Fic: Lucas' tale
Title: Lucas' tale
Characters: Lucas's p.o.v. Cuddy
Rating: M (to be on the safe side)
Words: approx 1900
Comment:Views expressed are those of the character, not necessarily the author!
Call me vindictive if you will, but a big part of me wanted to let out a belly laugh when I heard about Greg’s impromptu drive-thru. Since I was waiting in the business reception area of the most important client (ok, the only client) I’d had in ages, I suppressed my true feelings, merely murmuring in agreement “Yeah, crazy” to the P.A.’s outraged response to the footage as it flashed up repeatedly on screen. It must have been a slow news day.
While the woman vented her opinions on the subject of domestic violence to her intern on the help desk, my mind veered between “stupid bastard” and “poor bastard.” I wondered what Lisa had done to get that reaction. I knew he was pretty crazy when we first met and then crazy with a capital ‘C’ for some months, but he’d behaved sanely enough over my relationship with Lisa, even though I knew he wanted her. Whether that was just jealousy towards anything or anyone that upset the life-support system he had set up for himself -he was just as resentful towards Rachel at the beginning, so Lisa said-I wasn’t sure.
He had a habit of hiding in plain sight. The drunken confession to me that night that he loved her was so obviously faked; I know he’d little respect for my efforts at subterfuge but really! If you’re going to stink of alcohol convincingly, then a higher proportion of it has to have gone down inside you; dousing your shirt with it’s kind of obvious, you know. So I figured he might just be telling the truth, in his own twisted way. Too bad; I’d got in first.
Smart guy though I am; Lisa Cuddy was above my pay-grade. I knew it, she knew it, though she always denied it, saying I’d not really had time to establish myself. This was bullshit. By the time she was the age I am now, she’d been Dean of Medicine for a handful of years. She’d not have tried the same argument with House, not that he needed it. A real down and out he may have looked at times but I always researched my clients and I knew exactly who I was dealing with, at least on paper.
He was world famous in his sphere, even if he was a crappy human being in other ways. I liked the guy, admired his ‘cat who walks by himself’ persona until I saw it for the defensive shield it was. I tolerated his tight-fistedness over bills and enjoyed matching wits with him. We had some fun times together.
I made him pay over the apartment; Lisa was royally pissed off over the disappointment. She blamed me that she’d not clinched the deal .There was some supposed ‘deadline’ she’d missed because I was on a job and not been there to babysit for Rachel as I’d promised. I suspect Wilson paid over the odds for it, whatever the realtor said.
So I got the cold shoulder treatment for a bit; long enough to wreak my revenge on the Odd Couple. The thing about Lisa though, was that she was insecure in her personal life. I’d seen her in her element at the hospital and you’d think she was a real ball-breaker, but no. She had her faddy ways but then I’m adaptable and sensitive, I think, to a woman’s needs. She was so high powered that sometimes I wondered what she saw in me but then I’d remember that all the ‘A’ type guys she’d had in her forty-odd years had fallen short too. Perhaps she was getting more realistic, or more desperate. I genuinely liked Rachel, funny kid that she is, and that helped, I guess.
I wasn’t naïve enough to suppose there had never been anything between Lisa and House; in fact I assumed that they had been an item at some time in the past. There was always this kind of tension between them but Lisa denied that they had ever been together. It took some time for her to tell me what had happened just before he admitted himself to the funny farm. She was furious and humiliated that he’d confirmed publicly what many people at the hospital had assumed anyway for years. The fact that it was just all in his overheated imagination somehow made it worse, she said. I didn’t understand that, at the time.
So things were going well for me; Lisa would get stressed out, about the hospital, about House finding out that we were together in case he went off the deep end again but then she was usually appreciative of my being laid back and unworried. I was good for her, she used to laugh. Between me and Marina, we took a load off her.
Even so, I was surprised when she sort of indicated she’d like things to be permanent. I’m not saying she proposed; nothing like that. It’s just that when the subject came up in casual conversation-a colleague getting hitched, or some mention in the media- she never brushed it aside as though it had no relevance to us. I suppose what I’m saying is that she encouraged me to think of it as a possibility.
Now I’m a guy who likes stability in my personal life; if I can get it. My family story is a mess; let’s just leave it there. The idea that a smart woman with a great body and a great income would consider me as her life partner was seductive to say the least. She didn’t seem to mind at all that she would essentially be subsidising me. My income level fluctuated between barely adequate and, especially if I were engaged by House, zero.
