Fic: Organic Chemistry, part 2 of 5 (Cameron/Thirteen)
Title: Organic Chemistry
Author: brighteyedcat @ house_femfest
Rating: R
Prompt: Written for my lovely friend aphrodite_mine's prompt of "AU - Cameron and Thirteen, any point in history (seriously - ANY). Bonus points for power play or gender play."
Author's Notes: I know I'm posting the first and second chapters kind of close together, but the first one was so super short and I won't be able to post again until next week due to certain people invading my house for a long weekend. Anyway, thanks for reading. :)
Disclaimer: No ownership of the House MD characters herein is claimed. All House MD characters are the intellectual property of David Shore et al.
Summary: AU past!fic. Thirteen and Cameron have some serious unresolved history to deal with when they find themselves enrolled in the same section of Organic Chemistry.
Part One ||
ii.
The following week, history repeated itself. Remy made it a point to sit as far away from Allison as possible and then as quietly as she came in, she left: unnoticed and hopefully unseen. Problem was, Remy was practically famished by the end of lecture this week and she'd already riffled through her bag for a snack during class and came up empty, which meant she'd have to go to the university café if she was going to make it through another three hours of lecture that day.
She hated going to the café. It was a breeding ground for strangers to spark small talk and play 20 questions with her, firing them off at a mile a minute. She had little to no interest in talking, but they all wanted to talk to her for some reason. Which is why, not even two minutes after she'd sat down by the window with her coffee and "fresh" muffin, it came as no surprise that someone decided to invade her space.
Remy re-crossed her legs, calmly closed her eyes, and clenched her teeth. It was her. She knew it was because she knew that perfume like she knew the chemical compound of water. Ralph Lauren’s Romance; another one of those annoying benefits of choosing to sleep with someone more than a few times. Remy had once tried to buy Allison something else to wear, but only because “Romance” was so feminine it was almost a turn off. Almost. Typically, she admitted that it - coupled with a few conniving tricks that Allison always seemed to have hidden up one sleeve or another - turned Remy into an insatiable animal. This would not be one of those times, she told herself.
Remy didn't speak or acknowledge Cam- no, Allison sitting there with her, and Allison offered her the same insolence in return…but she also refused to leave. The café was far from silent and yet, Remy had to consciously force herself not to resort to nervous fidgeting in order to tolerate the standoff going on at her table. The fact that she knew Allison was staring at her with that know-it-all smirk on her face that Remy couldn't fucking stand wasn't helping either. Resilient to her baited hook, Remy blew a cooling breath over her coffee and sipped it between bites that she tore from the muffin. She would not speak to her. Allison Cameron did not exist.
Reaching a hand across the table, Allison picked off a corner of the muffin and drew back to eat it. Poppy seeds crushed between her teeth until she swallowed the sweet pastry. Then, licking the tart, lemon icing from her lips, Allison waited patiently for Remy to react to her presence in some way. But Remy just kept sipping her coffee and picking away at the muffin like a spoiled, bratty child. Typical.
"So you're just not going to talk to me?" Allison asked, conceding in the not-staring contest.
"Nope," Remy said defiantly. Looking at her for a moment with a familiarly bitchy smirk, Remy popped the last of the muffin into her mouth and chewed it slowly in order to keep her attention on the tangy flavor melting on her tongue rather than talking to Allison. Balling up the wrapper, Remy drew her hand back, took aim, and tossed the waste into a nearby bin as if she were playing basketball; a sport she was only good at when it came to eliminating garbage. Wrapping her hands back around her cup of coffee, she lowered her lips to blow over the hot beverage again but this time kept her eyes up and focused on Allison.
The way Remy raised her brows at her like that served as a perfect reminder as to why they'd stopped seeing each other in the first place. Without provocation, Remy was a condescending bitch and was sickly proud of it simply because she could get away with it. She used her Huntington's diagnosis as a free pass to be spiteful and insensitive about everything, but Allison had never stood for it and that drove Remy completely bonkers. Still, having this reminder of how rude Remy could be whenever she felt threatened (which was all the time) made Allison consider raising a white flag and moving on to someone more worth her time.
But she knew better. Remy was just scared and resorting to playing games with her again. Games that Remy had always won until Allison came along and threw her world off its axis. Cocking her head to the side, Allison revered Remy in her vigilant and silent battle, both admiring her strength and disappointed in her inability to share her known vulnerabilities with someone Remy should have felt safe with after everything they'd gone through together.
