(no subject)
Title: Now You See It All And What Is Real
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Mark/Derek, some hints of Meredith/Derek
Word Count: 2,600
Rating: R
Prompt: #40 - Days for 100_tales
Author's Note: Fic for the Support Stacie auction. My lovely bidder, holycitygirl, wanted Mark/Derek. Unfortunately she wanted minimal angst, which I've never quite been able to accomplish. However, I can promise what qualifies as a happy ending, so at least that's something. I apologize for the lateness of this -- I simply didn't have any ideas until this weekend. Thanks for your patience.
Summary: This is the beginning, the opener - oddly enough it looks like a rerun; he just doesn't know how to change the channel until it's too late and all he can do is sit back and watch.
(This is the beginning, the opener - oddly enough it looks like a rerun; he just doesn’t know to change the channel until it’s much too late to do anything but sit back and watch)
---
It doesn’t take much thought - in fact Derek doesn’t recall thinking about it at all. It’s just an assumption for him, much in the same way that he assumes Meredith will wear white and someone, maybe one of his sisters, maybe even Izzie Stevens, will cry.
Mark is his best friend. He always has been, and if they can survive Addison and a year of not speaking then they can survive anything. It just comes naturally to him, to take for granted, without asking.
“You better get your tux.”
There’s a slightly amused frown decorating Mark’s features, wry smile as he asks, “I’m invited.”
“You’re the best man.” Because of course Derek thought he was kidding. He wasn’t, if the way that smile disappears, giving way to a mask of calm tinged with nervousness, is any indication. And it is - Derek knows these things, knows both the mask and what’s underneath as well, because what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t, with decades behind them.
It’s for that reason that his eyes drop to catch Mark rubbing his index finger along the edge of the folder he’s just set down on the nurse’s station, his more controlled, silent version of tapping his fingers to relieve anxiety, even as Mark asks, “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive.” Derek is, really, no doubts here, because he likes to think that he can forgive and forget and that he does trust Mark. Everyone gets a second chance. Sometimes even a third. If Meredith has taught him anything it’s that people aren’t perfect, they make mistakes, but they’re worth it.
Mark’s worth it.
“Tux. Get one.” He says, again, because it’s much easier than having some conversation about trust and chances and best friends, especially because at any given time there’s usually at least one of the nurses pretending to type but in reality hanging on their every word (these people live for two things: medicine and gossip). He does place a hand on Mark’s shoulder, a pat on the back that’s meant to be reassuring, but Mark only stiffens into him, and Derek’s starting to think maybe things aren’t as resolved as he thought.
---
Meredith stopped using the trailer over a year ago. She spends whole nights at Cristina’s, instead of just a few hours here and there. Time is not equally divided, not even close.
She still said yes, when he asked. That must count for something.
Mark decided he didn’t want to live in a five-star hotel for the rest of his life and unofficially made the trailer home, when he wasn’t sleeping with whatever nurse or pretty girl he picked up in the bar. There isn’t a week that goes by without some sort of complaint about it - the water isn’t working right, the electricity flickers, it’s too small, it’s too close to nature - but Derek’s just glad someone’s using it.
That and there are nights where he and Meredith fight, or she doesn’t come home at all and he decides that listening to her roommates alternately spar or screw just isn’t his thing. Those nights he ends up on the couch of the trailer he still owns but has done nothing with (there’s a lot of dreams he has yet to achieve - that house is just one of them). Usually he wakes up with a blanket that he hadn’t fallen asleep with covering him, thanks to Mark sometime in the middle of the night. It’s enough of a comfort that the complaints start to become a pleasant blur of sound that just gets them from point A to point B of their conversations.
---
“I asked her about the wedding. How planning it was going.”
They go for coffee in the mornings; it’s become a tradition again, one that’s carried over from New York, and there are definitely times where it’s the best part of his day (he’ll never admit that to anyone, but then they’d never ask either). “Yeah? And what did she say?”
“She said she hadn’t really given it much thought.” Mark replies, sips from his cup, the steam from it hitting the chilly air, especially when he exhales. “I wouldn’t worry about it. This job doesn’t leave you a lot of free time.”
