Pandering to Robert Chase's ego will never fail to buy you ten minutes with him. Denying it might just buy you a lifetime.
He knows Cameron will never want him as much as he wants her. Of anything in their relationship, that much has been clear from the start. The thing that twists unacknowledged in his stomach is the truth that this is why he wants her. The small clench of fear whenever she lets herself be recruited back to the old team, to the old boss -- that's what keeps him eager. The knowledge that he'll never get from her that soft, intent look bestowed upon the latest hopeless case to shudder beside a crash cart in the ER.
Oh, he's broken enough for her, he's just spent too long and invested too much effort in not letting it show. It started young, as these things always do. Couldn't let his father see that desperate need for validation. For praise, or some confirmation that his existence changed someone else's world. It would have been just another stick to beat him with.
His dad knew, anyway.
Couldn't show it to his mother and provide her with another reason for seeking solace in the bottom of a gin glass. If she'd ever noticed, the revelation would have been forgotten by morning.
He'd even turned to God, the ultimate in absent fathers, and spent years throwing out his needs into an unanswering void. It was never the ritual and ceremony that rang false; bread could be flesh, and blood, wine if he believed it to be so. It was the hope. His own, so urgent and unquenchable, too painful a thing to be passed on to others in excuse for an answer. The church was united not in God's love but in a love withheld, a reassurance never given. Robert walked away a failure, but his faith followed. Somewhere in the still, small places of him, he waits for epiphany.
Time built up his defences: a string of achievements and a predisposition to success fed the fire of an ego that might have been well deserved if it was ever more than a facade. He'd sing from the hymnsheet of his own praises and ignore the voices that pointed to wealth, and nepotism. Enough people sang along. Enough to give him regular, fiery doses of confirmation. He was good, he was right, he was what they wanted.
He never stuck with the singers for long. Flattery was too tempting to stay away from, too much of a lie to let linger. The ones that wanted him couldn't possibly know him, and in the interests of self-fulfilling this prophecy he'd never let them get the chance. One-night flings stacked up alongside his academic achievements in an undeniably impressive pile of kinks and specialisms.
[Cardiology and Intensives suited well that combination of focus and urgency by which he lived his life. The BDSM he'd fallen into by accident; taking control had been a rush and a lie, giving it up filled the gap left by the earnest supplication of prayer.]
He'd gone to House still chasing the approval of one man and left him having added another to the roster. A phone call and an interview in which his professional promise had come second to whatever was in his character that held interest secured him the fellowship at Princeton-Plainsboro, New Jersey and, strangely enough, the constant dismissal shown by his new employer did wonders for helping with the culture shock. The old puppy-pattern of responding to kicks by learning new tricks felt as familiar as the Melbourne skyline.
He wouldn't call House a father figure; his real dad had never hit him. House left him standing on his own two feet.
And now after all of it he's fallen in favour of one knee, in front of someone who he knows will never want him the way that he wants her. Who had finally talked him into giving up his faith a second time, before turning and gathering him back into the fold. Cameron will never give him everything he'll ask her for, and he tells himself that what he has is enough. His one drawer in the vast space of her heart.
But if he's going to spend a lifetime with her, it will be a life spent trying for more.