Title: Scorn and Jealousy
Summery: Chase has a secret.
Disclaimer: I don't own HOUSE. If I did, so many things would be different.
Author's Notes: This came to me one night after lurking around the FOX HOUSE forum, and just pondering the 'what ifs'.
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I have a secret.
I don't know quite how to tell. I've kept it for almost a year. This secret gave me something, a chance at something more. It also gave me House's scorn, and I could live with that. Along with, it brought me his jealousy, and that almost the verbal darts easier to take. Almost.
I didn't sleep with Cameron. She thinks I did, but she was high, and only possesses a few fragments of a splintered image of the night. Tumbling, kissing, grabbing and grinding are the pictures her mind has. Some are accurate, and some are illusions perpetrated by the adrenaline and the drugs.
I came in babbling about how glad I was that she had changed her mind. She'd attacked me, trying to pin me against the wall, her movements jerky. Her sentences were uncharacteristically garbled. She clawed at my shirt. Every word, every action, every move was not her; not Cameron.
She bit me. In her frantic grabbing and grappling, she bit me. I jerked away, hands on her upper arms, my index finger and thumb nearly spanning their tiny circumference.
We kissed again, minus the teeth, and I could feel her calming. I could feel myself calming. And then it happened. In what harlequin novelists would call a lustful whisper, she said, "House."
That hit me with harder shock than the bite had. I wasn't a first pick; I was a stand-in, an understudy. She didn't want me; she wanted him. She wanted that crusty, cantankerous old bastard.
She tumbled on the bed; as in my surprise I released her. The hold she'd had on me was transferred to an overly large pillow, and the feeling of rejection weighed heavily on me. Again she murmured, "House."
What made her want him? What did the sulky, Game Boy playing, pill popping, sarcastic, mean ass have that I didn't? Why would she choose him? Especially when he was so obviously caught up in his old flame. Why would she call me if she wanted him?
I lied. To her, to him, to them all. Omission to them, directly to her. I told her we did it, had sex, and it was good. In reality, she fell asleep clutching that damn pillow after one final whisper of his bloody name.
House's scorn and his jealousy. Because he thinks that I've tasted what he wants, but can't bring himself to take. All he'd have to do is arrive at her apartment; touch her, kiss her, and he'd have it. He'd have her. The lucky bastard.
Yes, I lied. And yes, I have a secret. If she were to find out the truth, I can only imagine the ramifications. If he knew the truth; that I don't want to think about. But my secret gives me something, a leg up, pardon the pun. This is because of what he thinks. He thinks I've had what he wants. And, in a way I have. But I know the truth. She didn't want me, she never has, never will. She wants him.
The lucky bastard.