The Wild Escape - Chapter 3
Title: The Wild Escape - chapter 3
Status: Short story
Rated: T (maybe M later on...)
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 **
It was a very sunny day. The deep blue sky was perfectly clear and the pavement was suffused by a warm noon light through the branches of the city trees, planted along the sidewalk; it spread bright yellow little glittering spots on the asphalt and she was counting them. One, two, ten, fifty... It was better than trying to count the cars that drove by on the street. And it was preventing her from really wondering how long it'd been since he had left her. Two minutes? Five minutes? An eternity.
Ok, so she'd done it. She had come to him. She had made a wild choice. Probably the craziest one in her life so far. Her private life, that is; because in her job, she was used to dealing with impossible situations. She was used to playing with fire. But not when it came to her, personally; not when it concerned her as a woman, or her needs as a woman. She'd thought... Damn! She'd thought that what she wanted was serenity, quietness. She thought she needed that to counterbalance the madness of her days at the hospital; the pressure; everything. But how much more wrong could she possibly have been? Every day, she'd tried to ignore it, the flutter in her stomach, whenever she was with him; every day she'd kept telling herself that he was toxic and that she should forget him. Just forget him.
"Sure, keep talking!" her heart was saying to her mind, "that's not an option and you know it." Yes, she knew it. She only needed to be sure... but eventually, after months, years - a life? - of struggling, what other choice did she have but to yield? To hell with the serenity! She was not that kind of woman and she was just lying to herself if she kept convincing her that she was. Of course she was scared to death when she started thinking about the millions ways it could, and would, possibly go wrong, but for the first time in ages, she was feeling alive. Alive, bold and fulfilled. And it was worth the thousands pains and hurts she'd suffered because of him before she'd finally dared step there. Into the wild.
So, while counting those beautiful little spots on the pavement, she was thinking he'd better not give her reasons to regret it. Not yet...
"Se la signora vuole farmi l'onore di accomodarsi."
She jumped at the sound of his voice, hoarse and so sexy when he was talking in another language. She turned around and she saw him, standing at the door of the restaurant. The open door of the restaurant.
"What?" she exclaimed, both because of what he'd just said and to express her surprise to find him there, an irresistibly seductive smile drawn on his lips and his hand stretched out to her, like an invitation.
"I said: If Madam would be so kind as to come in."
She hesitated a second, staring at him incredulously.
"Please?" He added, and she let him take her hand.
He instantly yanked her inside and closed the door behind her.
"What have you done?" She asked, incapable of not sounding a little worry. "Tell me you didn't break any window and that this day is not irremediably going to end in the nearest county jail..."
"Cuddy, come on! You know it hurts that you can't trust me more than that!"
"Yeah well, sorry, but admit I have more than one good reason for that."
"Maybe, but that was the old me!"
"The old you? Because there's a younger you now?" She said with a bit of teasing sarcasm.
"No, a different me."
"Different how?"
"Like that different." He said, waving a key in front of her face.
"You have a key of that place? How come? I mean, you... you didn't buy a restaurant, right?"
He chuckled. She was so deliciously crazy and irrational. He just needed to say it to her.
"You're deliciously crazy and irrational." She grimaced and it made him smile. "I just happen to know the owner of that place, that's all."
Her shoulders instantly came two inches back down, as she seemed to finally allow herself to relax a little.
"Ohh... ok. One of your patients? You saved his life and now you have access to his restaurant whenever you want?"
"Not exactly."
She looked around her at the empty place. It looked cozy.
"Nice place." She said
"Come with me." He answered, grabbing her hand.
She followed, a little hesitantly, and he led her between the tables into the kitchen. Her mouth dropped open in surprise when she entered the room. It was a square installation of cooking equipments and shiny aluminum counters, with pots and pans, spoons, whisks and skimmers of all sorts, hung in perfect organized ranks above them, and in the center of the room there was a small table for two, dressed with a white tablecloth, two plates, silver cutlery, elegant crystal glasses and a candle in the middle.
"Wow! Did you hire a chef too?" She said, sounding a bit blasé but mostly trying to hide the fact that she was in fact quite impressed.
"Don't have to. Coz, I am the chef."
