Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy or any characters affiliated with it. This is just written for my own general amusement and no other purpose. I also do not own the Kings of Leon song which acts as title for this – I was just listening to it while I was writing and it felt like it fit.
I'm apparently having a very productive week with the writing, so here we go with another Owen/Cristina fic!
Read, review and I hope you like it... :)
Use Somebody
This was awkward.
Why was this awkward?
She had had her tongue down this guy's throat but now when they were actually sitting across from each other at a restaurant table apparently they were incapable of holding down a steady conversation.
He wasn't looking her in the eye and Cristina was beginning to wonder if she was present for any reason other than that he didn't want to be the person who came to a restaurant to eat alone.
It was a nice place with nice food but she came for company and right now that was basically non-existent.
(For his part, the company wasn't really doing much to remedy the awkward factor.)
Did he not understand? You needed words to fill the empty spaces because without words there was simply silence and silence was the loneliest place of all.
"Oh for God's sake will you just say something?" Cristina finally snapped, gripping her spoon tightly in an attempt to dissipate some of her anger.
Owen looked up from his reverie with a start. "Sorry," he winced. "I was miles away."
Cristina softened and began to slightly regret the premature yelling. "We could put this on hold or whatever if you need to be alone tonight."
He seemed to wake up from his trance at this. "No, no, no – that's not what I need," he blurted quickly, grabbing her hand across the table as if to somehow anchor her there with him.
She nodded slowly before lapsing into silence once again. Let's face it - what with his and her issues combined, they were never really going to have the kind of movie-perfect first date that never actually happens anyway and so is basically a lie. At least this was real - there was that.
"You know, I could use some fresh air," Owen announced abruptly, his eyes meeting Cristina's almost apologetically.
"Me too," she replied softly, the look on his face emboldening her and making her feel just a little bit kamakaze.
"Wanna take off?"
"Absolutely."
***
They were walking along river front deep in conversation, his arm slung loosely around her waist, all the awkward stiltedness of dinner having faded away. The fresh air seemed to have calmed Owen down a bit and now he was being infuriating again.
"Oh come on," Cristina protested, all but ready to throw the idiot next to her into the water. He might look quite hot drenched in water.
"I guess it's an original reaction," she admitted grudgingly. "No one's ever looked quite so thrilled before when I've told them about my fiancé who left me on my wedding day."
"No, no I definitely wasn't happy about that," a sheepish Owen assured her hurriedly. "The guy's a jackass and if he ever crawled back here I'd probably junk-punch him, but it's just that if he hadn't done it then we wouldn't be here now, having this," he finished, gesturing with his free hand in the general direction of the two of them.
Cristina nodded, trying to fight back the smile that was slowly but surely creeping across her face. At least he was an idiot with a point.
"This is nice," she agreed.
"But maybe I won't take you to another restaurant next time because I really thought you were gonna throw that spoon at my head," Owen added, using Cristina's subsequent attempt at shoving him to pull her in closer to his body.
She smirked lightly up at him: "Next time?"
"If you want...?" he answered, emphasising the last word as though he was doing her some major favour, with only the unspoken question mark at the end of the sentence betraying his inner anxiety.
He wanted to apologise for the vacant spell in the restaurant. He wanted to tell her that sometimes all the words in the history of the world fall into that empty gap between people's thoughts and voice boxes and they disappear. Sometimes you can have all the words in the world and still they clog and stick in your throat.
"I know," Cristina murmured. "You don't have to apologise to me."
"Also...There's place near my apartment that does great Chinese takeout," she added casually, quietly desperate to get far, far away from the emotional stuff.
Owen raised his eyebrows suggestively, glad that their banter had now returned to more playful territory and thankful that he'd found somebody who seemed to sense words without them ever having to exit his mouth - someone who understood.
"Your apartment, huh?"
Cristina returned his gaze steadily and winked. "If you play your cards right...."