where you go when the lights are turned down low {alex, cristina}
Title: Where You Go When The Lights Are Turned Down Low
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex, Cristina.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 981
Prompt: #3 - Forget for 5drunkfics
Author's Note: bebitched wanted Grey's fic with two people drinking...in a morgue. And thus this was born.
Summary: Post S5 finale. Alex has never been down here before.
Alex has never been down here before.
The dim lights towards the back of the room are still on but he left the main ones off, content with his place in the darkness. The room smells like chemicals and the temperature discrepancy between here and anywhere else in the hospital is just enough to be noticeable. It burns a little, when he breathes in too deep, so he tries not to, slow inhale, heavy exhale just above the rim of his glass that turns it foggy before he tips it back.
There was alcohol here already, tequila and scotch, glasses turned upside down nearby, only half hidden, and he has the inclination to believe that the presence of the tequila at least is far from coincidental. He breaks into the scotch instead. It’s more appropriate, somehow, not that he supposes anyone will be around to care or analyze or whatever.
It’s nearing midnight and the hospital morgue is empty, desolate, locked up for the night assuming you didn’t know how to pick a lock. Upstairs, Izzie’s asleep, ignorant to the events of the past few hours besides her own problems, her own condition. It’s probably all that she can handle, all that she should handle, if you ask him, but it wasn’t his decision, it was Cristina’s, and Meredith and him had just gone along with it because it made it that much easier to pretend that nothing had changed.
George was the last body to come into the morgue tonight, and that’s proof enough that everything’s changed right there.
When the doors open, soft, he doesn’t move but he looks, cautious eyes that follow the unclear silhouette of a woman as she walks in. A little closer and he can make out Cristina’s features.
“Off shift,” he says, when her eyes flick between him and the bottle next to him, the near-empty glass in his hand. “And no, it’s not mine.”
“I know,” she replies, and it’s unclear just what part of his words she’s referring to it. Probably all of it. She takes a seat on the floor next to him, cold and unforgiving linoleum beneath them, and he lets her wrap her hand around the bottle, run her fingers over the label before she brings it to her lips. Cristina frowns, swallows anyway, and sets it back down between them.
He waits a moment before he says, “That’s what the glasses are for.”
“Like you care,” she retorts, and he doesn’t, but he doesn’t know where that’s been either, otherwise he’d probably have forgone the glasses as well. Then again, he doesn’t really know where those have been either. “Why are you down here?” She asks, another beat, cutting silence.
Alex empties the rest of his glass, his head falling back against the wall as he sets it back down again. “Same reason you’re here. Can’t go home, can’t sleep. Don’t really want to think straight.”
“Right,” is all the confirmation he needs. She shifts higher along the wall, brings her knees up, and refills his glass before she takes another sip straight out of the bottle. He doesn’t look at her while she does it, and instead seeks out the rows of metal drawers, half-wondering which one George is encased in, not that he’s going to look; it’s just that he wonders about some things, about the afterlife and things he’s convinced he doesn’t believe in, and if he can let his gaze linger under the guise of false irritation towards her then he will. “Someone’s going to have to tell her tomorrow.”
When she doesn’t volunteer and doesn’t continue, he says, “It wouldn’t sound good coming from me.”
“It won’t sound good coming from anyone.”
He looks at her now. “You’re channeling Meredith.”
“I’m not someone who’s good with emotions - not mine and not anyone else’s.” He knows where she’s going with this, but lets her continue anyways. “And neither are you.”
“Write it on a fucking post-it,” he says, and he’s fully aware that stating that out loud pretty much makes him an asshole, and probably several other things, but as far as he’s concerned they all have a free pass today. Alex wishes that Meredith was here, to confirm this, tell him that grief, in whatever form it takes, makes people act differently. Loss is a lot like love - it makes people crazy. But she isn’t, and this is worse for her than it is for him.
George was her friend. To him, George was someone he’d recently come to an understanding with. Someone he respected, not that he was ready to admit that out loud to everyone. But he was never a friend. He was part of them, their little group, but he wasn’t a friend.
Cristina gives him no crap over the comment. Instead, she decides, “It would have to be Meredith. Or Bailey. Bailey would know how to tell her.” She grabs the bottle again, breathing out over the neck of it, a soft but forceful “dammit” that seems to echo off the walls, and Alex nearly winces at the exhaustion in her voice, mixed with desperation.
Today has been far too much to take, for everyone. Even them.
His hand shakes, just a little, his fingers clenched around a glass that’s now empty, and he thinks back to that stupid fight he got into with George, the conversation at the bar later, George walking Izzie the rest of the way down the aisle, the look of understanding they shared, even later, and knows that he can’t swallow the lump that’s made its way into his throat much less any more of that scotch.
