The Wild Escape - Chapter 8
Title: The Wild Escape - chapter 8
Status: Short story
Rated: explicit content
Characters: House and Cuddy
Summary: After Help Me - This story depicts a vision of season 7 premiere, extrapolated from the various pics that've been available on the Internet lately...
(could be considered as a sort of sequel to "There Is A Us")
Disclaimer: OK. Fine! it's not (all) mine. It belongs to David Shore, the lucky b... * sigh*
**THE WILD ESCAPE **
When they reached the bike Cuddy stopped to face the ocean and gave a long look at the beach underneath, mesmerized by the flaming sunlight in the horizon. She inhaled slowly, breathing in the sea mist and printing every image and odor in her mind. House spied her from the side with a fond gaze but after a few seconds he coughed impatiently.
"What are you doing?"
She jumped slightly and turned around to look at him.
"Nothing," she lied "I'm just… waiting for you to get ready."
"You're staring at the beach."
"So what?" she said, sulkily.
He grabbed the helmet he'd gotten for her and put it inside her hands with a killing, smug smile. He was not going to confess how that single longing stare she'd just given at the beach had, from then on, totally turned that spot into something unquestionably unique for him.
"So, you're making us late." He glanced at his watch. "The concert is in one hour." He sat on the saddle and steadied the bike. "Get on!"
She widened her eyes out and stared at him suspiciously, not daring to ask the one question that was burning her lips. But, asking what concert he was talking about, especially when he'd mentioned Bruce Springsteen just a few minutes before… nah! He couldn't be serious… She shook her head to chase the idea out of her mind and sat on the bike behind him, winding her arms around his waist tightly and nuzzling up in his warmth.
From the beach, they rode along the coast as the evening continued to fall down, until they arrived in Asbury Park. House parked his bike on Ocean Avenue, not too far away from 'The Stone Pony', a white block of concrete standing at a crossroads near the beach, in front of which people were already gathered and waiting in a line towards the front door. Cuddy stayed rooted to her spot, unable to move, and just stared at the club's façade with a look of disbelief on her face. The neighborhood was not really fancy, nor was it really lit either. The place was rather dark, and looked more like an industrial park along the beach, or a sort of no man's land. From across the avenue, they could hear the roar of the ocean's waves crashing onto the coast and spreading foam on the sand, which made an incessant popping sound, like corn exploding inside a microwave. The wind had risen and was blowing in her hair and through the flimsy fabric of her clothes. She shivered. House took her hand and pulled her with him, walking determinedly towards the crowded front of the club. She stumbled within the first steps but soon adjusted her pace to his limp, freeing her hand from his grab to seize his bicep and hold on close to him instead.
"What the hell are we doing here?" She whispered, almost reproachfully, clutching her fingers around his arm and stretching her neck to come as close to his ear as she could.
He felt her nervousness and he stopped to face her, looking her right in the eyes, with a smile he hoped would convey all the right words he wanted to say to her: trust me, don't be afraid, follow me, have fun... trust me.
But truth was, he really wasn't sure himself yet why she should.
"You know what that place is?" He just said, a little challengingly.
She turned her head towards the glittering neon sign and read; "The Stone Pony. Nice name by the way." She smirked sarcastically.
"You know, The Stone Pony is a pretty famous music venue."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. Springsteen was a regular here after the club opened in the mid-seventies. That place is like a pilgrimage for his fans." His smile widened and she sighed. She was confused. She was puzzled. She so obviously didn't know what to think and it made her look terribly attractive.
"Aren't you a fan of Bruce Springsteen?" He added, still smiling.
"Are we talking about me here or did you just ask that question to yourself?" She replied, tit for tat, recovering her poise a little.
"So? What if I happen to like the Boss too?" He intensely stared at her, accentuating the double-meaning of his confession. She couldn't help but smile, driven by an almost mechanical emotional response that escaped her guard, but she promptly erased it from her face, refusing to let him know that he could get to her with smooth talks that easily.
"But you can't lie to me and pretend you don't like him too." He went on, "I saw your records collection in Med-School..." His smile was getting more confident by the second and, as a consequence, her resistance proportionally weaker.
She rolled her eyes and mentally counted to ten to prevent her from shouting her frustration like she wanted to, for not being in control of the situation. God, he was driving her crazy already!
