floor, but nothing seemed to be actually harmed. The only thing that caused Cox any concern were the dangerously pasty-white color of the kid’s hands. The tape was wrapped entirely too tight, and he knew the same was true for the binding around his ankles.
He peered back into Newbie’s eyes, and determined they seemed focused and steady enough. "So what happened?" He stopped there, biting back the rest of it, which involved a beautiful turn of phrase about JD being an enormous pansy.
"The Janitor," Newbie said simply, mouth tilted to the side in a pouty frown, as he looked over at the wall. Cox felt his irritation surge forward again at that totally unhelpful answer, and had his mouth open to rip into the kid, when JD went on, looking a little sheepish once more. "He broke the elevator while I was alone in it, and left me here for awhile. Then he climbed through the elevator shaft and dropped in through the ceiling, and taped me up and left again. I think he must be a ninja."
// The Janitor stands in the hallway in a black ninja suit, twirling a mop dangerously in his hands. He flips in the air over a spill on the linoleum, lands lightly on his feet, and delivers a crushing round-house kick to the mop-bucket, with a yell of "Hiii-ya!"//
"Hohhh!" Cox shook his head, grimacing and shocked at the image that just invaded his head. He looked over at Newbie, who was nodding.
"He’d be a scary ninja, wouldn’t he?"
Letting go of JD’s shoulder’s, he buried his hands in his hair, squishing the furrows in his forehead together in agitation. "So let me get this straight here, Rosalyn. The janitor broke the elevator on purpose, and then…climbed through the elevator shaft?" He paused, looking down at the kid, who nodded seriously.
"He’s a bad, bad man."
"Nnhg." Cox shook his head again. "And then he taped you up and just left you here? What did you do to him, Princess, steal his favorite squeegee?" He put up his hand. "Never-mind. I so don’t really want to know." Newbie shrugged, which was hard, considering his hands were still taped together awkwardly. "And how long ago was this, Tiffany?"
JD frowned. "What time is it?"
"Midnight."
"About seven hours then," the kid sighed, looking up at the ceiling.
Cox suddenly saw red. It was vaguely amusing when he only thought the kid had been in here for at most an hour. But seven? Bound and gagged and completely trapped? That was inexcusable, and dangerous. Annoying as the kid might sometimes be, there was no way he deserved something that bad. And judging from how drenched in sweat Newbie was, he’d probably been pretty terrified after awhile.
It also meant the lack of circulation in his hands was getting to a dangerous point now, and Cox had nothing to rip at the tape with. He sighed, trying to push down his anger, and think. "Alright Newbie, we’ve got to get this tape off of your wrists, and I’m fresh outta pocket-knives."
"Couldn’t we just get me out of here and to a nurse’s station? I’m sure they have scissors," JD suggested.
"Lookie here, Newbie, do ya really wanna go out at this elevator in this kinky getup? Granted nobody’d be real surprised, but a girl’s got a reputation to keep!" Cox answered mockingly, and JD tilted his head from side to side, with that strange half-smile, half-pout look on his face.
"Good point."
Cox nodded, grabbing JD‘s hands, wincing inwardly at how cold they were, and the absolute lack of sensation JD obviously had, and lifted his wrists up to eyelevel "So, I just want you to hold real still, here, Princess, and wait while I get this garbage off." And with that, he leaned forward, and grabbed the tape between his teeth, scraping the kid‘s wrist with his eye-teeth in the process.
"Eeep!" Said Newbie loudly, but Cox growled and he fell silent.
After a moment’s pulling and gnawing, Cox felt the tape start to rip. Another moment later, and it was split halfway down. He leaned back and took the two ripped edges between his fingers, leveling a sober stare at Newbie. "This is going to hurt like a bitch there, Amy, so are you ready, or should I give you a moment to get out your lacy handkerchief?"
Newbie gritted his teeth a little, gazing steadily at his lifeless looking hands, and nodded. "Go ahead." Without further hesitation, Cox pulled the thick strips of tape away from Newbie’s wrists, wadding it up in a ball, and waiting.
Slowly, stiffly, JD flexed his wrists and lowered his arms, wiggling his fingers ever so slightly for a painless moment. Then the blood flow started, and Cox heard him give a sharp intake of breath, and watched his shoulders hunch forward in pain. "Ooooh," he said very quietly, and Cox only just managed not to say something snide in return.
After pausing for a moment, Cox reached down to JD’s feet, and began untying his shoe-laces. "I can’t feel that at all," Newbie said, looking concerned under his pained grimace.
"You’ll be alright," Cox muttered, trying for gentle this time. "Hasn’t been long enough to do any real damage." Another half-hour, and it’d be a different story, he added to himself, feeling the fury bubble dangerously again.
He made quick work of the shoelaces, and tugged off both sneakers, shedding the socks off the kid’s freezing, snow-white feet with professional, practiced ease. They both knew bare feet would get the circulation going fastest, and somewhere in his head, Cox found himself actually glad that Newbie was a doctor, so he didn’t have to deal with all the explanations for once. That taken care of, Cox leaned low again, and bent to take the tape between his teeth, pausing when he heard a funny noise from Newbie.
When he looked up, the younger man was looking at him with a strange mix of bewilderment, pain, and what could only be described as his "yucky-face."
"Golly gee, Martha," Cox snapped in a high-pitched, mocking tone. "Will ya still respect me in the morning?"
Newbie looked away embarrassedly, and might’ve said something, put only let out another pained breath as the blood started going in his hands for real. "Gaahh."
