Thanks for the kind feedback!
Cuddy moaned as she remained perched over House's face, her hands clasped behind her head.
His tongue was swirling inside of her as his thumb attended to her clit. Feeling her tense up as she tried to keep her convulsions at bay, House began rubbing her clit faster. The friction against her nub sent her over the edge: she shook as she felt her walls clenching rhythmically. Yelling out in pleasure, she almost smothered him with the force of her orgasm before collapsing to the side.
Wiping her juices off of his face, House smiled. He kissed her knee tenderly.
"So! Are you going to give me a performance evaluation … boss?"
Cuddy, completely flushed and sporting the new love bite on her neck, smiled back. In a raspy voice, she said playfully, "Excellent work, Dr. House. But I may need to re-evaluate soon."
House nudged her leg with this nose. "Soon, as in right now?"
She let out a throaty laugh. She felt House's hands clamp down hard on her lower leg.
"Ow!" she said, trying to see what he was up to.
House began breathing rapidly. He let go of her leg and rolled over, clutching the bedspread as he did so. Cuddy sat up in alarm.
"House, are you alright?"
His rapid breathing continued.
"House?" Cuddy crawled closer to him and began rubbing his shoulder.
"I … feel nauseous. And the pain …"
She stroked his head gently and scanned the room for a bathroom or a sink but didn't find anything useful.
He had curled up into fetal position. Cuddy wrapped her arms around him and kissed his shoulder.
"If we were dead, you wouldn't feel any pain," she whispered. "So we're definitely alive in the real world. Do you think you're undergoing detox right now?"
House slowly nodded his head yes. "Sure as hell feels like it."
"You know he's not going to stay clean when he wakes up," Taub said to Foreman and Thirteen.
"Who knows? Given how weird he has been lately, maybe he'll honestly try this time," Foreman offered, looking once again at an unconscious House.
Thirteen looked surprised. "Do you really believe that?"
"He's a stubborn bastard, but …" Foreman trailed off, suddenly overwhelmed within his stoic frame.
Wilson sighed. "He's different now."
"Does this have something to do with you hovering over our team last week?" Taub asked suspiciously.
Wilson nodded.
"What's been going on?" Taub asked. The ducklings all looked at Wilson intently.
"House was having hallucinations, of Amber, and now Cuddy. He was on his way to Mayfield when this accident happened."
They looked at each other in shock. A few moments of silence passed. "Wow," Taub said softly with his eyebrows raised.
"I want to tell Cameron and Chase, but they're off on their honeymoon now," Foreman said. "I don't want to ruin their trip with this news."
Taub shook his head. "No, don't call them. Trust me, a newly wed wife wants her honeymoon."
He paused before he began again hesitantly. "So … even if House does pull through, he may not even be able to practice medicine."
"Let's just take everything one step at a time," Wilson offered.
"How is he really going to continue to detox when he wakes up in pain from the accident itself?" Thirteen asked. "We give all our trauma patients IV morphine."
"Maybe we'll try the ketamine again," Wilson replied.
"No, ketamine is associated with hallucinations. It's too risky given his current condition," Foreman countered.
Taub walked over to Cuddy's bed and checked her monitor. He then looked at her, noticing a new reddish-purple lesion on her neck. "Hey, was this here before?"
Thirteen looked at Cuddy's neck. "I'm not sure. I didn't think so."
"Let me see your neck," House said, still curled up on his side.
"I'm holding you right now," Cuddy mumbled into his ear.
"I want to see it." House's breathing became more labored.
"Why?"
House responded between audible breaths: "Are you going to deny … a man in enormous pain … the pleasure of seeing his own handiwork?"
"Detox obviously hasn't dampened your sense of humor," Cuddy responded softly.
"It'll take my mind off the pain for a little while."
Cuddy instantly felt guilty and acquiesced, showing him the love bite.
"Yep, that's … a beauty."
Cuddy rolled her eyes but placed a comforting hand on his arm anyway. "Are you going to vomit? Do you even have anything in your stomach to vomit?"
House shook his head no. His breathing became more regular as his nausea temporarily subsided.
"The funny thing about rooms like these is that we conveniently are never hungry, never need to pee … so I highly doubt I'll have anything coming up," House said slowly.
"Have you been in a room like this before?" she asked skeptically.
"I've been on a white bus before, … with Amber."
"Is that where you've been seeing her?"
