Their Prequel

Note: This story was written second, but is technically the first in the - installment, or what-have-you. Following this is 'Their Interlude', and then 'Their Unholy Alliance'.

Disclaimer II: I'm sorry. Again.

He had been having a bad day, to say the least.

Perched like a particularly unfriendly gargoyle on the couch in the staff lounge, Dr. Perry Cox was moodily working his way through his second cup of coffee. He had only slept for hour-long intervals in the last seventy-two hours, and it had begun to take its toll on him, showing in the draw of his face, and the way that the five o'clock shadow on his jaw had eased its way to a nine o'clock shadow.

He was tired, he was irritable, and he was teetering precariously on the edge of needing to verbally tear into someone to relieve himself - the problem was that the only other person in the room with him at that time was Ted, and it was kind of pointless to mock someone who was already painfully depressing.

"Awwwww." Ted said, as his puce paisley tie caught in the toaster.

Rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes, Cox figured he could go rant at Newbie for what would be the eighth time in the last few hours, but the resident was just as tired as he was - and when Newbie got tired, he didn't act like everyone else did when they were exhausted. Rather than getting irritable and irrational like the rest of the world, J.D., in all his effeminate glory, somehow became even more hyperactive, his already flyaway thoughts taking flight in ways more ludicrous than ever.

A rolling bed flew past the open lounge door, a scrawny figure with its arms outstretched standing on top of it, shrieking girlishly:

"Eagle!"

Followed by a great deal of crashing and rattling, and stereo maniacal laughter that could only belong to Ghandi and Newbie, spurred on by too many hours in the same surroundings, not enough food or sleep, and far, far too much caffeine.

The last few days at Sacred Heart had taken their toll on everyone, and this was because the city had been hit by a rainstorm unlike any they'd had before - it had started on the Monday with mild winds and light rain. By Wednesday it had progressed to strong winds and heavy rain, and now that Thursday had arrived, Dr. Cox could hear the wind whipping past the walls of the hospital, rattling the windows while the rain turned to a torrential downpour.

The result of any sudden change in weather was predictable; people would act like idiots on the road and get into accidents - but that kind of behaviour only lasted a couple hours at a time, at most, since most bad weather only came in spurts.

However, the weather had only become worse and consequentially, so had the driving. Now they had an ICU full of people with smashed arms and faces, a waiting room full of people weeping and covered in blood, an overworked staff grasping at their final threads of sanity, and not nearly enough empty beds.

Besides that, most of them were pretty well barred in the hospital because of the storm; after witnessing the results of a seven car pile up on the freeway, the doctors, nurses, and residents of Sacred Heart seemed to be comfortable with staying in the hospital, rather than making a desperate and suicidal attempt to drive home through a flood.

Of course, the Chief of Medicine had given it a shot - he'd walked out into the parking lot three hours ago and they hadn't heard back from him yet, so they had all just assumed the worst; it had made Cox feel a little happier.

But at this point, no amount of fantasies - including those featuring the soulless black pit that was Bob Kelso in a watery grave - could make Cox feel anything but irritated. He was, in fact, so irritated that he just knew Murphy's Law was going to go into effect and consequentially, the one person in all of Sacred Heart with the most potential to be annoying would show up and want to talk.

It was also how Cox knew to start scowling thirty seconds before Doug Murphy walked into the lounge; as the resident nervously clutched his clipboard, Cox set his jaw at just the perfect angle to subtlely suggest that he did, in fact, eat people. Apparently it worked, because Doug's bottom lip began to quiver before either of them had even said a word; after about twenty seconds of this, Murphy managed to stutter out a single:

"Um,"

Before Cox cut in:

"I know that counting to ten is the standard for controlling bloodthirsty rage, but seeing as my patience has already been halved by your presence, I'm just going to go ahead and count to five, and if you still piss me off when I open my eyes, you're going to run as fast as your little white booties will carry you before I black out and do something terrible, ho-kay?"

Cox counted to five. He opened his eyes, and the shaking, sweating sight of Doug just twisted his features more.

"Get-out-get-out-now-do-it-leave." Cox said, managing to turn eight words into one, a talent that remained unchallenged and unprecidented.

Doug did what any person with an inkling of self-preservation would do and ran away, leaving Cox feeling more annoyed than before with the image of the pathetically flopping red fanny pack bouncing through his head. Overcome by the urge to either maim, crush, or destroy - or possibly any combination therein - Cox got to his feet, set his half-finished coffee on the table and dissappeared to do his rounds.