She let out a spontaneous giggle but quickly swallowed it back when she saw he was actually serious.
"You forgot I took a cooking class last year." He clarified.
"No. Anyway, I certainly didn't forget your cooking class mate..."
"Cecile?"
"Yeah, the one who wasn't supposed to speak English." She grumbled reproachfully.
"Not my fault if, even back then, you were so obviously turned on by my sex appeal she had to phrase it out loud!"
She shook her head and chose not to answer. At this point, for a lot of reasons, among which stood her dignity, it was indeed the best choice.
"Joseph was in my cooking class too."
"Joseph?"
"He owns this place. I borrowed his keys."
"In exchange for what?"
"Nothing. Joseph doesn't bargain. I just asked him and he said yes."
"Wow, does such thing really exist? It seems a little surreal to me."
"You just sounded totally disenchanted and biased." He pouted, faking to be hurt.
"Anyone who'd have known you for twenty years would!" She answered without missing a beat.
House paused and his eyes seemed to get lost in a far distance, staring blankly in front of him.
"What?"
The sound of her voice jolted him out of his nostalgic reverie and he took the few steps that were separating them and then enclosed her in his arms. He placed his hands on the small of her back, his fingers extending on the round shape of her perfect ass, and he looked down at her with a fond gaze.
"I just realized you're the longest nightmare of my life…" He teased, with a soft voice.
"A nightmare, really?" She asked with a coy smile.
"Duh, definitely! Except in some very, very, rare moments when you may have been a sort of acceptable compromise between hell and-"
She whacked him on the side of his arm and he let out an exaggerated outraged "ouch!" just before staring at her with a perfectly self-satisfied beam.
"I don't know about now though" He added, still smiling with plain assertiveness. "I haven't decided yet. But I definitely noticed the change of trend... with some undeniable perks..."
She rolled her eyes and wiggled inside his arms, unaware of the exquisite sensations that the resultant rubbing of her body against his was causing him.
"Like the fact that instead of just arguing with you, I can now argue with you and have make-up sex afterwards!"
"That, is what's on your mind right now? You and I arguing?" She said, with a piqued face.
"No," He corrected "what's on my mind is you and I having make-up sex." He punctuated his statement with a wide suggestive grin that indeed said he was probably picturing it quite vividly.
Cuddy heaved a deep sigh of resignation and he imperceptibly tightened his grasp around her waist.
"You didn't think I was going to change, did you?"
"Well, it would have been stupid of me, wouldn't it?"
She'd said it with a smile but there was an imperceptible trace of disillusion in the depth of her eyes nonetheless; something she probably wasn't even aware of herself; something that didn't escape his scrutinizing gaze though. His face took on a serious look and he raised his hands to cup her jaws inside his palms delicately.
"Cuddy, I know I'm not the kind of man women usually dream to introduce to their parents, but I'm not a complete asshole either."
"I know."
She bit her lips and lowered her eyes, slightly embarrassed but he kept her face tilted up in his direction.
"Maybe we're gonna screw this up. But maybe we're not."
"You think that's possible?" She asked, her voice filled with hope.
"Some poetic jerk once said: 'what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.'"
"Your so-called philosopher Jagger?"
"Bukowski."
"What is it that makes your unconventional references always so spot on?"
"The fact that they're unconventional?"
"Or the fact that they're true?"
Had she thought about that last quote he'd just mentioned, or was she unconsciously referring to the time when he'd said to her "You can't always get what you want?" ... Silence filled the room again and their eyes met, as if they'd been irrepressibly mesmerized by each other; their gazes were conveying the most genuine and unhidden fondness, some ovewhelming need to express a feeling they weren't quite sure how to tame yet. But slowly, unexpectedly, irrepressibly, the walls seemed to come down a little. And it didn't matter that it was most certainly in an unconventional way, what mattered was that it did.
"Don't you want to taste my delicious cuisine?" He suddenly suggested, breaking the spell.
She took a deep breath and shivered a little, as if she'd have been awoken from a dream. Then she raised her chin up to him, with that fierce look of hers on her face and narrowed her eyes at him.
"You know it takes more than a nicely done meal to get me off-"
"Let's see." He replied, obviously willing to take up the challenge.
