what i'm trying to say {mark/owen}
Title: What I'm Trying To Say
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Mark/Owen, mentions of Mark/Lexie, Owen/Cristina. Minor OC's.
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,975
Author's Note: Written for crickets. Long overdue. Also, the place described in this fic really does exist. If you're interested, take a look for yourself.
Summary: Post S5 finale. It started as one big joke. Some village in Costa Rica that needed doctors, and the words ‘rainforest’, ‘conservationist’ and ‘tree house’ were enough to let Mark know that this was an opportunity he would be passing on.
Mark wakes up to an arm laying heavy against his bare chest, thrown out at some point in the night by the restless sleeper next to him. He closes his eyes against the sunlight, filtering in through the window that had perhaps not been as strategically placed as he once thought, rubbing the bridge of his nose with the hand that’s free.
He doesn’t know what woke him up, whether it was the bright light, his bedmate, or, more likely, the early morning racket coming from outside. These walls are not soundproof; he learned that very early on.
“Move,” he murmurs, not so gently shoving the arm off of him so that he can get up. The other man just rolls over in reaction, groaning about something or other. It’s still an improvement over previous months, which led to him waking up at nearly every noise; now he generally just mutters nonsense and goes back to sleep, half consciousness enough to let him know that there’s no trouble here. Feet on the ground, Mark rolls his neck, hearing it crack once or twice, before he stands, making his way to the bathroom.
He gets about halfway there before something outside screeches, a little too close to them, and he’s damn sure Owen’s awake before he even turns around to look at him. Sure enough he’s sitting up in bed, running a hand through his mess of short red hair. “What the hell was that?”
Mark shrugs, a similar noise breaking through the din of chirping birds once more. “Probably the squirrel monkeys again. It’s spring; must be a mating thing.”
Owen makes a noise under his breath that sounds like a low growl, right before he says, “I think I know why they used to call them skull monkeys.”
“And here I was led to believe that had more to do with what they looked like,” Mark replies, stifling a laugh and settling for a shake of his head. “You know if you go around threatening to kill the wildlife, I think these people might try and kick us out. Go all ‘the tribe has spoken’ on us, and extinguish our torches.”
The blank look on Owen’s face in reaction to that should’ve been expected, but it’s early and he’s not thinking clearly enough to remember that Owen didn’t even own a television back in Seattle. Reality show references are nothing but lost on him, and it’s probably better that way.
“Right,” he says, on a sigh. “I’m just saying go easy on the monkeys. We signed up for this.”
“I had ulterior motives,” Owen counters, eyeing him as he amends, “We had ulterior motives.”
“You could at least try not to make that sound dirty. We have work to do and we might as well just get it done sooner rather than later.”
“I wasn’t. You’re the one with your mind in the gutter.”
There’s no comeback to that that Owen would find even somewhat believable so Mark just doesn’t bother, walking into the bathroom and closing the door behind him, temporarily shutting out yet another morning in what is now month three of their stay in Costa Rica.
---
It’s going to be one of those stories that become funny over time. Something to look back on twenty years from now and laugh about, grateful for having had the experience but not about to admit things like that out loud.
This is a good thing. Because when it started, the humor in it was kind of hard to find.
It started as one big joke. Some village in Costa Rica that needed doctors, and the words ‘rainforest’, ‘conservationist’ and ‘tree house’ were enough to let Mark know that this was an opportunity he would be passing on. Derek had laughed at him when he mentioned it. Owen, on the other hand, had raised a careful eyebrow, and nodded into his beer, something slow and somehow condescending.
“What?” Had been a stupid thing to ask, but Mark had gone and done it anyway.
Owen talks more, when he’s been liquored up enough. It’s a time consuming process, but Mark is charismatic, a conversationalist, and that works a lot better when he’s talking to someone who doesn’t speak in short, measured sentences, full of meaning. Mark’s always been just the opposite; whatever meaning is behind his words is of the ‘read between the lines’ kind, disguised by jokes and charm.
That first night, once the clock had passed midnight and they’d been there quite awhile, Owen started making cracks about the city boy going anywhere near a place like that, how he wouldn’t be able to handle it. It was harmless teasing, nothing more, and Mark let him because he liked that side of Owen, rarely seen as it was. It was a privilege, one Mark didn’t realize the full weight of until much later, when they knew each other better.
Three days later, Costa Rica was forgotten.
Rumor has it, Owen almost strangled Yang in her bedroom, and he stays quiet for a bit after that. Mark never hears anything else about the little village made of tree houses, and he doesn’t think to search it out.
For a while, that is.
---
It’s a reasonable hour by the time Mark’s showered and dressed, and he leaves while Owen’s still in bed, with barely a goodbye.
Mitch is cooking something in a large pot that seems better suited to cooler weather by the time he gets to the community center, and he nods to the older man who lives two houses down from them, leaning against the counter across from the small kitchen table that’s currently occupied by a laptop and Mitch’s daughter, Laura.
“You know, this is what they make chairs for,” Mark observes, watching the blonde type away at the computer that rests in her lap. His eyes find the faint line of red just below her knee, a former gash that’s healed up nicely, this being weeks later. It had been an accident while climbing a tree, and apparently not her first.
“Really?” She asks, not bothering even an attempt at masking the sarcasm in her voice. “Next you’re going to tell me about the uses of the wheel.”
“I could,” Mark offers, catching the head shake Mitch gives out of the corner of his eye, as he reaches for something in one of the cabinets.
“No thanks,” Laura replies, her eyes narrowing at the screen, intent on something that Mark can’t see from this angle, even as she asks, “Your boyfriend still asleep? He was up with that over-processed princess that’s staying in one of the cabina’s. I think she skinned her knee or something and lacked the common sense to have band-aids and antiseptic on hand. What she’s doing in the freaking rainforest I’ll never know.”
