this perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to get by {izzie, alex, denny}
Title: This Perfect Verse Is Just A Lie You Tell Yourself To Get By
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Izzie, Alex, Denny | Izzie/Alex, minor Izzie/Denny
Word Count: 1,249
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #9 - Corpse for writing_rainbow
Author's Note: Lighter than the last fic from me -- I don't know what to call this other than me working through my issues once more.
Summary: Post Season 5.08. His hands feel too heavy along her body, suffocating, but even so it's still better being tethered to something than just falling and never landing.
his hands feel too heavy along her body, suffocating, but even still it’s better being tethered to something than just falling and never landing.
---
Izzie wakes up in two different places that morning. Different bedrooms, different men, but they all end the same way.
She pulls a clean shirt over her head, says, “I have to go.”
The door closes behind her; only one of the protests continues on in her head.
---
She knows when he’s there before she sees him. Her skin chills and a tingle runs up her spine. That’s fine; she needs the forewarning.
“You can’t be here. I’m working and I need to focus in order to do that. And you can’t be here.” Even if she’s alone in the hall she keeps her voice whisper level. Denny’s next to her before she can worry about whether or not he heard her.
“Can’t get rid of me that easily.” He smiles. He smiles and she can’t look at him because his smile still makes her melt (her heart and her resolve - she has to have her resolve, she has to find a way to make this stop).
---
She gets paged to the on-call room three hours later, for what she automatically assumes is a booty call (funny thing is how few and far between those have really been). She just expects it with Alex, when she forgets to reconcile that man with the one who was just short of asking her to go steady.
Alex is leaning against the bunk beds when she gets there, clothes on, not at all grinning in anticipation. He reaches for her and she lets him, keeps her body stiff underneath his touch as he moves his hands like he doesn’t know quite where to place them. There’s something between them. Again. Tangible or intangible, it doesn’t much matter. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Her chest tightens. He’s trying so, so hard, finally, and she can’t wrap her head around any of this enough to appreciate it. “Everything’s fine.”
“Iz,” her eyes never quite focus on him. His hands have settled on her arms, moving up and down them in a pattern he doesn’t seem aware of; she wonders if he can feel the chill on her skin too (Denny isn’t here, but he’s never too far away). “Izzie,” he says, again, trying to redirect her attention. It works. “Just tell me.”
I see dead people, she thinks, I see dead people and I might be losing my mind and I don’t know what to do or who to tell - if anyone will even believe me. But she can’t bear to tell him. There won’t be anyone there to pick up the pieces, for either of them.
---
At night is when it gets really messy. It’s close quarters, and she generally has trouble getting away from either of them the past few days. More so today.
Because Alex is watching her the way he watched Rebecca, like she might break, and Denny stands in the corner and watches him watch her, silent, for once, and she expects him to be glaring at the competition but he’s just kind of observing, casually, like he’s watching freaking pigeons in the park while reading the newspaper and it’s possibly more disconcerting than the talking and the touching.
“I’m going downstairs for a minute; I’ll be right back.” Alex tells her, like she needs to know where he is at all times. She doesn’t look at him; too busy watching Denny raise his eyebrows in amusement. “What are you looking at?”
She snaps out of it for long enough to shake her head and say “nothing; that’s fine” while actually looking at him. It’s easy to see that he doesn’t believe her at all. Great.
Denny doesn’t let things stay quiet for long; Alex’s footsteps on the stairs have barely faded before, “Sounds awfully concerned.”
Izzie sighs, turns onto her other side, away from him, and closes her eyes. She doesn’t have to keep them straight or remember which is which if she’s unconscious. But sleep won’t come so she just keeps her eyes shut tight and tries not to wonder who slips under the covers.
---
The next day she can’t seem to get away from Meredith either. It doesn’t take her long to deduce why and it takes her even less time to confront her.
“He’s worried.” Meredith only tells her what she already knows. “If this is about Denny you can tell him you know.”
No. Not when it’s about actually seeing Denny. Because that crosses the line between acceptable and ‘you have a problem’ and she’s scared to see what’s on the other side. “It’s not about Denny,” she lies.
