A/N: the title comes from Wilco's song of the same name; the movie reference is from The Graduate.
"Buffalo wing?" Derek proffers a plate, smiling.
You're sitting by yourself at a table in the back of Joe's, idly watching Lexie play 'I Never' with Callie and Arizona. Callie's starting to look green; but Lexie has a surprisingly high tolerance for alcohol (and a relatively blameless past) and is definitely holding her own.
"Sure." You're not hungry. Your stomach's been twisted in knots since you woke up last night from a dream you haven't been able to shake. But Buffalo wings are Meredith's wedding food of choice and, as the best man, it's probably polite to eat something.
Derek puts the plate down on the table and slides into the seat opposite you. He picks up a wing and examines it. "I like this wedding," he says. "I like this reception. Meredith's idea works." He grins ruefully. "Even if half of Seattle Grace is giving itself alcohol poisoning at my expense. I think oh, let's just go to Joe's, Derek is going to end up costing three times as much as wedding cake and formality."
You nod and take a bite of the wing, noticing the lump in your throat when you swallow. "It was a great wedding," you say. "Congratulations, man."
You didn't intend it, but your voice sounds weary. He looks at you, eyes narrowed. "Everything all right?" he asks. He glances across the room. "You and Lexie are --?"
"Fantastic," you say, and you mean it. But you wish it didn't sound hollow and you wish even more, when he widens his eyes at you a little bit, that Derek hadn't noticed. "Fantastic," you repeat, injecting enthusiasm. "I'm crazy about her."
He smiles, reassured. "Maybe you and Lexie will be next."
You lift your glass. "I'll drink to that," you say and take a sip of scotch, but your stomach sinks.
You hate Derek Shepherd's weddings. You're always in agony over someone you can't have. The last time you thought it was the bride. Now you're thinking maybe it was always the groom.
"I have a feeling that Meredith's going to spend our wedding night with Lexie and Cristina," Derek says, sighing as he gravitates back to you.
It's hours later. You've had one too many drinks and Joe's has more or less emptied out. You're feeling better now, though. A little. You can't tell if it's the alcohol or the quickie you had with Lexie (on the grounds - uncovered by 'I Never' - that everyone's had sex in Joe's restroom except me and . . . ooh, you're so hot in that suit!). It was drunken and sloppy and up against the wall and it cleared your head.
Lexie makes you happy. You've been emotionally dependent on Derek so fucking long it's making you have weird movie-cliché dreams, that's all. (Anyway, you're not Dustin Hoffman and however long you press your face against a plate glass window bellowing 'Derek!' he's never going to turn around and yell 'Mark!' and leave Meredith for you.)
Jesus Christ – where the hell does this stuff come from? You shake your head trying to regain the sex-induced clarity.
It doesn't work. Derek's here next to you and you've had one too many and out it comes: the question you've asked practically everyone you know except him. "You think you're gonna last?"
There's a moment when it seems like he's either going say something real back or smack you in the face. But his muscles relax and he smirks. "If you don't sleep with Meredith," he says. "And that is not the kind of question you ask a man on his wedding day. Especially when the woman in question is Meredith Grey."
"Sorry," you say. "You'll last. You're . . ." You search for something upbeat (when it comes out you know you failed, but you're giving yourself credit for trying considering the way you feel now that he's sitting beside you again). "You're Derek and Meredith, right?" It's too reminiscent of Derek and Addison and the expression on his face tells you you're only making it worse when you add, "Meredith got her McDreamy."
There's a reason all this crap is coming out of your mouth: sleeping with Meredith is the last thing that's on your mind.
It's raining heavily the night he comes to your apartment and he's drenched. Seattle has always been good at providing metaphors for the state of your lives.
"It didn't last," he says quietly, then pushes past you through the door, mumbling, "Where's your scotch?" over his shoulder.
When you wake up, the sun is shining and birds are actually singing. It reminds you of the morning you woke up next to Lexie and said I love you for the first time. Six months (give or take) after Derek's wedding. And you did; a part of you still does. Except that didn't last either.
You'd put it down to you being you. But ever since the damn wedding and the goddamn dream, you've had the knowledge somewhere under the surface that there's more to it.
You make coffee and take him a cup where he passed out on the couch, shaking him gently awake, then retreat to the other side of the room to drink yours.
He doesn't talk, so you don't either and you pick up yesterday's paper and half read a dull as shit article about traffic control in Seattle. But somehow you don't mind the dullness. You feel bad for thinking this way when your best friend's marriage just went down the toilet, but it's strangely peaceful, strangely right.
It's not like it's going anywhere; it's not like you'll tell him; and you have a date later with a woman you met at Joe's and you'll most likely kick him out before you bring her back.
But there's a kind of comfort in knowing that you're not bad; you're not a sociopathic ass; your parents didn't entirely screw up your capacity for love. There's a kind of comfort in recognizing that, long before you tried to fall for anyone else, your heart was already taken; and that, after all the shit you've pulled over the years, the guy who took it still trusts you enough to be drinking coffee and not talking in your apartment on one of the worst days of his life.
You'll take what you can get. You never did have high expectations of love anyway and, somehow, this is enough.