fic: I should go and this should end... (Alex)
Title: I should go and this should end...
Character: Alex (with George and Reed)
Word Count: 1100
Rating: R for violent imagery and language.
Prompt: Alex, visiting George's grave, after Death And All His Friends. From leobrat . Only... ah... this turned into something else entirely. Dear God. Also, angst. Shed loads of it.
Disclaimer: At my user info. page.
Author's Note: Title from 'Where I Stood', Missy Higgins. Lyrics from 'See You Soon', Lisa Mitchell.
In a bullet proof vest,
With the windows all closed,
I'll be doing my best,
I'll see you soon.
In a telescope lens,
And when all you want is friends,
I'll see you soon.
At noon on christmas day the sky explodes.
He buys a turkey sandwich from the hospital cafeteria and sits outside to eat. It's the only concession to the occasions he's allowing himself.
He's not on shift, he's not even on call, and he eats his turkey sandwich version of christmas lunch in the rain at the hospital because he has no where else to be.
- - -
Rain shakes the ground around him and lightning forks like a tree across the ever darkening horizon. Thunder rumbles through his blood, interferes with the beating of his heart and as he stands to walk back inside, crumples the brown paper remnants of his lunch in his fist, the thought of facing the afternoon is suddenly more than he can bear.
He contemplates the relative safety of Joe's. But it's not what it once was. He's not who he once was, and Joe has developed an increasingly uncomfortable protectiveness that itches under his fingernails.
He wants to be drunk and morose.
Drunk and morose is no longer an option at Joe's. Not if he wants to avoid the pity and the concern and the misguided theory that he needs looking after.
- - -
He buys a bottle of something cheap and firey. Sits in a park he doesn't recognise in an area of the city he's never visited before and downs the whole lot. It burns a path to his liver that feels a lot like the trajectory of a bullet.
And he would know.
- - -
He drives drunk and doesn't think twice. He's cheated death more times than he can count.
Angry scars and dark-splitting nightmares the tangible proof of his own immortality.
So he says.
- - -
The car park is depressingly empty. He grins. Slow and shaky. Risks a glance in his rear-view mirror and doesn't recognise the ghost reflected there.
Good.
His foot disappears into a puddle. Almost ankle deep. The cold water seeps through his shoe. Drenches his sock. Grounds him more completely than the booze ever could.
- - -
They're all here.
Well, so he's been told.
O'Malley.
Adamson.
Percy.
Duquette.
...
Clark.
Seattle Grace's own personal burial ground. He picks out a spot for himself and wonders how long 'til he fills it.
And he can't even gather the energy to be bitter.
- - -
He picks his way across the sodden ground to the only location he's vaguely familiar with. Uses headstones like crutches to keep him upright and mostly moving forward.
Someone has visited recently. Perhaps as recently as a few hours ago. The flowers are rain soaked but otherwise intact. He plucks one from the bunch, fingers thick and fumbling.
He forgot to bring his own.
He doesn't think O'Malley will mind.
And who even cares if he does?
“Fuck you, George O'Malley.”
He turns then. Wild and wired. Screams.
“Fuck you ALL...”
- - -
He staggers. 'Til the dark inky black of night is bleeding into the horizon, clinging to his shoulders like a cloak that he can't shake off.
As heavy as his own skin.
- - -
She's at the end of a row. He notes with a tinge of something that might be sadness, might be relief, might be nothing at all, that she was an only child.
She was someone's only child.
She was only someone's child.
The word placement is telling.
And now he's seen her brains and her blood and her insides.
Only, more on the outside.
He vomits. Has the decency to be circumspect about it. To turn away and to clean himself up before looking back.
He blames the bourbon because it's so much easier that way.
Because his dreams are filled with girls and screams and bullet holes between eye sockets and he doesn't even remember all that much.
But he does remember that.
And so it's easier to blame the bourbon.
- - -
He drops the single bloom. Watches it bounce slightly before settling in the grass. Strangely cinematic in it's vibrancy.
A splash of colour against the never-ending grey.
- - -
There was a funeral. Obviously.
He was still attached to a ventilator as they were lowering her into the ground. He likes to think he wouldn't have gone anyway but he knows it's a lie.
He has a black suit in the back of his closet that tells him he would have gone. Painful shoes that pinch at his toes that prove he's been before.
This time he didn't get a choice.
- - -
They don't speak her name within hearing distance of him and he can't for the life of him figure out why.
Though he will admit it may have something to do with the seventeen hours he spent folded into the corner of the supply room where she died. Trying not to get his feet wet on the rivers of blood he could still see.
Red gore working its way across the stained linoleum to soak into his bones.
They don't speak her name but he hears it anyway. An echoing repeat in the space where his heart and lungs used to be.
- - -
He knows he's going crazy, loony, stark raving mad.
It's been terrifyingly inevitable his whole life. And you can only fight something like that for so long.
Meredith watches him like a hawk. Brings him food. Buys him vitamins like he's the child she never got to meet.
He'd tell her to go to hell. If he could be bothered.
All his blood leaked out once.
He's not entirely convinced he'll ever get it back.
- - -
He heard a rumour that you can buy guns from the superstore.
- - -
Laying across the earth that separates them, he's flat on his back, eyes defiantly open into the rain. It feels a little something like crying.
He wonders how much rain it would take to have him sinking down there to meet her.
Which is all kinds of weird because he doesn't even remember really liking her. Maybe he should have slept with her when he had the chance. Maybe that would make what he's feeling and not feeling and wishing he could feel, a whole lot more justifiable.
But in the end it's just him. And the rain. And her body, six feet beneath the surface and fading fast.