“I don’t think that was her choice,” he says, watching her lips form a pout in reaction. “And yes, he’s still sleeping. Do you enjoy phrasing everything that way?”
“Truth,” she retorts. “And your boyfriend doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”
“He wouldn’t say it even if he did.”
“Whatever you say.”
He lets her end it. It’s just easier that way; he’s learned. “Anything interesting?” He eyes the computer off her look. “Any world wars start?”
“One day you’re going to eat your words,” she warns, like the end of the world is knocking at their door and they’re just refusing to answer it. “And no. Just a dead congressman. And some woman’s been trying to get ahold of you. I didn’t get her name.”
“Ignore it,” Mark says, giving relatively little thought to the matter. He already knows the answers to the ‘who’ and the ‘why’, more than that he knows that acting like an asshole and not reciprocating any of her attempts to get in contact with him will just force her to move on. And that’s what they all need to do, all four of them that got mixed into this accidental quadrangle.
“Funny,” Laura remarks, balling up a yellow post-it that previously had sat next to her. If he had to guess, it had been a phone number. “That’s what your boyfriend said you’d say.”
---
O’Malley and Stevens die within minutes of each other and Seattle Grace, as a whole, comes to one giant standstill. Alex loses his shit, Meredith takes up residence in a locked on-call room with Cristina, Lexie avoids him at all costs, and Derek looks perpetually worn out for a week straight.
Owen, meanwhile, blames himself six ways from Sunday over O’Malley, something about him enlisting and how he would’ve been at the hospital if it hadn’t been for that, and finds his way into Joe’s and back into the stool next to Mark that he’d occupied weeks ago before.
It’s easy like that, for about the first week. They drown their sorrows in too much alcohol and learn the art of coping without anyone but themselves once more, something long forgotten, at least for Mark. It’s been too long since he’s been out on his own, without Derek or Callie or Lexie, hell even Addison.
The second week, they make the mistake of learning to cope via each other, taking this back to Mark’s hotel room because it’s last call and Joe says they’ve had more than enough anyways, and the next thing he knows he’s fumbling with buttons and zippers and unfamiliar territory.
They’re late to work the next morning. No one gives them looks. No one asks. It only made it so that they didn’t have to acknowledge that anything at all happened between them. It gave them the option.
Lexie moves her stuff out of his hotel room, an empty second drawer in the dresser, and his mouth is hot on Owen’s neck that night, full of need and potential, Owen’s fingers slipping down below his waistband, a sharp intake of breath here, a shift of the hips there.
Costa Rica rears its head once more just days later.
---
”Days like these, I almost miss the ER.” Mark says, hours later, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky and the community center has gotten that much stuffier. The fan in the corner of the room only serves to recirculate warm, recycled air, and no matter how long they’re here Mark doesn’t think he’s going to get used to that. He’s used to Manhattan, and, lately, rainy old Seattle. The transition from that to Costa Rica is not an easy one to make. “Half the time I’m almost hoping for one of the zip lines to malfunction or something. I feel like a damn intern again.”
“Consider the work we’re doing,” Owen says, meaning it as an agreement. They do stitches, provide bandages, give antibiotics for various rashes. They’re surgeons, admired surgeons, and they’re doing grunt work they used to gladly shove off onto the people under them, usually the ones they disliked. For all intensive purposes they are interns. “There’s a reason these stints only last six months to a year. We’re overqualified - they know that.”
Mark leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers against his cargo pant-clad knee. Designer clothes were the first things to go here; you wore what could get dirty and what didn’t make you feel like you were going to suffocate in the heat. “Which one?”
Owen frowns. “Which one what?”
“Are we staying six months or a year?” Mark clarifies, meeting Owen’s eyes. It wasn’t something they’d really discussed; they just kind of went, no exit plans, hell, no plans at all.
“I don’t know.” Owen reaches for his water bottle, the plastic crinkling under his grip. “It’s not something either of us has to decide right now.”
“Right,” Mark replies, noncommittally. “We should at some point though. Soon.”
The other man nods, pressing his lips tight together, thinking on something, before he says, “Laura said something about that phone call didn’t she?”
“Laura says a lot of things.” He doesn’t know why his answer is so vague; it serves no purpose. “But yeah, she might’ve mentioned that.”
“And it’s got you thinking.”
“And it’s got me thinking,” he repeats. “Why? Is that a bad thing?”
Owen shrugs. “Depends.”
“You really should work on being less verbose,” Mark says, heavy on the sarcasm. Owen narrows his eyes at him and Mark just doesn’t care. He should be used to this by now; they both should. “It’s not like I’m saying I changed my mind and we should go back. I told her to ignore the call, tell her I’m not here or I’m busy. I just think that maybe we should figure out what we’re going to do.”
“We will.” Another short answer, and Mark resists the urge to groan aloud, settles for turning his head so that he’s looking out the window and not the man across from him.
He misses the days where he used to be the one with the worst commitment issues in relationships. Because that’s what this all comes down to - it’s not just their stay here that they’re discussing the length of, the prospects of, it’s them.
---
“No. No way.” Mark couldn’t down the rest of his scotch fast enough. He shook his head as he motioned to Joe for a refill. “I didn’t think it was a good idea then, and I still don’t.”
Owen’s face was serious, had been for days, and there were new lines around his eyes, from something other than laughter. “I need to get out of here,” he confided, finally, after a moment of doing nothing but staring straight ahead at him or, more likely, something just behind him. “Before I thought I needed to go back. But now I think I just need to get away from this place.”
“You’re serious about this.” It was a stupid thing to say; he could already tell from the other man’s expression, his body language, his tone. He wasn’t playing around, and that equally worried, scared, and almost excited Mark. “Well then you should go.”
