A Prank Too Far

IIIIIIIgggggggggg…..

And death.

Should really, really, really, really, REALLY be in bed, but instead I got in from work and wrote this for y’all because I was inspired and peeps were so nice in their last reviews.

See? They do help.

Ummm…yeah, apparently y’all on adultfan LOVE Tawny so she’s the predominant focus of this chapter. I have no idea if I got the symptoms of PTSD right in this, or even portrayed a night terror accurately, but it’s artistic licensing if it’s wrong.

Hah, loophole.

Love and hugs, ciaooooo.

::hit the green button on your way out::


Chapter 19: Dangerous

Blood.

Lurid and red and sticky and all over her.

Whoever had said that people don’t dream in colour had obviously never taken a gander inside Tawny McQueen’s head.

She fought. She always fought, she didn’t know how to do anything else. Lying back and accepting it wasn’t an option. Couldn’t be an option. Her hands were tied though, chained to the floor behind her back, straining her wounded shoulder. The bullet hole ragged and seeping more blood. It was getting infected. Beginning to burn. She knew that it would soon turn septic and then she’d be in danger of losing her arm. Her blood though. Mixing with her friends’ on her uniform, caking in her skin, oiling in her hair changing it to a different shade of red. Seeping down over the white ban on her arm, bleeding over the red cross there. The same white band that had saved her from being executed like the rest of them.

The blood was thick on the floor. Inches thick. She’d had no idea that people could bleed that much. It must have been nearly a hundred litres by now. It pooled around her. The rats played in it. Scampering this way and that and chasing the ripples they caused.

The only still thing in the room was her comrades.

Their bodies slept around her. Throats gaping, some with their stomachs slit and shining sausage entrails spread over the floor. The rats picked at them, squeaking and fighting amongst themselves at the choicest cuts. The smell was horrific, the first couple of days it made her gag. Vomit until her throat was raw and there was nothing left to bring up then the joy of dry heaves after that. She became immune though. To the smell anyway. She had the feeling that she’ll never be clean again though.

The door opened.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

Light spilled over her, harsh and too damn bright, she slams her eyes shut. Pain stabs at her retinas. She twists awkwardly, hiding her face in her good shoulder as best she can. She knows it’s only going to get worse. Being left with them in their tomb is just the beginning of the torture. There’s still three more left to kill. She began to shake.

Shivering hard, her whole body trembling so hard her teeth rattled and her bones ached with it. She couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to. It was a distraction. Something to ground her in the real world, if her body still hurt, if she still shook, if she was still afraid then some part of her was still sane. If she was still appalled then she hadn’t gone mad yet.

It was her only benchmark, her only anchor in this dark hole of a room where they killed her friends, her team-mates and left them with her to see how long it took her to break.

They dragged on of them in. his uniform grubby and almost as bloody as hers. He hit the floor with a meaty smack, his head clattering off the concrete. The rats scurried away, but not far, they can smell their next meal. Waiting to tear at him with little red bites.

“Colonel?”

Oh fuck, it’s Benson. He was only eighteen. So like Lorcain, in personality and in looks. Same kind eyes, same laugh, they could have been cousins. She answered him quickly in French.

“Yes, Benson, it’s me. I’m right here.” She strained towards him, her eyes adjusting to the dark far better than anyone else’s. She could see that his arm was broken, compound fracture, bone sticking out of his elbow. He’d been beaten badly, his face swollen and misshapen, one of his teeth was missing, several fingers shattered, his foot lying at an odd angle. “Don’t be afraid.”

No need, really, it would all be over for him soon anyway.

“I’m not.” He rolled onto his back with difficulty and looked up with contempt at his captors. “These pigs can’t cook worth shit though.”

That earned him a kick in the gut.

He choked for a moment and she screamed at them. She strained against her bonds until she was in danger of yanking her shoulder out of its socket. The foulest curses she knew spilled from her mouth on a blue streak of invective in multiple languages.

The backhand across her face exploded white hot behind her eyes. She couldn’t remember how many times she had been hit like that in the last couple of days. It had all blended into one massive beating. She couldn’t tell where the pain ended and she began anymore.

They grabbed Benson by his hair and dragged him up to kneel opposite her, inches from where she knelt. His blood misted over her face with every ragged pant past his bloodied lip. Her hands fisted to knuckles behind her back, so tight the bones crackled. She knew what happened next. Knew there was nothing she could do to stop it. Knew there was nothing she could do to save poor Benson.