Cox muttered unintelligibly to himself as he leaned forward again, and took the tape between his teeth. He made quick work of it, not even hesitating this time, before ripping the tape completely away, and adding it to the now huge ball of wadded tape over in the opposite corner of the elevator. There was a moment of silence, and then the expected "Ow, ow, ow, ow!" From Newbie, though Cox was grudgingly impressed that the kid managed to keep his voice in a normal octave. The combined pain seemed to be a little worse than the younger man had been expecting though, and he let out another hiss of "God!" Between clenched teeth, as he stoically flexed his feet.
His knees beginning to feel the strain from the crouch he was in, Cox sat down on the cold linoleum, still facing JD, whose eyes kept darting around embarrassedly, trying not to make eye contact. Cox, on the other hand, never looked away, watching the younger man with sharp eyes as little noises of agony kept escaping him. Feeling inexplicably bad about the whole thing, annoyingly relieved that JD was alright, and murderously pissed off at the janitor, Cox grimaced and reached forward, pulling JD’s feet forward, ignoring the yip of pain the younger man let out.
"Easy, there, Gina," He said quietly, and ran his thumbs firmly up the soles of Newbie’s still-cold feet.
JD let out a warbled noise, flinching horribly, and Cox knew it must hurt like hell. "This isn’t exactly how I imagined it," JD gasped out, biting his lip between his teeth hard after he spoke, his eyes clamping shut in pain.
Cox made a conscious decision to just totally let that one go. He just…didn’t even want to know. Through some feat of magic, he managed not to say anything biting in response, and continued massaging the blood back into the slowly-warming feet, while the kid kept rubbing at his own hands, still hissing with pain occasionally. "Getting some feeling back?" Cox asked after a few moments, and JD nodded jerkily, eyes opening to still-pained slits.
"Pins and needles," He answered tightly, now shaking his fingers hard. "And some fire. Possibly some molten lava, but not the pretty kind like in the lava lamp Carla gave Turk for--"
"Newbie," Cox said warningly, and the kid fell silent, grinning a little. Cox pretended not to notice.
Some time passed before Newbie quit wincing quite so hard, and leaned his head back against the wall, looking pretty strung out and exhausted, even as he kept rubbing his fingers. His hands and feet were now bright red from all the new blood and furious rubbing, but Cox was actually reassured when Newbie suddenly jerked his foot away from Cox’s fingers for a moment, giggling, though the older doctor couldn’t stop his eye-roll.
"Tickles," the kid muttered, with a vague grin, quickly looking up at the ceiling when Cox glared at him.
"So, ya think you can stand up, and we can take this thrilling party someplace else?" Cox asked him a while later, and Newbie nodded nervously, pulling his feet away, and trying to struggle to a stand. "Hold up there, Newbie," Cox sighed, getting up, and reaching down to take Newbie’s hand. He frowned when the kid flinched back like he was going to be hit, somehow feeling bothered instead of irritated. "Come on, Brittany." This time, the kid took his hand, and managed to make it to his feet, wincing horribly again, and leaning heavily on the hand Cox was still holding out. "Let’s go," Cox said, taking a step forward to the button panel, dragging Newbie with him.
"I’m not sure--" JD began hesitantly, but Cox never got to ask what he was talking about, because the kid suddenly let out a pained sound, and his feet quit supporting him, leaving him with nothing to do but tilt sideways, crash into Cox, and send them both sprawling to the floor in a painful heap.
"Little too soon," Newbie groaned from his position sprawled atop Cox, looking terrified and pained all at once. Cox could feel the vein in his forehead pounding, and several vertebrae that definitely weren‘t exactly where they ought to be. "Sorry," JD muttered miserably, rolling quickly off of the older doctor, trying to push himself up on limbs that were obviously still too stiff and numb to work properly.
Sitting up and counting to ten (he owed the shrink, after all), Cox managed to lean against the wall, and awkwardly pull JD up into a sitting position as well, though the whole process somehow managed to put the kid leaning against his shoulder, looking nothing short of terrified. Predictably, the kid struggled to shift, but Cox (8, 9, 10...) took a deep breath, and put a hand on the kid’s shoulder to keep him still.
"Just stay there, Amanda, it’ll make it easier to help you up next go around. And for the love of God, Newbie, next time just say you’re not ready, will ya? Maybe your last boyfriend didn’t mind you falling all over him, but I’m just not that kinda girl, Delilah. " And then he fell silent, having a sudden, sneaking suspicion that that had just come out all wrong.
"Uhm." Was all the kid could seem to say in reply, and for once, Cox entirely agreed. They fell into silence for a moment before, to his utter surprise, Cox noticed Newbie’s slim body was trembling against his own ever so slightly.
"Newbie?" He asked, feeling suddenly concerned again. "Are…" He winced against the unfamiliar words. "You-- are you alright?"
JD nodded against his shoulder, hair brushing Cox‘s neck as he smiled weakly. "Uh-huh. The… the adrenaline’s just finally working itself outta my system, I guess."
Which translated to: I got so terrified, I didn’t even let myself feel it until right now.
Cox desperately wanted to call him a pansy girl, or perhaps do something else entirely, which his mind couldn’t even properly process at the moment. He managed to refrain from either by biting very hard on his tongue. And by thinking about how terrifying it probably had been for the kid, and about how damn scared Cox himself had been when he’d seen Newbie lying so still on the ground… It all came back to the Janitor dying a very painful death, really.
"Musta been a real heart-thumper for ya, Dorothy, if you only managed to fall asleep an hour into it. But I can understand how all those little things can keep you up at night, and you probably worried yourself into an adrenaline filled frenzy, because, gosh, Megan, does all this duct tape make me look fat?" Sometimes, Cox wondered where all the mean actually came from. It hadn’t been there when he’d opened his mouth, he was positive, but somehow, every time he tried, the same old scathing fire seemed to shoot out anyway.
Not, of course, that it managed to phase the kid in any way, shape, or form.
