Title: What I Really Meant to Say
Category: House, M.D.
Pairing: Huddy (House/Cuddy)
Genre: Romance
Set: End of 5x16
Rating: R, for UST and sexual content
Author Notes: This is not a songfic. The only lyrics are the ones that appear at the beginning and the end. Lyrics are © Cyndi Thompson, "What I Really Meant To Say". And I know the beginning of the fic is practically identical to the end of the episode…that's because I needed to write out what I thought they were feeling during that scene in order for later events in the fic to make sense.
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What I really meant to say
Is I'm dyin' here inside
And I miss you more each day
There's not a night I haven't cried
"Why do you care if I'm happy?" House asked, staring at Cuddy. He had that look. The one that searched for hidden motives for everything. In everyone. She'd been subjected to it a thousand times, and it had never once fazed her. But now, she looked down and away guiltily, as if she was trying desperately to hide something from him. Finally, she spoke, but the words that came out were different from the ones her mind had conjured up.
"You're afraid of change. All you have is your intellect, and you think that if that's compromised, then you have nothing." She managed to match his gaze. She tried to stop the words from coming, but they were out. "You don't need your pain to be a good doctor."
"I'm not looking for good," he answered. His blue eyes searched her brown ones, his mind continuously calculating reasons for her sudden change of behavior. Surprisingly, he came up with nothing. Nothing that made any sense, at any rate.
"Just take it," she pleaded, holding the small plastic cup with the methadone out to him. Her eyes were soft. Softer than House had seen them in a long time. It was nothing for him to mutter out a rejection. "Don't do this…" Cuddy's voice had cracked just a bit. It startled House slightly, though he didn't show it. She sounded as if his rejection of the medication was a rejection of her. But it couldn't be.
Unless, House's mind argued back with him. Unless there's something there to reject. He shook his head slightly to clear away that thought. "It's already done," he whispered, taking the methadone and tossing it into the trash bin behind Cuddy. Reaching past her, he took hold of the metal cane. Holding it up, he continued, issuing the ultimatum he hadn't thought the statement would be. "This is the only me you get." Giving her one last look, House turned and limped to the door, leaning heavily on the cane. Without a backward glance, he flipped the lights off and left the office.
Cuddy stood there in the darkened room for a full minute after House had left. Biting her lip, she turned to leave. One thought consumed her as she opened the glass door and walked out, making her way down the hall to the elevators. Had she really wanted him to change? Did she really believe he'd have been better off continuing the methadone treatment? Was it really that good for her to see House happy? Even if it was a drug induced happiness? Pressing the button to go down, she thought sadly that the answer to all of the above had to be 'No.'
His cynical sarcasm was what had initially drawn her to him. She reasoned with herself that she couldn't have these kinds of feelings for him if he was anything but the jerk she'd fallen in love with in college. They'd grown apart and that feeling had faded. Cuddy had thought that it was gone completely. The methadone had done amazing things for House, but the risks were too great. Even for him, apparently, since he'd chosen to stop. Which was unlike him, now that she thought about it. The Gregory House that she knew never willingly stopped anything. The failed attempts to get him off the Vicodin were proof enough of that. As for the good mood he'd been in for the past couple days, it wasn't true happiness. The part of her that still cared for House couldn't let him live in false happiness for the next twenty or thirty years. The elevator doors opened, and Cuddy moved to walk into them, stopping just before entering the car.
"House? You're still here?" she asked incredulously, stepping into the car before the doors closed. When they closed behind her, she leaned back against them. "I thought you'd gone home." He just shook his head.
"You wanted to say something else back in my office." It was a statement, not a question. He raised his clear blue eyes to hers, and Cuddy felt as if her very soul was being pierced. She didn't like it when he got that look. "What was it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she bluffed, pushing herself away from the elevator doors and turned around. She bit her lip again, confident he couldn't see the movement as her back was to him. Had he really stayed behind to ask her that? She started, standing still and straight when she felt him come up behind her. Cuddy watched his hand reach out and press the button for the main level.
"You have three floors to change your mind," he whispered into her ear; the ghost of his breath across the skin made her shiver. She tried desperately to hide it, though. "What was it you were going to say?" he questioned again, carefully pulling her hair back away from her neck. His fingertips barely brushed the pale flesh of her throat. "Two floors."
"Get your hands off of me," she muttered, though there was no irritation or annoyance in her voice. She would deny it vehemently if asked, but his presence behind her was welcome, the softness of his breath and touch against her skin almost reassuring. "I mean it, House," she added when he made no move to follow her order.
