LJ-USERNAME: indian_yellow

Prompts chosen:
Coma guy
Trace
Weird
Title:Coitus lazarus
Rating: M

Summary: What might happen after "Joy". Of course it contains spoilers for "Joy" and for the effects of "Last Resort".

Please don't take this too seriously ;)

The days were shorter now. They felt shorter, thus they went by faster.
Weeks had passed. Weeks of denial.
However, this kiss had happened, no one could deny this. No matter how hard they tried, things had changed.
Subtly, noticeable to the two of them only.

One might think that memories tend to fade as time passes by.
Not so in this case.

As the year approached its end, the reminiscence of a moment so short, lasting only seconds of their lives, dug itself deeper into their minds.
Into their hearts.
Like flashbacks of a once-in-a-lifetime heroine trip this kiss emerged in the most inappropriate of times reminding them of a possibility they would never have dared to believe in, let alone hope for.

House was having one of these flashbacks right now as he was watching the football game in Coma guy's room. On mute. Noisily sipping coke through a straw.

It might have been the sweetness of the drink that set the flashback off. Or the glance at the cheerleaders' short skirts on-screen. Or the color of the wall...It was hard to tell. This was her hospital, almost everything around here carried her signature, her scent, her style.
Whatever it was, House closed his eyes and indulged in the memory that now almost seemed like a dream. Because none of them would allow this to be as real as it had been.
His fingers brushed his lips, lingered there absent-mindedly, traced off over his stubbles, down his chin. He wouldn't admit it, but he had absolutely lost himself in that moment and he lost himself in every memory of it.

When he opened his eyes again he froze.
She was standing in the doorframe of the room, looking at him with a frown on her face.
God, she was hot.

House straightened up and stared up at her, his eyes meeting hers, looking for the truth somewhere behind this stone-cold stare.
He found the truth in the hint of a smile that hushed over her face.

House was the only visitor Coma guy ever got and somehow Cuddy wanted to believe House wasn't just here for mere entertainment.
"You know there's a new TV in the doctor's lounge...", she reminded him with a hoarse, yet sharp tone in her voice.

"Wilson's in the doctors lounge watching America's Next Topmodel", House grunted back and took another sip from his coke.

Cuddy stiffened. Somehow things between had softened and hardened at the same time. The looks they exchanged had softened, as if they were carrying unspoken words and hidden feelings they both would never admit. But their actions had hardened, as if they were trying to express the desperate desire and the frustration resulting from this unanswered question for more. And for the reason as to why it had happened in the first place.

She licked her lips and remained silent. It was late and she was too tired to fight. At least with words. So she approached him, glancing at the monitor that was tracking Coma guy's vital functions.

"Since when do you avoid Wilson?" she asked.

"Ever since he turned into a big nagging pain in the neck", he stated.

Cuddy nodded. She knew what House was referring to. For some reason Wilson had made it his mission to obsess with the idea of the two of them dating each other. She felt strangely reminded of high-school.

"Well, I admit, he does have a point..." she slowly started, regretting it the moment the words had left her lips.

"...point being?" House looked at her with a look that gave misery a new definition.

"...that we haven't talked about this. Like grown-ups."

"What is it with women that they always need to talk about things?" House rolled his eyes and threw his empty can through the room, missing the garbage bin by a few inches.

Cuddy bit his tongue and lowered her gaze.

"You know I'm really – and I mean REALLY – getting tired of this", she finally sighed and turned away from him towards the door.

The shades were closed but Cuddy could make out the shadows of staff members passing by. One of the shadows stopped as her voice reached the hallway. She held her breath until the shadow moved on and then turned back at House.

"I know this shouldn't have happened, but it did. For a reason. For the same reason why it's still bugging you. And me", she started a conversation they should have had a long time ago.

"What makes you think it's bugging me", House replied without looking at her.

She reached out for Coma guy's bed rail and let her hand glide over the rough plastic surface of it.

"Because your attempts to avoid me have reached an almost pathologic level, House", she answered with a tired tone in her voice. "You're hiding up here almost every day, ever since I had to move my office up next to yours. And believe me I'd rather work in the elevator, even the psych ward seemed more tempting to me. But I'm a grown-up. I can deal with that if I have to. Besides, it's just one more week until the constructions in my office will be resumed."

"Well, if you can deal with that, then you should also be able to deal with me avoiding you. Point is, this is bugging you way more than you're willing to admit. You're just projecting."
His eyes carried a playful self-sufficient glint.
With these words he got up and walked past her, roughly brushing her shoulder with his. She flinched and shot a fierce look in his direction.

