swatkat

If I stew over this any more, I will lose my mind.

Title: Tie Me Up Again
Fandom: House, MD
Pairing: House/Cuddy
Rating: NC-17 (Warning: Bondage, physical discomfort)
Words: 5,821

Summary: The one in which is House is hasty and Cuddy is forgetful and House learns a thing or two about best laid plains.

A/N: Title from Dave Matthews Band, 'Crash Into Me'. Many thanks to

hihoplastic for putting up with my whining and looking through the first draft, and to

esmereldus_neo for being incredibly patient and answering my endless questions. Remaining errors are mine, all mine. Your comments/criticism welcome, as always.

This is, technically, a sequel to Not A Good Shot, but all you need to know is that it's established relationship(ish) and set after 3.15, Half-wit.

*

'My wrists hurt.'

'It was your idea,' Cuddy snaps. Which, to be fair, it was—but then, when has House ever claimed to be a fair man?

He rubs at his wrists, which are now red and a little raw, and says, 'I didn't think you'd let the dominatrix thing go to your head,' throwing in some extra whine to highlight how hurt he really is.

'You asked for it,' she says, starting to get up from the bed. 'There's ice in the refrigerator.'

'You could at least offer to get some for me,' House says, because it's not as though he's gonna get up and walk all the way to the kitchen, not when her bed is so warm and he's been so grievously injured. 'Seeing how you're responsible for my current situation.' Mostly responsible, anyway. Now is not the time for self-flagellation.

The Guilt Card: a man's best friend.

Except, of course, the Cripple Card—also a man's true and time-tested companion, a man's ticket to jumping queues and various other pesky annoyances. 'Seeing how you also have two functional legs,' he adds loudly. Aaand, sure enough, that earns him a dirty look, along with a muttered 'Stop complaining,' but she does go out of the room after that, no doubt to fetch some ice for his poor bruised hands.

The Guilt Card: a man's best friend. Or maybe she's just being nice to him after the evening's ordeal. Whatever.

House stretches himself, feeling the burn in his arms. He inspects his wrists, which are still in functioning order, even though there'll be some bruising in the morning.

Which, of course, is excellent blackmail fodder.

He's in the middle of an elaborate plan when she finally returns, icepack in hand.

'Took you long enough,' he says, wincing at the first touch of ice on his wrist.

'You'll live,' Cuddy says.

'In case you haven't noticed, I don't deal very well with pain.' House reaches for a Vicodin.

'I noticed,' she says. 'And yet, you asked for it. I'm sensing a degree of masochism here.'

'And it might've worked if you didn't suck at it,' House retorts.

That earns him another angry glare, but her cheeks are flushed in what looks like—oh, yeah—abject mortification and he realises, strangely, that he's okay with this, even if the evening was a disaster, even if he's as mortified as she appears.

He's okay with this.

*

House is bored.

He's worn out his Gameboy, porn's not attracting him at the moment and he's too wired for a nap. He's invited Wilson to come play with him a couple of times since the morning and he's been rebuffed every time, and now he's bored and alone in his office while Wilson's conveniently slipped into a meeting. Even his flunkies have disappeared somewhere, deserting him in his fiefdom—they keep doing it these days, every time they're out of a case. Which is annoying, because what are flunkies for if not entertaining their lord and master in his hour of infinite boredom?

He's thisclose to sending out fake pages to the trio when Cameron pops in, saying, 'Natalie's going home today.'

House blinks. 'Who?'

'Natalie. Our patient. The one you diagnosed last week?' Cameron says. 'She's going home today and I thought… you'd like… to know,' she sighs, evidently diagnosing the stupidity of the notion all by herself, without him having to hold her hand. Metaphorically speaking.

'I'm sorry, have you met me?' He tells her nonetheless, because, seriously.

'My mistake,' she shakes her head, and walks out before he can mock her for her idiocy some more.

Time was when she would still be standing there, semi-tearful and oh-so-earnest as she tried to make him see the error of his ways. It's as though she's grown a spine or something. It's disconcerting. And he's still restless.

He supposes he could play in Wilson's office, or maybe terrorize a couple of idiots in the Clinic. Or maybe he could find himself a case and do some actual work… House dismisses the idea with the contempt that it deserves, weighing the other options in his mind as he bounces his shiny new tennis ball against the wall.

