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you need to be nicers
by leiascully
She leaves the fire going. He'll be back. She doesn't bother to put her bra on either. Nothing House hasn't seen before, theoretically. Just external structures, fat and skin, pointless these days except for filling her tops and now and again filling her hands, when she takes the time to actually touch herself. She curls up on the sofa, feet tucked under her, elbow on her hip and her fingers wrapped loosely around her glass of wine.
I want to date that woman, she thinks to herself, and scoffs. Don had been an idiot. The turtleneck should have tipped her off, she supposes. She can explain him away: the physical indicators of anger were similiar to the body's responses to sexual stimulation. When she fights with House, she knows her cheeks flush, her eyes brighten, her voice gets throaty. Somedays when they really got into it, she is glad of the lining of her bras that hides the way her nipples harden. The autonomic nervous system is a funny thing. Fight or flight, and often enough it turns into fight or fuck. It is House's fault that she is on this date. They have been fighting for too long. She needs the release and not just the buildup. Do you like me, House? She knows she can be magnificent in her fury, the same way she knows which dress makes the most of her curves. She has seen the way men suddenly swallow and their pupils dilate. She wants to date that woman too, instead of wasting all the energy on House.
She takes a long swallow of wine and savors the warmth in her throat from the alcohol and the warmth on her cheekbones from the fire. It is only a matter of waiting now. She won the last round though she lost her date, and House can never let anyone else's victory stand. He will be pleased to know that Don left, a possessive bastard even if he never makes a move. Even when she wins, she still loses, she thinks, and toasts herself, draining the glass and putting it on a side table.
She is asleep when he comes in. It is Saturday; she doesn't have to be in until noon, so she doesn't set an alarm. When she rouses and stretches, hands clasped above her head and narrowly avoiding the wine glass, he is there, sitting in an armchair.
"You had your bra off and he still left?" he says, studying her. She makes a show of not adjusting her top to hide her cleavage from his blue eyes.
"I wonder whose fault that might be," she says, and stands up. He follows her to the kitchen as she puts the wine glass in the sink and stands at the fridge in her bare feet swigging spring water from a plastic bottle. "So why are you here? Just to gloat? Solve your case?"
"What are the options? That I'm a nice, caring person who's here to check up on your welfare? That sounds right."
"In some alternate universe, maybe." She caps the bottle and puts it back in the fridge, pointedly not offering him anything. The tile floor is cold and sends chills up her calves and spine; she crosses her arms over her chest to hold in the small warmth of her body, but her arms are all goosebumps and her breasts are tightening against the beginning of shivers and the presence of him. He looks her over, black dress against the white and yellow and steel of her kitchen, and moves closer. She lifts her chin and holds her ground.
"No mention of the other option?" he breathes, standing too close to her. She can feel the heat wafting off his body where his coat is unbuttoned. She feels unbalanced, trying to lean into his warmth, trying to stay where she is. He smells like cigarettes and maple syrup. House's House of Pancakes. She has a sudden whim to see House as a bartender in an old bar, towel flung over his shoulder, or as a short-order cook in a greasy spoon. She wonders if she can coax him into making breakfast, since he's here and pretending to play nice.
"That you're a jerk?" she says, her head tipped up to meet his eyes. She won't look at him like a flirt, up through her lashes.
"That I like you," he says, and leans down. Her lips part as his face nears hers, and he pauses for a moment, and she thinks, oh, just a shapeless surprise that he would be gentle when it came to it. House has always taken what he wanted but now his mouth is like a question, his lips touching hers with an unexpected gentleness. She isn't in the mood for gentleness. There are embers in the fireplace and embers in the hollow of her pelvic bone and she wants to fan them both to a roaring blaze and melt away the winter with its sorrows. She wants to remind him how he has punished her. She wraps her arms around his neck and holds tight, her mouth surging up against his, her teeth nipping at his lips as he responds.
"Cuddy," he says when she releases him, flexing her toes. He sags against the fridge. "I didn't know you had it in you."
"You hoped I did," she says tartly, touching her swollen lips. He looks at her with a little smile on his lips and she is that woman, House's Cuddy, tousled hair and snapping eyes and hot hungry mouth. She sees herself through his eyes and she loves it. She licks her lips and tastes his, the pancakes and coffee he must have had for breakfast, probably in some cheap diner with Wilson.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he says, and produces a flattened chocolate kiss.
"Very sweet," she says, taking it as he shrugs off his coat and throws it over her kitchen island. "House, you shouldn't have."
"Can't dance," he said. "Figured anything would be better than that loser from yesterday. I can't believe he didn't even get your panties off."
She puts the cheap chocolate into her mouth and lets it melt, grainy behind her teeth. Yesterday's wine, this morning's breakfast by proxy, but instead of running for her toothbrush, she wants to press her mouth against his again. She looks at House as the sugar burns the back of her throat. He is breathing faster than normal. "House. Are you jealous?"
"Jealousy is for the inferior," he says. "There's no way I'd be jealous of a guy who looks that stupid in a turtleneck."
"You don't just like me a little," she says, stepping close again, letting her hip drop against his good thigh. "You like me. You want me all to yourself."
"Perceptive witch," he says, pushing one hand into her top, rolling his fingers under her breast like he's playing scales, and she blesses his years of piano, "but it's widely known that I'm territorial. Don't take it personally."
"I think I will," she says, and wraps one languid hand around the back of his neck, and draws his head down for a long kiss.