"I may be. But you are deflecting", she replied victoriously and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

She was belligerent now, ready to go, ready to hurt him. Because she was searching for some kind of emotion in these eyes that had been so honest with her only weeks ago.
Having sensed the aggressive tone in her voice he stopped and turned back towards her.

"It's like you said it. You were emotionally vulnerable...and I...", his voice trailed off and their eyes met.

A knowing smile curled her lips as she approached him like an animal sensing easy prey.

"And you?" she asked, her eyebrows lifted.

"What do you want to hear?" he asked her, tired and annoyed. And for some reason even scared.

"I don't know. The truth? That you were trying to comfort me. That you cared. That it meant nothing..."

"It meant nothing", House picked up on that last offer and turned away once more.

She shook her head and laughed. Oh no, she wasn't ready to let him off the hook that easily.
Her hand reached out for his arm and held him back.
It was the first time in weeks that they touched. And like every time it set off an electrical impulse that crawled under her skin and shot through her entire body.

"You're such a liar", she triumphed with a smirk. But it sounded frustrated.

House looked at her hand grabbing his arm. It hurt. He wouldn't have thought her to be this strong. Or maybe it wasn't her physical strength that hurt him.
For a moment they just looked at each other hearing more shadows walking by outside the room.

"I know this isn't going anywhere. Because it's an impossible road to take. However, we have set foot on this path, and now we're on it. And I'm just trying to find a way out of it", she tried to make it easy for him when she saw how uneasy he was.

"Are you?" he asked and this time she flinched.

Now they were talking, she realized and felt how this made her shiver inside.

"Well, don't you want me to?" she asked with a confused expression on her face.

Because he was serious, looking at her without any sign of cynicism on his face.
His gaze left a burning trace on her skin as he eyed her with a sincere glow in his eyes.
His throat went dry when he saw her nervously biting her lip, her lashes framing her eyes like butterfly wings framed the sky.

"I don't know", he replied helplessly and truthfully, reliving a memory that was flashing through his mind once more.

Being confronted with his incapability to access his own feelings once more, the fury inside her reached its critical mass and imploded, dragging all her common sense into the abyss.
And a gigantic wave of anger and frustration rushed through her, bringing her blood to a boil as she closed her eyes to trap this anger inside her.
Her lips trembled and she opened her eyes again.
And found his face lingering above hers, only inches away, waiting for her to make the next move.

Coward…

But the emotional nakedness displayed in his eyes stripped her off her guards, too. She slowly looked up at him and moved closer until the tips of their noses touched.
His breath tickled her upper lip while she was lingering there, just like he was. But he wouldn't make this last move.
So when the tension inside her peaked she reached out for his face and pulled him into this kiss, at the same time pushing him backwards against the shutters of the room windows.

It was bitter, hot and forceful like the wave of emotions inside her.
More a collision than a kiss.
He pushed her back to regain his balance. Her hands were holding onto him, clutching him almost violently.

It looked like a struggle, but it felt like a dance.

His fingers reached out for her, for all of her and she felt his hunger inside her mouth. It was humbled and rough, like they were teenagers doing it for the first time in their parents' house.
She swayed and stumbled backwards, being trapped in his embrace, feeling his weight on her.
He pressed her against Coma guy's bed rail, let his hands glide down her side, down her skirt, under her skirt, up her leg.
Her teeth caught his lip and she bit it when his hand reached the seam of her panties.
She tried to stop him.
Half-heartedly.
Because she was too busy working on his belt and trying to breathe and taste and consume him with all her senses at the same time.

He knew she was wild with anger. And this turned him on even more.
It turned him on because when she was angry her mind was sharper than usually, so this time she wouldn't have any excuse for this.
She knew what she was doing and still she kept on doing it. Willingly, fully aware of the consequences. Because now she wasn't needy or weak.

When she had been it had hurt him, to his own surprise. A surprise that had led to this awkward kiss, that had lingered above their heads, like an unanswered question.
They were no closer to the answer now, but this time it felt different. It wasn't freaking them out, it was comforting.

Was it love? He didn't know.

He had forgotten what love felt like. He only ever felt it when it was requited, when he saw its reflection in the other pair of eyes staring at him. All he saw in her eyes was rage – most of the time. Sometimes amusement, a certain kind of friskiness, surprise... But love? All he tasted now was her hunger. Which perfectly met his own appetite.

She blew a soft warm moan into his ear when he pulled her closer, tighter, his fingers reaching out for her softest spot. And she could feel his labored breathing and her heart beating against her chest.
For a moment she opened her eyes and realized what they were doing and how wrong it was.

Were they having sex in a patient's room?
In the distance she heard his cane hitting the ground and numbly felt his hands everywhere on her skin.
It only slowly reached her mind.
This could not be happening, this was an impossible thing to do.

But before she could come to her senses his fingers had found the spot that weakened her, made her fold, made her his.