“Tell us what you know.” They loomed over her, familiar nightmares by now.

“I don’t know anything.” Tawny answered them as calmly as she could. Which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.

“He’ll die if you don’t tell us.”

“You’ll kill us all anyway.” She spat at him.

“Where are the rebels?!” A hand in her hair as well. Wrenching her head back until the muscles in her neck twanged. She grunted in pain.

“I told you; I. Don’t. Know.”

“You are killing your men.” The voice whispered in her ear. Low and sibilant like a snake. It made her insides clench and freeze all at the same time.

“Believe me, you dickless piece of shit, if I had that knife you’d scream for weeks and beg for death before I was through with you.” She snarled through her gritted bloodied teeth. All she had left was her defiance. She had, academically anyway, accepted the fact that she was going to die there, along with her unit. Thousands of miles away from her family. From Lorcain with his ready grin, from that stunning husband of hers and her baby girl. Her precious little Maddy.

She shut those thoughts down. She couldn’t think about them now. Couldn’t let them become a weakness. Couldn’t let them be used against her, they wouldn’t want that.

Another vicious slap cracked her face to the side. She spat blood, more than used to the taste of it by now. Hair was wrenched from her scalp and furled in a gentle curl down to mix with the blood on the floor.

“You must know something! Why were you sent here!?” He got right up in her face, his spittle flying over her cheek. She grimaced in disgust.

“I told you, we’re on a peace-keeping mission. Are you deaf or just stupid? How many times do I have to say it for it to get through that thick skull of yours?” She turned back to him, meeting him eye to eye, glare for glare, her pride would let her do nothing less and pride was rapidly becoming the only thing she could cling to.

“I will kill him if you do not speak!” The knife appeared, finally, twitching at Benson’s throat. She looked up and met his eyes. So young. He didn’t deserve to die like this. None of them had.

He gave the tiniest of nods, eyes hard as flint.

“Give the bastards nothing.”

She swallowed hard, knowing what came next, but never allowing them to think that they were in control, she would give the order. She looked up at her captors and said in her best Colonel’s voice.

“You heard him.”

The knife sliced. Whisper silent, not like in the films where it squelched and ripped. No, a real knife is much quieter than that, the drama of death in the silence rather than pulpy sound effects. Her head dipped and her eyes closed just as the first gout of arterial spray splashed over her face and neck. Just like all the others.

They let go of his body. Let him topple forwards onto her, smearing the blood deeper into her skin. They laughed as he fell twitching across her lap. Eyes staring up at the ceiling, mouth working once, twice, before gaping still and his eyes turning glassy like a doll’s. The light leaving them.

She held herself still. Painfully still. She had to wait. She would not let them see.

One of them kicked her hard in the stomach before he left. It was the one that wanted to rape her. She huffed as all the air left her lungs. His comrade shoved him roughly out the door. Apparently there were things even dictators wouldn’t allow. Raping medics was one of them, though she wondered how long that rule would stand if she continued to withhold ‘information’ . Tawny tried to gain her breath once more and was almost glad that he had stunned her. She was bent double until the door had locked behind them. She listened to them march down the corridor. Listened to the howls of the other prisoners as they were taunted by the passing guards.

Minutes passed marked only by the steady drip-drip-dripping of Benson’s life blood ebbing from his body and the scampering feet of the rats.

When she was sure they were gone. When no one but the bodies and the rats would hear her.

She screamed.

Screamed so hard that her voice cracked. Until her face turned red under the blood and then paled out whiter than a ghost. Screamed until her throat tore. Until she folded over herself and her forehead came down to rest on Benson’s rapidly cooling shoulder.

She screamed until she thought she’d never stop.

She was still screaming when she bolted upright in bed, two years later and thousands of miles away.


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Michael took the fist to his jaw in good graces but caught the next one before it slammed into the bridge of his nose. His huge hand engulfed Tawny’s smaller one and stopped her from unwittingly beating the living daylights out of him. Unfortunately it did nothing to calm her whatsoever. In fact, it appeared to do the opposite. She screamed and swore again, locked in whatever dark closet of her mind that the dreams took her to. She fought like a wildcat, she always had. She managed to rake her nails down his face again, narrowly missing his eye and nearly taking out his lip ring before he managed to pry her hand away.

