Don Johnson
He laid back against her in the tub. Her legs wrapped around his waist. His head rested between her breasts; his chin was just above the water line; the beard dipped into the water and curled a little when wet. His legs were bunched up in front of him, making it easy for her to see the damage to his right thigh peeking more than half way above the water line. He was way too long for her tub, but he didn't seem to care.
It felt damned good to Cameron. Perfect, really.
"So what's up with the Jesus look?" She asked while running her fingers through his wet hair.
"It's not quite that bad yet." He replied lazily, not bothering to open his eyes as she continued to stroke his hair and scalp. The hair was thinning. She wondered if he'd end up being one of those really hot bald men when his follicles finally lose the battle.
"You had Greg fooled." She teased back and decided that yes, he would be hot no matter what.
His head turned slightly. The right eye peeked open with brow raised to regard her shrewdly. "So what's up with your kid believing in Jesus and Santa? I guess Santa shouldn't be a big surprise because you are way too excited about Christmas. But the Jesus thing seems a little odd from the son of an atheist." His face returned to its more peaceful pose between her breasts. "Please tell me it's just from a yearly tradition of watching A South Park Christmas."
Cameron sighed, wishing that were the truth and watched as House's head raised and fell with her chest. "That's all Ray. I really picked a winner this time. He has Greg in church nearly every Sunday. He said he didn't think that I was really a real atheist because I was so nice and compassionate and didn't want to abort Greg. His sense of right and wrong is so tied up with heaven and hell that he can't figure out how someone can have morals without it being tied to fear of 'eternal damnation in the pits of hell!'" She added a bit of pulpit bravado to the last bit, which made House smile.
"Anyway, I don't want to open that old wound. What's up with the look?" She probed again.
"When I know I'm going to travel to places where someone might know me, I grow everything out for a few months, dye it. I even have some brown contacts I put on when I go out and I switch my cane to the left side or sometimes just limp around without it. My physio would be so proud. I generally shoot for crazy homeless looking war veteran and typically people go out of their way not to look very closely at me. The homeless guy look just happens to make me look a little like white Jesus."
"If you don't mind me asking, where have you been since you died?"
He laughs causing the water to splash around them. "The irony of that statement is rather fitting." She joins his laughter at her accidental joke. After a moment, he continues.
"I've been working in a lab at the University of Bonn, in Germany, infecting rats and the occasional human test group with loads of interesting diseases. An old acquaintance from pre-med who owed me a huge favor runs the lab there. A couple of weeks after Wilson died, I happened to read he was hosting a conference in Saint Paul and I got this great idea.
"I pretended to run into him at a Starbucks. When he turned to see me waiting for a drink beside him, he immediately asked if I was me. I pretended to be confused that he knew me. After a few attempts of acting like he had me confused with someone, I rolled my eyes and dragged him over to a corner table. Then convinced him, in very hushed tones over a mocha frap, that my death had been faked by the government. I'd been a snoop while in prison and was a key witness to nail the leader of a major drug cartel."
She loved his creative lies. Kissing the top of his head, she could visualize the scenario perfectly. Cameron was certain he had more than his fair share of fun planning the con and how expertly he must have pulled it off.
House sighed fondly in reverie. "It was like fishing in a stocked pond. He was completely into it. I told him how they'd hooked me up with a job as a sous-chef since that's the only thing I knew how to do well that would also keep me out of the public eye. I'd been 'forced to give up medicine, but they'd pardoned me and worked it out so I could spend those six months with Wilson in the witness protection program.' I emphasized several times that I shouldn't even be talking to him, but he'd been 'so insistent' and I had to admit that 'I was dying to talk medicine with anyone.' He bought it completely.
"Anyway, his focus is also infectious disease. In school, he was one of those people who had great instincts, did his homework, but sucked at test taking. I, on the other hand, can get whatever score I want on any kind of standardized test. So, for fun and to earn extra beer and pot money, I used to take tests for people and tailor the score to whatever they wanted.
