Author's Note:
The comments are already flying in, it's wild!
This will be a slow burn, folks, much angst, hurt-comfort, experimental.
First time writing significant amounts of Derek/Addison, or any straight relationship for any length, for me, as well...
Hope you enjoy it!
bobbiejelly
CHAPTER CONTENT WARNING:
SKIP TO THE TITLE CARD AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS.
This Chapter contains the beginnings of an abusive relationship between Derek and Addison.
A vague amount of research was done on how emotionally abusive relationships form.
Abuse is never the fault of the victim, and no one ever 'deserves it.'
*Consensual straight sex.
While the sex between Addison and the AU-Abusive Derek Shepherd will be 'consensual', I recognize there is a limit to how 'consensual' sex can be in an abusive relationship. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not writing about sexual abuse and/or rape, per se, Addison asks him for sex, or he does and she wants him, and it's an unhealthy dynamic because of what he does and the circumstances, but in this AU I guess I'm not writing that he's forcing himself upon her while she is saying no. That's where I draw my line in what I am comfortable with. This has been altered from my previous content warning, upon the guidance of reader feedback - thanks!
Everyone deserves help, and perpetrators of violence need professional care as well.
Take care of yourselves as you read this.
bobbiejelly
Love The Way You Lie
Derek Shepherd, your husband, hits you- but you stayed until you couldn't stand up anymore. Your best friend Mark Sloan helped you leave him and you two had some adulterous sex. When you see Derek again in Seattle with another woman, all you want is to save her from him. You didn't mean to fall in love with her. She wasn't supposed to fall in love with you, either. But you both did, anyway.
-Addison Forbes Montgomery, for Meredith Grey
MerAdd. Meddison. F/F. Meredith Grey/Addison Montgomery. Rated E for Explicit. Grey's Anatomy & Private Practice Crossover.
CW: Domestic Violence. Unhealthy Relationships - Physically & Emotionally Abusive Addek & MerDer. Also briefly okay (non-abusive), Maddison & Mark/Derek.
*This story is entirely fictional. Please seek professional help for abusive relationships in yourself and others. Take all abuse seriously.*
Chapter 2: BEYOND NICE
You met Derek Christopher Shepherd by the time you didn't have braces or a lisp anymore and you were less of a band geek than you were in high school. He said his name is Derek. You said your name is Addison.
You fell in love with him sometime after that.
You hated him sometime after that.
You forget in what order sometime after all of it.
It was annoying to be moving from Connecticut to New York but you were glad to get away from all of your parent's bullshit.
New York is a big city but you managed to find a shitty place to live and rent somewhere in Manhatten and you call it 'The Hamptons' even though it's hardly a beauty of a house but it's enough for you and Naomi, anyway. You met Naomi through the incoming year Facebook group and you became friends online before you decided to move in, together.
It was the best decision you have ever made until now.
Naomi is your best friend.
She is your rock through all of this...
When you meet Derek he's already living in a house called 'The Brownstone' overlooking Central Park. You thought you were rich but maybe Derek's even richer? You don't really ask. Maybe he's not even richer; he just spends his money on really nice houses.
You meet him somewhere at school while you are studying because it's your first week of medical school and you don't want to get behind.
He was with another man you'll probably know later but you don't at the time.
He shakes your hand, and you shake his.
Derek is charming. He's very charismatic. He's insanely good-looking.
His hair is dreamy and his eyes are even dreamier. His smile makes him seem like the sun.
He asks you out right then and there on a date.
You say 'yes' right away.
You never look back.
Your first date with Derek you went out to a fancy restaurant and he paid for everything.
You could afford it, too, but you don't, because you like being treated like you are a girl.
He pulls out your chair for you, he hangs up your coat. He orders a single-malt scotch (it's his favorite, he tells you this, and you never forget it.)
You're not exclusive yet, because that would be insane.
But you still turn down Sam Bennett anyway on the first day of classes because Naomi Bennett likes him and she is your best friend.
So Sam dates Naomi and you date Derek Shepherd.
You go on a few double-dates with them.
It's actually really nice.
It was, in the beginning, it was beyond nice. It was phenomenal.
The four of you become five of you when Derek introduces you all to his childhood best friend, Mark Sloan.
Mark is almost like the anti-Derek.
You almost don't understand how they are friends.
Derek is gentle compared to Mark, you think, think again.
Derek would never hurt you, compared to Mark, you think, think again.
Derek would never hurt you the way you would later hurt him, you think... Think again...
Derek adores ferry-boats so you spend an entire day riding them.
He says he wants to wear a ferry-boat scrub cap when he becomes a surgeon.
You ask him if he already knows what kind he wants to be.
