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House wasn’t too concerned when he received the drunken phone call. He’d just been thinking about her, actually. The game that was rerunning on television wasn’t interesting enough to hold his attention, so his mind had wandered to his colleague; Wilson had been teasing him about Cameron earlier, so he could blame that conversation for putting her in his mind, rather than addressing the irritating reality that she appeared in his thoughts more often than he’d like.
He wasn’t necessarily surprised to see her private number calling his personal phone at some early hour. They’d been almost friends lately, and she rang him randomly sometimes. He’d never called back, but he always answered, and that was apparently good enough for now. So no, he wasn’t exactly surprised, but he was pleased, and that annoyed him. He shouldn’t give a damn if Cameron called him.
When he answered, it was with his usual gruff greeting of, “Do you know what time it is, woman?”
A giggle reached his ears, louder than the background noise of doof-doof music and people talking. “House!” shouted Cameron, after a too-long pause.
It made sense, somehow, in his mind, that his sensible colleague would be seemingly drunk at two am in the morning on a random Saturday. He could even pride himself on remembering the bachelorette party she’d mentioned when she left work a few days ago. He’d made a bunch of lewd jokes about male strippers and penis pinatas.
He thought it was funny. He’d been with Cameron when she was drunk a few times, and she was always a mess; she overshared and overdrank and thoroughly embarrassed herself, in a way that was strangely endearing. Drunk Cameron was always bolder than regular Cameron, too. “House! You should come out with us! They’re playing music you’d so like! It’s exactly your vibe!” She was being sarcastic. House could hear the blaring EDM in the background, the bass shaking the ground. It was a stark contrast to his dark room, with football playing softly on the TV and an empty pizza box on his mattress beside him. It sounded quite alien, the noise and energy cutting through the stale silence of his house.
“Maybe I will,” he threatened. “I’m great fun at bachelorette parties. You know me, such a hopeless romantic.”
“A life of the party,” Cameron agreed, too-loud. “You’d kill it on the dancefloor.”
“I’m still immature enough to be amused by penis pinatas, too,” House offered. He shouldn’t be smiling like he was.
“Oh my God, I bet you’d walk better than anyone here! For the only time ever! We are fucked up!” Cameron shouted, and it was so blatantly honest and funny that House had found himself laughing out loud. He’d been lying in his bed eating leftover pizza and watching some big match; a league he didn’t follow and didn’t care about. He hadn’t felt anything for hours, just apathy as he chewed through lukewarm, rubbery mozzarella sticks. It felt good to laugh. Cameron had been making him laugh quite often lately.
“You can’t bully the cripple,” he replied, unable to keep the smile out of his voice.
It didn’t matter anyway. Cameron was shouting that she couldn’t hear him. “When was the last time you went clubbing?” she continued, still at maximum volume. Her words were blending together. It was funny. House wished he could record it. She certainly wouldn’t remember this conversation on Monday, and he would have enough material for at least six months worth of jokes at her expense.
“It’s been a while. I think you’ve had enough to drink,” he said into the phone, which was unlike him to say, but she was slurring and hiccuping and he was suddenly struck by the fear that she’d pass out on the roadside somewhere, or at some table in the club. “Go buy yourself some water and then call yourself a cab.”
“What’s a cab?”
House frowned. Cameron knew what a cab was. “A taxi, Cameron, a taxi. Call yourself a taxi, you’re pissed.”
“You’re a taxi.”
House chuckled. How much had she had to drink? “Ask the bartender to call you a taxi,” he insisted.
“I don’t know,” was all Cameron said. House sighed. She sounded distracted, like she was watching something in the background. He could hear someone talking to her. A man, with a deep voice. “I’m okay, thanks,” he heard Cameron say to him. She sounded scared and uncertain. “I’m really okay.”
Her voice was wobbling and she sounded disorientated, losing the relative clarity she’d seemed to have when she first called him.
“Where are you?” he asked. He could phone for a cab for her. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Which bar are you at, Cameron?” he repeated, slower and clearer, raising his phone. He could still hear the thumping music in the background. The male voice said something else.
“I don’t… I don’t know. Big green light.”
“Mosman’s?”
House hated Mosman’s. He’d been once, for some guy’s birthday, about ten years ago. It was loud and cramped and always played the worst music, and if the music wasn’t offensive enough, the neon green laser lights could give anyone a headache. It would fit.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
He could still hear the man in the background, and could practically sense him leering at Cameron. House could call her a taxi, but what if the man followed her out? What if she was too drunk to find the right car? Mosman’s was only a ten minute drive, if he treated the speed limits as advisory, which he usually did. Cameron was sounding vague and quiet and too-drunk-to-keep-herself-safe.
“I’ll come get you. Be outside in ten minutes. Tell that guy that someone’s picking you up.”
“Okay. Eloise, Lia, Kennedy, we need to go!” she called. To the man, she said, “We’re going now. My boyfriend’s coming, goodbye!”
House was taken aback by the lie and took a second to process it, before pushing it to the back of his mind to be considered later.
“Cameron, when are you heading outside?” he clarified. She’d sounded distracted and unsure, her words melting into each other.
“Ten minutes,” she recited, and he nodded to himself and hung up.
He tried not to think about his motivation for this little late-night venture as he quickly fumbled on his floor for jeans and a clean T-shirt. He told himself it was because people wore skimpy outfits to bachelorette parties, and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Cameron in - hopefully - a very short skirt. He also told himself it was because it was his day off, and he was bored, and of course it wasn’t because he was worried about her, not at all.
It wasn’t because she sounded way too drunk and disorientated, and the thought of her stumbling out to a taxi was a scary one. It wasn’t because he was quietly flattered that she called him, rather than anyone else. He’d been trying to be a better friend to her lately, for reasons he was unwilling to unpack, and he was pleased that she now viewed him as trusted enough to ring. Or maybe she was just drunk.
He parked on the curb outside Mosman’s and leaned against his car. Within two minutes, Cameron emerged, and holy shit. She was wearing black leather boots that reached her knees, with high heels. Her thighs were bare and she wore a tiny pair of short denim shorts and a low-cut black top, sleeveless with a plunging neckline. Her hair was in voluminous, ringlet curls, her eyes were darkened with smoky makeup, and her lips were red.
House smirked as she stumbled down the steps, her arms linked with three girls who seemed equally inebriated. “Oh my God, House!” she called, spotting him. She pointed at him gleefully and began to stagger towards him. Her pointing unbalanced one of her friends, who had to brace her hand on the sidewalk to regain her footing.
“House!” one of them called, following Cameron unsteadily. “What is House?”
“House!” repeated Cameron, by way of explanation, gesturing to her boss. “What are you doing here?” she asked, sounding more energetic than she had fifteen minutes ago. She half tripped as she stopped in front of him, catching herself by grabbing House’s arm. He winced. Having a bad leg meant he wasn’t exactly qualified to start catching drunk people.
“You called me,” he reminded her, with a thin smile. Her hand was still on his arm.
“Really? When? What did I say?”
Cameron was smiling at him. It was a vacant smile, but he found himself returning it away.
House smirked in response to her question. “You said you wanted me bad. Said you had a couple of girls who were down for an orgy.”
“Oh,” Cameron blinked. “I suppose it is Eloise’s bachelorette, and we did forget to book male strippers…”
She was being funny again. He liked it. House smiled wider and she laughed at his reaction. Behind her, one of her friends crouched where she stood and vomited on the pavement. House grimaced.
“Oh no, Lia,” sighed Cameron, turning haphazardly. One of the other girls clumsily gathered most of Lia’s platinum hair behind her head.
House sighed. “I’ll drive you all home if you promise to only throw up out the car window?”
He didn’t know why he was offering. He didn’t know why he was here at all, except that Cameron had called him sounding confused and vulnerable, and so he’d got out of bed at three am to come rescue her. He didn’t want to acknowledge that maybe he hoped Cameron would view him as a more gentlemanly person if he looked out for her friends too, not to mention the fact that despite his general world view, he’d hate to think he could have prevented women from being assaulted and instead chose not to.
“Really?” Cameron looked surprised at his offer, blinking up at him. House wished he had less of a reputation for being an arsehole. It would probably make it less awkward when he tried to be nice.
“Don’t want to give any other guys a chance to leer at your legs, Cameron,” he smirked. “That honour’s all mine.”
