A How To Know Guide for Derek Shepherd: Ways to know if your significant other and best friend are into each other. . . .
#2
If you catch them confessing their love for each other, it might as well be that your girlfriend and best friend are actually ... you know ... in love with each other.
The car sped along the highway as they head back to the city at the end of the summer, away from the carefree sun, sand and sea of the Hamptons, and into the most brutal, gruelling and unpleasant year of medical school - the final year - one that will be commencing tomorrow.
They haven't enjoyed any of their summers since entering hellish schedules and competition and had thought - what the heck! They deserve a little fun after all the blood, sweat and many many tears that they've graciously invested in the name of science. So, one summer with a group of friends can't hurt anyone and, of course, their future.
The thing is they're not ready. For the future, that is. None of them are and it's so surreal how life is happening and going by so quickly. Too quickly for their liking because now, as they realised, tomorrow will be another day, when over twelve hours ago, today had just commenced.
Three about to be doctors in a year's time lay sprawled on the backseat with Derek listening to his Walkman, hands clasped together on his lap, eyes closed and feet up. He could be sleeping for all anyone's concerned. It's near impossible, if not totally, to tell if he's even awake.
On the other end, sat Mark, apparently engrossed in the Financial Times.
Who knew he would ever take interest in the stock market?
Between them, as ever, was Addison. Miffed that Derek would prefer listening to his device to having a conversation with her, and amidst her sulking with her arms crossed and muttering, "I can't believe you chose that ... thing over me. I'm Addison. That means something." under her breath, she had surely exhaust herself to sleep. And as they drove an over two hour ride back to the city, her head lulled onto Mark's shoulder.
Uh-oh ...
He froze, eyes widen in fear, like a man would in his predicament. This isn't going to end well - no, no, not for him, at least.
What to do? What to do in a situation like this?
He's panicking.
Should he lean more onto the door? Should he wake her up? Should he push her off? Should he move her head onto Derek's shoulder instead?
But he doesn't want to do any of that. He likes her head there, on his shoulder.
So, he opt to not move and he didn't since the second her head did that thing on his shoulder.
But how can he concentrate on the price of the Dow when his senses are being assaulted by the sweet indulgent smell of her hair?
She smell of tropical - a whiff of heavenly mango and coconut and ... and something else quite endearing and exciting, one that he can't pinpoint.
Maybe he could buy her an entire set of beauty products for her birthday.
But he hasn't the slightest clue of this particular brand that she's using. Plus he don't think he can afford the luxury she uses. She's Addison Montgomery after all. But, of course, the price will definitely be worth it all because at the moment, he damn well is enjoying the intoxicating heaven that is her hair.
He'll figure something out. He probably will just set some cash aside.
But mixed into that heaven is a good dose of hell, because he shouldn't be sniffing and breathing in the smell of his best friend's girlfriend's shampoo like some lovesick teenager. He shouldn't be marvelling at how soft and warm her skin feels where it's resting against his. He really really shouldn't be fantasising about the things he would love to do to her in the back of this car ... if only Derek wasn't here.
He mentally slapped himself. This isn't like him. Not at all.
Mark Sloan do not do yearning.
He simply takes what he wants, does whatever he desires, no questions asked.
But ... but with one exception, he thought with a grimace, and that exception is a five-foot-ten redhead with lips so red a man can't help but imagine doing wicked things to them.
So what, she's hot, he reflected dismissively. Beautiful even. Gorgeous actually. Manhattan is filled with hot, beautiful, gorgeous women, most of whom were only too eager to indulge in his most lurid fantasies. He had no cause to regret the off-limit status of a Connecticut princess.
She's Addison, prim and proper and perfect, it only makes sense that she's with someone who's just as genteel as she is.
She's very off-limits.
And it doesn't matter how much she makes him laugh, doesn't matter that she has an uncanny knack for always knowing exactly what he was thinking, it didn't matter that she has always been there for him, ever since Derek introduced her to him, ever since they became ... somewhat friends.
She isn't for him.
And what the heck is a playboy like him wondering what to get a girl for her birthday, anyway? Especially when said birthday is months and months away?
He probably wouldn't buy her anything at all, he thought mulishly. His presence at her party alone should be gift enough.
