lawrence kutner had a life outside of work.

not a huge, time-for-forming-genuine-lasting-friendships life outside of work, but significantly more than he was certain any of his coworkers had.

like, he actually had hobbies. he worked so he could keep getting money for said hobbies- so he could keep getting money for building gundam, his ever-growing collection of comics, and the one-million-and-three streaming services he was paying for so he could even try to keep up with any one of his fandoms.

but he thought, personally, that his work-life-balance was pretty frickin’ good.

until you.

you’d been hired by house at the same time as thirteen, taub, and he. cuddy had mumbled something about your strengths as a team member and gotten four hired.

and he’d sort of clung to you.

you’d been the closest person to him during the whole hiring-game debacle- a sort of trio with cole, and when he’d been booted out for playing dirty you’d been a duo. hanging out after work, watching dorky movies he’d somehow convinced you were good- friends. good-old fashioned friends. he hadn’t had a good one of those since high school, really.

and as lawrence kutner tended to do, as he was famous and stupid for doing- he fell for you. head over ass.

maybe it was the attention you gave him. maybe it was the fact that you seemed genuinely interested in his little tirades, or snickered fondly and just- patched him up after even the most reckless of reckless stunts he pulled- but whatever it was, you had him wrapped around your finger. he was completely enraptured.

and it was obvious.

maybe not obvious obvious, not in the way that you could take one look at the guy and reailze how utterly gone he was in half a second flat, no, that was not kutner.

but obvious in the way that a certain gregory house could tell.

oh, how house loved ribbing him for his obsession with you. it seemed to be his favorite past-time in every sense of the word.

he’d call him back into his office just to interrogate him about it before he was sent off to do a test, he’d crack jokes about it in front of the entire team, you included, and he kept doing these goddawful matchmaking attempts where he’d make you two do every single test alone while the rest of the team just- just sat! twiddling their thumbs!

he loved this job. he really, really loved it- but jesus, he couldn’t stand his boss sometimes. as cool and admirable as he found house, he was seriously nosy.

but to give credit where credit was due, it was sort of working.

you’d been made to do another test together. another one. something about the patient starting to bleed out of every orifice he had or whatever, something that would usually have him completely focused on the medical shit, but- not right now. not when you were squinting at results beside him and looking far too good for being on the ass-end of a twelve hour shift.

he felt like he was fifteen again. his palms were sweaty. knees weak, arms heavy, vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghet- focus, lawrence!

jesus. all of this is to say that he managed to blurt out a request to catch a movie with him- in the form of very eloquent, “hey, man, do you wanna- come over, or something? not like- not like come over- or- or anything, but watch something. lord of the rings?”.

and it had fucking worked. he was overjoyed- because that meant, that meant that you were at his apartment. not like he was going to make a move, or something, no, but- still, it was something! he was spending time with you after work, and you were sitting next to him on the couch.

it wasn’t silent- god, no. kutner was chiming in with his two cents every few minutes, pointing out little easter eggs that he’d memorized months ago, making little quips, drinking from one of the two red solo cups on the coffee table that he was almost sure had been swapped about twenty minutes ago.

it was going well. and then, as he always did, kutner opened his mouth.

“did you know that he broke his foot in this scene?”

oh, fuck. he might as well jump already.