Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D. or any of the characters from the series.
A/N: Belligerent-road-pylon: Scallyoob. Yes, has a nice ring to it. ( – blows on knuckles and wipes against chest – ) Positively scallyoob. Why, thank you. :)
Chapter 8: Everywhere You Look
As House was closing the door, he could already see it happening. But it was too late. His once-razor-sharp reflexes were now severely lacking, and Cameron hit the floor with a 'bang' just as the door latched softly closed. House threw his bag down and dropped to the glossy oak beside her, putting all the weight on his good leg and using his arms to steady him.
"Cameron," he patted her cheek. She didn't respond. Using the wall for support, House pushed himself back to his feet and limped through the living room to the kitchen. He wet a rag with cold water, then hurried to return to her side. With his back against the wall, he slid all the way to the floor and struggled to pull Cameron closer.
Her face was colorless, her eyelids heavy. And she was drenched again in sweat. House straightened Cameron's limp and lifeless body, and brought her head up to rest on his lap. Brushing back the strands of hair that were sticking to her neck, he applied the wet rag and began dabbing it across her skin. The calculating side of his brain went blank as the instinctive side took over. His hands performed without thought, working flawlessly - with the instinct and art of a surgeon.
He blew on her skin where he'd left a trail of water, and continued gently wiping her face. Across the forehead, down the nose. She did have a beautiful nose. Fall to the side, trace a cheek, blow on a delicate ear. Over the jawbone, over the curve of her neck. It was a rhythm he wasn't used to. A sad song he'd long forgotten. But he knew what he was doing - like he'd done it all before. Maybe he had, in a life long ago. In a world he'd also forgotten.
A moan; she opened an eye. House didn't stop with the rag. And he didn't speak; only patted. Dabbed. Brushed, and stroked. Painted a pretty picture and imagined it coming to life.
The first thing Cameron saw was the ceiling, and the second thing she saw was blue. The pastel eyes of the painter. He was peering over her with concern on his face, and his left leg was under her neck. She felt it twitch. She felt his body jarring with the subtle movements of his arm. He was patting her face, and cool air was seeping through her pores.
House regarded her exhausted expression and met her eyes with his own. A shade of turquoise passed between them as blue settled deep into green. He moved a hand to the top of her shirt and Cameron did nothing to stop him. Unbuttoning the first two buttons, House parted the fabric with a thumb and finger and slipped the cold rag down her chest. Cameron closed her eyes. He removed the rag and blew a tender breeze down her shirt.
Cameron was falling away as soon as she felt his hand on her forehead. Three strong fingers to her right temple, one strong thumb to her left. They gradually tightened in toward her throbbing headache, and everything drifted away.
The hard, wooden floor went suddenly soft, and Cameron melted into it. She melted into House's leg. And she melted into his hand. Long, lazy, circular strokes - his articulate fingers massaged her. Massaged away her hurt, her fear, all knowledge of her painful existence. She didn't open her eyes; purity only lives in the dark. And this moment, for now, was pure. Hypnotizing - it felt so good. And that's when she remembered:
She wasn't allowed to feel good.
She groaned. "House, don't – "
"Don't take care of you? Why not? You're certainly not taking care of yourself." His voice was soft, but pointed. He was inwardly angry with Cameron for letting it get this bad. "When is the last time you ate something?"
It took a moment to register the words. Then another to come up with the answer. "Today . . ."
"Reassuring, to say the least. I take it you were never a telemarketer." His fingers continued massaging. "When today?"
She felt House's other hand make its way to the top of her head, and his fingertips graced her hairline. Cameron could feel her head impulsively rolling to the side, bringing her face closer to House's stomach. He was massaging her to sleep, and she secretly hoped this was a dream. One she'd never have to wake from. She could die right here under his elusive hands and never have to face tomorrow.
