Title: T.G.I.F.
Pairing: House/Cameron. It's less a 'ship, more state of mind.
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Kids'. This takes you up to the last scene and then veers oddly sideways.
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House flips on the light and illuminates everything he is.
Standing behind him in the doorway, Cameron is a thin, blue shadow; looking around slowly, taking it all in. The last time she was here, and yes, he has to remind himself that she has been here before, the last time there was no opportunity for this. No introductions or niceties, or even an acknowledgment of the line that was being crossed. Last time he had opened the door and she, without preamble, had set about ruining his evening.
One of them is within my control
Crossing the room, House shrugs his jacket and shirt off onto the couch, picks up the remainder of a pint of Glenfiddich and makes straight for the kitchen to find a glass. He's downing the first blood-warm dram when she wanders slowly into his peripheral vision.
"You play piano?"
Her back is to him and he flinches as he sees her hand go out, reaching for the keyboard.
"Please don't..."
Deep within his dark, scarred Grand, a felted hammer hits a string. A-sharp. It could have been a lot worse.
"Do you want a drink?"
Half-turning her body towards him, she nods without smiling. Her hands are curious, turning the pages of the sheet music on the stand, she's simultaneously scanning the piles of papers that cover the surfaces, tilting her head. Looking for clues.
"Have you always lived here?"
Opening the freezer compartment, House contemplates the empty ice-tray inside before shutting it again.
"Define always."
"Since you've been at PPTH?"
"Since I've had tenure, yes."
"And before?"
"Strictly speaking, there is no life before tenure."
Her lips curve in acknowledgment of the joke, but she doesn't laugh. Setting the second glass down on the coffee table, House lowers himself in the waiting bosom of his leather couch and, after a moment's pause, lifts his leg up to rest beside it. She's got as far as the bookcases now, and has adopted the idiosyncratic stance of a person judging another by what they read. Half-smiling to himself, he stares at the bottom of his glass through amber. Wonders what she'll make of the dog-eared copy of 'Ullysses' that he's never yet managed to finish.
"Did you live here with her?"
The book she's slid out of the shelf is 'Sons & Lovers' and turning it over in her hand, she scans the back. Thoughtfully, as if she's considering reading it. And she's smart. Because she knows better than to look at him when she asks that question. House lets a mouthful of body temperature whiskey leak slowly down the back of his throat, and then sets his glass down gently.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Five years."
"Did you buy this place together?"
"No."
"But she moved in?"
"That does usually precede the whole 'living together' experience."
Cameron slides the book back onto the shelf. Fingers the spine of the next one. She's a study of relaxed calm and, watching her, he can't help but marvel at her skill, her ability to mask completely what she's thinking. Reaching for the bottle of Glenfiddich, he pours himself another, cradles it.
"What about you."
"Me?"
Her tiny start of surprise warms his belly. That he can still throw her a curve makes him feel surer of himself, less like a clam being slowly pried open by small, persuasive fingers.
"You were married. Did you live together long?"
Her face has gone stiff, the emotions frozen under the surface and House lets his eyes crawl over her, studying her lines, the curve of her back. Standing there in plain sight, she's trying to hide from him.
"We got an apartment after we got married. Before...we just..." her eyes meet his briefly, and the expression in them is guarded, shuttered. "I was still living with my Mom."
She's moved away from the books now. Running her hands over the layers of clutter on the top of the bookcase, she slides out a photograph, flips it over and studies it.
"He was your first love."
He doesn't mean the words to sound mocking, or bitter, but somehow the thing inside him, the thing that's always lurking there below the surface, taints everything he says. Lifting her head, Cameron regards him with a long searching gaze, and, for a moment, he thinks that she can see it.
"Michael" she says and the one word conveys everything; drops into him like a stone into a well. "His name was Michael. And yes. He was the first man I ever loved."
What she knows of life and what he understands are two mismatched halves, but he can't help but be fascinated by the disparity, by all of the words left unsaid. The air between them seems permanently charged, always waiting for the shift that will allow one or the other to move closer, and now, it is this. His question, her answer. His small sideways movement on the couch, her eyes settling on the whiskey in front of him. Crossing the room, she moves to his left side and picks up her drink, before folding downwards into the space beside him. With her back to the arm, she manages to make the twelve inches or so between them, seem like a chasm. Lifting the glass to her lips, she swirls the contents once, looking down into the liquid, before downing it in one.
"You know in Scotland, that'd pretty much be considered sacrilege."
House's own glass is still couched between his fingers, and, looking at her empty one, he reaches down to the floor for the bottle. Unscrews the top and pours her another. Slow soft gurgle. As she dips her head to it almost immediately, he frowns, pushes her hand back down to her lap.
"It's not Gatorade, Cameron, it's a single malt. Show it some respect."
His clock winds itself up and strikes nine. It's a sound he's gotten so used to that he barely notices it any more, it's become like his own breathing, but she notices and looks over at it. And then, more specifically, at the picture frame that sits next to it. It's incongruous enough in it's cheap Hallmark-gilt frame, but the fact that Greg House has a picture of freckle-faced eight year old girl on display seems bound to arouse her curiosity, so he answers the question before she can even ask it.
