A/N: written for waltzmatildah, for a prompt
I still
Sleep on the right side
Of the white noise
Can't leave the scene behind
Panic Switch - Silversun Pickups
It's a battle. One you win only because you don't want to (can't) give in to being fucked up.
You make it clear to everyone (especially yourself) you're okay. It was nothing; you were barely even awake; the only downside was Bailey insisting on invading your bravado and removing the bullet. (Whatever. You've still got the scar.)
To your relief, they buy it and, mostly, so do you. On days you pull off a pediatric miracle; during evenings hanging out with Meredith over a few beers; with the women without histories (psychiatric or otherwise) you screw and laugh with for a while, before you retreat to your side of the bed.
You don't sleep well. You sleep heavily, but you've been told you mumble angrily in your sleep and, based on the dreams you try not to remember when you wake up, that doesn't comes as any kind of a surprise.
"You don't want Plastics," he says, staring into a chart, not avoiding your eyes as much as not bothering to make eye contact.
He's right, you don't. You're just feeling too fucked-over today to pull another medical miracle. You can't stand the attention; can't stand the thought of Arizona half-hiding her beaming approval; can't stand the responsibility of the kid in the bed in front of you. You just want a day of anonymity - mostly from yourself. "I can't change my mind?"
He snaps the chart closed, "No," looks up and grins. "Avery's on my service today, and they must be missing you in the kindergarten."
You disguise the almost desperate sigh you can't help making with a grunt; try to cover up the reluctance as you walk away by slouching. You don't want to leave his side, but you don't want him to know that; and, more than that, you don't want to think about why.
Between the hospital and Joe's, a car backfires and you find yourself crouching, head caught between your hands, shaking like a fucking leaf.
You never make it to the bar.
Back home, you don't need to take it on faith that you mumble in your sleep, because you wake yourself up with something between a rant and a sob, still mired in a dream you can't remember but can't escape.
You get up for work, though. Drink too much coffee, advocate for a patient and endure Arizona's prattle about tiny humans and it feels kind of normal. At least, that's what you tell yourself until you pass the OR board for the fourth time that day to let your eyes linger on Sloan's name and realize that the busy schedule of plastic surgeries makes you feel like you have some reality in the world.
You don't want Plastics, but the sad fucking truth is you want to be with him. You still don't want to know why. You just know you'd feel a little more solid, a little less screwed, handing him a ten blade and listening to his slightly stale OR sarcasm.
He doesn't request you on his service, though. Stays glued to Avery, like he's toting around some kind of mascot. So you deal with it, marshal all your coping mechanisms like it's business as usual. You tell yourself the resentment is against yourself for needing him; when you get too tired to keep up the façade that you're okay, you hole up in an on-call room and ride it out.
Then, one night, you wake up, eyes wide and staring, not mumbling or even sobbing now but screaming out loud, dream still burned into your brain.
emYou're on an exam table, there's a blonde woman telling you she loves you and your chest hurts worse than you ever knew anything could hurt. And there's Sloan, blue eyes like a laser, hand brutally intimate inside your torn-up flesh. He takes away the pain, and it feels good at first, for a moment, soothing and cool, but then you start crying. You start crying like your lungs are going to burst and your heart is going to break. You start crying and you can't stop./em
He saved your life. He saved your life, but it's not the life you wanted and it's a life you no longer have any fucking idea how to live.
Way too early in the morning, there's a phone call. Apparently, Aaron's shrink discharged him. Big fucking mistake – you could've told them that; he's off his meds and psycho. But the consequences - to some unlucky stranger this time, not to anyone else in your family – blur into a steam of noise as you let the phone dangle impotently in your hand.
You wonder vaguely if you're supposed to take personal leave, attempt to drive your clapped-out car to Iowa again. Thing is, you don't know what the hell you'd do there. Right now, honestly, you don't feel like there's much to choose between you and Aaron except a few superficial details, a few last threads you hang on to.
