Rp for l_cuddy_md
House ended up going back to his room, after meeting that blonde woman down in the lobby. He'd had a crap enough day as it was; the way the morning had turned out with Cuddy, meeting Wilson in the bar, getting punched in the face by John. Yeah, he wasn't interested in his day getting any more crap than it already was, and hanging around downstairs
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She'd managed to distract herself part of the day, and talking to Wilson had been good, really good. She'd been so busy with House that she hadn't fully realized just how much she missed Wilson's calm presence. She was still a little shocked at how bad he'd looked and that made her feel guilty that she hadn't checked in with him sooner. Still, it seemed whatever demons he'd been fighting, he might've turned the corner. Now he was probably no more or less depressed or frustrated than the rest of them.
Lacking in other distractions, she was back to mulling over what had happened between she and House. She tried to think through it logically, methodically. That didn't seem to help. She tried imagining every possible or probable or even implausible reason for both the sex and forgetting the condom. She'd come up with quite a few, everything from 'we're lonely and stuck here so why not' to 'the hotel made us do it' to 'I forgot the condom because I have a unconscious desire to have House's child.' Frankly, that last one scared her almost more than the notion that the hotel could've somehow coerced them into having sex.
The only reason she found believable, the only one she felt at all comfortable with, was that she must have stronger, deeper feelings for House than she'd ever realized. But even if that was true, it didn't help her to know where to go from here. And it sure didn't tell her what House's feelings might be.
She grimaced at the pounding on her door, because who else would it be but House? She had no idea what to say to him, but she didn't have any choice but to answer. Like it or not, he did need his medication. She rolled off the bed and walked to the door, pulling it open before he pounded the damn thing right off its hinges.
"Come on in. It'll just take me a second." She left him at the door without bothering to see if he'd come in. She certainly knew he wasn't going to leave until he got his pill. She retrieved the bottle from the top of the dresser, right next to what would be her next dose of hormones, due within the hour. Not something she was looking forward to. The nausea had subsided somewhat, but she figured it come right back once she took what was essentially another overdose on top of the first one.
Taking a single Oxycontin, she walked back to House and held it out in her palm. "I.... We...." She finally raised her eyes to meet his, then frowned. She reached up with her other hand and touched the bruise on his jaw. She instantly thought of the last bruise she'd seen, which had had twin on Wilson's face. Her natural assumption was that this one was from the same source.
"What happened? Wilson said...I mean, I got the impression you two were okay talking today."
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Trying to shove his insecurities aside, he stepped just inside the doorway and fidgeted with his cane while he waited for Cuddy to return. His eyes roamed restlessly around the room until they happened to land on Cuddy, and House found himself gazing at her; at her ass, her curves, the way her hair fell around her shoulders. His mind drifted into memories of the night before and the morning after, how she looked naked and how she sounded and looked when she orgasmed, and--
House snapped out of his thoughts when he realised he was not only staring fixedly at Cuddy, but that she was returning with his pill. He straightened his shoulders and mentally shook himself, and deliberately attempted to ignore her when she started to talk. He plucked the pill up from her palm and made the mistake of glancing at her face as he did so. He met her eyes and noticed the frown she gave, then realised the frown was directed at the bruise on his jaw.
He wasn't sure what to do when her hand began to reach up towards him; he darted his eyes between her face and her hand, until he felt her fingers gently touching it. Because the punch had directly struck bone, the bruise felt very tender to touch, and he flinched slightly at the pang of pain even the slightest touch caused. He otherwise didn't move away from her hand. In fact, the caring, concerned gesture reassured him in some strange way that Cuddy wasn't shutting herself off from him after what had happened between them -- which in turn made him frown. He only thought that because Cuddy was all he had apart from Wilson in this place, he tried to reason with himself. Yeah. That seemed perfectly viable.
The mention of Wilson, though, made House start to scowl. Yeah, they were totally okay, except for the part where Wilson looked like absolute shit and House ended up feeling way more concerned than he wanted to about Wilson, House thought bitterly. He stalled for time by throwing the pill into his mouth and swallowing.
"Oh, we were," he said dryly. "It was like a big, happy reunion."
He sucked his cheeks in at the bitter taste of the pill. "Does the name 'John' mean anything to you? Grouchy looking guy who claims he's a zombie. I don't think he likes me very much."