So he drove them all to Cameron’s apartment. She sat in the passenger seat beside him, staring out the window, occasionally singing along to the radio under her breath. House helped them up the stairs. Cameron hadn’t been lying when she said House was the best at walking tonight. It had been years since he’d been qualified to help drunk people; he was hardly a steady person to lean on. He managed, though, offering Cameron his elbow awkwardly when she almost tripped on her uneven sidewalk. She was zigzagging in front of him down the hallway, and two of her friends were leaning against the walls. The last girl, Lia, the blonde one who’d vomited, was doing marginally better but still not well.
House wasn’t sure what to do when they all traipsed inside. Should he leave, or make sure they were all alright? There was a thin line between being helpful and lurking creepily, and he couldn’t quite guess where that line was drawn. Cameron stumbled straight to her bedroom without offering any instruction, and so House quietly shut the front door behind himself and lingered awkwardly, watching as two of the girls went to what he assumed was the bathroom, and the other one, the blonde one, collapsed face-down on the couch.
House hesitated and then limped uncomfortably after Cameron, who was both the safest option and the one whose wellbeing he cared the most about. He found her sitting awkwardly on her bed, wrestling those boots off her feet. He hovered in her doorway. She would probably remember none of this, he reminded himself. She might not remember he was there at all. He’d certainly had mornings where he woke up wondering how the hell he’d gotten home.
“Why did you call me?” he asked quietly. He suddenly had to know.
She glanced up at him as she finally flung one shoe across her room. Her bedroom was a lot like her; organised, aesthetically pleasing. She had a puppy-themed calendar.
“Foreman had plans tonight and Chase slept with me when I took meth,” she said simply, still with that hint of teasing sarcasm. “All my other friends either live in different cities or were drinking with me tonight.”
House was realising how annoying it was when other people stole his tactics of deflection. He didn’t like her answer; it was untrue and unhelpful, yet it still managed to provoke some sort of primitive jealousy and hurt inside him. He didn’t like being categorised as a last resort.
“You think I wouldn’t have slept with you when you were on meth, if you’d come to me instead of Chase?” House asked, which wasn’t what he’d planned on saying, yet he suddenly found himself very invested in the answer. He didn’t know what he would’ve done. He liked to think he would’ve said no, refused to take advantage, but he was on drugs every second he was alive, and he wasn’t sure he could stomach that hypocrisy. Also, a hypothetical high Cameron was easy to refuse, but if she’d come to his door, kissed him, seduced him, well, a man’s willpower is only so strong.
He had been a tad hurt, initially. Cameron claimed to like him, to want to date him, and yet it was Chase she turned to. Of course. Despite her ridiculous crush on House, at the end of the day, it was the younger, hotter, healthier doctor that was actually attracted to, when the meth stripped away her inhibitions and her idiotic saviour complex.
“You wouldn’t have,” said Cameron with confidence. “I know you wouldn’t have. Besides, you wouldn’t even sleep with me if we were both sober.”
House blinked, attempting to process that statement. He feared it was far from true, and wondered absently where Cameron had got such an idea. “I’m not sure that’s right,” he leered. “There’s not many women I’d not sleep with. Especially not with legs like yours.” He was always cruder when he felt conversations veer into scary territory like this; it shocked people and warned them away from him.
“I don’t believe you,” she snorted, finally freeing her foot from the second boot. House just looked at her, unwilling to argue. It was silent for a moment; he smiled grimly to himself. Cameron’s eyes were unfocused and she was gazing at a spot on the wall with a blank expression; she’d remember none of this come morning.
After a few minutes of silence, Cameron stood up and wandered over, suddenly much shorter without her heels but still unsteady on her feet. House, who’d been standing with one arm braced against her doorframe, suddenly found Cameron in his space, running her hand up his arm with a distinct lack of coordination. “You’ve got really good arms,” she slurred, meeting his eyes with a disconcerting intensity. “Do I ever tell you that? Very hot. You’re very sexy.”
She ran her fingers down his bicep and he shivered slightly at the sensation. He wondered if she, in her drunk state, remembered that they didn’t have the type of relationship where they gave each other any sort of compliment. He couldn’t quite believe her words anyway. Young women with legs like those and a face like that didn’t call men like him sexy.
Suddenly, she was even closer, their bodies almost pressed together. Cameron’s arms were sliding confidently around his waist and her forehead was dropping onto House’s sternum. He froze, uncomfortable in her embrace as she let out a sigh, snuggling in and hugging him tighter. He copied her sigh, before reluctantly letting himself wrap his arms around her shoulders, holding her against his chest. It was nice, too nice, and he hated himself for how much he enjoyed the sensation of Cameron hugging him. He could smell her shampoo and her perfume, and feel when she exhaled against his skin. He liked it, and he hated that.
“Are you going to take off the rest of your clothes?” he asked, deflecting from all the uncomfortable thoughts in his head. “The shoes were a good start, but I reckon you could lose the top.”
“Mm, you first.” Cameron’s fingers moved to settle on his waist, slipping under his T-shirt to touch hot skin. Her eyes were dark and intense when she pulled away to look up at him, and her hand began trailing up his abdomen. House shuddered as they traced the muscles of his stomach, up to his chest, one of her fingers finding his nipple and rubbing over it. He should stop this. He was hard in his jeans and breathing heavier than normal, and she hadn’t even done anything to warrant that reaction. “Do you ever think about this? About us?” Cameron whispered, her voice low.
Yes.
“Because I do,” she confessed. “All the time.”
Her fingers tweaked his other nipple before both her hands slid back down his torso, tracing the V-line that led to his jeans. House’s breath hitched as one of her pinky fingers slipped under his waistband, stroking teasingly. One of Cameron’s hands left his body, returning to lightly brush the back of her hand over the sizable bulge in his jeans.
It was like a wake-up call. House grabbed Cameron’s wrist with surprising speed, forcefully lowering her hand. “What are you doing?” he growled, anxious and uncomfortable and unsure what to do. His voice was lower than usual and he could practically feel all the blood in his body redirecting to his cock. He was essentially trapped between Cameron and the wall, with nowhere left to run and no clue what he should do in this situation. He didn’t think he’d ever had a beautiful drunk woman try to seduce him before, certainly not one he respected. Cameron was his friend. A friend who, right now, he really, really wanted to kiss.
She took an unsteady step backwards, raising her palms in surrender. Her eyes were unfocused and, if he wasn’t mistaken, disappointed and maybe even a little hurt. “See?” she said, smiling dazedly. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I told you. You wouldn’t have slept with me when I was high.”
House smiled thinly. Had she been trying to prove that point all along? Was that why she’d embraced him? Touched him? Or was she just drunk and rambling? He found himself hoping that it hadn’t just been about making a point; he hoped some small part of Cameron had just simply wanted him. “Go to bed, Cameron.”
“Okay,” she mumbled dully, overly compliant in her drunken state.
House watched as she clambered into bed and halfheartedly tossed a blanket over herself. She was still in a full face of makeup and a club outfit, but he figured if he attempted to remedy either of those things, he’d be looking at a harassment case. At least he would be when Cameron woke up sober and remembered she didn’t actually want him. He smiled as he walked over and adjusted her blanket, before he dragged Cameron’s wastepaper basket beside her bed, just in case she was sick.
“Goodnight, Cameron,” he said quietly.
She didn’t respond except for a soft hum of acknowledgement, already mostly asleep. A quick search of her bathroom led House to her medicine cabinet; he found some Advil and placed two tablets and a glass of cold water on her bedside table, and then hovered in the centre of her bedroom for a moment.
He watched Cameron sleep for only a few seconds, before he flicked off her lamp and walked out into her living room. Her blonde friend was passed out cold on her sofa, thankfully now lying on her side. House quietly fetched a large bowl from the kitchen and placed it beside the couch, to hopefully protect Cameron’s nice rug from any projectile vomiting incidents.
The bathroom door was ajar when he walked past. One of the girls had curled up in the bathtub, in the foetal position, and the other was curled on the tiles beside the toilet, her head resting on the side of the toilet seat. Disgusting, yes, but House remembered waking up in similar situations a few times in college. They’d live.
He hesitated by the front door. He didn’t know why he felt so concerned about Cameron, so protective of her. She’d been almost a friend lately, he mused. She brought him lunch from the cafe that she walked to, on all the days when Wilson was busy. House always walked to get lunch before the infarction, and he’d missed good quality food. Sometimes, she asked about whatever music he was playing on his iPod. She actually had very good music taste, he’d found. She’d recommended him two albums, and he’d never tell her, but he’d listened to both and they’d been great; exactly his style of music, with good melodies and enough of a bass to listen to as he rode his motorcycle. She’d called him a couple of times, too, late at night when he’d been limping a little extra that day. He suspected she had no idea that sometimes her phone calls - complete with her poor excuses for ringing - were the only thing stopping him from injecting morphine straight into his arm, just to numb the pain for a few hours. Or maybe she did know, and that was why she called. She was perceptive like that.
