His TV Boyfriend (TO/Scrubs, Jim/J.D.)
Title: His TV Boyfriend
Written for: sitcomathon, specifically iamsab
Fandom: The Office (US)/Scrubs
Pairing: Jim/J.D.
Prompt: J.D. tells Jim he can land somebody way hotter than Pam.
Spoilers: TO: through S2; Scrubs: through S4
Word Count: 2,804
Rating: PG
Summary: Out of the TV, into his life.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
*
"My friend Carla thinks that people on reality shows aren't real," J.D. said. "But we were watching Laguna Beach at the time, so."
Jim laughed. "I have no idea what that is."
"It's a show about rich kids doing... stuff. Talking, dating, looking at things. It's as exciting as it sounds."
"Well, my pulse is racing."
The sarcasm kept J.D. from mentioning that he kinda loved Laguna Beach. Especially when they looked at things.
Jim awkwardly picked up his beer with his bandaged hand. "So. Do I seem real to you?"
J.D. pretended to consider this very, very seriously. "Maybe."
J.D. leaned back in his chair, proud of himself for not telling him that when Carla initially voiced her suspicions, he thought that she believed them to be ghosts or products of a new, highly realistic form of animation. And that after discerning she suspected the shows were scripted and the performers were actors, J.D. didn't agree nor disagree. He also didn't mention that, although he did think Jim was the same charming man he saw on television, there was a part of J.D. that expected him to slip into a British accent or say, "When I read the script, I knew the show would depend upon the chemistry of the actors. Wait, forget I said actors! And forget I said script!"
Then, he'd have to be murdered. By who? J.D. wasn't sure. But he was sure it would be made to look like suicide.
He really hoped Jim was for real. J.D. was too young to die.
"What?"
"Um. What?"
Jim shrugged. "Your eyes went wide. It was a little..."
"Well, I wasn't thinking about being assassinated."
Jim gave him one of those trying-not-to-laugh smiles, which hours of TV had taught J.D. meant that Jim either thought he was adorably funny or amusingly insane.
So. At the very least, J.D. was amusing.
*
When J.D. first saw Jim walk into the hospital, it seemed surreal. After all, he had watched the guy's life. On TV. And made vaguely gay comments about his attractiveness that Turk studiously ignored.
(Carla would always politely ignore them. Elliot would agree about Jim's hotness while Todd, on his only night as J.D.'s partner for reality show watching said, "I'd hit that, too!" and held up his hand for a high five for over two commercial breaks. J.D. thought he was a terrible hypocrite for finding it extremely creepy.)
But. Anyway. Elliot seemed to read J.D.'s quiet surprise as a sign that he didn't recognize Jim.
"Oh, God. That's Jim. Jim. From The Office. He looks so adorable and, oh God, he's hurt! Is he? He must be! I'll hit the man, woman or child who hurt him. I'm babbling like a crazy person, I have to leave before he sees me. I can't have a person who's been on TV knowing I'm crazy! If you talk to him, don't tell him I'm crazy!"
Jim was still standing at the door by the time Elliot sprinted away. J.D. was pretty certain it was the fastest she'd ever talked. Well. It was *at least* in the top ten. J.D. was trying to decide if it was number seven or number six when he remembered that a minor celebrity was in his midst.
He tried to walk up to Jim with all the smoothness he possessed, and in his opinion, he succeeded in a very sexy way. However, halfway through, he was hit by the fear that Jim's reason for entering Sacred Heart was Very Serious and his suave walk would be seen as horribly flippant.
For that reason, he toned down the sexiness of his voice.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Dorian. I am very important," he added, his brain somehow trying to compensate for the sudden decrease in sexiness with inappropriate boasting. "I mean, how may I help you?"
Jim appraised him curiously, as if he were looking at Michael after a particularly unfunny joke. "Um. Should you be... talking to me now?"
"Maybe? No? Yes. What?"
"I'm pretty sure I should be lamenting the fact that no one's looking me in the eyes. And filling out paperwork." Jim relaxed slightly. "I'm sorry. That was rude."
