Warning to slashers-Here be Het! House/Cam, Wilson/Cam NC17
Written for the backsexy fic-a-thon.
Title: Any Way You Want It
Author: karaokegal
Word Count: 3850
Rating:NC17
Pairings: House/Cameron, Wilson/Cameron
Prompt: #24-“She yielded with a quiver that was like death,,she went all open to him…And oh,,if her were not tender to her now,,how cruel,,for she was all open to him and helpless! D.H. Lawrence. Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Summary: Be careful what you wish for.
Author’s notes: Thanks a million times over the fabulous Beta Goddess Carol for walking down the mean streets of het with me once again. Hugs to kj_draft for lending me her Het shipper glasses.
Cameron had no use for the philosopher Jagger. Her first concert was Journey at Three Rivers Stadium, she had slow danced to “Open Arms” at her senior prom and “Don’t stop believing” made more sense than that self-defeating bullshit House was so fond of invoking.
She’d held on to her feelings for House through his blatant statement of non-interest, his cruelty, not to mention the arrival and departure of his ex-girlfriend Maybe she was as pathetic as he thought, but she’d never lost hope that someday she would get House to look at her with something besides professional detachment or out-and-out contempt.
All it took was killing a man.
+++++
Cameron tried to pretend everything was normal, but she couldn’t.
House had touched her. He’d laid his hand on her shoulder and gently stroked his thumb along her shoulder blade. She could still feel the weight and warmth of the contact and there was no way to think of anything else.
“Cameron!”
“What?” she shouted back, trying to cover her embarrassment at being caught dozing during a differential, as well the nature of her dreams.
“Come on, House. You ran us all ragged and she’s clearly exhausted. She needs some rest. I’ll take her home.”
Cameron smiled weakly at Super-Chase, coming to the rescue.
“I’ll take Dr. Cameron home,” House announced in a tone somewhere between disgruntled and proprietary.
Cameron didn’t care and didn’t resist, even when they arrived at House’s motorcycle.
She kept her eyes closed, losing herself in her exhaustion and the feeling of leather under her hands, and the vibrations between her legs and…
“All ashore that’s going ashore.”
Cameron decided she had fallen asleep and was dreaming.
“This isn’t my apartment”
“No neurological damage. Now let’s try motor function.”
“But…”
“I said I was proud of you. What you did is hard, especially the first time.”
“Does it get easier?”
He answered with a shrug and started walking up the steps to his front door. She followed, still yawning and extremely confused. Now he needed to take care of her? If she’d known that killing a patient would get her into House’s apartment, she would have tried it before, she thought sarcastically. She hated having thoughts like that. She wanted to learn from House and love him if he gave her a chance, not adopt the worst parts of his personality.
Once inside, his bedside manner didn’t wasn’t much of an improvement on what his patients received. He gestured in the vague direction of the couch and she sank into it gratefully, kicking off her shoes and stretching out. She had thought she’d fall asleep the minute she was on a comfortable surface. Like House, sleep wouldn’t give her what she wanted. She couldn’t relax while he was in the room.
“Don’t you have to get back to the hospital?”
“Abbott and Costello can handle Grandma for a while.”
Cameron caught herself giggling, but she still felt dismal.
He noticed, of course. “Is there anything I can do to cheer you up besides abusing your coworkers?” She managed to keep her mouth clamped tightly shut before the words “Hold me” could escape. “I’ve got ice cream. You like Chunky Monkey?”
She sat up, pushing the hair out of her face. “If you want me to sleep, you can go back to the hospital. Otherwise…” She trailed off, wondering where she’d gotten the nerve to say as much as she had.
He seemed equally stunned, perhaps amused, even intrigued. She should have given up trying to read House’s expressions ages ago, but her own philosophy wouldn’t let her. Something was going on. The eyes twinkled slightly and she thought she saw the hint of a smile, which probably meant he was about to shoot her down again.
“You know what you’re getting?”
“I know what I want.”
She watched while the committee in his head had one more meeting and came to a decision.
“All right.” He put out a hand.
“What?”
“You know what I said. But not here. Not quite the athletic teenager any more.”
It had to be another set-up. “Cameron, I love you,” followed by a swab in her mouth. A spurious offer of a date, trying to make it look like she didn’t want to date him if he weren’t damaged.
He looked at her expectantly. She shook her head, wanting to believe and so afraid.
“Oh, for…” And suddenly he’d put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her up into an embrace. His mouth was on hers, waiting for a response and pushing ahead when he didn’t get one. Cameron’s brain caught on that this was really happening. If this was one of House’s jokes, it was extremely elaborate, involving his tongue pushing deeply into her mouth, his hands grasping her back and his leg pushing between hers, promising everything she’d dreamed of. Her arms encircled his neck, her fingers touched the skin under his collar, and felt a shiver in response.
