Crossover Fic: A Welcome Distraction, Ch.3: Dean/Cameron (Part Two)
A Welcome Distraction 3: Secrets Unearthed
Author:
starhawk2005
Date: January 2007
Fandoms: House, M.D. and Supernatural
Main characters: Allison Cameron, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Gregory House.
Pairing: Dean Winchester/Allison Cameron.
Rating: Adult (18+). For bad words, sex and bondage. Where do I sign up?
Summary: Dean and Allison have a little ‘playtime’ before Dean has to get back on the job again. And then everything goes to Hell in a handbasket.
Disclaimer: Don’t own Cameron, House, or any of the Winchesters. Woe is me!
Please note that “
starhawk2005cannot be held responsible for any brain melting, spontaneous combusting, or ovary exploding that occurs before/during/after reading this fanfiction. Thank you.” (credit to
_vicodinfor the detailed legal disclaimer. *snerk*).
Author Notes: AU, for gosh sakes. Spoilery for early S3 House, and for S1 of SPN.
Also note - Part Two ends on a CLIFFHANGER! So if you’re gonna hate me for it, do us both a favour and wait til I get Chapter 4 written and posted, mkay?
Missed the earlier chapters? Here they are:
A Welcome Distraction: Dean Winchester/Allison Cameron, pr0n. Cameron meets Dean in a bar, and decides it's time to 'live a little'...without having to take meth first. ;)
A Welcome Distraction, Chapter 2: Examinations: Dean Winchester/Allison Cameron, pr0n. Dean decides to pay Allison a surprise visit at PPTH...and a snark!fest ensues between him and House.
Pics to whet the appetite:
Courtesy of vartanluvva:
Courtesy of mikki13:
And finally, courtesy of amara_m *drools*
(Part Two)
“Sam, what have I told you a hundred times? Driver picks the music-“
“Shotgun shuts his cake-hole, I know,” Sam groused. “Can we listen to something other than Motorhead for a change, Dean?”
“No,” Dean growled back, and just turned the music up louder.
Life was good. They’d found Dad (or rather, he’d found them), and found a weapon that could kill the Demon. A gun made by Samuel Colt, a gun that could kill anything. Finally, they had an edge.
Plus, they were together, they were going to fight this thing as a family. Dean had no doubt they’d succeed, either. They were stronger as a unit.
They’d split up for the time being, though. Dad was checking out some leads two towns over, while he and Sammy were checking out some strange occurrences in this area. According to what Dad had worked out, the Demon was due to make an appearance soon. It was just a question of figuring out which town, and which family with a six-month-old baby, and then lying in wait. And then shooting the fucking thing full of more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese.
Maybe this would all end soon. Maybe Dean could think about settling down, starting his own family, even. Now that he had someone like Allison in his life.
Dean’s phone rang, and he turned the music down. Maybe Dad had his answer already.
He lifted the phone to his ear, ignoring Sam’s disapproving look. Sam hated it when Dean drove and talked on the phone at the same time. “Hello?”
“Dean?” It wasn’t Dad, it was a woman. His woman.
“Well hey there, Al. How’re things?”
“Not good, Dean. Look, I need to talk to you. It’s…an emergency.” Her voice sounded odd to him, cold and emotionless, and almost immediately his hunter’s instincts were on edge.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He pulled sharply off the road, ignoring Sam’s worried look.
“Some cops were here,” she said in that new flat voice. “They showed me a sketch of you. Said your real name was ‘Dean Winchester’. And-“ She paused, and Dean’s heart began to pound faster, “That you liked to kill women in your spare time.”
It felt like something had him by the throat. Except this wasn’t something he could tear off himself and then shoot dead. “Allison-“ he started. But then his words just dried up. Because what could he tell her? Not the truth.
