GA - Alex/Callie, Alex/Addison, Ensemble
It occurs to me that if I had done as much research in university as I do for my stories I wouldn't have to do this shit for a living. Oh wait, I don't get paid for this.
Grey's Anatomy
Ensemble. Alex POV.
Changing the Size of Your Soul
"I keep waiting for Sean to just leave Julia and go live with Christian, but it never happens," Callie complains bitterly as another episode of Nip/Tuck wraps up on Alex's TiVo.
"That's because Sean is straight," Alex explains for the fiftieth time in the last sixty minutes, turning off the TiVo and flipping over to Cartoon Network, because Callie likes the weird Japanese anime that's on in the wee hours. Of course, he should be in bed, and so should she. Just not together.
No, definitely not together.
It's 4 o'clock on Wednesday morning, and they've just gotten off of shift change. Well, Callie got off about six hours ago, but Alex just got off, and because they have a standing date to watch Nip/Tuck together she waited for him to get home.
He gave her a key a couple months ago, but they don't discuss that. It's not like they live together, since she's living in the hospital basement. Alex could invite her to stay with him, but if it never occurred to her to ask if she could stay with him, then it never occurred to him either.
"So Christian's dreams about Sean leaving Julia for him aren't based on any sort of reciprocation at all? Alex, put the crack pipe down." Callie's at one end of the sofa and Alex's is at the other, but Callie's feet are resting on Alex's thigh, and they're sharing a blanket because heating is expensive
"How many times have I told you to leave my crack alone?" Alex's tone is all deadpan even as he yawns. His leg's fallen asleep, too.
"Don't make me stage a drug intervention," Callie retorts around an answering yawn. "The last thing you want is George talking about how you gave him syphilis."
When Callie talks to him, her toes press against his ribs slightly and he twitches because he's a little ticklish. Nobody knows that besides Callie and his sister. "That happened one time," Alex gripes. "I can't believe he's still talking about it."
Callie chuckles. "I never said he told me, did I? Word gets around the hospital, kinda like you."
"Hey, I haven't slept with a nurse in--" Alex has to count this on his fingers. "Five months."
"And what about residents and other interns?"
"That was a long time ago," Alex protests. She hasn't said anything about patients.
"I've seen the way you look at Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard," Callie mocks.
"That is a married, messed-up woman," and Alex knows to stay far away from them. Messed-up is fine. Married is fine, too, but put them together and you're asking for Fatal Attraction part two.
"But you don't deny she looks at you."
"O'Malley looks at Meredith too, that doesn't mean anything anymore either," Alex points out, and Callie pulls her feet away.
"I should go to sleep," she says, turning towards the back of the sofa.
"I didn't mean--" Alex begins, and then just gives up.
Women don't want the truth. Alex has learned this time and time again, and yet it never seems to stop him from getting laid. Just not by Callie.
"I'll see you in the morning," he says, putting the remote on her thigh and getting up from the sofa.
Callie doesn't say anything, so Alex leaves, turning out the lights but leaving the TV on. Callie likes the noise while she sleeps; she says it reminds her of the hospital furnace going on and off.
Alex likes Callie Torres. He genuinely likes her. He would totally sleep with her if she weren't so hung up on O'Malley, and he didn't like spending time with her, and he just wanted her to be bitter and hate him. But he doesn't, because as hot as Callie is, Alex actually respects her. He wants her to be happy, so he doesn't make a move on her, and instead they just hang out.
It should be weird with Alex's hormones, and Callie's hotness, and Alex's disdain of O'Malley when he's all Callie can talk about, but it works.
Strangely enough, it works.
Alex has seen enough vaginas in his life to know that if he sticks around OB/GYN much longer he's going to end up celibate and thankful, or in debt to the local porn shop where the only vaginas are surgically enhanced or plastic and come in a box. Or both.
"I'm telling you I'm not cut out for baby duty," he says to Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard as they leave the hospital room of a woman who wants to deliver her twins the natural way, even though they're both the size of mutant watermelons and a C-Section would let Alex have lunch with the rest of the world.
