Disclaimer: T'aint mine.
A/N: Once again,
thanks for reading and reviewing. Your encouragement means a lot. There
is no financial gain or glory in writing this. I am in the process
of posting this fic at LiveJournal, where I have an account under the
same name. Feel free to visit me there and read my journal, too. I do
write entries about "House" and about my philosophy of writing "House."
Rating: This is rated T for some explicit sexual terminology.
She wakes first.
For a moment, she's disoriented. Then it all floods back. Her late night visit to House's office, where she found the man practicing his own form of pain management, the foot massage she gave him -- a spontaneous gesture, and their subsequent trip to Deuces for drinks and a pizza. She remembers challenging House to a stare down, and losing a bet.
Sunlight strains the seams of the slated drapes. A strip of it crisscrosses her face. She blinks and squints. A damp spot on the cotton case means that she has drooled on House's pillow. If med school and work as a doctor has taught her anything, it's that sleep is a commodity: take it when you can get it.
Apparently she has done just that. A clock on a bookshelf tells her it's after two. She's managed nearly eight hours. It's practically a record. Most Saturdays she's up at dawn for a six mile run. This isn't most Saturdays. Most Saturdays aren't proceeded by Friday all-nighters spent hanging out in pizza joints with House, then "crashing" on his sofa.
She rubs her eyes and sits up. Near the clock on the bookshelf there's an object she recognizes. Throwing back the plaid coverlet, she slips from the couch and pads over to examine it. In a blue pot, a cactus grows. It has been placed strategically for optimum sun saturation, she notices. A tiny note card is propped in front of it.
House,
Merry Christmas. This reminds me of you. Feel free to improvise on the metaphorical significance of this gift. Your constantly caring subordinate,
Allison Cameron.
Seeing it, she grins. With its prickly surface, tough skin, and cocky stance, it's House all over again. And yet it's attractive. The base of it is green, but it has extensions that are pink and yellow. Its form has a pleasing symmetry. Despite its considerable appeal, the plant keeps you at arm's length. If you get too close to it, you might get hurt. Instructions that came with the cactus said that it tolerated neglect.
The fact that House has kept the note and hasn't killed the cactus touches her. Is it a sign of a sentiment House rarely reveals? Or just something that makes him laugh.
She tiptoes over to the piano. Books are haphazardly stacked on top of it. A collection of the poems of W.B. Yeats catches her eye. Picking it up, she sits down on the piano bench and opens it. There's an inscription. In a loopy script, it reads,
For Dr. House, who believed in my sanity against all odds. Gratefully, Lucy Palmeiro
Cameron smiles. She remembers the case of the woman who they thought had schizophrenia. Lucy's craziness had fascinated House. Once they discerned that her problem was copper poisoning, he'd lost interest.
House had a penchant for finding out what made people tick, as if each was an equation. Cameron often wondered what his psych rotation had been like.
A few of the poems in the book have been dog-eared, but she's not sure if it was House or Lucy who marked them. At one of the poems she pauses, caught by these lines, which have been underlined:
We sat grown
quiet at the name of love;
We saw the
last embers of daylight die,
And in the
trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by
time's waters as they rose and fell
About the
stars and broke in days and years.
I had a
thought for no one's but your ears:
That you
were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you
in the old high way of love;
That it had
all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
It's been years since she's read it.
Actually, it was her husband who had read it aloud to her. An English major who hoped to become a writer, John was a mild-mannered studious sort who hated sports and loved literature. He wasn't effeminate, or even pretty the way Chase was, but he wasn't chock full of testosterone, either. It was his tender heart and not his physical prowess that had drawn her to him. Of course not long after their marriage, his cancer had really kicked in.
Cameron was a little sad to realize that a few days had passed since she'd thought of him. Since she'd started working at Princeton Plainsboro, there was little time to daydream, and when she did, she felt like she was cheating on John's memory. Her psyche was occupied by treacherous thoughts of House. House had a way of crowding everyone else to the nooks and crannies of her mind while he took up the forefront. And the thoughts were anything but benign. They were the kind that made her glad that no one could read her mind -- thoughts that made her feel guilty about her extreme level of sexual attraction to the man.
The main thrust of her relationship with John had been affection and friendship, not lust. The sex hadn't been as good as she'd expected. She hadn't thought sex would matter as much as it ended up mattering to her. And before that, her experience had been limited.
Things were different now. As a doctor, scientist, and lab rat, and as a curious, intelligent, passionate woman, she thought about sex, a lot. She was still mildly embarrassed by the time she'd cornered Chase and went on and on about the body's reaction to sexual activity and the miracle of the female orgasm.
Sex with Chase had involved more energy and enthusiasm than skill.
And then there was House.
In almost every way, House was dogged. Certainly he persisted in haunting her subconscious, appearing in her dreams and taking up space in her head during the day when she should be concentrating on work.
It was hard not to compare House with John – with the memory of John. As he lay dying, John had withered from within. His body had caved in on itself, and even before that, the attraction was always aesthetic.
With House, it was dramatically different. House was like Technicolor. He was vivid. For an emotional cripple with a useless leg, an addiction to painkillers, and other deep-seated issues, House personified the life force. Widely reputed as miserable, House exemplified vigor. He was vitality itself. His limp hardly interfered with her impression of him as the most intellectually and sexually potent man she had ever known.
