Chapter 6 - Navel
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"Hey"
House welcomes Cuddy with a light smile as soon as she appears on his hospital door. Technically she doesn't see the smile on his lips actually, since his face is partially hidden by the magazine he's reading, but she can see it anyway, mirrored in his eyes. It's something weird for House, both being somehow "happy", and being "so happy to see her". But it's probably because she's his last certainty, the only steady-point in his past and present life.
"You should be resting" She says in a serious tone, taking the New England Journal of Medicine from House's hands with a scolding look, looking at the paper he was reading, then closing it and putting it on the bedside table.
"It's not a porn magazine, mom," He replies following her moves with his eyes, and just resting his head better on the pillow, as she turns to look at him again, with a half reprimanding-half amused gaze "Even if there's probably an erect penis on page 20, I heard there's a review on Viagra," he adds giving her a mischievous look that lets her foreseeing that a joke or something similar is going to come, "You know, FDA approved it for pulmonary hypertension, but I'm still more interested in its so-called secondary effect"
Cuddy lets a chuckle at first, shaking her head lightly, then she suddenly stops and her smile fades as she moves closer to him.
"You heard?" She asks, unable to hide the concern in her own voice, "Haven't you read it yet?"
House just looks back at her with a questioning gaze.
"I would have read it if you hadn't snatched the magazine from my hand, you evil cunning woman"
She stares at him, swallows, dampens her lips and inhales deeply before speaking. If it wasn't for the bright light in her eyes he would have been frankly worried.
"Viagra's been approved in late '90s," she says "and FDA approved it for pulmonary hypertension just a few years ago. If you haven't read it just now, this... this is a memory, House. It's... it's great!"
House just stares at Cuddy with a serious look despite how her eyes lightly moisten and relieve softens her features.
"Great?" He repeats, definitely with no enthusiasm in his voice, giving her a half glare "My only recent memory is about an impotence drug! Do you really think it's great ?"
The look in House's eyes turns off the happiness from hers, and she opens her lips to reply, but he's quicker.
"Maybe Viagra is so necessary in my routine that it's indelibly carved in my mind, Lisa".
"No need to freak out" she says in a calm tone.
"I'm not freaking out. It's a statement of fact. I'm a cripple. Addicted to Vicodin. A chronic high dose of opioids can lead to erectile dysfunction," He meets her astonished gaze, "Pharmacology. Third year subject," he points out before she can reply.
She swallows and looks down just for a second, then locking eyes with him again.
"I definitely don't think so," she says in a low and firm tone.
"How do you know, Dr. Cuddy?" House replies, as this time a glimpse of light passes in the blue of his eyes. The mischievous and smutty look he gives her soothes the air between them, sign that he doesn't want to keep going on that path and he's definitely more curious about the way the conversation is taking instead.
Cuddy's lips part, but she can't answer, and she just lets out a chuckle, shaking her head. She obviously has her clues and she just dampens her lips again, then biting the central point of her lower lip in an attempt not to smile wider. Fruitlessly. And the bare memory of the bulge she's able to cause in House's jeans every time they argue in her office is her answer to his question. That vibration in the air between them and that sort of electricity moving through their bodies leave her with the need to finish herself sometimes and, undoubtedly, to him to jerk off.
She blushes.
And he notes it.
"Well, maybe when I have fewer opioids pumped in my veins I'll know if you're right, Lisa" he says, lightly lifting the arm which is still connected to the drip, in order to stress his own words, and then closing his eyes for a second, before opening them again to look at the ceiling, and finally at her again.
Cuddy stares at him with a thoughtful gaze, then she gives a look at House's folder and she checks the label on the phleboclysis.
"It's two days you're not on morphine anymore," she says "it's just 2% hypertonic saline. Recent studies have shown that it's a more effective osmotic agent than mannitol for controlling the increase in intracranial pressure," she adds, more for delaying the silence she can foresee it's going to come, then because she really wants to give him a medical lecture.
House just looks at her, fixing his blue eyes in the gray-blue of hers and then nodding.
"Well, that's definitely something wrong then," he replies, emphasizing his own words "since I can't feel my leg"
Cuddy gives him a half-worried half-embarrassed look, and she opens and closes her lips twice before words can exit.
"Er... I'm sure you don't have to worry about it now, er... it's surely a temporary dysfunction and..."
She stops at House's amazed look and at the way in which one of the corner of his mouth curls up. And her eyebrows lift in a questioning way.
"For once, I wasn't referring to that leg" he says in a teasing tone "I literally meant it. My leg doesn't hurt"
On the last word House moves the bed sheet by side, uncovering his naked legs, and his hand touches the scar on his thigh.