Alex has seen enough single deliveries to know that twins are just -- he feels bad for the woman's husband. The vagina has a natural elasticity, and it's not as though the births are going to stretch her all out -- not more than she already is stretched out -- but twins are going to kill their sex life. They're certainly killing Alex's.
"Karev, you have enough issues just tying your shoes in the morning, stop whining. If women can do all the hard work and give birth, then you can shut up and help."
"But I don't want to help," Alex wheedles. "You're totally ruining sex for me."
"Well, from what I've heard that might be the best thing I could do for you," Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard says, pausing at the nursing station to flip through the patient's chart.
Alex is not deterred; he's already been through this with Callie in the last 24 hours. It's not like Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard is the first one to throw his past back in his face, and it's probably totally unprofessional on both their parts, but he likes that she feels comfortable enough around him to call him on it. Most women just glare at Alex and call him a chauvinist behind his back, Alex is pretty sure that Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard would call him one to his face.
He genuinely likes her, even if she is a baby slave master. It's a shame she's competing with Meredith. If it were anybody else, Alex would totally put his money on Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard.
"Karev-- Karev-- KAREV!" Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard's giving him the look of 'I will stab you with a scapel while no one is looking, and no one will blame me!' It does not bode well for Alex. She's glaring at him like he's about to end up giving epidurals for the rest of his life, and wouldn't that suck even more.
"I know you're having issues at home," Alex begins, "so, if you need someone to--"
Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard's face tightens up immediately. "Karev, I will make you clean up the afterbirth of every baby born for the next fifty years if you even think of finishing that sentence."
Alex takes the clipboard she's pointing at him with and goes off to do whatever he's supposed to be doing. This is not what he signed on for when he went to medical school.
He wants a refund.
Alex grew up in a single-family home in Ames, Iowa. Ames is known for being a college town, specifically, the University of Iowa.
Alex's dad worked at a local factory; Alex's mom worked at protecting their family from Alex's dad.
When Alex was thirteen his father hit his mother so badly that she ended up in the emergency room at the University. Alex cried in the ambulance the entire way to the hospital. He thought she was dead. He thought she'd left him and his sister to fend for themselves, but the doctors said it wasn't as bad as it looked. The plastic surgeon at the University said that he could fix her. He said he could make it look as though nothing had ever happened -- but erasing the physical evidence wasn't the same as fixing the internal damage.
Alex's father died in a factory accident when Alex was fifteen.
Alex never cried. Not once.
Callie is too much woman for George. Alex knows this; George knows this; and on some level, Callie has to know this, too. Callie would never be sitting on Alex's sofa, watching Alex's TiVo'd episodes of Nip/Tuck if George were doing his job as a man.
"George is a man," Callie protests, throwing a handful of popcorn at Alex's head, Alex just snorts.
"O'Malley is some approximation of a man. He's got a dick, he's got the chromosomes, but he has no balls. You have more cajones than he does," Alex points out. He's not even looking at Callie, because Julian McMahon and Sanaa Lathan are having sex on screen, and she's just damn hot. "I would so hit that," Alex says.
Callie makes a derisive noise. "In your dreams, Karev."
"I'll see you there," he says, shooting Callie a lascivious grin.
"Okay, first of all, no, and second of all, no." Callie throws the entire bowl of popcorn at Alex's head and then launches herself at him.
She knows where he's ticklish, and Alex doesn't have much of a defense because Callie's laughing and happy, and he's happy -- that doesn't happen often. Normally, one of them is pissy or miserable, or pretending not to be pissy and miserable.
They end up on the floor with Alex trying to defend himself from Callie's attack, but there's laughter and smushed popcorn and Nip/Tuck on in the background, and it's nothing like when Alex was fourteen and scrawny and just learning how to wrestle to defend himself at home.
