Pairing: House/Cameron
Rating: Nasty implications
Wordcount: 1152
Spoilers: Up to and including "Words & Deeds"
Warnings: H/W shippers read at your own risk.
Thanks to Beta Goddess Carol who rode to the rescue while I was floundering with this.
Summary: House gets another visitor. Questions are answered.
House didn’t sleep well on his best nights. Now he was in a cell with no music, no Gameboy and nothing like the amount of opiates it normally took to allow something resembling sleep. Given the pains and deprivations of the past month, the prospect of eight hours of bored consciousness shouldn’t have terrified him as much as it did.
He hadn't counted on the soporific effects of finally having the Tritter monkey off his back. Sometime after midnight, he dozed off and found himself reliving the endlessly amusing hallucination he’d had in the seconds after the shooting. He especially liked the part where he was sitting on the car outside the Mexican drive-thru imitating the members of his platoon. The Australian accent needed work, but at least he did a better Chase than Wilson ever would.
Then there was the “using the robot to molest Cameron” scenario. The sound that his dream Cameron had let out when he sliced the button from her blouse had fueled recurring fantasies during the weeks that the ketamine had allowed him to live without the numbing effects of other drugs. It was like having a teenager’s libido again, and who could be more appropriate for adolescent jerking off than a girl who looked barely legal? He’d considered writing an article about the hallucinatory experience, but didn’t feel like sharing his particular brand of kinkiness with the medical community at large.
His eyes opened and he saw Cameron sitting in a chair. Was the dream holding on to him or vice versa? The whole thing was starting over, playing on an endless loop in his brain. “You’re pathetic,” formed on his lips because that’s what he’d said and assumed he had to say again. Except he wasn’t in ICU listening to the sounds of monitors and he certainly didn’t have Sister Morphine pumping through his veins. He was in jail for contempt and heading back to the rehab charade in the morning. The leg had started to kvetch, although the dose that Wilson had delivered earlier was still staving off detox symptoms. He wasn’t in a position to call anyone pathetic. Not that that had ever stopped him before.
“You’re…”
“I’m here and I’ve got your pills.” She patted the pocket of her jacket, letting him know she had his back with her concealed weapon.
The rehab bed was an oasis of comfort and thread count compared to the prison cot and its rough wool blanket, possibly left over from the white man’s attempts to infect the Indians with smallpox. He didn’t bother covering the grunt of discomfort it took to get up and limp the few steps. Instead of producing the package she reached through the bars with her right hand and placed her fingers around his wrist, holding it gently.
He could easily have pulled away from her touch, but she still had the pills and he still needed them. Besides, no one was watching except the vacant-eyed guard halfway down the corridor.
“Does Wilson know?” she asked.
“He knows.”
“How’d he take it?”
“At least he has his apology to keep him warm.”
“And what do I have?”
For the moment she had his wrist in her grasp, as though she were checking his pulse. She stopped exerting pressure, giving him the option to grab his hand back through the bars and return to his cot of penance. Instead he leaned his weight against the bars and allowed to her to explore the back of his hand with her fingertips. How long had it been since he let anyone touch him like this? He held his breath, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing that she could get to him. She turned his hand over and started tracing patterns against his palm with the nail of her index finger. The slightest gasp escaped his lips as he answered the question.
“Leverage.”
“Cuddy has leverage. I just look like an idiot for trying to hug you. Same pathetic Cameron,” she said ruefully.
“You played it beautifully. All that righteous indignation. ‘I want you to do your job.’ ‘Hey everybody, let’s go up to rehab and ask House for help.’ Making sure the whole gang was there to see me puke. Awesome job. If I could give you a bonus for duplicity, I would.”
“As good as Wilson and Cuddy?”
“Their subterfuge was in the name of helping me, however misguided they were. At least your motives are purely selfish. I admire that.”
“So I’ve got your admiration to keep me warm?”
He was starting to feel dizzy. Either she’d done this to him with her nimble fingers or he needed those pills now. He’d say whatever it took to get them. He might even mean it.
“How about my curiosity?” he offered. He trusted her to know exactly how good an opening bid that was.
“I thought you had me all figured out,” she replied evenly.
Her hand folded itself around his index finger and squeezed, sending a spasm through his body. His shoulders rolled back and his pelvis pressed against the bars of his cell. If she kept this up, he was going to need more relief than a couple of Vicodin could provide.
“I don’t know how you got Voldemort to give me the pills. Was it pure bribery or something more creative?”
Cameron took his hand and brought his thumb up to rest lightly on her lips. She flicked her tongue over the pad of the finger, before closing her lips and sucking in earnest. Their eyes locked together while she taunted him with this little performance.
Once she’d made her point, she reached into her pocket She put the envelope into his hand and closed his shaking fingers over it.
It almost didn’t matter if she really had traded sexual favors to get him what he needed in the hopes of getting some part of him for herself. He’d get plenty of mileage out of the fact that she wanted him to think so. He tossed the pills back and waited for his leg to give the signal that he could attempt the walk back to his cot. Maybe when he went back to sleep, he could get the dream to start with the robot and skip the exploding testicle, although the look on Chase’s face was priceless.
She waited until he was on the cot with his nasty blanket and the nastier thoughts she had given him. “So, nothing’s changed?” Wilson had asked, somewhere between shock and disappointment. It was Cameron who truly accepted him for the bastard he was and thought that meant she loved him as well.
“Good night, House.”
He didn’t bother giving her an apology. She knew how worthless those were, even if Wilson didn’t. Instead he produced yet another one of his most ingratiating half-smiles.
“Good night, Cameron.”
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