Even More House/ fic
I should have posted this days ago, but I've been lazy. It's the last (for now) chapter of my House/Cuddy trilogy. Enjoy!!!
Title: Endings
Pairing: House/Cuddy
Summary: All things end. The only question is how.
The first time he spent the night, Lisa knew it had to end.
It signified a change she’d been feeling for two weeks, a subtle shift in the dynamic of their not-relationship that she tried to ignore at first. It was nothing serious, she reasoned; just a combination of loneliness and hormones that didn’t have anything to do with who she was or who he was. She’d start feeling the same way about anyone she found herself screwing four nights out of seven.
Spending the night wasn’t part of their original unspoken deal. They had sex, then one or the other left if they were actually at someone‘s place. There was no overlap of their personal lives, no invading of each others space. Work, sex, and private lives were kept separated by walls thick and high dotted with murder holes that would take out any approaching emotion. She hated the term ’fuck buddy‘, didn’t even know if it could apply to them since they weren’t buddies in the first place, but it was the only phrase she could think of that matched. He was a colleague, a man she fucked, or who fucked her whenever either wanted it, that was all.
Cuddy had even dated a few times over the past three months, nothing serious; dinner, maybe a movie with someone her friends set her up with. A nice, intelligent, boring man who would have been perfect if she wasn’t focused on what trick House would have up his sleeve the next day. Afterwards, she always seemed to find herself at House’s place or him at hers, and the sex would be different; gentle, playful. When she found herself pretending that the man sitting across a restaurant table from her was House she stomped on the thought. She didn’t date House, she didn’t want to date House. She had sex with him and that was enough.
She didn’t want anything more.
He certainly didn’t seem to. Despite those odd times together the man hadn’t changed at all; still surly, still terrorizing the hospital, still gathering more patient complaints than any single department. If sometimes it appeared his eyes softened when he glanced at her, or he wanted to smile at something she said (not a sarcastic smile, a genuine ‘I’m amused’ smile), she dismissed it out of hand. The only person House smiled at like that was Wilson; the only person to have burrowed his way under the man’s thick exterior and set up shop, or wanted to. No, Gregory House was still pining after Stacy a year and a half after she left (or he pushed her out, depending on whose side she was on that day) and Lisa knew better than to chase after a man who wanted someone else.
There were other signs that this was non-relationship territory. He never said her name during sex. She’d said his: breathed it, moaned it, screamed it more than a few times, but he was remarkably quiet for a man who never ran out of things to say. Once, she thought she heard him say something, something that sounded suspiciously like “Sta-” before he bit down on her shoulder hard enough to leave a purple- red bruise the next morning. So long as he gave as good as he got she told herself it didn’t matter if he was thinking of someone else when he was inside her. She did it herself (until the eyes she imagined became piercing, electric blue, the smooth skin roughened by three days beard growth).
When Cuddy woke up on what would prove to be the defining Sunday it was to conflicting impressions. It was raining, liquid sheets running down the bay window across from her bed, soft patter soothing in the gray light. Her chest was cold with the exception of a strip across her breasts, but her back was almost on fire, just this side of uncomfortable. Another weight slanted across her thigh, heavy and awkward, the heat against her back moving with a nasal rumble. Details swam up from the chaos of sleep and things began clicking into place. House was in her bed, asleep behind her, arm and leg holding her in place like a child with an oversized stuffed animal.
She never would have taken him for the clingy type.
The small clock next to her bed flashed 8:45 in neon blue, fifteen minutes before she was supposed to get up and run, and she didn’t want to. She wanted time to go backwards, to the point last night where they fell asleep, her head on his chest, one of his hands running lazily down her shoulder. Wanted to kick that past self and remind her that cuddling, or anything remotely associated with it wasn’t allowed. To drag her out of bed and into the shower (their unspoken signal for ‘that was good, now get the hell out of my place’) so that she could wake up at 8:45 to pouring rain and an empty bed.
“Do you always think so loud?” The leg (his right, she puzzled out) was slowly lifted from her hip. The sudden loss of contact left her cold.
“Only when I’m being smothered and am plotting escape,” Cuddy shot back, one hand massaging a spot where she was numb. She reached out and flipped the alarm off. “You snore, by the way.”
“So do you.”
