waltzmatildah

Title: R is for Reaction (I feel it's gonna rain like this for days...)
Word Count: 1800
Characters: Alex/Cristina (because, why should Avery get all the fun?), with fleeting appearances by Mark and Lexie.
Rating: R for naughty words and kissing that's not technically consensual.
Prompt: Reaction for the Alphabet Meme (yes, I'm still doing it).
Summary: “Before you say anything, I'm only here because Meredith thinks you're about to throw yourself off the roof...” Alex's reaction is unexpected, to say the least. Beware, gratuitious hurt!Alex abounds *winks knowingly at only_obsession

Alex kneads at the muscles on the left side of his chest, a bottle of scotch, opened but untouched, is clenched between knuckles that are almost blue. The door behind him slams closed with a metallic clang and a pair of knees suddenly block his view of the grey concrete wall opposite him.

“Before you say anything, I'm only here because Meredith thinks you're about to throw yourself off the roof...”

Alex grunts in reply and closes his eyes, continues the kneading, doesn't care how weird he probably looks.

“You're not, are you? Gonna throw yourself off the roof? Should I get ready to scrub in?”

He's not looking at her, she's not even sure he's listening to her.

“Are you gonna drink that?”

“I think I'm having a heart attack...” he offers by way of a reply and two fingers settle on the pulse point below his right ear even as Cristina counters with, “You don't even have a heart...”

They're silent for seconds, her fingers warm on his neck, lingering like maybe she's forgotten she put them there and his breath, just this side of hyperventilating, fogs the air, thick and viscous between them.

He blinks slowly and she can see that he's been crying, maybe still is, and it's almost as shocking as the pounding beat of his blood beneath her fingertips. She wraps her hand around the base of the bottle, they're thumb to pinky as she tugs and he releases the vice like grip he's had on it with a whimper that she doesn't think he hears.

It's her undoing.

Cristina's knees hit the rough ground beneath her as she straddles his lap, scrapes them further as she digs in, squeezing at his hips. Her hand moves from his neck up into his hair, grabs a handful of it, hangs on. He's rigid under her, too stunned to move, to breathe, to react and she kind of likes it like that. Like she has the upper hand.

Alex works his palms up to her shoulders and manages to push her back a few centimetres, enough to get out a breathless fuck before her tongue is down the back of his throat and her left hand is on the wall above his head, effectively pinning him in place.

He moves his hands from her shoulders to her hair, tangles them at the base of her neck and tries not to taste the salt of failure and devastation that clings to his lips, or her lips, he can no longer tell. There's no rhythm in their movements, teeth grate and tongues fight for position, her elbow connects with his ribs and the back of his head slams into the brickwork behind them as the bottle of scotch at their feet is up-ended, spreading quickly across the concrete and soaking into their clothing.

If she was thinking, she'd know this was a bad idea. If she was thinking at all, she know this was a bad idea of monumental proportions. But she's not thinking as she shoves at his shoulders, and she's not thinking as she pushes and prods until he's slumped sideways, almost horizontal and she's definitely not thinking as her knuckles scrape across concrete, trapped somehow between his head and the cold ground.

His back is twisted at an uncomfortable angle and his left knee is screaming at him to fucking stop but her weight is holding him down and he's too exhausted to fight back and he can't time his movements enough to actually take a breath so he lays there and waits for her to finish.

Alex feels the moment that she realises; the air around them freezes and she goes solid under his palms, saucered eyes wide and shocked.

“Fuck...” She swipes the back of her hand across her saliva slick mouth as she sits up, grazed knuckles leaving a smear of blood on her chin that he doesn't think he'll tell her about.

He's gulping air like he's drowning, only he can't feel any water and she's still sprawled across his legs, one hand planted in the centre of his chest, holding her up, holding him down, maybe a bit of both. She scrambles back suddenly, til she's up against the wall opposite him, watching as he struggles to roll to the side, gasping and clawing at his throat.

He coughs wildly and she's back in her bedroom with rough hands around her neck and an overhead fan that whirs around and around and around...

“I can't...”

Alex voice snaps her back, she forces herself to look at him, he's fumbling in his pocket, still hunched over, coughing and gagging and she almost vomits instinctively at the sight. The sounds of his struggle fades to nothing, replaced by the roaring rush of her own blood in her ears as she slowly realises that something is not right.

Besides the fucking obvious of course.

“Alex?”

He looks over at her, his eyes rolling slightly in a way that makes her stomach dip. He's on his hands and knees, forehead almost touching the ground. It's started to rain, creating a shiny polka dot pattern across the dark of his jacketed back, and he's shaking violently but she doesn't think it's really all that cold.

