Summary: Cristina and Callie come up with a plan to evade the Torres clan by hiding out on Thanksgiving at their new apartment. Disasters with fires, Mark taking advantage and a sullen Meredith come as part of the package.
For: irisheyes_77 .
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Hiberner Toujours
- Stars of the Lid
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"What are you doing?" Cristina asks, bored enough by the day already to have run out of silly exercises for her interns to race after.
"Trying to get Bailey's attention." Callie retorts obviously, as if her near screaming and jumping up and down wasn't a dead give away.
"Yes, but why?" Cristina asks.
"Since when do you care?"
"Bored. Kicked off cardio. Stuck with 1, 2, 3, and 4.2. Need entertainment."
"Ugh, fine. I'm trying to see if she needs any help with the case flying in tomorrow." Callie answers, waving her hand well above the crowd surrounding Miranda. She's half tempted to rush in there like a linebacker and scoop up the shorter woman.
"Hahn's patient being flown in from Utah or wherever?" Cristina bites into the end of her pen like it's an apple.
"Yeah. Iowa."
"Been there. Tried that. Got the backlash to prove it."
"I need this."
"Why?"
"I don't remember you being this annoying before." Callie remarks while sighing and giving up on Miranda for now. "I need to be legitimately busy for the rest of the week," Cristina's eyes perk up and Callie continues, "my parents are trying to get plane tickets out here...and they don't know about the divorce...or Erica...or Mark. I just do not need my parents here and if I try to throw myself on the board they will yell at Chief Webber so I need Bailey. I need Bailey."
"To shield you."
"Yes."
"Lemme get this straight. You want in on a surgery with your ex-girly-whatever so you can avoid your family. You would rather deal with crazy steak knife lady than see your mother-"
"Yes. Hell yes." Callie interjects.
"Why didn't you just say so?"
Callie looks around confused, "I did. I think your interns are rubbing off on you."
"My interns are brilliant I'll have you know, no thanks to themselves of course."
"I'll make sure to tell them so when I see them again."
"You won't." Cristina demands, "If you want my help."
"What could you possibly help me with?"
"I am a parent-avoiding-ninja. Master. Pro. You want my help." Cristina assures her and wanders off to find what her minions have managed to fuck up in the last hour.
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"Are you going to tell me the plan?" Callie asks later, dropping her tray next to Cristina's and nudging Alex Karev a little farther to the left.
"Slumming?" Meredith grins and drives her fork into the piece of pineapple in front of her.
Callie ignores the remark and the looks of the nurses as she appears to be sharing a meal with Izzie Stevens. "Yang."
"No. You don't get to know the plan. You will inevitably screw up the plan."
"Well how do you expect this to work then?"
"Have faith." Cristina retorts bitterly, a phrase she doesn't even believe in, but it is enough to get Callie out of the cafeteria.
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"This was your plan!" Callie shouts holding her vibrating phone.
"It's not like they know you moved." Cristina smiles awkwardly and dips her hand into the cereal box on the counter.
"Hide. We're going to hide all day? And starve. Because we haven't gone grocery shopping in weeks."
"There's a turkey in there." Cristina points to the freezer.
"They will find me. They have ways."
"'Eh." Cristina shrugs her shoulders. She never said she would put in a lot of effort to the plan. The doorbell chimes and she slides of the cool surface to open the door. "Callie, your boyfriend is here!"
"You opened the door!" Callie groans and dives onto the couch, covering her head with a spare pillow. This is never going to work. Her phone has rang twenty-nine times in the last two hours and there is no doubt in her mind that her parents are well on their way to Seattle Grace to track down Chief Webber and talk him into giving away her address. They are her emergency contact after all.
"Morning to you too sunshine." Mark grins and hands a large bottle of scotch to Yang to get her out of his hair.
"This is Thanksgiving." Cristina gestures to the bottle and pulls down three short, thick glasses.
"Saw some old people this morning looking for you Callie, before I left the hospital."
"Oh God." Callie complains but doesn't remove her head from its special location.
"Your mother is kind of a looker." Mark smirks and pulls up her feet to sit on the couch. He places them in his lap as she flips over.
"You're a pig."
"And you're mom is hot. Nothing to be ashamed of. Just means you have good genes. Much like me."
"I do not need this today." Cristina reminds them both before dropping cups full of liquid deliciousness into their hands.
"Christ Yang, it's ten in the morning. Think we could at least hold off until the bird is ready?"
"Bird?" Callie glares at Cristina.
"I may have promised food in return for liquor delivery but if I knew he was only going to bring scotch I would have declined." Callie opens her mouth to speak but Cristina beats her to the punch, "It's not like we could leave and go get it ourselves. We have a mission."
