(no subject)
Chapter seven
House
“Did she just say what I think she said?” Wilson ponders, uncertainly, eyes dancing between me and Cameron as she leaves. I try and set her hair on fire with my stare; it doesn’t work, one day I’ll get that technique down.
Don’t say it, don’t say it. Don’t…say it.
“What do you think she said?” Why? Damn. You’re an idiot sometimes. And Cameron’s got a stupid big mouth, couldn’t resist making a fool of herself, could she.
“I think she said…” Wilson begins, but I cut him off before I hear the words ‘Cute Naked Butt’ skitter out of my best friend’s mouth.
“I know what you think you heard, but you didn’t. Are you here for a specific reason, or just to annoy me?”
Wilson glances into the middle distance of the room and his cheeks puff out half way.
“Actually I have no idea what I came in for now. Cameron’s entirely inappropriate yet intriguing statement has re-prioritized my entire day.”
I roll my eyes at him, but he’s still lost in thought.
“Grow up, it was a joke…we have between us,” I bluff, heading into my office to escape his grating stupidity. Of course he follows me so I make sure the door slams quickly back at him.
Unfortunately it seems his neck is made entirely of elastic, so he ducks his head back just before the door slams into him. Pity, that.
“…Where she gets to see your naked butt?” he flings his words around the door, before following them in. “That sounds like something else entirely to me; the word escapes me, what is it, uh… sex?” he continues, throwing his eyebrows up while holding his hands out to emphasize the word sex.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, switching on my computer, while mentally preparing myself to ignore him completely.
“Gregory House, are you having sex with your immunologist?” he says, hands firmly on his hips.
“No, of course not,” I deny convincingly, carefully adding equal parts of irritation and boredom.
There is a brief pause, before he says. “Sorry, I’ll re-phrase that. Are you having outrageously inappropriate sex with your immunologist?”
I glare at him in disbelief because he practically shouted his last statement, and if he keeps on going he’s going to get a large tennis ball rebounding off his forehead. It’s against the rules to actually look at him when I’m supposed to be ignoring him, but his petty needling at the subject makes me react.
“Wilson…two words, shut the fuck up,” I say, shaking my head.
His eyebrows jump down from his forehead and duck, and then his head quirks to the side. “That’s four.”
“I decided to add two more to emphasize the shutting up; unfortunately it didn’t work.”
“My my, you are grouchy this morning, that is so not like you when you’re getting some,” he remarks thoughtfully.
“I’m not getting…we’re not having sex,” I reject, flustered, exasperation threatening to give me away as it saturates my tone. Is my nose growing or something? He won’t give it up. I wish he’d shut up.
“This is the best gossip ever; the nurses are going to love this. You must know they’ve had bets on this for well over a year, I’m going to make so much money, I can probably take next month off.”
“Wilson, keep your mouth shut,” I threaten him, pointing my cane at his chest. I then lower it and run a nervous thumb over my eyebrow.
“Give it up then, House. If it makes it any easier to concede, I don’t believe your lies anyway.”
I stare at my desk for a few moments; the more I deny this, the deeper the hole I dig. I need another plan; defiance is not sating him this time.
"This stays between me and you," I say, knowing it won't.
This is all Cameron’s fault.
~
Cameron
“Couldn’t keep your mouth shut, huh?” House dispatches discontentedly, the moment I step into his office.
It’s just gone six in the evening. Foreman and Chase are about to leave; so am I but I figured I should check House and I are still on for tonight after what happened this morning.
“Mine was an accident,” I defend, highlighting the obvious difference between our daring commentaries, regardless of the fact that I know he won’t be able to see it that way.
I watch him pack his things away, wondering - no, worrying the remark has convinced him we shouldn’t go out to talk tonight after all.
He stops packing shoots me a questioning stare. “What?” he barks impatiently.
We plan them independently, but our worried glances into the next room are synchronized. “About tonight, are we still going?”
Our gazes travel back to meet across his office.
“Of course; just because you have the tact of a twenty year old tabloid gossip columnist, doesn’t mean we suddenly don’t need to talk about…”
He clears his throat and chances another glance at Foreman and Chase, just for paranoia’s sake.
“Stuff.”
“I agree,” I say, and then all of his words penetrate, and I manage to catch up and frown. “About the talking - not the other part.”
