Author's Notes: You have no idea how sorry I am that I haven't updated in so long. I never planned on taking so much time to write this chapter, but after having some of my ideas plagiarized, it took me a while to decide I still wanted to write. I'm sorry for the wait; blame the jerk who made me want to delete all of my work altogether. Thank you to those who encouraged me to keep going and to those who have left the kindest reviews for me: red blood, IHeartHouseCuddy, TetraFish06, JessicaLynH, xxClouds, Temo, lin12344, EllieShelly, hughsoulingregsmind, Akemi1582, MARNIC, newsession, Gobblin, Josam, paroulis, oc7ober, House ever, Kate Andromeda, Katrina Puffinstuf, Huddyphoric, Jane Q. Doe, MissBates, and BETEDELSTEIN. You guys are the only reason this chapter was finished.
Disclaimer: David Shore is someone else.
Gift of Screws
Chapter Nineteen: The Snowman
By Duckie Nicks
"Essential oils are wrung:
The attar from the rose
Is not expressed by suns alone,
It is the gift of screws." – Emily Dickinson
Leaving House to consider what she'd said, Cuddy headed back into the living room. Part of her wanted nothing more than to stay with him, to keep talking until she'd forced him to see what he was doing wrong. But rationally she understood that things rarely worked out that way. She could explain things calmly and point him in the right direction but after that? Only House could make House do something.
At this point in their relationship, she knew that he would consider what she'd said; she'd earned that much. But he had to be the one deciding to talk to Rachel, and that was all there was to it. Cuddy had done the best she could to make him understand. Now she knew she simply needed to trust that he would eventually do what was right.
And no matter what he decided to do, she also knew that she needed to tend to Rachel. Her apology having gone unaccepted, Rachel was, in all likelihood, confused and upset. Being all of five, she was not familiar with having apologies rejected; she fought with friends, and they made up quickly. She angered an adult? She would say she was sorry, and that too would resolve itself easily.
That hadn't happened here.
House had given her nothing. For reasons Cuddy could understand, of course; she wanted him to move on, but she understood why he was displeased with Rachel's apology. And caught in the middle, Cuddy could also see why her daughter would be sad or unsure of what to do next.
Then again, even if Cuddy couldn't understand both sides, she'd be in charge of making everyone feel better anyway, right? That was how this was going to go: House and Rachel said and did whatever they wanted to one another, and in between apologies and making up, Cuddy had to be the one to manage them both.
That was how it always went.
Inwardly Cuddy wondered what they would do if she refused to help them along. But even as she thought that, she knew she would never find out. She was the reason these two people needed to get along to begin with, and as such, she had a vested interest in making sure that neither was pushed beyond their limits.
Sometimes though that seemed like an impossible burden to shoulder. Especially when the issue between Rachel and House seemed completely avoidable, as it did today, the responsibility suddenly became something Cuddy wanted to relinquish all together. But upon seeing her daughter face down on the crouch and sniffling, she knew that wasn't an option.
Tentatively she approached Rachel. Her footsteps were soft on the floor, but somehow Rachel knew she was coming.
Abruptly rolling over, a stuffed blue monkey pressed against her chest, Rachel called out for her. "Mommy."
Cuddy sat down on the couch, and predictably within seconds, Rachel crawled into her lap. As she got comfortable, Cuddy wordlessly assessed her daughter.
At first, she'd assumed that Rachel had been sniffling because she was upset, crying even. Now though that didn't seem to be the case. Her cheeks were red, and she looked unhappy, but it didn't seem like she'd been crying.
And she was quick to reveal why.
"You said he wouldn't be mad," Rachel said in a huff. Apparently rather than reflect on her own behavior, she had decided to blame Cuddy for what had happened.
But for her part, Cuddy was willing to take it in stride. Although she knew none of this was her fault, she didn't feel the need to point that out. Frankly she suspected that Rachel already knew that much. And if she didn't, then Cuddy was sure now wasn't the right time to say it.
"Well," she said calmly, forcing herself to focus on the real issue at hand: getting Rachel and House to move past what they'd said to one another. "Sometimes that happens, baby."
"That's stupid," Rachel muttered into the monkey's head.
Cuddy shook her head. "No." Stroking her daughter's hair, she explained, "He's just… sad. You said some things that really hurt his feelings, Rachel."
Rachel immediately replied snottily, "I know that."
"And you apologized like I asked," Cuddy conceded. "And he knows you're sorry," she said, knowing the words were probably a lie. "But he needs time. You made him very upset, honey, and that takes time to get over."
The more she spoke, the less of a lie it all felt. No matter what he might claim, she'd been able to see the hurt in his eyes when she'd first dragged Rachel into the kitchen. She'd seen how Rachel's terribly apology had made him feel. He might have chosen to stay angry for other reasons, but Cuddy was sure that he'd been hurt, that her words to Rachel weren't a complete lie.
But whether Rachel believed her or not… well, that was impossible to determine. Because at that point, it didn't even seem like she was listening. As though she hadn't heard a word Cuddy had said, she asked, "Can we play in the snow?"
Cuddy peered down at her in disapproval. "Did you hear what I just said at all?"
Rachel nodded her head. "But I want to go play in the slow."
Immediately Cuddy looked for a reason to stay inside. She could understand why her daughter would want to go out, given how she'd largely been inside all weekend. Yet Cuddy couldn't allow her to be outside. Forget that Rachel had completely ignored everything she'd been saying; the fact that the cold air often triggered Rachel's asthma was more than enough of a reason for Cuddy to keep her indoors.
She didn't want to say that though.
Calling attention to Rachel's physical limitations was not something Cuddy wanted to do. She didn't want her daughter to feel inadequate or lesser than simply because she'd had the misfortune of having a condition. And she didn't want Rachel to become consumed with resentment over her own health, not when House's behavior had already given her enough to think about. But at the same time, Cuddy didn't think she had many alterative reasons to keep Rachel inside.
In fact, she could only come up with the one off the top of her head. And before she even said it, she knew how Rachel was going to react. Preparing for the outburst that would follow, Cuddy held tightly on to Rachel. Her voice even and relaxed, she said, "No, I think we need to stay inside today. We have too much to do before –"
"Like what?" The tone Rachel was using suggested – no, more like flat out declared that she didn't think there was anything else to do.
"You have homework to do."
Strictly speaking "homework" didn't seem like the right term to use. Maybe Cuddy was simply too old to comprehend how much work it really was, but completing a booklet of activities – like listing five things that were green or counting the number of stars colored on a leaf – every month hardly constituted homework in her mind. Then again, given the way Rachel seemed to resent doing it, maybe it did count as homework.
Well, whatever it was, Rachel was intent on resisting the second Cuddy had suggested it. "No, I think we should go outside," she said firmly.
"Rachel, it's the sixteenth. You need to get it done."
"No, I don't."
Cuddy felt like pointing out that of course, it needed to be done. Rachel's school had already sent a letter suggesting that Rachel was too far behind in her class to move on to first grade, and Cuddy wasn't going to let her daughter prove her teachers right out of sheer laziness.
She didn't say that out loud though. Rachel already hated school enough as it was; she didn't need to hear that her own school had already given up hope of her catching up this year. So Cuddy simply told her, "We're not going outside today. We have a party to go tonight, remember? And if we play in the snow now, you're going to be too tired to play with all your friends tonight."
Rachel cuddled her monkey. "Like who?"
"Like Tyler and George," Cuddy said off the top of her head, as she tried to remember the donors who would be there tonight and their children, several of whom went to the same elementary school as Rachel. "Nevaeh and -"
"Then I definitely want to play in the snow," Rachel interrupted.
If it came between building a snowman and playing with stinky Tyler and stupid Neveah, who liked to moo at her whenever they lined up for lunch, then Rachel would rather play in the snow. They weren't her friends, and she didn't want to play with them. They were mean and annoying and dumb, and they didn't like Rachel, but that was okay, Rachel thought, because she didn't like them either!
She liked George, Tyler's older brother, because George was cute and funny. But he must not have liked her very much, because that one time, when she'd asked him to play house, he'd turned red and run away. She'd settled for "marrying" Tyler and George's neighbor, Roberto, but he'd gotten her in trouble when she'd called him a moron. She'd tried to tell him that that was what mommies and daddies did when they were fighting with one another, but then he'd pointed out that she had no daddy, so what did she know? And she'd been ready to punch him when she'd seen George playing house with Madison. And from that moment on, Rachel hadn't liked poopy George much at all.
So she definitely didn't care about playing with them.
Mommy didn't understand that though. She looked confused before saying, "I'm sure you want to play with your friends even more."
Rachel shook her head wildly. "No, I don't."
"Well," Cuddy said with a shrug. "We need to get some of your homework done first. If we have time afterwards, we'll do something fun, okay?"
Rachel was clearly unconvinced. Whining she said, "I don't wanna!"
"No, come on," Cuddy said in a firm voice. Carefully she eased Rachel off her lap and slid the stuffed monkey from Rachel's clenched hands.
"No!"
Cuddy didn't listen. As much as Rachel hated doing homework, not doing it was hardly an option. Cuddy had already pulled enough strings to get her daughter into kindergarten; for weeks, Cuddy had talked to the school board, telling them that, while Rachel had just missed the cut off date for starting kindergarten that year, she was, actually, right on target with her peers who were all a few months older. And eventually they'd let Rachel into the class, because they'd seen the same promise Cuddy did. They were obviously second guessing that choice now, which was precisely why Cuddy was going to push her daughter through this.
Inwardly, she told herself that she hadn't been wrong to do what she'd done. Rachel was clearly smart enough to make it through kindergarten. She just didn't want to do the work. No kid did. But just as Arlene had forced Cuddy to sit down and do homework when she'd wanted to have fun, Cuddy would do the same for her daughter.
She would be far nicer than her mother had ever been, of course (not that that was difficult). She would have sooner died than want to be her mother. But in this, Cuddy didn't think it was wrong to take a page from Arlene's book; Rachel needed the encouragement, and she would get it.
Whether she wanted it or not.
From the beginning though, Rachel made it clear that she definitely did not want it.
Cuddy had sat her down at the dining room table. But the second she'd gone to retrieve Rachel's homework booklet, the little girl had run away as quickly as she'd been able to. Not that it had taken long for Cuddy to find her and drag her back to the table; it hadn't, but that moment had set the tone for the whole event.
And it was an event.
It shouldn't have been a big deal to have Rachel write down her address as required by the first activity. But when Rachel had started to turn her Rs into alpacas (as she always tried to), Cuddy had had to stop her.
"But then they're just boring, stinky letters!"
"That's what we want," Cuddy had said, beheading an alpaca with an eraser. "Boring, stinky letters," she'd muttered under her breath.
From there, things only got worse.
House knew that it had, because no matter where he went in the house, he could hear them fighting. He'd started off in the kitchen but left after the alpaca issue had made the room too noisy for him to concentrate. So he'd headed to his office. But that hadn't been much better, because then he'd heard them arguing over chickens.
He'd just sat down at his desk when Rachel's voice had come screeching over everything else. "It's a chicken!"
And just as quickly as he'd entered the room, he'd gotten up and left. Disappearing further down the hall, he could hear Cuddy explaining, "It is a chicken, but the word starts with an h and ends with an n."
Shutting the bedroom door behind him, he was relieved he couldn't hear Rachel's response. After his less-than-successful conversation with Cuddy in the kitchen, he needed a quiet place to mull over everything he'd been told.
But it only took him a few minutes to realize no amount of thinking was going to help. Really, as he lie on the bed, he couldn't help but think that contemplation was just making him more confused.
He didn't know what to do.
That was the honest truth: he had no idea how to proceed.
He wanted Cuddy. That was all he wanted – her. But what did she really want from him?
Well, of course, she wanted him to fix everything. She wanted him to be the one to figure out the parameters of their relationship so she didn't have to do it herself. Those desires though were so broad, so vaguely defined that it was essentially useless to him when it came to fixing the situation.
The depressing thought weighing heavily on him, he slowly rolled over on the bed. His head resting on her pillow, he hugged it to his body tightly. He would never say she was more trouble than she was worth, but their relationship did seem to cause a lot of problems.
And handling Rachel seemed to be the biggest issue of them all.
He used to think that things would be easier without her. For sure, Cuddy still believed that he thought that. But actually… he didn't think that anymore. Strange though it was, he had become used to the idea of Rachel being part of his life. There were times where he forgot that; of course there were. Overall though, he had accepted her presence, and he had come to appreciate that Cuddy would have never been truly happy without her. And regardless of what he'd envisioned for himself, he knew that Rachel was a part of his life now.
What he was less sure of was what his role should be in hers. Cuddy tried to make it sound like it was simple, but clearly it wasn't. He couldn't be Rachel's friend; friends didn't bang your mom. Cuddy didn't want him to be Rachel's father. If anything she seemed against that. And she was even less in favor of him standing off to the side and being removed from the situation.
So what exactly did that leave him with? If he wasn't Rachel's friend, wasn't her father, wasn't some random guy she didn't have to know, what was he supposed to be?
He had no idea.
But Cuddy had made it more than clear that he needed to figure something out. Perhaps out of frustration with him, she was wiping her hands of all responsibility. She was leaving it to him to find the right way to proceed. Which was probably smart, he conceded silently; making him take care of it meant that she would never have to blame herself when it didn't go right.
And, House thought darkly, it wouldn't go right.
It couldn't.
Cuddy's boundaries with this thing were ever moving and invisible. Whatever suited her in that moment was what she said she wanted, and it was never easy for House to predict what she wanted at any given moment. Did she want him to involve himself in Rachel's life? Did she want him to back off? At any time of day, the answer to that changed.
Knowing that, he suddenly felt that maybe it was a good thing that she had taken herself out of the equation. No doubt she would throw a fit when she felt he did something wrong, but perhaps he could work all of that to his advantage.
To get what he wanted.
Cuddy clearly didn't know what it was she needed from the situation. She was looking to him to convince her of the right path to take. That was why she'd shoved responsibility on to him. And for her part, Rachel was still young enough that she would accept or could be manipulated to accept whatever kind of relationship was chosen for her.
So…
It was up to him to decide.
Which meant he could do whatever he wanted.
He could proceed any way he wished, as long as he was convincing enough to drag both girls with him down that path. And he had no doubt that he could manipulate both of them. He just didn't know which path it was he should take.
At that thought, House snorted into Cuddy's pillow. It could never be simple. Here, he could do whatever he felt like; she'd effectively given him free rein, but he didn't know what he wanted to do.
The only thing he was sure he knew was that he needed to make a decision – and quick. Cuddy passing all of the hard work on to him signaled that she was at the end of her rope. She'd tried to find a solution for them all and failed, and so, helpless, she was now asking him to do it for her. And since this involved her daughter, she would never ask him to get involved unless she felt she had no other choice. Which meant that, if he didn't figure out a good solution, their relationship was done.
But House tried not to think about that.
Losing Cuddy was literally his worst nightmare, and allowing himself to mentally go down the road would only make him crazed with fear. And right now, what he needed – what they all needed was for him to be as rational about this as possible.
So he forced himself to be as detached as he knew how to be.
Focusing only on the logistics of the matter, he could see almost instantly that remaining detached wasn't the right way to do things. It had been his modus operandi for years, but that seemed foolish to him now. If the goal was to keep himself in Cuddy's bed, clearly bonding with the kid would make it harder for Mommy to toss him on the street. And if he hadn't realized that before –
No, he thought immediately. Of course he'd realized that fact long before now. Truth be told, he'd always recognized that making nice with Rachel could secure his spot in the house. That he hadn't ever acted on that instinct had nothing to do with some sense of decency and everything to do with his unwavering belief in the obvious: no kid should be forced to be around him.
Yet again, he knew that sticking to that idea was impossible in this case. Avoiding Rachel might have been to her benefit, but it would no longer be to his. Cuddy wasn't going to let it.
She was essentially letting him choose which direction they took, but not embracing Rachel on some level was not an option in Cuddy's mind. She would control that much of the decision. She had.
And to even entertain the idea of staying away from Rachel was suicide, House thought.
Even if it were better for her that he did.
And it was better for Rachel that he be uninvolved. Of that he was… completely and undeniably convinced.
Cuddy herself had said it. She'd had to protect Rachel from him. In truth, he couldn't remember a specific instance where that had happened (other than today, of course); he'd always believed he was bad for Rachel, but in his mind, there was not a single moment where that had been blatantly true.
Which made it that much worse, didn't it?
He didn't even know when he was hurting her.
Again, House would never pretend like he was a good person for her to be around. He knew he wasn't. But all this time, he'd thought he had done a decent job of avoiding harming Rachel. He'd thought that he'd been nice enough, helpful enough. He'd changed diapers and soiled sheets, cooked dinner and watched her on the occasion that Cuddy had had to work late. He'd never let himself emotionally become attached to her, preferring to keep Rachel at arm's length for both their sakes. But he hadn't ever thought he'd done something wrong.
Well, all right, this weekend had had some awful moments. However, the weekend not withstanding, he felt that he'd been… good enough when it came to Rachel. He'd kept his distance, but he hadn't ever thought that he'd been downright cruel or callous towards her.
He'd been wrong though.
Cuddy had said as much. And though it was difficult for him to accept that, he didn't doubt that she was right. Regardless of his opinion, he trusted her enough to believe that she wasn't lying – to know that she wasn't lying. If she were saying that he'd hurt Rachel on occasion, there was only reason for that assertion.
