Title: Don't build me up only to tear me down
Word Count: 1,885
Characters/Pairings: House/Cameron
Rating: Mild R
Warnings: Some mild smut and angst towards the end
Summary: Six ficlets inspired by six songs
Disclaimer: C'mon guys, if I owned House I would have better things to do with my time than wander 'round the intarwebs.
Author's Notes: Basically, I opened iTunes, pressed shuffle, and then wrote ficlets inspired by the first six songs that popped up. These were all done very quickly, though I went back and edited them afterwards. Songs: Your Misfortune, Dare You to Move, the Music of the Night, Come On, Lily Two, Summersong

I.

I can be the air you drink
Every single thought you think
I can be the right notion in the meantime
Warm you like the sunshine

Your Misfortune (Mike Doughty)

It's no secret that the pain is worse than usual today. He keeps rubbing his thigh and downing Vicodin like there's no tomorrow. The patient has been diagnosed successfully, and is well on the road to recovery; he should be celebrating. But, of course, he's brooding instead, teaching himself to juggle four paperweights at a time. He's solved the puzzle and he doesn't have to focus anymore. There are no distractions. Nothing to stop the sharp, steady ache in his leg. He's tried Vicodin. It only takes the edge off. He's never free from his injury. There's morphine, of course--it's a hospital--but Cuddy has seen to it that he can't get at any kind of anesthetic.

Of course she feels sorry for him. She cares, it's what she does. House whines and jokes and limps and thinks and watches TV and takes drugs. She just stands there looking pretty and caring. For him, for a young woman dying of cancer, for the nurse in Radiology who got hit by a car and broke her hip.

Cameron finds herself standing in the door of his office, silent. He glances at her, not welcoming her but not asking her to away either, so she steps tentatively inside. All of a sudden she is self-conscious, and her hands meet and clasp in front of her. He stops juggling and just stares at her, those bright, bright eyes boring into her. For someone who hates revealing his emotions, the hurt and misery in his face is all too evident.

"'We wear the mask that grins and lies,'" she says, and doesn't know why she's quoting Dunbar, but can't seem to help herself.

He chuckles. "Cryptic," he mocks.

Now she is standing right above him; he has to look up to meet her gaze. She reaches out and gently places one hand on his bad thigh and the other on his cheek, rough with stubble. Her fingers settle neatly across denim and skin, unmoving. He doesn't protest, just lets his eyes fall shut and exhales.

II.

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell

Dare You to Move (Switchfoot)

He tries to walk and stumbles from the pain. One step hurts, two make him wish he's dead, three he can't handle. He just collapses onto the ground, hand shooting out to massage the spot where muscle used to be. She hands him his cane and offers him a hand. He refuses, but she grabs him by the wrist and pulls him to his feet anyway. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

Her features are liquid and smooth, not like Stacy's. She always wore the same neutral expression, and once upon a time that drove him crazy, made him want to bite her bottom lip so that she would cry out in pain, rub her back until she shot him a contented grin. After the infarction, her detachment just made him angry and frustrated.

He can't help smiling a little when Cameron smiles, though, and realizes how far he's come. When she presses a Vicodin against
his lip, he places it in the pocket of his blazer and kisses her, because she's a better painkiller, these days.

III.

Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination

Music of the Night (The Phantom of the Opera)

When he can't sleep, he rides his bike. The feeling of the wind rushing past him in the darkness calms him, so that once gets home, shivering from the cold, he falls right to sleep. Tonight, as he steps outside, pulling on his leather gloves, he sees her, sitting on a bench across the street. Her eyes must be closed (it's too far away to see) because he is standing right in her line of vision, but she doesn't seem to register his presence.

If he was fully awake, he would have turned abruptly and gone back inside. It is three in the morning, though, and he's overtired. He isn't thinking straight. It seems logical in the moment to cross the street and sit down next to her. It is so dark that he can barely make out her features, the short nose and thin lips and long eyelashes. A streetlight halfway down the block sheds a dim glow across her slumped figure, illuminating one cheekbone and casting a dark shadow on the hallow below. When he moves closer to her to get a better look, she stirs. He expects her to scream from surprise, thinking he is some sort of creepy serial killer (which would be funny because she's the stalker, after all, the one sitting on his street in the middle of the night), but she doesn't, she just blinks and turns her head towards him.