Alex went to the University of Iowa for his undergraduate degree; it never even occurred to him to leave the state. It was too soon. He had to look after his mother and his sister; he had to be able to see them for dinner every Sunday. He wasn't ready to leave.
Alex's tuition was paid for by his father's former employers and a wrestling scholarship. In return for UOI's investment Alex lead the wrestling team to two Pac 10 championships. In return for Alex's hard work, the university provided him with a plethora of nubile co-eds to hit on.
What with one thing and another, Alex was a bit of a late-bloomer. He had a lot to catch up on.
He's still catching up.
The day that Dr. Mark Sloan comes to Seattle Grace, Alex gets a hard-on halfway through rounds. Alex doesn't get off on sickos or whatever, he gets off on Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard finally freeing him from Vagina Duty and letting him go play with the big boys.
Alex knows all about Dr. Sloan, since he's a god in the world of plastics. It's like God knew that Alex was languishing in Vaginaland and sent Dr. Sloan to save him, so he's a little taken aback at being sent off to get fucking coffee.
He thinks it's a one-time thing, but it happens the next day, too. Alex may have finally met a bigger asshole than his dad. He didn't go through medical school to be somebody's lackey, and somewhere between coffee and surgery, Alex stops by to see Meredith, because she's sick, and he's nobody's gopher.
Plus, Callie told him she dumped O'Malley last night, and he needs someone to gossip with.
Alex is really happy that Callie dumped O'Malley. He is really not happy that O'Malley wasn't even man enough to tell Callie that he was too busy wiping Izzie's tears and licking Meredith's boots to play straight with her.
"I don't blame you or anything," he says to Meredith. "I blame the spineless lump that lives in your house. What kind of man can't even tell a woman 'hey, I don't love you; I don't even like you. I get upset when you use my towel after you take a shower, too' -- are you sure O'Malley's not gay, because if Callie was wandering around my house in a towel the last thing I'd be is upset about the towel."
"I think we've already established your heterosexuality, Alex, many many many times. Is your syphilis all clear?" Meredith asks with wide eyes.
Alex smirks. "Is your pregnancy all clear?" he asks sweetly.
"I had appendicitis!" she says leaning out of her hospital bed and smacking him on the shoulder.
"Riiight. That's a good ruse. I give you credit. I wish I could say I was pregnant just to get someone to give me drugs."
"Keep it up and I'll give you a black eye, and then you can have drugs too!"
"Oooh, violence," Cristina says from the doorway. "Can I watch?"
Alex rolls his eyes. "Don't you have someone's ass to kiss?"
Cristina smirks. "No, but I heard you're supposed to be getting McSteamy his coffee. I wouldn't mind seeing his ass."
"McSteamy my ass," Alex mutters getting to his feet. "You," he says to Meredith, "get better, and keep your legs closed."
"And you," he says to Cristina as he's leaving. "Well, it's just too late for you."
When Cristina punches him in the arm, he winks. She reminds him of his sister. He likes that. He used to feel that way about Izzie, but then she went all emo over some guy she hardly even knew, and Alex doesn't know what to do with her anymore. He's tried for her; he just doesn't have whatever she needs.
Alex knows better than to beat his head against a brick wall.
In Alex's third year of medical school at the University of Iowa he wrote a guest column for The Daily Iowan about why people needed to stop saying that plastic surgery was just this horrible, superficial field that couldn't hold a candle to real fields of medicine, like neurosurgery or oncology or anything that wasn't cosmetic surgery.
What Alex really likes about plastics is that it gives you the chance to change someone's life. People talk about how superficial and wrong plastic surgery is. Alex has read all the dissenting papers about how you should be happy with what God gave you, that elective plastic surgery wrong. But what happens when your husband rearranges what God gave you, or when you're in an accident, or when your self-esteem is so low that a nose job will make all the difference.