"House, are you taking me to a Bruce Springsteen concert at The Stone Pony tonight?" She asked impatiently.
"How bad would you like me to take you to a Bruce Springsteen concert at The Stone Pony tonight?" He dared her.
"I'm not sure 'bad' is the word I'd use." She answered, coming closer to him. He immediately wound his arms around her and pressed her against his hips, looking down at her with a victorious grin.
"Yeah, cuz 'bad' doesn't even start to describe how much you want it." He said gleefully.
What was there to answer to that? Alright, fine! He had her. Wrapped around his finger. Conquered, deliciously surprised and won over! Was she going to confess him that? No way! He was full of himself enough already, killing her with that unnerving self-satisfied smile of his, sending tickling arousing signals through her nerves, making her fingers tremble because of that uncontrollable need she felt rising inside her, a growing desire to grab him and jump him right there and then, in the semi-obscurity of that street by the ocean...
"Whatever! It doesn't matter how much I want it since we're gonna end up missing it if we don't get going now." She said with great aplomb, grabbing his hand and tugging him with her towards the music theater.
He let her walk just a little ahead of him, until he knew she wouldn't catch that incredible smile that had formed on his lips and that her reaction had just elicited, not really sure she'd have taken it the right way at this point...
Reaching the front of the club, Cuddy started to approach the crowd.
"I can't believe you've got two tickets for that concert!" She said candidly, "That's quite a coincidence, don't you think?"
She turned to face him, literally glowing through each pore of her skin. She was obviously far too excited already to notice the slight awkwardness in House's stance, and his reluctance to join the line queuing towards the entry.
"Mm-yeah, about that..." He said, "You know coincidences are totally overrated. Who still believes in that stupid concept anyway?"
She instantly stiffened and her features tensed. She knew, right away, what he'd just implied by that, but for some inexplicable reason, she had to ask nonetheless.
"What do you mean?"
He took advantage of this fleeting moment of incredulousness to reroute her, by pulling her away from the line and bringing her in a corner, by the side of the club.
"I'm sorry but you dumping Lucas and showing up at my place in the middle of last night without the slightest forewarning sign beforehand didn't exactly leave me the largest window of action to plan every little detail of today's escape."
"Of course! Like buying tickets for a concert, for example." She said with a bitter smirk, refusing to comment about the sarcasm she thought she'd perceived in his tone.
"Hey! You think I didn't try?" He exclaimed defensively, "I looked up on the Internet. I gave some calls to people you wouldn't even want to see on a picture..."
She puffed. "Okay! Fine! You don't have tickets! What I don't get is why you bothered taking me here then?" She said accusingly.
He smiled. Mysteriously and intriguingly, he smiled.
"You see that guy over there, with that I'm-the-king-of-the-street look on his face?"
She turned to look in the direction he had pointed and immediately spotted the said guy, pacing up and down the darkest part of the street, scanning around suspiciously and twiddling something inside his hands.
"No way!" She said, making it a clear, definite statement.
It took him a little by surprise.
"What… why, no way?"
"House. You think I don't know what that guy is. He's a scalper."
"Sure he is! That's why you also know he's going to get us some tickets." He palpated his backpack to check his wallet and started to pace in the guy's direction.
She grabbed his arms, or more like planted her claws into his flesh to stop him, which instantly made him freeze. He turned and looked at her, raising a quizzical eyebrow. She was glowering at him angrily but what most struck him was the fear he saw behind her gaze. It'd been so long since a woman had looked at him with those kinds of eyes, he was not sure anymore how he should react to it. He wasn't even sure if he should interpret the funny shiver that had just run through his spine as a good sign or not.
"House, no." She pleaded.
He'd lied; because he knew exactly what kind of a sign it was, and how he should interpret it.
The delicate shiver had been his first undeniable clue. Then the intonation in her voice, so undoubtedly dripping of loving concern for him, just confirmed something his excessively guarded emotional intelligence had perfectly deciphered already: Yes, her fear was for him; because she wanted to protect him, and herself too, from some horrific scenarios she'd just stupidly formed inside her brain. She'd seen that young guy in a dark corner of a deserted street, whose nervousness was vaguely, if even at all, threatening - since all he was most certainly waiting for anyway was the moment when he'd have gathered enough cash to buy his dose of crack (meth's or whatever substance) his gaunt, agitated body was more and more impatiently aching to be fed with - and yet, unpredictably, and somehow totally irrationally too, she'd been scared for him.