"No, you're right. There's going to be a lot of paperwork, and I intend to avoid eye-contact as much as possible."
"Well. I guess it's a good thing my hand is the problem, then," he said, holding up his right hand, which was wrapped in an ACE bandage.
*
Jim did have to wait, but J.D. moved the process along as much as possible. J.D. felt somewhat skeevy, almost no better than those higher-up police detectives who insisted on taking the reports of misdemeanor robbery victims because the victims were hot. Granted, he only saw that happen on TV, but he assumed it was a real problem. He'd probably do the same thing, though. He would still feel skeevy.
Anyway. After Jim cryptically said that he hurt his hand because of "an incident involving his hand," J.D. unwrapped Jim's bandage to find some scraped skin and minor cuts that were beginning to scab.
Jim stopped looking at the floor. "Uh. It was worse before?" he ventured weakly. "I've wasted your time, I guess?"
"There's no such thing as wasted time when someone's health is at risk!"
It was the catchphrase of a superhero character he was developing for a new script; Jim was the first person not to roll their eyes and/or sigh heavily.
"It looks fine, honestly. Were you worried it was broken? Are you feeling sick?"
"Not really. It was stupid that I came in here."
"It's not Michael Scott stupid." J.D. nudged Jim's shoulder with his elbow. "Get it? Okay, I guess there was nothing to get. It was a statement."
"Oh. You watch the show. I should get out of here."
"We should at least clean out the cuts-"
"I could've done that at home. I should have."
"Oh, hey. Don't judge me on the fact that I watch you," J.D. said as Jim stood. He almost added that he didn't do anything dirty while he watched, but then he thankfully remembered in time that such a statement would make it seem like that was all he did. "Here, let me give you my card."
"Because you've watched me on TV?"
"I thought you might want to talk. You must've just moved here, right?"
"I moved here six months ago."
Jim looked at the card for a few moments, and then surprised J.D. by taking it. He surprised J.D. further by calling that night.
"I want to confess something," Jim said. "I came to the hospital because I'm a pussy."
It was strange hearing that word without "you're a" in front of it.
"It's just," Jim continued, "I was alone last night, drinking... And, if I continue this story, it'll sound even more pathetic. But, anyway, I woke up with the bandage on my hand, and too afraid to see what was underneath. I was expecting something horrendous, really."
"Do you know what happened?"
"Vaguely," Jim said before quickly saying, "You still watch that show?"
"Your show."
"It's not my show. Really."
"Last I saw, you were there, so. You were just thinking about quitting Stamford. And the show." J.D.'s brain caught up to his mouth. "I guess I know what's happening next season. You should really have a spoiler warning attached to you."
"I will consider that."
"Wow. Your TV show edits slow."
"Oh. Yeah. I guess. It wasn't until after, like, a year of filming that I realized how ridiculous I looked."
"You didn't look ridiculous. Especially comparatively. Comparatively, you were completely not-ridiculous."
Jim paused. "Thanks?"
Jim agreed to meet J.D. for a drink on his next night off. When he called Elliot to tell her, fear of having her crash his non-date with a minor sort of celebrity made him only utter, "Did you realize Jim being here is a spoiler?"
"Oh my God, he quit Stamford. He didn't go back to Scranton? I can't believe he and Pam aren't getting married. Those people on Television Without Pity are such liars."
"I knoooooooow."
*
Now he was debating whether to order another beer or an Appletini and trying to figure out where this was going. Jim was straight from what he knew, but if people watched just a part of J.D.'s life, he assumed people wouldn't know he was sorta gay. Except if they kept in Dr. Cox's constant intimations of such leanings. Perry had authority. This was why J.D. felt kinda weird calling him Perry, even in his thoughts.
J.D. supposed there were ways to get to the bottom of this. He could talk about the Kinsey scale or something. But. Probably just best to see where this goes.
"You didn't have to bandage your hand again," J.D. said. "Unless... Is it getting worse?"
"Oh," Jim looked at his hand. "I just came from work."
"Oh."
"It gives me an air of mystery. Most everyone thinks I'm in a fight club now, and that's great."