“Alex?” she repeats, still not sure enough of her own voice to say anything more than his name.

He lifts a hand and scratches his nails down the side of his throat so hard that red welts remain, dotted pits of ragged skin and blood that match the welts she's sure she just created on his back. It looks like anaphalaxis but she can't think of anything that could have caused it.

Except her, maybe he's allergic to her.

“Jesus...” she breathes, pressing back into the wall behind her before propelling forward and collapsing at his side, hands hovering, too terrified to touch.

“Alex, what the...?”

He's making noises that she's never heard a human make before and there are tears and saliva streaming from his lower lip.

He grabs at her hand and tugs on her arm and his mouth moves but no words can form around the hacking coughs and she's usually so cool in a crisis and this is definitely a crisis but she can't remember a single fucking medical fact.

He screams, it's disjointed and terrified and Cristina's blood runs ice cold through her veins. She wraps her fingers roughly around his upper arm and hauls him upright using strength she didn't know she had. He stumbles and lands heavily on his knees, almost taking her with him.

“Get up! Fucking get up...” she's screaming and almost hysterical and he's heavy and only getting heavier, she needs to move him and fast.

Alex has one arm around her shoulders and the other splayed against the wall, as though the combination of both Cristina and the brickwork beside him can keep him upright. His chest is on fire, absolutely and completely and he wonders vaguely if he's been shot but he doesn't remember hearing a gun go off so he doesn't think so. There is rain in his eyes and running down the back of his neck and his head pounds in time with his heart. Attempting to breathe has become an exercise in futility and he concentrates instead on putting one foot in front of the other.

Cristina is yelling, he can hear her voice but he can't make out the words, they're nothing much more than background noise to him now. The rain has stopped, Alex is thankful for that but then he realises that they're suddenly inside and at the top of a set of stairs that he can't even contemplate navigating. His vision greys in and out of focus and he's still aware enough to know that if he doesn't get some air into his lungs in the next few seconds then things are going to head south pretty fucking quickly for him.

Cristina drags Alex to the top of the stairs that will lead them back into the main area of the hospital and doesn't stop to think about how she's going to get them both safely to the bottom. She's screaming for help as she moves them, over and over and over again without drawing breath and they're about two thirds of their way down when the door in front of them opens at exactly the same time as Alex collapses completely and takes them both heavily to the floor.

It's Sloan and Lexie that come bustling through the opening and for a second she thinks she might actually vomit in relief. Lexie's jaw drops and she freezes a few steps in, but Mark continues on towards them and has Alex on his back before Cristina can disentangle her own feet from his.

“Yang? What on Earth?”

Lexie still hasn't moved and Cristina wants to scream at her to do something, anything, but they just stare at each other, wide eyed mirrors, frozen in place.

“He's not breathing, Cristina... Jesus...” Mark is struggling to lift Alex but he's too heavy and Cristina snaps suddenly and grabs for his ankles, indicating for Lexie to help Mark with his head.

“Go!” She shouts redundantly when they have him slung between them, limp and disconcertingly silent, and they move awkwardly as one, through the doorway and out into the hall.

“What the hell happened?”

Cristina raises her eyes to look at Mark as his nose crinkles at the smell of the scotch that has soaked the leg of Alex's jeans.

“Were you drinking up there? Is he drunk?”

“No!” she shouts, loud and irrationally defensive. “No, we spilled a bottle of scotch, but he didn't drink any of it, I don't know what happened. I think it's anaphalaxis but I have no idea what the trigger was.”

“Is he allergic to anything?”

“I have no idea, I told you... I don't know what happened.”

They're almost to the wards now, Lexie leaves as soundlessly as she has done everything so far and sprints towards a crash cart. Mark and Cristina stop as more people surround them, asking questions and shouting instructions as Alex is injected with epinepherine while Mark tries to intubate.

“His airway's compromised...” Mark reports, “... throats completely closed... I need a ten blade, he needs a cric...”

Cristina swallows as Mark roughly tears the wrapper off the sterilized scalpel and presses it against Alex's throat. She doesn't want to look but it's a train wreck and she can't seem to turn away and when she blinks and her eyes open again Mark has Alex ventilated and they're moving him to a stretcher and so many people have swarmed and surrounded him that she can't actually see him at all anymore.

“Alex?” she calls, voice no more than a whisper as he disappears down the corridor towards the ER.

Cristina can't help but think that throwing herself at him and then almost killing him probably wasn't what Meredith had in mind when she ordered her to make sure he didn't do anything stupid, but at least he didn't jump off the damn roof.

At least he didn't do that.