So I didn't have any great ideas, but I know if I don't post for 12 days, you guys tend to get a little twitchy. This is based (loosely) on a prompt by my girl suzmum, who always wants to see House and Cuddy handle problems in their relationship like actual adults without, you know, driving cars into living rooms, for example. She also suggested a story where Cuddy loses a patient. I switched that up a bit, as you'll see. In this fic, House and Cuddy are living together.
Warning: House acting like a major dick ahead.
Also, the medicine in this is only marginally "reality based."
p.s. Send prompts!
"I want to inject my patient with HIV," House said matter-of-factly.
Cuddy looked up from her paperwork, snorted a bit, and looked back down.
"Good one," she said.
"I'm not joking," House said.
She looked back up again.
"Are we talking about the same HIV here? As in Human Immunodeficiency Virus? As in the virus that causes AIDS?"
"Yup. The very same one. Silence equals death. No glove, no love. The whole bit."
"And why pray tell, would I let you do that?"
"My patient has cancer in his T-cells," House said. "HIV is very good at destroying T-cells. If all goes according to plan, it's also good at destroying cancer in T-cells."
"If all goes according to plan, huh?"
"Well, it's an untested theory."
She shook her head—more amused than annoyed.
"Even under the best of circumstances, if the HIV actually manages to kill the cancer, it will leave your patient with HIV."
"Which is treatable. The blood cancer that's quickly killing him, on the other hand— not so much."
"Nice try, House."
"I'm serious."
She peered at him.
"The frightening thing is, I know you are. But it's not happening. Go back to the drawing board. Assemble your team. Mock them mercilessly. And come up with another hare-brained plan."
"This is my other hare-brained plan. Believe me, I've run out of options. Otherwise, no chance I'd be standing here with my dick in my hand—so to speak."
Cuddy frowned.
"House, you know I can't. If your patient dies under your care, it will indeed be very sad. If he dies after we've injected him with HIV, it'll be a lawsuit."
"C'mon Cuddy," he pleaded. "Where's that maverick risk-taker I know and love?"
"I think you're confusing you with me," Cuddy said.
He raised his eyebrows, gave a sly smile.
"I'll make it worth your while."
She chuckled a bit.
"What? Sex? You're offering sexual favors to get me to bend to your will? I think you're still confusing you with me."
House shrugged.
"It always works on me," he said, sheepishly.
"But the problem is, you already service me quite well in that department," Cuddy said, with a self-satisfied smirk. "I literally could not ask for anything more."
"In that case, I will withhold my normal, um, services until you agree to this procedure."
"Oh, so we've moved from bribery to blackmail, huh?" she said, flirtily.
"I'm desperate."
She looked at him, realized he was still actually serious.
"House, I'm sorry," she said with a heavy sigh. "I really wish I could, but I can't."
He clenched his jaw a bit.
"My patient is going to die," he said, folding his arms.
"I have faith in you, House," she said. "You're always at your best when your back's up against the wall. I know you'll think of something."
And she looked back down at her paperwork to indicate that the conversation was over.
####
But House didn't think of anything else—and three days later, his patient died.
Cuddy knew that she needed to give him his space. When he lost a patient, he tended to be mopey, prickly, aloof.
After she put Rachel to bed, she found him sitting alone on her deck, drinking a scotch.
"Hey," she said softly.
He took a swig of the scotch, nodded at her, but said nothing.
She put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched a bit.
"You okay?" she said softly, withdrawing her hand.
"Fine," he said tersely.
He wasn't looking at her. His entire body language was stiff, impenetrable.
"You need anything?" she said, cautiously. "A blanket? Some soup?"
"What part of 'fine' didn't you understand?" he snapped.
She recoiled. She wasn't used to House talking to her like that. He's upset, she reminded herself. He needs to process. Just leave him be.
"Okay, I'm going to get ready for bed. Don't stay out here too long, okay? It's getting cold."
He didn't respond.
She opened the screen door and stepped back inside. She kept waiting for him to come after her, apologize. But he didn't.