"This is really juvenile, Remy," Allison complained, rolling her eyes. "Or are you still going by 'Thirteen?'" She sneered at the brunette's unfortunate choice of a nickname. It wasn't even a nickname. 'Thirteen' was nothing more than a fateful reminder of the day that Remy's blood test came back positive. A day which Remy had decided she was no longer a person; just one of many numbered patients waiting to die.
"You're the one who sat down and didn't say anything," she snapped. "What do you want?"
If she'd been speaking to anyone else, Allison would have been offended. "I just thought maybe we could, I don't know, talk?" She offered, fidgeting and intertwining her fingers together before carefully drifting a hand across the table and drawing a squiggly line down Remy's fingertips then catching her eyes and smiling at her.
"You think we should…talk?" Remy asked, suppressing laughter. "Look, Allison -"
"What did you just call me?" She interrupted, sitting upright and taking her hand away. Maybe they were doomed after all. She'd never called her Allison before. And it's not like she hated her name, but hearing it fall from Remy's lips was like hearing the Pope denounce his own religion.
"Um…pretty sure you've heard the name before, seeing how it's yours and all," she deadpanned, taking a final drink of coffee and then pushing the cup forward.
"I know what my name is," she replied bitterly, but trying not to seem hurt by the obvious offense. "It's just that you never…" pausing to think of a safe retreat. "It just surprised me is all," she shrugged it off.
"Yeah, well…things change." Sighing when it was apparent that Cameron was not going to leave her alone, "I have another class to go to," she lied. Gathering her bag and slipping the strap diagonally over her head to rest upon her opposite shoulder, Remy stood to leave. Cameron was not one to give up easily on anything so Remy would have to make a break for it, but she was quickly stopped when Cameron grabbed her arm and then scurried to stand in front of her. "We'll talk about this later, Allison," she repeated the name, knowing it bothered her.
Cameron laughed in spite of herself. "I may not have seen you in a year, but I still know who you are. You never talk."
"Congratulations, you have me all figured out! Can I go now?" She asked, glaring. It wasn't really a question, but when Cameron refused to move out of her way, Remy gave in. "What do you want me to say, that I have these secret feelings for you? Or better yet," she laughed, stepping back and touching her fingertips to her lips in an attempt to hold herself back from being too callous, "Did you want to tell me that you think you have feelings for me? Because I can't even begin to tell you how ridiculous that sounds."
"I'm not admitting to anything, true or not, but why would it be ridiculous if I cared about you? We did spend an entire summer together."
"No, we had sex at mutually agreeable times in order to avoid grieving or otherwise dealing with our own fucked up realities," she corrected. It felt good to correct Cameron, especially since she cringed in embarrassment over the word "sex" being so blatantly discussed in a public café. With the fuel of self-righteousness behind her, Remy was compelled to push further. Maybe then Cameron would see the big picture for what it was and fuck off. "Sex therapy was fun and extremely counter-productive, which I appreciated, but we also mutually agreed to end it over a year ago."
Remy was talking too much and as good as it felt, she knew if she kept it up, she'd go from the clever champion with a hot trophy to boot, to the pathetic insect squashed by Cameron's intellect. She had to get out of there, but with every step she attempted, Cameron skipped up next to her, all the while unknowingly pulling at Remy's heartstrings by way of her desperation to talk to her…or need to prove that she was right; that Cameron meant more to Remy than she was letting on. Either was bad news because the fact of the matter was that Remy did want Cameron for more than what they'd been to each other before, but she couldn't allow that to happen. She didn't want to be left broken hearted and alone when Cameron woke up from this warped nightmare of a one-night-stand gone uncontrollably awry.
A year ago, Allison Cameron had been nothing more than a project for her; someone that was supposed to disappear at the end of the summer. And she would have had Remy not unintentionally transferred into her organic chemistry section. The last thing she wanted was to give Cameron another shot with her, knowing that the balance of control might shift, making her the new sympathy project bending to Cameron's will.
"Why are you bringing this up now?" Remy had to ask, but immediately regretted it.
"Because I saw how you looked at me in class last week and I see that same look in you right now. You miss me," Cameron declared without even missing a beat.
