pop culture clichés catch up with you sooner or later
Title: pop culture clichés catch up with you sooner or later: side a: track three: 99% of us is failure
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mark. Mark/Callie friendship.
Summary: She's two and you’re letting her watch John Stewart?
track one: teardrop
track two: once upon a time
Trying to find an explanation to his sudden alertness an hour before sunrise, Mark stares at the blinking green lights of his alarm clock and groans in frustration at the inexplicable power outages that plague his building about once a month. Though he’s done it multiple times, he still has trouble figuring out how to reset the clock on his microwave and is consistently tempted (though never gives in) to just hit the “set” button and let it be whatever time it chooses to be. He fumbles around with buttons and switches and, after passing the proper time twice, eventually gets the clock to reflect the fact that he definitely shouldn’t be awake. Blaming it on the brief moments of total silence caused by the power outage, he gives up on trying to fall back asleep and stumbles out of bed. Rubbing a hand over his face, he squints at the brightness of the bathroom light and splashes cold water on his face to fully wake himself up because he hates being in that bleary-eyed state of almost-awake-but-can’t-sleep. Teeth brushed, he decides to push off the shower because Caroline’s room backs up against the bathroom and the pipes are notoriously loud whenever he doesn’t want them to be. He changes into a pair of jeans and tugs on a t-shirt given to him by his sister proclaiming that hyperboles are the greatest thing ever, a shirt he wouldn’t dare wear in public but it works just fine for sitting around with only one other person who definitely won’t understand the joke.
While waiting rather impatiently for the coffeemaker to respond to a changed clock and an override of the timer, he sits down at the table and unearths the New York Times Sunday crossword from last week in the hope that he can finish it before the answer comes out tomorrow. Idly wondering when the hell he became the kind of guy who does crosswords all the way through, he clicks the lead out of a mechanical pencil and chews on the end as he tries to decipher a particularly difficult clue that will undoubtedly be a sad attempt at being snarky and funny. Starting up toast once the coffeemaker chirps that his pot of liquid energy is ready, Mark chases several vitamins with a small glass of orange juice before going back to the last few tricky clues, steaming mug of coffee in hand.
Officially deciding that there must be some sort of error because he can’t figure out the last clue, Mark gives up and deems that he’s killed enough time trying to understand what kind of person wakes up one morning and actively chooses to create crosswords for people to mull over while trying to wake up. Sun fully above the horizon and doing its best to break through the perpetual cloud that hangs over the city he came to for a reason that left but stayed in for a reason that has been in his life for as long as he can remember, Mark turns the television on to the morning news out of idle curiosity more than true interest but lands on morning cartoons instead. After several minutes of inappropriate bathroom humor jokes and mad scientists, he decides that Saturday morning cartoons have distinctly gone down in quality from when he was a kid and clicks off the TV and pads softly toward Caroline’s room.
“Good morning,” he whispers and sits next to her, brushing a stray lock of hair off her cheek.
Though awake, Caroline pouts and protests through a cute and definitely contradictory noise and snuggles deeper into her pillows and blankets. She opens her eyes when Mark softly nudges her and though bed is extremely comfy and warm and cushy and outside of bed is probably not so warm and definitely not cuddly, she slowly blinks herself entirely awake and wraps her arms around his neck as he gives her a morning hug.
“You get to meet someone new today,” Mark says softly. He’s done his best to keep it just him and Derek for a while, unsure of how psychologically well a two year-old would handle the presence of another woman so soon after her mother had died but came to the conclusion that he can’t (and shouldn’t) keep everyone away from her forever.
--
“Hey.” Callie smiles widely when Mark answers the door. When Derek first told her the reason why Mark was gone, she had immediately wanted to call and visit and see if there was anything she could do. Before her husband decided that the model truly is the better choice, she at least had George to come home to at the end of the day (or the idea of George if he happened to be stuck at the hospital), she had a reason to not feel alone and useless but now she’s living with someone who she isn’t sure she likes and who tends to platonically sleep with her best friend while mulling over relationships that never made much sense to her. So the prospect of spending some time with someone she deemed sane (a bad idea, but sane) seemed like a good idea especially since he once admitted that he isn’t a kid person and kids always cheer her up. But then Derek mentioned that the girl was two and that her mother had died only a few weeks earlier and Callie thought it better to wait. Even if meant that she had to endure spending time in Cristina Yang’s mess and sleeping on the couch that she usually had to find.