Finally, she went into the bedroom, got undressed and curled up with the Jonathan Franzen novel she was reading.
She wanted to stay up, so they could talk some more. But after a little over an hour, she drifted asleep.
Usually, when this happened, House would take the tented book off her chest, bookmark it for her, turn off the light, and gently kiss her goodnight, hoping that she would wake up just enough to return his kiss, maybe more.
But tonight, he climbed into bed without touching her. She stirred, sensing his presence.
"House," she said groggily.
"What?" he said.
"I really am sorry about your patient."
"Sure you are," he muttered.
This woke her up.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she said, rubbing her eyes.
"Nothing. Go back to bed," he said.
She finally got it.
"You're mad at me!" she said, incredulously. "You're blaming his death on me."
"I figured out a way to save him and you wouldn't let me do it. Now he's dead. Who else am I supposed to blame? Bin Laden?"
She turned the light back on and sat up.
"That is so unfair," she said.
He shrugged in a "the truth hurts" kind of way.
"Life is unfair," he said.
"I've refused procedures before. And patients have died before."
"That was before I was your boyfriend," he countered.
She glared at him.
"You don't get to do this!" she said, her voice rising. "You don't get to bring this stuff home with you."
"Why not?" he said, his own volume now matching hers. "You certainly brought it home with you when I treated that senator behind your back. Although bringing it home is not quite accurate, since you kicked me out and wouldn't let me touch you for days."
"That was totally different! You lied to my face! You intentionally deceived me. This was just me doing my job."
"And not trusting me enough to think I knew what was best for my own patient."
"In my hospital!"
"It always comes down to that, doesn't it?" he said, with a sneer. "Your hospital. Your house. Your bed. You're on such a power trip, Cuddy. Always threatening to take my toys from me if I misbehave, as if I could ever possibly forget who's in control."
She sensed that things were about to get ugly.
"House, don't do this. . ."
"Cuddy, let me ask you something," he said, in an exaggerated, musing tone. "Out of the two of us, who's the better doctor?"
She felt her neck beginning to get red.
"That's irrelevant. You know it's irrelevant."
"No, I'm serious. Who's smarter? Whose judgment is sounder: The world famous diagnostician? Or the pencil pusher who hasn't treated a real patient since, I don't know, the guy with an infarction she left in chronic pain for the rest of his life?"
"Don't be an asshole House."
"Why not? It comes so naturally."
She felt a fat tear form in her eye. She tried, unsuccessfully, to blink it back.
"Of course," he said, disgusted. "She cries."
She didn't say anything. She felt like she was going to throw up.
"I'm going to sleep," he said. "Unless you want to kick me out of your bed because I was mean to you?"
"Fuck you," she said.
"Fuck you right back," he said, and switched off the nightstand light and turned away from her.
######
In the morning, they got dressed in a tense silence.
House made his way to the kitchen, and began filling a thermos with coffee. That's when Cuddy emerged from Rachel's room, carrying a still sleepy Rachel on her hip.
"What do you want for breakfast, sweetie?" Cuddy said, putting her daughter in the high chair.
"Cereal," Rachel announced.
Cuddy looked over to where House was standing, right in front of the cupboard where she kept the cereal. She was determined not to let Rachel see the tension between them.
"House, can you make Rachel a bowl of cereal?" she said.
"You sure you trust me with such an important job?" he said, sarcastically.
She shot him a look.
Annoyed, he shook some Cheerio's in a Dora the Explorer bowl, added milk, got a spoon and handed it to Rachel.
"Here you go, short stuff," he said. "Bon appetit."
"What's bonapeet?" she said.
"Pretentious for 'enjoy your meal.'"
"Thanks Howse," she said, digging in.
"Enough milk?" he asked her.
"Enough milk," she concurred.
Cuddy felt a pang. There was something tender in his voice. The exact opposite of his tone from last night.
Then, grabbing his thermos off the counter, he turned to Cuddy: "I'll be home late," he said. "Don't wait up."
"Believe me," she said. "I won't."
