my (bittersweet) cake


a/n: This is sort of my continuation from the episode 4x06 'My Cake', here JD deals with the loss of his father in a completely different way, it hits him much harder. It's been a couple of years since I've had this scene stuck in my head, but now after getting acquainted with loss myself I decided I would just write something about it, and this is one part of the three-piece I'm working on. It will get heavy at times, please remember that. I love Scrubs for everything that the show is, and I know it's comedy above all else, but I just wish they had treated JD's grief differently and a little bit more respectfully, though I love the end of the episode all the same.

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pairing?:

The relationship isn't the main or focal point of this since it's simply a story about grief and the eventual recovery from it, the connection between people. That said, there will be references to JD/Cox, but very honestly, I think writing about grieving characters jumping into a bed or relationship could end up not only being spectacularly unhealthy, but downright toxic too (I've read a few kind of fics like that and... big yikes), so there's that.

. . .


Linger


The moment he hears the jarring sound the door makes when slowly clicking shut, deafening in the way it echoes so loudly inside his head, he ploughs into consciousness, eyes snapping open to the blank, muted white of the ceiling, to shadows drawing in, and light trickling out, and soft footfalls fading away.

His dazed mind, still in between the superficial state of wakefulness and a restless rest, kicks into gear. And in the split of a second he is somehow able to place where exactly he is, what exactly had taken place before he passed out and who exactly was with him during it all.

He remembers, with a certain clarity his current plight should not be allowed to give him, dozing on the couch at one point in the night, vision blurring with a mesh of washed out colors growing dimmer, ears picking up toned down timbers of voices growing distant. And then he remembers not feeling cold anymore. Doctor Cox must have carried him to his room, and now he is-

Doctor Cox is leaving.

No no no- he can't, not now, not before he unshackles on him the downpour of his regret, of his gratitude, and everything standing in between that was left unsaid.

His aching muscles pull, scream at him to slow down, and his head pounds in a splitting sort of way, and the vertigo that sweeps in leaves him feeling mostly nauseous, but he doesn't pay heed to his body's protests and throws away the sheets, and looks for something to clutch, because his chest hurts and he needs a lifeline. Bleary eyes find his rumpled pillow in the dull light of his room and he takes it, holds on for dear life.

JD all but frantically barges out, like a soldier with an urgent mission to carry out, and finds him to be a step from leaving.

Their eyes lock, and he ends up locked in place too. Two different shades of blue meet, forthright surprise reflecting into unflinching despair.

"Wait!"

His own voice feels foreign, but so do his surroundings, and he has the distinct impression his skin has been torn away from him and turned inside out, his ailing bleeding and bare for all to see. And it's twisted, being forced through such a cataclysmic experience, it's twisted and it twists his insides and mind and emotions into something noxious, something so raw and excoriated if he looked in the mirror it would downright kill him, the stranger on the other side unrecognizable and in pieces, gaping holes of himself he won't ever get back.

Loss shattered his world, only to color his shattered world a lifeless gray, everything colored a lifeless gray except for the man standing in front of him. The only familiar slice of life he can hope to latch to.

They so simply say, 'Bad things happen for a reason', but how is it that he can't find that damn reason.

Because nothing can unbreak this, a wound that leaves behind a scar so deep-rooted it will never truly heal.

Because even if he had learned how to deal with death every time he walked into the hospital, he has never learned how to deal with death out of it.

…And he doesn't know what to do.

But his mind plays for him a little run down of this past week and a half's events and his mouth plays out the words for him- before he can even think them through.

"I'm sorry for pushing you more than twice."

It's the first thought his mostly inexistent brain-to-mouth filter gives voice to- as it turns out, grief and alcohol aren't exactly a nonpareil mix, even if the latter does provide a distraction, though fleeting at best- and after that, the thoughts and the words keep coming in like an avalanche, tangled, and he can barely string them out.

