Title: Vicodin is for Lovers pt 4 out of ?
Author: revolution25 aka laurieisme
Summary: will later be House/Cameron. Between love and hate, Cameron and House find a happy in-between.
Rating: Teen right now, may go to Adult later.
Author's Notes: My first House fanfiction, but hardly my first fanfiction. As ever thanks eternally to my betavessybeta .
2nd Author's Note: If you don't know what Nathan's Famous is, I feel sorry for you. It's a hotdog chain on the east coast, the best hotdogs and cheese sauce, ever. AND forgot to say that there are vague spoilers in here for season two.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds profound)
Surprisingly, House had not brought up the subject of her husband, at all. She worried that it was because he was waiting for his opportunity to say something either really nasty, or in front of everyone.
He had ample opportunity, and yet, he never once brought it up. He teased her like normal, but never did he bring it up.
And it scared her.
Scared her because if he didn't make jokes out of it she wouldn't know how he felt about it. Not that she required his approval to feel anything, but rather that when she knew how he felt she could judge how much to resent him for that following week.
"How's the treatment working?"
House's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she rambled off on how all of the treatments were working and that the patient would be out of the hospital in about a week.
"What in the hell did you think you were doing!"
Cuddy marched into the sanctity that was the Diagnostics Department.
"Baking an apple pie, but it seems that I was actually treating a patient, the things you learn..." House said without missing a beat.
"You think you can just hijack the MRI machine?"
"The word 'hijack' in these times is a little insensitive, besides we did no such thing, we just temporarily stole it."
"Well do you think 'temporarily stealing' hospital property is in any way not against the law?" Her hands were now at her hips but House didn't flinch.
"But, but, Foreman taught me how." House said in his best depraved voice.
This made Foreman fume, but he did little else than fidget in his seat. He wanted to argue with House, but he wasn't going to be able to do that until Cuddy left the room.
"That's enough!" Cuddy said, "House, for that stunt, six more hours of clinic duty. And I mean you do them this time, no more of Chase doing all the clinic hours for you and Dr. Cameron."
"Hey!" Chase looked rather upset at House.
And seeing that most of the team was pissed off at House, Cuddy knew her work here was done. He was going to think twice next time.
"Was that why I was in the clinic for THREE days straight?"
"No, Cuddy was just saying that to tear us apart," House said dryly.
"That is just not fair!"
"Life's not fair, grow up," House said as he limped into his office.
Cameron speared her Nathan's Famous fry, and put the large piece right in her mouth. House was sitting across from her, and took a large bite from his hotdog.
"I think you were too harsh on Chase today," she said once she swallowed her food.
"Chase was whining like a baby, I may not have a choice but to deal with him, but I will not be nice to someone who whines." He said with his mouth full.
"I'd like to see you not whine if you had to do that much clinic duty." She said rather quietly, looking up from her fries with a smile on her face.
"That's different, I'm a cripple, I'm allowed to whine."
Cameron was in the middle of chewing on a fry, after she swallowed she said, "You are not a cripple."
"Tell that to the cane." He said as he lifted up as if she had forgotten it.
She felt like reassuring him that it wasn't that bad, but she was sure he would take it the wrong way, so they both stayed uncomfortably silent for a while chewing their food.
"I just think that you're going to have to live with the fact that Chase, and Foreman I might add, are going to be working with you a long time; it wouldn't hurt to be nicer to them."
"Yes it would, it would hurt my soul. Do you want me to be more like Chase and pretend to care about patients, and then go home and not loose a moment's sleep over their death? No, you want me to be more like Wilson."
"And what would it hurt if you were?" She asked feeling hurt that he couldn't even think of compromising.
He smiled a sad sarcastic smile, "You mean be enough involved with my patients that every other doctor thinks I'm some kind of golden boy, then go and screw any woman who isn't my wife."
"He's your friend," Cameron said astonished by his words.
"Perspective, Dr. Cameron, perspective. I may not be the nicest doctor, but everyone has their flaws."
Cameron didn't know when it started, but she thought it had been the day that Cuddy interrupted their normal workday, or at least that was near the catalyst.
House and she still talked, outside of work, as did Wilson and House, but at work he became more surly and mean to everyone, including herself and Wilson. He was calmer outside of work, but that wasn't lasting long.
And his bottles of vicodin weren't lasting as long as they used to.
Wilson had talked to Stacy, and apparently they hadn't fought recently, so the behavior was coming from somewhere else.
They were talking about the symptoms of the current patient, and right after he wrote down the last symptom, he popped open his bottle of vicodin.
Cameron unconsciously clenched when she heard the sound coming from his pocket.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked her as he put the pill in his mouth and swallowed.
"Nothing," she said not able to look him in the eye.
"Okay, how about everyone takes a five minute brake and leave Dr. Cameron and me to talk about this disorder she must have."
Chase left the room once he heard the word break, and Foreman reluctantly got up.
"What's wrong with you House?" she asked once she knew Foreman was out of earshot.
"I'm not the one clenching."
"But you are the one who's been acting mean, even for you."
"Trying to fix me Dr. Cameron?"
She felt as if with this single conversation he was trying to tear down the friendship they had built up recently. She was well aware of his self-destructive side, so this was not going to drive her away, but she was not about to sit around and take all the abuse he wanted to give to her. She would be around when he came back to his senses.
Cameron got up wordlessly, and had her hand on the door when he said, "Running away again I see."
"Deflecting everything again, aren't you Dr. House? Any pain that you're feeling is not going to go away just because you're repressing it. I'm going to go and help Dr. Wilson on his patient, beep me when you regain some of you're old composure."