He says "neuro," without an ounce of self-doubt.
You wish you could be that confident and assertive.
Derek always raises his hand in class and he usually gets the answer right. So do you, you get the answer right. But you write it down in your notebook instead.
You and Naomi study together a lot, and sometimes Sam and Derek and Mark join you, too.
You like it. Five seems like a good number for a friend group, you think.
You always have at least four people to talk to.
Naomi and Sam often go off on their own, though, so you spend a lot of time with Mark and Derek.
Sometimes it feels like you're actually dating both of them, but you would never say that to anyone because Derek gets really jealous.
Derek gets jealous when any boy comes to talk to you and you sort-of like that he defends your honor.
Is he? Or is he just defending his own honor?
He always wants to know you got home safe. You ask if he did but he says he'll be fine because he's a big strong boy.
You take his word for it, even though he freaks out when you don't call him as soon as you get home every time.
Why does he get angry when you don't call him right back?
He doesn't have a problem with you talking to Sam or Naomi, though, and you're glad that he doesn't.
You don't know what you would do without them, or Mark, for that matter, but Derek seems to be a bit more protective of Mark.
You're not sure why, but you figure it's because they grew up together.
Mark actually says that he grew up more at Derek's house than his own.
You ask him what it was like there, he says he really liked it.
Carolyn Shepherd, Derek's mom, pretty much raised Mark.
Derek has four sisters, Nancy Shepherd, Kathleen Shepherd, Lizzie Shepherd, and Amelia Shepherd.
You meet all of them the first time Derek takes you home to his childhood home for dinner during one of the holidays.
You notice he calls it that and not 'his parent's house,' like you call your place in Connecticut with Bizzy and The Captain.
When you get there you learn at some point that that's because Derek's dad got shot in Shepherd's store when he was a boy.
You actually learn this story from his youngest sister, Amelia Shepherd, who can see you looking at the other head of the table before you all say grace so she pulls you aside before you can ask something stupid like 'are we waiting, Mrs. Shepherd, Carolyn, on your husband before we start in?'.
You would have asked that in your politest tone but luckily you didn't have to.
Ever since Amelia told you that story in hushed whispers in her room when she pulled you aside while Derek was getting some of his old things in his own room, you felt a kind of a bond with Amelia.
You decide that dating Derek has the perks of getting to know his siblings. Apparently they all want to be doctors, too or are already well on their way to becoming doctors already.
Derek seems to get jealous of the fact that you want to talk to his siblings, though.
You don't know why exactly because you haven't expressly told him that you are into more than just men, you're just into people in general, and that includes women, as well.
You haven't come out to him, but maybe he knows already. Or maybe he just assumes you could be and that's just the end of that.
You wonder why he cares about this because it's not like you're going to sleep with one of his sisters while you are dating him.
That would be really fucked up and the idea makes you feel a bit ill in the same way you feel ill whenever you think of Archer dating or screwing people.
You erase those thoughts from your head and you focus on dinner.
Carolyn Shepherd is a good cook and you eat all your shrimp.
You make small talk while everyone gives updates on their lives.
You see that Derek always seems to talk the loudest of everyone, and his mom seems to be really proud of her only son.
You sort of notice that Amelia doesn't talk all that much but sometimes Liz or Nancy or Kathleen will say something a bit embarrassing that happened to her.
You shoot Amelia a sympathetic look and she ends one back at you.
You don't know why Amelia would ever pity you since you are dating her older brother. But she does, somehow, and you can't quite figure all of that out.
You don't get to ask her about it more, though, because Derek is whisking you off again to get you home as soon as dessert is done.
You don't protest because he whispers in your ear that he wants you all to himself.
You know that probably means getting you naked and you do want to sleep with him.
He takes you home and he takes all your clothes off and it's much better than the sex with Skippy Gold.
You fall asleep in his arms with him whispering "Addison, I want you and only you, and I want you to want me and only me..."
You whisper it back and you hope that Derek never changes.
So far he has been so charming and charismatic and kind.
He says he still doesn't talk about his dad dying and asks you never to ask him about it.
You say you won't.
You don't tell him that Amelia already told you the whole thing.
You don't tell him that Amelia said her dad got shot right in front of her when she was five and Derek was a bit older and he held her in his arms so she would stay quiet and safe.
You don't tell him that Amelia said her dad had just given her two pennies and she had been hiding them in a crack in the floorboard because she liked to save them up so she could one day buy a town.
You don't tell him you want to be friends with Amelia Shepherd.
Somehow, you know that this will only upset him.
Somehow, you know instinctively, that you can't have more than him in this arrangement, that he won't make it easy for you to get to know more of his family.
