Hi, folks! Yeah... I should have had this up a LONG time ago, but you know how it goes. RL. Heh. At least it's a longer chapter this time! And originally, Amber's song was supposed to be part of this longer chapter, which in my opinion would have made the title make a little bit more sense. Anywho, now that my daughter has started preschool this week, (Oh, the tantrums... so many tantrums. I was NOT anticipating it to be this difficult of a transition for her.) I should have a few more uninterrupted writing hours a few days a week. Keep in mind that I am also preparing to run small music/theater summer camps for the music studio where I work, and that will take *some* of that time on occasion. Yeah... enough rambling. On with the story!
Oh, shout-outs first... have to do shout-outs for my chapter 7 reviewers: IHeartHouseCuddy, OldSFan, linda12344, Abby, HuddyGirl, and Alex!
I would love some more reviews for chapter 8! Please and thank you :-)
Chapter 9- The Sing-Off
"Ok, and we're back folks! And it's time to have… Allison… come on up and serenade us with a song that will be perennially popular with any of you ladies who grew up in the '90s… 'Stay!' "
"Woo-hoo, yeah, let's go Cameron!" encouraged Thirteen, with her fellow females at the tables clapping in solidarity. The ER attending looked anything but confident as she reluctantly got out of her seat to walk toward the stage.
"You'll kill it, no worries," Kutner said brightly, giving her a friendly pat on the arm when she passed by him. She reciprocated his kind smile, but it was quickly wiped from her face when House decided that he had to put in his two cents before she even performed.
"Seriously? Lisa Loeb? Of all the songs you could have picked, you picked the sappiest, most cliché song of that entire decade?" he pressed disdainfully.
"Fuck off, House," she returned bitingly over her shoulder, the comment being the last in a long line of straws that had been lopped on her back that evening. Since it happened so infrequently, he appeared thoroughly shocked by his former fellow's callous comeback. The rest of the doctors did, as well, with Chase looking particularly baffled. For all of his demeaning remarks, it was truly rare for any of House's employees, friends or acquaintances to respond to his insults with such forthright derision.
"Was it something I said?" he finally managed, a hint of a gulp intelligible in his voice. Cuddy made sure to stare daggers at him as she went after the younger doctor.
"Hey," Cuddy tried, gently grabbing Cameron's arm before she could climb the stairs onto the stage. But she just yanked it away from her boss involuntarily, physically repelled by any kind of touch in her current state of mind.
Cameron sighed, trying to gather herself. Turning around and wiping away a tear, she said, "Sorry. He's just such a…"
"Dick. I know… they all are. We already had the obligatory 'men are pigs' conversation earlier tonight," Cuddy reminded her empathetically. In an unusual show of friendliness, she put her arm around the other woman's shoulders, pulling her to the side momentarily and offered, "And I don't know why Chase is being so damn oblivious…"
"How did you know it was him I was pissed at and not House?"
"Oh, please. House has talked to you like that a thousand times before… there's no way you'd go off and snap on him like that unless there was some other underlying issue. I've heard Chase's little remarks and seen what he thinks is subtle eye flirting…" Cameron laughed through her sniffles, "… with all those so-called 'hotties' here and there all night. Don't let him, or House for that matter, ruin your fun. Go. Sing. Kick ass, and make him eat his words."
"I think that might actually cause him to suffer multiple organ failure, with all of the arrogance he's got pumping through his veins."
"Well, maybe you can just replace some of that arrogance with crow and see how he likes it. Chase, too," Cuddy giggled at the observation, and Cameron finally allowed the corners of her mouth to raise slightly. "That's more like it. Bring it, girlfriend," she said, giving Cameron's butt an encouragingly platonic smack.
As she finally took the steps up to the stage, the D.J. joked, "I was about to send out a search party, I thought you'd lost your way!" Cameron just smiled, and approached the mic with a renewed sense of confidence thanks to Cuddy's pep talk.