He let go of her and limped towards the counter, on which he put his cane; then he grabbed an apron and tied it around his waist. She chuckled and came beside him, almost touching him, resting her elbow on the counter and shifting her hips to the side in a deliberately sexy pose.
"Oh-oh! You're really taking that seriously, aren't you?" She mocked playfully.
"Shut up and clear the space!" He commanded, pushing her away with a sway of the hips.
She smiled and took one step back, then resting with her back against the edge of the counter, she put her hands on top of it and promptly pushed herself up to hop on the aluminum surface. Like that, seated face to him, close, but at an enough reasonable distance to let him have a free space on the counter, she then observed him gathering all the various ingredients he needed to cook. He was pacing from a side to the other, visibly at ease with all the weird instruments surrounding him. He looked like he was in familiar territory, fumbling into cupboards and drawers, picking pans, then grabbing some condiments, opening the fridge, taking some eggs, herbs, vegetables, cream, whatever, and then a knife, slicing, chopping; it was like a strange ballet and she was barely paying attention to what he was actually cooking, her eyes completely hypnotized by the dexterity of his hands, the attention with which he was dosing the ingredients, the thoroughness with which he was peeling, mixing, whipping, boiling and, above all, the obvious pleasure he was taking in it. He was not even limping all that much but just jumping from a counter to the other.
Her hand unconsciously landed on his cane, which was put atop the counter alongside her left leg and for the first time that day she looked at it and realized it was not the cane she was used to seeing him with. It was a black cane with a silver skull-shaped handle. She grabbed it and held it up in the air.
"What's that?"
"It's called a cane." He answered without raising his head. "People with a limp usually have one."
"I know it's a cane. I just never saw you with that one before."
"You don't like it?" He said, turning to the side and looking at her briefly.
"I would, maybe, if it was Halloween and you'd have decided to dress as a gothic adolescent fan of Evanescence."
"I prefer you say Marilyn Manson-"
"Whatever."
"I left my cane in Trenton yesterday." He said, suddenly serious and a sorrow clouded his face over for a second. "I just grabbed the first one that came to hand this morning."
She lowered her head and felt an uncomfortable stinging sensation of shame pervade her. But Trenton, and him painfully stepping into that ambulance, giving her that undecipherable stare, just before almost slamming the door shut at her, was not the kind of image she wanted to have in mind in that moment. She shook herself out to chase the disturbing thought out of her head and intensely looked at him, focusing on the here and now, in that kitchen, where he was cooking for her. She shifted to the side, towards the stove, and dared point a finger at the pan.
"What are you frying?" She asked.
"I'm not frying, I'm deglazing."
"Yeah well... Frying, deglazing-" She puffed, waving her hand in the air as if to say there was no point in nitpicking over a cooking term.
Except there was.
"When you fry, you use oil; to deglaze you use vinegar." He started to explain, rocking the pan rhythmically above the flames to shake the brown juice inside.
"The acetic acid of the vinegar dissolves the caramelized residue of the seared ingredients, setting off a chemical reaction that enhances the flavor of the food in a way you'd never obtain if you'd just boil your sauce separately."
She had her hand on both sides of her lap, griping the edge of the counter, her feet dangling and swinging and, during his little speech, she had stared at him with a dropped-open mouth and a look that said she might have blanked it completely. Or maybe, it was because she was actually too impressed or irremediably won over to talk. He chose to believe it was the latter - and he was right, of course - but he didn't take advantage of it; instead he dipped his index into a a brown thick liquid in a small cup and held it compellingly in front of her mouth.
"Here, taste!"
He pushed his index between her parted lips and she licked the juice out of his fingertip.
"Hmm! What's that?"
"Aceto balsamico di Modena! Balsamic vinegar from Modena."
"I know balsamic vinegar."
"So you know that's not actually real vinegar."
"It's not?"
"No. It's not made out of wine, like vinegar is. It's directly obtained from the juice of a famous grape in Italy, il Trebbiano. Correction! Not the juice, the must of the grape, which in fact doesn't produce a liquid but a sap, with a sweet and sour taste. The result is far less acid than vinegar." He dipped his finger in the liquid again and licked it with a loud sucking noise, looking at her "Hmm, did you feel it?"