"No you don't, Cuddy," he muttered back, passing a phantom touch over her shoulder. He would get her to crack. He would never tell her, but he'd overheard her and Wilson earlier. Something about something she needed to tell him. He'd shrugged it off at first, almost forgetting about it. Until she'd come to his office with the medication. Until she'd spoken to him in that voice he hadn't heard her use since his internship. "One floor."
Cuddy growled in frustration, jolting herself away from him, turning to face him only to realize exactly how close he'd been standing behind her. "Will you stop that?" she asked. "I'm not changing my mind about anything." They stared at each other in complete silence until the elevator stopped and the doors opened onto the main lobby. "I'm going home. I do have a baby to take care of," she reminded him as she turned back and left the elevator. House hobbled out after her, catching up to her and grabbing her arm just outside the hospital.
"You're hiding something." His eyes narrowed as he gazed down at her. "You trusted me with your hormone treatments. You trusted me to give you the shots and keep your secret. How is it that you can trust me with something like that, but you can't tell me what you stopped yourself from saying?" Cuddy had never turned her head up to meet his eyes, merely stood there, allowing him to question her. A few moments of awkwardness passed before Cuddy spoke again.
"Let me go, House. I want to go home. Rachel needs me." She could almost see House rolling his eyes. She refused to look at him, though, refused to let him see the confusion in her eyes. Even she didn't know what she was feeling; how was she supposed to answer House?
"Don't you have a babysitter or something that can take care of your kid?" he asked, dropping his hand from her arm.
"Yes," she ground out. "But my sitter is expecting me to come home so she can go home." Even as she spoke, Cuddy made no move to walk to her car, expecting House to say something sardonic. But no remarks came. Slowly, she took a few tentative steps toward her car, waiting for him to pull her back. He didn't, and she kept walking. Reaching her vehicle without any obstruction from House, Cuddy unlocked the door and looked back at him before getting into the car. He didn't seem too inclined to leave the spot on the sidewalk where she'd left him. Cuddy shook her head and ducked into the car. Shutting the door and turning on the ignition, she looked back at him again in the rearview mirror. He hadn't moved. Sighing, she shifted into reverse and pulled out of her parking stall. Shifting again to 'drive', she left the parking lot of Princeton-Plainsboro, left House standing on the sidewalk, leaning on his cane, staring after her.
He waited a few more moments before going to his motorcycle. Setting the cane in place, he started the bike and left the hospital behind. He didn't have to watch the road; he knew the route by heart. But his intimate knowledge of New Jersey traffic forced him to keep at least one eye on the road at all times as he sped along toward his destination. As he drove, his thoughts never left the elevator. He hadn't gotten her to crack. House had always gotten Cuddy to break under the pressure. His incessant visits to her office for risky-test-approval that almost always ended in him getting what he wanted proved that. So why now? Why had she chosen to say 'no' now?
House parked his bike outside of Cuddy's house just as her sitter was pulling away. Good. No witnesses. He smirked as he maneuvered himself off of the cycle. It was always better when there were no witnesses. Limping his way up her front walk, he tapped lightly on the door with the cane. His smirk turned to a small, barely noticeable smile of satisfaction as he heard the lock click and the hinges creak as the door opened. "We're not finished."
Cuddy stared at House disbelievingly. "You followed me home?" she asked, her voice ringing with mild rage. "And what do you mean we're not finished? I thought we were pretty well finished when you let me leave." Almost without knowing why, she stood aside as House walked in, shutting the door behind him. He looked around, and she knew what he was looking for. "Rachel's asleep," she informed him, leaning back against the door and crossing her arms. "So if you really want to keep talking, we have to keep it down." He turned to face her and remembered vividly the last time he had been here.
"Who said anything about talking?" he asked quietly, moving towards her. He was secretly enthralled with the way her eyebrows furrowed together and how she just let her arms fall to her sides as she processed his suggestion. Suddenly, her eyes widened in fear and she shook her head.
"House. No," she warned. But he kept walking. Stalking towards her, the effect heightened rather than ruined by the way he leaned against the cane as he came to a stop in front of her. His eyes burned into hers, and she tried to turn away, but it was impossible. Every time she tried to turn her head or shut her eyes, some magnetic force held her still. Control was returned to her as House leaned forward, his eyes sliding closed as he breathed in her scent, his breath feathering across her cheeks. Unfortunately for Cuddy, the only thing her body allowed her to do was to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him closer, press her lips against his. Her psyche betrayed her by reveling in the feeling of the unusually, unnaturally smooth skin of his jaw. Her memory turned against her, forcing her to decide she liked kissing him better when he didn't shave. With that thought, the kiss was broken, and neither one was sure who had pulled away first. Surprisingly, the first word out of Cuddy's mouth as House looked down at her was, "Why?"
