Work Text:
How You Like It
It's been a long day.
House's patient's condition has spiralled and dived like a rollercoaster, always cresting again but slightly lower each time, and every blood test shows hormonal levels that are completely out of whack. He knows he knows what he needs to, but the answer's hovering just out of reach. He's sick of bouncing his tennis ball off of Chase's head to relieve his stress. The hospital's not helping, the whiteboard's mess of interlaced symptoms is taunting him, and if Foreman raises his eyebrow one more time at anything House tells him to do, he's considering ripping it off. Cameron nipped at his heels all the way out of the hospital, yapping questions about treatments and what the hell they're going to do next--not in those words, of course; it's all caught up in what is he thinking, what is he feeling, what is he doing?
"I'm going to get a consult," he finally told her, and he was in front of Cuddy's house before he stopped to think about why.
She's not answering her pager or her phone, either the cell or her landline. She hasn't turned them off because he's got the whine of the ring in his ear, sitting in his car watching the lights in her living room. He needs an endocrinologist and Veerham is at a conference. He needs a consult because his fellows are only throwing his own ideas back at him, nothing new, nothing fresh to yell at until the solution stops hiding in whatever corner of his mind it's set up shop in, digging in to mock him for the duration. He needs to get his mind off test results and obscure medical journals and wild speculation. He needs to argue. He needs someone who'll argue back.
He needs Cuddy.
She's not impressed with him today. He's already given in to the urge once to seek her out and force her to be his sounding board, earlier when his patient was apparently drowning in pleural fluids, since collected and analysed and found wanting. Cuddy was eating lunch with some dolt from an HR department for a company that makes zipper teeth, at a popular diner five minutes from the hospital after letting the nurses know where she was going. It was practically an invitation for House to join them, so he did, sliding into their booth too close to Cuddy (too close by her definition, too close for her date's comfort, and House wants to rationalize but maybe he should stop with just: too close). He whispered questions about pituitary function, leaning in next to her ear for doctor-patient confidentiality reasons. She pushed him back with rolled eyes and halfway brilliant questions that made him stop and think, and he left to yell at Chase for letting the patient crash while he was gone and at Cameron for pushing the lupus diagnosis one time too many. Foreman watched, arms crossed disdainfully, and when House realised he was fantasizing about having Foreman whacked and buried in an obvious place where his body would easily be found as a warning to the others--that's when he knew he had to escape his own brain before he killed anyone (more, again).
Cuddy's light is on and she's not answering; Cuddy's home and she doesn't want to deal with him. House could knock, or pop up by her bedroom window, push, insist, move into her space until she figured out that he's not going anywhere, that she's not going anywhere without him: she needs him, too. But maybe she doesn't and maybe he's wrong.
Maybe he's wrong, so he starts the car and drives home. He punches his apartment door open with the tip of his cane, already scowling at the usual slump of clothes over chairbacks and the crumple of take-out containers that he didn't deal with last night. Or the night before. He's chasing the diagnosis around his head, he's wound up and pissed off and horny, thinking of Cuddy, of why she's not answering her phone. He's pretty sure the clown from the diner is history, so she's not with some fumbling moron (two in one day would be pushing it even for Cuddy's procreation-driven lusts), but that's not going to stop her. He's known her long enough, he's looked through her closets and the wicker baskets under her bed, and the drawer in the bedside table that he wouldn't let Chase open. She'd probably like to think no one knows about that; she probably knows that he knows, of course he knows, about the condoms and the lube and the toys. He knows. He knows, and he can imagine what she does with them when she thinks no one's looking.
House paces because he needs to think and can't. He swings his cane viciously, stamping down on his right step as hard as his left because maybe the pain will be a distraction. It's not. Cuddy's been frustrated lately, and it's been building. He's watched her snapping at the nurses and then apologising, and she's about a week out from the usual two-day betrayal of her diet, dark bitter chocolate from the specialty shop that she probably justifies stopping at by saying it's not really that far out of her way as she comes to work, rationalizations that only work every three and a half weeks. He paces, to the bedroom and back out to the living room, shoving off furniture that gets in his way, back and forth, back and forth--
And maybe Cuddy's doing the same thing, sliding her hands down her body, slipping one finger or maybe two along her clit, back and forth, and she'd be wet already because she needs this, and she's got her vibrator in the other hand, brushing it across her breasts and then down her belly. If he walked in, right now, soft and padding, shoes off, no cane, he'd catch her at it. Her breathing hitching and then growing heavy, hissing under the buzz of the vibrator as she let her thighs fall open until he could see everything, the folds of her labia, the slickness of her fingers moving in and out of her cunt. Teasing. She'd tease.