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"I realize it wasn't all rainbows and kittens, but at least you talked. That's a step in the right direction," she said. Wilson hadn't been terribly specific about what he and House had said to each other, but she'd gotten a sense of relief from Wilson, that he was glad to have finally reconnected in some way.
"And you getting on Wilson's case about his drinking.... That was a good thing you did," she added. It was a total role reversal of course. Normally it was Wilson trying to save House from his self-destructive urges, not the other way around. But it was good that House cared. Good that he'd cared enough to do something about it.
"John Winchester?" she asked a moment later. She'd only met one John, certainly only one who could be described as a zombie. "Dark hair, going gray? Good looking in a rough, unshaven kind of way?"
Cuddy hesitated, because that same description could be applied to House. She shook her head, telling herself to focus, damn it. Stop thinking about what House looked like, in any context.
What she didn't understand was why House had mentioned John. What did he have to do with Wilson or.... Cuddy looked at the bruise on House's jaw again. Surely not. John had been brusque and condescending, but not violent. She'd been a little irritated with him, but she hadn't felt frightened of him. Then again, House had a knack for bringing out the violence in people.
"Are you saying John's the one who took a swing at you?"
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Her mentioning Wilson and how it was good that House intervened with Wilson's drinking distracted him from those thoughts, though. He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, not wanting to talk about that. "Well, someone had to," he replied brusquely. What was seriously the point in her mentioning that it was 'good' of him to do that, House thought irritably. He was a doctor, he recognised descent into potential alcoholism when he saw it. Plus, he didn't want Wilson to drink himself to death because, yeah, he cared about Wilson. A lot. Way more than he wanted to, truth be told.
He glanced over his shoulder, negotiating how far it was to his room, when Cuddy continued about John. He looked back to her and decided he could either stand in the doorway and discuss whatever it was they were going to end up discussing, or move into her room where he had more room to move about rather than feel like Cuddy was standing in his personal space. Plus, he wanted to find out what had happened with the whole contraceptive thing and didn't want to be standing practically in the hallway while talking about it.
There might've also been some other reason to do with the fact that despite his unease at being around Cuddy, he didn't particularly want out of her presence. He wasn't going to question or think too hard into that last one.
He edged around her and walked into her room, replying, "Yeah," to her question about John being the one who took a swing at her. "He got pissy with me."
He stopped in the centre of the room and slowly turned to face Cuddy. It was very difficult to look at her and not automatically think about having sex with her. Particularly when the sex had been so damn good, both times; particularly when House had been down between her thighs and made her come with his mouth and... He made himself drop his gaze from her to the floor before he looked away across the other side of the room.
"So..." he prompted, though really didn't know where to begin with this whole having sex thing. The unprotected sex thing in particular.
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"Why? Did you provoke him?" Cuddy asked when House admitted that John was the one who'd hit him. And yes, she knew it was entirely possible if not likely that House had done something to provoke the other man. On the other hand, she didn't know John well enough to know how likely it was he would provoke House.
Cuddy rubbed her forehead fretfully as House moved into the room. "You know what--I probably don't want to know. Just...be careful. John looks like he could take you in a fair fight. And I'm afraid to think of what he could do to you in an unfair fight."
She turned and closed the door, a sinking feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the hormones. House looked decidedly uncomfortable. She was no more thrilled about the conversation they needed to have than he was, but they either had to talk or spend the rest of their time here avoiding each other.
She didn't want to avoid House, or for him to avoid her. It might've gone very wrong at the end, but before that it had gone really, really right. Not just the sex, although that had been undeniably fantastic. But she'd also enjoyed being with House. There'd been a real feeling of ease between them and she didn't want to lose that.
"So," Cuddy repeated. She walked slowly toward House, stopping a couple of feet away from him, arms wrapped around her waist. She didn't know where to start either. Or, if she was being honest with herself, she just didn't want to hear what she thought he would say. She forced herself to raise her gaze to his face, keeping her expression blank although her eyes reflected her anxiety.
"Look, last night was.... If I...." Cuddy muttered "shit" under her breath, frustrated by her inability to just say something. "I don't know what to do. I'm afraid anything I say will just make things worse."
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Of course Cuddy would close the door -- that made sense, seeing he'd ventured into her room, but now he felt in a sense trapped. He didn't know what to do about this sex thing, didn't know what Cuddy wanted to do, and it was obvious they needed to do something about it because this awkwardness wasn't lingering between them for no reason. As long as he needed his pills, he was going to need Cuddy, which meant he was going to have to keep facing her. But more to the point, there was this niggling want in him to want Cuddy than for more than just his pill supplier. Because, hell, how they'd been with each other the whole time they had sex, and afterwards -- the first time, specifically -- had just... clicked. And maybe he wanted to hold onto that because it was the only thing he found enjoyable about the Hotel, or god only knew why he wanted to hold onto it.