She’d been baking a bit lately, too; birthdays in her family and her friendship circle. She brought him leftovers; slightly sunken brownies or too-small cupcakes or the odd experimental recipe. She could bake but hardly cook, apparently, and he found himself wanting to test out his long-dormant cooking abilities to make her something, repay her for the baked goods.
He hadn’t done it, though, and he wouldn’t ever do it. It would be too close to dating, to accept her company and her daily sandwiches and her cupcakes, and to do something for her in exchange. House didn’t do things for anyone else, not without raising a lot of eyebrows. His strange almost-friendship with Cameron had already drawn Wilson’s attention, complete with relentless teasing and questioning. Wilson had jokingly referred to Cameron as House’s girlfriend a few days ago, receiving a sharp kick under the desk. It made House feel as if he was back in middle school.
He and Cameron couldn’t date. It was impossible. He thought about tonight, her fingers trailing up his sides and her hand squeezing his arms, her dark eyes and long legs and skimpy outfit. Just that casual touch had felt so good; he’d wanted to give in, to relax and let her continue, to see where it went. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to himself; the silly, naive optimism he was worried he’d let himself feel, followed by the inevitable regret and disappointment. He couldn’t do it to Cameron either. Of course, it was probably inconceivable that she’d even say yes if he asked, but if she did… well, House had seen what dealing with him did to people. He didn’t want that.
He placed his hand on the doorknob and adjusted his grip on his cane. His leg, his behaviour, his addiction… she didn’t deserve that. He needed to go. He was worried and upset and aroused and he needed to leave. He turned the door handle.
There was a gagging sound from the bathroom. Frowning, House began limping back into Cameron’s flat. It didn’t sound like a traditional retching noise, more like choking.
One of the women, the tallest one with black hair, was having a seizure. “Shit,” swore House, tossing his cane to the side and running, grabbing the woman as her body went rigid, her limbs spasming. He covered the back of her head as it tried to jerkily collide with the bathroom wall. Her eyes were rolled back and pink foam was coming out of her mouth as he lowered her onto the ground. She was choking on the frothy vomit, her body spastic, her entire form shuddering as she seized. “Cameron!” House shouted, as loud as he could, as he rolled her friend into recovery position and pried open her jaw. “Cameron!” He was almost screaming. There was no movement in the apartment, no response, no doctor running out of her bedroom, sobered up by the panic in her boss’ voice. Shit.
The woman’s pulse was thready when House pressed his fingers to her neck. House’s hands shook as he dialled 911, calling Cameron’s name again. Doctor or not, if this was a poisoning or an overdose, there wasn’t much he could do without proper medical equipment or medication, definitely not now he was kneeling on the floor and his cane was many feet away. He had just pressed the phone to his ear when his eyes fell on the other woman, coiled in the bathtub.
She had pink foam dribbling down the side of her chin and the whites of her eyes were showing.
“Fuck,” swore House.
~
It was eight am when Wilson found his friend in the emergency department. House had been there for a while, drifting in and out of sleep. Cameron was asleep, too, her head lolling to the side as she sat on the bed, an IV attached to her arm. Her case wasn’t particularly serious; she just needed some IV fluids and some rest, so she hadn’t been given a hospital gown or any blankets. Her bed wasn’t even reclined and Wilson wondered how she was asleep.
He supposed getting drugged did make you tired.
Cameron looked incredibly small and helpless in the hospital bed. She was still in her outfit from the bachelorette party; all messy hair and long legs and exposed collarbone. Her eyelids were reflective and sparkly in the harsh hospital light.
House looked a little worse for wear. He was in old jeans and a T-shirt, his neck was at a terrible angle, and he appeared to be wearing sneakers without any socks. Even in sleep, one hand was clutching his thigh, and his brow was furrowed in pain.
“House.”
The doctor jolted awake at the sound of Wilson’s voice, rubbing his eyes blearily and wincing. The hospital lights were so bright. He’d been waking up every thirty minutes or so since he’d got here; his neck was aching and his leg was screaming in pain, worse than it had been for years.
“When did you get here?” he mumbled, leaning forward and rubbing his eyes. Cameron was still asleep.
“Two minutes ago. You?”
“Three thirty.”
“What happened?”
House scowled. Not at Wilson, more at himself. He’d spent the better part of the last few hours replaying the facts in his mind. How had he missed that Cameron was drugged? Of course, initially, she’d seemed just intoxicated. He should’ve noticed, though. He should’ve noticed her enlarged pupils, or been alarmed by how she didn’t know which bar she was at, or what a cab was. He should’ve known she was on something stronger than alcohol when she was slurring and saying he had good arms, or when she fell asleep in two seconds.
“She called me, didn’t know where she was. I went to pick her up and she was with three of her friends. I gave them all a lift home, and just before I left, the drunkest one had a seizure, a bad one.”
House didn’t, couldn’t mention how close he’d been to leaving. He didn’t want to meet Wilson’s eyes and confess how many signs he’d missed. He’d been too distracted; by Cameron, and her outfit, and the novelty of her being drunk and sarcastic and touching him so casually. He couldn’t admit that he’d been considering the trivial hypothetical of dating Cameron rather than noticing that she had all the symptoms of someone who’d been roofied.
He couldn’t tell Wilson how he’d run across the room to grab a woman - the bride-to-be, he’d learned later - and how he’d panicked as he frantically called 911. He couldn’t tell Wilson how he’d ran back in to check on Cameron, found her lying on her side with the same pink foam collecting at the corners of her mouth. He’d cried from the pain in his leg as he limped at high speed between the three sick people, and he hadn’t thought to wipe the tear tracks from his face as he followed the paramedics down to the ambulances; he’d taken the stairs while they filled the elevator with stretchers. He hadn’t grabbed his cane; the adrenaline pumping through his system had let him push through the gnawing agony to move between the drugged women and then down to the lobby. He hadn’t ever forgotten his cane before, not even once, since the infarction.
His leg was still aching, a bone-deep pain that he hadn’t felt in years. He always kept a bottle of Vicodin in his jacket pocket, and another one in his car, but he didn’t have either of those things now. He couldn’t remember if he’d left home without a coat, or had he left it at Cameron’s? Either way, the excruciating pain in his leg was the same.
“Could you grab me some Vicodin?”
He didn’t know what was more embarrassing; if he played it up as a reluctance to leave Cameron’s side, or if he admitted his leg hurt too much to walk. Both were true, he supposed.
Wilson frowned. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah.”
Wilson patted House’s shoulder uncomfortably, both of them watching Cameron’s sleeping figure. “You did all the right things, House. There was no way you could’ve known.”
“But I should’ve known!” snapped House, suddenly irate, shoving Wilson’s hand away. “I’m a doctor, my entire job is noticing symptoms! If I’d left twenty seconds later they could all have died choking on their own spew!”
It had been playing over in his head for hours. What if he’d reached his car, turned on his music and rolled down the windows and driven home the scenic way, enjoying himself while Cameron and two or three of her mysterious friends died? Without the fluids and Ativan administered by the paramedics, the seizures could have damaged all of their brains, even if they’d all managed not to asphyxiate on their own vomit.
Wilson frowned. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. She’s okay.”
Cameron was okay. Whatever dickhead had spiked their drinks wasn’t very good at it; enough to get them relaxed and defenseless was the goal, but the idiot had misjudged his quantities and made them all sick instead. Eloise, the future bride, had drunk the most and therefore was the sickest, and the vomiting girl had thrown up most of the roofie in her system and ended up not even needing fluids. House felt only marginally guilty that he hadn’t been to check on the others once, except to ask Lia, the blonde girl who was conscious and awake, what had happened. She hadn’t been particularly impressed with his manners, but she’d answered his questions. They’d been taking tequila shots at the bar and feeling okay, and then they switched to cocktails and suddenly were all complaining about the alcohol hitting way harder than usual. She’d been drunker than the others; she threw up twice in the club toilets and once on the sidewalk, and therefore was okay. Eloise had been downing cocktails like water; House had learned from a nurse that she’d had her stomach pumped.
Cameron was somewhere in the middle. Her life wasn’t in danger, she would be perfectly fine, but she’d need some IV fluids for at least another two hours, and she could be dazed and confused for a while. She was lucky.