Mark returns the smile and opens the door. “Hi.” He takes one look at her slightly-dripping hair and wet raincoat and decides that commenting on the rain in Seattle is a useless conversation starter. “How’s torturing O’Malley?”
“Not the same without you,” she answers quickly. “Though I’m sure I could easily convince someone to make him hold onto a wedding dress again if the opportunity came up. I’m trying to let go and move on but I see them every day and…oh, hi.” Her snowballing rant stops before it can even gain momentum as she spies Caroline peeking out from behind the couch. “I’m Callie,” she says softly with a smile.
Caroline blinks at her for a moment and then looks at her father. Mark nods and motions for her to come forward but she shakes her head and hides back behind the couch. Shaking his head and laughing quietly, he whispers to Callie that he’ll listen to the rant during naptime and takes the few steps to the couch and gently lifts Caroline into his arms. She buries her head in his shoulder, more out of shyness than fear, but lifts her head when she hears Callie’s soft voice speaking to her again. One of Callie’s silver earrings peeks through her dark curls and Caroline giggles and grabs at it, obsessed with anything twinkly or shiny.
Callie laughs and carefully untangles the girl’s fingers from her earring and briefly considers offering her her keys to play with, but then remembers an incident with her younger brother almost swallowing their father’s keys when he was that age and thinks better of it. Though doubting that the girl will understand the gesture, she offers Caroline her hand once Mark sets her back down and shakes it when Caroline awkwardly puts her hand in hers.
For all her adoration of kids, Callie only has slightly more of an idea what two year-olds do for fun than Mark but the two of them manage to keep her entertained by spinning a complicated tale of princes and princesses and dragons, acted out by various stuffed animals and toys and one very understanding and pliant couch pillow. By the end, Caroline yawns widely and the two adults hope that it’s a factor of the excitement of their story exhausting her rather than boring her and Mark takes her into her room for a nap.
“When do you think you’re coming back?” Callie asks, hopping up onto the kitchen counter and munching on a few pretzels stolen from the bag he offered her. “The nurses miss you.”
Mark laughs. “No, they don’t. And soon, I hope. I just have to figure out…”
“There’s hospital daycare. And I’m not opposed to babysitting.”
“You’re Chief Resident,” he points out. “You don’t exactly have more time than I do.”
“No, but…ugh. I hate seeing them every day. It’s just…why did I say yes? His dad just died, I was there and…”
Once his brain recognizes the extreme topic shift and sets on the right course for understanding and conversing about it, Mark holds up his hand. “I’m not an expert on relationships, but maybe getting married in the Church of Elvis didn’t bode well?”
“Yeah,” she sighs, “I thought of that. I just never imagined myself with the world’s shortest marriage, living on Cristina Yang’s couch and trying to sleep while listening to her and Meredith deconstruct Meredith’s mommy issues. At least they sort of hate Izzie too. You know she once ate an entire tub of butter?”
Tempted to ask how Callie even knew such a piece of disturbing information, Mark shakes his head. “I could’ve died happy without knowing that.”
Callie opens her eyes and looks straight at him. “Promise me that you’ll tell me if I’m stepping off the edge into self-deprecating crazy girl?”
“Promise.”
“And promise me you’ll tell me to shut up if you’re tired of hearing about it?”
“Only if you promise to tell me to shut up if I step off the edge into whining manwhore or you’re tired of hearing about Addison.”
She smiles and holds out her hand in a fist to touch his. “Deal.” Watching him navigate around the kitchen and make a sandwich she didn’t ask for because she’s too nice but her stomach definitely appreciates, she can’t help but shake her head at how much he’s morphed out of the tough ass-kicking guy she’s seen at work into a soft (if far from perfect) parent even in the short amount of time he’s been gone. She promises herself not to mention that to anyone and instead asks him about it. “How’s the Daddy thing going?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. You know, I have a perfectly good table and chairs.”