“Wilson knows,” House blurts out suddenly.
“You told him?”
His head tilts to the side with the weight of his irritation. “You told him, I reluctantly confirmed it to shut him up before he informed the whole hospital of his theories.”
Oh crap, if House hadn’t started it in the first place…I’m not going to say that, he’ll only get even more pissed off than he already is.
“Is he going to say anything?” I return calmly; this situation doesn’t need another set of panties in a twist.
“I don’t know, he said he won’t, but he also said ‘I do’ three times and he’s still unclear about the part that goes ‘keep yourself only unto her.’
I feel a frown of confusion form; judging from his questioning look I’d better give voice to it. “I thought Wilson was Jewish?”
He scowls at me; it impresses the graveness of the situation on me very quickly.
This development, to him, is very serious.
“You get the point,” he says, drawing the words out slowly enough that I almost hear the full stop at the end of his statement. He then goes on packing his things away. I stand awkwardly for a few moments before deciding to retreat.
“I’ll see you tonight then,” I say, quietly hesitant. He nods but remains quiet.
We really could have done without this little bump right now; I’d almost got him acting like an adult about the whole thing. I hope he’s in a better mood later. But the law of averages and logic suggest he probably won’t be.
~
House
I glance with suspicious paranoia at the nurses in the clinic as I leave. They’re the central communication network for the hospital rumor mill. If anyone other than me, Cameron or Wilson knows about our overstepping of the employee employer relationship, it will be one of them.
Brenda, head nurse and super bitch extraordinaire throws me some weighty daggers, but I see no considered smirk. The edge of her mouth doesn’t seem to twitch with the force of a priceless rumor struggling to escape.
Safe for now, but not for long I suspect; not now the ringmaster of New Jersey gossip has his best story in half a decade.
I ride my bike home and I take my time doing so; I’ll only have to focus on the non-date when I return to my place.
Choosing, no, agonizing on what to wear takes longer than it should take any male. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to say, never mind what I want to come out of this, but on some level I don’t want to look like crap because Cameron is beautiful. People will probably stare at us; removing scruffy from the list of my negatives has got to help slightly.
Eventually I settle on a black t-shirt and a dark green shirt, finished with dark blue jeans. I even halve the stubble on my face.
I don’t know how to do this, I’ve not done ‘let’s talk about what this all means’ for a long time, and it wasn’t like I was any good at it before.
Reflecting on situations you have no possibility of changing is quite often pointless. Discussing what we’ve done, will not only be pointless but awkward, and probably embarrassing too. How will it help to sit in a bar eating a burger, while casually chatting about how our new found passion for getting each other off fits into our professional relationship?
Cameron
House is only fifteen minutes late when he picks me up; not bad for him. I’m greeted by a helmet flying into my arms as I open the door, followed by the sight of him thumping his retreat towards the elevator.
He studies the elevator ceiling with great interest on the way down and the bike ride ensures a silent journey.
We don’t really say anything until we’re settled and about ready to order. We’re at a family friendly kind of steak house; the sort of place that serves enough of a selection in alcohol to have regulars at the bar, but friendly enough for people to bring their kids out for a quiet steak and a beer.
I am greatly relieved that this place isn’t as far out of town or as near to being an environmental safety hazard as the last place. We are in a less conspicuous part of town though. It’s not exactly the centre of Princeton.
But House arrived; we’re sitting opposite each other in a social situation, we’re ordering food. This is progress of some sort, even if he is currently hiding behind his menu.
I know he’s not that picky about his food; I eventually have to reach over and ease the menu down so I can see his face.
“I’m sorry about this morning, okay? But we need to have an actual conversation about this. If I thought that resolving this would be better done in awkward silence, I’d leave it for the differential tomorrow.”
He flips the menu up again. “Picking the right steak is tricky; can’t rush this sort of decision,” he offers.
I nod to myself, resigned to the fact that this is not going to be a walk in the park. He’s probably bolstered himself here on the guilt he felt for standing me up, there is no guarantee this is actually going to achieve anything.
I slide a finger down the meal selection on my own menu; I think I’ll go with a chicken salad. I’m not all that hungry to be honest; we’re here to talk, not eat.
Then the perverse idea that I might not care about achieving anything if he comes home with me tonight pops into my head; it encourages me to lift my own menu up as I feel myself blush at the thought.