It was true.
Because of that, it was even more difficult for him to act on what he knew he needed to do now.
He needed to form some sort of relationship with Rachel.
That much was obvious to him, the more he thought about it. Staying away wasn't an option. Being a father figure or a friend was problematic, for obvious reasons, but he needed to take a step in that direction. There was no other choice.
Tracing the lines on his forehead with his thumb, he realized that he didn't need to decide what he wanted to be. Becoming Rachel's friend or her… father (even mentally, he couldn't help but stumble over the word) wasn't something that would happen over night. It would be a relationship he needed to cultivate, and that would take time – lots of time, given how terrible at relationship building he was. And that meant this wasn't a decision he needed to make right now. It wasn't a choice he could make right now. That was momentarily beyond his control.
All he could do now was… take some sort of step in the friendly, fatherly direction.
Of course, putting it that way, he instantly wanted to back off. He was neither prepared nor eager to change things with Rachel. It was easy to say that he needed to attempt a relationship with her, but it was anything but simple to actually make that happen.
Especially for someone as screwed up as him.
Feeling defeated he sighed into Cuddy's pillow. Rationally he understood that failure wasn't an option. But a man like him… was bound to fail. Even if he told himself otherwise, even if he could delude himself into thinking he had a chance, he knew what he was, how he was. He was going to hurt her, no matter how much he tried not to do that.
And the truly terrible part about it was that…he was okay with that. He didn't want to hurt Rachel; he definitely didn't want to screw things up. But he accepted that he would have to move in that direction. She would inevitably be hurt, but he needed to press on regardless.
And he would.
As much as he'd wanted to keep Rachel out of it, he could no longer continue to do that. Though he'd never wanted to hurt her, he would by allowing himself to get closer to her. Because as wrong as he knew it was, when it came down to choosing between protecting her or getting what he wanted, he was always going to choose himself.
And truth be told, thinking of it like that made it all the more easier to do it. It was him or her, he reminded himself. He could either push ahead and do what needed to be done or lose Cuddy now; that was what he was essentially choosing between: a life with Cuddy or a life without her.
It was clear which one he wanted for himself, and selfishly he didn't care at that moment about anyone else.
Obviously he wouldn't go out of his way to harm Rachel. He would do his best, as he thought he always had, to… not completely screw her up.
He wouldn't go out of his way to cause harm. He knew it was inevitable, but at no point would House actually seek out a way to put her in therapy. He would just... do what he had to do.
And if that sounded vague, it was because, for the life of him, he didn't exactly know what to do. He'd bought Rachel the monkey earlier, made her lunch... but did that really count for something? Was that a step he'd unknowingly taken towards being her friend? If it wasn't, what exactly did he need to do to make it count?
Hell if he knew, he thought. He was completely out of his league when it came to Rachel. But clearly, he needed to figure out the answer to those questions, if he didn't want Cuddy to give him the boot.
Without even a moment's hesitation, he reached for his phone. Instinctively he recognized that these were questions he would never be good at answering. He could understand human behavior and comprehend how human nature worked... but in an incredibly cynical, detached way. It had never been his forte to take that knowledge and apply it to building relationships. Using it to get what he wanted? Sure, but he couldn't be Machiavellian with this particular pursuit. Even if some part of his core understood just how manipulative it all really would be, he knew that it, at least, had to seem genuine. His actions had to scream, "I'm doing this, because I want to get to know you" and not "I'm doing this, because I really like fucking your mom." And in House's mind, there was only one person who could help him achieve that.
Wilson.
No one else had perfected the sweet exterior like Wilson had, especially when it came to wooing women. He'd been married more times than Lindsay Lohan had been arrested, and somehow he'd still managed to have a friendly relationship with each of his exes. He'd been caught doing many, many, many awful things with House, but again, Wilson had always walked away from those situations unscathed. Even when all signs pointed to "bastard," Wilson seemed to manage to escape that label each and every time. And right about now, House needed a little of that charisma to wear off on him.
Wilson would, of course, give him all the ideas in the world. Under the pretense of guidance, Wilson would tell him all he needed to hear – which was why this plan was perfect.
But House hadn't even pressed the number that automatically dialed Wilson's cell when inspiration hit.
True, that feeling could have simply been the start of a migraine; Rachel's scream, "I hate this!" was certainly loud and shrill enough to make House wince. However, it also gave him an idea.
Tossing his phone down on the bed, he could mentally envision the steps he needed to take.
He had to do something nice to or with Rachel to get Cuddy to back off. Rachel had been complaining for the last half hour at least about having to do homework. And she'd been whining even longer than that about going outside and building a snowman. In fact, she'd been bitching about it all week, it seemed. So…
If he distracted Cuddy long enough, asked her to find something for him maybe… he would have an opening to nab Rachel. Cuddy would be busy doing something else, so he could jam the kid into her snowsuit and shove her out the door. Rachel would get to go outside, which would shut her up. She wouldn't have to do her homework, which would really make her happy and smooth over her obvious irritation over the fact that he hadn't read to her.
Cuddy would be pissed, no doubt. Precisely the moment she realized she'd been played, her panties would get all in a knot, and he'd have to deal with that. But, quickly shoving aside the mental image of undoing said knot with his teeth, he realized that she would be easily mollified in this case.
After all, she'd been the one to force the issue. So she couldn't complain that he'd done exactly what she wanted. Oh, she would try; obviously she would try to complain. But arrogantly he felt confident in his ability to shut her up. One word from her, and he would point out that she'd left it to him to fix things, that if she wanted things to have resolved differently, she should have handled it herself. She might try to weasel her way around that point, but she wouldn't succeed. And he knew she wouldn't be a problem.
Standing up, House headed for the bedroom door. He didn't exactly know how he would get Cuddy away from Rachel, but he realized he couldn't take the time to figure it out. The noises from the dining room indicated both Rachel and Cuddy were beyond frustrated. They were nearing that point where nothing could be learned and they'd just start fighting.
A novice would say that that was a natural way to separate the two from each other, providing a clear path for House to take Rachel out. But in his mind, his plan would be more effective if he were the one to save her from doing work. She would appreciate it more that way, appreciate him more for being the one to take her out of that situation.
So he moved as fast as his leg would allow him. But even as he walked down the hallway, he could hear over his uneven footsteps, "Stop whining, Rachel. We have to do this."
"I don't want to."
He could hear Cuddy's ragged sigh. And he wasn't surprised when she said after a moment, her voice much softer, "All right…. I think it's time for a break."
"Yay!"
"No," Cuddy said, quickly cutting off the celebration. "I'm going to go make some tea. You're going to sit here, and when I get back," she warned. "You are going to get through the rest of this page. No whining. No complaining."
House could hear her stalk off towards the kitchen.
At that point, it almost seemed too good to be true. She was leaving without him needing a distraction, without letting Rachel off the hook…. It was everything he could have wanted and then some. A sense of impending doom made his toes and fingers tingle, but he pushed the feeling away, knowing that he would never have a better moment than this.
Slowing his pace down, he walked as carefully as he could the rest of the way. He didn't want Cuddy to hear him coming. And he must have succeeded, because she didn't return from the kitchen. Even as he cautiously poked his head into the dining room, he didn't hear her move or do anything alarming.
Rachel, on the other hand, noticed him immediately. Perhaps sensing an out, she practically jumped out of her seat. Literally, before he'd even had a chance to motion her over, she was scrambling towards him.
"Shh," House whispered as she moved noisily towards him. "Unless you want Mommy to hear, be quiet."
She looked up at him in awe, as though hearing the words made her realize how right he was. Without uttering a single thing, she nodded her head.
Clasping her hand in his, he silently pulled her towards the closet in the front hall. Rachel followed obediently, but she clearly had no idea what was going on. Her eyes were trained on him with equal parts curiosity and suspicion. When he opened the closet and grabbed the hot pink snowsuit that had sat there, barely used, since the beginning of winter, curiosity gave way completely to suspicion.
"Put it on," he told her, handing it out to her.
But she didn't take it.
"You wanna go outside and play in the snow or not?" he asked in a hushed voice.
She nodded her head. "But –"
She didn't get to finish the sentence; anything she might have said was silenced by him stuffing her in the suit. And she must have gotten the hint, because she willingly held out each arm for him to stuff into the puffy arms of the suit.
After he zipped her up, he reached into the closet. Grabbing her coat, he handed it to her. "Put this on."
Rachel quietly took the coat. As she struggled to put it on, he reached back in the closet and grabbed her snow boots. He jammed them on her feet as quickly as he could, which wasn't very easy, since she was squirming about trying to zip up her jacket.
"I got it," he told her, pushing her hands away. Truthfully he could understand why she was having trouble. The puffiness of her snowsuit and the thick material of her coat made it hard to get the teeth of her zipper to line up right. And if he'd left the job to her, she probably wouldn't have had enough strength to do it herself.
Not that she seemed all that grateful for his help. As soon as he finished, she said, "I can do it myself."
"Well, I just did it for you, so it doesn't matter," he replied snottily.
Instantly he regretted his tone. This was supposed to be an attempt to get along with her, he reminded himself. It might have come naturally to be sarcastic or dismissive or... some other negative adjective, but it wasn't going to help his cause. Even if she deserved it (which he realized, unfortunately, that she didn't), he couldn't respond that way. It wasn't going to get him what he wanted in the end, and he knew that.
Forcing himself to mentally take a step back, he tried to smooth over the moment by telling her, "Let's just get this over with."
"I'm hot," Rachel complained as House tied a scarf around her neck.
Stuffing a hot pink hat shaped like a rabbit on her head, he could appreciate what she was saying. She looked overstuffed, covered from head to toe in winter clothes. Like a Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man who had been doused in pink paint, she seemed incredibly encumbered by layers and down-filled clothing. But he couldn't help that.
Cuddy was bound to be annoyed that he let Rachel out at all. There was no way he was also going to deal with the fallout of not having her properly dressed for the weather. Well, at least for not having her dressed according to Cuddy's definition of what proper winter attire was, he mentally corrected. Because God only knew that her definition wasn't anywhere near what sane people thought was okay.
But in a way, he was beginning to assume that he couldn't avoid that part of the fight. If he wanted to get Rachel outside before Cuddy discovered them, he needed to work fast. But at this point, he doubted he could work fast enough to get the kid fully dressed.
As though just thinking that triggered the event itself, he suddenly heard Cuddy. Her footsteps were soft; in his mind, she was carrying two mugs of hot tea in her hands, and she was afraid of spilling. But she was slowly moving back towards the dining room. "Rachel," she said softly, as though expecting her daughter to reply immediately.
It would only be a matter of seconds before Cuddy realized what was wrong. And House knew he needed to get Rachel out the door.
Now.
Grabbing her mittens and her, he pulled her towards the front door.
"Rachel," Cuddy said loudly. She'd clearly just realized her daughter wasn't patiently waiting in her seat for more homework fun.
House wrenched the front door open as two mugs filled with hot tea clanked loudly against the dining room table.
"Rachel, this isn't funny." In his head, he could picture her glancing underneath the table and realizing she wasn't there.
And then there were more footsteps – heading this way.
Panicked, House shoved Rachel out of the front door (he could see her falling in a flash of hot pink against white snow) and tossed the mittens in his hands behind her. She would be able to put them on herself, he thought in the back of his mind.
The footsteps practically behind him, House started to shut the door.
"What are you doing?" Cuddy asked suddenly.
Busted House turned around. Like a deer caught in headlights, he wasn't sure how to respond or what to say. Normally he would have a lie on the tip of his tongue. But it was hard to know what lie to use now, considering he didn't even know how much she'd seen. "I..."
"You're leaving," she said with dismay.
Had she seen Rachel, surely, House thought, she would have mentioned that. Since she hadn't said that, that could only mean that Rachel had managed to escape unseen.
"Yeah," he lied calmly.
Cuddy frowned. "Without your coat?"
He shrugged like it was no big deal. "Going for a drive," he supplied. "I just... want to clear my head."
It seemed like a lie that would make sense, given what had happened earlier. Between Rachel saying she hated him and Cuddy inadvertently accusing him of being like his father (which still stung), it wasn't out of the question that he would want time alone. He had wanted time alone.
But if that seemed understandable to her, she didn't say. If anything, her frown just seemed to deepen, and all she told him was, "Stay here."
He didn't move as she disappeared down the hallway for a moment. But he was tempted to when he saw her stop in front of the closet he'd just rooted through. Surely she saw that it was a mess, that the bright pink objects belonging to Rachel were missing.
Yet... none of that seemed to register with Cuddy. Maybe she simply didn't expect Rachel to try to run outside or for him to help her escape. Maybe Cuddy was so focused on his apparent need to get out that Rachel's didn't register in her mind at all. Whatever the reason, she simply reached for his coat in the opened closet and retrieved it.
Returning to him with it, she said calmly, "You need a coat."
He didn't take it. "I was just going to drive for –"
"Take it anyway."
He did cautiously and slowly slipped it on.
"Do you have your keys?"
House didn't, but he wasn't sure if he should lie. If he did and she caught him, she might become suspicious.
Well… possibly more suspicious.
So he answered with the vague, non-committal "I think so."
She glanced over at the coffee table by the front door. It was where he usually kept his keys, and since he hadn't had any plans to go anywhere, they were, of course, right there.
Without saying a word, she reached over and plucked them off the table. When she handed them to him, he lied again. "Have a lot on my mind…."
It was obvious she believed him. Her hand immediately reaching up to cup his cheek, she said quietly, "Maybe you should stay here then. Go lay down and –"
"Listen to you and Rachel –"
"We'll be quiet."
"Cause that's worked out so well so far."
A saner person wouldn't have read into that statement. Cuddy, not being entirely sane and knowing him far too well, though did.
Immediately she pulled her hand away from him. "She has to learn this –"
"And forcing her, so that we may all hear how to spell hen –"
"Fine. Just go, House," she said in frustration.
He was about to when he realized that he couldn't open the door with Cuddy standing right there. If he did, in all likelihood, she would see Rachel.
Thinking of a distraction, he offered her, "She was heading towards her bedroom a few minutes ago."
The irritation drained from her face, and he felt a bang of guilt when she said, "Thank you."
After she'd headed down the hallway, he slipped outside.
Predictably Rachel was standing there, mittens still on the ground. She was scowling. "You pushed me."
He bent down and picked up the forgotten mittens. "Let's put these on," he told her in an even voice. But she didn't stick out her hands. "Rachel, come on."
"You pushed me."
House sighed. This wasn't what he envisioned happening, not at all. But she clearly wasn't going to move past it until he apologized. "Look, kid, I didn't want your mom to catch us. I'm sorry."
Her reply was instantaneous. "I bit my tongue." She held out her hands for him anyway.
"Does it still hurt?" he asked as she slipped her fingers into the mittens.
"No."
He stood up. "Then go play." Rachel didn't move, however, so he added, "Before Mommy realizes we're out here."
The mere mention of her mother seemed to be enough to get her in the mood to play. Yet she barely took a step before she hesitated.
Stopping in her tracks, she looked back at him. He could practically feel her measured look, her eyes assessing him intently. And it made him uncomfortable – to watch her peering back at him with increasing intensity.
For the life of him, he didn't know what she wanted or why she seemed so interested in him all of a sudden. So he was surprised when she said sincerely, "I'm sorry I said I hated you."
He was stunned.
Truly, he was shocked; he hadn't expected an apology – certainly not after the first one had gone so horribly. He'd just assumed that she would behave as Cuddy had insinuated: Rachel had had no clue how hurtful her words had been, so any apology he would get would be, at best, half-assed.
But this wasn't.
She meant it.
That was the thought on his mind when she latched onto his leg. Hugging the limb, she was warm even through the thick layer of jeans he was wearing. "I shouldn't have said that," she admitted, her voice muffled, because she'd buried her face into his good thigh.
And he could see [even more] clearly then what his problem with all of this would be. He could do nice things for Rachel, and he could try to get along with her. But emotionally... he would always be inadequate. He would never know what to say in these situations or how to react so that she would understand what he felt.
He'd never been good at that. It might have been easy to point to Cuddy and claim that he'd obviously found some decent way of communicating with her, but he knew better than that. He'd always been ineffectual and bad, and if he'd managed to maintain a relationship with Cuddy, it had everything to do with her ability to understand intuitively what he needed or what he meant.
Rachel didn't have that. And it was wrong to expect any differently. He knew that much, acknowledged that if he wanted her to understand him, he had to make that happen. He couldn't depend on anyone else.
But he was awkward in dealing with the moment. Lamely letting his hand rest atop Rachel's head, he patted her crown much like you would a dog. Or in this case, a rabbit, as his palm was pressed between two hot pink ears that stuck straight out of the top of her fleece hat.
"Thanks," he said with equal unease.
He thought that was enough. What else was he supposed to say? Rachel was still hugging his leg like there was something left to be done. If that were true though, he had no idea what that was. He'd accepted the apology... touched her. What else was there?
"Why don't you go play?" he started to say. Fearing that perhaps his tone was too harsh, he choked the words down and started over. "It's okay, Rachel."
She looked up at him finally. He couldn't tell if she was relieved or not. He would have liked to think so, but his own anxiety over their closeness made it hard for him to read the emotions on her face.
"Play," he told her quietly. "Once Mommy knows where you are, she's going to want you to finish your homework."
