Games of a Different Kind

Her pale hands shook as she poured the last of the bourbon into her open mouth, knowing that he would either find her there, barely conscious, that evening or heaving up the contents of her stomach the next morning. Either way, she didn't care. She just wanted him to find her. He would think of some stupid comment and berate her for being such an idiot of course, but more importantly he would help her. All she wanted out of getting herself into these stupid situations was for him to help her. Somewhere between finding out that she was positive for Huntington's Chorea and Kutner's death she had fallen in love with him; inexplicably and unequivocally.

He, of course, was oblivious, as was her boyfriend Eric Foreman. House was interested only in solving medical puzzles and Foreman was so wrapped up in his own life that he didn't notice the way she stared at House while he bounced balls off the wall or twirled his cane absent mindedly. Taub, the idiot, was probably suspicious but she knew he wouldn't say anything, reluctant to have anyone bring up his own shady past.

Thirteen slumped down in House's chair and was unable to catch herself from ending up in the floor under his desk. Before she knew what was happening she was swirling in a foggy state of being, alone and resigned to whatever happened. It would be morning before he found her, still unconscious, sweaty and half-naked.

House sent his team, sans Thirteen to check for new and interesting cases, both in the E.R. and at the front desk, not answering when Taub asked if Thirteen was coming into work. When he was alone again he went back into his office to check on her. She was still breathing so he knew she was alive and the smell of her tipped him off to her ailment. He nudged her gently with the toe of his shoe in attempt to wake her up. She groaned, but didn't open her eyes. He poked her again, this time with his cane, until she opened one reddened eye and stared up at him unhappily.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty, mind telling me why you're passed out in my office? I know you like to get under the desk, but even sex slaves get a break now and again."

"Go away," she said, sitting up cautiously.

"It's my office, my name's on the door and everything. I don't have to go away." She rubbed her face and refused to respond. "I thought you were over your drinking, drugs, and dikes party?"

She glared up at him. "This is not a 'drinking, drugs, and dikes party' as you so callously put it," she snarled, feeling the alcohol working on her stomach.

"You reek of booze, which would seem to prove me right."

"All you care about is being right," she muttered darkly, wondering how he would react to her vomiting all over his shoes.

"Don't even think about it," he warned, following her gaze to his spiffy new Nikes. "I will fire your ass for that."

"Oh, so you're not going to fire me?" She tried to stand, but couldn't pull herself up.

"Don't look at me, I have no leverage. And I'm only going to fire you if that's your plan." She rolled her eyes and tried to get up once more, this time succeeding with minimal wobbling. "So, what was your plan?"

"Well I thought it would be nice to have a few drinks. Your office worked quite nicely," she said semi-sarcastically.

"Why is the vanilla half of our vanilla-chocolate swirl drinking alone after work?" he questioned. "Does Foreman even know you're here."

"Unless you pointed it out to him, no."

"Trouble in paradise?" House quipped. "Did you need somewhere to get away or did you just want to be found here?"

"Neither," Thirteen lied. She knew what would happen if House found out about her feelings for him. Cameron had fallen in love with him and that hadn't turned out all that great. She made to brush past him, but he caught her arm and owing to her unstable state was able to hold her there.

"I always find out. You might as well tell me what's going on."

"I'm going to take a shower," she replied, deliberately ignoring him.

"Thoughts of you naked won't deter me from the truth," he announced, letting her go. She didn't look at him as she exited; hating herself for thinking that he would want anything more with her than the puzzle of figuring her out. Careful to avoid being seen by Cuddy, Taub, or Foreman she made her way to the locker room and pulled out the towel that she kept in her locker in case she needed to shower. A few moments later the hot water was rinsing off remnants of her previous night's drinks and waking her up to the inexperience of her plan. She would never find a way to make him notice her that wasn't completely blatant without help from the inside, she determined. She put her clothes back on and dried her hair and decided to pay a visit to the only person who really knew Greg House, James Wilson.

Wilson's door was open when she arrived back on her floor. She knocked lightly on the door before entering. "Hi, Dr. Wilson, can I talk to you?"