“I didn’t believe them,” she went on in that strange voice. “I still don’t. You had me, you had me at your mercy, you even said so yourself. But you didn’t hurt me.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” Dean said roughly. “I’d never do that, Allison, you have to believe-“
“But I did some checking,“ she continued, cutting him off. “There’s no Dean Steele at the Dallas PD. Never has been. So you lied to me about that. Makes me wonder what else you lied about. Who are you?”
Dean looked at Sam, but there was no help there.
“My name is Dean Winchester,” he finally said. “And no, I’m not a cop. But I didn’t kill those people, Allison. You have to believe me.”
“Convince me, then,” she said coldly. “We’ll start with why you lied about being a cop. And why you’re carrying a gun and handcuffs, if you aren’t one.”
Dean tried. He even opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out: Because I kill ghosts. Because I battle evil with rock-salt and enchanted guns forged by Samuel Colt. Because a demon killed my mother and my father found out the truth, found out about the world hidden underneath what we call reality, and Dad made it his life’s work - and mine - to get revenge on the things that live there.
He couldn’t. He kept trying, but what kept stopping him was the memory of Cassie’s face - incredulous, disgusted, afraid - when he’d tried to explain the same things to her. “That’s the craziest shit I’ve ever heard, Dean,” she’d yelled at him. Before walking out the door and out of his life.
“I can’t,” Dean finally said, defeated. “I can’t explain it to you.” He couldn’t lie to her again, he just couldn’t. Besides, she’d probably do some digging and find out the truth all over again. It would just be delaying the inevitable.
“Why?”
“Because you’d never believe me,” Dean answered. He tried to stick to relatively safer topics. “But this you have to believe - I didn’t kill those people.”
There was a deep sigh on the other end of the phone. “I know you didn’t. I’m certain of it. I’m not even sure how I know that, I just do. But I don’t understand why you’d lie about being a cop.”
She wasn’t going to let it go. But Dean just couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t try to explain to her, to someone so logical and scientific, that the world wasn’t what it appeared to be. “I can’t tell you,” he said again, closing his eyes.
There was a long pause, one that felt like it might have lasted for years, but when he said nothing else, there was only Allison’s voice again, flat and empty. “Then I’m sorry, Dean or whatever your name is. But it’s over.”
The line went dead.
Dean just pulled the phone away and stared at it. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, he thought. But what else could he have done?
He knew what he wanted to do. To turn the Impala around, peeling rubber, and drive non-stop to Princeton. Go see Allison, try to convince her. Hell, maybe he’d even-
“Did she dump you?” Sam asked softly. When Dean nodded slowly, still staring at the phone, Sam said “I’m sorry, Dean,” and laid a hand on Dean’s arm. “Maybe you should try to call her back, tell her the truth-“
Dean shook off Sam’s hand. “Right, Sammy. Because that worked so well with Cassie,” he snarled.
Sam leaned back in his seat, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “Maybe Allison is more open-minded than Cassie was. Sarah didn’t freak out too badly when we first told her-“
“It was easy for you and Sarah,” Dean retorted. “She actually saw something supernatural. She couldn’t call the men in white coats to take us away, without checking herself into the mental ward too. Allison’s got no reason to believe me. She will think I’ve lost my mind.”
Face twisted into a grimace, Dean put the Impala back into gear.
“What’re you doing?” Sam asked, looking worried again.
“I’m carrying out Dad’s orders,” Dean said grimly. He had to put this behind him for now. Allison wasn’t going anywhere. “We’ve got a job to do, and it’s the most important job of our lives, Sammy.” He turned to his little brother. “More important than anything. Even Allison.”
Sam nodded in agreement, but he looked unhappy.
Dean turned his attention back to the road, hands white-knuckled around the wheel as he struggled to get his anger and pain under control. Allison wasn’t going anywhere, he repeated to himself. Once this job was done, one way or the other, he’d go to Princeton and talk to her. Find some way to convince her. He had to.
But for now, the job had to come first.
*~*~*
Allison hung up the phone, scrubbing a cold hand over her face. She’d felt this way several times in her life. After Thomas had died, after every breakup before or since, even after realizing that House loved Stacy. It got worse every time. The same cold, empty feeling in her gut. The same despair, that things always came somehow to this. To being alone again.
