House fic: and you’re going to paint the sky empty
and you’re going to paint the sky empty
house, m.d, house/cameron, r, 1722 words, this is for _vicodin who, as always, remains to be an amazing friend. ♥
On their last day, he comes between her legs. Apoca!fic.
don’t know why
i feel so skinned alive.
radiohead, myxomatosis
*
On their last day, he comes between her legs.
His cock brushes against the soft inside of her thigh and he watches as her chest rises and falls with a series of breaths.
She coughs.
“Take it. Don’t be fucking stupid,” he says, hissing but leaning over her. He settles between her legs, the sharpness of the pain in his own leg dulling as he presses into her warmth.
(Warmth is selfish, warmth is necessary, and there’s still panic outside and he’s about to lose his last thread for chance. Remember that.)
“You know there’s no point,” she breathes, wincing, and her fingers dust against his lips, over his eyes. “You know there’s no point.”
Her eyes close.
*
The morgue echoes with empty footsteps as his tongue sticks the roof of his mouth. His fingers brush against her forehead, his hand dropping to curl around the metal end.
“I’m sorry.”
*
The taste of dust dulls with the scotch that he finds, bottom drawer to the right. Sunny skies tomorrow! are going to be swallowed by bodies burning, bodies burning- isn’t there a song?
“What time?”
There’s a rustle. He looks to the corner. “Six eighteen. It was morning.”
*
Take a cab into the city limits and rotting flesh stains his clothes, his skin, and he spends too much time watching his hands shake.
“Here?” The cabbie rasps.
He doesn’t answer, tossing a twenty and hissing as he steps out of the cab. There’s a scream in the distance and his cane scratches against the pavement, ash brushing against his sneakers.
(memory: i don’t do happy, he murmurs against Cameron’s throat, smirking as she drops her keys and glares- thing is, there’s a smile there, afterwards, it’s kinda of what he wants.)
He slips into the building, his shoulder brushing a passing man with a grunt. There’s a tear, but he doesn’t stop to check- never matters anyway. He stops in front of the stairs, his fingers curling around his thigh and pressing, pressing harder.
“Elevator’s broken.”
He shrugs, disappearing through the door to the stairs.
*
Pages remain pasted to the floor, to the walls, and the posts of histheir bed.
His jacket stays on, his fingers skimming edges of journals and books, marked with red and black- etchings of paranoia, they said before the smoke. And maybe here’s why his grin nearly splits his face. (i was right)
There’s a drawer left open, underneath slipping pieces of a newspaper. He sighs tiredly, reaching forward and digging his hand inside. His fingers curl around a thin box, tossing it to the bed.
He rubs his eyes.
“You’re starting early.”
He flinches. And picks a corner to hold his gaze.
*
The syringe breaks the skin without practice.
There’s a half of a vial left and time, time is thick in his throat. It’s drowning in poetics (which makes him miserable, okay?) but in theory, there’s nothing else to do here but wait.
Waiting. Waiting, it’s all that he has left.
- last clear call for transport into camps- body burnings tonight at nine, please remain calm- more on early shortage later-
*
“So this is it.”
Keep them close, but his eyes open slowly and paint the ceiling. He can smell the smoke again, hissing as he rolls out of bed. His fingers press against his thigh, slowly- they’re shaking (side effects: nausea, limited functioning) and still as his fingers curl around the tape.
“You’re going to have to acknowledge me at some point,” she murmurs and he flinches as she comes to step around him. “See.”
He digs into his pocket for a knife, dropping it on the desk. There’s a soundless echo somewhere in his head, but he starts again.
Don’t forget to reseal the corners.
*
Here’s a history lesson.
He could recount the days, who went first to who disappeared into a nameless, empty line of stupidity.
(This is the part where she’d shake her head, sadly, brushing her fingers against his lips and say: we’ll be okay. He never did tell her how badly he wanted to believe her. Never was anyway.)
A lot of people are gone. All he has are journals on the wall.
*
“How much time are you giving yourself?”
There’s a weight in the bed and for now, for now he reaches over and lets his fingers curl around her wrist (maybe).
“Two days,” he answers lazily.
She laughs softly, dark hair spilling over eyes. He stretches to touch a memory because really, it’s pretty fucking funny that Cameron- it’s that question, he thinks as he starts over, who would you rather be stuck on a deserted island with.
“You’re just going to let the medication run out, then,” she murmurs, leaning forward as he runs with symptoms again. Nausea. Motor Skills. Loss of appetite. Paranoia. And go figure, everybody dies.
