Here's another go with the shuffle challenge. This time, to spice things up a bit, I gave myself a theme: the juxtaposition of good and bad.
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The good times
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1. "A Method" – TV On the Radio (Mark/Lexie)
He holds her firmly against the bed, palms pressed to her hip bones. His lips start at hers, indulging in a lingering kiss before heading southward. They slowly skim down her throat and over her heaving chest, between her bra-clad breasts.
His scruff scratches at her stomach, tearing a peal of giggles from her mouth. He kisses at her navel, and she arches into him, curving perfectly into his body. His tongue trails just below, stalling for a moment before he reaches his destination just a tiny bit lower. She gasps and shudders, every muscle tensing at the sensation. Satisfied, smirking, he continues his ministrations.
It's not just hype. It's lips and fingers and tongue working together in a way that's so incredible it should be illegal. It's utterly decadent, sinfully sweet, like a deal with the devil.
It's the Sloan Method, and Lexie can't figure out how she once lived without it.
2. "Swing Ya Rag" – T.I. feat. Swizz Beatz (Meredith/Derek)
She's hysterical as she watches the way he moves. Derek's feet shuffle on the floor, clumsy. His arms swing down at his sides, occasionally moving above his head in a quick flapping gesture. It's mortifying, but it's okay because he's trying. This terrible dancing is an attempt to lighten the mood, to make her feel better. Acknowledging this, she begins to dance as well. He howls and shakes his butt at her.
When the alcohol comes out, so does her cell phone. She records him, laughing very hard, capturing every jerky movement and awkward facial expression forever. She would have sent the embarrassing video to Cristina if they weren't fighting and to Izzie if she wasn't acting weird. But, they are, so she sends it to George instead.
His response is prompt and to the point:
OMFG…Derek Shepherd should never ever dance again.
3. "To Be With You" – Mr. Big (Mark/Lexie)
They're sitting on the bed, the picture of utter relaxation. Her legs are draped over his, bent slightly at the knees. He rubs her thigh absentmindedly, an action of routine.
Mark, having already eaten a room-service dinner not long ago, watches as Lexie shovels General Tso's into her mouth straight from the takeout container. She eats sloppily, like she hasn't for days, totally famished from a long shift. He can relate. He's been there before; he's already gone through the overdose of high-sodium Chinese food. She swallows and takes a deep breath before diving in for more. He snickers.
"Oh, do I have something on my face?" she asks, mouth full, eyes widening in pending embarrassment. Her hand brushes her cheeks and lips, searching for the splotch of sauce.
He smiles at her, smiles at the simplicity of it all. And, despite himself, he smiles because she's here in the first place. "No." He shakes his head. "I just don't get it," he says, shrugging.
Another bite. A quirked eyebrow. "Get what?"
"Get what O'Malley didn't see in you."
4. "Danny's Song" – Anne Murray (Addison/Derek)
It was a memory Addison held onto for a long time, a reason for her to keep trying. It reminded her that there was a time when they were happy, wrapped up in the joy of being almost finished with medical school and the novelty of living together in a crappy but homey apartment.
She could picture Derek's face plain as day, painfully handsome with a more youthful air, when he came into the kitchen; his blue eyes were wide with uncharacteristic anxiety. He held an envelope in each hand, identical in size and color, one addressed to him and the other to her. Hearts hammering and hands fumbling, they tore into them and compared the letters they contained.
Dear Mr. Shepherd (Ms. Forbes Montgomery): We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into our surgical residency program…
They hooted and hollered and danced around the room, laughing with glee. They were in the same program, the one of their choice. Individually, it would have been a happy occasion, but being young and in love and together, it was ecstasy.
Then Derek drew her in and kissed her tenderly before murmuring against her lips, "This is it. This is our chance. You and I, Addie, we're going places."
At that moment, she believed him.
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The harder times
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5. "Damaged" – Danity Kane (Owen/Cristina)
Owen had issues. Major issues. They were impossible not to ignore. He obviously carried with him heavy loads of pain and awful memories. She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but it broke her heart a little bit every time she saw him struggling or panicking.
Still, Cristina had issues too. Not many were quite as intense as his, but that didn't mean they didn't exist. It didn't mean that they shouldn't have been given just as much attention as his. Sometimes she felt robbed, having to deal with all of his baggage without being able to unload any of her own.
One day, while they were waiting for an MRI on an emergent trauma case, she finally let some of that baggage drop. She hoped he could handle it. She avoided his gaze as she said:
"I was left at the altar."
