(no subject)
Title: Been A Long Day
Pairing: Mark/Callie, although it alludes to many canon couples.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: For irisheyes_77 , Mark, Callie and Cristina share a few drinks and mourn their pathetic love lives. Loosely following recent canon.
A/N: All I seem to write lately is Sam/Addison, which while conflicting and hot, doesn't allow for a great amount of variety. So I'm really very out of practice, and admittedly out of my zone here. And insanely late on these prompts, so I must beg forgiveness! Anyway, enjoy my futile attempts to get back into the groove of things and Mr. Sadpants Mark.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Been A Long Day
- Rosi Golan
~-~-~-~-~-~
“Mark!” Callie calls out sullenly, trying to grab his attention before the elevator doors slide shut without her in them. He points down and smiles sadly and she nods. They'll meet in the lobby.
But she really could've used that elevator ride. Instead she catches the next one, cramming in with Yang, Karev, and some of the Mercy Westers whose names she hasn't cared to learn. Cristina looks dead on her feet, and though she'd never admit it, the railing is doing a better job of holding her body up than she is.
Finally, after an eternity, the doors slide open to reveal Mark in his standard black leather jacket, a jump in his step. “Drinks?” he offers.
“Yes, please,” Callie sighs, looping a friendly arm through his, her head resting on his shoulder as they turn for the door.
“I'm in,” Cristina announces, posture slouching, her slipper shoes sliding against the floor as she has no energy to pick up her feet.
Mark shrugs, pushing into Callie's ear and she simply advises Yang that they are there for getting drunk, not dancing around and throwing darts at people's heads. Cristina agrees, citing that if they accidentally hit anyone in the course of getting plastered that it would only be collateral damage.
They're here for themselves first today.
After the end of Mark's relationship, the doom of Callie's, and whatever it is that Cristina isn't talking about, they need to put themselves first.
“Teddy won't let me even think about scrubbing in with her, and then she plays all “nice” outside of the OR. I need to learn, I need to cut,” Cristina moans into her glass, licking the edges without thinking.
“You need to be patient,” Callie advises, the fuzzy beer making its way down her throat. Mark is abnormally quiet, he's sullen. And she hates a sullen Mark, because underneath all the crap he's a decent guy who deserves a break.
“Maybe I should transfer,” Cristina sighs. At least then she'd get some time in, some surgeries under her belt.
“What about Hunt?” Callie asks, but she's thinking the same thing. There's really not going to be a good way to get over Arizona having to see her everyday, playing with all of the children she never wants to have.
“Who cares?” Yang laughs, slamming her cup down, demanding more, now.
“You,” Mark replies, sulking into his scotch and careening his neck to the side. “You both have people who care about you. I have nothing.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Because a glum Mark is a lonely Mark and a lonely Mark is inevitably a horny Mark, it takes a lot for Cristina and Callie to wrestle him away from a nameless blond and get him back into their apartment. He looks like he's on the verge of tears, eyes glazed over from a few too many, and fun times Mark went out the window about three hours ago.
Now he wants to recount. To list his ten favorite things about Lexie and be all piney and wounded.
“Oh my God! Shut up!” Cristina yells across the apartment, slamming the door in the pizza boy's face as he counts his tip. “She's a stupid child who can't commit, good riddance. If I have to hear you tell us the reasons why Lexie was the best at...whatever, I will melt my face off with a blowtorch.”
“Cristina,” Callie scolds, but she's got a point.
“It's been weeks! Weeks of the same old bullshit. Either go get her or move on, but- you can't stay here. It's pathetic and disgusting and weak.” She's yelling at herself, but Mark's a good deflection.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You know she painted her toenails religiously?” Mark asks lazily, spread out over their couch, Callie's head in his lap, his fingers winding through her curls. Cristina is curled up in the chair clutching a bottle of tequila like its her baby.
“You're such a girl,” Callie teases. This inane pattern of love, hate, miss, sorrow. It's not becoming.
“She-she's the girl. You're a girl.”