Cue glazed fantasy-land look. It definitely involved a duct-tape dress. And Cox wanted to hit something, not only because of what Newbie was imagining, but because somehow, Cox actually knew what he was imagining in the first place. He settled on whistling sharply, and jostling the kid with his shoulder. "Sheila!"
JD had a small, goofy grin on his lips. Obviously, the duct-tape dress had been a hit with the other boys. But his expression suddenly turned rather somber and pensive. "There wasn’t really much to do but sleep, you know. I mean, no one was going to hear me yelling." He sighed. "I know , because I tried it for at least an hour."
Wow. The kid had just successfully made Cox feel bad. "Oh, I’m sorry, did you confuse my snide, ‘I don’t give a crap’ tone for concern, Newbie? Your mistake. But how about this? After we get out of here, we can run off to a spa and get ourselves facials, and talk about our feelings and drink a couple of glasses of boo-hoo together, how’s that?" And Cox had successfully made himself feel worse. God, would he ever manage to get himself under control?
"Look," JD blurted suddenly, "I’m sorry for causing you all this trouble, Dr. Cox. I feel like such an idiot."
Unable to stop himself, Cox let out a patronizing scoff. "Well, that’d be because you are there, Sarah-lee." Finally, JD winced, stiffening against Cox’s shoulder, though he didn‘t really look surprised. Some sadistic, abominable part of him satisfied, Cox let his guilt take over, and swallowed, managing after a moment to say in a reasonably gentle tone: "But it’s really not your fault the Janitor’s a creepy jack-ass, so why don‘t you save the self-deprecation for a time when ya really deserve it." He couldn’t, of course, stop there. "Wouldn’t put it in cold-storage if I were you, though, since I’m sure you’ll use it up in, oh, just the next five minutes."
"Right," Newbie answered flatly, and Cox suddenly remembered quite clearly why he’d been looking for the kid in the first place. Well, he certainly could argue the whole ‘constant stream of crap’ thing. Growling, he let his head fall back against the elevator wall, trying to think.
Thunk. Thunk.
Oh, what the hell, he's a decent kid. Be a man and apologize to him, from the heart for once!
Thunk. Thunk.
"…Dr. Cox?"
Cox grimaced fiercely, let his head fall back against the wall with one more satisfying thud, and then snapped-- "Oh, for God's sake, Lilly, Stop being such a complete wuss and--"
He could still feel Newbie shaking slightly. Could still see him rubbing painfully at his fingers. Could still remember seeing him, bound and so still on the elevator floor.
"Damn it!" The kid flinched a little, but stayed silent. Cox took a deep, steadying breath, and tried one more time.
"Look Newbie. JD. I know I’m an ass, and…and I’m…nhhg, I’m sorry." He paused, the kid falling unnaturally still and silent next to him. "And I can…can try and ‘work on it’--" He made finger quotes in the air for good measure. "If…if that’s what you want." And then all the nice ran out. "But so help me, Donna, if you don’t stop being such a wimp and come back to work with me, I’ll--!"
"Okay," JD said quickly, stopping him mid-insult.
"What?"
JD sat up a little, and turned his head awkwardly to beam at Cox. "Okay."
Cox blinked. "Good." And then he added another "damn it." under his breath for good measure. He cleared his throat, feeling unusually awkward. "So, uh…think you’re okay to try this again? And the truth now, Newbie, or you’ll land face-first this time, I promise you."
Newbie nodded, pulling on his socks and shoes. "Yeah, I’m good this time, really. And, Dr. Cox," he went on hurriedly, "I just wanna let you know how much I appreciate how hard you’re trying and I know--"
"Bup bup bup!" Cox interrupted, holding up a finger in JD’s face. "Don’t you do it, Linda, not if you eh-he-ever wanna leave this elevator in one piece. We clear?"
The damn kid was grinning as he nodded. And still grinning as Cox got up and yanked him (okay, so it was actually a gentle tug) to his feet, eyeing him warningly for any sign of falling. And still grinning, as his stomach suddenly gave a ferociously loud growl.
"God God, Newbie, and I thought Jordan was the only one growing demon spawn in her stomach. When was the last time you fed that thing?" Cox asked, pushing the emergency stop button back in. The doors opened.
"Well, I kind of missed dinner. And lunch. You know, the whole ‘tied up and locked in’ thing put a tiny little damper on my schedule," Newbie answered, sounding a teensy bit short tempered.
Touché.
"Well well, look who’s suddenly grown a big-boy pair, there," Cox said with a mocking expression, though his voice barely held any sarcasm. He was obviously slipping. "Alright then, Kylie, let’s get that thing fed." He and the kid would need energy to properly maim and disfigure the Janitor, after all.
For some reason, the eagerness shining in Newbie’s eyes didn’t annoy Cox quite as badly as he wanted it to. "Well then there’s no point getting off the elevator yet," The kid said cheerfully. "The cafeteria’s on the third floor."
Cox grimaced in disgust. "There is no way in hell I’m putting any of that crap in my stomach at this time of night, Princess. If I wanted to have a fight with my food over who’s gonna eat who, I’d be heading to the Congo. We’ll go someplace else, thanks. You know, someplace outside this hellhole. There are actually things outside these walls, Newbie, as hard as I know it is to remember sometimes."
"Okay," JD said softly, sounding shocked and thrilled. "I think I’m kinda done with elevator’s for a while anyway."
"Yeah," Said Cox, huffing out a laugh as they left the building, patting the kid on the shoulder. It wasn’t even hard for him to do.
And sometimes, things that seem really bad are actually the best things that could ever happen to you.
-Fin.-
Thanks for reading! Cheers.
Title: His Elevator Woes
Status: COMPLETE.
Rating: T for cursing and Janitor being creepy.
