House Fic: never was with the band
never was with the band
Half the moment has her hoping House will go, but he says nothing; acknowledgment is the beginning of the game, old habits die hard and in between guesses - she’s out of practice, if anything.
house, m.d. cameron. house/cameron (chase/cameron).
up to ugly; 2202 words, pg.
for teenwitch77.
Dull conversation slides through the cafeteria line, her gaze glued to a file as she tries to tune everyone out. She’s been reading the same page twice, patient with the same name, same illness, and that extensive list of mundane facts that she’s done once and once over.
It could be one of those days, long days; it would make this easier, the rising push to wrap herself around the idea that she’s still not done, still not over, and still trying to compete and function outside of that apparent third wind she has - she’s here, you know.
A sigh and she ignores someone as they step around to pass her, a sharp elbow that presses over her hip. She jumps and he’s there, in the corner of her eye sets the rise of her nerves and she whips back around to be straight.
The shelter of his shadow peeks over her shoulder, the tension rising and twisting at the back of her neck. She brings her hand up, her fingers loose and pressing against her skin. It doesn’t work. She winces, but doesn’t stretch back. She wants an apple, but what’s a few more minutes?
He says nothing; pressing is not her thing.
Half the moment has her hoping House will go, but he says nothing; acknowledgment is the beginning of the game, old habits die hard and in between guesses - she’s out of practice, if anything. But he stays and she stays and the rising of her annoyance overweighs the level of her attention.
He gives in first, the color of his voice is dried with curiosity. “What, so, selectively annoying?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” She flinches and he steps around, forcing her to look up; it’s the spirit of habits, she thinks. Her attention is never few and far away. But god, she winces - she still hates the stupid metaphors.
He’s smirking and she throws a quick glare, closing the file and hugging it to her chest. She picks her apple, but suddenly, she’s not as hungry.
House dips forward, “You can’t even say that with a straight face.”
“I can say go away,” she snaps, “With a smile even.”
He frowns though and she ducks away, shelling cash for her things before he can drop his stuff with hers. The bait though is half-assed and even she can feel it, but she keeps it at par with things she doesn’t have the energy to understand yet. She’s in over her head, she knows it and the others know it; secrets remain to be vulnerable, superficial or not, they still have a hold over her.
But she’s always been the proverbial something, token glares and easy vulnerability that seems to come and go as it pleases. She doesn’t have anything else. Her pride comes in spurts and with the wavering ability to separate home from work, personal from public. She has a few secrets with no voices, but even now, they rise to a level waiting even under the surface.
There’s no blatant curiosity though and he’s searching for something, the shelter of his gaze too much for her as she ducks, grabbing a table. The chair squeals. She sits, but opts for forced amusement. Her mouth curls into one those smiles, half a smirk lacing over exhaustion and annoyance. She’s waiting, if a guess at all.
He’s low, both ways. “Trouble in paradise?”
The turn of her mouth starts to fade, straighten and tense. Her hand drops over the file, her nail nicking a staple. There’s a click. Nurses, two, and their pointed glancing pushes a step back from him.
“Just leave it be,” she murmurs.
There’s never any expectation for him to stay, built in with the years breathing over her neck. She looks away, there’s no follow through. And for a moment, she would like to be wrong. Maybe for something new. Maybe not. But he drops a napkin onto the table, shrugging and shifting away.
The conversation dies, of course.
-
Later, she’s trying not to think about.
Chase brushes his mouth against her cheek and she sways a smile, rising to grab her bag as he shuffles through his pocket for the keys.
He’s quiet, warming his palm against her hip. “You okay?”
“Yeah, you ready?”
She shifts from foot to foot, ready to bury herself in the sense of domesticity that she always thought she was going to be without. The thing is, even then, there, she was always attracted to whirlwind idealism that twenty and twenty one brought to her. It stabbed her in the back though and really, lessons learned, she’s trying all over again not to fall into that same sympathetic mess.
But Chase drops a gaze and she blushes, turning away. She’s been caught before, but it doesn’t make her feel any less miserable with or without the streaming intention. She coughs, the sensation scratching her throat. A bypass, if anything, and she has to take what little of this and that she has.
Her teeth slide over her lip. “Sure - hungry?”
“A little.”
