TITLE: His Coy Mistress
4/6
AUTHOR:Maineac
PAIRING: House/Cuddy ( a little) H/W
strong friendship
WARNINGS: Spoiler for No Reason and for the
beginning of Season 3 (the trailers)
SUMMARY: Pain is a strange bedfellow, and it had been his bedfellow and mistress for nearly eight years.
A/N This was originally written as a one-off, but turned into a series of linked short stories set post No Reason.
Part IV Carpe Diem
She had worked late, eaten dinner in the cafeteria, and when she came back to lock up for the day, he was in her office, on the couch, his feet up on the coffee table, more from habit than need, she guessed.
This time it didn't surprise her. Not particularly liking nasty shocks, she'd gotten into the habit of checking the couch when she walked in.
"What is it now, House? I'm out of here. Long day."
He pulled a piece of paper out of his inner jacket pocket and pretended to study it. "Need a favor. Hope you're in a giving mood this time."
"What—"
"Can you dance?" He raised his eyebrows at her and slid the paper back into his jacket. "I mean really dance. Not that crap kids do today."
"What are you talking about?"
"I've got this To Do list. You know, lots of catching up, from the last six years."
"What is this, your own version of My Name Is Earl?"
"Sort of. So, can you dance or not?"
"Of course I can dance. But why don't you ask Cameron, or—"
"You know why I can't ask Cameron—"
"Wilson, then."
"Wilson can't samba for shit. And besides, he never wants to be the girl. Come on, Cuddy. You know you want to." He rose to his feet, and she was aware once again how tall he was. Surely he was never this tall when he used a cane.
She bent over to gather files off her desk, and House used his height advantage to peer down her cleavage. "Takes two to tango," he persisted, "and the twins say they're rarin' to go."
"Well, everybody lies."
He said nothing, just gave her that puppy dog look. She sighed, as if acknowledging a losing battle. "Oh, all right." She looked at her watch. "But just for an hour."
"Don't worry. You'll be home in time for E.R."
"You so owe me one," she said, gathering up her things and fighting the sensation that she had made a terrible mistake. "And I want to see that To Do list."
"Not a chance," he smirked. And then he actually held the door for her.
The dance club was dark and not crowded at this early hour, but House wouldn't let her onto the dance floor until they'd sat at the bar. Before she could open her mouth he ordered her a Mojito. "Just one," he pronounced as the bartender produced it.
"And why is that?" she asked, taking a sip.
"One is just enough to take away your inhibitions, so you won't be all nervous dancing with me. Two would make you clumsy, and we can't have that."
"And you?"
"Fred Astaire does not need alcohol in order to dance." But he ordered a beer anyway, and as he held out his hand, palm up, waiting for the change from the bartender, Cuddy noticed with a start how different his hand looked from the last time she'd had a good look at it. That had been two months ago, as House lay in the ICU recovering from gunshot wounds. Unlike her previous bedside visit that awful day, this one had been official and grim, precipitated by a visit from a very agitated Chase to her office.
The young doctor had paced around her room for a full minute before he was able to bring himself to talk, to tell her what had brought him. Knowing what he'd been through that day—his clothes were still spattered with House's blood—she had held her tongue and waited patiently for him to find his.
At last he spat it out. "He has track marks on his arms."
"What?" Cuddy said, rising from her chair.
"Track marks, fresh ones, on both arms. I was in the ER with him, trying to find a vein to get some blood started, because, you know, he was bleeding out in front of our damn eyes. And there were track marks. I didn't make a note in the chart, but I thought, I thought I had to tell you."
"You did the right thing," she said gently as she showed him to the door, but she could tell from the miserable expression on his face that she had done little to convince Chase that he was not in fact the worst kind of traitor.
Cuddy had returned to the ICU to see for herself what Chase had been talking about. House was lying there, stable but unconscious, and still deathly pale. She turned his right arm over. There they were, three track marks of differing degrees of newness. She bowed her head as a fresh wave of dismay and guilt washed over her. Had she been responsible for this, too? For driving his need for pain relief underground?