“Addison managed,” Derek says, without thinking, and his feet stick in place when he realizes what he’s just done. Compared Meredith to Addison - also known as putting the ex on a pedestal that can never be reached and that will really only make things worse.
“Addison liked weddings. I think if you two just eloped she wouldn’t care.” Derek wouldn’t be surprised if he was right. Meredith seemed only slightly more enthralled by the idea of their wedding than Cristina had been, if what Burke had told him was true.
He’s completely serious when he asks, “You think that’s the way to go?”
Mark seems to weigh the question for a moment, cocking his head to the side a bit, before he answers, “It’s a little late for that isn’t it?”
Just a little.
(The wedding is in a month and a day and Derek dreams of running away - who’s doing the run interchanges)
---
“Looks good.”
He brought Mark along with him when he gets fit for his tux. They stand in front of a three way mirror while Derek pulls at the cuffs a little and Mark half eyes the saleslady when he’s not looking at Derek. The part of him that can’t believe he’s really doing this blocks him from saying anything but, “Yeah.”
For the second time in two weeks, Mark asks that loaded question of “are you sure?” and Derek doesn’t know if it’s regarding the suit, the wedding, or them. Whatever it is, the answer’s still going to be yes. He’s not ready for anything else.
---
It happened once in college.
They don’t really talk about it, because they aren’t really people who have those conversations about feelings and what things mean. Or Mark isn’t; Derek isn’t sure what he is.
Bottom line: it’s in the past, doesn’t matter anymore. It’s been years, and that was just college. It’s kind of like Vegas in a way.
---
“She’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Forever.”
“Yes.”
There’s more hesitation the second time.
(Because Derek understands push and forward - it’s the reverse that he’s never been quite clear on)
---
They fight and two minutes shy of midnight keys jangle, a door slams.
He follows (just not her).
---
The fallout goes something like this:
Meredith goes to Cristina’s. Derek drives to his trailer, to Mark. This is normal.
Mark coming out of the bedroom to sit down next to Derek on the couch, to ask, “What was it this time?” is new.
And you know, they fight so much lately, about stupid things, that he can’t even keep track of what it was tonight or last night. “I don’t even know,” he just says, with a shake of his head, and Mark does what Derek wants him to do for once and stops asking questions. Instead he lets a hand fall on Derek’s arm and squeezes, something that’s supposed to be reassuring but in fact feels like comfort for a loss he hasn’t yet realized.
Mark’s always been pretty good about conveying that he isn’t alone when the world comes crashing down around him.
---
Derek doesn’t go back to Meredith’s for a straight week. Every night it’s the couch and he’s starting to miss things he’s left there - his favorite shirt, his toothbrush, that pen he likes - but he can’t exactly bring himself to go back there or do anything but glance her way in the hallway.
“You want me to move back to the hotel?” Mark asks, on the seventh day, fresh out of the shower.
“I’m not moving back in.” Derek is too quick to reply. He doesn’t know that yet. He doesn’t know anything yet.
“Right.” It’s more for Derek’s benefit than anything else, a fact for which he’s grateful. “Of course not.”
He checks his voicemail for the fifth time that day. She still hasn’t called. He looks up to find Mark still standing there, watching him intently.
“I can still move out,” Mark repeats, after a moment.
It’s the last thing Derek wants to do, to deal with what most likely is reality, but as the days pass he starts not having a choice. The wedding, should it happen, is only thirteen days away. Decisions are going to have to be made soon. But for now, Derek just shakes his head, “No. No I want you here.”
If nothing else, that’s a dose of reality in all this denial.
---
Day eight Mark talks him off the couch and into the bed. They’re grownups; this doesn’t matter. And the bed’s big enough that they don’t even touch.
(They’ve always been far too comfortable with each other - even in situations they shouldn’t be - it’s only a matter of time before that gets them in trouble, but Derek likes this denial thing far too much to think about that.)
---
Somehow this all comes down to Mark trying to make him feel better (and Mark only knows a handful ways to do that, and the ones he tried didn’t work, so there’s this, which is so beyond not what you do with your best friend no matter how upset they are - not that Derek cares so much anymore, because all he can see is a calendar counting down the days).