“Tawny, wake up.” He wrapped his much larger arms around hers and crushed her to his chest. It would do nothing to calm her, but she was going to hurt him or, more importantly, herself, if he couldn’t contain her. “Wake up, love.”

She cursed again, fluently and at length. In several different languages, quite a few he didn’t recognise. She twisted in his grip and screamed in French invective that only Europeans can fully pull off, terrified out of her mind, but still able to cast aspersions on his parentage and accuse him of unspeakable acts with farm animals.

“Daddy…?”

Michael turned and saw Maddy standing in the doorway. Holding onto the tatty Bear with one hand and stretching up to clasp the door handle in her other hand. She looked terrified.

“Mummy!” She ran forward, confused, not knowing which parent was hurting who and tried to reach for Tawny.

Tawny’s eyes landed on her daughter, running at her, arms outstretched and panic flooded her face.

“AWAY!” She twisted violently out of Michael’s grip and sprawled backwards across the bed, scrambling away desperately. “GET IT AWAY!” She swiped at the air in front of her as if to bat her daughter away and Michael snatched Maddy out of the way before Tawny could break her in half. Something he knew she was perfectly capable of doing. She wasn’t pulling her punches. She genuinely thought her life was in danger.

“Lorcain, get in here and take your sister!” Lorcain was already running down the hallway.

“Dad, what the hell is going on?” Lorcain caught Maddy to his chest and glanced past his father to see Tawny huddled in the corner of the bed, hands fisted in her hair, rocking back and forth and muttering unintelligibly in French to herself in words far too fast to track.

“Take Maddy out of here and for God’s sake, don’t let her see her mother like this anymore.” Michael shoved his children gently down the corridor, turned back into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

Tawny jerked hard at the gunshot…no, not a gunshot. Her head snapped up and she frowned, her fingers loosening in her hair, sliding down the sides of her face and coming to rest on her knees.

Michael stood by the door, back braced against it, massive chest heaving with every breath. He was bruised. A split lip trickled blood onto his chin, nail marks raked down over one eye and his cheek through his tattoo and there was a hollow look in his eyes.

“Do you,” Michael started and then cut himself off. He shut his eyes and inhaled a deep and slow breath. When his eyes opened again his rarely seen and quite awful temper was blazing in them. “Do you have ANY idea what you’ve just put your children through? What you’ve just put me through?”

Tawny was shivering with no memory as to why.

She shook her head mutely.

“This wasn’t a rough customer, Tawny.” Michael pointed at his face. “That was you.” He moved towards the bed and she shrank back.

Wait. Cowering from Michael? He’d never hurt her. She wasn’t afraid of him. She straightened her spine, folded her legs under herself and licked her lips nervously. She fumbled for the glasses at her bedside and jammed the sunglasses down over her nose. Any barrier right now was a good one. She’d hide behind whatever she could get.

“I don’t remember…”

“Of course you don’t.” He sat down at her side and rested his hand on her ankle. Like he wanted to touch her, but was reluctant to pull her into his arms. Pain knifed through her at the thought. God, she was losing him, to this. To this of all things. This thing she had sworn she would beat.

“Michael…?”

“No, I’m tired of it. Of you suffering by yourself and lying to me about it. You’ve been getting worse for months and…for some FUCKED UP reason I allowed it. Well no more.” Something hard had come into his eyes and Tawny felt afraid. Not of him hitting her, he would never raise a hand to any of his family, but he could break her heart and right now it was feeling particularly fragile.

“Don’t…” She didn’t know what she was pleading for but she desperately hoped he did.

“I can’t do it anymore, love.” He reached up and cupped her face. She gripped his wrist, holding him to her. Clinging to him. “I can’t just sit here and watch you kill yourself over this. You’re falling apart and you refuse to see it. You weren’t ready to go back to work and I knew it, but you were wasting away just sitting at home, what the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Michael, it’s not your fault, I…”

“Shh, love. I know it’s not my fault but more importantly, it’s not yours either…but it soon will be.”

She swallowed hard. No, he couldn’t mean that.

“You need help. More help than I can give you. More help than you can give yourself. You need…Tawny, you need to go see a doctor about this. I know you hate being a patient but, Goddamnit, you nearly took Maddy’s head off a minute ago.” At Tawny’s look of utter horror he quickly moved to reassure her. “She’s fine, I stepped between you but she just saw her mother move to kill her and scream at her like she was a monster. Can you hear her crying in the next room?”

She nodded. Tawny’s eyes were bright, tears silvering at the corners of her eyes. Her head hung down.

