(Stunt words have been used. No actual words were harmed in the making of this story. Except perhaps the three most noticeable words in the anterior chapter)
~*~*~
“You know you can’t put that down if you have any reds in your hand,” Hugh said suspiciously as Lisa began cackling triumphantly. “I’m watching you, miss.”
“And I’m watching you. Which is why I’m making it blue, because I know you don’t have any of those…” Lisa wrinkled her nose at her Uno cards. “Unless of course, you just picked one up.”
“You mean like this one?” Hugh asked, waving a blue Draw 2 card at her. Lisa scowled and reached for the deck.
“Whenever you jokers are ready…” David said, appearing behind Lisa’s chair. She tilted her head back and pouted at him.
“Come on, David. There’s like, five or six cents riding on this.”
David reached down and plucked her cards out of her hand. “Bathroom set. Now. Or we’ll be here all night.”
Hugh tilted his head tiredly at his co-star, who looked back at him and sighed. The energy was starting to wear off. Slowly they both pushed their chairs back and walked over to the set, smiling at Anne as she joined them. Out of nowhere Hugh’s arm circled Lisa’s shoulders as they walked, and she looked up at him, startled. He only gave her a tiny smile and squeezed her shoulder briefly before releasing her. They were both tired, Lisa reminded herself, and that little tiny bit of contact… it was as if she’d been given a shot of caffeine. It appeared Hugh was responding in the same manner, as he gained a bit of energy into his voice when they finally got themselves settled on the bathroom floor. Anne hovered off to the side, where the end of the bathtub would’ve been in a real restroom.
“Just think,” Lisa said, leaning her head back against the mural and closing her eyes. “Pillows. Nice, soft fluffy feather pillows that your head just sinks into…”
“Enough, woman,” Hugh said, his forehead resting on the closed toilet assento lid. “Why are you torturing me?” He raised his head just enough to lock eyes with her. “New hobby?”
Lisa grinned and shrugged. “I tried stamp collecting, but this is mais fun.”
“You guys ready?” David asked from behind the cameras?
“Does it matter?” Lisa shot back, and Hugh raised the cover off the toilet assento and draped his arm over it, sticking his face in the bowl.
“Action!”
A few half-hearted spitting noises later…
“False alarm,” said Hugh, looking at Lisa. She reached down for the glass on the floor seguinte to her leg and handed it to him.
“Drink this.”
“That’s your advice? ‘Drink this?’”
“It’s ginger. It’ll ease the nausea.” Lisa smiled at him, bearing in mind that this was all taking place in House’s head—anything she might think that Cuddy would normally do or say in this situation… better not to even go down that road.
“You know what would calm the nausea?” Hugh was muttering into the glass. “Vicodin. Marijuana. A coma.” Suddenly he stopped, staring straight down at the floor near the bath mat. Anne spoke from off set.
“Now, don’t pretend you didn’t see it. I saw it, which means you saw it.” Hugh looked up at her. “Send her away.”
Taking a cautious sip of the drink Lisa had handed him, Hugh grimaced. “Too bitter. I already have enough bitter.”
“I’ll add some honey,” Lisa said, smiling gamely and getting up to take the glass out of the room. Anne took a few steps toward Hugh, standing on the bathtub.
“You’re pathetic,” she said dismissively. “If you want the pill, just send her home. But you can’t. Because that would mean admitting defeat to her.” Hugh clenched his fist, thinking. He looked up at Anne. He looked back to see if Lisa was returning. Then he stretched out his leg, beginning to mover onto his stomach to crawl towards the pill, but was interrupted por his own subconscious. “Now this is interesting.” He stopped, his face dropping to the floor, the tile cool under his forehead. “If you take the pill, you don’t deserve her. If you secretly take the pill… you don’t deserve anyone.”