“I am.”
“A girl who likes girls. Too complicated,” Mark breathes.
“Agreed,” Callie laughs, waking up Cristina who stumbles to her feet, bottle still firmly attached to her right palm, and wanders toward her own room.
“You know what fixes this?” Mark asks, pointing at the space between them, though she can't see that far.
“Running away?”
“New girls.”
“I don't want a new girl,” Callie groans. She wants her girl to want a beautiful future with her.
“Gotta get back in the saddle Torres.”
“Technically,” Callie suggests, “I don't think I'm out of the saddle yet.”
“My saddle is still warm,” Mark laughs.
“What does that even mean?” Callie questions, but thirty seconds later Mark has her pinned to the couch, his lips trailing hotly over her neck, his fingers reaching for the button on her jeans. It's the same old comfort that only he can provide and for half a second she's lost before she can protest. “Mark-”
“Please, please?” Mark begs, hands pushing up her shirt, mouth following with sloppy, wet kisses over her stomach.
“Pity sex?”
“This is all your fault anyway,” Mark tells her.
“This is friend sex,” Callie stipulates as he unhooks her bra. “If you so much as breathe a word of this to anyone-”
“They'll think I'm crazy anyway, no one listens to me.”
“You're so ridiculous,” Callie laughs, her own buzz gone a long time ago. She doesn't mind the idea, she's been undressing him with her eyes all night, wondering if it's still as good as she remembers. If anyone should be mourning, it's Lexie.
And in reality it doesn't matter if he says anything. She and Arizona decided on a break a few hours before her shift ended, effectively making it a shitty day, leading to all the drinking. But she couldn't, can't admit that out loud yet.
Sometimes it's too hard to stare down the hurricane, it's best to pretend it all isn't happening for a few hours and indulge in fantasy land.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Title: The Skies Over Your Head
Pairing: Mark, Derek, and a little slashy Derek/Mark.
Rating: R-ish.
Summary: For citron_presse , "Addison". Set in upcoming canon, fair warning.
A/N: This only took a few months, and eight hundred pathetic drafts. Apologies Thing #1!
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The Skies Over Your Head
- Nico Stai
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You look like shit,” Derek greets with a small smile, sliding onto the stool next to his (ex)-best friend.
“Thanks,” Mark replies, drawing his cup back to his mouth, looking around the nearly empty bar for some salvation.
“It's for the best Mark, you can't handle a child. You are a child,” Derek begins, stopping to order from Joe. “He's going to get good parents, a good childhood.”
Mark can feel his fist clenching under the table. Derek's doing that self-important crap where he's always right because he's the adult. But he's the adult who doesn't see his friend anymore, who isn't much of a fucking friend lately anyway, because if he was then he would understand how much this is killing him, watching his grandson be toted off by social services because Sloan couldn't pull her head out of her ass and settle on a family before the baby was born. And after that initial peek, seeing the nose, his light dusting of hair, Mark was in love. And now it's being torn away from him. “Whatever you say Chief.”
“Don't be bitter,” Derek laughs, his brown hair perfectly coiffed, shining in the dim, dusty light.
“Maybe I should move,” Mark asserts. Somewhere people listen to him, like Los Angeles. Sure, Addison is a safe bet these days, and it isn't exactly functional, but she can look past all his bullshit. She still believes in him, even if she does have her doubts, even if believing in him makes her hate herself and him in the process.
“Don't be such a crybaby,” Derek shakes his head playfully, finally sensing that perhaps now is not the time. “It'll get easier,” Derek advises, slapping a firm hand to Mark's shoulder.
"I really thought this was it,” Mark sighs, finishing his drink. This was his chance to start over, to be something amazing for someone. Once a manwhore, always a manwhore though he supposes, surveying the desolate bar.
"You always think this is it, Mark,” Derek reminds him. He thought it was it in the eighth grade with Janice Johnson, and again in college with what's-her-face, and probably, though he'd never want to admit it, with Addison in New York, and maybe Addison here too.
