#affiar

~*~

"i've spent all of the love i've saved. we were always a losing game."

~*~

she probably should've left after their rendezvous in the comforters, but she didn't. instead, she lay on the wide open bed sprawled out over the covers, dressed and ready for the day as she asks him random questions just to annoy him, which she knows he secretly enjoys. (the tiny smiles he would let sneak past his lips didn't go unnoticed by her. he was quite horrible at trying to convince her that he didn't enjoy it.)

"why can't chickens fly?" she asks thoughtfully, pursing her lips, making him stop in his tracks as he puts his toiletries in his suitcase. that was definitely the weirdest question she had asked yet. and trust him, she'd asked a lot of them.

"umm, because they're too fat? i don't know." he answers with a shrug of his shoulders. he didn't know why the hell chickens didn't fly. all he knew was that their wings were useless.

jo looks unamused with his answer as a frown begins to form in her face. "but why? the universe gave them wings, so why not the opportunity to actually use them?"

alex thinks over the answer for a second, shrugging his shoulder as he puts more things in his bag. "dude, i don't know. you're the one in med school. go ask a teacher. or google. google has the answer to everything."

she furrows her eyebrows, reaching behind her to grab a pillow, which she successfully tosses and it hits his face. she lets out a loud laugh as the pillow makes a thump! sound as it hits the floor, alex sending her a glare she had gotten to know all too well these past few days. "you act like i'm in high school." she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning as she narrows her eyes at him.

"i would hope you're not. otherwise i'd get arrested." he says gruffly, finding a loner sock in the bathroom and tossing it into his suitcase aimlessly, nearly missing the destination point as it hangs over the side of it loosely.

"asshole. i'm twenty-three." she bites back.  

"exactly." he says. "you're a fetus. you're a young, tiny, innocent fetus." he pauses for a second, "well, maybe not exactly the innocent part." he grins coyly, earning another pillow to the face.

she scowls at him playfully, a small smile gracing her lips. "shut up. and you do realize you're not much older than me right?" she flops back against the pillows, liking the poof! sound it made whenever she hit the confronter beneath her. it was settling, so much so that she did it again and again. sitting up and them flopping down. sit up, flop down. sit up, flop down. to say it annoyed him would be an understatement.

for someone who wasn't a high school student she sure as hell acted like one sometimes. 

most of the time.

all the damn time.

"still. you are in school. ask a teacher, they probably know. or ask google, like i said. they seem to have the answer to everything."

jo blatantly ignores his answer, lost in her own world as she begins to ramble on, a trait he found out she did often. on most people he would find it annoying, but for some reason it suited her. "but it's so cruel." she pouts, narrowing her eyes and glaring at the blank TV screen. "i mean, they have all these bird friends and they see them fly in the sky, and all they wanna do is fly too but they can't because the universe gave them crappy wings that can't hold them up. it's crappy. the situation's crappy. chicken's deserve better." she says in one breath, sinking into the pillows behind her once she was done.

he looks at her for second before bursting into loud laughter. she seemed to have that effect on him, making him laugh at the most unconventional of times. "you think chickens deserve better?" he asks incredulously after he calms down from his laughing fit, a wide grin on his face as he looks at her.

jo blushes and looks away, feeling the heat rise from her cleavage to her face. she truly didn't know where the hell that rant came. she purses her lips and crosses her arms over her chest. "y-yes." she stutters out, trying not to launch into another long monologue. she could go on for days about how the poor, innocent, annoying cluckers got delt crappy cards.  

"oh, i get it." he says, suddenly laying down on the empty spot next to her. "the chicken is you, and the wings are mothers. you're wondering why all the other people -birds- have wings -mothers- but you don't."

she stares at him, mouth agape. was that what she was thinking? she'd never put that together before. was she doing it without even realizing it? "n-no." she stutters out lamely. that would be crazy right? comparing a bird and wings to herself. that's just.. sad. not to mention pathetic. who the hell compares themselves to flightless birds? pathetic people, that's who. she wasn't a chicken, she was a... a fucking unicorn!

"please. i'm the king of euphemisms." he smirks, tossing a shirt into his suitcase as he stands form his position. he looks up to meet her eyes, which were wide. "you didn't know." he states, jo nodding in response.

he shrugs nonchalantly, "well, congrats on knowing it earlier than me. i didn't figure out the weird shit i said was just me reflecting on myself until last year." he gives a half hearted attempt at a grin. it was true. it wasn't until a patient pointing it out actually (who he thought was kind of crazy), so he supposed he couldn't give himself much credit.  

jo pinches her eyebrows together, biting her bottom lip in concentration. "i just compared myself to a chicken." she says abruptly, making him let out a snort.