“Oh God…!” She sobbed into her hand and tried to hold the sound back. He tugged at her wrist, pulling her hand away, making her cry out loud.

“You need this, love. You need to grieve. You’ve got to do something because…you’re dangerous. I might not be there the next time and then what? Are you willing to risk your children for the sake of your pride?”

Her head snapped up and rage flashed in her eyes. “How dare you even suggest…?”

“Well, it was your pride that stopped you from calling your son’s father for ten years.”

She reared back as if struck and laughed bitterly.

“That well never runs dry, does it?” She snapped at him. He didn’t react other than to tighten his jaw and steel his resolve. It was taking all his courage to screw up the nerves to say this. He was taking a chance. A massive gamble. He didn’t know whether or not she would tolerate what he was about to threaten her with.

“Tawny…you know I don’t care about that.”

“Then why say it?”

Fuck, he could never stand to see her cry.

“Because I need to make you listen. I need to make you know that I’m serious. I didn’t realise how bad it was until this morning but…you’re dangerous. To me, to our kids. Tawny, if you have another one of these episodes and come across either Cain or Maddy…you’d break them in half.”

She shook her head hard in denial. Tiger coloured curls tumbling wildly about her face and shoulders. “No. Never.”

“Yes, nearly today.” He gripped her shoulders and pulled at her until she was tucked into him, cradled against his chest and curled on his lap. He held tightly to her shoulders, never wanting to let her go and terrified that he might have to.

“Tawny, you need to do this because, if you don’t…” He swallowed hard and made himself say it. He had to. For him, for her, for all of their sakes he had to make her do this. “If you don’t get help, I’m going to go…and I’ll take the kids with me.” She clung to his neck and he hated himself when he felt her tears pour down over his chest.


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House lay in his bed feeling immeasurably content. His leg ached, but nowhere near the agony it had been last night and it was all to do with the curvy living electric blanket that he had sprawled over his chest and tangled around his leg. Her head was cushioned on his arm and his fingers were sifting through her curls. He enjoyed the silky feel of them around his fingers, but he’d deny it if ever asked. His other hand held a German medical journal and he was reading it intently, having been researching this particular article for several weeks. He was considering broaching the ramifications with his medical proxy.

As soon as she woke up that was.

She made a small sound and smooshed her face closer into his chest. The barest bones of a smile shaped his mouth and his arm slipped lower to curve around her waist, resting over low her belly. His jaw tightened as his hand stayed relaxed, rubbing small circles just below her navel with the pad of his thumb.

Holy shit, what if she was spawning?

Not just she, though, them. He couldn’t deny his part in this. Did he want to? It would be easier but…

But denying whatever they had begotten together would mean denying her and he didn’t particularly want to do that. Sure, it would be the easiest thing to say that she had got what she wanted and would be delivering a bouncing baby brat in approximately nine months time and that he wanted nothing further to do with it other than to help her out with the infamous second-trimester hormonal urges.

He’d never been the one to go for the easy route though.

He still didn’t know how he (go on, use the word you bastard, you’re old enough and ugly enough to have these conversations, even if it is just in your own head) felt about being a possible (this word too, go on) father. His own dad hadn’t exactly been winning awards for his parental skills. In fact, he had been a domineering, remote bastard who had alternately terrorised, brutalised and shaped his only son’s behaviour. House firmly believed that a great deal of his stubborn personality could be shared with his father. If his dad hadn’t been so determined to beat the individuality out of him, House never would have clung to it so strongly. That, in no way, meant that House approved of what his father had done to him or that he thought it had been a good thing. He didn’t know how he really felt about it.

To others it would have been abuse and to House it had definitely been hard…but he’d never had anything else. He’d never had a nice dad to compare his own father to. Essentially he’d never known any better and he supposed it was just as well. He’d been cynical enough as a kid without knowing what he was missing out on.

If he and Cuddy…propagated…would the kid be better off without him?

On the one hand, they would always miss out on having a father (they had fucking better anyway, if there was going to be any alpha male in the Cuddy Casbah it was freaking well going to be HIM) but on the opposite appendage, House’s own experiences had proved that having no dad at all could be preferable over a shitty one.