There is, of course, another option: annoy Cuddy. It's a great option. He's good at it. Seldom fails to brighten his day. But he has been wary of exercising that option ever since he made the mistake of allowing Cuddy to lure him into her dungeon and seduce him with her wicked, wicked ways (he ignores the part where he was the one knocking on her window pane). And it's been a strange couple of weeks after that, mostly business as usual and some UST (and that other time he found himself in her bed, but he's not thinking about that, no way, great as the sex was) and well, awkward. What was that saying again? Oh yeah, sex kills. Tell him about it.

Nonetheless, he checks his watch, mentally calculating her approximate location and texts her: SOS!!!!!

Succinct. Articulate. Appealing to her superhero complex. Three out of five times it'll work like magic. It's a fact that Cuddy can't resist being his Knight-in-Shining-High-Heels—it gives her a sense of purpose, some excitement in her otherwise dreary administrative life.

He stretches out on his recliner and waits.

Five minutes. Seven. Ten. Twelve and a half. He's about to give up when he hears the familiar click-tap of heels against the floor and checks his watch: sixteen. Not bad. Not bad at all.

'You rang?'

'Need your help.' He takes a moment to observe her closely, lingering only very briefly on the cleavage which is, sadly, all covered up today (what's up with that?)—tone: droll; posture: relaxed, leaning against the doorframe; slight smile playing on her lips—and comes to the inevitable conclusion: she knows. She knows what's on his mind. Obviously.

And she still came.

The thought sends a shiver—of the good kind, that is—down his spine. That and the mental image of her in her bedroom. Naked.

'To sleep?' she says, waving a hand in his general direction. 'Looks like you're managing very well by yourself.'

'You could sing me a lullaby,' he suggests. 'Or tuck me in and kiss me goodnight.'

She knows, House thinks. She's still playing along. The question then becomes: for how long?

'Or I could give you an extra couple of hours in the Clinic and make you do some actual work, how about that?'

'Poor cripple needs his rest,' House says, making a show of rubbing his thigh. Which, in fact, is behaving very well at this moment, thanks to the Vicodin he took an hour ago, but she doesn't need to know that.

'I think you've had enough rest to last you a lifetime,' Cuddy says, stepping purposefully closer to his chair. She knows, he thinks, his pulse racing. 'Get up. You owe me paperwork.'

'I'm not bending to your every whim,' House says, and gets on his feet anyway. 'You can't make me.'

There's a sparkle in her eyes as she says, 'I'll tie you up if I have to,' her face close to his and her voice lower than usual, almost… sensuous. Christ.

'Kinky,' he says. His mouth feels dry.

'Effective,' Cuddy says.

He sits on his desk and watches the sway of her hips as she leaves, his heart hammering in a manner that he isn't sure is healthy.

He doesn't think she realises that she's just given him an idea.

*

It's great idea. So great, in fact, that he finds himself signing in at work at the crack of dawn (well, at nine-fifteen if you're going to nitpick now) and glued to his computer screen, doing some very important research. He barely notices his henchmen come and go until Chase observes, 'You're in early,' pouring himself a cup of coffee. And if House wasn't otherwise engaged he would've commented on the obviousness of the statement but all he manages right now is a distracted 'Hmm.'

Chase, however, continues, 'We were about to give you a call. Foreman's a got a case, he's just finishing some formalities with Neurology,' and so House has to say, 'Do you mind? Trying to get laid in here.'

Some people have zero sense of priorities.

'On the internet?' Chase says, almost amused. 'I didn't know you were into that kind of thing.'

'I'm branching out,' House says. 'Growing as a person.'

He's only barely managed to place the order when he's rudely interrupted by Foreman, brandishing the patient file like a prize. 'Thirty-nine year old female,' he announces, looking very smug. 'Fever, nausea, back pain, muscle weakness in the legs—'

'And I should care because?'

'She also claims she can see the future,' Foreman says.

Well. If he puts it like that.

*

The next few days are a blur.

The omniscient patient loses sensation in her left leg and starts retaining urine, all the while babbling semi-coherent mystical BS about the future even as his team struggles to keep her alive on one hand and ward off hordes of her adoring idiot fans—apparently she's quite a name in the Crazy Circuit—on the other. They bring her fever down, but treatment for Lyme borreliosis doesn't go down very well, and House finds himself spending the night in his office, staring blankly at the whiteboard while he goes over and over the symptoms in his head, waiting for that final moment of clarification.

