Consulting Cuddy ((Cuddy/House))

[indiansfan01]

Wilson walked into his office and closed the door behind him, leaving it unlocked. He removed his lab coat and threw it over the back of his desk chair. Rolling up his sleeves, he sat down on his couch.

He unclipped his pager from his belt and looked at it for a long moment. Should he page Cuddy? He really wanted to talk to her alone. He wanted to apologize to her, even though it would do no good. Oh well, he wouldn't know if he didn't try. He paged her to come to his office...stat.

Wilson interlocked his fingers, put his hands behind his head, and leaned back...just waiting for her to come.

[Dr. Gregory House]

House hobbled out from his office, bemoaning that he had come in so early. He was bored. It was all Wilson's fault. So, the cure for his boredom was to annoy the source. Wilson baiting was so much fun. He opened the door to Wilson's office without knocking. His eyes settled on Wilson's form, leaning, stretched back in his chair, resting his head on his hands.

"I'm bored," he muttered, "you have to entertain me. Making me come in so early." He hobbled in and shut the door behind him. He perched himself on the edge of Wilson's desk. "And I just know the perfect way for you to make it up to me."

[Dr. Lisa Cuddy]

Down in the clinic, Cuddy had been about to enter one of the exam rooms to see a patient that had been waiting for a good half-hour when her pager went off. Setting the file back in the inverted shelf, she glanced at the screen. Sighing heavily, she asked one of the other doctors to take care of the patient as she left the clinic. 'This had better be important' she thought stonily as she punched the up button on the elevator.

Once the elevator stopped at the fourth floor, Cuddy stalked out and down the office, noticing in passing that House wasn't at his desk...or in his conference room. As the thought of where else he could be hit her, she considered just turning around and going back downstairs. But the rational part of her mind told her that she needed to confront this; she couldn't run away. So, she kept walking. The door was slightly ajar as she approached. Cuddy pushed it open and stopped in the doorway, her suspicions confirmed.

"You do know what a cell phone is, don't you?" she asked Wilson, ignoring House completely. She wasn't sure if she could handle this at the moment, and was, as a result, more than a little snarky.

[indiansfan01]

Wilson smiled at House when he came limping into his office. "And what would that be?" he asked, although he already knew the answer. So many things that the two of them had been hiding had come into the open during the conversation they had had with each other last night. Wilson stood up and perched himself right next to House.

Wilson began to lean over and that's when he heard Cuddy speak, but it was too late. He planted a passionate kiss on House's lips, forgetting for the time being why he had even called Cuddy up to his office in the first place.

[Dr. Gregory House]

As the other man pushed him more onto the desk, kissing him, House couldn't help but focus on Wilson's hand on his hip, the heat of it made him hyper-aware of the other man. So raw and primal and there. House was overwhelmed, but he reciprocated the kiss, his head bent forward to meet Wilson's lips as the other man sat in his chair between House's legs.

So when Cuddy barged in, House winced as he drew away, panting with the exertion. He had wanted this relationship to be private between the two of them for longer. It was so new, so fragile, even if it had been already budding between them for a long time.

"Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag," he drawled, trying to hide his shock at being discovered by Cuddy of all people, especially after the roller coaster ride of the past 24 hours. He hadn't thought that anybody would just barge in, since only he was rude enough to not care. And the thrill had been too hard to resist.

Damn him and his taunting of fate.

[Dr. Lisa Cuddy]

Her jaw dropped as she stood in the doorway of Wilson's office. Good God...... She didn't want to stare at the two men, but she couldn't help it. She couldn't exactly judge, having done the exact same thing, and more, with Angel the night before. But that didn't stop her from thinking it was insanely odd. A small part of her brain whispered that it was also insanely hot. Closing her mouth and swallowing the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat, she shifted her weight, realizing that she was becoming strangely aroused. She told herself it was because she loved seeing House looking vulnerable, and not because he had just been making out with Wilson.

