Rating: PG
Pairing: House/Cuddy, House/Stacy, House/Other
Disclaimer: If I owned Gregg House (or Hugh Laurie), he wouldn't be paired with anyone but me.
Summary: (He sees smooth skin under his hands, slight hips and shoulders, too small to be Stacy's. He's lost track of things, somehow.)
Spoilers: General S1, "The Honeymoon" in particular
A/N: This was written for tangleofthorns/Luna for a comment challenge. "House/cigarettes" was the prompt and I took it from there. I think it was more than she wanted, and less than she was looking for, but it is what it is. First Housefic.
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He sits at the bar, his cane hooked over one knee, and nurses a mug of beer that was, at one point in the night, cold. A bowl of nuts rests against the fingers of his left hand as he runs the coaster against the wood. A TV over the bar gives the scores of the games--preseason, nothing serious, damn Yankees--but his eyes are fixed on the mirror, surveying the rest of the room almost casually. (There are few things he actually does casually. He pretends not to care, but he takes most everything to heart. They don't know. She does.)
There's a woman in the far corner of the room that's been looking at him for the better part of twenty minutes, and Gregg avoids her glances almost every time. Dark hair against dark eyes, and it's too much like the past to be the present. He looks resolutely at the bright bottles of liquor against the wall. (She drinks tequila, straight up; very little about her is inviting, from the outside. He knows her too well to be fooled, not well enough to hold her.) He drains the last of the lukewarm beer, signals the bartender for a new one. Minutes later, picking at the frosty mug beneath his fingertips, a shadow passes over him and he glimpses blonde hair out of the corner of his eye.
She's lean, small, sitting gracefully almost next to him; the stool between them is conspicuous in its presence, but barroom etiquette reigns tonight. She fumbles through the purse in her lap, emerges with a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a turquoise lighter in the other. (She doesn't smoke, hasn't ever smoked, never wanted to. She has other vices.) "Gin and tonic" gets almost-whispered to the bartender, the words falling out around the cigarette dangling from her lips, orange flame to white tip and delicate fingers all at once. Somehow, even this is elegant.
Gregg realizes he's staring, but doesn't look away. It's ego masterfully crafted over the years, the mindset of academically brilliant people spilling over into every part of their lives. He saved a life this afternoon; he doesn't shift his glance.
Green eyes meet his, and she gives him a small smile. "Hi," she says, hesitantly, and reaches for the drink that's just been placed in front of her. She's almost out of place here, almost too classy, though this bar is far from a dive; she's got an untouchable quality about her, a distance she keeps tucked in close--he finds it appealing. ("I love you," she mumbles against his shoulder. "You were the one," she says, and she's too far away with her face pressed to his.)
"Hi," he nods back, brings the glass to his lips.
They sit a few minutes, studiously not looking at each other--she finishes the cigarette, doesn't reach for another, and he doesn't like that about her though he doesn't know why--until Gregg lets out a quiet laugh. "I hate bars." He turns to face her, takes in the upturned corners of her mouth. "Probably significant that most of them are right next to seedy motels."
She chuckles, low and throaty, almost a breath, and shakes her hair from her face; he watches it trail down her back, notes the way it catches the light, the way it almost glows--he finds this appealing too. "I know what you mean. Though I probably shouldn't complain, it's not like anyone dragged me here."
"What would be the fun in that? It's so much harder to find someone willing to sleep with you when you've got three of your more attractive friends at the same table."
She laughs then, quick and sharp, and there are more lines to her than he'd noticed before. Something about her seems to shift instantly, and now she's not as far away as she had been. She raises her drink, takes a sip, and looks back at him; bright, wide eyes, and she's suddenly standing and moving onto the stool next to his. "You mind?" She asks as she sits, which Gregg thinks mostly negates the point of asking in the first place; he'd normally answer with a quick retort but right now he can't get Stacy's voice out of his head. Instead, he smiles and lets it reach his eyes.
"I'm Gregg," he says, extending a hand.
She takes his hand, and her fingers are warm against his own. She smiles. "Isabella. Well, just Bella."
"How `Beauty and the Beast'."
It comes out awkwardly, a little too heavy, but she doesn't seem to mind, just flicks the pack open and reaches for her lighter. There are limits to the things he's capable of, the things he couldn't do even before the leg happened. (She reminds him of things he'd rather not think about, things he used to be good at, but that's only one of the reasons he's pissed she's come back.)
