Title: His Family
For: LJ's vanillabuzz
Author: Kipli
Email:Kipli at livejournal dot com
Series: Scrubs
Pairing: Cox/JD, Jack, Jennifer, Sammy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,600
Summary: Perry muses about and deals with his unique family.
Disclaimer: Not my 'verse, I just play with them.
Notes: While stuck offline, I wrote this. It is set (although who the hell knows if it will come to pass) in the LJ's theirlives universe. How old are the kids? My guess is 11-12 and 7-8.
FFNET NOTE: If you're wondering where I've been or what I've been up to, look up community dot livejournal dot com slash their underscore lives to check out the RPG that's taken over my creativity time. It's uber fantastic though, so please go take a look.
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His Family
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What is family?
The conservative, right-wing, full blooded red states will tell you that a family consists of a married man and woman and their own post-marriage children. True and correct families didn't exist with one parent or multiple parents. Two people of the same sex definitely didn't have actual "families". Even re-married couples should properly speak of their spouse's children as step-children. That somehow their claim of parenthood wasn't valid because their genes are not involved.
But then again, I was never going to have a "normal" family no matter how my life turned out. Not with the insanity of my own "properly married" parents.
The loud screech that rings from the front yard pulls me out of my own musings. Oh lord, what were those little monsters up to now?
I thrust open the screen door and hop down off the patio, narrowly missing a good sized hole in the ground just to the left of the path down out of the house to the front gate. I blink, as my jaw lowers, and take in the sight of my once beautifully green and immaculate lawn. Holes. Holes all over the place. Little ones, big ones, wide ones, deep ones. I hadn't been on the phone thatlong...
All I can see is Jennifer in her sun dress sitting next to the stuffed yellow lab, Steven, beside one particularly deep hole in the far left corner. I don't miss the fact that they seemed to have dressed Steven in one of JD's hats--this time a tan cowboy hat. A second later and two shovel loads of dirt fly up onto the opposite side of the hole.
"Sam!" I shout. Because, although he may not be the oldest of the three, over the years he'sdefinitely proven himself to be the ring leader for these sort of shinanagins. I blame his father's genes. Completely.
Jennifer jumps at my shout and snaps her head back to me, white sun hat nearly flying off her head, before she turns back and rushes a quickly hushed order into the hole. I swear she's nearly as bad as Sam with the conspiring. She's got her mother's quick wit and quicker tongue. Already.
I march across the yard, leaping over one hole only to slide my way into another, and shout again as I get to them, "Sam Perry Gilligan Dorian Cox! What did you do to our yard?!"
As I come up to them, I watch the dark haired Sammy clamber his beanpole self up out of the hole--oh god that's got to be at least five foot deep!--and dust himself off as he comes up to me nonchalantly. He bats his father's blue eyes up at me and grins excitedly. "Dinosaurs," he says with this hushed enthusiasm. As if that explains my beautiful pot marked lawn.
I fold my arms across my chest and narrow my eyes down at him. "Dinosaurs?"
He nods vigorously. "California is a known hotbed for Dinosaur bones. There's a big dig by UCLA just a hundred miles from here. They found a Rex! A whole one!"
How am I not surprised? I shake my head as I repeat again, "A Rex?"
"A T-Rex Dad," Jennifer answers with this all suffering tone--once again, from her mother, though Jordan claims it's from me--from her spot still poised by Steven. She turns back to Jack still slaving away in their latest hole and points over to the far side. "Over there. I think I see something." She would be the one barking orders.
"We need to move spots again," Jack declares. He stops his work to lean against his shovel. He was always their grunt man, the one simply dragged along for the ride. If he thought it sounded interesting. His few years seniority over them gave him height to repel their attempts to drag him to do anything he didn't actually want to do. Though Sam and Jennifer's quick wits were something of a force of their own and they usually talked him into whatever the two had schemed up. Jack cast a dismayed look around the bottom of the hole. "I don't think Steven picked a good spot."
"Don't bad mouth Steven," Jennifer snaps harshly back with a pout, wrapping her arms around the stuffed dog protectively.
"Maybe we should try the backyard..." Sam offers up with a dreamy tilt of his head that reminds me of his father.
