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Tags: housefic house_wilson house fanfic housefanfiction house md sick_house
Published : 3 months, 3 weeks ago (Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:18:45 PDT)
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http://zeppomarx.livejournal.com/22854.html 4 links
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Title: A Gentle Knock at the Door, Chapter 84
Author: zeppomarx
Characters: House, Wilson, Cuddy, Foreman, Chase, and others.
Warnings and So On: NC-17. Explicit sex. H/W friendship.
Summary: House is a physical and emotional mess, having been wrongly imprisoned and tortured and all sorts of nasty stuff. It's about what happens next, and how House deals with it. A sequel to Priority's Exigencies, which is a sequel to DIY Sheep's The Contract, which has spawned an incredible number of offshoots.
Timeline: Set nearly a year after the beginning of Exigencies.
Earlier chapters: Chapters 1-16 here. Chapters 18-43 here. Chapters 44-61 here. Chapters 62-67 here. Chapters 68-79 here. Chapters 80-? here.
COMMENTS: If you'll keep commenting, I'll keep responding. I promise. Really. (If you've commented on the last few of chapters, you might want to go back and take a look -- I've responded to all of you. And I'm willing to respond again, if you reply to my responses.)
MORE COMMENTS: I'm letting you know that there's is explicit sex in this chapter, but be aware that there's more to the chapter than that. If you're uncomfortable with such things, you might want to scroll past the sex part. This is the penultimate chapter.
Oh, Yeah, the Disclaimer: Still don't own the characters (except the ones I created). I appreciate them, though, except when they wander around in my brain and won't let me sleep.
SUMMARY: House and Rainie confront their past.
TEASER: Knock Before Entering...
___________________________________________
A Gentle Knock at the Door
Chapter 84
Linda had gone home for the night, the night nurse dismissed, and Wilson had been informed that from now on, he really ought to call, or at the very least knock, before visiting their home.
“Est-ce que tu coucherais avec moi ce soir?(1)” asked House, lewdly, a comic leer on his face. “Baise-moi?”(1)
Rainie laughed.
Then more seriously, he said, “Désires-tu être mon amant?(2)”
She nodded her assent.
It wasn’t surprising that both of them were nervous. Because of what they’d been through, the act of sex had been contaminated. But now that House had opened up to this woman emotionally, he needed to know if there was a way to transform his own horror into something positive; even more important for him, he wanted Rainie to be able to experience pleasure where once she’d had felt only anguish.
“You’re sure?” he asked. This was the Rubicon.
Not wanting to leave it to chance, he had—to his own great amusement—researched how they could do this in a way that would be as easy on their bodies as possible, eventually settling on a side-by-side method that was often recommended for pregnant women and people with other physical disabilities, which certainly included both of them.
She inhaled slowly and let her breath out gradually as she nodded.
“Mais oui, mon cher,” said Rainie Adler, looking into cobalt blue eyes. “Bien sûr.”
On crutches, they made their way to House’s bedroom, shut the door and lay down side by side on his bed, Rainie close by House’s left. He turned out the lights. With the blackout curtains drawn, the room was completely dark.
He lay there, silently, for several moments, listening to her breathe and inhaling her perfume, a sweet, spicy aroma. After a time, he turned toward her, and reached out with his right hand. He found that she was facing him, and their lips met in a tentative kiss that grew into something more passionate.
His hands explored her face and hair as they kissed, and he could feel her gentle fingers lightly on his shoulders and chest. The absolute darkness made every touch a powerful sensual experience.
Her fingers drifted up to his face, following the contours of his cheekbones and eyelids and ears and lips and chin, rustling through the stubble on his chin.
“Is this all right?” he asked, breaking the kiss for a moment, as his hands slid lower, down her neck and onto her shoulders. She felt small and soft in his arms.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she whispered, the vibrations of her voice resounding into his throat.
He found the top button of her blouse and undid it, as he felt her hands leave his face and move toward his chest. As he undid the second button, her cool hands slid under his shirt, and roamed around his waist and back. He was vaguely aware that she was tracing her fingers along his scars, but instead being embarrassed or uncomfortable, he realized that it didn’t matter. Certainly, she knew his injuries were there, and if she could explore them in this loving way without upsetting herself, then perhaps she’d come a very long way toward healing. Perhaps he had, too.
