Notes: This will most likely be a hiatus-long fic. So updates won't be immediate. If this is well received it will be more than four chapters. The next two parts will be illustrated, hopefully. See my lj for that. This chapter is brief and expository. Title from a Rolling Stones song. Lyrics throughout. Thanks for reading! Comments and feedback are appreciated.
Dead Flowers
Everything has changed.
The anger turned sadness, that discouraged awareness of seeing everybody else happy together––House was sinking.
But she's stuck, standing there unexpected, the jamb of the door pressing sharp against her back. Their stagnancy intersects, reflecting off shattered shards, the pills cradled tentative in his palm.
He looks up to her from the rock bottom of the bathroom floor, gravel in his cuts, dirt in the corner of his eye. He loves her and hates her and wants her and suspects the worst. Her presence seems out of context with the facts, his feelings, the entire night unreal.
The dust of catastrophe is still coating his jacket when his savior in scrubs chokes, swallows a sigh and says three words. What's remained the same in spite of all her efforts to amend her emotions, she admits with no pretense, no romance just honesty, and relief.
Speechless, an arm stretches out and that's all he needs–– that moment when they know there was a before and there will be an after that can never been the same. She pulls, negating the gravity that brought him here. And he can stand on his own two feet, leaning in to pin her tender against the wall. Pain should guarantee this is reality but he'll always doubt the truth when she chooses him.
They move together unhurried toward the bedroom. Cuddy slides his jacket from his shoulders, the weight of leather tearing at the grated flesh. House winces, almost pulls away. She can feel blood on her fingertips.
"You're bleeding through––"
"Sit down," she says and he does. Cuddy returns with gauze and tape and peroxide. She sits beside him, helping House lift his soiled tshirt up, over and off, dabbing at the wound and rebandaging it carefully.
She brings a cool wet towel to the lacerated line along his nose, wiping off the dried blood on his scraped cheek. His hand reaches for and behind her, catching her off guard. Adjusting, she inches closer, stroking his jaw and salving the awed uncertainty in his eyes. Then they're kissing again and nothing matters but the warmth of her breath against his neck, like a promise he won't have to fix himself alone.
"You should rest," she says after a long stretch. It takes more to break away and admit than anything she's said tonight.
"I'll be out here, with a broom so you can shower when you get up."
Her words trail off. Both know she'll really be scouring the place for more of his stash.
"And in the morning?" He asks before she turns away.
"I'll be here."
Cuddy does go sweep silently withholding tears––succumbing to the significance of the night's events. House lies restless, not falling asleep until he feels her curl up behind him and whisper goodnight.
forward
The sun rises with no conclusions. The street lights shut off and the alarm doesn't sound. House wakes to find the world hasn't ended. The apartment hasn't been reduced to ashes. He hasn't been abandoned an incurable.
He watches her sleep, wondering why now––how they intuit each other's tragedies, appear before the pitfall. Her wandering in before he spiraled into relapse, him knocking the night she wept in the nursery on the verge of resignation.
Out of overwhelming gratitude, he slowly raises Cuddy's pink scrub top up along the length of her body, pressing his lips against her breast and tugging at her nipple until the pale, velvety areola erupts with goosebumps and she moans.
Even as he pits all of his accumulating joy against the fear of failing to be fixable, the agony of the past and transformations yet to come, he waits. He hesitates, cringing at the moment she opens her eyes and rushes out, regretting everything. But it doesn't come. Instead he hears something too familiar escape her in a gasp. Then all he can think of is the last time she called him Greg, the first time they kissed and the vast ravine in between.
When the moment expires, and he knows what's to come next, he rises, not wanting to taint this morning by starting something delicate and deep that they won't have the time to complete.
He's smiling and slanting, debris suspended in his scabs as her eyes open and meet his.
"How do you feel?" She asks after a beat.
The answer is a smooth descent to her nape, lingering and returning to the question on her lips. They stay connected a while, sustaining the ignorant bliss of time passing by. Then:
"I have to check in on Rachel."
There's reluctance in her voice and he loves her for it. Cuddy steps out of bed, aching, stretching and for the first time feels like she's moving forward. She puts a hand on his uninjured shoulder, wanting to ask about his leg. Not wanting to remind him.
"Shower. Decompress." She tells him. "I'll see you at work later."
"Yeah," he says, sitting up. He's not grimaced, or rubbing his thigh.
She slides on her shoes, still standing close.
"House."
Keys clang with indecision.
"If you don't want to stay here…"
Cuddy almost adds 'because' but can't bring herself to finish the explanation for the invitation. He nods, just once, and doesn't blink because his eyes are welling and she's still in the room. She bends down to kiss him goodbye and he watches her leave.
This time there's no lipstick on his cheek, no wistful remarks or you always want to kiss me, just her, with him finally, how long she hasn't been and the possibility she always will be.