what i'm trying to say {mark/owen}

[slybrunette]

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

Comments

[crickets]

First, this:


Okay, I'm back and using library time well. Gosh I don't even know where to start. Still, even after re-reading.

Those first two paragraphs where you're not really sure who it is in that bed, keeping it a little mysterious right at the start, really worked. And then when you come in with the third pargraph and the sort of grumpy "Move," he murmurs, not so gently shoving the arm off of him... really set a different kind of mood. I like it!

And speaking of the opening, I love that you opened right in Costa Rica, not only that, months into their stay. But then you jump back to before the trip so it creates this sort of pseudo established-relationship fic where they're just in it already, but then we get the opportunity to go back and see how it all started.

Which, by the way, the way you believably, simply and directly defied the canon is just brilliant. I love it. Setting them up as pals even before the incident with Cristina. Lines like this: Owen talks more when he's been liquored up enough. Love that. It certainly seems accurate. The picture of Mark getting him to talk and then not being able to after the incident. Very believable and organic to what we already knew in canon.

And then after the deaths and the their coping together and then this: 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. And Lexie moving out and more that I won't quote. (But totally could.) Yeah I'm shallow, that was hot. Vague with just the right amount of perfect detail. Love that style.

Back to the tree-houses. I really liked Laura and her snark. Especially that last line. "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." Hee. We likes her! And Mark being annoyed with his Do you enjoy phrasing everything that way? So cute.

I kind of love the snark in this. It really fits. Mark's You really should work on being less verbose is perfect. And him being so worried about what Owen wants to do next, and trying to suss out whether or not this thing between them is something permanent or not. It's such a role reversal but it works so incredibly well because of the picture you paint and because of who Owen is and the way he thinks about things. I like Mark being the frantic one, the one dragging Owen away from the group, with lines like kissed him like it was all he'd been thinking about all day. Maybe it was, and Owen being the calm one, the steady one. But at the same time Mark being so sure of the two of them: He was involved. They were involved.

I also really love the conversation with Derek and Mark realizing only then that he misses him. Isn't that so how things happen in real life? You don't know how much you miss a person until they call you up after a couple months and then, bang, it hits you.

That last scene at the end, that picture of Owen on the deck, it is beautiful, I have to agree with Mark on that one. His inner monologue is fabulous, summing it up here: 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. You really have captured Owen here, and this is possibly one of the biggest reasons I love him so much. There's something refreshing about a character like that.

Anyway, this is perfection. I don't know what you were so worried about. And I still kind of can't believe that you actually wrote my crazy wtf prompt. Despite knowing you were doing it, looking back at the other possibilities, I'm just shocked you picked this one. It really was a shot in the dark. THANK YOU. This is an image that hopefully will remain burned into my brain for a long long time.

[slybrunette]

Damn, I totally forgot to link to that picture/website. I'll have to do that when I crosspost.

I didn't want to do my normal story of working through the angst until they become a couple and like...end it after the first kiss or whatever. I rarely write established, unless it's canon, so this was a refreshing change from that.

Remember when I said I fit it into canon somehow. I totally wasn't lying. In my head, that thing with Cristina is more of a turning point for several different things than it was on the show, and I'm gonna play with that a lot soon.

I was so worried about Laura though. OC's...well, no one really likes OC's. But she's there to drive the plot, in a way. It couldn't just be the Mark/Owen show, with no one else involved. It just didn't feel genuine, especially since I write ensemble a lot, and I feel like I need other characters around. So I'm so relieved you liked her and didn't find her annoying or anything.

I think Mark always missed Derek, it just wasn't actively, you know? I miss people a lot, in the back of my mind, but when you talk to that person and everything just comes back to you? That's killer.

Anyways, I'm so, so, SO glad that you liked this! I had so many doubts about it and you have erased all of them. It was a challenge, but in the end it was one that was well worth it. Thank you for putting this out there, getting me to break my writer's block, and for enjoying it.