Just a small note: I actually like Leighton Meester, but used her below as a joke because of "The Oranges." Meta, baby. LOL.
[H] [H] [H]
The ironic thing was that House had been checking out her ass. Cuddy was bent over the dresser, tweezers in hand to pluck her eyebrows, and her short nightie was riding up, revealing half a cheek. He'd been pretending to flip through a magazine but had actually been fantasizing about that perfect mound of wonderfulness when she sighed heavily and straightened up, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
House heard it and inquired, "Is this where I'm supposed to say 'What's wrong, sweetheart?'"
Cuddy was plucking hairs from her head now – gray ones from the part. "No, House. This is where you're supposed to go back to your tabloid and leave me alone."
"What's the problem, crabby?"
Cuddy paused, looking at her reflection with an expression of defeat. "I'm getting old."
House shook his head a little to clear the previous thoughts of doing things to her ass to the side and focus. "What?"
"I keep living in denial, but then I see the grays, the wrinkles, the way everything is starting to droop…. I have to face it. I'm getting old." She walked to the bed, rubbing lotion into her arms.
"Cuddy, you're a moron. Women half your age wish they looked like you."
"Oh, shut up. You're even older than me," she shot back.
"Harsh, dude," House put his hand to his heart. "But you don't see it bothering me, do you?"
"Of course not!" Cuddy exclaimed. "Not only are looks not as pivotal in the male world, but the world loves men as they age. They're sexier. They appeal not only to their age group, but to all those girls with daddy issues."
"So you wish you appealed to boys with mommy issues?" House asked.
"You're missing the point," she complained. House was watching her rub lotion onto her long bare legs now. He took one of her hands and placed it squarely on his crotch, which was definitely not turned off by her alleged aging.
"You're missing the point."
"Oh, please," Cuddy said. "You get an erection from a warm breeze." House ignored her and tossed his magazine toward the bottom of the bed to start climbing on top of her. "See?" Cuddy protested as his mouth met her neck. She arched over and grabbed the magazine. "Look at the female celebrities in this magazine. They're all, like, twenty years old!"
"So what?" House mumbled into her shoulder, wriggling up her nightie.
"So… That's what people want to see. Tabloids, fashion magazines, porn… They all elevate youth as the thing people want for women. Older women may as well be invisible."
House pulled his head back and looked at her. "Am I treating you like you're invisible?" he asked, his hand reaching between her legs. Cuddy relaxed a bit into the pillows, her eyelids closing a little.
"I have a feeling I'd be a lot less visible if - " she glanced at the magazine caption "- if Leighton Meester suddenly walked in here," she sighed, throwing the magazine onto the floor.
"I don't even know who that is," House said.
"It wouldn't matter. They take pictures of her hot young body because men like you couldn't help looking at it, even if I was naked right next to her."
House rolled to the side, exasperated. "So I'm in trouble for hypothetically checking out the naked body of a strange woman who is hypothetically standing next to you when you're naked?" Cuddy heard him and couldn't help laughing. They rolled their heads to the side to look at each other. "Cuddy, men are animals and the primitive parts of our brain look for women with certain hips and breasts and, yes, ages that would let us wildly procreate. But some of us are also sentient – at least when our penises are not inside of anyone – and find women with intelligence and wit and tenacity irresistibly more attractive than vapid, shallow starlets."
Cuddy smiled at him. "Really?"
House moved onto his side and ran his hand down the length of her body. "Really." He grabbed her ass. "I love your intelligence," he groaned, pulling her close.
Cuddy laughed. "So Ms. Meester would be ignored if she was here right now?"
House paused in thought. "Well, I wouldn't want to be rude… Could I banter with you while I had sex with her?" Cuddy smacked him and he laughed, pulling her on top of him. "Completely ignored. A. You're way hotter. And B. You know how I feel about morons."
Cuddy raised her arms and he finally got the goddamn nightie off of her. "She might be very intelligent," Cuddy proposed.
"She's not," House replied.
"Maybe she is."
House groaned again, in exasperation this time, and rolled back to her side. "Okay. So now the scenario is, you're a hot intelligent woman and you're worried my head will be turned by a hot intelligent woman?"
"My point is, she's younger." She propped up on an elbow and laid a hand on his chest. "Maybe she's Cuddy 2.0," she whimpered.
