Fic: Decameron, Cam/H one-sided, H/W
Fic: Decameron, part 1/10
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: Cam/H, one-sided; H/W
Rating: PG-13 as of now
A/N: This is what happens when I'm in the middle of a Gothic novel and a course on the Renaissance. The title--as well as the basic layout--are borrowed from Boccaccio, a 14th century writer. Um, trust me, it's not as haughty as it sounds.
2A/N: It's a bit different than what I usually write, so I'd really appreciate concrit! Much thanks.
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It’s called a bloodstone. You had to look it up on the internet, because even House didn’t have a book lying around the differential room that could provide an explanation.
A mineral stone, it says. A form of something else, called chalcedony. You hold the smooth, oval rock up to the light and peer through, and suddenly the world is made of envious greens intermittently slashed with reds. In your palm, it’s like liquid glass.
It’s not quite perfect. Age has cracked parts of it, leaving subtle, battered holes across the otherwise level surface. But considering you know very little about minerals, it’s interesting for its ambiguity alone.
You wonder where it came from, as it was on your desk with no note to accompany it.
An understated smolder nurtures your chest into an impulsive pile of embers as you continue reading. Specifically, the stone is known as a heliotrope. According to medieval legend, it provides invisibility to the wearer.
* * *
DAY ONE
Even if you didn’t love him, even if the impulse to fix what’s broken has passed, you can’t let go. It would be surrendering, and he’d never you live that down. So you keep on loving him, more so for him than for yourself.
You’re such a brave, good person if people would just give you a chance.
Arms overflowing with charts and patients’ histories, you move briskly down the artificially lit hallway. Your slender, black heels announce your presence. House turns around and stares reproachfully at you, like a creature disappointed in the quality of its hunter.
Before you can speak, he orders a myriad of medical tests for a patient he’s only heard bits and pieces about, then sends you on your way. You might as well be invisible.
Dr. Wilson meets him at the end of the corridor. A few moments earlier, he had walked a bouncy, young girl and her parents all the way from his office to the front of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. They’d already discussed treatment options for their six-year-old; this was his march of self-aggrandizing support, his walk of perceptive, emotional counseling.
You wonder how House can stand him, because after a little over three years working your fellowship, you certainly can’t.
You’d like to think of yourself as a pillar, standing there in the middle of the hallway and providing stability for something, anything. It doesn’t help watching them both. The ceiling might as well cave in.
Anyone’s first glance would assume that the two would clash raucously, not merge so troublingly well. Some men shake hands, offer a nod, give a bit of an elbow. But House annoys those he cares about.
For years, he’d gotten into the habit of casually poking Wilson with his cane. In the leg. Jutting the curved handle lightly in his side. Tapping his shoe. He tests Wilson constantly, as if that shields both sides from expecting too much from the other.
Even with the leg pain steadily returning, House has cast off the cane and walks best he can under his own power. No one has dared to guess how much longer that will last. But House seems intent on dragging it out.
Wilson grins boyishly at him, and your stomach mixes itself up in your chest somewhere before splattering down near your feet. With the cane gone, that mode of their connection has frazzled, like a bad conduction. Instead, House directly brushes Wilson’s sleeve in acknowledgment; the younger man runs a light hand down his back, lingering at his waist for one too many suspicious seconds.
Then again, you see what you want to see. This would be much easier if they just couldn’t see you.
* * *
You’re sitting in House’s office, with one leg elegantly crossed over the other, as the night drags darkness into the near-empty hospital. His desk light is the only one on, creating a pool of blinding white that spills across his papers and sends shadows jostling from its current.
The stone is frigid upon your chest. Tied within a string around your neck, the heliotrope feels inordinately heavy, like a clammy hand pressed close to claim your heartbeat.
Finally, House’s pager shrieks. He glances at it once, stalls for another ten minutes, then gingerly rises to his feet. Unseen and unsuspected, you follow right behind. You carry your heels so not a remnant of sound escapes you.
Wilson has almost every light on in his office, which House quickly rectifies by a flick of a switch. You squint through the dark, eyes already accustomed, and just make it inside before the door falls shut behind you and House.
“I thought maybe you’d gone home.” Wilson rises from his seat, smooth and together, as if greeting a diplomat. “What took you?”
“The stairs.”
“There’s an elevator, House.”
The smirk ripples caverns of wrinkles around his mouth. “What exactly do you have in mind, Dr.Wilson?”
House’s low, prodding tone sharply drains confidence from your limbs, like a syringe stealing your nerve. You watch carefully, favoring the door behind you. You just need to hear something, not see everything.
You glance to House’s face. He’s oblivious to you, and yet you have a lurking feeling that his mind is constantly turning you over, unraveling you for further thought. How could it not be?
He moves to meet Wilson, who has leaned back against the front of his oak desk. Wilson’s right hand is curled around his nameplate for support; the left is posed at just the right height to slip around House’s narrow waist.
Very slowly, House rubs his fingers at something on the front of Wilson’s shirt, as if he were trying to remove a stain. When he leans in and kisses his neck, you stifle your quick intake of breath and glance away. Momentarily. Wilson’s slight moan pulls you back. It demands House to stop.
“Who have you told?”
The lustrous gleam of Wilson’s eyes is interrupted by a hesitating blink. “Nobody.”
“Who’s asked?”
“House…” The tone is exasperated. “Nobody.”
You can’t make out expressions, dimness owning them and refusing to divulge. They’ve leaned so close to one another that it’s impossible to segregate where House’s blazer starts and Wilson’s shirt and tie end. It’s so cliché, and you hate Dr. Wilson for it.
“What would it matter,” Wilson starts trying again, “if it did get out? Why should that-”
“Because I am not just another pathetic case for you,” House growls back. A shudder snaps through you as House thrusts Wilson back against the desk, so hard it reverberates. Something falls. Heavy. It might be Wilson’s resolve.
“Okay.” Wilson barely whispers it. But it’s not weak, and you can’t tolerate that.
You slip away like a refugee out into the sanctuary of the hallway. Neither House nor Wilson notice, or at least they didn’t pause to question the sudden movement of the door. You rub your cold fingers over your lips, wandering senselessly for a few moments. The stone calms you. Maybe you left too soon. Maybe there was more to see, to hear.
Maybe it’s all a lie, and like anything else, House will realize it soon enough.
You trace a protective design over the heliotrope and decide there’s no harm in keeping it for a few more days.
tbc... http://nakannalee.livejournal.com/10038.html