"Addison said she'd help me,” Mark laments. This is the only person he has to talk to besides Callie, and Callie would slap him upside the head for constantly dragging her redheaded friend into his muddy waters. “When I was in L.A., and Sloan really liked her. I think, if...with Addison. Maybe.”
"Ridiculous,” Derek comments hotly, ordering another round for both of them and instructing Joe to change the channel to the Yankees game. He's still a little defensive, and protective, and he has every right. Addison was his first, Mark was his first. They were his, not each others. “So typical Mark.”
"I-”
"You need to let her go, let Addison go do whatever it is that Addison is doing down there.”
"Easy for you to say,” Mark replies angrily. It's easy for Derek to cast her off, he's got something new and younger and not as finicky. But Derek never knew what he and Addison shared, he never will, and he hasn't the inclination to tell him as much because he still screwed his wife, and there's a guilt there he'll never wash off, no matter if it was for the better. Or so he tells himself.
Justification has always been a sticky game.
“Let's- just don't talk about Addison to me,” Derek says. He's on miraculously good terms with his ex-wife, but not with this situation, still.
"'orry,” Mark tells him sloppily lapping at his new beer bottle.
"You know I never meant to hurt you,” Mark repeats aloud, thinking it for the last twenty minutes they've watched the game in silence. Sometimes he could swear they're over this, other times he thinks he'll never be able to pay enough for the memory.
"You never do,” Derek admonishes sullenly, mood turned sour by the attitude infecting his space.
"Turned out well though,” Mark laughs. Turned out sparkling for Derek, just like it always does. The other parties involved though, they've taken to licking their wounds while simultaneously inflicting new ones.
Some things never do change.
Derek excuses himself with a frown, retreating to his car for the solidarity and peace it can still provide, but he doesn't notice Mark is on his trail.
“You're all I've got,” Mark says softly through the sprinkling of light rain, and dusty gray sunrise falling in the background. In another life, he could never imagine being here, being this low. God, it isn't even a voice he recognizes. He's out of resources though, and he's starting to feel old. New women aren't as fun as they once were, and he's actually trying to learn their names now.
His own kid doesn't want him. The people he chooses to surround himself with are always at an arm's length, exactly where he puts them, except Derek. He's always been there, scolding, patronizing his stupidity, laughing at his antics. Everything but supportive.
“Don't do this to yourself Mark,” Derek warns, already trodden down the path himself, more than once.
"I'm just saying, you're all I have Derek.” It's so weak and repulsive, Mark's aware.
And be it born of pity, or confusion, somehow Derek allows his pant's zipper to be frantically tugged as Mark's mouth slides down his neck, finding that one place it discovered all those years ago in med school. It was an accident then, and an accident now.
But this is how Mark apologizes; it's the only forgiveness he understands.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Title: The Death of Paradigm
Pairing: Mark/Cristina...ish.
Rating: PG
Prompt/Summary: #2 pencil. Test day. For mrsfjl66 .
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The Death of Paradigm
- If These Trees Could Talk
~-~-~-~-~-~
Seeing her rarely joyful reflection in the mirror startles Cristina. Toothbrush hanging from her mouth, hair crazy, and sweats hanging off her hips she can do nothing to control the smile. It's not a surgery pulsing through her veins today, and it's not the asinine wedding that everyone is up in arms about. No, today is test day.
Today is the day where she proves how much better she is than everyone, the day she has been laboriously studying for. No cake tasting, no flower smelling, no dresses. Just punishing questions, stuffy air, and the guy in the back who is always coughing.
She thrives on it. She needs it. The thrill of victory, the push of epic greatness.
But somehow in the midst of her morning routine, flashcards being dangled from Burke's hands reluctantly, she neglected to grab the specially purchased pack of twenty #2 pencils, all freshly sharpened in a flurry of late night cramming and shots of cranberry juice. The oversight, sending her into an unmatched fury of self-questioning, ends when a pack falls into her lap, a shadow cast over the locker-room's hard wooden bench.