He opened his mouth and then promptly shut it, having no idea what to say to that. But Cristina knew that he had heard her and that was all that mattered.
6. "Beat Your Heart Out" – The Distillers (Callie/Arizona)
If someone asked Callie for a definition, she would have categorized it as a classical risky behavior. Nothing about it was less than a risk, especially kissing someone she barely knew in a bar bathroom (never mind that the kiss made her heart beat faster than anything had in a while). She was flying blind, out of control, pulled by gravity to the Heely-wearing butterfly-capped Peds surgeon and she was still getting used to that. The only thing she knew was that she wanted more and more of the mystery that was Arizona, even though her efforts were continuously futile.
Callie's justification for risking her heart again came from one fact, half-baked and quickly thought out. If she really had been destroyed and had nothing left, then there was nothing left to lose.
And she was prepared to fight like hell for that nothing.
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Everything falls apart
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7. "Forever May You Run" – Gavin Rossdale (Meredith/Derek)
She never liked baseball to begin with and knows she's in for it when she sees the bat in his hands. The insults are bad and hit her like a ton of bricks but she's not crumbling. He's just licking his wounds. She won't let him do this to himself or to her. She brings up the ring, and his eyes become next to wild.
For an instant he's smiling, bitter, not the smile she's used to, but then it's gone. He pulls the ring, delicately beautiful, from his pocket, brandishing it and taunting her with it. Then, in slow-motion, he tosses it up and smacks it with the bat. It sends a jump to Meredith's heart as it connects with the wood, making a sound that she shouldn't hear but does. In midair, the diamond catches a light and sparkles marvelously before falling to the ground, lost.
He casts the bat away, stomping to the trailer door and slamming it as he enters.
She is terrified, yes, but not running away. And that is progress.
8. "Break Stuff" – Limp Bizkit (Alex)
When it came to anything about Izzie, Alex would hold all of his anger inside. He would let it simmer, a low boil, until it finally mustered the strength to explode. Once that happened, it was unstoppable.
Luckily, on the day that Izzie told him that she was "seeing" Denny again, his rage comes to a head in the vacant locker room. He put up a front for a while, feigning apathy, but that's gone now.
He hates him. Honest-to-God hates him. He hates Denny for making Izzie fall for him when he was alive, he hates Denny for how he changed Izzie when he died, and he hates Denny for somehow stealing her away from him again even though he was long dead. Denny's managed to take her again, just when things had finally been starting to look good. She's slipping right through his hands, like sand through and cracks between his fingers.
Fury swelling, Alex snarls and punches a locker, hard, picturing Denny's face in its place: puppy-dog eyes and scruff and his insufferable, toothy, "aw shucks" grin.
His hand hurts for the rest of the day, and it's both satisfying and empty.
9. "Passive" – A Perfect Circle (Mark and Lexie)
Mark cheats. About six months in. And it's not with anybody he really knows, like Callie. If it had been with Callie, he could have chalked it up to being influenced by something that was there all along. But, it was with a nurse, and he didn't even know her name; it was a complete insult to Lexie.
He gets afraid of the commitment. Same old story.
Lexie finds out from George (of all people). It's sickeningly appropriate, one failure revealing the next. When she confronts Mark, there are no tears, no wild accusations, no yelling or screaming. Instead, she stands in the doorway, a safe distance from him. He looks up at her from the bed and something dark clouds her eyes, an expression he's never faced before. They lock with his, pointed, strong, and a chill runs down his spine. She speaks, calmly, once sentence punctuated very clearly:
"You fucking disappoint me."
Somehow, that hurts him more than anything else could.
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But there's hope
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10. "Paper Planes" – M.I.A. (Fab Five)
This was in the early, warm months of their first year, when they were interns. This was before things got too hard, before their affairs became broken beyond repair.
At night, their hideout was the tunnel. During daytime shifts when it was raining (practically all the time), they found solace in the maternity ward. But, when it was sunny and they had some free time, they ran for their favorite spot: the roof.
There they would lay shoulder-to-shoulder on their backs, not caring that the surface was hard and uncomfortable. They heard it coming before it hit them. It moaned low across the hills, catching on the Sound and turning into a high-pitched wail. They would tense, waiting for the blast.
Then, the wind would explode around them, powerful and cleansing. Alex would whoop loudly as the impact sent their scrubs rippling across their bodies. Izzie, Cristina, and Meredith would sigh deeply as their hair was swept up, dark curls and blondes mingling in midair. The gust would steal a piece of paper from George's hand, and, swearing and flustered, he would frantically chase after it.
The others would laugh, really laugh, and life was good.