AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for the backsexy LJ challenge.
DISCLAIMER: Alas! They're still not mine. Go figure.
It is night and she is in the hospital. The corridors stretch out before her as she wanders ahead on her journey, her red pumps beating a staccato rhythm against the floor as her strapless red dress swishes around her pale bare calves. An unusual pattern of shadows and lights skitters across the walls, illuminating a spider web in a distant corner and causing a prickle to run up her arms.
She wonders how she got here.
A lone doctor walks purposefully down the hall, stopping only when he sees Cameron. "You gonna finish that?" he asks, gesturing toward her left hand.
She looks down and realizes that somehow, inexplicably, a fluffy cloud of pink cotton candy has appeared. Furrowing her brow in confusion, she looks up to meet the doctor's impenetrable gaze. "I . . . Why am I here?"
His expression is unreadable – mute – and she has the uncanny feeling that he is simply citing something that he has been told. "To unmask the truth is to fall. To fall is to suffer."
Something about the words cause her muscles to tighten, and she feels a tingle run up her spine. "What?" she asks, although she is beginning to understand.
"To fall is to suffer," he repeats. He stares at her for a long moment – those eyes somehow so familiar, so disarming – before he moves past her and restarts his purposeful stride down the hallway. Past the patients rooms, and the offices . . . into a corridor at the far end of the hallway.
"Wait!" she calls, moving hastily after him. She knows he has more to say. He just will not say it. Taking a bite of cotton candy, she opens the door behind which he has disappeared . . .
But there is nothing there but a vast chasm of nothingness. She gasps and holds her hands out to balance herself – she doesn't want to fall – and ends up stumbling forward onto the carpet in House's office. Her stomach sinks as she reaches out, attempting to grab onto something, anything to keep herself from falling.
And ends up grasping onto his hand.
Slowly, she looks up and meets his intense, cerulean gaze. "House?" she queries, a sudden extra thump sounding in her chest when she realizes that he is wearing his tux. "What's going on?" Her skin prickles from his touch.
"Go for a shut out," he says, dropping her hand and leaning back against his desk. "Can't let them get any hits."
"I hate sports metaphors," she replies, the words forming themselves before she has time to question the meaning behind his statement.
Before she can put thought to his words, he is talking again. What he says drives the question from her mind. "You don't love, you need. What I am is what you need. I'm damaged."
The words are like a knife to the heart, causing the recurrence of an unpleasant memory which richochets through her mind. "That's not true," she says, her tone coming out bitter. Plaintive. Hurt. Angry. Because she knows. Even in her dreams, he tries to wear a mask. She is tired of it all. "You're just scared."
Once the words are said, she can see the truth of the statement reflected in his eyes. Hidden beneath many shifting shadows, but there nonetheless. It makes her stand up straighter, taller. And she finds that she is repeating herself. "You're just scared. If you don't let anyone in – if you shut out the world – you don't have to feel."
"Feelings are overrated," he says. "Better to block the runs."
The way he looks at her when he says this makes her shrink back down to normal size as angry desperation emerges within her gut. But before she can open her mouth to respond, he is checking his watch. "I've got to run. I'm going to be late."
Before she can reach her hand out to stop him, he is limping from the room. She stares after him in hopelessness, in anger. She does not know when they first began to weave this tangled web, but she is beginning to realize that the main thread is ignorance. Ignorance. But ignorance can be bliss. Unbidden, she takes a step after him. And then another. And another. But before she can take the fourth, her dress snags on the edge of his desk and she begins to fall.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Her breath catches in her throat as the darkness surrounds her, engulfs her, fills every crevice and pore. Almost as if she has stumbled into the inkiest night, and there is no light by which to see. When she finally lands – on her feet, which is more puzzling than anything – she is in a library. A library?
She glances at the various inhabitants, noting with some interest that they are all people from her current life. Wilson and Cuddy sit at one table, Chase and Foreman at another. She raises her hand to wave, but then realizes that they do not seem to notice that she is standing here. They are all engrossed in some work or another, each with their own lives and not understanding the implications of the situation into which she has gotten herself. Feeling a little relieved (and strangely, a little disheartened), she turns instead to the books which make up the rows upon rows of the library. And glimpses a spider, scrabbling across a shelf.