“My motto: always have a back-up,” Mark smirks, chuckling to himself as he wanders out the door, one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, the other swinging freely by his white coat.
And despite his blabbering mouth, annoyingly perfect facial features and surgical ability, Mark Sloan is her hero today.
When a metal door down a few rows slams shut, Cristina comes back to life, ready for business. And while all thanks should be given to McSteamy for saving her unprepared world, she'll settle instead for not flicking him crap for the next few days, in the spirit of good test-taking decorum and whatnot.
Title: In Illusions Of Order
Pairing: Owen/Teddy
Rating: PG
Prompt/Summary: Closeness. Set in the future. Kind of Owen/Teddy, Mark/Teddy. For thesevoices .
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
In Illusions of Order
- Red Sparowes
~-~-~-~-~-~
It's the little things that Teddy wishes she didn't notice. She doesn't want to see the way Owen works the kink out of his neck and know that if she was to approach him, place three firm fingers on his spine, that a majority of his pain would be alleviated. Point of fact, she doesn't desire to understand exactly what each one of Owen's little glances mean during surgery, but she does.
She knows when he needs a clamp, knows when people are getting in the way, knows when he needs just a fraction of a moment more to think about what he's going to do to help save the patient. She knows his shoe size, his favorite games, and how he takes his coffee, tea, and/or drink depending on the outcomes of every individual factor throughout the day.
She supposes it's a result of so much time spent together, but then, the opposite should hold true. He should know when she'd prefer a strong vodka over a steaming mug, when she needs him to back off instead of pushing her to the edge constantly, and he should damn well know precisely what is going on between them.
But there's always been this cutely dysfunctional breakdown with Owen and his relationships. And she gets that, but he doesn't.
So when Mark flits too long over other nurses, when he proposes at the worst possible moment (her arms elbow deep in a warm body cavity), when it rains on their wedding day, she pretends not to see it. Because he puts just enough sugar into her morning rush, he dashes away long before she's at a breaking point, and because being close to Mark Sloan, while dangerous for many other reasons, doesn't hurt nearly as much as watching helplessly while Owen chases every woman but the one who has always been waiting for him.
Title: Giving Birth To Imagined Saviors
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Rating: PG-13
Prompt/Summary: Babies (happy). Not remotely happy, however. And there aren't really babies. For bowlerhat_girl .
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Giving Birth To Imagined Saviors
- Red Sparowes
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
In the lingering, depressing days after Addison's departure for Seattle, Mark numbs himself with a self prescribed dose of heavy drinking, and even heavier screwing. But every night, long after the moans, curses, and embarrassing tears, he lies awake alone. The gleam of life shines through underneath the closet door where a few of her things are still hiding, and he hasn't bothered to turn off anything since she left.
The refrigerator contains only orange juice, the sink is overflowing with old cups, the television lives wherever it last landed, and his feet are tangled in a mess of cream colored sheets that scream of a woman's touch. And it seems only natural to stare at the bumpy pattern of the ceiling until the alarm that's perpetually set blares into existence, once more resetting his cycle.
The mindless fucking eventually grinds to a halt, and the alcohol weans itself into a nightly scotch to take just enough of the edge off so that he doesn't think he still smells her on the couch pillows. But each evening, all of the lights in his apartment blaring, Mark lies alone, soothing himself, coaxing sleep with a simple dream of holding Addison. Of making her squeal, or laugh. He ponders the family that would have been with a gentle smile, convinced that they could have pulled it together, that he somehow could have been enough for all of them, for the first time believing in himself.
After three weeks of babies with red hair and delicate skin, ruby cheeks and noisy rattles, Mark gathers his courage, his determination.
Surely flying to Seattle will change her mind, he's never been so sure of anything in his life. But when the wisps of cottony clouds break into eager thunderstorms, the gnawing doubt begins to settle itself into Mark's stomach once more, and in a valiant effort of self control he seals his eyes and drifts to his only standby- gurgling babies, their tiny fingers clutching his last hope.
