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hmd_rareathon. Yes, it's late. Zombies abducted me.
Title: It Takes Three Legs (To Make A Tripod)
Fandom: House, M.D
Pairing: House/Wilson/Cuddy
Words: 3635
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The downside to having an incredibly attractive boss and a womanizing, serial-marrying, prettyboy best friend and colleague, House realised, was that sooner or later they were bound to wake up to each other's charms.
A/N: This was supposed to be a rewrite of 2.22, Forever, but it kind of took its own direction; some situations and dialogue stolen from the episode. Title from Jeff Buckley's "Three Is A Magic Number." Forhmd_rareathon; many thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hihoplastic for looking through this. Your comments/criticism welcome. This is a threesome.
*
The downside to having an incredibly attractive boss and a womanizing, serial-marrying, prettyboy best friend and colleague, House realised, was that sooner or later they were bound to wake up to each other's charms.
Not that they had been sleeping together. No. House knew Wilson's 'Wilson Got Laid' expression (and his 'Wilson's In Love' expression, and his 'Wilson's Getting Married' expression, and House really, really thanked the Powers That Be for that last one), and Cuddy was just as uptight as ever.
He trailed her around the hospital all morning for some firsthand observation – across two floors and hundreds of annoying people, all of whom she greeted with an identical One-Hundred Watt Dean of Medicine Smile ™ - counting on his magic pills to help him evade the inevitable side-effects of fieldwork. He was caught, eventually, because Cuddy could smell him like the hound that she was and earned his minions some additional clinic duty, but not before he'd had the opportunity to catch them LIVE in action from his vantage point behind a nurse's station (ignoring the irate glances of the blonde, bespectacled nurse in charge of the said station). Cuddy barked instructions and Wilson complied meekly, as every good little doctor should, and that was it – no stolen glances, no discrete touches and hidden smiles, all perfectly normal.
But then there was the matter of that date.
*
'It's not a date!' Wilson said. 'She asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner and I said yes.'
Wilson looked exasperated. It may have had something to do with the fact that House had broken into his office and made himself at home, scaring off a couple of possibly dying patients in the process; Wilson could be fussy that way.
'That's a date,' House said, taking another spoonful of his (Wilson's) lasagne. It was very good. Excellent, in fact. It was very thoughtful of Wilson, bringing him lunch everyday.
'It's not a date!' Wilson said. Wilson looked even more exasperated. There was some waving of hands. 'And anyway, why should you care if I go on a date with Cuddy? Apart from your general inability to stay away from my personal life, I mean.'
'I don't care. I just want you to admit that it's a date,' House said reasonably.
'It's not – ' Wilson sighed. 'Just forget it, okay?' It was his annoyed sigh. It was always fun to have Wilson all flustered and annoyed, but that wasn't the point here.
The point was the date.
*
The trip to Cuddy's office turned out to be counterproductive.
'Boring,' House sing-songed, bracing himself against the onslaught of blah blah blah. And added, out of the deep and true concern that one felt for his one-and-only best friend when the said best friend was about to be devoured by the Devil herself, 'Wait, doesn't that word remind you of someone?'
She would probably give poor Wilson a heart attack with her blood-drinking, animal-sacrificing rituals.
'The patient has been experiencing severe joint pain – '
'Arthritis.'
'She's twenty-two. She also has fever – '
'It's Lupus,' House said, not looking at all at the vile patient file she had thrust into his hands. She was clearly under the impression that she could get away with that old patient trick again, which was wrong. Especially when the patient in question was so very –
'White count's normal,' he heard himself say.
Cuddy's smile was pure, unadulterated evil.
He realised later, much later – after the patient in question had nearly died a few times and started erupting fluids from various inappropriate orifices – that he had been had.
Clever. Very clever.
It was as though they were determined not be swayed by him. Maybe they had planned this together. Wilson and Cuddy planning things together generally meant some harebrained Get House To Do More Work Plan, or Deny House His Vicodin Plan, and that he could deal with, because he always found out and beat them in their own game, thereby proving yet again how much smarter he really was. Which was fun. But this was different, this was something else, something –
It was annoying, House thought, throwing his ball against the wall for moral support. The ball hit the surface with a satisfying thunk.
Yes, that was the word. Annoying.
*
That evening, House moped.
Well, not moped, because House never moped. House never pouted. His patient was showing no sign of improvement, his team was bickering over cancer vs. autoimmune and Wilson and Cuddy were out there throwing themselves at the altar of each other's pathetic singlehood: House was… out of sorts.
He sent Chase and Cameron to break into the patient's apartment and tried his Annoy Foreman game, which was one of his favourites (right up there with his Make Chase Blush game, and Make Cameron Cry game), but Foreman merely raised the Eyebrow of Doom and said, 'I'm not falling for that today, House. Bother someone else,' and went back to his manic pacing around the lounge.
