"It's like I can't breathe..."
Title: No More False Heavens. No More Damned Magic. [3/?]
Fandom: House MD
Pairing: House/Cameron
Challenge/Prompt: 1theme, “The Reason”
Rating: NC-17 (just in case)
Genre: Het
Copyright: Title taken from “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys.
Summary: He rides the bike because it’s a space where she isn’t.
Author’s Notes: Inspired by this picture that karokegal gave me as a prompt (there’s a lyric prompt too, but that inspired a different reason that I’ll put up later). As for the content, I think I’ve been reading too much Angela Carter. Ah well.
The Reason House Isn’t Nearly As Impenetrable As He Likes To Think He Is.
A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
He rides the bike because it’s a space where she isn’t.
Well, that’s sort of a lie. He rides the bike because it’s fun, because he likes the power between his thighs (and he can think up twelve different innuendoes to stem off that phrase before it gets boring), because it pisses off Wilson (“Chase likes my bike”, he told Wilson later, and Wilson shrugged, telling him to give Chase a ride on it then; House did consider it for all of about three minutes, but Chase doesn’t have the right), and because it seems to perfectly compliment the mid-life crisis he isn’t having.
And because it’s his.
Every time he thinks he’s figured her out, pinned her down (the little butterfly that likes the pins in its wings way too much, and it’s hilarious that Chase thinks he’s the masochistic one), she does something new. Irritating, admirable, unusual, downright stupid - but new.
It’s almost as though she knows that the only way to retain his interest is to change regularly, swirls of colours and personalities and opinions, chameleon in reverse. But she can’t know that, because to know that, she’d have to know him better than any of them, and he refuses to let that be true.
She’s a girl, a naïve, stupid little girl displaying her cracks and handing him the crowbar (and damn, if that doesn’t sound dirty, but it’s not that sort of day), begging him to pry them all open and bite down, feast on her vulnerability and all the little places in her soul where the moths and dust gather and it hurts her when he turns his scrutiny on them. Emotional masturbation (less embarrassing than the physical kind but also less gratifying; he doesn’t have the patience for it, he’s always been about the gratification).
But, day by day, she crawls under his skin. Worming her way in where she isn’t wanted, with presents and cards and lingering looks and whispers and concern. He doesn’t want her concern, or her fucking pity, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that what she feels for him is becoming something beyond the need to make the cripple better. And it can’t be love that she wants, because he has made it oh so very clear that if she attempts to love him he will have no qualms about hurting her. It’s smart, he has to admit. Making herself into a puzzle with so many pieces that by the time he’s assembled them all he’ll know every inch of her, body and soul, and then he’ll have no choice.
He resents being manipulated, and revs the engine a little louder because the sound almost blots out all the things in his head that shouldn’t be there and even Vicodin can’t quite silence them (the drugs make him neutral, but they also make him broody and irritatingly poetic. As side-effects go, though, it could be worse). This is asking for a road accident but he already knows that he’ll be fine and if this does end in a patchwork twist of skin and metal, then she’ll only have herself to blame, and can martyr herself for eternity accordingly.
Win-win all round.
But he can’t get her out. It was easy to begin with, the pretty face in the corner of the office attempting to fashion herself a backbone, easy to ignore her or occasionally compare her breasts unfavourably with Cuddy. But years of working for him have transformed his raggedy little team into something he barely recognises and likes even less than he did to begin with.
(“Everybody likes you.” “Do you? I have to know.” “No.”)
There’s Chase, whose daddy issues are taking ever more alarming turns and who seems to be completely capable of acting like an actual human being, Foreman, who is getting ever more casually angry and if he starts limping one day, no one will really be surprised, and then… and then there’s her. All twists and anger and standing up for herself and humouring him and falling for him so very publicly, and Wilson thought it was amusing but he only saw the surface. Stuck beneath the façade of whatever he refuses to let this be, it isn’t amusing at all. It’s dangerous, too dangerous.