Lisa scowled. She never snored. “Right. Was that before or after you ran the hundred yard dash?”
“After.” He sat up and snagged his pants with his cane. “By the way, you have ice-foot.”
This was familiar territory: snapping at each other… snarking… perfectly predictable and safe. “Take a shower, House,” she threw over her shoulder. “I’ll make coffee.”
Making coffee consisted of grabbing clothes, washing up in the guest bathroom, and breaking out the coffee her cousin sent her from Brazil in record time. When he emerged fully dressed ten minutes later she was dressed in sweat pants and t-shirt and starting on her second cup.
“You’re out of shampoo,” he groused as he limped to the kitchen counter and swiped her mug.
Cuddy frowned. That wasn’t right. She had half a bottle left as of yesterday. “I’ll remember that,” she said, taking down another mug to stall for time. Morning after chatter wasn’t her strong suit. “You have interviews for Thoms’s position tomorrow. Don’t forget.”
She didn’t need to see it to know House was rolling his eyes. “Tell me again why I have residents swarming around my office. They‘re like lice.”
“You’re the head of a department. Comes with the territory.”
“But residents?” He sounded pained. “You’ve saddled me with overgrown four year olds. None of them are intelligent enough to take a step without running to me for confirmation. They whine, they backstab-”
“Then you should be getting along perfectly.” Lisa flicked a glance at him, then turned back to her coffee. He looked… strange… in her kitchen, out of place. He was too tall, too scraggily. He just didn’t fit.
“What about fellowships?” Cuddy turned around, one eyebrow raised. “More training, less hand-holding, and I still have people under me. Win-win all around.”
“You’d be willing to handle fellows?”
He shrugged. “At least they won’t run to you crying every time I sneeze on one of them.” The coffee was finished with a single gulp, and he headed for the door. Cuddy glanced at his pockets, but none of them bulged. The man had a serious panty fetish, she’d reasoned. Six pairs had disappeared since this started.
When the door closed she set her cup down and leaned against the counter, palms flat, head bent.
It was still raining outside.
________________________________________________________________________
“What are you doing?”
Lisa ran her hands through her hair, the pain of a snarl barely registering as she repeated the question to herself, the same one that had rolled around her head all week. It was Thursday, and she still hadn’t broken it off with House. Every time she tried something came up, something that needed her undivided attention, like the fact that someone was stealing from the vending machines in the clinic that wasn’t House, and before she knew it the day was gone.
Cuddy stared at the leather blotter on her desk, hoping that if she stared long enough, hard enough, it might decide to give her a few answers. Maybe a pointer or two. Hell, she’d settle for it hinting at the right direction, because at the moment she had no idea what to do. She was procrastinating… she never procrastinated… and it was driving her slowly insane. On Monday she was supposed to break it off with House. It would muddy the waters a bit, she imagined. Working with the man would be all but impossible for a month or two, but things would eventually return to their normal stride.
It wasn’t until Wednesday that she started to entertain the notion that she was putting things off because there were more pesky emotions involved than lust.
“You are not doing this,” she said to herself, glad the blinds on her door were drawn. Deans of Medicine weren’t supposed to sit in their offices talking to themselves. “This isn’t a normal relationship. He isn’t even a normal person.” God, she wanted someone to talk to, someone who didn’t know House through association or through her own rantings. Someone who could be completely neutral and help her figure out what was going on in her own mind.
Cuddy kept replaying Sunday morning in her mind, examining it from every angle. It had felt good to fall asleep in his arms, to wake up with someone after six months of being alone. Felt good to have coffee in her kitchen with another human being.
You would have felt the same waking up next to someone you met in a bar, she told herself. What she was feeling was a combination of her biological clock chirping and her mother insisting she didn‘t want to die before seeing her grandchildren. A strange, twisted part of her psyche saw House as compatible and her body was trying to force her brain into doing something stupid. So long as she kept things in perspective she wouldn’t lose her head. As long as she kept one fact in the forefront of her mind she could walk away from this.
Gregory House didn’t date people, he consumed them, and she had no intention of being his next victim.
The image of a trail of women, hair frazzled, legs splayed and chests heaving behind a cheerfully limping House made her giggle, the sound ripped from below her diaphragm. The diagnostician made her feel like that on her better days without even trying whether they had sex or not.
