Title: But My Head's to the Wall and I'm Lonely
Author: Shelli
Rating: PG-13 for two instances of swearing
Warnings: Post Informed Consent. Like, the weekend after it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to House, thx.
Summary: She's Allison. She's Cameron. She's never both at the same time because House needs to make the distinction or else he'll go crazy, or else it'll become something he isn't sure he can handle--but he wants it. It scares him.
But My Head's to the Wall and I'm Lonely
When his eyes are open and the sun is streaming in the windows of the office, she's Cameron. It isn't hard for him to make the distinction, to insult her or goad her or make her give him that sigh and he knows he's won. It isn't hard for him to walk by her without a second glance, to not notice that she's changed her perfume or that she got a new shade of lipstick.
It's when he lets his eyes slide shut as he lies on his couch in his apartment when she's Allison, dark hair curled around the fingers in his mind, and he's breathing her in as she's ohsothere and alive in his hands. And he doesn't do this sort of thing, this fantasizing about people he knows. Not for a while. Not since Stacy. But there are implications with that and he opens his eyes and sits to swallow some whisky and let it burn some sense into his mind.
He presses his hands into his eyes and sighs, tired, alone, hand closed around a slick bottle, bare feet resting on the cold floor of his apartment. He doesn't wear socks. He can escape through numb feet because that's something physical and external, but that's a jumbled part of his psyche he hasn't begun to decipher. He isn't sure he wants to. So he takes another drink and grunts and goes back to rubbing his eyes.
He's started to cast around for an idea of something to do, started to gear his hands up for a stint at the piano, had actually started to get up, when a knock falls on his door. It's only eight and he hasn't been out of his pajamas all day but he's tired and he doesn't want to deal with a fucking idiot of a neighbor. He runs a hand through his hair and turns away, limping toward the piano. Fuck whoever it is; they'll get the message when the music starts.
It's when a soft voice comes loudly through the door that he stops, turns, tilts his head. The knock comes again, a little more insistent, and then there's the voice again, drifting through the wood to fill his ears and the room and his surprise.
"House?"
He's gotten across the room with a few extended steps and he's pulling open the door even as a refrain of thisiscrazy starts playing in his mind. He's on guard; the ghost feeling of her hair on his skin, her lips over his, their bodies pressing together is hard to ignore but this is dangerous territory. She's Cameron when his eyes are open, even if he strains to smell the scent of her perfume, jumbled with shampoo and hairspray and just her somewhere in there.
He leans an arm on the door, raises his eyebrows expectantly. She came to him so he isn't going to say anything first. She shifts on her feet, pulls her hair behind her ear. It's when she turns her head that he can see the tracks her tears have left on her face and he wonders if she's addicted to them like people are addicted to heroin but he opens the door wider and steps back.
She crosses the threshold. Somewhere in his mind, House crosses one too.