“Why did she even call you?” Wilson asked quietly. It was odd to see House so silent, just sitting mutely in the uncomfortable chair, surrounded by the bustling noise of the ER, the constant beeping and hum of machines. Cameron’s bed was only separated from the rest of the ward by a thin curtain.
House ran a hand tiredly over his face. “People do strange things when they’re on drugs,” was his only answer. “Now go get me my Vicodin.”
~
Cameron stirred a few hours later, at almost two pm. She hadn’t been properly unconscious, just exhausted and in need of a good sleep. She’d been groggy and disorientated but awake when the paramedics arrived and gave her something to stop any seizures, and then slept soundly since getting to the ER.
Wilson hadn’t come back yet. House still hadn’t had any painkillers, in almost nine hours. He could feel the irritability creeping in, and the cold sweat gathering at his hairline.
“Good morning,” he said gruffly when Cameron blinked and sat up. There was a sick bag on the tray table beside the bed, but House’s leg was getting worse and he didn’t want to stand up to fetch it for her. Thankfully, Cameron didn’t look nauseated, just dazed.
“What happened?” she asked, wincing. House wished he could turn the lights off in here. He settled with passing her the bottle of water that he’d been throwing back and forth for the past hour.
“Your drinks got spiked,” he answered quietly and she took a small sip. “The idiot used too much; it’s some new designer roofie drug. You all had bad reactions.”
“Are my friends okay?”
“Yeah, they’re okay.”
Cameron was staring at him. “You picked us up last night,” she remembered, squinting at him. “That’s not like you.”
House shrugged. “I was bored. Besides, I figured you’d be wearing an outfit I’d appreciate.”
Cameron glanced down at her mostly bare legs and party top before self-consciously adjusting the sheet. House frowned. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “There are bits of the night I don’t remember… but I remember you being there. Thank you.”
House looked at his shoes. “It’s fine.”
Cameron frowned, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t even remember calling you,” she groaned softly, pressing her fingers against her temples.
House shrugged. “I looked up the drug,” he offered. “It causes temporary black outs almost the minute it is ingested, but it metabolises slowly. That’s why it took a while to make you sick.”
Cameron nodded, absorbing the information. House could practically see the cogs of her brain turning, trying to piece together the fragments she remembered. “I don’t remember any guys buying us drinks.”
House sighed. “There was a man who was bothering you when you were on the phone to me,” he muttered. “Do you remember him? He sounded pretty insistent.”
“Not at all,” said Cameron helplessly.
House shrugged. “The club said it would check their CCTV, and you’re all alright,” he offered, unsure how to help. He and Cameron were both keenly aware of what had almost happened. Men didn’t spike drinks for the fun of it. His stomach turned at the thought.
“Thank you again for picking us up,” Cameron almost whispered. “What drug was it?”
House told her the chemical name. “It’s some black market thing, like a combination of Rohypnol and some other cocktail of sedatives. You were lucky; it can have hallucinogenic side effects. In theory, it’s supposedly an aphrodisiac; there’s Viagra in there somewhere, but combined with all the other shit, it just tanks your blood pressure.”
Cameron’s mouth seemed stuck in a permanent frown; that indignant concern that House often witnessed. There was fear there too. “I hate not being able to remember,” she whispered sadly. Then, “Oh, God, did I kiss you?”
House’s head jerked up, surprised. She most certainly did not kiss him; he’d remember that very well.
“God, I just remember being in my bedroom with you, and… oh, no, I don’t remember!”
House smirked. It was slightly forced, but he had appearances to maintain. “No, you didn’t kiss me,” he assured her. “You did attempt to remove my shirt, and you told me my arms were sexy, though.”
“Oh, God, no, I didn’t,” groaned Cameron, her cheeks blushing scarlet as she covered her eyes with her hands, turning to smother her face in a thin hospital pillow. “That’s embarrassing.”
House found himself chuckling. It felt so insignificant now; her mortification over something so trivial and unimportant. House was just glad she was okay. She laughed, too. It was a sad, embarrassed little laugh. Her entire face was bright red, comedically so.
“Blame the Viagra,” House advised, his lips turning up.
Cameron shook her head with a grim smile, suppressing her own urge to laugh. “I don’t think I can,” she lamented.
House let himself grin now. She was okay. She was trying not to laugh, and beautiful, and the light and intelligence had returned to her eyes. “You know what else you said?” he started.
“I don’t think I want to know.”
“You told me I should come clubbing because I’d be the best at walking there, for once in my life.”
Cameron stared at him in mute shock for a moment, before her hands once again covered her face as she let out a helpless laugh. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” But she was trying not to giggle, and House was smiling too. She was a mixture of embarrassed and entertained, and he could feel the residual fear that had grasped him since last night slowly ebbing away. His guilt and self-resentment would come later, when he’d remember how he’d missed all the symptoms yet again, but for now, he could laugh with Cameron.
There was a clearing of a throat, and he turned around in his seat to see a young uniformed officer standing in the gap in the curtain. Another officer stood behind the first one, shadowing his partner from a distance. “Good morning,” said the cop gently. “Glad to see you’re feeling alright.” She offered Cameron a cautious smile. “We were wondering if you remembered anything from last night? We’re just gathering statements at the moment.”
Cameron returned the young woman’s polite smile. “I’m sorry, it’ll be a very short statement,” she warned. “I don’t remember much at all.”
“That’s perfectly fine,” she assured. “We were wondering if your friend here could also give one?”
Her eyes fixed on House, who sighed and reluctantly nodded. His leg pain, temporarily dulled by the laughter and the relief of Cameron being happy and alright, was returning with vengeance.
Cameron volunteered to go for a walk with the officer to somewhere quiet, citing the reason of wanting to get some air. House didn’t flinch - but both officers did - when she disconnected her own IV and stood up from the bed, not shaky at all. The male officer sat down on the edge of the ER bed she’d just vacated and asked House a handful of questions; his name, what he remembered, how he knew Cameron.
“Once we know the common symptoms, we can start educating bar staff and clubbers on what to look out for,” the young man explained, with a juvenile pride in the importance of his work. House humoured him, answering all his questions as best he could. For once, he kept the snark to a minimum. His leg was aching, and he was beginning to properly sweat from the lack of Vicodin and the pain. He could feel the anger rearing its head; he wanted to make this kind, conscientious young cop cry, and his logical brain knew that the kid didn’t deserve that. He answered in as few words as possible and tried not to draw attention to where he was rubbing his thigh.
Soon, the young man thanked him for his help and vanished. House stared at his shoes - why hadn’t he taken the time to put socks on last night? - and pondered the distance to the nearest pharmacy. About five hundred yards and a flight of stairs, or about seven hundred yards and an elevator. He scowled. His leg technically worked; it moved when he told it to move, and it could support his weight just fine. It was a fully functional leg. It just hurt. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stumble through the hospital, experiencing excruciating, nauseating pain with every step. He did have some dignity, after all. Sometimes, when the leg pain was too bad, his knee would buckle and send him to the ground, and he couldn’t stomach that humiliation. Not to mention he’d have to request a spare cane from the nurse; his actual cane was on Cameron’s floor.
“House,” said a soft voice. He glanced up. Cameron was back, still in that outfit, although she’d acquired an oversized white hoodie reading Mental Health Matters from the hospital shop, and a pair of flip flops. Her hand was resting on his shoulder, rubbing gently. He consciously unclenched his jaw and tried to keep the pain out of his voice when he returned her greeting.
“Got you something,” she said quietly. “My interview with the police didn’t last very long, so I thought I’d swing by the pharmacy.” She held up her other hand, unfurling her fingers to present a little orange bottle with House’s name on it. She was listed as the prescribing doctor.
“Cameron,” he sighed, taking it from her hand. “You are an angel. My favourite coworker, forever and always. The very best person I have ever met. The light of my life. I could marry you.”
As he popped the top off the bottle, he meant it.
Cameron laughed, her cheeks blushing pink as her fingers resumed their gentle caress of his shoulder as House took three tablets in quick succession. He didn’t comment on the touch, which Cameron seemed to take as acceptance. “I feel like an enabler,” she commented lightly, as House tipped his head back and waited for his drugs to work.
“How did you know I needed them?” he asked, eyes closed.
He sensed her shrugging. “You just get that specific look about you. It’s just pain, I can’t describe it.”
She knew him so well. He wanted to kiss her. He stayed seated in his uncomfortable visitor’s chair. He wasn’t going to kiss her.
“It’s because you ran down the stairs, isn’t it?” asked Cameron. House opened his eyes, meeting her intense ones. “The police asked if I remembered that.”
House scowled. “The paramedics filled up the entire bloody lift.”
