house fic: lost in paradise outside the city limits 2/?
Title: lost in paradise outside the city limits
Fandom: House, M.D
Characters/Pairings: Cameron, House/Cameron
Word Count: 1169
Rating: Eventually NC-17
Spoilers: Post No Reason. ♥
Summary: She understands that, in these suspended frames of time, she’s lost more of herself to him than she can control. For him, it’s four days to solve it all. For her, well, she doesn’t even know where to begin. It’s time to face the truth now.
Author's Notes: For teenwitch77.
|one|
Say maiden, wilt thou go with me
through this sad non-identity?
(lines 13-4) John Clare, An Invite to Eternity
What is a lover?
A generic term with a romantic identity. She’s spent an indefinite amount of time, from Thursday night to Friday morning, wondering. Wondering if she knew, really, what he was asking of her. If it was meant to be something.
So she does what she should’ve done ages ago- she stops thinking about it. She moves on (or tries to, she’ll admit faults to herself) and goes on with the vacation. Or the attempt at a vacation. She’s not choosy.
She continues to wonder, if, at some point, it’ll become something that she can control. That she can hide and hold back. But doubt is effortless. In this case.
Bookstore. Bookstore. Bookstore. She can’t remember the last time she’s actually sat down and read a book. So she goes, crosses to the corner across from her apartment, and rounds down to the shopping district. She buys flowers for the kitchen. Contemplates blowing two hundred dollars on a new pair of shoes. The new Vogue is tucked under her arm.
And then there’s the bookstore.
“Two creams and an ungodly amount of sugar. And Vogue. No Cosmo. You disappoint me here.”
She freezes. And licks her lips.
She doesn’t turn around this time. She knows him. And persistence remains, as always, to be a bitch. She sighs and steps forward, scanning the glass. He left last night, she remembers. Left with nothing but give me four days like it was a means to an end.
She gave him nothing. It was rational. And like x is the sum of all things, she can always smell his lies. But last night was different.
She regains composure. “Did you know stalking is, well, illegal?”
She tenses as his fingers brush against her wrist. But she can see his reflection in the glass. Crossing her arms over her chest, she waits.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I recall a conversation where-”
“- I agreed to nothing,” she murmurs, taking the coffee from him. Shyly almost. “All you said was give you four days this weekend and-”
He smirks. “It’s day one.”
She sighs and shakes her head, moving away from him and into the bookstore. She takes the lid off her coffee, warranting a self-check on if he actually- what was she thinking? She’s still boggled by the prospect. Four days. They started once. Rather, she started a long time ago. Her perception becomes haunting. She’s learning again.
She whirls around. Staring at him.
“What is it that I’m agreeing to? Four days of psychotherapy? Some guy trying to de-condition me because,” she drawls, “your super good looks have brainwashed me into being your love slave?”
He snorts. And she swears (if she really wanted to look) that she sees a hint of a smile. The essence of rarity. But she’s smarter than that. It’s the secrets that he’s always been after. Secrets and riddles, his answers to the world.
“Funny girl. But no. Drink your coffee.”
She tells herself to forget about the coffee. Subjects. Losses. Things that extended reality. She could name and provide herself with a number of things that could serve as a pile of lazy excuses.
She walks down an aisle, ignoring sensibility and staying on the course that she set out on. She keeps routine. Knowing full well that there was always the promise of exposure, a mere slip of film that always fell in front of wandering eyes.
Her fingers brush along the spines of the books. A Whitman anthology. Fitzgerald. And on another side, Moby Dick was properly gathering dust in the abyss of the forgotten. She doesn’t believe in a means to an end. She’s exhausted, sure. Maybe she’s given up. Maybe. There’s a certain hesitation. There is falling.
And gravity. A language here that’s spun out of control. It should’ve ended at some point. She knows it should’ve.
But they’re here. At a transition again. (If it happens.)
She takes a sip from her cup of coffee. “Is it working?” She asks, “Whatever it is that you have planned?”
He shrugs. She sighs. Of course. The two of them- well- neither of them make an effort to talk. Talk. Talking. What would happen if they did. Their relationship has always been a series of moments knotted together and laced with honesty and a frightening eroticism. End. Begin. Somehow.
And the object of secrets start to surface again. He’s following her and the whole dizzying concept of answers are starting to wear thin on her. She wonders about differences now. She wonders if he still thinks that there’s an alternate, a solution-
But isn’t this about that?
