(no subject)

[mmkaternater]

It was somewhere in the cusp between Winter and Spring and Cuddy's car was complaining about the amorphous border between seasons, spewing out gray-blue exhaust like an old man chomping on a faithful cigar. The sky couldn't decide what to do with itself day-to-day, so it settled on gray smear and discovered that it liked it that way. She was blatting away a sheet of rain and snow with her windshield wipers, sitting in the driver's seat of an idling luxury vehicle with both hands on the wheel (one gloved, the other fumbling for the heating controls on the dash.) Two streets down and one over, House was somewhere within the structured walls of his apartment, dealing with structured dosages of painkillers and unstructured parameters on how to use them.

Wilson had come to her.

He'd begun by saying "I just wanted you to know..." while his hands had been suspended, palms out, at chest height like he was pushing a weight away from him. He was, in fact, pushing a box of anvils onto her desk. "He didn't ask. I offered." And his voice had rattled a bit. 'Little like a half-dozen white pills in an orange bottle. After he had left, it had taken Cuddy the better part of an hour to release the tightness in her jaw. She had excused herself from an afternoon meeting of the board -- the first time in five years that she'd done that -- and closed her office while slats of afternoon sun still rode the floor. The sun warmed the back of her head while she walked to her car and when she slid into the driver's seat she'd touched her crown with tentative fingertips to feel the warmth. Then she'd driven.

She brought nothing with her. If she'd brought anything -- groceries, take-out, a movie, a dozen roses, or the Harlem Globe Trotters -- House would have seen through it immediately. He didn't like segues or stepping stones. She might not have even gotten through the door. Her foot pushed the accelerator and the car crept ahead on slushy wheels, closing the last bit of sidestreet distance to his curb. She'd been here before: a mission borne out of worry, House's stately apartment sitting back on a tree-lined sidewalk, water like a deluge around her ankles. Things hadn't been much simpler back then, either.

But at least he'd been clean. She didn't know how she'd find him now.

Her knock was more assured that it'd been the last time.

Comments

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

House didn't budge, even when she moved to slide fingers against the phonebook to edge it across the counter and closer to her. He was comfortable with taking up space, even if it was hers, and further proof to it he leaned forward as she began shuffling through the pages, tucking both elbows up and under the upper half of his body which he leaned casually out and over the counter-island. By the time she lifted her head from its incline over the series of numbers, he was hovering closer than he had before, blues low and providing idle watch to the digits, waiting for her to point out the correct one.

Feeling more than seeing the movement of her attention up and to him, eyes shifted up and aside to meet her gaze. He kept the close proximity, failing to draw back even if typical social boundaries deemed he should. "..I do. 'Long as you don't start making my go to charity functions or suck up to board members, anyway." As long as the lines were drawn in her pulling him into her work life (ambition was not a trait House possessed and he had no urge to be remotely involved in hospital business more than he already was), they would be fine.

She probably didn't want him dragging her to any monster truck rallies with Wilson, either.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

She'd tucked her thumb underneath a line of numbers when he taxied in close, keeping her place. It was well established that House didn't believe in 'typical social boundaries.' House didn't believe in any social boundaries if he could help it. He was close, and she didn't have to turn her head more than a fraction to get a good look at him when he responded honestly -- then dovetailed the honesty with his typical line of wit (though Cuddy didn't doubt he was serious underneath the snark.)

The corner of her mouth closest to him started a slow peaking process. "You don't even have to be charming," she said, tucking the smile into her chin and turning back to the phone book, her thumb papped once against the page, "but I'll take it."

She drew a pressure line with her thumbnail beneath the Cantonese number and pushed the edge of the phone book back to him, forward lean on her elbows to keep the proximity with him. Her thumbs hooked around one another. She had a slanted, coy, cat's expression. "Your turn."

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Brows fired skyward to ask 'Me? Charming?' (yes, he could do it when he really wanted to but getting him to admit that would be about as difficult as getting him to say that he liked ballroom dancing or that the Spice Girls' music hadn't really been -that- bad.), but he questioned it no further than that as he pulled the yellowpages towards him and twisted to snag his phone, intentionally bumping shoulders with her as he did so.

"..All right, so what am I ordering?" He immediately began dialing in the numbers, assuming she'd rattle off the order he could duplicate as he did so. At least for the time being, the conversation setting parameters on their relationship was put on hold in favor of food.

[betteroffdean.livejournal.com]

Cuddy had a strong, low center of gravity but she was bumped a bit by his larger, rangier frame and briefly lifted off the side of one foot. She gave him a look for it -- temperate and a little soft on the rebuke -- and pushed her hands into her hair to throw it off her shoulders. "They make it easy," she said, twisting curls around her fingers and pushing them into the collar of her shirt, "by giving everything on their menu a number. Get a number three, a sixteen, two -- no, three -- orders of the seven." She leaned backward toward his cabinet drawers; pulled a few open to search for a pen. The drawer she pulled first had three forks, a plastic spoon, and a spatula to its name.

She brought her upper body back to the counter and back in line with his, this time affecting her own shoulder bump. House had a catalogue of languages at his disposal and Cuddy knew that he'd always been eager to show them off. Maybe he'd order the numbers in Catnonese.

[addxcted.livejournal.com]

Brows fired upward as she rattled off the numbers and he temporarily wondered if she was ordering for herself and he had failed to note over time that she ate a ridiculous amount of food, or if this was for the both of them. By that point in time, someone had answered on the other end in shaky English and House turned his attention to the phone, ignoring the retaliating bump Cuddy gave (her center of gravity was below his and she did get him to weave slightly to the right, but his cane ended up absorbing the majority of the motion, so he remained unfazed).

"Uhn, 是, 你好。" At this point he hesitated, eyes screwing upward as he fought for the correct numbers and translated them in his head. His Mandarin was a great deal better than his Cantonese. "我需要第号三, 十六, 和三次序第号七。"

A question on the other end had him frowning in consideration. "您建议什么?" Another response and he nodded, finally beginning to get a better mental grasp on the dialect and the more odd degrees of pronounciation it had. "那将是美好的。您需要我的地址吗?"

It was still several moments before the conversation was completed with an address provided and House hung up before serving Cuddy with a briefly exasperated expression. As if he'd been forced to speak in another language. "Next time, we're ordering Russian and you're doing the talking."

..so she'd better learn Russian.