“You want me to move my ass off the counter?”
“I’m just saying.” Mark shrugs and sits down with his sandwich and glass of soda and isn’t surprised when she joins him a few moments later. “I’m making this up, Callie. I had shitty parents and never expected to be one. I thought the only opportunity I was going to have was aborted back in New York.” He cringes at his choice of words, but it’s the truth: after Addison told him that she had an abortion, he never truly expected to be a father. “Sometimes I think I’m pulling it off and then I realize that it’s ten o’clock and we’re both still up watching reruns of the Daily Show.”
Callie coughs on her soda. “She’s two and you’re letting her watch John Stewart? Nice shirt, by the way.”
“Exactly.” He chooses not to comment on her remark about his shirt. “Is Sesame Street on DVD?”
She shrugs. “Fraggle Rock is. I imagine you could get something.”
“How do you get from Sesame Street to Fraggle Rock?”
“Hi, ho. Kermit the Frog here,” Callie says in perfect imitation.
“That’s freaky and didn’t answer my question.”
“You’re a dad. You should know that Jim Henson did both. I’ll give you free pass on that one.”
“So you’re going to quiz me on things dads should know?”
“It’s tempting.”
--
Despite Mark’s halfhearted protests that she was in his apartment and shouldn’t have to cook, Callie kicks him out of the kitchen and tells him to go teach his daughter how to snark about politics because she hasn’t had a chance to really cook in weeks and even if it’s chicken fingers, dammit she’s going to do it. Smartly deciding to not argue too much, Mark lets her do her thing while he gives Caroline a horsey ride or five around the apartment. Dinner conversation isn’t much as Mark and Callie both quickly discover that the ability to banter about much of anything consequential is extremely limited when trying to keep things G-rated, so they talk about PBS shows Callie hasn’t seen and Caroline shyly asks for a kitten because she saw one on TV yesterday and thought it was really cute. Mark says that he’ll think about it and all three of them know that he’ll cave once he finds out his apartment building’s policy on pets. A ticklefest with Callie quickly wears Caroline out shortly after bedtime and Callie gives her a hug goodnight and lets Mark be Dad and sits on the couch and flips through several messily-colored coloring books.
“You’re not terrible,” she reassures him when he sits down with her.
“But I’m not great either.”
Callie shrugs. “She’s two. I don’t know what you do with a two year-old so I don’t know how great you are at that, but since you were tossed into this out of nowhere, I’d say you’re doing okay.”
Mark breathes a deep sigh of relief and nods. “Thank you.” After a few minutes of silence, he looks up. “I shouldn’t ask you this…”
“You’re going to anyway. So, ask.”
“How’s Addison?”
Though she knew better, Callie had truly hoped that it was going to be some other sort of question he shouldn’t be asking, like her opinions on gay marriage or her religion or something else awkwardly personal. “She’s…good. LA’s good for her. But,” she puts her hand on his knee when she sees him thinking, “before you ask me for her phone number so you can call her and say that you suddenly have a kid from a one-night stand you knocked up two and a half years ago and that your daughter’s mother is dead and you’d sure like Addison’s help, you should know that there’s a guy.”
“There’s a guy.” Disappointed, Mark sighs and looks at the floor.
She nods. “There’s a guy. She won’t tell me how serious it is, but there’s a guy.”
Their conversation swiftly drops back into Callie’s hatred of Izzie and confusion at sometimes waking up and needing to wait for Meredith to get out of the shower and sometimes having no sign of anyone else at all with occasional forays into Mark’s staggering parental insecurities and both of them do their best to soothe the feelings of the other until Callie yawns one too many times and decides that it’s best for her to go home. They somewhat awkwardly hug each other goodnight and Callie promises to stop by again in a few days, joking that she’ll need to hang out in someone else’s weirdness for a while.
Stopping by Caroline’s room before collapsing into his own bed, Mark smiles at the little girl. A soft sleepy noise escapes her lips and she rolls over, her messy blonde hair falling into her face and he thinks that maybe Callie’s right. Maybe he isn’t completely terrible at this.
side a: track four: there is a number of small things
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mark. Mark/Callie friendship.