He’d almost passed out from the stabbing pain in his thigh on his way down. He didn’t tell her that.
She shook her head at him, smiling almost affectionately. He could feel the Vicodin working, pushing back the pain in his leg to manageable. Or maybe it was that smile of hers. He couldn’t say for sure. “Thank you,” she said softly, squeezing his shoulder.
“Go get your discharge papers,” he instructed quietly, looking away. “I need to go talk to Wilson, then I figured we’d split a taxi back to your apartment. My car’s still there.”
Cameron nodded, and they both rose to leave.
~
Wilson hadn’t been caught in emergency surgery, or been found by Cuddy, or even been paged. He’d just forgotten about House and his request for Vicodin, a fact which House restated indignantly until Wilson threatened to kick him out of his office.
“I’m a busy man, House, you know, with my actual job,” the oncologist sighed. “Besides, you clearly managed to find some pills.”
“I have my sources,” snapped House. Due to his current lack of cane, he’d been loaned a single crutch by the ER. It was cutting painfully into his armpit.
Wilson sighed. “Where’s your cane?”
House lowered himself gingerly onto Wilson’s couch. “At Cameron’s.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on between the two of you? First, you two start eating lunch together, then now -”
“Aw, poor baby, am I cheating on you with Cameron?” snarked House.
Wilson rolled his eyes. “What were you even doing, at her house at three in the morning?”
“We’d just finished an orgy,” House snapped. “Four girls plus yours truly. It was porno-worthy.”
Wilson fixed him with a stern look. “House. Why are you here?”
House sighed. “That drug that was used on Cameron and her friends, you looked it up? The cop said he talked to you.”
“Yeah, the police wanted to talk to me about it. It’s not very clever; some idiot has essentially bought Rohypnol tablets and crushed them up, and then decided to be ‘extra-certain’ that their cocktail would work, so they crushed up a boatload of other medication and combined them. Very inconsistent formula, but the police wanted to talk to me because two of the drugs that got mixed in were sedatives that are ninety-nine percent exclusive to cancer treatment, along with other drugs like a drowsiness-inducing antihistamine and Viagra. They’ll be letting the other oncologists in the area know about it too; any young men who may frequent the club scene who are prescribed both those drugs should be monitored; tonight wasn’t the first case of this combination being used, apparently. Princeton General had a few of them.”
House frowned. “You read the toxicology report?” he asked.
Wilson nodded. “Not Cameron’s, but Eloise Miller’s. She was the sickest.”
“There’s… the cocktail is theoretically an aphrodisiac,” House commented, remembering what the nurse said to him. “There’s a growing market for it because young idiots think it’s not rape if she’s enjoying herself, so they want ‘lust-inducing’ roofies.”
Wilson raised his eyebrows. “You want to know if there’s any chance the drug is what they say it is,” he guessed, almost smug. “You want to know if it would have influenced Cameron’s attraction to you.”
House scowled but didn’t say anything.
Wilson’s face suddenly took on that scared, suspicious quality that it always displayed when he was scared to hear what House had done this time. “Oh God, please, please tell me that you didn’t sleep with Cameron while she was drugged.”
“Would I really do that?” House retorted, before rolling his eyes and turning serious. “No, of course I didn’t sleep with her, Wilson. Just… answer my question.”
Wilson sighed. “No, it wouldn’t make a difference, other than making her dopey and compliant. It had Viagra in it, and one of the cancer sedatives can be known to increase libido in ten percent of people, but that’s just… physical arousal, blood flow, et cetera. There’s not even evidence it would strip away inhibitions, at least not more than alcohol does. House… what happened?”
House scowled, rubbing his leg. “Nothing. She just… hugged me. Called me hot.”
Wilson guffawed and House leaned across his desk to punch him in the shoulder. Wilson was still grinning. “They should check her eyesight, make sure it’s back to normal now.”
House’s frown deepened. He was relieved, in a way, that Cameron’s temporary attraction to him wasn’t purely caused by some cocktail of drugs, but it left him with many more questions. Was it just the alcohol? He knew from unfortunate personal experience that everyone seemed significantly hotter in the dark lighting of the club, with enough alcohol in your system to kill a small animal. Was it just the tequila, or was it some pathetic hangover from Cameron’s old crush on him? Old habits die hard, and all that.
“House,” Wilson started, when his friend didn’t respond to his barb. “You know -”
There was a knock on the door, and Wilson abruptly cut himself off. “Come in,” he called.
Cameron pushed open the door, sticking her head into the office. “Hey, Wilson, have you seen - oh, there you are.”
House glanced up and met her eyes, before looking back down at the floor. He knew he was acting like a miserable, petulant child, and he couldn’t quite identify why. “You really should find some trousers,” he muttered, lifting his gaze to leer pointedly at Cameron’s still-bare legs. The hoodie was large enough that her shorts were fully hidden.
Cameron sighed, but she didn’t sound irritated, just faintly exasperated and very tired. “I’m about to get a cab back to my place,” she said. “I figured you’d want to come.”
House nodded. “My car’s there,” he snapped, at Wilson’s raised eyebrow. Cameron looked faintly surprised and amused, but she didn’t say anything as House awkwardly clambered to his feet. A singular crutch was not as seamless as his cane. He felt more disabled than usual as he hesitantly manoeuvred out of Wilson’s office; there was a specific type of embarrassment that came with being in pain and incapacitated. He was slower than usual, and leaning more than usual, and Cameron said nothing as he followed her to the elevator, but he worried he could see pity and even disgust in her eyes.
She called you hot last night, she hugged you in her bedroom last night, and now she’s watching you struggle to walk with a crutch that’s the wrong height. She brought you tablets to feed your addiction today. I bet she’s not thinking you’re hot right now.
He tried to silence that voice in his head, but didn’t have much success.
They were silent until ten minutes into their taxi ride. “We’ll redo the bachelorette party, I think,” Cameron commented randomly. House glanced at her, but decided he was happy with idle small talk right now. “Not clubbing again, no way. I think we’ll have wine and bad karaoke at someone’s house, maybe order some pizza, just put last night out of everyone’s minds before the wedding.”
House nodded.
Cameron continued. “We never should have split off from the rest of the group last night,” she lamented. “We had a group of twenty, but it hit two am and everyone wanted to go home. Eloise wanted to go to Mosman’s, and we’re her bridesmaids, so…”
“I hate Mosman’s,” offered House. “That fucking green light.”
Cameron smiled, seemingly grateful that he was contributing anything to the conversation. “I hate it too,” she agreed. “Terrible music, too. I’m not a fan of nightclubs in general. I went out a bit at college, and that was fun, but blasting music and men who try to grope you isn’t exactly my idea of a fun Friday night anymore.”
House nodded. Long ago, he’d been twenty-something and a frequent flyer of bars and clubs near Hopkins, and he’d been arrogant enough to brag about his med student status and travel stories. It had made him pretty popular with the ladies, too, but it had been decades since he’d given up pretending to like EDM and overpriced drinks.
Coming back to Cameron’s apartment wasn’t exactly a pretty sight. House had known it wouldn’t be, but Cameron seemed slightly shell-shocked. House’s cane was on the floor where he’d abandoned it to run towards the bathroom, and there was pale pink vomit on the bathroom floor and in the tub, and a pinkish stain on Cameron’s pillow. House had planned on leaving immediately, but seeing Cameron’s horrified expression, he found himself wordlessly helping, running the water in the bathtub and cleaning up the tiles.
She thanked him quietly as she went to change her bedding. He found her, leaving the bathroom clean, just as she was fluffing new pillows. She turned towards him, still in last night’s makeup, her eyes uncertain. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For cleaning, and…” She gestured at the bedside cabinet, where House had left the Advil and water.
He shrugged, uncomfortable. “I’m sorry for not noticing earlier,” he mumbled, equally quiet in the stillness of her bedroom. “I should’ve recognised the signs.”
Cameron shook her head. “It’s some new designer drug, House, I hardly think I would’ve noticed if I’d been in your position.”
House couldn’t quite accept that. He didn’t know what he wanted. It wasn’t Cameron’s forgiveness, because she hardly seemed angry at him. Absolution? He didn’t know.
Suddenly, Cameron was back in his personal space, like she’d been last night, except this time she was sober. Her eyes were clear and certain, and she looked like the intelligent doctor he knew, rather than the ditzy, out-of-it person she’d been last night. “You knew I was too drunk to get myself home safe,” she insisted, looking up at him. “You heard my voice and you knew I was too fucked up, so you came to get us. That’s what matters. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t done that, House. That’s what’s important.”