People don't give plastic surgery enough credit. When you give someone a lift or an implant or lipo you're not just changing their appearance, you're giving them a chance to change what they don't like about themselves. You're making them feel better about themselves. You're changing little bits of someone's soul. Self-esteem doesn't spring fully formed -- it's created. Like fear, like hope, like love, like the walls that keep you from being hurt.
Alex just wants to create something that will protect someone else, too.
Alex should be impressed that Callie slept with McSteamy, but instead he's -- he's not happy at all. "You what?" he asks, unwilling, or unable, to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. "But Cal -- Torres -- you know, you work fast."
That is not what Alex was going to say; he knows it. He suspects Callie knows it too, because he can feel her staring at the side of his face from her end of the sofa. He keeps his eyes firmly on the TV.
"That's really complimentary of you, Alex." Callie digs her heels into his thigh.
"Don't mention it," Alex says, but he feels a little miffed.
They're watching Nip/Tuck in real time for a change, and even though Alex knows the surgeries are all fake for TV, he's still impressed by how real they look. One day he's going to have a fabulous practice, with a great partner, and lots of women throwing themselves at him.
Yeah, lots of women.
"Why didn't you ask me?" he says suddenly. Sean's fucking up again on screen, and that always makes Alex irritable.
He didn't mean to go there with Callie, but he's never been able to hide how he feels. If he's happy everyone knows it; if he's unhappy everyone knows it, too.
"Why didn't I ask you to do what?" Callie's voice creeps up at the end of the sentence.
"To -- you know," Alex waves his hands about vaguely. He's normally much smoother than this. "Why him?"
"Because he was there," Callie's very matter-of-fact. She sounds -- she sounds like Alex.
"But I'm here," Alex points out. It's out, and then Alex realizes how petulant he sounds, but it's too late. He's arrogant, he knows he is, but he's also real. He's a lot more real than anybody else Callie knows.
The next thing Alex knows Callie's straddling his lap and blocking his view. "I was trying to watch that," he says, trying to look around her. "Not that I don't know what to do with a hot woman on my lap, but--"
"Alex, are you jealous?" Alex can't move his head away, because Callie's got his head between her hands in a vise grip.
"Why don’t you ever have me help you in ortho?" he asks obstinately. Anything to change the subject.
"Oh my god," Callie says, her eyes widening comically. Callie really is a beautiful woman, and she's SO too good for O'Malley. Or McAsshole. She's too good for anybody. "Alex, do you like me?"
"You're blocking the TV," he points out.
"You do!" Callie crows, her look of disbelief morphing into a huge grin.
"Whatever, Torres." Alex tries for disdain and ends up only halfway there.
"You do! You totally have a crush on me, that's why you hated George!"
"No, I hate O'Malley, because he's a pathetic excuse for a man--"
"Who still gave you a black eye."
"What?"
"I heard about that. Gotta love the hospital grapevine."
"Okay, enough." Alex picks up Callie and sets her down on the sofa next to him. He works out for a reason, plus his dick was getting entirely too interested in the proceedings. The last thing Alex wants is for Callie to run away. He can't lose this, this rapport they have, it's the best thing he has going for him right now. "We're here to watch TV; we're not here to talk about your delusions. We can get you a psych consult tomorrow."
Callie snickers next to him, but Alex relaxes slightly when she rests her head on his shoulder. "I like you too, dummy."
"I don't like you, Torres, you're deranged."
"Yeah, and you're jealous. It's a great arrangement."
"Whatever, no more torrid sex with McSteamy."
"Did I say it was torrid?"
"No, but I know you and knowing you means it was torrid."
"You want to find out?"
"Don't tempt me, Torres."
"Oh, you won't be getting any tonight anyway. Only one torrid love affair per week, you can't be on the list until next week."
Alex shifts a bit, pulling Callie into his left side. "If you're with me, I'm your only torrid love affair. My name isn't O'Malley, got it?"
Callie stiffens for a minute, but eventually relaxes. "Alex, shut up and watch the show, okay?"
Alex leans down and kisses the top of her head. "Okay."
