A/N: genres are tricky: this is not quite entirely "Angst" and goes beyond "Friendship," but those are the available categories that best represent this story. Also, I wrote this and first posted it on livejournal between episodes 7.01 and 7.02 and reference a fact that is no longer true since 7.02 aired.
"You done this before?"
It's dark, the room lit only by the streetlight outside, but you can hear the defensive smirk in his voice.
"Yeah . . ."
It's a simple enough answer, and hardly at odds with your reputation as legendary slut (which is slightly exaggerated in the Seattle Grace public mind but, let's face it, only slightly). You're assuming the next remark will be roughly deflected uncertainty about who's the top.
Instead, there's a pause, followed by a grunt of laughter, then, "Seriously?" Another pause. "Shit, I thought that was just crap people made up."
"Huh?" you ask, confused and, frankly, alarmed.
"You and Shepherd," he says, confident and unsettlingly right.
"Once," you protest, wondering how in hell he deciphered your past from the word yeah, and instantly regretting the wistful, revealing way you let it trail off (because there are still some feelings, somewhere, despite hundreds of women spreading their legs for you and two making you believe you were loved. And, actually, it was three times, but you're not sharing that with Karev).
"Dude. You and Shepherd . . ." he wonders again, somewhere between amusement and arousal.
"You get that means you have to fuck him, right?" You're drunk and horny and so tired of your own pain and resentment in all its forms, you crave the release of turning it into a joke. "You've got a perfect record so far. Addison, Callie, Lexie. Wouldn't want to spoil it, now would we?" You'd go on to say something about Derek being more approachable since he stepped down as Chief, but now his weight is over your body, his pelvis pressing into your butt and his chest against your shoulders as his hands pin your arms down on the bed.
"I'd rather fuck you," he says, his chin rough against your neck and his breath assaulting your ear.
You're not exactly watching him sleep. It's getting light, that's all, and you're awake and he's not.
He looks like a kid. (Maybe everyone does when they're asleep, although you have your doubts that you do.) He looks open and hopeful, like the elusive good thing that never quite happens is going to surprise him when he wakes up.
It's not, and you both know that only too well.
He almost died. He still has a bullet in his chest that he's too scared to remove and that he made you touch last night, the same place you once ripped him open and shoved your hand inside. The woman you might have loved best in the world chose him over you and - even without him, when she's screwed up to hell - still doesn't really want you.
You're both alone, except for the Greek tragedy (or maybe it's just some vicious kind of French farce) that keeps snaring you in each other's lives.
But asleep, he looks like a kid, and his unconscious, fruitless hope hurts you somewhere you used to understand this kind of thing, and rubs off a little at the same time, and that's probably the reason you don't mind too much that he's still here.
At 7:00 am he's sitting in your kitchen drinking black coffee.
He doesn't talk. He's shut down the sleepy hopeful thing and, anyway, there's nothing to say that isn't difficult. (In the reality of cold, gray morning and strip lighting, you're way past bad, loaded jokes about your sex life.)
But he's still here, you still don't mind and, since it's your apartment, you offer him breakfast.
"It's only cereal," you say, pushing the box in his direction. You take a carton of milk from the refrigerator and sniff it. "And I'm not too sure about this."
"'S fine." He combines cereal and milk in the bowl you hand to him like this is a routine he does every morning and starts to eat, alternating mouthfuls with deep gulps of coffee.
You don't flatter yourself that you're the elusive good thing. You don't even want to be. Like you said, you're both alone, and all the fucked up ways you're linked make this a kind of refuge, that's all. But for God knows what reason, he seems to trust you; and for God knows what reason, you kind of like it.
And because of that, you take a risk, toeing the line where crass meets something deeper and hoping you come out on the right side (although odds are he doesn't even remember, and you'll just look dumb). "I'd make you bacon," you half-smirk. "But I'm out and, anyway, I'd probably just burn it."
He stiffens for a moment, the mechanical movement of his spoon and mug halted. Then without looking up, resuming, he mutters, "I like it burned."