Pairing: Mark/Callie, although it alludes to many canon couples.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: For irisheyes_77 , Mark, Callie and Cristina share a few drinks and mourn their pathetic love lives. Loosely following recent canon.
A/N: All I seem to write lately is Sam/Addison, which while conflicting and hot, doesn't allow for a great amount of variety. So I'm really very out of practice, and admittedly out of my zone here. And insanely late on these prompts, so I must beg forgiveness! Anyway, enjoy my futile attempts to get back into the groove of things and Mr. Sadpants Mark.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Been A Long Day
- Rosi Golan
~-~-~-~-~-~
“Mark!” Callie calls out sullenly, trying to grab his attention before the elevator doors slide shut without her in them. He points down and smiles sadly and she nods. They'll meet in the lobby.
But she really could've used that elevator ride. Instead she catches the next one, cramming in with Yang, Karev, and some of the Mercy Westers whose names she hasn't cared to learn. Cristina looks dead on her feet, and though she'd never admit it, the railing is doing a better job of holding her body up than she is.
Finally, after an eternity, the doors slide open to reveal Mark in his standard black leather jacket, a jump in his step. “Drinks?” he offers.
“Yes, please,” Callie sighs, looping a friendly arm through his, her head resting on his shoulder as they turn for the door.
“I'm in,” Cristina announces, posture slouching, her slipper shoes sliding against the floor as she has no energy to pick up her feet.
Mark shrugs, pushing into Callie's ear and she simply advises Yang that they are there for getting drunk, not dancing around and throwing darts at people's heads. Cristina agrees, citing that if they accidentally hit anyone in the course of getting plastered that it would only be collateral damage.
They're here for themselves first today.
After the end of Mark's relationship, the doom of Callie's, and whatever it is that Cristina isn't talking about, they need to put themselves first.
“Teddy won't let me even think about scrubbing in with her, and then she plays all “nice” outside of the OR. I need to learn, I need to cut,” Cristina moans into her glass, licking the edges without thinking.
“You need to be patient,” Callie advises, the fuzzy beer making its way down her throat. Mark is abnormally quiet, he's sullen. And she hates a sullen Mark, because underneath all the crap he's a decent guy who deserves a break.
“Maybe I should transfer,” Cristina sighs. At least then she'd get some time in, some surgeries under her belt.
“What about Hunt?” Callie asks, but she's thinking the same thing. There's really not going to be a good way to get over Arizona having to see her everyday, playing with all of the children she never wants to have.
“Who cares?” Yang laughs, slamming her cup down, demanding more, now.
“You,” Mark replies, sulking into his scotch and careening his neck to the side. “You both have people who care about you. I have nothing.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Because a glum Mark is a lonely Mark and a lonely Mark is inevitably a horny Mark, it takes a lot for Cristina and Callie to wrestle him away from a nameless blond and get him back into their apartment. He looks like he's on the verge of tears, eyes glazed over from a few too many, and fun times Mark went out the window about three hours ago.
Now he wants to recount. To list his ten favorite things about Lexie and be all piney and wounded.
“Oh my God! Shut up!” Cristina yells across the apartment, slamming the door in the pizza boy's face as he counts his tip. “She's a stupid child who can't commit, good riddance. If I have to hear you tell us the reasons why Lexie was the best at...whatever, I will melt my face off with a blowtorch.”
“Cristina,” Callie scolds, but she's got a point.
“It's been weeks! Weeks of the same old bullshit. Either go get her or move on, but- you can't stay here. It's pathetic and disgusting and weak.” She's yelling at herself, but Mark's a good deflection.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You know she painted her toenails religiously?” Mark asks lazily, spread out over their couch, Callie's head in his lap, his fingers winding through her curls. Cristina is curled up in the chair clutching a bottle of tequila like its her baby.
“You're such a girl,” Callie teases. This inane pattern of love, hate, miss, sorrow. It's not becoming.
“She-she's the girl. You're a girl.”
“I am.”