As of that point, they’d wound up in each other’s beds for five out of the last seven nights, but that discussion that people tend to have in some form or another, the ‘what are we doing’ one, hadn’t even thought about occurring, a result of their time together being mainly confined to the bar and his hotel room, usually between the hours of eleven at night and five in the morning. People didn’t have lengthy conversations about anything of importance, or at least anything they hope to remember for later, at those hours. It was because of this that Mark didn’t have any recourse; even if he wanted Owen to stay for selfish reasons, and he didn’t even know that he did, it wasn’t like there was any way for him to say so. Mark had his share of affairs; they all run their course eventually.
“Yeah.” Owen’s reply lacked any form of enthusiasm. In fact Mark could almost hear disappointment there. It confused him.
“That’s what you wanted to hear right?” He pressed, “I mean why else would you bring it up?”
He wasn’t at all prepared for Owen to look him in the eye, deadly calm, and say, “Because I was wondering if you’d go with me.”
Mark certainly wasn’t prepared for the implications of that, and so he cleared his throat, drumming his fingers against the bar, next to his untouched, newly refilled glass. Of course, he ended up cracking a joke instead of giving a straight answer. “What was that about city boys not being able to handle it out there?”
“Maybe I think that I underestimated this particular city boy,” Owen offered, an admission that perhaps meant more below the surface, if Mark really wanted to read into these things. He was sure that would only make it more complicated - he didn’t want complicated. Complicated and plans and serious conversations and gestures is what killed his relationship with Lexie, perhaps prematurely, and he just wasn’t willing to go there again. He liked easy. He liked this for what it was in its current incarnation.
He surprised himself more than he cares to admit when he said, “Okay.”
They’re gone within the week. No plans, just get up and go, and make it up as they go along. But that only works for so long.
---
Mark makes the first phone call he’s made in a month and a half that same afternoon. His fingers hover over the numbers for a few seconds, trying to remember phone numbers and their respective owners, before he finally punches in a sequence of eleven and listens to it ring.
“Hello,” Derek picks up, on the fifth ring, just as Mark’s about to hang up before the call goes to voicemail.
He swallows and makes an attempt at remembering that Derek should be the last person that he’s worried about talking to. It’s still feels odd; it’s been awhile. “Hey,” Mark replies, in kind, unsure of what exactly to open with.
“Mark?” Derek asks, like he can’t quite believe it. “Where…” he pauses, shuffling footsteps and a closing door, like he just went inside the first on-call room or storage closet he could find. “Where are you?”
“Costa Rica,” he says, can’t stop himself from laughing afterwards. It sounds absurd. Even to him. “Figured Richard would’ve shared that with you.”
“And you expected me to believe him?” He can’t quite blame him for not buying it. “I figured you went back to New York or something. And Owen…?”
It comes off like a question, and so Mark treats it as such. “He’s here too.”
“Costa Rica,” Derek repeats, and he can almost hear the other man shake his head, incredulous. “I have to ask, exactly how much did you have to drink before you made that decision?”
“Not nearly enough,” Mark replies, which is true enough he supposes. “How are things there? I haven’t talked to anyone since I left.”
“Things are…better.” Better than when they left, of course, because when they left everyone was still recovering, trying to get back that sense of normalcy. It hadn’t been a month since George and Izzie died before they left. “Meredith said Lexie’s been trying to call you.”
“I know.”
“You should at least call her back.”
“I know.” He sighs, heavily, searching for an excuse that Derek can’t necessarily shoot down. He goes with the old standby. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Apparently.” Mark’s eyes find the window across from him, Owen outside, pointing at something up in the trees, gesturing something to the guy next to him, presumably their other guest that Laura had mentioned earlier. Owen looks better here, with a tan and some decent amount of sleep, than he did back in rainy Seattle, worn down and tired. As if Derek can read his mind, he asks, “So does this mean you’re coming back any time soon?”
“We haven’t really figured that out yet.” It’s sort of his reason for calling too. Not to flat out ask whether he should stay or go, and when that should happen, but to get a handle on what he’s missing, and if he’s really missing it all that much.
“We?”
“We.” There’s a certain emphasis on the word; he’s trying to tell Derek something without actually saying it, and Derek makes this noise that doesn’t translate quite so well without the accompanying facial expression, so Mark has no clue if he gets it or not, much less what he thinks of it. He’s about to add that they’re sort of a package deal, that they came here together so they’ll leave together, except he doesn’t know how true that is. Conceivably, one could leave while the other stayed. “Could be another few months. Could be another year.”
“It’s not permanent?” Derek asks, but it’s more cautious now, like any of his earlier preconceptions about Mark and this situation have been put aside.
“It’s Costa Rica,” Mark replies, not at all answering his question, not even trying to. “I guess we’ll leave the same way we came in. When it feels like it’s a good idea.”
The conversation doesn’t last much longer. They fall back into the realm of meaningless small talk, and he’s hung up not two minutes later, his hand lingering over the receiver a moment longer than necessary. He’d missed Derek, and it hadn’t really set in until he talked to him.
He misses Derek, his longest lasting relationship, the last of what he has from his life back in New York, and there are days when he misses Callie and Lexie, and even the gossiping nurses and the coffee from that place he and Derek would go to avoid the watered down shit from the hospital, and sometimes he even misses rainy old Seattle.
But it’s not the same for Owen. It’s why he doesn’t need a set deadline, a plan for making a move. There’s nothing waiting for him back there. No one waiting for him.
Mark just has to decide which life he can stand to miss more and for how long.
---
The second night they were there, there was a party. Nothing elaborate, just good food and mingling. Custom, according to Mitch, with new people, as a way to welcome them to the community. They took the word seriously here, making sure everyone was a part of everything. No one was made to feel like an outsider, unless they made themselves one.
It took Mark an hour before someone tried to hit on him. It took him five minutes of talking to the rather bold blonde to tell her he was already involved with someone.
It would be the first time, and far from the last, that he said it, concerning Owen. He was involved. They were involved. He wasn’t just in this for a couple of quick fucks. And it shocked him more than it shocked her, if the look she gave him right before she sauntered off was any indication.