.
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"The lumbar MRI is clean" Foreman says, looking at House and then at Cuddy, who has just entered the room "and there's no change in the brain MRI"
"That translated means 'I have no fucking idea what's wrong with you'," House replies as Foreman rolls his eyes, then uncovering House's right leg, without a warning, to give it a medical examination.
"Hey, hey, be careful, bro," House scowls him, grabbing his hospital gown to prevent the doctor from uncovering his groin too "Little Greg, here, is not ready to meet the lady yet" He adds with a smirk, meeting Cuddy's look as she rolls her eyes at him instead.
"There's no motor damage, House. No paresthesia. Reflexes are ok," Foreman continues ignoring him.
"It can be a minor damage in the neurons in the primary motor cortex," House says, locking eyes with Foreman "The same damage which causes my amnesia anyway"
Foreman replies just with a "maybe", then repeating again that, in absence of both motor and sensitive damage, there's nothing to worry about.
"For once, just enjoy the lack of pain, House" Foreman just says with his serious and inexpressive face, then exiting the room.
House's look stares at the neurologist's back till he disappeares beyond the door, then he looks at Cuddy, who instead has approached his bed.
"You sure he's the best neurologist you have, right?"
She just replies with a smile, putting a hand on his knee, more in a reassuring way than in a sensual one.
"Maybe it's not a central injury," Cuddy says, looking at her own hand on House's knee "You had a polytrauma. It can be an injury of a sensory branch of the femoral nerve,"
House moves his own hand on his own thigh and a little under his hospital gown, stopping on his femoral triangle, just an inch from his groin, and his fingers touch the anatomical region of the upper third of thethigh and the triangular depression below theinguinal ligament. Skin, superficial fascia, and deep fascia.
The gown moves just enough to let Cuddy see the purple and violet hematoma on House's hip and upper part of leg. Maybe his thigh doesn't hurt for chronic pain now, but surely his full body aches like hell at every move. Cuddy looks at House's fingers as he touchee his own skin, pressing lightly on it at first and then deeper, looking for something compressing the nerves or the vessels below it.
"Wait," she says softly, as House's fingers stop their medical examination. House looks at her as she takes the ultrasound machine from the corner of the room, then approaching the bed again.
"You still forget I'm a doctor, don't you?" She ironically says with a smile, as he smirks too.
He watches the ceiling, shivering as soon as the cold gel touches the skin of his upper thigh and groin, then looking at the white and black images on the screen.
Blue and red spots flutter on the screen as Cuddy checks the blood flow in the superficial branches of the femoral artery with accompanying veins, and the upper part of the great saphenous vein. There are no sign of compression of the nerves, from the femoral branch of the genitofemoral nerve to the branches of the ileoinguinal nerve.
She moves the probe toward his groin to examine the superficial inguinal lymph nodes and he looks away, swallowing harder than he would have liked as he realizes she's following a specific order in her examination.
After twenty years she probably isn't aware of it anymore. Her cerebellum controls her moves now, and she doesn't need to think about every single step anymore.
Nerve. Arthery. VEin. Limph. The Femoral triangle contents from lateral to medial. Another mnemonics.
House closes his eyes, then opening them again in an attempt to prevent the incipient memory forming in his mind. He would probably have succeeded if he hadn't met Cuddy's gaze.
Nerve. Arthery. Vein. Limph. 'NAVEL'.
Cuddy stares at him for a few seconds, then bending her neck by side, looking away and swallowing, before meeting his eyes again. And House con bet she's trying to erase the same memory from her mind.
# "You smell so good," he whispers on her skin as his lips linger on her belly, on the spot between her navel and her pubic bone. Citrus and coconut. He stops there for a few seconds then stopping the descent of his mouth and coming back up to her navel. He teases it with the tip of his tongue and she arches her back in pleasure and moans.
His hands grasp her flanks and he looks up at her as the blue of their eyes meet.
"There's another mnemonics we can't miss" He says on her skin, kissing her navel again and then tracing a line of light kisses from there to her pubic hair.
He stops on the last inch of skin, and she stops breathing, just releasing air as soon as he moves his mouth toward her right leg instead of her sex. He smirks on her skin, but he doesn't look up at her again and his palm finds her knee pressing it down and stretching her leg apart. He kisses the skin over her inguinal ligament and moved down on the outer part of her thigh. His mouth stops on her femoral triangle and savored her skin again, moving from the lateral to the medial part of that anatomical region. He can feels her femoral artery quick pulse under his lips and he can't avoid smirking again.
