Title: Stolen Legs

Author: missflapjack
Fandom: Scrubs
Pairing: JD/Perry
Disclaimer: Scrubs evades my grabby hands!

Rating: PG-13

Summary: It wasn't like he never thought about Newbie that way, oh no, it happened. Perry liked to called them lapses from reality; tiny, three second-long time zones in which he found himself shamefully won over by those insufferable, ever-present, ocean blue spheres.

Times like these; it just wasn't fair. It could have been the season. Damn holidays. They always had Perry feeling a lot more festive than he would have liked to; that is, a lot less intent on killing some random innocent optimist, and more intent on lapsing off into ridiculous waltzes down Headspace Lane.

It was not a good thing, he decided. But as the doctor ran a hand through unruly curled hair, let out a heavy exhausted sigh, and leaned against the Nurse's Station counter while artfully pretending to read a chart that had absolutely nothing on it... he found his eyes dragging towards his protégé. Or whatever Shontelle was referring to herself as nowadays.

J.D. was in a nearby patient's room, sitting cross-legged in a hard plastic chair and talking endlessly to the man in the bed that seemed grateful for the attention. His chin was propped up on the hand that wasn't waving around and punctuating his sentences, and from what Perry could see, his expressive sapphire eyes were sparkling.

Wait, what? Damn it. Holidays. Feelings. Stupid emotions and crap. Perry groaned to himself and stared off into space, randomly trying to think up words that rhymed with Febreze. Unfortunately, nothing actually came to mind.

Perry hated the kid. He hated J.D. and his effervescent buoyancy, his ability to become gleeful over nothing more than a Gilmore Girls marathon, his stupid eyes, and that stupid way he was slouched comfortably in that chair, chatting contentedly with a man who was on his death bed and who knew it. Most of all, he hated how every damn wiggly movement the boy made was almost surely meant to mock Perry's creepy old man lurker phase. 'Cuz that's all it was, a phase. Doctor Cox did not develop affections for younger doctors, or older doctors, and strong-willed Latina nurses and random blonde women who were capable of fending for themselves against him (which, coincidentally, turned him on) did not count. Because John Dorian was a man. Not that Perry would ever admit it out loud, because he'd tried to work up a reputation with the girls names, he honestly had.

Perry had seen J.D. excited and hopeful; depressed and incompetent; incensed and intelligent and brave and idiotic and strong-willed. He'd seen him cry, which technically wasn't a secret but he liked to think that it was; he had seen him kiss other girls and he had, regretfully, felt a pang of jealously upon witnessing it.

Percival Cox had a soft spot for his Newbie; everyone knew it. You just couldn't keep an irritating blob of repressed girlish joy around that long without some of it rubbing off on you, y'know? It couldn't be done.

Perry had once been a rock. Now he technically could be classified as a piece of petrified wood, only slightly soggy and slightly more pathetic.

Perry never liked epiphanies. They were painful, grating, and vaguely reminiscent of heartburn. This particular epiphany had happened a few times before – the one where he imaged a world in which he could actually voice emotions and opinions without getting the strongest urge to strangle someone. The one where he had a Newbie – so help him, God, thoughts like this could land a man in the bad place, or they should have, anyway – curled up against his side and sleepily whispering old sitcom quotes into his ear. The one where he had a future. The one where-

J.D. was stretching and sliding tiredly out of his chair, which really made sense because it was two in the morning or something irrevocably ridiculous like that. He yawned, and Perry turned red. It was so, so stupid to be pathetic and sentimental like this; and that one thought was the push Perry needed to keep his eyes on his empty chart. J.D.'s patient was asleep; asleep, and pale around the edges and soft in all the wrong places. Perry's heart thumped wantonly in his chest as J.D. flicked worried blue eyes over the man and gently touched the clammy, glistening forehead.

And there it was; a small, itching, nagging feeling in Perry's heart and mind and... what the hell, throat? It was in the background all along; constantly whispering and pushing and shoving at his senses; never giving a rest and never letting him forget that there was more to life than being a cynical bastard.

No. Not now. Not when there was work to be done. Not when there were dead people and knife wounds and pretty blue eyes- no, gunshots and surgeries. There would be another time for frivolous, petty teasing of a certain messy-haired doctor that Perry couldn't help but have a penchant for. There would be another time for a certain nosy Nurse Espinosa to make fun of him for being head-over-heels in l.o.v.e, because that hadn't happened yet and Perry hadn't gotten a chance to find a more creative way to silence those soft, babbling lips.

J.D. slipped quietly out of the room and Perry's head raised.

He whistled; watching almost amusedly as J.D. whirled around like an ass-kissing diminutive lap dog; ears perking skyward (if that was possible for a human, but apparently J.D. defied all rational logic when it came to what was traditionally accepted as human behavior); eyes shamelessly and thoughtlessly alit with something that shouldn't have made Perry want to smile. 'Cuz he didn't do that, not even when tempted.

"Here, Newbie!"

J.D. followed with a small grin playing on his lips.

Give it time.