She drank in the taste of his mouth, wishing she could have this moment forever, because even if what came next was the best sex ever, it couldn’t be as good as finding out that Jagger was wrong and Perry was right.
+++++
She woke up alone, if you didn’t count the rat in a cage on top of House’s dresser. An alarm clock’s glowing numbers told her that she’d slept for over five hours. If House’s only intention had been for her to get some serious rest, he’d certainly had the right prescription. She smiled a bit lewdly to herself. Greg House was as gifted at therapy as diagnosis.
There were no messages on her pager or her cell, so Cameron allowed herself a few more minutes of luxuriating in his bed, replaying what had happened there. If it had been a one-time treatment, she’d still have the memories to live on.
House hadn’t been lying, at least not about the ice cream. She stood in the kitchen letting cold sweetness soothe her lips. He’d been rough, letting out emotions that had been hidden behind his protective shield of sarcasm. Most of the emotions had nothing to do with her. Maybe she should thank Wilson and Cuddy for their unscrupulous actions or be grateful the ketamine hadn’t worked. Even a letter to Stacy might be in order. They’d earned his anger at their betrayals and she’d been the one screaming in his arms. Whatever he’d had to say had been muffled into her neck and shoulders.
The bathroom mirror revealed marks, but nothing that wouldn’t be hidden under clothing like a secret badge of honor. She remembered looking at herself in the mirror after she lost her virginity, wondering if she looked different. Getting House to make love to her (she heard his voice in her head reminding her that it was something less than love on his end) meant more than her first time or even the last time with Donald.
*****
As Cameron expected, nothing changed. Except, of course, that House started acting weird. OK, weirder. He went completely mental about his carpet with the blood stains and she went completely mental trying to figure out why. She knew he hated it when she tried to analyze him, but the words kept coming out of her mouth. He still told her she had pretty hair and let her sit next to him on Wilson’s desk. It didn’t mean anything. She had to keep telling herself that.
The following week, House presented them with the file of a twenty-five-year-old male whose symptoms included priapism He’d clearly taken the case for the puerile humor factor of treating a guy who couldn’t get it down. After the first round of snickering, he’d stopped in the middle of writing the rest of the symptoms on the whiteboard. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a key ring with two freshly made keys on it and dangled them to make sure they all saw what it was.
“Cameron, catch.” He threw the keys at her in a gentle arc and she caught them.
“Dr. Cameron will be moving in with me. You all get ten seconds to be scandalized starting… now.” He let the seconds tick by and then resumed the differential.
She could have protested his high-handedness, his presumption that she would give up her own apartment or even his arrogance in assuming that she even wanted to move in with him, but why bother? It was all she could do not to scream “Yes!” and twirl around the room like a ballerina. Instead she put the keys in her pocket and focused on the symptoms instead of the goggle-eyed stares of her co-workers or the joy in her heart. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face, though, and Cuddy took one look at her in the hallway and shook her head with a heartfelt “Oh my god.”
+++++
It took Cameron two weeks to give up hope.
House was still House; Cameron was an indentured servant. She could live with that. It was the other part that made no sense. She had a set of keys and two drawers in his dresser. They ate dinner, watched television and slept in the same bed, and she was still utterly alone, without even a fantasy to believe in any more.
He really was a miserable old cripple.
The new patient had symptoms indicative of pancreatic cancer, so Cameron found herself standing next to Wilson in the radiology lab staring at the results of the contrast CT scan.
For years, she’d envied Wilson’s closeness to House, even wishing for a schism so that she could move into the space that would be left. More than three weeks after House found out about Wilson and Cuddy’s deception, the atmosphere between the two was still chilly. Wilson must be in as much pain as she was.
“Cameron,” he said softly.
“What? Sorry…I was thinking of…I screwed up,” she blurted, knowing she was talking to the only person who might be able to help her.
“No,” he said slowly, “the CT looks fine. It’s not cancer.”
“House. I can’t make him happy.”
Wilson sought an appropriate answer on the floor before looking into her eyes.
“Nobody can. He doesn’t want to be happy.”
“He lets me do things for him, but he resents me for it. Sometimes it’s like I’m not even there. I almost wish he would yell or tell me hates me or something. He doesn’t care about me, but when I ask him if I should leave, he just shrugs his shoulders.”
“Classic House. He’s a loner, but he hates to be alone. You’ll have to leave eventually or you’ll go crazy.”
“No, I can’t. I have to show him I’m not like Stacy, that he can trust me.”
Wilson sighed heavily and buried his hands in the pockets of his lab coat.
“Does he do anything to make you happy?”