In all the misery, he had actually forgotten that human touch could be so pleasurable, and he felt himself starting to get aroused.
She lifted his shirt, exposing his bare skin to the cool air. He broke their kiss again to shift position and remove his shirt, tossing it to one side, and then settling back to continue finding and undoing buttons. Once he had unbuttoned the final one, he tenderly allowed his hands to wander across her soft skin, interrupted as it was by hills and gullies of scars.
Lowering his head, he kissed her shoulder and moved his lips lightly across her chest, and then, reaching around, fumbling, unfastened her bra. She sat up slightly to free herself of the blouse and bra, dropping them softly on the floor behind her. Then she nestled closer to him, and he gasped as her hip brushed his crotch.
Wrapping his arms around her, he held her tightly, searching for her lips again. Their kiss was more insistent this time, her tongue exploring his. She had been silent up until now, but as their mouths intertwined, he nudged his hips toward her. He felt her soft moan go through him.
His hands found her breasts now, and he circled the nipples lightly with his fingertips, feeling them respond and grow taut. Her arms feathered his lower back with slow circles, and he could feel her heart beating fast against his chest.
His own heart was speeding up, and his breath was becoming shallow. For a moment, he wished the room had some light so he could gauge Rainie’s emotions and reactions, but they’d both agreed that, at least for now, the darkness would help them avoid having to confront the obvious results of their physical damage. His biggest concern was that she might have a flashback, that despite all their care, the act of making love might have become so harrowing for her that she could never get over what had been done to her in the past.
At that moment, her mouth left his, and he felt the loss of it acutely.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly, as if she had tuned into his thoughts and had nothing else to concern herself with but his state of mind.
He pulled her closer, and smoothed her hair with his right hand.
“As long as you’re here, I’m fine,” he said, realizing as the words left his mouth that it might be the most truthful thing he’d ever said.
“Mmmmm,” she said, as her lips found his again.
His hands circled her and explored the small of her back until they ran into the waistband of her skirt. Feeling around, he discovered a button and a zipper. As he undid the button and slid the zipper down, he felt her hands doing the same for his trousers.
Again, they adjusted their positions to remove clothing, and now they were naked.
His hands moved lower, touching the backs of her legs, and then caressing the fleshy areas above. As they held each other close, he heard a sigh, her breath short and beginning to hitch with anticipation.
Another small moan escaped her, causing him to shudder. Her hands were on his hips now, slowly traveling inward, tantalizingly close. He knew how he was feeling, but he was unsure about how ready she might be.
Something else was happening to him besides sexual titillation. Before, he had loved Stacy, but theirs was a bracing, combative relationship, and he’d remained at least partly on guard with her throughout their time together, a guardedness that extended into the bedroom. Later on, he had gained sexual release from the occasional hooker, a physical response to a physical need.
This was different, and it was unlike anything he’d experienced.
From the beginning, he’d dropped his guard with Rainie, and because of that emotional openness, this mattered to him in way sex had never mattered before. He’d always been a considerate lover on general principle, but now it really mattered to him that she experience not only physical pleasure, but also emotional satisfaction.
As they continued to explore each other, he heard her broken sigh.
Suddenly, she tensed and turned away.
Once again, he wished the lights were on, so he could see her face.
A muffled curse emanated from deep within her.
Damn it. He pulled back and waited, listening.
Finally, she spoke.
“God damn it,” she said tersely. “I-I’m not sure I can do this, Greg. I-I wish I wasn’t, but I am—I’m frightened by it.”
Trying to still his own physical responses, he lay quietly next to her, not moving.
“…and then one by one they… raped me… all three of them… raped me…”
He had not been surprised—far from it—to learn from subsequent therapy sessions that the day in the warehouse was not the only time she’d been raped. He’d already heard some of it during the trials, as she had described what had been done to her. The other thing—the abortions—he couldn’t begin to understand. Given his own experiences, how he flinched during massages, how sensitive he was, he could only guess how terrified she was. And yet, they’d come so far, the two of them.
