fic the slorres (mark/callie) PG 1/? HELP!
Author Devylish
Title The Slorres
Chapter HELP!
Fandom Grey’s Anatomy
Pair Mark and Callie
Rating PG
Words 1547
Warning/Spoiler/Summary None. None. Mark’s parents are coming to town and he needs help. Disclaimer All publicly recognizable characters, settings, plot, etc. are the property of the creators of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Any original characters, settings and plots are the property of devylish. devylish is in no way associated with the TV show Grey’s Anatomy and no copyright infringement is intended. This work is an amateur fan effort and no profit is being made.
“Torres.”
“Sloan.”
Mark settled next to her at the bar. “I need your help.”
“I know you need help; I don’t, however, know if I have the tools necessary to give you all the help you need.” Still facing the bar, she grinned into her drink.
Mark let his gaze float down her figure, stopping for a long second at her cleavage displaying top. “Ahem, uh, yeah, you have the tools.”
Callie raised a brow and turned on her barstool to face him. “Thanks for the compliment Mark, but, my tools are staying in my toolbox; they know exactly where your wood has been.”
He burst out in laughter. “C’mon! There has to be a statute of limitations on the Grey contamination factor!” He and Lexie had broken up three or four months ago.
“I’ll let you know when you’ve hit it.” Callie winked at him and turned back to her drink. Before she could pick it up, however, Mark grabbed it, and holding it out of her reach, took a sip.
“Mark!”
“I’ll give it back… lush.” He took another sip, and handed the glass to her. “Seriously, Torres, I need your help.”
She stirred the straw in her glass and peered at him. He was serious. “With…?”
“My parents are coming into town for a week.”
Callie gave a low whistle. Mark rarely spoke about his parents, and when he did, it was always with an edge of bitterness. The bitterness was in his voice now. Callie shoved her glass in his direction. “Why’re they coming?”
He shrugged. “The reason they’ve given? ‘We want to mend fences son. It’s the holidays… a time for family.’” He snorted, “The real reason? I’m assuming Alicia bought some new jewelry, or perhaps Edward purchased a new jet and they want to show them off.”
“Mark…” Callie couldn’t imagine having parents like Mark’s. True, hers weren’t perfect - witness the Arizona experiment - but they loved her. She never ever doubted that. Mark? She didn’t know if he’d ever even considered that his parents loved him.
“And, uh, there’s the fact that they want to meet my roommate/girlfriend/fiancé.”
“Lexie? They want to meet Lexie? What’re you going to do?”
“Well… that’s the thing. Ellen… Ellen Shepherd? Derek’s mom? Knew I was dating, that I’d moved in… that I’d proposed. And that’s how my parents found out. Ellen’s a sweet woman and she hasn’t given up on my parents yet. So if she sees them at events, she’ll bring me up.” He took the final sip of Callie’s drink, “she’s never quite understood how they didn’t care.” He snorted lightly, “I think she’s still trying to show them what a good boy I am.” Other than Callie, Ellen was the only woman who’d ever placed her faith in him. “Anyway.” He raised his eyes from the glass to Callie’s face. “I’ve maybe mentioned Lexie’s name, like once to Ellen. If she caught it and even if she shared that piece of info with my parents they’ll have forgotten it by now. All they’ll care about, if they’re here to pay any attention to my life, is the fact that I’m engaged and that I’m bringing someone into the Sloan line… and that, that’s where you come in baby.”
Callie pulled back slightly. ‘Baby’… ut oh… he’s pulling out the big guns. “I don’t follow.”
“I need a fiancé. For one week. Lunch, dinner, theatre with my parents a few times, maybe have them over for cocktails. Then I send them on their merry way back to Massachusetts, and ma, pa, and son can go back to ignoring one another for the next three years.”
“Shouldn’t you - wouldn’t it be easier - just to tell them that you’re not seeing Lexie anymore?”
He shrugged. “I’ll get the ‘son, you’re not getting any younger’ speech and the ‘if you would just be more like Derek, you could land a woman’ speech if I spill the truth. I’ll get the ‘what’s her family like, what does she do for a living, will she bear us healthy grandchildren’ speeches if I don’t tell them about Lexie.” He smiled darkly, “you weigh the options.”