And he thought she liked him because he was damaged.
Well, the cane was kind of a turn on, she thought with a smile.
She looks around the living room for more insights into her boss, like maybe a copy of the Kama Sutra. At the top of a bookcase, out of her reach, is the trumpet presented to House by John Henry Giles, the jazz great who had come to them resigned to death – determined to die from Lou Gehrig's disease.
Her thoughts turn from sex to music. Cameron browses though his CDs, noticing he has a turntable and shelves filled with old LPs. Some of it is stuff she already knows he likes. The Rolling Stones and The Who are prominently featured. With his piano playing prowess, she's not surprised to see that he collects records by Traffic, Steely Dan, Ray Charles, Yes, Ben Folds Five, and other artists known for their keyboardists. There are even a few records by David Bowie, the ones in which Rick Wakeman or Mike Garson play piano.
She silently thanks her older brother Chas for the vast knowledge of rock and roll he passed on to her, and she wonders who influenced House's taste in music.
There's also Glenn Gould, Simon Barere, the Vladimirs -- Horowitz and Ashkenazy, Van Cliburn, and a host of jazz musicians she's never heard of. She pulls out record albums and finds names like Pinetop Perkins and Jimmy Yancey in the liner notes, along with references to Chicago piano blues.
She pulls out a disc by Yancey just because she likes the name of the song, and carefully places it on the turntable, making sure the volume is turned way down.
The scratchy, melancholy sound of "How Long Blues" begins to play. Cameron sits down on the floor to listen and does a few yoga stretches to counteract the stiffness from sleeping on the sofa. The next song is "Trouble in Mind," and there are vocals on this one. Consulting the liner notes, she notices that a Mama Yancey is credited. His wife? She doesn't know.
"I'm gonna lay my head on some lonesome railroad ties
and let the midnight freight train pacify my mind," the woman sings in a rich deep alto.
Ouch, she thinks. But, some days are like that.
And some days, the best thing for the blues is a great cup of coffee. Cameron decides to check for java supplies.
In the kitchen, she opens cupboards looking for coffee. What brand would House buy? She finds a bag of ground Sumatran from Tiffany's, a local coffeehouse that roasts its own beans. Opening the bag, she raises it to her nose and sniffs. She can't help but grin at how happy she is. Tiffany is the best coffee she's ever had – but House never buys it for the office. She'll have to remedy that. She prepares the brew using water from a Brita.
While waiting for the black magic to drip from House's snazzy Cuisinart, she looks around.
A shelf adjacent to the kitchen is strewn with unopened mail. Cameron fingers some envelopes at random and notices bills, credit card solicitations, sweepstakes offers, and then, amid the chaos, a ream of letters held in place by a rubber band. They, too, are unopened. She glances at the return address on the letters, and the name scrawled in the left hand corner is unmistakably that of House's father.
How curious, she thinks. How odd. She's aware that House doesn't "like" his father, but this seems extreme. She tucks the information in the file on House she keeps in her brain.
House. What is she going to do with him? Why can't she just walk away from him? Why, when he's done despicable things – faking cancer comes to mind -- does he come off as sympathetic? He had been nearly likeable last night, with his vow to take a night off from being an ass.
The aroma of the coffee was heady. Cameron noticed that House's bedroom door was open a crack. She wants to see him.
She wants to see him.
Her nerves buzz anxiously at the prospect of checking the bedroom, but her curiosity wins.
She just can't stay away from him.
Stealthy as Steve McQueen, she pads to his room, and peers within.
House still sleeps.
He's sprawled out on his back with a pillow under his head and a lightweight blanket covering his long, muscular frame. One arm is flung out to the side; the other arm is positioned so his hand rests on his hard stomach. Even relaxed, his biceps and tendons are taut, and Cameron imagines them wrapped around her, molding her body to his or pinning her down on the bed.
The shape and heft of his engorged prick is evident underneath the thin blanket. His face is relaxed. He's kicked one foot out of the confines of the bedclothes. She remembers holding it in her hands and stroking its arch, tendons and between each metatarsal.
Scenarios take shape in her mind: He props himself above her on the bed, a question in his eyes, and then slides down so his hard shaft teases her, his thumbs idly circle her nipples. He gives her the sad half smile and traces her mouth with a finger.
She's always known that somehow, behind all his egocentric rants, grating remarks, and immature acts, there's a sensual side to House. Since they first met, she's known that he is the man who can play her body by ear, who has learned her secrets places without ever having touched her, who would know her if they met again in another life, who could find her in the dark and turn on her inner light. Part of him is wholly body and sensation, an existence in which slow, sensory exploration rules, where each touch or stroke, each thrust or move feeds a great curiosity and fills a void where pleasure used to be.
If ever there was a lull in her desire for House, it has passed. Looking at him makes her pelvis ache.
Her heart registers tenderness.
Tears spring to her eyes, because finally it hurts to want someone so much. She aches with it, craves him, and wonders how she will keep this to herself when he opens his eyes and sees her:
He who knows everything.
A/N: I'm at work on Chapter 7 -- the game of 20 Questions, and what I like to call the big bang -- and with a little encouragement from readers, could perhaps have it posted by next week -- with encouragement.