Maybe he didn't really know what to make out of it but he knew that a part of him, unsafe and still helpless like a newborn child could be, was more than ready to welcome that feeling with no questions asked, only enjoying the pure, warm sensation it had sent flowing through his veins; Except deep down, in that cold, cold, buried place in his mind - no, heart - there still was a functioning alarm system that could form warning signs, which said that overly concerns about his safety and health had the sour taste of what would come just before betrayal.
And he hated himself, the universe and every atom in it, for allowing such sign to haunt him again and ruin that other, already addictive, new feeling he was becoming to experience with her: she was worried for him, in a way that was inimitable, and special, and that did not feel dangerous, and he'd thought he could really like that.
He wasn't moving and Cuddy read his stillness as the proof of his docile surrender to her command, so she decided that it was safe to let go of his arm. The loss of her touch on him made him practically lose his balance, as if during all those endless seconds while his thoughts were drifting toward his past, her grip had been what had kept him steady.
"You hear me?" She felt the need to add, nudging his elbow with hers.
He sucked in a deep breath, a physiological reflex to shake him out of his numbness, and he looked down at her, defiantly.
"Alright. Let's say I don't ask the guy. You do know it kinda eliminates our last chance to get tickets and go in there, right? So I only have two words for you: Bruce. Springsteen. And you'd better be really sure about what your answer to those two words is."
She straightened up and raised her chin up in his direction. Her eyes were sparkling with mischief.
"That's simple," She said, looking at the crowd of people gathered in front of the entry door. "My answer is: I think that scalper guy, who'd have probably sold you false tickets at an outrageous price anyway, is not our last chance to go in there."
"Whoa-whoa-whoa! Slow down Bonnie! I know you don't like my method, but at least, I'm willing to pay someone to have tickets. So, as much as I'd love to be your Clyde, I'm not going to mug anybody here."
She shook her head and looked at him with an appalled look.
"That's just crap! Who said anything about mugging anyone? We don't need to. Cuz' you and I are doctors!" She punctuated her last statement with a plain self-satisfied smile.
"Of course!" He exclaimed derisively, slapping his forehead with his flat hand. "I totally forgot doctors don't need to pay for concert tickets. "Duh! What was I thinking?"
"Actually, not the ones from the staff, yes." She said, with a little Machiavellian smile.
That smile immediately caught his attention. He narrowed his eyes and a similar grin slowly formed out of the corner of his lips.
"Oh-ho! Doctor Cuddy, if I'm not mistaken, it sounds like you have a plan, you, evil little minx!"
"I do."
"Hit me!"
"You know, every singer or band that goes on stage has a medical staff following them on tour or everywhere they perform."
"Yeah, I know that. But how do you know?"
"When I was a med-student, I... uh... sorta went out with that professor, who happened to like that rock band and secondarily, worked with the medical crew whenever they'd perform in town. He took me to a concert once and he showed me how it worked backstage, with the band and all."
She'd reeled off her speech, avoiding his gaze as much as possible, but when the silence that ensued became too heavy to ignore, she was forced to lift her eyes towards him. House was staring at her, with his mouth agape, a look of bemusement on his face. She felt trapped by the intensity of his stare.
"That was after you and I... I mean, you'd already been fired from the University." She stuttered the first thing that came to her mind as the most logical reply she thought he was probably expecting to hear.
"You slept with a professor in Med-School?"
"He was not married."
He raised his eyebrow and pouted disapprovingly.
"Getting a divorce..." She mumbled, looking down.
He smiled.
"He'd already filed for it before." She specified, getting more and more adorably clueless about what the right thing to say should be.
"Oh My Gawd! You slept with a professor in Med-School." He repeated, his smile widening.
"I was not attending any of his classes." She added defensively, before he would make a comment that she knew she would not like.
He grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her in his arms.
"I've always known you were much naughtier than you're willing to admit you are." He teased, leaning down to her face and stealing a kiss from her. She gave in the first two seconds but then she pulled herself together and pushed him away, freeing herself from his embrace and waving a menacing finger in front of his chest.
