A/N: Hope you enjoy :) Reviews would be lovely! :)
Letting them both into her apartment, Cameron flicks the light switch before asking House what he wants to drink. She does so merely to break the heavy silence that has followed them in from their tense elevator ride up to her floor, and she waits expectantly for an answer. In all honesty, she doesn't think another drink is wise. She can't speak for House, but her own mind is a little hazy with the Jim Beam and the wine from earlier, and this, mixed with the obscurity of their evening, is putting some pretty strange thoughts into her head.
"Bourbon."
He replies, helping himself to a seat on her sofa. She nods and pours him a healthy measure of Jack Daniels, not bothering to ask him how he takes it. She's seen him help himself to the stash he keeps around the office enough times to simply add a couple of cubes of ice and bring it over.
House accepts the glass with a loaded stare, capturing her attention and keeping her momentarily trapped with his gaze before taking a sip of his drink. He considers telling her that Jack Daniels is barely fit to consider itself a beverage, let alone something one might offer a guest, but he is actually a little surprised she has anything of the sort in her apartment at all. He supposes it makes sense, given that he knows from overheard conversations that she and the old gang still spend a fair amount of time together, and he would imagine something like JD might be right up the wombat's street.
Chase. Or any other men she brings back here.
The thought sits oddly with him and he pushes it away. Looking up to where she still hovers in the kitchen he growls gruffly
"Aren't you having anything?"
She opens her mouth to tell him that she's not sure if she should before stopping herself. She imagines this might be the sort of thing House will mock her for- calling her overly cautious and sensible and all of the other things she supposes she is, but wishes she wasn't- and in the end, she pours herself a couple of fingers of gin and takes a seat perched on the coffee table in front of him.
"Cheers."
She smiles dryly, eyes flickering up to the clock in the kitchen and making it to be getting on for one in the morning.
What is this? What are we doing drinking so late?
Maybe I should have suggested he call a cab.
She frets silently, nursing her gin. It hits her hard as it chases the Beam downed in the bar, and she grimaces before admitting apologetically
"I've never been that great with mixing my drinks. Help yourself to more, but I'm going to sip at this one."
"And they say doctors are supposed to be wild after hours..."
House laments, but he doesn't push further. He's fairly surprised she'd kept up with him back at the bar, especially as he's sure he'd tasted wine on her tongue when he'd kissed her.
When I kissed her...
Studying the blonde intently, he takes in the wary cast of her expression and sighs.
"I can't decide which I dislike more..."
"Hmm?"
She raises a brow inquisitively, and House downs the remaining amber in his glass before limping over into her small kitchenette to retrieve the rest of the bottle.
"The looks you give me."
"What looks do I give you?"
She frowns, but wariness and unease increase in her eyes and he shakes his head as he falls back onto the sofa opposite her and nips from the neck of the bottle.
"Mostly it's hope. You look at me sometimes like a child hoping for praise."
"Well, I worked under you. I was trying to do a good job. I just-"
"-No. The others were trying to do a good job. To earn a few gold stars. You wanted more than that."
"I wanted validation for my work... You made me work harder than the others for that."
"Sometimes."
He admits, seeing no use in denying it. He'd liked making her work for it. He'd liked seeing how much she could take before she cracked. He's not proud of it, but he's not oblivious to the fact either.
"The hope you showed me was something I knew I couldn't give you. Sometimes that angered me and sometimes it irritated me. I never liked it when you looked at me that way, but I found myself... Lacking it. When you left."
"...Do you miss me?"
She asks quietly, and the silence that follows is long and dead and still.
"What's the other look I give you?"
She asks eventually, accepting that she's not going to get an answer, yet wondering if his lack of response might be just as telling as the words he will never say.
"The opposite of hope. Resignation."
"And you don't like that? You're a misanthropist. I would have thought you'd find resignation healthy."
"It is when it's warranted."
"You think my resignation that you're going to try and make me feel like crap if there's any way that you can is unwarranted?"
"I think the fact that you stick around given that you'll admit that's what you expect from me is unhealthy."
"... I quit. Remember?"
"I do. And yet... Here we are."
He opens his palms out to her as though in defeat and she frowns. She wants to tell him that it's a bit fucking late for a psych session. She wants to ask him why he's telling her all this. She wants to ask him why- just why- he treats her the way he does if he cares for her the way he sometimes seems to.
"You didn't have to come home with me."
She reprimands softly, and he wishes she wouldn't say things like that because he's still not entirely sure why he's come here himself. The soft fall of her curls and the familiar angles of her body- always leant in just a little; open, attentive... offering- answer this question as well as he presumes it can ever be answered and he leans back into the pillows and pops a Vicodin between his lips.