"You called me up here....for that?" Cuddy asked, her voice tight, as she looked at Wilson. "Unless you have a really good reason for paging me, I have patients in the clinic to take care of." She crossed her arms, deliberately pushing her breasts together as she did so. She gave both men the same withering look, knowing it would have a completely different effect on each one. "I'm waiting." She stepped forward, closing the door behind her with her foot and leaning against it.

[indiansfan01]

When House disengaged their lips, Wilson stood up. He took the few steps over to his couch and plopped himself down. He didn't know what to say to Cuddy. All that he knew was that as long as he wasn't near House he could control his emotions better. He hadn't wanted Cuddy to find out like that, especially not after what she had just been through.

"No...I called you up here because I wanted to talk to you alone. House came in because he was bored and then..." Wilson let his words trail off as he shifted his gaze from Cuddy to House. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to find out this way," he said to Cuddy but his eyes were still focused on House.

[Dr. Gregory House]

"You called her up here?" House asked, sliding off the desk, looking for his cane. It had fallen to the floor. He hooked it with his foot and tossed it up. Catching it, he turned to face Wilson. "Why didn't you say anything before... you kissed me!" he accused. House was being purposely irrational, he knew, but he didn't care. "I know we said we'd come out of the closet, but I didn't think it would be this soon. And not to her!"

House stopped realizing that he was sounding like a pouty, raging queen. Which was so not what he wanted to appear like. Especially considering... He turned to look at Cuddy, who looked to be on the verge of tears under the withering look. And... was that arousal?

[Dr. Lisa Cuddy]

Cuddy couldn't believe it. "You. Wanted to talk to me. Alone." It sounded perfectly rational, except that Wilson had said he would go to her office later to pay the bribe. "And without my money?" This was too surreal. The next bit didn't surprise her in the least. House was always bored. But this...the making out, and the....the making out... God, was that all her brain could focus on? Maybe that was what had turned her on. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Cuddy directed her next words to House.

"Were you...gay...twenty years ago? Or is this..." Here, she gestured to Wilson and back to House, "Is this a recent development?" If he'd been that way the whole time, the mind-numbing sex had had her completely fooled twenty years ago, and completely fooled last night. She froze as he looked at her, tightening her arms around herself, pushing her breasts out, wanting House to see them. It was her way of testing whether this was real or if it was all some sort of sick joke.

[indiansfan01]

"Sorry if I felt that I needed to explain to you why I told House and sorry if I felt that it couldn't wait," he replied to her.

Wilson couldn't stand this. They had needed time to come out. They had wanted to move slowly. It seemed to Wilson that all of his plans that shouldn't work worked and all of his plans that should work never worked. He picked an arbitrary point on the ground to stare at as he let Cuddy and House sort their problems out.

[Dr. Gregory House]

"Cuddy," House snorted, "this is what you're focusing on? Whether or not I used you as a beard twenty years ago?" He thrust his cane down onto the floor, leaning on it to move closer to Cuddy. "Throwing stones, are we? Or is that what happened with Angel just doesn't count?" He looked at her breasts purposely, "I thought you did a course in psychology as an intern, we all did-- Or does the Kinsey scale mean nothing to you?

"I still like your fun bags, Lisa," House said, "I just like Wilson's too. There's just something about Wilson. You've seen it. You can't deny it."

[Dr. Lisa Cuddy]

She should have guessed Wilson would want to apologize face to face, but she couldn't bring herself to apologize for jumping to conclusions. Keeping her eyes on House as he came closer to her, her mouth opened slowly. The only thing she could think of to respond to the comment about Angel was: "I was drunk, House." Sure. He didn't know that. He didn't know all she'd had before hand was an airplane bottle of Potter's (TM) Vodka. Unless Wilson had told him that, too.

He knew full well she had taken that course. He'd tutored her, for heaven's sake! "Yes, I did. But, as I recall, we didn't spend a whole lot of time studying. Back then, you were about a zero on the scale. Now, I'd say it looks more like five. One doesn't just gain four points in twenty years, Greg." First name usage in the workplace meant that she was totally serious.

As for Wilson...she wasn't entirely sure what to say. Finally, she settled on, "I thought you were allergic to excessive caring. You avoid it often enough." Cuddy felt that those two statements were all she needed to say on the matter.