He waits. And maybe, that’s why he’s still here - he’s waiting, waiting for her to step forward with a sense of inclusion for him to take. Maybe, that’s why they’re together. They get it. They get it - the isolated push that’s knotted over them with cycles for family and hapless decisions to review. But even maybe weighs in, through second guesses and slips of fighting. Neither of them are really happy, him being here and her waking up and being here. It comes and goes, still daunting as before.
“Come on,” he says.
He keeps his fingers to the strap of his bag.
-
It’s pointed and she’s surprised that he’s here, standing against the counter and smirking at nurses that either shrink or glare.
“He doesn’t like me,” he calls.
Her mouth turns in amusement and she drops her coat over the counter, reaching for her day’s stack. She flips through them, a few, and follow-ups that she needs to keep brushing around. There’s a waver and he leans forward, pressing his hand over one of the files as if he’s trying for information.
She peers up. “He doesn’t have to.”
“But you like me.”
It’s half-hearted, but there and she narrows her eyes, cocking her head to the side and watching his mouth start to curl. There’s a strange sense of approval from him, disgruntled or not, she does take the dig.
“Seriously?”
He sighs. “Good point.”
She rolls her eyes and settles into her routine, in theory - she’s more than just uncomfortable as he watches her. She slides into her jacket, straightening the collar as the two of them sort of steady into this strange face off.
Her mouth dries. “Why are you here?”
“Wilson’s gone.” And he shrugs, turning and refocusing his attention elsewhere. It’s empty in the morning; the ER hits high overnight and she’s starting to fall into that schedule, different hours and different strains.
His disapproval is clear; no prodigies among them, but still it’s strange to see. She knows he’ll say it again, something to the effect of you shouldn’t be here in that crass restructuring of their relationship.
She doesn’t press. “So call him.”
“But easy access.”
Her laughter is almost a splurge after he whines, her teeth slipping over lip as she shakes her head and steps back. The right comes easy, dipped with a strain of amusement and wariness. She lets him catch her this time, tossing the files to the side for later. She steps back, but his cane slides against her leg.
“You have a hundred dollars on Thirteen.”
She won’t lie; it’s the missing adrenaline rush that punctuates some sensibility to diverge the real root of her self-indulgence. But she’s curious like everybody else, picking on the obvious habits that he seems to exercise for comfort’s sake.
“I like her,” she shrugs, “and you like eye candy.”
His amusement rises and she feels the markings of a flush, turning away and still stopped. She wills for movement, but she knows as well as everyone else, the sense of impracticality that overrides much of her rationality.
“She doesn’t like me.”
She shrugs again, pushing away. The answer is as it is, the necessary ploy to keep herself, however shaky, at least a step ahead. But still, she’s quiet and takes a file from a nurse. She holds his gaze briefly.
“She’s a smart girl.”
His mouth turns. “Right.”
-
It’s after one.
The elevator seems to slow each time it stops at a floor. She frowns, rubbing her eyes and wanting nothing more than to just go home. Chase offered to wait, but went home anyway - it makes her uncomfortable, those sudden things that he pushes. A relationship, nothing, but she thinks she’s too used that sense of privacy that she continues to pride herself on.
“Ha.”
Cameron turns and sighs, blinking when House smirks from the corner. God, she thinks. Her exhaustion is already playing mind games. Either he’s been there for a while or just got there, but it still makes her feel like an idiot. She doesn’t know how many times she can keep coming face to face with her own lack of grace. It’s an admission and her admissions never easy to come to terms with as they should.
So she says nothing.
“You’re angry at me.”
He steps forward at that, coming to brush by her side and rest against the arch of the elevator frame. It’s still stuck, same floor, and she thinks about taking the stairs no matter how exhausted she is. She watches though how he thumbs the arch of the cane handle, holding her gaze.
She tries to turn, finally muttering, “Seems like it.”
“Seriously?” He rolls his eyes.
Cameron says nothing again, clenching her fists as finally the elevator opens and she lets the corner swallow her. There’s nobody and so he tucks himself on the opposite end, far enough but still weighted with mockery.
“No,” she snorts, “It’s not you.”
Which is the worst kind of lie; she came to terms with how terrible of liar she’s come to be. The action in itself still grates at her, not like before but more as an impending sense of remorse. It pulls at things that should be kept to herself.
He’s amused. “But it’s you.”