He knew she was right, and he felt some of the guilt lift off his shoulders. Reminiscent of last night, Cameron leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her toes to rest her chin on his shoulder. House found himself hugging her back without hesitation, his arms firm around her waist. It was different when they were both sober; there was that polite space between their bodies and her face wasn’t buried in his T-shirt. It was nice, though, and they stayed like that for a time that exceeded the parameters of a friendly hug.
“I’m sorry for last night,” said Cameron gently, not pulling away. House couldn’t see her face. “My memory is coming back in fragments. I didn’t mean to… molest you.”
House snorted. “I can’t say I minded.”
Cameron pulled away but left her arms around his neck. Her smile was a little sad. “But you did.”
If House had any self preservation instinct, any at all, he’d step out of this strange embrace, say something cruel, and run away before he could taunt himself any more like this.
“Not really,” he muttered. “Not sure any heterosexual man minds having a beautiful woman practically grope him.”
Cameron’s face flushed scarlet with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, mortified.
House gave her a grim smile, before surprising himself by pulling her back into his arms, one hand on the back of her head. It was similar to the way she’d hugged him last night, her face against his chest. This way, he didn’t have to meet her eyes, see the strange, unidentifiable expression in them. This way, she couldn’t look at him, and risk reading all the emotion he was trying to keep off his face.
He’d liked Cameron all those years ago, when she’d forced him on that disastrous date. He’d fretted about a corsage for her, and what to wear, and how to act. He’d cleaned his bedroom, just in case, and put a condom in his wallet, just in case, and then he’d realised in the car there that it was all futile. Even if tonight went well, what about tomorrow morning, and what about after that? He’d never been boyfriend material. He couldn’t put himself through another train wreck of a relationship with a woman who, realistically, must only like him for his flaws. The pattern was there. A man dying of cancer and then House. It was the logical conclusion.
House had liked her back then. Not intensely, but well enough to destroy his chances early rather than hurting them both. He’d like her all those years ago, before he even truly knew her, before he’d seen her humour and her personality and her courage, before she’d started talking to him as a friend and bringing him sandwiches and cupcakes, before she’d begun calling him on nights when he most needed a friend.
God, he was screwed. He’d avoided thinking about it, but the last twenty-four hours had confronted him, left him with nowhere to run. He couldn’t shove this into some corner of his mind. He had to face the truth: he really, really liked Cameron, and he was screwed.
He closed his eyes and let his cheek rest on the top of Cameron’s head, and for a minute, just a minute, he let himself pretend that they could one day be something.
He needed to leave. He needed to stop touching her and get out of her bedroom and run away, find some stronger drugs or a hooker or both, and get these stupid fucking thoughts out of his head.
“Did you… mean anything you said last night?” he asked, which wasn’t what he meant to say at all. He was meant to be leaving.
Cameron stiffened in his arms. “I don’t remember everything I said,” she said, dodging his question with expertise. She drew away to look up at him. Why were they still touching? This wasn’t normal, they weren’t together, they weren’t anything. “I suppose you do have pretty good arms, though,” she said, offering him a nervous, almost shy smile. She was still deflecting.
Do you ever think about us? Because I do. All the time.
House’s returning smile was more of a pained grimace, and Cameron’s hesitant happiness drained off her face fast. He felt bad, but he couldn’t do this. “Stop flirting with me,” he said. He meant for it to sound cold, but it came out as more of a desperate plea.
It worked, though. Cameron lowered her arms and quickly stepped away from him. It was only a foot between them, but it felt like miles. Cameron’s arms crossed across her torso, defensive and hurt. “I wasn’t,” she snapped, but it was weak. She tried again. “I wasn’t flirting,” she said with more conviction.
“What do you fucking call this then?” House didn’t know where the anger came from. Maybe it was from the hurt swirling around inside of him, or the feeling that he was being used. “What do you call this?” He hated that he sounded hurt.
Cameron blinked, taken aback and outraged, but she faltered, unable to answer him.
“It’s not… it’s not fair, you can’t do this,” House snapped. He needed to shut up, he was giving away too much, but he hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and he was so angry, at himself more than at Cameron. “You can’t fucking do this,” he repeated, hating the distress in his own voice.
“I wasn’t flirting,” Cameron restated, quieter and unsure.
“But you were!” House snapped indignantly. “You talk to me and eat lunch with me and you ring me randomly at stupid hours! You fucking brought me cupcakes! You recommended music and listened to me complain and you brought me Vicodin!”
“That wasn’t flirting,” argued Cameron, more certain now. “I was trying to be your friend.”
“Why?” demanded House. “I’m the worst friend anyone could have, you’d never get anything from me in return, so what the fuck are you doing? And… and you called me, drunk, and you hugged me, and you touched me… Cameron, none of this is fucking fair!”
Cameron looked helpless and confused. To House’s absolute dismay, her eyes were shining and her bottom lip was trembling. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry,” she whispered. “What did… what did I do? Why are you so angry?” Her arms were wrapped around herself and she looked very small.
House’s anger was never at her. He wanted to punch a wall and take ten Vicodin in one mouthful. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I just can’t do this. I can’t be your friend. I can’t do this. Please, don’t call me again, don’t bring me lunch, just… please.”
He never said please. He never begged anyone for anything, but he’d beg for this now. She had to stop. She couldn’t keep tormenting him, no matter how accidental it was.
He didn’t wait for a response, crouching unsteadily to pick up his cane. He made the mistake of looking at her face as he stood up. Thick tears were running down her cheeks and thin fingers were covering her mouth silently. He turned to leave and she let out a helpless sob.
“House,” she whispered. “What did I do?”
“Nothing,” he said honestly, because he just couldn’t bear it.
He limped towards her front door, away from the sound of her crying. He’d never felt worse in his entire life. Just as he reached the exit of her apartment, a hand grabbed his wrist and yanked it, forcefully spinning House to face Cameron. She was still crying steadily, with red eyes and splotchy cheeks. Last night’s mascara was creating greyish tear tracks down her face.
“Talk to me,” pleaded Cameron, her voice thick with tears. “I don’t understand, please…”
House had laid out too much. There was nothing left to say short of the truth, and he couldn’t do that. “It’ll be okay,” he said gently, hardly a consolation, but the truth. Cameron had had a long night, she was exhausted, but she’d be okay. The loss of House’s dismal attempt at friendship was hardly something to cry about, she was just emotional and too-tired. “We’ll go back to work and everything will go back to normal. I’ll keep on being a miserable old bastard and you’ll keep on being a naive optimist who does my evil bidding.”
Cameron shook her head, her grip on his wrist tightening. “I don’t want things to go back to normal,” she whispered, showing no signs of letting him go. “I like our lunches and our phone calls.” She sniffled sadly.
House frowned. He’d enjoyed spending time with Cameron, but this was the reason he avoided getting close to people. Something would always complicate things. In this case, it was his stupid fondness for her. He couldn’t label it as anything more, but fondness felt like an insufficient word for it.
“Cameron,” he began, prepared to beg again. “Please, just let me leave.”
They’d both go to work tomorrow, and House would be irate and cruel and more short-tempered than usual. He was sure his leg would hurt more than ever, and equally sure he’d be unable to resist the lure of morphine tonight.
Cameron’s eyes were scared and pleading and confused, and she adjusted her grip on House’s wrist, still holding him firmly. There was a steely determination there, though, one which he wasn’t sure he liked.
Suddenly, House was pressed against Cameron’s front door, with a hand cradling his jaw and soft lips on his.
He stopped thinking for a moment; the void of negative thoughts swirling around on repeat in his mind just stopped. He stopped thinking about how they couldn’t even be friends and how it would never work, and how much he desperately wished it could work anyway. His thoughts were simply erased by the press of Cameron’s lips, and he found himself kissing back, his hands on her waist as he leaned into it. He let himself be distracted by the illusion of hope, by the sheer, unexpected joy he was experiencing. Cameron let go of his wrist and slid her fingers into House’s air. Her lips tasted salty from her tears. House didn’t want it to end; he pulled her closer and released her lips, allowing himself a single breath before he was kissing her again. He didn’t understand this, didn’t know why she’d kissed him or why he was there at all, but he knew he didn’t want this to end. He didn’t want the coldness of reality to sink back in, so he chased her lips, slipping his tongue into her mouth, rubbing his thumb across her face.
Eventually, she pulled away. Her eyes were still red, but her pupils were blown and she was breathing harder. There was anger in her eyes and House winced, remembering all the things that he’d let himself forget, like the fact that he was a miserable old cripple, fifteen years older than her, with a drug addiction and nothing to offer her. What was he doing? What was she doing? Some final cruelty, as revenge for cutting their barely-there friendship short?
