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Working Against Me
by leiascully
She came up to his office in the middle of the night, when the words on the endless pages of paperwork started blurring and doubling. His blinds were closed, but light seeped through them, and the door wasn't locked when she pushed tentatively at the handle and went in through the rattle of slats. She wasn't sure how she'd known he would be there, except that she knew him, and the pain in his leg, and the insomnia. And there he was, lying on his back on the floor, feet propped up and headphones on and eyes closed. The pang of longing went through her the way it always did. She wanted to see him happy one of these days. It hadn't happened in years. He opened his eyes as she stepped close to him and tipped his head in a half-hearted attempt to look up her skirt.
"Still here?" she said, though the answer was clear.
"What?" he asked, and pushed the headphones off so that the cord jerked out of the cd player, and the room was flooded with jazzy bluesy pop music.
"Still here," she said.
"You too," he said, looking up at her. "One of those things is unusual." His eyes narrowed a little, speculative.
"Paperwork," she said. "Someone screwed up a surgery, nothing huge, but definitely a screwup, and I've got malpractice stuff to look through. Charts."
"Thought that's what your law dogs were for." He pushed the headphones aside and started to get up. It was a long process. He was favoring his leg more than usual, she saw, carefully putting his hands on either side of his thigh as he moved it off the desk.
"My assistant quit again. Stuff's not getting farmed out the right way." She put out a hand to help him up and to her surprise, he took it, and they spent a few seconds in a counterbalance like the first time you hold the gaze of a lover across the room, her heels, his weight, and the uncertainty of staying up or both falling hard. And then he was up, stumbling a little so that he ended up against her, one arm around her waist and both her arms thrown around him. His head hung over her shoulder and she pressed her face to his neck to feel his pulse against her cheekbone. A little fast - he was hurting.
"Why, Doctor Cuddy," he said, and his breathing was uneven too, "are those cough drops down your shirt or are you just happy to see me?" She blushed a little, face still against his neck so that his scar was rough against the skin next to her eye. She could feel her nipples tightening against his chest. It was nothing, she thought, just a natural predictable reaction of one body in proximity to another body, in this case, her unfortunately sex-starved body and House's long, lean, muscled, masculine frame. The way he was leaning on her sent prickles of desire all up and down her. Where his hips rested against hers, she could feel another natural reaction happening. He was firming through the denim, and it made the heat begin between her legs. It was sensory overload, the way she could feel the whole of his forearm pressed around her waist, and each of his fingers at the small of her back, and the movement of his chest against hers as he breathed.
"You're in pain," she said, her own breathing getting a bit fast and uneven. He was heavy, but she liked his weight against her.
"I'm always in pain," he said over her shoulder, his fingers tightening on her back.
"House," she began, and he tried to move away, but she held on and he couldn't shake her loose or reach his cane. They ended up swaying together, almost in time to the music.
"Cuddy, if you wanted to dance, all you had to do was say so," he snarked, but she knew it was the pain that made him cranky, and not her, because he was holding her even tighter, trembling a little. He was tired of being in pain and she was tired of aching along with him.
"So let's dance," she surprised herself by saying. "Lean on me. And take your pills."
"You're not supposed to know about those," he mumbled but he reached into the pocket of his jacket for the bottle and popped the lid. He tipped the pills across the desk.
"The pharmacy does keep records," she said, but tenderly. "Stop stealing Wilson's scrip pad. I'll be your prescribing. I'm your doctor."
He lifted his head briefly away from her and cupped his hand to his mouth. She could feel him swallow, and then he settled back against her. Almost immediately he began to relax. "Figured you were going to bust me, make a big example. Put Foreman in charge again, maybe."
"I should, but I need you," she said, and meant to continue on with "to be able to do your job", but all that came out was "I need you." That was troubling, but now they were swaying in earnest to the music. The boy on the cd player was singing about holding on to whatever you found and she thought that was right. She could feel House breathing into her hair, and his heartbeat was settling into a more regular pattern. Funny how she had just come to terms with giving up romance and candlelight and probably children and then this unexpected moment with unsentimental Gregory House. It wasn't romance, but it was something better than she'd had in a long time. He wrapped his other arm around her, holding her even closer, no excuse for it the way there's an excuse for her steadying arms, or was before he took the pill. She was still tingling everywhere his body was against her, too much contact, too much House too close.
"You need me," he said. "And here I thought you were the consummate modern woman, so independent you don't even need a man to have kids."
"Professionally," she amended quickly. "I need you professionally."
"Personally?" he asked, and she said nothing. He shifted his weight onto his left leg, bracing his hip against the desk, wedging his thigh between her legs as much as the narrow skirt would allow, his hand splaying over her ass and pressing her forward. She pretended it was nothing. She was ovulating, like she'd told him, her body awash with biological indicators of want, and it was midnight, and she was lonely, and he was a flirt. There were oceans between what they should have been doing and what they were doing, but he was hurting and she could help him. If she pretended it was philanthropy, she could get away with it. If she pretended it was biology, she could get away with it. Otherwise there were no reasons left for the two of them to have spent so many aching years trading barbs instead of kisses. She had to justify their misery.
It was sweet, this half a dance with the two of them swaying in his office. It almost made up for the loneliness, for the empty nights in a bed that was too big for one, the space she'd worked so hard to earn. House had a knack for reinventing spaces, for reordering things to fit his whim, and this time he had included her, holding her against him. But it was going to end here, when the song ended or when the cd ended and this moment of intimacy fizzled into the white noise of electricity that powered nothing. She would drive home still mourning might have beens. She had to talk about something else, ignore the way her body fit against his so neatly. His hands moved over her back, slowly, gently, and it felt like his fingers were leaving trails of heat.