Unlike her predecessors from Princeton-Plainsborough, Cameron chose to remove the microphone from its stand and hold it as the strains of an acoustic guitar capoed to accommodate Db major filled the bar. When she launched into the first verse, her eyes found Chase's and let him know in no uncertain terms that, in her mind, the lyrics spoke volumes to the current state of their relationship.
"And you say… I only hear what I want to…"
Finally focusing his attention on the stage, he quickly realized that Cameron's gaze was trained quite intentionally on him. Unfortunately for Chase, that fact was not lost on the rest of their group, garnering him a mocking sneer from House, a shaking head from Wilson, and a disapproving glower from Cuddy. Similarly as she had been with Amber, the latter was impressed with the unassuming strength in Cameron's belt, appropriately suited to the song she was singing.
Ironically, she and Chase had been on both sides of the song's theme of pursuit and rejection in their romantic entanglement at one time or another. He had begun as the pursuer, vying strongly for a place in her heart while she consistently avoided commitment. Presently, though, nearly a year after the surgeon had finally won her over, he appeared bored by the constraining minutia of the relationship's day-to-day emotional obligations.
In spite of her initial fixation on Chase, Cameron eventually allowed her eyes wonder the room a bit more so as not to appear too brooding. When she got to the part about the radio playing "her song," she just happened to register a typical eye roll from House, but also an unexpected, nearly imperceptible smile fighting its way from his lips. Amber appeared somewhat judgmental as always, but she could feel the waves of assuring vibes flowing from Cuddy and Thirteen's encouraging grins.
As her gaze flitted across their group, it was impossible for the blond doctor not to notice Kutner's soulful brown eyes regarding her with a depth that had never quite been conveyed to her by Chase's blue ones. Cameron felt the slightest flutter in her heartbeat as she took the necessary supportive breath for the phase, "Some of us hover when we weep for the other, who was dyin' since the day they were born." Kutner smiled pensively at her thoughtful interpretation of the lyrics. She wasn't exactly sure what she had been seeking from her relationships in recent years, but what Cameron experienced in that moment told her that something had indeed been missing. Before she knew it, the song had come full circle with the first line repeating as the last.
"And you say… I only hear what I want to."
Although the overall tone of the song was far more serious than the prior performances from the group of Princeton-Plainsborough doctors, Cameron's poignant rendering of "Stay" nonetheless garnered her an entirely wholehearted round of applause. With Cuddy and Kutner cheering the loudest, the ER attending took a slightly awkward and perfunctory bow, placed the mic back in its stand and started down the stairs of the stage to rejoin her tables. Cuddy met her first, holding her hand up for a high-five.
"Told you you'd bring it," she said knowingly, sharing a short squeeze with Cameron after their palms slapped in victory.
"I just put it all in the song," she responded with relief.
"And that's the perfect place for it! Much better than wasting the energy verbally assaulting what are essentially deaf ears."
"True story!"
"Hey, Allison…" Kutner began awkwardly, "… um, Cameron. You were… I mean, the song… was beautiful. I think you should definitely front some songs for the band."
"Well, I don't know about that… it's not really my call anyway. But thanks, Kutner," she replied gratefully, giving him a short but heartfelt hug. And finally, after an evening of attention-roving cluelessness, the younger doctor's attention to his girlfriend seemed to make a dent in Chase's thick skull. He decided that he'd better assert his presence before the mostly innocent flirtation became something more due to his inattentiveness.
"Gorgeous, m'lady," the surgeon murmured into Cameron's ear while he snaked his arms around her from behind. "You should sing for me more," he added with annoyingly slurred words, kissing her neck possessively and keeping a look out for Kutner's reaction out of the corner of his eye. As he expected, Kutner turned back to talk to Thirteen and Taub upon witnessing the display between the other two doctors.
"Really?" Cameron asked her boyfriend skeptically, giving his hands an almost platonic pat before untangling them from her torso. "It seems to me like I've tried a few times to get you out to do karaoke, but you always make excuses."
