Ok... so this chapter has been waaaay too long in coming... but I did take my detour back over to "Baby Daddy" to FINALLY update it after almost 4 years (go have a read if the spirit so moves you *shameless self-plug*), so bear with me. That being said, I just finished this installment today... I don't know if I feel like it's 100% ready to post... but it's been 100 years, so I'm putting it up anyway... I reserve the right to come back and edit... yada yada, whatever, it's late... you get the idea :-P
Shout-outs and big Huddy hearts for my lovely chapter 9 reviewers: IHeartHouseCuddy, OldSFan, linda12344, Abby, HuddyGirl, Alex, and my two Guests!
Chapter 10- Smash
"So it's after 10:00 now," Wilson yelled to House a short while later over the thumping bass of Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" while the two of them knocked back yet another pair of craft beers.
"And I have a giant hole in my leg. And Cuddy has the most epically fabulous ass in this entire bar. State the Obvious is fun, huh? Your turn!" House replied with a degree of joviality in his sarcasm that sounded very out of place coming from him. Although it required nearly a distillery's worth alcohol, the doctor of many vices had actually consumed enough in the last few hours to be approaching a low level of intoxication.
"What I meant was," Wilson said with his own brand of tipsy exaggeration, "Do you think it's late enough for me to get up there and do some 'Piano Man' now?"
"It probably would be by the time they actually call you up there. Cuddy put her name in almost an hour ago, and she still hasn't gone," he answered, trying to look casually in the brunette's direction. She was standing near Cameron and Taub, moving casually to the music, and the three of them were laughingly watching Thirteen and Kutner do their own humorous lip synch and dance to the still-popular ten year old Hip-Hop song that would be forever immortalized due to the fact that it was a posthumous release.
Wilson noticed House's preoccupation with their boss and the swaying motion of her hips, and had to inquire, "So are you ever going to tell me what it is I'm already supposed to know about this whole music thing with you and Cuddy?"
"You know that she and I were… friendly at Michigan," House answered as nonchalantly as possible, trying hard to maintain what wits he still had left about him so as not to give away too much information. "You knew I was in a band."
"Yeeesss… I knew both of those two separate and supposedly unrelated facts before tonight. Am I now to assume that they aren't quite so unrelated?"
"Could be."
"Ok… so… do you want to elaborate on that at all?"
House exhaled a deep sigh, closing his eyes and kneading his forehead with the hand that wasn't holding a brown-tinged bottle. "We were in the same band… for a while. I played, sang a little… she sang a lot, played some bass…" he trailed off, taking a lingering swig of his beer to buy himself some time. Wilson's best friend probably never would have revealed even that much if he were sober, and he hesitated to leak any more information for fear of other, far more deeply held secrets intertwined in his distant past coming to light.
Wilson quirked an eyebrow. "Your whole demeanor is suspiciously… pensive right now. Are you trying to tell me you two were actually a thing back then?"
"Define thing."
"Did you collaborate on anything besides music?"
"Maybe."
"Were you wearing clothes during the collaborating?"
"Not necessarily…" Wilson's jaw nearly hit the floor after that revelation. "Ok, not usually. There was a lot of not wearing clothes involved where she and I were concerned in those days."
"I can't believe you never told me any of this before…" the oncologist shook his head incredulously.
"I can't believe I'm telling you now," murmured House cantankerously, tipping his head back to polish off the last of his beer. "Too much of this stuff," he added, shaking his now empty bottle for effect, "has caused my tongue to loosen past the point of no return, apparently."
"So all of this back and forth between the two of you, all this time… didn't just have potential. It had history… a lot of history," Wilson mused. "Do you really think it's a good idea for you and Cuddy to go back down this path? I mean, you haven't told me much, but I'm guessing based on the many years I've had to observe you circling each other like two feral cats that whatever there was between you didn't end well." House didn't respond immediately, but his face told Wilson everything he needed to know on the matter.
The D.J. once again demonstrated his impeccable timing in saving House from conversations he did not currently want to have with Wilson when he came over the P.A. to declare, "Aaaaand we're back! And we need… Lisa… to come on up and give us a 'piece of her heart' with some Janis Joplin!"