“A girl who likes girls. Too complicated,” Mark breathes.
“Agreed,” Callie laughs, waking up Cristina who stumbles to her feet, bottle still firmly attached to her right palm, and wanders toward her own room.
“You know what fixes this?” Mark asks, pointing at the space between them, though she can't see that far.
“Running away?”
“New girls.”
“I don't want a new girl,” Callie groans. She wants her girl to want a beautiful future with her.
“Gotta get back in the saddle Torres.”
“Technically,” Callie suggests, “I don't think I'm out of the saddle yet.”
“My saddle is still warm,” Mark laughs.
“What does that even mean?” Callie questions, but thirty seconds later Mark has her pinned to the couch, his lips trailing hotly over her neck, his fingers reaching for the button on her jeans. It's the same old comfort that only he can provide and for half a second she's lost before she can protest. “Mark-”
“Please, please?” Mark begs, hands pushing up her shirt, mouth following with sloppy, wet kisses over her stomach.
“Pity sex?”
“This is all your fault anyway,” Mark tells her.
“This is friend sex,” Callie stipulates as he unhooks her bra. “If you so much as breathe a word of this to anyone-”
“They'll think I'm crazy anyway, no one listens to me.”
“You're so ridiculous,” Callie laughs, her own buzz gone a long time ago. She doesn't mind the idea, she's been undressing him with her eyes all night, wondering if it's still as good as she remembers. If anyone should be mourning, it's Lexie.
And in reality it doesn't matter if he says anything. She and Arizona decided on a break a few hours before her shift ended, effectively making it a shitty day, leading to all the drinking. But she couldn't, can't admit that out loud yet.
Sometimes it's too hard to stare down the hurricane, it's best to pretend it all isn't happening for a few hours and indulge in fantasy land.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Title: The Skies Over Your Head
Pairing: Mark, Derek, and a little slashy Derek/Mark.
Rating: R-ish.
Summary: For citron_presse , "Addison". Set in upcoming canon, fair warning.
A/N: This only took a few months, and eight hundred pathetic drafts. Apologies Thing #1!
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The Skies Over Your Head
- Nico Stai
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You look like shit,” Derek greets with a small smile, sliding onto the stool next to his (ex)-best friend.
“Thanks,” Mark replies, drawing his cup back to his mouth, looking around the nearly empty bar for some salvation.
“It's for the best Mark, you can't handle a child. You are a child,” Derek begins, stopping to order from Joe. “He's going to get good parents, a good childhood.”
Mark can feel his fist clenching under the table. Derek's doing that self-important crap where he's always right because he's the adult. But he's the adult who doesn't see his friend anymore, who isn't much of a fucking friend lately anyway, because if he was then he would understand how much this is killing him, watching his grandson be toted off by social services because Sloan couldn't pull her head out of her ass and settle on a family before the baby was born. And after that initial peek, seeing the nose, his light dusting of hair, Mark was in love. And now it's being torn away from him. “Whatever you say Chief.”
“Don't be bitter,” Derek laughs, his brown hair perfectly coiffed, shining in the dim, dusty light.
“Maybe I should move,” Mark asserts. Somewhere people listen to him, like Los Angeles. Sure, Addison is a safe bet these days, and it isn't exactly functional, but she can look past all his bullshit. She still believes in him, even if she does have her doubts, even if believing in him makes her hate herself and him in the process.
“Don't be such a crybaby,” Derek shakes his head playfully, finally sensing that perhaps now is not the time. “It'll get easier,” Derek advises, slapping a firm hand to Mark's shoulder.
"I really thought this was it,” Mark sighs, finishing his drink. This was his chance to start over, to be something amazing for someone. Once a manwhore, always a manwhore though he supposes, surveying the desolate bar.
"You always think this is it, Mark,” Derek reminds him. He thought it was it in the eighth grade with Janice Johnson, and again in college with what's-her-face, and probably, though he'd never want to admit it, with Addison in New York, and maybe Addison here too.