He pulled Owen inside the next chance he got, to one of the empty rooms, pressing him into the door as soon as it closed behind them, their bodies flush against each other, and kissed him like it was all he’d been thinking about all day. Maybe it was. His mouth had moved from the other man’s lips to where his neck met his shoulder, exposed by his thin dress shirt, the first two buttons undone, before Owen had the presence of mind to grab ahold of both of his hands.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Owen reminded him, the raise of his eyebrow letting him know that they’d be continuing this later, just before he left.
Mark stayed in that room for a minute or two longer than he should have, composing himself, and when he came out, he walked off toward the fringes of the party, the back wall of the community center where no one else was. He let out a breath and wished for a cigarette, a habit he’d lost after college, aware of just how desperate he’d both felt and seemed as he pulled Owen inside. It was disconcerting, to put it mildly, and far too genuine.
Footsteps scuffed against the dirt, the click-clack of flip flops, and he didn’t turn around at the sound, just listened.
“Hey,” the blonde from earlier spoke clearly, not at all in the tone she’d previously used. That had been something husky, meant to seduce; this made her sound younger. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he replied, managing to sound like it too, years of practice, and faced her. “Persistent aren’t you?”
She frowned, confused, before a smile crossed her lips. “Oh that? I wasn’t actually hitting on you.”
“Really?” He gave her a raised eyebrow of his own. He didn’t quite believe her. Still, his reply was teasing, “It’s okay, you don’t have to be embarrassed. You’re not the first.”
“Believe what you want. I wasn’t hitting on you,” she reiterated, coyly, “I was just confirming a theory.”
“And what’s that?”
“You and Owen.”
He almost recovered, played dumb, told her she was barking up the wrong tree, but she gave him this look like she’d just see right through him anyway and there was no sense in trying. Instead, “That obvious?”
“I’m pretty perceptive,” she replied, a halfway answer. “Is it supposed to be a secret?”
“We haven’t really…” he looked down at the dirt underneath his feet, a small cloud of it rising as he kicked at it with the two of his boot.
“Discussed it?” She supplied, coming ever so closer to him.
He frowned. He wasn’t so sure this was the conversation “You weren’t kidding about the perception thing were you?”
“I think you’ll come to find I’m very honest.”
“I will.”
“You will.” She glanced over her shoulder then, looking back a group of people just inside her sightline. “I’ll see you around.”
Mark nodded, eyes on the ground, and when he looked back up she was already gone.
---
He goes to sleep in a half-empty bed, and he wakes to one as well. The spot next to him is still warm though, when he wakes up, and when his eyes adjust to the dim light that’s filtering, the beginnings of the sunrise, he can see that the doors leading off to the deck that they very rarely use are ajar.
Pulling on the jeans that he had left slung over the chair last night, he nudges the door the rest of the way open with his foot, peering outside. It’s just Owen, sitting in one of the pair of chairs that occupy the space. If he hears the door, he doesn’t react.
“This is new,” Mark says, the icebreaker, and Owen only nods. After a moment, Mark takes a seat in the other chair. “I thought you were five seconds from going to war with our friendly neighborhood monkeys?”
Owen’s quiet for a long moment, and Mark watches his eyes scan the trees laid out in front of them, ignoring the zip lines and the houses that he can see in the distance, if he squints. Then, “They’re not so bad.”
The problem with trying to have a conversation with Owen is he gives you nothing to go off of, so you better have a game plan before you start. Mark’s been slowly figuring that out over the last few months. Today he knows what he wants to say, he just doesn’t know how to say it exactly. He wants to say that he’s in this for the long haul, that he’s decided he isn’t interested in heading back to Seattle in three months, keeping this short and sweet. He wants to say that these people and this place make him feel better somehow, a calm he hasn’t felt in years. He wants to say that Owen looks damn good in the sunlight, and he thinks he’s heard him laugh more in the last month than he ever did in Seattle, and it’s nice and he wants that. He wants this.
He wants this because he’s good here, they’re good here, and that’s slowly but surely become the most important thing to him.
It would sound too cheesy, like some bad movie script, if he said them the way they come out in his head, and he spent the better part of last night trying to find a way around that. Trying to find the words to say to a man who says so few and manages to communicate the rest of it in his actions.
“We don’t need to make a decision yet; you’re right.” He starts, folding his hands. Owen’s looking at him, discreetly, out of the corner of his eye. “But when we do leave, I don’t want to leave this behind.”
The this in question isn’t Costa Rica; it isn’t a village of treehouses or the friendships they’ve made. It’s them. It’s that thing that they never gave a definition, not in Seattle, not after that party, and not here, on this deck as the sun’s rising. Maybe it doesn’t even need one anymore, maybe it never did. But he knows that the reason he’s been so antsy about knowing the when, about getting an answer out of Owen, was because he wanted an answer about them. He wanted to know that Owen thought this was something worth pursuing.
And to his credit, Owen must get it because he doesn’t ask for clarification. He stays still, brow furrowed in the way that means he’s thinking, and Mark waits with a feeling of anxiousness that he hasn’t felt since he took his high school girlfriend to prom.
“This is a rest stop,” Owen tells him, finally. “There’s always going to be another one. A new place. I’m not going back to Seattle, not for long at least. And I’m not staying here forever either. I keep moving, and it keeps me sane.”
“I noticed.”
Owen trains those eyes on him now, unflinching gaze, and Mark has to fight to keep on looking at him straight on. “You keep asking when and it doesn’t really matter. As far as I’m concerned you already signed up for this.”
It’s then that he gets it. Why it is that Owen hasn’t given him an answer until now. He didn’t think there was an answer to give; he’d already made his assumptions.
They both let their eyes drop at nearly the same time, Owen’s finding that spot in the canopy that he’d been focused on earlier, while Mark settles back into his chair, sinking into comfortable silence that for once he doesn’t mind so much.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Mark/Owen, mentions of Mark/Lexie, Owen/Cristina. Minor OC's.