At least she’d managed to get in touch with Dean. He’d told her once, early on in their - now defunct - relationship, that if she called him and he didn’t answer for a few days, not to worry. That if he got really into a case, he could get pretty obsessive about it. And she’d thought of House and how focused he’d get, and she’d figured it made sense.
So at least she hadn’t been waiting on pins and needles for days, wondering if Dean was a killer. Wondering why he’d lied.
She was still sure he wasn’t a killer. She would’ve preferred to see his face, to look in his eyes when she confronted him, but somehow, she still felt certain of it. No matter that he’d lied to her about a large chunk of everything else, she believed that he cared about her. She believed him when he said he’d never hurt her physically (apparently lying didn’t count as harm). Allison remembered the softness in his eyes when he’d looked at her, how careful he’d been when he’d taken charge of her during their sex acts. No matter how many times she’d closed her eyes and replayed certain events in her mind - picking him up at the bar, getting into his car, letting him handcuff her, letting him handcuff her in the Clinic, letting him tie her to the chair, even the way he’d used the knife - no matter how often she went over it, she didn’t see anything that spelled a threat to her.
But, on the other hand, lying about what he did for a living? What could be bad enough that he’d rather continue to hide it from her, even after he’d been found out? Maybe he wasn’t a serial killer, but maybe he was some kind of criminal.
Everybody lies, whispered House’s voice in her head, and she put her face into her hands, fighting back the urge to cry. Hating the fact that her heart had gotten her into trouble once again. It had led her to marry a dying man, had made her chase a verbally-abusive, ornery cripple for more than two years, and now it had made her fall in love with a stranger she’d picked up in a bar. Who had turned out to be a liar and possibly dangerous.
Maybe House had been the safer bet, after all. Maybe she should’ve continued to pursue him, and everything that had happened between herself and Dean should never have taken place.
That was when several sharp knocks sounded at the door, drawing her from her pain-induced stupour.
Apprehension stirred inside her. What if it was House? She didn’t want to deal with him right now. Or worse, what if it was Dean?
She crept up to the door, looking cautiously out the peephole, but her visitor was a stranger, a woman Allison had never seen before. Feeling relieved, Allison called through the door: “Yes?”
“Hello, I live upstairs? We just moved in last week, and I was hoping to introduce myself.”
Allison didn’t feel up to this, but there was no reason to punish her neighbour for what Dean and his lies had done. Forcing a smile onto her face, Allison unlocked and opened the door.
*~*~*
House was really annoyed. 11:04am on a Monday morning, and Her Ladyship Allison Cameron was nowhere to be found.
First, he’d come in and she hadn’t been there, taming the beast of the coffee machine like she was supposed to. That was her job, damn it.
She hadn’t called in sick, and neither Foreman nor Chase had heard from her, or so they said when they’d returned from checking on their latest patient. A teenage boy whom House hoped had some kind of exotic venereal disease and a sordid tale to tell. Those were always fun.
By 8:25am, House had been fuming. It was one thing not to come into work, but not even calling? That didn’t fit Miss Goody-Two-Shoes at all.
She was probably off somewhere riding that annoying pizza boy like some kind of prize stallion, he thought darkly.
He briefly thought about going to Cuddy to complain. Getting Cameron in hot water with the Dean of Medicine might set the stage for some fun fireworks to watch later. Especially if House insinuated that Cameron and her pizza boy had been up to no good on hospital grounds. Not that House had any solid proof, but that glowing complexion she’d shown up with after Clinic duty, several hours after he threw her boyfriend out that first time, made him very suspicious.
Still, that wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of reaming her out - so to speak - himself, so 11:04am was when House finally picked up the phone, determined to call her himself and let her know just what he thought of women doctors who allowed their boyfriends to distract them from their job.
He got a busy signal.
He tried ten minutes later, same result.
He tried another ten minutes later. Same result.