Summary: She's two and you’re letting her watch John Stewart?
track one: teardrop
track two: once upon a time
Trying to find an explanation to his sudden alertness an hour before sunrise, Mark stares at the blinking green lights of his alarm clock and groans in frustration at the inexplicable power outages that plague his building about once a month. Though he’s done it multiple times, he still has trouble figuring out how to reset the clock on his microwave and is consistently tempted (though never gives in) to just hit the “set” button and let it be whatever time it chooses to be. He fumbles around with buttons and switches and, after passing the proper time twice, eventually gets the clock to reflect the fact that he definitely shouldn’t be awake. Blaming it on the brief moments of total silence caused by the power outage, he gives up on trying to fall back asleep and stumbles out of bed. Rubbing a hand over his face, he squints at the brightness of the bathroom light and splashes cold water on his face to fully wake himself up because he hates being in that bleary-eyed state of almost-awake-but-can’t-sleep. Teeth brushed, he decides to push off the shower because Caroline’s room backs up against the bathroom and the pipes are notoriously loud whenever he doesn’t want them to be. He changes into a pair of jeans and tugs on a t-shirt given to him by his sister proclaiming that hyperboles are the greatest thing ever, a shirt he wouldn’t dare wear in public but it works just fine for sitting around with only one other person who definitely won’t understand the joke.
While waiting rather impatiently for the coffeemaker to respond to a changed clock and an override of the timer, he sits down at the table and unearths the New York Times Sunday crossword from last week in the hope that he can finish it before the answer comes out tomorrow. Idly wondering when the hell he became the kind of guy who does crosswords all the way through, he clicks the lead out of a mechanical pencil and chews on the end as he tries to decipher a particularly difficult clue that will undoubtedly be a sad attempt at being snarky and funny. Starting up toast once the coffeemaker chirps that his pot of liquid energy is ready, Mark chases several vitamins with a small glass of orange juice before going back to the last few tricky clues, steaming mug of coffee in hand.
Officially deciding that there must be some sort of error because he can’t figure out the last clue, Mark gives up and deems that he’s killed enough time trying to understand what kind of person wakes up one morning and actively chooses to create crosswords for people to mull over while trying to wake up. Sun fully above the horizon and doing its best to break through the perpetual cloud that hangs over the city he came to for a reason that left but stayed in for a reason that has been in his life for as long as he can remember, Mark turns the television on to the morning news out of idle curiosity more than true interest but lands on morning cartoons instead. After several minutes of inappropriate bathroom humor jokes and mad scientists, he decides that Saturday morning cartoons have distinctly gone down in quality from when he was a kid and clicks off the TV and pads softly toward Caroline’s room.
“Good morning,” he whispers and sits next to her, brushing a stray lock of hair off her cheek.
Though awake, Caroline pouts and protests through a cute and definitely contradictory noise and snuggles deeper into her pillows and blankets. She opens her eyes when Mark softly nudges her and though bed is extremely comfy and warm and cushy and outside of bed is probably not so warm and definitely not cuddly, she slowly blinks herself entirely awake and wraps her arms around his neck as he gives her a morning hug.
“You get to meet someone new today,” Mark says softly. He’s done his best to keep it just him and Derek for a while, unsure of how psychologically well a two year-old would handle the presence of another woman so soon after her mother had died but came to the conclusion that he can’t (and shouldn’t) keep everyone away from her forever.
--
“Hey.” Callie smiles widely when Mark answers the door. When Derek first told her the reason why Mark was gone, she had immediately wanted to call and visit and see if there was anything she could do. Before her husband decided that the model truly is the better choice, she at least had George to come home to at the end of the day (or the idea of George if he happened to be stuck at the hospital), she had a reason to not feel alone and useless but now she’s living with someone who she isn’t sure she likes and who tends to platonically sleep with her best friend while mulling over relationships that never made much sense to her. So the prospect of spending some time with someone she deemed sane (a bad idea, but sane) seemed like a good idea especially since he once admitted that he isn’t a kid person and kids always cheer her up. But then Derek mentioned that the girl was two and that her mother had died only a few weeks earlier and Callie thought it better to wait. Even if meant that she had to endure spending time in Cristina Yang’s mess and sleeping on the couch that she usually had to find.