He said something after she left, but she did not hear it, and she was not going to ask him to repeat it.
"So he just blew up?" Wilson asked.
He stood next to her as she sat in the lab, preparing a slide.
"He's been doing that a lot lately, I just couldn't take it. I hope you don't mind my coming here to help you."
"Not at all. Cancer is... well it's a lot of work."
"Is there anything, what could be causing House to act like this?" she asked as she stepped away from the microscope so he could look at the slide.
"He hasn't had a fight with Stacey. She reassured me, if anything lately... before the mood change, they were getting along as best as could be expected. Steve... his rat, is healthy. Everything seems to be going good, none of the patients dying..."
"He's taking more vicodin."
She didn't know why she said it aloud to him, other than it felt like she just needed to blurt it out or she would explode.
"Are you su-"
"Approximately thirty-three percent more."
Wilson looked at her bewildered, "How do you know that?"
"We work together all day, it's hard not to notice."
She wanted to add that when she met him after work she noticed it there as well, but Wilson was unaware of their friendship.
It's not as if they consciously decided to keep it secret, more that it just seemed to be the way it happened. Either seemed to be sure the other wanted to keep it a secret, so neither said a word.
Wilson got up from the stool and wrote down the information in his folder.
"Let's hope it's just a mood swing and he'll get out of it soon."
It wasn't.
A week later he was much worse than before. He was still helping patients, but it took even Wilson a lot of inner strength to not punch him in the face at times.
To top it off he hadn't shown up for work that day, hadn't even called in sick.
Cameron was beyond worry, she was pissed.
When she was finally able to leave she did, which made it about five in the evening, and she drove down to House's place as quickly as she could.
She got in with the spare key she had seen him use when he forgot his key, and when she opened the door two smells attacked her, one was the tangy after sent of alcohol, the other sex.
She feared for disturbing the latter, but when she heard snores she knew she wouldn't.
She hadn't realized it until one rolled down her cheek, but she was crying. She wiped the tear away harshly, not wanting to think, not wanting to feel anything about what must have happened. She entered his bedroom to see him sleeping peacefully. The look on his face was of complete relaxation.
Which made Cameron madder than hell.
She put on her 'happy to see you' face and helped get him up off the bed.
He was only wearing a pair of boxers, which would have normally made her blush, that of course would be when she wasn't so mad, now she was too angry to blush.
His nose was in the messy bun she had in her hair, "Mmm good morning Dr. Cameron." was barely coherent.
After struggling only with the weight of him, not with House himself (he seemed rather compliant), she put him down, then turned the cold water on in the shower on full power.
Once the cold water hit him he struggled against it, then seeing the person who did this to him yelled, "What are you doing?"
"Sobering you up. Now? I'm washing you." She took the soap from the soap dish and threw it at his head but hitting his shoulder. She then threw the shampoo bottle at him, which excited a yelp from him.
He got up, which was hard in the cold water and the leg, and tried to leave the shower, but she pushed him back in.
He tried this once more, once he learned he was not going to get past her he turned on the hot water and she closed the door so he could take off his boxers and shower.
She left him in the bathroom and went through his apartment and took all of the glasses and alcohol bottles and began pouring them all down the drain. She looked down, near the piano, and saw a cage. She walked closer and saw a rat-tail; the rat himself was hiding under the wood shavings.
Feeling very sorry for the animal she went into his fridge grabbed a piece of cheese, and put it in the cage. On her way back to the kitchen she saw a cabinet open, it was his liquor cabinet.
She took each bottle from it and dumped it, and as soon as the last bottle was gone, a bottle of Grey Goose, he came out of his bedroom wearing clean clothes.
He pushed past her and went to the bottle, but it was too late.
"Are you insane?" he turned to her dropping the bottle in the sink.
"I couldn't think of a better question to ask you. What is wrong with you House? You are spiraling down and no one seems to know why."
"Stay out of my life."
"Why? I'm your friend."
"Not anymore, get out."
"No." She stood closer to him, "A patient almost died today because of you, because you weren't there to help us. This has gone too far, whatever it is, and it needs to stop."
"Or you'll do what? Spank me?"
"Or you'll die." Cameron's voice faltered a little, but she was able to look fearless again.
Her outside body language was like an armor, but everything underneath was very breakable. If he were able to pierce it she may loose it right there, so she couldn't allow that.
His blue eyes were looking intently into her eyes, they were fierce, ready to hurt, "I slept with a hooker."
She wanted to react, wanted to vomit, but she could only just stand there.
"What do you want from me?" Her voice held almost no force whatsoever, "You want some kind of reaction, what is it?"
"Cry."
She was very close to faltering now, "You really want to hurt me?"
"Now, yes I do."
A tear fell down her cheek, "what did I do to you?" She was breaking.
"Nothing, I'm just a bastard."
She now noticed his game, and although she was still hurt, she was gaining back her own defenses, "Or you just want to shove me away. You don't want me near because you think I'm going to start to hate you when I know you. This way, if I hate you, you know it's not really because of who you are, and therefore you're saving yourself. I'm not going to hate you."
"Could you be that nieve? You really think that don't you."
"I may be nieve, but not about this, I know it." She smiled a weak sad smile then continued, "House, I can't fix what's wrong with you, you have to be the one to do it. Once you've done that... and tested for STDs, come back. I'll be waiting."
She left his apartment and went to her car. She sat there for a few minutes, hoping she did the right thing, hoping that she helped him in some way.
She wanted to suggest to Wilson to go over there, but any more badgering may make it that much worse.
So she sat and waited, waited for House to make a choice.