Cameron closed her eyes, trying to hide her humiliation. Sex had turned into the biggest disappointment of all. The first time had been so... but the memory was getting harder to hold onto. The pain and the pills were back and they took their toll on his ability to perform. He usually lay on his back while she knelt between his legs, mouth working until her jaw was sore, providing the direct stimulation it took in the absence of whatever emotion had driven their first encounter. Whether she finished him off in her mouth or climbed on top, always keenly aware of the damaged leg, she did all the work.
At first, she still got off on the fact that she was with House, giving him pleasure. Now she wondered if he would be happier with his hookers or his internet porn or anybody but her. She sometimes found herself on the couch, masturbating furiously, trying to resurrect her fantasies of what sex with House would be like before they’d been shattered by reality.
Cameron tried to clench her fist in frustration and found that Wilson had taken her hand and was making slow, gentle circles on her palm with his thumb.
“You need to take care of yourself, Allison.”
The use of her name felt like a more intimate act than the physical touching. Even in bed with House, she was still “Cameron”. Wilson continued the gentle movement against her hand, while looking into her eyes, seeing her pain. She could easily fall into those pools of sympathy and let his hand… no, she couldn’t.
This wasn’t concern. It was technique. Wilson’s reputation preceded him, thanks in no small part to House’s indiscreet jibes. She might be unhappy, but that was no reason to jump into the first available warm bed.
She took back her hand and her CT scans, fleeing to the relative safety of the diagnostics department where House was in the middle of a yo-yo demonstration to the musical accompaniment of “Strokin’”. He looked up when she came in, interrupting his toy in the middle of “stroking to the left.”
“It’s not cancer,” she announced.
“Yes, it is,” Foreman countered, looking smug.
“No, I just came from Oncology--”
House shook his head. “I don’t know what you and Wilson were talking about, but it wasn’t the patient.”
“She doesn’t have pancreatic cancer.”
“I know. Go ahead, Foreman, tell her the surprise ending.”
“She has a brain tumor.”
“And we know this because…?”
“She told us,” Chase interjected.
Cameron let herself get caught up in the new mystery and tried not to think of Wilson saying her name. She wouldn’t leave and she wouldn’t cheat.
She held out for a week. When she had been obsessed with House, she had barely noticed Wilson beyond his status as the head of oncology and House’s best friend. He was conventionally handsome, but who cared about that when she had a quirky, blue-eyed, sarcastic genius to dream of?
During her week of indecision, Wilson kept looking at her. His eyes healed where House’s burned. He spoke to her in a tone just slightly lower than a normal conversation and invested words with meaning beyond “Do you want some coffee” or “He shouldn’t make you work his clinic hours.” Her sexual situation with House had degenerated to the point where he took matters into his own hand after she’d gotten the ball rolling, as it were. Again she asked if there was any purpose to her staying. He wouldn’t tell her to leave and he wouldn’t give her any reason to stay. She’d actually started to sympathize with Stacy.
Wilson found her sitting on his desk, this time alone. It was dark outside and she’d changed into street clothes -- maybe even streetwalker clothes, she thought.
“Hi,” he said softly, not mentioning that she’d gotten into his locked office. He stood, taking in the sight of her, smiling slightly, before walking toward the desk.
“Hey.” She crossed one leg over the other, letting her skirt rise and her knees show. There’d never been this kind of flirtation or game playing with House. The closest had been his juvenile gawking the night of the Charity Casino Night.
Wilson placed one hand on her knee, just below the hemline. She tried to keep her leg from trembling at the touch. The other hand stroked her hair, before landing briefly on her shoulder. His fingers moved to her neck with light, feathery touches, almost more than she could bear. She tilted her head down, trapping his hand between her cheek and shoulder, willing him to touch the skin under her blouse. He picked up the signals as though reading her mind through her flesh.
One hand undid buttons and moved down to caress what he’d revealed, while the other, still on her leg, would shortly discover that she’d worn stockings and garter-belt. She knew the moment it happened. His breath halted with increased desire, but his fingers continued without a stutter. If I’m going to cheat, I might as well do it with someone who knows what he’s doing.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, surprised he hadn’t taken the initiative to do so. No, he wouldn’t. I’m still not a sure thing.
The request was met with a soft but insistent pressure. She opened up immediately, the same way she intended to open her body to him. His tongue moved slowly into her mouth, lingering around her lips before invading and sweeping her tongue with dizzying strokes. His hand left her thigh and came up to join the hand under her shirt.
She uncrossed her legs, wrapping them around Wilson’s back, feeling herself trembling with the need for release. If he didn’t fuck her right there, it would be torture. Cruel and unusual punishment. She was completely open. Raw need.
“Wilson.”
“Call me James.”
“James, please… just...”
“We could go somewhere.” A finger of each hand was gently thrumming against her nipples.