He makes this pathetic attempt at a joke when Mark’s kissing him, the expected, prerequisite “finally run out of nurses?” and Mark’s a good friend so he smirks before he goes back to focusing on Derek’s lips, kissing him in a way that’s familiar yet nothing like Meredith at all.
And then he does the other thing a good thing would do. He takes into consideration the fact that Derek will probably regret all or part of this in the future and stops it there before anyone’s clothes can come off.
“Sleep,” he whispers into Derek’s ear, and he doesn’t fight him.
---
“I can’t - “ There’s a pause; seconds tick by, yet more time wasted in this quiet limbo, then, “I think if we do this we’ll regret it.”
And it’s better than the time she stood up and announced to the whole room that it was “so over”, not to mention probably true.
This is how you lose people you love. A gentle kiss on the lips, a hand on the shoulder, on the small of her back. Goodbye, in all it’s glory, tastes like sadness and freedom.
Then she walks away.
For good.
(No more. Enough is enough.)
---
They go to Joe’s, him and Mark, when they get off shift. Mark pays and Joe’s extra-attentive tonight, and Derek isn’t sure if that’s because of how Derek looks like he just went through hell or because Mark told him. He doesn’t know which one he’d prefer either.
So they sit and they talk and Mark carefully avoids any variations of the phrase ‘you’re better off without her”, avoids the cliché, which turns to avoiding Meredith as soon as her and Cristina and the rest of their little group comes in the door, holing up in their booth in the back. Alex and Izzie come up to get drinks for all five of them; neither of them says a word to Derek, or even so much as looks at him, and, you know, she should be proud of this united front. They care about her, all of them, even the ones who don’t seem to care about much of anything at all.
Mark’s pulling on his arm a moment later, nodding to Joe briefly, before saying, “Let’s get out of here,” and things are so much easier when Mark is calling the shots and he can just stay inside his head, mostly, and try not to think about all of this time that just ended up wasted and how he’s actually worse off right now than he was when he came to Seattle, at least except for Mark.
He’s quiet and restrained in the cab, can’t keep his hands off of him once they get back to the trailer. Clothes fall away this time and Mark is hard against him, and for the first time in a long while Derek finally wakes up. Sure, his head is still swimming from the alcohol and he isn’t too steady on his feet, but something snaps, something inside of him gets tired of this repressed and depressed state he’s been simply existing in since he moved back in, for good, (and maybe he’s been feeling like that for longer).
It may be easier to just sit back and watch and let things be done for him but that was always just a temporary fix - so he swats Mark’s hands away from where they’re undoing his own pants, does it for him, gets them both on the bed because if they’re going to do this they might as well do it right.
This is him taking back control.
---
There’s no running away in the morning.
He hits the snooze button on the alarm clock, lets himself register the sound of the shower, and rolls over to try to catch a few more minutes of sleep.
In some ways, it feels like this is the way things have always been.
---
Derek gets Izzie to let him in when Meredith isn’t home, and Mark comes with him, and together they pack up his stuff and take it back with them. Mark laughs at his choice of fashion and claims ownership of this navy shirt that Derek can’t quite remember where he got, saying he’d lost it back in New York. Izzie looks in on them from the doorway every now and then, confused and, he thinks, somewhat bewildered.
“You seem better. Happier.” Izzie tells him, when Mark’s off somewhere, and there’s just them and this weird awkward kind of silence. “That’s good, you know, because we don’t all hate you we just kind of have to…act like it. For right now.”
He nods, no hard feelings, and just tells her, “I am.”
---
And you know this kind of relates back to how they were in college. There’s the medical aspect of it all, except instead of studying (or, well, not in Mark’s case - it just seemed to come to him, both then and now) they’re actually doing those surgeries, those procedures. But then, and this is the more important part, sometimes even the more fun part, they spend nights at Joe’s and Derek watches as Mark hits on pretty much everyone with nice legs (it’s his nature, Derek knows better than to say anything), and then get shot down because half the time he’s already been there, and sometimes (and this has been getting steadily more often) they’ll head back to the trailer, buzzed and horny, like teenagers all over again.
Except they aren’t playing games. They’re too old for games; all of this…this chasing and never quite catching up with Meredith has taught him that.
Because Mark’s his best friend, and a lot of times he’s more than that, but mostly he’s just all Derek needs at this point.