It's just that he's infatuated by the forbidden. He can't have her, so he's craving for her. He has to have her somehow and in someway. The element of taboo surrounding her, both because of who she is and who she is with. Because even if she wasn't in a relationship with his best friend, she still would have been beyond his reach.
Because Addison is a quality girl, respectable and classy. She's elite with a trust fund. And he's none of those - the complete opposite, actually. And he's nothing like Derek who can accommodate all of those lacking.
Mark's pulse raced with the thought as a familiar ache filled his groin.
Christ, how does Derek not please her twenty-four-seven?
Every time he thought about her, he just want to drag her onto his lap, clamp his mouth on hers and mark her as his own, like the conqueror of a new land.
To violate her perfection with his imperfections.
He imagined what it would be like to be Addison's first non-preppy schoolboy. Knowing her, she'd probably approach sex with the same fiery determination to succeed that she shows in every other aspect in life. That could be ... quite wondrous and wild.
You know what they say about redheads - they're crazy in bed.
He wondered if she would be eager to learn all the things about physical intimacy that he would be only too happy to teach her.
Would she be interested to learning other pleasures?
She grew up in sheltered Connecticut after all, so that, itself, ought to be a good enough reason as to why she needs lessons from him.
Mark envisaged the things he would teach her if she would let him. First, would be how to kiss. Derek never kissed her properly.
Well, it's not how he would kiss her.
He would show her that a true kiss will leave you breathless, heaving and trembling with passion. A true kiss will fill you with an insane need to get as physically close to the other person as humanly possible. Then, he would teach her how to touch - touch herself slowly, as she slides out of her clothes and expose herself to his hungry gaze, to touch him, hesitantly, wantonly, animalistically, until there is no part of his body that she does not know. After that, he would ask her to let him touch her - to stroke her, rub her, pinch her, lick her, suckle her - until she can bear it no longer.
He imagined Addison on her knees in front of him. In white lingerie - the colour of purity. But he'd teach her some very impure things. Very very impure indeed.
Mark didn't fight the erotic fantasies that began to steam inside of his head. It's safe to indulge them in the privacy of his own mind, he decides.
It's only natural that one does.
Suddenly and without him even realising, Addison was awake and stretching with feline grace, making the material of her top stretch taut across her breasts.
His eyes zeroed in on the sight.
Before she had time to recover from the dazed confusion of her first awakening, Mark laid the newspaper strategically over his lap. And to distract her further from what she's doing to his body, he drawled, "So, Sleeping Beauty's finally awake? I'll be sending you the dry-cleaning bill for drooling all over my jacket by the way."
She just glared at him groggily, in fact. Perfect, thin brows raised scowling at him and for a second he thinks he might just be terrified of her. And he was right because just then, she grabbed his collar and pulled him closer so their faces were only a hair's breath apart.
His heart stopped beating, then.
"Listen up, Sloan, I do not drool under any circumstances. Got it."
"You might want to take it down a decibel, princess." he whispered conspirationally. "Prince Charming is still napping." he motioned to Derek's recumbent form.
Addison let go of his collar, looking somewhat guilty.
"You're such an ass, you know." she hissed furiously.
Waking up just as she had, and from a dream so peculiar, so bewildering, and so unfitting about said person in this car that she can't even look at said person in the eyes anymore, that had left her so so very confused, and when she's so very that, she tends to lash out at whomever was in close range.
Mark smirked at her.
"And only a week ago you told me you loved me." he drawled.
Addison reddened. Trust Mark to throw that moment of weakness back in her face with a smug. But two can definitely play at that game.
"As I recall, Mark, I was not the one who said it first." she replied sharply.
"Only because you practically begged me to."
And finally the elephant that has been living with them for the past few days have been addressed and acknowledged.
XXX
Along with a few of their friends from Columbia, Mark, Addison and Derek had decamped from Manhattan to the Hamptons right at the beginning of the summer.
All had stayed at the Montgomery's residence. Of course. It was promised to be a truly halcyon summer. And for a few weeks it had been ... truly.
Derek had paid more than enough attention to Addison, complimented her a handful of occasions, and she was the envy of the other bikini-clad beach-loving socialites.