“Isn’t it always?” The color of her voice darkens and there’s a blatant animosity there, from her to him, as she turns away. She means it too; for advantages and disadvantages, it’s more at his play and even if she tried, she keeps coming back to this, to letting him with one over.
“You’re cute when you do that self-reflective angst thing.”
She snorts again. “That hurt to say, huh?”
“Yeah. It did.”
He shrugs and she’s left with a quick right, self-indulgent at best. She picks at her sleeves, wondering if Chase waited up this time. Probably not, she thinks. It’s strange too; the hours are supposed to feel seemingly impossibly, but at the same time, they provide a conscious break for her and him. It stays unfair, of course, and she keeps wondering why he followed back.
She did say yes first.
Stepping wordlessly off the elevator, she digs for the keys to her car and barely pays any attention. She almost stumbles once, ignoring a faint laugh. She doesn’t want to do it tonight or even the next day; a break, if anything.
It’s too familiar. And she knows it.
“Hey!”
Cameron turns with too much to say as it sways into a couple steps from him, a palm over her cheek, cold and warm - it won’t matter for the quick memory. It really doesn’t register that he’s kissing her and she’s kissing back; like habit, it spills and her hand rises to curl in his jacket as his tongue slides into her mouth. There’s a moan as the sensation is stroked and she pushes forward, her teeth scraping over her lip as she starts to relax. She doesn’t know who breaks away first, but he’s dipping forward before she can react again.
“You’re supposed to say something,” slow this time, he murmurs against her mouth, “like what the hell are you doing? Or, you know, push me away. Or the song -”
Her fingers slide over his mouth. His eyes widen and she calms, tired amusement and unable to register - yeah, she sighs.
“I just don’t want to do this anymore,” she murmurs, “so any energy that you have left, please use it to shut up.”
It starts with a step back and then another, until she forces herself to turn her back on him. Her mouth pressed tightly. It stays burning, wet and bruised, and every effort to go back and just let everything unravel nearly pushes a panic. But she knows better than this. Telling herself is never the problem.
And she hears him, bemused and low over intentions. She doesn’t stop, but everything follows her to the car.
“That’s what you said the last time.”
It’s a kick, almost turning around.
-
Half the moment has her hoping House will go, but he says nothing; acknowledgment is the beginning of the game, old habits die hard and in between guesses - she’s out of practice, if anything.
house, m.d. cameron. house/cameron (chase/cameron).
up to ugly; 2202 words, pg.
for teenwitch77.
Dull conversation slides through the cafeteria line, her gaze glued to a file as she tries to tune everyone out. She’s been reading the same page twice, patient with the same name, same illness, and that extensive list of mundane facts that she’s done once and once over.
It could be one of those days, long days; it would make this easier, the rising push to wrap herself around the idea that she’s still not done, still not over, and still trying to compete and function outside of that apparent third wind she has - she’s here, you know.
A sigh and she ignores someone as they step around to pass her, a sharp elbow that presses over her hip. She jumps and he’s there, in the corner of her eye sets the rise of her nerves and she whips back around to be straight.
The shelter of his shadow peeks over her shoulder, the tension rising and twisting at the back of her neck. She brings her hand up, her fingers loose and pressing against her skin. It doesn’t work. She winces, but doesn’t stretch back. She wants an apple, but what’s a few more minutes?
He says nothing; pressing is not her thing.
Half the moment has her hoping House will go, but he says nothing; acknowledgment is the beginning of the game, old habits die hard and in between guesses - she’s out of practice, if anything. But he stays and she stays and the rising of her annoyance overweighs the level of her attention.
He gives in first, the color of his voice is dried with curiosity. “What, so, selectively annoying?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” She flinches and he steps around, forcing her to look up; it’s the spirit of habits, she thinks. Her attention is never few and far away. But god, she winces - she still hates the stupid metaphors.
He’s smirking and she throws a quick glare, closing the file and hugging it to her chest. She picks her apple, but suddenly, she’s not as hungry.
House dips forward, “You can’t even say that with a straight face.”
“I can say go away,” she snaps, “With a smile even.”
He frowns though and she ducks away, shelling cash for her things before he can drop his stuff with hers. The bait though is half-assed and even she can feel it, but she keeps it at par with things she doesn’t have the energy to understand yet. She’s in over her head, she knows it and the others know it; secrets remain to be vulnerable, superficial or not, they still have a hold over her.
