Unprotected, 6
Title: Unprotected, 6
Pairing, Characters: House/Cuddy established. DDX team, OCs.
Warnings: Some angst
Summary: A (temporary) medical issue brings up the question, what would the sharkverse House and Cuddy relationship be, (temporarily) without sex?
Disclaimer: House MD and all characters and settings therefrom are not my property. This is a work of fanfiction and I am not profiting from it in any way.
My apologies to readers for my absence. I won’t make excuses about it, but I will say that the cause was unavoidable, unexpected, and catastrophic. To all of you who expressed concerns, thank you. I am grateful for all of the good thoughts and encouragement. I am not quite back to one hundred percent yet, but I am getting myself sorted out.
This has a few more chapters, and they’re all already drafted. I should be able to finish posting them all by the weekend.
And since it has been so long since I began this story, here is the link to the
beginning.
“I have an idea,” Wilson announced triumphantly and with no preamble. “I’m going to woo Kristen’s friends.”
House cocked his head. “You’re having trouble with your girlfriend, so you’re going to hit on her friends,” he summarized, and picked up his mug. Cuddy, still worked up into a state of nurturing, had brought him some herbal tea, protein and vitamin concoction that looked liked pond scum. House was humoring her, pretending to consider drinking it. “Let me know how that works out for you.”
Wilson sank down into House’s Eames chair. “One of the troubles I’m having is that her friends don’t like me.”
“Understandable. I’m your friend, and I don’t always like you.” House wrinkled his nose. “For one thing, you have an unfortunate tendency to use words like ‘woo’ in sentences. Did you know, I own a crockpot?”
“Yes. I gave it to you. “
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“I had three. Remember? I got one in the divorce from Bonnie, and then Julie and I got two for wedding presents. She very generously let me have them both. We had a hundred towels, at least, half of them monogrammed, and instead of a single one of those,”
“Oh, God, Wilson, not the towel custody story again.”
“Well, damn it, I had to air-dry,” Wilson bristled. “Listen, I’m planning a dinner party. I want you and Cuddy to be there.”
A what and you want who?, was on House’s lips, just waiting to be declared and tagged, “idiocy, version Wilson,” when the shouting started.
Townsend had the mannerism of letting out a little “prrrr?” sound when something puzzled her. If House hadn’t found it annoying, the sight of three members of his team crinkling their faces in bewilderment and pursing their lips, all probably making the same noise, would have struck him funny. Taub, in particular, looked like a constipated frog.
“Is that Foreman?” Wilson asked.
“Un-huh. “ His interest piqued, House thunked the mug of pond scum down and ambled to the conference room. Wilson was a moron all the time, but Foreman getting excited about something, that was a rarity that bore investigating.
“… The kind of thing HOUSE would say!” The neurologist was yelling. “WORSE!”
“It was a perfectly legitimate question,” Townsend replied calmly.
“It’s a RULE,” Foreman huffed. “No one in the hospital can be more abusive than he is.”
House leaned in the doorframe, crossed his arms, and smirked. “I’m being evoked?” he asked Shaeffer mildly.
“And for God’s sake, did you have to say it in front of reporters and her agent?” Foreman ranted.
“You know that movie star up on the fourth floor?” The Texan replied. “April diagnosed her. Failed suicide attempt.”
“It’s probably going up on youtube as we speak,” Foreman groaned.
“Her most recent attempt, of at least, six,” Townsend chirped. “She’s a real frequent flyer, all right. I have the scans; I took them while she was unconscious.”
“She lost consciousness?”
“She had a teeny weeny little bit of help.” Townsend held her fingers apart a pinch. “You wanna see her liver scars?”
“Maybe later,” House admitted. “Right now I’m busy watching Foreman’s scarred ego.”
“What did you say to the poor woman?” Wilson inquired.
Foreman scowled miserably. “I knew this would happen to you, April. I warned you.”
“I only asked,” Miss July answered reasonably, “if she was a whiny little attention-whore, or just massively incompetent. I mean, six attempts and no --” She made a throat slitting motion, “now, that’s either a persistent cry for help or some major stupid going on.”
“Perfectly legitimate question,” House agreed.
“Foreman rubbed his forehead. “What the hell is wrong with you lately?” he asked Townsend. “Do you need to get laid or something?”
“I am getting laid. That’s the problem,” she said sharply.
That got their undivided attention.
Taub was the first to break the shocked silence. “Well, um, that’s … normal,” he fidgeted. “I mean, you and Fizzou just met, and it’s been, you know, I’m thinking, a while, for you, and you’re um, young, and … it’s not,“ His face was reddening.
“That’s right.” Shaeffer stepped in to rescue his colleague. “I mean, you know what they say back home, nobody hits a home run their first time at bat.”