He was losing his touch.
'Could be Wegner's,' Foreman was saying. 'Explains the nosebleed.'
'There's no rash,' House was forced to point out. 'Which you would know, if you hadn’t been skipping class for those life-affirming lessons in the 'hood,' he added in an afterthought. It sounded weak, even to his own ears.
'We ruled out drugs, we ruled out lymphoma…'
Foreman appeared to be ignoring him.
This was depressing.
*
At three in the morning House realised that he could barely keep his eyes open. His patient was dying, and his underlings all looked like they too would fall down dead any moment now. Which would be inconvenient.
He ordered them home and headed back himself, doing his best not to ram his bike into a lamp post as he fell asleep on the way.
He did not think about the pathetic sex Wilson and Cuddy had no doubt been having. At all.
*
It was the crack of dawn, and someone was trying to bring his door down. House buried his head under his pillow, willing the noise and its perpetrator to go away.
He dragged himself up, eventually, because the racket wouldn't stop and because it was in fact past ten, and his bladder was demanding immediate attention.
'You have a key,' House told Wilson, fresh and disgustingly chipper on the other side of the door. He had a brown paper bag in his hand.
'Where's the fun in that?' Wilson was grinning. House considered knocking him down with his cane. He reconsidered when Wilson said, 'I got you breakfast,' heading straight for his kitchen.
'And this has nothing to do with whatever it is that you and Cuddy have plotted behind my back last night?' House called out.
'Yes, House, our dinner was all about you,' Wilson said. 'What else could two people who work together, get along very well and have, in fact, known each other for a long time now could possibly talk about?'
House made for the toilet.
Afterwards, he ate and showered and checked on his patient (stable; still dying) while Wilson lay on his couch, channel-surfing, looking for all the world as though he belonged there.
Which, in a way, was true, given the amount of time he generally spent there.
'It's the weekend,' House said. 'Shouldn't you be out canoodling with your girlfriend?'
'One evening, House, and my "girlfriend",' Wilson said, making air-quotes in a really girly way, 'is currently busy running a hospital. It could've been a consult for all you know!'
'Was it a consult?'
Wilson sighed. House used the opportunity to grab the remote.
'Hey!' Wilson exclaimed.
'Move.' House rapped him on his shin with his cane to enforce his point.
Wilson dozed off after a while.
*
He was back in his office that evening, staring at the symptoms on his whiteboard. His patient was now losing her eyesight, and was experiencing severe headaches. He had sent Foreman to get a CT, but that didn't mean –
The glass door opened with a crash, followed by the trio in various degrees of breathlessness.
'What if it's autoimmune?' Chase said, still breathless. 'We ruled out vasculitis, but what if it's Behcet's?'
'A rare, chronic lifelong disorder seldom seen in the United States? I like it,' House said.
'Her father's part-Japanese,' Cameron said.
'Joint pain, loss of eyesight – '
'CT shows a clot in her brain,' Foreman chimed in.
'Which explains the headache,' Chase said.
And there it was, the final elusive piece of the puzzle: it fit.
He said so in words. Chase glowed.
'Put her on steroids, and azathioprine to suppress the immune response,' House said, watching his minions file away. Chase was the last to leave; it was almost as though he expected a pat on his back or something.
Sometimes Foreman really was his favourite helper monkey. He, at least, never expected niceness and therefore had no reason to be disappointed.
House felt invigorated, almost cheerful as he hoisted himself off his chair and grabbed his cane. There was so much work to do.
He leered at one of the newest interns on his way to Cuddy's office.
*
Cuddy's office was empty, a fact that may have had something to do with an emergency call from Maintenance that House knew absolutely nothing about. He opened her trashcan and retrieved the crumpled coffee cup he may or may not have bribed the janitor to bring up from the cafeteria, courtesy one 'Dr. Wilson.'
Then he waited.
He'd finished going through her shelves and drawers (boring, boring, locked, boring) and had had to resort to hacking into her JDate profile when she finally returned. She was paler than usual, House noted; a little tired, perhaps.
Which, of course, upped the odds in favour of a late night nookie with the aforementioned Dr. Wilson.
The weariness in her demeanour disappeared when she spotted him on her throne, to be replaced by a glare. 'What are you doing?' Evidently she did not approve of usurpation.
'Your high scores are pathetic,' House said, snapping the browser window shut and switching swiftly to Minesweeper. It was not so much a lie as an omission as far as he was concerned – her high scores were pathetic, and in dire need of a master's touch.
'Some of us are actually here to work, strange as it may sound to you,' Cuddy said. 'What do you want, House?' Suspicious now, almost as though she didn't trust him or something.