Which was worse though? House didn’t want to fuck up this, as of yet, hypothetical kid. He actually liked kids, as much as he could like anyone in the general populace, he supposed. In his view, they were the only honest critters out there. The world hadn’t had a chance to screw with them yet. He would hesitate to say that it was their innocence that he liked because that sounded a little too creepy, even for him, but it was the way they…didn’t judge. They didn’t have any preconceived notions. They were fresh little minds and he liked that.

He thought.

Damn, it was too early in the morning for this introspective bullshit. If Cuddy didn’t wake up soon he was going to have to stage an intervention on himself.

“Mmm…what’s Ketamine about?”

House jumped a little and jostled her with a disgruntled murmur from the back of her throat. Speak of the she-devil and she shall awake.

“It’s just something I’ve been reading up on.” He set the journal aside.

“How are you feeling this morning?” She was still have asleep against his chest. Slow to wake up, all sleepy kittenish and mussed. He couldn’t resist. He tugged her up and over his chest so she was sprawled over him, loosely straddling him.

“Hmm, that good, huh?” She smirked against his chest and his hands stroked down the shallow trench of her spine. God, she was gorgeous.

And all his.

For now anyway.

House frowned and brushed that thought aside. That status would not be changing any time soon if he had anything to say about it. He reached for her chin and tilted her face up to his. He had the intention of checking her pupils to see if they were dilated but somehow ended up kissing her hot and hard instead.

“Mmmm…” She purred into his mouth. “Good morning to you too.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and studied his expression. “What’s up?”

“You mean aside from the obvious?” He rolled his hips up against hers with a lecherous intent.

“That goes without saying. The trouser-cane is ALWAYS up.” She propped her chin on her hand and her elbow on his chest. “Seriously, you’ve got thinky-thinky face on.”

He thought about how to say what he needed to. For too long apparently. Her eyes dropped away from his and she moved to push herself away from his chest.

“Hey, if you don’t want to tell me then that’s fine…”

“No, I just…” He wrapped his arms around her torso and pulled her close. “Damnit, woman, you screw me in every which way, you know that?” He huffed at her.

“You know, I think I’m flattered.”

“She-devil.”

“Gimp.” She shot back and he grinned. Only she could say that and have it come of as affectionate.

“But hung gimp.”

“And stacked she-devil.” She smirked at him.

“True, true,” his hands quested under his stolen shirt and trailed ticklish and mischievous up her sides. She squirmed a little. “All true.” He mused.

“Stop distracting me and start talking.” She was trying to be stern but the breathy quality to her words had him smiling broadly and rolling her under him.

“Okay, you sure, my mouth could be put to so many better uses.” He demonstrated by kissing his way down her throat.

“House.” She gripped his head and pulled him up to look at her. “Greg.” She stroked his rough cheek and smiled softly. “I know you’re thinking about doing something stupid and possibly life threatening, that’s the only reason for that look being on your face, but I’d really like it if you’d tell me what it is. Give me a little time to steel myself against it. At the risk of sounding like a hopelessly feminine female…I’d like it if you’d talk to me.”

“Cuddy.” He reached up and pushed a stray curl out of her face. Studying the silky strands wound around his tapered fingers. “Lisa. It is stupid, kind of dangerous and maybe the tiniest bit life threatening but you ARE a hopelessly feminine female. It’s one of your best qualities.” To emphasise his point he dipped his head to her chest and rubbed his face there gratuitously. She chuckled deep in her throat in a honeyed sound that he liked. “And I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve finished sexing you down.”

“I’m not overly sexed up, you know.”

“I know, give me a chance, woman!” He pulled at the now joint-custody tee shirt and yanked it up over her head. “Honestly, kids today, SO impatient.”

She stilled under him and he cursed himself silently but at length.

“Lisa…” He didn’t know what he was going to say next but she saved him by putting a finger over his lips.

“Don’t, Greg, straying into dangerous territory. We can talk about that later. Right now, I believe there was some sexing up to be done?” She stretched her arms over her head and had the desired result of drawing his attention right back to her uplifted breasts. She watched his eyes glaze a little and realised that she’d accomplished her mission and put off a subject they both weren’t ready to broach yet for another little while. His head dipped down to her again, his tongue swirling around a nipple, her head kicked back and she moaned low and needy.

Crisis averted.

Dangerous territory clearly marked and mutual agreement of staying beyond its borders for the time being reached.

Thank god, now she could get down to that delicious business of getting sexed up so he could go to the trouble of sexing her down.

She smirked and wrapped her fingers in his hair on another moan.

Who said avoidance couldn’t be a good thing?