It's almost half past eleven when Cuddy finds her eyes creeping open, her head is still resting on an outstretched arm, rolling over she finds that sometime in the night she must have risen to get a blanket. She has a faint hope that she may have slept past the worst of her hangover but when she tries to stand she realizes that she is still drunk, a faint humming is running through her veins and it is altogether unpleasant
By the time that she has had a shower, taken the largest amount of painkillers that she deems as safe and had a strong cup of coffee her day seems to have already finished. She is feeling slightly ill and her house is not in the greatest shape, what is left of the day must be spent putting things back into their rightful place so this is what she does. How very symbolic, she muses.
Sitting in front of a bowl of pasta Cuddy begins to reminisce about the night before, she remembers it all. She is quietly concerned with letting herself smoke again having thought she had left that behind her with college and other past sins. The smell of cigarette is still lodged in her pores it's terribly familiar, makes her think of old parties and old times. Thinking of such things could be dangerous, she remembers what it was like to be free and have free time. It is on some level deeply distressing.
With dusk quickly settling down, the rooms are being lit with a strange surreal light, things appear softer with this gentle sepia wash shadowed on them. Cuddy likes dusk even though it's only a fleeting time, she likes the way it is sweet and smooth and then it's gone. It would be so helpful, she supposes, if everything could be like that- pleasing, beautiful and then gone until the same time tomorrow.
Cuddy draws herself a bath and fishes around her bathroom draws for a loofah, something to scrub away dead skin cells that are still lingering on her body but she comes away empty handed and deposits her body in the tub. Observing her body carefully she looks at the fading yellow bruises that she had collected in her previous bathroom adventures, they are almost gone completely which she is glad of.
Steam billows off the bath water leaving condensation on the mirror and windows, she is feeling dizzy from the heat it's making her light headed. Shifting her body into a more functional position Cuddy tilts her head under the cold faucet and gulps down a mouthful, excess water dribbles down her chest making her shiver at the contrast, she ducks her head back greedy for more. Some how, it always seems sweeter when her body really needs something and she gives in.
Wary of meeting the bathroom floor on a more personal level then she intends she slides a foot onto the bath mat, one foot deftly follows the other and she is drying her hair off. Her muscles are relaxed tipping her body into a sleepy haze. She follows on with her desires and climbs into her bed, throwing her towel unceremoniously to the floor. Hesitating she gets back up and places the towel in wash basket and then returns back to bed. Her mind forms the idea of putting on some pajamas but in her half-asleep state she can't really remember whether she gets up to put them on or just thinks about.
The weekend is over before Cuddy has finished with it, it had seemed to wash over in a wave of curious dreams and pages of various books she may or may not have been reading.
By the time she is striding down the halls of her hospital again she has barely had time to register the events of her weekend. She has trouble in categorizing them and is sorely tempted to slot them into a rather convenient pile of 'non-events'. She'll deal with it in a manner she decided is fit and proper, but not right now. Now she is at the hospital and needs to concentrate on her work.
House hears his impending doom approaching in the tattle-tale click of heels that will undoubtedly be accompanying Cuddy. His last hope is that she will simply walk past the spare exam room, maybe she isn't really hunting him down to make him go to the clinic, maybe…
His wishes are shattered by the swish of the door and the expression of mild malice that is gracing Cuddy's features. In a stance worthy of a dominatrix she lets the door swing closed behind her, her mouth opens and he knows if he lets her have the first word she won't stop yelling until he is where he is 'supposed to be'. His plan is to play on dormant emotions that he is sure she has for him, he wonders if the mind-fuck will be worth getting out of a few hours of work, but the in the seconds that he has, he blithely throws away the uneasy feeling.
She must have been expecting it.
She can tell from the glint in his eye that he is about to turn her into one of those foolish floozies that he wants her to be, it doesn't matter that she isn't one. However a noteworthy point is that his opinion can affect her self importance.
She must have known him better then he thought she did because before he could get a word in she started, not the yelling that had seemed so reliable but a distinct change in body language that silenced them both.
She slowly makes her way to the exam table and sits herself on it, crossing her ankles as they hang down.
"Are you suggesting that I examine you Doctor Cuddy?"
House slapped the innuendo thick onto his words, smirking in what he knew to be a lewd fashion.
Her response to this was standard enough as she gave him a look that would have crippled a lesser man, or perhaps just a man who had not already been crippled.
"No I am not. You still owe me clinic hours so just be quiet for a moment"
Absent mindedly House reaches for her wrist, Cuddy has drifted off into some dreamland; probably she is imagining new excruciating ways to torture him and\or make his life a living hell. His fingers find her pulse which is beating slightly faster then he would have imagined he puts it down to stress. She makes a gesture as to swipe his hand away, so he removes it and casually rests it on her knee.
He watches for a reaction, any reaction at all
Cuddy knows she shouldn't be letting this happen she should slap his hand off her yell and then storm out making sure she is heard berating him but sometimes she feels like doing things that they don't expect.