Cuddy was drawn instantly from her conversation with Amber and Thirteen at the sound of her name. Unlike the other doctors from Princeton-Plainsborough who had already taken the stage that evening, however, its Dean of Medicine showed not even a hint of apprehension as she readied herself to step up to the mic. Though she was, in fact, quite nervous, years of going up against adversarial hospital board members, fastidious donors, and egotistical employees gave her constant practice in the art of maintaining her cool under stress.
Pulling a nondescript black hairband out of her designer handbag, Cuddy checked out of the corner of her eye to see if the D.J.'s announcement had focused House's attention on her; naturally, it had. Feeling a bit devious, she made a thoroughly exaggerated point of giving her curly brown hair a few enticing tosses before gathering it back into an impromptu ponytail that achieved an intentionally orchestrated messiness. While walking toward the stage, she made sure to brush up against House just as accidentally as he had her on his trip to the washroom, her butt grazing against his good leg.
"Sorry," she uttered offhandedly over her shoulder, sounding anything but. At this point, House turned back to Wilson to give a delayed answer to his question.
"You want to know if that path is a good idea?" House repeated, indicating Cuddy with head. "Probably not. But I've never really been much of one for having 'good ideas' when it comes to dealing with other people… specifically, ones that look… and feel… and sound… as good naked as she does."
"Ok, I definitely could have lived without hearing that last part."
"Oh, sorry… I forgot I might offend your feminine sensibilities."
Wilson merely narrowed his eyes at his friend and then shifted his attention to Cuddy's position at center stage. He noticed immediately that she looked completely at home there, much as she did addressing a lecture hall full of prestigious doctors or at the head of the boardroom table. Easily commanding the attention of a room full of pleasantly buzzed drunks when she was used to a much tougher audience, Cuddy prepared herself to sing by grabbing onto the mic, stationary in its stand for the time being, with both hands. She nodded to the D.J. with a confident smile, and the twangy reverberations of a psychedelic guitar riff heralded the famous vocal bellow that would begin the song.
In no time at all, the nearly dozen doctors that House had railroaded into Saturday night karaoke at Beasly's learned exactly how lucky the majority of them had been to sing before their Dean of Medicine. Cuddy was able to channel the plaintive, yet powerful timbre of Janis Joplin right off the bat while still making the song distinctly her own. And once she navigated thought the dynamic give and take of the first verse, all of her previous anxiety melted away. No longer was she the impeccably composed, second youngest ever dean of a U.S. hospital; she was transported back in time, owning a piece of a tiny stage in a dive-bar somewhere in eastern Michigan with her larger-than-life presence. She was Lisa.
And Lisa caught the deeply cerulean eyes of Greg as she was begging the invisible Gods of music to give her back just a tiny piece of her own heart, which she had never quite regained after the two of them had parted ways. There it was again; twenty years later, but the eye sex as evident now as it ever was. House was definitely at least halfway to tanked, because all the members of his team, Wilson, and Amber witnessed him outrightly grinning at Cuddy's performance.
Whether consciously or not, she began to play herself right into her former lover's figurative hands, taking the mic out of the stand and holding it closer to her mouth. Wilson sat on the edge of his tall chair, his head going back and forth between his two friends as they executed their own version of psychological badminton; from the look of things, he was less concerned about the taking of hearts and more concerned with the two of them taking off clothes as soon as Cuddy's feet descended the stage.
For his part, House did nothing to disguise the fact that he was mentally undressing his very ex-girlfriend; he was too entranced by the effects of the unexpected emotional wormhole stemming from the magnetic blast from the past that Cuddy was perpetrating on the stage. She had held him in the palm of her hand as soon as she belted out the first syllables of the famous chorus, but Cuddy sealed the deal when she crouched effectively near the edge of the stage and tellingly delivered, "But each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the pain. But when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again…"
Essentially, that sentiment summed up the pair's entire relationship. No matter the amount of abuse or heartache that one had suffered at the hand of the other over the years, they would eventually overlook their respective transgressions in order to remain together in some convoluted way, shape, or form. In recent years, an unconventional, if mostly stable professional affiliation had assured their presence in each other's daily existence. Always a trying feat, maintaining their slippery slope of equilibrium had taken a great deal of surreptitious effort on both doctors' parts. On that fateful night at karaoke in a bar in Princeton, New Jersey, however, House's initial bold invitation to participate in Battle of the Band-AIDS and Cuddy's passionate interpretation of a four minute song blew said equilibrium cleanly out of the river of their constantly ebbing and flowing dynamic.