Callie ignores the fact that Cristina could have left, but then she probably would've never returned and when her parents hunt her down, and they will, it's going to be nice to have a few body shaped distractions. "I'm going to go take a shower."
"Want a friend?" Mark smiles and nearly shrieks in astonishment when she grabs his hand and leads him to her bathroom.
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"Loud enough?!" Mark yells, returning to the couch with wet hair.
"I could ask you the same thing." Cristina quips, pushing the volume down on the remote.
"So..."
"Shut up." Cristina replies, "I don't like you and just because my roommate is a non-discriminatory whore it doesn't mean I have to pretend."
"Well put." Mark clears his throat and settles in to watch a stupidly and inappropriately gory Halloween flick while they wait for D-day to happen. Sometimes he misses the Shepherd traditions. But the Shepherds have nothing on what just happened under the warm spray of Callie's shower so he really can't complain.
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"We really have to feed him?" Callie asks, securing the apron around her waist and washing her hands.
"No, we have to feed me." Cristina clarifies. "We could order pizza."
"It's Thanksgiving." Cristina shakes her head unimpressed and Callie realizes that perhaps this holiday really does mean nothing to the scruffy haired resident. "If it falls apart we'll order pizza."
"Good to have a back up plan." Cristina methodically scrubs her hands and pulls a box of mashed potatoes from the cupboard along with a box of stuffing. She reads the back intently before giving up and handing them over to Callie.
"You can't cook?"
"What like you're an Iron Chef?"
"Read the back and do as the box says, it's not hard." Callie tells her and goes about gutting and cleaning their almost completely thawed turkey. It may not be a feast but it is close enough.
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"Not hard my ass," Cristina mutters three hours later, spooning another mouthful of stuffing into her mouth, "Callie is this shit supposed to be chewy like gum?"
"No." Mark answers from the livingroom where he has found every sports show available. It hasn't been half bad from his perspective. He's gotten to drink, watch football, and pretend not to salivate as Callie gets all domestic (an unspoken turn on for him). What he would do to that apron.
"Great."
"Fire! We have fire!" Callie shouts thirty seconds later.
Mark springs into action before she can finish and within minutes they all need another shower and there is a rather charred looking pile of meat sitting on top of the stove cooling itself down. "Open a window Yang." Mark calls out as Cristina races away to get clean again. "Shit Cal, I thought you could cook."
"I can cook," Callie smiles and then bursts into laughter, "Just not...this."
"Apparently." Mark chuckles for a second before seizing the opportunity for a kiss while Cristina is out of the room. He pulls back hesitantly. "Thanks for inviting me."
"I didn't." She reminds him.
"You wanted to." Mark tells her and wraps his hands around her waist. They've long given up on classifying what their doing and he knows better than to broach the topic because it's only been a few weeks since the Hahn thing fell apart. She's not ready. He gets that. But he can't stop himself from trying to persuade her for the future's sake.
The doorbell interrupts his search to find the sweet spot right below her ear and he groans in frustration. "I'll get it."
"Mark?"
"Yeah?" He turns around, still pacing to the door.
"Those old people from this morning? If they are on the other side of the door, don't open it."
"Too soon for me to be meeting the potential in-laws?" He takes it from her smile that he's correct but opens the wooden contraption anyway. "Just Grey...and Derek."
"Meredith?"
"Mark invited Derek. No one invited me." Meredith huffs and heads off to Cristina's room to no doubt complain about how Izzie is making a perfectly good meal that she doesn't want to be left alone with in her own home. She needs her person to break up the tension, not create a private competing party that steals all the fun people.
"You invited Shepherd?"
"He's my friend, what?" Mark asks sincerely.
"Standing right here." Derek breaks in, "We brought this...really I brought this, Meredith brought anger." Derek hands the wine to Callie.
"Great. Some Shiraz for our pizza."
"Pizza?" Derek eyes Mark who merely holds a hand to his throat, shakes his head vigorously and points to the smoldering turkey in the kitchen.
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"This is how Thanksgiving should be observed." Cristina gushes five hours later, lounging on the floor with the six nearly empty pizza boxes.
"Drunk?" Mark asks giddily and throws his arm around Callie, bringing her closer to his chest.
"Yes drunk. Always drunk. Family holidays need alcohol."
"We aren't family." Derek reminds them.
"Yet." Cristina points to the four people behind her. They will be all within a few years, even if the annoying hair gnome and Sloan aren't exactly brothers.