If she doesn't think too hard about it then he isn't really here at all. She can place herself in her own situation one where she is sitting by herself in a spare exam room just having a breather.
She examines the mental image telling herself that there something distinctly unpleasant about the busiest woman in the hospital naval gazing by herself when she should be administrating the teaching hospital.
It's at this thought that she notices House's hand has been on a slow journey further up her thigh and is now moving stealthily underneath the hem of her skirt. A sudden realization hits her as she jams a palm down onto his knuckles efficiently pinning his hand down and halting its progress.
Her previous unpleasant thought is now replaced by an image of the Dean of Medicine with the Head of Diagnostic Medicines' hand up her skirt. This thought is decidedly worse.
"You shouldn't be letting me do this to you"
House pronounces it and looks at her with a question in his gaze
"Come now"
She winces slightly at her chosen words but continues on anyway
"You're hardly doing anything worth stopping"
House's look is incredulous
"Sure, what's an inappropriate touch between old friends?"
"If you thought it was inappropriate why did you do it?"
Cuddy is standing again, painfully aware that even in her shoes she is smaller then him. He remains seated ignoring her unvoiced challenge; his mouth opens with a retort resting on his taste buds.
"Wait! Don't say a word. I don't want to know your motives, they always seem so questionable. I'm leaving now and you are going to do your clinic hours"
Teetering on her heels she recovers her footing seamlessly and walks to the door, she stops before opening it and with her back to him she adds
"If you are still here in three minutes I will add on another two hours to you clinic work."
There is a hint of steel to her words, something she generally manages to keep from entering her conversations with him. She feels like she needs to make the boundaries more evident, so she enforces them before she lets these things starts sliding by her. How else would she be able to remain efficient?
Cuddy has a secret joy for things that are efficient, she likes functionality but there is no doubt that she likes these things to be sleek, streamlined and stainless steel.
This is probably an indication of her personality type, she laughs internally, how many times as a youth had she been told she was a control freak? So many times that she began to question whether it was a compliment or a warning.
There had always been the whispering voices of her aunts discussing her fortune disregarding tones. They dissected her virtues and weighed them against her faults interchanging her good traits for her worst. There was an eternal debate over her masculinity; her small ears did not need to hear their prophesized future, being too young to know better she let herself dwell on their words. She didn't realize that her life was just a distraction from their own, a source of entertainment until the kettle boiled.
She is gone, leaving House behind her to collect his own scattered thoughts, and then he too must leave avoiding future conflict. Although it may be one of has a favorite pastime he chooses to forgo it for now.
It's her that seeks him out in the end; she turns up at his office and watches him play on his gameboy. Buttons click as his fingers deftly prod at controls. She stands outside the glass, just watching and gaining a fare share of dubious glances from passers by.
She feels like a voyeur, this isn't helped by the fact that she is not exactly sure what she is doing there.
He knows.
He knows she is watching him; he looks her straight in the eye just as she turns to leave. They both know he caught her and by the time that he is standing at her front door that night they both know their intentions; she has hers set out clearly.
Opening the door she ushers him in, hoping to find some kind of perception in his company. Knowing that there is only one reason she let him in the door, which is the same reason he came. It makes her feel reassured.
She finds his fingers on her arm remind her of the legs of a spider and she is marginally repulsed by it. She could turn back right now, but what would be the point of halting the workings that she herself had put into motion? Grasping one of his shoulders, she squeezes it tight enough to remind him that there are no niceties between them, what they are doing here is not an expression of friendship or anything else so paltry.
This is about sensation maybe it is also about loneliness but they choose to ignore that, they have no use for neglected emotions.
They don't move from the sofa to the bed, he could have insisted, it would have been easier on his body but some how they both know that she would prefer to have him here- in front of an audience of framed faces and memories.
The act itself is hard and sharp. They probably hurt each other more then they originally intended to but there has to be a way to keep the walls between them, it wouldn't do for them to forget who they are.
They move suddenly to find themselves in the tatters of clothing ripped from their bodies; there is a questing voice in her head about whose clothes they really are. Surely they cannot belong to Lisa Cuddy and Gregory House, wouldn't they have noticed the passion in this display? She can't really remember exactly what happened but whatever it was it was good.
He had watched her hips caressing him. She had been on top and he hadn't expected anything less of her.
He quickly scans her exposed skin for the beginning of bruises that he is sure there will be, she doesn't notice though because her eyes are doing the sane thing.
She gently brushes her fingers across a bite mark on her neck.
Contrary to what they had previously agreed on, they let themselves bask in the after glow. She is laying on top of him her breasts pushing firmly against his chest, without realizing it she has rested her face in the crook of his neck and his arms for a moment lay across her back in what may be loosely translated as an embrace.
Then she gets off him and goes to the shower locking the door behind her. She hopes that he has left by the time she gets out.