House looked up at her. "Then I'm a luddite."
Cuddy offered a small grin. "This is stupid, I know. I get this feeling every few months and obsess about it for a few days and then I get tired of thinking about it and get over it."
"Remember, Cuddy," House offered. "You're only as old as you feel." He reached over and gently cupped one of her breasts. "And you definitely feel early twenties to me."
"You're an ass." But she laughed and clambered on top of him. House's eyes roamed over her, sitting there across his hips. He shook his head.
"You're fucking unbelievable," he said with lust in his voice. "So stop being an idiot."
"Oh, well, okay, since you were so compassionate and supportive." Cuddy fell to her elbows, her hair curtaining their faces and glared at him.
"I don't indulge irrational people." He pulled her down to finally kiss her and shut her up.
"Mfjhskbhf," she was protesting against his mouth, but he ignored whatever snarky comment she had prepared and ground his hips up against hers, Cuddy sighing into his mouth with the feeling.
The conversation easily ebbed away as they moved together, and all Cuddy felt was his skin sliding along hers, his mouth tugging on her lips, and his body entering hers. If she was feeling undesirable just minutes ago, it was a faint memory as this man pawed at her body and moaned with desire beneath her. He may not know what to say, pretty much ever, but in this situation he knew what to do. So she focused on that, sitting up to lean back a little and just ride him while she watched his eyes devour her and felt his hands caress every contour of her shape. She was physically stimulated, of course, but as she neared the edge of ecstasy it was a psychological idea that pushed her over. She was there on his hips, panting and crying out a little, when his eyes flitted to her face. She bit her lip and moaned a little, feeling so close. When she did that he clenched his eyes shut, overcome by the sight of her pleasure. And the idea that he got off on her getting off was so erotic, she was overcome and writhed and bucked on top of him. The feeling and sound and sight of her orgasm did him in just a second later and he followed her to that place where both of them were finally able to shut up and stop thinking. Their place.
Cuddy fell down to his chest, listening to his heart thud against the wall of his ribcage. They lay there re-acclimating to the world, hands lazily tracing the other's shape. House put a hand in her hair and tickled her scalp while Cuddy drifted toward sleep. But suddenly she was jarred by a tiny pinch on her head. She sat up abruptly and looked at him.
House grinned at her and held a gray hair pinched in his fingers. "Got one." She glared at him. "What? I'm being helpful!" He laughed a little, knowing he wasn't being helpful at all.
"You know for someone with such a brilliant fucking mind, you know nothing about women." She lay back down on him.
"I'd be better off studying Stonehenge or what killed the dinosaurs," he murmured. "But they're not as sexy." Cuddy laughed a little. "Plus, I don't really like old things." She smacked him lightly.
"Shut up, House. Or I'll start plucking your gray hairs."
[H] [H] [H]
House took half of Wilson's sandwich as he sat down in the cafeteria.
"You're welcome," Wilson snapped.
"You can't expect me to stand in that line," House replied. "I got a bum leg!"
"Says the man who will stand for two hours in a crowded blues club."
"That's different," House said.
"Why?"
"I can't just steal your blues."
"Ah, so it's a supply and demand thing."
"Did you cure cancer yet?" House asked, eager to change the topic.
"Sadly, no," Wilson sighed. "We were orienting a new resident, so we moved the cancer-curing to tomorrow." House reached over and took a swig of Wilson's soda. "You know, stealing my food is one thing, but forcing me to ingest your presumably filthy and disgusting germs is going a bit far," he complained, sliding his soda closer to his side of the table.
An attractive young nurse walked by the table and House caught Wilson checking her out. "You always go for women that are too young for you."
Wilson looked at him, feigning confusion. "What?"
"You always go for women that are too young for you."
"Who's 'going for' someone? I'm not going for anybody!" Wilson looked around, as if searching for evidence of some interaction he'd missed.
"You were totally scoping her goods."
"So what? I can't look an attractive woman now? What do you call what you do? Checking for tics?"
"I'm merely pointing out that you look at women half your age more often than women your own age."
"I do not."
"You do too."
"And you prefer to ogle the geriatric community?"