"Navel" he says "Nerve, Artery, VEin, Lymph" #
"There's no sign of nerve compression, House," Cuddy says in her best try to keep herself professional. She swallows and runs her tongue on her lips, bending her head by side almost imperceptibly in an attempt of ignoring the incipient flash on her cheeks. She cleares her throat lightly "no artery obstruction, normal venous return, no lymphadenopathy"
House suddenly covers himself more with the hospital gown, clearing his throat and avoiding Cuddy's gaze, looking at the ceiling instead.
# "Navel" he says "Nerve, Artery, VEin, Lymph"
His mouth sucks on her skin. One hand on her hip, preventing her from moving and the other hand on her abdomen. His thumb lightly teasing her navel in a way that sends a shiver right down to her lady parts, which throbs in anticipation.
His mouth doesn't move but his hand does, slowly moving down from her navel to her lower abdomen. His fingers linger on her opposite inguinal ligament and even down this time as her hand moves in his hair at the same time. It's the approval he needs and he doesn't need to be told twice. His fingers move through her slickness, finding her even wetter than he expects and he grunts his approval against her skin. One finger finds his way inside her, then a second one and she arches her back in pleasure. He knows it would be enough to bring her to orgasm that way since he can already feel the incipient throbbing of her walls around his fingers. But he can't resist the temptation to savor her. His mouth moves on her most sensitive spot and his lips just touch her lightly. At first. Then his tongue finds hers and as soon as he sucks on her he knows she's already caught in the vortex of sensations that leads her to the edge" #
Cuddy looked up at House this time while he continues to avoid her gaze instead. His eyes are still on a fixed point on the ceiling till he closes his eyes whispering a clearly embarrassed 'I apologize, I didn't mean to...'
She doesn't need to ask out loud for an explanation to his sudden weird behavior. The bulge on his groin is clear enough and it looks like the more he tries to think about something else, the more his erection tries to have his (or her) attention.
"I really apologize," He says again, opening his eyes but not meeting hers, ignoring the reassuring smile she gives him this time. How can he explain to her that his mind had gone back again to their night together, and he isn't thinking about her, giving him a blowjob or a hand job, right now, in her white coat, instead.
"Don't," she replies "At least it looks like you has an answer to one of your questions"
She chuckles and he gives her a dirty look that turnes in a smirk just a few seconds later as he can't resist her genuine smile.
She gives him another smile, not the same reassuring smile of a few moments earlier, but a lightly mischievous one this time. He meets her teasing eyes, and a shiver hardens his cock even more at the realization she got exactly what had come to his mind a few moment earlier, awakening his impulses.
House smirks.
Yeah, he has at least a couple of certainties right now. First, he doesn't need a treatment for erectile dysfunction yet. And second... it doesn't mind if it had been twenty years ago, the memory of their night together is still clear in her mind too and... it can still affect her.
"Haven't you some useless administrative stuff to care about right now?" He playfully mocks in a clear attempt to change the subject and having an exit from an embarrassing situation.
She gives him a piercing look, holding her eyes from glancing at House's groin. She runs her tongue on her lips as a little smile plays on her face.
A week earlier she would have asked him if he needed a couple of minutes alone with his hand. And he would have probably replied with some sort of innuendo about how he could finish her with that same hand in less than a couple of minutes. It's impossible to have the last word with House, not on that subject. Cuddy swallows at that thought. Right now it's a dangerous path and she definitely doesn't want walking on it.
She nods and glances at her watch.
"Just rest" she says softly
"Am I allowed at least to have a sex dream with a charming Dean of Medicine?" He asks with a smut and piercing look.
"If you're referring to Dean Andrews I'll definitely ask for another MRI" She replies with a teasing smirk.
"I'm not sure he had your ass-...er...as-tonishing body" he jokes as she rolls her eyes to his pun.
"Oh..." she smiles and lifts both her eyebrows "thank you for the use of past tense anyway" she says smiling.
"Andrews's 'astonishing' body is probably six feet under now. Yours on the other side..." he gives her a smut look "I volunteers to check on it"
Cuddy smiles lightly and she bites the inner part of her lower lip.
She really needs to go, and yet she's like glued to the floor of that room. House's comments had always been sharp and sexist and often embarrassing. She's used to those and she had learned how not being affected by them. How not being affected by him. Now... now it's like being courted... pursued in a romantic and, at the same time, intriguing and sensual way. She keeps repeating herself that it's because of the head trauma, or maybe because of the lack of chronic pain to his injured leg. But in both cases she isn't sure she can be indifferent to this... to this version of him.
She swallows and gives him another light smile before leaving the room.