"Turk found out you punched me. And he offered to kick your ass-" Because he can always rely on his Chocolate Bear. "-but I told him I'd already gotten back to you." Even if he had shrieked in fright the instant he saw the man step into his apartment, for a wild moment thinking he would be murdered in the most drastic and hare-brained and laughable and absurd ways for the 'WASH ME!' he had written across the windshield of his so cherished Porsche, which he had dirtied in an act of revenge… but it truly was no more than an upset, childish attempt at retaliation for being denied of the hug he has always wanted. "…You deserved it." He continues with that same sentiment, with that same leftover childishness, like a hopeful kid being stolen of a deserving gift he had been promised.

And Doctor Cox, coherent with this particular night but incoherent with his usual routine and self, acquiesces, with warming eyes that slowly soften around the edges, with lips pressing together in a paper-thin line of indulgence, with that stretched smile of his that tells him, 'Yeah, I did'.

And JD dithers for a moment, the breath gets punched out of him with the next bits, which he is finally giving meaning to. "But you took all of my patients. And threatened to death whoever thought of even paging me." He has to thank Carla for this part.

Doctor Cox blinks, his brows twitching slightly in surprise at the second tidbit, probably cursing (affectionately so) Carla in his mind for the slip.

"You helped Dan too." JD is quick to add, even more gratefully, knowing in his gut this was well above and beyond plain help. "He would've probably drowned in his homemade bath of beer, slash tears, slash piss if you hadn't."

He's met with a little grimacing nod at the reminder.

"And…" This time he properly falters, stutters on a gasping inhale, on the quietest of words, on the importance of their meaning. "…you took care of me."

Doctor Cox is a coalesce of stiffened limbs and unspoken arguing, his jaw a tense line, his eyes a confining border. He shifts his weight, uncomfortable, but doesn't move from his place, doesn't take a step back, maybe too proud to do so despite the calamity of the words… until the hard edges all splinter, until the uneasiness bleeds out of him and his shoulders slump with it, and the lingering stillness becomes the silence of two people who understand each other.

And JD still wants to fill up the silence with what he lacked in these torturing, never-ending days, distantly wondering what expression he is wearing right now, what is the face the other man is seeing, if it's alright to show him this much and all at once unable to stop himself from offering these fractured shards of himself. "I'm sorry- I… was wrong. Thank you for coming through for me."

He tries to swallow past the lump in his throat that has become suffocating now and his muscles involuntarily tighten, as if he's bracing himself in fear of the impact of another punch.

He is still wearing the size too big jersey Doctor Cox gave him, still clutching his pillow tightly to himself, for all the world feeling like a lost child who is looking for a safe place, needing something to hold on to. And he still doesn't understand it, still doesn't get it, that maybe what he needs to hold is not an abstraction of a past home that he knows is not here anymore, even though he wants to hold on to it, he wants to keep hold of it so badly.

And suddenly he is letting out in the open fragments of the bad, desperate taste of horror he has been drowning under.

And suddenly he hears his own voice asking him to...

"Stay."

The faint whisper is nothing more than a broken plea.

He is still reeling from a loss so unfathomable it's only unraveling now and he is afraid to push further, but at the same time dreads the thought of being left alone to deal with its consequences.

"…please." He adds, small and hesitant and unsure.

And with one hand still reaching for the door, his mentor… stops in his tracks.

They both linger, rooted to their respective spots.

JD still can't begin to imagine what face he must be making now, but it seems to be the only thing Doctor Cox is focusing on as his arm falls slack, falling back to his side. The man, finally, fully turns to face him, and whatever fight he might have had in him dissolves underneath the soundless turmoil between them.

And Doctor Cox appears defeated, as if coming back from a battle now lost, but he doesn't stay mournful for long, and maybe what he lost wasn't as fundamental as he had first thought it to be since his rueful simper draws out, and he utters words JD thought he would never hear aimed his way.

"…Okay, Newbie. I'll stay."