“Prrrrrrr?” Miss July squinted. “What are you guys talking about? Fizzou hit a home run.”
“He did?”
Her eyes dilated and took on a glassy, faraway look. “Totally. Grand slam.”
“What?” Chase hated baseball metaphors.
“Over the waalllllll, outta the paaaaaark,” she sighed. Her respiration picked up a few beats.
Chase frowned and cleared his throat.
“The bat,” she continued dreamily, seemingly unaware that they were all staring at her, “caught on fire. The cover came off the baaaaaaalll.” She grinned goofily.
Taub and Chase exchanged a look, and squirmed.
“Extra innings?” House asked. He was enjoying Wilson’s perplexed expression.
A slight flush painted her cheekbones, and she pressed her lips together. “Ohhhhhhh, yeah.”
“Then why are you so obnoxious?” Foreman wanted to know.
“I guess part of me resents being up here in the bleachers you guys and these stupid patients, instead of,” she shrugged, “you know, playing the World Series. It makes me cranky.”
From a managerial standpoint, it was always a lot easier for House when his employees had miserable lives. They avoided their disintegrating marriages, their non-existent relationships, their dysfunctional families, the retched refuse of their unhappy childhoods, by putting in extra hours, trying to make up for in professional achievement what they lacked in home lives.
He smiled regretfully to himself and patted Miss July’s shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”
Wilson was going over menus, trying to decide how many appetizers constituted overkill, when he popped into House’s office again at day’s end.
“Rachel,” he said, more to House than to the little girl perched on the footstool. “What are you doing here?”
“My behaveyor,” she sing-songed, swinging her legs back and forth, “is in-aprope-riate.”
“You know what that means?” House demanded from behind his desk. “It means it’s not okay. Knock it off.”
Wilson looked at House, then back to Rachel. “Rachel, did you hit someone?”
“Evan cried,” Rachel bobbed her head rhythmically, “and he cried, and he cried.”
“Change in plans,” House announced, with a nod at Rachel. “Cuddy’s at a parent-teacher meeting, and then I’m sending her out for drinks with Kristen. We’re at my place with the little enforcer here tonight.”
“Rachel,” Wilson said gently, crouching down. “Rachel, why did you hit Evan?”
“He hurt my feelings,” she reported solemnly. “He called me a hitter. That was mean.”
“Well, yes,” Wilson said slowly, “I can see why that would be upsetting. But, Rachel,”
“Careful, Wilson,” House warned, picking up his backpack. “I’m pretty sure she can take you.”
“And for the nice big juicy cherry on top, I’m going to need a new assistant,” Cuddy complained as she was climbing into bed. “All that money I’ve been paying Kristen, to keep her happy so she won’t quit? She’s been saving it up, so she could quit and start her own business.”
“Well, is she happy?” he asked glibly.
“Fucking ecstatic,” she grumbled. “I should have kept her at subsistence level salary and battered her emotionally so she’d lack the confidence to leave.”
“Poor planning on your part,” he concurred. “If you had any friends, do you think they’d like me?”
She gave him a coldly suspicious look and seemed to arrive at the conclusion that he was not annoying her on purpose. “I doubt it.” She leaned across the pillows, cupped his face in one hand, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. It pissed him off a little. House did not want a soft little affectionate buss; he wanted a dirty, heart-squeezing, lip-melting volcano of a kiss.
“One thing that Kristen’s friends don’t like about Wilson,” she said, twisting back onto her back and staring up at the ceiling, “is that it matters to Wilson whether her friends like him. It wouldn’t matter to you. Hell, you barely care whether I like you, most of the time.”
“True.”
“They also don’t appreciate that he thinks he can win them over with a dinner party.”
“You don’t think he can?”
She clicked off the bedside light. “I didn’t say that. Wilson’s cooking is almost enough to win me over. My point is, you’d never do that.”
House, without even applying himself, could come up with a good … nineteen; no, twenty-one ….reasons why it wasn’t a good thing for him, being in love with a woman who was this skilled at dissecting him.
There were another hundred or so reasons why it wasn’t good for Cuddy to love him. House knew he’d complicated her -- already seriously screwed- up -- life, and every time - every damned time - they started to settle into some version of normalcy, of the steadiness she’d always needed, something happened to knock it all off-kilter again. Cuddy, weirdly, endearingly, seemed to thrive on complications. She probably even thought she could solve them all. The neurotic little control freak genuinely thought she was strong enough, tough enough, to survive him, to endure him, to rescue him.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said.
She ducked under the sheet, pulled the comforter up over her and snuggled into a pillow, tossed back and forth, and then wiggled her hips and shifted on top of him, hooking one knee up over his groin, layering her soft skin over him, using his torso as her own personal body pillow.
“It is,” she said. “But it’s what we've got.”