"that you did."

she suddenly stands up from her spot on the bed, hands flying around like a mad woman. "who the fuck compares themselves to a chicken!" she shrieks, sounding so serious alex was trying not to burst into a laugh right then and there.

"you." he deadpans, unable to stop the wide smirk that spread across his sharp features. she was too easy to mess with sometimes.  

she throws him a sharp glare, taking off her flat from her foot and hitting him right in the chest, picking it up and slipping it back on after. he winces as he rubs the spot, making sure no shoe prints got marked on him. he wouldn't know how the hell he would explain that to robbins. i mean, 'oh no, i'm fine, just got trampled by a single shoe' was a bit of a hard thing to believe.

"no, but... that's just weird." she says, crossing her arms over her chest once more as she looks out the window, taking notice of the light bits of snow falling from the sky. she didn't know why she expected otherwise. it was november after all. she'd practically grown up in boston, she knew the reasons like the back of her hand.

he nods. "it is."

jo watches as the snow falls. it was so pure. she used to consider herself pure. well, not really. she lived in her car and had gotten kicked out of so many foster homes she lost count. but she did always think she still had that shred of innocence left in her, the girl who looked for the good in everything, despite her normally pessimistic thoughts. now, now that little bit of purity was shattered.

she cheated on her husband.

and the worst part? she enjoyed it. not the fact that she was cheating, god no. the guilt was all consuming, a torturous monster that she truly just wanted to stab to death with a sword as she watched it bleed out. no, she felt guilty at the fact that she couldn't get enough of the sex.

no man had ever made her feel the way alex karev had in the past three days. never in her life. she'd had random hookups that she met at bars who were quite good, and not to mention her husband, who she would used to compare to god in bed. but now... now she wasn't so sure.

it was like he knew her. it was like... he knew exactly what to do to push her over the edge, something she had never experienced before. god, she felt so dirty. she wanted to just hop in the shower and scrub every reminder of alex off her, but at the same time she just wanted to do him in the shower.

shaking away her thoughts, she looks back at him, noting how he also seemed to be lost in his mind as well, staring at the snow.

he notices her eyes on him, so he just lets his mouth tumble out the words flying through his brain. he didn't feel the need to hold back around jo, something he didn't know he was missing until she came into the picture.

"it doesn't snow very often in seattle." he says, watching as the white flakes trickle down to the sidewalk, some sticking to the window as they let the wind move them in whatever direction it pleases.

"we get a lot of rain, but not a lot of snow. to be honest, it snowed more in iowa." she nods at his words. she'd known snow all her life. she grew up on the east coast and never left. she liked the white fluffiness that would make tiny piles outside her bay window in the study, something she had since she moved in with paul.

she grimaces slightly, "do you ever get annoyed with the rain?" she asks softly.

alex nods furiously, a silent chuckle escaping his lips. "all the damn time." he whispers, taking a seat on one of the chairs the room housed.

"then why'd you move there?" she asks curiously. surely he knew how much it rained in seattle. practically babies did.  

"i got accepted to seattle grace. no way in hell would i give up a chance to train at one of the best hospital's in the world because of the weather."

she nods, settling into a comfortable silence with him as they focus on the snow. that was something they both enjoyed about each other. there was no pressure to fill the noise. they could sit in silence and be okay with it.

the snow falling was like them, having to leave this hotel room. here, they were able to attack each other's lips with all they had in them, no matter how wrong it was. the snow hitting the ground was like them needing to leave the four walls. it was them having to face and come to terms with their actions.

so for the moment they sat silently, just trying to savor the last few moments before their life would probably turn to shit.

they weren't telling anybody, god no. but the overhanging cloud of guilt and shame above their head's already made it a little bit harder to carry on.

some say the guilt is the ultimate punishment, worse than death or anything else.

and at that moment they couldn't agree more.

