A/N: This chapter is rated a strong PG - 16.
Recommended Soundtrack: God Put A Smile Upon Your Face by Coldplay
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Chapter 4
Figuratively and Literally
I see trouble on the way...
"It looks like we're stuck," you say, stating the obvious, just to see what kind of reaction you can elicit from her.
"Great deduction, Holmes," she spits, and you throw her a smirk over your shoulder, since she is standing slightly behind you. You lean over and futilely press the 'B' button, hoping to eventually reach your basement destination. "You know, I think if the elevator was going to move, your repeatedly pressing the button wouldn't make it go faster."
You smile.
'There she is.'
--
You can't help but let the snide marks slip from your tongue as you slide down the wall of the elevator, sitting on the cool tile floor with your knees pushed up against your chest.
A small smile graces his lips again and you continue to glare at him as he slips down onto the floor next to you, his own submission to the fact that you are stuck in a 7' x 5' metal box, suspended between the fifth and fourth stories of a rather large building.
He leans his head back against wall, his left leg stretched out while his right leg is pulled towards his chest, his arm resting on his knee. He looks so relaxed that you wouldn't be surprised if the next time you blinked, a cigarette would be hanging from between the fingers of his right hand, dangling precariously off of his knee.
He doesn't smoke.
--
"Do you smoke?" she says. Of all the things to say in this very quiet, very important, and very awkward moment, she asks if you, on a regular basis, puff chemicals.
What a very Meredith thing to do.
"No," you say, "No I don't. Why?" She sighs and doesn't answer. She simply gets up and starts pacing the floor in front of you, her hand on her hip and her palm pressing against her forehead. You don't push her to talk, because you really don't want to have this conversation, either.
Four steps to one side, four steps back.
1, 2. She stops. She glances at you and keeps going. 3, 4. Turn. 1, 2, 3, 4. She briefly glances at the elevator doors, perhaps thinking that if she looked at them hard enough, they would spring open and release her from this cubicle of hell.
1, 2, 3...she stops again. Finally, she looks down at you.
"What are we doing?"
--
It's a simple question, isn't it? You need a simple answer for a simple question.
Yeah, right.
"I don't know," he says honestly, using his forefinger and thumb to pinch the dark blue fabric of his scrubs that are laid over his propped up knee, "I don't know."
"Well, I don't know either. How do we find out?"
He shrugs. He freaking shrugs. Is he as stupid as you are? Because if he is, you're both screwed. In the figurative sense, of course. You are truly and honestly screwed, because right now, you've dug yourselves into a deep, dark hole and there's no way out.
You fall against the wall next to where he is sitting and lean against the rail that is positioned around the large box, dejection coursing through your veins and pouring from you in the form of a sigh. The cool metal edge of the rail is digging gently into your palm - just enough to feel an ache, but not too much that the hurt isn't welcome.
At this point, the pain lets you know you're alive.
--
You're confused. You admit it, you're confused. You don't know what do anymore. You don't know what to do, where to go, what to say, how to say it. You think it'd be better sometimes if you just kept your mouth shut and your hands to yourself.
But there she went - she had to make you feel so strange and jealous and angry. She just had to be...her. So she's partly to blame.
You glance up at her, and she sighs sweetly, her skin giving off a soft glow and her hair falling haphazardly over her eye, and your momentary anger is vanished, replaced by a complete and utter need to just watch her - to let her fill your world, if only for a moment.
--
He stands and leans against the railing across from you, in the exact same position you are in.
Legs crossed, arms propping you up, head cocked to the side. You sigh, annoyed, and cross your arms over your chest, just so he's not so damn...cute. He's cute. That's it, your downfall is for cuteness. And dorkiness. And the hair - oh god, the hair.
You stop yourself before your mind can wander anymore.
You are angry. You are angry and broken and confused and a dirty mistress. No one should smile and no one should flirt. Damn anything that isn't depression.
You should not be doing this (whatever this is), even if it is in the most mild sense of the word. Does lips tugging up at one corner count as flirting?
--
You're not sure who moves first, but the next thing you know, you're in the center of the elevator, kissing her like there is no tomorrow.
First, your hands are planted on her cheeks, but they soon have a mind of their own and begin their trail over her body by running through her glorious locks. Tongues are dueling, hands are wandering, clothes are being tugged at. She gasps as you slam her against the wall and simultaneously attack the sensitive spot behind her right ear.
You smile against her skin in accomplishment.
--
His body pressed against yours sends a wave of burning electricity throughout your body as both of your scrub tops are discarded and he is left half naked and you in a thin white henley top, which is also quickly cast aside. Your mind grows fuzzy and you loose track of where his limbs end yours begin. The familiar knot happily finds its place in the base of your stomach as his fingers butterfly around the waistband of your pants, but the small of your back arches when a tremor rips through your body as he runs his fingers up the length of your bare spine.
"You're so beautiful," he mumbles, and you shiver, your entire body taken away with his voice. Again, he smiles against your skin as his goal is reached, and you quickly do away with the rest of your clothing.
--
Forty-five minutes later, when you are finally let out of the entrapment of the stuck elevator, he has made you his dirty mistress whore twice more (for a total of three times).
You've decided to keep track. To remember and remind yourself how many times you have failed - failed the morals of society, failed him, failed yourself, hell you might has well failed at life. You did a bad, bad thing and you enjoyed it.
You exit the elevator hot, sweaty, and pissed. You are actually angry now. Both of you are - deep scowls are etched onto your faces, because he cheated on his wife again and you're his dirty mistress. And a whore. But damn if being a mistress isn't mind-blowing.
'This is bad. This is very, very bad.'
--
What the hell are you doing? Is this some sort of revenge on her? To get back at her for cheating on you? For coming back to Seattle and messing up the life you were starting to make for yourself? Is that what it is to her? A meaningless screw?
In this moment, you can't help but be shocked at what your life has turned into. It seems like only yesterday that you were worried about your tricycle and cutting the hair off of your sister's Barbie dolls.
Today, you're cutting people's brains open, and having an affair because you fell in love with someone after your wife screwed your best friend.
How ridiculous is that?
--
The possibilities of running into a woman when you have just had earth-shattering, adulterant sex (that is confusing you and tearing you up from the inside out) with her husband are small, right?
So why is it that you of all people, have the worst luck on the face of the earth? You are a bad liar. That's why you are a doctor - you can use a lot of big, unexplainable words, successfully confusing people without ever having to tell them the outright truth. You can hide behind science and vocabulary, but now you can't hide and you don't know what to do.
"Hello, Addison."
You are so screwed.