Title: He Remembers
Author: cardiogod
Rating: PG
Characters: House, implied House/Cuddy
Spoilers: Set during 6x01 "Broken"
Word count: 580
Summary: He knows what it's like to prefer the delusion to the reality.
Disclaimer: Not mine, please don't sue.
Author's notes: I haven't written House in a very long time, so forgive my general rustiness. All mistakes/inconsistencies are mine and mine alone.
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He knows what its like to prefer the delusion to the reality.
He knows what it feels like to fly, to soar on the thermal upwind of her breath on his lips in blissful, drugless clarity.
He remembers the cresting high of moving with her, in her, around her, and how then can he fault superhero Steve the same feeling?
He remembers the moment when he looked at her, when she looked at him, when they looked at each other and he knew that all of the games, all of the dancing, all of the back and forth was over, if only for a moment, for one solitary moment when wit and snark and sarcasm melted away and it was just them, stripped bare before each other, beautifully and painfully vulnerable.
He remembers the retching and the nausea and the pain of the evening and then the crystalline awareness that came with the morning light. He remembers seeing things, hearing things, smelling them without the bitter, dull haze of his Vicodin addiction.
He remembers her words, her promise, her shy non-confession. She wasn't there because of the hospital, she had audited his class, "I thought you were an interesting lunatic, even then."
He remembers the first brush of her lips after his own confession echoed through his hallway, soft and faint and barely there.
(But he could taste her lipstick and her coffee and Amber wasn't there, so of course she was there, of course it was real. She was real.)
He remembers the hotness, the fire, the passion consuming him, consuming them, taking them through a whirlwind tornado through the living room, the hallway, the bedroom, clothes flying off alongside their inhibitions.
He remembers the peace he felt with her body flush to his in the aftermath of their fervor, her head on his chest, her arm slung over him possessively (because she was Cuddy and Cuddy has always been possessive). He has forgotten what exactly her hair smelled like, but he remembers inhaling and smiling to himself, careful to keep it hidden from her, lest she think him sentimental.
He remembers her hushed voice murmuring words of love at some pre-dawn hour, when such words are safe and non-threatening.
It felt like flying.
He remembers everything.
He remembers nothing.
What he remembers is the flying; what he's forgotten is the falling.
Watching superhero Steve stand, perched to spread his imaginary wings and fly, the falling rushes back to him.
In the form of rising pavement or a falling pill bottle, of a concrete caress or her hand stroking his cheek, in broken limbs or a broken spirit, it is all the same.
He knows what it's like to prefer the delusion to the reality. He knows what it's like to fly, to soar on the thermal upwind of her breath on his lips in blissful, drug-free clarity.
But he knows what it's like to fall and, as superhero Steve takes his leap of faith into the unforgiving air, he feels the breath leave him like it did that day in her office when reality came crashing down.
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