A/N This was written for the drabble-a-thon at LJ. Enjoy :)
I Never
It's one of those nights where the only thing he likes about living in a hotel room is that he has thousands of baby bottles of booze at his disposal. They're both tired but too restless yet for bed so he does the logical thing and inspects the mini bar.
"Scotch?" He asks.
"Anything."
They don't bother with the couch, flopping onto the generic hotel carpet instead and murmuring a quiet 'cheers.'
After a moment she comments; "You know, I've never drunk anything from a mini bar before."
He raises an eyebrow; "Shitting me?"
She shakes her head; "Read an article that everything's marked up 400%."
He chuckles a bit, taking another sip and then; "I never realised how much I was missing." He pauses, shooting her a cheeky grin; "not dating a nerd."
She smiles despite herself; "I never realised how much I was missing;" she pauses to mock him; "not dating an arse."
Somehow - without meaning to – they end up playing a carefree version of 'I Never.' She thinks they should be ashamed because they're both respectable adults and the last time she played this she was sixteen and she'd stolen a bottle of three hundred year old cherry from her father's stock. But it flows so easily (like everything with them) and as the scotch takes over everything she thinks about how she should and shouldn't act around Mark Sloan ebbs into nothingness.
"I never got a B."
He drinks.
"I never had sex at prom."
She drinks.
"I never had a threesome."
He drinks.
"I never seduced anyone by asking them to 'teach me.'"
She shakes her head with a kind of disbelieving laugh and takes a sip.
"I never slept with so many nurses they formed a united front against me."
"Too specific." He says, bottle between his teeth and feigning a wound to the chest.
"You stared it."
"I never start anything."
She doesn't drink.
"Touché." He chuckles, "I never had sex in a public place."
She waits.
He drinks.
It goes on for a while like this, the slow undressing of history. They don't give any more detail than a single sip, enjoying the simplicity of it all. Of course – because she's pretty sure by the end of it that there's nothing Mark Sloan hasn't done with his penis – he gets drunker much faster than she does.
"I never fell in love."
It catches her off guard. She's had boyfriends of course – and she's had the kind of non-boyfriends like George that she fashioned herself in love with – but she doesn't think she's ever really been in love.
Not in the way he's asking. Not in the 'madly-deeply-irrational-painful' way he's asking.
So she doesn't drink.
He does.
She doesn't know what to say to that. She bites her lip discreetly and then offers; "I've never regretted anything I've done in regard to men."
She laughs and downs the whole bottle.
There's only a short pause before he says; "Well I can't drink to that Little Grey because I've never done anything in regard to men."
She laughs again but this time there's no bitter inflection; "I'm sort of surprised."
It signals the end of the game because he reaches over the pile of empty bottles and draws her into a messy kiss (the result of so much drink and life experience).
Later (after they've laughed their way through scotch sex on the generic hotel carpet – it wouldn't work if they were with anyone else) he says; "I never pay the full mini bar bill."
She furrows her eyebrows; "What do you mean?"
"You've never used tea bags and water to refill the booze bottles Little Grey?"
She laughs, "No. Never."
You know you want a drunk Mark to add to the collection ;) Leave a note in the review