Mark had chased girls, and more often than not, caught them.
Derek had seemed more than content and happy to hang out with his girlfriend and best friend.
They had simply had fun, and the awkward moments and unwanted emotions on his part seemed to have been suppressed and is now long forgotten.
Good.
Perhaps it never even existed in the first place.
Then, they bumped into Minka - one of Addison's preppy high school friends (though she kept insisting that their relationship never was that.) in Southampton, who had invited them all to a beach bash at her beach house.
Addison was more reluctant, opposing to the invite without a single thought. But he brushed her off with a quick, "We'll definitely be there." at Minka, which undoubtedly resulted in a death glare and silence on Addison's part for the rest of the afternoon.
Just like with Derek, she can never stay too mad at him for too long. And he knew that.
It had turned into a true all-night rager.
In the early hours of the morning, someone had suggested skinny-dipping on the private beach. Some of the partygoers were all for it, others were more reluctant.
Derek - oh, it wasn't even remotely a surprise - had pointed out that the water would be pretty cold at that time of night and he wasn't about to freeze his ass off.
Minka and Tina had laughed and said he was chicken.
Oh ... but Derek is a realist. The water would be freezing.
Mark had of course said he would not be as ungallant as his best friend and would be happy to escort any naked lady who wished to go into the water. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Derek had persisted that it was a bad idea.
Then, Addison shocked the life out of both of them by unzipping her short summer dress so that she was clad only in bra and panties. And then she quickly kissed her boyfriend on the lips in an unmistakeable invitation and told him not to be a spoilsport.
"C'mon, Derek. It'll be fun."
The neutral feelings Mark had been trying so hard to maintain about Addison and her relationship with Derek collapsed. He could clearly see how the chain of events would unfold. Derek would first take Addison's hand and they would be off into the water, fingers intertwined. And, after swimming together au natural, they would return to the house, passions inflamed, then, one thing will lead to another and he'll be left to stuff his ears for the rest of the night.
He isn't quite sure how he feels about that, but it was definitely not neutral, absolutely not okay about it all.
Instead, Derek just shook his head at her, insisting that it wasn't a good idea, and gave her a kiss on the cheek, telling her to not go too far into the water. That he's just going to go back to her place and crash on the couch.
"Mark ..." Derek nodded at him before he walked away, which meant to keep an eye on Addison.
He nodded in response.
Of course, he will.
Just for a second, Mark caught the look of hurt and disappointment wash on Addison's face, before it was replaced with one of determination.
"So, are we going to do this thing, or what?" she asked as she turned back to the group.
"You know a real skinny-dip requires that you lose the underwear, right?" Mark drawled. He found it hard to believe that the prim and proper and perfect was amenable to swimming naked with more than a dozen of sweaty and drunk and hairy strangers.
"You know me Mark." she said, looking right into his eyes in a way that made his pulse race, "I never back down from a challenge." Then, she led the way down to the beach.
During the short walk, Mark's opinion on the advisability of a midnight skinny-dip started to shift.
From yes, all for it to, no, this is so stupid.
All sorts of possibilities started to form in his head. They never would have occurred to him in relation to his own - or anyone else's, for that matter - safety, but now he actually finally comprehended that Addison would be joining in on the escapade, that's making him increasingly anxious.
It was dark and they were drunk. It's a recipe for disaster. It would be easy for someone to get into trouble in the water, to drown even, without anyone noticing. And Mark had heard that sharks came closer to the shore at night. For all they knew the ocean could be filled with them. And the water will be so cold.
Derek Shepherd was right.
And Addison is slender with hardly any subcutaneous fat to keep her warm and the fact that she's always always cold, regardless of the temperature, did not sit well with him.
She would feel the cold much worse.
"Addison, wait!" he began to call out.
But before he could catch up to her, she was already stripping off.
He only caught a glimpse of her before she was submerged in water. But that little glimpse was enough to make him momentarily forget he ever even had a friend called Derek Shepherd.
So too he made his way into the water with the others, most of whom were laughing and giggling with each other. Mark, however, was completely focused on Addison, who was floating a little further out.
She was staring up at the moonlight, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, a wry smile on her face.