He swivelled around in her chair once, knowing it would annoy her. She could be very possessive about her throne: all Evil Overlords tended to be that way. 'All these people cluttering up my office – I needed some place to relax,' he told her, adding the right amount of whine in his tone.
'That's probably because they're trying to work as well,' Cuddy said dryly. 'Whatever happened to your comatose friend?'
'He said he wanted some time to himself,' House said. 'I think he's beginning to take me for granted.'
Cuddy looked like she was trying not to laugh. He figured it was a good time to leave the scene of crime.
Always leave them intrigued, that was the trick.
He wondered what she would say when she discovered that he had set her JDate profile to 'bi'. He hoped she would see it as the favour that it was and let him watch. Or play. He could be flexible.
*
His next stop was the pathology lab.
There was precious little that bribery couldn't achieve in this hospital. Unauthorized PCR tests on the Dean of Medicine was certainly not one of them.
Cuddy would probably be scandalized. House was counting on it.
*
It wasn't cancer.
House took a moment – and a packet of chips and a Hershey's bar from the vending machine – to process the information.
On one hand, it was a good thing. Cancer would undoubtedly make Cuddy a bigger pain in the ass as she tried to overcompensate for her limited time left as the Hospital Overlord. Chemo was a bitch, and he did so admire that zesty bod. Wilson, of course, would have a field day playing Mr. Nurse to a genuinely needy Cuddy. They might even end up married – who knew? – drawing inspiration from the Saint Cameron.
House shuddered at the thought.
Yes, it was definitely a good thing.
On the other hand…
House ate some more chips.
*
Cuddy was at her desk, bent over what he was sure very important administrative work.
She gave him her Go Away, I'm Busy Look, which he ignored in favour of admiring the way her blouse opened at the top, and also because of the effect.
'You don't have cancer,' he told her after a beat.
Cuddy didn't bat an eyelash. 'You don't have dwarfism,' she said, providing him with just the opportunity to say, 'You have no proof of that. I on the other hand have this,' and hand her the test result with a flourish. Effect. It was all about the effect.
He watched her eyes widen as she took in the contents of the paper in her hand. 'You ran a PCR on me without my consent?'
'Hey, it's good news,' House said, just the right amount of jovial, and was rewarded with a deadly glare.
'Really? It's just hard to access because of this overwhelming sense of personal violation.'
Sometimes he really did outdo himself.
'I care about your health and well-being,' House said, hand on his heart, oh-so-earnest.
Cuddy snorted in an entirely undignified manner. 'Right. And you're not trying to figure out whether I'm dating Wilson.'
'Are you?' he asked.
She ignored his query. 'You misused hospital resources in order to satisfy your insane curiosity about my personal life. Which, by the way, is a gross violation of my privacy. I could have you fired, House.'
'You can't fire me. I have tenure.'
'Watch me,' she growled. So he did: by dropping his gaze to her cleavage. She really had a great pair, he thought admiringly. And that white top was a thing of beauty, showing off her –
'A little less literally would be nice.'
'You know me, I'm a following orders kind of guy,' House said, waggling his eyebrows in a manner he hoped would pass as 'charmingly rakish'.
She looked exasperated now. Exasperated was good. It meant he wasn't in trouble.
Mostly.
*
'You ran a PCR on her? For what, so that you could tell yourself that it was a consult and not a date? House, I – ' Wilson threw up his hands. He was clearly determined to make an issue out of this. House tried to tune him out and concentrate on the buxom babes on-screen.
'House, are you jealous?' Wilson continued. 'Because she asked me and not you? Do you have a thing for Cuddy?'
Trust Wilson to make everything about unrequited love.
'I do not have a thing for Cuddy,' House said loftily. 'She's my mortal enemy.'
'I see,' Wilson said, even though he very plainly did not.
It was simple. He was maintaining order in the universe. Saving them from themselves. It was his solemn duty as best friend and dutiful employee.
'And by the way?' Wilson said. He opened the refrigerator and fished out one bottle of beer. 'I'm having dinner with her again tomorrow night. It's a date.'
He pushed the refrigerator door shut with an uncharacteristic slam.
*
House had to resort to fieldwork again the next morning.
Wilson had some papers in his hand – it certainly appeared that they were talking about work.
But Cuddy was smiling.
*
He left the office late that evening, after what felt like hours of trawling the net and sending chain mails to his esteemed colleagues with spoilers for the upcoming episodes of General Hospital in the subject line.
The lights weren't on in Wilson's office. His leg hurt.
House took the long route home.
Afterwards, he poured himself some whisky and crashed on his couch, feeling the slow burn in his thigh intensify. He switched on the television.
One Vicodin. Two Vicodin. He considered a third, but gave that up in favour of another drink.
He thought he heard the phone ring; the beep of the answering machine and what sounded a lot like Wilson's voice, 'House, I know you're there. Pick up the phone.'