He blinks, reaching for her again. Soft, soft skin under his palm makes him still, then hiss, as there’s pressure on his leg. And fuck allison never comes because he never knew what to do with the prospect of first names.
“Why are you here?”
It takes a lot of him to ask the question, words to finish drying in his throat. But he thinks he can see her, the same wide eyes with lashes dusting against her cheeks as she blinks.
“I don’t know,” she says quietly. And it’s sort of, kind of real.
*
He wakes up once, in the middle of the night, the smell of the morgue still staining his hands.
He checks the locks before going into the medicine cabinet, his fingers curling around a vial. It shakes, he unscrews the cap, swallows without the syringe and listens to the sharp rip outside the building.
-from three to five am, those from lists- please stay inside, lock doors, continue on-
“Fuck,” he breathes.
*
(here’s a memory, a small one: you know the answer, she breathes sleepily because his hand’s on her hip like it belongs there, except we’ve lost everyone else so this is it.)
“You think we’d actually would’ve slept with each other?”
There’s no answer and he sighs, reaching for his watch but dropping it into the sheets around him. His fingers skim his stomach and then the waistband of his boxers, slipping underneath.
He tries again, his fingers curling around his cock. “You think we’d actually would’ve slept with each other?”
But all he thinks about is the curve of her breast. there are ways to say miss you.
*
In a world gone mad, people paste to old habits with a strange desperation.
He taps two fingers against his arm, watching the needle disappear into his skin. His lips part, but as always, he remains soundless in any event. There’s no forwards or backwards here, this is what’s getting to him, you know, the lack of motion and potential probability.
“You’re starting to feel it, House.” (never Greg, remember normal?)
His lips curl with humorless amusement. “You weren’t here yesterday-”
She sighs softly, as if she were chastising him, dipping into the corner next to him. She’s wearing jeans today, he doesn’t remember jeans, with her long legs crossed at the ankle and her hands folded in her lap.
“You didn’t want me here yesterday,” she murmurs, after body count to add another thirteen hundred.
“Maybe.”
Maybe is the best he can do, the best that comes close to this whole song of i can’t be alone because it’s that kind of admission.
*
It’s too dark in the room. So his eyes close.
He smells the morgue again, rotting flesh sticking to the roof of his mouth as he settles back against the bed. It’s almost strange, but his hand drops to his leg with his thumb rolling against the curve his thigh.
He almost stands to check the tape pasted against the cracks of the window, blocking air, blocking slips, but there’s a sharpness in his breathing, again, and he manages to open his eyes only to close once more.
“I was hoping for aliens, you know,” he murmurs, coughing. His fingers curling in the sheets. “Or a fucking meteorite hurling from the sky.”
There’s a soft laugh and he breathes, counting backwards with no starting point. Seventy-two. Fifty-seven. Thirteen. Just numbers, remember, just numbers. But he knows the drill, each page stuck to his wall, words circled in red, is a detail with a symptom.
His throat burns. There’s a moan, the springs of the bed, and he still smells her perfume from time to time (he spilled a bottle after) and it pushes an ache that spins in his head.
“You should sleep,” she says, fingers brushing against his cheek.
His eyes open and there’s nothing there, no one there and his mind (symptom!) curls with everything but the memory.
“I’m not tired,” takes too much energy- she knew- and it’s getting close to an end game, god, the fucking inevitable.
He hates poetic ends.
There’s no answer.
*
The syringe drops into the sheets.
“A couple hours,” he says, the words scratching an echo.
There’s a scream upstairs and then another as he shifts, watching nothing. Tape the corners is what she told him, when it got worse, dabbling quietly in paranoia. (He always knew, her hands never shook until then.)
There’s repetition. “You should sleep.”
And there’s a easy definition for the slow crumbling of a mental state, picking apart at every last detail that he can grasp. He’s got years on the idea, years on all of this, really, but here there’s nothing else to face.
“You need to find something else to say,” he coughs, a wetness staining his lips. “Seriously. I’m not going to croak any faster.”
She laughs and the sound seems hollow against the walls, lost in the murmurs of everything that’s left, a mask of noise in the outside world. We all fall down.
“I’m still here,” she says, for the first time, and maybe, really, he can feel her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
like last timeHe says nothing.
*
He closes his eyes. An hour.
He extends his hand and her fingers curl around his, quietly, because the silence was always her thing.
“See you soon,” she says softly.