"But it's interesting how when I said, 'sing', you said 'how high,' " House haughtily interjected, walking a few careful steps in the crowded space with his cane to join the conversation. "And you…" he started, addressing Cameron, "… have a halfway decent voice, even if your taste in music lacks any… well, actual taste or depth. But we can work on that. If she was able to be rehabilitated from her inexplicable penchant for the poppiest of Pop, there's hope for you yet."
Cuddy could feel his stare burning into the back of her neck even though she was turned around talking to Wilson and Amber, instinctively knowing that his words referred to her. She turned around with her hands on her hips just so he would know that she had indeed heard his barb. Narrowing her eyes in challenge, he did the same, and Cuddy had a weird sense of déjà vu back to a moment on their flight back from Singapore the previous year. She had been so incredibly pissed at him for sticking her back in coach to compensate for his outlandish hotel costs, but so infuriatingly turned on by the electrically charged masculinity he exuded through his leer, nevertheless. Cameron, on the other hand, just shook her head at her former boss and finally allowed a wry smile in Chase's generally intoxicated direction.
"Ok, now that everyone's here, shots for everyone on me!" Kutner's voice cut through all of the conversations in their group. He laid the small, round bar tray down on one of the tables and his coworkers began grabbing eagerly at the liquid gifts.
Thirteen was the first to ask after observing the interesting layering of colors and smelling it, "What is this, exactly? It smells like… butterscotch schnapps… um…"
"Baily's too, I think," Forman supplied.
"There's something else too, though, I just can't quite put my finger on it," added Wilson.
"So let's get our tongues on it instead of our fingers and figure it out!" House exclaimed like a very big kid in an alcohol-laden candy store.
"I mean, I can tell you what's in it if you…" Kutner began, but he was quickly cut off by the expert puzzle solver.
"No! What's the fun in that? Ok, everybody drink on three… one, two, three…" counted House anticipatorily, finishing with a raised glass toward Cuddy and then Taub. "L'chaim!"
Everyone in the group took the shot like a pro, even those who normally would have sipped a bit more cautiously. The majority of the party's inhibitions, however, had already been drastically lowered due to the vast amounts of liquor they had already consumed.
"Wow!" Cameron verbalized through partially sucked in cheeks. "That was strong. But good!"
"So what is it?" Chase curiously asked, and Kutner looked at House expectantly before daring to answer himself.
"Whoever got the butterscotch schnapps and the Baily's… good noses. The mystery component is… drumroll, please… Midori. A melon liqueur… making this…" House thought for a moment, appearing to truly search his mind for the obscure answer. "… an Alien Nipple?"
Kutner laughed excitedly and came over to give his boss some tipsily playful punches on the arm. "No way, man! That's amazing!"
House half-heartedly swatted Kutner's well-meaning assault away, but not without leveling a subtle wink in Cuddy's direction. She returned it with a conspiratorial smirk; one of his favorite past-times in college had been wowing bar patrons with his uncanny ability to pinpoint the individual ingredients in mixed drinks and shots. And yet here they were in another bar, half a lifetime and half a country away from those days, still singing, still sharing little inside moments and the same underlying tension that had defined the entire span of their relationship, in all of its various incarnations.
Not long after at least temporarily positive relations had established themselves between their tables, the unendingly high-spirited D.J. interrupted, "We are really having quite the 'healing' evening here at Beasley's with all of the medical personnel we seem to have in the house. Can we get… Dr. Lawrence Kutner up on stage… or as I'm sure we'll all be calling him before the night's over… 'Mr. Roboto!' "
The more freely flowing alcohol did nothing to quell the over-the-top reaction of the table of doctors. While their response had been similar upon learning Amber's selection, any attempt at restraint had been forgotten in the wake of the latest round of Alien Nipples. Not one to normally shy away from attention, Kutner had a moment of doubt evident in his eyes. When he noticed Cameron laughing giddily at the prospect of his upcoming performance though, the reemergence of her smile bolstered his mettle.