And there it was: the heel of Cameron's shoe, effectively squishing Thirteen into a gooey mess on the floor. "That's -" Remy struggled to find the words. She would never be able to plead her case if she was too busy salivating over her. Then panic arrived and started to make itself comfortable in the pit of her stomach. "Absurd," she sputtered out. Her panic spread as quickly as Cameron's triumphant smile and then Thirteen resorted to unscrupulous verbal abuse. "You need to deal with the death of your husband and stop using me to do it for you."
"Yeah because you're the picture-perfect image of recovery and acceptance of reality," she laughed.
"Okay seriously, Allison," Remy said, grabbing Cameron's arms and facing her.
"Stop calling me 'Allison,' Thirteen," she jabbed, furrowing her brows and wriggling out of Thirteen's grip.
Remy held back a snicker. Cameron was always so cute and amusing whenever she tried to be assertive. God, she smells good, she thought, falling into her temptations and taking a step closer to her. Stop it! She stepped back to reestablish control of herself and of Cameron. "I have to go. This," she said indicating the two of them with her fingers, "is over. Has been since last August. Move on."
It seemed necessary to be somewhat cruel to her, as unrelenting as she was. It wasn't like Cameron ever got her feelings hurt by rejection anyway. She just kept pushing until Thirteen gave in, which was exactly why she needed to escape. And probably change her class schedule again except that it was probably too late to drop without failing.
"Why should I? You clearly haven't," she challenged, staring back at Thirteen with a teasing grin, her bright green eyes glowing with pride. Cameron loved playing this game. She was good at it and she loved to watch Thirteen unravel over the most superfluous things. Things like allowing someone to give a damn about her. Thirteen was convinced that she was a lost cause, but Cameron vehemently disagreed. She'd seen lost causes. Sure, Thirteen had a death sentence, but she was years away from when it would become imperative to her lifestyle and that was no excuse for her to avoid dealing with humanity - or Cameron - in the interim.
Seething (from either anger or a passionate need to throw Cameron up against the wall and fuck her senselessly, she wasn't sure which), Thirteen sucked in a breath, held it, then opened her eyes to face Cameron one more time. "Yes. I have."
"Very convincing performance," she chuckled. Taking a step closer, Cameron invaded Thirteen's overly paranoid personal space and deftly hovered her lips over her cheek before kissing the soft, noticeably flushed skin. "See you next week, Thirteen," she whispered, running her fingers down Remy's arm and then walking away.
Part Three
Author: brighteyedcat @ house_femfest
Rating: R
Prompt: Written for my lovely friend aphrodite_mine's prompt of "AU - Cameron and Thirteen, any point in history (seriously - ANY). Bonus points for power play or gender play."
Author's Notes: I know I'm posting the first and second chapters kind of close together, but the first one was so super short and I won't be able to post again until next week due to certain people invading my house for a long weekend. Anyway, thanks for reading. :)
Disclaimer: No ownership of the House MD characters herein is claimed. All House MD characters are the intellectual property of David Shore et al.
Summary: AU past!fic. Thirteen and Cameron have some serious unresolved history to deal with when they find themselves enrolled in the same section of Organic Chemistry.
Part One ||
ii.
The following week, history repeated itself. Remy made it a point to sit as far away from Allison as possible and then as quietly as she came in, she left: unnoticed and hopefully unseen. Problem was, Remy was practically famished by the end of lecture this week and she'd already riffled through her bag for a snack during class and came up empty, which meant she'd have to go to the university café if she was going to make it through another three hours of lecture that day.
She hated going to the café. It was a breeding ground for strangers to spark small talk and play 20 questions with her, firing them off at a mile a minute. She had little to no interest in talking, but they all wanted to talk to her for some reason. Which is why, not even two minutes after she'd sat down by the window with her coffee and "fresh" muffin, it came as no surprise that someone decided to invade her space.
Remy re-crossed her legs, calmly closed her eyes, and clenched her teeth. It was her. She knew it was because she knew that perfume like she knew the chemical compound of water. Ralph Lauren’s Romance; another one of those annoying benefits of choosing to sleep with someone more than a few times. Remy had once tried to buy Allison something else to wear, but only because “Romance” was so feminine it was almost a turn off. Almost. Typically, she admitted that it - coupled with a few conniving tricks that Allison always seemed to have hidden up one sleeve or another - turned Remy into an insatiable animal. This would not be one of those times, she told herself.