"Sure," the oncologist sated, looking up from his paperwork. "What's it about?" She closed the door and took the seat in front of his desk and he nodded. "House. What did he do this time?"
"Nothing, actually. It's not exactly what he did. It's about how I can get him to do something," she told him.

"What are you trying to get him to do?"

Thirteen took a deep breath. "I…I think I'm in love with him."

"Oh." Wilson ran a hand through his notoriously lush, dark hair. "Well, that's something I can't help you with. You know that there can't be a relationship between you two. You work under him. And Cameron tried to get him to acknowledge her a while ago, and that didn't turn out good for anyone."

"I know." She sighed.

"I don't mean to deter you from trying. I think he could use a girlfriend personally, but I just don't know what to tell you. Wait, does Foreman know about this?"

"No. He hasn't been very interested in anything but his own problems for the last few months. I thought he was going to completely ignore me at Kutner's funeral."

"Ah. I see." Wilson took a deep breath and rubbed his temples. "You're in love with House, dating Foreman, and grieving over Kutner. Where does Taub fit into all of this?"

"He doesn't. Except that I work with him." A smile tugged at the corners of Wilson's mouth and Thirteen raised one eyebrow.

"If you believe House's view of me, you're my perfect girl," he told her, answering her unasked question. She smiled in return. "All I can tell you is that it's not easy to hold his attention, you know that. Just work this out with Foreman if you want a happy, normal relationship. House doesn't know the meaning of the phrase."

"Thanks," she said, standing up. He had been no help at all. She resigned to the fact that she would simply have to find some way to let House know what she was feeling on her own. She left Wilson's office and walked into the differential that was being held for a fourteen year old girl presenting with rectal bleeding and a constant migraine. She went with Taub to get an MRI and fell into the habit of blocking her romantic feelings out as she worked. It was going to be a long day.

It was Friday and Thirteen still didn't have any ideas for putting her plans of seducing Greg House, mind and body, into action. The patient had been sent home the previous evening, on the way to recovery and House had disappeared to the morgue with a portable television and the better parts of the third floor nurse's lunch for a day of relaxation. Thirteen went to the clinic to catch up on hours and think.

An idea struck her not long into her clinic stint and she skipped off seeing any other patients to work it out better in her head. Within half an hour she had decided on a method of letting him know about what was going on in her mind. It would take a little creativity and she would have to get up early on Monday morning, but she had a good feeling about it. With a new spring in her step, metaphorically speaking, she went back to the banality of seeing patients with head colds and STDs.

Thirteen was at the hospital at 8 a.m. on Monday morning, searching patient files for something out of the ordinary. It was almost 9 before a case presented with an interesting twist. She took the file and went off to wait in House's office, a cup of coffee in one hand and a smile on her face. She sent pages to the rest of the team telling them that they were to report to the clinic for duty until House called them for something, settled herself into a chair behind his desk and waited for him to appear, unshaven and ready for a challenge as was per usual on Mondays.

House dragged in at 10:30 with a coffee of his own and a suspicious look at her. She got out of his chair without a word and waited for him to sit down, then turned the locks on the doors. "Are you going to tell me what's going on or do you expect me to guess?" he asked.

"We're going to play a little game, House," Thirteen told him, drawing the blinds so that they were left in dim light with no way anyone could see in through the main office door.

"Get on with it," he told her. "I'd like to save somebody's life this week."

"Oh, you will," she replied with a smirk. "I've got a case in my hands that I'll bet you're dying to hear about, and I'll give you the symptoms one at a time and you can try to guess what she has. If you can tell me something about her based on her symptoms I'll take off one article of clothing for each new discovery. Interested?"

He looked her over curiously for a moment, and then nodded. "Go ahead."

" Twenty-Nine year old female who works as an accountant presented with hair loss and low blood sugar. Passed out this morning at work."

"There are several causes," House pointed out. "Recent hair loss?"

"Fairly, about a month."

"Did she think that she was just spontaneously going bald?" he asked. "I think that prediction about recent hair loss constitutes a clothing article."