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,975
Author's Note: Written for crickets. Long overdue. Also, the place described in this fic really does exist. If you're interested, take a look for yourself.
Summary: Post S5 finale. It started as one big joke. Some village in Costa Rica that needed doctors, and the words ‘rainforest’, ‘conservationist’ and ‘tree house’ were enough to let Mark know that this was an opportunity he would be passing on.
Mark wakes up to an arm laying heavy against his bare chest, thrown out at some point in the night by the restless sleeper next to him. He closes his eyes against the sunlight, filtering in through the window that had perhaps not been as strategically placed as he once thought, rubbing the bridge of his nose with the hand that’s free.
He doesn’t know what woke him up, whether it was the bright light, his bedmate, or, more likely, the early morning racket coming from outside. These walls are not soundproof; he learned that very early on.
“Move,” he murmurs, not so gently shoving the arm off of him so that he can get up. The other man just rolls over in reaction, groaning about something or other. It’s still an improvement over previous months, which led to him waking up at nearly every noise; now he generally just mutters nonsense and goes back to sleep, half consciousness enough to let him know that there’s no trouble here. Feet on the ground, Mark rolls his neck, hearing it crack once or twice, before he stands, making his way to the bathroom.
He gets about halfway there before something outside screeches, a little too close to them, and he’s damn sure Owen’s awake before he even turns around to look at him. Sure enough he’s sitting up in bed, running a hand through his mess of short red hair. “What the hell was that?”
Mark shrugs, a similar noise breaking through the din of chirping birds once more. “Probably the squirrel monkeys again. It’s spring; must be a mating thing.”
Owen makes a noise under his breath that sounds like a low growl, right before he says, “I think I know why they used to call them skull monkeys.”
“And here I was led to believe that had more to do with what they looked like,” Mark replies, stifling a laugh and settling for a shake of his head. “You know if you go around threatening to kill the wildlife, I think these people might try and kick us out. Go all ‘the tribe has spoken’ on us, and extinguish our torches.”
The blank look on Owen’s face in reaction to that should’ve been expected, but it’s early and he’s not thinking clearly enough to remember that Owen didn’t even own a television back in Seattle. Reality show references are nothing but lost on him, and it’s probably better that way.
“Right,” he says, on a sigh. “I’m just saying go easy on the monkeys. We signed up for this.”
“I had ulterior motives,” Owen counters, eyeing him as he amends, “We had ulterior motives.”
“You could at least try not to make that sound dirty. We have work to do and we might as well just get it done sooner rather than later.”
“I wasn’t. You’re the one with your mind in the gutter.”
There’s no comeback to that that Owen would find even somewhat believable so Mark just doesn’t bother, walking into the bathroom and closing the door behind him, temporarily shutting out yet another morning in what is now month three of their stay in Costa Rica.
---
It’s going to be one of those stories that become funny over time. Something to look back on twenty years from now and laugh about, grateful for having had the experience but not about to admit things like that out loud.
This is a good thing. Because when it started, the humor in it was kind of hard to find.
It started as one big joke. Some village in Costa Rica that needed doctors, and the words ‘rainforest’, ‘conservationist’ and ‘tree house’ were enough to let Mark know that this was an opportunity he would be passing on. Derek had laughed at him when he mentioned it. Owen, on the other hand, had raised a careful eyebrow, and nodded into his beer, something slow and somehow condescending.
“What?” Had been a stupid thing to ask, but Mark had gone and done it anyway.
Owen talks more, when he’s been liquored up enough. It’s a time consuming process, but Mark is charismatic, a conversationalist, and that works a lot better when he’s talking to someone who doesn’t speak in short, measured sentences, full of meaning. Mark’s always been just the opposite; whatever meaning is behind his words is of the ‘read between the lines’ kind, disguised by jokes and charm.
That first night, once the clock had passed midnight and they’d been there quite awhile, Owen started making cracks about the city boy going anywhere near a place like that, how he wouldn’t be able to handle it. It was harmless teasing, nothing more, and Mark let him because he liked that side of Owen, rarely seen as it was. It was a privilege, one Mark didn’t realize the full weight of until much later, when they knew each other better.
Three days later, Costa Rica was forgotten.
Rumor has it, Owen almost strangled Yang in her bedroom, and he stays quiet for a bit after that. Mark never hears anything else about the little village made of tree houses, and he doesn’t think to search it out.
For a while, that is.
---
It’s a reasonable hour by the time Mark’s showered and dressed, and he leaves while Owen’s still in bed, with barely a goodbye.
Mitch is cooking something in a large pot that seems better suited to cooler weather by the time he gets to the community center, and he nods to the older man who lives two houses down from them, leaning against the counter across from the small kitchen table that’s currently occupied by a laptop and Mitch’s daughter, Laura.
“You know, this is what they make chairs for,” Mark observes, watching the blonde type away at the computer that rests in her lap. His eyes find the faint line of red just below her knee, a former gash that’s healed up nicely, this being weeks later. It had been an accident while climbing a tree, and apparently not her first.
“Really?” She asks, not bothering even an attempt at masking the sarcasm in her voice. “Next you’re going to tell me about the uses of the wheel.”
“I could,” Mark offers, catching the head shake Mitch gives out of the corner of his eye, as he reaches for something in one of the cabinets.
“No thanks,” Laura replies, her eyes narrowing at the screen, intent on something that Mark can’t see from this angle, even as she asks, “Your boyfriend still asleep? He was up with that over-processed princess that’s staying in one of the cabina’s. I think she skinned her knee or something and lacked the common sense to have band-aids and antiseptic on hand. What she’s doing in the freaking rainforest I’ll never know.”
“I don’t think that was her choice,” he says, watching her lips form a pout in reaction. “And yes, he’s still sleeping. Do you enjoy phrasing everything that way?”