Mark returns the smile and opens the door. “Hi.” He takes one look at her slightly-dripping hair and wet raincoat and decides that commenting on the rain in Seattle is a useless conversation starter. “How’s torturing O’Malley?”
“Not the same without you,” she answers quickly. “Though I’m sure I could easily convince someone to make him hold onto a wedding dress again if the opportunity came up. I’m trying to let go and move on but I see them every day and…oh, hi.” Her snowballing rant stops before it can even gain momentum as she spies Caroline peeking out from behind the couch. “I’m Callie,” she says softly with a smile.
Caroline blinks at her for a moment and then looks at her father. Mark nods and motions for her to come forward but she shakes her head and hides back behind the couch. Shaking his head and laughing quietly, he whispers to Callie that he’ll listen to the rant during naptime and takes the few steps to the couch and gently lifts Caroline into his arms. She buries her head in his shoulder, more out of shyness than fear, but lifts her head when she hears Callie’s soft voice speaking to her again. One of Callie’s silver earrings peeks through her dark curls and Caroline giggles and grabs at it, obsessed with anything twinkly or shiny.
Callie laughs and carefully untangles the girl’s fingers from her earring and briefly considers offering her her keys to play with, but then remembers an incident with her younger brother almost swallowing their father’s keys when he was that age and thinks better of it. Though doubting that the girl will understand the gesture, she offers Caroline her hand once Mark sets her back down and shakes it when Caroline awkwardly puts her hand in hers.
For all her adoration of kids, Callie only has slightly more of an idea what two year-olds do for fun than Mark but the two of them manage to keep her entertained by spinning a complicated tale of princes and princesses and dragons, acted out by various stuffed animals and toys and one very understanding and pliant couch pillow. By the end, Caroline yawns widely and the two adults hope that it’s a factor of the excitement of their story exhausting her rather than boring her and Mark takes her into her room for a nap.
“When do you think you’re coming back?” Callie asks, hopping up onto the kitchen counter and munching on a few pretzels stolen from the bag he offered her. “The nurses miss you.”
Mark laughs. “No, they don’t. And soon, I hope. I just have to figure out…”
“There’s hospital daycare. And I’m not opposed to babysitting.”
“You’re Chief Resident,” he points out. “You don’t exactly have more time than I do.”
“No, but…ugh. I hate seeing them every day. It’s just…why did I say yes? His dad just died, I was there and…”
Once his brain recognizes the extreme topic shift and sets on the right course for understanding and conversing about it, Mark holds up his hand. “I’m not an expert on relationships, but maybe getting married in the Church of Elvis didn’t bode well?”
“Yeah,” she sighs, “I thought of that. I just never imagined myself with the world’s shortest marriage, living on Cristina Yang’s couch and trying to sleep while listening to her and Meredith deconstruct Meredith’s mommy issues. At least they sort of hate Izzie too. You know she once ate an entire tub of butter?”
Tempted to ask how Callie even knew such a piece of disturbing information, Mark shakes his head. “I could’ve died happy without knowing that.”
Callie opens her eyes and looks straight at him. “Promise me that you’ll tell me if I’m stepping off the edge into self-deprecating crazy girl?”
“Promise.”
“And promise me you’ll tell me to shut up if you’re tired of hearing about it?”
“Only if you promise to tell me to shut up if I step off the edge into whining manwhore or you’re tired of hearing about Addison.”
She smiles and holds out her hand in a fist to touch his. “Deal.” Watching him navigate around the kitchen and make a sandwich she didn’t ask for because she’s too nice but her stomach definitely appreciates, she can’t help but shake her head at how much he’s morphed out of the tough ass-kicking guy she’s seen at work into a soft (if far from perfect) parent even in the short amount of time he’s been gone. She promises herself not to mention that to anyone and instead asks him about it. “How’s the Daddy thing going?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. You know, I have a perfectly good table and chairs.”