“What is wrong with you?” hissed Cameron, and to House’s horror, her voice was thick with more tears. “Why do you do this? You let me think we’re friends, you pretend to tolerate my company, you answer the phone when I call, you come pick me up in the middle of the night and potentially save my life, you hug me, then you push me away and say ‘you can’t do this anymore!’ What does that even mean? And then you kiss me back like that! What do you want from me?” She was crying in earnest now, clutching House’s shoulders as she shook him gently. “What the hell do you want from me, House?”
“A lot of things,” breathed House, the most honest he’d ever been with her. “I want a lot of things, and I can’t have any of them.” He gave her a thin-lipped smile that did nothing to hide the complete sadness on his face. “Life’s unfair like that.”
Cameron pressed her eyes closed and a tear escaped. House gently pried her hands off his forearms and pushed them down by her sides.
“I can’t be whatever the hell you want me to be for you, Cameron,” he breathed. “I can’t just be another distraction… what Chase was for you, I can’t be that, it would… I just can’t. Don’t make me explain it, please.”
Cameron hiccuped, wrapping her arms around herself. “That’s never been what I wanted from you, House,” she whispered sadly. “I just thought… I did genuinely just want to be your friend, and I’d be content with being nothing more than friends, but… well, I think I’ll always want more. I’ll always love you, House.”
House shook his head, stepping away and closing his eyes, trying to shake away those words, what they meant, what they made him feel. “No, don’t - don’t say that. You know that’s not true, Cameron, you’re not an idiot, so don’t say it, please.”
She shook her head. “It’s true,” she choked out. “I know that’s the last thing you want to hear, especially from me, but it’s the truth, I swear.”
House shook his head again, terrified and helpless and wishing so desperately that he was a different man, so he could smile and let himself be happy, because somewhere inside he was happy; he was jumping for joy because Cameron thought she loved him. But that joy was buried under so much fear, he was almost trembling with it. He was scared he’d give in, he’d believe her, he’d get so hurt again that it would leave him in ruins. House was already so broken; he didn’t love easily or trustingly, he’d stopped believing in unconditional love a long time ago, and he felt that every time he cared about someone, he was merely handing over power, giving them the power to hurt him.
“It can’t be,” he said quietly. “Cameron, you… I don’t know what you’ve ever seen in me, but you don’t love me.”
Cameron’s anger came back; House saw it flicker into her eyes. “Don’t you dare assume you know my thoughts and feelings better than I do, you arrogant jerk,” she snapped. “And don’t you dare tell me this is some saviour complex bullshit, either.”
“Cameron -” House started.
“No! You can go ahead and tell me that you find me naive and repulsive! You can call me stupid and ugly, you can tell me you can’t imagine anything less plausible than you one day loving me, but don’t you care tell me a damn thing about the way I feel for you! Do you really believe you’re so unloveable that I must be deluded or lying to say I love you?”
“Yes!” exploded House, the confession bursting from him without his permission. “Of course I fucking think that! Look at us! You’re beautiful and young and kind, and I’m… God, Cameron, I’m a mess, you can’t possibly pretend that you want me. I’m a cripple and drug addict and an arsehole. I’m not good with people or good at relationships. I’m in chronic pain, I’m miserable, and I’m not… I can’t be anything close to what you want, or what you deserve. We’d have no future.” His voice broke and he cut himself off, staring at the floor so he wouldn’t have to look at Cameron.
“You’re an idiot,” she breathed, but her voice had lost its malice. “You do like me. You’re afraid.”
House didn’t even bother trying to deny it. “We’d last a month at most, Cameron. You’d realise what a mistake you’d made within the week, and then you’d spend another three weeks with me out of some misplaced loyalty and sympathy, and then you’d leave and well… I’m no masochist.”
He didn’t want to live with the memories of them; of comfort and love and companionship and intimacy. He could never work with her after that. It would crush him, the knowledge of what he’d had and what he’d lost.
Cameron took a step towards him, her hand settling on the side of House’s face. He closed his eyes. “You’re scared you’ll get hurt,” Cameron whispered. “And you’re afraid of letting yourself feel hope, or feel safe, because you think it’ll make it worse when I inevitably leave.”
“Of course it’ll make it worse,” House snapped. “There’s nothing worse than being blindsided, thinking someone loves you and then…”
Cameron’s thumb swiped tenderly over his face. “I know you’re not perfect, House,” she murmured. “I’d never expect you to suddenly give up Vicodin or be polite to strangers or follow rules. I love you, and I know you’re weird, and I’d never hold that weirdness against you. I don’t want to change you. You’d never have to be anything other than yourself.”
House didn’t believe her, couldn’t bring himself to believe her. “But we have no future,” he whispered. “I can’t do so many things, there’s so much I’d never be able to give you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” insisted Cameron. “You already give me so much, House. You make me happy, you make me laugh, we have interesting conversations, there’s nothing that I want from you that you don’t already give me.”
House ran a hand over his face. “What about six months from now? A year from now? What about meeting parents and friends, and moving in together, and all that? I’m no good at any of that.”
Cameron smiled. “I’m not much good at that stuff either,” she admitted. “We’d be okay.”
House stared at her. She was so pretty, even with mascara streaked down her cheeks and a red nose. She was kind, and insightful, and so, so smart. If House was an optimist, which was something he always tried to avoid being, he would’ve thought they could balance each other well. But Cameron didn’t deserve to be the good half to his bad one.
“You’ll resent me,” he whispered.
“Never,” she promised.
House watched her cautiously. She represented so many things he was afraid of; commitment, expectations, the inevitable outcome that he’d disappoint her. He told her so.
“You haven’t disappointed me yet,” Cameron said, waving away his fears. “And I don’t want commitment from you, not yet, anyway. I just want you to give this a shot.”
When she said it like that, with those bright eyes fixed on his, and her warm hand on his cheek, it stopped sounding so scary.
“I’m going to go shower,” said Cameron quietly. “Think about it, please.”
House was relieved when she left, which he imagined she knew. It gave him a chance to exhale and run his hands through his hair a few times, and consider what to do. He was sure that if he left now, Cameron would not try to contact him. She’d take it as rejection.
He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he knew he wasn’t going to leave. House wasn’t very good with people, but he was quite adept at reading them, and he’d realised that Cameron had spent the past few months slowly sneaking past his armour, becoming his friend just because she liked him and was a good person. She’d believed, for that entire time, that House was utterly disinterested in her, and that was so far from the truth. She deserved his honesty, he mused, as he leaned against her front door. He did care about her, and if he were a braver man, he could find some truer words for his feelings. He had wanted her, physically, at least, from almost the moment they met, and he’d never found her unattractive. Yes, they had argued, and he found her persistent optimism and empathy grating at times, but he had always admired her, as a doctor and then as a person. Her friendship had tipped him into dangerous territory; he liked her too much to feign indifference in his thoughts, and of course, he’d imagined what it would be like to move past the label of friends. He’d just never assumed it was a possibility.
He was still deep in thought when Cameron reappeared, in a tank top and tracksuit pants, her face clean of makeup and her damp hair plaited down her back. She smiled when she saw him. “I’m going to order in some takeaway,” she started. “Chinese or pizza?”
“Chinese.”
She asked for his order and then phoned the place. “Come sit,” she mouthed, as she gave her credit card details to the woman on the phone. He reluctantly wandered over to sit beside her on the couch. Despite their growing closeness, they’d never hung out like this, just the two of them in Cameron’s private space. It felt like they had; her voice had filled House’s bedroom from his cell phone speakers on many nights, but she’d never actually come inside.
House rested his head against the back of the couch, turning it slightly to look at Cameron. She was already watching him. He took the bottle of Vicodin out of his pocket and popped two tablets. She didn’t flinch at him, or frown disapprovingly. He looked down at the label. For Gregory House, prescribed by Allison Cameron.
She’d brought him Vicodin. She’d seen him in withdrawal, and in pain, and when he was losing the relief of the ketamine. She’d met his parents, albeit briefly. She’d seen him commit medical malpractice, seen him punched in the face, had sat by his bedside as he recovered from a gunshot wound. She’d stood by him through it all. She’d lied for him, covered for him, done a little B&E for him, defended him. She’d seen him be rude, and be cruel. She’d been on the receiving end of his temper more than once, and in turn, she’d shouted at him many times. They’d argued and bickered, been on a date, gone to a Monster Truck rally together. She’d tolerated all of his shit with patience for years, and somehow she’d come out of it still loving him.