But she is not here. Here there is nothing that makes him think of her, nothing that makes him remember what she looks when she’s looking up at him, eyes wide and blue and treacherous, telling him clearly that she’s under the impression she’s winning. It would be so easy to prove her wrong, though, pull her head back by her hair, prove a point or five in a kiss that could break down every little wall she’s erected and have her sobbing in want and fear.
He’s going to crash the bike. He’s not. Here is air and sunlight and he can feel vibrations screaming up through the denim of his jeans and it’s like being torn about in a roar of sound and this is not about her. This is about him and the road and the scream of the engine and the fact that for a few moments nothing at all hurts. And he is not thinking about her. He is not thinking about the curve of her shoulders, strands of hair caught against her cheek, blue eyes screwed up with anger, white corsages and red lipstick and who knows what colour her tears were.
Like little pearls and of course everyone assumed that he was the one in the wrong. He isn’t. It would have been easy to lie to her, to flirt and take her home and fuck her, fuck her over the piano or in his double bed and watch her fall asleep before popping the Vicodin. But he didn’t. He made the decision that he didn’t want to make, and everyone said they saw it coming, gossiped, teased her. That’s Dr Allison Cameron, yes, that Cameron, thought she could make House love her… poor bitch.
(“What I am is what you need; I’m damaged.”)
It would have been easier to say ‘yes’. But it seemed only fair to give her a fighting chance.
He wishes, now, that he hadn’t been such a fucking gentleman. Having her wrapped around his fingers right now would save a lot of time and leg pain all round, and she wouldn’t look at him the way she does and it would all be a lot less awkward and Wilson wouldn’t wander about the hospital looking like he understands everything (he understands nothing, but House decides not to point this out. God knows why).
She’d be pale against the seat, hair curling around bare shoulders, leant back against the handlebars, thighs spread, one on either side of the bike, white skin against black leather, bright red whore lipstick and a smile. And he’d be merciless, purple bruises, those blue eyes fluttering. That’s the way she’d want it, rocking restlessly as he fucked her on the bike, fingernails digging into his shoulders, final puzzle piece clicking into place as his cock shoved into her cunt.
Black, white, red, blue, purple.
Fantasies in such vivid colours.
And fuck, this was supposed to be his space, where she can’t get in, can’t interfere. Just him and the bike and the warm leather jacket shifting as he leans to change direction. It’s been prophesised that he’ll crash, but he’s had years of driving under various forms of influence and he’s good at it. He rides better stoned than he does sober - at least, he thinks he does. Never been clean long enough to really try it.
He thinks, and then decides, that he hates her. Hates her for crawling in under his skin, getting in all the places she’s not supposed to be, poking at the edges and peeling back the surfaces to see what’s underneath, accompanied by an inscrutable stare and the promise that she’s doing it because she cares about him. Fuck that. He resents her for wanting to try and in doing so accidentally lets her in, and he can scratch and scratch but he won’t get her out.
She doesn’t love, she needs, and he doesn’t love, he obsesses. That’s all this is. She’s pushed a few buttons she wasn’t meant to push and now he can’t get her out. He can’t get into her or over her or ignore her the way he wants to. It’s almost like a spell, only he doesn’t believe in magic, he barely believes in science some days, she’s just a passing phase of colour and light and she’ll fade. She’ll fade and he’ll stop obsessing. She’ll fade and none of this will matter.
Perfume and skin and he wants to hurt her for what she does to him, for what she’s doing so deliberately but she doesn’t understand the consequences. Naïve, misinformed, just plain stupid, call her whatever you want, he wants to rip and take and tear and mark and claim her, that white skin under his hands, motorbike screaming and she should have seen this coming because you don’t play with fire. It’s all good fun until someone dies in sudden, unexpected flames.
And he can’t get her out.
So he turns the bike, changes direction. Heads for an apartment. His, or hers, he can no longer remember.