“Plotting to take over the world?”
Lisa jumped, knocking over the small pencil holder at her elbow. House was in her office. Her locked office, and she hadn’t heard a thing. “How’d you get in here?”
He shrugged. “I was bored and lonely. And a little birdy told me Cuddy was in her office brooding.”
“None of which answers my question.” She’d changed the lock, twice, since the man started working there. “Did you lift my key or something?”
“Why would I do a thing like that?” He folded into one of the chairs and stared at her, eyes a clear, crystal blue. She hated that stare. It made her feel like he was seeing everything about her, and in all likelihood, he was.
Cuddy looked away first, started scanning one of the files on her desk, the ones she’d been staring blankly at for hours. “Is there something you wanted?”
“You’re on your period.”
“What? No!”
He thought for a moment. “Grandmother died?”
“My grandmother died when I was thirty.” Cuddy shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
He sighed. “I killed your dog?”
“I don’t have a dog.” Lisa examined him mentally, noting skin tone and posture. “Are you high?”
Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Wasted. But that’s beside the point.” He nodded towards her. “We’re talking about you. What‘s wrong.”
She froze, a deer caught in headlights. Headlights attached to a too observant driver who might choose to run her down whichever way she leapt. “Nothing’s wrong with-”
“You‘ve been avoiding me,” he started in a bored drawl. “You haven’t even shown up to ask whose been pilfering condoms from OB/GYN and decorating cars with them.”
So, it was him. “So because I thought you were too mature for that something must be wrong with me?” She tried to make herself sound as disbelieving as possible, because there was a voice telling her that if she hadn’t been so worked up over Sunday, he would have been the first person she confronted.
“You’ve also been eating sugar.” He gestured to her trashcan with his cane. “And you‘re not ovulating. The last time you broke your ban on the evil saccharides without hormonal interference was when I came back after the infarction.”
Cuddy stood, smoothed her jacket. “I don’t have time for this,” she started as she walked around her desk.
THe slim wood of his cane brought her up short. “You’re brooding about Sunday.”
There, it was out in the open, and she wasn’t the one to bring it up. “What about Sunday?” she hemmed, wincing internally. What the hell was wrong with her?”
House smiled. “Oh, someone’s been spanking herself good over that, hasn’t she?” He asked as he stood.
Lisa tried to ignore the slight wobble, the left to right tilt. There was a time when he was almost graceful. Strange, she should feel guilty about it now. He was standing in front of her, separated by a few inches, and all she could think about was what she’d taken from him.
When she didn’t speak, he continued. “Having sex with someone is all well and good, until it starts getting personal.” His eyes raked over her. “Asking where someone’s going, making dinner plans… sleeping together.” His eyes cut to the side. “If it makes you feel any better, I hadn’t planned on spending the night.”
Somehow, that made it worse. “I fell asleep, you fell asleep.” How the words got past the steadily rising lump in her throat she had no idea. “Nothing to worry about.”
“You wouldn‘t be brooding if there wasn‘t,” the words were matter of fact, and gave Cuddy the sensation of being yanked to a great height, a thin string all that stood between her and falling. “I don’t want a relationship.” The words were flat, cold. He could have been telling a patient they had an ear infection.
The string broke.
“Neither do I,” she returned. Because she meant it. She didn’t want a relationship with this man, couldn’t afford it. They’d rip each other to pieces in less than a month, push each other away because neither knew how to back down.
House observed her for a long moment, and she tried to return it. She could make med students tremble at five yards; make men who’d been doctors for years stutter with a single look, but nothing seemed to bother the diagnostician.
He blinked, then turned around. Without that stare, she could breathe again. “See you tomorrow, Cuddy,” he tossed over his shoulder.
________________________________________________________________________
“Six months without putting out, Dr Cuddy doesn't NEED to wear thong panties, but it's not our call.”
Lisa glared at House, but it was tempered with amusement. In truth, it was more than six months (four years, six months, and thirty seven days), but she could forgive him for not counting. At least once. “I was wondering when you'd get around to my panties.”
He didn’t look back, but she could see a tensing in his shoulders, the smallest hitch that let her know she’d hit him. Foreman, Chase, and Cameron shared a look that spoke volumes of what they were thinking, but she doubted it came anything near the truth.