____

they sit for a while longer, just watching the city of boston get covered in white. it was settling, calming in a way they didn't know they needed.

he would miss talking to her. which was a stupid thing to say. a really stupid thing to say actually. but it was the truth. he had never found himself opening up to someone so easily. for once in his life he wasn't given eyes of pity when someone hears his sob story he called his childhood, instead she just understood. she knew what it was like to grow up with basically nothing and make themselves into something, trying to be better than their parents, even though she never knew her's.

it was refreshing, talking to someone without having to worry abut being judged or labeled as something he used to be. he wasn't a foster kid anymore, nor a little boy who had to take care of his younger siblings from such a young age. he wasn't the twelve year old boy who had to practically raise his little sister. to her, he was just alex. the guy who she cheated on her husband with (he wasn't proud of that part), the guy she talked until three in the morning with. the guy she ate a shit loud of pizza with. he was just a normal guy with a crappy past.

she would miss talking to him too. with alex, talking was so natural. she didn't need to think, she didn't feel the pressure to say the right thing in hopes that she would be seen as more than what she had been told she was all her life.

but she would miss him holding her.

a lot.

when they laid in bed, he would wrap his arms around her and pull her in close. she swore, she had never felt more safe than she did while nestled in his chest as his fingers wove through her hair. it was such an intimate embrace, and they knew they shouldn't be doing it, but hell, they'd crossed the line that first night. why not be a bit more reckless? the only people feeling the pain would be them.  and if a few hours of them taking away each other's pain would mean that there was more added on later, then why the hell not?  

they didn't want to say goodbye. not just because they were screwing each other, but because they had made a friend in one another.

so with that thought, without looking away from the window alex sticks out his palm to the side, not far away from jo, "hand me your phone."

she quirks a quizzical brow at him, "what?" she asks, turning to face towards him from where she was sitting on the miniature table. it was a small little thing, but she petite herself, so the table acted like a stool.  

he simply only raises his eyebrows and she gets what he means. she cracks a small smile, happy that he didn't want their newfound friendship to come to an end either. she learned over the years that losing a relationship was okay, it would take time to heal, but you got over it. a friendship was something you never ultimately forgot about. he and alex weren't by any means in a relationship, but it was safe to say they had become really good friends.  

she walks over to the bedside table, grabbing her phone and unlocking it, a new pang of guilt shooting through her at the sight of her lock screen. it was of her and paul a few months ago, a couple weeks before he proposed. they looked really happy. she was smiling wide and he was pressing a kiss to the side of her cheek. she shakes off the feelings, opening the contact app for him to fill out with his information.

"put your name down as alexandra." she says adamantly, alex glancing up with a look of displeasure.

"what?" last time he checked his full name was alexander, not a chick's name.

"he might get suspicious." she shrugs her shoulders, taking his phone from his hand and filling out the little lines of information.

he rolls his eyes, he thought it was a bit excessive, but he did kinda of get where she was coming from. just alex could be a boy or a girl. "fine, then you have to be joseph." he answers, smirking triumphantly.

she scowls, begrudgingly typing out joseph onto the screen. "you better not fucking call me that asshole." she mutters, earning a light laugh. nobody ever really called him stuff like 'asshole' or 'dickhead' without using it as an insult. it was actually pretty funny when it wasn't being used condescendingly, he learned.  

"as long as you don't call me alexandra we have a deal." he shakes his head. "i already know an alexandra. dated one, but we call her lexie." he mumbles, more to himself than to jo. a small laugh is heard in the room after his words, alex cracking a small, barely there smile. they eventually stand up, knowing that now was the time. if they delayed it any longer than he would miss his flight, and that was one thing he couldn't do, because that would mead to questions from robbins, which would lead to questions from izzie, which would lead to the truth coming out. long story short, he couldn't miss his flight.  

alex and jo stand in front of each other, staring into each other's eyes.

should she kiss him? as a goodbye?

as if he hears her thoughts he's stepping closer to her, raising one hand to her cheek, his eyes looking a bit conflicted as he stares at her. he takes it as a sign that she doesn't pull away and begins to lean in, making her shiver all over as she feels his breath fan her face. their heart rates pick up simultaneously in their chests, a feeling that hadn't faded over the past three days.

after what seems like hours their lips finally connect, taking in their taste for the last time. the fire burns in their stomach's, but this time they put it aside. if they took it any further, they knew that they would end up in the throes of passion once again.

they pull away at the same time, him reaching down to grab the handle of his suitcase as he walks out of the door with her, who only has her small clutch in her hand. he shuts the door behind them, staring at her once more.

"goodbye jo." he says, beginning to turn away.