(A at some point, I lost you lingers from him to her and she doesn’t understand what it means. The unsaid, of course. But it’s safe to say that something is shifting.)
Maybe. Maybe she’s just missed it.
They keep walking through the store, the low hum of the radio from the cashier shimmering slowly and curling around her. The Stones. She almost snorts. The soundtrack- perfect for anything that really concerned them. Or him, really.
Stopping along a row of books, she takes to watching him with gratuitous peeks. Watching and listening and shifting- to settle her nerves, she swears. She’s not terrified of him anymore. Not terrified in the sense of terrified- that screaming girl in horror films in white comes to mind- but a knowing fear.
Of possibility. She tries to be hard.
See. These things go hand and hand. Terror. Love. Mostly, it’s poetic. Or something of that notion. Man fears losing the genius tragedy- or whatever freshman college literature preaches these days. But she’s not about that kind of sentimentalism.
“How long is this going to take?”
She shrugs. “You didn’t have to come,” she throws back.
He shrugs, as if to mock her. “You’re good company.”
Waxing philosophical again. Some days there’s this urge to step back. To push herself back. But she knows herself too well. Singularity. It’s not a possibility.
(She loves dangerously, realistically, and poetically. It’s a notion of self. Awareness. Truth.)
He slides his finger against a random book, flipping it open and snorts. “I must not think now, though I saw that face-”
Her lips curl. An odd amusement. “But for her eyes I should have fled away.”
“Hmm.”
She waits for the inevitable dive into discourse. She bites her lip when he steps forward- slowly- with a strange edge of certainty.
And he continues. Curiosity. “They held me back with a benignant light,” his voice is quiet. “Soft mitigated by divinest lights- half-closed and visionless entire they seemed, of all external things-”
It’s a long time before she answers. And perhaps, a strange, expressed knowledge of Keats has her in all sorts of trouble. There are times where she wishes she could rewrite this all. Save a couple bars of endlessness.
(She doesn’t know why she misses him.)
So finally, the words fall.
“They saw me not.”
She leaves here. And he lets her.
++
1. Poem by John Keats, lines 264-8, "The Fall of Hyperion"
+
Fandom: House, M.D
Characters/Pairings: Cameron, House/Cameron
Word Count: 1169
Rating: Eventually NC-17
Spoilers: Post No Reason. ♥
Summary: She understands that, in these suspended frames of time, she’s lost more of herself to him than she can control. For him, it’s four days to solve it all. For her, well, she doesn’t even know where to begin. It’s time to face the truth now.
Author's Notes: For teenwitch77.
|one|
Say maiden, wilt thou go with me
through this sad non-identity?
(lines 13-4) John Clare, An Invite to Eternity
What is a lover?
A generic term with a romantic identity. She’s spent an indefinite amount of time, from Thursday night to Friday morning, wondering. Wondering if she knew, really, what he was asking of her. If it was meant to be something.
So she does what she should’ve done ages ago- she stops thinking about it. She moves on (or tries to, she’ll admit faults to herself) and goes on with the vacation. Or the attempt at a vacation. She’s not choosy.
She continues to wonder, if, at some point, it’ll become something that she can control. That she can hide and hold back. But doubt is effortless. In this case.
Bookstore. Bookstore. Bookstore. She can’t remember the last time she’s actually sat down and read a book. So she goes, crosses to the corner across from her apartment, and rounds down to the shopping district. She buys flowers for the kitchen. Contemplates blowing two hundred dollars on a new pair of shoes. The new Vogue is tucked under her arm.
And then there’s the bookstore.
“Two creams and an ungodly amount of sugar. And Vogue. No Cosmo. You disappoint me here.”
She freezes. And licks her lips.
She doesn’t turn around this time. She knows him. And persistence remains, as always, to be a bitch. She sighs and steps forward, scanning the glass. He left last night, she remembers. Left with nothing but give me four days like it was a means to an end.
She gave him nothing. It was rational. And like x is the sum of all things, she can always smell his lies. But last night was different.
She regains composure. “Did you know stalking is, well, illegal?”
She tenses as his fingers brush against her wrist. But she can see his reflection in the glass. Crossing her arms over her chest, she waits.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I recall a conversation where-”
“- I agreed to nothing,” she murmurs, taking the coffee from him. Shyly almost. “All you said was give you four days this weekend and-”
He smirks. “It’s day one.”