Like a saged vulture, Ted circled the coffee, and once he was sure it was safe, he took it and drank a mouthful of it, burning his mouth and spilling it on his charred tie, the cup dropping from his hand.

"Awwwww." he said, looking down at his coffee-spotted shoes before wiping away some droplets from his tie. When he looked back down at his shoes, there was another pair there, and he dragged his sorrowful eyes slowly upwards, taking in an expanse of grey fabric before he finally found a thin, scowling mouth, and a pair of narrowed eyes.

The Janitor bared his teeth a little, then leaned down and picked up the cup, waving it in Ted's face,

"Whose coffee is this?"

Ted's sluggish mind kicked in, and his death instincts worked into a frenzy, enough to get a coherent response.

"Dr. Cox's." Ted said, and the Janitor seemed to consider this response for a long time, staring down the lawyer with his coffee-stained shoes and burnt tie, with his depressing brown suit and ever-present flopsweat.

"Okay." The Janitor said finally, about to turn away, but suddenly jerking his index finger under Ted's nose, and the lawyer began to tremble, "But I'm watching you."

And Ted was left standing alone, blinking owlishly before he shuffled his way out of the staff lounge, in search of a quiet place where he could curl in the fetal position and cry for a while.

At this point it has already been established that Doctor Cox was not in a particularly amiable mood for the duration of the storm, but as he entered into the ICU, his mood worsened considerably when the patient to his immediate right went into sudden v-tach. By the time the patient was stabilized, Cox had the patient's chart in his hand, and he was out for the blood of an intern. When he found the one he was looking for - a young'un with bad Elvis sideburns - Cox had to restrain himself from throwing something, or throwing the intern at something.

Clutching the clipboard in one hand, Cox shook it in Sideburn's face,

"Coumadin!" Cox snarled, and all the blood drained from the intern's face, and his lower lip trembled as he attempted to explain himself with a single, pathetic:

"But -"

"No! You don't talk, you get to listen!" Cox barked, his voice dropping down to rant-level.

Off to the side of the ICU, tending to one of his patients, J.D. set off an imaginary egg timer in his head:

T-Minus five, four, three, two, one - commence rant.

"I realize it's hard to find time for working between getting loaded and smoking giant doobies in your parents' basement during the week, but maybe at some interval between Cheech and Chong videos and re-runs of Jackass, you can locate enough active brain cells and the incentive to pick up a medical book and read up on basic medicine."

Stunned silence answered Cox, and he continued on,

"Let's do a little case study here, huh? How's this: a guy walks in here with an abdominal aortic aneurysm three centimeters wide with a fractional risk of rupture and he gets put under surveillance, lo and behold the aneurysm pops and he starts bleeding. Sure, it's got a risk but it's nothing that some extra medication, careful surveillance, and strict blood pressure control can't help - we can fix him right up! But no, they can't control his blood pressure - why? Because some half-brained putz excuse for a doctor treated him with anticoagulants - surprise! The three centimeter aneurysm just became seven centimeters and the patient's lost a pint of blood!"

"But he had an embollism -"

"No, he had an aneurysm, I know they both end in 'ism', so I can see how you could mistake the two."

"I didn't know what else to do!"

"So you just decided to toss him some coumadin, cross your fingers and hope for the best? If you don't know then you ask." Cox said, thumbing his nose and crossing his arms over his big chest. By now, most of the ICU was listening to them, so when the intern spoke next, the silence that followed was palpable:

"But i'm afraid of you!"

Even Cox was silent for a long moment, and he shifted on the spot before he rearranged his expression into contorted rage, saying:

"You should be, because if I see you anywhere near a patient for the next week, i'm going to put your head," he pointed across the ICU, "through that window."

And he shoved the clipboard into the intern's chest and stormed out of the ICU, his lab coat flapping behind him; the silence following only lasted a few seconds, and J.D. stared after Cox,

"That's my mentor." J.D. said proudly, and then sighed girlishly, hugging his stethoscope to his chest before coming back to reality. He ducked his head when he realized his patient was staring at him with an expression of dismay, "So how is that infarction coming along, Mrs. Oneida?"

"You scuffed your shoe like a school girl."

"What? No, I - I was just trying to get some gum off the bottom of my -"

"You're a sissy." Mrs. Oneida said, and J.D. couldn't really argue with that. Instead, he raised his head high and walked out of the ICU with the goal of leaving with his dignity intact.

