Green Wing fic: Wind and Rain and Maybe-Clichés

[mooging]

I wasn't going to post this, and then I changed my mind. Don't feel obligated to read it, by any means!

Title: Wind and Rain and Maybe-Clichés.
Rating: Nothing worse than the show itself, which is an English 15.
Fandom: Green Wing
Pairing: Mac/Caroline. Read the other relationships as shippily as you so desire!
Summary: It was windy, and Mac was tempting fate more than a little. 
Disclaimer: Not mine, I'm not making any money. Not that I would need money, if I owned this, because I would be busy cackling to myself for the rest of my life and occasionally tearing myself away from the funny/pretty of everything to write things.
A/N: I can think of nothing constructive to say. Mac is pretty. The writing style isn't my best (think more my crack!fic style than my actual!fic style), but it was immensely fun to write! /2788 words/

Men, thought Caroline, were sometimes monumentally dense. The television had been blaring warnings all day about 'severe weather conditions' and not to travel if it could be avoided, the hospital windows had been rattling at their double-glazed frames, the wind itself had been howling around in a strange, demented, Sue-White-on-a-crazy-crazy-day way and Mac? Mac had decided to ride his motorbike home.

And then a few minutes later, with Caroline still frozen and slightly disbelieving by the car park doors, he appeared, on foot, bent forward against the bluster and his hair dancing like a Medusa on crack.

"Fuck," said Mac, as he reached Caroline. "Fucking fuck, and also ow."

"You're limping!" screeched Caroline, one hand at her mouth and the other flying towards him.

Mac limped forwards. "No, actually, my left foot is riding a tiny invisible motorbike and it's throwing me off balance."

"You're also lying", said Caroline, reaching out to steady him as he swayed into the building. "Come here."

Mac batted her hand away and then very gracefully stagger-fell onto her, leg giving up.

"Yeah," he said, somewhere in the region of her shoulder. "Tiny wheel got a puncture. Definitely not serious."

Caroline moved away, eyebrow raised, and Mac flailed awkwardly for a moment before falling down.

"Okay," he said, "tiny bit serious and a tad painful. What kind of friend are you, letting me, a victim of a motorbike accident, injure myself further? Not good doctoring."

Caroling heaved him to his feet and slung his arm over her shoulders. "Are we talking about your very real pain or the not-so-real tiny foot motorbike now?"

"You mean you don't believe that Ernest exists?" asked Mac, as together they made their way to the lift.

"You named your tiny, invisible, foot motorbike 'Ernest' - oh, shit."

The lift, once adorned with a somewhat homemade looking 'out-of-order' sign, now looked, and in fact was, out of order.

"Ah," said Mac, hopping slightly. "Stairs?"

"You have got to be kidding," said Caroline. "Either that or you have some mad fetish to see me squashed in a stairwell by a limping ginger fool."

"Firstly," said Mac, "my hair is strawberry-blonde. Secondly, how else do you suggest that we get upstairs?"

Caroline thought for a moment and then said, very quickly, "I'll have to call Guy."

"Under no circumstances that could ever possibly occur am I going to allow myself to be hoisted up a flight - several flights - of stairs by Guy," said Mac, "I might end up dead. He might squash Ernest."

"Oh dear," Caroline retorted. "Well, under no circumstances that could ever possibly occur should anyone attempt to ride a flimsy little motorbike in gale force winds, so I don't think you have much say in the matter. What happened to Big Ernest anyway?"

"It's called Samuel, actually - "

"Oh, very hip."

" - and I'll only tell you what happened if you treat my wounded self down here, without calling for any unnecessary Swiss assistance."

"...Fine," muttered Caroline, "but it was bloody underhand of you to bribe me with knowledge."

"I know," said Mac, as the pair of them managed to slump him against a wall and slide him to the ground. "It worked though. Could that be because you still feel new here and any chance of fresh knowledge makes you feel less inferior?"