She sighs and shakes her head, moving away from him and into the bookstore. She takes the lid off her coffee, warranting a self-check on if he actually- what was she thinking? She’s still boggled by the prospect. Four days. They started once. Rather, she started a long time ago. Her perception becomes haunting. She’s learning again.
She whirls around. Staring at him.
“What is it that I’m agreeing to? Four days of psychotherapy? Some guy trying to de-condition me because,” she drawls, “your super good looks have brainwashed me into being your love slave?”
He snorts. And she swears (if she really wanted to look) that she sees a hint of a smile. The essence of rarity. But she’s smarter than that. It’s the secrets that he’s always been after. Secrets and riddles, his answers to the world.
“Funny girl. But no. Drink your coffee.”
She tells herself to forget about the coffee. Subjects. Losses. Things that extended reality. She could name and provide herself with a number of things that could serve as a pile of lazy excuses.
She walks down an aisle, ignoring sensibility and staying on the course that she set out on. She keeps routine. Knowing full well that there was always the promise of exposure, a mere slip of film that always fell in front of wandering eyes.
Her fingers brush along the spines of the books. A Whitman anthology. Fitzgerald. And on another side, Moby Dick was properly gathering dust in the abyss of the forgotten. She doesn’t believe in a means to an end. She’s exhausted, sure. Maybe she’s given up. Maybe. There’s a certain hesitation. There is falling.
And gravity. A language here that’s spun out of control. It should’ve ended at some point. She knows it should’ve.
But they’re here. At a transition again. (If it happens.)
She takes a sip from her cup of coffee. “Is it working?” She asks, “Whatever it is that you have planned?”
He shrugs. She sighs. Of course. The two of them- well- neither of them make an effort to talk. Talk. Talking. What would happen if they did. Their relationship has always been a series of moments knotted together and laced with honesty and a frightening eroticism. End. Begin. Somehow.
And the object of secrets start to surface again. He’s following her and the whole dizzying concept of answers are starting to wear thin on her. She wonders about differences now. She wonders if he still thinks that there’s an alternate, a solution-
But isn’t this about that?
(A at some point, I lost you lingers from him to her and she doesn’t understand what it means. The unsaid, of course. But it’s safe to say that something is shifting.)
Maybe. Maybe she’s just missed it.
They keep walking through the store, the low hum of the radio from the cashier shimmering slowly and curling around her. The Stones. She almost snorts. The soundtrack- perfect for anything that really concerned them. Or him, really.
Stopping along a row of books, she takes to watching him with gratuitous peeks. Watching and listening and shifting- to settle her nerves, she swears. She’s not terrified of him anymore. Not terrified in the sense of terrified- that screaming girl in horror films in white comes to mind- but a knowing fear.
Of possibility. She tries to be hard.
See. These things go hand and hand. Terror. Love. Mostly, it’s poetic. Or something of that notion. Man fears losing the genius tragedy- or whatever freshman college literature preaches these days. But she’s not about that kind of sentimentalism.
“How long is this going to take?”
She shrugs. “You didn’t have to come,” she throws back.
He shrugs, as if to mock her. “You’re good company.”
Waxing philosophical again. Some days there’s this urge to step back. To push herself back. But she knows herself too well. Singularity. It’s not a possibility.
(She loves dangerously, realistically, and poetically. It’s a notion of self. Awareness. Truth.)
He slides his finger against a random book, flipping it open and snorts. “I must not think now, though I saw that face-”
Her lips curl. An odd amusement. “But for her eyes I should have fled away.”
“Hmm.”
She waits for the inevitable dive into discourse. She bites her lip when he steps forward- slowly- with a strange edge of certainty.
And he continues. Curiosity. “They held me back with a benignant light,” his voice is quiet. “Soft mitigated by divinest lights- half-closed and visionless entire they seemed, of all external things-”
It’s a long time before she answers. And perhaps, a strange, expressed knowledge of Keats has her in all sorts of trouble. There are times where she wishes she could rewrite this all. Save a couple bars of endlessness.
(She doesn’t know why she misses him.)
So finally, the words fall.
“They saw me not.”
She leaves here. And he lets her.
++
1. Poem by John Keats, lines 264-8, "The Fall of Hyperion"
+