She nodded and smiled, not really knowing at this point if she should just jump him right away for being so incredibly sexy when he was passionately explaining to her things she would have forgotten the next day, or if she should rather slap him to shut him up so that he would stop gloating his annoying knowledge at her face like that. Hesitation made her nervous so to close the raging debate in her head she grabbed him decidedly by his tee-shirt sleeve and yanked him toward her. He toppled a little and landed between her legs, instantly adjusting his position and resting his hands on her hips. She cupped his face and avidly leaned down to kiss him.
He still tasted like vinegar and she planted her teeth in his buds, nibbling at his tongue and sucking his bottom lip into her mouth. She felt his knuckles digging into her flesh and she clearly perceived the change of rhythm in his breath. She decided she'd better end it right away when she felt her legs irrepressible closing in around his waist, almost on their own. She broke away from his lips and rested her forehead against his.
"I'm hungry." She said, panting.
"Sure you are!" He let go of her hips and took a step aside to let her jump off the counter. "Go sit down. It'll be ready in five minutes."
He quite instinctively offered his hand to help her go down and she landed on the floor next to him. Really close. His pupils were undeniably dilated and she had to assume hers probably were too... It was purely animal, it had to be just that, she told herself, frightened by the violence of the successive waves of lust she felt sizzling inside her. Dammit! She could feel them shaking her body from head to toe. And she knew he was surely feeling the same because it was impossible to deny... How on earth could she possibly have managed to deny it all this time? ...
The sound of the oven timer suddenly echoed in the kitchen and she jumped a little, while he dropped her hand and promptly seized a dish towel.
"Five minutes." He groaned, short of breath, and he limped towards the oven.
She reluctantly complied and sat down at the table, as an incredibly appetizing smell of fresh baked bread with roasted taste of... something else... filled her nostrils. She watched him cautiously put the hot dish on the counter and then next, pour a preparation he'd kept in a bowl into a spluttering pan. A few minutes later, he limped towards the table to join her, holding a large plate in each hand.
He came behind her and bent over her shoulder to put the plates down ceremoniously, then he walked round the table and took a sit in front of her.
"That's an omelette." She remarked deadpan.
He rolled his eyes and struck a match to light the candle.
"Well if you want to call it that!" He exclaimed extravagantly, while at the same time stretching his hand to her face and putting the match under her mouth. She blew it out mechanically and he put it down in an ashtray. "This, is a salted zabaglione, perfumed with basil and infused in balsamic vinegar." He then enounced solemnly.
Which instantly shut down any possible attempts at a sarcastic comeback she could have thought of. So instead, she swallowed back her saliva, licked her bottom lip and focused on the other plate.
"And that? I suppose that if I say it's bread, you're gonna tell me it's not and replace it with another extravagant name?"
"No. Cuz it's bread." He said to tease her. She pouted conspicuously at him with an upset grimace that made him chuckle. "But if you really insist, actually it's 'ciabatta with truffle and dried tomatoes'."
She became dangerously unaware of her slightly tilting her head to the side and staring at him with an almost drooling mouth. He, on the other hand, perfectly took note and straightened up proudly in his chair.
"Eat while it's still hot." He ordered, beaming inside and out.
She sucked in a sharp breath and blinked back to earth. He served them both a generous portion and watched her swallow her first bite with eager expectation.
"Hmm!" She first moaned with surprise, "Hmmmm" she then moaned in delight, slouching down in her chair. She stuck the fork out of her mouth and widened her eyes with admiration. "Wow! This is good! You're good!"
She had said that with an unconscious look of possessiveness, which, even though they were alone in the room had also, from then on, just undeniably and quite strongly claimed him as her man for every other woman to register. It instantly filled his brain with a flood of pure endorphins. He watched her greedily grabbed the ciabatta and take a piece that she instantly almost shoved into her mouth, moaning again and closing her eyes, inwardly struck with another wave of gustatory bliss.
"Oh fuck! It tastes too good!" She exclaimed, incapable of holding her laughter.
Seated in front of her and looking at her laughing without restraint and eating ravenously, there were now and undoubtedly more than a few chances that he would never forgive that day until at least a very, very, long time.
--> The Wild Escape - Chapter 4