it's a green christmas in this town (4/?) {ensemble}
Title: It's A Green Christmas In This Town (4/?)
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble. Meredith/Derek (light, again), Alex/Izzie, Mark/Lexie, Cristina/Owen (not in this part), Sadie. Other characters in other parts.
Word Count: 1,550
Author's Note: My need to keep you all interested outweighs my need to make this part longer. More tomorrow, I swear to the gods.
It doesn’t take Lexie long to deduce that the only one missing from the living room is Mark. She spends a few minutes searching downstairs for him, glancing out the window just to make sure his car is still out there. It is, covered in snow.
She takes the stairs two at a time, finding the only closed door that stuck out among the rest like a sore thumb. Izzie’s room, and the room they’d spent the night in previously. It was as good a guess as any, and it paid off.
“Are you hiding?” Lexie asks, all raised eyebrows, a smile pulling at her lips. Mark’s doing this odd pacing thing that just doesn’t look right on him at all.
He runs a hand through his hair and tells her, “I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation here.”
She understands that he’s upset. It doesn’t matter; she can’t quite keep that grin off her face and that laugh from escaping her lips. “He’s not going to…axe-murder you in the middle of the night or something just for sleeping with me.”
“I slept with his wife.” He says, like she doesn’t know. She’s heard all of those stories. Everyone’s heard all of those stories.
“Well, last I checked I wasn’t married to him.” She tries at humor. She fails. Damn if Lexie isn’t a determined little thing though. “Look, I’m just as uncomfortable as you are. I mean…you think anyone really wants me there? Really?”
”That’s not - “
“You’re not obligated to lie to me just because we’re sleeping together. I know. It just…is that way.”
And, okay, now she’s starting to feel uncomfortable in here too, which is completely the opposite effect that she was looking for him to have on her. So, of course she does the stupid thing and closes the few feet between them to press her lips to his, looping one arm around his neck to pull him towards her, to hold him there. They’re lips are better at the making out part of this - less so with the talking parts. Lexie guesses that’s just how it is when you don’t quite know where you stand and what this is. Not that she needs a definition. Not right now anyway.
What she does need is this, “Come downstairs with me. Don’t leave me there alone. They can’t yell at us if we’re…a united front or something.” She’s pulled back in order to have this conversation, but her arm is still wrapped around him and he’s still close enough that she can feel his breath warm against her face. “Just…we shouldn’t be ashamed of this. We’re not kids - I mean, I’m not a kid and you’re not a dirty old man or whatever they think you are, and if you are then you’re mine for the time being, and they can just deal.”
She really hates when she rambles. Because then she does stupid things like using the possessive instead of anything else, and she’s vaguely aware that she probably just insulted him as well. Great. Good job, Lexie.
“Okay, can you do that? Please?”
His face is unreadable for too long and she’s about to pull out of his arms, but he holds her fast, and that smirk finds it’s way back across his face and, you know, breathing comes a lot easier when that’s there. “Fine. But only if I’m getting something out of the deal.”
It’s not that she’s playing dumb, as he’ll later accuse. It’s just she really doesn’t think that way. “Like what?”
“You’re such a tease Grey.” Mark says, shaking his head before he leans back in, lips and tongue, and hands roving under her shirt, pressing her into the bed, and, yes, she should’ve known. She knows the man he is - at least the man who appears to be. But she’s still learning. That’s supposed to be the fun part after all, right?
He flips the catch on her bra, and she decides that this is actually the fun part.
---
Alex did in fact end up being the one sent to go play in the attic. Forty minutes, three garbage bag covered tree parts, five boxes of ornaments, and too many bags of lights later he’s delegated going through all of that to the females of the house who suddenly became too ‘weak’ for heavy lifting as soon as the attic door opened (Meredith’s words, not his - this from the woman who once pushed him up against a wall with very little effort), and wandered back into the kitchen looking for aspirin for the headache he’s seemed to have acquired.
Derek’s in there too, the only person who was actually helping get stuff down, and there’s this look between them, briefly, of solidarity, before Izzie’s cell phone starts ringing on the countertop, much to Alex - and his headache’s - displeasure.
“Iz, phone,” he shouts into the living room.
All he gets in return is Meredith’s, “She’s upstairs. Just answer it.”
He glances at the caller ID first, groaning as he picks it up. “What?”
There’s a long pause, then George’s confused and slightly bewildered voice, “Alex? Isn’t this Izzie’s phone?”
“What’s your point?”
“No point,” George recovers quickly. “Just…Cristina said she tried to call Meredith and she wasn’t answering so I thought I’d try. Is everything okay there?”
For Izzie’s sake, for the fact that it’s almost Christmas, and the fact that George is really the least of his problems right now, he lets his voice, his tone, even out into something less annoyed. “Everything’s fine. But we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon - what’s going on there?”
“We’re re-routing the people that can wait to other hospitals that didn’t get hit as hard; taking care of the ones already here.” George stumbles through his words, like he isn’t quite sure how to have a conversation with Alex that isn’t either totally defensive or totally serious. Good, at least Alex isn’t the only one with that problem. “A lot of the doctors aren’t even here so there’s not a lot we can do.”