"Those old ladies got mad tricks, yo." Wilson made a face. "I'm just saying, if you're looking for an actual relationship – like your fifth marriage – considering someone who was alive when you got your driver's license might be wise," House advised through a mouthful of sandwich.
"Why the relationship advice, Dr. Phil?"
"I'm advocating for the hot middle-aged female population."
"Something tells me this is because you now sleep with a hot middle-aged female."
"Cuddy thinks she's getting old."
"Aw. Poor Cuddy," Wilson mused. "Women have so much pressure on their looks, even a clearly attractive woman like Cuddy – who has accomplished so much else, I might add – gets bogged down by it. It shows how woven it is into out collective psyche that even smart, reflective women can't emotionally detach their feelings of self-worth from their naturally-skewed self-assessment of their aesthetic appeal."
House nodded in vehement agreement. "Pfft. That's what I said."
Wilson smirked. "I bet."
"I did! I just wasn't so wordy about it."
"So you put it more like, 'Don't feel that way. Let's get naked.'"
"Same general idea."
Wilson rolled his eyes. "House, this is a serious thing she is grappling with. You can't just tell her she shouldn't feel what she feels."
"So what do I tell her?" He reached over for a chip. "Told her she's hot. Told her she's an idiot. Told her to get over it."
"Hmmm. And that didn't work?" Wilson smirked at him.
"No."
"Shocking."
"She ages! Everyone ages! How do I argue with that?"
"It's not the aging she's struggling with House. It's what it means. She's feeling like she's less important now, less valuable, less visible."
"That's what she said," House replied. Wilson looked confused. "No, no. Seriously. That's what she said."
"Well, just knowing you think she's beautiful might not be enough because she's reacting to a whole cultural worldview. I'm not sure there's anything you can do, in a way." Wilson sighed. "Face it. This thing might be bigger than you, House."
"That's what she said." He took another bite of sandwich and laughed.
"Amazing that you have intimacy issues."
[H] [H] [H]
Wilson was right, though. House started noticing several things. Things he hadn't before.
He noticed the ads in magazines and on billboards that he had previously overlooked, mainly because he wasn't the target audience. When he really paid attention, he saw legs that had been elongated to impossible bodily proportions, faces that lacks the tiniest pore or crease; hair that fell over eyes in impractical ways and was combed so flat it was a plane that reflected the light like glass. These weren't just beautiful women, but impossible freaks. There were no creases, no marks, no accidents, no life.
He also noticed Cuddy frowning at her reflection on more than one occasion. She'd flip down the visor in the car and swipe away a stray lock of hair or carefully erase a smudge of eyeliner or lipstick. But more alarmingly, she almost always gave herself a brief frown after appraising herself or even sighed slightly, flipping the visor shut. She'd pause after brushing her teeth and examine the part in her hair for grays, or occasionally tug her temples back a little, pulling the skin around her eyes tauter. She'd pass a glass wall in the hospital and steal a quick glance as she walked past and he'd see her posture adjust as she sucked in some non-existent stomach or adjusted some imperceptible flaw in how her clothes hung over her frame.
He also noticed the people who checked her out. Anywhere they went, professionally or for leisure, she was essentially assaulted by men who House knew were doing unspeakable things to her in their minds. Cuddy seemed oblivious because men had honed these skills since puberty and would avert their eyes or create the illusion of looking at something else should Cuddy's glance fall their way. But House knew their tricks and saw her ass ogled, her swishing hair distracting coffee house regulars, and her wide smile charming even someone as crabby and misanthropic as… well, him. And he saw women straighten up or pull out compacts to check their makeup or sometimes glare at her when she walked past because she looked so good.
Being analytical by nature, he synthesized this data. He saw how it all interacted and made no sense. Something had to be done. The illogical nature of this just could not stand. He might not be able to change the cultural worldview, but maybe he could change how Cuddy dealt with it. It took him a few days, but he conjured a plan.
For the first step in the plan, he stalked her. More than usual. Cuddy would turn and find him right behind her in the most unusual places. She was growing annoyed with him being constantly underfoot, but it was necessary for his project. And once he'd gathered enough material, he set to work on step two.
It was during this stage of the project when House was carefully assessing something on his computer screen in his office. Thirteen was bent over his shoulder pointing at the screen and gesturing at something when Cuddy walked in, causing them both to startle. House quickly clicked something to pull up a professional looking screen, but Cuddy had glimpsed enough color and flashy font to know they were goofing off. And when it was House and Thirteen goofing off together she had an inkling of what was going on.