Rachel knew he was right about that. Mommy had told her to stay in the chair, but Rachel hadn't listened. She didn't want to do homework. She didn't like it – the way Mommy made her write boring Rs or acted like everything was easy when it wasn't. And when House had brought her outside, Rachel hadn't refused, cause she'd wanted to go outside even though she had homework to do.
She knew it was wrong. She knew it was bad to do something her mother hadn't approved of, and as soon as Mommy found out, Rachel knew she would be in trouble. She'd have to go to timeout and apologize and work in that stupid book. So she knew House was right. She should play now before she couldn't have any fun.
"Okay," she said in agreement. But she didn't run off right away. Instead, as she pulled away from him completely, she asked, "Do you know how to make a snowman?"
House glanced around them. Certainly, there was enough snow on the ground to make a legion of snowmen. However, much of that snow had fallen weeks ago and had ample time to melt and refreeze. From what he'd seen, it would be far too icy to make a snowman out of that.
There was more snow falling from the sky. Feeling it hit his face though in large wet flakes, House could tell that just skimming the top layer of snow on the ground wouldn't work either. It was too wet and wouldn't hold together well.
"I do," he answered finally. "But we need snow that's gonna stick together. This won't."
For whatever reason, Rachel didn't believe him. "I can make it stick," she said confidently.
His first instinct was to disagree with her, but really, he thought almost immediately, what was the point? Like he was, like her mother was, Rachel was stubborn. She wasn't going to just listen to him, because he told her that it wouldn't work. She needed to see that for herself.
"Okay," he said, capitulating easily. "You'll need to make a snowball about this big." He held his hands out in front of him. His fingers curled into big Cs to indicate that she would need a fairly large ball of snow to get started. "Do that, and if it stays together, then we'll roll it up."
Rachel squatted down, her arms opening wide. Eagerly she scooped up as much snow as she could off of the porch.
It disintegrated the second she tried to pack it together.
Standing up once more, she looked at House. "I'll be right back," she told him. And off she went, searching for the perfect snow.
He didn't stop her or try to dissuade her from that. If she wanted to spend the rest of her time outside trying to make snowballs, that was her choice. He certainly wasn't going to intervene.
Then again, if he'd wanted to, he wouldn't have had much of a choice. Rachel had just started grabbing at snow around one of the bushes when Cuddy finally made an appearance.
From the way the front door was violently wrenched open behind him, House knew he was screwed.
He was too afraid to look back and watch Cuddy come outside. But he didn't need to; he could feel the heat radiating from the glare aimed at him. He could hear her shut the door loudly.
Involuntarily stiffening, he waited for her to say something to him. Or rather, every fiber of his being anticipated her screeching.
However, she simply came and stood by him. She didn't speak at all. Oh, she was furious. Under no circumstances could he take her silence for calmness. That would have been a grave mistake on his part.
Which was why he was quick to apologize. "I'm sorry."
"You could have told me," she said in a low, irritated voice.
There was a dangerous edge to her tone and underneath that, a hint of panic he thought he heard. It was not hard then to imagine that she'd feared the worst when she'd been unable to find Rachel. Maybe the idea – that Rachel had run away – hadn't fully coalesced in Cuddy's mind. But there was no denying that the thought had niggled in the back of her consciousness, and her anger was the product of that unbearable idea.
"I couldn't," he disagreed, trying to be as even keeled as he could be while telling her that she was wrong. "If I'd told you, you would have either made her come back inside or you wouldn't, and then Rachel would be glad you'd let her play."
A smirk played on the corners of her mouth. Her cheeks pink from the cold, he could see the air she exhaled when she scoffed. "This is about getting credit?"
He turned his head to look at her more carefully. "I don't think you'd disagree that I need –"
"You still could have told me."
"No," he insisted. House paused before sighing. "Look, I would have told you if I could have. It's not…."
He could hear how inadequate his words sounded. But when he reached out to touch her, she shot him a look that made him pull his hand back.
"I wasn't trying to hurt you or… scare you."
Her hair whipped about in the wind as she forcefully met his gaze with her own. "I wasn't scared."
"Either way. It wasn't my plan to pull one over on you. But she would have made it all about you if you were involved." House knew how childish that sounded, so he explained further. "It would have become about what you did, how you let her go out." He sensed the objection on the tip of her tongue and hastily added, "And there's nothing wrong with that. But she's not in doubt about how you feel about her."
This time when he reached for her, she didn't resist being pulled into his embrace. By no means had she moved on. She was still waiting for a full explanation and wouldn't forgive or forget until he had given her one.
If she'd allowed him to wrap his arms around her at all, it had more to do with the freezing temperatures than anything else.
"All right," she said through chattering teeth. As she laid her head down on his chest, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of his coat. God only knew her own jacket wasn't doing much to ward off the chill in the air. "I'm listening."
"You were right," he admitted, his hands moving up and down her back to warm her up. "I screwed up. I've been… hoping you would take care of this, so I wouldn't have to."
"I've noticed."
She could feel him bristle at her dry tone, and that struck her as odd. The remark hadn't been intended as an accusation. She hadn't said it in the hopes of hurting him. But he was reacting like she'd been doing something other than offering a quick quip. And that was anything but normal for him.
Pulling back a little, she looked up at him. "I didn't –"
He let go of her, so that he could wave her off. In all honesty, she wished he hadn't done that. His body heat had been a nice way of warding off the cold, and now she had no protection against the wind.
But all thoughts of the weather were promptly when he said, "In my head, it made sense to stay out of it. I don't know." He shook his head as though what he was saying wasn't exactly what he had in mind. "Look," he said after a moment, frustration creeping into his voice. "I'm not good with kids – we both know that."
"I –"
"You said it yourself."
"That's not what I meant," Cuddy insisted as speedily as her lips could form the words. "I wasn't –"
"I thought if I didn't do anything, I could avoid hurting her. I thought it would be better for everyone that way; you wouldn't think I was using her to get to you," he admitted carefully. As much as he knew this deserved an explanation, it was hard to go through his train of thought when he could see, in his periphery, Rachel.
She wasn't paying attention at all to him. Had she, she would have noticed that her mother had come outside. That Rachel hadn't come running over here like an obedient dog who'd realized it had been caught doing something naughty meant that she hadn't looked over this way. And given the way her gaze was trained on the snow in front of her, it wasn't hard to believe that her focus was elsewhere.
However, House knew that at some point she would either find good snow and come running back or wouldn't find any and come running back anyway. And when she did, he didn't want her to hear any of this conversation.
"But the only thing worse than having you think that is making you think that I don't want this," he said, looking at Cuddy intently. "I want this to work too." His body shifted in discomfort. "More than anything."
He could see in her posture that he had done it; he'd earned her forgiveness. Those words spoken, her anger, which had been so prominent before, melted away. Her features softened, and an understanding, warm smile replaced the cold smirk she'd donned only moments ago.
"I love you," he added. He supposed he was campaigning too hard by tossing in that line, especially considering he'd already clearly resolved the argument. But he also knew that it was a fact that couldn't hurt him.
"I love you too."
She looked like she was about to kiss him, which was never a bad thing. Yet she didn't even get a chance to take more than a step towards him. Predictably it was at that moment that Rachel came running back.
"I finded one!" she screamed, carrying a snowball that was nearly half the size House had told her to get. "It's huge!"
Her obvious delight disappeared the second she saw Cuddy.
Stopping in her tracks, Rachel asked seriously, "Am I in trouble?"
"Lucky for you," Cuddy answered in a voice that bordered on stern. "House has convinced me that you've earned a break –"
"Yay!"
"However, if you don't have your inhaler…."
How she planned on ending that sentence, House would never know. At that moment, while they were talking about Rachel's inhaler, he felt the strange weight of it in his jeans' pocket. He figured he must have forgotten to take it back out after their trip to the store.
"I got it," he said, pulling it out for Cuddy to see.
She was obviously unimpressed. Turning her attention back to Rachel, she asked, "Did you ask him if he had it?" Rachel hesitated then shook her head. "Rachel, you know you need to –"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," House interrupted. He understood why Cuddy would be concerned; he knew that it was important for Rachel to carry her rescue inhaler – or to make sure someone nearby had one – when she was going outside in winter. But he hadn't brought Rachel out here for her mother to nag her. The last thing he wanted was for his efforts to be forgotten because of a petty fight. "She knows. I know – I knew, so it's not an issue."
Before Cuddy could even protest, he told Rachel, "That's not big enough. It needs to be twice as big."
"Okay," she replied hurriedly. She ran off as fast as she could go in the snow. Obviously she wasn't going to wait around for her mother to stop her.
Which left Cuddy with no other option than to turn her irritation on to him.
Glaring at him, she said, "Don't do that."
"What's that?" he asked snidely. "Stop you from ruining what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience?"
She clenched her jaw. "Well I apologize for bringing common sense into the equation, but Rachel cannot afford to forget –"
"Let's pretend this isn't my first day on the job," he said knowingly. "Let's assume for a second that I get what's at stake and have lived here long enough to know when the thing you think is bothering you isn't the thing that's bothering you."
Cuddy brushed falling snow off her cheeks. She was sure he would take the act to mean she was unnerved by his assessment, but he couldn't have been further from the truth. She had no idea what he meant, which made it difficult to be offended, upset, or anything else.
"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about."
"House, I have no clue what you're talking about. This isn't an act."
His eyes roamed over her body as he openly looked for some tell that she was lying. When he couldn't find one, because she wasn't lying, he asked, "You think it's a coincidence that you're obsessing and overreacting –"
"I'm not overreacting to anything," she said calmly.
"Overreacting to every slight –"
"Rachel not knowing if her inhaler was nearby is not slight," Cuddy snapped louder than she wanted.
Both she and House glanced over to Rachel then to make sure she hadn't heard. It was clear she hadn't; she was feebly trying to pack more snow together – and failing.
"Relax," he said, pulling Cuddy's attention back to him. "Like I said, I know what's at stake. However, you're unnecessarily getting agitated and working yourself into a frenzy over things that don't require that level of hysteria."
She glowered. "I'm not hysterical."
He nodded his head once. "Not usually. But you are today. You are now. That's not coincidental."
It killed her to have to admit it, but she still had no idea what he was trying to say. True, there was a part of her that seemed to instantly understand that his accusation was an offensive one. But he was being so vague, never giving her a reason why her behavior was predictable or intention, that she didn't get it.
He opened his mouth, thankfully (or maybe not given what she was sure he would say) to explain further. He didn't have a chance to say anything, however.
Before he could, Cuddy felt a tug on her coat. "Mommy."
Rachel was by her side. The snowball that had been in her hand must have disintegrated, or perhaps she'd set it down, because she didn't have anything with her now.
"I have to pee. Now."
The urgency in her voice left no question in Cuddy's mind as to how badly her daughter needed to use the bathroom. It was clear that Rachel had held off as long as she could, and she couldn't wait any longer.
"Okay," Cuddy said immediately. "Let's get inside."
She didn't give Rachel the chance to take a single step; not trusting her daughter's speed, Cuddy reached down and picked her up. By the time she turned around, House had already opened the front door for them.
"Thank you."
But that gratitude was lost in the rush to undress Rachel. Wordlessly Cuddy set Rachel down in the hallway as House closed the door behind them. And then without even saying so, both he and Cuddy went about stripping Rachel of her winter clothes.
Their hands worked in a frenzied pace, removing mittens, scarf, jacket, and boots. But it seemingly wasn't happening fast enough for Rachel. "Mommy, I have to –"
"Just a couple more seconds," Cuddy said, pulling down Rachel's snowsuit.
"I can't wait."
"Well, you're going to have to."
Rachel let out a high-pitched whine. "Hurry."
It was unnecessary for her to say that; within seconds she was freed completely from her winter attire, and immediately she sprinted off down the hallway.
Surrounded by fleece and puffy pants, Cuddy looked to House. But while she was exasperated, he seemed amused.
"Is it your turn to get undressed, little girl?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
It was a ridiculous proposition. They were standing in the hallway in their winter coats. Rachel was probably somewhere between the hall and the bathroom, peeing all over the floor. Mentally, already Cuddy was prepared to clean urine off of tile, but here he was, acting as though now were the right time to throw her a line like that.
Then again it must have been, because in spite of herself, she found herself chuckling. The smile on her face felt foreign, and she eagerly gripped onto his forearm as he moved closer to her. "I only need to take my coat off," she said teasingly, as he started to undo the buttons on her coat.
His mouth brushing against her ear, he whispered hoarsely, "That's not exactly true."
Her jacket slipped off her shoulders. And though she should have been worried about the white wool falling on the floor, where it could easily pick up dirt, she didn't think about that at all. Her focus was entirely on him – or more specifically on his mouth.
Her hands moving to cup his cheeks, she pulled him into a deep kiss. His lips meeting hers with equal passion, she sighed into him. This was what she needed right now, more than anything. His kiss, his lips, his tongue – all of it working against her own to create heat between them – it was all she could have wanted in that moment.
But in typical House fashion, he was determined to give her more. His fingers curling under the hem of her sweater, his fingertips slowly meandered towards her breast. Her skin was warm to the touch, and he took his time, letting his palm brush against the flat plane of her stomach.
And that was where it ended.
Where it had to end.
Because it was right as he reached the lacy bottom of her bra, that Rachel shouted, "Mommy!"
Reluctantly Cuddy pulled away from him. Sighing she looked at him apologetically. "I have to see what she wants."
He shrugged like it was no big deal, but she knew that he had to have been as frustrated as she was. Of course, that was his own fault. He had to have known, just as she had, that this would happen. So as she left him there, she refused to feel bad.
Besides, was there any doubt in either of their minds that they would have sex again – and soon?
It might have been annoying to have to stop, but they would have other chances. At least, that was what she insisted on telling herself.
But as she came across Rachel, any and all thought of sex was promptly forgotten.
Rachel was crying. She was sitting on the toilet, which meant that she'd at least made it there. But Cuddy could also see that her pants were still on.
Rachel didn't have to say anything. No explanation was necessary. It was obvious that she had waited too long to say something and had made the choice to pee in her pants to avoid having an accident on the floor.
"I'm sorry," she cried, perhaps sensing that Cuddy had figured out what had happened.
Stepping further into the bathroom, Cuddy tried to console her. "It's okay." She leaned down and kissed Rachel on the forehead. Running her fingers through Rachel's hair, she repeated, "It's okay."
Rachel remained unconvinced and seemingly inconsolable. "I didn't – I thought…." And then her sobs seemed to get even louder when she said, "I just wanted my snowman."
Cuddy stepped away and shifted toward the bathtub. Her intentions had been to wait closer to tonight's party to give Rachel a bath. Understanding that last minute messes were hardly uncommon, she'd hoped to put off getting Rachel clean until Cuddy was sure she couldn't get dirty again. But that plan was gone now; Rachel had literally pissed all over it.
It was a thought that would have been amusing if not for the mess Cuddy now faced.
She stopped the tub and turned on the faucet. Water loudly rushing into the basin, she turned back to Rachel. "I'm going to go get something to put your clothes in, and then we'll clean you up. You need to stay here."
Rachel nodded her head but say nothing.
"I mean it, honey, just stay where you are. Don't get up." Cuddy doubted she would go anywhere. But perhaps in an attempt to clean up her accident, she might go to take off her pants, and Cuddy was sure that would make things worse. "Don't get in the tub until I get back."
She headed to the bathroom door to leave, but Rachel grabbed hold of her hand. "Don't tell House," she pleaded.
Cuddy was sure that he would not have cared either way about what had happened to Rachel. Even if he were feeling particularly arrogant, he would still barely be able to muster a comment. In her experience, Cuddy knew that House had never been close to Rachel. But he'd never been intentionally and unnecessarily cruel either. Rachel was worried about what he would say if he knew, but the fact was he would never say anything.
"He's not going to care, baby. He –"
"No," Rachel muttered. "Don't want him know," she said, leaving out the to in her sentence.
Cuddy rubbed her daughter's tear-stained cheek. "I'm not going to say anything to him. I'm just going to get a hamper to put your clothes in, all right? That's all."
The words weren't enough insurance; Rachel's grip on her remained fierce, her pleading eyes wild with desperation.
"Rachel, it's okay," Cuddy said, as she slowly worked at freeing herself. "I'll be right back."
She moved out of the way before Rachel had a chance to grab her again. Briefly Cuddy worried that Rachel would respond by getting up off the toilet seat, doing precisely what Cuddy wanted to avoid.
But Rachel remained where she was. She didn't look happy, but she didn't move.
"I'll be right back," Cuddy repeated before heading out of the bathroom.
She was quick in retrieving Rachel's clothes hamper. Rachel might have been worried her mother would tell House, but Cuddy wasn't thinking about that at all. Her focus was solely on cleaning up the mess in front of her and worry about everything else later.
Of course, even if she wanted to tell him, he was nowhere in sight. Cuddy could only assume that that meant he'd gone into hiding in their bedroom or his office. He'd done his nice act for the day, and he was done – clearly.
Heading back to the bathroom with Rachel's hamper in hand, Cuddy sighed at that knowledge. That was precisely what she hated about this situation with House. He could be kind and attentive one moment and then... when he was done, he was done. He disappeared without comment, without pretending as though he'd ever cared at all.
She wouldn't say that he wasn't trying. He had made it clear that he was, and she could appreciate the effort he'd gone to this weekend. But... sometimes, like right now, it struck her that he was merely going through the motions.