House reached for her hand where it rested on the couch and tentatively tangled their fingers together. Cameron smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “It’s been a long day,” she mused, tucking her legs up and shuffling closer on the couch.
“It has,” House agreed.
The Chinese arrived within minutes and they ate on the couch, watching some rubbish that was playing on TV. It was quiet, but the silence wasn’t awkward. House could feel Cameron’s leg touching his as he ate, and after they’d placed their empty takeaway containers on the coffee table, Cameron rested her head on House’s shoulder.
It was early, only about six pm, but their sleep schedules were both all wrong. House took another Vicodin and rubbed his eyes. Cameron, too, was looking drowsy but awake. She’d had a long nap at the hospital, about six hours, but she’d also been drugged.
House glanced at her, and then hesitantly kicked off his shoes. It was a small step, but Cameron’s smile lit up her face. House felt his eyelids getting heavier as he tried to focus on some terrible episode of Real Housewives - Cameron really needed to get cable.
~
Next thing he knew, he was blearily blinking awake. The room was dark and the couch was comfortable. His head was pillowed on something warm and moving; Cameron. She was sprawled on the sofa, her face turned into a pillow, her arms resting beside her head. House was curled on his side between her and the back of the couch, his head resting on her stomach, which was rising and falling with each breath. He smiled. He had no clue what time it was, but the TV was still playing, on mute now. It was some other reality TV rubbish. It made him smile.
He slowly pried himself away from Cameron, sitting up and stretching quietly, before standing as silently as possible and limping down the hallway. He wasn’t a particularly quiet walker; his shuffling steps, even without the tap of a cane, were louder than he’d like. He used Cameron’s toilet, washing his hands as quietly as possible and choosing not to flush. He could be a polite house guest. He was still Greg House, though, so he took a moment to snoop around Cameron’s medicine cabinet; not much of note, just regular household tablets. Over-the-counter painkillers, hayfever medication, antiseptic creams, one expired, half-finished packet of common antibiotics, insect bite cream, birth control, antihistamines, all the common things. Bandaids and plasters. Then, right down the bottom, was a prescription tube, covered by everything else, poking out from under an ancient thermal blanket. House frowned, pushing the ordinary junk aside. In a plastic bag, there were four unlabelled orange bottles, filled to the brim with white tablets that he’d recognise anywhere. He picked up the bag. Inside it, written on a scrap of paper, was: EXP Jan 2009. The only other item in the bag was a very familiar house key.
House’s confusion was growing. “Cameron!” he called, disregarding the fact that he had no idea what time it was.
He limped back into the living room just as Cameron was sitting up. Her voice was thick with sleep and her fringe was sticking up when she turned around to squint at him. “House? You alright?”
“Is this unlabelled Vicodin?”
Cameron rubbed her eyes, yawning. “What?”
“Why do you have a bag full of an unlabelled, unprescribed opioid?” demanded House.
“Oh, that. Thanks for snooping around my bathroom,” sighed Cameron, running a hand over her face. “I got those when Tritter was being a nuisance,” she explained. “I have a friend at Princeton General who sometimes does favours for me, she got those for me. I figured taking out over four hundred Vicodin without a prescription at our own hospital might raise some eyebrows with the police.”
“What do you mean, favours?” asked House, more confused than he’d ever been. “Are you regularly stealing drugs?”
Cameron shrugged. “Not often. Once or twice, for patients in the clinic without health insurance.”
It was an answer that seemed quintessentially Cameron. “What patient were those for, then?” asked House, but he had a sinking feeling that told him he already knew.
“You,” replied Cameron. “I heard that Tritter seized some insane stash you had, and you were on rations by Cuddy… well, if he hadn’t dropped it, I suspected the next step would’ve been cutting off that supply as well. I was worried about you.”
“So you replaced my stash and copied my house key and didn’t tell me?”
Cameron shrugged. “Addiction is a medical issue,” she said, scowling. “That cop never had any business getting involved with your medications. Withdrawal is a medical issue, too, and personally I’d prefer that people with decade-long narcotics addictions didn’t quit cold-turkey while they’re responsible for patients’ lives.”
House took two steps towards the couch, bent down, and kissed her.
Cameron kissed back instantly, her hands cupping his jaw and sliding into his hair. When House pulled away, she stood up and stepped into his space, her lips finding his again. He dropped the bag of Vicodin on the couch and wrapped his arms around her. Cameron’s tongue was in his mouth, and then House was groaning into her mouth as her body pressed itself against his, and then he was pulling away to press hot kisses down her neck. His fingers were sliding under her thin tank top to rest on her bare back, and her head was tilting back.
“You know,” he said quietly, pulling away to look down at her. “I really do like you.”
Cameron smiled at him through the darkness.
Her illicit stash of Vicodin felt a lot like acceptance, somehow. She understood him; his pain, his addiction. She wasn’t going to coddle him and treat him as some greedy, irrational child with no willpower. She respected him, despite his drug habit. She broke the law to help him. She didn’t resent him for his flaws, just accepted them the same way she’d always asked him to accept hers.
“I suppose it could even be said that I love you,” he confessed.
Cameron’s answering smile could have lit up a city. “Will you believe me if I say it now?” she asked.
House shrugged, but he was smiling too. “Possibly.”
“I love you,” Cameron whispered.
House didn’t think he’d ever felt so genuinely happy in years. He pressed his lips against Cameron’s and let himself get swept up in all the emotions flooding his system; happiness and relief and hope. God, he hadn’t let himself feel hope in a long, long time.
Cameron’s fingers found the bottom of his T-shirt and dragged it up. House let her pull it over his head and toss it across the room. Cameron pressed a kiss against his sternum, grinning. “Mm, I do like your arms,” she said with a laugh, her hands settling on House’s biceps. “You’d think you went to a gym or something.”
House rolled his eyes. “There’s plenty you don’t know about me yet.”
Cameron raised her eyebrows dubiously. “You’re telling me you go to a gym? You think people who run on treadmills should be locked in insane asylums.”
House snorted. “Of course I don’t go to the gym. I hate gyms. All sweaty and unhygienic and boring. I was just offended at your assumption.”
Cameron laughed.
“My turn now?” House asked, his fingers catching the hem of her tank top.
She rolled her eyes, but seemed unable to wipe the smile off her face. “I suppose so.”
He happily pulled her top over her head, dropping it unceremoniously on the floor. The humour seemed to fade from the moment suddenly, leaving nothing but pure desire. Cameron was beautiful. House told her so, as his fingers and lips found her nipples, making her squirm as he rubbed and sucked and teased. She made all these sounds, her head falling back, as he circled each bud with his tongue.
“Oh God, House!” she whimpered. Her hands found his belt and soon his fly was undone and she was shoving his jeans down, palming him through his boxers. It was House’s turn to groan, his breath catching at the sensation.
Soon, her tracksuit pants were off, and so were his boxers, and they were both naked in the centre of her living room, kissing almost frantically as they toppled onto the couch. Cameron stroked House’s cock as his fingers found her wet and ready. He pressed them inside her, biting at her lip and almost whimpering as she twisted her grip around his head.
“Condom?” he barely remembered to ask, as he curled his fingers inside the woman he loved.
Cameron shook her head. “I’m on the pill,” she whispered. “If you say you’re clean, then I trust you. I want to feel you.”
“God,” whispered House in response, pulling his fingers out. “I’m okay with that.”
He pushed inside her, overwhelmed at the sensation, at the expression on her face, at the noise she made, at the feeling of her arms and legs around him. Cameron was beautiful, with messy hair and kiss-bitten lips and those eyes. “I love you,” he murmured against her hair, as he braced himself on his good leg and began to thrust inside her, encouraged by her moans and the way he could feel everything.
“I love you,” she breathed in response. “Oh, God, Greg!”
House liked the way his name sounded when Cameron said it. He pressed an uncoordinated kiss to her lips, shuddering as he fought off his orgasm until he felt Cameron clench around him, watched her eyes roll back, heard her gasp his name. It was only then that he let go.
Later, when they’d cleaned up, they lay tangled together on Cameron’s couch. The sun was rising behind the curtains, and House felt better than ever. It was a new day, and he was scared, but the fear was fading with every smile from Cameron. She knew him. She loved him anyway. He believed her about that now. He was beginning to believe that maybe that love could last.
“The chance of success if you never try is always zero,” Cameron reminded him, when she caught that familiar flicker of self-doubt in his eyes. She knew him so well.
They’d be okay.
FIN.