That’s all that matters anymore.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Mark/Derek, some hints of Meredith/Derek
Word Count: 2,600
Rating: R
Prompt: #40 - Days for 100_tales
Author's Note: Fic for the Support Stacie auction. My lovely bidder, holycitygirl, wanted Mark/Derek. Unfortunately she wanted minimal angst, which I've never quite been able to accomplish. However, I can promise what qualifies as a happy ending, so at least that's something. I apologize for the lateness of this -- I simply didn't have any ideas until this weekend. Thanks for your patience.
Summary: This is the beginning, the opener - oddly enough it looks like a rerun; he just doesn't know how to change the channel until it's too late and all he can do is sit back and watch.
(This is the beginning, the opener - oddly enough it looks like a rerun; he just doesn’t know to change the channel until it’s much too late to do anything but sit back and watch)
---
It doesn’t take much thought - in fact Derek doesn’t recall thinking about it at all. It’s just an assumption for him, much in the same way that he assumes Meredith will wear white and someone, maybe one of his sisters, maybe even Izzie Stevens, will cry.
Mark is his best friend. He always has been, and if they can survive Addison and a year of not speaking then they can survive anything. It just comes naturally to him, to take for granted, without asking.
“You better get your tux.”
There’s a slightly amused frown decorating Mark’s features, wry smile as he asks, “I’m invited.”
“You’re the best man.” Because of course Derek thought he was kidding. He wasn’t, if the way that smile disappears, giving way to a mask of calm tinged with nervousness, is any indication. And it is - Derek knows these things, knows both the mask and what’s underneath as well, because what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t, with decades behind them.
It’s for that reason that his eyes drop to catch Mark rubbing his index finger along the edge of the folder he’s just set down on the nurse’s station, his more controlled, silent version of tapping his fingers to relieve anxiety, even as Mark asks, “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive.” Derek is, really, no doubts here, because he likes to think that he can forgive and forget and that he does trust Mark. Everyone gets a second chance. Sometimes even a third. If Meredith has taught him anything it’s that people aren’t perfect, they make mistakes, but they’re worth it.
Mark’s worth it.
“Tux. Get one.” He says, again, because it’s much easier than having some conversation about trust and chances and best friends, especially because at any given time there’s usually at least one of the nurses pretending to type but in reality hanging on their every word (these people live for two things: medicine and gossip). He does place a hand on Mark’s shoulder, a pat on the back that’s meant to be reassuring, but Mark only stiffens into him, and Derek’s starting to think maybe things aren’t as resolved as he thought.
---
Meredith stopped using the trailer over a year ago. She spends whole nights at Cristina’s, instead of just a few hours here and there. Time is not equally divided, not even close.
She still said yes, when he asked. That must count for something.
Mark decided he didn’t want to live in a five-star hotel for the rest of his life and unofficially made the trailer home, when he wasn’t sleeping with whatever nurse or pretty girl he picked up in the bar. There isn’t a week that goes by without some sort of complaint about it - the water isn’t working right, the electricity flickers, it’s too small, it’s too close to nature - but Derek’s just glad someone’s using it.
That and there are nights where he and Meredith fight, or she doesn’t come home at all and he decides that listening to her roommates alternately spar or screw just isn’t his thing. Those nights he ends up on the couch of the trailer he still owns but has done nothing with (there’s a lot of dreams he has yet to achieve - that house is just one of them). Usually he wakes up with a blanket that he hadn’t fallen asleep with covering him, thanks to Mark sometime in the middle of the night. It’s enough of a comfort that the complaints start to become a pleasant blur of sound that just gets them from point A to point B of their conversations.
---
“I asked her about the wedding. How planning it was going.”
They go for coffee in the mornings; it’s become a tradition again, one that’s carried over from New York, and there are definitely times where it’s the best part of his day (he’ll never admit that to anyone, but then they’d never ask either). “Yeah? And what did she say?”
“She said she hadn’t really given it much thought.” Mark replies, sips from his cup, the steam from it hitting the chilly air, especially when he exhales. “I wouldn’t worry about it. This job doesn’t leave you a lot of free time.”
“Addison managed,” Derek says, without thinking, and his feet stick in place when he realizes what he’s just done. Compared Meredith to Addison - also known as putting the ex on a pedestal that can never be reached and that will really only make things worse.