As she pushed open the bathroom door though, she supposed there was nothing to be done about that now.
"See?" she asked an anxious Rachel who thankfully hadn't moved. "I came right back."
It didn't seem to make a difference. Rachel didn't seem relieved at all. But helping her ease out of her urine-soaked clothing, Cuddy realized slowly that her daughter's mood had everything to do with being wet. Because the second she was freed of her pants and underwear, she seemed a lot happier.
As with all things involving this weekend, her good mood didn't last however. She'd only been in the tub a few minutes when she asked, "Can we go back outside?"
Cuddy reluctantly shook her head. "You need to stay clean for the party tonight."
"I don't want to go to a party."
"You have to go. You were invited."
Rachel pouted. "Why can't I stay with Nana?"
Scooping water into a cup, Cuddy said, "Tip your head back." Rachel complied. "Nana's busy."
As Cuddy wet her daughter's hair, Rachel asked, "Doing what?"
"I don't know. Stealing souls" was Cuddy's frustrated reply.
"I don't want to go. I want to build a snowman."
Cuddy fought the urge to roll her eyes. If there was one thing Rachel had made clear, it was what she wanted and didn't want right now. It didn't need to be said again. But instead of pointing that out, Cuddy simply began shampooing her hair.
"I understand what you want," she said tersely. "But you have to go to this, and you're taking a bath now. So we're not going back outside today."
Perhaps having sensed that whining wasn't going to get her anywhere, Rachel asked, "Please?" Her voice was even not shrill, though there was no mistaking the question for anything other than the last ditch effort that it clearly was.
"Some other time," Cuddy said calmly. "Winter's not over. You have plenty of time to make a snowman."
Rachel knew what that meant: Mommy wasn't going to change her mind so there was no point in arguing. If she was lucky, maybe she wouldn't have school tomorrow, and she could make a snowman then. But Rachel wasn't hopeful. Cause of her asthma, she rarely got to play outside in the snow as it was, and Mommy hated the snow; House didn't, but Rachel knew he didn't like playing with her necessarily. And if it was icy, then that was hard on his leg, so he wouldn't want to go outside. And even if he did, now that she had peed her pants, no one would ever want to take her out again. They probably thought she would just pee in her pants again if they did.
"I'm never going to get a snowman," she said sadly, realizing how awful but true that was.
Mommy told her, "It's just one day, monkey. There's going to be more snow and plenty of chances for you to play outside."
Rachel didn't believe that. Everyone always made promises and plans, but she'd been around long enough to know that work or getting sick or something else always got in the way.
But she couldn't say that out loud. Adults could; they could say whatever they wanted but a kid? No. When you did that and you were young, everyone just assumed you needed a nap or were grumpy cause you didn't get what you wanted. So she just said, "I hate this."
Cuddy didn't reply at first. She didn't know what to say. Her daughter was upset that she couldn't go outside. There was no way to console her – no other way anyway. Cuddy had said they could go out some other time; she'd pointed out that there would be plenty of snow for them to play in later. There was nothing else to say.
Knowing that, she silently combed conditioner through Rachel's tangled hair. Every now and then, her fingers would snag in a particularly tight snarl, and Rachel would complain.
"That hurts!"
Delicately untangling the strands of hair, Cuddy said, "I'm sorry. Your hair's messy from being in that hat."
Rachel had nothing to say to that, and she became quiet once more. There was no doubt in Cuddy's mind that Rachel was still irritated about not being able to go outside. Not unlike House, she tended to hold disappointments and grudges for absurd amounts of time. In all likelihood, she would hold this in for days, bringing it up at odd moments to complain.
But for now, she seemed... not content but resigned to what was happening. And maybe it was just the hot water and the feel of her mother's fingers through her hair, but Rachel was slowly starting to droop. She stayed awake the entire time, watching Cuddy as she ran the washcloth along the length of her body. But it was clear that she was beginning to fall prey to exhaustion.
Cuddy supposed that made sense. Rachel's school had "quiet time" every day. Even if the kids weren't tired, they had to lay on their little mat on the middle of the floor, and Rachel was used to that routine, so much so that she still napped even when she didn't have school. Other parents had told Cuddy that their children no longer slept in the afternoon, but Rachel still went down for at least an hour after lunch on most days.
And frankly, Cuddy had never been happier for the reprieve than she was right now. Well, all right, maybe she'd been happier when Rachel had been a teething toddler. But this particular moment was a close second to that. Admittedly, Rachel wasn't doing anything wrong. She'd been... resistant to nearly everything Cuddy had tried to accomplish today, but she wasn't being bad.
Cuddy wanted the break though.
This entire weekend felt as though she'd been running from one crisis to the other, barely attempting to manage one problem before she had to rush off to another. The D.E.A. investigating the hospital, House and Rachel's relationship, John Kelley, this party that was looming over her head... it had just been one thing right after the other. And Cuddy felt as though she couldn't even breathe now without something else going wrong.
At least if she could get Rachel into bed for a little while, Cuddy could have some time to herself. Even if some other problem crept up (and frankly, it was safe to assume one would), she wouldn't have to worry about Rachel getting dirty for a while.
That probably shouldn't have sounded as good as it did to Cuddy's ears, but she couldn't help it. If it was one less thing she had to be concerned about, that was all that mattered. And so, although Rachel protested feebly, Cuddy put her in bed after her bath. It took only a few minutes before Rachel was fast asleep, the warm water and now her soft sheets lulling her to sleep quickly.
But it was funny, Cuddy thought as she closed Rachel's door behind her. This was one less thing to worry about, and that meant that she should have felt relieved.
She didn't.
She felt frantic.
Suddenly House's words came back to her, the sentiments echoing in her head. He'd said her behavior hadn't been a coincidence.
He'd been right.
Without even thinking, she headed back towards the bathroom and grabbed the hamper full of dirty clothes. Doing laundry was hardly something she wanted to do. Yet she found herself heading straight for the washer and dryer in the basement anyway.
As though her body refused to relax for even a moment, she started washing Rachel's clothes.
It didn't matter that she had a housekeeper to do this. It didn't matter that she was tired, exhausted from last night's fitful sleep and everything bad that had happened today. She felt as though she were unable to stop. The need to continue, to busy herself seemed almost consuming.
And again, she was reminded that House had been right.
She'd been obsessing over the smallest details, occupying herself with them to the exclusion of everything else. He'd seen it before she had, but now there was no denying that he'd been right all along.
When doing laundry wasn't enough to distract her from that fact, Cuddy felt compelled to seek him out.
He wasn't hard to find. Like Rachel, he seemed to have a few places he liked to disappear to in the house, and he never strayed from that. So it was hardly surprising to see him sitting on the couch in his office, his feet propped up on his coffee table.
He was reading something in his hand; she couldn't tell what, because he had the pages folded over the cover of the magazine or journal he was reading. Glasses dangled precariously on the bridge of his nose over the chicken pox scar she occasionally liked to touch when he was sleeping. He had a finger resting against his lips, and he was clearly deep in thought – so much so that he didn't even look in her direction when she came in the room.
Truthfully Cuddy didn't know if she wanted him to say anything or not. They were in an okay place at that moment, and she was half-convinced any sort of conversation would ruin the delicate balance. But she was here now; she had to do something. He might not have been paying much attention to her, but surely that would change if she turned around and walked away. He would notice that and seize on the oddity like a dog with a bone.
Without any other option, she quietly joined him on the couch. He still didn't glance in her direction, even as she pulled her legs onto the sofa. But as she laid her head down in his lap, she was content to be ignored.
Anxiety filled her with an itching urge to do something, anything. But lying against House, his fingers eventually carding through her hair, she found it easier to resist surrounding herself with busy work. And for a brief couple of minutes, she relaxed into him. She let herself be consumed by the feeling of his warm hand on her and the soft sound of him turning a page every now and then.
That peace didn't last long though. As she lie there, she couldn't help but start to think of all the things she should be doing. And the more she tried to push away those thoughts, the more inescapable they became. Rachel's clothes needed to be put in the dryer; she should pick out the tie House would wear tonight; she should wash the floors and make sure all of the winter clothes Rachel had been wearing were put away….
She should be doing something.
And, perhaps because he was the closest distraction, Cuddy found herself saying, "You were right."
His hand settled on her shoulder, but he didn't speak right away. If anything, it took him a moment to look down at her and say, "Given how true that is, you're going to need to be a little bit more specific."
Rolling onto her back so she could look at him, she wasn't surprised to see that he was being serious. She scoffed in irritation. "You think now's the right time to act like an ass?"
"Am I really being an ass in pointing out that I am often right?"
"Yes."
"Fine," he said with a shrug. "But it's not going to make me sound like less of an asshole to say I have no idea what you're talking about."
She gritted her teeth but managed to explain, "You said my behavior wasn't a coincidence."
He inhaled loudly as understanding hit him. Taking his hand off her, he removed his glasses and set them aside. "You're surprised I know something about the woman I live with and have seen every day for years?"
She shook her head.
"You're mad then," he deduced, assuming that if she weren't surprised, she was agitated that he had realized what was going on first.
"No."
It was apparent that she was telling the truth. If only because she had no reason to lie, he believed her when she said she wasn't mad. But then that left him with predicament of not knowing what it was she did feel.
She wasn't surprised, wasn't angry; she certainly wasn't going to be happy that he'd recognized a behavior in her before she had. But that hardly narrowed down the possibilities before him.
He couldn't ask. Tempting though it was to put the question out there, he couldn't ask what the hell she was thinking. That never went over that well, and he didn't feel like getting into a fight over it.
It went without saying that there was a good chance that they would get into an argument anyway. But he was willing to try avoiding one if he could.
And House figured that the best way to do that was to be as obtuse and general in his reaction as he could be. Cover all bases, and there would be a chance he'd hit something she wanted or needed him to say.
"A lot's happened this weekend," he said as an admittedly lame opener. "Your Type A personality malfunctioning was bound to happen."
She blinked and looked away from him. He watched her intently, careful to take in every hesitant movement in her body – the way her throat bobbed as she swallowed, the way her eyelashes fluttered as she closed her eyes. "I didn't… I didn't know that was going to happen."
House latched onto the admittance instantly. Whether she'd intentionally given him an opening or not, he had struck something within her. And he wasn't going to let the opportunity pass him by.
"I'm not surprised," he told her calmly. "You respond to problems by trying to fix them."
"Which is a horrible quality to have," she replied with sarcasm laced in every word.
"Of course not. But you obsess over small details and fixate on making everything perfect." She looked at him as though he had said something insulting. It wasn't, but given how he tended to deride her need for perfection, he could see why she would hear his words spoken in the most negative of ways. "When things aren't just right, you're not happy. You try to make it better, but sometimes that doesn't work. Things don't go the way you want them, you…." He tried to think of the right word he wanted to say. "Hoard the control you do have."
He shrugged. "It was only a matter of time."
"You make it sound like I'm crazy."
"No." That was the last thing he wanted her to think he thought if he wanted to avoid a fight. "If it weren't for you, Rachel and I'd probably walk out the house without pants on twice a week and eat jelly beans and rat poison for dinner." Pausing for a moment, he felt compelled to add, "And when I say Rachel and I, I mean mainly Rachel."
"Of course. You don't need me at all" was her sarcastic reply.
She could have easily come across as offended. But he could see the small upturn of her lips, and he knew she wasn't upset.
"Obviously not," he said, playing along with the sentiment. "Once Chase fully transitions into a woman, you and I are so done."
"Chase doesn't have my ass."
"Or your affinity for naughty sex. So you have nothing to worry about."
She stifled a laugh. "I was so concerned."
"That's ridiculous to you," he said knowingly.
She looked at him like she thought he was an idiot. "As attractive as he is, I'm not worried."
"But you are worried about John Kelley?"
His point had the effect he wanted. Because even though it was obvious she was about to get defensive, he could see understanding slowly seep in.
"I didn't say that," she said quickly.
"You didn't have to."
She sat up, suddenly agitated. "You are so arrogant. You get one little detail right, and you assume –"
"Yeah, it's not really two separate thoughts," he interrupted. "I knew you were going to react the way you did – are – because if you didn't have something else to focus on, you'd think about kissing him."
The truth in that could be read all over her face. Just mentioning what had happened drained all of the color from her cheeks. And her voice was low – dangerous when she said, "I told you not to bring –"
"I'm not bringing it up to make you feel guilty. I'm bringing it up, because it's the reason why that stick up your ass is –"
"We're not talking about this," she announced, standing up as she uttered the hasty words.
He didn't believe her for a second.
It didn't even make sense; her words when taken at face value were at odds with everything she had done up to this point. If she hadn't wanted to talk about what had happened, she wouldn't have told him that that asshole had kissed her. If she hadn't wanted to discuss it, she wouldn't have come to him now. She certainly wouldn't have allowed the conversation to get this far, anyway.
No, House didn't think she was lying. She wasn't. Cuddy was just... unable to assess her own needs at that point. She was so focused on that bastard's kiss and what it might mean for their relationship – as House had said – that she couldn't see her own ridiculousness.
Her words were as far from the truth as one could get.
But she didn't know that.
And yet he realized that he would never be able to convince her of that. Right now, she was too upset to listen to anything he had to say. So he could only tell her, "Okay. We won't talk about it."
House reached for his glasses and slipped them back on. Picking up the forgotten journal, he began to read once more. It would drive Cuddy nuts to see him do that (as her frustrated groan attested to). But it was all he could do in this situation. She wasn't ready for the conversation, and maybe he had approached the matter too aggressively, making her even more gun shy.
Whatever the circumstances, she needed a break, and he was willing to give her one. Frankly, he thought as she stormed off, it would only take twenty minutes at most. She would go do laundry or clean a bathroom or dust random surfaces in the house. All the while though, his words would eat away at her. She would consider everything he'd said, would want to brush them off as stupid and inaccurate, but she would be unable to. At some point while folding clothes or scrubbing a toilet or dusting a picture frame, she would recognize that he hadn't been wrong.
And then she would come to him again.
This time though, House was determined to be prepared.
He'd expected this conversation to creep up, but he had been arrogant, as she had accused. He'd assumed that he would be able to reason with her without any real effort on his part.
At best that had been wishful thinking. To believe that she was in a position to hear him out, to think that logic alone would guide her to the truth... yeah, that had been stupid.
It was obvious that that would take more effort on his part. He would have to reason with her, yes, but he would need something to aid him along. He would need to lull her into a place where her own insanity would shut up long enough for her to listen.
And while he didn't assume anymore that that would be an easy task, he did think it was straight forward.
As soon as she was out of sight, he got to work. He didn't have much time to prepare himself. If she was as consumed with anxiety as she seemed to be, he wouldn't have all that long to set up. So he quickly set his glasses and journal aside once more and started preparation.
Quietly he headed for the linen closet. The lack of whining in the house meant that Rachel was down for a nap, and Cuddy was nowhere to be seen, but he tried to keep his own noise down. The last thing he wanted was for his plan to be thwarted because of cranky Cuddys.
Pulling the door to the closet open, he carefully plucked out the thick electric blanket that they rarely used. Carrying it to the bedroom, he immediately went about spreading the blanket out on the bed. The bulky blanket was a hassle to deal with, especially when he had to waste time untangling the plug, which had become knotted. But he knew it was necessary to have the bed warmed. Cuddy was in such a neurotic, bitchy place that she would never get naked without the assurance that she wouldn't get cold.
Sure, there was a wrinkled cashmere throw at the bottom of the bed. It would be perfectly reasonable for a person to assume that that alone would be enough. But Cuddy was in a place that was so far from perfectly reasonable, and he wasn't going to take the chance. Besides, she could use the cashmere blanket to cover up with, he figured.
As soon as the bed was made to his liking, he stalked towards the bathroom. Not that she ever remembered to use them, but House knew she kept candles in the cabinets under the sink. Throwing the doors open, he yanked as many candles out as he could carry.
Perhaps this was going too far. That was what he thought as he strategically placed the candles around the room – along her dresser, on the night stands. Cuddy liked romance, but under these circumstances, he wasn't sure how she would react. Plopping the last candle down with a thunk, he considered that she wouldn't like it. In fact, the second she saw the display, she would assume that he was hoping to get laid and would probably react negatively.
In his head, he could hear her accusing him of using the experience with John as foreplay.
It was an insane thought, but that was precisely why House felt it was likely she would think it.
So he would need something to silence the lambs, he realized. And he knew just what that something would be.
Slipping out of the bedroom, he headed towards the kitchen. He needed matches, which he easily found in a drawer. But he also needed the mug he saw her holding earlier. He looked around the room for a bit but didn't see it. Eventually finding the mug sitting on the dining room table, he was pleased that it was still full of tea.
That would save him some time, he thought, as he microwaved it to get it hot once more. At least he didn't have to make more for her and risk her hearing the kettle whistling. Then again, if he'd made it from scratch, he wouldn't have nearly burned the flesh off his hands, he thought as he too eagerly reached for the hot mug in the microwave.
He hissed in pain when the porcelain cup rubbed against his palms. Forcing himself to wait a few seconds, he reminded himself that he needed to be calm. There was a time issue, yes, and he needed to be mindful of that. But none of his plans would work if she came into the room and felt his own frantic energy. If he weren't calm, she would never be, and nothing he said would ever register in her mind.