Besides, he’d never given her panties back.
Title: Endings
Pairing: House/Cuddy
Summary: All things end. The only question is how.
The first time he spent the night, Lisa knew it had to end.
It signified a change she’d been feeling for two weeks, a subtle shift in the dynamic of their not-relationship that she tried to ignore at first. It was nothing serious, she reasoned; just a combination of loneliness and hormones that didn’t have anything to do with who she was or who he was. She’d start feeling the same way about anyone she found herself screwing four nights out of seven.
Spending the night wasn’t part of their original unspoken deal. They had sex, then one or the other left if they were actually at someone‘s place. There was no overlap of their personal lives, no invading of each others space. Work, sex, and private lives were kept separated by walls thick and high dotted with murder holes that would take out any approaching emotion. She hated the term ’fuck buddy‘, didn’t even know if it could apply to them since they weren’t buddies in the first place, but it was the only phrase she could think of that matched. He was a colleague, a man she fucked, or who fucked her whenever either wanted it, that was all.
Cuddy had even dated a few times over the past three months, nothing serious; dinner, maybe a movie with someone her friends set her up with. A nice, intelligent, boring man who would have been perfect if she wasn’t focused on what trick House would have up his sleeve the next day. Afterwards, she always seemed to find herself at House’s place or him at hers, and the sex would be different; gentle, playful. When she found herself pretending that the man sitting across a restaurant table from her was House she stomped on the thought. She didn’t date House, she didn’t want to date House. She had sex with him and that was enough.
She didn’t want anything more.
He certainly didn’t seem to. Despite those odd times together the man hadn’t changed at all; still surly, still terrorizing the hospital, still gathering more patient complaints than any single department. If sometimes it appeared his eyes softened when he glanced at her, or he wanted to smile at something she said (not a sarcastic smile, a genuine ‘I’m amused’ smile), she dismissed it out of hand. The only person House smiled at like that was Wilson; the only person to have burrowed his way under the man’s thick exterior and set up shop, or wanted to. No, Gregory House was still pining after Stacy a year and a half after she left (or he pushed her out, depending on whose side she was on that day) and Lisa knew better than to chase after a man who wanted someone else.
There were other signs that this was non-relationship territory. He never said her name during sex. She’d said his: breathed it, moaned it, screamed it more than a few times, but he was remarkably quiet for a man who never ran out of things to say. Once, she thought she heard him say something, something that sounded suspiciously like “Sta-” before he bit down on her shoulder hard enough to leave a purple- red bruise the next morning. So long as he gave as good as he got she told herself it didn’t matter if he was thinking of someone else when he was inside her. She did it herself (until the eyes she imagined became piercing, electric blue, the smooth skin roughened by three days beard growth).
When Cuddy woke up on what would prove to be the defining Sunday it was to conflicting impressions. It was raining, liquid sheets running down the bay window across from her bed, soft patter soothing in the gray light. Her chest was cold with the exception of a strip across her breasts, but her back was almost on fire, just this side of uncomfortable. Another weight slanted across her thigh, heavy and awkward, the heat against her back moving with a nasal rumble. Details swam up from the chaos of sleep and things began clicking into place. House was in her bed, asleep behind her, arm and leg holding her in place like a child with an oversized stuffed animal.
She never would have taken him for the clingy type.
The small clock next to her bed flashed 8:45 in neon blue, fifteen minutes before she was supposed to get up and run, and she didn’t want to. She wanted time to go backwards, to the point last night where they fell asleep, her head on his chest, one of his hands running lazily down her shoulder. Wanted to kick that past self and remind her that cuddling, or anything remotely associated with it wasn’t allowed. To drag her out of bed and into the shower (their unspoken signal for ‘that was good, now get the hell out of my place’) so that she could wake up at 8:45 to pouring rain and an empty bed.
“Do you always think so loud?” The leg (his right, she puzzled out) was slowly lifted from her hip. The sudden loss of contact left her cold.
“Only when I’m being smothered and am plotting escape,” Cuddy shot back, one hand massaging a spot where she was numb. She reached out and flipped the alarm off. “You snore, by the way.”
“So do you.”
Lisa scowled. She never snored. “Right. Was that before or after you ran the hundred yard dash?”