“Addison liked weddings. I think if you two just eloped she wouldn’t care.” Derek wouldn’t be surprised if he was right. Meredith seemed only slightly more enthralled by the idea of their wedding than Cristina had been, if what Burke had told him was true.
He’s completely serious when he asks, “You think that’s the way to go?”
Mark seems to weigh the question for a moment, cocking his head to the side a bit, before he answers, “It’s a little late for that isn’t it?”
Just a little.
(The wedding is in a month and a day and Derek dreams of running away - who’s doing the run interchanges)
---
“Looks good.”
He brought Mark along with him when he gets fit for his tux. They stand in front of a three way mirror while Derek pulls at the cuffs a little and Mark half eyes the saleslady when he’s not looking at Derek. The part of him that can’t believe he’s really doing this blocks him from saying anything but, “Yeah.”
For the second time in two weeks, Mark asks that loaded question of “are you sure?” and Derek doesn’t know if it’s regarding the suit, the wedding, or them. Whatever it is, the answer’s still going to be yes. He’s not ready for anything else.
---
It happened once in college.
They don’t really talk about it, because they aren’t really people who have those conversations about feelings and what things mean. Or Mark isn’t; Derek isn’t sure what he is.
Bottom line: it’s in the past, doesn’t matter anymore. It’s been years, and that was just college. It’s kind of like Vegas in a way.
---
“She’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Forever.”
“Yes.”
There’s more hesitation the second time.
(Because Derek understands push and forward - it’s the reverse that he’s never been quite clear on)
---
They fight and two minutes shy of midnight keys jangle, a door slams.
He follows (just not her).
---
The fallout goes something like this:
Meredith goes to Cristina’s. Derek drives to his trailer, to Mark. This is normal.
Mark coming out of the bedroom to sit down next to Derek on the couch, to ask, “What was it this time?” is new.
And you know, they fight so much lately, about stupid things, that he can’t even keep track of what it was tonight or last night. “I don’t even know,” he just says, with a shake of his head, and Mark does what Derek wants him to do for once and stops asking questions. Instead he lets a hand fall on Derek’s arm and squeezes, something that’s supposed to be reassuring but in fact feels like comfort for a loss he hasn’t yet realized.
Mark’s always been pretty good about conveying that he isn’t alone when the world comes crashing down around him.
---
Derek doesn’t go back to Meredith’s for a straight week. Every night it’s the couch and he’s starting to miss things he’s left there - his favorite shirt, his toothbrush, that pen he likes - but he can’t exactly bring himself to go back there or do anything but glance her way in the hallway.
“You want me to move back to the hotel?” Mark asks, on the seventh day, fresh out of the shower.
“I’m not moving back in.” Derek is too quick to reply. He doesn’t know that yet. He doesn’t know anything yet.
“Right.” It’s more for Derek’s benefit than anything else, a fact for which he’s grateful. “Of course not.”
He checks his voicemail for the fifth time that day. She still hasn’t called. He looks up to find Mark still standing there, watching him intently.
“I can still move out,” Mark repeats, after a moment.
It’s the last thing Derek wants to do, to deal with what most likely is reality, but as the days pass he starts not having a choice. The wedding, should it happen, is only thirteen days away. Decisions are going to have to be made soon. But for now, Derek just shakes his head, “No. No I want you here.”
If nothing else, that’s a dose of reality in all this denial.
---
Day eight Mark talks him off the couch and into the bed. They’re grownups; this doesn’t matter. And the bed’s big enough that they don’t even touch.
(They’ve always been far too comfortable with each other - even in situations they shouldn’t be - it’s only a matter of time before that gets them in trouble, but Derek likes this denial thing far too much to think about that.)
---
Somehow this all comes down to Mark trying to make him feel better (and Mark only knows a handful ways to do that, and the ones he tried didn’t work, so there’s this, which is so beyond not what you do with your best friend no matter how upset they are - not that Derek cares so much anymore, because all he can see is a calendar counting down the days).
He makes this pathetic attempt at a joke when Mark’s kissing him, the expected, prerequisite “finally run out of nurses?” and Mark’s a good friend so he smirks before he goes back to focusing on Derek’s lips, kissing him in a way that’s familiar yet nothing like Meredith at all.