Taking a relaxing breath, he reached for the mug once more. This time he could handle the heat radiating off the cup. Long fingers curving around it, he cautiously made his way back to the bedroom. His limp made it more challenging to balance the mug, but he had learned over the years how to handle the uneven movement as best he could.
As soon as he was in the bedroom, he tossed the matches on to the bed. He could light the candles in a moment. He couldn't wait to do this, or Cuddy would know.
Heading back to the bathroom once more, mug in hand, he opened the medicine cabinet. His eyes roamed over the various prescriptions for the right one. The general agreed-upon arrangement was to separate the drugs by who they were for and, thanks to Cuddy's insanity, by alphabetical order. But try as she might to convince him otherwise, House never really followed her organization. As a result, his prescriptions were mixed in with hers, a bottle of Vicodin she let him keep in the house lying messily underneath her birth control.
His gaze seemed to fix itself on the Vicodin. He wasn't looking for that, but his body didn't seem to recognize that fact. As though his being could sense the close proximity of his favorite drug, he couldn't stop staring at it. And even when he reminded himself that he didn't need it, even as he told himself that that wasn't why he was here, he could feel his thigh twinge painfully.
Like it was longing for the Vicodin.
But it was that very pain that pulled him out of his trance.
Sometimes the Vicodin was a necessity; sometimes, no matter how hard he tried to rid himself of it, the pain was too great for him to ignore, and he would reach for the drug then. Now was not one of those times. And if Cuddy let him keep it here, it wasn't because she trusted him to know the difference between when he needed and when he merely wanted. It was because she didn't trust him, because she felt it was easier to control his addiction by keeping it in plain sight.
If she'd forbidden it, she had realized that it would be easy for him to keep a secret stash in his office, in his car, in his apartment. It would be simple for him to take the drug elsewhere and never let her know what he had done. So she'd allowed the Vicodin in their home to keep an eye on him.
And, as it always did, that irritated him. He didn't like being watched over, being treated like her child. But he also knew, as he always reminded himself, that he had to play by the rules she'd set out for him. In this case at least, he had to. Sneaking Vicodin behind her back, throwing a fit over being unable to do what he wanted when he wanted... it would just prove her right. It would only convince her that her reservations were more than founded.
He supposed they were and that, maybe more than anything, he did what she wanted, because he didn't want Vicodin to come between him and her. That thought reminding him of what was at stake, it forced his focus back on the matter at hand.
His search renewed, he found the bottle of Lorazapam she sometimes dipped into. As he opened the bottle, he recognized that it would do him no good to give her a full dose. There was still the stupid party he'd agreed to go to tonight, and she would absolutely rip his dick off if she missed it, because he'd drugged her. A half pill would do though.
Using the bottom of the bottle, he crushed one of the tiny white pills in half. Then he used the bottle to mash the half he was going to dose her with against the sink. When it was a fine powder, he brushed it into the mug of hot tea. He practically burned his finger to stir the Lorazapam into the liquid, but it would be a little obvious what he was doing if there were milky white chunks floating on top of the amber-colored tea.
Placing the leftover Lorazapam back in the bottle and the bottle back on the shelf, he closed the medicine cabinet. Doing so, he caught himself smiling in the bathroom mirror – grinning really. Instantly he forced his features to look less amused at his own ability to deceive. If she came in and saw him looking like that, she'd immediately know something was going on. She was already going to be suspicious; anything that could be perceived as nice from him at the moment was something she would question.
He wasn't going to make that any easier for her.
Heading to the bedroom once more, he placed her cup on her side of the nightstand. Grabbing the matches off the bed, he started lighting the candles around the room.
And that was what he was doing when she barged in the room. With resignation in her voice, she said, "All right. Fine. You're..." He wasn't looking at her, but he could tell by the way that her sentence trailed off: she was noticing the room. As predicted, she instantly became suspicious. "What are you doing?"
He finished lighting all of the candles before he answered. "You've had a bad day. I haven't exactly helped," he said honestly.
"And you think seducing me right now is what is going to help me." She sounded equal parts disgusted and irritated.
"I'm not interested in having sex with you," he admitted, as he walked past her. Closing the bedroom door and locking it, he heard how untrue the sentiment was. So he corrected himself. "Well, no more interested than usual."
Finally looking at her, he could see that the comment wasn't making her feel any better. He was screwing this up; he could tell, and he knew that he needed to fix it or lose the opportunity forever.
"I'm not trying to have sex with you," he told her in all honesty. "I just thought... you're tense and unhappy, and you need to relax."
The way he spoke, she believed him. He didn't seem like he was lying to her. But she still didn't understand. "I don't –"
"A massage," he supplied.
"Oh."
That had been the last thing she was expecting.
She'd been in the middle of switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer when she'd realized that he'd been right. Again. As hard as it was to admit it, she'd been trying to avoid thinking about John Kelley, about kissing him. All of this pent up energy had been a means to escape it, but nothing she did was enough. No matter how hard she tried, she kept remembering what had happened: his taste, the way he had felt against her mouth, his tongue on her teeth. And in doing so, yes, she couldn't help but fear for the state of her relationship with House.
She'd come here to admit that he was right, to get the reassurance that she could feel herself craving. Being in a position of need, she'd expected House to make her beg for it. Especially after she'd been so dismissive earlier.
She hadn't anticipated him being so giving.
That he was... seemed to be too good to be true.
"You want to give me a massage," she said slowly, incredulously.
Again he sounded honest when he explained. "I'm trying to make you feel better." She could tell that he was trying to avoid sounding condescending, but she didn't really feel as though he was succeeding. "I want you to listen to what I have to say, but that's not going to happen until you're calm enough."
She folded her arms across her chest. "And if I don't agree?"
"Then you don't agree," he said with a shrug. "You don't want a massage? Fine."
Disagreeing seemed to be the one thing that mattered to her. He was being calm and logical, but in her, she felt as though her salvation could only come from telling him how wrong he was. And that made absolutely no sense, not even to her, the person having the thought.
Perhaps he sensed her conflict, because he said then, "It's just a massage. It doesn't have to mean something."
It didn't feel like that, not to her. She felt so desperate to maintain control over herself that any concession about anything felt like a physical blow. But rationally she knew – knew – that telling him no would just remind both of them how right he was about all of this. And he might not be smug now about that, but he would be at some point.
She wasn't going to let that happen.
"Fine," she conceded, like she was doing him a favor.
"Take off your clothes."
She didn't. In fact she didn't do anything other than scowl.
"I promise you, I'm not trying to have sex with you," he said quickly.
"So I'm getting naked, because..."
"Because I can do a better job if you are," he explained. She could hear the frustration he was trying to hide from her.
Part of her felt bad for him. Rationally she understood that he was just trying to do something nice for her. He was, in theory anyway, trying to be kind, and she was making that as difficult as could be. But knowing that didn't stop her from saying, "I don't want to be cold."
"You won't get cold. I –"
"I will."
There was a moment of heated silence, a pregnant pause where he was clearly trying to maintain control of himself.
"Electric blanket's on the bed," he told her, gesturing to the thick, butter-colored blanket that wasn't usually there. "It's been warming up for a while now." He reached for the cashmere blanket that had been folded at the foot of the bed. "You can cover up with this. And I reheated your tea for you."
It was clear that he had thought of everything. Every possible objection that she could offer he had dealt with, ensuring that he would get what he wanted.
"Fine," she grumbled, pulling her sweated up over her head. "I'll get naked."
"Wonderful."
It didn't take her long to discard all of her clothing. Getting undressed, she remembered, was a surprisingly simple task when she wasn't making out with him with one hand cupping her breast and the other hand shoved down her underwear.
Kicking her clothes aside, she looked at him. He was holding the mug of tea out for her expectantly. His gaze focused on her eyes, he wasn't looking at her body.
And that made her suspicious.
She took the cup, her cold hands greedily cradling the heated mug. But she didn't take a sip. There was just something so odd about him having the tea she'd long since forgotten about right there... waiting for her.
"You dosed this," she accused.
He smirked. "Why would I do something like that?"
"Because you're you."
He took a step closer to her. His frame looming over her, he told her, "Look in the cup. You see anything? Smell anything?"
She didn't, she realized, as he pushed some of her hair out of her face. "That doesn't mean anything."
"Okay." He took the mug out of her hands and took a large sip. He made a point of swallowing as loudly as he could. "That mean something to you?"
"You're bigger than I am. You could have still put something in it, and it wouldn't affect you."
"Get on the bed," he told her in a low voice that made her body flush.
She didn't mean to react to his tone, but she couldn't help herself.
If he noticed though, he didn't say anything. All he said was, "Don't drink it if you don't want to."
As she laid down on her stomach, carefully balancing the tea in her hands, her mind swam with possibility. Saying that he didn't care if she drank it made her think that he hadn't put anything in it. But maybe saying that was just his way of ensuring that she would think he hadn't put anything in it when he had.
"You're giving me a headache," she confessed.
"Just relax."
His hands were on her calves, his fingers carefully pressing into her muscle.
"You're over thinking this."
She was.
She couldn't deny that. She was obsessing over what he had done to the tea, what he might have done to the tea. But really what did that matter? He wouldn't hurt her. So if he'd put something in the beverage, it wouldn't result in her being harmed in any way. Maybe she'd be drugged enough to agree with him; maybe she'd be high enough to take a nap or calm down in the way he wanted. But he wouldn't do something serious to harm her.
"I know," she agreed. Throwing caution to the wind, she tentatively sipped the hot tea in her hands. The paranoid part of her was curious as to what House's reaction to that was, but she refused to look back at him. It didn't matter, she told herself.
"You have nothing to worry about with that guy," House told her, taking advantage of her capitulation.
"No." She shook her head, dark curls slipping over her shoulder tantalizingly. He couldn't help but hungrily watch the strands slide along the plane of her back. "You're wrong."
"If you wanted to date that guy, you would have," he pointed out. "I'm not someone you just fall into a relationship with, Cuddy. You wanted me."
Warmth coated her every word. "I know."
"Then there's nothing to worry about," he dismissed.
Cuddy rolled over, her legs knocking his hands out of the way.
"See, the whole point of a massage is –"
"He's had people investigate you," she said gravely. "He's looking into you. He knew that you still had your apartment."
He wasn't concerned. He hadn't really considered it before, but he could believe that John would have someone investigating him. Wouldn't House himself have done the same thing in the reverse? "Of course he did."
"And that doesn't bother you." She took another sip of the tea.
"No."
She practically snorted into the mug.
"It doesn't," he insisted. "If you know about it, he told you. And the only reason he would tell you what he was doing is to gauge your reaction." He gestured to her. "Obviously you weren't pleased by that little development. He's not going to keep –"
"You don't know that."
"Actually I do." He reached for one of her thighs and began to rub her pale skin. "If there's one thing I'd consider myself good at, it's seducing you. If I were trying to get in your panties, I wouldn't keep doing something that obviously doesn't make you happy."
She raised an eyebrow. "Since when have you tried to avoid irritating me?"
He intentionally didn't answer the question. "He wanted to see if you were open to hearing something bad about me. He wanted to know if he could work that angle. It didn't work."
"And that's it?"
"Of course not. But he's not going to try and make me look bad, because he realizes now that that's not going to work."
Once more, she rolled over. "I guess."
"Don't spill that," he warned, noticing how the mug in her hand kept sloshing about. "Burnt nipples don't exactly spell relaxation. Even if you do like it kinky."
She didn't say anything in return. He was right, she thought, at least about the mug. She would burn herself if she weren't more careful. But truth be told, she was tired of dealing with the tea, so she quickly drank the rest.
Handing him the empty mug, she said, "So he's not going to be looking into you. That doesn't mean anything."
He set the cup on one of the nightstands. Picking up the cashmere blanket, he held it out in front of her face to take. And though she did, she didn't cover her body with it. She clutched it to her side but left herself open for his wandering gaze.
He did not believe that that was a coincidence.
"It means you're going to get a half-assed apology," he said knowingly. "It means he'll back off for a little bit and then try again, sure."
"And you're not concerned about that."
His hands rubbed along her bony ankles. "Like you said, I'm arrogant. It doesn't please me to know what he's going to do. But I'm not worried that he's going to steal you away from me."
Her voice seemed so small when she responded. "I don't want him to kiss me again."
Pulling one of her feet into his hands, he said, "I don't want that either. Lucky for both of us, he played that card too soon."
She didn't feel that lucky, she thought. She might have had a boyfriend who was doing everything in his power to make her feel better, but another man had kissed her. And she didn't feel as though she had anything even remotely approaching luck on her side.
"Yeah? How's that?" she asked.
"He tried to make a deposit in your bank before he made sure he even had an account there."
She raised her head off the bed. "You're comparing sex with me to having a bank –"
"Which means," he said, ignoring her distaste apparently. "You know what he wants; you can't deny it. Which means he'll have a very hard time getting you alone again," House explained, massaging the sole of her foot.
But that hardly made her feel better. "You're relying on a lack of opportunity. You would give up if I just refused to be alone with you?"
"He's not as determined as I am to get in your pants."
At that, she felt him drawing one of her feet closer to his chest. The movement seemed odd to her; he already had her in his grasp. It wasn't like he didn't have a hold of her.
Turning her head, she asked, "What are you doing?" But as soon as she looked at him, she knew the answer. His hand was still rubbing one of her soles, but his gaze was trained on her ass. Or rather, thanks to his movement, her thighs had parted ever so slightly, and he was practically staring at her vulva. "Seriously?"
He blinked and slowly let his gaze wander towards her face. "Am I not allowed to look?"
"Of course you can. It's just a little odd considering what we're talking about."
"We were talking about something?" he joked.
He had to let go of her foot when she tried to kick him with it. "Do my shoulders," she instructed before laying her head back down on the mattress.
"I'm being punished for looking at –"
"No," she interrupted. "I'd just rather have you work on my shoulders."
And that was the truth. As much as her feet could ache after a day's worth of wearing heels, right now she didn't care about that. She wanted him close to her.
"Fine." He moved up the bed and placed his hands between her shoulder blades. As he started to massage her, he explained gently, "After that mistake, he's not going to try to kiss you again."
"Right," she said doubtfully.
"Let me tell you something: guys like him? They get off on being the nice guy. That's how they flirt – by seeming nice. He screwed up today," he said roughly, as harshly as his massage was unintentionally becoming. "He's not going to try to kiss you again. He'll flirt and do his little song and dance, but he'll want you to make the next move."
"That's not going to happen," Cuddy told him with determination. No matter what John thought, she had never wanted, nor invited, his attraction. And she would never do anything to encourage him to continue feeling that way. "Not so hard," she said, as House practically pinched her back.
He stopped massaging her for a moment, perhaps aware of the pain he'd briefly given her. But what he said was a sarcastic, "That's not what you said this morning."
It took him a few seconds, but eventually he renewed his efforts. This time though, he was careful to be less rough with her. Still, underneath his fingertips he could feel the knots in her muscles. He tried to rub them out, to get her to relax, but he could tell that it wasn't working. He would ease the tension in one area of her shoulders or back and move on to the other. But then, when he would meander back to the place he'd started, she was as tense as ever.
"You're still worried about that," he said with dismay. He was unhappy that, despite all of his efforts, she wasn't any more relaxed than when she'd come into the room.
"I don't understand how you can't be," she murmured into the cashmere blanket.
"I would be worried if I thought he had any chance with you. I know he doesn't." He pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. "If I thought I'd given you a reason to run into his arms, I'd be concerned." He rubbed his chin against her pale skin. "I know I'm screwed up, but I don't think I've done that. Even if I haven't been the best with Rachel."
Wanting to put some distance between them, he raised his head up. Quickly he began to massage her once more, hoping that she would take the hint: he didn't want to talk about that.
By his previously employed logic, admittedly, if he'd brought it up at all, he wanted to talk about it. But he hadn't meant to open the door for a discussion about Rachel. He'd needed, in that split second, to recognize his own faults in the relationship. He did not want Cuddy to take that as a sign that they should talk about it.
Unfortunately for him, there was absolutely no chance of that happening. He knew it, even before she had a chance to open her mouth. They were going to have the conversation whether he liked it or not.
So he hastily fished for a compliment. "You should be happy about that, right? You said I needed to take care of it, and I did. Rachel and I aren't fighting anymore."
She didn't respond right away. And as each second passed silently, no approval coming from her, his heart seemed to clench painfully in his chest.
Pulling his hands away from her, he asked, "What did I do wrong?" He sat back on the bed, not stunned that she was doing this. He had predicted she would be this way. But it still upset him, which did surprise him.
Cuddy rolled over. "Nothing," she said quickly. "You didn't do anything wrong." But she said it with such speed that he didn't believe her for a second.
"Really."
"Yes. I'm –"
"You're lying," he snapped bitterly. He rested his head against the headboard and closed his eyes. "So tell me. What didn't you like?"
Thoughtlessly he began to rub his thigh, so mindlessly that he didn't even realize he was doing it until she called attention to it.
"Why don't you take off your clothes and let me rub you a little?" she suggested in a sweet voice that he couldn't appreciate at the moment.
"Why don't you answer the question?"
She crawled up on the bed to be closer to him. And God help him, but he couldn't help but watch the way her breasts swayed with the movement. Even when he was irritated, he couldn't ignore how beautiful she was.