Categories: General, mostly. Humor. Uhm…little bit of H/C and fluff. Maybe?
Spoilers: This is a huuuuge alternate-ending for "His Story" (2 x 15) The rough transcript of which can be here: http://scrubs.mopnt.com/scripts/215.php
Pairings: JD/Cox friendship, with stabs at pre-slash.
A/N: My first go at Scrubs-fic. Worked really hard at trying to get their voices and movements right, but, well... I'll let you judge the success.
Summary: Alternate ending for "His Story". What if nobody had interrupted Janitor and JD on that elevator? What if Dr. Cox didn’t find JD until seven hours later? JDCox friendship bonding ridiculosity.
"Being stuck on an elevator is totally no fun. Stethoscopes, however, are.
"Prepare for re-entry." JD muttered into his stethoscope, his own voice magnified in his ears. "Our landing point has been compromised, and our final destination is uncertain."
Sometimes, things that seem bad, really aren’t. Because even though Janitor meant for this to be my punishment, now I could avoid my patients and my new attending. And stethoscopes really are totally awesome.
"In the event of a water landing--"
There was a sudden scraping noise, and JD looked up to see Janitor dropping out of a brand-new hole in the ceiling. "Incoming!" He landed heavily on the floor right in front of JD, and nodded. "How you doin’?"
Slowly, JD drew his knees tighter into his chest and stared up at the scary, scary man, horrified. "Did you just climb down an elevator shaft to torment me?"
The Janitor gave a little shrug in answer. "Well, sometimes in life you gotta do what you gotta do."
JD stood up, keeping his back tightly against the elevator wall as stepped away. He didn’t like it when the Janitor was in his touchie-bubble. "Look, I promise you the ‘door open’ button wasn’t working." Which was true. Since he’d never actually pushed the button, it hadn’t worked.
"No, it's okay." JD could tell it totally wasn’t, as he noticed the giant roll of duct-tape in the Janitor‘s hands. "We're gonna be able to work this thing out, seriously. Put your hands together." Janitor began peeling the tape from it’s roll. "Like you’re praying."
As if in a fog, JD complied.
For the record, it wasn’t ‘like I was praying.’ I was just praying. A lot.
The Janitor wrapped the tape around his wrists once. And twice. And a third time. Tightly.
"My fingers are tingly!" JD giggled his girly ‘I’m so nervous, I think I just peed a little’ giggle. Dr. Cox got to hear that one the most.
"Yeah," answered the Janitor, before giving JD a hard shove. "Sit." Without his hands for balance, JD toppled over with a squeak. "Good boy." And he began wrapping the tape around his ankles.
"Hey!" Janitor kept taping. "Should you really be using up all the hospital’s duct-tape like this? Won’t you, you know, like, get in trouble?" JD offered nervously, hoping maybe he could reason with him, even though a year and a half past experience told him otherwise.
The Janitor paused, ripping the tape with his teeth, and sat back on his haunches. He pressed his lips together, and JD knew he was in trouble. "So this just has to be ‘the hospital’s’ tape, huh? What, because I’m a janitor, I can’t even afford my own duct-tape? "
"N-no, that’s not--"
"You think I steal? Oh, because I’m just a dumb janitor, of course I steal from the hospital, right?" JD squeaked weakly. "Maybe it’s time for a little quiet-time so you stop hurting people’s feelings, huh?" JD squeaked again. The Janitor ripped off another strip of tape with his teeth, and slapped roughly over JD’s mouth, from ear to ear so their was no way JD could wiggle it off.
"I’m just joking," said the Janitor, standing up. "It is the hospital’s. Hmm." He tilted his head and looked down at JD, who was staring back with wide eyes, sitting helpless on the freezing elevator floor. "I’ll be back when you’ve had time to think about what you’ve done. Say in about an hour. Or twelve." The Janitor nodded, his lip jutting out. "Yeah. Alley-oop!" And he jumped up, grabbing the ledge of the hole in the ceiling, and pulled himself through, disappearing from view for a moment, before sticking his head back down, and waving at JD. "Have a nice day, Mr. Meanie-pants." And then he was gone, sliding the panel back into place, and leaving JD all alone.
"Mmmmffff!" JD yelled, which really meant "Aaaaah!", but the tape made it hard to talk. He’d kept praying the whole time, but obviously it hadn’t helped so far. He wondered if God was up there, watching him, waiting for the right moment to save his favorite earthling.
// The scene is dreamy and foggy, white clouds and gold everywhere. It’s obviously heaven. The view pans from the ground and the hem of white robes up, up, to the face of Jimmy Walker, who is laughing hysterically, a drink in his hand. There’s a big gold chain around his neck, with bling reading in big letters GOD. Kelso, Jordan, and Janitor are hovering around him, all with horns on their heads, surrounded by flames. They all cackle wildly, pointing down at JD, and toasting each other. Jimmy Walker shrugs. "Sorry JD, they’re just too funny! Saint Peter just never had any sense of humor."
Flash to a sweaty pale man, tied to a roasting pit, slowly being turned over a red-hot fire. "I’ve got jokes!" He wails. "I can be funnyyyy!"//
At least Turk would be glad to know his fantasy-God was black, JD thought, wiggling his feet to try and keep blood in them. This was almost sort of an adventure, except for the part where it was way too scary and quiet, and wouldn’t really make a very good story to tell other people. Although it might make Lawyer-Ted cry.
Actually, JD was freaking out a little himself. He couldn’t move, it was hard to breath with the tape over his mouth, his hands and feet were going numb, and he had an itch behind his knee he couldn’t get to. And Until Janitor decided to release him, or fix the elevator so somebody else could find him, JD was totally stuck. He could feel himself beginning to break out in a cold sweat.
And sometimes, things that seem really bad actually suck worse than you ever could have thought possible.