-end-
So so so much love to issaro who doesn't even watch GA, but took one for the team and agreed to beta this. ♥ times infinity, sweetie.
Grey's Anatomy
Ensemble. Alex POV.
Changing the Size of Your Soul
"I keep waiting for Sean to just leave Julia and go live with Christian, but it never happens," Callie complains bitterly as another episode of Nip/Tuck wraps up on Alex's TiVo.
"That's because Sean is straight," Alex explains for the fiftieth time in the last sixty minutes, turning off the TiVo and flipping over to Cartoon Network, because Callie likes the weird Japanese anime that's on in the wee hours. Of course, he should be in bed, and so should she. Just not together.
No, definitely not together.
It's 4 o'clock on Wednesday morning, and they've just gotten off of shift change. Well, Callie got off about six hours ago, but Alex just got off, and because they have a standing date to watch Nip/Tuck together she waited for him to get home.
He gave her a key a couple months ago, but they don't discuss that. It's not like they live together, since she's living in the hospital basement. Alex could invite her to stay with him, but if it never occurred to her to ask if she could stay with him, then it never occurred to him either.
"So Christian's dreams about Sean leaving Julia for him aren't based on any sort of reciprocation at all? Alex, put the crack pipe down." Callie's at one end of the sofa and Alex's is at the other, but Callie's feet are resting on Alex's thigh, and they're sharing a blanket because heating is expensive
"How many times have I told you to leave my crack alone?" Alex's tone is all deadpan even as he yawns. His leg's fallen asleep, too.
"Don't make me stage a drug intervention," Callie retorts around an answering yawn. "The last thing you want is George talking about how you gave him syphilis."
When Callie talks to him, her toes press against his ribs slightly and he twitches because he's a little ticklish. Nobody knows that besides Callie and his sister. "That happened one time," Alex gripes. "I can't believe he's still talking about it."
Callie chuckles. "I never said he told me, did I? Word gets around the hospital, kinda like you."
"Hey, I haven't slept with a nurse in--" Alex has to count this on his fingers. "Five months."
"And what about residents and other interns?"
"That was a long time ago," Alex protests. She hasn't said anything about patients.
"I've seen the way you look at Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard," Callie mocks.
"That is a married, messed-up woman," and Alex knows to stay far away from them. Messed-up is fine. Married is fine, too, but put them together and you're asking for Fatal Attraction part two.
"But you don't deny she looks at you."
"O'Malley looks at Meredith too, that doesn't mean anything anymore either," Alex points out, and Callie pulls her feet away.
"I should go to sleep," she says, turning towards the back of the sofa.
"I didn't mean--" Alex begins, and then just gives up.
Women don't want the truth. Alex has learned this time and time again, and yet it never seems to stop him from getting laid. Just not by Callie.
"I'll see you in the morning," he says, putting the remote on her thigh and getting up from the sofa.
Callie doesn't say anything, so Alex leaves, turning out the lights but leaving the TV on. Callie likes the noise while she sleeps; she says it reminds her of the hospital furnace going on and off.
Alex likes Callie Torres. He genuinely likes her. He would totally sleep with her if she weren't so hung up on O'Malley, and he didn't like spending time with her, and he just wanted her to be bitter and hate him. But he doesn't, because as hot as Callie is, Alex actually respects her. He wants her to be happy, so he doesn't make a move on her, and instead they just hang out.
It should be weird with Alex's hormones, and Callie's hotness, and Alex's disdain of O'Malley when he's all Callie can talk about, but it works.
Strangely enough, it works.
Alex has seen enough vaginas in his life to know that if he sticks around OB/GYN much longer he's going to end up celibate and thankful, or in debt to the local porn shop where the only vaginas are surgically enhanced or plastic and come in a box. Or both.
"I'm telling you I'm not cut out for baby duty," he says to Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard as they leave the hospital room of a woman who wants to deliver her twins the natural way, even though they're both the size of mutant watermelons and a C-Section would let Alex have lunch with the rest of the world.