He sighs. Something’s burning.
finished.
house, m.d, house/cameron, r, 1722 words, this is for _vicodin who, as always, remains to be an amazing friend. ♥
On their last day, he comes between her legs. Apoca!fic.
don’t know why
i feel so skinned alive.
radiohead, myxomatosis
*
On their last day, he comes between her legs.
His cock brushes against the soft inside of her thigh and he watches as her chest rises and falls with a series of breaths.
She coughs.
“Take it. Don’t be fucking stupid,” he says, hissing but leaning over her. He settles between her legs, the sharpness of the pain in his own leg dulling as he presses into her warmth.
(Warmth is selfish, warmth is necessary, and there’s still panic outside and he’s about to lose his last thread for chance. Remember that.)
“You know there’s no point,” she breathes, wincing, and her fingers dust against his lips, over his eyes. “You know there’s no point.”
Her eyes close.
*
The morgue echoes with empty footsteps as his tongue sticks the roof of his mouth. His fingers brush against her forehead, his hand dropping to curl around the metal end.
“I’m sorry.”
*
The taste of dust dulls with the scotch that he finds, bottom drawer to the right. Sunny skies tomorrow! are going to be swallowed by bodies burning, bodies burning- isn’t there a song?
“What time?”
There’s a rustle. He looks to the corner. “Six eighteen. It was morning.”
*
Take a cab into the city limits and rotting flesh stains his clothes, his skin, and he spends too much time watching his hands shake.
“Here?” The cabbie rasps.
He doesn’t answer, tossing a twenty and hissing as he steps out of the cab. There’s a scream in the distance and his cane scratches against the pavement, ash brushing against his sneakers.
(memory: i don’t do happy, he murmurs against Cameron’s throat, smirking as she drops her keys and glares- thing is, there’s a smile there, afterwards, it’s kinda of what he wants.)
He slips into the building, his shoulder brushing a passing man with a grunt. There’s a tear, but he doesn’t stop to check- never matters anyway. He stops in front of the stairs, his fingers curling around his thigh and pressing, pressing harder.
“Elevator’s broken.”
He shrugs, disappearing through the door to the stairs.
*
Pages remain pasted to the floor, to the walls, and the posts of histheir bed.
His jacket stays on, his fingers skimming edges of journals and books, marked with red and black- etchings of paranoia, they said before the smoke. And maybe here’s why his grin nearly splits his face. (i was right)
There’s a drawer left open, underneath slipping pieces of a newspaper. He sighs tiredly, reaching forward and digging his hand inside. His fingers curl around a thin box, tossing it to the bed.
He rubs his eyes.
“You’re starting early.”
He flinches. And picks a corner to hold his gaze.
*
The syringe breaks the skin without practice.
There’s a half of a vial left and time, time is thick in his throat. It’s drowning in poetics (which makes him miserable, okay?) but in theory, there’s nothing else to do here but wait.
Waiting. Waiting, it’s all that he has left.
- last clear call for transport into camps- body burnings tonight at nine, please remain calm- more on early shortage later-
*
“So this is it.”
Keep them close, but his eyes open slowly and paint the ceiling. He can smell the smoke again, hissing as he rolls out of bed. His fingers press against his thigh, slowly- they’re shaking (side effects: nausea, limited functioning) and still as his fingers curl around the tape.
“You’re going to have to acknowledge me at some point,” she murmurs and he flinches as she comes to step around him. “See.”
He digs into his pocket for a knife, dropping it on the desk. There’s a soundless echo somewhere in his head, but he starts again.
Don’t forget to reseal the corners.
*
Here’s a history lesson.
He could recount the days, who went first to who disappeared into a nameless, empty line of stupidity.
(This is the part where she’d shake her head, sadly, brushing her fingers against his lips and say: we’ll be okay. He never did tell her how badly he wanted to believe her. Never was anyway.)
A lot of people are gone. All he has are journals on the wall.
*
“How much time are you giving yourself?”
There’s a weight in the bed and for now, for now he reaches over and lets his fingers curl around her wrist (maybe).
“Two days,” he answers lazily.
She laughs softly, dark hair spilling over eyes. He stretches to touch a memory because really, it’s pretty fucking funny that Cameron- it’s that question, he thinks as he starts over, who would you rather be stuck on a deserted island with.
“You’re just going to let the medication run out, then,” she murmurs, leaning forward as he runs with symptoms again. Nausea. Motor Skills. Loss of appetite. Paranoia. And go figure, everybody dies.