J.D. nodded. He'd love to have people think he was in a fight club. "Oh. I haven't even asked you what you're doing now."
"Pretty much the same thing. I sit at a desk. Make calls. Sell things. I've moved up in the world."
"Do you miss it?"
"Being in front of a camera or being in Scranton?"
"Or being in Stamford?"
"Or just selling paper?" Jim continued. "They all had their good points. But I don't regret walking away from it. I had to move on with my life."
The next thing Jim did was talk about Pam.
*
Thankfully, Jim didn't talk about Pam the whole time, but he would periodically return to the topic of her, usually recounting a more detailed version of an incident J.D. had already seen on TV.
This was really not helping him to hit on Jim. So, after one of the stories tapered off and left an awkward silence in its wake, J.D. decided to be a little more forward.
"I don't... I'm not trying to..." J.D. mentally listed all the things he wasn't trying to do (hit on him, be forward, be inappropriate, talk about things he didn't really know about), then didn't mention any when he realized he was about to do every single one. "I really think you could get someone a lot hotter than Pam."
He tried to smile in his most non-cheesy fashion, but Jim wasn't looking at him.
"I don't know. I think I still love her."
"I know it seems like that, but..." J.D. leaned forward. "I was in love with this girl once. Who was my friend. And is now my friend. Anyway. I thought I was completely in love with her, but as soon as she dumped her boyfriend for me, I realized I didn't really feel that way about her. Boy, did she hate me for awhile."
Jim looked up at him with a wide-eyed look of horror, and it was then that J.D. remembered how awful that story made him sound. He desperately tried to think of something he could do or say that would counterbalance his admission of jerkitude, but in his slightly drunken haze, all he could come up with was setting the bar on fire and saving the people inside by warning them that he was going to do it.
Which. Made no sense. Also, in his fantasy, everyone just stared at him incredulously, which was probably one of the few times his fantasies would be accurate. And meant he might end up killing people. Which would make him look so much worse.
"I wasn't trying to be malicious," J.D. said. "I thought she was the one for a long-"
"I was actually focusing on the depressing idea of wasting so much time obsessing over someone I don't really love. But, yeah. I guess that wasn't a story that made you look great."
That was when J.D. was certain he was not going home with his TV man-crush.
And that was when he made a mental note to not say, "I went out with my TV man-crush last night," to anyone. Per... Dr. Cox especially.
*
J.D. didn't think he'd hear from Jim again because, well, he was pretty sure Jim was going to figure out he was being hit on. And if you don't notice you're being hit on when you're being hit on, you probably don't want to be hit on. There had to be a more concise way to say that. And there were such things as bad timing and miscommunication and etcetera, which didn't necessarily mean... No, it probably did mean that Jim didn't want to see him naked.
Moving on.
J.D. did hear from Jim two days later, and they once again met at a bar. As they sat together, drinking and sharing stories of minor importance, J.D. pondered the greatness of having a TV star as a drinking buddy. J.D. could brag about it! He could impress people, possibly influence them, and maybe even make friends! Except for the people who wouldn't care, but those people were haters. Playa-haters, even.
"Hey. Are you staring into space for a reason?"
J.D. knew he couldn't say that he had been fantasizing about the wonder of letting Jim's minor fame rub off on him. Nor could he say he was currently contemplating what their friendship would be like five years down the line. Would J.D. grow bored of him? Would he be the Jim to Jim's Pam? Why was he thinking about the future of a relationship that he doesn't have?
Well, he knew the answer to the last one: he loved to extrapolate.
"Because I have a fantasy world?" J.D. said.
It was the best he could come up with. And, hey, if he and Jim were going to be friends forever, he had to find out sooner or later.
"That doesn't sound weird at all," Jim said with a strangely friendly hint of sarcasm.
"Well," J.D. said, "you'd be surprised." He gestured to Jim's unbandaged hand. "Looks like that's healing well."
"Oh. Yeah. You have to make sure I don't do anything to damage this hand again. Because the Fight Club jokes are really intolerable after awhile. Peter... this guy at work, he's calling me 'fists of steel.' Which makes no sense."