“We need to keep this out of work,” I toss over my guard.
“I agree,” House replies. “Although Wilson knows, so I’m not sure how achievable that goal is now.”
“Couldn’t you have lied?” I’m baiting him, but pissy House is better than the ‘I wish I was anywhere but here’ version of him.
I can almost hear the profanities he’s fighting to keep inside, then there is a swish as the laminated shield finally comes down so he can glare at me.
“Not my fault; it was beyond lying when you made reference to parts of my naked anatomy as he entered the room.”
Finally, he’s actually looking at me, but we’re getting off track. “I don’t regret having sex with you,” I say boldly; baby steps won’t drag anything out of him. I need to be blunt, maybe even surprising. He’s normally ten steps ahead of me in conversation if he can see anything coming.
He looks me straight in the eyes, then he nods and his mouth twitches sideways.
“I never regret having sex,” he finally offers back. “So mutual no regret, check.”
“You don’t want to be in a relationship, do you?” I enquire honestly.
“Do you?” he counters uncomfortably. I almost point out I asked first, but I hold off.
“I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. However much I may like that person.”
He looks away, his hands find a napkin and he starts to pick at it with one long finger.
“We work too closely together…we couldn’t make it work; you know it as well as I do.”
“At the moment, but when my fellowship ends,” I say positively enough, but my words trail away anyway because an uncomfortable look crosses onto his face with my words.
“We’re not compatible,” he says, glancing at me quickly before looking away again.
“We are in bed,” I brazen quickly. This forward approach is balancing on the edge of tacky, but it’s getting him talking, and keeping him talking.
House’s eyebrows raise but his head stays low, eyeballing his serviette as he digs a hole into it with his finger. “Sex is never the be all and end all of a relationship,” he asserts. It’s a strangely mature thing to hear House say.
“But we’ve agreed we don’t want a relationship,” I answer. And I find myself suddenly okay with a very unlikely idea.
I think I’m okay with the idea of keeping things casual with House if it means we spend more time together. I’m okay with it being just sex. I’m just not shameless enough to say it out loud.
“Is there any way we could just try to see each other privately without it becoming an issue at work, without people knowing?”
~
House
Finally, I get the chance to bury my face between Cameron’s thighs. The exact time arrives about three minutes after we get to my place, which was about fifteen minutes after we decided I was going to drop her off and we were going to forget about the whole thing.
Conversation at dinner just fizzled out and we found ourselves a little hour long bubble of awkwardness, barely able to ask each other to pass the salt, but it’s no surprise because we really aren’t very good in social situations. Okay, I’m not very good at social situations, but the situation was about us, so therefore it blew for both of us.
The bike between my legs rumbled a reminder into my groin; we sucked at talking but rocked at fucking. Simple, unwavering fact; screwing Cameron is fun, it feels good and I'm fooling nobody, not her nor me. I wanted to do it again, even though it’s all getting out of control now.
The thing about being out of control is, you’re no longer in control. Very simple. Tomorrow the whole hospital could know. Whatever Cameron and I decide to do from then on, if that happens, is irrelevant. The various threads of gossip will tear around the building and numerous different versions of what’s going on will be out in the open. None of them will be true to what is actually going on, because we don’t even know ourselves.
So why should we stop having sex if the car crash is going to happen anyway? We may as well get laid. And I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who liked this bright idea.
The moisture between Cameron’s legs when I nudged her onto my bed and stole my hand into her pants confirmed my theory.
So now I’m here, between her legs, nose centimeters from the neat hair decorating her entrance. I’m pretty sure I’m going to take my time now I’m in position, and it’s comfortable enough. Also I owe her for those blow jobs, they were very good.
She’s sitting up against the bed; I’m lying on my stomach, with my arms under her bent knees; I’m kind of at an angle. She’s naked from the waist down. I’m fully clothed.
I stroke the length of her entrance, softly with my tongue, tasting her but also trying to turn her on, because I like to mulit-task. I’m setting myself the challenge of doing this all with my tongue; it might work, but it might not. We’ll just have to see. The lights are off in my room, it’s better that way. It’s wordless; everything is heightened when we feel instead of see what we’re doing.
I lap her entrance again, caressing her with the back of my tongue as I paint it down again. You can’t rush this sort of stuff. I’ve found you have to draw it out; sex seems to be all in a woman’s head. A two minute pounding is not going to get her off; poking wildly in and out is never what they want.