"That's not the point! I don't even know why we're talking about that now." She said resentfully, trying to hide the complete and dangerous emotional confusion into which his sauciness was throwing her.
The smile, and the eyes, the translucent blue of his eyes... and that strapping body, standing so close to her... none of those things were helping either.
"House, dammit, focus!" She commanded, in a way that made it obvious she was mostly talking to herself.
He laughed.
"Okay, so you stay beside me and you don't say a word. You let me do all the talking. We're doctors. We're part of the staff... you just... well you just shut up and let me do it! Got it?"
"Yes Mistress!" He answered, amused.
Without thinking she seized his hand and started marching down the club, pulling him with her, as decidedly as an armored squadron streaming towards victory. A few steps further, she realized it might look a little bit inappropriate, as staff doctors, to show up hand in hand at the door and she swiftly released him from her grab, almost throwing his hand away from hers. He didn't say a word but couldn't help chuckling.
"Shut up!" she said, without looking at him.
He turned his head to the side, leaning down to her, and with his thumb and index finger, he conspicuously mimicked the zipping up gesture of his lips. She rolled her eyes and they arrived at the front door of the club.
House was a tall man. She'd always loved that about him. There was an undeniable sense of safety emanating from a tall, large body like his. But that guy at the door... saying his body was tall and large was an understatement. He made House look almost small in comparison and that, was the first thing she didn't like about him. Not to mention that he forced her to tilt her head up like a little girl needs to when she talks to her dad. And no, really, she didn't like that at all either. On the upside though, since she had it almost under her eyes, she immediately spotted the name on the badge he was wearing hung to the front pocket of his black shirt.
"Hi! Uh... Jay... How are you?" Cuddy started, covering the side of his arm with her slender hand, at least a part of it, in what she thought would look like a sort of friendly gesture; and the tall guy, Jay, shot her an immediate suspicious look. She felt his bicep's muscle contract under her touch and she removed her hand, as if she'd suddenly been burnt. "I'm doctor... uh... doctor Cosby," she said out of nowhere and, beside her, she heard the sound of an already defeated sigh escaping House's lips. "And here's doctor..." she turned to the side and urged House to complete her sentence, compellingly pointing her palm up at him. His eyebrows flew up and he stared at her quizzically, as if saying: "Oh, so now I can talk?" She shot him a death glare, which he cleverly translated into a 'yes', and promptly turned to face the guy.
"Doctor... hmm... Ruth?" He said, very happy with his own personal pseudonym choice.
"Tickets."
That was the first word that came out of the gigantic bouncer's mouth and suddenly they both realized that the intensity of a voice really is proportionate to the width of the cavity into which it resonates. Cuddy shivered slightly but she refused to let herself be impressed and she let out a laugh, her laugh, throaty and proven to be utterly disconcerting, in every other usual circumstances, that is.
"No, no, Jay" She said, her voice suddenly incredibly assertive. "You don't get it. We're doctors. Doctor Cosby and Doctor... Ruth. We're from the staff."
Jay, whose impassibility could have won him a gold medal if there ever were an Olympic game of some sort for 'big guy standing at a club's front door, absolutely unimpressed no matter what happens', looked Cuddy up and down slowly and he, just as slowly, raised a huge hand in front of her, palm facing her.
"No you're not." He simply stated; and something in the unshakable certainty of his tone made it impossible to even try to contradict that evidence. But he probably wasn't expecting the little frail, and let's be honest sexy, lady to still stand in front of him after that though. "Dr. Cox is the one from the staff. And he's already inside." He felt the need to clarify, half-heartedly, hoping it would be dismissive enough.
"You obviously don't know what you're talking about-" Cuddy insisted, completely unaware of the incredible stunned look her sassy remark had set off on big guy's face.
House, however, had perfectly noticed it. That one, but mostly the one he suspected would come right after, which had to be dangerously lower on Jay's personal scale of friendliness. He locked eyes with the incorruptible gorilla and gripped Cuddy's arm, giving it a firm squeeze to draw her attention to him.
"Dr. Cosby" He said, still staring at the bouncer, and pulling her to him, "I think it's useless to insist."
She squirmed to free her arm from his grab and looked up at him. House's eyes were compelling and she imperceptibly nodded her capitulation. But first, of course, she had to let all her frustration out of her system. And it came out in a rather disorganized and quite unexpected way.