"Steel fists don't get hurt."
"Exactly."
"You never did tell me what happened."
Jim shrugged. "Nothing to tell. I was drunk and stupid."
J.D. couldn't help but think that TV cameras would have made the situation less opaque. Maybe he'd give a really sad look at the camera or end up tearfully confessing something to Pam. It would be cathartic, maybe. If there was really something to be cathartic about. Which J.D. wasn't sure that there was, as Jim wasn't wearing his "I have more to say" face. No, Jim was casual.
"So," Jim continued. "The other night."
"Yeah."
"Were you hitting on me?"
Jim didn't seem freaked out, but as J.D. knew, Jim was the sort to be horrified quietly. That was one of his charms. And for all J.D. knew, Jim was going to tell this story in a mocking, hushed tone to whoever was his replacement Pam.
Well. At least it wasn't going to be on TV.
In the moments before J.D. opened his mouth to respond, he considered the possible responses. Like, he could say, "I don't hit on people. I seduce them." (Which only seemed appropriate if he was wearing a smoking jacket and had a nearby switch that turned the bar into his super suave lair of mood lighting and silk.) Or he could call Jim a homo and storm out. (For that, he'd need his internalized homophobia to be much greater and much less jittery.)
"Well," he ended up saying. "You are on TV."
"I was," Jim said.
"You are," J.D. asserted. "They haven't aired all your episodes yet. You could have months left to turn people gay. Or coerce women. It's your choice. You're the one who's on TV."
"Wow. I can't believe I've been entitled to all this sexual exploration. I've really been missing out."
"So," J.D. said, "is this weird?"
"Thinking about all the sex I could've had?"
"Thinking about the sex I was trying to have with you."
"No, uh. No. Maybe?" Jim laughed. "I don't know. Maybe you should come on to me again and I'll see how I feel. So." He cleared his throat. "You really were hitting on me."
"It is weird."
"No. No."
"Should we maybe..." In his mind, he was wearing a smoking jacket. "Get out of here."
"Well." Jim shrugged with a hint of a smile on his lips. "I am on TV."
END
Written for: sitcomathon, specifically iamsab
Fandom: The Office (US)/Scrubs
Pairing: Jim/J.D.
Prompt: J.D. tells Jim he can land somebody way hotter than Pam.
Spoilers: TO: through S2; Scrubs: through S4
Word Count: 2,804
Rating: PG
Summary: Out of the TV, into his life.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
*
"My friend Carla thinks that people on reality shows aren't real," J.D. said. "But we were watching Laguna Beach at the time, so."
Jim laughed. "I have no idea what that is."
"It's a show about rich kids doing... stuff. Talking, dating, looking at things. It's as exciting as it sounds."
"Well, my pulse is racing."
The sarcasm kept J.D. from mentioning that he kinda loved Laguna Beach. Especially when they looked at things.
Jim awkwardly picked up his beer with his bandaged hand. "So. Do I seem real to you?"
J.D. pretended to consider this very, very seriously. "Maybe."
J.D. leaned back in his chair, proud of himself for not telling him that when Carla initially voiced her suspicions, he thought that she believed them to be ghosts or products of a new, highly realistic form of animation. And that after discerning she suspected the shows were scripted and the performers were actors, J.D. didn't agree nor disagree. He also didn't mention that, although he did think Jim was the same charming man he saw on television, there was a part of J.D. that expected him to slip into a British accent or say, "When I read the script, I knew the show would depend upon the chemistry of the actors. Wait, forget I said actors! And forget I said script!"
Then, he'd have to be murdered. By who? J.D. wasn't sure. But he was sure it would be made to look like suicide.
He really hoped Jim was for real. J.D. was too young to die.
"What?"
"Um. What?"
Jim shrugged. "Your eyes went wide. It was a little..."
"Well, I wasn't thinking about being assassinated."
Jim gave him one of those trying-not-to-laugh smiles, which hours of TV had taught J.D. meant that Jim either thought he was adorably funny or amusingly insane.
So. At the very least, J.D. was amusing.