“Of course you are. So am I.”
She said nothing.
“Rainie, can you hear me?”
He heard her inhale, then respond. “Oh, yes.”
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. I won’t ever hurt you. You have to know that.”
She was silent for a moment.
“I know it, Greg. Or at least my head does. It’s these darned emotions…”
These darned emotions. He knew all about them. His own darned emotions were churning, torn between the increasingly strong physical desire to continue and his concern over her reaction.
“Do you think you can trust me? Trust me not to hurt you?”
“I want to…” she said.
“Shall we go on, or would you rather stop now?”
Again, she was silent for a long while.
“I have to trust you,” she said. “I do… trust you.”
Trust. Not something he’d ever been very good at. But somehow, she trusted him. Why, he couldn’t imagine. Even more surprising, he trusted her.
He felt Rainie shift back toward him, her hand resting a moment on his chest before moving to his face and caressing his cheek, his eyelashes flicking under her fingers. She moved a little closer to him.
They explored each other’s bodies a while, until he heard her breath grow ragged again.
Adjusting his position downward and shifting her lower body toward him, holding his hands on her hips, he trailed his tongue down across her abdomen, then down even further. He gave her as much pleasure as he knew how, her breath coming faster, and then he heard a deep, guttural moan.
As her orgasm began, as the tremors surged through her, he whispered breathily, “Rainie, I love you,” just as she splashed over the waterfall of release.
She clasped his head, trailing her fingers through his hair as she recovered. He slid further up on the bed until they were parallel again. He rolled on his side to face her.
He was still hard and aching, but was surprised to discover that already he felt satisfied in a way he never had before, a little overwhelmed that his emotions could create as much pleasure for him as physical sensations had in the past.
Although she seemed to be ready for him, he wasn’t willing to risk hurting her. He felt around on the bedside table for the condoms and the lubricant he’d ordered.
“Shall we?” she asked.
Beyond speech, he murmured “Mm-hm.”
He carefully lifted her left leg up over his hip. When he entered her, the sensation was so strong, he could scarcely breathe. Their lips met again, and this time their kiss was surer and more ardent than before.
As gently as he could, he began to rock. He felt her body responding, her breath hitching and small moans of pleasure vibrating from her mouth into his.
When he neared his climax, he gripped her tightly, encircling her tiny body with his long arms, groaning “Rainie!” as the vibrations shot throughout his body.
When the blood stopped pounding in his ears, he realized she was coming again, moaning his name over and over.
They lay intertwined as their breathing slowed to a more normal rhythm.
After a few moments, they found themselves shivering from the cool air on their perspiring bodies, so once they had cleaned themselves up, they pulled back the covers and slid underneath, laying their heads down on soft pillows.
So now they knew. Despite everything, this was possible. Not only possible, but intensely pleasurable, and pleasure was something neither of them had experienced in a great long while.
But no good deed goes unpunished, thought House. He was reasonably sure he’d pay for the exertion later, which was, now that he thought about it, neither a problem nor a deterrent for him.
He wondered about Rainie, though, and how she was. Certainly, she seemed to have experienced joy. He knew he’d tried to give her pleasure, even if it is in the nature of males to be selfish during sex. Her psychological state was one thing, but how about physical? Was she in any pain from this?
He held her a little tighter, and felt her nestle closer.
“How are you fee…?”
She put her hand on his mouth, cutting him off abruptly before he could end the question.
“Oh, no! Don’t you dare finish that sentence!”
He laughed, a surprised, relaxed laugh.
“Sorry. Sex makes me stupid. But would you mind telling me if you’re okay?”
This time, she laughed, a slight giggle. He felt the vibrations of it in his chest.
“At the moment, quite wonderful. Thanks for asking. The endorphins kicked in some time back, and I’m feeling happy and relatively pain-free. Someone should write a journal article: ‘Why Sex is Better Than Morphine.’”
He stifled another laugh. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Thought that might be your cup of tea. As for the subtext of what you were asking, we’ll find out. I’m sure there will be consequences. There are always consequences. If nothing else, the fibro may flare up. It does tend to get annoyed with physical activity. Here’s the question you should have asked: Does it matter if there’s pain later?”
