FIC: Something Better
Title: Something Better
Author: Amy (alexia@innergeekdom.net)
Website: http://www.innergeekdom.net
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Ship: Izzie/George.
Spoilers: Shit, through the newest, I think?
Rating: PG-13, for frequent use of the word penis
Archive: Anyone who wants it. Just let me know.
Summary: If she's a beauty she'll get under your collar. Eventually.
Notes: So after seeing the TR and Elmo video, mimesere told me I should write Grey's Anatomy fic where Izzie and George both like Muppets. And today, pearl_o told me that I should write her Izzie/George, with Izzie's childhood stuffed animals and cuddling. And I... I am easy.
Love to xanphibian and pearl_o for hand-holding through the embarrassingly large amount of fluff.
Title and part of the summary from "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along" from the Muppet Movie.
2,268 words.
So apparently things were different. George wasn't sure how, but they had to be, because everyone was acting weird. Everyone, in this case, being Meredith and Cristina.
He first noticed it when they cornered him while he was leaving surgery one day.
"You're leading her on," Cristina said.
"You're being a guy," Meredith said. "We hate that."
"She likes you and you are leading her on," Cristina said.
"You're not supposed to be a guy," Meredith said. "You're supposed to be George."
"Seriously," Cristina said.
"Seriously!" Meredith said. "What's gotten into you?"
"You know how good I am with a scalpel," Cristina said. "I wouldn't test me."
Meredith nodded emphatically.
George was pretty sure he'd lost all capacity to speak, but finally, he managed to squeeze out a strangled "What?"
"If you hurt her," Cristina said, "We will kill you."
And then she and Meredith left.
The matter dropped for three months.
It wasn't that George didn't care. It was that George was, really and genuinely, afraid. He wasn't afraid of the chief or Bailey or Dr. Burke or Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd nearly as much as he was afraid of the two of them. He did not disbelieve for a second that the two of them would kill him. With their bare hands. They'd probably enjoy it. They'd probably put his head on a post in the locker room for the next time anyone dared to do anything they disliked ever, ever again.
It seemed easier to let the whole thing drop than to ask either of them. Because, seriously. Scary.
The next time it came up was at Joe's. "You're such a guy," Meredith said disgustedly.
"Doing stupid guy things," Cristina said.
"Stupid boy penis," Meredith said.
"Stop saying that!" George protested.
"Well, you're obviously not thinking with your head," Cristina said with a shrug.
"Or your eyes," Meredith added. "Or your other non-penile organs."
George wasn't actually sure if this was better or worse than being their sister. On the one hand, at least they didn't seem to think he was a eunuch anymore. On the other, he didn't want to have to lock his door at night for fear of castration.
"She likes you," Cristina said. "And you're an idiot."
"Probably," George agreed, just because it seemed easier than fighting with Cristina about anything.
"An idiot," Meredith said, "with a stupid boy-penis."
Meredith had seen his stupid boy-penis. Really, this was just the latest in a series of traumatic encounters surrounding Meredith and his stupid boy-penis. "Yes," he said.
"I," Cristina announced, "am very very drunk."
"Yes," George said again. "You're drunk, and Meredith hates my penis, and I am an idiot."
Meredith nodded decisively, like George had figured out all the secrets of the universe, except for the one that made him and his penis both stupid.
That night, George decided that girls were hard, and from now on he wouldn't talk to anyone female but Izzie and Dr. Bailey and Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd. And any of the patients. And his mom. Actually, pretty much anyone except Cristina and Meredith. And probably Olivia. Mostly because he thought that if they saw him talking to Olivia, he'd see Olivia in a ditch on the eleven o'clock news, and that seemed a little extreme.
Neither Cristina nor Meredith mentioned the incident again, which was probably because he was doing his best not to see them. When the door to his room opened at two AM four nights later, though, he immediately started wishing he slept with a cup again, like he did the summer his brothers thought kicking each other while they were sleeping was the funniest joke ever.