"Addison said she'd help me,” Mark laments. This is the only person he has to talk to besides Callie, and Callie would slap him upside the head for constantly dragging her redheaded friend into his muddy waters. “When I was in L.A., and Sloan really liked her. I think, if...with Addison. Maybe.”
"Ridiculous,” Derek comments hotly, ordering another round for both of them and instructing Joe to change the channel to the Yankees game. He's still a little defensive, and protective, and he has every right. Addison was his first, Mark was his first. They were his, not each others. “So typical Mark.”
"I-”
"You need to let her go, let Addison go do whatever it is that Addison is doing down there.”
"Easy for you to say,” Mark replies angrily. It's easy for Derek to cast her off, he's got something new and younger and not as finicky. But Derek never knew what he and Addison shared, he never will, and he hasn't the inclination to tell him as much because he still screwed his wife, and there's a guilt there he'll never wash off, no matter if it was for the better. Or so he tells himself.
Justification has always been a sticky game.
“Let's- just don't talk about Addison to me,” Derek says. He's on miraculously good terms with his ex-wife, but not with this situation, still.
"'orry,” Mark tells him sloppily lapping at his new beer bottle.
"You know I never meant to hurt you,” Mark repeats aloud, thinking it for the last twenty minutes they've watched the game in silence. Sometimes he could swear they're over this, other times he thinks he'll never be able to pay enough for the memory.
"You never do,” Derek admonishes sullenly, mood turned sour by the attitude infecting his space.
"Turned out well though,” Mark laughs. Turned out sparkling for Derek, just like it always does. The other parties involved though, they've taken to licking their wounds while simultaneously inflicting new ones.
Some things never do change.
Derek excuses himself with a frown, retreating to his car for the solidarity and peace it can still provide, but he doesn't notice Mark is on his trail.
“You're all I've got,” Mark says softly through the sprinkling of light rain, and dusty gray sunrise falling in the background. In another life, he could never imagine being here, being this low. God, it isn't even a voice he recognizes. He's out of resources though, and he's starting to feel old. New women aren't as fun as they once were, and he's actually trying to learn their names now.
His own kid doesn't want him. The people he chooses to surround himself with are always at an arm's length, exactly where he puts them, except Derek. He's always been there, scolding, patronizing his stupidity, laughing at his antics. Everything but supportive.
“Don't do this to yourself Mark,” Derek warns, already trodden down the path himself, more than once.
"I'm just saying, you're all I have Derek.” It's so weak and repulsive, Mark's aware.
And be it born of pity, or confusion, somehow Derek allows his pant's zipper to be frantically tugged as Mark's mouth slides down his neck, finding that one place it discovered all those years ago in med school. It was an accident then, and an accident now.
But this is how Mark apologizes; it's the only forgiveness he understands.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Title: The Death of Paradigm
Pairing: Mark/Cristina...ish.
Rating: PG
Prompt/Summary: #2 pencil. Test day. For mrsfjl66 .
~-~-~-~-~-~
The Death of Paradigm
- If These Trees Could Talk
~-~-~-~-~-~
Seeing her rarely joyful reflection in the mirror startles Cristina. Toothbrush hanging from her mouth, hair crazy, and sweats hanging off her hips she can do nothing to control the smile. It's not a surgery pulsing through her veins today, and it's not the asinine wedding that everyone is up in arms about. No, today is test day.
Today is the day where she proves how much better she is than everyone, the day she has been laboriously studying for. No cake tasting, no flower smelling, no dresses. Just punishing questions, stuffy air, and the guy in the back who is always coughing.
She thrives on it. She needs it. The thrill of victory, the push of epic greatness.
But somehow in the midst of her morning routine, flashcards being dangled from Burke's hands reluctantly, she neglected to grab the specially purchased pack of twenty #2 pencils, all freshly sharpened in a flurry of late night cramming and shots of cranberry juice. The oversight, sending her into an unmatched fury of self-questioning, ends when a pack falls into her lap, a shadow cast over the locker-room's hard wooden bench.