Remy didn't speak or acknowledge Cam- no, Allison sitting there with her, and Allison offered her the same insolence in return…but she also refused to leave. The café was far from silent and yet, Remy had to consciously force herself not to resort to nervous fidgeting in order to tolerate the standoff going on at her table. The fact that she knew Allison was staring at her with that know-it-all smirk on her face that Remy couldn't fucking stand wasn't helping either. Resilient to her baited hook, Remy blew a cooling breath over her coffee and sipped it between bites that she tore from the muffin. She would not speak to her. Allison Cameron did not exist.
Reaching a hand across the table, Allison picked off a corner of the muffin and drew back to eat it. Poppy seeds crushed between her teeth until she swallowed the sweet pastry. Then, licking the tart, lemon icing from her lips, Allison waited patiently for Remy to react to her presence in some way. But Remy just kept sipping her coffee and picking away at the muffin like a spoiled, bratty child. Typical.
"So you're just not going to talk to me?" Allison asked, conceding in the not-staring contest.
"Nope," Remy said defiantly. Looking at her for a moment with a familiarly bitchy smirk, Remy popped the last of the muffin into her mouth and chewed it slowly in order to keep her attention on the tangy flavor melting on her tongue rather than talking to Allison. Balling up the wrapper, Remy drew her hand back, took aim, and tossed the waste into a nearby bin as if she were playing basketball; a sport she was only good at when it came to eliminating garbage. Wrapping her hands back around her cup of coffee, she lowered her lips to blow over the hot beverage again but this time kept her eyes up and focused on Allison.
The way Remy raised her brows at her like that served as a perfect reminder as to why they'd stopped seeing each other in the first place. Without provocation, Remy was a condescending bitch and was sickly proud of it simply because she could get away with it. She used her Huntington's diagnosis as a free pass to be spiteful and insensitive about everything, but Allison had never stood for it and that drove Remy completely bonkers. Still, having this reminder of how rude Remy could be whenever she felt threatened (which was all the time) made Allison consider raising a white flag and moving on to someone more worth her time.
But she knew better. Remy was just scared and resorting to playing games with her again. Games that Remy had always won until Allison came along and threw her world off its axis. Cocking her head to the side, Allison revered Remy in her vigilant and silent battle, both admiring her strength and disappointed in her inability to share her known vulnerabilities with someone Remy should have felt safe with after everything they'd gone through together.
"This is really juvenile, Remy," Allison complained, rolling her eyes. "Or are you still going by 'Thirteen?'" She sneered at the brunette's unfortunate choice of a nickname. It wasn't even a nickname. 'Thirteen' was nothing more than a fateful reminder of the day that Remy's blood test came back positive. A day which Remy had decided she was no longer a person; just one of many numbered patients waiting to die.
"You're the one who sat down and didn't say anything," she snapped. "What do you want?"
If she'd been speaking to anyone else, Allison would have been offended. "I just thought maybe we could, I don't know, talk?" She offered, fidgeting and intertwining her fingers together before carefully drifting a hand across the table and drawing a squiggly line down Remy's fingertips then catching her eyes and smiling at her.
"You think we should…talk?" Remy asked, suppressing laughter. "Look, Allison -"
"What did you just call me?" She interrupted, sitting upright and taking her hand away. Maybe they were doomed after all. She'd never called her Allison before. And it's not like she hated her name, but hearing it fall from Remy's lips was like hearing the Pope denounce his own religion.
"Um…pretty sure you've heard the name before, seeing how it's yours and all," she deadpanned, taking a final drink of coffee and then pushing the cup forward.
"I know what my name is," she replied bitterly, but trying not to seem hurt by the obvious offense. "It's just that you never…" pausing to think of a safe retreat. "It just surprised me is all," she shrugged it off.
"Yeah, well…things change." Sighing when it was apparent that Cameron was not going to leave her alone, "I have another class to go to," she lied. Gathering her bag and slipping the strap diagonally over her head to rest upon her opposite shoulder, Remy stood to leave. Cameron was not one to give up easily on anything so Remy would have to make a break for it, but she was quickly stopped when Cameron grabbed her arm and then scurried to stand in front of her. "We'll talk about this later, Allison," she repeated the name, knowing it bothered her.
Cameron laughed in spite of herself. "I may not have seen you in a year, but I still know who you are. You never talk."
"Congratulations, you have me all figured out! Can I go now?" She asked, glaring. It wasn't really a question, but when Cameron refused to move out of her way, Remy gave in. "What do you want me to say, that I have these secret feelings for you? Or better yet," she laughed, stepping back and touching her fingertips to her lips in an attempt to hold herself back from being too callous, "Did you want to tell me that you think you have feelings for me? Because I can't even begin to tell you how ridiculous that sounds."
