Based upon a prompt from Waltzmatildah on LJ.
PROMPT: Alex
There's no up,/There's no down./Side to side,/lost and foundDisclaimer on profile
There's no up
The water sluiced down the back of his head, across his shoulders, down his chest. The hot water had run out five, ten minutes ago, but he hadn't noticed it yet.
He found he wasn't noticing much any more.
Clothes – changing them was – too much work.
Work – being on time – too much energy.
Showering – he was only in it now because Mere had pushed him into the bathroom and locked the damn door.
She was subtle like that.
…
There's no down.
He pours himself another shot of tequila, then realizes he's taking the slow road to oblivion and, ignoring the glass, he lifts the bottle to his mouth and inhales the potent golden liquid.
Four solid, deep gulps later and he thinks he can see the end.
He's stopped from his liquid escape by Grey; she jerks the bottle from his hand, but instead of chastising him as most people would do, she simply looks at the label before throwing her head back and finishing the contents off.
She won't let him escape.
Won't let him disappear.
As much as he wants to float away;
just…
float...
away...
… she insists on keeping that damn tether on him.
...
Side to side,
He scratches the stubble that covers his face then rolls over to see what the woman he'd brought home with him last night looks like.
Another fucking blonde.
Cursing under his breath he quietly climbs out of the bed, stopping just long enough to put on the boxers that lay discarded at the foot of the bed.
Opening the bedroom door he steps in to the hall and groans when he sees Meredith, brow lifted, half-smirk on her face.
"What?" He responds to her unworded question/accusation.
She simply lifts her other brow.
"Does it fucking hurt when your eyebrows touch your hairline like that?" He asks as he shuffles towards the bathroom.
She ignores his barb, she's gotten quite adept at dodging them. "Let me know when you've sent the bar-ho home, and I'll make us pancakes." She turns back into her bedroom and he's left standing in the hall. Feeling like an ass.
More of an ass.
...
lost and found.
He's checking on the Tompson baby; reading the attached monitors, mumbling the numbers as he records them.
He takes one last look down at the baby as he finishes her charting and he nearly chokes.
The baby was staring up at him.
She'd opened her fucking eyes and was staring at him.
She'd been unresponsive for nearly two weeks... giving little more than cursory reactions to touches on her feet, her belly, her hands.
He places his hand in the incubator and touches her face; pale, paper-thin skin - cooler than it should be - but that didn't matter to him now. What mattered was that she was looking at him. She was fucking 'aware'.
He runs his fingers over her tiny, curl covered head.
"Time to wake up little Anna?"
She blinks then continues to stare... at him.
((()))
"You got Chinese!"
He shrugged.
"And you set the table!?" Meredith peered at him in confusion...
He simply shrugged again as he pulled the utensils for their dinner out of the drawer.
"Why?"
He looked at her.
And she looked at him.
And the thing about Meredith? She got him.
She'd always gotten him.
Top to bottom, up and down, side to side... when he was lost? She was the one who fucking found him.
Always.
… so he looked at her.
And she looked at him.
And she tinged pink... lightly. "Oh."
The other thing about Meredith? She didn't make him say shit. She simply took his unspoken crap, defined it, and embraced it.
She offered a small smile. "Did you get Crab Rangoons?"