He passed out on his couch listening to things blowing up in the television.
*
He had lunch with Wilson in the cafeteria the following day. Wilson shared gossip about Sandler's latest boytoy; House stole Wilson's fries.
If Wilson noticed anything unusual in his demeanour, he kept it to himself.
Which was a good thing, House thought, because he needed to regroup. Lie low until it was time to cause ripples again. And that evening, when Wilson and Cuddy were spotted leaving the hospital within minutes of each other, he had no desire whatsoever to find out where they were going.
House pulled on his helmet and revved the bike's engine. He was going home.
A few minutes later, however, he found himself taking the left turn instead of the right.
And anyway, he reasoned, causing mayhem was where his talent lay.
*
He was immersed in Vogue when Cuddy's car pulled into her driveway; her porch, he admitted, was not entirely comfortable, but he managed. House gave her a cheery wave. Oddly, she did not seem particularly inclined to acknowledge his presence: people could be so unsociable.
House rose to his feet and held open the door for her; he figured it was what she wanted, because she hadn't changed where she kept the spare key.
'What are you doing here?' was what she greeted him with.
'You're welcome,' House said, flashing an injured look as he restored the spare key to its rightful place under the flowerpot and followed her inside. And then, 'For the record, Wilson's gay.'
'No he isn't,' Cuddy said shortly.
But she wasn't throwing him out. Yet.
'And you know that because you've slept with him, haven't you,' House said. He watched her hang up her coat and disappear inside her bedroom. He settled himself on her couch. It was a nice couch. When she re-emerged, he told her, 'He's fagnostic. Although, now that he's slept with you he'll be coming out of that closet any day now.'
'Are you speaking from experience?' Cuddy said.
He did not have to find an appropriate retort, because at that very moment the door creaked open and in walked Wilson, carrying a bag of groceries.
'You have a key,' House said accusingly. 'He has a key.'
'She told me where the spare key is,' Wilson shrugged.
'Like that's hard to spot,' House snorted, watching Wilson hand over the grocery bag to Cuddy. It was all disgustingly domestic.
'You would know,' Cuddy said. 'Do you want something to drink?'
'Got beer?'
'You'll have to do with wine.'
Cuddy brought wine. Wilson switched on the television. It was surreal.
Cuddy, he noted, looked tense. It was –
'You knew I followed you,' House said.
'That obnoxious orange thing isn’t exactly difficult to spot, House.' Cuddy rolled her eyes, but she still looked tense.
'It's a great bike,' House said defensively. 'You're not trying to get rid of me, either.' A beat, in the course of which he added all the pieces of the problem in his head and came to the inevitable conclusion: 'Are you trying to seduce me?'
'Glad you caught on,' Cuddy said.
'Both of you?'
'That was the general idea, yes.'
For once in his life, House was speechless.
Then he shrugged, 'Okay.'
Cuddy was blushing a little; Wilson merely looked very pleased with himself.
Huh. So apparently Wilson was kinkier than the original BDSM Queen.
'Why, Jimmy, didn't know you had it in you,' House said, in order to show his appreciation. It came out huskier than he intended, and Wilson was looking even more pleased with himself. Smug, in fact. And then he was drawing Cuddy closer, and then he was kissing her, hand twining in her hair.
There was tongue. In fact, House was pretty sure there were teeth. Or fangs, in Cuddy's case, and he would pause to gloat, because obviously they had done this before, obviously, but there was tongue involved and no time for all that introspection right now: no brain cells.
He may or may not have made a ludicrous noise because they broke apart, panting. From his vantage position, he could see the slight swelling on Wilson's lower lip (fangs!).
'I did say okay,' he pointed out. It didn’t quite achieve the self-righteous edge he was angling for (so much more to learn from Cameron). Cuddy shook her head and rose to her feet, saying, 'There's no need to pout.'
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Wilson smirk. Which rapidly turned into a gape as Cuddy fulfilled one of his favourite fantasies ever and unceremoniously tore open her top, providing him with a spectacular view of the twins.
'Exhibitionist,' he told her, quite unable to look away from the swell of her breasts, all that creamy flesh against her black bra.
'Voyeur,' she said, tugging insistently at his hand.
*
The downside to having an incredibly attractive boss and a womanizing, serial-marrying, prettyboy best friend and colleague, House knew, was that sooner or later they were bound to wake up to each other's charms. They were shamelessly clinging to each other in bed right now, cuddling, Cuddy draped all over Wilson's chest and Wilson with his arms around her like one of those annoying happily-ever-after couples in sappy chick flicks.
Cuddy stirred. Her foot brushed over his ankle.
House sighed.
He would live with it, he supposed.