*
When J.D. first saw Jim walk into the hospital, it seemed surreal. After all, he had watched the guy's life. On TV. And made vaguely gay comments about his attractiveness that Turk studiously ignored.
(Carla would always politely ignore them. Elliot would agree about Jim's hotness while Todd, on his only night as J.D.'s partner for reality show watching said, "I'd hit that, too!" and held up his hand for a high five for over two commercial breaks. J.D. thought he was a terrible hypocrite for finding it extremely creepy.)
But. Anyway. Elliot seemed to read J.D.'s quiet surprise as a sign that he didn't recognize Jim.
"Oh, God. That's Jim. Jim. From The Office. He looks so adorable and, oh God, he's hurt! Is he? He must be! I'll hit the man, woman or child who hurt him. I'm babbling like a crazy person, I have to leave before he sees me. I can't have a person who's been on TV knowing I'm crazy! If you talk to him, don't tell him I'm crazy!"
Jim was still standing at the door by the time Elliot sprinted away. J.D. was pretty certain it was the fastest she'd ever talked. Well. It was *at least* in the top ten. J.D. was trying to decide if it was number seven or number six when he remembered that a minor celebrity was in his midst.
He tried to walk up to Jim with all the smoothness he possessed, and in his opinion, he succeeded in a very sexy way. However, halfway through, he was hit by the fear that Jim's reason for entering Sacred Heart was Very Serious and his suave walk would be seen as horribly flippant.
For that reason, he toned down the sexiness of his voice.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Dorian. I am very important," he added, his brain somehow trying to compensate for the sudden decrease in sexiness with inappropriate boasting. "I mean, how may I help you?"
Jim appraised him curiously, as if he were looking at Michael after a particularly unfunny joke. "Um. Should you be... talking to me now?"
"Maybe? No? Yes. What?"
"I'm pretty sure I should be lamenting the fact that no one's looking me in the eyes. And filling out paperwork." Jim relaxed slightly. "I'm sorry. That was rude."
"No, you're right. There's going to be a lot of paperwork, and I intend to avoid eye-contact as much as possible."
"Well. I guess it's a good thing my hand is the problem, then," he said, holding up his right hand, which was wrapped in an ACE bandage.
*
Jim did have to wait, but J.D. moved the process along as much as possible. J.D. felt somewhat skeevy, almost no better than those higher-up police detectives who insisted on taking the reports of misdemeanor robbery victims because the victims were hot. Granted, he only saw that happen on TV, but he assumed it was a real problem. He'd probably do the same thing, though. He would still feel skeevy.
Anyway. After Jim cryptically said that he hurt his hand because of "an incident involving his hand," J.D. unwrapped Jim's bandage to find some scraped skin and minor cuts that were beginning to scab.
Jim stopped looking at the floor. "Uh. It was worse before?" he ventured weakly. "I've wasted your time, I guess?"
"There's no such thing as wasted time when someone's health is at risk!"
It was the catchphrase of a superhero character he was developing for a new script; Jim was the first person not to roll their eyes and/or sigh heavily.
"It looks fine, honestly. Were you worried it was broken? Are you feeling sick?"
"Not really. It was stupid that I came in here."
"It's not Michael Scott stupid." J.D. nudged Jim's shoulder with his elbow. "Get it? Okay, I guess there was nothing to get. It was a statement."
"Oh. You watch the show. I should get out of here."
"We should at least clean out the cuts-"
"I could've done that at home. I should have."
"Oh, hey. Don't judge me on the fact that I watch you," J.D. said as Jim stood. He almost added that he didn't do anything dirty while he watched, but then he thankfully remembered in time that such a statement would make it seem like that was all he did. "Here, let me give you my card."
"Because you've watched me on TV?"
"I thought you might want to talk. You must've just moved here, right?"
"I moved here six months ago."
Jim looked at the card for a few moments, and then surprised J.D. by taking it. He surprised J.D. further by calling that night.
"I want to confess something," Jim said. "I came to the hospital because I'm a pussy."
It was strange hearing that word without "you're a" in front of it.