“Well, does it?”
“Not in the slightest. There’s always pain later. What’s a little more or less? Let’s go to the giant tote board. This little tiny column is pleasure, and—oh, dear—this gigantic column over here is pain. Ooooh, pain is ahead by three lengths. That’s nonsense—it’s not a competition. I think the goal in life is to make the pleasure column as full as possible, no matter what’s happening in the other one. So there’s a bunch of pain in column B. That shouldn’t negate the pleasure in column A.”
He lay still for a moment, staring into the darkness. This kind of intelligent optimism was foreign to him, and yet he couldn’t argue with the logic behind what she’d said.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a smart lady?” he asked, after a bit.
“It’s been known to happen,” she acknowledged. “Are you suggesting that’s it’s happened again?”
“Uh-huh. I think maybe you’re good for me.”
He heard a blast of laughter from somewhere near his left shoulder.
“‘I think maybe you’re good for me?!’ You’ve been watching General Hospital again, haven’t you? Since when have you ever been so incredibly trite? Sex really does make you stupid, doesn’t it?”
He couldn’t help but laugh in response.
“So, getting back to this research project idea. When can we start?”
She lost him for a moment, until he put the pieces together.
“Research project? Oh, of course—the sex/morphine thing.”
“I was thinking we could conduct a whole bunch of research on the subject. It might not be statistically valid, but we could start with a small sample—just the two of us. I’ll be glad to be your guinea pig, although I think I’d look pretty funny with a stubbed nose and those little piggy eyes and that bristly hair sticking out all over my body.”
A laugh started deep within him and burbled its way to the surface. He pulled her even closer, stroking her hair with his free hand.
Finally, he felt Rainie turn her face up toward his.
“Greg?”
“Mmmm?”
“I want to see you.”
“You what?” Did he hear that right?
“I want to see you. I want to turn on the light and look at you.”
He felt for her face with his hands.
“I thought we agreed…”
“So did I. But I want to see you. I want to look at you.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Uh-huh.”
Turning over, he reached for the lamp switch.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he said, his thumb and forefinger on the switch.
“Just flip the damn switch,” she said, laughing.
It was a soft light, but after the complete darkness, it blinded them for a moment. When he was able to focus, he saw Rainie covering her squinting eyes with her hand.
“It’s like ski slopes at noon,” she said, blinking.
“The difference being it’s not cold, and we’re not going to fall down and hurt ourselves.”
“Yes, there’s that,” she agreed.
He tensed up slightly. Now that the light was on, he was nervous again. Why did she want to look at him?
Her eyes were scanning his face. They seemed to be searching for something.
“What?”
“I wanted to see how your face looked after we made love. But more than that, I want you to let me see what they did to you,” she said, very quietly. “I need to… look at it head on, and see if I reconcile in my own mind the fact that something so horrific brought me here to this place and to you. Will you let me?”
He inhaled sharply. Was she trying to find some kind of redemption in their experiences? There couldn’t be any, could there? Except… except, as she put it, “it brought me here to this place and to you.”
No one—except his therapists and Wilson—had seen the extent of the damage. Even he had never examined his own body.
Trust.
After pondering the problem a long moment, he agreed. He’d already come this far. Might as well go all the way.
“All right, but only if you’re comfortable letting me see you, too.”
He realized he also needed to know just what was there, just what the bastards had done to her. As her doctor, he’d seen parts of her body, but not the totality of it. Not all at once.
She looked down, pursing her lips, then gave an abrupt nod.
“That’s all right.”
He pulled back the sheet to expose them both. Not knowing what to expect, he was surprised at the lack of reaction on Rainie’s part. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t grimace and she didn’t shy away from what she saw. She just looked. The only emotion he saw on her face was overwhelming sadness.
With her fingers, she traced every scar across his chest and arms, before nudging him to roll over and let her see his back. He felt her fingers again, following the lines of each scar. And then he felt something else.
He felt a kiss. And then another.
Her lips grazed every scar, every burn mark, the site of every injury.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
Stunned, he didn’t know what to think. Was this some misguided childhood idea of hers—was she trying to kiss it and make it better?
