Disclaimer: DO NOT OWN.
Rating: Mature
AN: House/Cameron without the fluff, mention of Cameron/OC. Also, was originally posted at livejournal.
He called her Allison. It felt strange and foreign falling off his tongue. It had felt even more strange and foreign falling off her own when she had given it to him. A start to the letter C followed with the sound of am that she halted and shook her head, spoke again and let Allison fall off her lips.
He shortened it to Alli and she had to bite her lip to keep from shuddering. And then the worst of all worst things, Baby.
It wasn't going to work.
Not that she had really tried. The entire three months of the relationship she acted like a ghost, resentful almost. Mean even. She was changing and he was clinging onto the last bit of Allison that remained. She wouldn't let him phone her at work, she wouldn't make excuses for the late nights and the days she simply wasn't there. She was acting like House, she could see that, forcing this to its breaking point and seeing how much the poor boy could take.
"I could come with you, if you wanted," he suggested in the cold and silent room while she packed. He fingered her blouse on the bed, the one she liked the best with little flowers. She stood at her closet staring at a black dress that hung near the back, biting at her lower lip.
She shook her head, "no, it's a conference, I wouldn't have time."
Liar.
She hadn't told anyone she had started dating someone, least of all House. It was easier that way. He wouldn't fit into their world of smirks and snark. Of biting one liners and banter that she didn't realize she had the ability for before setting foot in Princeton Plainsboro. So it was easier to keep them apart. Allison and Cameron. Allison who could pretend to like to be called baby and Cameron who was becoming a face she didn't even recognize in the mirror anymore.
Somewhere in staring at the dress and biting her lip, thinking the thoughts that invaded her mind more than she wanted to, he left. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and told her to phone him when she got in.
It wasn't going to work.
She pulled the little black dress from its hanger and carefully set it on the top of her suitcase.
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The conference was in New York and she sat through hours of lectures that her mind couldn't focus on. He was sitting close to her, occasionally leaning in to make some snide remark, something snarky. Something entirely him that made it harder and harder to pay attention to the drone of a doctor talking onstage. They played tic tac toe in her notebook laying across her lap. They made their turns with X's and O's and both knew the secret to winning, the game didn't work. They played hangman, differential diagnosis for boredom. It felt like high school, and the scent of him next to her nearly drove her insane. The faint smell of cologne and cigars, scotch worn into the skin. His hand would brush hers occasionally, his arm warm against the side of hers. It made her head spin and she wrote a letter on the paper. N. The word became clear to her and she filled in the blanks, her little hangman still without legs.
Infatuation.
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He rapped his cane against her hotel door and she answered. In her little black dress. Low cut but knee length so it maintained some sense of being appropriate for a fundraising dinner at the conference. The material clung to her slender form and she had pulled dark curls up into a messy bun. The reaction was everything she had in mind. Speechless. Not unlike the poker night. Except this time there was no Foreman and Chase in the room, there was no patient dying down the hall and the need to work. She bit at her lower lip and his eyes roamed her body.
Want.
If you asked Allison where the courage came from to do what she did next she would have no answer. Cameron however, this new person she had become lately, would simply shrug and say she wanted to. Something in her was slipping, something in her was dying.
"He's changed you," Tritter's words came back to her as deftly slid an arm around House's neck, pulling him into the room and shutting the door behind them.
"Cameron..." he spoke quietly as she pressed her body against his pushing them against the now closed door.
"Don't," she shook her head. "Just give me this," she stared up at him, their gaze nothing short of intense. She knew he wanted her, physically at least and that was enough for her now. "No one has to know," she almost laughed, never breaking the stare down.
Allison would have wanted the romance, Allison loved the corsage and cried herself to sleep when the date fell apart. Allison would have wanted this to change everything. Allison would have wanted to fix him.
Cameron was content to have his lips press against hers. His tongue dart between them and tangle with hers, his hands everywhere and pulling, tugging at the dress as the want overcame them both. Cameron let him fuck her. It had been raw and she knew her body would have more than a few bruises and bite marks when the morning came. But it was what she wanted. It was as passionate and consuming as she had always thought, and when he came he called her Cameron, a low moan of a word that washed away every Allison and Alli and Baby.
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He glanced back at her as he moved to leave the room, the fundraiser long forgotten and unattended. He rubbed at his neck, and watched her on the bed, a sheet pulled somewhat over her body.
"This doesn't change anything." He nodded.
And she nodded. "I wouldn't expect it to."
He left. Allison's heart screamed out in agony but Cameron drowned it, cracking open one of the many mini bottles of vodka that lined the shelf of the room's mini fridge. On Monday she would pretend like nothing
happened. Nothing would change.
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