"Fine! I'm not Dr. Cosby," She waved her hand in House's direction "and this man is not Dr. Ruth - by the way could you have chosen a more stupid inappropriate name?" She glared angrily at him and swiftly planted her eyes back into Jay's incredulous gaze, "We're not from the staff!"
"I think he got that already!" House mumbled.
"I'm not finished!" She silenced him. Jay gave House a look of empathy. "But you know I'm a real doctor. I cure people. I'm not just giving shots of cortisone in rock stars' vocal chords before a concert so that they can scream from the top of their lungs, deafening half the audience in the room!"
"Oh for the love of God, is that really necessary?" House asked, rolling his eyes.
"Yes, it is." She answered without a hesitation. She came close to Jay's imposing figure and planted her index into his overdeveloped pectoral muscle, "Maybe you're big and all, but I'm not impressed." The guy's mouth slightly dropped open. "So yeah, I'm not from the staff, but I can still give you one real doctor advice, and you can consider this as a favor: you should slow down on the steroids, Jay. You obviously take way too much of these, and it's not good. Not good at all. You wanna know the side-effects of steroids abuse?"
House's eyes widened out and he promptly seized her by the wrist.
"No, he doesn't!" He instantly advised her, yanking her away.
She let House tug her away from Jay, the front door, and their defeat rather docilely, but while he kept hurrying her away, she stubbornly recited the symptoms, raising her voice, as she was getting farther, to make sure he would hear them all.
"Toxins in the liver, acne ... Impotence! SHRINKING OF THE TESTICLES!"
And with that ultimate male threat, they were back to square one, into the dark street by the side of The Stone Pony.
"What a complete jerk!" Cuddy hissed, once they were far enough to be out of sight and decide to stop their retreat.
"Absolutely!" House approved supportively, repressing a smile, ogling her, so adorably upset, her cheeks flushed with anger, her hair all messed up and her eyes sending little slate grey darts that could have struck down anyone who'd have dared stare into her gaze right in that moment.
She saw his smile, and she read the tantalizing roguishness in it, instead of all the indisputable, genuine tenderness that was lying underneath, which had overwhelmed him the moment he'd seen her so irremediably sabotaging their last chance with a fierce, unconscious passion she only, could express in such moments.
"Don't say a word." She warned.
He complied for the next few minutes, after what she sighed, defeated.
"What do we do now?" She asked, with a little voice.
"I don't know. Maybe you should have slept with a bouncer instead of that useless professor in Med-school. That would have proven to be strategically more efficient, I'm sure." He mocked.
"You're an ass."
He smiled.
"See? That's why God invented cleavages. So that, in situations like that, women won't have to talk; because paradoxically, men do listen to silent women with wide-open cleavages far more religiously than to anything they say for real; especially when the 'thing' they say ends up being a vindictive threat, insulting their virility."
"Alright, I get it. I screwed up. You were right: I should have let you buy tickets to that scalper in the first place. So stop gloating and go get them now."
"Cuddy...," He said, looking at her with a sorry smile. "The guy's gone. He's probably made enough money and now, I'm sure he's somewhere down the beach smoking his take for the night in front of a bonfire."
"But..." She looked down, unable to hide her disappointment and moreover, her helplessness, and he couldn't stand to see her like that.
He wanted to make her happy. Make her smile. Fulfill her. He wanted to see those little sparkles of passion in her eyes, not that dull gaze, disillusioned and sad.
"Tell me you have some girly make-up inside your purse." He asked suddenly, decidedly.
She lifted her head and scrutinized him with a look of bafflement.
"What does make-up has to do with all that?"
"Do you?" He insisted, with a mischievous smile.
She recognized that smile and then, the sparkle reappeared in her eyes. She nodded, expectantly. He plunged his hand into his backpack inside which he had put her tiny purse when she'd gotten on his bike and fished it out of the bag.
"What do you need?"
"Nail polish? Lipstick? Anything red-dish." He told her and her smiled widened.
"Oh-ho, Dr. House, and may I ask what you have in mind?"
"You had your chance. Now it's my turn. So, you stay by my side and you do exactly as I tell. 'kay? Now let's see what make-up you have and watch the pro!"
--> The Wild Escape - Chapter 9