He chases it down with bourbon and waits for her to scold him.
She sips at her gin silently, watching the ripple of his throat.
Her teeth nip at the glass as she waits for him to say something, and he thinks back on the girls at the bar and the way they'd looked at him.
Pity. They all look at me with pity. Or thinly veiled disdain, if I'm lucky. But, they know me there, or at least, they know my type. I don't wear the coat, but the late hour and the pager clipped to my jeans reek of doctor. They look at me and see a one night stand and a meal ticket. Some might even dig the cane thing. Mostly though, it's the wage bracket they're seeing and the clear image of a man who has no better option waiting for him anywhere else. They see an old, bitter man. They see an easy pass to whatever medicine they require for their own damage; a finger up to daddy, a free drink, an end to a dry spell, or of course, just medicine itself.
I disgust them in some mild, unimportant way, and that's good, as it's a mutual disgust.
You've never looked at me that way...
No. Cameron has never looked at him that way. He's not sure if that makes her a saint or a fool.
Perhaps a little of both.
Remembering the way the girls had then looked at the blonde- assessing, judging, rejecting- he smiles as he contemplates the bottle in his hand and asks curiously
"Were you popular in school?"
"...Why?"
"Why the deflection?"
"I'm not de-... No. I know that probably surprises you as it doesn't fit into the picture you've painted of me, but-"
"-It doesn't surprise me at all."
He grins, and she frowns in confusion
"Then why are you always going on about my social privilege and butterfly effect and whatever else?"
She asks, actually remembering the exact term he'd once used perfectly well, but not wanting to say it.
Circle queen. Spoken like a true circle queen, he'd said. And that had stung.
"Oh, you have all the right parts of the puzzle to have been popular. You're pretty. You're skinny. You're... Does it require anything else in high school?"
He mocks, and she simply narrows her eyes; not about to jump to whatever bait he's trying to lay out for her. Shrugging at her lack of response, House continues
"You have extra things too, though. You're smart. You're logical. You're naive."
"Clearly we had different high school experiences-"
"-Well, unless you also slept with the entire cheer team, and let me just say, I would-"
"-Naivety was pretty strong in that crowd."
She shuts him down smoothly. He carries on unfazed
"Sure. If we're talking street smarts. Now, you're no Foreman when it comes to those, but I would have fired you years ago if you had none to speak of at all."
"Yeah, well, I had to learn fast once I realised breaking and entering was going to be a large part of my job."
"So corrupt."
"The very worst."
She smiles thinly, and he nods as though in agreement and points out
"I didn't mean you were clueless. Maybe that would have made things easier for you to fit in with that sort of person. I meant you were- are- emotionally naive. You expect the best out of everybody because that's what you give yourself. In a world where it's survival of the fittest and every pretty girl is a shark waiting for a gossip feeding-frenzy, you would have been a very small, very cautious fish. Am I right?"
"...Well. It beats some of your other analogies. And it's a fun step on from mammal comparisons I suppose. I can't wait until your picking apart of my character reaches a reptilian level."
She sighs and he smirks at her indulgently, suddenly understanding why it is he's never rid himself of her despite knowing it would be better for both of them if he did.
Rewarding her sarcasm with a hint of something besides that, he asks her casually
"Were you intimidated by the girls in the bar earlier?"
"House."
She warns, throwing him a warning glance to suggest she really isn't interested in playing into his wish to dissect her much longer.
"I wouldn't ask if I didn't find your answer interesting."
He points out, and she pulls a face that says it all.
Sure. But interesting how? Interesting because you want to know how I feel, or interesting to pull apart and latch onto? Interesting to use for later ammunition.
"No. I wasn't intimidated. I just felt out of place."
"Underdressed?"
"Over-dressed. Different. A different style or whatever you want to call it. They look at you and they see a guy to go talk to and get stuff from-"
She says it slightly apologetically but with a hint of shy defiance, and he swallows as she's hit the nail on the head of his earlier thoughts perfectly.
"-they look at me, and they see a lesser version of their species. I'm not saying that's how I feel, just that that's what they see. I have no wish to look and act like they do, but it's still uncomfortable to be scrutinised for daring to walk among them."
"Hmm."
House offers, intrigued by her answer. Looking around her apartment and its tasteful, low key decor, he smiles.
"Is it strange? Going from one world where you're Queen Bee to the other where you can't connect?"
"No."
She sighs, reminding him patiently
"Only you see it that way as it gives you grounds for ridicule. I was never Queen Bee working for you. I just happened to be the only one on our side of the glass with a vagina."