DELUSIONAL, mocks the first symptom on the board.

The next thing he knows is being shaken awake by Foreman, who says, 'We've got the MRI of her brain. Increased intensity in the thalami, basal ganglia, cerebellum and hypothalamus.'

'Breakdown of the blood-nerve barrier,' Cameron says slowly. 'It could mean a number of things, like lymphoma, or sarcoidosis, or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy—'

'Guillain-Barré,' Foreman says.

'We already ruled that out,' Chase says. 'Meningeal carcinomatosis?'

House stares at the images. Severe motor weakness, sensory loss, increased intensity…

'Polio,' Cameron says.

'She's not an infant,' Foreman snaps.

'No,' House says. Of course not. Except—

*

The patient's cabin is a nauseating plethora of flowers and trinkets. House shoves past the nurse on duty and heads straight to the patient's bedside, where she's holding hands with a guy who's probably the husband. Mystical life-partner. Whatever.

'Hello, Dr. House!' she says. 'I was wondering when I'd see you.'

'I hear you can see the future,' House says, drawing up a chair. 'Aren't you supposed to be able to predict that part?'

'I only try to read what the stars say,' she says, a Tiny Mystical Smile™ playing on her lips. She's good.

'Can you tell me what I'm going to say next?'

'You're going to call me crazy or a hypocrite,' she says. 'Or both.'

Huh. Sassy. 'Wow,' House says, raising an eyebrow. 'You really do see the future, don't you?' He picks up her file and flips through it until he—aha!—finds what he was looking for.

'You're being sarcastic,' she says. As though he was making an effort to conceal his sarcasm. 'I've heard worse.'

'Your file mentions a trip to Europe one month ago, soon after which you started showing symptoms of influenza. Where did you go?'

'Norway. A couple of weeks in Finland, my friend has a summer cottage—'

'Where in Finland?'

'Kupu Island.'

And there it is: the confirmation. Gregory House saves the day. Again.

'Good news,' House says jovially. 'You're going to live!' And adds, for symmetry's sake, 'Bad news: your stars have been lying to you.'

She appears thoroughly confused. So does the husband, who says, 'What do you mean? Have you figured out what's wrong with her?'

'Tick-borne encephalitis,' House says, with relish. 'Common in parts of central, eastern, and northern Europe. Guess your wife's visions didn't mention the creepy-crawlies.'

'How can you be sure that this is the right diagnosis?' The annoying husband persists. 'You said the same thing last time, and you were wrong.'

'How can I be sure— Oh, that's right, I'm just the doctor, why don't you ask your wife to consult the stars?'

'You'll be surprised by what the stars reveal,' the patient says. Again with that Mysterious Smile!

'Sorry, your stars aren't very trustworthy. My tests on the other hand…' House says, flourishing his cane for emphasis. 'Put her on interferon. Test her blood for TBEv,' he tells Foreman. 'And MRI her spine while you are at it.'

'You say trust like it's a bad thing,' says the patient. For a very sick person, she's annoyingly chirpy.

'I'm a very trusting person,' House informs her. 'I trust myself completely.'

He heads off on that note, having exhausted his doctor–patient interaction quota for the week, no, month. It's about eight-thirty in the morning and the hospital's just beginning to fill up with people, but he's taking the day off.

On his way out he spots a package on his desk, along with his mail.

*

Cuddy's place is locked and empty, having already been deserted by its overlord in favour of her evil empire (he checked).

He leaves the package on her doorstep. And then, on second thought, fishes out her spare key from under the flowerpot and goes inside, placing the package on her coffee table.

He helps himself to a banana and chocolate chip cookies from her super secret stash—saved, no doubt, for a rainy (PMS-y) day—before he leaves.

*

House sleeps late into the evening and wakes up disoriented and very, very hungry.

He heats up a can of soup and settles in front of the television, just in time for the beach volleyball derby between Boobs R Us and the Naughty Schoolgirls (House prefers his own names, thankyouverymuch). He's so immersed in the game that it takes him a minute to realise that his phone is ringing.

'I got your gift,' Cuddy says when he picks up the phone. Her tone is dry.

'Happy Birthday,' House says, shifting uncomfortably on the couch, wishing he could see her face. Or her cleavage. For inspiration.

'My birthday's in July,' she says.

'Damn, I could've sworn it was today. What month is it again?' he says lightly, ignoring the heaviness in his stomach.

