Three
Wicked Games

"You owe me fifty dollars," says House as he passes Wilson in the corridor.

Wilson, who's checking through a file while he walks, looks up and turns to find House's back retreating.

"You mean, you actually asked her?" he asks through a shocked laugh, catching him up.

House nods. "Yup."

"And she said yes. After the complete disaster that was last time?"

"Why is this so hard for you grasp?" House asks, stopping and rounding on his friend. "You should be careful, I might get offended."

"Well, let's be honest," Wilson chuckles, an eyebrow raised, "you don't exactly have a good track record when it comes to dating."

"It's not really a date," House clarifies, tapping his cane on the floor and staring at a dubious stain on the wall. "It's a celebration. Dates imply romantic interest. I wanted the money."

Wilson goes back to his files and scans a random page. "You ask her for dinner?" he asks casually, checking one thing off against another.

"Yeah." House considers his friend, who seems to be partially ignoring him. "Dinner doesn't mean a date. Dinner can mean anything. Food between two friends, for example." He leans against the wall and folds his arms, playing with humor like a cat with a ball of twine. "Are you trying to tell me all this time I thought we've been eating lunch we've actually been dating? You should have said, I would've put more effort into it."

Wilson looks up with an air of feigned impatience, and House can tell he's trying not to crack a smile.

"You're right," he concedes. "Dinner can mean those things. But when it's you, and when it's a woman..." He shrugs. "It's a date."

House, bored of the conversation, pushes himself away from the wall. "Fifty dollars," he demands.

"I don't have it on me," Wilson objects in the face of House's expectancy. "Swing by my office on your way out."

House nods and straightens, tired from the day already. "If you try to pull out of this one, remember, I know where you live."

Wilson laughs and backs away. "Don't worry," he reassures with mocking tones, raising his hands, "you'll get your money. Just don't... hurt me. Or my patients."

"I love your faith in me," House retorts with the sort of face a four-year-old might pull to a sibling.

"I'll see you, House." He walks off down the corridor, shaking his head laughingly.

House watches him go for a few moments, then presses the button on the elevator and spends the rest of the day idly counting down the hours until he goes home.

-I-

House leans casually against the doorframe and checks his watch, the leather bound tightly around his arm. He follows the second hand round a whole minute before lifting his cane and tapping three times on Cameron's front door.

She opens it almost immediately, causing him to wonder if she was waiting for him. It seems just the sort of Cameron thing to do, pacing the hallway, wondering if her date-who-isn't-a-date is actually going to show up. He can't imagine her ever getting stood up, but from what he knows of Cameron, that wouldn't make her any the less paranoid about it.

"Ready to go?" he asks, eyebrows raised as he takes her in. He invited her to dress up, and she certainly took that invitation without needing any more encouragement. Knee-length skirt, tight enough to shape her legs, and a blouse that's ever so slightly frilled. It accentuates her in a subtle way, as does the brief dash of eye-makeup and the hair that's only half up, leaving the rest to fall haphazardly around her shoulders. He's taken with the sudden urge to tell her she looks nice, but this isn't a date, so he doesn't have any need to start this on false pretenses.

For the record, his eyes glance to her shoes, then her ears, and he catches her smirking gaze on his journey.

"You don't have to..." she starts, smiling, evidently remembering the last time.

He nods, once. "I wasn't."

She reaches behind the door, grabbing her purse, and then they're walking down the corridor, House limping only slightly in his attempt not to make the pain in his leg too obvious. Neither of them say anything. Their shoulders bump once or twice as they round the corner, but other than that, they don't touch, either, and House wonders whether this is really such a good idea after all.

The cab's waiting for them outside, and as he and Cameron slide into the back seat, House leans forward and murmurs something in the driver's ear, who nods.

Sitting back, he can feel Cameron's gaze on him, burning into him. He tilts his head back slightly, keeping his eyes fixed forwards.

"Where are we going?" she asks quietly.

"It's a surprise," he mutters dramatically, and he doesn't look at her the whole way there.