Part 7: Of the elephant in the living room.
Pairing, Characters: House/Cuddy established. DDX team, OCs.
Warnings: Some angst
Summary: A (temporary) medical issue brings up the question, what would the sharkverse House and Cuddy relationship be, (temporarily) without sex?
Disclaimer: House MD and all characters and settings therefrom are not my property. This is a work of fanfiction and I am not profiting from it in any way.
My apologies to readers for my absence. I won’t make excuses about it, but I will say that the cause was unavoidable, unexpected, and catastrophic. To all of you who expressed concerns, thank you. I am grateful for all of the good thoughts and encouragement. I am not quite back to one hundred percent yet, but I am getting myself sorted out.
This has a few more chapters, and they’re all already drafted. I should be able to finish posting them all by the weekend.
And since it has been so long since I began this story, here is the link to the
beginning.
“I have an idea,” Wilson announced triumphantly and with no preamble. “I’m going to woo Kristen’s friends.”
House cocked his head. “You’re having trouble with your girlfriend, so you’re going to hit on her friends,” he summarized, and picked up his mug. Cuddy, still worked up into a state of nurturing, had brought him some herbal tea, protein and vitamin concoction that looked liked pond scum. House was humoring her, pretending to consider drinking it. “Let me know how that works out for you.”
Wilson sank down into House’s Eames chair. “One of the troubles I’m having is that her friends don’t like me.”
“Understandable. I’m your friend, and I don’t always like you.” House wrinkled his nose. “For one thing, you have an unfortunate tendency to use words like ‘woo’ in sentences. Did you know, I own a crockpot?”
“Yes. I gave it to you. “
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“I had three. Remember? I got one in the divorce from Bonnie, and then Julie and I got two for wedding presents. She very generously let me have them both. We had a hundred towels, at least, half of them monogrammed, and instead of a single one of those,”
“Oh, God, Wilson, not the towel custody story again.”
“Well, damn it, I had to air-dry,” Wilson bristled. “Listen, I’m planning a dinner party. I want you and Cuddy to be there.”
A what and you want who?, was on House’s lips, just waiting to be declared and tagged, “idiocy, version Wilson,” when the shouting started.
Townsend had the mannerism of letting out a little “prrrr?” sound when something puzzled her. If House hadn’t found it annoying, the sight of three members of his team crinkling their faces in bewilderment and pursing their lips, all probably making the same noise, would have struck him funny. Taub, in particular, looked like a constipated frog.
“Is that Foreman?” Wilson asked.
“Un-huh. “ His interest piqued, House thunked the mug of pond scum down and ambled to the conference room. Wilson was a moron all the time, but Foreman getting excited about something, that was a rarity that bore investigating.
“… The kind of thing HOUSE would say!” The neurologist was yelling. “WORSE!”
“It was a perfectly legitimate question,” Townsend replied calmly.
“It’s a RULE,” Foreman huffed. “No one in the hospital can be more abusive than he is.”
House leaned in the doorframe, crossed his arms, and smirked. “I’m being evoked?” he asked Shaeffer mildly.
“And for God’s sake, did you have to say it in front of reporters and her agent?” Foreman ranted.
“You know that movie star up on the fourth floor?” The Texan replied. “April diagnosed her. Failed suicide attempt.”
“It’s probably going up on youtube as we speak,” Foreman groaned.
“Her most recent attempt, of at least, six,” Townsend chirped. “She’s a real frequent flyer, all right. I have the scans; I took them while she was unconscious.”
“She lost consciousness?”
“She had a teeny weeny little bit of help.” Townsend held her fingers apart a pinch. “You wanna see her liver scars?”
“Maybe later,” House admitted. “Right now I’m busy watching Foreman’s scarred ego.”
“What did you say to the poor woman?” Wilson inquired.
Foreman scowled miserably. “I knew this would happen to you, April. I warned you.”
“I only asked,” Miss July answered reasonably, “if she was a whiny little attention-whore, or just massively incompetent. I mean, six attempts and no --” She made a throat slitting motion, “now, that’s either a persistent cry for help or some major stupid going on.”
“Perfectly legitimate question,” House agreed.
“Foreman rubbed his forehead. “What the hell is wrong with you lately?” he asked Townsend. “Do you need to get laid or something?”
“I am getting laid. That’s the problem,” she said sharply.
That got their undivided attention.
Taub was the first to break the shocked silence. “Well, um, that’s … normal,” he fidgeted. “I mean, you and Fizzou just met, and it’s been, you know, I’m thinking, a while, for you, and you’re um, young, and … it’s not,“ His face was reddening.
“That’s right.” Shaeffer stepped in to rescue his colleague. “I mean, you know what they say back home, nobody hits a home run their first time at bat.”