Hugh barely realized as he slowly let his eyes close that Anne was drifting off camera, out of the scene, as he braced himself for what was coming. Then he tensed his muscles, stretched his torso, and began reaching for the pill—
“No! No…” Lisa’s voice called to him from above and behind, and she dashed in, setting the glass down on the floor, and reaching out to support herself on Hugh’s back as she leaned down to beat him to the grab—but the bath mat had bunched up under him, and it caught her shoe, and down she went, still managing to close her hand over the Vicodin on the floor. atuação completely on impulse, and still completely in the scene, Hugh reacted; he rolled over on topo, início of her, forcing her onto her back, trying to grab the pill out of her hands, which were lying along the floor above her head from her fall. One of Hugh’s hands was por far large enough to pin her wrists together against the floor while the other attempted to pry the treasure out of her palm, when suddenly they both froze, realizing the position they were in.
Hugh stared down at Lisa, feeling her chest rising and falling underneath him, her lips slightly parted as she struggled to catch her breath. Their legs were tangled, and he was still holding her hands down forcefully. Intense eyes met and held for five interminable segundos before Hugh released her hands and palmed the floor on either side of her head to push himself up.
“Sorry,” he said, holding out a hand to help her rise. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No, I—I was the one who tripped, you just—”
“We’ll try it again, guys!” David called from off-set. “Lisa… maybe between now and seguinte season you could take some coordination classes?”
The crew laughed good-naturedly, but Lisa just looked at Hugh and licked her lips—her mouth had suddenly gone completely dry.
“Again?” He said inscrutably, and Lisa struggled. The scene? Or…
“Yeah. Again.” Her eyes were boring into his, and Hugh felt himself flushing as he turned away to sit back down near the toilet.
~*~*~
Lisa’s hand was firmly clamped against her forehead as she fought to get her key to work on her trailer door. All things considered, 11:30 was not a bad time to finish for the night, considering they had been thinking it would take them until the early hours of the morning to get everything in. Now the only thing to decide was whether she wanted to chuveiro here or just get início as fast as possible, and chuveiro and change and get into cama all at once—assuming she could stay awake that long. But when she entered her trailer finally, and tossed her keys on the table, she made her way not toward the chuveiro or toward her bolsa and car keys, but toward her couch. Everything in her screamed not to sit down; the chances of her getting back up were slim to none. Luckily, before she made it to the cushions there came a knock on her trailer door.
“Am I really even surprised?” She muttered, closing her eyes and turning to open the door.
“You don’t even ask who it is?” Hugh scolded her, ducking in and closing and locking the door behind him.
“Who else was it going to be?” Lisa asked tiredly, giving up entirely on even pretending she wasn’t exhausted beyond belief. She sat on the couch. “Everyone else has gone home.”
“So you assumed it was me?” Hugh stood in front of her, smiling.
“I knew it was you,” she shrugged, leaning her head back onto the sofá and closing her eyes. “I always know when it’s you.” She opened one eye, saw him still standing, and raised an eyebrow at him. “For God’s sake, Hugh, sit down before you collapse. I know you must be beat.”
Finally letting his true exhaustion show, Hugh dropped onto the cushion seguinte to her and laid his arm along the back of the couch.
“Sorry…” he started. “Feels like the only time I ever come here is to apologize.”
“Yes… it does, doesn’t it?” Lisa turned her head toward him but didn’t lift it away from his arm. “So let’s get it over with, shall we? I’m sorry for tripping over you, you’re sorry for squishing me… we forgive each other, yadda yadda yadda…”
“Succinctly put, Miss Edelstein.”
“Thank you, Mr. Laurie.” Lisa closed her eyes again. As much as she loved having Hugh there, speaking in his natural voice, relaxing for once… she was going to drift off before too much longer…
“Lisa.” Hugh was speaking so softly, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “You’re falling asleep. Don’t you want to go home?”
“Ugh…” she muttered. “I don’t know if it’s seguro to drive… have to be back in a few hours anyway… I don’t know…” Hugh stretched out his legs and started to pull his arm back so he could get up. “Are you going home?”
“I don’t think so,” he said after a while. “It’s so late, and like you said… I’ll probably just shoot David and Katie an email tomorrow; ask them to notify security that until these last few episodes are done they should be aware that people may just be camping out here. In the meantime…”
Lisa was starting to doze off again, and Hugh trailed off, watching her lips slowly part as she began to breathe deeper and slip into the darkness… Resting his elbow on the back of the sofá and his head in his hand, he observed his co-star almost empirically, calculating and scrutinizing and filing away every detail. She had slept in his house, and yet he had never seen her sleep.