She's driving him crazy. He's getting hard and pacing is the last thing that will help. The brush of his clothes against his cock isn't good enough to be her fingers, but it should be, and he's not going to solve the case if his body's getting in the way, so on his next round trip he stops at the bedroom, dumping his blazer and undoing the buttons on his oxford. He eyes the bed, which is a mess, and right now that's the last thing that matters. There's no one to show off for, so he sits down heavily to take off his pants, pausing to squeeze himself through the cotton of his boxers, because Cuddy would open her eyes. She'd see him, catch him catching her.
She wouldn't stop.
House closes his eyes and frowns, palming his cock, leaning forward into his own touch. There's a reason he's in her bedroom--a consult, an emergency--and her hand between her legs doesn't even slow as she demands details, plans, procedures. House groans softly and pulls off his boxers, then lays on his back and imagines her eyes, her hands, the warm flush across her chest, her nipples darker pink and erect. Her voice. House strokes his chest, rubbing the hair against the grain, and watches her. He lets his legs sprawl as much as they can, moves his hand down to his stomach, avoiding his dick for now. There's enough heat in sparring with Cuddy even when he doesn't get close, doesn't touch. He answers her questions, while they both pretend she isn't naked, two now and maybe eventually three fingers disappearing inside of her with each thrust, a little faster, and her other hand holding the vibrator's pulse hard against her clit. He can see her thighs tense, hear the gasps that she can't quite hide, and all the while he mocks and makes comments and doesn't touch. He has his hand on the juncture of his thigh, now, testing the texture of hair there, how it changes low on his belly. Cuddy's hand is bent at the wrist, an awkward angle, and he would help if she asks. If she tells him it's what she wants.
Fuck, he's hard. House grips his cock and strokes, hard and fast going up, fingertips drifting on the way down. The rhythm's easy to find after thirty years of practice, but that's not what he wants, not now. He raises his left hand to his chest and pinches his nipple, sharp and tight. It's good, and he pulls faster at his dick, because he's leaning over Cuddy now, taking the vibrator from her, and he slides it inside her, sweet and easy. She opens her mouth, panting, not quite a moan, and he'll kiss her in a moment. He will, and his forearm bunches as he increases his speed, his pressure, feeling his orgasm build in his balls and below his abs, and then. He stops.
It's better this way, if he drives himself to the edge and then takes his hand away. He'd bet a year of clinic duty that Cuddy would do this to him, take him to the edge and then laugh, throaty and amused, when she backs off. He won't do the same to her, though. He brushes a hand over his left thigh, his right hand resting right beside his cock, aching and hard against his stomach. He would kiss Cuddy, while she thrusts against the vibrator and her own hand against her clit, and he moves the speed up until he can feel the heat of the batteries even above the heat of her body.
House wants to know everything about the way that Cuddy comes; the soundless, breathless gasp she makes; the way she twists into his touch, his body, seeking contact; the clench of her cunt against the vibrator. She doesn't look away, and he won't. House can't stop himself, then. He fists his cock in one hand, cups his balls with the other, strokes hard and fast. The fantasy and his working hand swirl together and he can feel every inch of the sheets against his body, the warm air of the apartment cooling against his sweat, and Cuddy, next to him, moaning her aftershocks into his ear, hot and dirty. The sight of her only dissolves when he comes, fiercely, intense and messy all over his hand and stomach.
Laying there, he doesn't want to move, letting his mind float on the remains of pleasure and the anticipatory cramp in his leg.
And he knows what his patient's got. House grunts, and smiles to himself. It's clear, every moment from the patient's admittance through all the tests. It's right. He's right.
He climbs to his feet and limps to the bathroom to clean up. He looks at himself in the mirror, and he's still smiling. It's odd to see, and he turns away to find his clothes, pulling on his t-shirt but leaving the button-down, grabbing his oldest, most-worn jeans from the hamper. It's easy enough to call Chase at the hospital and bark orders. It's so much more satisfying to go in and rub it in their faces. So he does.
Afterwards, he's left with only one person to thank. He thinks of telling Cuddy that she's his muse; he smiles again, wondering what she'll say to that. When he finds himself driving by her place--again, always again--he decides to find out. It's late. The lights in her place are off, now. But he's figured out the diagnosis, and it's important that she knows. Her key's in a new hiding place, but it's as obvious as ever.
House takes that as an invitation, and lets himself in.
end