187
MADE TONIGHT
a house m.d. one-shot
rating: PG-13, i think? a bit for some language, but i'm not too sure of this...
genre: romance. it starts out rather angsty, but towards the end it becomes a big ball of fluff with a generous topping of mush, if such a thing can be. be sure to wash your teeth after you're done reading.
pairings: chase/cameron.
disclaimer: i don't own house. but I wouldn't mind if anyone would like to give me chase for my birthday ;)
warnings: general spoilers up to and especially for season 4, mostly for episode 4.07, "ugly." oh, and i kind of forced myself to write this from cameron's PoV mainly because i usually don't get her and i wanted to challenge myself with that; as a result, she may be a bit OOC in some parts.
summary: "if you chose me, then why do we keep having this conversation?" "because you keep bringing it up!" chase and cameron have a much needed talk. post-ugly.
notes: virtual cookies to whoever can spot a phrase from robin hood... no, make that two phrases from robin hood. and one from everwood! for further comments, refer to the LJ-cut further down in this post.
@ FF.NET_ HERE.
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further... waaaaay further... notes for this fic
_the title comes from a line from the song "that's when i love you" by aslyn. the lyrics... really have nothing to do with the fic at all, nor with chase and cameron's relationship... save for the love theme, i guess (but then again, that applies to like 90% of all music), but i decided to go with it because i felt the melody did fit the fic, AND the fact that i heard the song over and over and over as i wrote this. which is strange in itself because i'm usually more of a "shuffle songs" kinda writer.
_dedication: even though they'll never read this, i'm dedicating it to jennifer morrison and jesse spencer: you guys, i loved that you were together, and every time i see a picture of you or think of the fact that you broke up, my heart breaks a little more. honestly, even i'm surprised at how hard i took their split-- i'm not one to really get into celebrity couples, as much as i might like them separately, but this particular rift was just devastating to me, for some reason. this hurting is bordering on ridiculous >.< i really, really hope they can give the relationship another try, because they looked so in love, and so happy when they were together... and now they just have me living in denial =(
_motivation: well, chase and cameron aren't having too many scenes together nowadays in the show. i was expecting it (being happy in a relationship isn't really conducive to drama, which would be what the writers focus on, to put on the show), and i even rather like it, because i like the new ducklings subplot and too much chase & cameron might overthrow that. still, the muse wanted M00SH and since she's not getting her fix from the show, i had to give it to her. and she can be very bossy when she wants to be. *pokes muse*
_you know, initially i was going to have this be about saying "i love you" for the first time-- then i realized that by the time "ugly" happened, they would've been dating for, what, almost six months? i really think they would've told each other the three little words by then. seeing just how into her chase was (has always been!), i'd give him two months tops. and his saying it would've prompted cameron to say it back (perhaps after some thinking). honestly, if she hadn't said i love you by the time season 4 rolled around, she DEFINITELY would've by "97 seconds." no question about it. anyway, since i decided that in my mind they'd already said those words, i went with a "maybe/sorta/kinda/half-proposal" thing. that was totally abstract, BTW. they haven't decided to get married as such, just cleared that none of them are going to freak when it comes down to it. i think they'd need that reassurance, given how their relationship started.
_why a missing scene? well, because i love missing scenes =3 next question!-- oh, okay, and also because i'm too retarded to come up with a medical plot. bad enough it takes me like eight months to get straight a forensics plot, i had no hope whatsoever of getting a "house" type of plot right. it would've sucked. thank the heavens that i didn't decide to start writing an actual "house episode" type of fanfic.
_why "ugly"? up to the end of that episode, they'd been in exactly two scenes together (well, three, but in one they weren't alone) and in both scenes, they were arguing about house. well, not really arguing, since chase had been pretty much taking the "i'm sarcastic on the outside, but seething on the inside" approach both times, while cameron freaked. add to that the fact that chase was obviously pretty pissed off at house those first few eps ('cept for the betting pool thing, but hey, it was win-win for both of them, so why ruin it with resentment?). they didn't appear too much in the next episode, and though he did interact with house in "games," and he was pretty snappy then too, it was more directed at taub for trying to manipulate him, than at house. by the time "it's a wonderful lie" rolls around, C+C seem perfectly fine (errr, i guess. i haven't actually watched any episodes past "games") and he even indirectly says to foreman that he loves cameron (or they love each other, or however you want to take that phrase). i thought the tension had to have broken at some point and i figured that cameron's whole "i love house" thing would work as the straw that broke the camel's back... just off-screen. so i decided to give it a go.
_i love the words that are used to call house's fellows. not their nicknames, i mean stuff like "ducklings," "minions," "cohorts," "lackeys"... lol, this is pointless but i have to say it, i just love them xDDD
_ridge rd. is an actual street at princeton. yes, i google-mapped it. yes, i'm a geek ^^;;; it leads away from the actual university, and princeton frist campus center, the student center, which is the complex they show in the series as PPTH (at least in the exterior shots).
_cameron's "barney hug" thing? oh, you've seen her do it one too many times. even chase does it-- he did it to house when they thought he was dying. it's just too hilarious not to add at least one of those hugs in.
_i REALLY don't see cameron as an "ally." or however it's spelled. sorry, i just don't. perhaps her mother might call her that, but not chase... it's just too "stacy lou freebush" for her.
_did they act too childish towards the end? i've always got the feeling that chase is really just a big kid, and he might draw cameron's playful side out as well. but that might just be me...
_chase's dad didn't seem too religious to me, so i figure the faith had to come from his mum's side. in my country people still look in with a bit of disdain when a couple lives together while being unmarried-- yes, a part of it is religious, but it's mostly because we just have a different culture (here, families are generally really, really close, and universities are even closer, so the kids don't have to go off and live on their own for college. so it's pretty much a given that a young person will still live with their parents until he/she gets married. unmarried people living together is very rare, especially in middle-class families, and especially if they're young, like in their twenties). i'm pretty sure australia's more progressive about that, but given the fact that chase was brought up to be religious enough that he'd consider joining a seminary, i don't think it'd be too much of a stretch for his mother to disapprove of it. and chase might turn a blind eye to morality and ethics sometimes, but if it came from his mum, he might want to stick to it. *shrug*
_apparently, australian rules football is completely different from any other kind of football out there. it's more like a cross of cricket, and volleyball, and rugby. and i had no idea it even existed... i was perfectly fine with saying rugby was the #1 sport in australia. now i stand corrected: god bless wikipedia! xDDD
_it took me five whole days to write this. started saturday the 23rd, finished wednesday the 27th. and i WAS almost writing 24/7-- i pretty much only stopped to eat, and watch house/SVU/robin hood. i think this is, as far as i can remember, the only time that i've written for five days straight without getting frustrated once. it's like a personal record.
_and speaking of not being frustrated... i take it back. I HATE THE ENDING! ;_; how is it possible that the whole thing comes flowing out of my head so easily for five days STRAIGHT, and then i feel like i've ruined in the last paragraph? i've got issues. gosh, i do -_-;;;
_towards the end, my descriptions just got really clipped. i apologize heavily for that-- all my eloquence apparently left me. in my defense, it was around three am that i wrote that part. of course, i ALWAYS write at three am, so it's really not an excuse... *sigh* actually, the whole fic just seems strangely dialogue-driven to me. and while i liked that at the beginning, towards the end it just started to annoy me. perhaps i just reverted back to my normal self =/ i kept making little edits here and there even days after i was done, especially trying to add more introspection. oddly, i now feel like i've cheated O_o
_by the way, it was GOING to be short. but the muse is evil.