There's a long silence—in the course of which House contemplates hanging up and never showing his face in her hospital ever again and quite possibly changing his name and running away to Tijuana—and then she says, 'Come over,' before hanging up. House listens to the dial tone, heart pounding in his chest.

*

House is a man of steel by the time he reaches her front porch. He raps on her door with his cane until she shows up in a black robe, appearing somewhat irritated.

Which, of course, was his intention to begin with: flames cannot burn him, glares cannot wither him.

Her face is scrubbed clean of make-up, her hair a dishevelled halo framing her face. His first instinct is to gape—with his mouth open, his jaw dropping to the floor—which he only manages to suppress by rudely shoving past her, not waiting for her invitation.

'I got your gift,' she says, with an extra-ironic emphasis on 'gift'. 'And you left banana peel on my sink.'

'You can thank me later,' House says, scanning the coffee table and its surroundings—no trace of the package or its contents. 'On your knees,' he adds.

'Have you been watching too much porn?' She sounds amused.

'Hey,' House protests, 'Girls Gone Wild is educational!'

'If you're nineteen,' Cuddy says, following him into the living room. She appears cool and poised with her hand on the doorframe—maddeningly so, while he tries not to hyperventilate—until she blurts, 'You're not tying me up in a handcuff.'

Well. Well, well, well.

'Oh, come on,' House says, suave, as befits a man of steel, 'Where's your sense of adventure, Cuddy?' That earns him a glare, so he says, 'Fine. You win. You can tie me up. Happy now?'

Cuddy stares at him as though he's grown two heads. And stares at him some more, and did he really say that? All of this, House realises, was a terrible, terrible idea, and it's all her fault, what was he even thinking—

'I've never—' Cuddy stops short of finishing the sentence. Her face, House notes, has grown an entrancing shade of crimson.

But she didn't say no, House thinks, and says, 'Neither have I.' His face feels warm. There'll be smoke coming out of his ears, any time now.

'And you just woke up one morning and decided that you had to fulfil your bondage fantasy?' Cuddy snaps.

'If you put it that way,' House shrugs.

Cuddy's eyes are a sharp, piercing grey. Under her scrutiny, House feels about two feet tall—which is an achievement, given how she's about a foot shorter than he is—and fights the urge not to squirm. 'Why do you want this?' she asks, solemn.

'Because,' House says, ignoring the butterflies—on speed—in his stomach.

It's not the answer she's looking for, but it's the only answer she's going to get. It's the only answer he's willing to give. That way lies madness.

After an interminable moment, she says, matter of fact, 'Fine. You know the way to the bedroom.'

House suddenly finds himself unable to breathe.

*

Cuddy disappears into the bathroom, leaving him standing awkwardly in the middle of her bedroom. It's frilly and girly and so… cheerful it makes his teeth hurt. Everything is too neat, too organised, and he feels out of place every time he is here. Her pillows are comfortable, though, and her bed has a convenient headboard which is… convenient and the package is nowhere to be seen and maybe he can use that window for a convenient exit, even if it is hell on his leg…

He's jittery, he realises. His palms are clammy and maybe she'll let the power go to her head and where does that leave him?

'This isn't supposed to be a one-man party, you know,' he complains when he hears the lock turn. He may or may not have made a permanent dent on her floor with his cane—he doesn't really care at this point.

'Just another evening being your own best friend,' she agrees. And then, 'Are you looking for something?'

House turns around to find her leaning against the doorframe, holding up the handcuffs in one hand. There's that urge to gape again—what with all the blood rushing down south—which he stifles by saying, 'Like your gift?' Nonchalant.

Which he promptly proceeds to give away by nearly knocking her lamp over with a nervous swish of his cane.

Cuddy's smile grows wider. She definitely seems to have warmed up to the idea, House notes as he watches her stalk towards him, a manic gleam in her eyes. 'Sit down,' she says. Low. Firm.

House obeys automatically, perching on the edge of her bed as she drops the cuffs on her bedside table and steps closer, closer until she's standing between his legs, close enough for his lips to brush over her skin. She takes hold of his face with both hands and kisses him, then—kisses him like they're in a zombie apocalypse, like they'll fall into a star and burn, go up in flames.

He grabs her waist and draws her even closer, a hand snaking up to caress the girls. She responds with a hint of teeth, a nip on his jaw and his earlobe. A particularly sensitive spot on his neck—she's figured those out already—and he can't withhold a (small) pathetic whimper.

