Title: Little Things
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: House
Summary: 'It's the Little Things that make up the Big Things. '
Pairing: Chase/Cameron, Cameron/House
Disclaimer: I don't own House. Go figure.
"Don't give me that. Don't tell me what I want to hear, tell me what I need to know."
He holds his breath and watches the way the shadows move on the floor, watches the way the papers on the desk move ever so slightly on the breeze, watches the way everything around him happens.
He doesn't watch the way House's mouth moves.
"What happened? Tell me what happened."
The cane makes a solid sound when it hits the desk. Chase turns his head away and the cane makes a solid sound when it hits his kneecap.
"You are not being paid -double time, mind you- to stand there with your eyes glazed. Think on your own time, talk on mine." He drops on one knee, the bad one, before House speaks, and he already knows what he's going to say.
"She says that you need to grow up." The cane makes a hollow noise when it taps on the floor, rhythmic taps, taps that match his heartbeat. Pulse erratic, pulse erratic.
"So she likes them older, then?"
"No, House, she likes them to act older. Preferably not seven."
Cameron walks past the glass wall. Cameron walks past the wall again. Chase watches, in the reflection of the window, as Cameron walks past the wall twelve times. House watches, though he pretends not to notice, as Cameron walks past the wall twelve times.
"Fair enough. So, who is old enough for our beautiful little goddess?" There were people dying at that moment, in that very hospital, and the cane makes hollow noises when it taps on the floor. This is not worth either of their time.
Tap. Tap.
"House, this isn't-"
Tap. Tap.
"I really don't-"
Tap.
"Fine! I'll talk to her again."
"My good little messenger. You would have served your queen well, young man." He ignores House, because ignoring House will get you a lot farther than Paying Attention to House.
Capital Paying. Capital Attention.
House pulls out a bottle with pills and Chase pulls out of the conversation, out of the room. Cameron pulls his attention, arms crossed around the same files she had on the first time she walked past the wall. "Is he angry?"
"He wants another chance." She is smart enough not to look into the room, where House is smart enough to be watching her. Chase watches her shoulders droop under the weight of his message, and thinking of it as a message makes him think of being a messenger. He is not a good little messenger. "We all want second chances, and for some reason he believes he should get his."
"Oh, he'll get his alright. Tell him that I'm free on Thursday night and-"
"I will not be the child stuck between fighting parents, Cameron. Go tell him yourself." Chase is smart enough to not want to be hit in the kneecap again. He looks to House, who looks at the way the shadows move on the floor, and Chase walks down the hall with only the smallest limp.
/
It's the Big Things that make the Little Things count.
Another fight. Always fights.
House said something Crude. House always says something Crude, but Cameron now wants everyone to know. Something Crude is ambiguous and is meant to make them all wonder, but none of them do.
Except Chase. He can't help but wonder if House had finally said the one thing that he Couldn't.
Crude. Couldn't.
The most Crude thing that House could have said would have been 'I love you', because it's the truth that is often the most disgusting. And House loves Cameron, and he loves her in a way that is Crude. Funny how important things seem when they are thought of in Capitals.
Love. Cameron.
House loves her body, and he loves her mind, and he loves her grace. Chase loves her for everything House does and more.
Love. Cameron. Couldn't.
Things get Complicated when you bring love into them. They could have worked seamlessly, all of them working together and there being no love, and then things wouldn't be difficult. People would still die at that moment, in that hospital, but then he wouldn't feel bad about it, because they would be doing something.
Something not Crude.
But he knows that House didn't say 'I love you', because it's the truth that is Crude.
But he knows that House didn't say 'I love you', because it's not love. It's something like love and like friendship and like hate and like need. It's something like the fact that they don't work, won't work, can't work.
But he knows that House didn't say 'I love you', because Cameron would have believed him. Because Cameron is Foolish, Cameron is Blind. Because Cameron believes in love.
Chase believes in love too, but he does not believe in saying it.
The first time she cries, Chase holds her. She says that it hurts; not the holding, but the crying. And he tells her that pain is irrelevant, and that they all hurt sometimes. She tells him, no, it really hurts, and he doesn't know what to say to that. So he holds her more.
The first time she drinks herself cold, Chase holds her. He finds her in the parking garage hours after she said she had left, hours after all of them should have left. Her keys were in her left hand and her tequila was in her right hand, and Chase checked her pulse and her heartbeat and her skin for marks. Normal, normal, nothing. Chase checked her breath. Everything.
The first time she kisses him, Chase holds her. It's early morning and they're waiting at the coffee machine, and she kisses him. Mouth to mouth press of want and need and sorrow. Want and Need and Sorrow. She kisses him and the coffee machine dings and she kisses him and his arms wrap around her and she kisses him and Foreman knocks on the door. She stops kissing him, and they drink their coffee in silence.
Something in House makes something in Cameron mad. Break. Come apart. She unfurls her claws at him then, and then curls up in the warmth of Chases' hug after. It's like a push and pull, and she relies on Chase like he relies on her.
But she says that she loves House, and he can't tell her what he wants. That she and House don't work, won't work, can't work. That it isn't love. Love Love. He can't tell her that love is just a mix of chemicals in the brain and a series of pointless actions.
He can't tell her that House doesn't mean it, and neither does she, even though it might be said. And that he does mean it, even though it never is said.
Never. Love. Said. Is.
It's funny, it really is. House hates her, loves her, leaves her, comes back, and she lets him. Lets him everything.
Even though he hurts her. Hurt her. Will hurt her. Always hurts her.
His mind is in repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
They don't count the time they had sex while she was on drugs. They don't count it because they don't talk about it. They don't talk about it, because that doesn't mean anything.
This doesn't mean anything either. This just means everything.
Constant touch touch touch. Constant smear of lips over shoulder blades and hips. Constant Constance.
Cameron tastes like absence and loss and peppermint. Hands on skin on clothing up and over heads and there's nothing like the feeling of two bodies pressing tight, square, hidden embraces in the middle of the night that make them both moan.
It's two in the morning, and Chase is pressing his tongue to her thigh, high and with a purpose and her fingers grasp the sheets tight, knuckles white, head thrown back. Everything comes in waves. Waves of idea, waves of thought, waves of pleasure.
Pleasure?
Cameron cried, and they held each other, and she bit his neck, the place where the neck meets the shoulder and they toppled to sheets and toppled to each other.
Now she's bucking hips up and his fingers trail softly down skin.
Pleasure?
She was crying because of House. Always House. Chase wants to get away from House. Always House. Because it's only because of him that they aren't together, like this, without tears. They only have sex when she cries, and she only cries when it's House, Always House.