He darted his eyes towards Cuddy when she started to speak, and he felt about as anxious and awkward as she looked. When she said she was afraid anything she said would make things worse, House dropped his gaze to the floor. He really, really wished Cuddy had an answer for this that he could go along with and not have to deal with the responsibility of making choices or decisions here. He let out a sigh and glanced across the room.
"Last night," he echoed her words. And this morning, though he didn't want to bring that up. He noticed, too, that Cuddy only mentioned last night. He tapped his cane on the floor, and then looked back to Cuddy again. "You should just say whatever it is you want to say. There's no point pretending this isn't complicated, because it is, so there's no need to pussyfoot around me."
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"I liked what we had last night, and not just because of the sex...although that was pretty damn good. I liked it because it was you." And oh, boy, didn't that complicate the hell out of things. She wanted more of the sex, no doubt about it, but it wasn't just sex and they'd probably been idiots to think it could be. After all the years they'd known each other, after all they'd been through, how could anything they did be uncomplicated?
On the other hand, she still wasn't looking for 'happily ever after' with House either. She wanted some kind of middle ground where whatever they did, it was more than just scratching an itch.
"I want what we had last night. I mean I want it again," she admitted, staring at her hands as she pressed her palms against her thighs. "But I'm trying to look at this objectively, and objectively, you want uncomplicated sex. I don't need love, but I can't be just another good lay, not with you...which would seem to be a complication."
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He stared down at Cuddy, feeling the confusion and anxiety about what to do mounting in him, before he tipped his head back to look at the ceiling and let out a long sigh. House felt torn: his instinct was to brick himself up from this completely, but on the same token he didn't want to shut Cuddy out because it always came back to the fact that Cuddy was all he had. He'd somehow managed to sleep with Wilson, twice, and look how that turned out. He could argue all he liked about not needing human connection, but being in this place made it very hard not to crave it on some primal level.
"Perfect," he muttered wryly, more to himself than to Cuddy. He dropped his chin to look back down at her. "I want uncomplicated sex, and yet I had sex with you. What the hell was I on?"
He turned away and started to pace across her room and when he reached the dresser, he picked up a hairband of Cuddy's and started to fiddle with it between his thumb and forefinger. "Should've stuck with the stripper. Free sex, no emotional connection, none of this 'I like sex with you because it's with you' business."
He stretched the hairband between his fingers and let it flick forth, watching it skate across the surface of the dresser before dropping over the edge to the floor. He then balled his hand into a fist and dropped it to the dresser with a thump. "Having sex with someone you know is a lot like being diagnosed with a disease: before you're told your diagnosis, you go on as normal with your life, not knowing any different. And then you're told you have this disease, and it becomes this big white elephant in your life. Something you can't avoid, something you can't stop thinking about, no matter how much you want to.
"And maybe the disease isn't actually as bad as you think it is; you just think it's bad because the word 'disease' comes with all these negative connotations, completely ignoring the fact that not every disease is life-threatening or deadly. People live with diseases every day, right? Some don't even need medicating. They're just there and had you never been told your diagnosis, you wouldn't have even known you had this disease. Like Gilbert's Syndrome. Or something equally as dormant as that. Or some diseases affect a person's life quite dramatically, but they learn to live with it. Like Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or..."
House trailed off, realising he was rambling a long, detailed metaphor that he was starting to confuse himself with. "The point I'm trying to make," he concluded in an impatient voice, "is that this is something that isn't going to go away. You can't ignore something you can't stop thinking about."
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Because he was right. He should've stuck with his stripper. And she should've kept whatever feelings were simmering in her subconscious right where they were--deeply buried. There'd been no danger in going on as they'd always been and even if they'd been missing something by doing that...well, if you never had it, then you didn't feel any loss.
Cuddy didn't really hear most of the rest of what House said. She was too caught up in his obvious distaste for the fact that she'd liked being with him because it was him. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and her face in her hands as House wound down his rambling spiel that apparently had something to do with the fact that he thought she was like a disease.
"Fine, I get it," she said flatly. Then she shook her head. "No, actually, I don't. I have no idea what you're going on about."