Their faces are very close together now and he can smell something fruity (her shampoo, her suspects) and vanilla (her perfume, he knows, because she always leaves the scent in a room after she's left). One of them leans in a little, and he can feel her breath on his face. She is sitting very straight now, and her head is tilted back so that she can meet his eyes. He lets a hand slide across her waist momentarily. If this were a movie, they would kiss now, but it isn't so they don't. He stands up, slowly, neither of them breaking the heavy silence, and goes back to bed.

IV.

Tell me I'm what your hands were made for
Tell me I'm who your mouth was made for

Come On (Tegan and Sara)

She's never said it to him before. When she asked him if he liked her, he was able to figure out that she had some kind of silly crush on him. It would have been flattering if he hadn't been convinced it was all about the leg. And the drug addiction. And the broken, miserable soul. Even when she forced him to take her on a date, she never said it. She wore a beautiful dress and curled her hair but he still wasn't sure. Maybe it was just a crush. Maybe not. He couldn't make up his mind.

Now, though, she tells him, her voice low, her eyes dark. Even though he doesn't have much experience, he is pretty sure there's something wrong with telling someone you love them for the first time while you have them pushed up against a wall. But it's Cameron, so it only adds to his perception of her as damaged, just like he is. Her lips are hot on his while she fumbles to undo his fly and he knows she doesn't expect him to say it, too. As her fingers slide below his waistband, he moans into her mouth. That must mean the same thing to her, because she leans against him and drags her tongue along his neck in thanks.

V.

The night is fair
Lily it can promise that the next day there'll be
So much there

Lily Two (Matt Pond PA)

Her expectations are not very high. The last date was a disaster, and she has no reason to think he's changed. When he shows up in a navy blue blazer and Nike Shox, she tries not to be too disappointed, and tells herself no one will think it's strange that they're together, even though she is wearing heels and a tight dress and pearls. He's taking her out, and that's what really matters. But she can't help feeling a little bit like she wants to cry.

The opera is good, she loves Bizet, and the mezzo singing the part of Carmen (which sounds a little like Cameron, she muses) is excellent. Still, as they walk across Broadway, back to the garage, she feels empty and alone, even though he is walking beside her, his cane tapping a quiet rhythm on the cement sidewalk. Before they get into the car, he sweeps her into his arms (and cane) and presses his mouth to hers, and it is then that her heart swells and everything is perfect. She sings L'amour est in oiseau rebelle as they cross the George Washington bridge.

VI.

She's grand, the bend of her hand
Digging deep into the sweep of the sand

Summer arrives with a length of lights
Summer blows away
And quietly gets swallowed by a wave
It gets swallowed by a wave

Summersong (The Decemberists)

End was inevitable. He is not exactly renown for having lasting relationships, and the very fact that her fellowship was at its tail end when they first kissed doomed them to failure. Ideally, they never would have gotten together in the first place, but there had been so much tension that he'd felt like he was suffocating. Sleeping with her had seemed to be the only way to get rid of it.

Now, she is gone, and he refuses to admit to anyone that he misses her. But he does. God, he does.

It's worse than when Stacy left, because he'd hated Stacy (and loved her too, but what was important was the hate, because it made being alone easier). Cameron, though, he loves. He never told her, and now he thinks he should have, because now that she's on the other side of the country, head of her own department, it's too late. He is too content here in Princeton to move to Berkeley, and stubborn pride keeps him from calling her up and telling her to come back, please, he feels fucking dead without her.

On Saturdays, when there's nothing on TV, he Googles her and looks at her picture on the UCSF website and drinks himself into a stupor. Wilson tries to pick up the pieces of their broken relationship, but now House will barely even let him in. He calls hookers frequently, for a while. But then one has dark brown hair and skinny white thighs and reminds him of her, so he stops because the guilt is too great, and he is drowning in it.

Everything seems so wrong, so unfamiliar. All his routines are useless, now, now that she's gone. He tries to get himself back together, and he pours even more of himself into his job. Cuddy seems worried, but she knows she can't fire him, even though he's taking more risks than ever before, because that would be the last straw. He'd shoot himself, Wilson points out one day at lunch, and she feigns shock even though it's probably true.

Somehow, against all reason, June comes around, and she flies into Newark to visit. He picks her up at the airport and she is surprised by his fiery kisses but doesn't protest when he screws her in the airport bathroom. Then, too soon, it is September and she is gone. Next summer when she comes back again, she smiles at him but there is a ring on her ringer (diamond, pearl cut, set in eighteen carat gold). This is the end, he realizes, it's all over. That night, he lies in bed alone and wonders how much longer he'll last.