Summary: House shows up at Cuddy's window, and it has nothing to do with a patient. Because it's more fun this way.
Pairing: House/Cuddy
The Essential Meaning of Something
by Ijemanja
"House," she stares, shaking her head, "What are you doing here?"
"Let me in."
"What?" He waves her back from the window and makes to climb through. "Oh for - there is a door, you know. Just come around." She crosses the room to the French doors leading onto the patio, but by the time she's got them unlocked he's already standing behind her.
Of course, she thinks. Why use a door when there's a window already open?
At least he's not dripping. The run must have shaken off the majority of the water. Though he hasn't said anything other than 'went for a swim' and she doesn't think she even wants to know where, or how, he's been swimming at this hour whilst fully dressed.
Her hands go to her hips as she stares at him, waiting for an explanation. "Well?" He just looks at her, smiling faintly and she follows his gaze down, rolls her eyes and throws out her hands. "It's the middle of the night, what did you expect?"
He shrugs and doesn't say 'I was hoping you slept naked' like she expects him to. So she moves past him, around the bed, to get him a towel from the bathroom.
"I've had an epiphany," he says once her back is to him.
She stands with her hand in the cupboard, on a pile of fluffed-and-folded towels and says, "You don't believe in epiphanies."
"A sudden flash of insight that changes everything? Sure I do. Ideas pop up out of nowhere. And I something's /I always changing - people just don't notice it."
"And what was your bright idea, to give yourself a nice case of pneumonia?"
She turns to find him in the doorway, and she expects him to say something like 'actually there are these little things called germs that give people pneumonia' but instead he just takes the towel, passes it roughly over his head and says, "Nice night for a run."
"It's cold out - you must be half-frozen," she says sensibly.
"It's warmer in here."
She can see past him to the window left open, letting in the chill night air, and goes to leave the bathroom, intending to close it. He stops her. Not by touching her, but simply by staying where he is, framed by the doorway, hands braced on either side.
She's suddenly aware there's a large man in her bedroom and she didn't let him in so much as she didn't bother trying to keep him out.
She's not afraid of him. She could never be afraid of him, but she thinks of all the things she's done for this man, the compromises she's made. She's a confident person but if anyone has ever come close to making her doubt herself, it's him.
She reaches up and mirrors his position, hands below his on either side of the open door. She's not afraid of him.
"You're just going to keep it up until you collapse? You have to stop sometime."
"I don't have to do anything, that's kind of the point."
"You're not indestructible."
"And you're not a pessimist. You're just playing one in this scene, apparently." He pauses before informing her, "I like feeling this way."
Her next words are dry. "I've noticed." She shifts, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning a shoulder against the door jamb. He's close, practically looming over her.
"Did I say thank you?"
She snorts softly in amusement. "You did. You don't have to keep doing that."
"You should say thank you when someone does something for you."
"Lessons in common courtesy from you?"
He pulls back from the doorway suddenly, gesturing at her, frustrated. "You don't get it!"
She responds at a lower volume than he's just employed but with no less force behind her words. "I get it."
Because how could she not? She understands what he's doing - he's living. And she's happy for him, but that just means she's going to worry twice as much, because if he were to lose this now - he doesn't want to think about the possibility.
It's all she can think about.
"House," she says, subsiding suddenly, weary. "Really, what are you doing here?"
"You don't get it," he repeats his last words, moving closer again, his voice dropping low, "Or you wouldn't ask me that."
There's this coil of intimacy between them, made up of bits and pieces of their history, knowledge growing over time. There are moments it stretches out, strained to breaking. Now it pulls at her, thick and heavy and tightly wound.
He touches her and she feels it, just a hand on her arm and he's speaking again as she looks up at him. "One thing changed, and everything's different. It's a good thing."
"People don't change," she shakes her head, parroting his own philosophy back to him.
"This isn't pop-psychology, this is physics - much harder to argue. Law of a closed system, with my leg as the variable. It goes, everything else has to readjust around it."
She drops her gaze to where his hand rests above her elbow, quirks an eye up at him. "So you're a closed system?"
"I don't want to be," he says. "I I know /I you don't want to be." And uses the moment when she takes in a breath to reply to kiss her.
She doesn't want to think about how long it's been since she's been kissed, or how good this feels, his mouth firm and confident on hers. So instead she thinks about how unfair it is, the way she's kissing him back, letting him press her back into wall, letting him kiss her exactly how he wants - when all he's done to earn it is show up and act slightly crazy.
As if, she thinks, he hasn't been doing that to her for years.
She draws back - as much as she can - turning her head so her mouth falls away from his, holding his upper arms as if to keep them away from her. His hands come up and cup her elbows. It's the way things are, she pushes, he pulls.
Her nightgown is damp from contact with his clothes, moulding to her breasts and stomach and for a lack of anything else to say she says "You're getting me all wet."
She isn't feeling on top of her game. It's the middle of the night, she's wearing practically nothing, she's wet and she's suddenly found herself kissing a crazy person. She feels confused and irritated and her confidence has fled, but this is him. Feeling like this is nothing new.
Nor is the grin on his face.
"You're already talking dirty - I'm going to take that as a good sign."
And it's completely absurd that he can turn her words into something so blatantly sexual and do it so gently. And have her wanting to laugh when he's looking at her like he knows it, was counting on it - a man who can't help but manipulate a situation, with the best of intentions no less.
She looks down and shakes her head and marvels for a moment not just at the contradictions in him but in herself.
She thinks of how she never expected him to thank her.