*
End
Prompt: #24. “Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conner, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford-but you'll take him anyway.” - Judith Viorst
hmd_rareathon. Yes, it's late. Zombies abducted me.Title: It Takes Three Legs (To Make A Tripod)
Fandom: House, M.D
Pairing: House/Wilson/Cuddy
Words: 3635
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The downside to having an incredibly attractive boss and a womanizing, serial-marrying, prettyboy best friend and colleague, House realised, was that sooner or later they were bound to wake up to each other's charms.
A/N: This was supposed to be a rewrite of 2.22, Forever, but it kind of took its own direction; some situations and dialogue stolen from the episode. Title from Jeff Buckley's "Three Is A Magic Number." For
hmd_rareathon; many thanks to hihoplastic for looking through this. Your comments/criticism welcome. This is a threesome.*
The downside to having an incredibly attractive boss and a womanizing, serial-marrying, prettyboy best friend and colleague, House realised, was that sooner or later they were bound to wake up to each other's charms.
Not that they had been sleeping together. No. House knew Wilson's 'Wilson Got Laid' expression (and his 'Wilson's In Love' expression, and his 'Wilson's Getting Married' expression, and House really, really thanked the Powers That Be for that last one), and Cuddy was just as uptight as ever.
He trailed her around the hospital all morning for some firsthand observation – across two floors and hundreds of annoying people, all of whom she greeted with an identical One-Hundred Watt Dean of Medicine Smile ™ - counting on his magic pills to help him evade the inevitable side-effects of fieldwork. He was caught, eventually, because Cuddy could smell him like the hound that she was and earned his minions some additional clinic duty, but not before he'd had the opportunity to catch them LIVE in action from his vantage point behind a nurse's station (ignoring the irate glances of the blonde, bespectacled nurse in charge of the said station). Cuddy barked instructions and Wilson complied meekly, as every good little doctor should, and that was it – no stolen glances, no discrete touches and hidden smiles, all perfectly normal.
But then there was the matter of that date.
*
'It's not a date!' Wilson said. 'She asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner and I said yes.'
Wilson looked exasperated. It may have had something to do with the fact that House had broken into his office and made himself at home, scaring off a couple of possibly dying patients in the process; Wilson could be fussy that way.
'That's a date,' House said, taking another spoonful of his (Wilson's) lasagne. It was very good. Excellent, in fact. It was very thoughtful of Wilson, bringing him lunch everyday.
'It's not a date!' Wilson said. Wilson looked even more exasperated. There was some waving of hands. 'And anyway, why should you care if I go on a date with Cuddy? Apart from your general inability to stay away from my personal life, I mean.'
'I don't care. I just want you to admit that it's a date,' House said reasonably.
'It's not – ' Wilson sighed. 'Just forget it, okay?' It was his annoyed sigh. It was always fun to have Wilson all flustered and annoyed, but that wasn't the point here.
The point was the date.
*
The trip to Cuddy's office turned out to be counterproductive.
'Boring,' House sing-songed, bracing himself against the onslaught of blah blah blah. And added, out of the deep and true concern that one felt for his one-and-only best friend when the said best friend was about to be devoured by the Devil herself, 'Wait, doesn't that word remind you of someone?'
She would probably give poor Wilson a heart attack with her blood-drinking, animal-sacrificing rituals.
'The patient has been experiencing severe joint pain – '
'Arthritis.'
'She's twenty-two. She also has fever – '
'It's Lupus,' House said, not looking at all at the vile patient file she had thrust into his hands. She was clearly under the impression that she could get away with that old patient trick again, which was wrong. Especially when the patient in question was so very –
'White count's normal,' he heard himself say.
Cuddy's smile was pure, unadulterated evil.
He realised later, much later – after the patient in question had nearly died a few times and started erupting fluids from various inappropriate orifices – that he had been had.
Clever. Very clever.
It was as though they were determined not be swayed by him. Maybe they had planned this together. Wilson and Cuddy planning things together generally meant some harebrained Get House To Do More Work Plan, or Deny House His Vicodin Plan, and that he could deal with, because he always found out and beat them in their own game, thereby proving yet again how much smarter he really was. Which was fun. But this was different, this was something else, something –
It was annoying, House thought, throwing his ball against the wall for moral support. The ball hit the surface with a satisfying thunk.
Yes, that was the word. Annoying.
*
That evening, House moped.
Well, not moped, because House never moped. House never pouted. His patient was showing no sign of improvement, his team was bickering over cancer vs. autoimmune and Wilson and Cuddy were out there throwing themselves at the altar of each other's pathetic singlehood: House was… out of sorts.
He sent Chase and Cameron to break into the patient's apartment and tried his Annoy Foreman game, which was one of his favourites (right up there with his Make Chase Blush game, and Make Cameron Cry game), but Foreman merely raised the Eyebrow of Doom and said, 'I'm not falling for that today, House. Bother someone else,' and went back to his manic pacing around the lounge.