"I will," she told him. "But like it was with me... I don't think you'll listen to me right now, like this." She motioned to his fully clothed body. "So take off your clothes... let me rub your leg and make you feel better, and then we can discuss this."
It didn't sound like a good idea, not to him. But he was powerless to refuse a thigh massage, especially when it came from her. Over the years, she had learned from experience what eased his pain, what he liked. He had a masseuse's number in his cell phone for that instance where he needed relief and Cuddy was busy. If he could always have his way though, she would be the one touching him. And so, although he didn't want to turn the focus on to him, he was unable to say no.
As he unzipped his jeans, he told her, "This wasn't supposed to be like this. I didn't want this to be about me."
"I know… but we need to talk about this." He was content to stay in his boxer briefs and shirt, but she wasn't having that. "Uh uh. Naked."
He rolled his eyes. "You're just going to massage my leg."
"You're not the only one who likes to look," she pointed out as she grabbed the hem of his shirt.
He knew better than to disagree with her. Doing so would only result in a fight, and really, he didn't want that. So it was simply easier for him to pull off the remaining articles of clothing he was wearing.
"Better?" he asked, as he settled back on the bed.
She exhaled roughly, her eyes taking in his appearance. "Much."
He kept quiet as she started to run her palms along his leg. He wanted to get this conversation over with as quickly as possible, yes. But for the first several minutes, he could only focus on what she was doing. As much as he trusted her to know what he needed, his leg muscles always involuntarily contracted at first contact. As though his body didn't quite trust the foreign touch, it always took him a few minutes to calm himself down. And in those instances, it was best to just close his eyes and ease himself into the gentleness of her massage.
For her part, she had the good sense to stay quiet then. He had no doubt that her mind was teeming with things she wanted to say. But she seemed okay with waiting as long as it took.
When he'd finally adjusted to what she was doing, he opened his eyes once more. And immediately he was confronted with how beautiful she was. Sitting in front of him naked, her hands on him, her gaze unwavering in desire as she drank in his figure, she was nothing short of amazing. Perfect nipples tightened in the cool air, bare breasts so close he could reach out and palm one if he wanted to... it was so enticing that it almost made him forget why they were sitting like this.
Almost.
Clearing his throat, he asked once more, "What did I do wrong?"
She looked up at him. Her eyes were sad, something he hadn't expected to see. "House, you didn't do anything wrong."
He didn't believe her. "If that were true, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"I..." She sighed. "You were nice to her, taking her outside."
"And that's a problem, because..." He really didn't understand where she was coming from.
"You always do this," she said vaguely.
"This being –"
"You spoil her, House."
He scoffed.
And she knew she had to clarify. Her fingers tentatively traced the line of his scar as she said slowly, "When you feel you have to get closer to her, your solution is to give her what she wants. The monkey, taking her outside –"
"I'm sorry." The sarcasm was heavy in his voice. "You're right. I should have beat her instead. I'll keep that in mind for next time."
"Did you tell her the real reason you didn't read to her?"
That immediately caught his attention. Cocking his head to the side, he asked, "How do you know what the so-called reason is I –"
"Rachel showed me the book." She looked down for a second. When her eyes met his again, she said, "I saw the inscription. Kutner's name."
"Good for you," he replied, plopping a hand on a pillow. "You're literate."
She ignored the comment. "You were nice to her, sure. But she still has no idea what happened, why you reacted the way you did."
"She doesn't need to know that."
"She needs to know you," she said pointedly. "You can give her every stuffed animal in the world, and that's not going to mean anything if you don't have some sort of emotional –"
"You think I don't realize that?"
The edge in his tone was lethal. Each word came out so sharply that she was surprised by the viciousness.
"Believe me. I know what you want from me. You take every opportunity to remind me of it."
She let her palms rest against his thigh. Licking her lips, she explained to him in a calm voice, "We were talking about what's making me… crazed." She sighed. "I don't want to deal with John, but I can handle him."
"I know you can."
"What I'm not sure I know how to handle, what I'm most worried about, is this situation with Rachel," she confessed.
"I know." He stressed the word to demonstrate just how clearly he understood. "But you have to understand that it's not easy for me."
Without warning she leaned forward and kissed him. Hands on his shoulders as she pulled away, she stayed close to him when she echoed his own thoughts, "I know."
"You have to give me time," he said quietly, her nearness somehow keeping the anger at bay.
"I'm not rushing you." The doubt must have shown through on his face, because she added, "I'm trying to be as patient as I can be."
"Which is why you pointed out my mistake the second you could."
Cuddy pulled away from him. "Honey, you were the one who brought that up. I didn't."
Quickly going over the conversation in his head, he supposed he had. But that didn't mean he was wrong. "A technicality."
"No."
"A little bit, yeah."
"You asked for my opinion."
"Not really."
"So I gave it," she said, obviously ignoring him.
"Actually, I was hoping you'd give me the compliment I was fishing for and reward me in the form of sex."
"You have me naked on a bed," she pointed out. "If it was about the sex, we would be having it. You wanted the compliment."
"So you thought you'd respond by crushing my balls. Metaphorically speaking of course."
She smirked. "Well, I considered actually crushing them, but I am a little attached to that area."
He wasn't amused or any less annoyed by the comment. "I know what you're trying to do. And, as much as I like hearing you compliment my twig and berries, you're not going to distract me from what you said."
Cuddy knew with all her heart that he meant what he said. Nothing was going to make him forget what she'd told him. It wasn't going to automatically get better until she made it that way.
"I wasn't criticizing you," she told him. Knowing full well that he wouldn't believe her, she had to concede afterwards, "It came out that way. I know."
"Ya think?"
"I'm frustrated."
"And you're the only one –"
She shushed him by pressing her hand to his mouth. "You need to listen to me. You've had your chance to speak. Now it's your turn to shut up."
He did, although it was clear on his face that that was the last thing he wanted to do.
But when he was finally quiet, she tried once more. "Do you remember what you said to me when you first wanted to move in?"
"Am I allowed to speak now, because –"
"It's a rhetorical question."
"Oh."
"You said to me – you promised me that this wouldn't be thrown back in my face."
Her eyes fluttered shut as she remembered every last word he had uttered that night. The suggestion had been ridiculous at first, fear blinding her to any desire she might have had for cohabitation. It had seemed too soon in their relationship, too foolish to mix their volatile personalities under one roof with no escape.
But he had won her over.
Lying in bed then as he was now, he had managed to convince her. He had made few promises, readily admitting and acknowledging all of the reasons this would end in disaster. He had never lied about what would happen; it had been his earnestness simply that had swayed her.
Opening her eyes once more, she looked at him pointedly. "You told me that you would find a way to make it work with Rachel."
"You think I'm not trying to do that?"
"I think that with the way you are handling this, I will be waiting forever for you to do what you said you would."
She expected him to fight back. But all he did was throw his hands in the air and say, "Tell me what you want."
"That's not –"
"No," he said shaking his head. "I'm obviously clueless." There was a bite to the words, but what surprised Cuddy the most was the lack of sarcasm. There was bitterness, yes, but he was honest. He really felt that he had no idea what he was doing.
Placing a hand on his chest, she gently slid her palms along his pecks up to his shoulders. Her fingertips lightly kneaded the flesh along his clavicles. If she had been tense, she thought at that moment that that was nothing compared to how he felt underneath her now.
And that, more than anything he'd said, made her realize just how… unhinged she really was.
Granted, it wasn't like she didn't believe him before. She had. But now that she was neck deep in a fight with him, now that she had made him feel awful, she could truly see what her behavior was like. She could see how wrong it was in a way she hadn't before.
"I'm sorry." She shook her head and looked away. "I'm sorry." It didn't seem like she could say it enough. "I'm – that's not what I'm trying to say. I didn't mean that. You're amazing."
He wasn't sure where she was headed with this, but he didn't believe her. She was absolutely insane, but even she couldn't go from complaining to lauding this quickly. At least he didn't think so. Then again, she was so nuts today that really anything was possible, he guessed.
And if that were true, if she could change her mind at the drop of a hat, he knew he needed to play things carefully. As much as he might want to believe in the shift in behavior, he knew better than to do that. He needed to know that she actually meant it before he could do that. So he stayed silent.
"I'm not saying that. You didn't do anything wrong," she said hastily, almost frantically. "That's not what I mean... and it's coming out all wrong, because –"
"I know why, so why don't you get to the point?" Maybe the words came out peeved. All right, they definitely did. But he already understood why sanity had abandoned her; he was, after all, the one to tell her about it. So he didn't need to hear her regurgitate the information he had given her.
"I'm not saying you should be awful to her. I'm saying... you think you have to do all these nice things to make her like you." Cuddy's hands nervously went back to his thigh. Kneading the flesh, she added before he could say it, "And before you tell me I'm telling you that you should be cruel to her, that's not what I want either."
"Yeah, I gathered that. Again, get to the –"
"You're enough," she blurted out. "You don't have to give her anything. You all on your own is all she needs."
It simultaneously felt as though he'd been hit in the face with realization and stunned from confusion. Even as he understood what she was saying, he didn't. Even as he thought to himself that she had given him a greater gift than she could ever understand, he didn't think that was true at all; whether she meant anything she said or not, part of him couldn't believe this was an act of kindness.
Then again, he had no idea what to believe.
Her arbitrary behavior and his ambivalence over the whole matter made it hard to know what her point was or how he should react. The fact that he knew he wasn't good enough for Rachel just made things even more muddled. Cuddy was looking at him like he should be thanking her or... reacting in some way. But he thought that was naive on her part.
"I know you don't believe that," she said, probably feeling prompted by his silence. "But it's true."
"Is it?" he asked, searching for some sort of truth in her gaze.
"House, plenty of people have no business being around children, but they are. They have them."
"So now I'm being lumped in with child molesters and –"
"No," she snapped back. "That's not –" She cut herself off with a loud, frustrated exhale. "I would never say that."
He didn't say anything in response. Maybe he should have, but he couldn't; words weren't going to come, he knew, until he was sure she wasn't making that comparison.
"You think you're so screwed up," she said knowingly. "And... sure, you are."
"Thanks."
"We both are," she insisted. "Most people are. Isn't that what you think?" He didn't answer the question. His gaze trained on hers, he wanted her to get to the point as quickly as possible; talking would only slow things down. "If only sane, completely well adjusted people had children, we would have died out as a species."
And then he couldn't help but interject. "If this is supposed to make me feel better –"
"Rachel doesn't care," Cuddy said in a firm voice. "Kids don't. She's not going to care that you have… a million different flaws."
"Again, if I'm supposed to –"
"She just wants to know you, House. That's it," she said with a shrug. "She will forgive you for your shortcomings. But if all you ever do for is… give her presents and spoil her, what's that going to mean to her?"
"So I should have told her about Kutner, because nothing says, 'Let's have a nice Sunday afternoon' like explaining suicide to a five year old."
He was clearly trying to make her back down by being so blunt.
But Cuddy wasn't going to back down.
"You can twist this in your head all you want so you don't have to think about what I'm saying, but I'm not going to fight with you," she said sharply. "I'm not playing. I'm out. If you think that me saying what a great man you are… that, despite your beliefs, you would actually be good for her if you let yourself open up to her – if you think any of that is an insult –"
"Actually I'm just wondering if your sentence is ever going to end."
It was like the air being let out of a balloon. Whatever willpower she had dissipated immediately. As much as she wanted him to see her point, she was done trying to do that; if he was going to be an ass the entire time, she would let him figure it out on his own.
But when she didn't finish the rest of her thought, he seemed unhappy about that.
"Well?" he prompted. "I'm assuming there was more to that."
"No," she said with a shrug.
"No?"
"Nope."
"Really? Cause it sounded like –"
"You don't want to hear anything I have to say, so… that's it. I've said more than enough. You can figure out the rest."
He considered what she was saying. "So your entire point has been… what, that Rachel and I could be friends?" The words felt odd in his mouth, his tongue struggling to utter each syllable. The idea of it all was just so strange, so foreign to him, especially since, looking at her, he could see that she believed it.
To hide his surprise, he fell back on sarcasm. "That she has a thing for middle-aged drug addicts, like mother like daughter, and –"
"You have to put it like that," she interrupted, shaking her head. As she sat back, he could see the irritation flit across her face. But he didn't feel bad about that. "You have to say it in the most offensive way possible."
"Of course. If I put it nicely, well, that would be confusing for you."
He could practically hear her teeth gnashing together. Her arms folding across her chest, she angrily said, "I try to make you feel better –"
"Actually, I think you were trying to make yourself feel better."
"And you take that as an opportunity to say that I have no taste," she said, ignoring him.
"You're telling me I should be myself around your kid," he pointed out. "I think that's the perfect time to call into question your taste level."
Was it pathetic to admit that? Sure. Even as the words came out of his mouth, he could tell that the sentiment behind them was hardly one he was proud of. And frankly, as the milliseconds passed, he became increasingly regretful of ever saying something like that.
Without a doubt, Cuddy was responding to the emotion positively; it was the kind of thing, he knew, tailor made for her, to make her sympathetic towards him. But it was also an overly sentimental expression of low self-esteem that could only induce cringing in him. And regardless of how she was reacting, he was embarrassed to have even uttered the words.
The feeling only multiplied when she said in a soft, sympathetic voice, "Oh, House."
"No." He held up a hand, wanting to stop this train of thought before it ever left the station. "Don't."
"Don't?" She seemed surprised.
"Yeah," he said calmly. "You've gone from saying I'm bad for your kid –"
"That's not what I said."
"To, now, how great I would be. You've said you'd stay out of it and leave it all up to me but here you are meddling –"
"I am not –"
"A little bit." He held up his thumb and index finger and formed them into a small C so that there wasn't much space between them. "A tiny bit. And having witnessed your insanity all day, I'm leery of letting you say anything to me right now, given that there's a chance you'll change poles halfway through the conversation."
Unknowingly proving the point, she went from sympathetic to disgruntled. "I'm not crazy."
"Of course not," he said sarcastically.
That just made her scowl. "I'm not."
"Oh okay."
"I never said you were bad for Rachel," she pointed out. "Your way of being uninvolved is, and that doesn't contradict me saying that your friendship would be good for her and for you. In fact, those two things almost seem, I don't know, related."
She was being playful, but there was a dangerous edge to her humor that House instinctively enjoyed. In his estimation, she was never hotter than when she gave as good as she got, and right now, she was potently attractive… given that she was also naked.
"House?" she asked after a second, pulling him from his thoughts. He looked up at her but said nothing. "Are you listening to me or just staring at my breasts?"
He tilted his head a little. "That's a rhetorical question, right?"
"You're impossible," she groaned. "Have you even heard a single word I've said?"
"That's a rhetorical question as well, I think."
"Oh come on. I'm trying to – you have nothing to say?"
He decided that it was worth giving her a dose of the truth. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say." He paused but then forced himself to ask, though hesitantly, "You really mean it… I'm not completely horrible for Rachel?"
"Of course I mean it," she said in a voice that allowed her earnestness to shine through. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if I didn't."
Put forth that simply, it was impossible to think she was lying; she clearly meant what she said. Though it made no sense, she actually believed that it would be good for him to…
He didn't even know how to finish that sentence.
What she was encouraging him to do was so unfathomable that he had no idea how to word it, much less do it. She, of course, thought that he was being sarcastic as a way to avoid making the conversation serious. And sure, that was part of it. But more than anything, he wasn't sure he possessed the means to word it nicely.
As it was, it was hard enough to know he needed to form some sort of… relationship with the kid. It was difficult enough to process that and figure out what he needed to do. That Cuddy seemed to believe he could be good at it… well, that was mind-boggling. And he had no idea how to respond to her assertion. He really had no clue what to say.
But she seemed to understand his silence. Her hands kneading his thigh once more, she said, "Just think about it, all right?"
He nodded his head, because he didn't know what to say. However, she clearly wanted him to say something; she kept looking at him like she was waiting for him to speak. So he felt compelled to say, "Okay."
"Thank you."
He didn't want to let that sentiment hang between them for too long. Knowing it would just make things awkward, he wanted to push through the moment as quickly as he could.
"Are you done?"
She was unamused. "Yes, I'm sorry this has taken so much of your time," she said snidely.
"No need to be like that. I just think… you're naked. I'm naked. We're in –"
"So you want to segue from our conversation to sex." She frowned.
He didn't really see the problem there. "At this point, I'd segue to a rectal probe to end this discussion."
"Keep talking like that and I'll make sure that happens," she said darkly.
However, she undermined her own threat by pulling away from him. By then, she'd had enough of the conversation that seemed to be going nowhere as well. Though she wouldn't admit it, they agreed on that much; it was time to move on to other things. So she turned around and started to crawl off the bed.
Nevertheless, she didn't appreciate him acting as though she were wasting his time. After all, she was trying to be nice. It might have made him uncomfortable to hear the truth, but God, he didn't have to act like such a jerk. Since he no doubt would behave that way though, she decided she wouldn't stick around for it.
But House had other ideas. As she was crawling towards the foot of the bed, he grabbed her ankle. He tugged lightly, just enough to hold her in place.
"Oh come on," he said in exasperation. "Don't go away."
Neck deep in her own frustration, she buried her face into the warm electric blanket beneath her. But doing that left her ass in the air and elicited from House, "Okay, if you don't want have to sex, you have to stop doing that immediately."
She snorted loudly and rolled over on to her side so that she was looking at him once more. "Better?" The obvious answer was no since his gaze had returned to her chest. "Maybe I should put some clothes on."