And then you get it. You get why you want to be with Mark Sloan. Because he was there. Because he saw it all happen. Because he had his hand inside your chest and, for that, as fucked up as it sounds even to you, he owes you.
You pound on his front door over and over, comforted somehow by the mounting pain in your hand and the violence you're doing to the woodwork. The door opens halfway and he leans out, pulling on a t-shirt, bleary, hair starkly gray and rumpled from bed.
"What the fuck?" He blinks, rubs some sleep out of his eyes, then stares at you and shrugs.
You swallow, vaguely registering the lump in your throat. "Why'd you do it?"
His eyes flicker over your face, embarrassed for some reason you don't understand. "Why did I do what?" he asks softly, and you realize tears are running down your face.
"I thought she was Izzie," you blurt thickly. "I thought she was Izzie, I thought she'd come back, I thought she loved me."
He nods, cracks the door open a little further inviting you in, but you just stand there, lost in the darkness of your clarity.
"I had a life," you say. "I thought I had a fucking life." You laugh bitterly, enumerating the crap in your mind and on your fingers as you go through the psychic carnage. "My brother drove a truck. He was normal, reliable - shit, he was saner than I am – and now he's a fucking head case." You switch to the next finger, holding it up for emphasis. "And I had something," you shake your head, "some kind of a thing going with Lexie." You know this is delicate ground, but right now you really don't care; you're just careful not to look at his face and, if he has a reaction, he doesn't let on. "And," you snort, wipe your hand roughly across your wet, stinging eyes and your snotty nose, because this is the worst part. "I thought Izzie came back. I thought Izzie came back, but you saved me. You saved me and I have . . . nothing. Half my fucking family is schizophrenic and, the rate I'm going, I'll be the next one. I have no girlfriend, no wife and Izzie doesn't give a shit if I live or die." You move a step towards him, your flooded instincts telling you to grab him, hurt him, turn your words into satisfying physical reality. But you're not sure you're even capable right now, and your mind still has enough control to stop you, so you just stand too close, hearing your breath and his in a ragged mixture. "I had a life. For a few moments, I had a life, at least I thought I did. I'd have died happy. Except," you try to shake your head but stall as the tears leak again and you whisper, "you saved me."
Your mouth hangs open for more words to come out (and maybe a little because you're kind of stunned that so many came out in the first place), until you realize you're done and close your lips, back to your more accustomed silence, waiting. He doesn't speak: he looks a little stunned, too, but in the space there's a moment of fierce understanding. Then he clears his throat (because one of you had to break the intensity and you can't let go yet), shuffles awkwardly and cracks what, under infinitely different circumstances, might be a grin. "You're welcome," he says, then swallows and adds, almost apologetically, "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. If it makes you feel better, given a little more time I'd've botched a thoracotomy and you'd've been a goner."
The almost-grin turns into an almost-laugh and, from somewhere, some small spark of hope that's always been your downfall and, for what it's worth, your salvation, the tears dry up and you almost laugh (not even bitter this time) too.
"You want to come in?" he asks. "I could make coffee or something, if you need to . . ." He trails off, clearly not knowing what to offer. Even though you've just broken pretty much every boundary in the guy code, it's not like he can commiserate with you over ice cream and tissues. Anyway, everything between you, anything you could talk about beyond football and chicks' asses and surgeries and shared, intertwined resentment is at a level neither of you could ever find words to express.
But the offer's there, nonetheless. (His his eyes, bluer and clearer as he wakes up, briefly remind you of the dream, of a place somewhere between hell and the chance to claw your way out of it.)
"Yeah," you say and follow him into the apartment. You feel kind of like a lost dog, kind of ashamed, but there's also a kind of peace. You feel like you can finally give in for a while, you feel like someone – the only person who can right now, probably – is shouldering the burden of responsibility. It's not resolution, because resolution isn't possible. Not for this. But it's something: a break between one fucked-up moment and the next; a ceasefire in the battle. "Wanna see the scar?"