"You are ..." he paused, searching for an adjective that adequately expressed how in awe he is of Addison Montgomery. "Amazing, you know that, Montgomery?"
She smiled sardonically and shrugged. "I sometimes think you're the only one who knows that."
"Derek doesn't know how to have a good time."
"Unlike you."
"Unlike you." Mark corrected.
Addison stopped staring at the moon and turned to Mark.
"Some people think I'm no fun."
"Some people think veganism gives them psychic powers."
"You don't think I'm some prissy Stepford WASP who always has to colour inside the lines?"
Mark moved closer to Addison, dropping his voice to a confidential whisper. "Red, if you were really a girl like that you wouldn't be so naked right now."
Addison looked down at her body in surprise, as if she had just realised it's unclothed state. In the dark and under the water, nothing important was visible, just a vague shape and colour of flawless porcelain skin.
She then turned her attention to his body, realising that he too was also undressed. She could see his chest and both his arms, her breathing elongated.
Derek's arms aren't as muscular as Mark's and she just noticed them so strong and solid and she suddenly has the urge to run her fingers along them. His chest hairs are sticking out in different directions and she wondered if she could get them to lie flat with her tongue. She could probably use her tongue on his nipples too, which at the moment looked rock hard from the cold or something ...
She froze as the realisation dawned on her.
No way. No fucking way.
It's just that she had never paid much, if not any, attention to his ... immaculately chiselled body and it's ... it's ... making her blush with the unwavering thoughts roaring in her head. And if she wasn't so frozen, she'd be in flames right now.
"I'm drunk." she whispered in horror.
Mark grinned. "Endearingly so."
"You have to help me," she hissed, gripping his arm.
"Are you talking about the kind of 'help' that's going to cause problems between me and my best friend?" Mark whispered back, wondering what he would do if she would say yes.
Addison slapped his arm.
"Ow," he swore, rubbing his arm. "Okay. So, what is this help that you need?"
"I need you to get me back onto the beach and into my clothes without anyone seeing me naked."
"Any idea how I should go about achieving this mission impossible?"
"No. I'm drunk, remember?"
Mark thought for a minute. Truthfully, he really didn't want the other guys in the water - some lame-brain brats - to be ogling Addison when she gets out of the water, either.
"It's simple." he told her. "You just have to stay in the water until everyone else gets out and has gone back inside."
"But I'm already getting so c-cold." Addison whimpered.
Mark cursed. "Well, they will too, then." he said.
But then, he helped speed up the exit of Minka and Tina from the ocean, and consequently the rest of the guys, with some obnoxious underwater tickling and threatened drownings.
After Addison forced Mark to keep his eyes closed while she got out and put her clothes back on, he helped her back home on wobbly legs. It was a strange role reversal – normally it'd be she (and Derek too) taking care of him after he'd get intoxicated at a party.
"Do you really think I'm fun?" Addison asked as they reached the little wooden gate to her beach house. His arm had been wrapped around her stomach to steady her and when she turned back to face him her mouth was only inches from his.
He looked into her eyes. "Sweetheart, you're so much fun that I just know you can't be good for me."
Addison arched her eyebrows. "You love things that aren't good for you." she whispered huskily.
"Yea." he murmured as his mouth descends to hers. Her breath was whispering shivers into his lips and he moved to tuck a strand behind her ear.
He does like things that aren't good for him.
He likes her.
"Great! You guys are back." Derek said congenially as he opened the door. "You both better get to bed and get some sleep. You're going to be feeling pretty sick in a couple of hours from now."
Shit!
"Yea. Sure."
Addison was already turning the latch to the gate and he watched as she gave her boyfriend a kiss on the mouth, whispering something that he wants so desperately to hear, then disappearing into warmth without any acknowledgement of what almost just happened.
The next day Derek's prediction proved to be correct. Mark had a massive hangover while Addison's seemed to be compounded by a case of the flu, brought on by her late night swim.
She lay groaning under the pillow and covers when Derek first visited her with a morning pick-me-up and completely ignored his kind gesture, insisting that she just needed to rest her eyes a little more, that she wasn't at all ill.