-I-

They're sitting at the table, choosing wines while the waiter hovers irritatingly beside them. They haven't been on their own since they walked in, the restaurant too worried about 'good service' and 'image' to actually care whether its occupants want to be left to their own devices. He's not coming here again, that's for sure.

"Are you going to do that the whole night?" House questions, eyes grazing the page in front of him and tone mildly annoyed.

"House," Cameron rebukes, eying him over the top of the wine list. He glances up, both surprised and pleased to find something playful in her gaze.

"Just asking," he shrugs, and he closes the list, staring patronizingly up to their waiter who he already knows isn't getting a tip. "I'd say you're free to join us, but three-way sex doesn't look like your thing."

"House, leave the poor guy alone!" Cameron tries again, but he can hear the laugh that's crept in to the peripherals of her voice and it only serves to encourage him.

Ignoring her, he waits patiently for an answer from his new friend.

The waiter stares down, unaffected. "What would you like to drink, sir?"

"Was that a proposition?" House teases sardonically, resting his chin in his hands and putting on his innocent face.

"We'll have a house red," Cameron addresses before House can carry on. The waiter writes it down, nods, and walks away, finally leaving them on their own.

House turns to her with a highly exaggerated pout. She's staring down at the menu, laid flat on the table, and he knows she's averting his gaze, so he sits there staring at her with the pout continuing, wondering when she'll break.

It takes all of twenty seconds before she laughs and looks up, shaking her head at him, and he just sits there blinking at her.

"Stop it!" she laughs, and he can feel the corners of his mouth strain with the contagious urge to laugh with her. He settles on sitting back with a relatively neutral expression, eyes sparkling with teasing humor.

The atmosphere is completely different from the last time they did this. The babble of the restaurant seems quieter, duller, so much so that he doesn't really notice it. The gentle clatter of knives and forks, the quiet bantering, the occasional chink of glass on glass: it's quite relaxed here, and the lighting in the whole room is soft enough to cast blurry shadows that merge inseparably together on the walls and floor.

"You look... nice," House says, the words out of his mouth before he can stop them, and he drops his gaze to the tablecloth.

"House, I told you, you don't have to – "

"And I wasn't," he repeats, looking up again sincerely. He swallows, wishing longingly for that wine, or maybe even a scotch. "But you do."

Their gaze holds above the candlelight, seconds ticking away between them; then the flame flickers and Cameron's looking at her menu again, her hand supporting her neck as she looks down.

House breathes quietly through his nose, trying not to think about all the strange desires currently swimming about in the murkiness of his head. He glances across the restaurant and spots their waiter heading back, bottle of wine in hand, so in his attempt to look busy he reaches for his own menu.

He swallows down a biting remark that springs to mind, with a taste of the wine, then nods his approval. The swish of the liquid as it hits the glass almost makes him smile, and he has no idea why.

He lifts his drink when Cameron does, tipping his head slightly to one side.

"Cheers," he says quietly, and takes a swig, eyes holding with hers as she does the same.

Maybe it won't be such a bad night after all.

-I-

House pokes the half-eaten meat around his plate with his fork, the tepid tones of conversation boring him in the struggling evening. Having previously decided not to talk about work, he doesn't want to admit that he's striving for things to say in place that don't sound contrived or just plain silly.

Not talking about work, however, leaves talking about personal things, and he doesn't want to talk about those, either. In fact, this is probably why he doesn't like dinner as a dating method, even when this isn't a dating method: he likes to eat when he has food, or talk when he has company. Mixing the circumstances when it's blown up and out of proportion makes for awkward silences and actions that are nearly always taken the wrong way.

Like earlier, for example, when they both reached for the jug of water at the same time, resulting in their hands touching, briefly. House's had snapped back almost instantly, as though he'd been burned, and then he'd had to say something so as not to appear a total ass. The fact that he had even needed to say something not to appear a total ass, when everywhere else he could get away with being just that, had reminded him why he never did this sort of thing, and had been part of his decision why he was never doing this again.

He takes a slow mouthful, chewing thoughtfully, and he stares distantly into space.