She brings her hands from the thick muscle of his arms to the sides of his face and pulls his mouth back down to hers. It's the chill of his skin she notices this time, the warmth of his lips already familiar - his cheeks and jaw are clammy, the length of his body cool and wet against hers so that she shivers involuntarily, gooseflesh rising across her chest and down her arms.
He must feel her nipples, tight, aching points pressing into his chest because the first thing he does when the kiss ends is glance down, that same faintly amused smile once again present.
"You're right," he says, his hands smoothing up and down her bare arms. "I am cold, and now you're cold. I have an idea."
He lets go of her abruptly and steps through into the bathroom, and reaches into the shower to turn on the water.
"Another epiphany?" she asks, settling back against the doorframe to watch.
"Could be," he replies, and pulls off his sodden shoes and socks while waiting for the water to heat up.
He tests it with his hand, making a few adjustments before being satisfied, and then he steps right in, still clothed. For a short space of time, perhaps a breath if she hadn't been holding it, he's out of sight and she remains still. Then his head pops back into view.
"This might be more fun with you in here too. Otherwise it'll just be like -"
"Like Friday night at your place?" She's already moving, starting to grin and he grabs her wrist and pulls her the rest of the way in.
"You really want to compare bedposts?" he's saying as she pulls the shower door closed after her. "How much action has Casa Cuddy seen this year?"
He's crowding her under the spray. The water falls over them, steam billowing up around them and it's gloriously warm after the cold. And there's a thrill to this now, she feels almost giddy, she feels reckless, and all she can do is smile up at him, amused and suddenly, helplessly adoring.
"How about we try not to completely spoil the moment?" she suggests.
"You're assuming there could be any possible way to spoil this moment."
He's looking at her body, she realises, at her nightgown soaked and transparent. She closes her eyes and tilts her head under the water and lets him look, keeps them closed until his hands settle on her waist. Then he starts to smooth the thin cloth over her skin and she reaches for him again.
She's kissing him, tongue sliding over his and everything is so wet and steamy that when his hands move to her breasts, between the lace and his hands, the heat and the water it's suddenly extremely, wildly uncomfortable. So she unwraps her arms from around him and drags at the hem of her nightgown. He has to help her get it off over her head, but once managed she does the same for him and his t-shirt, both garments falling to the shower floor forgotten.
He's shoving his shorts down then as she winds her arms back around his neck and steps up against him. And it is an epiphany - it's wet slippery skin and the warmth and the heat flowing over and rising up between them, and his hand cupping her mound, fingers touching her through her panties till she makes a frustrated sound against his throat and rids herself of these, too. It's his erection pressed between his belly and hers as he reaches down for her thigh and drags it up over his hip.
He's so rarely wrong, it shouldn't surprise her. But she's playing the part of the unbeliever tonight and it's for her to wonder at this like it's something she never thought about or expected. So she anchors herself with her hands at his shoulders and breathes humidity against his cheek as he presses her into the back wall of the shower and presses himself into her in a way that makes her gasp.
"Are you -" he stutters roughly in her ear, "Do we need -"
"It's okay," she murmurs back. "I mean, assuming I won't catch anything from you..." Her lips turn up against his skin, and she waits, frozen, to see if he'll trust her or ask questions or pull away. "Talk about spoiling the mood," she says after a quiet moment that feels just a bit too long.
"Well I don't know where you've been," he answers finally.
She drops her head forward and laughs against his chest. "And clearly my standards aren't that high," she adds.
"That's what I keep telling people."
"Shut up, that wasn't a compliment."
Still grinning she reaches between them and takes hold of him because this will do what her words probably won't. He hums his approval, any retort he might have made forgotten as he pushes his hips into her hand. Her other hand on his jaw brings his face down to hers and she kisses him again, his mouth tasting of water, her breasts in his hands and his cock in hers.
"Let's do this already," she urges, lips sliding over the rough surface of his chin.
"Yes," he agrees, "Time for the grand finale." And his hands move from her chest to her ass and he lifts her up, pins her with his body to the wall, grinning his success as she wraps her legs around his hips.
She gives him his moment, because a few seconds later he's inside her, he's fucking her with joy and abandon and she doesn't begrudge him, she shares it. This is her moment too.
"Good," he pants, face close to hers, "Right?"
"Yeah," she agrees.
"Told you."
She doesn't bother telling him to shut up again, she's too close and once she manages to squeeze a hand between their bodies to touch herself she's closer still. Then there's the steady thrust of him, and his mouth on her shoulder, the graze of his teeth and her name on his lips. She lets it all carry her away.
And once it's over she lets her legs drop to the floor and support her own weight again, and he all but collapses against her, his face buried in her neck. She runs a hand over the back of his hair, holding his head against her and laughing softly.
Gradually, tenderly, his hands move again, smoothing over her hips and waist, up her arms to her face. She stretches up away from the wall to meet him in another kiss. As their lips cling moist and warm he reaches up to angle the shower head towards them so the spray hits them fully once more. And he follows the water running down her body with his hand and rubs gently between her legs, helping wash away traces of body fluids, hers and his.
"What do you think?" he says.
What does she think? She looks at him and thinks she has a lot of questions.
"About my epiphany," he adds before she can verbalise any of them. "One of my better ones. Cuddy," after a moment, "Say something."
She reaches around him and shuts off the water. The warmth remains with them, in the places their bodies meet, in the space between them. Looking up at him, she pushes stray hair plastered to the sides of her face back behind her ears.
"Can we get dry now?" she says.