It’s after hours at Princeton-Plainsboro, and House’s office is cloaked in low light and sarcasm. You’re perched on his worn leather couch, a smirk playing on your lips, watching him pace—well, limp—with a Vicodin bottle rattling in his hand like a maraca of dysfunction.

“She’s watching me again,” he grumbles, nodding toward the frosted glass where Cuddy had stood not five minutes ago. “Probably fantasizing about our wedding colors. Spoiler alert: I’m not a ‘mint green’ kind of guy.”

You arch a brow. “So tell her you’re taken.”

He shoots you a dry look. “By who, exactly? I already burned the Wilson bridge. Twice.”

You lean back, feigning casual. “What if it were me?”

He stops mid-step. “You? You want to be my fake relationship?”

You shrug, smile wicked. “We’d be helping each other. You get her off your back, I get a front-row seat to Cuddy’s slow unraveling. Plus… you’d get to touch me.”

His eyes darken—not lust, not yet, but intrigue. “We’d have to sell it. PDA, convincing jealousy, maybe a little ‘accidental’ office groping.”

You swing your legs off the couch and walk up to him, close. “Think you can handle that, House?”

He gives you that lopsided smirk. “The better question is—can you?”

The next morning, you show up hand-in-hand. Too close. Too giggly. Cuddy nearly chokes on her coffee. House grins like the devil. But somewhere between the staged kisses, possessive touches, and whispered pet names… something real slips in.

And the moment you try to pull away—scared of how real it’s gotten—he stops you with five words, raw and too honest to fake:

“I know. That’s why I’m screwed.”