But it wasn't them. It was Izzie. Who wasn't scary at all. She was just soft and curvy and smiling, and she looked like she probably didn't want him to die immediately. Which was kind of a nice change.
"Is Alex a dick?" he asked. She didn't even need to ask; he rolled over to give her more room in the bed.
"Everyone is a dick," Izzie said. "I hate everyone in the universe." She crawled onto the bed, almost curled up against him but with one thing in between them.
"And who is this?" George asked as conversationally as he could.
Izzie looked down and then grinned. "Oh. This is Herbert."
"He looks like a very friendly hippo," George said politely.
"He's purple."
"I noticed that too."
"I used to have a pink hippopotamus named Herbie. I took him everywhere with me when I was little," Izzie continued. "My mom got him for me. But when I was sixteen, I gave him to- I lost him. And sometimes you need a hippo, you know?"
George nodded, because he kind of did know, even though he had never had a hippo.
"Well, I was on break one day and I went to the gift shop to get a card and this looked just like Herbie- only, you know, not pink. So I got him. And named him Herbert. Because it's almost Herbie, but not quite."
George studied the stuffed animal seriously. "He looks like a Herbert," he said after a moment.
Izzie positively beamed at him. "George, why are you the best?"
"Dumb luck," he answered honestly, which seemed like a stupid answer but it made Izzie smile so he figured it was probably okay.
A few weeks later, when he was shopping for everyone, he found a pink hippo in the discount stuffed animal section of the drugstore. He put a ribbon around its neck and waited until Izzie was out, and then he left it on her bed next to Herbert. He thought it might make her smile.
The next night, Meredith and Cristina cornered him again.
"You are such a guy," Meredith said.
"I'm not a guy," George protested. "I mean. I am- I am a guy, with guy parts, but I am not being... a guy." Being a guy usually meant being like Dr. Shepherd, which meant being a bad person, which meant at least forty minutes of being told how his penis made him a bad person. George was getting a little tired of all the uncomplimentary discussions about his penis.
"At least Derek had an excuse," Meredith said.
Cristina and George both stared at her, open-mouthed.
"Okay, he didn't have an excuse, but he was being a guy in a completely different way than you are being a guy, and right now your way is a lot more annoying."
"I don't have a wife," George said, slowly and carefully, in case Meredith was too drunk to figure that out.
"You sleep with her," Cristina said. "And you don't even ask her on a date."
"I haven't slept with anyone!" he said. "I mean- I have, you know I have, with the syphilis-"
"You just sleep with her like it's not this thing," Meredith said. "And when it was me no one thought it was a thing and everyone still got mad, but with you everyone knows it's a thing and you're not acting it's a thing and why does everyone think you're the nice guy?"
"Why do you think Dr. Shepherd is?" George asked, because usually when they were yelling at him he could derail their thought into another recitation of Why McDreamy Is The McDevil.
"Because he didn't sleep with anyone," Meredith said, emphasizing the word as much as she could.
"Except you," George said.
"He had sex with me," Meredith said. "He didn't sleep with me."
"He stayed over in our house for weeks!" George said.
"Well, not at first, I meant."
"I have not slept with anyone since..." He frowned. "Since you. Is this some kind of weird third-person yelling at me thing where I should be apologizing to Meredith? Because... I'm sorry," he added, attempting to be as still as possible so that maybe they'd be distracted by faster-moving prey.
"You are not allowed to be the perfect boyfriend," Cristina said, "until you are the boyfriend. Because that makes you the biggest dick in the universe."
"Bigger than Dr. Shepherd?" he tried again.
Meredith gestured with her beer and managed to get some on him, but she started talking about how much Derek had managed to ruin everything in the universe, so he was saved.
Even though they both thought he was not the perfect not-boyfriend and that made him a bad, bad, bad, bad man, even though he didn't completely understand. He was pretty sure that was just them being Meredith and Cristina.
Which was getting a little old.
The next time Izzie climbed into bed with him, she brought the pink hippo with her. "Hi, Herbie," George said sleepily.
"George."
"What?"
"His name is George."
