Of Lollipops and Later On.
Author: Storm
Cast: House/Wilson & Cuddy.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Greg House. Including his creators. And theirs.
Summary: In which House attends a department meeting, conference tables are abused, and Cuddy re-evaluates the meaning of the phrase star oncologist.
Words: 1,588.
A/N: So entirely inspired by season 6's Private Lives and Black Hole. (Probably no spoilers).
Comments are like Wilson's macadamia nut pancakes ;)
"Stop that."
The gentle reprimand as Wilson pushed open the conference room door was obviously meant for the elegant gimp who had tracked him from the elevators. Cuddy glanced up from her paperwork nonetheless. She couldn't make out the expression that her star oncologist threw over his shoulder, but it lingered long enough that she figured it matched his voice: a near perfect blend of amusement, affection, and seriousness. She'd heard him stop House in his tracks time and again with those word couples of his: stop that; not now; later, House. Nothing she'd tried, from rants to repartee, worked half so well – or, for that matter, worked at all. There were times when she'd've paid good money for a fly's spot on the wall in her friends' apartment to know if Wilson ever followed through on the inherent promise in later. He was probably enough of a masochist to let House spend the evenings dissecting his life and character in recompense for five minutes peace during the day. Then again, he might just go home armed with enough pizza and porn to gag and fixate a small army, which should take care of one large diagnostician.
With a slight grimace to excuse his tardiness, Wilson slid into his seat, holding his tie flat against his shirtfront with his palm so that it didn't flap with the movement. The door closed – with House inside it. Cuddy blinked between him and the memo she'd sent out to all the department heads. But no, there, as it should have been, was House's name and email address. She hadn't missed him out in a fit of resignation at his perpetual non-attendance and thereby given him cause to gatecrash. He'd been summoned and here he was. She resisted the impulse to look around for the salt circle her assistant must have cast and wondered if cafeteria coffee cups counted as chalices. She fingered the top of her paperwork, wondering if any in her collection of documents was a notification that small body parts were missing from the NICU.
She waited for House to make some crack about her administrative skills, her boobs, or her sex life, which would explain his being there. But he simply leant against the door he'd closed, one hand on his cane, the other on the handle behind his back. His steady stare was both intense and warily expectant. He too seemed to be waiting for some kind of snarky remark. She bit one back. He'd been making progress since he left Mayfield. Inevitably, he hadn't cared to share many of the details with her, but in spite of a sharp rise in sick days – which Wilson had quietly warned her were genuine – she'd noticed too a rise in the number of consults he accepted. His clinic hours were still a source of at least half the hospital's minor lawsuits; on the other hand, his daily paperwork was occasionally filed. Maybe, just maybe, attending essential meetings was the next step. She hoped so. One day she'd like to persuade him to sit on a committee. If he truly could get a lid on his drama queen tendencies, his expertise, his reputation, and his absolute refusal to be cowed by anyone would guarantee a hat trick with whatever boards they were facing down. It was enough to make her both proud and a little nervous. She could, of course, be entirely wrong. But, in the pregnant pause, she was sure that she could hear the silent detonation of their status quo.
Pushing away from the door, House took the remaining seat at the conference table. Some quirk of the probability laws had put both newcomers at the far end, Wilson on her right, House on her left, facing one another. Wilson, to her slight disappointment, looked somewhat taken aback. He'd been unusually sharp with her whenever she'd raised doubts about House's personal behaviour modification quest. She was surprised that he was withdrawing his support now. Maybe he was getting weary of being a target for all the excess mockery that House was learning to hold in during the day. Cuddy shot down a few amazed looks from other staff members, whose heads were turning between House and her and back again. She picked up her papers and opened the meeting.
She got one third of the way down the first page of ten when she was interrupted by a vigorous crackling. She cleared her throat reprovingly and looked up. House planted his palms together as if he were praying and bowed his head in a gesture of sacrilegious deference. As apologies went, it was faked, it was entirely undercut by the lollipop sticking out of his mouth, and it still made her smile. She opened her mouth to go on, got one word out, and had to bite the inside of her lip as House punted the screwed up lolly wrapper over her head and into the bin behind her. She absolutely did not laugh when he punched the air triumphantly – not on the outside, anyway; that hasty cough was not a gulped down giggle – and continued.
She'd reached the fourth page when it occurred to her that Wilson's voice had been curiously absent from the inevitable altercations over budget changes, funding applications, approval requests, department restructures, and support pleas from her poor jinxed clinic. House had tossed in a word or two, without verbally clonking anyone upside the head, but he seemed mostly to be listening. Or, rather, she was going to give him credit for listening on account of his being quiet. He was lounging in his seat, slumped down, legs extended under the narrow table, but he didn't look bored out of his mind. He wasn't building paper castles out of the documents she'd handed around or trying to set them on fire with the sunlight through the window and the lens of his glasses. He was watching Wilson intermittently and, when he did, there was even more intensity to his expression than when he'd stared at her from the doorway. What was going on? Was he biding his time until the arrival of the four horsemen? Expecting Wilson to turn into one?
She glanced across to the other side of the long table and caught herself on the brink of a concerned exclamation. Wilson was sitting very upright in his seat, his arms folded tightly across his chest, which was puffing and sinking rapidly with every breath. His neat hair was rumpled at the back, as though he'd rubbed his nape several times in the last few minutes, and a fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. Something about his stance suggested that he was sitting with his legs wide apart, as though he thought he might have to bolt to his feet and leave the room. Was he sick? He was never sick. He looked…he looked…he was looking straight at House.
Cuddy read the next item off the agenda on autopilot, her attention switching swiftly back to the other side of the table. Her eyes narrowed as she reassessed House's pose. That casual sprawl was studied. With his legs stretched out, he must be treading on Wilson's shoes at the very least. That, or he was kicking him. A slight jolt rocked the table, unnoticed as Brown pounded it with his fist, grousing back at Pevey over the usual fundraiser fiascos. Definitely kicking, then. God, she should've known better. House had some agenda in mind. Some agenda, moreover, that he was coercing Wilson into backing him on. This can't be good.
Cuddy pasted on a smile, before inviting House to share with the class. It took him an interminable minute to withdraw his gaze from Wilson's. When he turned it on her she crossed her legs involuntarily, things in her body jumping that had no business to at all. Blue smoke, slow burning fires, endless summer vistas – how could a man in a crumpled sky-blue shirt make her think in skin-flick metaphors and reconsider the appropriate uses of a conference table? Unless…unless he was not kicking. Unless that was the toe of his sock she could see, slowly shifting back and forth just below table level on Wilson's side—oh! Not kicking then. More like...rubbing. No. No way. Wilson wouldn't…House, well, that went without saying, but Wilson? She swung her gaze between them again, taking in Wilson's scarlet flush, his death grip on his own arms, and…was that the expression he'd been wearing when he came in? That one that made her think of firelight and organ music and forever? Her eyes flicked to House again, to the expression that said he'd thought of all that and a whole lot of more fun things besides, and finally to the matching red lollipop that he was slowly sliding in and out of his mouth.
Cuddy's jaw dropped open as the table jiggled again, this time raising a series of bewildered looks from the assembled heads. They seemed somewhat taken aback by the expression on her face. She couldn't imagine what it was; comprehension, envy, mirth and admiration had got themselves into a right royal tangle inside of her. She was not, she discovered, surprised. Tossing down her temporarily useless paperwork, she propped her chin on her fist and turned her full attention on her pornstar oncologist and the audacious jackass who'd stalked him from the elevators. In a voice that mixed equal parts affection, amusement and seriousness, Cuddy exclaimed:
"House, Wilson - stop that!"
[End].