Regaining his characteristically smiley demeanor by the time he took the stage, Kutner wasted no time preparing to ham it up for the bar's clientele with the cult-popular Styx song loved by nerds everywhere. As the synthesizer hailed its introduction, House could not allow the moment to pass without sufficient commentary.
"Aside from my group of bros, everyone I've brought has been one big walking, singing cliché," he remarked dryly to Wilson.
"Aside from your group? Oh yes, no one ever does 'Midnight Train to Georgia at karaoke," the oncologist snarked. "Just you."
"I didn't mean in that sense. In a hundred years, no one with the possible exception of our bodaciously-bodded boss would have pegged me for that song. The rest of these guys… I could have been given five guesses for the three of them and easily figured out what each of them would pick. Especially Kutner… a defective Magic 8-Ball could have predicted his choice."
"And why exactly would Cuddy know that?"
Before Wilson's question could receive an answer, though, Kutner conveniently launched into his first section of the song that didn't include the computerized Japanese backing vocals. Those at their tables who had been close enough to hear him singing during "Don't Stop Believin' " were hardly surprised at his ability, but having been at the bar, House hadn't been present to hear much of it.
While the diagnostician's reactions proved unflappable and understated in most situations, it was impossible for him to remain stone-faced during Kutner's downright uninhibited rendering of "Mr. Roboto." The younger fellow didn't merely sing, but presented almost a full interpretive dance of the song's plight of modern man against a society overrun by technology, thinly veiled in the guise of a glam-oriented rock opera. Anyone else could have easily overreached their theatrics, but Kutner maintained just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek to keep the lyrics' darker tones from overtaking his own artistic vision. House smiled in spite of himself; suddenly, he didn't mind the multiple comparisons to Kutner he had endured in the past several months. Once upon a time, in a land far away… the older doctor really hadn't been so different.
The rest of the Princeton-Plainsborough crew allowed more overt responses. Cameron was laughing so hard that tears streamed freely down her cheeks. Cuddy was nearly doubled over herself, her forehead precariously pressed forward against Wilson's upper arm, while his own shoulders shook with decidedly unmanly tipsy giggles. Thirteen yelled and whooped for her teammate openly with a freshly procured drink her right hand. Clearly having caught up in the way of alcohol, an uncharacteristically bombastic Taub did similarly at her side. Although they were more typically reserved, even Forman, Amber, and Chase appeared to be enjoying the performance.
When Kutner finished the dramatic ending with his proclamations of Kilroy, he was met with thunderous applause from the audience. His was the only ovation so far that approached the one received by House's trio, and that did not go unnoticed by the man himself. The D.J. could hardly be heard above the din as Kutner jumped enthusiastically right off the front of the stage so that he landed directly in front of his friends. All of the female doctors, with the exception of Amber, immediately mobbed him with hugs, and several of the guys offered a series of high fives and pats on the back. As the other performers had, Kutner looked toward House for some kind of feedback.
"Well, boss? Any words?" he asked expectantly.
"I don't know if your modestly was false or misguided before, or if you were fishing for some type of reassurance. Either way, you could have followed Cuddy," House answered a bit cryptically, but not insincerely. Then he added flippantly, "I have to take a leak. I'm gonna hurry up and go, because speak of the devil… and I do mean that literally…" House purposely brushed past Cuddy while he walked, adding "… because you're up next!"
The dean's eyes went wide at his observation, and she realized he was right. She hadn't done this away from the forgiving reflection of her bathroom mirror or the safety of her car in years; between the way House had talked her up and Kutner's ostentatious presentation, Cuddy only hoped she could deliver to the proverbial high bar of his expectations.
A/N: I based Kutner's crazy performance of Mr. Roboto, to the best of my ability, on a girl I knew in high school who had a whole routine worked out for it with one of her friends. I wish I could have gone into a bit a bit more detail, but there are only so many hours in a day, and I can only remember so much after all these years.
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