Alex has seen enough single deliveries to know that twins are just -- he feels bad for the woman's husband. The vagina has a natural elasticity, and it's not as though the births are going to stretch her all out -- not more than she already is stretched out -- but twins are going to kill their sex life. They're certainly killing Alex's.
"Karev, you have enough issues just tying your shoes in the morning, stop whining. If women can do all the hard work and give birth, then you can shut up and help."
"But I don't want to help," Alex wheedles. "You're totally ruining sex for me."
"Well, from what I've heard that might be the best thing I could do for you," Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard says, pausing at the nursing station to flip through the patient's chart.
Alex is not deterred; he's already been through this with Callie in the last 24 hours. It's not like Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard is the first one to throw his past back in his face, and it's probably totally unprofessional on both their parts, but he likes that she feels comfortable enough around him to call him on it. Most women just glare at Alex and call him a chauvinist behind his back, Alex is pretty sure that Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard would call him one to his face.
He genuinely likes her, even if she is a baby slave master. It's a shame she's competing with Meredith. If it were anybody else, Alex would totally put his money on Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard.
"Karev-- Karev-- KAREV!" Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard's giving him the look of 'I will stab you with a scapel while no one is looking, and no one will blame me!' It does not bode well for Alex. She's glaring at him like he's about to end up giving epidurals for the rest of his life, and wouldn't that suck even more.
"I know you're having issues at home," Alex begins, "so, if you need someone to--"
Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard's face tightens up immediately. "Karev, I will make you clean up the afterbirth of every baby born for the next fifty years if you even think of finishing that sentence."
Alex takes the clipboard she's pointing at him with and goes off to do whatever he's supposed to be doing. This is not what he signed on for when he went to medical school.
He wants a refund.
Alex grew up in a single-family home in Ames, Iowa. Ames is known for being a college town, specifically, the University of Iowa.
Alex's dad worked at a local factory; Alex's mom worked at protecting their family from Alex's dad.
When Alex was thirteen his father hit his mother so badly that she ended up in the emergency room at the University. Alex cried in the ambulance the entire way to the hospital. He thought she was dead. He thought she'd left him and his sister to fend for themselves, but the doctors said it wasn't as bad as it looked. The plastic surgeon at the University said that he could fix her. He said he could make it look as though nothing had ever happened -- but erasing the physical evidence wasn't the same as fixing the internal damage.
Alex's father died in a factory accident when Alex was fifteen.
Alex never cried. Not once.
Callie is too much woman for George. Alex knows this; George knows this; and on some level, Callie has to know this, too. Callie would never be sitting on Alex's sofa, watching Alex's TiVo'd episodes of Nip/Tuck if George were doing his job as a man.
"George is a man," Callie protests, throwing a handful of popcorn at Alex's head, Alex just snorts.
"O'Malley is some approximation of a man. He's got a dick, he's got the chromosomes, but he has no balls. You have more cajones than he does," Alex points out. He's not even looking at Callie, because Julian McMahon and Sanaa Lathan are having sex on screen, and she's just damn hot. "I would so hit that," Alex says.
Callie makes a derisive noise. "In your dreams, Karev."
"I'll see you there," he says, shooting Callie a lascivious grin.
"Okay, first of all, no, and second of all, no." Callie throws the entire bowl of popcorn at Alex's head and then launches herself at him.
She knows where he's ticklish, and Alex doesn't have much of a defense because Callie's laughing and happy, and he's happy -- that doesn't happen often. Normally, one of them is pissy or miserable, or pretending not to be pissy and miserable.
They end up on the floor with Alex trying to defend himself from Callie's attack, but there's laughter and smushed popcorn and Nip/Tuck on in the background, and it's nothing like when Alex was fourteen and scrawny and just learning how to wrestle to defend himself at home.
Alex went to the University of Iowa for his undergraduate degree; it never even occurred to him to leave the state. It was too soon. He had to look after his mother and his sister; he had to be able to see them for dinner every Sunday. He wasn't ready to leave.