Now, that she still is sick. "I better go get Derek. Tell him we won't be heading to the centre anytime soon." Mark said.
Just then, a knock was on the door.
"Don't let him in." Addison hissed, just as Mark was about to say "Come in."
"Why not?" he asked.
"I don't want him to see me all ... snotty and blotchy."
"Oh, right. I forgot that I'm the only one who has that privilege. Thank you for that." Mark moved towards the door before she had a chance to smack him with a pillow.
He and Derek had a hushed conversation outside.
"He's going to call a doctor. A real doctor. Not us." he informed Addison a few minutes later. "He said he's going to cancel plans with Sam and the others to stay here and nurse you."
She groaned again. "I don't want him to stay here with me."
"You're face really isn't that ... blotchy. You still look nice."
"It's not that. He'll be all annoyingly high and mighty and smug about being right about the skinny-dipping being a bad idea. And I don't want to put up with his 'I told you so' attitude all day. It's annoying."
Mark smirked. "I'll see what I can do."
Half an hour later of much convincing, he re-appeared with some plain toast and the news that Derek had been dispatched to play golf with Sam and the others.
Mark had opted to stay home with Addison. It was to nurse his own very persisting hangover, and definitely not her.
Nevertheless, he spent the next several days at home with her as she continued to feel sick.
It was only fair Addison said, pointing out that she and Derek would keep him company when he fell ill countless of times.
He internally rolled his eyes. It's always Addison and Derek, she and Derek, never just she, herself. They just have to conjoined by the hips.
Addison and Derek.
But he did not mind keeping her company this once.
He only freaked out when a week later she was still listless and her fever suddenly soared.
The doctor was again sent for.
"I'm going to put her on another medicine." Dr. Kahn told him. "It will bring her fever down but it's going to make her a little woozy. The effects would be pretty immediate." she told both Mark and Derek the dosage and the timing, and watched as she poured out her first dosage.
"You could be a nurse." teased Dr Kahn, as he persuaded Addison to swallow the noxious smelling medicine. "You're very lucky to have such good friends to take care of you." she said to Addison.
She scrunched up her nose. "I am his Red," Addison said importantly, pinching Mark's cheek. "Aren't I?"
"I guess the wooziness is kicking in." he observed as he pry each of her fingers off his face.
"I'll leave you to it." the doctor concluded.
"Mmmm." she murmured a few minutes later, squirming distractingly on the bed. "I feel wonderful. I'm much better already." She kept shifting and twisting around, making the bedsheets bunch up and the straps of her nightgown fall down.
"You need to get some sleep."
"Not until you admit that I'm your Red." Addison chided, the effects of the medicine obviously making her garrulous.
"You're my Red." Mark went along with it as Derek tried to tuck her back into bed.
"And you love me." she challenged.
He hesitated - Derek is in the room, he wanted to hiss that at her - and glanced at his best friend, who didn't look at all bothered or the very least suspicious.
Wouldn't that just be a awfully weird thing to say with him so very right there?
"You don't need any more love. The whole world already loves you."
She pouted. "Say it."
"Why?"
There was a pause as Addison appeared to think hard about the question. "Because out of the whole world you're who I want to hear it from the most." she finally said.
Derek then batted at him to quickly say whatever she wanted to hear so she could get some rest.
"I love you."
She smiled angelically. "I love you too. I love you better than Savvy, and Daddy, and ..."
XXX
Back in the car, Mark coolly regarded Addison.
"Did you mean it?" she asked.
That was not what he had expected her to say. He had thought she would laugh it off, or say she'd been hysterically sick and rambling on about nothing.
He didn't make himself vulnerable, though.
"Did you?" he returned.
"You're one of my best friends," Addison said, rolling her eyes. "Of course, I love you."
Mark grinned. "In that case I adore you – from the top of your redhead to the tip of your perfectly painted toes. Even when you're drunk or sick. Actually, maybe especially then."
She gave Mark a shove and he pushed her back, the movement prompting Derek to finally pull off his headphones.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Nothing." Mark laughed as Addison hit him again. "Just your girlfriend telling me how much she loves me."
So what do you think about this chapter?
If you guys have any suggestions for Derek please let me know and leave a review!