"Can we move this party elsewhere?" he murmurs, his fist knotted in her hair. "Love the decor in here, but it's not doing much for the leg."
"Say it again."
"What? That I like you? I like you. It's not much of a compliment. I also like hookers, Ruebens, painkillers, and off-track betting. You're in dubious company."
"I'll take it," she says, and sashays down the hall toward her bedroom. His sneakers and cane are very quiet on her parquet floors. When she stops, he is right behind her, left hand curling over her hip.
"Why did he leave?"
She turns, his arm sliding around her waist. "Not because of you. Because of me. Well." She smirks. "Because of who I am with you."
"He wants a maneater?" He bends his neck, kisses her jaw, her neck. She stretches up on tiptoe so he can mouth her ticklish throat.
"Basically." Nothing else in the world, she thinks. Just us. She steps backwards, as if they're dancing, moving on her toes, leading him to her bed. House has a strange sort of grace despite his disability: he keeps her rhythm. She undoes his buttons as they move. He rucks up the fabric of her dress with his left hand, holding onto her with his right, his cane discarded.
She undresses him slowly, making it a long tease as he peels her dress up over her hips and over her head. She ducks to help him, then swings a lean leg over him as his hand comes up to trail along her thighs.
"Cuddy," he says.
"Mmmm?" she asks on a rising note, her toes tingling and her knees pressed to the outside of his hips.
"Don't be this woman for anybody else."
Her eyes prickle suddenly. "I can't be."
"You can." He sits up partially, pushing her hair back from her face. "You are, Cuddy. You're the most vicious hellbitch in the entire state of New Jersey. Grown men and women cower before you. Nurse Previn bows when you pass."
"And I should stop being a hell bitch, you're saying?" she snarks, and her nostrils flare.
"No, just don't be a naked hellbitch with anyone else. Spend your wrath on me," he says, and kisses her, and she thinks, that is as good as it gets and kisses him back before sliding down his body to peel off his socks and his jeans and his boxerbriefs. He hasn't showered since early yesterday, she thinks, and his skin is warm with the man smell, not dirty, just real, a faint salt mixed with the last traces of cologne. She kisses up the inside of his thigh and the point of his hip. He is hot and hard in her hand when she moves back up, damp with readiness. It has been years of foreplay between them to consummate, conscious and unconscious. She feels the slickness between her own legs as his fingers rub against the lace of her panties.
"Condom?" she asks, reaching for the bedside table as he slides into a comfortable position.
"Back on the pill?" he asks and she nods, biting her lip against the pain of that failure. "I trust you."
"And you're clean?"
He nods. She wriggles out of her panties and moves over him. He slides in like he was meant to be there all along. She has never had unprotected sex before. It is a fine thing to feel him inside her, skin on skin, all the tender membranes that are made to touch each other. He doesn't move, just lets her adjust, kissing her, one hand running down her back as the other cradles her breasts. It is Cuddy that moves first, when the pressure of him inside her is too delicious, and the fingers tracing the length of her spine slip between her legs. She holds his shoulders, kneading a little with her fingertips when she remembers. He is noisier than she would have expected; he half moans in his throat, and she lets herself respond, more than they usually convey in conversation, none of the quips to cover up their vulnerabilities. He touches a sweet spot and she almost squeals, a high urgent sound. She holds on tighter, his muscles firm under her hands. He is in good shape for a man his age, except for the rut of his thigh under hers. She likes the strength of him under her palms.
"Come on," he urges her quietly, just to talk to her, she thinks, because there are times when House gets vocal. "Come on, Cuddy, god, you're gorgeous this way."
"You're not so bad yourself," she manages to say, and she's remembering just how much she likes sex and why, and why she hasn't had any in a long time, because his blue eyes in the morning light are still keen through the sex glaze, and her bed is going to smell of him long after she's washed the sheets.
"Tell me you're mine," he pants, rolling his fingers over her clit in the way he's discovered makes her shiver and moan even more, and she has enough presence of mind to say, "You're mine," and make him laugh through the quickness of his breath.
"Yes," she says, and he moves his hips against hers, and "yes yes yes yes," she says and feels the flush spreading up her chest, pleasure rolling through her body like flames from an opened door. He stills his hips, holding her close as the shudders run through her, until she nods and they start moving again, his lips on her mouth, his lips on her breasts as her back arches, her body too sensitive. She looks at him, blue eyes and blue eyes, and the light in her room is so much brighter than usual, but not like the light in his eyes.
"You were right," he says, and presses his fingers down over her hip, holding her steady as he rocks up into her.
"I always am," she says, and the second orgasm takes her by surprise, a coiled spring that suddenly loosens and sends her shivering back against his chest as he makes a few last desperate thrusts and sighs. "About what exactly was I right?" she murmurs, listening to his heartbeat, her hot ear pressed to his sweaty chest.
"The issue of who possesses whom. It could be called mutual."
"I told you," she says lazily, tracing a circle around his nipple to watch the skin respond. "I own your ass."
"Cracking the whip," he grumbles.
"Yes," she says. "Come on, up. Shower first, and then you can go to sleep."
"You too," he said. "I told your assistant you wouldn't be in today. Family matters."
"You did what?" she says, perched on the side of the bed. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair is a glossy corona, her eyes are shining, her mouth is red, and her cheeks are flushed. She looks happier than she can remember being. There's a reason they call it afterglow.
"Close enough?" he offers, with a crooked grin.
"We'll see," she says, "it depends on how good you are at making brunch," and pads on her bare feet to the bathroom, smiling to herself.
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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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