“My motto: always have a back-up,” Mark smirks, chuckling to himself as he wanders out the door, one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, the other swinging freely by his white coat.
And despite his blabbering mouth, annoyingly perfect facial features and surgical ability, Mark Sloan is her hero today.
When a metal door down a few rows slams shut, Cristina comes back to life, ready for business. And while all thanks should be given to McSteamy for saving her unprepared world, she'll settle instead for not flicking him crap for the next few days, in the spirit of good test-taking decorum and whatnot.
Title: In Illusions Of Order
Pairing: Owen/Teddy
Rating: PG
Prompt/Summary: Closeness. Set in the future. Kind of Owen/Teddy, Mark/Teddy. For thesevoices .
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In Illusions of Order
- Red Sparowes
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It's the little things that Teddy wishes she didn't notice. She doesn't want to see the way Owen works the kink out of his neck and know that if she was to approach him, place three firm fingers on his spine, that a majority of his pain would be alleviated. Point of fact, she doesn't desire to understand exactly what each one of Owen's little glances mean during surgery, but she does.
She knows when he needs a clamp, knows when people are getting in the way, knows when he needs just a fraction of a moment more to think about what he's going to do to help save the patient. She knows his shoe size, his favorite games, and how he takes his coffee, tea, and/or drink depending on the outcomes of every individual factor throughout the day.
She supposes it's a result of so much time spent together, but then, the opposite should hold true. He should know when she'd prefer a strong vodka over a steaming mug, when she needs him to back off instead of pushing her to the edge constantly, and he should damn well know precisely what is going on between them.
But there's always been this cutely dysfunctional breakdown with Owen and his relationships. And she gets that, but he doesn't.
So when Mark flits too long over other nurses, when he proposes at the worst possible moment (her arms elbow deep in a warm body cavity), when it rains on their wedding day, she pretends not to see it. Because he puts just enough sugar into her morning rush, he dashes away long before she's at a breaking point, and because being close to Mark Sloan, while dangerous for many other reasons, doesn't hurt nearly as much as watching helplessly while Owen chases every woman but the one who has always been waiting for him.
Title: Giving Birth To Imagined Saviors
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Rating: PG-13
Prompt/Summary: Babies (happy). Not remotely happy, however. And there aren't really babies. For bowlerhat_girl .
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Giving Birth To Imagined Saviors
- Red Sparowes
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In the lingering, depressing days after Addison's departure for Seattle, Mark numbs himself with a self prescribed dose of heavy drinking, and even heavier screwing. But every night, long after the moans, curses, and embarrassing tears, he lies awake alone. The gleam of life shines through underneath the closet door where a few of her things are still hiding, and he hasn't bothered to turn off anything since she left.
The refrigerator contains only orange juice, the sink is overflowing with old cups, the television lives wherever it last landed, and his feet are tangled in a mess of cream colored sheets that scream of a woman's touch. And it seems only natural to stare at the bumpy pattern of the ceiling until the alarm that's perpetually set blares into existence, once more resetting his cycle.
The mindless fucking eventually grinds to a halt, and the alcohol weans itself into a nightly scotch to take just enough of the edge off so that he doesn't think he still smells her on the couch pillows. But each evening, all of the lights in his apartment blaring, Mark lies alone, soothing himself, coaxing sleep with a simple dream of holding Addison. Of making her squeal, or laugh. He ponders the family that would have been with a gentle smile, convinced that they could have pulled it together, that he somehow could have been enough for all of them, for the first time believing in himself.
After three weeks of babies with red hair and delicate skin, ruby cheeks and noisy rattles, Mark gathers his courage, his determination.
Surely flying to Seattle will change her mind, he's never been so sure of anything in his life. But when the wisps of cottony clouds break into eager thunderstorms, the gnawing doubt begins to settle itself into Mark's stomach once more, and in a valiant effort of self control he seals his eyes and drifts to his only standby- gurgling babies, their tiny fingers clutching his last hope.