He was losing his touch.
'Could be Wegner's,' Foreman was saying. 'Explains the nosebleed.'
'There's no rash,' House was forced to point out. 'Which you would know, if you hadn’t been skipping class for those life-affirming lessons in the 'hood,' he added in an afterthought. It sounded weak, even to his own ears.
'We ruled out drugs, we ruled out lymphoma…'
Foreman appeared to be ignoring him.
This was depressing.
*
At three in the morning House realised that he could barely keep his eyes open. His patient was dying, and his underlings all looked like they too would fall down dead any moment now. Which would be inconvenient.
He ordered them home and headed back himself, doing his best not to ram his bike into a lamp post as he fell asleep on the way.
He did not think about the pathetic sex Wilson and Cuddy had no doubt been having. At all.
*
It was the crack of dawn, and someone was trying to bring his door down. House buried his head under his pillow, willing the noise and its perpetrator to go away.
He dragged himself up, eventually, because the racket wouldn't stop and because it was in fact past ten, and his bladder was demanding immediate attention.
'You have a key,' House told Wilson, fresh and disgustingly chipper on the other side of the door. He had a brown paper bag in his hand.
'Where's the fun in that?' Wilson was grinning. House considered knocking him down with his cane. He reconsidered when Wilson said, 'I got you breakfast,' heading straight for his kitchen.
'And this has nothing to do with whatever it is that you and Cuddy have plotted behind my back last night?' House called out.
'Yes, House, our dinner was all about you,' Wilson said. 'What else could two people who work together, get along very well and have, in fact, known each other for a long time now could possibly talk about?'
House made for the toilet.
Afterwards, he ate and showered and checked on his patient (stable; still dying) while Wilson lay on his couch, channel-surfing, looking for all the world as though he belonged there.
Which, in a way, was true, given the amount of time he generally spent there.
'It's the weekend,' House said. 'Shouldn't you be out canoodling with your girlfriend?'
'One evening, House, and my "girlfriend",' Wilson said, making air-quotes in a really girly way, 'is currently busy running a hospital. It could've been a consult for all you know!'
'Was it a consult?'
Wilson sighed. House used the opportunity to grab the remote.
'Hey!' Wilson exclaimed.
'Move.' House rapped him on his shin with his cane to enforce his point.
Wilson dozed off after a while.
*
He was back in his office that evening, staring at the symptoms on his whiteboard. His patient was now losing her eyesight, and was experiencing severe headaches. He had sent Foreman to get a CT, but that didn't mean –
The glass door opened with a crash, followed by the trio in various degrees of breathlessness.
'What if it's autoimmune?' Chase said, still breathless. 'We ruled out vasculitis, but what if it's Behcet's?'
'A rare, chronic lifelong disorder seldom seen in the United States? I like it,' House said.
'Her father's part-Japanese,' Cameron said.
'Joint pain, loss of eyesight – '
'CT shows a clot in her brain,' Foreman chimed in.
'Which explains the headache,' Chase said.
And there it was, the final elusive piece of the puzzle: it fit.
He said so in words. Chase glowed.
'Put her on steroids, and azathioprine to suppress the immune response,' House said, watching his minions file away. Chase was the last to leave; it was almost as though he expected a pat on his back or something.
Sometimes Foreman really was his favourite helper monkey. He, at least, never expected niceness and therefore had no reason to be disappointed.
House felt invigorated, almost cheerful as he hoisted himself off his chair and grabbed his cane. There was so much work to do.
He leered at one of the newest interns on his way to Cuddy's office.
*
Cuddy's office was empty, a fact that may have had something to do with an emergency call from Maintenance that House knew absolutely nothing about. He opened her trashcan and retrieved the crumpled coffee cup he may or may not have bribed the janitor to bring up from the cafeteria, courtesy one 'Dr. Wilson.'
Then he waited.
He'd finished going through her shelves and drawers (boring, boring, locked, boring) and had had to resort to hacking into her JDate profile when she finally returned. She was paler than usual, House noted; a little tired, perhaps.
Which, of course, upped the odds in favour of a late night nookie with the aforementioned Dr. Wilson.
The weariness in her demeanour disappeared when she spotted him on her throne, to be replaced by a glare. 'What are you doing?' Evidently she did not approve of usurpation.
'Your high scores are pathetic,' House said, snapping the browser window shut and switching swiftly to Minesweeper. It was not so much a lie as an omission as far as he was concerned – her high scores were pathetic, and in dire need of a master's touch.
'Some of us are actually here to work, strange as it may sound to you,' Cuddy said. 'What do you want, House?' Suspicious now, almost as though she didn't trust him or something.