"Oh."
That night George slept with Izzie and George, which was nice, if a little confusing. When he woke up, Izzie's arms were around him-George, not the hippopotamus one, which was nice too, but the stuffed animal probably felt left out.
So he half-rolled over so that Izzie's arms were still there, but he hugged the pink George to himself as he fell back asleep.
The next morning, he made French toast for himself and Izzie while Mr. Clean (formerly Bald Guy, renamed after they decided he looked more like the detergent guy than other bald guy Meredith slept with between times with this one) made his discreet escape.
"Have I mentioned I love you?" Izzie asked, smothering her second helping with syrup. "There are going to be brownies, and they will have your name on them."
"Double chocolate?" George said hopefully.
"Maybe even triple."
"You're the best," he said, and even though it was not a very George-like thing to do, kissing her on the forehead seemed like it would be a nice gesture. So he did, on his way to putting his dish in the sink.
He almost wasn't surprised when Meredith and Cristina hunted him down during rounds.
"Devil, hate men, bad penis, death to the infidels?" he guessed.
They both nodded. Neither stopped glaring.
"Got it," George said.
They left.
That night, he and Izzie ate fresh brownie batter and talked about their favorite bad movies and their least-favorite college classes and the stuff they liked most as kids while staring at the oven, and somehow it led to them lying on the floor in the living room at two in the morning, watching the Muppet Movie and trying to pretend they couldn't hear Meredith and Are We Sure He's Legal Guy having sex upstairs.
"Good brownies," George said.
"Good company," Izzie murmured. When she fell asleep, he tried to wake her, but she was out cold, so he went upstairs and got her blanket and covered her, and then came back one last time to make sure she could sleep with George.
The hippo. Not him.
It hadn't gotten any less confusing since the first time.
Two nights later, he found a stuffed Kermit lying on his pillow. That was about when he got it.
George was slow, sometimes, but he wasn't stupid.
It was harder than he'd expected to find a stuffed Miss Piggy. He couldn't even find another Kermit like his, but Miss Piggy was almost impossible. He ended up having to order her on EBay and have it delivered to his parents' house, because he knew that both Meredith and Izzie were humanly incapable of not opening his mail. Then he went out and found a doll blanket.
He left Kermit on Izzie's bed, with Miss Piggy next to him under the blanket, and a note pinned to Kermit's flipper. (He was pretty sure Kermit wouldn't mind.)
That night, when Izzie came into his room, she didn't bring George or Herbert. She brought Piggy and Kermit, but she left them on his desk, carefully. He noticed that the pin was now holding their hands together. Well, their flipper and their hoof.
"I always wanted to be Miss Piggy when I was little," Izzie informed him.
"I always identified with Kermit," George said.
"I'm shocked," Izzie said, in a voice that meant she totally wasn't. Then she bit her lip. "So you know what I liked a lot about Miss Piggy?"
"What?"
"She always made the first move."
Then Izzie took off her top.
The next day, Cristina and Meredith found him when he was washing his hands before surgery.
"I'm sorry I have a penis," he said automatically.
"No," Cristina said. "We're okay with that right now."
"You made her happy," Meredith said. "That makes us happy."
"Oh," George said. "Well. Good then."
"If you hurt her, though," Cristina said. She didn't finish it; just let it hang in the air.
Which was fair. Because Cristina was not any less scary even if he had an Izzie.
"But I'm okay now?" George asked.
"You're okay," Meredith said.
"For now," Cristina conceded, and they both walked off.
They were so scary. Seriously.
Izzie came into the locker room immediately after them, though. And she asked if they scared him and he said no and then changed his answer to a little, yes, yes they did. And she laughed and she kissed him and said he was the most perfect guy ever.
Which George kind of liked.
"Wait," he said.
"What?"
"You don't have syphilis, do you?"
She swatted at him and he started cracking up, and then he kissed her and then she kissed him and then he went back to washing his hands, because, hey, surgery.
So things were pretty much back to normal. Except better.
Which was, all things considered, pretty awesome.