---------
Perry Cox’s day had gone from bad to worse. Kelso was back to being his normal pitch-fork wielding self, old Mr. Zimmerman in curtain three kept trying die on him, Jordan was being so hormonally cranky that he could feel her claws digging into his face all the way from home, and he’d actually made Nervous Guy wet himself. Okay, so the last one was really a good thing, but still.
And the elevator had been broken all day, so the hospital staff had been forced to use the stairs. This made for very short-tempered employees, who Dr. Cox would’ve loved to take his anger out on, except that the stairwell always seemed to be strangely empty every time he was in it.
// Flashback to earlier that day. Cox stands at the top floor-landing, his eyes even more googly than normal. "If anyone so much as thinks about getting in my way, so help me God, I will throw them over the railing! And believe me, you re-he-heally do not want that to happen, because then I’d be medically obligated to treat you brain-dead drones, and my hands might just slip and slide a scalpel right across your noise-making throats! We got that?" He grins at everyone menacingly, and all scatter.//
Okay, so not so ‘strangely’ empty, after all.
But the real problem was that he hadn’t been able to find Newbie all day. Granted, Patricia had a real knack for hiding like the scared little girl she was whenever Cox was on the warpath, but he’d always found the kid in the end, normally squeaking in terror in some dark corner.
But Cox had already checked all the usual hiding places, and even the unusual ones. He didn’t know whose services Newbie had switched out to, and Nervous Guy only cried whenever Cox tried to talk to him, so he couldn’t even wait around JD’s patients for the kid. And he had found, strangely enough, that he actually sort of missed the obnoxious idiot, girly gibberish and all.
Cox had actually planned to confront Newbie and ask him to come back, and it was really pissing him off that JD had the nerve to successfully avoid him. It wasn’t often Cox did something nice, and damn it all, he expected people to cooperate when he was preparing to act all out of character and disgusting. Obviously Madeline had missed the memo. It probably hadn’t been able to penetrate his brain through all that gunky, girly crap he put in his hair all the time.
That was a pretty good line, actually, Cox mused, as he walked down the hall towards the stairs, ready to go home. He’d have to use it on the kid sometime.
He stopped as he passed the elevator, glaring at the contraption with his angriest stare. "Work!" He snarled threateningly, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t have to walk down all those stairs again. He jabbed the button sharply, eyeing it, daring it to disobey him.
The button lit up obediently for the first time all day, and he could hear the pulleys squeak behind the door. Excellent. At least some things knew their place around here.
After a moment, Cox heard the satisfying ‘ding’ and the doors slid open smoothly. He stepped in, pushed the button for ground floor and the waited for the elevator to start moving again. As it did, something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Startled, he jerked his head left and down, only to stare in horrified shock at the sight before him.
Eyes closed, lying very awkwardly on his side on the ground, his face and scrubs drenched in sweat, his feet and hands bound tightly, and his mouth covered by a strip of duct-tape, was Newbie. He wasn’t moving.
"What the hell?" Cox yelped (in a manly way), taking two strides forward, and falling to his knees in front of Newbie. "Kid?" He shook the younger man’s shoulder roughly. "Newbie!" He shook harder, his other hand coming up to check for a pulse on the kid’s damp throat, as something like panic swelled in his gut. "JD!"
And Newbie jerked awake, looking around frantically, breath coming in loud burst from his nose. When his dark eyes finally landed on Cox, his entire body practically melted with visible relief, and he let out an ecstatic "Mmmf!"
"Good God, Scarlet, what happened?" Cox asked, ignoring the fact that his tone wasn’t nearly as condescending as he’d being going for, and it was maybe even a little shaky.
"Mmmf," Newbie said, and Cox rolled his eyes, reached down, got ahold of one end of the tape covering his mouth, and yanked. Hard.
"Holy shit!" JD yelled as soon as his mouth was uncovered, his whole face contorted in pain. He moved his lips and jaw around in ridiculous ways to work out the sting, still wincing. "Owie."
Relief suddenly giving way to irritation, Cox swiped at his nose, though he stayed squatting over the kid, his other hand still on his shoulder. "Now for Christ’s Sake, would ya like to tell me just what in the hell you’re doing lying here like the damsel in distress you so obviously are? And if you say one thing about waiting for a knight to rescue you, Jezabelle, I’m gonna have to hurt you, I re-he-heally am."
Newbie’s eyes got all glassy then, and Cox knew he’d just been put on the back of a horse in a shiny suit of armor. He also had a sneaking suspicion the kid was probably in a dress. A pink one. With ruffles. "Gallop away!" Newbie muttered, a stupid dazed grin on his face, and Cox grimaced, rolling his eyes.
"Oh for God’s sake." He whistled sharply, and the younger man jerked back to the present, a sheepish smile still on his face. "Try to focus here, would ya? ‘Cause I’m starting to feel oh-so-tempted to stick this tape back over your foundation-covered face, and walk away, walk away, walk away!"
The elevator dinged suddenly, and the doors began to slide open. Some non-existent part of him suddenly feeling a little worried about the kid’s dignity, Cox reached up, hit the ‘close’ button, and pulled the emergency stop. A very faint ringing filled the elevator.
"Dr. Cox, do you think you could help me sit up?" Newbie asked him, apparently oblivious to what the older doctor had just done, looking a little embarrassed. "I’d do it myself, but I can’t feel my hands."
Cox actually couldn’t think of anything smart-assed and cutting to say to that, so instead, he just did as the kid asked, keeping his hands firmly on the kid’s arms, when it was obvious Newbie was a little dizzy. "Thanks," Newbie said a little weakly, his eyes rolling a little like he might pass out.