And what had felt weird and wrong only a second ago now felt like the only right thing they could do.
She didn't care where they were, she just wanted it to happen, wanted to get this over with.
She needed to feel him, she wanted to feed the desire, feel the pain, wanted to be abused and abusive at the same time.
Holding him in a tight grip she pulled him with her until her back hit the door that she instantly locked.
Then she wrapped her leg around him and pulled him closer, into her, ignoring the pain in his thigh just as he was ignoring it.

House breathed her in, and breathed out into her kiss.

Her taste, her smell, the feeling of her warmth, it was all he consisted of.

For a moment their eyes met and he saw it. For the first time in weeks he could see it.
Because the thick cloud of anger had resolved and through the haze of her desire he saw the reflection of what he was feeling, too.
And it did carry a certain resemblance to love.

But instead of scaring him, it turned him on even more. Because she wasn't trying to hide or fight it any longer. She opened up to him and stared at him, allowed him to enter her completely. Even if it was for only one second before she closed her eyes again and bit her lower lip, suppressing another loud moan that she instead blew into his ear in forceful rough breaths as they were both reaching their climax. Too fast, too rough, too strong.
Again, like teenagers doing it for the first time.

They got lost in each other, their senses were numbed except for one.
All colors, sounds and surroundings seemed to fade as they clinged to each other, desperately seeking halt when their muscles gave in and they collapsed into another implosion, sinking, almost hitting the ground.
Suddenly, a voice reached them out of the numbed surroundings.

"Hello?" they both clearly heard a shaky male voice croaking through the suddenly so silent room.

They opened their eyes.

Cuddy saw it first from her position, but it took a moment until she fully understood what was going on. Puzzled, numb and still aroused she looked around disorientedly. Looked at the room whose colors were slowly fading in from black and grey, looked at the football game on the TV screen, over at Coma guy's monitor...and then shocked by the revelation of the lines and curves on that screen her pupils widened and focussed on the patient.

"Oh God!", Cuddy gasped panic-stricken and tried to regain her professional outward appearance by adjusting her clothes into their original position, nervously brushing through her hair and forcing herself to look as calm and controlled as possible.

She stretched out her arm and shoved House behind her to hide what was exposed of him.

"Is he ...awake?" she asked not willing to believe, hoping her eyes prove her wrong.

"Yup. Awake and alert", House stated and forced himself not to grin.

"Oh my God", Cuddy repeated herself and approached the patient who stared at her with disbelief.

"Where am I?" he asked, clearly not oriented to Cuddy's relief.

"The Moulin Rouge", House answered cheerily and Cuddy shot an angry look at him.

"You're in the hospital", she replied and lifted her finger in front of the patient's eyes that instantly fixed on the finger and followed it but got distracted by the TV. "Do you know what year it is?" she added but Coma guy didn't even look at her.

"Are the Giants losing?" he asked and Cuddy turned around, looking at House with a helpless expression on her face.

House shrugged his shoulders. "Cool. We healed Coma Guy. Think we can publish this in the New England Journal of Medicine?"

"Sure", Cuddy replied dryly, "after all, the end justifies the means."

Then she buried her face in her hand and closed her eyes.

"You think he saw us?" she whispered when she turned around towards him.

He shook his head.

"Probably not", he comforted her to his own surprise and felt another smile on his face as he saw the embarrassment on hers.

Their eyes met and a long silence followed.
A silence that left enough space for a massive load of guilt and shame to fill it. At least that's what House saw on her face now: Guilt, embarrassment. And a certain glow House proudly felt responsible for.
It was clear that they had now reached a whole new level of awkwardness.

But for some reason House wasn't afraid of it anymore. Because she was more afraid of it and it would be her who would avoid him now at all costs.
Which meant they wouldn't have to talk about it.
Obviously they weren't good at talking anyway if it led to something like THIS he stated with an increase in his heartbeat.

When Cuddy saw the concupiscent glint in his eyes and not the least sign of shame she turned away from him.

"I'm sending in a neurologist. And please zip your pants", she mumbled with an acid stare in his direction and left the room with another suspicious look at Coma guy's innocent face.

When the door had closed behind her House looked at the patient.

"When she asks, just tell her you don't remember", he told him and frowned when the patient looked back at him, seemingly oriented. However, there was no way someone could be that alert after such a long time in a coma.

Feeling the throbbing pain in his thigh kicking back in House looked around, picked up his cane and turned away when he was sure he and Cuddy hadn't left any traces.

When suddenly the shaky male voice reached his ear again.

"She does have a fabulous body", Coma guy said and House smiled.

Without saying another word he opened the door and stepped out, feeling satisfied.

To an extent that almost equaled happiness.