Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟴𝟬 it was only a matter of time

"Hey," Andrew barked into his phone as the voicemail rolled over again. 

He was really trying his best not to get mad, but he could feel his patience slipping slowly. In the distance, he could hear his shower cut off, a light female humming filling the next room. 

"You know what this means, Charlie, you know what I'm going to say... Don't make me do this. I really hope you're talking to her right now otherwise things are going to get messy—"

His message cut short.

Inbox full.

Andrew stared at his cell phone, blood rushing to his ears as his brain processed the wall that he'd just encountered. 

For a moment, he felt as though he was a million miles from civilisation, his whole mind stuck on the automated voice that murmured an apology. He supposed it was nice to hear someone actually apologise, Charlie wouldn't, he knew that much.

"Is everything okay?"

Crashing back to earth, the psychiatrist looked up. 

The woman he'd been seeing during his time in the city gave him an earnest smile, her eyes flickering between him and the cell phone clenched between frustrated fingers. 

Teddy Altman stood in the doorway, hair tousled and damp, gaze wary. There was a pause in which Andrew considered telling her exactly how close everything was from going to shit, but then he cleared his throat and tossed his phone down onto his bed.

The last twenty-four hours had been tense for the two of them, both of them all too aware that, by the end of today, Andrew was going to be gone into the wind leaving her behind. When he looked at her, he could feel her tentativeness, as if there were things she wanted to voice but couldn't. 

Ultimately, they'd both been avoiding it and conversation, as a result, had stumbled to a halt. There was a fragility in every glance between them, a muscle that wouldn't relax in Andrew's chest as he fought for the right things to say. 

Andrew hated that this was the first thing they'd found the energy to talk about on the last day they had together.

"Yeah," He breathed out, nodding and running a hand through his hair. 

Not even his tightly practised professional deadpan could cover the slight tremor in his fingers as he debated how to carry himself. 

"Everything's fine—"

Fine. Fine. Fine.

Andrew didn't feel as though everything was fine. 

The lie felt clunky and painfully dishonest. For the record, things weren't fine, they were actually pretty crappy. He was beginning to feel as though things were the worst they'd been in a very, very long time.

What a shame too, Andrew thought to himself as he let out a long, bone-rattling sigh, I had such high hopes for him. 

He knew that honesty was a big ask in his family, but he'd really wanted better for his little brother.

Teddy watched him, forehead creasing as she watched Andrew turn away. He seemed to resign back to packing, folding clothing a little too haphazardly and tossing them in the direction of his suitcase. 

The aforementioned structure and strategy of his checkout had fallen to dust, set on fire by the chaos of his brother's secrets. 

He found himself running behind, wary of the moment where he was going to get tripped up by the late checkout and the hole his family had dug for him—