Cox decided to give him a minute, scanning his body with a medical eye as he waited. No bruises, no obviously broken bones or other injuries. His cheeks and lips were painfully red from the tape, and the left side of his face had imprints from the tile on the floor, but nothing seemed to be actually harmed. The only thing that caused Cox any concern were the dangerously pasty-white color of the kid’s hands. The tape was wrapped entirely too tight, and he knew the same was true for the binding around his ankles.
He peered back into Newbie’s eyes, and determined they seemed focused and steady enough. "So what happened?" He stopped there, biting back the rest of it, which involved a beautiful turn of phrase about JD being an enormous pansy.
"The Janitor," Newbie said simply, mouth tilted to the side in a pouty frown, as he looked over at the wall. Cox felt his irritation surge forward again at that totally unhelpful answer, and had his mouth open to rip into the kid, when JD went on, looking a little sheepish once more. "He broke the elevator while I was alone in it, and left me here for awhile. Then he climbed through the elevator shaft and dropped in through the ceiling, and taped me up and left again. I think he must be a ninja."
// The Janitor stands in the hallway in a black ninja suit, twirling a mop dangerously in his hands. He flips in the air over a spill on the linoleum, lands lightly on his feet, and delivers a crushing round-house kick to the mop-bucket, with a yell of "Hiii-ya!"//
"Hohhh!" Cox shook his head, grimacing and shocked at the image that just invaded his head. He looked over at Newbie, who was nodding.
"He’d be a scary ninja, wouldn’t he?"
Letting go of JD’s shoulder’s, he buried his hands in his hair, squishing the furrows in his forehead together in agitation. "So let me get this straight here, Rosalyn. The janitor broke the elevator on purpose, and then…climbed through the elevator shaft?" He paused, looking down at the kid, who nodded seriously.
"He’s a bad, bad man."
"Nnhg." Cox shook his head again. "And then he taped you up and just left you here? What did you do to him, Princess, steal his favorite squeegee?" He put up his hand. "Never-mind. I so don’t really want to know." Newbie shrugged, which was hard, considering his hands were still taped together awkwardly. "And how long ago was this, Tiffany?"
JD frowned. "What time is it?"
"Midnight."
"About seven hours then," the kid sighed, looking up at the ceiling.
Cox suddenly saw red. It was vaguely amusing when he only thought the kid had been in here for at most an hour. But seven? Bound and gagged and completely trapped? That was inexcusable, and dangerous. Annoying as the kid might sometimes be, there was no way he deserved something that bad. And judging from how drenched in sweat Newbie was, he’d probably been pretty terrified after awhile.
It also meant the lack of circulation in his hands was getting to a dangerous point now, and Cox had nothing to rip at the tape with. He sighed, trying to push down his anger, and think. "Alright Newbie, we’ve got to get this tape off of your wrists, and I’m fresh outta pocket-knives."
"Couldn’t we just get me out of here and to a nurse’s station? I’m sure they have scissors," JD suggested.
"Lookie here, Newbie, do ya really wanna go out at this elevator in this kinky getup? Granted nobody’d be real surprised, but a girl’s got a reputation to keep!" Cox answered mockingly, and JD tilted his head from side to side, with that strange half-smile, half-pout look on his face.
"Good point."
Cox nodded, grabbing JD‘s hands, wincing inwardly at how cold they were, and the absolute lack of sensation JD obviously had, and lifted his wrists up to eyelevel "So, I just want you to hold real still, here, Princess, and wait while I get this garbage off." And with that, he leaned forward, and grabbed the tape between his teeth, scraping the kid‘s wrist with his eye-teeth in the process.
"Eeep!" Said Newbie loudly, but Cox growled and he fell silent.
After a moment’s pulling and gnawing, Cox felt the tape start to rip. Another moment later, and it was split halfway down. He leaned back and took the two ripped edges between his fingers, leveling a sober stare at Newbie. "This is going to hurt like a bitch there, Amy, so are you ready, or should I give you a moment to get out your lacy handkerchief?"
Newbie gritted his teeth a little, gazing steadily at his lifeless looking hands, and nodded. "Go ahead." Without further hesitation, Cox pulled the thick strips of tape away from Newbie’s wrists, wadding it up in a ball, and waiting.
Slowly, stiffly, JD flexed his wrists and lowered his arms, wiggling his fingers ever so slightly for a painless moment. Then the blood flow started, and Cox heard him give a sharp intake of breath, and watched his shoulders hunch forward in pain. "Ooooh," he said very quietly, and Cox only just managed not to say something snide in return.
After pausing for a moment, Cox reached down to JD’s feet, and began untying his shoe-laces. "I can’t feel that at all," Newbie said, looking concerned under his pained grimace.
"You’ll be alright," Cox muttered, trying for gentle this time. "Hasn’t been long enough to do any real damage." Another half-hour, and it’d be a different story, he added to himself, feeling the fury bubble dangerously again.
He made quick work of the shoelaces, and tugged off both sneakers, shedding the socks off the kid’s freezing, snow-white feet with professional, practiced ease. They both knew bare feet would get the circulation going fastest, and somewhere in his head, Cox found himself actually glad that Newbie was a doctor, so he didn’t have to deal with all the explanations for once. That taken care of, Cox leaned low again, and bent to take the tape between his teeth, pausing when he heard a funny noise from Newbie.
When he looked up, the younger man was looking at him with a strange mix of bewilderment, pain, and what could only be described as his "yucky-face."
"Golly gee, Martha," Cox snapped in a high-pitched, mocking tone. "Will ya still respect me in the morning?"
Newbie looked away embarrassedly, and might’ve said something, put only let out another pained breath as the blood started going in his hands for real. "Gaahh."