She really was confused now. She assumed he was talking about her, that she wouldn't be able to ignore it, stop thinking about it. Which was true, but she'd deal with it herself. He could file the whole experience away under 'just another fuck' or maybe 'banging the boss' and life would go on. Unless he was saying he couldn't stop thinking about it, in which case...was he fixated on the good parts or the bad parts? And which was which in his mind?
"The point is...do you want it to go away?" she said, sitting up and pushing the hair back from her face. "Because if you do...then just walk away. I promise I'll never mention it again."
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He sighed irritably, frustrated that he had to somehow elaborate on what he was saying to make it make sense to her. He'd deliberately chosen to try and tell her what he was thinking through talking in metaphors so it didn't feel so personal. He made a few aborted attempts to try and answer her question without being direct, then gave an exasperated toss of his head.
"No, you don't get it," he snapped. "Clearly you haven't been listening to a word I've said."
He shuffled about restlessly on the spot before he began to pace across to the other side of her room, rubbing his hand against his forehead, then the bruise along his jaw. God, he sucked at this talking it out crap. What made it harder was not knowing exactly what it was he and Cuddy had. Definitely not a relationship. Definitely not easy sex, either.
"Look," he continued after a pause. He turned around to face her again, throwing her a highly agitated and impatient look. "If I wanted it to go away, do you think I'd still be here in this room? No. I would've taken my pill and left."
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She watched House pace unable, apparently, to simply say what he wanted to say. Or maybe he was just as confused as she was. Which seemed to be the case when he told her he didn't want it to go away, and that confused her because wasn't he the one who wanted no strings, no mess sex?
"Just...give me a minute," she said. She tried to ignore his agitation and concentrate. She didn't know how she thought she was going to come up with an explanation when she hadn't been able to think of a reasonable one all day. She had to try, though, or this was going to loom over them, affecting everything they said or did.
"Last night was good, for both of us," she began slowly. "And maybe for me it's more than just the physical but you said you didn't want complications and I agreed. So everything was fine...wasn't it?"
That, of course, was where the confusion came in. What they'd agreed to and what was really going on seemed to be two different things. She shoved that aside, though, to puzzle over later. She was trying to keep it simple for now, and the simple fact was that they'd had a good time. Good sex, and they'd enjoyed each other's company. It had been good that morning, too: fun, exciting, hot, right uptil the moment they'd realized they'd just had unprotected sex.
"You didn't get upset until you realized we'd forgotten the condom. That...scared you?" she asked, because she really wasn't sure what it was, other than the obvious threat of pregnancy, that had freaked him out. "I get that, because it was like a slap in the face for me, too. But...it was an accident. It happens, even to people who know better. As smart as we think we are, we're not immune to doing stupid things."
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He resumed pacing, tossing her question about in his mind: so everything was fine... wasn't it? It was supposed to be fine. It was just supposed to be sex, like he'd argued over and over with himself in his mind. So, why the confused feelings? Why this strange sense of attachment, or whatever the hell it was? Maybe he really was just going mad and this was how it was manifesting; the Hotel fucking with his mind. Except he really, truly did like what he and Cuddy had shared. And he remembered at the time hoping it would happen again. And again. And hopefully again.
"It wasn't just an accident," he argued once he was in the centre of the room again. He turned to face Cuddy with an accusing look on his face. "Getting out of control like that wasn't an accident. You don't accidentally forget to put on a condom. What happened was a complete loss of control, and I don't know what the hell that means."
He went to face away to continue pacing, but changed his mind. "Everything was fine. Up until that part. Everything would continue to be 'fine' if it wasn't for that." He threw his hand out in gesture to the bed she was sitting on. "I'd probably be in there with you right now if it wasn't for this whole... thing."
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"And you'd be welcome in my bed." She stopped to study his face, her chest tightening in response to what she thought she saw there. "But that's not going to happen, is it? Because you don't know what it means. Well, guess what--I don't know what it means either."
She had a pretty good idea of what it meant, or what it might come to mean. She thought she even had a pretty good idea of what it meant to House as well. It meant he cared at least a little bit, crazy as that seemed.
She wanted to try to convince him that that it was okay to not know what it meant right now. That it was okay if turned out to mean more. It would be okay even if it turned out to mean less. But the truth was House had been acting skittish even before the condom fiasco. He'd been wary of her kissing him, wearing his shirt.... If he was going to be suspicious of everything she did, worrying about what it all meant, then she'd be an idiot to push him. She'd end up ruining their friendship.