“Truth,” she retorts. “And your boyfriend doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”
“He wouldn’t say it even if he did.”
“Whatever you say.”
He lets her end it. It’s just easier that way; he’s learned. “Anything interesting?” He eyes the computer off her look. “Any world wars start?”
“One day you’re going to eat your words,” she warns, like the end of the world is knocking at their door and they’re just refusing to answer it. “And no. Just a dead congressman. And some woman’s been trying to get ahold of you. I didn’t get her name.”
“Ignore it,” Mark says, giving relatively little thought to the matter. He already knows the answers to the ‘who’ and the ‘why’, more than that he knows that acting like an asshole and not reciprocating any of her attempts to get in contact with him will just force her to move on. And that’s what they all need to do, all four of them that got mixed into this accidental quadrangle.
“Funny,” Laura remarks, balling up a yellow post-it that previously had sat next to her. If he had to guess, it had been a phone number. “That’s what your boyfriend said you’d say.”
---
O’Malley and Stevens die within minutes of each other and Seattle Grace, as a whole, comes to one giant standstill. Alex loses his shit, Meredith takes up residence in a locked on-call room with Cristina, Lexie avoids him at all costs, and Derek looks perpetually worn out for a week straight.
Owen, meanwhile, blames himself six ways from Sunday over O’Malley, something about him enlisting and how he would’ve been at the hospital if it hadn’t been for that, and finds his way into Joe’s and back into the stool next to Mark that he’d occupied weeks ago before.
It’s easy like that, for about the first week. They drown their sorrows in too much alcohol and learn the art of coping without anyone but themselves once more, something long forgotten, at least for Mark. It’s been too long since he’s been out on his own, without Derek or Callie or Lexie, hell even Addison.
The second week, they make the mistake of learning to cope via each other, taking this back to Mark’s hotel room because it’s last call and Joe says they’ve had more than enough anyways, and the next thing he knows he’s fumbling with buttons and zippers and unfamiliar territory.
They’re late to work the next morning. No one gives them looks. No one asks. It only made it so that they didn’t have to acknowledge that anything at all happened between them. It gave them the option.
Lexie moves her stuff out of his hotel room, an empty second drawer in the dresser, and his mouth is hot on Owen’s neck that night, full of need and potential, Owen’s fingers slipping down below his waistband, a sharp intake of breath here, a shift of the hips there.
Costa Rica rears its head once more just days later.
---
”Days like these, I almost miss the ER.” Mark says, hours later, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky and the community center has gotten that much stuffier. The fan in the corner of the room only serves to recirculate warm, recycled air, and no matter how long they’re here Mark doesn’t think he’s going to get used to that. He’s used to Manhattan, and, lately, rainy old Seattle. The transition from that to Costa Rica is not an easy one to make. “Half the time I’m almost hoping for one of the zip lines to malfunction or something. I feel like a damn intern again.”
“Consider the work we’re doing,” Owen says, meaning it as an agreement. They do stitches, provide bandages, give antibiotics for various rashes. They’re surgeons, admired surgeons, and they’re doing grunt work they used to gladly shove off onto the people under them, usually the ones they disliked. For all intensive purposes they are interns. “There’s a reason these stints only last six months to a year. We’re overqualified - they know that.”
Mark leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers against his cargo pant-clad knee. Designer clothes were the first things to go here; you wore what could get dirty and what didn’t make you feel like you were going to suffocate in the heat. “Which one?”
Owen frowns. “Which one what?”
“Are we staying six months or a year?” Mark clarifies, meeting Owen’s eyes. It wasn’t something they’d really discussed; they just kind of went, no exit plans, hell, no plans at all.
“I don’t know.” Owen reaches for his water bottle, the plastic crinkling under his grip. “It’s not something either of us has to decide right now.”
“Right,” Mark replies, noncommittally. “We should at some point though. Soon.”
The other man nods, pressing his lips tight together, thinking on something, before he says, “Laura said something about that phone call didn’t she?”
“Laura says a lot of things.” He doesn’t know why his answer is so vague; it serves no purpose. “But yeah, she might’ve mentioned that.”
“And it’s got you thinking.”
“And it’s got me thinking,” he repeats. “Why? Is that a bad thing?”
Owen shrugs. “Depends.”
“You really should work on being less verbose,” Mark says, heavy on the sarcasm. Owen narrows his eyes at him and Mark just doesn’t care. He should be used to this by now; they both should. “It’s not like I’m saying I changed my mind and we should go back. I told her to ignore the call, tell her I’m not here or I’m busy. I just think that maybe we should figure out what we’re going to do.”
“We will.” Another short answer, and Mark resists the urge to groan aloud, settles for turning his head so that he’s looking out the window and not the man across from him.
He misses the days where he used to be the one with the worst commitment issues in relationships. Because that’s what this all comes down to - it’s not just their stay here that they’re discussing the length of, the prospects of, it’s them.
---
“No. No way.” Mark couldn’t down the rest of his scotch fast enough. He shook his head as he motioned to Joe for a refill. “I didn’t think it was a good idea then, and I still don’t.”
Owen’s face was serious, had been for days, and there were new lines around his eyes, from something other than laughter. “I need to get out of here,” he confided, finally, after a moment of doing nothing but staring straight ahead at him or, more likely, something just behind him. “Before I thought I needed to go back. But now I think I just need to get away from this place.”
“You’re serious about this.” It was a stupid thing to say; he could already tell from the other man’s expression, his body language, his tone. He wasn’t playing around, and that equally worried, scared, and almost excited Mark. “Well then you should go.”