Reason Four
Fandom: House MD
Pairing: House/Cameron
Challenge/Prompt: 1theme, “The Reason”
Rating: NC-17 (just in case)
Genre: Het
Copyright: Title taken from “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys.
Summary: He rides the bike because it’s a space where she isn’t.
Author’s Notes: Inspired by this picture that karokegal gave me as a prompt (there’s a lyric prompt too, but that inspired a different reason that I’ll put up later). As for the content, I think I’ve been reading too much Angela Carter. Ah well.
The Reason House Isn’t Nearly As Impenetrable As He Likes To Think He Is.
A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
He rides the bike because it’s a space where she isn’t.
Well, that’s sort of a lie. He rides the bike because it’s fun, because he likes the power between his thighs (and he can think up twelve different innuendoes to stem off that phrase before it gets boring), because it pisses off Wilson (“Chase likes my bike”, he told Wilson later, and Wilson shrugged, telling him to give Chase a ride on it then; House did consider it for all of about three minutes, but Chase doesn’t have the right), and because it seems to perfectly compliment the mid-life crisis he isn’t having.
And because it’s his.
Every time he thinks he’s figured her out, pinned her down (the little butterfly that likes the pins in its wings way too much, and it’s hilarious that Chase thinks he’s the masochistic one), she does something new. Irritating, admirable, unusual, downright stupid - but new.
It’s almost as though she knows that the only way to retain his interest is to change regularly, swirls of colours and personalities and opinions, chameleon in reverse. But she can’t know that, because to know that, she’d have to know him better than any of them, and he refuses to let that be true.
She’s a girl, a naïve, stupid little girl displaying her cracks and handing him the crowbar (and damn, if that doesn’t sound dirty, but it’s not that sort of day), begging him to pry them all open and bite down, feast on her vulnerability and all the little places in her soul where the moths and dust gather and it hurts her when he turns his scrutiny on them. Emotional masturbation (less embarrassing than the physical kind but also less gratifying; he doesn’t have the patience for it, he’s always been about the gratification).
But, day by day, she crawls under his skin. Worming her way in where she isn’t wanted, with presents and cards and lingering looks and whispers and concern. He doesn’t want her concern, or her fucking pity, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that what she feels for him is becoming something beyond the need to make the cripple better. And it can’t be love that she wants, because he has made it oh so very clear that if she attempts to love him he will have no qualms about hurting her. It’s smart, he has to admit. Making herself into a puzzle with so many pieces that by the time he’s assembled them all he’ll know every inch of her, body and soul, and then he’ll have no choice.
He resents being manipulated, and revs the engine a little louder because the sound almost blots out all the things in his head that shouldn’t be there and even Vicodin can’t quite silence them (the drugs make him neutral, but they also make him broody and irritatingly poetic. As side-effects go, though, it could be worse). This is asking for a road accident but he already knows that he’ll be fine and if this does end in a patchwork twist of skin and metal, then she’ll only have herself to blame, and can martyr herself for eternity accordingly.
Win-win all round.
But he can’t get her out. It was easy to begin with, the pretty face in the corner of the office attempting to fashion herself a backbone, easy to ignore her or occasionally compare her breasts unfavourably with Cuddy. But years of working for him have transformed his raggedy little team into something he barely recognises and likes even less than he did to begin with.
(“Everybody likes you.” “Do you? I have to know.” “No.”)
There’s Chase, whose daddy issues are taking ever more alarming turns and who seems to be completely capable of acting like an actual human being, Foreman, who is getting ever more casually angry and if he starts limping one day, no one will really be surprised, and then… and then there’s her. All twists and anger and standing up for herself and humouring him and falling for him so very publicly, and Wilson thought it was amusing but he only saw the surface. Stuck beneath the façade of whatever he refuses to let this be, it isn’t amusing at all. It’s dangerous, too dangerous.