“Prrrrrrr?” Miss July squinted. “What are you guys talking about? Fizzou hit a home run.”
“He did?”
Her eyes dilated and took on a glassy, faraway look. “Totally. Grand slam.”
“What?” Chase hated baseball metaphors.
“Over the waalllllll, outta the paaaaaark,” she sighed. Her respiration picked up a few beats.
Chase frowned and cleared his throat.
“The bat,” she continued dreamily, seemingly unaware that they were all staring at her, “caught on fire. The cover came off the baaaaaaalll.” She grinned goofily.
Taub and Chase exchanged a look, and squirmed.
“Extra innings?” House asked. He was enjoying Wilson’s perplexed expression.
A slight flush painted her cheekbones, and she pressed her lips together. “Ohhhhhhh, yeah.”
“Then why are you so obnoxious?” Foreman wanted to know.
“I guess part of me resents being up here in the bleachers you guys and these stupid patients, instead of,” she shrugged, “you know, playing the World Series. It makes me cranky.”
From a managerial standpoint, it was always a lot easier for House when his employees had miserable lives. They avoided their disintegrating marriages, their non-existent relationships, their dysfunctional families, the retched refuse of their unhappy childhoods, by putting in extra hours, trying to make up for in professional achievement what they lacked in home lives.
He smiled regretfully to himself and patted Miss July’s shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”
Wilson was going over menus, trying to decide how many appetizers constituted overkill, when he popped into House’s office again at day’s end.
“Rachel,” he said, more to House than to the little girl perched on the footstool. “What are you doing here?”
“My behaveyor,” she sing-songed, swinging her legs back and forth, “is in-aprope-riate.”
“You know what that means?” House demanded from behind his desk. “It means it’s not okay. Knock it off.”
Wilson looked at House, then back to Rachel. “Rachel, did you hit someone?”
“Evan cried,” Rachel bobbed her head rhythmically, “and he cried, and he cried.”
“Change in plans,” House announced, with a nod at Rachel. “Cuddy’s at a parent-teacher meeting, and then I’m sending her out for drinks with Kristen. We’re at my place with the little enforcer here tonight.”
“Rachel,” Wilson said gently, crouching down. “Rachel, why did you hit Evan?”
“He hurt my feelings,” she reported solemnly. “He called me a hitter. That was mean.”
“Well, yes,” Wilson said slowly, “I can see why that would be upsetting. But, Rachel,”
“Careful, Wilson,” House warned, picking up his backpack. “I’m pretty sure she can take you.”
“And for the nice big juicy cherry on top, I’m going to need a new assistant,” Cuddy complained as she was climbing into bed. “All that money I’ve been paying Kristen, to keep her happy so she won’t quit? She’s been saving it up, so she could quit and start her own business.”
“Well, is she happy?” he asked glibly.
“Fucking ecstatic,” she grumbled. “I should have kept her at subsistence level salary and battered her emotionally so she’d lack the confidence to leave.”
“Poor planning on your part,” he concurred. “If you had any friends, do you think they’d like me?”
She gave him a coldly suspicious look and seemed to arrive at the conclusion that he was not annoying her on purpose. “I doubt it.” She leaned across the pillows, cupped his face in one hand, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. It pissed him off a little. House did not want a soft little affectionate buss; he wanted a dirty, heart-squeezing, lip-melting volcano of a kiss.
“One thing that Kristen’s friends don’t like about Wilson,” she said, twisting back onto her back and staring up at the ceiling, “is that it matters to Wilson whether her friends like him. It wouldn’t matter to you. Hell, you barely care whether I like you, most of the time.”
“True.”
“They also don’t appreciate that he thinks he can win them over with a dinner party.”
“You don’t think he can?”
She clicked off the bedside light. “I didn’t say that. Wilson’s cooking is almost enough to win me over. My point is, you’d never do that.”
House, without even applying himself, could come up with a good … nineteen; no, twenty-one ….reasons why it wasn’t a good thing for him, being in love with a woman who was this skilled at dissecting him.
There were another hundred or so reasons why it wasn’t good for Cuddy to love him. House knew he’d complicated her -- already seriously screwed- up -- life, and every time - every damned time - they started to settle into some version of normalcy, of the steadiness she’d always needed, something happened to knock it all off-kilter again. Cuddy, weirdly, endearingly, seemed to thrive on complications. She probably even thought she could solve them all. The neurotic little control freak genuinely thought she was strong enough, tough enough, to survive him, to endure him, to rescue him.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said.
She ducked under the sheet, pulled the comforter up over her and snuggled into a pillow, tossed back and forth, and then wiggled her hips and shifted on top of him, hooking one knee up over his groin, layering her soft skin over him, using his torso as her own personal body pillow.
“It is,” she said. “But it’s what we've got.”
Part 7: Of the elephant in the living room.