“You want to take me to a cheap hotel?”
“You’d prefer an expensive one?”
“If I’m going to act like a cheap slut, I should go to a cheap hotel.”
Saying the words made her even hotter. Nice Allison Cameron is really a cheap slut who’s going to get fucked on a desk.
“You’re not cheap and you’re not a slut. You’re gorgeous Allison.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“I’m a cheater, not a liar. Right now, I want you so bad I can taste it.”
“Then do it. Do it here, now, just do it.”
Instead of unzipping himself, he took one hand away from her breasts and moved it under her skirt, past the flimsy material of her panties. Two fingers tried to caress the folds of skin. She was too wet. There was no traction. One long finger entered with no resistance at all. Her whole body shook and she moaned into his mouth to keep herself from screaming obscenities.
She raised her hips, thrusting around his finger.
“More,” she managed to gasp, still muffled by his mouth on hers.
Another finger. Better, but still not enough. She needed cock and she needed it now. She whimpered like a child and thrust her hips up, taking his fingers further inside while reaching down to his belt. She was too far gone to deal with a mechanism as sophisticated as a belt buckle, but he made fast work of it. Experience showed, to the point of getting a condom on quickly. In seconds he was inside her. She threw her head back, gasping at the fullness.
“James.”
“Allison.”
Better than House flitted through her brain to be shooed away as she was caught up in his quick, deep thrusts and her response. He had one hand still working her clit while he fucked her. She was so close, so close. All she needed was… she squeezed her eyes closed, imagined House watching, seeing what Wilson could do to her, saw his eyes burn with jealousy…and….
James’ hand pressed down and her body contracted and expanded into a silent scream of release. She clung to his body, riding out her waves of orgasm, hearing him say her name over and over.
“Allison, are you ok?”
She blinked. He’d pulled out and she guessed he was removing the rubber, but the room was blurry.
“Yeah. I’m great.”
“You’re crying.”
“That was…really incredible.” she said glibly trying to hide her embarrassment. She’d gotten what she expected -- okay, more than she’d expected -- but she still had to go home and face the music. Wilson smiled. He’d already zipped up and rebuckled. “Don’t worry about my getting emotionally involved,” she added. “I may be an idiot about House, but not about you.”
“House doth make idiots of us all.” He was joking, but not joking. Maybe her jealousy had been more justified than she was willing to admit at the time.
“I should get going.” She tried to get off the desk and found her bottom had fallen asleep. Wilson was there waiting when her cramped legs let her down. She leaned against him, letting his body support hers as he gently kneaded her ass and thighs.
“My offer still stands. The evening doesn’t have to end here.”
“But we’ve already jumped to the ending, right?”
“No reason we can’t go back to the beginning. I can buy you dinner, take you to my place, tell you how beautiful you are.” The things he did with that voice. No wonder his wives forgave him, until they couldn’t anymore.
Concern for House’s feelings didn’t stop her. Fear of disappointment did, but Wilson’s hands were still working the kinks out of her legs. He dropped to his knees to massage her calves.
“Maybe we should...owww.””
“Sorry.” He’d found a knot. “You know, Allison, in case you’ve forgotten, there are men who can do it more than once in a night. Give me a chance to remind you.”
++++
House was waiting up for her. Well, he was up and watching television. Cameron was long past thinking he’d actually care enough to wait for her.
He was moving as she came in the door. If she thought she could go to bed and avoid the confrontation, he had other ideas. He looked her over and saw everything. The sexy outfit, the remains of her make-up, and if he had a single functioning brain cell after all those pills, he’d see how thoroughly well fucked she’d been.
Fine, she thought, still blissed out from Wilson -- James. If that was what cheap, meaningless sex was like, she preferred it to the other brand, especially the kind that came with obsession and heartbreak.
She figured House would call her names and kick her out. Luckily he’d thrown her the keys a day after she paid rent. Her old apartment was still waiting. She could pack her bags and pretend none of this had ever happened. The epithets were not forthcoming, which meant an even worse result: complete and total indifference to her infidelity.
He tried to stare her down, just like the old days. Not this time, not when he looked tired and craggy, wearing sweatpants. He took a step closer, leaning heavily on the cane. His expression told her he knew everything, including who and why.
“He’s good, isn’t he?” There was a ragged edge to his voice. Allison noticed a bottle and a glass on the coffee table.
“Beyond your wildest dreams,” she said clearly.
“Not necessarily.” Another step. A thump of the cane. He was backing her up against the door, not even letting her into the room.
The next step brought him close enough to push her back against the door. The cane got hooked over the door knob. His mouth came down to her neck, tasting the skin, searching for traces of the mouth that had preceded him.
She smelled whiskey on his breath and felt arousal through the thin material when he pressed his weight against her.
