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power play
by ellixian
By way of announcing his arrival, he throws the door wide open.
"Honey," he calls, "I'm hoooooome!"
She jumps and, as he expected, screws her face up and yells at him. (He likes it when she does that.) "House! Don't you ever knock?"
He arches an eyebrow. "Cuddy, don't you ever lock your door? If you wanted privacy..."
She rolls her eyes. "Like a locked door would keep you from invading my personal space."
"I didn't go to locksmith's school for nothing," he agrees amiably, then takes a couple of big steps into the room. "You want me to go home? I will, you know. Even if that means leaving you lonely, bereft, deprived of human companionship..."
"I wouldn't call it human," she smirks at him, before indicating with a sweep of her hand that he should find a horizontal surface and sit on it.
"God-like then," he continues, before dropping into a chair.
"Feel free to tell that enormous ego of yours whatever it wants to hear to keep growing at the speed it does," she replies sweetly, as she sifts through a small pile of envelopes.
"Are you working?" he asks, his lips curled in disdain.
"It's called checking your mail. Grown-ups do that, you know," she says, as she selects an envelope from the stack and starts to peel it open.
"Well, then, Cut-throat Bitch must be feeling incredibly mature these days."
"You've got her on mail duty now?" she asks absentmindedly, as she scans the letter quickly. "Ugh, bill." She flips it aside, picks up another envelope.
"Cuddy," he whines, tossing his cane from hand to hand, "I'm bored. Pay attention to me."
"You want to entertain yourself thinking up ways to explain that grave robbery from two weeks ago? I'm still in meetings with Legal over that stunt."
He sighs noisily. "To quote the immortal Bartus Simpsonious, I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, can't prove anything. Besides, I'm off the clock. And you know what that means - no work talk."
He's pretty certain she could get an Olympic gold medal in rolling her eyes.
"I'd like to know when you are on the clock," she mutters, "Sure would make the flames of Hell feel a little less fiery when I have to go through your accounts."
"If you're so intent on talking about work," he snipes, "why don't you tell me something."
"Fine," she shoots back, and sets her mail aside. "What do you want to know?"
"Robert Elliot."
She blinks. "Huh?"
"Mirror syndrome guy."
"Oh," she nods, tilts her head to one side. "The guy who thought my breasts were awesome. Or, more precisely, the guy who thinks you think my breasts are awesome. Not that you don't already tell them that every chance you get." She grins.
"You know, Cuddy," he says conversationally, "if the Christians are right and for some reason you take a detour past the pearly gates en route to joining me in Hell, God will have quite a few things to say to you about taking excessive pride in one's appearance."
"Humility lessons from the master, I'm honoured," she snarks at him, before she asks, "So what about Robert Elliot? Didn't you discharge him this morning?"
"Yup," he nods, "diagnostically a complete bore after he turned out to be a pig poo sniffer. It's a shame I never got you and Wilson in the same room as him though. I'm of the firm medical opinion that he would fail to detect an alpha personality and end up mimicking both of you. Now what do you think a passive-aggressive dominatrix would say?"
She picks up the nearest thing at hand - a cushion - and flings it at his head.
"Pillow fight, mommy? I can help you into your jammies. Preferably of the low-cut, barely-there variety that leaves nothing to my imagination."
"Your point, House," she sighs in exasperation.
(He really likes it when she does that.)
"My point is - it wasn't a fair fight."
"Wow," she says in disbelief, and shakes her head, "Way to be a poor winner, House."
"Don't you mean 'loser', Cuddy?" he asks, "You totally let me win in there."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she shrugs, and he must admit he's impressed - the lie rolls easily, quickly, off her tongue, and would have flummoxed a polygraph machine.
"Oh, I admit the breasts were a great ploy," he continues, as he levers himself off his chair and limps over to her, "Kept me distracted. Actually blinded Robert Elliot to the fact that he was mirroring a straight woman. God would be wrong - you should be proud. Your yabos defied a medical condition and reminded him that he's a red-blooded, virile man under all that memory loss."
She looks up at him and frowns. "Not that I'm admitting anything here, but what the heck makes you think I won, House? You were dancing up a storm in there. Your impression of Astaire with a limp was truly quite astounding."
"Thank you," he bows with a flourish.
"Astounding, but nauseating," she adds.
"So anyway, you left the room," he continues, "Astounded and nauseated. That's when Robert Elliot pretty much asks me when I'm going to stop preening and go do my clinic hours."
He rubs the back of his hand across his forehead and grins, and she thinks - this has to be as close as Gregory House has ever come to looking sheepish.
She looks at him, for about ten seconds.
It's a trap, he can see her thinking, it's a trap and he'll lord it over me for weeks if he manages to trick me.
But finally, the furrow in her brow disappears, and she laughs. "You're serious! You're not kidding!"
"Hey, enough with the laughing," he pouts, "I was so depressed after that I had to do something illegal to turn the world the right side up again."
A look of alarm crosses her face, and he adds, "I broke into your office and made good on my threat to swop your pills with contraception-friendly candy."
"Now that joke wasn't even funny the first time you tried it," she swats him on the arm, "You know I'm not ready to try again."
He grabs her hand, pulls her to her feet.
"So I'd have a terrible career as a stand-up comedian," he growls into her ear, as his arm goes around her waist and pulls her into him. "You want to punish me for it?"
She laughs, quietly, into his chest, and shakes her head. "You're incorrigible, House."
"I know. But hey," he whispers into her ear, and feels her shiver, just a little, as his lips graze her cheekbone. "I know from experience that you'll agree - it's a tragic shame to waste a perfectly good bed. Yours is right here. Ergo..."
He leans down, she tiptoes up, and he kisses her.
(He loves it that she always kisses back, fiercely - they kiss on her terms or not at all.)
"So do I even get a say in this?" she asks as she pulls away for oxygen.
"You tell me, Cuddy," he says, "Turns out you've always been the boss of me."
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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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