House could see that she was falling asleep on his lap. And he wanted to let her. He wanted to feel her heat on his leg as she drifted off to oblivion - as she took his mind and his spirit with her. To be anonymous and past the point of care - care for the trivial, the material, the ever-existent burden of consciousness - there was nothing more freeing in the world. And he wanted it. He wanted it with Cameron.
But he shook himself free of the blissful idea and concentrated on the issue at hand. "You didn't eat today, did you?"
She rocked her head back and forth in a 'no'.
"You should be aware by now that lying to me is useless." House's fingertips stopped moving, much to the chagrin of Cameron. Much to the chagrin of himself . . .
He stripped himself of his jacket and slipped a hand under Cameron's head. Removing his leg from underneath, he replaced the space with his balled-up jacket and went to find the girl some food. He hated to leave her on the floor, but she was obviously too weak to stand.
"I'd say 'Don't move', but – "
"Some things are pretty obvious," she finished the sentence for him, relaxing against his jacket.
Cameron's eyelids were closed, and House took the opportunity to smirk at her. Continuing on toward the kitchen, he called back, "I'm not that predictable, Cameron." A cupboard was opened and a can of soup pulled out. "I was actually going to say, that you probably couldn't move if you wanted to. You seem ever so slightly comfortable."
She didn't hear him. She wasn't listening.
Her face to the rain, her fists to the ground - the only thing she felt was regret. A surreal sense of pain that wasn't properly registering. Her mind was in shock. Her soul was in shambles.
That x-ray beside her foot - it meant something. Surely it meant something. That Rachel was supposed to die? That a sixteen-year-old had to close her eyes and accept something that couldn't be fixed? Something broken and wrong. Something cruel.
Disease may appear to be the culprit, but the only culprit was Cameron. She had robbed Rachel of the one thing the teenager had left to hope for. She had robbed her of a dignified death. Cameron was the chosen hostage. It was her that should have been in that car. It was her that should be praying at this very moment to a God she never knew.
But instead she was here on the pavement, crying to the merciless night, begging an unknown entity to take this all away. Broken. That's what she was. Not Rachel. Not House. It was her. And she was guilty. Her hands were stained in red.
"Hey," Cameron heard through her reverie. "It's not polite to fall asleep during a conversation. Even if it is a one-way." House was standing over her, peering down with a curious face. He tilted his head, pondering the glow in her eyes. The light on the ceiling. He reached over and turned a switch, dimming all the lights in the house. He was concerned for Cameron's headache. He looked back down. "Where'd you go?"
"Far away . . ." she whispered, more to herself than to House.
He wasn't sure what to say. "Right. Well, this bird's-eye view does wonders for the imagination, but we need to get you up. You can't eat laying down." He braced himself on the wall and held out a hand for her taking. "Well, you probably can, but your esophagus would forever hate you."
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Hours later - the smell of leather once again in her nostrils - Cameron found herself more relaxed than she had been since everything happened. Since before she stopped deserving it. Sometimes she felt that House was the cause of her pain. But tonight she felt that pain only existed without him. With a warm leg against her head and a soft blanket against her cheek, she felt strangely that peace wasn't so far away. That it was almost within her reach. House was like a drug to her system - blissful, barren and wrong. He was freeing and confining at once.
House had fed her and commanded her to drink some water. And surprisingly, she'd kept it all down. Images of a little, red Corvette - bloody and forever-stained - had seemed to drown in the warmth of her chicken noodle soup, and they faded to a lesser magnitude the longer she lay there relaxing.
He was sitting on the couch - the TV down low, the lights down lower, and the remote control in his hand. He made sure to keep it in his hand, so he wouldn't be tempted to touch her. To stroke her hair. To massage her temples. To run his fingers down her beautiful cheek. She was curled up on his couch - her head against his leg. He would call it snuggling, but that would be presumptuous. And irresponsible. And - even worse - true. He wasn't ready for that.