#####
"Okay, what are you two fighting about?" Wilson said, sitting across from House in the cafeteria.
"I literally have no idea what you're talking about," House said.
"So you and Cuddy aren't in a fight?" Wilson said, skeptically. "It's just a coincidence that you haven't made eye contact all day? That you're both in horrible moods?"
House gave a gloomy half-shrug.
"What happened?" Wilson said.
"My patient died," House said.
"I know that. What does that have to do with Cuddy?"
"I came up with a way to save him and she wouldn't let me."
"What? The HIV thing?"
"Yes."
"That was a long shot and you know it."
"It was his only shot."
"Cuddy obviously thought it wasn't worth the risk."
"She cares more about saving her own ass than about the health of her patients."
"That's not fair," Wilson said.
"Isn't it?"
Wilson squinted at him.
"Cuddy has said no to your cockamamie procedures plenty of times. You never stopped speaking to her before."
"Sure I did," House said. "She just didn't notice because we weren't living together. It tends to be a bit harder to hide that sort of thing when you're cohabitating."
Wilson leaned back in his chair and nodded, as though he had just figured something out.
House gave an exasperated sigh,
"What?" he said.
"I get it," Wilson said.
"Oh for fuck's sake. What do you think you get?"
"Before you and Cuddy were dating, she said no to one of your procedures and you were upset—strictly for medical reasons. Now, your feelings are involved. You're hurt."
"Oh please."
"It's perfectly normal to feel that way House. But you have to remember. It may seem like managing you is her full time job—but she actually has an entire hospital to run. She has to make a thousand life or death judgement calls every day—yes, including okaying your insane procedures. You just can't take things so personally."
"I'm not taking it personally. I'm upset that my patient died. That's it."
"Then mourn your patient. Feel bad about it. Scream obscenities from the roof. But keep your feelings out of it. A rejection of your procedure is not a rejection of you."
"Christ," House said, standing up, and grabbing his untouched sandwich. "I can't take any more of this Dr. Phil crap. I'm eating lunch at my desk. "
As he walked away, he said: "And in case it wasn't perfectly clear, this IS a rejection of you."
Wilson gave a slight laugh.
"I'm crushed," he said.
#######
As luck would have it, a former patient of House's was threatening to sue the hospital for "pain and suffering" brought on by House's allegedly abusive treatment of him. A meeting had been scheduled for later that day in Cuddy's office.
She half expected House not to show up, but he did, albeit late and full of impatient bluster.
"Sorry I'm late," House said. "Busy saving lives."
He sat down next to the patient, who had brought his wife, his lawyer, and his brother-in-law.
Everyone looked at Cuddy expectantly.
"Mr. Ellerbee, why don't you tell us what your specific grievance is with Dr. House?" Cuddy said.
"He made the trauma of my illness even more traumatic by making fun of me and my family."
"How so?" Cuddy said, taking notes.
"He called us fat," Ellerbee said.
Cuddy looked up. Indeed, both Mr. Ellerbee and his wife were morbidly obese. Their 12-year-old son was well on his way. She remembered thinking that he looked liked Augustus Gloop.
"I'm sure Dr. House wouldn't be quite so. . ."
"He said we were the poster family for Type 2 Diabetes."
"That was a medical opinion," House said.
Cuddy gave House a death stare. He looked down.
"He gave my son a flash card quiz of vegetables," Mrs. Ellerbee said.
"The kid had never seen a head of lettuce before," House said. "I was helping!"
"He humiliated me."
"I saved your life," House countered.
"Mr. Ellerbee," Cuddy said, diplomatically. "Believe me when I say I'm well aware that Dr. House can be a bit . . . impolite at times. But he's also one of the best doctors in the country—possibly the world."
"She only says that because he's her boyfriend," Ellerbee's brother-in-law said, accusingly. He actually wagged his finger at Cuddy, as though he were a character in some sort of TV legal drama making a theatrical point before the commercial break.
Cuddy felt her face turn crimson.
"How could you possibly. . .?"
"I saw you kissing him in the elevator. Going at it like a couple of teenagers in heat," the brother-in-law said, proud of himself.