I want to do this right, because we’re good at this, I think.
I stroke her a few times more, before dipping the tip in a fraction, the taste of her changes slightly, stronger tang, I’ve got a semi already just from the smell and I feel myself stiffen. Why are my jeans still on? I’m going to regret that in about two minutes, I think.
Her thick hair is coarse on my lips as I move my head from side to side to try and work a path through it; I then slide my tongue from the bottom to the top again.
I reach the top and my tongue is half way buried inside her; I hear a light moan as her hips come forward against my face.
I wiggle my tongue from side to side then drag it down and up; by this point I’m all the way in, my lips against her now.
I quickly find her clit with the base of my tongue; I rub it forcefully a few times, before drawing half way out and circling it.
She moans lightly and I feel her grind against my face, so I start alternating a few rubs and a few circles. Quite soon my top lip is drenched in Cameron’s unique taste and scent. My dick is painfully erect and she’s carelessly pushing against my face, she’s letting go a bit more than she’s done before, I think it’s because she can’t hurt my leg while riding my face, so she’s getting her money’s worth.
It’s getting harder to keep up with her using just my tongue but I have a challenge here, so I heave my face up against her further as I suck her clit into my mouth, my lips and chin flat against her.
Eventually my jaw threatens to lock up on me, so I have to resort to easing back and pumping her with two fingers, it does give me the chance to sit up and watch her though.
Eyes closed, writhing against me, one arm across her brow; it’s almost funny because she’s all concentration. She applies herself so seriously to everything; no surprise that also applies to sex.
I lean forward and kiss her, eager to see if she’ll taste herself on me while she bucks against my hand.
She does; her head is bobbing up and down but her hand wraps around the back of my neck and she allows me to slide my tongue into her mouth and kiss her while she comes.
~
Cameron
We lie naked in House’s bed for a long time; I fall asleep. Eventually I stir. I’ve never been an easy sleeper in someone else’s bed
The first thing I notice when I do is House’s head by mine on the pillow and his arm over my stomach as he snores lightly into my ear. There is no other contact but the tight pull of his arm against me is nice. It’s almost affectionate.
It makes this casual, wordless sex a bit more wholesome.
I get up though and sit on the edge of his bed; he didn’t say I could stay and I didn’t ask, so I’d better go. I’ve barely got my underwear on when I hear a grumble behind me.
“What are you doing?” he asks, half asleep, then I hear the pitch of his yawn cut through the silence of his room.
His home is really quiet; no creaky pipes, no rustling trees outside. I find it a bit weird, I’m not sure why.
“I’d better go,” I reply without looking around.
He stays silent while I fix my bra behind me; I fumble with the clasp for a second before I slide it in.
The bed shifts a little, “You don’t have to,” he offers neutrally. I can’t tell if it’s an genuine offer, or a forced invitation so he doesn’t feel bad for not asking me in the first place.
“I should,” I say quickly. I don’t want to though. That brings an awkward silence
“Unless you want me to stay,” I mumble unsurely, despite cringing with the words as they leave me.
“Not if you want to go,” he says, dismissively. Why the hell are we always going around in these circles?
“I didn’t say I wanted to go,” I say, shaking my head a little.
“And I didn’t say you had to,” he retorts.
“You didn’t say stay either,” I say calmly; it’s not an accusation, just a fact. I look around then.
He’s lying on his side, hand tucked under a pillow, watching me. He falls silent again and I sit, semi naked, awkward, wondering what to do now.
I eventually lean down for my shirt and decide I should just go, when he leans up and wraps an arm around my midsection and pulls me down on the bed again.
“Just stay; talk about stubborn,” he grumbles.
I lie on my side beside him, reluctantly at first, but when he spoons up behind me and places his head on my pillow again I relax.
“So we’re just going to pretend that whole sex thing never happened; move on and forget about it,” he mumbles.
“I think it’s for the best,” I reply. “A relationship would be a really bad idea,” I add.
“Really bad,” he agrees.
“But, we’re going to keep on having sex,” I say into the foreign room.
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” he mumbles; his words vibrate across the pillow and tickle my ear.
So we’ve gone around in another circle, but somehow, right now, I don’t really seem to care; it might actually be the start of something. And that’s better than nothing.
~