He swivelled around in her chair once, knowing it would annoy her. She could be very possessive about her throne: all Evil Overlords tended to be that way. 'All these people cluttering up my office – I needed some place to relax,' he told her, adding the right amount of whine in his tone.
'That's probably because they're trying to work as well,' Cuddy said dryly. 'Whatever happened to your comatose friend?'
'He said he wanted some time to himself,' House said. 'I think he's beginning to take me for granted.'
Cuddy looked like she was trying not to laugh. He figured it was a good time to leave the scene of crime.
Always leave them intrigued, that was the trick.
He wondered what she would say when she discovered that he had set her JDate profile to 'bi'. He hoped she would see it as the favour that it was and let him watch. Or play. He could be flexible.
*
His next stop was the pathology lab.
There was precious little that bribery couldn't achieve in this hospital. Unauthorized PCR tests on the Dean of Medicine was certainly not one of them.
Cuddy would probably be scandalized. House was counting on it.
*
It wasn't cancer.
House took a moment – and a packet of chips and a Hershey's bar from the vending machine – to process the information.
On one hand, it was a good thing. Cancer would undoubtedly make Cuddy a bigger pain in the ass as she tried to overcompensate for her limited time left as the Hospital Overlord. Chemo was a bitch, and he did so admire that zesty bod. Wilson, of course, would have a field day playing Mr. Nurse to a genuinely needy Cuddy. They might even end up married – who knew? – drawing inspiration from the Saint Cameron.
House shuddered at the thought.
Yes, it was definitely a good thing.
On the other hand…
House ate some more chips.
*
Cuddy was at her desk, bent over what he was sure very important administrative work.
She gave him her Go Away, I'm Busy Look, which he ignored in favour of admiring the way her blouse opened at the top, and also because of the effect.
'You don't have cancer,' he told her after a beat.
Cuddy didn't bat an eyelash. 'You don't have dwarfism,' she said, providing him with just the opportunity to say, 'You have no proof of that. I on the other hand have this,' and hand her the test result with a flourish. Effect. It was all about the effect.
He watched her eyes widen as she took in the contents of the paper in her hand. 'You ran a PCR on me without my consent?'
'Hey, it's good news,' House said, just the right amount of jovial, and was rewarded with a deadly glare.
'Really? It's just hard to access because of this overwhelming sense of personal violation.'
Sometimes he really did outdo himself.
'I care about your health and well-being,' House said, hand on his heart, oh-so-earnest.
Cuddy snorted in an entirely undignified manner. 'Right. And you're not trying to figure out whether I'm dating Wilson.'
'Are you?' he asked.
She ignored his query. 'You misused hospital resources in order to satisfy your insane curiosity about my personal life. Which, by the way, is a gross violation of my privacy. I could have you fired, House.'
'You can't fire me. I have tenure.'
'Watch me,' she growled. So he did: by dropping his gaze to her cleavage. She really had a great pair, he thought admiringly. And that white top was a thing of beauty, showing off her –
'A little less literally would be nice.'
'You know me, I'm a following orders kind of guy,' House said, waggling his eyebrows in a manner he hoped would pass as 'charmingly rakish'.
She looked exasperated now. Exasperated was good. It meant he wasn't in trouble.
Mostly.
*
'You ran a PCR on her? For what, so that you could tell yourself that it was a consult and not a date? House, I – ' Wilson threw up his hands. He was clearly determined to make an issue out of this. House tried to tune him out and concentrate on the buxom babes on-screen.
'House, are you jealous?' Wilson continued. 'Because she asked me and not you? Do you have a thing for Cuddy?'
Trust Wilson to make everything about unrequited love.
'I do not have a thing for Cuddy,' House said loftily. 'She's my mortal enemy.'
'I see,' Wilson said, even though he very plainly did not.
It was simple. He was maintaining order in the universe. Saving them from themselves. It was his solemn duty as best friend and dutiful employee.
'And by the way?' Wilson said. He opened the refrigerator and fished out one bottle of beer. 'I'm having dinner with her again tomorrow night. It's a date.'
He pushed the refrigerator door shut with an uncharacteristic slam.
*
House had to resort to fieldwork again the next morning.
Wilson had some papers in his hand – it certainly appeared that they were talking about work.
But Cuddy was smiling.
*
He left the office late that evening, after what felt like hours of trawling the net and sending chain mails to his esteemed colleagues with spoilers for the upcoming episodes of General Hospital in the subject line.
The lights weren't on in Wilson's office. His leg hurt.
House took the long route home.
Afterwards, he poured himself some whisky and crashed on his couch, feeling the slow burn in his thigh intensify. He switched on the television.
One Vicodin. Two Vicodin. He considered a third, but gave that up in favour of another drink.
He thought he heard the phone ring; the beep of the answering machine and what sounded a lot like Wilson's voice, 'House, I know you're there. Pick up the phone.'