The backyard?! "No!" I snap loudly, gaining all three's attention. I thrust a finger at Sam. "No more digging! Look what you've all done to our yard!"
Jack grins to himself, a little cocky with me blaming Sam once again, as I'm sure he's done most of the digging. "You could practice your golf swing?" he offers up. "Easy hole in one."
"Oooooh don't you start, Jack-y! You're supposed to be keeping these two out of trouble."
"We'll fill them all in after. Promise!" Jennifer hops to her feet to stand beside Sam protectively. But that's Jennifer and Sammy for you. They grew up together. They're practically twins the way they never leave each other's sides. No matter that Sam is technically her step-brother. We've never proclaimed him that. And she'd never side with anyone who tried to diminish her bond with him. "Or don't you want to nurture our scientific curiosity?"
I swear she's been reading the dictionary again. "You two have been watching faaaar too much Public Television."
"'A proper excavation team will always leave their site as undisturbed as possible after the removal of their specimens,'" Sam quotes to me. I narrow my eyes and he adds, "The Newsweek article on the dig." Before he shrugs. "We have to find a specimen to remove first though."
"Backyard it is then," Jack declares, as he hops out of their latest hole.
"No! Give me that!" I snatch the shovel out of Jack's hands and resist the urge to smack all three of them with it. "This is our yard not a damn moonscape. No more holes!"
The familiar chorus of three elongated, whining "Daaaaad"s meets my ears at this announcement.
I point the handle at all three of them. "No buts! Fill in these holes. Now!" Before I toss the shovel back to Jack. I'm greeted by immediate groans of dissension. "Now!"
"Okay. I give up. What are you building?" I hear from behind us. Oh thank god! I turn around to see JD just a few steps past the gate to our yard, home finally. He tilts his head at me and the kids. "ATV park?"
"Oh that would be awesome!" Jack gasps. I can see him breaking something on his bike hopping these mounds already.
"No! Holes! Now!" I bark at them, making sure they snap to filling them in, before stepping over to JD. I explain with a growl, "They were hunting for Dinosaur bones."
"Really?" JD says with far too much interest. I level him with a look and he clears his throat. "Did they... did they find any?" He gives me a bashful look at the question he can't seem to keep from asking.
I would laugh at this of course being his first question, if my yard wasn't currently torn to hell. "No!" I snap. "Of course they didn't find any damn Dinosaur bones. All they did do was destroy our lawn."
"It's just a few holes, Perry. It'll all grow back in. Or I'll go buy some sod next weekend. It's no big deal."
"No big deal? It's now the damn surface of the moon!"
He's not fazed a bit by my snarling. But he never really is any more. JD simply leans up to kiss me, a firm and soothing kiss, before whispering against my lips, "That's right. No big deal. Everything's fine. I'll make sure they get them all filled back in. 'Kay?"
"Fine," I grumble, more calmed by the kiss than I'd ever admit to, and steal another one for good measure. I toss a glance back at the kids and spot Jennifer organizing the re-filling of the holes as well. "Jennifer!" She snaps back around at my shout. "Don't just order them around. Help them!"
She pouts at me. "But then I'd get dirty..."
How did Jordan and I end up with such a girly daughter? Once again, I blame JD.
"That's what gardening gloves are for," JD proclaims. "You can get dirty and not mess up your nails."
I roll my eyes as I give him a slap on the back and leave him to deal with the re-filling project. I give them all a firm look. "Every single last one filled back in, you three, now." Before turning to head back into the house.
"But, Daddy, we didn't find any bones," I can hear Sam pout to JD as I leap over the furthest hole and up onto the patio.
"Listen to your Father," JD shushes him loudly for my benefit, before dropping his voice. "If you guys clean this up tonight, I'll help you tomorrow. There's got to be some in the back yard. It's bigger."
"Really?" Jennifer squeaks.
"What about Dad?" Jack asks.
I can literally hear the grin on JD's face as he answers, "Oh, leave your Father to me."
Goddamn it, he had better make the further destruction of my backyard worth my wild. But then he usually does well with persuading me into just about anything...
I think people would be surprised to know who really runs this mixed up household.
I sigh as I step into the house. I wonder how much sod goes for these days... and if I can persuade JD to take the kids to Jordan's house for the next expedition.
END