And then he does the other thing a good thing would do. He takes into consideration the fact that Derek will probably regret all or part of this in the future and stops it there before anyone’s clothes can come off.
“Sleep,” he whispers into Derek’s ear, and he doesn’t fight him.
---
“I can’t - “ There’s a pause; seconds tick by, yet more time wasted in this quiet limbo, then, “I think if we do this we’ll regret it.”
And it’s better than the time she stood up and announced to the whole room that it was “so over”, not to mention probably true.
This is how you lose people you love. A gentle kiss on the lips, a hand on the shoulder, on the small of her back. Goodbye, in all it’s glory, tastes like sadness and freedom.
Then she walks away.
For good.
(No more. Enough is enough.)
---
They go to Joe’s, him and Mark, when they get off shift. Mark pays and Joe’s extra-attentive tonight, and Derek isn’t sure if that’s because of how Derek looks like he just went through hell or because Mark told him. He doesn’t know which one he’d prefer either.
So they sit and they talk and Mark carefully avoids any variations of the phrase ‘you’re better off without her”, avoids the cliché, which turns to avoiding Meredith as soon as her and Cristina and the rest of their little group comes in the door, holing up in their booth in the back. Alex and Izzie come up to get drinks for all five of them; neither of them says a word to Derek, or even so much as looks at him, and, you know, she should be proud of this united front. They care about her, all of them, even the ones who don’t seem to care about much of anything at all.
Mark’s pulling on his arm a moment later, nodding to Joe briefly, before saying, “Let’s get out of here,” and things are so much easier when Mark is calling the shots and he can just stay inside his head, mostly, and try not to think about all of this time that just ended up wasted and how he’s actually worse off right now than he was when he came to Seattle, at least except for Mark.
He’s quiet and restrained in the cab, can’t keep his hands off of him once they get back to the trailer. Clothes fall away this time and Mark is hard against him, and for the first time in a long while Derek finally wakes up. Sure, his head is still swimming from the alcohol and he isn’t too steady on his feet, but something snaps, something inside of him gets tired of this repressed and depressed state he’s been simply existing in since he moved back in, for good, (and maybe he’s been feeling like that for longer).
It may be easier to just sit back and watch and let things be done for him but that was always just a temporary fix - so he swats Mark’s hands away from where they’re undoing his own pants, does it for him, gets them both on the bed because if they’re going to do this they might as well do it right.
This is him taking back control.
---
There’s no running away in the morning.
He hits the snooze button on the alarm clock, lets himself register the sound of the shower, and rolls over to try to catch a few more minutes of sleep.
In some ways, it feels like this is the way things have always been.
---
Derek gets Izzie to let him in when Meredith isn’t home, and Mark comes with him, and together they pack up his stuff and take it back with them. Mark laughs at his choice of fashion and claims ownership of this navy shirt that Derek can’t quite remember where he got, saying he’d lost it back in New York. Izzie looks in on them from the doorway every now and then, confused and, he thinks, somewhat bewildered.
“You seem better. Happier.” Izzie tells him, when Mark’s off somewhere, and there’s just them and this weird awkward kind of silence. “That’s good, you know, because we don’t all hate you we just kind of have to…act like it. For right now.”
He nods, no hard feelings, and just tells her, “I am.”
---
And you know this kind of relates back to how they were in college. There’s the medical aspect of it all, except instead of studying (or, well, not in Mark’s case - it just seemed to come to him, both then and now) they’re actually doing those surgeries, those procedures. But then, and this is the more important part, sometimes even the more fun part, they spend nights at Joe’s and Derek watches as Mark hits on pretty much everyone with nice legs (it’s his nature, Derek knows better than to say anything), and then get shot down because half the time he’s already been there, and sometimes (and this has been getting steadily more often) they’ll head back to the trailer, buzzed and horny, like teenagers all over again.
Except they aren’t playing games. They’re too old for games; all of this…this chasing and never quite catching up with Meredith has taught him that.
Because Mark’s his best friend, and a lot of times he’s more than that, but mostly he’s just all Derek needs at this point.
That’s all that matters anymore.