"It's just," Jim continued, "I was alone last night, drinking... And, if I continue this story, it'll sound even more pathetic. But, anyway, I woke up with the bandage on my hand, and too afraid to see what was underneath. I was expecting something horrendous, really."
"Do you know what happened?"
"Vaguely," Jim said before quickly saying, "You still watch that show?"
"Your show."
"It's not my show. Really."
"Last I saw, you were there, so. You were just thinking about quitting Stamford. And the show." J.D.'s brain caught up to his mouth. "I guess I know what's happening next season. You should really have a spoiler warning attached to you."
"I will consider that."
"Wow. Your TV show edits slow."
"Oh. Yeah. I guess. It wasn't until after, like, a year of filming that I realized how ridiculous I looked."
"You didn't look ridiculous. Especially comparatively. Comparatively, you were completely not-ridiculous."
Jim paused. "Thanks?"
Jim agreed to meet J.D. for a drink on his next night off. When he called Elliot to tell her, fear of having her crash his non-date with a minor sort of celebrity made him only utter, "Did you realize Jim being here is a spoiler?"
"Oh my God, he quit Stamford. He didn't go back to Scranton? I can't believe he and Pam aren't getting married. Those people on Television Without Pity are such liars."
"I knoooooooow."
*
Now he was debating whether to order another beer or an Appletini and trying to figure out where this was going. Jim was straight from what he knew, but if people watched just a part of J.D.'s life, he assumed people wouldn't know he was sorta gay. Except if they kept in Dr. Cox's constant intimations of such leanings. Perry had authority. This was why J.D. felt kinda weird calling him Perry, even in his thoughts.
J.D. supposed there were ways to get to the bottom of this. He could talk about the Kinsey scale or something. But. Probably just best to see where this goes.
"You didn't have to bandage your hand again," J.D. said. "Unless... Is it getting worse?"
"Oh," Jim looked at his hand. "I just came from work."
"Oh."
"It gives me an air of mystery. Most everyone thinks I'm in a fight club now, and that's great."
J.D. nodded. He'd love to have people think he was in a fight club. "Oh. I haven't even asked you what you're doing now."
"Pretty much the same thing. I sit at a desk. Make calls. Sell things. I've moved up in the world."
"Do you miss it?"
"Being in front of a camera or being in Scranton?"
"Or being in Stamford?"
"Or just selling paper?" Jim continued. "They all had their good points. But I don't regret walking away from it. I had to move on with my life."
The next thing Jim did was talk about Pam.
*
Thankfully, Jim didn't talk about Pam the whole time, but he would periodically return to the topic of her, usually recounting a more detailed version of an incident J.D. had already seen on TV.
This was really not helping him to hit on Jim. So, after one of the stories tapered off and left an awkward silence in its wake, J.D. decided to be a little more forward.
"I don't... I'm not trying to..." J.D. mentally listed all the things he wasn't trying to do (hit on him, be forward, be inappropriate, talk about things he didn't really know about), then didn't mention any when he realized he was about to do every single one. "I really think you could get someone a lot hotter than Pam."
He tried to smile in his most non-cheesy fashion, but Jim wasn't looking at him.
"I don't know. I think I still love her."
"I know it seems like that, but..." J.D. leaned forward. "I was in love with this girl once. Who was my friend. And is now my friend. Anyway. I thought I was completely in love with her, but as soon as she dumped her boyfriend for me, I realized I didn't really feel that way about her. Boy, did she hate me for awhile."
Jim looked up at him with a wide-eyed look of horror, and it was then that J.D. remembered how awful that story made him sound. He desperately tried to think of something he could do or say that would counterbalance his admission of jerkitude, but in his slightly drunken haze, all he could come up with was setting the bar on fire and saving the people inside by warning them that he was going to do it.
Which. Made no sense. Also, in his fantasy, everyone just stared at him incredulously, which was probably one of the few times his fantasies would be accurate. And meant he might end up killing people. Which would make him look so much worse.
"I wasn't trying to be malicious," J.D. said. "I thought she was the one for a long-"
"I was actually focusing on the depressing idea of wasting so much time obsessing over someone I don't really love. But, yeah. I guess that wasn't a story that made you look great."