She lights another cigarette, takes a long drag and blows the smoke toward her right shoulder, away from him.
"Those things'll kill you," he says and his prescription bottle presses against his chest from the inside pocket of his jacket: his favorite kind of hypocrisy.
The door opens and he glances over his shoulder, sees dark hair and expensive clothes. The click of heels in his direction and he reaches instinctively for his Vicodin.
"Shouldn't mix your meds with alcohol, House. You should know better." Her voice is haughty, a little too loud. She's standing over his shoulder, almost between him and the blonde; he chooses to ignore the symbolism and credit this to chance--she's anything but territorial. His hands fall, he doesn't take a pill. (Tonight's about uphill battles.)
"Remind me again, Doctor, I've forgotten it all." His words aren't biting and she gives him a tolerant smile, managing to look comfortable standing between him and his current not-quite-conquest. (Her smiles are too wide, too frequent; they're not one of the things he misses about her.) "Cuddy, this is Bella. Bella, this is my boss and the bane of my existence. On her good days, at least."
Bella looks awkwardly from one to the other, takes in the hand stretched out in her direction. She sets her cigarette in the ashtray, offers a light handshake and a small smile. Gregg bites back a laugh at the comedy of it all, and even Cuddy looks vaguely amused. (He sees smooth skin under his hands, slight hips and shoulders, too small to be Stacy's. He's lost track of things, somehow.)
"Drowning our sorrows in the finest alcoholic beverages we can find?" She raises one eyebrow, turns her back toward the blonde. He refuses to overlook the symbolism in that, and Bella drops her eyes and downs her drink. She's maybe not so elegant, Gregg thinks, and clears his throat before he speaks.
"It's very condescending, the way doctors talk like that. `How are we doing today?' `Well, you're apparently doing fine, Doc, but I'm dying of an inoperable brain tumor.' Where did we learn that?" He slides both elbows onto the bar, drinks deep from his mug. She hasn't followed him here, not exactly, but he resents the implication that he needs to be checked up on. "Sometimes we really suck, as a profession."
"You know, I think for someone who enjoys being a doctor as much as you do, that's really--"
A shrill ringing sounds from the blonde's purse and she frantically digs through to find her cellphone. Smoke swirls from the end of her still-lit cigarette as she stands and turns away, purse clutched under one arm and her hand pressed to her ear; he and Cuddy both know that she won't be coming back.
"I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?" Cuddy feigns amused innocence as she drops onto the still-warm stool, sets her purse on the bar. He should be angry, resentful that he wasted all those slightly kinder than usual comments on a woman who's now seated herself at a table far away from him, but instead he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and doesn't meet Cuddy's eyes.
"Well, we were just discussing running off to Vegas, but I think you've frightened her away. As you tend to do." He turns his head, finds her looking at him in that way she has, amused and tolerant and angry all in turns. (They share that look, the two of them, that look that's only fitting when someone knows him as well as they both do. As well as they both did.)
The bartender crosses to her, and she doesn't hesitate at all before ordering. "Vodka, on the rocks," and he knew that was her drink, knew her drink almost before he knew her name, but every time he sees her with it he's reminded how fitting it is. Clean and crisp and cold, like she is, like she pretends to be.
She sighs evenly, settles deeper into her seat. For awhile they don't speak, and the smoke from Bella's cigarette winds around and between them. It's still long, too much paper left to burn, and Cuddy fiddles with it a moment before lifting it to her lips. Gregg raises an eyebrow as she breathes in deep, too deep, and leans her head back and closes her eyes. When she finally exhales, he realizes he was holding his breath too, trying to see which of them gave out first. (It's a game they play.)
"You just smoked a stranger's cigarette."
She turns toward him, mostly amused, but something behind her eyes not laughing at all. "She seemed like a classy lady. Doubt I catch anything."
He shrugs his shoulders, narrows his eyes. "You don't know, could've been a hooker."
"Probably, no other woman would have you. Damaged goods and all." She does this to him, continually, and for reasons he doesn't understand he can't bring himself to mind. It's refreshing, if he's forced to admit it, when people address the issue of his--and he mentally grimaces here, involuntarily--handicap instead of casting pitiful glances his way when they think he can't see. (She calls him on it all the time, his changed demeanor, his new ruder countenance, and plays it off as if it's not her fault. It isn't, not in any of the important ways--it's no one's fault, really, he realizes from time to time--and he doesn't hold it against her.) Most days he's a better man than he realizes.