As it turned out, it wasn't a good day for dignity, because the Janitor was suddenly blocking the doorway, his narrowed eyes fixed on the resident, and J.D. found himself caught like a deer in headlights. In J.D's mind's eye, he saw hmself with a pair of antlers, and the Janitor sitting behind the wheel of a ridiculously large humvee painted the colour of army fatigues, blasting Dragula on oversized speakers and, for some reason, dressed like a 1980s gangster, ala M.C. Hammer.

"Sweet grills, yo." J.D. said, and then came back to reality, the one where the Janitor was actually physically in front of him. Somehow this was a worse scenario.

When the urge to run hit its peak, the Janitor spoke:

"Why do you smell like old potpourri?"

J.D. shifted on the spot, shuffled his feet, and looked around,

"It's a new hair gel, and I smell like a fine summers day." J.D. replied. By the looks of it, the resident had probably got two hours sleep at most in the last twenty-four hours, and the on-call room was currently loaded with exhausted interns.

The Janitor just scrunched his nose up and decided not to take that one any further.

"Anyways, I have - I have things to do." J.D. said.

"Like what?"

Like not getting tricked into giving a stupid answer so you can torture me with it for the next three weeks

"Important, Doctorly things. Not all of us have time to stand around and - lean on mops." J.D. said, and for a single, shining moment, he was proud of himself.

That feeling quickly left him, however, when he realized the Janitor was still in his way, and was still a lot bigger than him.

Damn!

The Janitor's eyes had narrowed,

"Are you saying I don't do work around here?" he asked, but it was in the tone of one expecting a very particular answer; J.D. felt his bottom lip tremble, but he put forth his best effort not to let it happen again.

"Well -" J.D. began, but he was cut off.

"Are you saying your job is more important than mine?"

There was a pause, and J.D. stared wide-eyed at the Janitor, and the Janitor stared back - this was a dilemma, because all logical sensibilities told J.D. to explain that, of course his job was more important. Meanwhile, the more accurate sensibilities - eg; death instinct - told him to just let it slide.

He was spared the need to respond when the voice of someone more frightening then the Janitor broke through the stand-off.

"Janis!"

At once, J.D. felt relief, and the familiar, comforting tingle of true fear - the fear that had become such an integral part of his life that he found himself welcoming every underhanded compliment, every scowl, scorn, roll of the eyes, and flip of the hands. Everything Dr. Cox did to deter him, every cruel thing he said, every girl's name he called J.D. only further secured in his mind that Perry Cox was really a man of steel, great doctor and a great teacher - with maybe slightly different methods.

Dr. Cox was completely disregarding the presence of the Janitor in the doorway, barking right through him, his voice searing into J.D.

"Your lemmings are waiting for you," he said, and then popped his curly head around, about at the height of the Janitor's shoulder, just so he could scowl at J.D., "Go pretend you know something, Shawna, and try to remind Dr. Fanny Pack that the bed pans don't double as stylish, new age clogs, mmkay? Go, go now."

J.D. eagerly obeyed, scurrying off with a spry duck beneath the Janitor's other arm, half-skipping down the hall with the knowledge he had escaped the Janitor's grasp, and that he was fulfilling a task assigned by his mentor.

The Janitor turned then, looking down at Dr. Cox who - despite being broader in the shoulders and being made of nearly pure muscle - was actually a lot shorter than him. Apparently this didn't occur to the doctor as an issue because he just crossed his arms over his broad chest and sneered upwards.

"Oh I'm sorry, you weren't done with that?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

And the Janitor cocked his head to the side, and stuffed his hands into his pockets, apparently interested in what Cox had to say.

"'Cause here's the thing, soap jockey," Cox added, taking the silence as a cue to go on, "Just because you've got the whole Lurch thing down and newbie is an easy and delicate target doesn't mean you can go ahead and steal him away every half hour for your sadistic happy fun time. He's my newbie, and as his attending, my word trumps the word of the hospital's great and honorable wielder of plungers."

Silence still; the Janitor's expression hadn't shifted, hadn't faltered - he hadn't moved out of the way, or made any motion to leave, and this began to bother Cox. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet,

"So why don't ya just scoot on and swiffer something?" he added, and for a moment, he could have sworn he saw a gleam in the Janitor's eye, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Finally the Janitor spoke, but all he said was:

"Okay."

And then he stepped around Cox, and headed down the hallway without looking back, and somehow this was worrying. Looking over his shoulder, Cox's eyebrows twisted into a quizzical expression, but the Janitor had left without a fight.

Cox snarled, and went on his way.

As was usually the case of someone on the receiving end of the Janitor's ploys, Cox had no idea that it had only just begun.