Alex's tuition was paid for by his father's former employers and a wrestling scholarship. In return for UOI's investment Alex lead the wrestling team to two Pac 10 championships. In return for Alex's hard work, the university provided him with a plethora of nubile co-eds to hit on.
What with one thing and another, Alex was a bit of a late-bloomer. He had a lot to catch up on.
He's still catching up.
The day that Dr. Mark Sloan comes to Seattle Grace, Alex gets a hard-on halfway through rounds. Alex doesn't get off on sickos or whatever, he gets off on Dr. Montgomery-Sheppard finally freeing him from Vagina Duty and letting him go play with the big boys.
Alex knows all about Dr. Sloan, since he's a god in the world of plastics. It's like God knew that Alex was languishing in Vaginaland and sent Dr. Sloan to save him, so he's a little taken aback at being sent off to get fucking coffee.
He thinks it's a one-time thing, but it happens the next day, too. Alex may have finally met a bigger asshole than his dad. He didn't go through medical school to be somebody's lackey, and somewhere between coffee and surgery, Alex stops by to see Meredith, because she's sick, and he's nobody's gopher.
Plus, Callie told him she dumped O'Malley last night, and he needs someone to gossip with.
Alex is really happy that Callie dumped O'Malley. He is really not happy that O'Malley wasn't even man enough to tell Callie that he was too busy wiping Izzie's tears and licking Meredith's boots to play straight with her.
"I don't blame you or anything," he says to Meredith. "I blame the spineless lump that lives in your house. What kind of man can't even tell a woman 'hey, I don't love you; I don't even like you. I get upset when you use my towel after you take a shower, too' -- are you sure O'Malley's not gay, because if Callie was wandering around my house in a towel the last thing I'd be is upset about the towel."
"I think we've already established your heterosexuality, Alex, many many many times. Is your syphilis all clear?" Meredith asks with wide eyes.
Alex smirks. "Is your pregnancy all clear?" he asks sweetly.
"I had appendicitis!" she says leaning out of her hospital bed and smacking him on the shoulder.
"Riiight. That's a good ruse. I give you credit. I wish I could say I was pregnant just to get someone to give me drugs."
"Keep it up and I'll give you a black eye, and then you can have drugs too!"
"Oooh, violence," Cristina says from the doorway. "Can I watch?"
Alex rolls his eyes. "Don't you have someone's ass to kiss?"
Cristina smirks. "No, but I heard you're supposed to be getting McSteamy his coffee. I wouldn't mind seeing his ass."
"McSteamy my ass," Alex mutters getting to his feet. "You," he says to Meredith, "get better, and keep your legs closed."
"And you," he says to Cristina as he's leaving. "Well, it's just too late for you."
When Cristina punches him in the arm, he winks. She reminds him of his sister. He likes that. He used to feel that way about Izzie, but then she went all emo over some guy she hardly even knew, and Alex doesn't know what to do with her anymore. He's tried for her; he just doesn't have whatever she needs.
Alex knows better than to beat his head against a brick wall.
In Alex's third year of medical school at the University of Iowa he wrote a guest column for The Daily Iowan about why people needed to stop saying that plastic surgery was just this horrible, superficial field that couldn't hold a candle to real fields of medicine, like neurosurgery or oncology or anything that wasn't cosmetic surgery.
What Alex really likes about plastics is that it gives you the chance to change someone's life. People talk about how superficial and wrong plastic surgery is. Alex has read all the dissenting papers about how you should be happy with what God gave you, that elective plastic surgery wrong. But what happens when your husband rearranges what God gave you, or when you're in an accident, or when your self-esteem is so low that a nose job will make all the difference.
People don't give plastic surgery enough credit. When you give someone a lift or an implant or lipo you're not just changing their appearance, you're giving them a chance to change what they don't like about themselves. You're making them feel better about themselves. You're changing little bits of someone's soul. Self-esteem doesn't spring fully formed -- it's created. Like fear, like hope, like love, like the walls that keep you from being hurt.