“After.” He sat up and snagged his pants with his cane. “By the way, you have ice-foot.”
This was familiar territory: snapping at each other… snarking… perfectly predictable and safe. “Take a shower, House,” she threw over her shoulder. “I’ll make coffee.”
Making coffee consisted of grabbing clothes, washing up in the guest bathroom, and breaking out the coffee her cousin sent her from Brazil in record time. When he emerged fully dressed ten minutes later she was dressed in sweat pants and t-shirt and starting on her second cup.
“You’re out of shampoo,” he groused as he limped to the kitchen counter and swiped her mug.
Cuddy frowned. That wasn’t right. She had half a bottle left as of yesterday. “I’ll remember that,” she said, taking down another mug to stall for time. Morning after chatter wasn’t her strong suit. “You have interviews for Thoms’s position tomorrow. Don’t forget.”
She didn’t need to see it to know House was rolling his eyes. “Tell me again why I have residents swarming around my office. They‘re like lice.”
“You’re the head of a department. Comes with the territory.”
“But residents?” He sounded pained. “You’ve saddled me with overgrown four year olds. None of them are intelligent enough to take a step without running to me for confirmation. They whine, they backstab-”
“Then you should be getting along perfectly.” Lisa flicked a glance at him, then turned back to her coffee. He looked… strange… in her kitchen, out of place. He was too tall, too scraggily. He just didn’t fit.
“What about fellowships?” Cuddy turned around, one eyebrow raised. “More training, less hand-holding, and I still have people under me. Win-win all around.”
“You’d be willing to handle fellows?”
He shrugged. “At least they won’t run to you crying every time I sneeze on one of them.” The coffee was finished with a single gulp, and he headed for the door. Cuddy glanced at his pockets, but none of them bulged. The man had a serious panty fetish, she’d reasoned. Six pairs had disappeared since this started.
When the door closed she set her cup down and leaned against the counter, palms flat, head bent.
It was still raining outside.
________________________________________________________________________
“What are you doing?”
Lisa ran her hands through her hair, the pain of a snarl barely registering as she repeated the question to herself, the same one that had rolled around her head all week. It was Thursday, and she still hadn’t broken it off with House. Every time she tried something came up, something that needed her undivided attention, like the fact that someone was stealing from the vending machines in the clinic that wasn’t House, and before she knew it the day was gone.
Cuddy stared at the leather blotter on her desk, hoping that if she stared long enough, hard enough, it might decide to give her a few answers. Maybe a pointer or two. Hell, she’d settle for it hinting at the right direction, because at the moment she had no idea what to do. She was procrastinating… she never procrastinated… and it was driving her slowly insane. On Monday she was supposed to break it off with House. It would muddy the waters a bit, she imagined. Working with the man would be all but impossible for a month or two, but things would eventually return to their normal stride.
It wasn’t until Wednesday that she started to entertain the notion that she was putting things off because there were more pesky emotions involved than lust.
“You are not doing this,” she said to herself, glad the blinds on her door were drawn. Deans of Medicine weren’t supposed to sit in their offices talking to themselves. “This isn’t a normal relationship. He isn’t even a normal person.” God, she wanted someone to talk to, someone who didn’t know House through association or through her own rantings. Someone who could be completely neutral and help her figure out what was going on in her own mind.
Cuddy kept replaying Sunday morning in her mind, examining it from every angle. It had felt good to fall asleep in his arms, to wake up with someone after six months of being alone. Felt good to have coffee in her kitchen with another human being.
You would have felt the same waking up next to someone you met in a bar, she told herself. What she was feeling was a combination of her biological clock chirping and her mother insisting she didn‘t want to die before seeing her grandchildren. A strange, twisted part of her psyche saw House as compatible and her body was trying to force her brain into doing something stupid. So long as she kept things in perspective she wouldn’t lose her head. As long as she kept one fact in the forefront of her mind she could walk away from this.
Gregory House didn’t date people, he consumed them, and she had no intention of being his next victim.
The image of a trail of women, hair frazzled, legs splayed and chests heaving behind a cheerfully limping House made her giggle, the sound ripped from below her diaphragm. The diagnostician made her feel like that on her better days without even trying whether they had sex or not.
“Plotting to take over the world?”