Caroline kicked him in the shin. Mac swore and hissed and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Is it really a good idea for you to be antagonising me right now?" she asked.

"Probably not," Mac admitted. "Now could we possibly get round to the part where you provide medical aid?"

"I suppose," said Caroline, looking like she might want to kick him again. "Where do you hurt?"

Mac stared. "I was in a motorbike accident. I'm limping. You let me fall down and then kicked me in two displays of entirely cold-hearted violence. I think it's safe to assume that I hurt in a lot of places."

"So now you admit that you were limping and that Ernest is completely fictitious?"

"Ow," said Mac, changing the subject. "Doctor me."

"Okay," said Caroline, "Does this - " and she poked him in the shoulder, "hurt more or less than this?" And she poked his thigh.

Mac made a strangled noise and gritted his teeth.

"From that manly display of pain," said Caroline, "I shall assume that you have injured your leg more grievously than any other bodily part of yours."

Mac nodded.

"And I suppose your annoyingly attractive - um, just jeans and I used not a single adjective - um, I suppose your jeans are too rain-drenched to roll up?"

Mac nodded again. "My annoyingly attractive just jeans with not a single adjective will not roll up."

"Shut up," said Caroline, "and take your trousers off."

"Oho," said Mac, "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist me. Tell me, is it just me or injured people in general that do it for you?"

"Shut up," said Caroline. "I can't examine you if I can't see the part of you I'm supposed to be examining."

"You like to use a lot of words when you speak, don't you?"

"For God's sake, just take your bloody trousers off!"

Mac looked amused. "I can't do that, I'm afraid."

"And why not? Is little fictitious Ernest taking a nap in your crotch?"

"No," said Mac, "I'm just not wearing any underwear."

"Oh," said Caroline, blushing and flushing and closing-opening-closing her eyes. "Oh, right, well then - really, n-no underwear at all?"

"Nope?"

"A-a-and is this a regular thing or do you just not wear pants when you think that it would be the most inconvenient?"

"Doctor Todd," said Mac, "perhaps you could stop thinking about the state of my underwear and then perhaps treat me for the injuries I have sustained."

"Right," said Caroline, "yes. And you still haven't told me how you ended up in this foppish heap of pain, anyway."

"Right," said Mac, definitely not blushing. "Well. I was on my motorbike of infinite cool, riding masterfully through the very worst of nature's conditions and - holy shit, what the fuck are you doing?!"

For Caroline had knelt down beside him and had drawn a pair of scissors from her lab coat, their blades glinting ominously in the malevolent overhead lighting.

"I am going to cut your left trouser-leg up to the mid-thigh area," she said, very slowly. "So that I can actually examine your leg. You know, for injuries. And not for anything else."

"No," said Mac. "You are not cutting through these jeans. I like these jeans."

"Well," Caroline told him, looking him straight in the eye, "either I cut these jeans or you take them off, you underwearless irritant."

Mac, smirking a little, reached for his zipper.

"No no no no no, don't you dare!" squealed Caroline, covering her eyes. "You do not have a choice! I am cutting up the jeans."

"You did give me a choice," said Mac, "I chose the latter option."

"Right," Caroline snarled, "here is your new choice. Either you let me cut your jeans so I can treat you and your stupid, motorbike inflicted injuries, or you take off your jeans and I will cut off your penis!"

Mac looked abashed for a moment, "Go ahead," he said, "cut away. Although - 'penis'? That's a bit clinical."

"I am not going to discuss the connotations of the different names for the male genitalia with you," said Caroline, through clenched teeth. "Now, I am going to be holding sharp scissor-blades very close to your wound sites, so I suggest that you behave and continue telling me of your manly heroics."

"Or what?" asked Mac, but relented as Caroline bared her teeth and waved the scissors around in a semi-threatening manner. "Fine, I'll be good."

"Good," said Caroline, "Right." And she started cutting her way up Mac's jeans. And then she stopped.

"Is something wrong?" asked Mac.