Seriously.
Author: Amy (alexia@innergeekdom.net)
Website: http://www.innergeekdom.net
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Ship: Izzie/George.
Spoilers: Shit, through the newest, I think?
Rating: PG-13, for frequent use of the word penis
Archive: Anyone who wants it. Just let me know.
Summary: If she's a beauty she'll get under your collar. Eventually.
Notes: So after seeing the TR and Elmo video, mimesere told me I should write Grey's Anatomy fic where Izzie and George both like Muppets. And today, pearl_o told me that I should write her Izzie/George, with Izzie's childhood stuffed animals and cuddling. And I... I am easy.
Love to xanphibian and pearl_o for hand-holding through the embarrassingly large amount of fluff.
Title and part of the summary from "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along" from the Muppet Movie.
2,268 words.
So apparently things were different. George wasn't sure how, but they had to be, because everyone was acting weird. Everyone, in this case, being Meredith and Cristina.
He first noticed it when they cornered him while he was leaving surgery one day.
"You're leading her on," Cristina said.
"You're being a guy," Meredith said. "We hate that."
"She likes you and you are leading her on," Cristina said.
"You're not supposed to be a guy," Meredith said. "You're supposed to be George."
"Seriously," Cristina said.
"Seriously!" Meredith said. "What's gotten into you?"
"You know how good I am with a scalpel," Cristina said. "I wouldn't test me."
Meredith nodded emphatically.
George was pretty sure he'd lost all capacity to speak, but finally, he managed to squeeze out a strangled "What?"
"If you hurt her," Cristina said, "We will kill you."
And then she and Meredith left.
The matter dropped for three months.
It wasn't that George didn't care. It was that George was, really and genuinely, afraid. He wasn't afraid of the chief or Bailey or Dr. Burke or Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd nearly as much as he was afraid of the two of them. He did not disbelieve for a second that the two of them would kill him. With their bare hands. They'd probably enjoy it. They'd probably put his head on a post in the locker room for the next time anyone dared to do anything they disliked ever, ever again.
It seemed easier to let the whole thing drop than to ask either of them. Because, seriously. Scary.
The next time it came up was at Joe's. "You're such a guy," Meredith said disgustedly.
"Doing stupid guy things," Cristina said.
"Stupid boy penis," Meredith said.
"Stop saying that!" George protested.
"Well, you're obviously not thinking with your head," Cristina said with a shrug.
"Or your eyes," Meredith added. "Or your other non-penile organs."
George wasn't actually sure if this was better or worse than being their sister. On the one hand, at least they didn't seem to think he was a eunuch anymore. On the other, he didn't want to have to lock his door at night for fear of castration.
"She likes you," Cristina said. "And you're an idiot."
"Probably," George agreed, just because it seemed easier than fighting with Cristina about anything.
"An idiot," Meredith said, "with a stupid boy-penis."
Meredith had seen his stupid boy-penis. Really, this was just the latest in a series of traumatic encounters surrounding Meredith and his stupid boy-penis. "Yes," he said.
"I," Cristina announced, "am very very drunk."
"Yes," George said again. "You're drunk, and Meredith hates my penis, and I am an idiot."
Meredith nodded decisively, like George had figured out all the secrets of the universe, except for the one that made him and his penis both stupid.
That night, George decided that girls were hard, and from now on he wouldn't talk to anyone female but Izzie and Dr. Bailey and Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd. And any of the patients. And his mom. Actually, pretty much anyone except Cristina and Meredith. And probably Olivia. Mostly because he thought that if they saw him talking to Olivia, he'd see Olivia in a ditch on the eleven o'clock news, and that seemed a little extreme.
Neither Cristina nor Meredith mentioned the incident again, which was probably because he was doing his best not to see them. When the door to his room opened at two AM four nights later, though, he immediately started wishing he slept with a cup again, like he did the summer his brothers thought kicking each other while they were sleeping was the funniest joke ever.