“Now will you let me go?”
“Now I don’t have to.”
Title: Any Way You Want It
Author: karaokegal
Word Count: 3850
Rating:NC17
Pairings: House/Cameron, Wilson/Cameron
Prompt: #24-“She yielded with a quiver that was like death,,she went all open to him…And oh,,if her were not tender to her now,,how cruel,,for she was all open to him and helpless! D.H. Lawrence. Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Summary: Be careful what you wish for.
Author’s notes: Thanks a million times over the fabulous Beta Goddess Carol for walking down the mean streets of het with me once again. Hugs to kj_draft for lending me her Het shipper glasses.
Cameron had no use for the philosopher Jagger. Her first concert was Journey at Three Rivers Stadium, she had slow danced to “Open Arms” at her senior prom and “Don’t stop believing” made more sense than that self-defeating bullshit House was so fond of invoking.
She’d held on to her feelings for House through his blatant statement of non-interest, his cruelty, not to mention the arrival and departure of his ex-girlfriend Maybe she was as pathetic as he thought, but she’d never lost hope that someday she would get House to look at her with something besides professional detachment or out-and-out contempt.
All it took was killing a man.
+++++
Cameron tried to pretend everything was normal, but she couldn’t.
House had touched her. He’d laid his hand on her shoulder and gently stroked his thumb along her shoulder blade. She could still feel the weight and warmth of the contact and there was no way to think of anything else.
“Cameron!”
“What?” she shouted back, trying to cover her embarrassment at being caught dozing during a differential, as well the nature of her dreams.
“Come on, House. You ran us all ragged and she’s clearly exhausted. She needs some rest. I’ll take her home.”
Cameron smiled weakly at Super-Chase, coming to the rescue.
“I’ll take Dr. Cameron home,” House announced in a tone somewhere between disgruntled and proprietary.
Cameron didn’t care and didn’t resist, even when they arrived at House’s motorcycle.
She kept her eyes closed, losing herself in her exhaustion and the feeling of leather under her hands, and the vibrations between her legs and…
“All ashore that’s going ashore.”
Cameron decided she had fallen asleep and was dreaming.
“This isn’t my apartment”
“No neurological damage. Now let’s try motor function.”
“But…”
“I said I was proud of you. What you did is hard, especially the first time.”
“Does it get easier?”
He answered with a shrug and started walking up the steps to his front door. She followed, still yawning and extremely confused. Now he needed to take care of her? If she’d known that killing a patient would get her into House’s apartment, she would have tried it before, she thought sarcastically. She hated having thoughts like that. She wanted to learn from House and love him if he gave her a chance, not adopt the worst parts of his personality.
Once inside, his bedside manner didn’t wasn’t much of an improvement on what his patients received. He gestured in the vague direction of the couch and she sank into it gratefully, kicking off her shoes and stretching out. She had thought she’d fall asleep the minute she was on a comfortable surface. Like House, sleep wouldn’t give her what she wanted. She couldn’t relax while he was in the room.
“Don’t you have to get back to the hospital?”
“Abbott and Costello can handle Grandma for a while.”
Cameron caught herself giggling, but she still felt dismal.
He noticed, of course. “Is there anything I can do to cheer you up besides abusing your coworkers?” She managed to keep her mouth clamped tightly shut before the words “Hold me” could escape. “I’ve got ice cream. You like Chunky Monkey?”
She sat up, pushing the hair out of her face. “If you want me to sleep, you can go back to the hospital. Otherwise…” She trailed off, wondering where she’d gotten the nerve to say as much as she had.
He seemed equally stunned, perhaps amused, even intrigued. She should have given up trying to read House’s expressions ages ago, but her own philosophy wouldn’t let her. Something was going on. The eyes twinkled slightly and she thought she saw the hint of a smile, which probably meant he was about to shoot her down again.
“You know what you’re getting?”
“I know what I want.”
She watched while the committee in his head had one more meeting and came to a decision.
“All right.” He put out a hand.
“What?”
“You know what I said. But not here. Not quite the athletic teenager any more.”
It had to be another set-up. “Cameron, I love you,” followed by a swab in her mouth. A spurious offer of a date, trying to make it look like she didn’t want to date him if he weren’t damaged.
He looked at her expectantly. She shook her head, wanting to believe and so afraid.
“Oh, for…” And suddenly he’d put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her up into an embrace. His mouth was on hers, waiting for a response and pushing ahead when he didn’t get one. Cameron’s brain caught on that this was really happening. If this was one of House’s jokes, it was extremely elaborate, involving his tongue pushing deeply into her mouth, his hands grasping her back and his leg pushing between hers, promising everything she’d dreamed of. Her arms encircled his neck, her fingers touched the skin under his collar, and felt a shiver in response.