"No! Nothing wrong! Don't you have something to be telling me?"

"Yes, I do," said Mac, seemingly trying to avoid it. "Where was I?"

"You were riding masterfully through the very worst of nature's conditions," said Caroline, who was definitely being professional and no part of her was squealing like a child at the proximity of Mac's bare flesh.

"Yes," said Mac, "I feel it is important to reiterate how masterfully I was riding through those conditions."

"Okay," said Caroline, snipping away. "And then what happened?"

"Well," said Mac, twisting his fingers together, "I, er, was - "

"Stop fidgeting or I'll cut you."

"Right, yes. Well, then nature demonstrated a particularly cunning and completely unpredictable knack for hating people naturally prettier than her, and I became closer to her because I am irresistible."

"So, what you're saying is that the wind blew you off your bike and you landed in a heap at the side of the road?"

"Actually," said Mac, "nature became filled with the desire to become closer to me. As I previously mentioned."

"The wind blew you off your bike."

"Nature - "

"Off. Your. Bike," said Caroline. "The wind blew you away."

"Yes," said Mac. "Yes, and then the bike fell of top of my leg and then I picked myself up off the ground and limped my bruised and battered self back here, where I found you and your expert care."

Caroline considered the last inch of Mac-thigh before her and snipped one last time.

"There we go," she said. "Now I can begin my regime of expert caring."

Mac quickly discovered that Caroline's regime of expert caring involved rather a large amount of poking and prodding and squeezing.

"Do you fondle all your patients' thighs," he asked, "or just the ones you feel it will cause the most pain?"

In response, Caroline began to repeat the exercise. Or at least, she repeated the exercise until she reached his shin and Mac made a noise not unlike a startled cat.

"What the hell was that?" said Caroline, laughing, and then she looked up. "Are they - do you have tears in your eyes?"

"That," said Mac, "was a very manly response to searing agony and I do not have tears in my eyes."

"Yes, you do."

"Okay," snapped Mac, "I may have, but they are a reflex action to the aforementioned burning, burning pain. Jesus!"

"Right," said Caroline, "that's it. You need an X-ray."

"It may have escaped your notice, but we don't actually have X-ray facilities in the car park corridors," said Mac, "and does that mean you have finished fondling my leg?"

"Ha," said Caroline, "and also ha. You could have a fracture, as you knew from the moment you picked your sorry ginger self up from the ground, which means you need an X-ray, which means..."

She took her phone from her pocket and waggled it in his face.

"No," said Mac, "We agreed. No death by Swiss shoulder heists for me. And this," - he gestured to his hair - "is strawberry blonde."

"Well, this," mimicked Caroline, poking his shin again, "is fractured -"

"You said 'possibly fractured'."

" - Fine, possibly fractured, and you need an X-ray. Which is upstairs. Which means you need to be upstairs. Which means I have to phone Guy. And if you weren't so maddeningly proud, we could have had you X-rayed and plaster-casted up by now, and your jeans would be intact."

"I refuse," said Mac. "I shall get there myself."

"Fine," said Caroline. "Go on then."

"Fine," said Mac. "Watch."

He braced himself against the wall and struggled upright. Then he took a few, wobbly, steps and turned to Caroline. She folded her arms and sighed.

"Now get up all the stairs," she challenged.

"Fine," said Mac, and limped towards the door to the stairwell. He opened the door. He stopped.

"Go on then," said Caroline, sneaking up behind him. "Climb."

Mac put one foot on the first step. Agonisingly slowly, he dragged the other leg up behind him.

"Tah-dah," he said, and promptly fell into the banister.

"Okay," said Caroline, "here we go. Down we get."

"Technically," said Mac, shuffle-hopping around on the step to face her, "I am the only one getting down from anywhere."

"Shut up," said Caroline, who felt she had said that far too often. "Put your arms round my neck."

"Oh, Doctor Todd," Mac purred. "You're quite direct."