"No. I was on that bus when I was in the ICU, after I told Wilson …" House trailed off.
"That Amber had taken Amantadine," Cuddy finished quietly. She snaked her arms around him again.
A minute of silence passed.
"I bet we're in that same ICU now. Wilson is probably pulling his hair out," he muttered.
Cuddy smiled against the back of his neck. "I'm sure he's there."
House groaned as a new wave of nausea hit him, causing him to dry heave. Cuddy sat up and began rubbing his back. She noticed goosebumps on his arms and threw his robe over him. She put her robe back on as well.
"Noooo, what are you doing?" House asked brusquely. "Don't cover up!"
Cuddy gave him a quick kiss on his jawline and wrapped her arm around him again, pressing her robed body against his. "You'll see everything again soon. Think of it as a prize for getting through the worst of the detox."
House tried to turn to look at Cuddy but succumbed to the nausea. "You're mean."
"Maybe I am."
"You've always had a mean streak."
Cuddy laughed quietly. "If I were truly mean, I would have turned you in for cheating off of me in Michigan."
House inhaled sharply and rubbed his right thigh. "During that endocrine seminar? .... You weren't really in that class."
"Okay … what are you talking about? We sat near each other."
"You couldn't have been enrolled in that class as an undergrad. The med school wouldn't have allowed it." A sharp pain ripped through his right leg, causing him to grunt.
Cuddy squeezed him more tightly. "Well, you got me there. I was only auditing it."
A surge of excitement coursed through his body as he was beginning to realize that his recent hallucination of Cuddy was still based on some inklings of truth. "Why did you audit it?"
She sighed. "Because I really like endocrinology."
"If you really liked endocrinology you would have been shadowing an endocrinologist, which would have been far more interesting and beneficial to your med school application than a boring seminar."
"It wasn't boring."
"You didn't have any good reason to take it, unless something else or someone else drew you there."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Admit it: you had the hots for me then, and you still have the hots for me now."
Cuddy lifted her head from her pillow. "You think I audited a graduate level course just to be near you?"
"Why else would you subject yourself to the droning of Fitzsimmons?"
"Wilson was right. People could build monuments to your narcissism." Cuddy rested her head again and gave House a playful squeeze.
"Wilson is an idiot."
"Wilson is your best friend."
"They're not mutually exclusive." House paused as he reflected on Wilson's loyalty to him, despite everything he has put him through. He quickly blocked those thoughts as he continued, "He's also an idiot for somehow managing to make me feel so much pain and nausea right now."
"You're doing great." Cuddy kissed the back of his neck.
"One of the benefits of being unconscious in the real world is being pain free. But this level of pain that I feel here, in this room, can only mean that he's put me in rapid detox."
"Maybe that's a good thing. The faster you clear your system, the sooner you'll stop hallucinating." Cuddy moved her arm up and began massaging his shoulder. Temporarily distracted from his pain, he tried probing her again.
"So tell me. Why did really you audit that class?"
"I really audited that class because … I really was interested in endocrinology."
House closed his eyes and remained silent in his disappointment.
"After I decided to audit the class, I heard you were also taking it, and I definitely wanted to meet you. You seemed … intriguing to me," Cuddy added. House opened his eyes again. "You were a legend on campus. An absurd, genius lunatic."
"A lunatic who got all the ladies," House added with the faintest smile on his lips.
Cuddy rolled her eyes and stopped massaging his shoulder. She threw her arm over him again and buried her face in his upper back.
"I got you not too long after that class was over," House said, his smile growing a bit wider.
"Yeah, for one night."
"That night got me hired."
"We've already had this conversation. No one else would hire you, so I picked you up on the cheap."
"You also told me in that conversation that this ship had sailed a long time ago. Clearly it hasn't."
"So it came back. What's your point?"
"You lied about not wanting me, so that increases the chance that you lied about why you hired me."
"If I hired you because of one night of great sex, I would have hopped into bed not too long after you started. But I didn't. Ergo …"
"You thought it was great?"
Cuddy rolled her eyes.
"I can feel you rolling your eyes, you know."
"Are you always this annoying when you detox?"
"I'm always this annoying in general. You'll soon find out when we move in together."
"That's presumptuous of you."
Another strong wave of nausea hit House. His breathing became irregular again. Cuddy began rubbing his arm.
"Cuddy, don't let go of me. Please."
"I won't." She kissed his neck and wrapped her arm tightly around him again.