God. Cuddy flashed back to that day a few weeks ago.
She and House had had great sex that morning and were feeling particularly clingy and amorous. The elevator makeout session had been so steamy that House had suggested they lock her office door to finish what they started. (She'd briefly been tempted. Then she came to her senses.)
"My personal relationship with Dr. House has nothing to do with his talents as a doctor," she said, unconsciously smoothing her hair, as though they had been caught having sex this very instant.
"She prefers my other talents," House said.
She wanted to kill him.
"This does suggest that you can't be impartial when it comes to Dr. House," the lawyer said.
"Oh believe me," she said. "I can be very impartial."
"Then why haven't you censured him?"
"She likes to disclipline me in other ways," House said with a smirk.
"Most patients are so grateful for Dr. House's world-class skills that they're willing to overlook his lack of. . .interpersonal skills," she continued, ignoring him.
"There's interpersonal skills and there's fat shaming my client!" the lawyer said.
"Well, one great way to lose weight is to die," House offered.
"House!" Cuddy said.
House swallowed.
"Sorry," he said.
"That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about!" Ellerbee said.
"A few ill advised jokes hardly fall under the realm of trauma," Cuddy said.
"Only my client knows how much Dr. House's words scarred him," the lawyer said.
House rolled his eyes.
"Nothing that a couple of chocolate cream pies can't cure," he said.
Cuddy was going to kill him—again.
"Look," she said to the lawyer. "I've consulted with hospital counsel. We're willing to pay $15,000 for Mr. Ellerbee's alleged pain and suffering. Anything else and we're going to have to take this to court. And considering the rareness of Mr. Ellerbee's disorder—the fact that Dr. House may very well be the only doctor in the country who could've diagnosed and cured him—I believe that most juries will side with us. So I guess what I'm saying is, take it or leave it, Mr. Ellerbee."
"I need a moment to consult with my client," the lawyer said.
"Take your time," Cuddy said.
The lawyer and the Ellerbees stepped into the hallway.
"You're not helping!" Cuddy hissed at House once they were out of ear range.
"I love hearing you talk about what a brilliant doctor I am," House said. "Such hypocrisy. You should try practicing what you preach."
"You've got to be joking," Cuddy snapped. "I can't even begin to count the number of times I've stuck out my neck for you—including right now!"
"Where was all this faith in me when I needed approval for my treatment?"
"God, you are so incredibly pig-headed," she said, practically breathing fire.
"I'm pig-headed? They should mount you on a table with an apple in your—"
But he stopped, because the Ellerbees had re-entered the room.
Both Cuddy and House flashed falsely ingratiating smiles.
"We'll take the deal," the lawyer said.
"Excellent," Cuddy said.
#####
That night, House sat alone at the bar at Sullivan's, sulking.
He began thinking about what Cuddy had said earlier. It was true. She had stuck out her neck for him—time after time after time.
Even today, when House was being a pain in the ass (he knew he was, he just couldn't help himself)—she had still managed to defend him.
In truth, the HIV procedure he'd asked for was incredibly risky—and was a Hail Mary at best. Odds were, it wasn't going to work.
How many times did Cuddy have to prove her fealty to him? Hadn't she proven it over and over again? Hadn't she demonstrated her loyalty on the day she hired him—and every day since?
He stared down the barrel of his scotch glass, chugged the last of it, and dragged his sorry ass home. It was past 11 pm. Cuddy was already asleep. He climbed into bed, watching the rise and fall of her back in her silk nightgown.
For a moment, he felt incredible tenderness toward her. He wanted to take her in his arms and murmur apologies in her ear.
But he also remembered the tone in her voice when the Ellerbees had left the office, the disgusted way she had looked him. She was still angry at him. He was simply going to have to ride this one out.
######
There is nothing worse than being in a fight with the person you love.
Especially when you have to work with her.
House stood at the front desk and watched Cuddy move through the hallway briskly.
She had been gone when he woke up in the morning and now—several hours later—it was the first time he was seeing her all day.