"There you go making bold claims again, Dr Cameron."
House warns, and she grins, sipping at her gin with a shrug
"Who knows. Maybe I'm wrong."
Miming shock, the greying doctor offers her a conspiring wink before pointing out gruffly
"You may have been a strange and exotic creature with breasts- sort of- back when I owned you, but now you're just one of many. Now you spend your day surrounded by a swarm of cotton-candy pink worker drones. You're still the Queen Bee down in the hive of the ER. They flock to you."
"Flamingoes would work better with 'flock'. And I'm Head Attending. They 'flock' to me for work."
"Some of them. Some have their own work agenda. I'm not talking about who's in charge of what clipboard. I'm talking about simple magnetism. They flock to you- swarm to you, whichever you prefer- because you're the prettiest girl in the room. It's pathetic, but it's human nature."
He shrugs, and she contemplates her gin pensively, wishing for another shot right about now and knowing it would be a bad move.
"You think I'm..."
She trails off. She can feel herself blushing and hates herself for it. She searches for something caustic to throw back at him to continue their recent banter and dispel the sudden awkwardness that has reached new heights between them.
House waves away her failed efforts with a blunt affirmation
"I think you're the prettiest girl in most rooms. I've told you that enough times... Now, with Thirteen around, it's an interesting battle for the title, but-"
"-Why do you say things like that to me?"
She interrupts him quietly, and he opens his mouth to give her an impatient answer before noticing with some surprise that she looks hurt rather than flattered at what had been meant as a simple expression of fact.
"You don't want me to tell you I think you're attractive?"
"... Not tonight."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Would next Wednesday be better?"
He sarks, and she looks up from her glass at him angrily and calls him out
"How about just not on a night where you've berated me, assaulted me, and given me a rundown on what you think of me?"
"I was trying to-"
"-Well don't. You've tried and succeeded plenty. Please. The last hour or so has been nice. Could you just for once- just once- not ruin that?"
"I-... Sure."
He agrees solemnly, glancing down at the bottle in his hand and placing it slowly on the table beside the blonde.
"I wasn't trying to ruin anything. I was just making some observations."
"I know... It's just usually your observations sting a little."
She admits with a small smile, and he steeples his fingers under his jaw and regards her thoughtfully.
"You have to be just about the only woman that would find being called popular with her peers and attractive a barb in their side."
"Women are complicated."
She smiles thinly, mimicking his earlier sweeping statement of men only wanting one thing. He nods and says with an audible note of admiration
"You certainly always have been."
"I guess. But I wouldn't say that I am right now... You're right, you've called me attractive a number of times in the past, but always as an element of something bigger; either to mock, or to hurt, or to pick me apart. It was never just to be nice, or because it was at the base of what you were trying to say. It was always just a part of some larger analysis."
"...You want me to simply tell you you're pretty? To make such a pointless observation with no deeper thought?"
"It would have been nice, yes."
She laughs quietly, appealing to him wearily
"For a long time, I would have liked you to just be nice to me. But you're right. That's not how you operate, and I guess it's not what I need either. I no longer want that from you. I don't expect it... But sometimes it can still hurt a little, because it was something I really wanted from you. I just wanted you to like me."
"I do like you."
He admits, surprising himself and throwing the bottle that rests beside her a distrustful glance.
"...I know. I guess that's just not enough for me."
She admits after a long stretch of silence, and he regards her intently as she meets his eyes cooly, and he thinks back on how she'd tasted like wine and iron, and how her blood had smeared the bathtub. He thinks back on how she'd trembled with rage against him in the lab, and how she'd answered the door to him in her pyjama shorts and smiled.
He thinks on what she'd said earlier; that she's offered herself to him.
He thinks of all the hundreds- thousands- of ways this could go wrong, and reaches forward for her hand.
She studies him quizzically, looking down at where his fingers grip firmly at her own, before her eyes widen in surprise when he pulls her up and towards him assertively.
"House..."
She appeals warily, but she moves her weight onto him with a careful avoidance of his thigh that speaks of a coherent assessment of the situation and results in her sitting almost flush against him.
"You told me to stop treating you as though you might break... Am I going to regret it if I do?"
He asks her gruffly, fully aware of the physical reaction her new position has awoken in him as he looks up into green eyes sternly.
Her answer is a long time in coming- silence drawing out between them almost like a living, injured thing- but when she finally gives it to him, she does so with a slow brushing of her lips against his, and he takes this as an affirmation to proceed.
He takes it as a cue to open Pandora's box.