Denny laughs (he’s a corpse, he’s a corpse, he’s a corpse, nothing mor). The breeze picks up.
---
“Why are you here?” Her voice is tired, pleading. She’s long since grown tired of this game. This is not the first or the second or even the third time she’s asked; each time garners a different result.
“You want me here.” He replies, simply.
She doesn’t know whether that statement holds any truth to it or not.
---
Once, she wakes up to an empty bed, clambers out the door to Alex’s room. He isn’t asleep.
“You said his name. In your sleep,” he responds to a question she never asked, and she nods as she silently climbs into the bed next to him, curling into his side and pressing her face to the soft cotton of his black tank. It’s as much of a ‘sorry’ as she can manage.
---
Izzie withdraws slowly. She stops sleeping with either of them (she stops sleeping in general); stops touching Denny altogether.
“I don’t need you,” she breathes, hoping that when she opens her eyes she won’t see him; it never works. “I don’t need you and you should know that. You are supposed to let me move on; you are supposed to want me to move on.”
Denny shakes his head, comes closer. “You keep saying that. But I don’t think you want me to.”
“I do. I want to.” Not for the first time in the past few days she finds herself on the verge of tears. “I can’t keep doing this. You’re not real.”
“Yes, I am. To you.”
“No, you’re not.” Because if no one else can see him or hear him or touch him then, logically, he doesn’t exist and that means that everything she’s said or done with him has between her and thin air. The fact that she can put at least that much together, escape the illusion, gives her hope that this is all just a temporary fog.
---
She wears the floor thin pacing for what feels like hours, for what is about half of one, before she actually gets the nerve to walk across the hall (they’re keeping to their separate bedrooms, ever since that night).
It’s not that she knows what she’s going to do when she gets there. It’s just that she knows she needs to get there.
The door opens the moment her fist touches hard wood, like he’s waiting.
“I need help.”
The first step is admitting.
---
her skin is on fire, everywhere, warm like she hasn’t felt in days, and when she walks into a room all that greets her is uninterrupted silence.
(you told, the walls seem to echo)
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Izzie, Alex, Denny | Izzie/Alex, minor Izzie/Denny
Word Count: 1,249
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #9 - Corpse for writing_rainbow
Author's Note: Lighter than the last fic from me -- I don't know what to call this other than me working through my issues once more.
Summary: Post Season 5.08. His hands feel too heavy along her body, suffocating, but even so it's still better being tethered to something than just falling and never landing.
his hands feel too heavy along her body, suffocating, but even still it’s better being tethered to something than just falling and never landing.
---
Izzie wakes up in two different places that morning. Different bedrooms, different men, but they all end the same way.
She pulls a clean shirt over her head, says, “I have to go.”
The door closes behind her; only one of the protests continues on in her head.
---
She knows when he’s there before she sees him. Her skin chills and a tingle runs up her spine. That’s fine; she needs the forewarning.
“You can’t be here. I’m working and I need to focus in order to do that. And you can’t be here.” Even if she’s alone in the hall she keeps her voice whisper level. Denny’s next to her before she can worry about whether or not he heard her.
“Can’t get rid of me that easily.” He smiles. He smiles and she can’t look at him because his smile still makes her melt (her heart and her resolve - she has to have her resolve, she has to find a way to make this stop).
---
She gets paged to the on-call room three hours later, for what she automatically assumes is a booty call (funny thing is how few and far between those have really been). She just expects it with Alex, when she forgets to reconcile that man with the one who was just short of asking her to go steady.
Alex is leaning against the bunk beds when she gets there, clothes on, not at all grinning in anticipation. He reaches for her and she lets him, keeps her body stiff underneath his touch as he moves his hands like he doesn’t know quite where to place them. There’s something between them. Again. Tangible or intangible, it doesn’t much matter. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Her chest tightens. He’s trying so, so hard, finally, and she can’t wrap her head around any of this enough to appreciate it. “Everything’s fine.”