"Technically it was a question," she said, pulling her t-shirt over her head. He smiled, looking over her fit body.

"Keep talking."

"She's never had low blood sugar before, even though she's been tested way more often than most people. She kept records."

"Well she is an accountant," House said rolling his eyes. "She checks it a lot, means either one of her parents has diabetes or her hubby does."

"Her father." Thirteen untastened her pants and slipped them down her hips, letting them fall to the floor and stepping out of them. "She isn't married, she has a kid though. Six year old boy."

"What happened to Daddy?"

"Killed in a motorcycle accident last year." Thirteen said, not looking up from the file. It was slightly awkward for her to be standing in front of her boss in her underwear, without him knowing what her plans would be for later, but she continued. "She was also a contestant in the Mrs. Jersey Gold contest six months ago, lost 23 pounds to snag third place."

"Listens to her music too loud, loves puppies and sunshine, and only became an accountant to appease her parents," House ticked off attributes on his fingers. "She has Addison's. And you've got no clothing left."

She tossed the file onto his desk and slowly removed her bra and silk panties. He didn't complain, but studied her for a moment. When she looked up, she blushed. "What's the point of this little game?" he asked her. "I knew it was Addison's way too soon. And you knew that I'd figure it out that quick. You know I'm not an idiot. Either you really think that I'm an idiot, which makes you an idiot--which I doubt is the correct answer, or you wanted to take all of your clothes off in front of me, which doesn't make sense because you're in love with the Hershey kiss." She moved forward and he smiled. "Except that you aren't in love with the Hershey kiss. You've been staring at me nonstop lately."

"Would you just shut up and enjoy the ride?" she asked, moving forward and straddling him carefully. She could feel his cock twitching to life through his jeans.

"I hope you mean the ride in the literal sense," he told her. "Otherwise I'll have to find another solution to this puzzle."

She kissed him then and ceased his musings. He tasted bitter and sweet at the same time, from the Vicodin and flavored coffee, she surmised. It was better than she imagined. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her naked body up against his clothed one, then ran his hands down her back. Her hands wound in his slightly graying hair and tipped her head to receive his kiss more fully, tangling her tongue with his.

He let her pull his shirt up and over his head, then buried his face between her small, firm breasts. "I'll never complain about not having a large breasted employee again," he said, muffled against her chest. She snorted, knowing that the statement was a lie, but threw her head back anyway as his mouth clamped down on her left nipple. He licked and nipped one, then the other breast and had her panting for more, then trailed his hot mouth up her neck again to lick her ear.

Though she loved the feeling of his mouth all over her as she ran her hands over his chest, back and shoulders, she wanted to explore his body more fully and stopped him to drop to her knees in the floor. He watched her tugging at the button and zipper on his jeans and then pull them slowly down his legs, careful to avoid touching his scar. She moved to do the same with the boxers, but he stopped her before she could reveal his most intimate part. His erect penis had been freed and was now at her eye level. She bent forward and slowly licked up the underside of his throbbing cock, then took the whole of him into her mouth.

He sighed, almost inaudibly as the warm, wet flesh encircled him and he relaxed into her ministrations. She bobbed her head slowly at first, sucking gently and creating a little more friction, then faster until he was panting with need. She kissed the head of him once more, then got off of her knees and positioned herself directly over his ready penis. She eased down taking all of him in until they were completely connected, then rose again.

They created a steady rhythm and synced, him thrusting upward and her working her hips in a circle as she moved down onto his shaft. The pressure was building within them both and House changed his angle slightly, hitting her g-spot, once, then again and again until she could last no longer and gave into the ecstasy that wanted desperately to claim her; her contracting muscles pulling him into the depths with her.

They put their clothes back on and didn't speak, knowing that what had happened was most likely a onetime thing. With a sigh turned to leave, then turned back to him, determined to get everything out of the experience that she could, and kissed him. It was a hot, searing kiss that she knew he wouldn't be able to forget. Before she walked away, however she heard him say "Just don't let Foreman know about our little game."

"Never," she replied, stepping out into the hall and disappearing. That was the best idea she had had in a long time.