That was when J.D. was certain he was not going home with his TV man-crush.
And that was when he made a mental note to not say, "I went out with my TV man-crush last night," to anyone. Per... Dr. Cox especially.
*
J.D. didn't think he'd hear from Jim again because, well, he was pretty sure Jim was going to figure out he was being hit on. And if you don't notice you're being hit on when you're being hit on, you probably don't want to be hit on. There had to be a more concise way to say that. And there were such things as bad timing and miscommunication and etcetera, which didn't necessarily mean... No, it probably did mean that Jim didn't want to see him naked.
Moving on.
J.D. did hear from Jim two days later, and they once again met at a bar. As they sat together, drinking and sharing stories of minor importance, J.D. pondered the greatness of having a TV star as a drinking buddy. J.D. could brag about it! He could impress people, possibly influence them, and maybe even make friends! Except for the people who wouldn't care, but those people were haters. Playa-haters, even.
"Hey. Are you staring into space for a reason?"
J.D. knew he couldn't say that he had been fantasizing about the wonder of letting Jim's minor fame rub off on him. Nor could he say he was currently contemplating what their friendship would be like five years down the line. Would J.D. grow bored of him? Would he be the Jim to Jim's Pam? Why was he thinking about the future of a relationship that he doesn't have?
Well, he knew the answer to the last one: he loved to extrapolate.
"Because I have a fantasy world?" J.D. said.
It was the best he could come up with. And, hey, if he and Jim were going to be friends forever, he had to find out sooner or later.
"That doesn't sound weird at all," Jim said with a strangely friendly hint of sarcasm.
"Well," J.D. said, "you'd be surprised." He gestured to Jim's unbandaged hand. "Looks like that's healing well."
"Oh. Yeah. You have to make sure I don't do anything to damage this hand again. Because the Fight Club jokes are really intolerable after awhile. Peter... this guy at work, he's calling me 'fists of steel.' Which makes no sense."
"Steel fists don't get hurt."
"Exactly."
"You never did tell me what happened."
Jim shrugged. "Nothing to tell. I was drunk and stupid."
J.D. couldn't help but think that TV cameras would have made the situation less opaque. Maybe he'd give a really sad look at the camera or end up tearfully confessing something to Pam. It would be cathartic, maybe. If there was really something to be cathartic about. Which J.D. wasn't sure that there was, as Jim wasn't wearing his "I have more to say" face. No, Jim was casual.
"So," Jim continued. "The other night."
"Yeah."
"Were you hitting on me?"
Jim didn't seem freaked out, but as J.D. knew, Jim was the sort to be horrified quietly. That was one of his charms. And for all J.D. knew, Jim was going to tell this story in a mocking, hushed tone to whoever was his replacement Pam.
Well. At least it wasn't going to be on TV.
In the moments before J.D. opened his mouth to respond, he considered the possible responses. Like, he could say, "I don't hit on people. I seduce them." (Which only seemed appropriate if he was wearing a smoking jacket and had a nearby switch that turned the bar into his super suave lair of mood lighting and silk.) Or he could call Jim a homo and storm out. (For that, he'd need his internalized homophobia to be much greater and much less jittery.)
"Well," he ended up saying. "You are on TV."
"I was," Jim said.
"You are," J.D. asserted. "They haven't aired all your episodes yet. You could have months left to turn people gay. Or coerce women. It's your choice. You're the one who's on TV."
"Wow. I can't believe I've been entitled to all this sexual exploration. I've really been missing out."
"So," J.D. said, "is this weird?"
"Thinking about all the sex I could've had?"
"Thinking about the sex I was trying to have with you."
"No, uh. No. Maybe?" Jim laughed. "I don't know. Maybe you should come on to me again and I'll see how I feel. So." He cleared his throat. "You really were hitting on me."
"It is weird."
"No. No."
"Should we maybe..." In his mind, he was wearing a smoking jacket. "Get out of here."
"Well." Jim shrugged with a hint of a smile on his lips. "I am on TV."
END