Cuddy ruins the moment by saying, 'Are you sure it's safe?'

'Wha—' It takes him a second to pull himself together. 'Well, my mom always told me not to allow strange women to tie me up.'

'Forgive me for trying to be cautious,' Cuddy rolls her eyes. 'House, none of us have prior experience, this could turn out—' He cuts her short with another kiss, before she can tread onto blah blah blah territory, and further neutralizes the situation with a clever positioning of hands.

Things kind of take their own direction at that point: clothes flying in every direction and hands, warm hands and skin against skin.

'Lie back,' Cuddy growls, pushing him back on the mattress with surprising force.

'Rough,' House says, trailing a hand down her stomach.

'You get off on it,' she says, pushing her hips against his, just so. Tease.

She kisses him again, her hair brushing his face. House lets his hands roam up and down her back. He cups a breast, brushing his thumb over the nipple, relishing the way it makes her gasp and arch. House—along with the rest of the free world—spends a lot of time every day thinking of doing just this. He replaces his hand with his mouth. Bites down, and Cuddy hisses.

Her eyes are the colour of rain clouds when she pulls back. 'Enough,' she says, low. Commanding. And then she's lifting his hands up and reaching for the cuffs on her bedside table. The warmth of her fingers and cold steel on his skin, her slight tsk of displeasure and a tiny dent of fierce concentration between her eyebrows. House closes his eyes and tries not to think.

'Are you all right?' Cuddy says after a while.

'Great,' House says, finally prying his eyes open. She's looking at him with a mixture of arousal and apprehension. He wriggles his fingers experimentally; pulls at the restraint. The metal is cool against his wrists.

'If, if you want me to stop, just—' Cuddy appears at a loss for words. 'We can have a safe word.'

The hint of fear in her eyes matches the ice-cold anxiety in his gut. It's strangely exciting, and House doesn't want to think about the why of that.

'How about 'hooters'?' he proposes, solemn.

Cuddy looks amused, now. 'Talk about a one-track mind. It's a pity you can't touch them yourself.'

House gulps.

'You want to, don't you?' she says, husky. Seductive. He watches entranced as she trails a hand over her own stomach and touches her breast. 'You want to do this.'

'Yes,' House says, licking his lips. He wants to touch her, to taste her skin and smell her perfume as he nuzzles into the hollow between breasts. He's had a taste of it right now and he wants more, so much more, and he can't, and the very thought sends a jolt through his entire body, down to his toes.

'I can do anything I want,' Cuddy says, and well, of course she's going mad with power. It wouldn't be Cuddy if she didn't.

'Yes,' he says helplessly, arching against her touch.

At the first touch of her lips on his cock, he closes his eyes.

*

It begins in his arms—a slight burning sensation in his ageing biceps and triceps, obviously unprepared for such heavy-duty action. House shifts and makes himself more comfortable, focusing instead on Cuddy and how she's trying to cause him death by frustration.

'Did you, ah, pick that up in administrator school? Pleasuring Potential Patrons 101,' he tells Cuddy as she does this magnificent thing with her tongue.

'I looked it up in the internet,' she says, with perfect composure, before bending to her task once more.

The burning starts up again, followed by an odd sort of discomfort: numbness in his forearms. He squirms some more and tries to concentrate on her mouth instead.

The feeling, though, won't go away. The cuffs are no longer cool against wrists. Loss of circulation, House thinks. Which should not be happening at all, because it specifically mentioned—

'What's wrong?' Cuddy says.

'Nothing,' he says a bit too quickly. 'Keep going.'

'House, what's wrong? Do you want me to stop?' Cuddy pulls back completely, her eyebrows knitted together in a worried frown.

'No, I— It's uncomfortable,' House admits. 'These are a bit tight.'

'That's it,' Cuddy says, drawing herself up, businesslike. Oops.

'No, Cuddy—'

Cuddy picks up the key from the bedside table.

'I didn't say hooters,' House pouts, despite himself.

'You don't have to. This ends right now.' There's no arguing with that tone of voice, and well, it's actually a relief. 'I told you it's a bad idea,' she says, fitting the key into the lock. 'None of us have any prior experience with this kind of thing. An accident could lead to nerve damage or necrosis or—' He tunes her out and waits for the moment when he'll have his hands back again. He'll thank her for the lecture afterwards. A hands-on thank you session, if you know what he means.