Looking back on it now I can see that I was a sap not to notice the increased sense of tension in her and put it down to its correct cause, rather than the one I attributed to her, that is, her not getting laid enough because she was so busy fire-fighting all the crises at the hospital. She snapped at me for suggesting that, so instead of arguing I asked her to marry me. I expected a withering reply but after a considering pause, she smiled and said “Yes!”
“Hold that thought,” I said and thanking the U.S. of A for late night jewellery stores, I was back within the hour with the biggest diamond I couldn’t afford. She slipped the ring on and admired it. Fortunately it was only a little too large; we could get it fixed at the weekend. She was thoughtful rather than ecstatic; after all she was no college kid. We went to bed then, and made love but Lisa seemed tired.
“Let me be the one to tell House,” she said over a rushed breakfast at her usual god-awful early hour.
“Only I need to choose my moment.” I could tell she was a bit nervous. She had chewed me out for letting the cat out of the bag about knowing of his hallucination months before, saying it was ‘insensitive’. I didn’t see that myself; why wouldn’t a guy imagine having sex with Lisa, what was wrong with that, for fuck’s sake?
“Okay, okay,” I said. “But don’t leave it long. I want everyone to know that the beautiful Dean of Medicine has chosen me.”
She flashed me a quick smile and was out the door before I could give her even a peck on the cheek.
I heard about the crane collapse in Trenton, of course. I was doing some surveillance on a borderline-legit businessman for an anxious client of his; justifiably anxious I’d have said, when all hell broke loose on the neighbouring streets. Ambulances, fire trucks, squad cars and all the paraphernalia of a major disaster came wailing through the business district.
I didn’t need Lisa’s text to be told that this was likely to mean a postponement of our celebratory dinner. Tant pis, as they say. There would be plenty of other evenings, after all.
That’s what I thought.
Six hours later I was sitting in a coffee shop around the corner from the disaster site. In front of me were two cups, one empty and one barely touched, now cold. A few fine strands of her long, dark hair lay on the table surface, pulled free as she ran her fingers through it in her efforts to soften the kick to my guts she was in the process of delivering.
“But why?” I said again. “What made you change your mind in...” and here I looked at my watch “...twenty-eight hours? Less if you count the five-six hours you were asleep.”
“I just made a mistake; I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough.”
She sighed. “I can’t …love you. I really tried. I’m sorry.”
Gee, thanks. That’s the polite version of what was running around my brain.
“Does this by any chance have anything to do with a certain gimp we both know?”
“Your ring is in my office desk. I’ll have it returned to you. It’s better for Rachel if you move out at once. I must go; I only had a short break before- well- I’m needed back at the crash site.”
And with that she was gone, leaving me only a little less crushed than some of the crane victims.
It needed few of my investigatory skills to discover that very soon after this, she and the gimp were sharing bodily fluids on a regular basis. It was the talk of the hospital. There was much speculation as to how his handicap, not to mention his age and previous drug habit, affected his performance. Not much, by what I could tell from occasional sightings of Lisa. She positively glowed with satisfaction.
I wondered how long it would last.
Then I was down in Florida for a few months. My father was sick and alone, so I did the dutiful thing and hightailed it down to Tampa. There was a bit of work to be had there too so it was the early spring time before I was back in Princeton in time to pick up the post-holiday divorce traffic.
My source at the hospital had moved on and to tell the truth I wasn’t eager to find out how things were going with Lisa. I still felt sore. Business was slow, very, and I was having to tone down my geeky intellectual look for anonymous professional. That’s how I had landed an initial piece of work at Barry-Crowther Inc and why I did not want to be seen to take a more than passing interest in the news that my former fiancée’s home was under attack from a homicidal maniac lover who happened to be an ex-client of mine.
So while I waited for my appointment with the buttoned up Mr Crowther, I listened to the two women’s spot-analysis of the news item. It was evident that one of them had had a hard time with some little shit and for that I sincerely sympathised but she didn’t know squat about this situation.
I didn’t know the whole story either but I knew what Lisa had done to me and if, as I assumed, she had pulled the same stunt on him, she ought to have known she was playing with matches near a gunpowder keg.
So, on balance, “poor bastard.” Either way, he’d be going to jail.