But it wasn't them. It was Izzie. Who wasn't scary at all. She was just soft and curvy and smiling, and she looked like she probably didn't want him to die immediately. Which was kind of a nice change.
"Is Alex a dick?" he asked. She didn't even need to ask; he rolled over to give her more room in the bed.
"Everyone is a dick," Izzie said. "I hate everyone in the universe." She crawled onto the bed, almost curled up against him but with one thing in between them.
"And who is this?" George asked as conversationally as he could.
Izzie looked down and then grinned. "Oh. This is Herbert."
"He looks like a very friendly hippo," George said politely.
"He's purple."
"I noticed that too."
"I used to have a pink hippopotamus named Herbie. I took him everywhere with me when I was little," Izzie continued. "My mom got him for me. But when I was sixteen, I gave him to- I lost him. And sometimes you need a hippo, you know?"
George nodded, because he kind of did know, even though he had never had a hippo.
"Well, I was on break one day and I went to the gift shop to get a card and this looked just like Herbie- only, you know, not pink. So I got him. And named him Herbert. Because it's almost Herbie, but not quite."
George studied the stuffed animal seriously. "He looks like a Herbert," he said after a moment.
Izzie positively beamed at him. "George, why are you the best?"
"Dumb luck," he answered honestly, which seemed like a stupid answer but it made Izzie smile so he figured it was probably okay.
A few weeks later, when he was shopping for everyone, he found a pink hippo in the discount stuffed animal section of the drugstore. He put a ribbon around its neck and waited until Izzie was out, and then he left it on her bed next to Herbert. He thought it might make her smile.
The next night, Meredith and Cristina cornered him again.
"You are such a guy," Meredith said.
"I'm not a guy," George protested. "I mean. I am- I am a guy, with guy parts, but I am not being... a guy." Being a guy usually meant being like Dr. Shepherd, which meant being a bad person, which meant at least forty minutes of being told how his penis made him a bad person. George was getting a little tired of all the uncomplimentary discussions about his penis.
"At least Derek had an excuse," Meredith said.
Cristina and George both stared at her, open-mouthed.
"Okay, he didn't have an excuse, but he was being a guy in a completely different way than you are being a guy, and right now your way is a lot more annoying."
"I don't have a wife," George said, slowly and carefully, in case Meredith was too drunk to figure that out.
"You sleep with her," Cristina said. "And you don't even ask her on a date."
"I haven't slept with anyone!" he said. "I mean- I have, you know I have, with the syphilis-"
"You just sleep with her like it's not this thing," Meredith said. "And when it was me no one thought it was a thing and everyone still got mad, but with you everyone knows it's a thing and you're not acting it's a thing and why does everyone think you're the nice guy?"
"Why do you think Dr. Shepherd is?" George asked, because usually when they were yelling at him he could derail their thought into another recitation of Why McDreamy Is The McDevil.
"Because he didn't sleep with anyone," Meredith said, emphasizing the word as much as she could.
"Except you," George said.
"He had sex with me," Meredith said. "He didn't sleep with me."
"He stayed over in our house for weeks!" George said.
"Well, not at first, I meant."
"I have not slept with anyone since..." He frowned. "Since you. Is this some kind of weird third-person yelling at me thing where I should be apologizing to Meredith? Because... I'm sorry," he added, attempting to be as still as possible so that maybe they'd be distracted by faster-moving prey.
"You are not allowed to be the perfect boyfriend," Cristina said, "until you are the boyfriend. Because that makes you the biggest dick in the universe."
"Bigger than Dr. Shepherd?" he tried again.
Meredith gestured with her beer and managed to get some on him, but she started talking about how much Derek had managed to ruin everything in the universe, so he was saved.
Even though they both thought he was not the perfect not-boyfriend and that made him a bad, bad, bad, bad man, even though he didn't completely understand. He was pretty sure that was just them being Meredith and Cristina.
Which was getting a little old.
The next time Izzie climbed into bed with him, she brought the pink hippo with her. "Hi, Herbie," George said sleepily.
"George."
"What?"
"His name is George."
"Oh."