After what feels like an eternity of Cuddy twisting and turning the key, House has to ask, 'What's wrong?'

Cuddy merely grunts in frustration and fiddles with the key some more.

'This isn't exactly rocket science, you know,' House points out, and Cuddy huffs. 'I think it's jammed.'

'It's what?' He strains against the cuffs before he can help himself, making them rattle. 'Ow!'

'Stop that,' Cuddy says sharply. 'You're going to hurt yourself.'

'A little late for that now,' House hisses. Ow. 'What do you mean it's jammed?'

'I'll try the other key,' Cuddy says quickly.

A few more minutes of interminable fumbling—as though it'll somehow miraculously function if she wishes really hard—and then she says, 'It's no use.'

Crap.

Crap, in fact, doesn't even begin to cover it. There's those butterflies in his stomach again, faster than the speed of light. Sickening. 'Cuddy, what did you do?'

'I didn't do anything, House, they're just jammed,' Cuddy says, infuriatingly calm, as though she's soothing a cranky five year old. 'There's no need to panic.' She leans close, peering at the cuffs like she's some kind of an expert.

'What are you looking at?' House says, acutely aware that his voice has become slightly higher-pitched than his usual manly baritone.

'Don't move,' Cuddy says, her hair brushing over his nose in an entirely unsexy way. 'The lock. Here,' she mutters. 'There's something in it.'

'What?'

'I'm not sure.'

'Why am I not surprised?'

'House,' she says, now appearing slightly guilty. 'I already told you that I've never—'

'Yeah, I didn't think it'd take that much expertise to learn how to lock something properly. Or unlock it, for that matter!'

'You wanted this!'

'And now I want to get out of this!' He strains against the cuffs some more. Which is a bad idea.

'Will you stop that?' Cuddy snaps, gripping a cramped arm and inching the cuff up somewhat to allow circulation. She does the same with the other hand. 'There's probably a bit of grit in the lock—' She pauses. 'House? Where did you get these from?'

'How is that even—' Oh. Oh.

The trouble with being a genius is that you can't afford ignorance—blissful or otherwise—for too long. Your body won't allow it. Your brain is allergic to it.

'From the internet,' House mumbles. 'It's supposed to be brand new.'

'That's just— ' Cuddy sighs and shakes her head.

'Can you pick the lock?' House suggests after a beat.

Cuddy gets off the bed without argument, thereby giving him a magnificent view of her tush.

Which he would totally appreciate and care about if he wasn't handcuffed and trapped on her bed.

He can't believe this is happening. If he were in her place, he would've considered bringing out a camera.

He hopes she doesn't have a camera.

Cuddy comes back with a bobby pin, which she then proceeds to apply to the lock. With no success.

'Foreman would've managed it in a minute,' House points out.

'Maybe you should've been having sex with Foreman instead,' Cuddy says, appearing annoyed now. She discards the bobby pin on the bedside table and gets off the bed.

'Where do you think you're going?' House says, watching her grab her robe.

'I have an idea.' Cuddy pulls the sash on her robe, making him all the more aware of the fact that he's stark naked and tied to her headboard, Little Greg lying in a pathetic shrivel against his thighs.

'What do you mean, you have an idea?'

'House, if I hear you whine one more time I swear I'll leave you there and call the cops,' she says coolly.

That does shut him up for a moment, if only because he's at her mercy and the prospect is unimaginable.

And then he yells, just as she's about to step out of the room, 'Hey! I'm cold!' Because he can.

Cuddy throws the covers on him and stalks out. He hears her footsteps across her living room. The turning of a lock. A door slams shut—and then, silence.

House becomes very aware of the sound of his own breathing. The rustle of the curtains and the quiet whirr of something at a distance. A dog barks persistently in the neighbourhood.

House stretches his legs and wriggles his fingers, tries to move his wrists. The leg is holding up right now, and he can only hope it doesn't cramp up before he gets out of this mess. It's pathetic. It's a bit like in a bad horror movie—kinky sex gone wrong. The guy with the chainsaw can walk in any time now. Or a monstrous, three-headed apparition with a knife in its hand, dripping blood,snarling, 'I'll tear out your entrails, Gregory House!'

He's a bit wrapped up in his imagination, and so the squeal of sheer horror that escapes him in the very next moment is (almost) purely involuntary: 'Aaah!'

