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Nociception
by Topaz Eyes
A/N: Written for the housefic_pens linked drabble challenge on LJ. Headings from Damien Rice's "Cannonball."
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stones taught me to fly
After Stacy left the first time House took a determinedly pragmatic view on sex: when his right hand wasn't enough he went straight to the professionals. It didn't matter whose mouth was wrapped around his prick; he appreciated the efficiency of the call girls the agency sent him.
Long past midnight, if he missed her companionable warmth beside him; her dark head pillowed on his shoulder, or the heady scent of feminine sweat and freesia thick in the air; he stubbornly downed another whiskey, or swallowed another Vicodin, or played another melancholy etude on the baby grand in the corner.
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love it taught me to lie
When Stacy returned he thought he'd left her behind for good, but when all the repressed emotions roared back with a vengeance he threw his heart into winning her back almost as if she'd never left--her husband and his own fragile recovery from her betrayal be damned.
House took what he could glean from her: her therapist's notes, whispered confessionals, Steve McQueen; all a game that he thought he could win, if it meant she chose him in the end. Culminating in a stolen kiss in a hotel room in Baltimore, success was a heartbeat away, his to take.
~~~~~
life it taught me to die
Sex with Stacy was everything he'd remembered, and more: her soft skin glowing in the late evening light, hazel eyes shining as she clutched him, the flutter of her pulse under his lips. Her hands skimming his chest, over his cheek and down his back; they still fit together perfectly, as if she'd never been gone.
House never counted on Mark dragging after him doggedly, determined to hold on where he hadn't; never counted on his own reluctant admission that he would never change for her.
So the second time Stacy left, he felt entirely justified in sending her away.
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so it's not hard to fall
Wilson had told him to get a hooker, and he did, if only to relieve the lingering twinges of his dalliance into the wacky world of migraine medicine.
The sight of Paula's glossy red lips encircling his dick almost made him come on the spot.
Except he got no further than that; unwilling to accept that the dark head in front of him was not the one he wanted.
Finally, frustrated, he sent Paula away, and hurled the whiskey bottle at the wall.
He sat alone in the twilight, watching the golden liquid trickle into the crevices between the floorboards.
~~~~~
when you float like a cannonball
He'd never experienced such searing pain in his thigh since waking up from the muscle debridement.
Frayed nerve fibers in the ugly bundle of scar, shooting bullets of sodium and potassium fire straight to his brain--(sweet Jesus) burning alive the old-fashioned way was preferable to this agony, because (oh holy hell) nothing deigned to touch it this time.
Defeated and reduced to begging Cuddy for some measure of relief, he refused to admit that he damn near cried as the morphine infused into his spine.
In the end, perhaps he never should have found out about the placebo.
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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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