Somewhere along in the bitterness...

By Waltzmatildah

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They co-exist in tandem in a space created for so many more people than just the two of them. The vast emptiness is echoing and whole corners of the house go unseen and untouched for weeks on end.

The first time they fuck they do it outside in the backyard, against a splintering wooden fence that has seen better months and years than this one, but so have they so, in a way, it's kind of appropriate.

(The primal sounds and the grass and the soil and the skin under their fingernails is most definitely not.)

They don't speak to each other afterwards. They don't even really like each other and that's kind of the point. The sex is mindless and exhausting and, at first glance, looks more like an unprovoked attack than a consensual act and when it's over they retreat to seperate corners to lick their wounds and drown their sorrows.

Back inside, the shadows seem to darken and the mocking whisper of the wind that rattles at the shutters seems a little more pointed. Alex locks the bathroom door and pretends to sleep on the mat in the middle of the floor. Lexie takes a bottle of cheap vodka to bed and watches infomercials until the sun illuminates dust motes that she can't seem to blink into oblivion and the next day Mark is still gone and Izzie is still dead and Meredith is still living her dream on the other side of town.

(So they drink coffee for breakfast and fuck on the kitchen table while toast burns and butter knives clatter to the hardwood floor.)