Characters: Lucas's p.o.v. Cuddy
Rating: M (to be on the safe side)
Words: approx 1900
Comment:Views expressed are those of the character, not necessarily the author!
Call me vindictive if you will, but a big part of me wanted to let out a belly laugh when I heard about Greg’s impromptu drive-thru. Since I was waiting in the business reception area of the most important client (ok, the only client) I’d had in ages, I suppressed my true feelings, merely murmuring in agreement “Yeah, crazy” to the P.A.’s outraged response to the footage as it flashed up repeatedly on screen. It must have been a slow news day.
While the woman vented her opinions on the subject of domestic violence to her intern on the help desk, my mind veered between “stupid bastard” and “poor bastard.” I wondered what Lisa had done to get that reaction. I knew he was pretty crazy when we first met and then crazy with a capital ‘C’ for some months, but he’d behaved sanely enough over my relationship with Lisa, even though I knew he wanted her. Whether that was just jealousy towards anything or anyone that upset the life-support system he had set up for himself -he was just as resentful towards Rachel at the beginning, so Lisa said-I wasn’t sure.
He had a habit of hiding in plain sight. The drunken confession to me that night that he loved her was so obviously faked; I know he’d little respect for my efforts at subterfuge but really! If you’re going to stink of alcohol convincingly, then a higher proportion of it has to have gone down inside you; dousing your shirt with it’s kind of obvious, you know. So I figured he might just be telling the truth, in his own twisted way. Too bad; I’d got in first.
Smart guy though I am; Lisa Cuddy was above my pay-grade. I knew it, she knew it, though she always denied it, saying I’d not really had time to establish myself. This was bullshit. By the time she was the age I am now, she’d been Dean of Medicine for a handful of years. She’d not have tried the same argument with House, not that he needed it. A real down and out he may have looked at times but I always researched my clients and I knew exactly who I was dealing with, at least on paper.
He was world famous in his sphere, even if he was a crappy human being in other ways. I liked the guy, admired his ‘cat who walks by himself’ persona until I saw it for the defensive shield it was. I tolerated his tight-fistedness over bills and enjoyed matching wits with him. We had some fun times together.
I made him pay over the apartment; Lisa was royally pissed off over the disappointment. She blamed me that she’d not clinched the deal .There was some supposed ‘deadline’ she’d missed because I was on a job and not been there to babysit for Rachel as I’d promised. I suspect Wilson paid over the odds for it, whatever the realtor said.
So I got the cold shoulder treatment for a bit; long enough to wreak my revenge on the Odd Couple. The thing about Lisa though, was that she was insecure in her personal life. I’d seen her in her element at the hospital and you’d think she was a real ball-breaker, but no. She had her faddy ways but then I’m adaptable and sensitive, I think, to a woman’s needs. She was so high powered that sometimes I wondered what she saw in me but then I’d remember that all the ‘A’ type guys she’d had in her forty-odd years had fallen short too. Perhaps she was getting more realistic, or more desperate. I genuinely liked Rachel, funny kid that she is, and that helped, I guess.
I wasn’t naïve enough to suppose there had never been anything between Lisa and House; in fact I assumed that they had been an item at some time in the past. There was always this kind of tension between them but Lisa denied that they had ever been together. It took some time for her to tell me what had happened just before he admitted himself to the funny farm. She was furious and humiliated that he’d confirmed publicly what many people at the hospital had assumed anyway for years. The fact that it was just all in his overheated imagination somehow made it worse, she said. I didn’t understand that, at the time.
So things were going well for me; Lisa would get stressed out, about the hospital, about House finding out that we were together in case he went off the deep end again but then she was usually appreciative of my being laid back and unworried. I was good for her, she used to laugh. Between me and Marina, we took a load off her.
Even so, I was surprised when she sort of indicated she’d like things to be permanent. I’m not saying she proposed; nothing like that. It’s just that when the subject came up in casual conversation-a colleague getting hitched, or some mention in the media- she never brushed it aside as though it had no relevance to us. I suppose what I’m saying is that she encouraged me to think of it as a possibility.
Now I’m a guy who likes stability in my personal life; if I can get it. My family story is a mess; let’s just leave it there. The idea that a smart woman with a great body and a great income would consider me as her life partner was seductive to say the least. She didn’t seem to mind at all that she would essentially be subsidising me. My income level fluctuated between barely adequate and, especially if I were engaged by House, zero.