[indiansfan01]

Wilson didn't like this at all. He stood up and made his way over to them. He wrapped his arm lovingly around House's waist and looked over at Cuddy. "Can we please just forget about the past and focus on the present?" he asked her. "House and I have been through so much crap together. We've done so many terrible things to each other and yet we always emerged from them still best friends." He glanced over at House and smiled. "Last night...last night things exploded. We couldn't hide our true feelings any longer."

Wilson stopped there, not wanting to take things too far...before he actually started believing that what he was saying was really true.

[Dr. Gregory House]

House watched Cuddy as though he was seeing her for the first time. Push her one way, she fought back. Push her another way and she still fought back. Every reaction she had, every facial expression she made, every word she said, he filed them all away in his memories of Cuddy. He was always trying to understand people's motivations. If he could understand them, he could predict how they would react to him. He had always been convinced that people would hurt him, so he hurt them first.

This wasn't a new self observation; it was what drove him to treat people like his puzzles. Everybody lies and dies. Fact of life. The only thing he could do was drive them crazy and watch them for their true reactions, see how far they could go.

"I was drunk, House," Cuddy said. Everybody lies.

Allergic to excessive caring? Possible. The truth was that he couldn't accept caring as a valid expression of human emotion. Being forced to have ice baths and sleep outside drove any vestiges of that concept out of him. He felt Wilson wrap a comforting arm around him, knew it was the next level of their relationship they were both unsure of, but even though it was all an act, it also was just another facet of their familiarity with each other. House was being attacked, so Wilson sought to protect him.

It had been hard, but House could admit that he did care about Wilson. Wanted the other man in his life, just as he wanted Cuddy in his life. They were good people who put up with his unpleasant issues all the time. He didn't deserve them, but was grateful for them all the same.

"I lied," he said simply. It was awkward. He was awkward. He wasn't a man given to discussion of his own feelings. He liked to deny he had them. As he had told Cameron, he was damaged goods. Not many could, or would deal with House in all his glory. They'd break themselves against him trying, so he pushed them away. Only Cuddy and Wilson had been strong enough to get in under his wall.

"Wilson's right. Twenty years ago, thirty years ago, it's all ancient history. What matters is now."

[Dr. Lisa Cuddy]

None of her thoughts seemed to be able to stay in one place long enough to be processed as she watched House and Wilson. It all seemed so...natural to them, somehow. Her head was spinning and she couldn't wrap her head around all of this at once. None of it made any sense at all, and yet all of it made perfect sense. Things that complex belonged in a psychology textbook, not a doctor's office. But, there it was. Right in front of her. And she didn't understand it at all. Did he just take that much pleasure in being a walking contradiction that he would do something so insane as to have a threesome with her and Angel one night, and make out with Wilson the next afternoon?

The last time she'd asked him something similar, he'd kissed her. Somehow, she didn't think it would go the same way this time. And that thought hurt, for some reason. The scathing look she'd held in place this long started to fall to pieces as she listed to House say things that were so out of character for him, it all seemed so unreal. The anger in her eyes turned into confusion, and the unwavering line of her lips softened into an upset frown. Her face fell, losing the edge it had had when she'd started out. For the second time in (relatively) less than a day, she was crying....over House, of all people.

"You don't mean that," she whispered, unsure if either of the men had heard her. "You can't mean that..." Her arms dropped to her sides as she stood there, staring. There were so many emotions rolling around inside her, some of them being total opposites, that she had no choice but to break down. But she was too proud, to selfish and arrogant, to let them see her like that. Reaching behind her, Cuddy fumbled with the door handle for half a minute before it opened. Before she even knew what she was doing, before her brain could process what she was saying, she was repeating her words from earlier that morning. And, strangely enough, part of her really believed they were true.

"I hate you..." Turning abruptly, she slammed the door closed behind her as she left, then collapsed against it, drawing her knees up. 'Why does he have to negate everything?' she asked herself again, silent tears slowly streaming down her cheeks.