"Sew on Patches." Not mine. K+/PG. Drabble-ish. Take out the sex, and suddenly their relationship looks suspiciously like dating. Mark/Addison. Canon through 3x19.
(I was sitting around minding my own business. The Demon of Sap attacked me.)
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The lack of sex produces flirtation. A lot of it, in fact. They fill the gap with words and looks and almost-touches until Addison begins to think she'll be the one to crack.
Because she's forgotten how nice it is to have a guy running after her. There's no doubt in either of their minds that this is what he's doing: courting her. He hasn't resorted to flowers or candy, yet, but he hovers like he fears there won't be a tomorrow. He's got a reputation to maintain, of course, so his compliments tend to take the form of insults: "you're out to torture me," "you never cut a guy any slack," and "if the Devil wanted a harem, you'd be first on his list of targets." But she's good at reading meaning, and she thinks it's kind of sweet.
She finds herself forgetting why she hates him, though she remembers that she does. She can't help it—her heart goes out to him. It's his half-jerk, half-kicked-puppy-dog look. Mark Sloan doesn't let a whole lot get to him, but she knows that she still counts. Other women can only hope to get that much. It's a power trip, and Addison likes the view from the top.
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She's promised to give them "a real try" if he succeeds. He reckons he can take his reward early and she won't suspect a thing. Sixty days of practice run, that's how he sees it. So he treats them like a couple, only minus any touching. (They know they can't be trusted with any skin-to-skin contact.) He spends more time with her now than he did when they were screwing. He's surprised by how much fun it is. How… manageable his other "needs" turn out to be. (His hands he finds are good for more than just surgery.) Because, well, she's witty and she's smart and she gets his more obscure—fine, nerdy—jokes. And yeah, he wants to sleep with her, but he also wants this other high he's found to go on forever.
He's not sure if the deprivation's messing with his head, or if he's finally emerged from an orgasmic haze and is seeing the world clearly for the first time, now. Because he's having trouble understanding why he ever let her get away to start. She's perfect, well, not really, but he thinks she's perfect for him. He thinks they're meant to be. Who else would fit the bill?
With his focus off her vagina—he's not allowed to think about that as it makes things just too hard—he finds himself noticing the rest of her a little more. And by other things, he doesn't mean her boobs or ass or legs longer than his list of sexual conquests. Or even her flaming head of hair, though that's a turn-on, too. He's never been picky about hair color or even race. (He's a womanizing ass—they're open-minded about female beauty.) And he's bedded many leggy women in the past.
But these days, he's hearing her laugh, really hearing it, for the first time in a very long while. It's not a girlish, pretty giggle or a deep and fluid belly laugh. It's nasal and high-pitched and sudden and loud. It makes him want to try for it again. And he's transfixed by her twitchy fingers. She fiddles with things—glasses, pens, folders, hair—in a way that makes her seem nervous, but he can't help finding cute. She twirls a pencil faster and more skillfully than anyone else he's ever known.
So, yeah, he kind of likes the non-sex. He didn't expect to. But there's something just so wonderful about the way she treats him, now that they're no longer doing it, that he doesn't really mind a little libidinal frustration.
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They eat lunch together regularly now. Sometimes she ditches him for that intern of hers. He hates that. But usually he catches her early enough in the morning to book her first. He's a food stealer, but then again, so is she. She buys twice the fries she needs, since she knows he'll take half of them away. He gets Diet Coke, even though he likes regular better, because he knows she'll sip his soda, and if she tastes real sugar then she'll probably freak.
He wipes things off her mouth, even when there's nothing there (she's not really a messy eater). But he uses a napkin, so it doesn't count. His fingers haven't touched her skin. They play footsie under the table like a pair of teenagers. Again, no harm no foul: there are shoes and pants and nylons in the way. It's within bounds.
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He still hates her for killing their baby. But he wonders if she'd keep it if they had one now. She might be right—he might have made a terrible father. (Yes, he's flawed. He's a wreck. He knows that.) But he thinks that seeing her as a mom would probably have made him love her even more. He wonders, if this all works out, if she'd consider giving it another go.
She wonders if she was right about him as a father. Because, at the moment, he's so attentive, and caring, and optimistic about the long-term. She's a pessimist, herself—you have to be to abort your baby—but she thinks his willingness to predict the best might have offered her some balance. Might offer her some balance, if she takes the bait right now. Perhaps she'll go off birth control. And if they reach the end of sixty days? That's fine—let Nature take her course.
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He follows her everywhere. She thinks she should find this annoying. Instead, she misses him when he's not around. Because her skin comes alive when he looks at her, and his expression says forever and for real. He says things that make her think she's special to him. That it's about more than just sex to him. That he wants her around for who she is. And she wants to believe him; she really, really does.
He has a way of saying "good morning" that she cannot help but love. There's a smirk and he'll lean in so that she imagines she can feel his body radiating heat. His lips come right up to her ear until they're tickling the hairs there, but they don't touch her skin. Then he growls the words, as if the sentiment comes from somewhere deep within, and it makes her shiver just a little.
She may act a bit nicer to him, now.
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Being around her all the time is starting to become addictive. Mark doesn't know when it got so he couldn't have dinner alone. But tonight she has a dinner date with an old (married) friend from New York, and he's surprised by how lonely he feels when he sits eating alone in his hotel room.
So he waits until he hears her door open across the hall. Then he comes by her door (casually) with a movie and some popcorn. He hates chick flicks; he always put her through action crap before. But now it's films like When Harry Met Sally: movies about best friends who become something more. They share a root beer, and the way he pauses before taking a sip after she's handed it back—there's lipstick on the end of the straw—makes her think that he's thinking that their lips have been touching the same surface (she's thought of that herself). It seems like forever since he last kissed her. This final thought comes from both of them.
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She's a healer, and she wants to fix the tears she sees. Because physically he is plastic perfection, but on the inside he's a mess, and she knows the mess is largely her own fault. He was dysfunctional before, but at least he was dysfunctional and happy. She gave him more, and then she took that more away. She was serious when she said he had other weaknesses. But really, most of them are open wounds, and she's the wound inflictor. She feels more than a little guilty over that.
He seems to need her approval. He's an egotistical bastard, but her opinion of him somehow matters. She can't help but be flattered. He takes her side in disputes with Derek. He worries when she seems unwell. He figures out her cycle, and he hands her Tylenol before she can think to ask.
And so she remembers how it was she fell into bed with him in the first place. How she once was able to convince herself that she was in love with him. What the good days were like, before the bad. Sometimes he can be wonderful. They have eight days left.
They've reached the end of another movie. All at once, she finds she desperately wishes to be held.
"Stay tonight."
"I can't."
"You won't."
"You mean too much."
She thinks that maybe, just maybe, this will work.
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A/N: Mark is difficult for me to write, and I almost never feel "Mark/Addison." So I apologize if, as NewYorkNoodles would say, I've "raped your ship" or your favorite character.