She studies the small creature for a long moment. It seems to have a purpose, a destination, and she becomes intent on knowing exactly what that is. Her mind made up, she begins to follow after the skittering arachnid. Past one row of shelves and then several more, into one aisle and out of another, through the common area and into what appears to be a secluded area of the library.
She immediately stops in her tracks when she notices the man. So very familiar . . .
He is wearing nothing but Calvin Klein briefs and chewing on the stem of his glasses, perusing a copy of The Extreme Right. She gapes at him, wondering what he is doing in her dream. "I – I'm sorry," she says, backing away. "I didn't realize you were here . . ."
Hearing her words, he looks up and meets her troubled gaze with his vibrant, intense blue eyes. House's eyes. But they are gazing at her from her husband's face. "Robert?" she questions, taking a step toward him. She stops when he speaks.
"Read less," he says, the stem of his glasses still dangling from his mouth. "More TV." And then he is going back to his book, and she is left staring at him in distress as yet another memory starts playing in her mind.
They like you. Everyone likes you.
Do you? I have to know.
No.
The memory causes her to close her eyes and take a deep breath as an ache settles in her chest, the words richocheting in her mind. And then it gradually simmers into frustration, which paves the way for annoyance and then anger. Anger at him. At herself. At this ridiculous situation that they seemed to have concocted.
Tangled threads lead to chaos.
Chaos leads to a wicked web.
But eventually the web begins to unravel. What has started must come to an end.
And then he is there. "Everybody lies," he says, his tone casual.
She opens her eyes at the words. Her stomach muscles tighten when she realizes that he is wearing those same Calvin Kleins. His taut chest framed by so many fine dark hairs, his muscular arms curved and toned, his expression penetrating and almost readable. And her own eyes drift down to that thin scrap of material, and her stomach muscles tighten that much more.
Her breath catches in her throat as a heat ignites in her belly, fueled by so many months – so many years – of lust and . . . something else that she is not yet ready to admit. But before she can reach out for him, before she can touch him, she is crossing her arms over her chest (she is still wearing that same red dress) and words are spilling from her mouth. "I'm over you," she replies, and her blue-green eyes blaze as she locks eyes with him. "I've jumped on the bandwagon. I hate you, okay?"
But if anything, the words cause his smirk to grow. "Liar," he states, stepping closer and reaching out to run his hand along her bare arm. His touch makes her shiver, and she has to fight with herself to remain angry.
"You're pleased," she says, only it comes out more as a gasp as he leans forward and grazes her ear with his teeth. "You think you've proven every marriage is a mistake."
"Do I look pleased?" He grins against her ear before turning his face so that his lips just barely brush over her own.
Her breath is coming out ragged now, and she's having trouble remembering that she's supposed to be angry. "Ignorance is bliss," she breathes, just before she finally succumbs and falls into the kiss. It is heated, urgent, making up for all the months – the years – of flirtation, of deprivation, of need. And suddenly he is pushing her up against the gigantic bookcase, running his hand down her leg and pushing his tongue into her mouth, heatedly caressing her own. Twisting, twirling, tasting. Consuming. A mewl emerges from deep within her throat as her desire for him begins to grow . . .
And then the floor is shifting, melting, transforming under her feet, and the books are falling away. Before she knows what is happening, the library is gone and she is back in the hospital. Wearing her lab coat and sensible black pumps. And House, wearing his usual wardrobe of jeans and t-shirt, is breaking the kiss.
"What . . ." she trails off, still reeling from the feel of his lips.
"Hide the aces," he says. "Can't let them find out." And with that, he relinquishes his grip on her thigh and takes a step back, his features once again masked.
The gesture, the words, cause the ache to return. She opens her mouth to protest, but before she can do so the floor is dropping out from under her feet and she is
Falling
Falling
Falling.
She wakes up in her bed, sweaty and disheveled, the bedclothes tangled around her body in a twisted jungle of cloth and blanket and the dream still prevalent in her mind. Taking a deep, ragged breath, she attempts to calm her racing heart and make sense of what she has just dreamed. In the end, there is only one conclusion. Gregory House is definitely starting to get to her. And eventually, she is going to fall down the rabbit hole.
Nearby, a spider crawls across her windowsill.