Finishing the song with the flair of one who seemed born to perform, Cuddy took a triumphant stance at center stage with the mic pointed over her head like a sword readied to lead a battle. The applause that met her ending easily eclipsed the ovations received by any of her co-workers, and the Princeton-Plainsborough tables brought the loudest and most enthusiastic cheers of anyone in Beasley's. While the usually un-emotive Forman and Amber actually applauded and yelled along with the rest of the group, House's reaction was the most anticipated and also the most surprising. With a smile that was wide enough to show teeth for a brief moment, he was actually clapping for Cuddy.
After taking a minute to bask in the response of the crowd, Cuddy beamed and waved her thanks before finally disembarking the stage to rejoin her friends. Seeming oblivious to everyone except House, the dean confidently strutted right up to her best sparring partner. His unguarded smile had faded to a more acceptable smirk, and his previously clapping hands were now crossed in a distancing gesture across his middle. Unintimidated, Cuddy stood directly in front of him with her hands on her hips, cocking her head playfully to the side and arching an eyebrow at him.
Without saying a word, House stood up from the barstool and held his hand up in front of himself expectantly. Cuddy rolled her eyes with a silent laugh and tried, unsuccessfully, to take him up on the apparently insincere offer of a high five when he started to move his hand around and out of the way each time she tried to hit it. She should have seemed frustrated, but Cuddy just continued to giggle when House held his hand as high over his head as he possibly could. Not giving up, the petite brunette jumped as high as her impractical stilettos would permit but still couldn't reach the rough palm at the end of the diagnostician's outstretched arm. Finally, House grabbed Cuddy around the waist with his still lowered left arm and lifted her clear off the ground until her smaller hand could make contact with his larger one.
Afterwards they both continued to snicker in an way that was completely alien to all those in their company, her hands coming to rest on House's shoulders while his right arm joined his left around the small of her back like it had always belonged there. A few of the neighboring tables busted the former couple's bubbled reincarnation of the past with a few catcalls and whistles at the presumed publicly affectionate display, though, and the two distracted doctors quickly remembered that they were not indeed in their own little world.
House took on a bewildered expression at noticing the confusion of his team, both past and present, with the addition of Wilson and Amber, while Cuddy's sudden fidgeting gave the impression of embarrassment. Sharing one last fleeting glance before allowing the moment to disintegrate, House produced something between a cough and a grunt, and Cuddy gingerly slid back down the length of House's body until her head was out of the clouds and her spiked heels were back on the ground. Immediately they separated, awkwardly looking in opposite directions like two middle-schoolers at their first dance.
"I'm… going to go get another drink," Cuddy announced hurriedly and took off in the direction of the bar. Amber, who had been watching the goings on with calculated interest, followed after her shortly.
"Come on!" she said under her breath to a still shell-shocked Cameron, grabbing her wrist and dragging her along on her newest fact-finding mission.
As the newest members of the fold, Kutner, Taub and Thirteen remained where they were, chatting with quiet amusement amidst the noise of the venue about what they had just witnessed. Wilson, Forman, and Chase, however, could not let the anomaly in House and Cuddy's abnormally normal manner of interaction slide. While House, now seated, absently rubbed his thigh from the recent, but strangely pleasant strain of her weight, they made their way to stand in front of him, all crossing their arms in a similarly interrogatory fashion.
"Care to explain that?" ventured a liquidly courageous Chase.
A/N: What to hear me ramble about Huddy, my writing and maybe some other random stuff? Great! Go like my Facebook writing page... search for "Vast Difference" :-)