poly_chromatic | ☤ eighty-seven

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house m.d. - allison cameron

☤ eighty-seven

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[After nearly four years in the City, one becomes adept at ignoring all sorts of unpleasant circumstances. It's a point of pride that Cameron rarely cancels her plans due to curse interference; doing so always feels like letting the City win, and she can't abide that.

Today, apart from work, she has a few errands to run; lunch at a café, a quick stop by the bakery. She's doing her best to avoid the scattered bunches of mistletoe, but no one can miss all of them...]

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Unfortunately, when they are, there's not much you can do beyond try to manage the symptoms.

[Go ahead, be more perfect. She tries the soup with an expression of clear appreciation before she adds--]

We did once have a patient catch a tick-borne disease while he was a cat.

Isn't that really what we're doing with so many diseases? Palliative care and time.

[Have no fear, if his little anger problem isn't a dealbreaker, there's always the matter of having his own fandom in some universes to give her an excuse to run.

He pauses in ladling his own soup to laugh in response to her remark.]

I never thought about that, but I can definitely see where that would be a concern. I'll bear it in mind for my human friends who transform.

I suppose so, but things are always a little less predictable here.

[Well, there's no harm in daydreaming before you get to the running away stage. And there's a lot to be said for pleasant dinner company. And pleasant dinner.

She's managed to resist the urge to scan the ceiling for encroaching mistletoe thus far.]

I'd noticed and I've only been here for five months, you've been here three years? Four?

[He grabs a slice of crusty sourdough and dips a piece of it in his broth.

He has a perhaps foolish sense of safety from mistletoe and hasn't felt any urge to look up.]

Four years in February,

[she affirms, then trails off to eat a few bites.]

To be honest, the cat case felt more like what I'm used to than most of what we see here.

Four years... [Between her and Ginny Wesley, that can be truly depressing, but he's not too bad at compartmentalizing.]

After four years, I'd guess that you'd be used to what you see here.

Well, I work in a diagnostic department; we take the cases no one can figure out. The symptoms here are stranger, but not always the causes.

[She shrugs.]

[Bruce hasn't been glancing up, because a man should be safe from random mistletoe in his own apartment, but a motion overhead draws his attention away from Cameron and upward.]

Allison...

[Pointing up to the green invader, complete with a bit of red ribbon around the stem.]

[All's fair in love and war. No, that's not right: nothing's safe in the City; that's more like it. As he's looking up she's helplessly leaning in, silverware clattering into the dish.

She reaches for his shoulder to anchor herself, lips parted slightly, a slight flush on her cheeks.]

Uh...

[Bruce isn't very good at just letting go and going with the moment; it's the antithesis of how he has to live his life, but the City has at least given him enough encounters that he can meet her lips without fear of losing control from a simple kiss.

A quick buss is all that's required to overcome the curse's compulsion. It's a screw you to the City that when he can draw back from Cameron, he does so only long enough to confirm that the compulsion is gone before he raises a hand to cup her cheek and leans in for a second kiss of his own choosing.]

[In just short of four years-- considering this curse is one of the City's favorites, and it comes in more flavors than Christmas-- Cameron has had her more-than-fair share of unintentional kisses. There are those that last interminably, generally with people you'd rather avoid; and there are those which are ambiguous. It's hard to know whether you can pull away if you don't try, and truth be told, there have been times when she hasn't. And then there's this.

She's not impulsive by nature, and from what she knows of Bruce, neither is he. But if he can seize this moment willingly, so can she. The mistletoe may as well wither on its vine; she's still curling her fingers into the fabric of his shirt.]

[He is anything but impulsive when he has any choice in the matter, but being fully in his right mind to enjoy kissing a beautiful woman is worth deviating from his usual routines.

He draws away too quickly for his own preference, but he still doesn't trust himself or his condition.]

Um... Merry Christmas?

[It's too quickly for her tastes, too, but it lasts long enough that she doesn't for a second imagine he's pulling away because of anything she's done wrong.

She pulls back, but not very far, with a small smile.]

I guess so.

[Rather belatedly she lets go of his shirt.

No regrets.]

[He chews his lip for a moment, eyes turned up almost hoping for more mistletoe before he smiles.]

I can't say I'm going to complain.

Then I won't apologize for bringing it in with me.

[For something she hadn't meticulously planned-- deciding not to cancel dinner hardly counts-- this is going surprisingly not terribly. She's still near enough that either of them could close the distance in a heartbeat (and she may yet, if he doesn't pull away either); that sense of possibility is oddly comforting.]

[He'd known it was a risk, but it would be a lie if he tried to say that he hadn't hoped just a little for the excuse. If nothing else, the City has given him opportunities to soothe some of the ache of years of loneliness.]

Please don't.

[There's a certain satisfaction in turning the infliction of any curse into a pleasant opportunity. If getting flustered or frightened or angry is letting the so-called Deities win, surely this is ruining their game. Probably. Putting it in those terms, though, is just rationalization; intellectual distance from the underlying fact that she's attracted to him.

Though now, as always, she's at a bit of a loss on where to go next. She leans in again to brush lips-- just proving, possibly to herself, that she can and wants to-- before pulling back to a safer distance. It's a relaxation, not a retreat. After all, they still have dinner.]

I'm glad we didn't cancel.

[It is, perhaps, weirdly noncommittal, but that's how she functions. Besides, she is dimly aware that this is an objectively complicated-- if not terrible-- idea. Baby steps.]

I'm glad you're glad.

[It feels like a cop-out response for all that it's honest. He's spent years alone, and the past few months are barely taking the edge off of that. Curses inevitably leave him feeling lonelier, making this time all the more valuable to him.

Yeah, one of the great minds of his time. Right here, feeling like an idiot.]

Usually I like to start with dinner before the pre-nup.

[It can't be that bad a cop-out, because she smiles as she retrieves her spoon.]

I don't know, I think it's kind of comforting to know who gets the good china if things go south.

[There's something to be said for lonely people being lonely together, isn't there?]

You get the good china and a gold star.

[Glancing away to hide when he licks his lips, he tears off another piece of bread to dip in his broth.]

After all, I've talked to your boss.

You know, I've worked for him so long I sometimes forget why he rubs people the wrong way.

[Partly that's growing a thicker skin, partly it's glimpsing the reasoning behind the outrage. Mostly it's the same thing that keeps people sane in the City: inevitable adjustment to constant stimuli.]

I can take it. You run into your share of sharp tongues among physicists, too.

[Not to mention what he'd spent the earliest part of his youth with.]

Is he that good or just the only game in town?

Clever people and big egos? I can't be surprised.

[She glances away briefly, not avoiding, just thinking.]

House is an ass. If he can help it, he doesn't meet his patients. But the cases we see-- he's the best at what he does.

[And she doesn't say he doesn't care, though she won't say he does, mostly because he wouldn't want her to.]

Some of them would object to being called merely clever, even if they'll admit to the ego.

I can put up with a lot to work with the best. Have you met Tony Stark? Sometimes he's pretty hard to put up with, but he doesn't tiptoe. I doubt Dr. House does either.

I don't think I have. But-- that's how I feel, or at least a large part of it.

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