"Next thing you know, you'll end up with syphilis, insane and dying." He takes a drink, breathes out. "I'll try not to laugh."
"You taste a homeless woman's vomit and I can't smoke a strange woman's cigarette?"
"How did you--?"
"It's my hospital, I hear things." The words are weighted, double-edged. Maybe she's here to drown sorrows of her own. She looks away, takes another drag. "You said you didn't mind."
The words don't catch him off guard at all; he's been steeling himself against this conversation since he smelled her expensive perfume through cheap smoke. (She smells like flowers and women and money, but always with the sterile smell of the hospital the closest to her skin. Her hands on his chest, his nose in her hair, and sometimes he thinks of exam room three.) "I never said I didn't mind."
"You said you'd be okay with it."
"I said `fine'."
"Which meant you'd be okay with it."
"I am okay with it," he lies.
She makes a noise, half disbelieving laugh, half amused snort. He doesn't find it attractive; she doesn't seem to care. She shakes her head, flicks ashes into the glass tray at her hand. "You are so far from okay with it." She keeps her eyes down when she speaks, cigarette again at her down-turned face, and the lines of her neck make his fingers tingle. (He's always been one for old habits.)
The bartender wipes a rag against the wood at the opposite end of the bar, swirls cloth underhand until dark oak shines; Gregg watches the motion, the back and forth, and his voice is thick when he speaks, full of things he can't place--touches, and looks, and fragments of conversations. "I think maybe you're the one that's not okay with Stacy being back." She glances at him quickly, eyes darting up and then down again. He thinks he sees her fingers tighten around her glass as she exhales slowly, but decides it's the light playing tricks.
"I like Stacy," she says, finally, her pause a little too long. She swallows loudly, forcefully, and continues. "I've always liked Stacy."
"You don't like me with Stacy." She looks up, meets his gaze, and he sees something there behind her eyes. It's not pain, not jealousy--this thing between them is too abstract for feelings like those, and she doesn't play at drama--but it's something intangible, something there are no words for. ("I don't love you," she says quietly, into his mouth. "I don't even really like you," she whispers. He trials a hand down her stomach and she's quiet awhile.)
The blonde, Bella, stands, suddenly in their lines of vision. She's got a tall man with light hair and lighter eyes just behind her, and two sets of eyes follow them across the mirror and out the door. Gregg drinks and doesn't speak; Cuddy smokes and taps manicured fingers against the bar. They're both waiting.
The cigarette's burned down to the stub, but she doesn't stamp it out; slender fingers reach into her purse, pull out a pack of her own. She lights her new cigarette from the butt of the old one, then sets the stub quietly against the tray. He turns, sees her watching it burn the rest of the way down, until the fire is gone and the smoke between them is from the new cigarette in her hand only. He clears his throat, but doesn't say anything.
"I don't want things at the hospital to be awkward." She leans toward him, rubs a cheek against her shoulder--it's something she does when she's tired, when she's worn, when a patient's died on her watch. He resists the urge to touch her, instead closes both hands around his now warm mug.
"Things won't be awkward," he answers, looks down.
"You're lying."
"Probably," he replies. "Everybody does. And, though it has been reported, I'm not a god among men." He raises his eyes, studies her face. Dark hair against dark eyes, and he holds her gaze. Something passes between them, something more than affection and less than resignation. She looks away. (She's lying next to him in bed, and the both of them are laughing, and suddenly he doesn't see Stacy when he looks at her. Things in his mind have gotten turned around. Somewhere along the way this stopped being about heartache.)
She raises her head, surveys the bar, the slightly shabby furniture, the yuppie kind of crowd. It's not his scene, and she knows him well enough to notice. "How did you end up here?" Her tone is suddenly lighter, suddenly amused, and she grins as she curls her lips around the end of her cigarette.
"It's a funny story, actually. A guy walks into a bar--"
"Well, limps in, really."
He breathes out, grins ruefully, doesn't continue his tale. She was only asking out of effort, less for the answer and more to fill up the space between them.
Pain shoots through his leg suddenly, and his hands falter, drop the coaster he'd been fiddling with. She glances toward him, notes the twinge, meets his eyes a moment before exhaling and turning back toward the bar. He feels the weight of his pills against his chest, reaches a hand towards her knee instead. She doesn't flinch, doesn't comment, just ashes her cigarette and reaches for her drink, dark hair falling over one shoulder.