She drank in the taste of his mouth, wishing she could have this moment forever, because even if what came next was the best sex ever, it couldn’t be as good as finding out that Jagger was wrong and Perry was right.
+++++
She woke up alone, if you didn’t count the rat in a cage on top of House’s dresser. An alarm clock’s glowing numbers told her that she’d slept for over five hours. If House’s only intention had been for her to get some serious rest, he’d certainly had the right prescription. She smiled a bit lewdly to herself. Greg House was as gifted at therapy as diagnosis.
There were no messages on her pager or her cell, so Cameron allowed herself a few more minutes of luxuriating in his bed, replaying what had happened there. If it had been a one-time treatment, she’d still have the memories to live on.
House hadn’t been lying, at least not about the ice cream. She stood in the kitchen letting cold sweetness soothe her lips. He’d been rough, letting out emotions that had been hidden behind his protective shield of sarcasm. Most of the emotions had nothing to do with her. Maybe she should thank Wilson and Cuddy for their unscrupulous actions or be grateful the ketamine hadn’t worked. Even a letter to Stacy might be in order. They’d earned his anger at their betrayals and she’d been the one screaming in his arms. Whatever he’d had to say had been muffled into her neck and shoulders.
The bathroom mirror revealed marks, but nothing that wouldn’t be hidden under clothing like a secret badge of honor. She remembered looking at herself in the mirror after she lost her virginity, wondering if she looked different. Getting House to make love to her (she heard his voice in her head reminding her that it was something less than love on his end) meant more than her first time or even the last time with Donald.
*****
As Cameron expected, nothing changed. Except, of course, that House started acting weird. OK, weirder. He went completely mental about his carpet with the blood stains and she went completely mental trying to figure out why. She knew he hated it when she tried to analyze him, but the words kept coming out of her mouth. He still told her she had pretty hair and let her sit next to him on Wilson’s desk. It didn’t mean anything. She had to keep telling herself that.
The following week, House presented them with the file of a twenty-five-year-old male whose symptoms included priapism He’d clearly taken the case for the puerile humor factor of treating a guy who couldn’t get it down. After the first round of snickering, he’d stopped in the middle of writing the rest of the symptoms on the whiteboard. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a key ring with two freshly made keys on it and dangled them to make sure they all saw what it was.
“Cameron, catch.” He threw the keys at her in a gentle arc and she caught them.
“Dr. Cameron will be moving in with me. You all get ten seconds to be scandalized starting… now.” He let the seconds tick by and then resumed the differential.
She could have protested his high-handedness, his presumption that she would give up her own apartment or even his arrogance in assuming that she even wanted to move in with him, but why bother? It was all she could do not to scream “Yes!” and twirl around the room like a ballerina. Instead she put the keys in her pocket and focused on the symptoms instead of the goggle-eyed stares of her co-workers or the joy in her heart. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face, though, and Cuddy took one look at her in the hallway and shook her head with a heartfelt “Oh my god.”
+++++
It took Cameron two weeks to give up hope.
House was still House; Cameron was an indentured servant. She could live with that. It was the other part that made no sense. She had a set of keys and two drawers in his dresser. They ate dinner, watched television and slept in the same bed, and she was still utterly alone, without even a fantasy to believe in any more.
He really was a miserable old cripple.
The new patient had symptoms indicative of pancreatic cancer, so Cameron found herself standing next to Wilson in the radiology lab staring at the results of the contrast CT scan.
For years, she’d envied Wilson’s closeness to House, even wishing for a schism so that she could move into the space that would be left. More than three weeks after House found out about Wilson and Cuddy’s deception, the atmosphere between the two was still chilly. Wilson must be in as much pain as she was.
“Cameron,” he said softly.
“What? Sorry…I was thinking of…I screwed up,” she blurted, knowing she was talking to the only person who might be able to help her.
“No,” he said slowly, “the CT looks fine. It’s not cancer.”
“House. I can’t make him happy.”
Wilson sought an appropriate answer on the floor before looking into her eyes.
“Nobody can. He doesn’t want to be happy.”
“He lets me do things for him, but he resents me for it. Sometimes it’s like I’m not even there. I almost wish he would yell or tell me hates me or something. He doesn’t care about me, but when I ask him if I should leave, he just shrugs his shoulders.”
“Classic House. He’s a loner, but he hates to be alone. You’ll have to leave eventually or you’ll go crazy.”
“No, I can’t. I have to show him I’m not like Stacy, that he can trust me.”
Wilson sighed heavily and buried his hands in the pockets of his lab coat.
“Does he do anything to make you happy?”