“Iz,” her eyes never quite focus on him. His hands have settled on her arms, moving up and down them in a pattern he doesn’t seem aware of; she wonders if he can feel the chill on her skin too (Denny isn’t here, but he’s never too far away). “Izzie,” he says, again, trying to redirect her attention. It works. “Just tell me.”
I see dead people, she thinks, I see dead people and I might be losing my mind and I don’t know what to do or who to tell - if anyone will even believe me. But she can’t bear to tell him. There won’t be anyone there to pick up the pieces, for either of them.
---
At night is when it gets really messy. It’s close quarters, and she generally has trouble getting away from either of them the past few days. More so today.
Because Alex is watching her the way he watched Rebecca, like she might break, and Denny stands in the corner and watches him watch her, silent, for once, and she expects him to be glaring at the competition but he’s just kind of observing, casually, like he’s watching freaking pigeons in the park while reading the newspaper and it’s possibly more disconcerting than the talking and the touching.
“I’m going downstairs for a minute; I’ll be right back.” Alex tells her, like she needs to know where he is at all times. She doesn’t look at him; too busy watching Denny raise his eyebrows in amusement. “What are you looking at?”
She snaps out of it for long enough to shake her head and say “nothing; that’s fine” while actually looking at him. It’s easy to see that he doesn’t believe her at all. Great.
Denny doesn’t let things stay quiet for long; Alex’s footsteps on the stairs have barely faded before, “Sounds awfully concerned.”
Izzie sighs, turns onto her other side, away from him, and closes her eyes. She doesn’t have to keep them straight or remember which is which if she’s unconscious. But sleep won’t come so she just keeps her eyes shut tight and tries not to wonder who slips under the covers.
---
The next day she can’t seem to get away from Meredith either. It doesn’t take her long to deduce why and it takes her even less time to confront her.
“He’s worried.” Meredith only tells her what she already knows. “If this is about Denny you can tell him you know.”
No. Not when it’s about actually seeing Denny. Because that crosses the line between acceptable and ‘you have a problem’ and she’s scared to see what’s on the other side. “It’s not about Denny,” she lies.
Denny laughs (he’s a corpse, he’s a corpse, he’s a corpse, nothing mor). The breeze picks up.
---
“Why are you here?” Her voice is tired, pleading. She’s long since grown tired of this game. This is not the first or the second or even the third time she’s asked; each time garners a different result.
“You want me here.” He replies, simply.
She doesn’t know whether that statement holds any truth to it or not.
---
Once, she wakes up to an empty bed, clambers out the door to Alex’s room. He isn’t asleep.
“You said his name. In your sleep,” he responds to a question she never asked, and she nods as she silently climbs into the bed next to him, curling into his side and pressing her face to the soft cotton of his black tank. It’s as much of a ‘sorry’ as she can manage.
---
Izzie withdraws slowly. She stops sleeping with either of them (she stops sleeping in general); stops touching Denny altogether.
“I don’t need you,” she breathes, hoping that when she opens her eyes she won’t see him; it never works. “I don’t need you and you should know that. You are supposed to let me move on; you are supposed to want me to move on.”
Denny shakes his head, comes closer. “You keep saying that. But I don’t think you want me to.”
“I do. I want to.” Not for the first time in the past few days she finds herself on the verge of tears. “I can’t keep doing this. You’re not real.”
“Yes, I am. To you.”
“No, you’re not.” Because if no one else can see him or hear him or touch him then, logically, he doesn’t exist and that means that everything she’s said or done with him has between her and thin air. The fact that she can put at least that much together, escape the illusion, gives her hope that this is all just a temporary fog.
---
She wears the floor thin pacing for what feels like hours, for what is about half of one, before she actually gets the nerve to walk across the hall (they’re keeping to their separate bedrooms, ever since that night).
It’s not that she knows what she’s going to do when she gets there. It’s just that she knows she needs to get there.
The door opens the moment her fist touches hard wood, like he’s waiting.
“I need help.”
The first step is admitting.
---
her skin is on fire, everywhere, warm like she hasn’t felt in days, and when she walks into a room all that greets her is uninterrupted silence.
(you told, the walls seem to echo)