"House, it's one thing for me to tolerate you shirking work to look at online porn, but doing it with your team is not only a waste of hospital resources, but a harassment lawsuit waiting to happen."
House smirked at her. "It's not porn."
Thirteen smirked at him. Cuddy saw his jaw shift as he fought back a mischievous grin. It made her feel… well, jealous, to be honest. Here was this hot young woman he worked with every day and she could deal with their close physical proximity because she never felt threatened. Because she knew she had his heart, his mind. But this little shared secret felt intimate and, somehow, at her expense.
Cuddy tossed a file of clerical work he needed to fill out on his desk and turned and left without a word. House watched her stalk off then looked up at Thirteen. "We need to finish this. Now."
[H] [H] [H]
Step three required patience. He had lined up the dominoes and now had to just wait for them to topple. To do it in the best way, he had to let Cuddy discover his little project on her own, and after two weeks of waiting, he had begun to forget about it himself.
But then one night Cuddy decided to take a hot bath and grabbed a handful of magazines from the basket by her bed, dropping the pile on the tile floor while she ran the water, tied her hair up, and undressed. She sunk into the steamy water and just relaxed for a few minutes, letting the warmth ease her muscles and the steam clear her head. She reached for a magazine and flipped through it, realizing after a few minutes she had pretty much read everything that interested her in that one. She tossed it aside and reached for another. This one caused her to gasp.
Cuddy stared at herself, beaming from the glossy cover of a magazine titled All. She managed to place the picture from when she was sitting on a chaise lounge in the backyard reading – weeks ago - but it had been Photoshopped to have her glamorously lying on a beach holding not a book, but a lipstick. Her image was surrounded with teasers for magazine articles: "Top ten things you can wear to enhance your butt" and "Quiz: Do you obsess too much?" and "Sex with cripples: Is it hotter?" Cuddy started laughing. Yeah… she was the obsessive one.
Cuddy flipped open the magazine, expecting to find he had defaced one of her Vogues for this cute little joke, but instead she found page after page of herself. An "article" about balancing work and home life showed images of her holding Rachel in one arm and a briefcase in the other. Another with the headline "Get rid of the guilt: Foods you should indulge in" showed photos of her sipping wine and licking ice cream cones.
She felt… a little creeped. But also… kinda awesome. Because, damn, she looked good. House had done a pretty phenomenal job making this look like a real magazine and between the glossy feel of the pages, the pictures he had managed to sneakily take, and the magic of Photoshop she looked like she really could be in a magazine. Which she realized was his point. She lamented her little flaws, the little signs she was aging, and she was squandering these years when everything was still hot and shiny and relatively perky. House didn't just think she still had it. She did still have it.
After a quick flip through she started looking more closely at the articles, just to see what exactly he had done. Some began by sounding like a real magazine would: "Do you wish you could fit more into your short 24-hour day? We know we do." But they would quickly deteriorate into House typing "blah blah blah, etc. etc." She smiled at the thought of him reading all those crazy articles in an attempt to make this project, but growing bored by their mind-numbing dumbness. The "sex with cripples" article was a labor of love, though, and detailed things Cuddy loved in erotic detail… It was pretty much a dirty story written just for her. There was a gossipy section titled "PPTH Hotsheet" that contained little made-up tabloid blurbs about their circle. One led with "Update on a certain oncologist's transgender process." And there was a bit implying that Chase and Foreman had a romance going that teased "Someone's got jungle fever down under." There was also a silly blurb about the sizzling love life of a diagnostic intern who "swings both ways." Reading that one, Cuddy remembered that moment in House's office, with he and Thirteen huddled conspiratorially around his computer. That's when Cuddy realized that House had gotten a little help creating this opus. Of course he needed some guidance from someone familiar with this genre… And who better than a girl who might also think Cuddy was hot. Cuddy felt embarrassed, but also sexier than ever.
Then there was the startling icing on the cake. She flipped to the middle of the magazine to find a two page centerfold of her – wearing nothing but panties and a seductive grin. That little shit had used their private photos for this? She'd kill him! What if someone saw? What if Thirteen had seen this?...