“You’re gorgeous, you know,” he whispered, knowing that she couldn’t hear him, knowing that the words could not come back to haunt him. Lisa suddenly jerked slightly, her eyes springing open, her head turning quickly to seek out the presence that she immediately sensed in the room with her, and found Hugh still sitting seguinte to her and watching her intently.
“God almighty, Hugh…” she muttered, starting to reach up to rub her eye. “Oh… geez, I gotta wash my face or this makeup will be ingrained in my skin por morning. Hang on.” She set her hand on his knee to propel herself off the sofá and toward the tiny bathroom, and he heard the sink running. “Hugh, you can go to your trailer if you want, honestly, you should get some sleep! We’ll have a loaded dia tomorrow too…”
Coming back out into the main area, she stopped short to see that Hugh had stretched out on the couch, his head resting on the pillows at one end, his eyes closed, and the faintest whiffling sound coming from his nose.
It was easily the most adorable thing Lisa had ever heard.
She knelt down on the floor in front of the sofá and put her hand gently on Hugh’s shoulder. He rolled onto his side facing her, and opened one eye groggily.
“Hugh, why don’t you just stay here tonight?” She asked softly. “You obviously are falling asleep right here and now. We’ll be up and out of here before anyone comes on set; and even if I wanted to kick you out, I’m not sure you would be able to stand up.”
A steel blue eye narrowed shrewdly at her. “I can stand up. I could even get up and do a dance if I wanted to. I choose not to.”
“Yes, I know, you’re Superman, all powerful, I am Hugh hear me roar…” Lisa teased gently. “But tonight you are dead on your feet. Go back to sleep. I’ll grab a chair in a minute.”
As Lisa stood to grab a light blanket from the armchair, Hugh’s hand reached out blindly and managed to find her wrist on the first try. Lisa froze, turning to look at him.
“I’m not stealing your couch, madam,” he drawled.
“It’s fine,” she insisted.
“No. Come here.” Lisa hesitated. “I promise. I don’t bite. That’s strictly your domain, and I trust that I don’t have anything to worry about on that front.”
In the days to come, Lisa would wonder what had made her do it. Surely exhaustion played a large part. Lightheadedness… stress… the knowledge of what she’d have to face in the seguinte week or two… she gave in.
“Ok, fine…” her shoulders sagged even as she said it; her conscience was hammering against the inside of her skull, waving a ‘danger’ sign and blowing an air horn, but she just didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. “But you behave yourself, mister.”
“Scouts honor,” he said, pulling her down onto the couch. “Why is your sofá bigger than mine?”
The two of them just barely fit; Lisa was almost hanging over the edge until Hugh’s arm circled her waist, pulling her back toward him as he wedged his spine further into the back of the sofa.
“Hugh, this can’t possibly be comfortable for you,” Lisa said, snuggling the side of her head into his bicep as his other arm tightened its grip to keep her from tumbling away. “Honestly, I’ll just sit in the recliner…”
“I’ll have no mais talk from you, Miss Edelstein, as I am trying to sleep.” Hugh’s voice faded away into her hair, and a few moments later she felt his arm slacken a bit as his breathing deepened. Lisa smiled faintly, reaching out over the armrest to turn off the lamp on the end table, and then closed her eyes, resting one arm over Hugh’s and the other under the pillow.
Don’t go to sleep, don’t go to sleep just yet… she tried to convince herself to stay awake, just a few minutos more, just to enjoy what would surely never happen again; she already knew it was a bad idea. But it had already started, and the damage was already done. Now she knew what it felt like to be held, to feel his legs lining the back of her own, to smell the slightly stale mint of his toothpaste from before he’d come over…
It had been so long since she’d been in this position. Sure, there were “friends” before, people she could enjoy a casual fling with and then part ways with no hurt feelings on either side, but never had she spent the night in such company, with such incrível intimacy…
Lisa breathed in the unique scent of the man behind her one last time as she finally drifted into proper REM sleep, not to awaken until the seguinte morning.
Yes… the damage definitely had been done.
~*~*~