But she’s always been the proverbial something, token glares and easy vulnerability that seems to come and go as it pleases. She doesn’t have anything else. Her pride comes in spurts and with the wavering ability to separate home from work, personal from public. She has a few secrets with no voices, but even now, they rise to a level waiting even under the surface.
There’s no blatant curiosity though and he’s searching for something, the shelter of his gaze too much for her as she ducks, grabbing a table. The chair squeals. She sits, but opts for forced amusement. Her mouth curls into one those smiles, half a smirk lacing over exhaustion and annoyance. She’s waiting, if a guess at all.
He’s low, both ways. “Trouble in paradise?”
The turn of her mouth starts to fade, straighten and tense. Her hand drops over the file, her nail nicking a staple. There’s a click. Nurses, two, and their pointed glancing pushes a step back from him.
“Just leave it be,” she murmurs.
There’s never any expectation for him to stay, built in with the years breathing over her neck. She looks away, there’s no follow through. And for a moment, she would like to be wrong. Maybe for something new. Maybe not. But he drops a napkin onto the table, shrugging and shifting away.
The conversation dies, of course.
-
Later, she’s trying not to think about.
Chase brushes his mouth against her cheek and she sways a smile, rising to grab her bag as he shuffles through his pocket for the keys.
He’s quiet, warming his palm against her hip. “You okay?”
“Yeah, you ready?”
She shifts from foot to foot, ready to bury herself in the sense of domesticity that she always thought she was going to be without. The thing is, even then, there, she was always attracted to whirlwind idealism that twenty and twenty one brought to her. It stabbed her in the back though and really, lessons learned, she’s trying all over again not to fall into that same sympathetic mess.
But Chase drops a gaze and she blushes, turning away. She’s been caught before, but it doesn’t make her feel any less miserable with or without the streaming intention. She coughs, the sensation scratching her throat. A bypass, if anything, and she has to take what little of this and that she has.
Her teeth slide over her lip. “Sure - hungry?”
“A little.”
He waits. And maybe, that’s why he’s still here - he’s waiting, waiting for her to step forward with a sense of inclusion for him to take. Maybe, that’s why they’re together. They get it. They get it - the isolated push that’s knotted over them with cycles for family and hapless decisions to review. But even maybe weighs in, through second guesses and slips of fighting. Neither of them are really happy, him being here and her waking up and being here. It comes and goes, still daunting as before.
“Come on,” he says.
He keeps his fingers to the strap of his bag.
-
It’s pointed and she’s surprised that he’s here, standing against the counter and smirking at nurses that either shrink or glare.
“He doesn’t like me,” he calls.
Her mouth turns in amusement and she drops her coat over the counter, reaching for her day’s stack. She flips through them, a few, and follow-ups that she needs to keep brushing around. There’s a waver and he leans forward, pressing his hand over one of the files as if he’s trying for information.
She peers up. “He doesn’t have to.”
“But you like me.”
It’s half-hearted, but there and she narrows her eyes, cocking her head to the side and watching his mouth start to curl. There’s a strange sense of approval from him, disgruntled or not, she does take the dig.
“Seriously?”
He sighs. “Good point.”
She rolls her eyes and settles into her routine, in theory - she’s more than just uncomfortable as he watches her. She slides into her jacket, straightening the collar as the two of them sort of steady into this strange face off.
Her mouth dries. “Why are you here?”
“Wilson’s gone.” And he shrugs, turning and refocusing his attention elsewhere. It’s empty in the morning; the ER hits high overnight and she’s starting to fall into that schedule, different hours and different strains.
His disapproval is clear; no prodigies among them, but still it’s strange to see. She knows he’ll say it again, something to the effect of you shouldn’t be here in that crass restructuring of their relationship.
She doesn’t press. “So call him.”
“But easy access.”
Her laughter is almost a splurge after he whines, her teeth slipping over lip as she shakes her head and steps back. The right comes easy, dipped with a strain of amusement and wariness. She lets him catch her this time, tossing the files to the side for later. She steps back, but his cane slides against her leg.
“You have a hundred dollars on Thirteen.”
She won’t lie; it’s the missing adrenaline rush that punctuates some sensibility to diverge the real root of her self-indulgence. But she’s curious like everybody else, picking on the obvious habits that he seems to exercise for comfort’s sake.