That night George slept with Izzie and George, which was nice, if a little confusing. When he woke up, Izzie's arms were around him-George, not the hippopotamus one, which was nice too, but the stuffed animal probably felt left out.
So he half-rolled over so that Izzie's arms were still there, but he hugged the pink George to himself as he fell back asleep.
The next morning, he made French toast for himself and Izzie while Mr. Clean (formerly Bald Guy, renamed after they decided he looked more like the detergent guy than other bald guy Meredith slept with between times with this one) made his discreet escape.
"Have I mentioned I love you?" Izzie asked, smothering her second helping with syrup. "There are going to be brownies, and they will have your name on them."
"Double chocolate?" George said hopefully.
"Maybe even triple."
"You're the best," he said, and even though it was not a very George-like thing to do, kissing her on the forehead seemed like it would be a nice gesture. So he did, on his way to putting his dish in the sink.
He almost wasn't surprised when Meredith and Cristina hunted him down during rounds.
"Devil, hate men, bad penis, death to the infidels?" he guessed.
They both nodded. Neither stopped glaring.
"Got it," George said.
They left.
That night, he and Izzie ate fresh brownie batter and talked about their favorite bad movies and their least-favorite college classes and the stuff they liked most as kids while staring at the oven, and somehow it led to them lying on the floor in the living room at two in the morning, watching the Muppet Movie and trying to pretend they couldn't hear Meredith and Are We Sure He's Legal Guy having sex upstairs.
"Good brownies," George said.
"Good company," Izzie murmured. When she fell asleep, he tried to wake her, but she was out cold, so he went upstairs and got her blanket and covered her, and then came back one last time to make sure she could sleep with George.
The hippo. Not him.
It hadn't gotten any less confusing since the first time.
Two nights later, he found a stuffed Kermit lying on his pillow. That was about when he got it.
George was slow, sometimes, but he wasn't stupid.
It was harder than he'd expected to find a stuffed Miss Piggy. He couldn't even find another Kermit like his, but Miss Piggy was almost impossible. He ended up having to order her on EBay and have it delivered to his parents' house, because he knew that both Meredith and Izzie were humanly incapable of not opening his mail. Then he went out and found a doll blanket.
He left Kermit on Izzie's bed, with Miss Piggy next to him under the blanket, and a note pinned to Kermit's flipper. (He was pretty sure Kermit wouldn't mind.)
That night, when Izzie came into his room, she didn't bring George or Herbert. She brought Piggy and Kermit, but she left them on his desk, carefully. He noticed that the pin was now holding their hands together. Well, their flipper and their hoof.
"I always wanted to be Miss Piggy when I was little," Izzie informed him.
"I always identified with Kermit," George said.
"I'm shocked," Izzie said, in a voice that meant she totally wasn't. Then she bit her lip. "So you know what I liked a lot about Miss Piggy?"
"What?"
"She always made the first move."
Then Izzie took off her top.
The next day, Cristina and Meredith found him when he was washing his hands before surgery.
"I'm sorry I have a penis," he said automatically.
"No," Cristina said. "We're okay with that right now."
"You made her happy," Meredith said. "That makes us happy."
"Oh," George said. "Well. Good then."
"If you hurt her, though," Cristina said. She didn't finish it; just let it hang in the air.
Which was fair. Because Cristina was not any less scary even if he had an Izzie.
"But I'm okay now?" George asked.
"You're okay," Meredith said.
"For now," Cristina conceded, and they both walked off.
They were so scary. Seriously.
Izzie came into the locker room immediately after them, though. And she asked if they scared him and he said no and then changed his answer to a little, yes, yes they did. And she laughed and she kissed him and said he was the most perfect guy ever.
Which George kind of liked.
"Wait," he said.
"What?"
"You don't have syphilis, do you?"
She swatted at him and he started cracking up, and then he kissed her and then she kissed him and then he went back to washing his hands, because, hey, surgery.
So things were pretty much back to normal. Except better.
Which was, all things considered, pretty awesome.
Seriously.