Christ. why the hell couldn't she ever do anything right when it came to men?
Cuddy rose from the bed and walked to House. She knew that would make him wary, too, but she had to say this directly to his face.
"Whatever this means, I'm pretty sure it's not what you want." She took one more step to close the remaining distance between them and rose up on the balls of her feet to kiss his cheek. "Go back to fucking your stripper. It's easy, it's uncomplicated, it's safe.... It's what you want."
As she turned away she added under her breath, "Just don't tell me about it when you do."
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He ended up frowning at her words. She was pretty sure it wasn't what he wanted? He had barely any time to think further into what she'd said before she was arching up to his kiss his cheek. He darted his eyes around the room when he felt her lips brush against his cheek, and then started to respond, started to turn his face in towards hers to press his cheek a little firmer against her lips, maybe even seek to kiss her on the mouth because, damn it, he didn't know what any of this meant but he couldn't deny wanting to somehow reengage what they had the night before.
But she pulled away before he got a chance to really react at all, and he stared down at her as she told him to go back to Alice because it was what he wanted. And then she was turning away.
God damn it, Alice was not what he wanted. As for uncomplicated and safe... Well, it was too late to wish for that now. But screwing Alice wasn't what he wanted. Not at all. Before giving himself a chance to think about it, he reached out to quickly grab her arm and tugged her to face him again.
"No, it's not," he replied sharply. "I don't want her. Don't tell me what I do and don't want."
He gave Cuddy a hard look. Not wanting to screw Alice didn't take away the wish for this to be easy and complicated. But it seemed the more they talked about this, the more House wasn't sure what he wanted other than the fact that there was this part of him that wanted Cuddy and how the hell did that fit in with not wanting complicated?
Well, fuck it. This was complicated enough as it was and what more did he have to lose? This wasn't going to go away on its own no matter how much House could try and will it to, and this wasn't going to become any clearer to him right now, either. He tugged her in closer to him and stooped down to meet her mouth with his. She would either kiss back, or shove him away, or maybe even slap him. Or demand to know what the hell he was doing, to which he wouldn't have a clear answer. Or, hell, maybe this was his answer, that despite all the complications Cuddy was what he wanted. Or something. Or--
He clamped down on the whirlwind of thoughts going through his head and insistently sought to kiss her.
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"I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to...to...." She let out an exasperated sigh. Damned if she knew what she was trying to do. She didn't want him to go back to the stripper, but she thought that's what he wanted. She thought he wanted to be free of entanglements.
Then he was kissing her and regardless of what her mind was thinking, her body responded. She leaned into him, rising up a bit on the balls of her feet to meet his mouth. She let him control the kiss at first, then began to challenge him.
"House," she murmured as she pulled back. She rested her palm against his chest and looked up at him. This wasn't going to get uncomplicated. Given who was involved--how could it be anything but messed up? Assuming they really were going to try to do...this.
Maybe that was the way to deal with it--to simply accept the fact that anything that involved her and House was bound to be a struggle. They'd battled all the way through their professional lives. Looked like their personal lives wouldn't be any different.
"Just so we're clear--whatever this is, it is not a relationship," she said finally. Because she sucked at relationships. She had a long, dismal record with the opposite sex to prove it. She didn't want that to happen with House.
Then she wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled him down for another kiss.
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He just nodded to her assertion that this wasn't a relationship. Deep down, he wasn't sure he believed that because this wouldn't be so damn confusing if it was just sex.. or whatever this was. It just seemed much easier to give into the physical over bothering to figure out the reason behind it all. This wasn't dealing with the issue at all and House knew that. He didn't want to deal with it, because so long as Cuddy wanted him as much as he wanted Cuddy, then what need was there to look beyond that? Looking beyond the sex meant that they'd be delving into areas pertaining to relationships, and...
Cuddy's hand on the back of his neck prompted House to once again shove his thoughts aside, and he let himself be pulled down towards her for another kiss. He threw his cane away from him so it landed on the bed and used both hands to grip Cuddy tight around the waist as he quickly deepened the kiss, sucking her lower lip into his mouth and then sliding his tongue in against hers. It was weird how getting physical with Cuddy made the doubts and questions in his mind evaporate, and it was equally as weird how quickly turned on he was by her.
He slid his hands down from her waist to her ass and groped it, pulling her flush against him while he sucked softly on her tongue.
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