None of this is exactly news to his ears. “Do you want me to have her call you?”
Another pause, George trying to decide, then he finally sighs out, “No, it’s okay. Just have someone keep us updated okay?”
He nods to no one as he says, “yeah,” and flips the phone shut, keeping it in his hand instead of setting it back down on the counter once more.
Derek looks at him over yesterday’s crossword puzzle, as he says, “You should’ve asked him about that patient of his.”
Alex frowns. “What patient?”
“Izzie said something about a man that was seeing things that weren’t supposed to be there; asked me a lot of questions about what could cause that.” Derek isn’t looking at him any longer, rather paying attention to the scrawl of pen against newsprint paper. “She sounded pretty worried.”
The phone feels heavy in his hand as the puzzle pieces all snap into place.
---
Izzie is on her third box of ornaments, sorting through them and laying them out by color just to have them in some semblance of order, by the time someone interrupts her. From the barely hushed whispers, she can tell that, of the two sets of footsteps coming her way, one of them is Lexie’s, but it isn’t until they come into view that she can identify the other set as Mark’s.
She puts a smile on her face when they’re close enough to see, but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know what to say or do, other than be friendly. Whatever Derek and Meredith’s problem is with them, she doesn’t share it. She has no stake in this.
“Do you need help?” Lexie asks, while Mark sits down on the couch, watching them but hanging back. It’s a new, rather interesting side to Mark Sloan, that’s for sure.
So, because Izzie’s trying to be friendly, she says, “Sure,” handing Lexie the fourth box, and gesturing to the ornaments laid out in rainbow order on the floor. “Sort by color.”
“Okay,” Lexie replies, and she seems to perk up as she sits cross-legged on the floor next to Izzie. “Gosh, there are a lot of these.”
“Tell me all about it.” The top of one of the boxes almost slips off and falls onto the ornaments below but Lexie catches it a second before Izzie, which is about the time when Izzie decides that Lexie definitely isn’t so bad to have around if it means Meredith doesn’t kill her for breaking ornaments that were most likely one of the good, or at least decent, memories of her childhood. A glance over her shoulder still finds Mark watching them and so, she adds, “You’re not exempt from this, you know. You could help.”
Mark makes a face when he replies, “Christmas ornaments isn’t really my thing.”
“Well you should’ve thought of that when the rest of the men who said decorations weren’t their thing were pulling all of this out of their attic.”
He may linger a little closer, may help hand them things, and, hey, things are better when people actually feel comfortable. She doesn’t need any more tension than she already has to deal with.
---
Part 5
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble. Meredith/Derek (light, again), Alex/Izzie, Mark/Lexie, Cristina/Owen (not in this part), Sadie. Other characters in other parts.
Word Count: 1,550
Author's Note: My need to keep you all interested outweighs my need to make this part longer. More tomorrow, I swear to the gods.
It doesn’t take Lexie long to deduce that the only one missing from the living room is Mark. She spends a few minutes searching downstairs for him, glancing out the window just to make sure his car is still out there. It is, covered in snow.
She takes the stairs two at a time, finding the only closed door that stuck out among the rest like a sore thumb. Izzie’s room, and the room they’d spent the night in previously. It was as good a guess as any, and it paid off.
“Are you hiding?” Lexie asks, all raised eyebrows, a smile pulling at her lips. Mark’s doing this odd pacing thing that just doesn’t look right on him at all.
He runs a hand through his hair and tells her, “I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation here.”
She understands that he’s upset. It doesn’t matter; she can’t quite keep that grin off her face and that laugh from escaping her lips. “He’s not going to…axe-murder you in the middle of the night or something just for sleeping with me.”
“I slept with his wife.” He says, like she doesn’t know. She’s heard all of those stories. Everyone’s heard all of those stories.
“Well, last I checked I wasn’t married to him.” She tries at humor. She fails. Damn if Lexie isn’t a determined little thing though. “Look, I’m just as uncomfortable as you are. I mean…you think anyone really wants me there? Really?”
”That’s not - “
“You’re not obligated to lie to me just because we’re sleeping together. I know. It just…is that way.”
And, okay, now she’s starting to feel uncomfortable in here too, which is completely the opposite effect that she was looking for him to have on her. So, of course she does the stupid thing and closes the few feet between them to press her lips to his, looping one arm around his neck to pull him towards her, to hold him there. They’re lips are better at the making out part of this - less so with the talking parts. Lexie guesses that’s just how it is when you don’t quite know where you stand and what this is. Not that she needs a definition. Not right now anyway.
What she does need is this, “Come downstairs with me. Don’t leave me there alone. They can’t yell at us if we’re…a united front or something.” She’s pulled back in order to have this conversation, but her arm is still wrapped around him and he’s still close enough that she can feel his breath warm against her face. “Just…we shouldn’t be ashamed of this. We’re not kids - I mean, I’m not a kid and you’re not a dirty old man or whatever they think you are, and if you are then you’re mine for the time being, and they can just deal.”