Looking back on it now I can see that I was a sap not to notice the increased sense of tension in her and put it down to its correct cause, rather than the one I attributed to her, that is, her not getting laid enough because she was so busy fire-fighting all the crises at the hospital. She snapped at me for suggesting that, so instead of arguing I asked her to marry me. I expected a withering reply but after a considering pause, she smiled and said “Yes!”
“Hold that thought,” I said and thanking the U.S. of A for late night jewellery stores, I was back within the hour with the biggest diamond I couldn’t afford. She slipped the ring on and admired it. Fortunately it was only a little too large; we could get it fixed at the weekend. She was thoughtful rather than ecstatic; after all she was no college kid. We went to bed then, and made love but Lisa seemed tired.
“Let me be the one to tell House,” she said over a rushed breakfast at her usual god-awful early hour.
“Only I need to choose my moment.” I could tell she was a bit nervous. She had chewed me out for letting the cat out of the bag about knowing of his hallucination months before, saying it was ‘insensitive’. I didn’t see that myself; why wouldn’t a guy imagine having sex with Lisa, what was wrong with that, for fuck’s sake?
“Okay, okay,” I said. “But don’t leave it long. I want everyone to know that the beautiful Dean of Medicine has chosen me.”
She flashed me a quick smile and was out the door before I could give her even a peck on the cheek.
I heard about the crane collapse in Trenton, of course. I was doing some surveillance on a borderline-legit businessman for an anxious client of his; justifiably anxious I’d have said, when all hell broke loose on the neighbouring streets. Ambulances, fire trucks, squad cars and all the paraphernalia of a major disaster came wailing through the business district.
I didn’t need Lisa’s text to be told that this was likely to mean a postponement of our celebratory dinner. Tant pis, as they say. There would be plenty of other evenings, after all.
That’s what I thought.
Six hours later I was sitting in a coffee shop around the corner from the disaster site. In front of me were two cups, one empty and one barely touched, now cold. A few fine strands of her long, dark hair lay on the table surface, pulled free as she ran her fingers through it in her efforts to soften the kick to my guts she was in the process of delivering.
“But why?” I said again. “What made you change your mind in...” and here I looked at my watch “...twenty-eight hours? Less if you count the five-six hours you were asleep.”
“I just made a mistake; I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough.”
She sighed. “I can’t …love you. I really tried. I’m sorry.”
Gee, thanks. That’s the polite version of what was running around my brain.
“Does this by any chance have anything to do with a certain gimp we both know?”
“Your ring is in my office desk. I’ll have it returned to you. It’s better for Rachel if you move out at once. I must go; I only had a short break before- well- I’m needed back at the crash site.”
And with that she was gone, leaving me only a little less crushed than some of the crane victims.
It needed few of my investigatory skills to discover that very soon after this, she and the gimp were sharing bodily fluids on a regular basis. It was the talk of the hospital. There was much speculation as to how his handicap, not to mention his age and previous drug habit, affected his performance. Not much, by what I could tell from occasional sightings of Lisa. She positively glowed with satisfaction.
I wondered how long it would last.
Then I was down in Florida for a few months. My father was sick and alone, so I did the dutiful thing and hightailed it down to Tampa. There was a bit of work to be had there too so it was the early spring time before I was back in Princeton in time to pick up the post-holiday divorce traffic.
My source at the hospital had moved on and to tell the truth I wasn’t eager to find out how things were going with Lisa. I still felt sore. Business was slow, very, and I was having to tone down my geeky intellectual look for anonymous professional. That’s how I had landed an initial piece of work at Barry-Crowther Inc and why I did not want to be seen to take a more than passing interest in the news that my former fiancée’s home was under attack from a homicidal maniac lover who happened to be an ex-client of mine.
So while I waited for my appointment with the buttoned up Mr Crowther, I listened to the two women’s spot-analysis of the news item. It was evident that one of them had had a hard time with some little shit and for that I sincerely sympathised but she didn’t know squat about this situation.
I didn’t know the whole story either but I knew what Lisa had done to me and if, as I assumed, she had pulled the same stunt on him, she ought to have known she was playing with matches near a gunpowder keg.
So, on balance, “poor bastard.” Either way, he’d be going to jail.