House shrugged in his usual fashion, his eyes turning thoughtful. "I…" The words he needed to say hurt him more than his leg ever had. "I missed you, Lisa." He had missed everything about her, everything that had changed since she'd brought Rachel into her life. He needed the old Cuddy back, the one that had stolen his heart and locked it in her desk drawer. The one that had disappeared when she'd adopted the baby. He wanted the older Cuddy. The one who would ask him questions about this or that, and curl up on his couch on weekends with a textbook and a cup of coffee. That Lisa Cuddy had vanished the day she hadn't needed him to tutor her anymore. At this point, he couldn't see how the new Cuddy could fit into his life the way she had done in the past. He didn't think that she would let him anywhere near her now that she had something in her life more important than him. "And I won't let anyone else take my place." His eyes narrowed, only a slight shadow of sadness passing through them before leaving the icy blue irises clear once more.
"No one is taking your place, House…" Cuddy started, but was cut off by his finger against her lips. She knit her brows in confusion, staring up at him. As he lowered his hand, she opened her mouth to speak again, but was denied the chance once more as House swooped down on her, thrusting his tongue into her open mouth. Unable to do much else, Cuddy went along with it, massaging his tongue with her own, an involuntary moan escaping her lungs as she did so. Delighting in the sound, House pressed himself closer to Cuddy, sandwiching her between himself and the door. Cuddy gasped into House's mouth as she felt the evidence of just how much he had missed her pressing against her abdomen. Twisting her head away, she broke the kiss, panting.
Wordlessly, House reached out a hand, cupping her cheek, turning her face again to his. Admiring her swollen lips, knowing that his kisses had been the cause, he pulled her gently away from the door and into his arms. Holding her close, his nose buried in her dark tresses, he finally found enough sense to whisper, "I think we should take this out of the hall." He felt her nod her head against him, let her pull herself from his embrace. He followed her down the hall to where he knew her bedroom was.
He shut the door behind him, loving the sudden enclosure. Cuddy turned to look at him, staring past him at the closed door.
"House…" she started, cut off by a hard glare.
"No." House stepped over to her, dropping his cane by the foot of the bed. "No, Lisa. When we're in here, when we're like this, it's Greg," he corrected her, setting his hands on her hips, sliding them up gently, removing Cuddy's shirt. As he pulled it over her head, tossing it aside, he saw it again. That soft look she'd given him as she'd held out the one thing that eliminated his pain. He'd rejected the methadone because in that moment, he realized that if he could have her, his pain wouldn't be an issue. And so he'd resolved to have her. He leaned down again, sliding his lips against hers in a soft, sensual kiss. It wasn't demanding, nor was it open for her to control. It was his promise to her. He pulled back slowly, shrugging off his blazer and button down shirt.
"Hm…Greg…" Cuddy whispered, sliding her hands up under his t-shirt, feeling the muscles of his chest underneath. "Greg," she repeated, testing his name on her lips, her tongue. It sounded so foreign to her; it had been years since she'd called him that in such an intimate situation. She slid the shirt up higher, removing it from his body with slight difficulty due to the height difference between them. He was already working on the zipper to her skirt when she pulled him down to lay kisses down his throat and over his shoulder. His hands returned to her hips, guiding her towards the bed as her skirt slid down over her thighs, pooling on the floor. Her hands working at the fastenings of the dress pants, she followed his guidance without hesitation.
Free of the unfamiliar formal work attire, House took the final few steps, pushing her back on her bed, his lips fastening onto the spot where her neck met her shoulder, sucking hard, nipping gently, soothing the mark with his tongue before repeating the process. Somehow, Cuddy managed to pull him with her up to the head of the mattress. Her head fell back against the mound of pillows as House left a trail of nips and licks down her chest from the red mark on her collarbone. She met his eyes without fear when he looked up at her. Knowing he didn't need her permission since they'd already made it this far, she nodded once, smiling softly. Leaning up to claim her lips once more, House reached behind and under her, easily unclipping her bra. He didn't need to break the kiss to slide the lacy garment away, nor did he need to pull back to begin slipping the matching panties down her long legs. He only ceased the exploration his tongue had begun of her mouth when he felt her hands pulling down his boxers. Shifting, he made it easier for her, gasping as his erection was freed from the confining cloth. Slowly, gently, so completely unlike himself, House let his fingers run over Cuddy's skin, drifting over her curves, slipping into the soft patch of hair at the apex of her thighs.