He blinks, reaching for her again. Soft, soft skin under his palm makes him still, then hiss, as there’s pressure on his leg. And fuck allison never comes because he never knew what to do with the prospect of first names.
“Why are you here?”
It takes a lot of him to ask the question, words to finish drying in his throat. But he thinks he can see her, the same wide eyes with lashes dusting against her cheeks as she blinks.
“I don’t know,” she says quietly. And it’s sort of, kind of real.
*
He wakes up once, in the middle of the night, the smell of the morgue still staining his hands.
He checks the locks before going into the medicine cabinet, his fingers curling around a vial. It shakes, he unscrews the cap, swallows without the syringe and listens to the sharp rip outside the building.
-from three to five am, those from lists- please stay inside, lock doors, continue on-
“Fuck,” he breathes.
*
(here’s a memory, a small one: you know the answer, she breathes sleepily because his hand’s on her hip like it belongs there, except we’ve lost everyone else so this is it.)
“You think we’d actually would’ve slept with each other?”
There’s no answer and he sighs, reaching for his watch but dropping it into the sheets around him. His fingers skim his stomach and then the waistband of his boxers, slipping underneath.
He tries again, his fingers curling around his cock. “You think we’d actually would’ve slept with each other?”
But all he thinks about is the curve of her breast. there are ways to say miss you.
*
In a world gone mad, people paste to old habits with a strange desperation.
He taps two fingers against his arm, watching the needle disappear into his skin. His lips part, but as always, he remains soundless in any event. There’s no forwards or backwards here, this is what’s getting to him, you know, the lack of motion and potential probability.
“You’re starting to feel it, House.” (never Greg, remember normal?)
His lips curl with humorless amusement. “You weren’t here yesterday-”
She sighs softly, as if she were chastising him, dipping into the corner next to him. She’s wearing jeans today, he doesn’t remember jeans, with her long legs crossed at the ankle and her hands folded in her lap.
“You didn’t want me here yesterday,” she murmurs, after body count to add another thirteen hundred.
“Maybe.”
Maybe is the best he can do, the best that comes close to this whole song of i can’t be alone because it’s that kind of admission.
*
It’s too dark in the room. So his eyes close.
He smells the morgue again, rotting flesh sticking to the roof of his mouth as he settles back against the bed. It’s almost strange, but his hand drops to his leg with his thumb rolling against the curve his thigh.
He almost stands to check the tape pasted against the cracks of the window, blocking air, blocking slips, but there’s a sharpness in his breathing, again, and he manages to open his eyes only to close once more.
“I was hoping for aliens, you know,” he murmurs, coughing. His fingers curling in the sheets. “Or a fucking meteorite hurling from the sky.”
There’s a soft laugh and he breathes, counting backwards with no starting point. Seventy-two. Fifty-seven. Thirteen. Just numbers, remember, just numbers. But he knows the drill, each page stuck to his wall, words circled in red, is a detail with a symptom.
His throat burns. There’s a moan, the springs of the bed, and he still smells her perfume from time to time (he spilled a bottle after) and it pushes an ache that spins in his head.
“You should sleep,” she says, fingers brushing against his cheek.
His eyes open and there’s nothing there, no one there and his mind (symptom!) curls with everything but the memory.
“I’m not tired,” takes too much energy- she knew- and it’s getting close to an end game, god, the fucking inevitable.
He hates poetic ends.
There’s no answer.
*
The syringe drops into the sheets.
“A couple hours,” he says, the words scratching an echo.
There’s a scream upstairs and then another as he shifts, watching nothing. Tape the corners is what she told him, when it got worse, dabbling quietly in paranoia. (He always knew, her hands never shook until then.)
There’s repetition. “You should sleep.”
And there’s a easy definition for the slow crumbling of a mental state, picking apart at every last detail that he can grasp. He’s got years on the idea, years on all of this, really, but here there’s nothing else to face.
“You need to find something else to say,” he coughs, a wetness staining his lips. “Seriously. I’m not going to croak any faster.”
She laughs and the sound seems hollow against the walls, lost in the murmurs of everything that’s left, a mask of noise in the outside world. We all fall down.
“I’m still here,” she says, for the first time, and maybe, really, he can feel her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
like last timeHe says nothing.
*
He closes his eyes. An hour.
He extends his hand and her fingers curl around his, quietly, because the silence was always her thing.
“See you soon,” she says softly.
He sighs. Something’s burning.
finished.