She really hates when she rambles. Because then she does stupid things like using the possessive instead of anything else, and she’s vaguely aware that she probably just insulted him as well. Great. Good job, Lexie.
“Okay, can you do that? Please?”
His face is unreadable for too long and she’s about to pull out of his arms, but he holds her fast, and that smirk finds it’s way back across his face and, you know, breathing comes a lot easier when that’s there. “Fine. But only if I’m getting something out of the deal.”
It’s not that she’s playing dumb, as he’ll later accuse. It’s just she really doesn’t think that way. “Like what?”
“You’re such a tease Grey.” Mark says, shaking his head before he leans back in, lips and tongue, and hands roving under her shirt, pressing her into the bed, and, yes, she should’ve known. She knows the man he is - at least the man who appears to be. But she’s still learning. That’s supposed to be the fun part after all, right?
He flips the catch on her bra, and she decides that this is actually the fun part.
---
Alex did in fact end up being the one sent to go play in the attic. Forty minutes, three garbage bag covered tree parts, five boxes of ornaments, and too many bags of lights later he’s delegated going through all of that to the females of the house who suddenly became too ‘weak’ for heavy lifting as soon as the attic door opened (Meredith’s words, not his - this from the woman who once pushed him up against a wall with very little effort), and wandered back into the kitchen looking for aspirin for the headache he’s seemed to have acquired.
Derek’s in there too, the only person who was actually helping get stuff down, and there’s this look between them, briefly, of solidarity, before Izzie’s cell phone starts ringing on the countertop, much to Alex - and his headache’s - displeasure.
“Iz, phone,” he shouts into the living room.
All he gets in return is Meredith’s, “She’s upstairs. Just answer it.”
He glances at the caller ID first, groaning as he picks it up. “What?”
There’s a long pause, then George’s confused and slightly bewildered voice, “Alex? Isn’t this Izzie’s phone?”
“What’s your point?”
“No point,” George recovers quickly. “Just…Cristina said she tried to call Meredith and she wasn’t answering so I thought I’d try. Is everything okay there?”
For Izzie’s sake, for the fact that it’s almost Christmas, and the fact that George is really the least of his problems right now, he lets his voice, his tone, even out into something less annoyed. “Everything’s fine. But we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon - what’s going on there?”
“We’re re-routing the people that can wait to other hospitals that didn’t get hit as hard; taking care of the ones already here.” George stumbles through his words, like he isn’t quite sure how to have a conversation with Alex that isn’t either totally defensive or totally serious. Good, at least Alex isn’t the only one with that problem. “A lot of the doctors aren’t even here so there’s not a lot we can do.”
None of this is exactly news to his ears. “Do you want me to have her call you?”
Another pause, George trying to decide, then he finally sighs out, “No, it’s okay. Just have someone keep us updated okay?”
He nods to no one as he says, “yeah,” and flips the phone shut, keeping it in his hand instead of setting it back down on the counter once more.
Derek looks at him over yesterday’s crossword puzzle, as he says, “You should’ve asked him about that patient of his.”
Alex frowns. “What patient?”
“Izzie said something about a man that was seeing things that weren’t supposed to be there; asked me a lot of questions about what could cause that.” Derek isn’t looking at him any longer, rather paying attention to the scrawl of pen against newsprint paper. “She sounded pretty worried.”
The phone feels heavy in his hand as the puzzle pieces all snap into place.
---
Izzie is on her third box of ornaments, sorting through them and laying them out by color just to have them in some semblance of order, by the time someone interrupts her. From the barely hushed whispers, she can tell that, of the two sets of footsteps coming her way, one of them is Lexie’s, but it isn’t until they come into view that she can identify the other set as Mark’s.
She puts a smile on her face when they’re close enough to see, but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know what to say or do, other than be friendly. Whatever Derek and Meredith’s problem is with them, she doesn’t share it. She has no stake in this.
“Do you need help?” Lexie asks, while Mark sits down on the couch, watching them but hanging back. It’s a new, rather interesting side to Mark Sloan, that’s for sure.
So, because Izzie’s trying to be friendly, she says, “Sure,” handing Lexie the fourth box, and gesturing to the ornaments laid out in rainbow order on the floor. “Sort by color.”
“Okay,” Lexie replies, and she seems to perk up as she sits cross-legged on the floor next to Izzie. “Gosh, there are a lot of these.”
“Tell me all about it.” The top of one of the boxes almost slips off and falls onto the ornaments below but Lexie catches it a second before Izzie, which is about the time when Izzie decides that Lexie definitely isn’t so bad to have around if it means Meredith doesn’t kill her for breaking ornaments that were most likely one of the good, or at least decent, memories of her childhood. A glance over her shoulder still finds Mark watching them and so, she adds, “You’re not exempt from this, you know. You could help.”
Mark makes a face when he replies, “Christmas ornaments isn’t really my thing.”
“Well you should’ve thought of that when the rest of the men who said decorations weren’t their thing were pulling all of this out of their attic.”
He may linger a little closer, may help hand them things, and, hey, things are better when people actually feel comfortable. She doesn’t need any more tension than she already has to deal with.
---
Part 5