"Richard didn't have enough money to pay me, but I thought he'd make a hell of a researcher if he could just pass the MCAT, so I offered to do it for him for a favor to be named later. Turns out that favor was getting me a job in his lab, half a world away from anyone who knows me. I have complete control over who I interact with. It's not the same as our cases, but there are plenty of puzzles for me to solve. I actually think this has been one of the best fuck-ups I've ever made. It's a balance I've not ever had with my work and my life."
"That's kind of amazing, Hou… ah, Don. How did you manage to become Dr. Don Johnson."
"Well, the Dr. part is completely due to Richard being a position to hire whomever he wants and his boss assuming he vets everyone accordingly. It's research, so I don't need a license. That made it a little easier. I paid some kid in graphic design school fifty bucks cash in a coffee shop one night to make me a legitimate looking doctoral degree 'for an independent film I was making.' Two hours later, I was printing it up at Kinkos. It's not like anyone is ever going to look at it on the wall of my office and think… 'Gee, I should call the University of Oregon and ask about Don Johnson, from the class of '86.' Hell, it's not that likely anyone working there now was there in '86 to ask about it."
Cameron let out a humph. "Never really thought about it that way. Kind of scary, really."
"Exactly. When was the last time you checked out the degree of someone older than 30, instead of just calling their references? Most people trust that everyone else did their due diligence. It only takes one well-placed lie, with a little bit of evidence to become whatever you want to be. If you can do the job after the fact, then you're golden. No one is going to question a guy doing his job well."
"The Don Johnson part is a little more complicated. But the short story is I bought a dead man's identity; a homeless guy. Their deaths go largely unreported. There are people who get intel from the shelters. Those people have connections with some poorly paid, low-level government data-entry workers who then sell these now unused identities and create enough of a paper trail to make it look legit. Don had a 'rich friend' leave him everything and he was able to crawl out of the squalor and back into society.
"It's a lot cheaper than you'd think, too. The name Don Johnson was just the luck of the draw. He was the first six foot two, blue eyed, brown haired homeless white guy around my age to kill over after I put in my order. If you have time, they can match your specs pretty accurately. It took about a month for my perfect match. If you're not picky they can usually find someone close enough for cosmetics in a few days to a week."
Leave it House to find something like that. Still, she wondered how he managed it. "How on earth did you find out about that sort of… service?"
"Wilson's crazy brother. He was homeless for a long time. Saw lots of shit like that go down. He knew a guy who knew a guy, as they say."
"Who else knows you're alive?" She asks, tracing his eyebrows now. Enjoying how relaxed his features appeared. More peaceful than she generally remembers him. There were a few moments, of course. She was glad to be part of this one.
"As you know, I left Foreman a clue. I needed my mother to handle some legal matters, and honestly, I can't lie to her, even while dead. It's the damnedest thing. She was the first person I told. I didn't want her getting the death call first, so swapped the records, got a burner phone and called her before I did anything else. Stacy knows. I needed a lawyer I could trust to back date some documents to make sure all my stuff went to Wilson and not Dominika. Wilson invited Stacy over to his place after the funeral because we had to figure all that out before we went on the road and she still owed me big time. Regardless of everything between us, I knew I could trust her with this. Mom made sure my estate was taken care of and Wilson's too when he died left everything to his new found best friend Don Johnson. She didn't even tell my step-dad. I know she's a hell of a liar, so things are safe there. And now, you know.
"You know it's funny. Wilson almost talked me into coming here before he died. Told me that of all the people we knew from work, you were the one he knew we could trust. I kinda think he wanted to have sex with you. Like maybe you'd made his bucket list, but he wouldn't say it to me because of the guy code. I guess I'd expressed some… interest in you that first year on my team and he couldn't get past that."