But, damn… She looked hot! Maybe she'd just… bruise him a little.
[H] [H] [H]
After her bath, Cuddy padded out to the living room where House was sitting on the sofa, feet propped on the coffee table, half asleep. He glanced at her as she entered. "You missed it," he chided. "Kristina just totally attacked Connie with a frickin' baseball bat! It was awesome. Don't worry, it's still on the DVR. I'll find it for you." When he was done recapping the soap opera, she saw his eyes roam up and down her body, wrapped in a thin robe, before returning to the television to search for the scene.
Cuddy strode over to him and sat, straddling his lap. House looked up at her and grinned. "Hi there," he murmured. "Nice bath?"
"I was reading the most interesting magazine," she teased, the corners of her mouth pulling upward slightly.
House's grin broadened into an all out smile when he realized she'd finally found it, then he glanced away, slightly bashful. "Oh yeah?" he asked, regaining his composure. "Learn any new tips on how to be a woman who does it all?"
"I realized I'm ahead of the curve."
He smirked at her. "Good."
"And I realized you are very thoughtful and obsessive."
"Hello, pot. I'm kettle."
"And I realized how much I love you."
"Wow. Some magazine."
"I'm thinking of subscribing. Do you happen to know – is it a monthly?"
House raised his eyebrows. "You know, I think it's more of an annual thing. They're sorely understaffed over there."
Cuddy nodded. "Not enough mischievous young women raised on fashion magazines who are willing to indulge your whims?"
"I placed an ad with those criteria, but nothing."
They looked at each other, smirk to smirk. "You're not invisible," he told her. Cuddy smiled at him. "But even if you were, I'd somehow still find a way to hit that."
"Why do you ruin everything nice?" she asked, sighing in exasperation, but laughing nonetheless.
"It's the same reason boys pull ponytails," he explained. "I just like when you pay attention to me."
"Wouldn't you prefer positive attention?"
"Meh. Anybody can flatter you. I know where your buttons are. And I like it."
She smiled seductively down at him. "I see," she said, moving his hands to the tie of her robe. "It has nothing to do with your discomfort with intimacy. With mushiness."
House was distracted by the sight of her smooth, still damp body being revealed to him as he opened her robe and she let it fall down her shoulders and off of her arms. "I'm fine with intimacy," he said flatly, moving his mouth to her breast and causing Cuddy to arch into him. "I'm just more entertained by button-pushing." He moved his tongue along her nipple and it caused her to cry out his name in a sort of plea.
He pulled back and looked at her. "See? Endlessly entertaining." Cuddy was already in the shaky-breath stage of arousal. She grabbed the sides of his head and pulled him to her body again, relishing the return of his warm mouth to her skin. House wrapped his arms around her, guiding one hand to the back of her head to support it as he moved her onto her back on the couch.
Cuddy felt his weight on her and was so turned on she couldn't get him undressed fast enough. And it was a goddamn button-down day, so she was stuck fumbling with a half-dozen of the little bastards while he continued running his tongue along her breasts and neck, nipping gently at her skin in key places. His hands gripped her hips and moved them in the rhythm of slow deliberate sex and she craved the feeling of him so much she whimpered in distress. "Button," he murmured.
He kissed down her belly and soon she felt his hot breath glide along her sex. She was taking short puffs of air in anticipation. She didn't know if it was the hot bath or his sweet gesture, but somehow she had gotten way ahead of this train and was craving the thrill of release before he had even made official contact. It was making her crazy. She squirmed beneath him and when his lips touched her finally, his tongue expertly moving where she liked it, she had to turn her face into the cushions to muffle her cry. She felt his fingertips pressing into her skin, his stubble scratching lightly against her most intimate areas. He moved a hand up to caress her breasts again and she teetered on the edge, delightfully dipping into an orgasmic state but not fully falling yet. Then he moved his mouth to her clit and applied a focused, deliberate pressure, stroking her and pulling her into him a little. She came with abandon, bucking her hips and crying out into the back of the couch, digging her nails into his shoulders and trembling all over. Her legs still pulsed with leftover spasms as he crawled back up her body, looked down at her catatonic face and quietly noted, "Button."
"I hate you," she sighed at the ceiling. "Just fuck me already, House."
