He brushes his lips against hers softly, but only for a second. After all, his decision is not born from anything so tender, and he swiftly deepens his assault as he moves to press her up against the glass wall of the lab that spills eerie light into the darkness of the deserted hallway. Her breath catches audibly, and it is more through shock than anything else that she parts her lips to allow him entrance, but he takes the opportunity before it can be revoked.

The rough scruff of his jaw scratches against her chin, and Cameron squeezes her eyes shut as she tries to catch the dwindling string of her sanity and understand what the actual fuck is going on. A palm runs up the side of her coat to rest high against her ribs and she shakes her head and shoves her own hands hard against the sinewy planes of House's chest and pushes him off of her. He loses his footing in the process and staggers back with little grace; his eyes flashing with irritation over the fact.

Still, the look of dull contempt he throws his long-ago coffee-maker and note-scribbler pales considerably to the bright anger that dances in green eyes marred with confusion.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

She hisses at him, and he notes with mild intrigue the slight redness his assault has left around her mouth.

"I-"

"-Is this your idea of a joke?"

Oh, and she's furious; he can tell by the way she remains backed against the wall with her teeth clenched and her breath shuddering audibly from her nose.

Still... A joke?

No, not a joke.

But then, what had it been?

He doesn't know, and this just serves to ignite his own irritation. After all, she had been the one standing much too close. Daring him. Challenging him. All those heated looks over the past few years; hadn't they just been asking for something like this to happen? His head spins with several images at once; each battling for dominance and creating an obscure web of intangible wisps of recall.

His proclamation that she was unable to touch him all those years ago; the electricity between them almost nauseating as she had regarded him with that unnervingly wide-eyed attention he could never quite get used to, but neither found wholly unpleasant.

His anger - and it had been anger - at the sordid words of the oncologist and his insipid patient when discussing their upcoming and eventually catastrophic date. At the way they'd goaded him and coerced him to fuck her, as if they'd thought she was just any other girl.

Mostly though, it's the taste of mixed alcohol that lingers now on his tongue and the flash of her sat casually back on her sofa offering him a grin and his subconscious's reaction to such pretty indifference later on through sleep.

"House!?"

Her sharp bark shakes him from his reverie, and her demand for an answer he doesn't have sparks that old, familiar breed of irritation. The one that she's not the only person to elicit, but that she's certainly the master of the art.

She has always been able to push his buttons, just as he does to her, and he knows the words that leave his mouth will scathe her even before he's fully aware of what he means to say.

"What? Was that not good for you, Dr Cameron? Not quite what you'd had in mind? Years of pathetic yearning after a self-certified asshole, and you're shocked by his behaviour? Or was your vision of how this would finally go filled with romance? Beauty fixing the Beast? Perhaps the idea of being with someone that would berate you and mistreat you was romantic in itself? Something straight out of a novel, but not so fun in real life?"

"I don't-"

"-You liked the idea of being with someone broken, but the reality of how they might treat you isn't so perfect, is it? What is it? What's wrong? Haven't you been waiting for me to want you? How many relationships have you pushed aside because of that irritating little flame you've held for me that you just can't quite bring yourself to snuff out? Don't look at me like that, you know it as well as I do, or you wouldn't be here right now. As you said, it has nothing to do with the patient... So tell me? You know how I work better than most - I'll allow you that - and the way I finally give you what you want shocks you? You know not to expect more from me... Unless you believed I would behave differently just for you?"

He supposes if he'd been the one drinking instead of the blonde, he might have had more ammunition to carry on, but his words have begun to cycle in his mind, and he doesn't think he has any venom left. Doesn't even entirely understand why he bit her in the first place. The reason is irrelevant, though; he can see his brand of toxin take effect and spread, and there's no way of sucking it out now.

He opens his mouth to say something more on the matter - something less cruel - but finds nothing but silence.

"... I have to go."

Cameron informs him numbly; her voice bland and emotionless.

Watching as she slips from the room with a slight woodenness to her walk, House sighs and rubs his hand roughly against his lips; meshing them hard against his teeth.

"Fuck."

He offers the eerie stillness of the room, before bringing his cane down against the shiny plastic of one of the stools with full force. It creates a dull sound and his hand tingles painfully as the shock reverberates up the unyielding wood just to spite him.

He regrets what he's said now that it's too late to rectify the fact, and this is a dilemma he's uncomfortably familiar with when it comes to Cameron, although he would never admit to such a thing. Still, what he's said to her tonight is unlike what he's said to her before, and he doesn't really know what to do now.

He could just leave it. Things might be tense for a couple of weeks when passing the young doctor in the hospital, but she's no longer a member of his team, and if he were to put in a little effort, he could most likely avoid her entirely. Plus, he doesn't think for a second that she'll relay his words to either of her old colleagues.

She's proud. She occaisionally hides it well, but he's seen enough things that lead him to know that it's true.

"Go home and let it lie. At least for now."

He murmurs gruffly to the empty ghosts of the sterile room, before limping down the hall towards the women's changing rooms.

After all, just as Cameron knows him well, he knows her ways better than she might believe.

Pushing the door open, he confirms what he already knows and slips into the harsh light of the room with a sigh. Listening out for sounds of additional life, he concludes it to be just the two of them and wedges his cane against the handle of the door.

"Generally, when people say they need to go, they mean further than ten metres down the hall."

He offers quietly, crystal blues trained sharply on the young doctor.

She sits on the floor with her back pressed against the low bench that centres the militant lines of lockers; her knees drawn up and her face hidden against them.

Walking over with a pronounced lilt to his gait due to the loss of his cane, House takes a seat on the bench beside her and scans the room without any real interest. Looking down into a thick sea of gold, he watches the blonde for movement but is left disappointed. He has the childish urge to prod at her shoulder incessantly until she's forced to acknowledge him but holds it sensibly at bay. Instead, he lets his attention wander to the scooped hood of her coat and gently pulls free several long, wavy hairs from the rough wool of the lining; letting them fall to the floor in curious glimmers of light.

"You should know better than to listen to the words of an asshole and take them to heart, Dr Cameron. You're smarter than that."

"... And smart enough to know that you meant them."

She replies quietly; her words muffled against the denim of her jeans.

House sighs, stretching his legs out in front of him with a low groan.

"Most of them. Most were simply the truth... But the truth doesn't always need to be addressed. It was unnecessary to voice things we've both cordially decided to keep unspoken, but then, I am the beast, remember? It's what I do... All those times I advised you that it was unwise of you to like me... I didn't just do that for the hell of it. You think if I didn't at least tolerate you just a little - if I didn't spare your feelings just a touch of consideration - I would have bothered? Do you think I turned you down for any other reason than that I find you a reasonable human being? Albeit it rudely shrouded with favourable genetics."

"You hate confrontation."

"Yes. And I could have just fired you. But I didn't."

"Then why did you-... Why did you kiss me?"

"Well... I can't fire you anymore... Not without putting in far more effort than I would deem entertaining."

"Exactly."

"Perhaps I just wanted to."

"... What?"