"So now that you've got your carpet back, what's your next crusade, Don Quixote?" she said.
"Seducing my dean, can't you tell?" he said, and the words ran through her like a shock. She tipped her head back in surprise and he kissed her, catching her mouth as easily as he caught his stupid ball, because aside from the leg he was a marvel of coordination. His mouth was hot and she pushed helplessly against him, his thigh rubbing between hers as much as the fabric allowed, which wasn't enough.
"I had these big plans," he said. "There was going to be wine involved, except that you're trying to get pregnant. I was going to fuck you up against the wall. Sort of a thanks for the Ketamine thing. Leg's not cooperating, though." Her muscles clutched at the rasp in his voice. She had never been much for dirty talk, but House had a gift with words, and his hand was still spread over her ass, pulling her close. She stretched up to kiss him, dragging at his lips.
"Easier to say it with flowers," she murmured. "And they have a comparable lifespan to your Ketamine treatment. I'm sorry, House."
"It was a long shot," he said, but she could hear the exhaustion in his voice. "At least you listened to me."
She strained toward his mouth again, the frustration of not being able to straddle his thigh delicious and vexing. "You could still fuck me," she said, the word familiar in her mouth, but with a new flavor. She used it as a curse, but not as a command. He was never going to be a man for "I love you"s and she was never going to be the war bride, pining away for absent love, but they could come together anyway for this moment. She felt like she had been waiting years to touch him this way. Under her hands the muscles of his back were tense and she hoped it was desire and not pain, but between the two of them, the things ran together too often.
"I always knew you had designs on that chair," he said.
She slipped one hand from his shoulder around the back of his head and drew him down so that she could kiss him. They were still swaying gently to the music, the sad boy picking soulfully at his guitar and rasping out something about lost love. She sucked at his tongue, trying to be closer to him, wanting to be everything he needed. He pulled her bottom lip into his mouth. He was as good with his mouth as he was with his hands, and she thought, God, how did Stacy ever leave? All the sarcasm, all the misery, but kissing him was like hearing a Bach sonata for the first time, being moved to tears by the beauty and the genius of it. Cuddy had always forgiven him.
"Chair," one of them said, and they moved across the room in a three-quarter time shuffle, leaning into kisses, leaning away from his limp. She helped him down into the chaise, the tension between them again perfect the way it always had been, keeping them both from toppling, keeping them both from being alone. She reached for the zipper of her skirt and pushed it down over her hips, stepping out of her shoes and her underwear. His eyes were on her and she felt vulnerable, but when she looked at him, his expression was half ravenous and half soft.
"Gorgeous," he said. "Come here." And finally, finally she could straddle him, kneeling with her thighs bracketing his in the chair as he undid the buttons of her shirt and she undid the button on his jeans and pushed his pants down his legs. He pushed his face against her breasts, his cheeks scratchy and his lips warm against the delicate skin. It was bliss to have him there. His attention to detail served him well as he perused her chest. She ran her hands through his hair, which was thinning a little, and she thought of the Velveteen Rabbit with his fur loved off, but here it was too much thinking and not enough love, and she wished she could change that. He was so beloved and he never seemed to notice.
He closed his mouth over her nipple and she gasped and stopped thinking. His other hand was between her legs, rubbing gently, his fingers rippling in an idle pattern that was sending chills up and down her spine. She put her palm under his chin and tipped his face up so that she could kiss him: her breasts felt cold and neglected, but she needed to kiss him. It was so intimate, kissing, especially kissing House whose mouth was always full of words or bitterness. She needed to tell him he was loved and all she had were her lips against his, the words unsaid in the spaces between their teeth, but at least he would be swallowing them instead.
She needed him. She put a hand down, guided him against her and then into her, rocking down so, so slowly, biting his lip against the impulse to fuck him senseless, but good things took time. She wanted to feel it all, every stroke, every right move and every wrong one, in case this never happened again and she had to salt the memory away against the bleak years ahead. She kissed him, long and deep and slow, just savoring him. Her hands were pushed under his shirt, one at the sleeve cupped over his bicep, and the other spread over his stomach. He cradled her breasts in one palm, shifting between them, and the other hand was still playing tudes between her thighs. Her hips moved in time to the music. The sad boy was singing about gravity and she thought, none of us escapes, but here, for this moment, balanced above House, she was weightless, and the dreamy look in his eyes when she drew back for a breath said he was too. It was her. It was the Vicodin. She didn't care, as long as he had this moment of flying, gravity put aside.
They were a closed circuit of pleasure, breathing each other's breath, no wasted movements. His fingers moved against her and she rose and fell almost unbearably slowly, trying to prolong their moment of intimacy, but she was tingling from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, and the fast pulse where her knee pressed into his hip said he wouldn't last much longer either. "Stay with me," she said against his lips.
"Always have," he said, and she broke at that moment, a thousand jagged melty pieces of ice, burning, liquid against him. He held her hips against his and rocked hard, once, twice, and then sighed, pushing a hand into her hair. She curled against his chest, her nose grazing his throat, and if it was all they'd ever have, it was at least something beautiful. He stroked her hair and she tried not to cry: too many hormones, too strong a release.
"Do you ever wish," he said, and stopped, and she kissed the base of his throat, because yes, she was always wishing, but gravity and duty never let up for long.
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A/N: For Lissie, who wanted dancing, with apologies to John Mayer.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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