Alex just wants to create something that will protect someone else, too.
Alex should be impressed that Callie slept with McSteamy, but instead he's -- he's not happy at all. "You what?" he asks, unwilling, or unable, to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. "But Cal -- Torres -- you know, you work fast."
That is not what Alex was going to say; he knows it. He suspects Callie knows it too, because he can feel her staring at the side of his face from her end of the sofa. He keeps his eyes firmly on the TV.
"That's really complimentary of you, Alex." Callie digs her heels into his thigh.
"Don't mention it," Alex says, but he feels a little miffed.
They're watching Nip/Tuck in real time for a change, and even though Alex knows the surgeries are all fake for TV, he's still impressed by how real they look. One day he's going to have a fabulous practice, with a great partner, and lots of women throwing themselves at him.
Yeah, lots of women.
"Why didn't you ask me?" he says suddenly. Sean's fucking up again on screen, and that always makes Alex irritable.
He didn't mean to go there with Callie, but he's never been able to hide how he feels. If he's happy everyone knows it; if he's unhappy everyone knows it, too.
"Why didn't I ask you to do what?" Callie's voice creeps up at the end of the sentence.
"To -- you know," Alex waves his hands about vaguely. He's normally much smoother than this. "Why him?"
"Because he was there," Callie's very matter-of-fact. She sounds -- she sounds like Alex.
"But I'm here," Alex points out. It's out, and then Alex realizes how petulant he sounds, but it's too late. He's arrogant, he knows he is, but he's also real. He's a lot more real than anybody else Callie knows.
The next thing Alex knows Callie's straddling his lap and blocking his view. "I was trying to watch that," he says, trying to look around her. "Not that I don't know what to do with a hot woman on my lap, but--"
"Alex, are you jealous?" Alex can't move his head away, because Callie's got his head between her hands in a vise grip.
"Why don’t you ever have me help you in ortho?" he asks obstinately. Anything to change the subject.
"Oh my god," Callie says, her eyes widening comically. Callie really is a beautiful woman, and she's SO too good for O'Malley. Or McAsshole. She's too good for anybody. "Alex, do you like me?"
"You're blocking the TV," he points out.
"You do!" Callie crows, her look of disbelief morphing into a huge grin.
"Whatever, Torres." Alex tries for disdain and ends up only halfway there.
"You do! You totally have a crush on me, that's why you hated George!"
"No, I hate O'Malley, because he's a pathetic excuse for a man--"
"Who still gave you a black eye."
"What?"
"I heard about that. Gotta love the hospital grapevine."
"Okay, enough." Alex picks up Callie and sets her down on the sofa next to him. He works out for a reason, plus his dick was getting entirely too interested in the proceedings. The last thing Alex wants is for Callie to run away. He can't lose this, this rapport they have, it's the best thing he has going for him right now. "We're here to watch TV; we're not here to talk about your delusions. We can get you a psych consult tomorrow."
Callie snickers next to him, but Alex relaxes slightly when she rests her head on his shoulder. "I like you too, dummy."
"I don't like you, Torres, you're deranged."
"Yeah, and you're jealous. It's a great arrangement."
"Whatever, no more torrid sex with McSteamy."
"Did I say it was torrid?"
"No, but I know you and knowing you means it was torrid."
"You want to find out?"
"Don't tempt me, Torres."
"Oh, you won't be getting any tonight anyway. Only one torrid love affair per week, you can't be on the list until next week."
Alex shifts a bit, pulling Callie into his left side. "If you're with me, I'm your only torrid love affair. My name isn't O'Malley, got it?"
Callie stiffens for a minute, but eventually relaxes. "Alex, shut up and watch the show, okay?"
Alex leans down and kisses the top of her head. "Okay."
-end-
So so so much love to issaro who doesn't even watch GA, but took one for the team and agreed to beta this. ♥ times infinity, sweetie.