"Do you think they'll notice?" Cameron asks effortlessly, breaking him out of his thoughts.

He frowns. "Who?"

"At work. This."

Oh, no. He's not going down this path, not this conversation. It certainly can't lead anywhere good, and there is absolutely no way he's –

There's a crash from about three tables along, and then an alarmed shout of a name.

"Oh my God," Cameron says, and, throwing her napkin down, she gets to her feet. A lot of other people seem to be doing the same. House glances quickly over to the commotion: a man has fainted, or collapsed, and is lying sprawled out on the restaurant floor. He's not moving, but he's not dead either.

"Is anyone a doctor?" someone shouts, his date by the look of it.

"Call an ambulance!" cries someone else, and House, spotting one of the staff already on the phone, goes back to his meal.

Cameron crosses beside him, going over to the man, but House grabs her wrist as she passes him. She stares down at him, shocked.

"Leave him," he says, and indicates her food. "He'll be fine."

"He's collapsed!" Cameron argues as more people explode into panic around them. She wrenches her arm out of his grip. "Have some compassion, will you? We need to check and make sure he's stable and that he didn't hit his head on the way down. There's also – "

"Nothing you can do," he finishes her firmly, eyes hard. "He's not in any immediate danger, apart from the idiots who are crowding him. So sit down."

The withering look he's given grates on his nerves and he frowns up at her, hard.

"I'm going to go see if I can save his life," she snaps, far too melodramatically for his liking, and he rolls his eyes. "Enjoy your meal. Hope it doesn't choke you in your haste to be out of here so quickly."

She marches off and he shakes his head, listening to the authority in her voice as she tells people she's a doctor and that she knows what she's doing...

House finishes his meal alone.

-I-

Cameron grabs her jacket from the back of the chair as the man is carried out of the restaurant on a stretcher. House stands, having already paid for their meal, and meets her gaze with a cutting expression.

She nods icily in return, and they leave the restaurant without saying a word to each other.

-I-

He walks her to the front door of the apartment building, acutely aware that the air is between them is so cold glaciers could form at any minute.

She fumbles in her purse for her keys and he sighs heavily, watching her.

"I guess that's two to add to the failure list," he quips, and she looks up sharply.

"You are such a bastard, House."

"So the rumors say..."

He leans back against the wooden frame of the porch in light of her glare, the night air like a blade on his cheek.

Looking at her without a hint of humor, he shrugs. "What did you want me to do?"

"You're a doctor; you could have helped."

"Could you do anything?" he points out, unable to keep the defensiveness out of his voice. "I mean, really, could you? Aside from wait around for the ambulance boys to turn up. You probably did more damage than help."

"You didn't even get up," she counters him, and he can't tell whether she's angry or upset.

"No," he agrees, bowing his head slightly, "because I didn't need to."

The way she's looking at him, dumbfounded, makes him wonder just how well she knows him after all. He certainly hopes she'll go in asking herself that question.

He sighs again, leaning his head back against the wooden support behind him. He lifts his cane into the air, swinging it from side to side.

"I didn't need to..." he continues, voice drawn out, "because I knew you would. You care too much not to. And you're good at what you do, so I figured one of us should at least enjoy their meal."

The cab honks obnoxiously from the road and Cameron, who's found her keys, steps towards her door. House watches her, unmoving, and she stops just before she twists the metal in the lock.

"Don't ask me out again," she says coldly over her shoulder, looking at the space between their bodies. "I think you were right. I spend enough time with you at work."

She disappears inside without another word, leaving House to digest her words alone. As he limps back down to the cab, he tells himself that sinking feeling his stomach is just the food from earlier, which wasn't that nice anyway.

He didn't know how he expected tonight to end, but this is certainly on his list of 'five things to never ever repeat'.

And yet: there is a certain challenge in pursuing a woman who likes to pretend she isn't interested, even if it's just to piss her off. Especially to piss her off. There's nothing more frustrating in being interested in someone you know you shouldn't be interested in.

In the back of the taxi, streetlights flashing luminously over his face as they drive on, he smirks. Perhaps it wasn't such a very bad night after all.