By now, House was ready to rip Cameron a new one. If he could get hold of her. Foreman and Chase were running through various tests, so things were progressing, but House still needed his immunologist. If only to let off the head of steam he’d built up. So finally he grabbed his helmet and limped out of the hospital.
Besides, he figured it gave him an excuse to skip Clinic duty. And if Cuddy complained, he could point her and her twins firmly in Cameron’s direction.
He pulled the motorcycle up in front of Cameron’s place, popping two Vicodin in mid-climb up the stairs, and preparing a litany of loud complaints as he went.
House was about three paces from her front door when his perceptive eyes picked up on something strange.
Her front door was open. Not by much, maybe an inch or two, but House’s curiosity was piqued. Cameron was too cautious to just leave her door ajar like that.
Suddenly nervous, House limped forward, standing outside the door. “Cameron?” he called. There was no answer, and he shoved the door open and started to step in.
He stopped dead. Her place was trashed. Overturned furniture (even the treadmill), smashed knickknacks. The phone sprawled on the floor, off the hook; that explained the busy signal.
His dread mounting, House quickly searched every room, but there was no Cameron. No blood anywhere, either, but that was small comfort to him.
He limped in circles, not knowing what to do. Medical emergencies were one thing, but his immunologist vanishing, and her home wrecked like this? Who would’ve done something like this?
Resisting the urge to pop more Vicodin, House fumbled for his cell phone and called the first person he could think of who might know what to do - Lisa Cuddy.
*~*~*
Dean felt like crap. It was one thing to tell yourself you’d put your emotions aside, so you could do your job. It was quite another to accomplish that goal.
He felt sorry for Sam, who was doing most of the work. Questioning the locals, sneaking into fields to check for electromagnetic disturbances around dead cattle - Sam was doing it all, and Dean was just following mutely along, trying to get his feelings and thoughts under control.
He kept replaying his last conversation with Allison in his head. Kept seeing Cassie’s face as she called him crazy and walked out.
Dean even found himself rehearsing what to say to Allison if he saw her again - assuming he did see her again; if the cops were after him, going back to visit could be a really bad idea - trying out and rejecting what felt like a thousand attempts.
Finally back in the Impala, Sam pulled out his phone and spoke to Dad, while Dean stared glumly out the window. Nothing had panned out where John was, so it looked like he and Sam (mostly Sam, rather) were on the right track here. In less than a week, it seemed, the Demon would show up somewhere here to flame-broil another nursery. The thought didn’t excite Dean as much as it had several hours ago.
Sam said goodbye to Dad and closed the phone. “Dad thinks our next step ought to be-“
That was when Dean’s phone rang. Maybe it was Allison? He dug it feverishly out of his jacket pocket, hoping.
“Hello?” he said, trying not to sound too desperate.
“’Lovergirl’ can’t come to the phone right now,” a familiar voice purred. Female, but not Allison’s.
Dean pulled the phone from his ear to check the display, but it was Allison’s cell number. A sudden sinking feeling churned in the pit of his stomach. “What?”
“So,” the voice continued, mockingly, “you’ll have to make do with me. What are you wearing, baby?”
“Depends undergarments,” Dean snapped angrily, feeling panicky and trying to hide it. This was all wrong. If only he could place the voice. “Who the Hell is this?”
“I’m so hurt that you don’t remember me, Dean,” she said in a low, husky voice. “I remember you. You and your brother. And your father. You got away from my Daevas in Chicago. I’ll try not to take that personally, though.”
“Meg!” Dean gasped, finally putting two and two together. “Where’s Allison?”
“Patience, baby,” Meg said, amusement in her voice. “All good things come to those who wait. Are your Daddy and your little brother around?”
“Fuck you. I want to speak to Allison,” Dean gritted out.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Meg said. “Go round them up, Dean. But don’t call me, I’ll call you. You have thirty minutes.”
And the line went dead.
FIN…but to be continued, obviously. ;)
Crossposted to AO3