smallredboy

Author notes: Based on s2e10 Failure to Communicate. Also a fill for fffc's 100th Special with the prompt "dirty".

House has made an admirable job at not bringing it up, really.

By all logic, he should bring it up, he should talk to Stacy or to Wilson or even to Cuddy about what happened between them after his leg had all it happened to it happen to it, but he can't even begin to imagine all that will be thrown at him if he attempts to do so. He knows no one will believe him; Stacy is a nice person, a nice woman, most important of all. And he's a man much taller than her, even if he was disabled by his condition at the time. Even if he would've made a lousy job at fighting her off.

Stacy is the hospital's lawyer, and it's fine. Stacy has marital problems with Mark, and it's fine. He's falling in love and pining like a fucking idiot for his rapist, and it's fine. It'll all be cotton candy sweet and he'll get re-traumatized before he drives her away once again, as she looks for someone better than him once again. Someone who wouldn't complain as much when she crippled them. She'd already found that in Mark but, oh, who knows? Maybe there's some more men out there needing life-threatening conditions to be taken advantage of.

They're at the airport, and she had gotten a hotel for the two of them. There's a sick feeling in his gut, that nausea he started to associate with the long days after his body had settled during his recovery, when all he had was drugs and that knowledge that Stacy had gone out to smoke five times that day, that feeling of wanting to scratch himself clean of the way she had dirtied him. More than five times meant horrible things for him. He knows the drill, he knows how it works. He knows her ticks and the fact that if she's gone out to smoke a cigarette six times it means she's angry, if she's gone out to smoke a cigarette six times it means she needs to take it out on someone.

"Right," he starts. He tries to not look at the bed too hard. Tries to not consider his cane too hard, the way she could grab it from his hand, fight it off him, and then he'd be dead meat. "But then a hotel room..."

"Might also lead to something," Stacy says. She's smiling just a modicum.

He wants to kiss her. He wants to take control back, show her that he's fine now, that he can take it back, that he can have sex with her and that it will all be fine. He knows she knows he's not fine, going to her house whenever her husband is away at physical therapy, recovering from something far too similar to what happened to him. To what Stacy did to him before she did it to him.

"Hmm." He looks at the bed again. "So which is it?"

"Our relationship is like an addiction," she starts. "It's like..."

He scoffs. As if she'd know anything about that. "Really good drugs?"

"No. It's like vindaloo curry."

Something pangs at him. Something snaps in him, over and over again. If she continues with this metaphor he may as well be bringing it up. He may as well yell at her.

"Okay, sure."

"Really, really hot Indian curry they make with red chili peppers."

"I know what it is. Didn't think it was addictive."

And she continues with the godforsaken metaphor, of course she does— "You're abrasive and annoying and come on way too strong, like vindaloo curry. And when you're crazy about curry, that's fine. But no matter how much you love curry, you have too much off it and it takes the roof of your mouth off. And then you never want to see curry for a really, really long time— but you wake up one day and think, God I really miss curry."

She's been walking closer to him, stepping closer, until they're less than a foot apart. It's asphyxiating. The thing inside him keeps snapping, over and over, like a rubber band that's about to give out and break apart in pieces.

When he touches her, the rubber band snaps. He reaches out, raises her face up. There is not a single hint of regret or shame in her face, not a drop of guilt. It's almost as if she doesn't remember what she did to him. Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she just doesn't care.

"You're a jerk," she breathes out.

"I know." He wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her, but he can't stop thinking about the metaphor and the bruises and the way Wilson touched him, apologizing to him, saying that he was sorry without knowing he was sorry for. If he knew, he wouldn't still be friends with Stacy. At least so he hopes. "But you don't get to compare me to curry when I'm the one getting burned."

He pushes her away, suddenly. His heart clenches and a well-known pang of fear shoots at him, but he grabs at his cane as tight as he can. She's not taking it away from him. She's not.

"What are you talking about?" she asks. She smiles.

"You know what I'm talking about," he replies. "I'll get a different room. Otherwise I'll wake up with my cane mysteriously gone."

She blinks. "Oh, that." She hums. "I see. I thought you were over it by now, which is why you were pursuing me, but if you want to go..."

"I was self-destructing by pursuing you," he replies. "I'd prefer if you didn't talk to me unless strictly necessary. Goodbye, Stacy."

She smiles at her. It's beyond predatory; he feels like a rat and her a bird of prey. "Goodbye, Greg."

He gets a call from his team shortly afterward, thank God. He has something to take his mind away from this, from all this— from the way Stacy will probably try to get her hands on him once again, no matter the cost. He'll make sure the door to his room is locked as tight as possible.

He's not taking any chances of being victimized again. He'll make damn sure of it.

"How did the LP go?" he asks the team as he leaves the hotel room, going to the elevator. The bland music of it helps him wind down.

Hopefully she leaves the hospital. Leaves, knowing the silent possibility that he may tell someone else about what she had done to him. He won't raise his hopes too much, though. He knows what kind of monster Stacy Warner is.