Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟳𝟵 silver spring

"I'm going back--"

Suddenly, he was turning around and walking towards her, stopping her from leaving. He caught her arm. 

The look she shot him was venomous, eyes dark and wheeling very slightly from the amount of alcohol in her body. He'd lost count of how much either of them had drank; they definitely shouldn't have gone to a bar beforehand. 

He felt as though he was sober enough to make this very definitive decision for her: she wasn't going back there, not without him at least and Mark was very against enabling Amy to undo all of the time she'd spent in rehabilitation. 

His game plan was to get a hold of Derek as soon as possible, let him know exactly what was happening--

"No," Mark said firmly, "No, you're going home."

He'd never seen Beth so angry before.

"We're going home," He specified.

"Oh screw you," She almost tripped as she tried to rip her arm away from him. 

He really didn't know how much she'd had to drink; there'd been so many glasses that Mark couldn't remember what had reduced her to this-- but whatever number it was, it was quite possibly the drunkest he'd ever seen her (which was definitely a feat.)

"Beth--"

"No," Beth spat, shaking her head at him almost blindly. 

He let her go, worried that he'd hurt her while she was writhing around; the last thing they needed tonight was a ER visit, he couldn't imagine how he'd explain that to a hospital board. (He also really, really didn't want to hurt her either, there was something about drunk Beth that just made him protective of her, despite the screaming and the thrashing.) 

"You don't get to tell me what to do. I want to stay--"

"You can't stay."

He was completely miffed at why she would want to return to that half-cast nightclub. In all honesty, Mark could think of a million things he'd rather do; at the moment, he was thinking about getting back to Beth's apartment, getting Derek all filled in and then getting into Beth's double bed and sleeping off his lingering tipsiness. 

He'd been drunk only ten minutes ago, very happily drunk and carefree, following Beth through the nightclub like a moth chasing a flame, but this sudden crescendo had sobered him up very quickly.

Now, he blinked at his girlfriend, watching as she just stared at him, struggling to process what he'd just said. His bewilderment about why Beth could possibly want to stay with Amy had translated into a laugh of disbelief; in retrospect, Mark could tell that it was most definitely an asshole grade reaction. 

It was meant in a baffled 'why would you do that?' way, but came off, very distinctively, as a nonplussed 'why would you think that you can do what you want?'. Or, at least, it did to Beth's heavily intoxicated brain.

Her response was slow. A passing pedestrian turned to glance between them, warily glancing between the couple. They must've been a sight, even for Manhattan on a Saturday evening; over Beth's shoulder, Mark could see the stretch of restaurants and nightclubs that formed some of the key nightlife in the East Village, it was busy and lively, and yet Beth seemed more alive and wilder than any of them. 

She inhaled sharply, seemed to regain a tiny bit of composure in her hectic mind, and chuckled to herself.

"You're such an asshole."

The words were blurry almost (incoherent and sloppy in the way that Beth almost forgot what she was saying before she said it) but Mark could make them out without much effort. He was beginning to get the feeling that Beth used the term almost like a term of endearment. His name and the term were synonymous.