“You want me to move my ass off the counter?”
“I’m just saying.” Mark shrugs and sits down with his sandwich and glass of soda and isn’t surprised when she joins him a few moments later. “I’m making this up, Callie. I had shitty parents and never expected to be one. I thought the only opportunity I was going to have was aborted back in New York.” He cringes at his choice of words, but it’s the truth: after Addison told him that she had an abortion, he never truly expected to be a father. “Sometimes I think I’m pulling it off and then I realize that it’s ten o’clock and we’re both still up watching reruns of the Daily Show.”
Callie coughs on her soda. “She’s two and you’re letting her watch John Stewart? Nice shirt, by the way.”
“Exactly.” He chooses not to comment on her remark about his shirt. “Is Sesame Street on DVD?”
She shrugs. “Fraggle Rock is. I imagine you could get something.”
“How do you get from Sesame Street to Fraggle Rock?”
“Hi, ho. Kermit the Frog here,” Callie says in perfect imitation.
“That’s freaky and didn’t answer my question.”
“You’re a dad. You should know that Jim Henson did both. I’ll give you free pass on that one.”
“So you’re going to quiz me on things dads should know?”
“It’s tempting.”
--
Despite Mark’s halfhearted protests that she was in his apartment and shouldn’t have to cook, Callie kicks him out of the kitchen and tells him to go teach his daughter how to snark about politics because she hasn’t had a chance to really cook in weeks and even if it’s chicken fingers, dammit she’s going to do it. Smartly deciding to not argue too much, Mark lets her do her thing while he gives Caroline a horsey ride or five around the apartment. Dinner conversation isn’t much as Mark and Callie both quickly discover that the ability to banter about much of anything consequential is extremely limited when trying to keep things G-rated, so they talk about PBS shows Callie hasn’t seen and Caroline shyly asks for a kitten because she saw one on TV yesterday and thought it was really cute. Mark says that he’ll think about it and all three of them know that he’ll cave once he finds out his apartment building’s policy on pets. A ticklefest with Callie quickly wears Caroline out shortly after bedtime and Callie gives her a hug goodnight and lets Mark be Dad and sits on the couch and flips through several messily-colored coloring books.
“You’re not terrible,” she reassures him when he sits down with her.
“But I’m not great either.”
Callie shrugs. “She’s two. I don’t know what you do with a two year-old so I don’t know how great you are at that, but since you were tossed into this out of nowhere, I’d say you’re doing okay.”
Mark breathes a deep sigh of relief and nods. “Thank you.” After a few minutes of silence, he looks up. “I shouldn’t ask you this…”
“You’re going to anyway. So, ask.”
“How’s Addison?”
Though she knew better, Callie had truly hoped that it was going to be some other sort of question he shouldn’t be asking, like her opinions on gay marriage or her religion or something else awkwardly personal. “She’s…good. LA’s good for her. But,” she puts her hand on his knee when she sees him thinking, “before you ask me for her phone number so you can call her and say that you suddenly have a kid from a one-night stand you knocked up two and a half years ago and that your daughter’s mother is dead and you’d sure like Addison’s help, you should know that there’s a guy.”
“There’s a guy.” Disappointed, Mark sighs and looks at the floor.
She nods. “There’s a guy. She won’t tell me how serious it is, but there’s a guy.”
Their conversation swiftly drops back into Callie’s hatred of Izzie and confusion at sometimes waking up and needing to wait for Meredith to get out of the shower and sometimes having no sign of anyone else at all with occasional forays into Mark’s staggering parental insecurities and both of them do their best to soothe the feelings of the other until Callie yawns one too many times and decides that it’s best for her to go home. They somewhat awkwardly hug each other goodnight and Callie promises to stop by again in a few days, joking that she’ll need to hang out in someone else’s weirdness for a while.
Stopping by Caroline’s room before collapsing into his own bed, Mark smiles at the little girl. A soft sleepy noise escapes her lips and she rolls over, her messy blonde hair falling into her face and he thinks that maybe Callie’s right. Maybe he isn’t completely terrible at this.
side a: track four: there is a number of small things