"Door!" Meredith screeches and hits pause, freezing the cartoon movie they will all deny ever having watched tomorrow.
"Wait-" Is all Callie can get out.
"Calliope Iphigenia Torres."
"Oh Jesus." Callie groans.
"Iphigenia?" Derek questions with a smirk. Meredith's hand hits his crotch before he can laugh, turning his mocking to pain instantly.
"You better not be taking the lord's name in vain young lady." The short woman ten paces back demands.
"Hi Mom, Daddy."
"Daddy?" Cristina snorts, only to cease when a pillow hits her square in the face.
"This is what you've been doing all day while we have been calling you?" Mr. Torres questions, inhaling the air of burnt and looking around at the trashed apartment. Turns out Shiraz is not half bad with pizza, as long as you are mostly drunk before you try pairing it.
"Yes." Callie tries to gulp and it comes out as a hiccup.
"And I take it that handsome man on the couch that was rubbing against you is not this George I've heard of?"
"No." Callie and her father answer at the same time but she hangs her head anyway. Later she will kill Cristina.
"Care to introduce yourself?" Mrs. Torres pointedly asks Mark who nearly trips over Meredith trying to scurry over.
"Mark Thaddeus Sloan, head of plastics." He extends his hand and tries to hold his breath certain that it reeks of this afternoon's hobbies.
"I thought Callie's middle name was bad." Cristina whispers.
"Of course you are," Mr. Torres continues, "and you're drunk."
"Yes sir."
"Classy." Mrs. Torres nods towards her daughter. "May we speak somewhere?"
Callie knows that tone. The one that says 'I'm only being nice because you're friends are here but when I get you alone I'm going to rip your heart out and make you wish you were dead'. "Ok."
"I'll watch them." Mr. Torres volunteers, but they all know he means Mark specifically. As his eyes fall upon Mark's shoulders the whole room suddenly begins to feel very seventeen and caught in the basement of their parent's house. "You work at the hospital with my daughter?"
"Yes."
"She is no longer married I take it?"
"Nope!" Cristina clarifies and then starts the movie again so the other three have something to do while Mark and Callie are interrogated.
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"I don't like him." Emanuel declares, stepping into his daughter's room to find his wife on the bed with her head in her hands.
"You don't like any of the guys I'm with Daddy."
"Now you're with him?!" Sophia cries out.
"I'm not discussing this."
"Everyone in this house is drunk."
"Maybe." Callie answers. It's hard to tell sometimes with Meredith. At least when she's calm.
"You would rather spend your holiday drinking with co-workers than with your family? And why are you living in this dump?"
Callie shrugs in response knowing the attitude is going to get her nowhere but with a little bit of a buzz she is just brave enough not to care.
"Fine. We'll be leaving then. If this is what you want. We fly thousands of miles to come see you when we could be with your brother enjoying Thanksgiving and this is how you repay us. We raised you better than this." Sophia rants while still picking up her purse and sorting out her dress.
"Bye punkin'." Emanuel kisses the top of her head reassuringly, deciding that after being locked in here with her mother she has probably had enough.
"We will see you before we leave town though...and we will discuss this." He tells her once they have rejoined everyone. "And you will pick up your phone when we call, understand me?"
"Yes Daddy." Callie frowns and tries to get them closer to the door. She's embarrassed enough. These people are the reason why she was the girl in the back of the classroom eating her hair.
"Mark!" Emanuel yells loudly over the television. His head jolts up in surprise, "Don't touch my daughter ever again."
"Yes sir."
As soon as they exit Derek leads the group in laughter, remembering to note that later he'll need to point out Mark's misfortune. Callie remains staunch red in the cheeks and mesmerized by her spot in the floor while her "not boyfriend" pats the couch with a sly grin, "Come 'ere. We all have shitty parents."
"Or no parents." Meredith chimes in, trying to help.
"Sorry guys." Callie slinks back, and curls up under Mark's chin.
Cristina shrugs, "Better than last year."
"True." Meredith slurs out as the other three stare down at them wondering what the hell happened last year.
Callie dejectedly snuggles closer, warm from the fun juice circulating through her veins, "Yang you suck. I'm taking away your ninja membership."
"I never said it was a good plan. You're own fault," She pauses for a second contemplating, "Maybe you should have asked Bailey to scrub in or something. She could've kept the monsters in their cage."
Callie's hand balls into a fist around the bottle being held steady in her lap, daring herself to throw it and start an uproar. Instead she settles for staying put and watching Charlie Brown prance around the screen. It was a horrible plan and in all reality she should have known better, but that doesn't stop it from being arguably the best Thanksgiving she's had in years.
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