Cuddy walks in, brandishing a hacksaw.

'Relax,' she says, looking very pleased with herself.

'What are you doing?' House demands, heart beating violently in his chest. 'You trying to give me a heart attack?'

'I'm getting you out,' Cuddy says, drawing even closer with her weapon of mass destruction. House does his best to inch away from her—rather unsuccessfully, given his current incapacitated condition.

'Jesus, Cuddy, be careful with that thing.'

'Lie still,' she commands. There's a glint in her eyes now, and House freezes, desperately trying not to think of anything at all. He feels a slight tug as she places the hacksaw on the chain link and wonders if she has, by any chance, been replaced by an axe-murdering alien from outer space.

He hopes this works.

Before he can feel any substantial change in his state of captivity, however, Cuddy moves away, hacksaw still in hand. 'Where are you going?' House asks, a little alarmed. Cuddy places the hacksaw on the floor. 'What are you doing?'

'I have a better idea,' she says. 'Don't try to move—I'll be right back.' House would point out that all her ideas have sucked so far, but he's missing a few brain cells and she's quick on her feet. And so she disappears again, just like that.

House shifts uncomfortably on the bed and listens to his heart beat. A car honks at a distance. A dog lets out a mournful howl—House tries not to shiver.

He's never gonna have sex again, he decides. Ever. He'll shave his head and move to the Himalayas, where he'll spend the rest of his life in strict celibacy.

Cuddy finally returns with what looks like—yes—a pair of bolt-cutters. Huh.

'Do you know how to use that thing?' It's actually a good idea, the bolt-cutters. Not that he's gonna tell her that.

Cuddy gives him a look and sets to task once more, a Very Determined Expression on her face. He feels her tinker with the chain link, a tug here and a pull there. 'Take your own sweet time, why don't you? There's no rush,' House says sourly.

'Shut up,' she says.

There's a clink and the he feels it, the chain falling apart, hear the clang of metal against the headboard. Victory!, House thinks, though he can barely believe it.

He lifts his tired arms and brings them in front, feeling, again, the burn in his muscles.

Cuddy reaches for his left hand, putting the cutters to work again. There's very little room for her to manoeuvre, and House watches with a sick sort of fascination as they go through the metal like a hot knife through butter. The jaw falls open, leaving a deep white groove in his wrist. The other one soon follows.

'There,' Cuddy says, 'You're free.'

House picks up the discarded pieces—they do look very new—and examines the lock: she was right. Damn.

He supposes buying things off random adult websites is a bad idea. He did skim through the safety information part, though, and they mentioned—

'Cuddy. Did you remember to double-lock?'

'I—' Cuddy opens her mouth. Closes it again. 'No.'

And there's the diagnosis: the discomfort; sudden tightening. All her fault, House decides, feeling more jubilant than he should.

She touches him gently—guiltily—rubbing a thumb over his wrist. 'Are you all right?'

'I'm fine,' House says, snatching his hand away from her fell clutch. Maybe it was her plan to begin with, lure him to her bed and entrap him, deliberately humiliate him for every harmless little joke he's ever cracked at her expense. 'No thanks to you.'
'I told you, House,' Cuddy sighs. 'We're too old for this.'

'My wrists hurt,' he says.

*

House has nearly fallen asleep when Cuddy comes back to bed, after having disposed of the incriminating evidence and putting her tools back in their rightful places (wherever that is).

'Think about it this way,' Cuddy says, patting his arm. 'Once you overcome the trauma, you're gonna look back at this and laugh.' The implication, of course, is that she's gonna laugh about this and he's never going to hear the end of this till eternity.

House shoots her a black look. He makes it a point to drag as much of the covers towards himself as possible. It's possible that he really is too old for this kind of a thing. He's still not ruling out running away to the Himalayas.

'Are you all right?' she asks after a while. Her tone is serious.

'You're so vanilla,' House smirks. It feels good. It's surprising, how simple it is, but he's not gonna dwell on that.

'Yes, I wonder how I've made it so far.'

'Sure you don't want to kiss it better?' House waggles his eyebrows.

She takes hold of his wrist and kisses the inside of one, and then another. Well. If she's going to be so annoyingly sappy.

'Go to sleep, House,' Cuddy says, switching off the light.

So he does.

*

End

A/N: If this were written in time, it would be a response to

ashe_frost's awkward sex challenge over at