As of that point, they’d wound up in each other’s beds for five out of the last seven nights, but that discussion that people tend to have in some form or another, the ‘what are we doing’ one, hadn’t even thought about occurring, a result of their time together being mainly confined to the bar and his hotel room, usually between the hours of eleven at night and five in the morning. People didn’t have lengthy conversations about anything of importance, or at least anything they hope to remember for later, at those hours. It was because of this that Mark didn’t have any recourse; even if he wanted Owen to stay for selfish reasons, and he didn’t even know that he did, it wasn’t like there was any way for him to say so. Mark had his share of affairs; they all run their course eventually.
“Yeah.” Owen’s reply lacked any form of enthusiasm. In fact Mark could almost hear disappointment there. It confused him.
“That’s what you wanted to hear right?” He pressed, “I mean why else would you bring it up?”
He wasn’t at all prepared for Owen to look him in the eye, deadly calm, and say, “Because I was wondering if you’d go with me.”
Mark certainly wasn’t prepared for the implications of that, and so he cleared his throat, drumming his fingers against the bar, next to his untouched, newly refilled glass. Of course, he ended up cracking a joke instead of giving a straight answer. “What was that about city boys not being able to handle it out there?”
“Maybe I think that I underestimated this particular city boy,” Owen offered, an admission that perhaps meant more below the surface, if Mark really wanted to read into these things. He was sure that would only make it more complicated - he didn’t want complicated. Complicated and plans and serious conversations and gestures is what killed his relationship with Lexie, perhaps prematurely, and he just wasn’t willing to go there again. He liked easy. He liked this for what it was in its current incarnation.
He surprised himself more than he cares to admit when he said, “Okay.”
They’re gone within the week. No plans, just get up and go, and make it up as they go along. But that only works for so long.
---
Mark makes the first phone call he’s made in a month and a half that same afternoon. His fingers hover over the numbers for a few seconds, trying to remember phone numbers and their respective owners, before he finally punches in a sequence of eleven and listens to it ring.
“Hello,” Derek picks up, on the fifth ring, just as Mark’s about to hang up before the call goes to voicemail.
He swallows and makes an attempt at remembering that Derek should be the last person that he’s worried about talking to. It’s still feels odd; it’s been awhile. “Hey,” Mark replies, in kind, unsure of what exactly to open with.
“Mark?” Derek asks, like he can’t quite believe it. “Where…” he pauses, shuffling footsteps and a closing door, like he just went inside the first on-call room or storage closet he could find. “Where are you?”
“Costa Rica,” he says, can’t stop himself from laughing afterwards. It sounds absurd. Even to him. “Figured Richard would’ve shared that with you.”
“And you expected me to believe him?” He can’t quite blame him for not buying it. “I figured you went back to New York or something. And Owen…?”
It comes off like a question, and so Mark treats it as such. “He’s here too.”
“Costa Rica,” Derek repeats, and he can almost hear the other man shake his head, incredulous. “I have to ask, exactly how much did you have to drink before you made that decision?”
“Not nearly enough,” Mark replies, which is true enough he supposes. “How are things there? I haven’t talked to anyone since I left.”
“Things are…better.” Better than when they left, of course, because when they left everyone was still recovering, trying to get back that sense of normalcy. It hadn’t been a month since George and Izzie died before they left. “Meredith said Lexie’s been trying to call you.”
“I know.”
“You should at least call her back.”
“I know.” He sighs, heavily, searching for an excuse that Derek can’t necessarily shoot down. He goes with the old standby. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Apparently.” Mark’s eyes find the window across from him, Owen outside, pointing at something up in the trees, gesturing something to the guy next to him, presumably their other guest that Laura had mentioned earlier. Owen looks better here, with a tan and some decent amount of sleep, than he did back in rainy Seattle, worn down and tired. As if Derek can read his mind, he asks, “So does this mean you’re coming back any time soon?”
“We haven’t really figured that out yet.” It’s sort of his reason for calling too. Not to flat out ask whether he should stay or go, and when that should happen, but to get a handle on what he’s missing, and if he’s really missing it all that much.
“We?”
“We.” There’s a certain emphasis on the word; he’s trying to tell Derek something without actually saying it, and Derek makes this noise that doesn’t translate quite so well without the accompanying facial expression, so Mark has no clue if he gets it or not, much less what he thinks of it. He’s about to add that they’re sort of a package deal, that they came here together so they’ll leave together, except he doesn’t know how true that is. Conceivably, one could leave while the other stayed. “Could be another few months. Could be another year.”
“It’s not permanent?” Derek asks, but it’s more cautious now, like any of his earlier preconceptions about Mark and this situation have been put aside.
“It’s Costa Rica,” Mark replies, not at all answering his question, not even trying to. “I guess we’ll leave the same way we came in. When it feels like it’s a good idea.”
The conversation doesn’t last much longer. They fall back into the realm of meaningless small talk, and he’s hung up not two minutes later, his hand lingering over the receiver a moment longer than necessary. He’d missed Derek, and it hadn’t really set in until he talked to him.
He misses Derek, his longest lasting relationship, the last of what he has from his life back in New York, and there are days when he misses Callie and Lexie, and even the gossiping nurses and the coffee from that place he and Derek would go to avoid the watered down shit from the hospital, and sometimes he even misses rainy old Seattle.
But it’s not the same for Owen. It’s why he doesn’t need a set deadline, a plan for making a move. There’s nothing waiting for him back there. No one waiting for him.
Mark just has to decide which life he can stand to miss more and for how long.
---
The second night they were there, there was a party. Nothing elaborate, just good food and mingling. Custom, according to Mitch, with new people, as a way to welcome them to the community. They took the word seriously here, making sure everyone was a part of everything. No one was made to feel like an outsider, unless they made themselves one.
It took Mark an hour before someone tried to hit on him. It took him five minutes of talking to the rather bold blonde to tell her he was already involved with someone.
It would be the first time, and far from the last, that he said it, concerning Owen. He was involved. They were involved. He wasn’t just in this for a couple of quick fucks. And it shocked him more than it shocked her, if the look she gave him right before she sauntered off was any indication.