"Or..." he said softly, the fingers around her ankle lightly stroking her. "I can finish that massage."
"Okay."
There was no resistance on her part. As much as their motto as a couple might have been "Fight over everything," she was more than willing to accept his offer. Sometimes there really was no reason to fight, she thought as she rolled over onto her stomach. Especially when the hands on her back were warm and gentle, it would have been idiotic to tell him no to spite him.
Hell, the longer he rubbed her shoulders and back, the more she realized just how much she'd let him get away with if he used this as his apology. Truth be told, she was okay with that, which was why she spoke up.
"Next time you screw up, please do this," she mumbled into the hand her head was resting on.
His hands abruptly stopped moving between her shoulder blades. "How did I screw up?"
Although she had the urge to smother herself with a pillow, she fought it in order to say, "I wasn't saying you –"
"You just said –"
"In the future," she said with irritation lacing every word. "Not now."
"But you said –"
"That this feels nice," she snapped. Mentally she corrected that it had felt nice, because surely there was nothing about this particular moment that she liked. "That's it."
He didn't respond right away, which could only mean that he was realizing just how badly he'd gotten it wrong. Because if he was still under the delusion that he'd been wronged, he would still be talking. He'd be accusing her of all sorts of things. Since he wasn't, she could only believe that he suddenly saw how much he was overreacting.
"Oh," he muttered eventually.
"Yeah. Oh."
"Well, it's not like you –"
"You can't blame me for this," she said smugly. "This is all your fault."
She could practically feel the annoyed look he was giving her. "You're enjoying this way too –"
"You've been acting like I'm the crazy one, but –"
"You are."
"Then I guess I'm not the only one, am I?"
He started rubbing her lower back, but he was almost cautious about it. And when he spoke, she understood why. "Nah. Your level of crazy is only attainable if you've had the pleasure of being raised by someone just as nuts. And your mother –"
"Yes, please start making jokes about my mother," she said dryly. "Cause your childhood was perfectly normal."
"Never slept with my dad's best friend." His fingers paused before sliding down to her ass. "Of course, my dad's best friend was a –"
"I'm pretty sure if you'd done that, we wouldn't be together."
"Why? Because I'd be gay or because I would killed myself once the shame set in?"
She glanced back at him, which made him stop petting her butt. "Are you saying I should be ashamed of –"
"Is that what I said?"
She laid her head back down. "No."
"No, I did not," he agreed in the most condescending voice she thought he could muster. "Although I'm glad you think I did, because now, once again, you're the mayor of Crazytown, and I am the sane one."
Effortlessly she laughed. "I'm the crazy one."
"Yeah."
"Between you and me, I'm the one who's –"
"Sorry. No point in arguing. Judges have made their ruling."
"There are no judges. There's just you."
"And we both know my keen sense of –"
"Are you actually going to attempt to have sex with me?" she asked, changing the subject with ease. "Or do you plan on calling me insane and massaging my ass for the rest of the afternoon?"
His answer came in the form of a dry question. "This isn't turning you on?"
"You wish," she said tiredly.
He slid his hands back up to her lower back. As his palms eased the tension from her muscles, he considered his options. He could try to make a more aggressive move; in theory, she'd just encouraged him to do so. But then, if she'd made the comment to get him to back off, pushing further would end disastrously. And as bizarre and unlikely as that possibility seemed, Cuddy's behavior today made it seem possible.
Needless to say, he wasn't interested in making a wrong move. As fun as it could be to irritate her, now was definitely one of those times when any satisfaction he might have gotten from driving her nuts would be surpassed by the dissatisfaction he received when she got pissed. So he was, for sure, going to proceed carefully – very carefully.
But he'd no sooner thought that than when Cuddy spoke up.
"You're over thinking this."
"Am I?" he asked cautiously.
"Yeah."
"You mean –"
"That was an invitation for sex? Yes."
He didn't feel any relief. Again, he had to wonder: was it really an invitation? It sounded like one, but –
"Oh for the love of God, House," she practically snapped, rolling over onto her back. As his gaze instinctively went for her breasts, he heard her add, "This isn't rocket science."
But just because she said that didn't necessarily make it true. Of course, he couldn't tell her that her mood was making the simple task of fucking her complicated. That would piss her off… assuming she didn't start laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. So he definitely couldn't say any of it aloud.
He didn't need to though.
Sitting up Cuddy had clearly decided to take control. "It's really not," she told him, reaching him for him.
"What?" he asked, distracted.
She smiled and took hold of his hands. "As fun as I'm sure it is for you to ogle me, there are better things we could be doing."
"Yeah?" he asked, even as he let her press the palm of his hands against her chest.
"You want me to beg you?" Annoyance colored the question more than she intended. But it was hard to feel guilty about that; the second she let go of his hands, they dropped to her side as though he didn't want to touch her. And then she really was irritated, because she could see the desire in his eyes. But he wasn't acting on it?
"No," he said in what seemed to be an honest voice.
She couldn't think that he actually meant what he was saying, but he certainly seemed to. Not that that meant anything, she guessed; if anyone was a great liar, it was House. And though it was foolish to even entertain the idea of playing games with her right now, the possibility wasn't exactly out of the question either.
"I just want to make sure... that you're interested in this and not just saying that to shut me up or make me back –"
"So then you do want me to beg," she interrupted.
"No. That's not what I said."
"Well, I have been saying I want sex," she pointed out. "I wouldn't say that if I didn't want it." He seemed hesitant to believe that. "What's the problem?"
He eyed her carefully. "When you first came in here, you said you weren't interested in –"
"And I changed my mind."
"Seriously," he said doubtfully.
"Yes."
He nodded his head though he didn't look convinced.
"If I didn't want it, I wouldn't suggest it. Although I'm sure you will make me regret saying this," she muttered, knowing with all her heart that he would. "I am attracted to you."
"How embarrassing for you."
She ignored the self-pitying remark. "You're naked. In front of me. You're touching me."
"You just said that wasn't turning you on."
"It wasn't," she admitted. "But it made me think of all the other places you could be touching me and..." She shrugged. "I guess it worked."
Still, he looked at her as though at any moment she would snap at him. "So... this isn't a trick."
"Of course not."
The way she said it made it seem like it was completely out of the realm of possibilities, but even she knew that was a lie. Oh, she would never begrudgingly welcome him into her bed; he was speaking as though she might just have sex with him to appease him, and she had enough self-respect not to do that. But she supposed that there were times when the fun of tormenting him had left him unsatisfied and wanting more. Those days were long gone though.
That had been another life really. Before they'd gotten together, the tease had been all they'd had together. Never willing to actually go there, they'd both flirted with the other's attraction; it had been what they'd done for fun. And then they'd started dating and maybe, maybe, that dynamic had come along with them. When she'd wanted to make him angry, when she'd suddenly become afraid of what their relationship meant, when she herself had been angry, sure, she'd offered him sex and then turned him down or given it to him and then punished him for it. Under no circumstances had that been a healthy way of doing things, and she would never act like – had never pretended like – it was.
But that had stopped the second they'd chosen to live together, to really invest in their relationship. They'd never talked about it, but she suspected they'd both known that the games had to stop. If he was going to be living in her home, if he was going to be in Rachel's every day life, they couldn't keep tormenting one another for the hell of it. Cuddy wouldn't pretend that changing had been easy or quick. They'd maintained a certain dynamic for so long that it had been anything but simple to focus that energy elsewhere. But they'd done it.
And yet House was sitting here acting like nothing had changed. He was looking at her like she would still get mad at him for giving her what she said she wanted (but didn't really want). And she had to wonder in that moment how much they'd changed if he still thought that that withholding behavior was within her.
She had to wonder if maybe he was right.
But almost instantly, she dismissed the idea. As screwed up as they still were, Cuddy had no interest in hurting him. She might have still been capable of treating him that way, but what point would that prove? What would that get her?
It would make him mad and upset the delicate balance of their relationship. It would give her a temporary high, potentially, but the amount of suffering they would all experience to get their dynamic back to normal wouldn't be worth it. And if he thought that she thought differently, then he was clearly out of his mind.
"I have no interest in telling you no," she insisted in a firm voice. "On the other hand, you seem to be intent on avoiding this."
"Avoiding sex? That... doesn't happen."
She pretended to be uneasy at his reluctance. Then again, she supposed his hesitance did make her uneasy. She didn't like what he was implying about her own behavior. But what she presented to him was that it somehow made her doubt herself. Purposely looking away from him, she had to fight the urge to smile as she played him. "Well, what am I supposed to think? I'm naked, and you don't want to have –"
"Don't want?" he asked in surprise. "Now you're just being an idiot."
The words were harsh, but they were everything she wanted to hear. They all but guaranteed that they were going to railroad over this moment with sex, which was, in all honesty, what she wanted.
It might have been foolish to think that making love could undo all of the crap she'd experienced today. But she was willing to give it a shot if he was.
Thankfully, he didn't seem opposed to the idea any longer.
His lips descended on her shoulder. A soft kiss to her clavicle, he slowly moved towards her neck. His breath was hot on her skin; the small wet trail of kisses he was leaving in his wake should have been cool to her – it was so cold outside – but somehow that just spread warmth within her. He pressed his lips roughly into her pulse point, his stubble noisily scratching against her flesh, as he asked her, "How could I ever not want you?"
Inwardly her answer was it wasn't possible. But saying that out loud would only make her sound bad. So she lied. One of her hands clasping one of his, she said quietly, "You were hesitating."
His thumb stroked the back of her hand. "I didn't want you to think I was taking advantage of you."
"I don't think that's possible," she said with a smile.
His mouth slowly found hers, as though they had all the time in the world to kiss, touch, enjoy one another. She knew they didn't, not realistically; Rachel would wake up, or it would be time to get ready for the party...
"Stop thinking," he whispered against her lips.
She kissed him back, her free hand rubbing his good thigh. Freeing her mind of worry was no small task, but if there were a distraction capable of fighting her concern, it was House.
Slowly she let her fingers roam to his cock. As he slipped her tongue, she took him in her hand; he gasped into her mouth, his hips instinctively thrusting into her grip. The second he did that though, she let him go. His stamina was fantastic, not just for his age but for anyone. But they had had a lot of sex, and even he had his limits, so she needed to make sure this didn't end quickly.
He didn't seem to care about that, however. The loss of contact between her hand and his dick clearly left him wanting and disappointed, and not even cupping his balls seemed to be enough for him.
But that only made him more interested in pleasing her, which, needless to say, she liked. If he had been hesitant before, he was no longer. The hand not holding hers glided over her body, leaving a trail of heat wherever his palm went. As he passed over her abdomen, her stomach clenched with understanding and excited longing. He was going to touch her the way she had been hoping he would for at least fifteen minutes now.
Thankfully.
He hadn't been wrong to think she was uninterested when she'd come in here. But his hands on her body and the loving way he had tried to make her feel better had been a greater turn on than any romantic act. He had shown her just how much he loved and supported her, and if that hadn't turned her on, she was sure nothing would or could have ever.
With what she could only call reverence, he parted her thighs. His fingers were gentle, the pads tickling her as they meandered their way from her legs to her slit. As she curled her fist around his dick once more, he slipped a finger inside of her.
Her muscles clenched together as she tried to create friction. But that was nearly impossible. The wetness he was causing with that single finger was working against her… not that she was complaining, of course. It felt good to have him finally touch her, especially when he pressed the palm of his hand against her mound. His heel grounding against her clit, she couldn't help but moan her approval.
Tugging at him in time with his own thrusts, she wanted to make sure he was getting the same satisfaction she was. And from the way his cheeks and shoulders were turning red, she could tell that he was. But all of that was promptly forgotten when he pushed another finger inside of her. Suddenly fuller, she could no longer focus on him and let go of him.
Immediately breaking the kiss, she exclaimed, "Yes!"
"Shh," he whispered. She looked at him through hooded lids, the words barely registering as he spread the fingers within her. "No need for the neighbors to hear this. I mean, maybe if they were hot, but I think the one has a combined age of –"
"Stop talking," she practically whined. She didn't mean for her voice to be so high-pitched, but at this point, she couldn't help it. "Oh." He hit that special spot that made her toes curl, and she closed her eyes to let herself fully experience the delicious feeling.
Her hand moved to his thigh, so she could rock her hips. Dimly she recognized the agitated sound he made; one second she had her hands wrapped around him, the next she didn't, and it was easy to understand why he would be jealous of her pleasure.
But he didn't complain. Truthfully she wouldn't have cared if he had. She was far too consumed by her own needs to bother with any of his. And though there existed the niggling thought that she should care, she didn't.
She had no cares at all at that moment – not for him, not for the things that had happened today, not for anything. There was only the feel of his fingers fucking her and the heel of his hand rubbing her clitoris, and nothing else seemed to register in her mind.
Her hips moved freely against his hand. Every now and then she would open her eyes a tad and see the hungered look in his gaze. And she knew that, although he was doing all the work, he didn't begrudge her that fact; if anything, he seemed to enjoy watching her.
Somehow that made it easier for her to fully give in to her need. If he had been impatient or envious, she wouldn't have been quick to move on to something else, but she would have felt bad for making him wait.
Well… just a little… maybe.
In truth it was hard to feel sympathy for him. Her thoughts were not born from cruelty, not by any means. It was just that, at that moment, her mind selfishly focused on the pleasure she wanted. And if he was willing to freely give it to her, she couldn't worry herself with giving him what he rightfully deserved. He would get what he wanted eventually anyway….
Thought seemed to get away from her then, as though it were a tangible thing slipping out of her reach. Her eyes closed, she let her head fall back lazily. Curls tickled her skin between her shoulders and along her back. As he added another finger inside of her, her mouth opened slightly. She exhaled roughly, the air hot on her lips.
He thrust his fingers into her as deeply as he could, touching every bit of her that was available to him. And yet it still didn't feel like enough. Every now and then he would withdraw and let a slick finger trace the outer rim of her hole or dance along her perineum. He was taunting her; she knew it; he was teasing her to drive her out of her mind, and though it was working, she wanted nothing more than for him to just fuck her.
She scooted closer to him, so that her body would rub against his hand better. Slowly he gave her what he wanted, reinserting each finger one by one. Her impatience was obvious, undeniable, and she was sure that was the reason he laughed at her then.
There was nothing derisive about it, nothing dark. It could have been judgmental, but she didn't hear any of that then. Though tormenting her was his favorite pastime, at the moment, she knew she was safe where she was, protected from everything that might hurt her. If he laughed at all, she thought it was because he genuinely enjoyed seeing her like this.
And suddenly she was reminded just how giving a man he was, how dedicated he was to their relationship. She'd never forgotten; what he had done for her today had made it impossible to be unaware of the lengths he would go to make her happy. But he was nothing if not capable of punctuating his points, reiterating them and beating her logic down until his point of view was somehow the only one she saw.
Sometimes she hated that. Right now, she welcomed it, encouraged herself to believe that he could be right about all of this – that nothing could hurt them.
Part of her traitorously thought that it was foolish to think that they were protected from much of anything. There were so many ways this could go wrong that it seemed like nothing short of a miracle that they had made it this far, had lasted this long. And that was a thought she could never fully ignore.
But House, seemingly sensing where her mind was headed, deftly steered her back to the moment with his tongue and hand. His fingers pushed deep inside of her; his lips offered gentle kisses against her clavicle, his mouth purposely avoiding the spot he'd bit her last night. His moves cherished her, and though she couldn't avoid gloomy thoughts, he as always won the argument. Without even saying a word, he brought her back.
The hand holding hers seemed to lead her back to the present, as though he were physically tugging at her. Her focus suddenly returning to the matter at hand, she found herself unable to hold back. Panting, she felt her body meeting every one of his short thrusts. Her clitoris rubbing against his heel roughly, she came quickly.
"Oh God," she cried out, the words coming in a rushed exhale. Her body clenched around his fingers, and her control slipped away from her.
The intense pleasure ended all too fast. Like a light drizzle in a desert, the joy she felt came and went without satisfying her needs.
Her body craved more, for him.
And he knew that. She was nowhere near finished, and he didn't plan on leaving her until she was absolutely sated.
Pulling his fingers out of her, House wasn't surprised that she made a sound that seemed more plaintive than pleased.
"Shh," he murmured against her jaw. "We're not done yet." He moved back on the bed to give himself more space. She watched him almost in a daze, but she didn't respond. Instead she silently allowed him to spread her legs further, his hands on her ankles.
Leaning down, he kissed one of her shins. His mouth slowly migrated to a bony knee. His hands ran along her thighs as he moved between her legs on the mattress. Her skin was pale, soft. Silently he thought of the days long gone since he had first seen her naked body.
She'd been thicker then, filled out especially in her thighs. That freshman fifteen had looked glorious on her, and for years, he'd wished he'd had more days back then to explore every inch of that Cuddy. As he leaned down to kiss the soft flesh, he understood how moronic he'd been to ever want that. He supposed back then he'd made that wish, thinking he would never get a chance to see her naked again.
Obviously he'd been wrong. And while her body had changed, while they both had changed so much, he found himself more attracted to her than he had ever been. He'd liked the extra meat on her bones then; he'd liked the freer, looser party girl she'd been back then. But he no longer looked at that time period with any amount of longing.