"My room-mate in college. He seemed to think that asking me to be his kid's godfather was some major honor. I wouldn't have humoured him, but his ex-wife hated my guts and I wanted to see her face when she opened up my christening gift."
"What was it?"
"Nipple rings."
"Oh...my...God!"
She's laughing, and he tries not to show how much he enjoys seeing it.
"In my defence, they were actually silver."
Her smile is a magical thing to behold. Pulling her legs up under her, she pries first one shoe and then the other off with her toes, settles back into his couch like she was meant to be there.
"But that's not the whole story though is it? It's just a symptom."
Her eyes have darkened, her tone becoming more intimate, and it takes him a moment to realise what she's doing. Who she's doing.
"You have her picture up. Room-mate isn't going to know about that, right? He never visits, why should he. So why the picture?"
House regards her steadily. Wryly. Curling his fingers around his glass. She's pretending to be something she isn't. Making light of something she knows she really shouldn't. And now he has a choice: to play safe, play along, or answer the question he knows she's really asking him.
"You want to know if I've ever wanted kids. If I feel like I missed out."
He likes that he's shocked her again. He should remember that. That candour is always the best way to wipe the smile off Cameron's face. She recovers quickly though. He should try and remember that too.
"Do you?"
"No." He shrugs, lays his arm along the back of the couch. "No. I'd make someone a lousy father."
His fingertips touch her forearm; slight brush against the fine hairs, but he feels the muscle underneath the skin tense. Her drink, held in the same hand, tilts and almost spills and, without a word, he takes it from her, sets it on the table. Her face, so open and raw one moment, is dark and closed in in the next and, when he moves in towards her, she drops her gaze. Moves back a fraction.
"...wait, this is..."
"Oh what? I'm moving too fast for you?"
Cupping a hand behind her jaw, House catches her lower lip between his teeth, but her resistance is real and, after a moment, he lets her go. Moves back into his corner. Her shoulders seem frozen and it's a good twenty seconds before he realises that she's crying.
His first instinct is to run. Her pale, rigid face with it's silent coating of tears seems all too familiar; because same couch, same room, same ice-sharp, brittle silence that he has no idea how to resolve, and the memory is suddenly a fresh wound again, reminding him of everything he lost once before through inaction. But this is Cameron, and Cameron is no Stacy, and this thing that exists between them is still new and mysterious and maleable . And he hasn't spoiled it yet. Not yet. And she, she hasn't lied to him and ruined him and ripped him open and left him to bleed. So he tries something he's never tried with her before. He tries again.
Her hand is warm and soft in his; the fingers splayed open, loose and hopeless, but, stroking the back of her wrist, her pulse point, he traces the faint blue of her veins under the skin. Slides his thumb up the inside of her forearm, feeling the width. She had ivory-pale skin, silken, like milk, but the crook of her elbow, the inside, is a translucent pink and the thrum of her blood under the surface is so strong he can feel it through his fingertips. Pressing down gently, his knuckles accidentally brush the side of her breast and he feels her feels her pulse-rate rise slightly. She's watching him now. Her eyelashes are thick and heavy with unshed tears, but she's breathing deeply, watching his hands as he moves them on her.
Her bicep, the sweetly, defined line of the muscles, is next. She's wearing shirtsleeves, rolled, and he has to push them further up to gain access, his hand moving underneath, sliding his fingers under the cotton material to trail down the underside. The hollow under her arm curves into her breast and, when his fingertips find it, he feels her shudder, her eyes flicker closed again.
Last time. Last time this part went fast. Too fast he's starting to realise. Moving his hand to the buttons of her shirt, he undoes only the top two, just enough to allow his hand inside. She rolls her head back and, with lazy fascination, he skates her collarbone, smoothes his palm around the ball of her shoulder and then her neck. There's a point just at the base, on the left, that he's fairly sure he remembers, and, when he finds it, she makes a tiny, involuntary sound that brings a rush of heat to his groin. Makes him smile and moisten his lips in anticipation.
She sees him, and her eyes narrow. "I can't believe how much you get off on this."
"On what?"
He feigns innocence, but his left hand? His left hand refuses to collude.
"On making me...squirm. Any way, any how. If you can't do it with words, you do it with your hands."
Her head lolls to one side as another button goes south. Pushing under the strap of her bra, he slides down, skimming the outline of her breast with calloused fingertips. She hums softly in the back of her throat, frowning, but he can't help but notice how the pulse in her throat is jumping now. Her back arching softly towards him. His other hand moves up to tangle in her hair and she mumbles something, soft and low, that he has to move towards her to hear it.
"How do you do it?"
"Do...what?"
His lips trace the same path as his hand did; along the line of her throat, down in the magic hollow at the left. His left hand is jammed down between them both now, supporting all his weight, as he leans into her. His leg hurts like hell, but inhaling her skin is like mainlining sunlight.
"Make me...want you..."
Her lips, when they finally find his, are still salty from her tears and he tastes them greedily. Her pain tastes different to his; sharper, sweeter, intoxicating and he has to remind himself not to drink to deeply. She's still pale and shaking, still full of whatever it is that she carries with her, whatever it is that is always lapping just below the surface, but for once, just once, the naked, all-consuming need in her eyes doesn't scare him at all.