Hairsplitting
Fandom: Green Wing
Written
for: clarity in the New Year Resolutions Challenge 2005
by
Veracious
---
There's something hairy going on. Well, his hair and hers. Caroline doesn't really want to use the word "hairy". It reminds her of Angela's boyfriend's back (unpleasant mental image number one), the shower drain after he and Angela have showered (unpleasant mental image number two) and, naturally, dogs. Dogs aren't so bad but that's not the point here.
Emmy has regal hair. Royal hair. Floppy. Blue. Blood, obviously, not hair. Mac probably wouldn't fancy that. Or maybe he does. Freak.
Caroline loves him.
--
Caroline has a lot of people in her life she never wanted there in the first place. That's what happens when you work and live and have severe trouble differentiating your work life and personal life. It all starts with someone casually asking if you're going to the pub after work. And you think to yourself, you shouldn't because you're a responsible doctor and you've still got things to unpack but then you think, "I'm going to be working with these people for a bloody long time" and "The least I can do is get to know them", even when the voice of ration in your head is yelling, "These people are mad, get me out of here!"
"Shut up," you tell it. You go to the pub. Or in Caroline's case, you stay with your colleague of Swiss origin, embarrass yourself by messing up his toilet and then spend the next day correcting everyone that no, you did not sleep with him. And Mac doesn't even care to listen. The bastard.
These people you work with, spend time with, spend time outside work with, it's weird because sometimes Caroline isn't sure whether she likes them, at all.
Like Dr Angela "I've-seen-your-tits" Hunter, who had interrupted Caroline's daily moment of self-criticism in front of the mirror in the morning by shoving her perfect little palms under Caroline's unperfectly small breasts, cupping them lightly while smiling at Caroline's horrified face in the mirror.
"Look, Caro. A good handful. Naught to worry!" Angela had announced cheerfully and then, checking her own nothing-short-of-perfect image in the mirror, had exited the bathroom.
I hate you, Caroline had thought. Stop being so pretty and perfect . I hate your perfect little perfectness that's so full of harp playing and and and ...hair.
Then she'd looked at herself and decided her self-criticism routine had reached its end. As it did, when one had a job to attend to. A shitty one, really, if you consider the people she worked with, from the awfully terrier-like (though her face was all cat-like, Caroline considered) and insane Sue White to Guy, who was lovely in his own way, if-slash-when one was willing to deal with quite possibly the biggest arsehole on the face of this Earth. The pay was good, though. And she had some friends, like Angela, and Martin.
Both of whom she'd kissed. Though she wasn't drunk during the Angela incident so she's not going to discuss that. Definitely not discussing that.
--
She loves Mac.
Sometimes in a desperate, woeful way, the kind of love that just wants you make open a wine bottle or five, because Mac is with Emmy, who is a bloody angel, unfortunately without the bloody-bit, because she's just that fantastic.
Other times, Caroline loves Mac with the sort of scary fangirly giddiness that makes her fantasize bizarre little scenarios where she's playing with his hair, because yes, that silly and that stupid are her fantasies, or they're doing other things, sometimes in bed and he's really good and really funny afterwards.
She kind of wishes she could go back to the days when she thought he was a prick because he was, at least to her, sometimes anyway. Before the kiss at the party and the almost kiss and all of that.
She really isn't going anywhere with anything if she continues like this, spending half her time day-dreaming, half her time hating on Emmy and then Mac, and then Sheffield, because Sheffield for fuck's sake.
Caroline's not particularly afraid of making a twat out of herself, except she completely is, utterly terrified but still, she needs to find a resolution and she's going to have to find it soon.
--
Sue White hates her. Sue White hates her enough to possibly stab her with a knife, or a saw, or steal all her clothes while she's taking a shower (that was a nightmare Caroline had once and Angela along with Liam, the devious pair, had pulled the very same prank on her a week later - Caroline, naturally, wasn't amused).
But as terribly, terribly sad as it happened to be, sometimes there was just no one else to talk to. Angela's sick of hearing about the situation with Mac already, she can't find Martin and she hasn't really established a friendship with anyone else in the hospital.
She enters Sue's office hesitantly, turns back three times at the door but finally goes in. Caroline finds Sue peeking under her desk with the rest of her body lying down on the desk, legs open.
Caroline can see her underwear.
"Is this not a good time?" she asks.
"No, no, it's fine. What do you want, Dr Trodd?" Sue says with her Scottish accent, lifting her head but not moving her body. Or her ...legs.
Caroline looks at the ceiling, wondering why she didn't do that in the first place. The thong (is it a thong? Caroline spends one moment too long considering it.) is pink. So unlike Sue. So mesmerizing, in a disturbing sort of way, naturally. Suddenly Caroline's face feels kind of hot.
"I was just, uhm, well, technically. What I mean is that--"
"I see, I see," Sue replies and slides off her desk, standing up and straightening her black suit. "You've come here to confess something."
"Well, actually," Caroline starts but Sue interrupts her.
"I've got a dildo in the deadbox, fancy giving it a go?"
Something is telling Caroline she really ought to leave. She doesn't. "I, I, no, not that, definitely not that."
"Some other time than, you wild lezzie. Try not to want me too much. Now, shoo."
Caroline is too confused to move, but when Sue shouts, "Go!" she snaps out of it and leaves the office.
Outside she bumps into Guy.
"Do I look lesbian to you?" she asks him.
"Purely objectively speaking, yes. How many girls? Was there chocolate spread involved?" Guy replies, naturally keen on the subject.
"Why would there be chocolate spread involved?"
"Why don't you tell me." He points a finger at her face and leans back against a wall. "With details."
She hates the fact she doesn't have anything to throw at him and just wanders off. She has other things to do, like find fault in Sheffield.
Wait a minute. She turns to Guy again.
"You know, I can see your cock in those trousers."
Guy doesn't reply to that.
--
Thank you, the Internet, she thinks, feeling the freshly printed, warm stack of paper in her hands as she strides over to Queen and King of Sheffield (ha!) and presents her case in a packed, short moment of juridic integrity. She feels proud of herself for a while.
A short while.
Because Emmy is perfect. She clearly belongs to the very special VIP club of girls who have arses that rate above 4, who're royal and have great personalities and are just perfectly perfect. No flaws. Whatsobloodyever.
Caroline feels like such a tit.
--
Much later, there is hair. His is wet from lager, hers is messed up from his hands.
It's a really good thing Mac doesn't want a perfect girl, Caroline thinks.