"House," she said sadly. "God, House. Why didn't you say?" And something made her reach for his hand. She wrapped her fingers around his and for the first time she noticed the thick, hard callous on his palm. Starting at the base of the palm, it ran up the center of the hand and down his index finger. From the cane of course.
She stared at his hand now, as it waited for the change to come from the bartender. It looked completely different. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped, unsure of what exactly she would say.
House followed her gaze, just as the bartender stuck the bills into his hand. He guessed what she was looking at. The "mark of cane," as he always thought of it. The brand of a jealous and possessive mistress. It was gone. He was a free man. He smiled.
"Come on, Cuddy. Chug-a-lug. Time to samba." She finished her drink and he led her to the dance floor while the DJ launched into Jumpin' Jack Flash.
As it turned out, House didn't know how to samba, or tango. "You need to be Brazilian to do that shit," he proclaimed. "Or gay." What he did know how was ballroom dancing, and Cuddy was silently thankful for the lessons she'd taken several years back when Swing had suddenly gotten hot again. He pulled her in beside him and started a jive dance to the music, and when he pushed her out into an inside underarm twirl she was ready (he was right, one Mojito was just right), and then reeled her back into his arms to a hip step. There was an economy and languid grace to his movements, as he stood, moving his hips to the music, letting his arms do much of the work. This did not surprise Cuddy--there had always been a strange grace in the way House moved; no, what amazed Cuddy was the look on his face. He had his eyes half closed. She knew he was dancing with her, but the look of pleasure on his face had, she was certain, nothing to do with who he was dancing with, and everything to do with the simple fact that he was dancing. He guided her deftly, and as the set wore on and he realized she knew the steps, they got increasingly daring. She was even prepared when he suddenly dipped down, grabbed her around the hips and rolled her around his back. But she wasn't prepared when the next dance turned into "Black Magic Woman" and, figuring they would sit out the slow stuff, she started back to the bar; House, however, grabbed her wrist, pulled her back to him, wrapped one hand around the small of her back, and moved her slowly and langorously to the center of the dance floor.
"Sorry," he said in her ear. "But in for a tango, in for a two-step. That's the deal."
Just as she was thinking nothing more astonishing was going to happen tonight, just as she was settling into this gentle new rhythm and this new sensation of House pressed up against her, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She looked up in surprise, and he leaned down just that much further and kissed her lightly on the lips. She had barely enough time to register the way the feel of his lips contrasted with the rasp of his stubble, to take in the smell and the taste of him—soap, beer, peanuts—before the music ended and he had was leading her back to the bar. They were both breathing hard, and he shucked off his jacket and slung it on the bar stool while he ordered them each a beer.
"House," said Cuddy at last, breaking the silence that had fallen over them. "Do me a favor." He raised his eyebrows at her again, not in his habitual, lascivious mocking way, but in that much rarer way that always threatened to melt her because it did something sad to his eyes. "Say something crude," she continued. "Or slap me. I'm feeling disoriented."
He laughed. "I gotta take a leak," he said. "Is that crude enough?"
She took advantage of his absence to do the very thing that he would have done to her, had the shoe been on the other foot. She reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the piece of paper he'd tucked into it. He hadn't been joking. It was, in fact, a To Do list. It was titled "Carpe Diem", and this is what was on it.
Sweat
Beat Aylesman's ass at golf
Stairs at PPTH
Walk on beach
Shovel snow
Sex
Rake leaves
Dance
Shake hands
Carry groceries
Lacrosse?
He caught her in the act of tucking the paper back inside the jacket, but she was unrepentant. "So," she said, raising her eyebrows at him, much as he had raised his at her a moment ago. "Were you going for a two-fer tonight?"
"That depends," he said, leaning in.
"On what?"
"On how good you are at lacrosse."