You try to justify this in your head to be something about the shooting or about his father that you never met.
You justify it somehow, and you tell yourself that this perfect man is allowed a few quirks.
Already you're keeping secrets from him, but he was keeping secrets from you, also.
As you fall asleep you feel more desired than ever before.
You feel tha you're going to have a magical love story where Derek wants you to be his private princess.
You wake up in his arms the next morning and he's staring at you and you stare into his eyes.
You're instantly charmed by those dreamy Derek eyes.
You think you could stare at them for the rest of your life.
You'll change your mind at some point about that when you see the rage in his eyes...
In the beginning, it was passionate and wonderful, and oh-so-loving.
In the beginning, you thought he was the love of your life.
In the beginning, he would take you out to the movies and out to dinner and kiss you under the streetlight.
In the beginning, you were still dating, with no strings until you had 'dating' strings.
In the beginning, it was all so very easy...
You had more strings once you become exclusive to each other.
You swooned when you heard him say "I want to make you mine and only mine..."
It took a few outings but you got there, and he really wanted 'to make you his'.
And you wanted to be only his.
You wanted to be his one-and-only.
You wanted to be in a relationship with one person and one person only just like your mother and father never had from each other.
You thought that he could be your 'one' and that you could be soulmates.
You thought that even though you still missed kissing women sometimes that he was a pretty good kisser and so that could be enough for you, because you were enough for him, or so you thought...
You were very soon his, you were his 'one and only' and he kept you to himself as much as he showed you off as a trophy to all of his friends.
Even Mark said he 'scored well' and you were flattered even though the phrasing seemed crude.
Mark was like that anyway, and you enjoyed Mark's deadpan snarking.
Sometimes you had to hide how much you liked to laugh at his jokes because Derek was eyeing you and you knew he would pick a fight later if you 'seemed like you were flirting with him'.
You never tell him things like 'don't flirt with any other people, you, either', because he wouldn't take it well but he doesn't seem to want to cheat on you anyway.
When you fight he makes it up to you with angry sex and you really get off on that so you let him screw you into submission before falling into his arms, yet again.
You let him control you a bit because he says that's how he shows that he loves you.
He says he loves you so much you don't need anybody else but you two.
He says it's you against the world, you'll be Derek and Addison.
You'll be better than any other couple all the way beyond medical school...
You never thought that being someone's one and only would be so fucking lonely when Derek Shepherd eventually wouldn't let you talk to hardly anyone else...
***** END OF CHAPTER TWO
Author's Note:
Well, I wanted to write Derek's family as mostly 'good'.
And to still have raised Mark as in Canon.
Therefore breaking the stereotype that all abusive men/women/people had abusive parents.
(As is, statistically, likely the case).
Anyway, I wanted Addison to have Amelia as a friend, at least, to thicken the story.
A lot of this again- is taken as early warning signs of abusive relationships.
Charm, charisma, possessiveness, sweeping declarations, sex as a distraction, isolation from friends and family, judgment, arrogance, resentment, wanting to be 'better than anyone else', and 'us against them' mentality, lies, withdrawal, hot and cold.
All of these are warning signs but they are subtle at first and very seductive, especially from someone 'seemingly harmless', and no one is immune to this.
At the end of the chapters I break down these patterns, both to showcase the 'how' of the writing, but also as a broader commentary on the topic of domestic violence.
These chapters will likely be all this length, hopefully, about 2000 words at a time.
Take care, everyone, see you soon in the comments.
I would love to know what you think about all of this!
CHEERS!
bobbiejelly
Dedications, May 30, 2020:
EVERYONE WHO READS CHAPTER 1 AND COMMENTS, LIKES, FAVORITES, FOLLOWS, ADDS TO READING LIST ETC.
Ao3:
5 Hits.
Fanfiction:
28 Hits.
Wattpad:
arizonaslesbianism, for the comments and star. JordynMarie05, addiesrep, danielaperezsurga, for the votes so far.
11 Reads, 4 Votes, 11 comments.
AND THANKS TO EVERYONE ELSE, WHO READS THIS, EVER!
Ps. New MerAdd fics are up or updated, recently:
Prom?
101 McDalmatians
Five Reasons We Knew Calzona Was Made For Each Other & Five + More 6 Sentence Fics
Move Over, Derek!
... And there will eventually, soon be new Chapters of these ones up:
Second Person (The Diary of Addison Montgomery) Falling Apart, Barely Breathing Soothe A Seattle Grace Mercy West Swingers Party - Post Plane Crash Edition Out Of The Dark
Feel free to check them out, hopefully after you leave a note, and have a great day!
bobbiejelly