Now he could comprehend: had he stayed at Michigan, he would have undoubtedly ruined any relationship they might have had. And truthfully there was still a good chance of that happening, of him screwing things up. But at least now… he could begin to see just how much he needed her in his life. Then he would have believed better things lay ahead for him. Fast forward a couple decades, and he knew that that would never be true. There was nothing better out there, and there weren't enough lies he could tell himself to make that seem even remotely true. The woman beneath him was as good as it got, was far better than he deserved. If he blew it with her, he would spend the rest of his life trying to get her back or hating himself for being unable to do so. The latter seeming more realistic, it made him all the more determined to avoid such an ending.
And if worshiping every inch of her was the way to make that happen, he was all for it.
He kissed her thigh a few times, licked her skin. Nuzzling her, he told her, "You have no idea how hot you are, you know that?" She didn't respond to the question, though the arrogant look on her face said to him that she did, in fact, have a good idea.
But with her hands in his hair, she did say to him, "Show me. Show me how much you want me."
Half of him was inclined to give her what she wanted. The other half wasn't going to go down, literally, without a little incentive.
Moving towards her mound, he let his mouth hover just above her body. "You didn't say the magic word," he said, hoping his breath was hot against her sensitive skin.
The hands in his hair tightened their grip. "I'm not going to ask you nicely."
He wrapped his hands around her wrists and carefully pried her fingers away from him. Pressing her hands roughly into the mattress, he told her, "You like it when I make you say please."
"You can't make me do –"
"I can make you do anything," he said arrogantly.
"Except apparently make me come in a reasonable amount of time."
He contemplated sticking his tongue out at her then, but he decided against it. That would probably just rile her up even more. Of course, he wasn't opposed to that, but if he were going to have fun with her now, he wasn't going to go for the easy option.
"You know that's not true," he told her knowingly.
She shrugged. "You're free to prove that any time you like now."
He repeated himself. "You didn't say the magic word."
She leaned down so that her face was suddenly in his. A smirk on her face, she told him, "I'm not going to beg. Not today."
Since her lips were right there, he couldn't resist kissing her. His mouth met hers in a gentle press. He kept his hands on top of hers as their lips moved together, but he allowed his grip to loosen. Although he didn't say anything out loud, he was at that moment reconsidering his whole approach.
He hadn't been wrong before; she did like it when he exerted a certain amount of control. It went without saying that he enjoyed bringing her literally and figuratively to her knees as well. And while that was not their default or daily dynamic, it was one he was versed enough in to think that that was what she wanted.
But now he was rethinking that.
They were in such a delicate place right now. And the way she'd looked when she'd first come home, like she thought he would never want her again… it had stuck with him. It made him think that perhaps games were not what was needed right now. Toying with her, dominating her – those things were, he thought, better left ignored for the time being. As much fun as that could have been, the chances of them screwing it up, making things worse were high. And what he wanted more than anything at this particular moment was to just be with her.
No games.
Pulling away from her, he looked her in the eye. "Might want to get your stopwatch, babe." His hands moving towards her shoulders, he lightly pushed her back. "Lie back."
She smiled at him as she lay down. He expected, and perhaps wrongly, for some sort of gratitude in her grin, for some kind of relief. But if he could define anything, emotion or otherwise, playing on her features at that moment, it was a sense of victory he detected.
Truth be told, he didn't know how he should take that. Was she trying to manipulate him? Trying to get a rise out of him? Or was she genuinely pleased that he had changed course? Sometimes it was hard to tell, which he hated to admit, because he prided himself on knowing her pretty damn well.
He supposed though the reason behind her smile didn't matter. Well, okay, it mattered to him. But that was trivial at this point. He could waste time trying to find answers, or he could give Cuddy one thing he knew she wanted. It might not have been everything she wanted from him at that moment; he might have been missing a few cues, but it was better in the end to under think the whole thing than to over think it and piss her off.
Besides, as he had told himself earlier, now wasn't the right time to play games. If she thought differently (and he doubted she did), then surely she would understand his desire to play things straight. Even if that wasn't what she wanted, she could appreciate that. He refused to let himself think otherwise.
"You don't need to over think this." But those words, uttered many times today, were not ones he heard in his head. They were ones Cuddy said out loud.
He blinked and looked at her. "You're right. Here I was, trying to figure out a good plan of attack and ignoring one very important point." He ran a finger down the length of her slit. "You are so easy."
Bowing his head, he missed the irritation that was sure to be seen in her face. Which was unfortunate, because he would have liked to have seen the change in her demeanor when he made one long lick from her clit to her weeping hole.
His hands holding her thighs open, he could feel her tense. And he would have loved to have seen what her face looked like at the first contact he made with her body. But there was no helping that, obviously, and he pushed the thought aside in favor of the task in front of him.
For a brief second, he toyed with the idea of saying something to her. It felt like there was more to say before he got down to business, so to speak. In the end though, he didn't say a single thing. The longer he took to eat her out, the longer it would be until he got his needs fulfilled. And before he'd nestled his face between her thighs, his desire had seemed manageable, the ability to make a quip or two still there for him. Now, looking at her delicious pussy, all pink and open for him – just for him – he felt as though speaking would have been a waste of his time.
Certainly, he feared that by teasing with her, he would inevitably make his own experience much less satisfying. It was easy to play with your food when you weren't bothered with dessert. In this case, dessert would come in the form of penetration. And if he wasted too much time with the verbal equivalent of making a mashed potato fortress, chances were he'd end up with semen running down her leg or his.
As it was, he thought (while simultaneously deciding that the metaphor needed to be dropped), he was already hard. She'd jerked him off for maybe a minute, but touching her, watching her orgasm had kept him stiff and ready to go. Now with her sprawled out in front of him, with her taste on his tongue, his need was all the more obvious to him.
And so he wasted no time in getting her off. Nuzzling her clit with his nose, he inhaled her scent. The sweet smell of her sex filled his nostrils. Pre-cum beading on the head of his cock, he stroked himself a few times before focusing on her needs once more.
The flat of his tongue lapped at her clitoris, licked the swollen bud in quick motions that would drive her nuts. She moaned loudly, and he smiled into her pussy. No matter what she wanted to say, she was easy. He kissed his way to her opening, relishing in her sweet and slightly musty taste. And he corrected himself as he did so; she wasn't easy. Maybe it was his ego, but he didn't believe her past lovers could have done this to her. Someone like Lucas or John-the-douche hadn't made her this wet. As he pushed his tongue inside of her, House thought they hadn't made her scream out as she did for him then. When she cried out, "Oh God, please," he thought they hadn't made her beg like he was doing.
Even if they had, he couldn't help but feel superior then. She'd said she wouldn't ask, but she had. And if he weren't so interested in making her come on his tongue, he would have pointed that out. As it was though, he was willing to forgo pointing that out.
Sliding one of his hands up her thigh, he slowly meandered his fingers towards her clit. She moaned as he curled his tongue within her and dragged his thumb over her sensitive bud. The lower half of her body bucked off the bed a little, and he had to pull away to avoid being hit in the face. His hands on her hips, he pushed her back down on to the mattress.
"Careful," he told her, running one of his palms over her mound. "Give me a fat lip, and people are going to start thinking you beat me."
"I don't care." Her voice bordered on being whiny. "Just don't stop."
"I don't plan to. But you have to stay put."
He could see her nodding her head and decided that that was enough for him. At the same time though, he didn't actually trust her to stay where she was. She was at that point where she didn't care about much other than orgasming. And he could understand that. He wouldn't pretend like he couldn't understand what she was going through. But he would have been stupid to give her the opportunity to accidentally bump him again. So he pressed one of his forearms to her stomach. Not roughly, not violently by any means – he just kept an arm there in case she were to buck against him once more.
Burying his head between her thighs again, he kissed her labia, her clit. He let his stubble scrape over her sensitive skin. He knew just how much she liked the friction and heat that created. And for every brush of his cheek and nose, for every kiss he offered her, he followed it up with a long, slow lick between her wet folds. He lapped up her juices, which seemed to flow from her freely. Each swipe of the tongue just made her all the more wet.
With his free hand, he slipped his fingers inside of her once more. His mouth hovered nearby. Her body accepted his thrusts noisily, her pussy making soft little wet sounds as he pumped her.
"This is what's going to happen," he told her. "You're going to come all over my face like a good girl."
"Yes." She nodded in agreement.
He withdrew his fingers and replaced them with his tongue. Her muscles clenched around him, not in orgasm but in desire to pull him in as much as possible, keep him there. He let her, understood what she was after, and more than anything, wanted to give it to her.
His thumb rubbed against her clitoris, and between that and his mouth on her, she came once more.
She gripped the blanket beneath her violently and moaned loudly. She fought the urge to rub herself against his face as roughly as she could. But as her orgasm took hold of her, that need was one she almost couldn't ignore. She twisted the sheets beneath her, coming hard and in one long irrepressible wave that made it hard to breathe.
Her cheeks burned hotly as she exhaled raggedly. Stars filled her vision, making it difficult to concentrate. And by the time she noticed what he was doing, he'd already managed to roll her over onto her stomach.
The electric blanket seemed even hotter beneath her than it had been. The sudden shock of cooler air on her backside sent shivers down her spine. Or perhaps that was just her reaction to the feel of House's hand caressing her ass. Whatever the reason, it quickly brought her back to her senses.
Instinctively she started to pull herself to her hands and knees. But with a hand on the small of her back, he stopped her. "Stay where you are," he said calmly.
"Okay," she agreed. As she spread her legs once more for him, she was secretly glad she didn't have to move. Between two orgasms and who knew what he'd spiked her tea with, she didn't trust herself to be in a position that didn't require her to stay lying down.
Carefully he covered her body with his. His palms lay flat on the mattress next to her sides, and she had to spread her legs even wider to let him lie comfortably on top. There wasn't much room for her to move, but he was clearly keeping a small distance so as not to crush her.
"This okay?" he asked tentatively.
She shrugged. "You can get closer."
"Yeah?" The world felt as though he'd muttered it into her hair. She nodded her head, and he let his weight rest on her a little more.
"That's nice," she told him reassuringly as he brushed the sweaty strands of hair off of her shoulders.
As he showered her with short, small kisses to the skin, he asked mockingly, "You like it when I'm on top of you? I would have never guessed."
"Shut up."
He did. Falling silent, he calmly guided his cock to her opening. The second she felt his dick against her, she made a noise that sounded like a cross between a squeak and a moan. Her cunt was overly sensitive, and the feel of penis pressing into her was nearly enough to push her over the edge again.
Her teeth biting into her lower lip, she waited for him to enter her. But that took a few fumbles before he was able to actually get inside of her and at an angle he liked. She tried to help as best she could, but with nearly all of his weight on her now, she wasn't able to move much. And her hips being forced into the mattress, it wasn't easy for him to penetrate her. Eventually though, with a few tentative pumps into her, he found the position and rhythm he wanted.
His thrusts were as harsh and quick as he could make them. He was harder than he thought he'd ever been in life, and he wasn't going to last long. Making Cuddy come twice had been the greatest turn on he could possibly imagine. And the way she'd felt around his tongue had made him all the more hungry for his dick to be the thing pumping her pussy. Now that it was, he couldn't hold back. She was probably sensitive, and he tried not to be too rough for her sake, especially since she'd complained in the past day or so about being sore. But it was hard to maintain any semblance of control when he was buried ball deep in her.
At that point, his internal dilemma must have been obvious, because she lifted her head and looked back at him. A worn smile on her face, she told him, "This is nice, but you don't have to hold back."
He kissed her neck in response, muttered as he thrust into her, "Don't wanna hurt you."
"I can take it."
Her words, and the saucy way she said them, made control impossible. Forcefully he shoved his dick inside of her, making her cry out.
"Oh!" she moaned.
He began to pound himself into her, pulling out almost completely before pushing himself back in. His balls slapped against her ass, their thighs meeting noisily. And in the back of her mind, she thought it should hurt, because he wasn't being gentle any longer. But her previous orgasms had made wet and ready for anything he wanted to give her.
And she wanted to take it – all of it.
She was sure she would regret that later on. He was fucking her with so much energy and effort that there was no way she wouldn't be sore later on. But at the moment, that thought barely crossed her mind; all she really cared about then was his hard dick sliding in and out of her slick cunt.
"Yes!" she encouraged, urging him on as he pressed her into the mattress in a way that stimulated her clit.
His hands moved to her shoulders to give himself some leverage. She couldn't move, couldn't escape the pounding he was determined to give her, and he liked that. He liked the idea of her prone and vulnerable beneath him – or maybe it was the fact that he hadn't orgasmed yet that made his mind so hazy with lust that anything sounded sexy at that moment.
He didn't care what the reason was. As his hips picked up their pace, he figured the reason didn't matter. Nothing else mattered but this, but the way she contracted against him as an orgasm hit her unexpectedly.
Leaning down, he snarled in her ear, his voice gravely with desire, "That's right. You come for me. That's what I want."
"Please," she said a few times, her voice pleading as she tried to make the feeling of her orgasm last. Her pussy squeezing him tightly, she nearly begged, "Come in me. Come in me now."
He could practically feel his balls tighten from the tone of her voice. She was so hot there was nothing he wouldn't do for her. And when she was telling him to fill her up with his come, he couldn't resist giving her what she wanted without any hesitation.
Bottoming out inside her, he let himself go. All of the pent up lust he'd been feeling suddenly had an outlet. Unable to hold back the desire he'd let build up, he came with more force than he thought possible.
Feeling him stiffen and ejaculate inside of her, she purposely squeezed her muscles to let him ride the experience out.
When he was finished, he practically collapsed on top of her. And between his sweaty body, hers, and the electric blanket, she was more than ready to push him off of her. But she gave him a few minutes to recover. Though his breathing was hot and harsh against her neck, she waited patiently, forcing herself to revel in how good he still felt inside her body.
It did feel nice. She was warm and uncomfortable, but his penis was still a welcome presence – even if there were absolutely no chance of her orgasming again. He had fucked the desire out of her, and now all she wanted was a nap….
That thought must have been more truthful than she realized, because the next thing she knew he was helping her sit up.
Her eyelids felt heavy, her lashes getting in the way of her vision. Her mind was hazy, like she'd fallen asleep. But she hadn't had she?
"What are you doing?" she asked in a slurred voice that made her think she had been sleeping. When she noticed he was very clearly buttoning up one of her shirts on her, she shook her head in protest. "Don't. I'm hot."
"Electric blanket's off," he told her. "You're gonna get cold."
Her forehead rested against his chest as he finished doing up the shirt. "No, I'm not."
He pushed her back on the bed. As he shoved a pair of underwear up her legs, he said, "Fine. Then let me put it to you another way. You're tired, and you're gonna fall asleep again, and Rachel's going to wake up and come in here. And I don't think you're gonna want her to see Mommy's creampie."
When he put it like that, she couldn't deny it. Still, he hadn't needed to say it like that, didn't need to make it sound so awful. "That's disgusting," she said, lifting her hips so he could pull the underwear all the way up.
"It's the truth."
She blinked unevenly. "Did I fall asleep?"
"While I was putting on pants, yeah."
"Oh."
Although he wouldn't ever say it, he was concerned then. He'd only given her half a pill, but she seemed more out of it than he'd anticipated. True, there was still plenty of time between now and the party they had to go to tonight. They would both, thankfully, have hours to recover. But he couldn't help but pay slight attention to the notion that he'd made a mistake in drugging her at all.
Then again, he also understood that there was nothing he could do about that now. He couldn't get the drugs out of her system. Giving her caffeine could easily make her that much worse; certainly giving her stimulants when she was worried about everything seemed like an awful idea. So really, he had no choice but to accept whatever outcome he got.
Mentally shrugging, he supposed that the best thing he could do now was make sure that she got some sleep. At least then she wouldn't necessarily be as tired as she was at the moment.
"I don't think you needed to drug me," she said quietly as he struggled to get her under the covers.
"Who said I drugged you?"
"Please. I know you."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" he asked, peeling off the sweat and semen-stained electric blanket. That was gonna need to be washed or replaced, he lamented. Folding it up, he decided it was better to hide the evidence of their lovemaking than to let it sit out for Rachel to find – or for Cuddy to freak out over. Sure, he couldn't hide it forever. But if he could avoid Cuddy reacting to that today, that was good enough for him.
"I feel drunk," she said after a moment. "And you made me tea."
After he put the blanket on her dresser, he headed towards the bed. Feeling just as tired as she sounded, he wanted nothing more than to relax for a few hours. This day had been awful so far, and no amount of sex could take away from that. If anything, now that they were both clothed, the reality seemed to hit him that much harder. And right now all he wanted was a brief reprieve from all of it.
But then that was easier said than done. Because as the day's events washed over him once more, he was reminded of everything that had happened with Rachel. He remembered what Cuddy had said to him – how all he needed to do was be himself around the kid.
Exhausted and without distraction or the expectation of a quick response, he couldn't help but mull over that conversation. His head hit the pillows, but he couldn't shake himself free from those thoughts. Cuddy wanted him to be himself around Rachel. Or at least she said she did, because, he thought, her words didn't always match up with the reality of her emotions.
And it was because of that that he licked his lips and asked tentatively once more, "You don't think I need to do anything to make Rachel like me? You think I just need to… be myself?"
But a hesitant glance at her, he could see almost instantly that he would never get an answer from her.
Drugged and sprawled out awkwardly on the bed next to him, Cuddy was passed out and asleep.
To be continued