He stopped his efforts and looked her with a lopsided grin. "And there you have it. No woman says 'Fuck me already' after a man tells her how he never stops thinking about her, how he'd do anything for her, how he feels so lucky to have her. Only button-pushing gets that."
She glared at him. "Fuck. Me. Already."
"Pausing to support a thesis during sex… Another button. Note to self." He grinned but complied by quickly unbuttoning his jeans and kicking them off. Cuddy helped him tug his boxers down and they had just cleared his knees when he was entering her, listening to her moan of relief at the sensation.
He was already so turned on by her wet naked body, her obvious desire, and her intense climax. Being inside of her while still half-dressed on the couch, moving in her again and again while she sighed with appreciation… It was unbelievable. He couldn't stop looking at her body, the way her hair fell haphazardly out of her ponytail and lay across her face. Her hands cupped his stubbled cheeks as she looked up and met his eyes, then they glided down his throat and chest, skimming his stomach and skating around to his back, pushing on his ass and urging him to move harder, faster.
When he did she wrapped her legs around his hips and arched her hips up to meet each thrust. He leaned against the couch back a little to free a hand and touch her perfect face. He moved his thumb over her lips and she licked the pad of his thumb then gently bit it. For some reason this gesture of tiny aggression, of irrational desire, was so hot to him. So when she sucked in her breath and gasped "House," against his thumb, he was right there with her, pressing his forehead to hers as they both felt the waves of both their climaxes pulsating against each other, their moans and gasps mingling in an indistinguishable burst of sound. She kept her legs around him but loosened their grip as he lay there, still pushing against her at moments in an impulse to stretch out the pleasure. When his head lolled to the side on the couch next to hers, she let one of her legs drop to the floor as she ran her hands along the muscles of his back, taut and hard beneath his skin.
After a few minutes, she patted his rump and when he shifted she maneuvered out to stand up, sleepily tugging his hand and guiding him to the bedroom, where they both flopped into the bed with satisfied sighs. House rolled over to look at her. He ran his hand along her body, studying the curves and dips of her shape. "I wouldn't want you younger, you know."
Cuddy smiled sleepily. "I have some very vivid memories that would challenge that statement."
He grinned. "That's just it. I knew 20-year-old Cuddy, and 30-year-old Cuddy, and 40-year-old Cuddy. I had all that."
"You didn't have all that."
He laughed a little. "I mean I knew you then…. And I had a little of that." She opened one eye and smirked at him. "But you just get better and better. I don't want you to freeze at some perfect age. I want to haaaave Cuddy at fifty, and sixty, and seventy. You'll be the hottest octogenarian evah."
Cuddy laughed a little and sighed and rolled onto her back, her arms tossed over her head. "House… are you being romantic?" she teased. "Mushy even?"
"I'm very romantic! I made you a magazine for chrissake!"
"A weird, slightly ransom-note-style magazine of myself that you made with your bisexual employee is not… classically romantic. Lovely as it was." She looked at him. "It's not like talk of growing old together."
"Growing," he grumbled, "You're already old." He was pouting slightly as he lay back next to her. Cuddy laughed and curled up along his body.
"Hey, hey, hey. I loved it. Don't be a baby." He looked at her and she saw his eyes twinkling, underscoring his manipulative gesture for attention. "I'm just not used to you talking like that."
He reached up and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "I love you more every day," he told her quietly. "So I don't want you to stop getting older." She smiled down at him. "Though you were haaaawt at 37. Damn I wish I'd had 37." He smiled and defended himself as she smacked him. They ended up with her on top of him again, lying on his chest. He played with her hair and his breathing grew more rhythmic. Cuddy was so full of love for him, she felt overwhelmed, and she knew that was why people said silly romantic things that didn't even do justice to their feelings. She knew it was a valve for the emotional intensity that could bowl you over. But she and House weren't so different, really… It was hard for her to go there too.
So she lay there intertwined with him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as his breath became slow and methodical, noticing how his hand stopped moving in her hair and fell limp against her. "I've loved you more every day too," she whispered into the dim bedroom. "Since the day I met you." She closed her eyes to go to sleep, but where their hands were clasped together she felt him give hers a small squeeze of acknowledgement. "Except when I was 37," she added. "I loathed you when I was 37." She felt the vibration of his laugh before falling asleep.