“I like her,” she shrugs, “and you like eye candy.”
His amusement rises and she feels the markings of a flush, turning away and still stopped. She wills for movement, but she knows as well as everyone else, the sense of impracticality that overrides much of her rationality.
“She doesn’t like me.”
She shrugs again, pushing away. The answer is as it is, the necessary ploy to keep herself, however shaky, at least a step ahead. But still, she’s quiet and takes a file from a nurse. She holds his gaze briefly.
“She’s a smart girl.”
His mouth turns. “Right.”
-
It’s after one.
The elevator seems to slow each time it stops at a floor. She frowns, rubbing her eyes and wanting nothing more than to just go home. Chase offered to wait, but went home anyway - it makes her uncomfortable, those sudden things that he pushes. A relationship, nothing, but she thinks she’s too used that sense of privacy that she continues to pride herself on.
“Ha.”
Cameron turns and sighs, blinking when House smirks from the corner. God, she thinks. Her exhaustion is already playing mind games. Either he’s been there for a while or just got there, but it still makes her feel like an idiot. She doesn’t know how many times she can keep coming face to face with her own lack of grace. It’s an admission and her admissions never easy to come to terms with as they should.
So she says nothing.
“You’re angry at me.”
He steps forward at that, coming to brush by her side and rest against the arch of the elevator frame. It’s still stuck, same floor, and she thinks about taking the stairs no matter how exhausted she is. She watches though how he thumbs the arch of the cane handle, holding her gaze.
She tries to turn, finally muttering, “Seems like it.”
“Seriously?” He rolls his eyes.
Cameron says nothing again, clenching her fists as finally the elevator opens and she lets the corner swallow her. There’s nobody and so he tucks himself on the opposite end, far enough but still weighted with mockery.
“No,” she snorts, “It’s not you.”
Which is the worst kind of lie; she came to terms with how terrible of liar she’s come to be. The action in itself still grates at her, not like before but more as an impending sense of remorse. It pulls at things that should be kept to herself.
He’s amused. “But it’s you.”
“Isn’t it always?” The color of her voice darkens and there’s a blatant animosity there, from her to him, as she turns away. She means it too; for advantages and disadvantages, it’s more at his play and even if she tried, she keeps coming back to this, to letting him with one over.
“You’re cute when you do that self-reflective angst thing.”
She snorts again. “That hurt to say, huh?”
“Yeah. It did.”
He shrugs and she’s left with a quick right, self-indulgent at best. She picks at her sleeves, wondering if Chase waited up this time. Probably not, she thinks. It’s strange too; the hours are supposed to feel seemingly impossibly, but at the same time, they provide a conscious break for her and him. It stays unfair, of course, and she keeps wondering why he followed back.
She did say yes first.
Stepping wordlessly off the elevator, she digs for the keys to her car and barely pays any attention. She almost stumbles once, ignoring a faint laugh. She doesn’t want to do it tonight or even the next day; a break, if anything.
It’s too familiar. And she knows it.
“Hey!”
Cameron turns with too much to say as it sways into a couple steps from him, a palm over her cheek, cold and warm - it won’t matter for the quick memory. It really doesn’t register that he’s kissing her and she’s kissing back; like habit, it spills and her hand rises to curl in his jacket as his tongue slides into her mouth. There’s a moan as the sensation is stroked and she pushes forward, her teeth scraping over her lip as she starts to relax. She doesn’t know who breaks away first, but he’s dipping forward before she can react again.
“You’re supposed to say something,” slow this time, he murmurs against her mouth, “like what the hell are you doing? Or, you know, push me away. Or the song -”
Her fingers slide over his mouth. His eyes widen and she calms, tired amusement and unable to register - yeah, she sighs.
“I just don’t want to do this anymore,” she murmurs, “so any energy that you have left, please use it to shut up.”
It starts with a step back and then another, until she forces herself to turn her back on him. Her mouth pressed tightly. It stays burning, wet and bruised, and every effort to go back and just let everything unravel nearly pushes a panic. But she knows better than this. Telling herself is never the problem.
And she hears him, bemused and low over intentions. She doesn’t stop, but everything follows her to the car.
“That’s what you said the last time.”
It’s a kick, almost turning around.
-