Cameron closed her eyes, trying to hide her humiliation. Sex had turned into the biggest disappointment of all. The first time had been so... but the memory was getting harder to hold onto. The pain and the pills were back and they took their toll on his ability to perform. He usually lay on his back while she knelt between his legs, mouth working until her jaw was sore, providing the direct stimulation it took in the absence of whatever emotion had driven their first encounter. Whether she finished him off in her mouth or climbed on top, always keenly aware of the damaged leg, she did all the work.
At first, she still got off on the fact that she was with House, giving him pleasure. Now she wondered if he would be happier with his hookers or his internet porn or anybody but her. She sometimes found herself on the couch, masturbating furiously, trying to resurrect her fantasies of what sex with House would be like before they’d been shattered by reality.
Cameron tried to clench her fist in frustration and found that Wilson had taken her hand and was making slow, gentle circles on her palm with his thumb.
“You need to take care of yourself, Allison.”
The use of her name felt like a more intimate act than the physical touching. Even in bed with House, she was still “Cameron”. Wilson continued the gentle movement against her hand, while looking into her eyes, seeing her pain. She could easily fall into those pools of sympathy and let his hand… no, she couldn’t.
This wasn’t concern. It was technique. Wilson’s reputation preceded him, thanks in no small part to House’s indiscreet jibes. She might be unhappy, but that was no reason to jump into the first available warm bed.
She took back her hand and her CT scans, fleeing to the relative safety of the diagnostics department where House was in the middle of a yo-yo demonstration to the musical accompaniment of “Strokin’”. He looked up when she came in, interrupting his toy in the middle of “stroking to the left.”
“It’s not cancer,” she announced.
“Yes, it is,” Foreman countered, looking smug.
“No, I just came from Oncology--”
House shook his head. “I don’t know what you and Wilson were talking about, but it wasn’t the patient.”
“She doesn’t have pancreatic cancer.”
“I know. Go ahead, Foreman, tell her the surprise ending.”
“She has a brain tumor.”
“And we know this because…?”
“She told us,” Chase interjected.
Cameron let herself get caught up in the new mystery and tried not to think of Wilson saying her name. She wouldn’t leave and she wouldn’t cheat.
She held out for a week. When she had been obsessed with House, she had barely noticed Wilson beyond his status as the head of oncology and House’s best friend. He was conventionally handsome, but who cared about that when she had a quirky, blue-eyed, sarcastic genius to dream of?
During her week of indecision, Wilson kept looking at her. His eyes healed where House’s burned. He spoke to her in a tone just slightly lower than a normal conversation and invested words with meaning beyond “Do you want some coffee” or “He shouldn’t make you work his clinic hours.” Her sexual situation with House had degenerated to the point where he took matters into his own hand after she’d gotten the ball rolling, as it were. Again she asked if there was any purpose to her staying. He wouldn’t tell her to leave and he wouldn’t give her any reason to stay. She’d actually started to sympathize with Stacy.
Wilson found her sitting on his desk, this time alone. It was dark outside and she’d changed into street clothes -- maybe even streetwalker clothes, she thought.
“Hi,” he said softly, not mentioning that she’d gotten into his locked office. He stood, taking in the sight of her, smiling slightly, before walking toward the desk.
“Hey.” She crossed one leg over the other, letting her skirt rise and her knees show. There’d never been this kind of flirtation or game playing with House. The closest had been his juvenile gawking the night of the Charity Casino Night.
Wilson placed one hand on her knee, just below the hemline. She tried to keep her leg from trembling at the touch. The other hand stroked her hair, before landing briefly on her shoulder. His fingers moved to her neck with light, feathery touches, almost more than she could bear. She tilted her head down, trapping his hand between her cheek and shoulder, willing him to touch the skin under her blouse. He picked up the signals as though reading her mind through her flesh.
One hand undid buttons and moved down to caress what he’d revealed, while the other, still on her leg, would shortly discover that she’d worn stockings and garter-belt. She knew the moment it happened. His breath halted with increased desire, but his fingers continued without a stutter. If I’m going to cheat, I might as well do it with someone who knows what he’s doing.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, surprised he hadn’t taken the initiative to do so. No, he wouldn’t. I’m still not a sure thing.
The request was met with a soft but insistent pressure. She opened up immediately, the same way she intended to open her body to him. His tongue moved slowly into her mouth, lingering around her lips before invading and sweeping her tongue with dizzying strokes. His hand left her thigh and came up to join the hand under her shirt.
She uncrossed her legs, wrapping them around Wilson’s back, feeling herself trembling with the need for release. If he didn’t fuck her right there, it would be torture. Cruel and unusual punishment. She was completely open. Raw need.
“Wilson.”
“Call me James.”
“James, please… just...”
“We could go somewhere.” A finger of each hand was gently thrumming against her nipples.
“You want to take me to a cheap hotel?”
“You’d prefer an expensive one?”