Lisa jumped, knocking over the small pencil holder at her elbow. House was in her office. Her locked office, and she hadn’t heard a thing. “How’d you get in here?”
He shrugged. “I was bored and lonely. And a little birdy told me Cuddy was in her office brooding.”
“None of which answers my question.” She’d changed the lock, twice, since the man started working there. “Did you lift my key or something?”
“Why would I do a thing like that?” He folded into one of the chairs and stared at her, eyes a clear, crystal blue. She hated that stare. It made her feel like he was seeing everything about her, and in all likelihood, he was.
Cuddy looked away first, started scanning one of the files on her desk, the ones she’d been staring blankly at for hours. “Is there something you wanted?”
“You’re on your period.”
“What? No!”
He thought for a moment. “Grandmother died?”
“My grandmother died when I was thirty.” Cuddy shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
He sighed. “I killed your dog?”
“I don’t have a dog.” Lisa examined him mentally, noting skin tone and posture. “Are you high?”
Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Wasted. But that’s beside the point.” He nodded towards her. “We’re talking about you. What‘s wrong.”
She froze, a deer caught in headlights. Headlights attached to a too observant driver who might choose to run her down whichever way she leapt. “Nothing’s wrong with-”
“You‘ve been avoiding me,” he started in a bored drawl. “You haven’t even shown up to ask whose been pilfering condoms from OB/GYN and decorating cars with them.”
So, it was him. “So because I thought you were too mature for that something must be wrong with me?” She tried to make herself sound as disbelieving as possible, because there was a voice telling her that if she hadn’t been so worked up over Sunday, he would have been the first person she confronted.
“You’ve also been eating sugar.” He gestured to her trashcan with his cane. “And you‘re not ovulating. The last time you broke your ban on the evil saccharides without hormonal interference was when I came back after the infarction.”
Cuddy stood, smoothed her jacket. “I don’t have time for this,” she started as she walked around her desk.
THe slim wood of his cane brought her up short. “You’re brooding about Sunday.”
There, it was out in the open, and she wasn’t the one to bring it up. “What about Sunday?” she hemmed, wincing internally. What the hell was wrong with her?”
House smiled. “Oh, someone’s been spanking herself good over that, hasn’t she?” He asked as he stood.
Lisa tried to ignore the slight wobble, the left to right tilt. There was a time when he was almost graceful. Strange, she should feel guilty about it now. He was standing in front of her, separated by a few inches, and all she could think about was what she’d taken from him.
When she didn’t speak, he continued. “Having sex with someone is all well and good, until it starts getting personal.” His eyes raked over her. “Asking where someone’s going, making dinner plans… sleeping together.” His eyes cut to the side. “If it makes you feel any better, I hadn’t planned on spending the night.”
Somehow, that made it worse. “I fell asleep, you fell asleep.” How the words got past the steadily rising lump in her throat she had no idea. “Nothing to worry about.”
“You wouldn‘t be brooding if there wasn‘t,” the words were matter of fact, and gave Cuddy the sensation of being yanked to a great height, a thin string all that stood between her and falling. “I don’t want a relationship.” The words were flat, cold. He could have been telling a patient they had an ear infection.
The string broke.
“Neither do I,” she returned. Because she meant it. She didn’t want a relationship with this man, couldn’t afford it. They’d rip each other to pieces in less than a month, push each other away because neither knew how to back down.
House observed her for a long moment, and she tried to return it. She could make med students tremble at five yards; make men who’d been doctors for years stutter with a single look, but nothing seemed to bother the diagnostician.
He blinked, then turned around. Without that stare, she could breathe again. “See you tomorrow, Cuddy,” he tossed over his shoulder.
________________________________________________________________________
“Six months without putting out, Dr Cuddy doesn't NEED to wear thong panties, but it's not our call.”
Lisa glared at House, but it was tempered with amusement. In truth, it was more than six months (four years, six months, and thirty seven days), but she could forgive him for not counting. At least once. “I was wondering when you'd get around to my panties.”
He didn’t look back, but she could see a tensing in his shoulders, the smallest hitch that let her know she’d hit him. Foreman, Chase, and Cameron shared a look that spoke volumes of what they were thinking, but she doubted it came anything near the truth.
Besides, he’d never given her panties back.