He passed out on his couch listening to things blowing up in the television.
*
He had lunch with Wilson in the cafeteria the following day. Wilson shared gossip about Sandler's latest boytoy; House stole Wilson's fries.
If Wilson noticed anything unusual in his demeanour, he kept it to himself.
Which was a good thing, House thought, because he needed to regroup. Lie low until it was time to cause ripples again. And that evening, when Wilson and Cuddy were spotted leaving the hospital within minutes of each other, he had no desire whatsoever to find out where they were going.
House pulled on his helmet and revved the bike's engine. He was going home.
A few minutes later, however, he found himself taking the left turn instead of the right.
And anyway, he reasoned, causing mayhem was where his talent lay.
*
He was immersed in Vogue when Cuddy's car pulled into her driveway; her porch, he admitted, was not entirely comfortable, but he managed. House gave her a cheery wave. Oddly, she did not seem particularly inclined to acknowledge his presence: people could be so unsociable.
House rose to his feet and held open the door for her; he figured it was what she wanted, because she hadn't changed where she kept the spare key.
'What are you doing here?' was what she greeted him with.
'You're welcome,' House said, flashing an injured look as he restored the spare key to its rightful place under the flowerpot and followed her inside. And then, 'For the record, Wilson's gay.'
'No he isn't,' Cuddy said shortly.
But she wasn't throwing him out. Yet.
'And you know that because you've slept with him, haven't you,' House said. He watched her hang up her coat and disappear inside her bedroom. He settled himself on her couch. It was a nice couch. When she re-emerged, he told her, 'He's fagnostic. Although, now that he's slept with you he'll be coming out of that closet any day now.'
'Are you speaking from experience?' Cuddy said.
He did not have to find an appropriate retort, because at that very moment the door creaked open and in walked Wilson, carrying a bag of groceries.
'You have a key,' House said accusingly. 'He has a key.'
'She told me where the spare key is,' Wilson shrugged.
'Like that's hard to spot,' House snorted, watching Wilson hand over the grocery bag to Cuddy. It was all disgustingly domestic.
'You would know,' Cuddy said. 'Do you want something to drink?'
'Got beer?'
'You'll have to do with wine.'
Cuddy brought wine. Wilson switched on the television. It was surreal.
Cuddy, he noted, looked tense. It was –
'You knew I followed you,' House said.
'That obnoxious orange thing isn’t exactly difficult to spot, House.' Cuddy rolled her eyes, but she still looked tense.
'It's a great bike,' House said defensively. 'You're not trying to get rid of me, either.' A beat, in the course of which he added all the pieces of the problem in his head and came to the inevitable conclusion: 'Are you trying to seduce me?'
'Glad you caught on,' Cuddy said.
'Both of you?'
'That was the general idea, yes.'
For once in his life, House was speechless.
Then he shrugged, 'Okay.'
Cuddy was blushing a little; Wilson merely looked very pleased with himself.
Huh. So apparently Wilson was kinkier than the original BDSM Queen.
'Why, Jimmy, didn't know you had it in you,' House said, in order to show his appreciation. It came out huskier than he intended, and Wilson was looking even more pleased with himself. Smug, in fact. And then he was drawing Cuddy closer, and then he was kissing her, hand twining in her hair.
There was tongue. In fact, House was pretty sure there were teeth. Or fangs, in Cuddy's case, and he would pause to gloat, because obviously they had done this before, obviously, but there was tongue involved and no time for all that introspection right now: no brain cells.
He may or may not have made a ludicrous noise because they broke apart, panting. From his vantage position, he could see the slight swelling on Wilson's lower lip (fangs!).
'I did say okay,' he pointed out. It didn’t quite achieve the self-righteous edge he was angling for (so much more to learn from Cameron). Cuddy shook her head and rose to her feet, saying, 'There's no need to pout.'
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Wilson smirk. Which rapidly turned into a gape as Cuddy fulfilled one of his favourite fantasies ever and unceremoniously tore open her top, providing him with a spectacular view of the twins.
'Exhibitionist,' he told her, quite unable to look away from the swell of her breasts, all that creamy flesh against her black bra.
'Voyeur,' she said, tugging insistently at his hand.
*
The downside to having an incredibly attractive boss and a womanizing, serial-marrying, prettyboy best friend and colleague, House knew, was that sooner or later they were bound to wake up to each other's charms. They were shamelessly clinging to each other in bed right now, cuddling, Cuddy draped all over Wilson's chest and Wilson with his arms around her like one of those annoying happily-ever-after couples in sappy chick flicks.
Cuddy stirred. Her foot brushed over his ankle.
House sighed.
He would live with it, he supposed.
*
End
Prompt: #24. “Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conner, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford-but you'll take him anyway.” - Judith Viorst