She walked with a purpose, either actually not noticing him or just pretending not to.
He had never felt so distant from her. It was like she was some sort of gorgeous, efficient stranger.
"She's something else, isn't she?" said Dr. Rodriguez, an anastheologist, materializing by House's side. He was watching Cuddy march down the hall.
"She is indeed," House said.
"You must be so proud of the way she handled things today," Rodriguez said.
House eyed him.
"What things?"
Rodriguez chuckled. "You don't know? Amazing. And you're her boyfriend. There was a bomb threat at the hospital this morning."
"A what?"
"Some disgruntled ex employee called in and said he had planted a bomb in the cafeteria."
"How did I miss the evacuation of the entire hospital?"
"That's the thing. She didn't evacuate. The guy had apparently made false threats before. So she weighed the reality of the threat versus the disruptiveness of evacuating the whole hospital. They'd have to transfer patients out of the ER, postpone surgeries, set up outdoor triage, cause a hospital-wide panic. She decided to play it cool. They brought in bomb-sniffing dogs. Told patients it was a drill. Needless to say, they didn't find anything."
"That sounds like a rather heart-stopping game of Russian Roulette," House said.
Rodriguez chuckled.
"All in a day's work, huh?" he said. "Life of a hospital administrator. Just make sure you're extra nice to her tonight."
"I. . .will be," House said.
######
When House got home that night, Rachel was already asleep. Cuddy was sitting on the couch, drinking tea and reading. She ignored him when he entered.
They hadn't spoken in over two days.
He sat down tentatively beside her.
"Hey," he said softly.
"Hey," she said curtly, not looking up from her book.
"I, uh, heard about the bomb threat."
"Who told you?" she said, narrowing her eyes.
"Rodriguez," he said. "Scary stuff."
"Yeah."
He looked at her.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine," she said.
"Really?"
"Yes," she said. "It was a tough call. But I had to make it."
"I wish you had called me—I could've, I dunno, supported you."
She snorted.
"You haven't really been especially supportive lately," she said.
She was finally looking at him.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry. I've been a jerk."
"Yes, you have," she said quietly.
"I said terrible things. Things I didn't mean. I was lashing out because I was upset and hurt."
"I understand upset. But why hurt?"
"It felt like you didn't. . . trust me."
"Of course I trust you. I trust you more than anyone I know. I just have responsibilities that go beyond this relationship. "
"I know that."
"I can't feel like every administrative decision I make is going to affect our lives at home."
"You're right. It can't. It won't."
She looked down, said nothing.
"Hey," he said again. He took the book away from her and put it down on the coffee table. "Come here."
He gestured toward his crooked arm. She hesitated a second, then melted into his body, gratefully.
He kissed the top of her head.
"I think I sometimes forget how much pressure you're under. And how much I . . . add to that pressure," he said.
"That you do," she said.
"I want to be the guy who makes your life easier."
"I'd settle for not harder," she said, with a tiny chuckle.
He laughed. There was a brief, relieved silence as they relished this moment in each other's arms.
"I'm so proud of you, you know that?" House said finally.
"Shut up," she said, her voice muffled in his shirt.
"I'm serious."
"Thank you," she said. He could feel her smile against his chest.
He lifted her chin and kissed her on the lips.
"You still mad at me?" he asked.
"I was never really mad at you. I was just mad that you were mad."
"And I was just mad that you were mad that I was mad," he said, smiling a bit.
"This could've gone on forever. The Russian stacking dolls of lover's quarrels."
"But let's never fight again, okay? Because it totally sucked."
"Agreed."
"Even the incredible makeup sex we're about to have will not have made it all worth it," he said.
She looked up him, her eyes dancing.
"Oh, so we're having makeup sex?" she said.
"Yes, of course—lots of it," he said, confidently.
He began to kiss the small of her neck and unbutton her blouse.
"Girl, I know you said you literally couldn't ask for anything more," he said, kissing the top of her breast. "But I'm about to show you that there's always room for improvement."
And he began to pull off her jeans.
THE END