Cox muttered unintelligibly to himself as he leaned forward again, and took the tape between his teeth. He made quick work of it, not even hesitating this time, before ripping the tape completely away, and adding it to the now huge ball of wadded tape over in the opposite corner of the elevator. There was a moment of silence, and then the expected "Ow, ow, ow, ow!" From Newbie, though Cox was grudgingly impressed that the kid managed to keep his voice in a normal octave. The combined pain seemed to be a little worse than the younger man had been expecting though, and he let out another hiss of "God!" Between clenched teeth, as he stoically flexed his feet.
His knees beginning to feel the strain from the crouch he was in, Cox sat down on the cold linoleum, still facing JD, whose eyes kept darting around embarrassedly, trying not to make eye contact. Cox, on the other hand, never looked away, watching the younger man with sharp eyes as little noises of agony kept escaping him. Feeling inexplicably bad about the whole thing, annoyingly relieved that JD was alright, and murderously pissed off at the janitor, Cox grimaced and reached forward, pulling JD’s feet forward, ignoring the yip of pain the younger man let out.
"Easy, there, Gina," He said quietly, and ran his thumbs firmly up the soles of Newbie’s still-cold feet.
JD let out a warbled noise, flinching horribly, and Cox knew it must hurt like hell. "This isn’t exactly how I imagined it," JD gasped out, biting his lip between his teeth hard after he spoke, his eyes clamping shut in pain.
Cox made a conscious decision to just totally let that one go. He just…didn’t even want to know. Through some feat of magic, he managed not to say anything biting in response, and continued massaging the blood back into the slowly-warming feet, while the kid kept rubbing at his own hands, still hissing with pain occasionally. "Getting some feeling back?" Cox asked after a few moments, and JD nodded jerkily, eyes opening to still-pained slits.
"Pins and needles," He answered tightly, now shaking his fingers hard. "And some fire. Possibly some molten lava, but not the pretty kind like in the lava lamp Carla gave Turk for--"
"Newbie," Cox said warningly, and the kid fell silent, grinning a little. Cox pretended not to notice.
Some time passed before Newbie quit wincing quite so hard, and leaned his head back against the wall, looking pretty strung out and exhausted, even as he kept rubbing his fingers. His hands and feet were now bright red from all the new blood and furious rubbing, but Cox was actually reassured when Newbie suddenly jerked his foot away from Cox’s fingers for a moment, giggling, though the older doctor couldn’t stop his eye-roll.
"Tickles," the kid muttered, with a vague grin, quickly looking up at the ceiling when Cox glared at him.
"So, ya think you can stand up, and we can take this thrilling party someplace else?" Cox asked him a while later, and Newbie nodded nervously, pulling his feet away, and trying to struggle to a stand. "Hold up there, Newbie," Cox sighed, getting up, and reaching down to take Newbie’s hand. He frowned when the kid flinched back like he was going to be hit, somehow feeling bothered instead of irritated. "Come on, Brittany." This time, the kid took his hand, and managed to make it to his feet, wincing horribly again, and leaning heavily on the hand Cox was still holding out. "Let’s go," Cox said, taking a step forward to the button panel, dragging Newbie with him.
"I’m not sure--" JD began hesitantly, but Cox never got to ask what he was talking about, because the kid suddenly let out a pained sound, and his feet quit supporting him, leaving him with nothing to do but tilt sideways, crash into Cox, and send them both sprawling to the floor in a painful heap.
"Little too soon," Newbie groaned from his position sprawled atop Cox, looking terrified and pained all at once. Cox could feel the vein in his forehead pounding, and several vertebrae that definitely weren‘t exactly where they ought to be. "Sorry," JD muttered miserably, rolling quickly off of the older doctor, trying to push himself up on limbs that were obviously still too stiff and numb to work properly.
Sitting up and counting to ten (he owed the shrink, after all), Cox managed to lean against the wall, and awkwardly pull JD up into a sitting position as well, though the whole process somehow managed to put the kid leaning against his shoulder, looking nothing short of terrified. Predictably, the kid struggled to shift, but Cox (8, 9, 10...) took a deep breath, and put a hand on the kid’s shoulder to keep him still.
"Just stay there, Amanda, it’ll make it easier to help you up next go around. And for the love of God, Newbie, next time just say you’re not ready, will ya? Maybe your last boyfriend didn’t mind you falling all over him, but I’m just not that kinda girl, Delilah. " And then he fell silent, having a sudden, sneaking suspicion that that had just come out all wrong.
"Uhm." Was all the kid could seem to say in reply, and for once, Cox entirely agreed. They fell into silence for a moment before, to his utter surprise, Cox noticed Newbie’s slim body was trembling against his own ever so slightly.
"Newbie?" He asked, feeling suddenly concerned again. "Are…" He winced against the unfamiliar words. "You-- are you alright?"
JD nodded against his shoulder, hair brushing Cox‘s neck as he smiled weakly. "Uh-huh. The… the adrenaline’s just finally working itself outta my system, I guess."
Which translated to: I got so terrified, I didn’t even let myself feel it until right now.
Cox desperately wanted to call him a pansy girl, or perhaps do something else entirely, which his mind couldn’t even properly process at the moment. He managed to refrain from either by biting very hard on his tongue. And by thinking about how terrifying it probably had been for the kid, and about how damn scared Cox himself had been when he’d seen Newbie lying so still on the ground… It all came back to the Janitor dying a very painful death, really.
"Musta been a real heart-thumper for ya, Dorothy, if you only managed to fall asleep an hour into it. But I can understand how all those little things can keep you up at night, and you probably worried yourself into an adrenaline filled frenzy, because, gosh, Megan, does all this duct tape make me look fat?" Sometimes, Cox wondered where all the mean actually came from. It hadn’t been there when he’d opened his mouth, he was positive, but somehow, every time he tried, the same old scathing fire seemed to shoot out anyway.