He leaned forward. “I just need you to move in for a week, play the role when the king and queen are present, and you can do your own thing the rest of the time.”
Callie opened her mouth to respond.
“C’mon Cal, you’re in my apartment as much as in your own these days.” Both of them had handled their perspective breakups in the most mature fashions. They’d buried themselves in dvds, tequila, icecream, and the sleeping on their best friends couch.
She opened her mouth again.
“Just move some of your clothes into my place, put some of your girlie stuff in my bathroom and after Christmas, I’ll set you free.”
“Girlie stuff?” She finally squeezed a word into the conversation.
“Perfume, and tampons and… cotton balls. Girlie stuff.”
“Out of curiousity, what sort of things are ‘boy stuff’ in the bathroom?”
“Electric razors.” He answered without hesitation.
“That’s it?”
“Men are low maintenance.”
“Says the man with a Nevada sized plan to avoid telling his parents the truth.”
Mark swirled the ice in the glass.
“Fine. I’ll do it. when are they coming.”
Mark froze. “Did you just say, yes?”
“Yes.”
“You said ‘yes’?”
Callie sighed, “I want to help my buddy. My pal. My comrade.” She blinked her eyes a few times… innocently.
Mark lifted one hand and waved his fingers, beckoning her to get to the truth.
“Okay, Hunt… Yang? The makeup sex is… unbearable. I mean. It’s in the kitchen. The living rom, the bathroom. It might have even been in my room. I need to escape... a Hunt/Yang sex-free zone. And your place is as good as any.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Hey, we both get something out of this, I get to sleep without my iPod on, and you get a pretend fiancé. Win - win.”
Mark stared at his best friend, his unlikely best friend. “Thanks.”
“Thank me after we successfully fake out your parents.”
***
Two weeks later
“So what time do they get in tomorrow?” Callie asked as they walked into the grocery store.
“For the fifth time today, they get in at three.”
Callie looked over her shoulder as she waited for Mark to grab a cart. “You’re really grouchy as a fiancé.”
Mark glared at her. “you took over half of my closet. You rearranged the living room furniture. You rearranged the bedroom furniture…. And ‘I’m’ grouchy? I think I have reason to be grouchy.”
Callie looped her arm through his as he pushed the cart into the store. She was having fun pushing his buttons. Being as girlie as she could possibly be. She liked to think of it as channeling Lexie.
"Oh come on, the living room looks great, and you love it.”
“And I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“You’re making me go grocery shopping!”
“You have to eat.”
“I have restaurants on speed dial.”
“And what kind of fiancé would I be if I didn’t cook at least one meal for your parents while they were in town?”
He growled. He was almost positive that Callie was being a pain in the ass on purpose. For the last week she’d turned his apartment upside down. He only hoped she’d deescalate the… the fuzzy, pink, girly attack when his parents arrived.
Callie looked up at Mark’s set jaw, and hugged herself into him. “I promise I’ll be good after we get the shopping done.”
Mark glanced down at her. She was smiling up at him with her Callie smile, the smile he was pretty much defenseless against. Trying to keep his voice gruff, he responded, ‘If you keep this up I WILL kick you out on your ass; screw my parents.”
“Understood.” She released his arm and peeled off to the left, “Ooooh, oranges!”
***
Putting away the pile of groceries that Callie had somehow cajoled him into purchasing, Mark sighed. His shoulders were tight, his neck hurt, his head hurt, and despite his grumpiness towards Callie earlier, it wasn’t her fault. It was his parents. If there was anything he could do to get out of this next week, he’d do it. Alicia and Edward Sloan had made his life a hell for most of his life. Actually having them come to his home, to the place that he relaxed in, his refuge… it didn’t make him happy.
It made him miserable. And a miserable Mark was no fun.
He turned around and leaned against the counter, watching Callie as she finished putting away the last of the produce.
The only good thing about this whole ordeal? The fact that he was going to get a chance to hang out with Callie some more… and that she’d be there to maybe help deflect some of ‘Alicia and Edward’ moments.
“Hey buddy.” He spoke, getting Callie’s attention. She clambered out of the fridge where she had been arranging bottles and bags, and turned to face him.
Holding out his arms, Mark sighed with relief when, without a word, Callie stepped forward and hugged him.
Rubbing his chin against the top of her head he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
“Your welcome.”