"I'm not admitting to anything, true or not, but why would it be ridiculous if I cared about you? We did spend an entire summer together."
"No, we had sex at mutually agreeable times in order to avoid grieving or otherwise dealing with our own fucked up realities," she corrected. It felt good to correct Cameron, especially since she cringed in embarrassment over the word "sex" being so blatantly discussed in a public café. With the fuel of self-righteousness behind her, Remy was compelled to push further. Maybe then Cameron would see the big picture for what it was and fuck off. "Sex therapy was fun and extremely counter-productive, which I appreciated, but we also mutually agreed to end it over a year ago."
Remy was talking too much and as good as it felt, she knew if she kept it up, she'd go from the clever champion with a hot trophy to boot, to the pathetic insect squashed by Cameron's intellect. She had to get out of there, but with every step she attempted, Cameron skipped up next to her, all the while unknowingly pulling at Remy's heartstrings by way of her desperation to talk to her…or need to prove that she was right; that Cameron meant more to Remy than she was letting on. Either was bad news because the fact of the matter was that Remy did want Cameron for more than what they'd been to each other before, but she couldn't allow that to happen. She didn't want to be left broken hearted and alone when Cameron woke up from this warped nightmare of a one-night-stand gone uncontrollably awry.
A year ago, Allison Cameron had been nothing more than a project for her; someone that was supposed to disappear at the end of the summer. And she would have had Remy not unintentionally transferred into her organic chemistry section. The last thing she wanted was to give Cameron another shot with her, knowing that the balance of control might shift, making her the new sympathy project bending to Cameron's will.
"Why are you bringing this up now?" Remy had to ask, but immediately regretted it.
"Because I saw how you looked at me in class last week and I see that same look in you right now. You miss me," Cameron declared without even missing a beat.
And there it was: the heel of Cameron's shoe, effectively squishing Thirteen into a gooey mess on the floor. "That's -" Remy struggled to find the words. She would never be able to plead her case if she was too busy salivating over her. Then panic arrived and started to make itself comfortable in the pit of her stomach. "Absurd," she sputtered out. Her panic spread as quickly as Cameron's triumphant smile and then Thirteen resorted to unscrupulous verbal abuse. "You need to deal with the death of your husband and stop using me to do it for you."
"Yeah because you're the picture-perfect image of recovery and acceptance of reality," she laughed.
"Okay seriously, Allison," Remy said, grabbing Cameron's arms and facing her.
"Stop calling me 'Allison,' Thirteen," she jabbed, furrowing her brows and wriggling out of Thirteen's grip.
Remy held back a snicker. Cameron was always so cute and amusing whenever she tried to be assertive. God, she smells good, she thought, falling into her temptations and taking a step closer to her. Stop it! She stepped back to reestablish control of herself and of Cameron. "I have to go. This," she said indicating the two of them with her fingers, "is over. Has been since last August. Move on."
It seemed necessary to be somewhat cruel to her, as unrelenting as she was. It wasn't like Cameron ever got her feelings hurt by rejection anyway. She just kept pushing until Thirteen gave in, which was exactly why she needed to escape. And probably change her class schedule again except that it was probably too late to drop without failing.
"Why should I? You clearly haven't," she challenged, staring back at Thirteen with a teasing grin, her bright green eyes glowing with pride. Cameron loved playing this game. She was good at it and she loved to watch Thirteen unravel over the most superfluous things. Things like allowing someone to give a damn about her. Thirteen was convinced that she was a lost cause, but Cameron vehemently disagreed. She'd seen lost causes. Sure, Thirteen had a death sentence, but she was years away from when it would become imperative to her lifestyle and that was no excuse for her to avoid dealing with humanity - or Cameron - in the interim.
Seething (from either anger or a passionate need to throw Cameron up against the wall and fuck her senselessly, she wasn't sure which), Thirteen sucked in a breath, held it, then opened her eyes to face Cameron one more time. "Yes. I have."
"Very convincing performance," she chuckled. Taking a step closer, Cameron invaded Thirteen's overly paranoid personal space and deftly hovered her lips over her cheek before kissing the soft, noticeably flushed skin. "See you next week, Thirteen," she whispered, running her fingers down Remy's arm and then walking away.
Part Three