Not, of course, that it managed to phase the kid in any way, shape, or form.
Cue glazed fantasy-land look. It definitely involved a duct-tape dress. And Cox wanted to hit something, not only because of what Newbie was imagining, but because somehow, Cox actually knew what he was imagining in the first place. He settled on whistling sharply, and jostling the kid with his shoulder. "Sheila!"
JD had a small, goofy grin on his lips. Obviously, the duct-tape dress had been a hit with the other boys. But his expression suddenly turned rather somber and pensive. "There wasn’t really much to do but sleep, you know. I mean, no one was going to hear me yelling." He sighed. "I know , because I tried it for at least an hour."
Wow. The kid had just successfully made Cox feel bad. "Oh, I’m sorry, did you confuse my snide, ‘I don’t give a crap’ tone for concern, Newbie? Your mistake. But how about this? After we get out of here, we can run off to a spa and get ourselves facials, and talk about our feelings and drink a couple of glasses of boo-hoo together, how’s that?" And Cox had successfully made himself feel worse. God, would he ever manage to get himself under control?
"Look," JD blurted suddenly, "I’m sorry for causing you all this trouble, Dr. Cox. I feel like such an idiot."
Unable to stop himself, Cox let out a patronizing scoff. "Well, that’d be because you are there, Sarah-lee." Finally, JD winced, stiffening against Cox’s shoulder, though he didn‘t really look surprised. Some sadistic, abominable part of him satisfied, Cox let his guilt take over, and swallowed, managing after a moment to say in a reasonably gentle tone: "But it’s really not your fault the Janitor’s a creepy jack-ass, so why don‘t you save the self-deprecation for a time when ya really deserve it." He couldn’t, of course, stop there. "Wouldn’t put it in cold-storage if I were you, though, since I’m sure you’ll use it up in, oh, just the next five minutes."
"Right," Newbie answered flatly, and Cox suddenly remembered quite clearly why he’d been looking for the kid in the first place. Well, he certainly could argue the whole ‘constant stream of crap’ thing. Growling, he let his head fall back against the elevator wall, trying to think.
Thunk. Thunk.
Oh, what the hell, he's a decent kid. Be a man and apologize to him, from the heart for once!
Thunk. Thunk.
"…Dr. Cox?"
Cox grimaced fiercely, let his head fall back against the wall with one more satisfying thud, and then snapped-- "Oh, for God's sake, Lilly, Stop being such a complete wuss and--"
He could still feel Newbie shaking slightly. Could still see him rubbing painfully at his fingers. Could still remember seeing him, bound and so still on the elevator floor.
"Damn it!" The kid flinched a little, but stayed silent. Cox took a deep, steadying breath, and tried one more time.
"Look Newbie. JD. I know I’m an ass, and…and I’m…nhhg, I’m sorry." He paused, the kid falling unnaturally still and silent next to him. "And I can…can try and ‘work on it’--" He made finger quotes in the air for good measure. "If…if that’s what you want." And then all the nice ran out. "But so help me, Donna, if you don’t stop being such a wimp and come back to work with me, I’ll--!"
"Okay," JD said quickly, stopping him mid-insult.
"What?"
JD sat up a little, and turned his head awkwardly to beam at Cox. "Okay."
Cox blinked. "Good." And then he added another "damn it." under his breath for good measure. He cleared his throat, feeling unusually awkward. "So, uh…think you’re okay to try this again? And the truth now, Newbie, or you’ll land face-first this time, I promise you."
Newbie nodded, pulling on his socks and shoes. "Yeah, I’m good this time, really. And, Dr. Cox," he went on hurriedly, "I just wanna let you know how much I appreciate how hard you’re trying and I know--"
"Bup bup bup!" Cox interrupted, holding up a finger in JD’s face. "Don’t you do it, Linda, not if you eh-he-ever wanna leave this elevator in one piece. We clear?"
The damn kid was grinning as he nodded. And still grinning as Cox got up and yanked him (okay, so it was actually a gentle tug) to his feet, eyeing him warningly for any sign of falling. And still grinning, as his stomach suddenly gave a ferociously loud growl.
"God God, Newbie, and I thought Jordan was the only one growing demon spawn in her stomach. When was the last time you fed that thing?" Cox asked, pushing the emergency stop button back in. The doors opened.
"Well, I kind of missed dinner. And lunch. You know, the whole ‘tied up and locked in’ thing put a tiny little damper on my schedule," Newbie answered, sounding a teensy bit short tempered.
Touché.
"Well well, look who’s suddenly grown a big-boy pair, there," Cox said with a mocking expression, though his voice barely held any sarcasm. He was obviously slipping. "Alright then, Kylie, let’s get that thing fed." He and the kid would need energy to properly maim and disfigure the Janitor, after all.
For some reason, the eagerness shining in Newbie’s eyes didn’t annoy Cox quite as badly as he wanted it to. "Well then there’s no point getting off the elevator yet," The kid said cheerfully. "The cafeteria’s on the third floor."
Cox grimaced in disgust. "There is no way in hell I’m putting any of that crap in my stomach at this time of night, Princess. If I wanted to have a fight with my food over who’s gonna eat who, I’d be heading to the Congo. We’ll go someplace else, thanks. You know, someplace outside this hellhole. There are actually things outside these walls, Newbie, as hard as I know it is to remember sometimes."
"Okay," JD said softly, sounding shocked and thrilled. "I think I’m kinda done with elevator’s for a while anyway."
"Yeah," Said Cox, huffing out a laugh as they left the building, patting the kid on the shoulder. It wasn’t even hard for him to do.
And sometimes, things that seem really bad are actually the best things that could ever happen to you.
-Fin.-
Thanks for reading! Cheers.