If it was possible to be shocked yet not surprised at all at his revelation, she was managing to be both in that moment. She wanted him to confirm that she wasn't crazy back then. He did act interested in her but then was as cold as ice, as if it had all been an experiment on a lab rat.
A million and one questions began swirling around in her head. She knew better than to ask any of them. He was still House, regardless what his driver's license might say. Instead, she played it cool, as if his admission of interest was a normal thing that happened daily between them.
She decided it was best to tease back. "Ehh, Wilson's like my brother. Like seriously, looks kinda like him and everything. That would be… incestuous."
"Ahhh, and here I thought that you'd be an easy target with him dying of cancer. Hell, I was surprised you didn't jump him at my wake."
"Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and hit the easy button. I don't mind."
Grabbing the sides of the tub, he sat up a little and turned his head with a wicked grin. "I've been hitting it all morning. Give an old guy a break. Viagra can only do so much before the prostate makes it unpleasant."
"Why tell me now?"
"You know why." He sat up fully. Gave her a look that indicated she should get out first. As she did, he continued. "Your messages created too much of a puzzle. I needed to come put the pieces in place in person."
Fully out and dripping, she grabbed one of the towels she'd laid out on the toilet lid. "But why even check them? Greg House is dead, remember?" She wrapped it around her, tucking it at her right breast. Looking back when hearing the water slosh, she found House had managed to get himself standing.
"Yeah, well, the email I use to set up porn and sex chat accounts and my Facebook email are the same, because at the time I signed up for it, I was only doing it as a joke and I didn't want the Facebook spam in my real email account." She handed him a towel and offered a hand to him. For once in their relationship, he took it and stepped out. "At the time, I had no idea you could change the settings to turn the automatic emails off and I never had a reason to change it. I logged in to that email account for the first time in forever to confirm a password change to Busty Brazilians Dot Com and saw the email alerts with your messages."
He began to dry off. "Those messages were way more fun than sex chat with a stranger. Even a hot Brazilian one. I binge read about 100 of them the first night. A month later, I had some business to take care of back in the States, so I thought, 'Fuck it, I'd like to see Cameron.' I started planning the trip, and came up with a plan to surprise you and you know the rest."
"So you missed me?" She smiled.
He gave her a cocky tilt of the head and teased, "Mostly, after reading your messages, I wanted to stave off the years of curiosity about how you are in bed. I no longer have any good reasons to continue avoiding it."
"And, what is the verdict?" She asks as she pulls him in for a hug. He pushed her back with a tug on her towel, dropping it to the floor, and eyed her naked body as if it was the first time.
"That if I'd know just what a slut you are back then, I'd have fucked the shit out of you during your interview instead of hiring you to be my lobby art. You give off this air of being all classy and demure, but there is nothing classy or demure about the way you fuck. I like that in a woman."
"I would not have had sex with you during the interview." She acts offended, but yanks his towel off in-kind and drops to her knees.
"Oh, I am pretty sure that's a lie." He smiles down and pulls the ties from her hair, freeing the blonde waves to cascaded over her shoulders. "I remember that skirt you were wearing. It was so fucking conservative, I wanted to sit you on my desk, push it up. I imagined I'd find you with no panties and dripping wet for me. In my mind, I was finger fucking your pretty little virgin pussy on my desk the entire interview."
"And, I'm pretty sure that's a lie, but I'm game to role play it later if you want." She smiles then licks his quickly hardening cock. He was either serious about the Viagra or he was the luckiest middle-aged guy on the planet to be able to get hard so many times in one day. It didn't matter to Cameron which was true. It only mattered that his dick was always ready for her.
As she took him into her warm mouth, he sucked in air, following with a deep grunt. "You're too blonde now. Maybe if you ever decide to go brunette again. Do you still have that awful skirt, and that frilly top?" She didn't take him out of her mouth but she did roll her eyes at his wisecrack.
He smirked and began to meet her mouth with harder thrusts, all the while continuing to joke. "I'm betting no. But I bet it wouldn't take long to find something like it online."