"Stop the stupid mouth-talking," said Caroline, pleased with the variation, "or I shall leave you there."

"My mouth is very clever," said Mac. "I'm quick-witted."

"You'll have to try being quick-witted some other time," said Caroline. "Now move."

She put her arms around his waist and tugged him forwards.

They both fell to the ground.

"That," said Mac, inches away from her mouth, "Wasn't one of your better ideas, was it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Caroline, shifting a little underneath him and trying to look casual. "I think the outcome was worth it."

"And what would that be?" asked Mac, leaning closer to her.

Caroline closed her eyes, Mac's breath hot on her lips. Mac moved forward.

Caroline burst into giggles.

"What?" said Mac, sounding reasonably affronted. "What's funny?"

"Your...your...jeans," spluttered Caroline, and then speech failed her.

"My jeans with not a single adjective?" prompted Mac.

Caroline nodded. "They're still all cut up and your leg is tickling me!"

"Is that rude?" asked Mac.

"It could be," said Caroline, quickly sobering. "What were you saying?"

"I think it was something like this," whispered Mac, and kissed her.

"What the bloody fuck is going on here?" bellowed a voice, as the door to the stairwell crashed open and a figure loomed over them. "Are you shagging? Can I watch? Can I put a bag over Mac's ginger head and watch?"

"Ah," said Caroline, as they both turned to look. "Guy's here."

"Really?" said Mac. "I hadn't noticed."

There was beat in which nobody moved. Then Caroline put her hands flat against Mac's chest and tried to wriggle out from underneath him.

"You could help a bit more," she muttered.

"No, I couldn't," said Mac. "Possible fracture, remember?"

Caroline futilely wriggled about some more.

"Stop fucking writhing," roared Guy. "It's not fair and he's enjoying it too much."

He lunged forward and heaved Mac to his feet.

"Great," said Mac, leaning heavily on his good leg and still managing to offer a hand down to help Caroline up. "Good."

"Is this you being quick-witted?" asked Caroline.

"Stop fucking flirting!" screeched Guy.

"You know," said Mac, "there are levels of speech lower than several thousand decibels."

"Not when you're sliming all over her."

"I'm not slimy," said Mac. "Am I slimy?"

"No," said Caroline. "You're a bit poncey, but not slimy."

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Mac asked, turning to Guy.

"She called me," said Guy.

Mac turned back to Caroline. Caroline turned to Guy.

"He was limping over here," she explained, "and therefore was unaware of anything else. Now, carry him."

"What?!"

"As much as I like simultaneous manly outrage," said Caroline, "Pretty needs an X-ray and Donkey needs to carry him. Because I can't and stairs are in the way."

"Oh," said Guy, "did wittle baby hurt his wittle self?"

"Be quiet," said Caroline, "and carry Mac up the goddamn stairs."

"Or what," said Guy, leering.

"Or," said Caroline, "I shall ban all further games of Guyball and break your stupid Topmeiller."

Guy slung Mac over his shoulder.

"I feel so dignified," Mac remarked.

"Yeah, well," said Guy, "you shouldn't, with your stupid face and why the fuck are your jeans cut open?"

Mac caught Caroline's eye and said, "Are you ticklish too?"

The pair of them dissolved. Guy frowned.

"You're fucking heavy, you know," he grumbled. "You should work out."

Mac waggled his arms, "Look," he said. "I'm flying."

Caroline clamped a hand over her mouth and snorted.

Guy was somewhat displeased. "Look, you repulsive freak of nature," he said. "No funny business or I'll drop you."

"No, you won't," said Caroline, forcefully, and mimed breaking something across her knee.

"No, I won't," said Guy.

The three of them started up the stairs, with Guy continuing to complain, loudly.

Mac blew a kiss at Caroline.

Caroline grinned.

***

Now I shall take a shower and drink the hot chocolate that my friend bought me, which involves melting a lump of finest milk chocolate into hot milk.

Yum.