No amount of alcohol is going to fix this, but it numbs them both to the point that they can think about things like this, temporarily, and that reprieve has always been enough for people like them.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Alex, Cristina.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 981
Prompt: #3 - Forget for 5drunkfics
Author's Note: bebitched wanted Grey's fic with two people drinking...in a morgue. And thus this was born.
Summary: Post S5 finale. Alex has never been down here before.
Alex has never been down here before.
The dim lights towards the back of the room are still on but he left the main ones off, content with his place in the darkness. The room smells like chemicals and the temperature discrepancy between here and anywhere else in the hospital is just enough to be noticeable. It burns a little, when he breathes in too deep, so he tries not to, slow inhale, heavy exhale just above the rim of his glass that turns it foggy before he tips it back.
There was alcohol here already, tequila and scotch, glasses turned upside down nearby, only half hidden, and he has the inclination to believe that the presence of the tequila at least is far from coincidental. He breaks into the scotch instead. It’s more appropriate, somehow, not that he supposes anyone will be around to care or analyze or whatever.
It’s nearing midnight and the hospital morgue is empty, desolate, locked up for the night assuming you didn’t know how to pick a lock. Upstairs, Izzie’s asleep, ignorant to the events of the past few hours besides her own problems, her own condition. It’s probably all that she can handle, all that she should handle, if you ask him, but it wasn’t his decision, it was Cristina’s, and Meredith and him had just gone along with it because it made it that much easier to pretend that nothing had changed.
George was the last body to come into the morgue tonight, and that’s proof enough that everything’s changed right there.
When the doors open, soft, he doesn’t move but he looks, cautious eyes that follow the unclear silhouette of a woman as she walks in. A little closer and he can make out Cristina’s features.
“Off shift,” he says, when her eyes flick between him and the bottle next to him, the near-empty glass in his hand. “And no, it’s not mine.”
“I know,” she replies, and it’s unclear just what part of his words she’s referring to it. Probably all of it. She takes a seat on the floor next to him, cold and unforgiving linoleum beneath them, and he lets her wrap her hand around the bottle, run her fingers over the label before she brings it to her lips. Cristina frowns, swallows anyway, and sets it back down between them.
He waits a moment before he says, “That’s what the glasses are for.”
“Like you care,” she retorts, and he doesn’t, but he doesn’t know where that’s been either, otherwise he’d probably have forgone the glasses as well. Then again, he doesn’t really know where those have been either. “Why are you down here?” She asks, another beat, cutting silence.
Alex empties the rest of his glass, his head falling back against the wall as he sets it back down again. “Same reason you’re here. Can’t go home, can’t sleep. Don’t really want to think straight.”
“Right,” is all the confirmation he needs. She shifts higher along the wall, brings her knees up, and refills his glass before she takes another sip straight out of the bottle. He doesn’t look at her while she does it, and instead seeks out the rows of metal drawers, half-wondering which one George is encased in, not that he’s going to look; it’s just that he wonders about some things, about the afterlife and things he’s convinced he doesn’t believe in, and if he can let his gaze linger under the guise of false irritation towards her then he will. “Someone’s going to have to tell her tomorrow.”
When she doesn’t volunteer and doesn’t continue, he says, “It wouldn’t sound good coming from me.”
“It won’t sound good coming from anyone.”
He looks at her now. “You’re channeling Meredith.”
“I’m not someone who’s good with emotions - not mine and not anyone else’s.” He knows where she’s going with this, but lets her continue anyways. “And neither are you.”
“Write it on a fucking post-it,” he says, and he’s fully aware that stating that out loud pretty much makes him an asshole, and probably several other things, but as far as he’s concerned they all have a free pass today. Alex wishes that Meredith was here, to confirm this, tell him that grief, in whatever form it takes, makes people act differently. Loss is a lot like love - it makes people crazy. But she isn’t, and this is worse for her than it is for him.
George was her friend. To him, George was someone he’d recently come to an understanding with. Someone he respected, not that he was ready to admit that out loud to everyone. But he was never a friend. He was part of them, their little group, but he wasn’t a friend.
Cristina gives him no crap over the comment. Instead, she decides, “It would have to be Meredith. Or Bailey. Bailey would know how to tell her.” She grabs the bottle again, breathing out over the neck of it, a soft but forceful “dammit” that seems to echo off the walls, and Alex nearly winces at the exhaustion in her voice, mixed with desperation.
Today has been far too much to take, for everyone. Even them.
His hand shakes, just a little, his fingers clenched around a glass that’s now empty, and he thinks back to that stupid fight he got into with George, the conversation at the bar later, George walking Izzie the rest of the way down the aisle, the look of understanding they shared, even later, and knows that he can’t swallow the lump that’s made its way into his throat much less any more of that scotch.
No amount of alcohol is going to fix this, but it numbs them both to the point that they can think about things like this, temporarily, and that reprieve has always been enough for people like them.