- - -
“Merry fucking Christmas, everyone...”
Character: Alex (with George and Reed)
Word Count: 1100
Rating: R for violent imagery and language.
Prompt: Alex, visiting George's grave, after Death And All His Friends. From leobrat . Only... ah... this turned into something else entirely. Dear God. Also, angst. Shed loads of it.
Disclaimer: At my user info. page.
Author's Note: Title from 'Where I Stood', Missy Higgins. Lyrics from 'See You Soon', Lisa Mitchell.
In a bullet proof vest,
With the windows all closed,
I'll be doing my best,
I'll see you soon.
In a telescope lens,
And when all you want is friends,
I'll see you soon.
At noon on christmas day the sky explodes.
He buys a turkey sandwich from the hospital cafeteria and sits outside to eat. It's the only concession to the occasions he's allowing himself.
He's not on shift, he's not even on call, and he eats his turkey sandwich version of christmas lunch in the rain at the hospital because he has no where else to be.
- - -
Rain shakes the ground around him and lightning forks like a tree across the ever darkening horizon. Thunder rumbles through his blood, interferes with the beating of his heart and as he stands to walk back inside, crumples the brown paper remnants of his lunch in his fist, the thought of facing the afternoon is suddenly more than he can bear.
He contemplates the relative safety of Joe's. But it's not what it once was. He's not who he once was, and Joe has developed an increasingly uncomfortable protectiveness that itches under his fingernails.
He wants to be drunk and morose.
Drunk and morose is no longer an option at Joe's. Not if he wants to avoid the pity and the concern and the misguided theory that he needs looking after.
- - -
He buys a bottle of something cheap and firey. Sits in a park he doesn't recognise in an area of the city he's never visited before and downs the whole lot. It burns a path to his liver that feels a lot like the trajectory of a bullet.
And he would know.
- - -
He drives drunk and doesn't think twice. He's cheated death more times than he can count.
Angry scars and dark-splitting nightmares the tangible proof of his own immortality.
So he says.
- - -
The car park is depressingly empty. He grins. Slow and shaky. Risks a glance in his rear-view mirror and doesn't recognise the ghost reflected there.
Good.
His foot disappears into a puddle. Almost ankle deep. The cold water seeps through his shoe. Drenches his sock. Grounds him more completely than the booze ever could.
- - -
They're all here.
Well, so he's been told.
O'Malley.
Adamson.
Percy.
Duquette.
...
Clark.
Seattle Grace's own personal burial ground. He picks out a spot for himself and wonders how long 'til he fills it.
And he can't even gather the energy to be bitter.
- - -
He picks his way across the sodden ground to the only location he's vaguely familiar with. Uses headstones like crutches to keep him upright and mostly moving forward.
Someone has visited recently. Perhaps as recently as a few hours ago. The flowers are rain soaked but otherwise intact. He plucks one from the bunch, fingers thick and fumbling.
He forgot to bring his own.
He doesn't think O'Malley will mind.
And who even cares if he does?
“Fuck you, George O'Malley.”
He turns then. Wild and wired. Screams.
“Fuck you ALL...”
- - -
He staggers. 'Til the dark inky black of night is bleeding into the horizon, clinging to his shoulders like a cloak that he can't shake off.
As heavy as his own skin.
- - -
She's at the end of a row. He notes with a tinge of something that might be sadness, might be relief, might be nothing at all, that she was an only child.
She was someone's only child.
She was only someone's child.
The word placement is telling.
And now he's seen her brains and her blood and her insides.
Only, more on the outside.
He vomits. Has the decency to be circumspect about it. To turn away and to clean himself up before looking back.
He blames the bourbon because it's so much easier that way.
Because his dreams are filled with girls and screams and bullet holes between eye sockets and he doesn't even remember all that much.
But he does remember that.
And so it's easier to blame the bourbon.
- - -
He drops the single bloom. Watches it bounce slightly before settling in the grass. Strangely cinematic in it's vibrancy.
A splash of colour against the never-ending grey.
- - -
There was a funeral. Obviously.
He was still attached to a ventilator as they were lowering her into the ground. He likes to think he wouldn't have gone anyway but he knows it's a lie.
He has a black suit in the back of his closet that tells him he would have gone. Painful shoes that pinch at his toes that prove he's been before.
This time he didn't get a choice.
- - -
They don't speak her name within hearing distance of him and he can't for the life of him figure out why.
Though he will admit it may have something to do with the seventeen hours he spent folded into the corner of the supply room where she died. Trying not to get his feet wet on the rivers of blood he could still see.
Red gore working its way across the stained linoleum to soak into his bones.
They don't speak her name but he hears it anyway. An echoing repeat in the space where his heart and lungs used to be.
- - -
He knows he's going crazy, loony, stark raving mad.
It's been terrifyingly inevitable his whole life. And you can only fight something like that for so long.
Meredith watches him like a hawk. Brings him food. Buys him vitamins like he's the child she never got to meet.
He'd tell her to go to hell. If he could be bothered.
All his blood leaked out once.
He's not entirely convinced he'll ever get it back.
- - -
He heard a rumour that you can buy guns from the superstore.
- - -
Laying across the earth that separates them, he's flat on his back, eyes defiantly open into the rain. It feels a little something like crying.
He wonders how much rain it would take to have him sinking down there to meet her.
Which is all kinds of weird because he doesn't even remember really liking her. Maybe he should have slept with her when he had the chance. Maybe that would make what he's feeling and not feeling and wishing he could feel, a whole lot more justifiable.
But in the end it's just him. And the rain. And her body, six feet beneath the surface and fading fast.
- - -
“Merry fucking Christmas, everyone...”