He pulled Owen inside the next chance he got, to one of the empty rooms, pressing him into the door as soon as it closed behind them, their bodies flush against each other, and kissed him like it was all he’d been thinking about all day. Maybe it was. His mouth had moved from the other man’s lips to where his neck met his shoulder, exposed by his thin dress shirt, the first two buttons undone, before Owen had the presence of mind to grab ahold of both of his hands.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Owen reminded him, the raise of his eyebrow letting him know that they’d be continuing this later, just before he left.
Mark stayed in that room for a minute or two longer than he should have, composing himself, and when he came out, he walked off toward the fringes of the party, the back wall of the community center where no one else was. He let out a breath and wished for a cigarette, a habit he’d lost after college, aware of just how desperate he’d both felt and seemed as he pulled Owen inside. It was disconcerting, to put it mildly, and far too genuine.
Footsteps scuffed against the dirt, the click-clack of flip flops, and he didn’t turn around at the sound, just listened.
“Hey,” the blonde from earlier spoke clearly, not at all in the tone she’d previously used. That had been something husky, meant to seduce; this made her sound younger. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he replied, managing to sound like it too, years of practice, and faced her. “Persistent aren’t you?”
She frowned, confused, before a smile crossed her lips. “Oh that? I wasn’t actually hitting on you.”
“Really?” He gave her a raised eyebrow of his own. He didn’t quite believe her. Still, his reply was teasing, “It’s okay, you don’t have to be embarrassed. You’re not the first.”
“Believe what you want. I wasn’t hitting on you,” she reiterated, coyly, “I was just confirming a theory.”
“And what’s that?”
“You and Owen.”
He almost recovered, played dumb, told her she was barking up the wrong tree, but she gave him this look like she’d just see right through him anyway and there was no sense in trying. Instead, “That obvious?”
“I’m pretty perceptive,” she replied, a halfway answer. “Is it supposed to be a secret?”
“We haven’t really…” he looked down at the dirt underneath his feet, a small cloud of it rising as he kicked at it with the two of his boot.
“Discussed it?” She supplied, coming ever so closer to him.
He frowned. He wasn’t so sure this was the conversation “You weren’t kidding about the perception thing were you?”
“I think you’ll come to find I’m very honest.”
“I will.”
“You will.” She glanced over her shoulder then, looking back a group of people just inside her sightline. “I’ll see you around.”
Mark nodded, eyes on the ground, and when he looked back up she was already gone.
---
He goes to sleep in a half-empty bed, and he wakes to one as well. The spot next to him is still warm though, when he wakes up, and when his eyes adjust to the dim light that’s filtering, the beginnings of the sunrise, he can see that the doors leading off to the deck that they very rarely use are ajar.
Pulling on the jeans that he had left slung over the chair last night, he nudges the door the rest of the way open with his foot, peering outside. It’s just Owen, sitting in one of the pair of chairs that occupy the space. If he hears the door, he doesn’t react.
“This is new,” Mark says, the icebreaker, and Owen only nods. After a moment, Mark takes a seat in the other chair. “I thought you were five seconds from going to war with our friendly neighborhood monkeys?”
Owen’s quiet for a long moment, and Mark watches his eyes scan the trees laid out in front of them, ignoring the zip lines and the houses that he can see in the distance, if he squints. Then, “They’re not so bad.”
The problem with trying to have a conversation with Owen is he gives you nothing to go off of, so you better have a game plan before you start. Mark’s been slowly figuring that out over the last few months. Today he knows what he wants to say, he just doesn’t know how to say it exactly. He wants to say that he’s in this for the long haul, that he’s decided he isn’t interested in heading back to Seattle in three months, keeping this short and sweet. He wants to say that these people and this place make him feel better somehow, a calm he hasn’t felt in years. He wants to say that Owen looks damn good in the sunlight, and he thinks he’s heard him laugh more in the last month than he ever did in Seattle, and it’s nice and he wants that. He wants this.
He wants this because he’s good here, they’re good here, and that’s slowly but surely become the most important thing to him.
It would sound too cheesy, like some bad movie script, if he said them the way they come out in his head, and he spent the better part of last night trying to find a way around that. Trying to find the words to say to a man who says so few and manages to communicate the rest of it in his actions.
“We don’t need to make a decision yet; you’re right.” He starts, folding his hands. Owen’s looking at him, discreetly, out of the corner of his eye. “But when we do leave, I don’t want to leave this behind.”
The this in question isn’t Costa Rica; it isn’t a village of treehouses or the friendships they’ve made. It’s them. It’s that thing that they never gave a definition, not in Seattle, not after that party, and not here, on this deck as the sun’s rising. Maybe it doesn’t even need one anymore, maybe it never did. But he knows that the reason he’s been so antsy about knowing the when, about getting an answer out of Owen, was because he wanted an answer about them. He wanted to know that Owen thought this was something worth pursuing.
And to his credit, Owen must get it because he doesn’t ask for clarification. He stays still, brow furrowed in the way that means he’s thinking, and Mark waits with a feeling of anxiousness that he hasn’t felt since he took his high school girlfriend to prom.
“This is a rest stop,” Owen tells him, finally. “There’s always going to be another one. A new place. I’m not going back to Seattle, not for long at least. And I’m not staying here forever either. I keep moving, and it keeps me sane.”
“I noticed.”
Owen trains those eyes on him now, unflinching gaze, and Mark has to fight to keep on looking at him straight on. “You keep asking when and it doesn’t really matter. As far as I’m concerned you already signed up for this.”
It’s then that he gets it. Why it is that Owen hasn’t given him an answer until now. He didn’t think there was an answer to give; he’d already made his assumptions.
They both let their eyes drop at nearly the same time, Owen’s finding that spot in the canopy that he’d been focused on earlier, while Mark settles back into his chair, sinking into comfortable silence that for once he doesn’t mind so much.