“Because I love you,” she said, as if that explained it.
“I-I don’t understand.”
“Mon cher, I need to love all of you. Even the parts you hate. Even the parts that connect us to that awful time. If I can’t embrace the part of you that was injured, I can’t really say I love you.”
Her kisses continued as she rolled him onto his back again. He watched as she tenderly and slowly kissed each scar, up onto his face and neck and then down again. Her eyes were sad, but her face was peaceful, and she never hesitated, no matter how ugly the scar. She caressed his hands, and pressed her lips to every inch of his arms and neck and chest and abdomen.
Continuing, she moved lower, until she got to his right thigh.
She’s not prepared for this, he thought, suddenly fearful that she would be repulsed. He watched her face closely as she grew near the large indentation. Her expression never varied.
Her lips brushed the edge of the crater, and then he saw and felt her place light kisses all over the scar. When she was done, she gently, very gently, barely touching him, rested her head on his devastated leg.
The effect on him was extraordinary. His emotions welled up and he felt hot tears press against the inside of his stinging eyelids as he tried desperately to keep from crying.
After a moment, she lifted her head and continued her journey, down his legs to his feet. She nudged him over again and kissed her way back up to his head. Then she lay her head back down on the pillow.
“There. Now I’m allowed to say it. I do love you so.”
He rolled over toward her, searching her eyes for an answer.
“How…? How could you do that?”
Her eyes scanned the ceiling before looking over and meeting his. Her answer was thoughtful and unexpected.
“When I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I had friends—including Evan—who tried to get me to go to a psychiatrist because they were sure I had to be depressed over the diagnosis. But I wasn’t depressed, and I knew I wasn’t. I had known something was very wrong, and of the things it could have been, fibromyalgia was not that bad.”
House thought back to the therapy session, when he’d run through the diagnostic possibilities in his head. He nodded his understanding.
“I wasn’t depressed. I was grateful. It could have been worse. What the diagnosis did was force me to reevaluate the world. Some people I considered friends behaved badly, and the friendships died. Others were there for me. One of those was Jeff. Yes, I had physical limitations, but, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m also stubborn as hell. I decided I’d be damned if I was going to crawl into bed and spend the rest of my life complaining or sulking. There were too many things I wanted to do. Life’s too short. So it hurt. So what.
“After a few years, I realized that my life had become so much better than it had been when I was healthy. I’d grown up, developed a sense of my own worth and was enjoying every moment I could. I remember telling Evan once that getting fibromyalgia was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I really meant it.”
A crease appeared between House’s brows. Was she going to go all Pollyanna about this?
She saw his expression and smiled.
“No, I don’t think Thompson was the best thing that ever happened to me. Dear God, no. But I’ve survived it, and I’ve found you, and I’m here, and I want to go on with my life.
“I can either spend the rest of my life reliving that horror in my mind, in which case Thompson really does win, or I can try my damndest to do something constructive with my life and enjoy the pleasures that come my way. Which makes more sense to you? Wallowing or enjoying?”
He still didn’t quite understand, and said so.
“Don’t you see? By allowing myself to love all of you, I can actually be grateful for what’s happened. Not glad, mind you, but grateful. Every single scar on your body—and on mine—brought me to you. How can I not love them, then, if they brought me to your arms?”
Now he got it, and it knocked the wind out of him.
Once he recovered his senses, he returned the favor, kissing every inch of her broken, mangled body, trying to follow her example and not let his empathy for the pain she had undergone show on his face, since he knew she was watching.
When he was done, he laid back down, with Rainie on his left, where she should be, and pulled up the covers.
He wrapped his arms around her and they fell asleep, his left arm around her and Rainie with her head on his chest.
NEXT: The Ultimate Mystery
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(1) “Est-ce que tu coucherais avec moi ce soir?” means "Will you sleep with me tonight?" and can be considered offensive, depending on the circumstances.
Although "Baise-moi" transliterates as "Kiss me", its actually usage is quite vulgar, and should be translated as "Fuck me"
(2) House follows this up with the much more genteel “Désires-tu être mon amant?” which means "Do you want to be my lover?"
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