But she is not here. Here there is nothing that makes him think of her, nothing that makes him remember what she looks when she’s looking up at him, eyes wide and blue and treacherous, telling him clearly that she’s under the impression she’s winning. It would be so easy to prove her wrong, though, pull her head back by her hair, prove a point or five in a kiss that could break down every little wall she’s erected and have her sobbing in want and fear.
He’s going to crash the bike. He’s not. Here is air and sunlight and he can feel vibrations screaming up through the denim of his jeans and it’s like being torn about in a roar of sound and this is not about her. This is about him and the road and the scream of the engine and the fact that for a few moments nothing at all hurts. And he is not thinking about her. He is not thinking about the curve of her shoulders, strands of hair caught against her cheek, blue eyes screwed up with anger, white corsages and red lipstick and who knows what colour her tears were.
Like little pearls and of course everyone assumed that he was the one in the wrong. He isn’t. It would have been easy to lie to her, to flirt and take her home and fuck her, fuck her over the piano or in his double bed and watch her fall asleep before popping the Vicodin. But he didn’t. He made the decision that he didn’t want to make, and everyone said they saw it coming, gossiped, teased her. That’s Dr Allison Cameron, yes, that Cameron, thought she could make House love her… poor bitch.
(“What I am is what you need; I’m damaged.”)
It would have been easier to say ‘yes’. But it seemed only fair to give her a fighting chance.
He wishes, now, that he hadn’t been such a fucking gentleman. Having her wrapped around his fingers right now would save a lot of time and leg pain all round, and she wouldn’t look at him the way she does and it would all be a lot less awkward and Wilson wouldn’t wander about the hospital looking like he understands everything (he understands nothing, but House decides not to point this out. God knows why).
She’d be pale against the seat, hair curling around bare shoulders, leant back against the handlebars, thighs spread, one on either side of the bike, white skin against black leather, bright red whore lipstick and a smile. And he’d be merciless, purple bruises, those blue eyes fluttering. That’s the way she’d want it, rocking restlessly as he fucked her on the bike, fingernails digging into his shoulders, final puzzle piece clicking into place as his cock shoved into her cunt.
Black, white, red, blue, purple.
Fantasies in such vivid colours.
And fuck, this was supposed to be his space, where she can’t get in, can’t interfere. Just him and the bike and the warm leather jacket shifting as he leans to change direction. It’s been prophesised that he’ll crash, but he’s had years of driving under various forms of influence and he’s good at it. He rides better stoned than he does sober - at least, he thinks he does. Never been clean long enough to really try it.
He thinks, and then decides, that he hates her. Hates her for crawling in under his skin, getting in all the places she’s not supposed to be, poking at the edges and peeling back the surfaces to see what’s underneath, accompanied by an inscrutable stare and the promise that she’s doing it because she cares about him. Fuck that. He resents her for wanting to try and in doing so accidentally lets her in, and he can scratch and scratch but he won’t get her out.
She doesn’t love, she needs, and he doesn’t love, he obsesses. That’s all this is. She’s pushed a few buttons she wasn’t meant to push and now he can’t get her out. He can’t get into her or over her or ignore her the way he wants to. It’s almost like a spell, only he doesn’t believe in magic, he barely believes in science some days, she’s just a passing phase of colour and light and she’ll fade. She’ll fade and he’ll stop obsessing. She’ll fade and none of this will matter.
Perfume and skin and he wants to hurt her for what she does to him, for what she’s doing so deliberately but she doesn’t understand the consequences. Naïve, misinformed, just plain stupid, call her whatever you want, he wants to rip and take and tear and mark and claim her, that white skin under his hands, motorbike screaming and she should have seen this coming because you don’t play with fire. It’s all good fun until someone dies in sudden, unexpected flames.
And he can’t get her out.
So he turns the bike, changes direction. Heads for an apartment. His, or hers, he can no longer remember.
Reason Four