Hello everyone! Long time no see...
I'm back with a silly little drabble. Can't remember what prompted the idea but I hope that you will go with the flow, too! It's set in season 7.
Thank you for your feedback. Thank you for reading. I'll see you soon!
49. Be careful.
They were cuddled up on the couch that night, him reading a magazine and her a novel, when Cuddy's eyes drifted from her book and landed on the hand resting on her knee.
"What the…"
House looked up as Cuddy picked up his hand and examined his fingertips.
"What?"
"Have you been digging up a dead body?" she winced. "Again?"
"Cuddy, come on. You know I never do the dirty work myself." She shot him a desperate look. He sighed. "What?"
"Your fingernails are disgusting."
He glanced at his hand. She was right – he could discern a thin, black line of dirt at the bottom of the white tip of his nails.
"They're manly."
She rolled her eyes. "You're a doctor. You should know about basic hygiene."
"I believe that's why we're supposed to rub our fingernails against our palms when we scrub in," he quipped. "An administrator wouldn't know that."
"You haven't barged in on anyone's surgery for only two days, how can they be so dirty?" He shrugged. "Hang on," she instructed as she disentangled their legs and disappeared into the hallway. When she sat back beside him, she brandished proudly a thin, pale wooden stick with a pointy end.
"What's that?"
"It's an orange stick," she explained patiently. "It picks up the dirt from underneath your nails."
He blanched slightly. "No."
"It's blunt, House, I've been using it for years. You won't feel a thing!"
"You are not putting that pointy thing underneath my fingernails."
Cuddy sighed. "Fine. But think of it this way – there's no way your dirty nails are getting anywhere near my lady parts tonight."
He hesitated for a split second – mostly because he didn't want her to think he caved that easily, she knew – and gave her his hand.
"Just… be careful."
"I will."
Cuddy gently slipped the end of the orange stick between the tip of his nail and his skin. It wasn't easy to move it from one side to the other; she could tell he'd never bothered to clean his fingernails before.
House looked at his hands, and he was willing to admit that the sight of his clean fingernails felt surprisingly satisfying. Besides, she was right – he didn't feel a thing. He might even say that the slight tickle caused by the end of the stick wasn't that bad.
He groaned. "Wilson cannot know that this ever happened."
"I won't tell him if you give me your right hand."
He obeyed without a second thought.
Cuddy observed his hands more attentively, caught up in the intimacy of the moment. He had long fingers and short, regular fingernails. Thick veins protruded underneath thin, golden hair across the back of his hands, and she could feel the calluses on his right hand, rough against her own palm. She briefly imagined what they would look like with a gold wedding band, and then shook off that thought.
"You should take better care of your hands," she said thoughtfully.
"I'm only willing to clip my fingernails so that you don't feel like you're being fingered by Edward Scissorhands."
She winced vaguely, then reached behind him to grab her tube of hand cream from the side table. House made a show of protesting, but he didn't withdraw his hands from hers when she applied the cream and slowly massaged it into his hands, focusing more on his right hand, which she knew he was more demanding with. She massaged the areas where the handle of his cane dug into his palm with every step he took. She rubbed each of his fingers, trying to get the joints to loosen.
"There," she concluded with a satisfied grin.
He smelled his hands. Orange blossom. Nice.
"Wilson can never know about this."