A/N: Written for the prompt "Mark/Derek, dysfunctional" as part of the Mark and Lexie Drabble-a-thon hosted on livejournal by littleone87.
"Meredith slept with Sadie Harris," Derek muses, turning his glass of scotch around in his hand.
It's late. It's just you and him. You're a little too wasted to drive home.
"Yeah?" you ask. "They let you watch?" You smirk. You know what he meant (Meredith's European adventures are part of the fabric of gossip at Seattle Grace), you just want to get a rise out of him.
"Before I was with Meredith." He smiles and takes a drink, content in Ellis Grey's living room with the lamps and the dust and sexy thoughts about his wife.
You don't know what changes then. You were fine. Enjoying his company. But something about the contentment, the acceptance afforded to Meredith and Sadie when what happened between you and him gets brushed under the rug . . . something stirs up an old bitterness. You try to talk yourself out of saying, "You ever tell Meredith what you did before you were with her?" But it's late and you're a little too wasted to hold your tongue. It's just you and him (it almost never is these days) and, before you've managed to stop yourself, it's out there, between you in the room and Derek is trying not to swallow uncomfortably.
You've never talked about it. You tried - the day after, on other nights when the scotch was flowing - but it's always the same routine of denial. Sometimes it amuses you that you're the only one who wants to talk; sometimes it just hurts; mostly you pretend you've forgotten.
"Before I was with Meredith, my best friend slept with my wife, as I recall," he says, regrouping, deliberately obtuse, falling back on an old barb. He raises his eyebrows, smiles a smile that says the subject is closed, then knocks back what's left of his scotch. "Meredith knows all about my sordid past."
The sordid is meant for you (and not for what you did with Addison). It's clear he expects you to leave it there. But you're having a lapse of self-preservation.
"I didn't think it was sordid." The soft gruffness of your voice says more than the words. You rotate your glass, self-conscious that it's a habit you share with him, watching the alcohol slop gently at the sides. "You didn't seem to either at the time."
He doesn't make a sound, but his posture tells you he's sighing. Finally, he shifts in his seat and asks, playing dumb, mimicking incredulity, "You sleeping with Addison?"
You swallow; shake your head so imperceptibly it's almost not a movement. You're remembering how it felt that night twenty years ago, and the morning after when you woke up happy, ready to go again, reaching out and he'd already left your room.
"No," you say. But your courage fails you and the rest of the words remain in your head. You sleeping with me.