But sooner or later, he would have to be ready. Cameron would want to know why - why he did what he did. And he would have to tell her. Oh, sure - he could say that Rachel was a dying teenager, and that Cameron was a healthy, young woman. That one was meant to live and the other meant to die. He could easily justify his actions using medical terms and abstract words that would mean nothing to Cameron tomorrow. And it would be right. Completely right.
But this wasn't right and wrong. This was Cameron. And she was a grey area if he ever saw one.
He turned off the TV and laid the remote aside - a classic example of mindless impulse overriding rational brain waves. He wanted his hands to be free, unoccupied, available for other things. He wanted to be restless as he watched the girl beside him breathing. He wanted to remember what it felt like to fall away into the lonely soul of another.
He wanted to touch her and heal her and rub his aching body against her. And he still couldn't figure out why. He didn't love her; he didn't know her. But he wanted her. He wanted so badly to need her.
Cameron let out a tiny sigh, and House could have sworn he felt it vibrate though his leg. "Are you comfortable?" he whispered, hoping she was actually asleep.
"No," she returned the whisper.
House was confused. She certainly appeared to be comfortable. "Physically, are you comfortable?"
Cameron was quiet. And that's when House understood.
"It's okay to feel okay," House asserted in a low and gravelly voice. "It's not against the law."
"Whose law?"
"Mine." His tone was still soft. "Who the hell else's?"
"I'm not sure there is anyone else . . ." she slurred the words in her relaxation.
House picked up on her drowsy state. Content with himself, he smirked. "I guess that's a 'yes' on the 'comfortable' thing." He leaned forward to look at her face - glowing angelically in lamplight from across the room. Her eyes were closed, and her lines were softened.
Very carefully, he braced his hand on the arm of the couch and pulled himself to his feet. He couldn't help it; she called out the best in him. She unburied things he'd buried long ago. Lowering himself to the floor, he leaned his right side against the couch and stretched his right leg out before him. His face now less than a foot from hers, he could actually feel her breathing.
Cameron opened her eyes. She could feel his breathing as well.
"You don't like me any more," House stated. He wasn't looking for an answer.
"Do you have a fetish with the floor?" she whispered lazily. "That's three times now today."
"Apparently so. There's just so much of it. Everywhere you look - floor. It's irresistible." His face moved closer to hers. She didn't move away.
"Some people say the same thing about the sky," she breathed.
"And what do you say to that?"
"That it's not the sky. It's the ceiling."
"When you're outside?"
"Ceiling."
Her airy response tickled lightly on his lips. His mouth was six inches from hers, and he ventured to move it closer. "That can be very confining."
"Better to know your boundaries than to be shocked at the invisible fence." Shock was the right word. Definitely. Her respiration was turning shallow.
"Can't be shocked if you're not wearing the collar." His eyes drifted down to her neck. "And I don't see a collar anywhere on you."
"It's there."
"You've been shocked once or twice yourself."
"Once or twice . . ." She braced herself for what was about to happen. He was getting closer. Closer. Cameron didn't think; only parted her lips in anticipation. She closed her eyes.
House closed his own eyes. And he parted his lips. Closer . . .Closer. So slowly. So hesitantly. This was wrong. This was right. This was insane. He could taste her hot breath in his mouth, and for a moment, he lingered there. Imagining all the things he could do, if only he was a better man.
He pulled away from what might have been - just as slowly, just as hesitantly. Scooting himself backward on the carpet, he situated his face near her stomach. It was one continual gesture. He pulled himself up to his knees - resting all the weight on his good leg. His pinky finger curled around the edge of the blanket draped over her body and moved it subtly aside. A calloused fingertip to the bottom of her blouse, and the material drifted upward. He leaned his face in.
His delicate hand touched the side of her stomach, and his lips were soon to follow. Upon initial contact, he evoked a moan from Cameron. She hadn't been prepared. It wasn't really a kiss - it was more of a suggestive touch. Skin to sensitive skin.
He trailed his whiskers to her belly button, and a sound escaped his own throat. He was lost. Her touch was simply unbearable.
That's when the phone rang and both House and Cameron jumped.