“If I’m going to act like a cheap slut, I should go to a cheap hotel.”
Saying the words made her even hotter. Nice Allison Cameron is really a cheap slut who’s going to get fucked on a desk.
“You’re not cheap and you’re not a slut. You’re gorgeous Allison.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“I’m a cheater, not a liar. Right now, I want you so bad I can taste it.”
“Then do it. Do it here, now, just do it.”
Instead of unzipping himself, he took one hand away from her breasts and moved it under her skirt, past the flimsy material of her panties. Two fingers tried to caress the folds of skin. She was too wet. There was no traction. One long finger entered with no resistance at all. Her whole body shook and she moaned into his mouth to keep herself from screaming obscenities.
She raised her hips, thrusting around his finger.
“More,” she managed to gasp, still muffled by his mouth on hers.
Another finger. Better, but still not enough. She needed cock and she needed it now. She whimpered like a child and thrust her hips up, taking his fingers further inside while reaching down to his belt. She was too far gone to deal with a mechanism as sophisticated as a belt buckle, but he made fast work of it. Experience showed, to the point of getting a condom on quickly. In seconds he was inside her. She threw her head back, gasping at the fullness.
“James.”
“Allison.”
Better than House flitted through her brain to be shooed away as she was caught up in his quick, deep thrusts and her response. He had one hand still working her clit while he fucked her. She was so close, so close. All she needed was… she squeezed her eyes closed, imagined House watching, seeing what Wilson could do to her, saw his eyes burn with jealousy…and….
James’ hand pressed down and her body contracted and expanded into a silent scream of release. She clung to his body, riding out her waves of orgasm, hearing him say her name over and over.
“Allison, are you ok?”
She blinked. He’d pulled out and she guessed he was removing the rubber, but the room was blurry.
“Yeah. I’m great.”
“You’re crying.”
“That was…really incredible.” she said glibly trying to hide her embarrassment. She’d gotten what she expected -- okay, more than she’d expected -- but she still had to go home and face the music. Wilson smiled. He’d already zipped up and rebuckled. “Don’t worry about my getting emotionally involved,” she added. “I may be an idiot about House, but not about you.”
“House doth make idiots of us all.” He was joking, but not joking. Maybe her jealousy had been more justified than she was willing to admit at the time.
“I should get going.” She tried to get off the desk and found her bottom had fallen asleep. Wilson was there waiting when her cramped legs let her down. She leaned against him, letting his body support hers as he gently kneaded her ass and thighs.
“My offer still stands. The evening doesn’t have to end here.”
“But we’ve already jumped to the ending, right?”
“No reason we can’t go back to the beginning. I can buy you dinner, take you to my place, tell you how beautiful you are.” The things he did with that voice. No wonder his wives forgave him, until they couldn’t anymore.
Concern for House’s feelings didn’t stop her. Fear of disappointment did, but Wilson’s hands were still working the kinks out of her legs. He dropped to his knees to massage her calves.
“Maybe we should...owww.””
“Sorry.” He’d found a knot. “You know, Allison, in case you’ve forgotten, there are men who can do it more than once in a night. Give me a chance to remind you.”
++++
House was waiting up for her. Well, he was up and watching television. Cameron was long past thinking he’d actually care enough to wait for her.
He was moving as she came in the door. If she thought she could go to bed and avoid the confrontation, he had other ideas. He looked her over and saw everything. The sexy outfit, the remains of her make-up, and if he had a single functioning brain cell after all those pills, he’d see how thoroughly well fucked she’d been.
Fine, she thought, still blissed out from Wilson -- James. If that was what cheap, meaningless sex was like, she preferred it to the other brand, especially the kind that came with obsession and heartbreak.
She figured House would call her names and kick her out. Luckily he’d thrown her the keys a day after she paid rent. Her old apartment was still waiting. She could pack her bags and pretend none of this had ever happened. The epithets were not forthcoming, which meant an even worse result: complete and total indifference to her infidelity.
He tried to stare her down, just like the old days. Not this time, not when he looked tired and craggy, wearing sweatpants. He took a step closer, leaning heavily on the cane. His expression told her he knew everything, including who and why.
“He’s good, isn’t he?” There was a ragged edge to his voice. Allison noticed a bottle and a glass on the coffee table.
“Beyond your wildest dreams,” she said clearly.
“Not necessarily.” Another step. A thump of the cane. He was backing her up against the door, not even letting her into the room.
The next step brought him close enough to push her back against the door. The cane got hooked over the door knob. His mouth came down to her neck, tasting the skin, searching for traces of the mouth that had preceded him.
She smelled whiskey on his breath and felt arousal through the thin material when he pressed his weight against her.
“Now will you let me go?”
“Now I don’t have to.”