"I won't do it unless you want me too," House murmured into her hair as his fingertips moved closer to the sensitive nub of her womanhood.
"Please, Greg," Cuddy moaned, clutching at him. "Please…just do it." Smiling, he drew his fingers down, ghosting over her clitoris, delighting in the pleasured squeal that erupted from Cuddy. He took the same great care manipulating her clit, making her hot and wet for him, as he had taken undressing her. When her moans began to run together, House stopped. He knew she was going to say something, so he decided to stop her protests before she had a chance to start. Slowly, torturously, he let his fingers dance over her clit for a second before inserting one finger into her opening.
Some sort of unidentifiable emotion fluttered through him as he felt her tight heat surround his finger. She was tight. Which meant…
"You haven't done this for a while, have you?" He worked the finger around, making room for a second. She still hadn't answered him as he slid the second finger into her channel to join the first. Carefully he watched her expression as he scissored the two digits, loosening the muscle for penetration. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and House lamented that he couldn't see her pleasure in her eyes. But the light sheen of sweat that was already beginning to cover her body, her neglected nipples crying out for attention, the softness of Cuddy's pussy, the warm juices sliding over his hand told him more about her state of arousal than her eyes ever could. "Think you're ready?" he whispered ghosting his breath across her neck, kissing a trail down her throat and over her breasts.
"Yes…" she gasped out, biting back a squeak as she felt him take one of her nipples into his mouth, rolling his tongue over and around, making the nub hard and sensitive. "God, yes!" she moaned as House moved to the other breast, teasing it as he had its twin. Removing his hand from her vagina, he reached up and brushed the hair away from her face, silently urging her to look at him. Slowly, she opened her eyes startled at the raw emotion displayed in the usually distant blue circles. He bent his head and kissed her again, slowly, savoring the feel of her bruised and swollen lips against his own, the taste of her as he slid his tongue past her lips, the passion she returned to him tenfold. Angling himself, he used the kiss as a distraction while he brought down a couple pillows, arranging them underneath Cuddy's hips. The kiss became more forceful, demanding, as House guided his aching cock into her. He groaned into her mouth as the tight, wet heat engulfed his hard shaft. Slowly, as with everything else he had done since they'd begun this tryst, he moved his full length into her channel, stopping only when every inch of his penis was surrounded by warmth.
He broke away, staring deep into her eyes. "Something you want to tell me?" he asked, kissing her cheek. "Maybe something you couldn't tell me in my office?"
"Only thing that comes to mind is 'Move'," Cuddy replied, relaxing as she got used to the sensation of House's cock filling her. Without another word, House did as requested. Bracing himself, one hand on the mattress next to her breast, the other buried in the pillows surrounding her head, he pulled out, thrusting back seconds later. The way Cuddy's eyes widened drove him on, her moans forcing him to increase his pace. "Harder," she gasped out, lifting her hips off the pillows a little to give House a better angle. Doing again as requested, he thrust harder the new angle his boss provided obviously doing something good as she moaned out his name. From the way her eyes lit up, House assumed he'd found her G-spot. Smirking wickedly, he pulled back, driving himself into her waiting body harder and faster, keeping Cuddy's hips at the angle she'd given him.
His eyes closed, tight, against the sudden buildup of ecstasy he could feel shuddering through Cuddy. He could feel her coming orgasm in her moans, the shiver of her body underneath him, the way she said his name as he pushed deeper into her. Harder and faster, feeling the rushing sensations that he usually got from the drugs fill his head, House thrust into Cuddy, waiting, watching, for her climax. Even as she'd begun to say his name, he could already feel his own orgasm approaching, and he pumped himself twice more into her before her name passed his lips in a groan. Her back arched, her breasts pressing hard against his chest as her climax ripped through her, as House's seed filled her. To House, it was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen, and he fell to the side intentionally, ignoring the soft fleshy sound his penis made as it slipped from Cuddy's opening.
He lay there, watching her come down from the high. Opened his arms to her as she rolled over, burying her face into his chest. As the two drifted to sleep, it occurred to House that perhaps what she'd wanted to say in his office back at the hospital was better left unsaid.
And here's the honest truth
I'm still in love with you
That's what I really meant to say
Well...there was my first attempt at smut. And my first real episode tag, unless you count my Hacy fic as a tag to "Three Stories"...which it might be. All I know is I need reviews. And sleep. But mostly reviews.