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Dreams, Hopes, Aspirations
by phineyj
"I recommend post-exposure prophylaxis. Your chances of conversion are slim, but I'd like to put you on three antiviral medications. Finavir, zidovudine and lamivudine. There are side-effects - headache, nausea, vivid dreaming. You'll be tested for HIV in six weeks, three months, six months..." Hunting
Dreams (six weeks)
You know you are going to fail your exam. For one thing, all the questions are about a book you haven't read. The other diners have heavy white linen cloths on their tables, and you are sitting at a bare school desk, which has a graffitied surface and a wobbly leg. There is soft jazz playing in the background and the subdued sound of conversation and silverware scraping on expensive plates.
House is sitting opposite you, wearing a jacket and tie. You have pale pink scrubs on. He reaches over and takes the answer booklet from you.
"Come on," he tells you, impatiently, "I want to show you something." He turns his back on you and you follow him down the stairs to the basement. He pushes the fire door open with his cane, and you are outside in an alleyway.
"I'm holding you to the terms," he says and leans back against the wall. The only illumination is the flare of a street lamp, and the unnatural light gives his skin a yellowish-green hue.
You hesitate, not sure what to do next.
"Don't turn into a good girl on me now, Cameron," he says, unzipping his fly and pushing you down to your knees with a rough hand on your shoulder.
His cock is colder than you expected. You suck him off, putting everything you can into it, because you know you're being graded on this too.
Your mouth is full of a warm, viscous fluid but something doesn't feel quite right about it. You roll the metallic taste of it around your tongue and realize; it's not semen - it's blood.
"You can't fix me," he says, flatly, "You can't even fix yourself."
His face is lost in the shadows.
You leave him to bleed out.
------
You wake up, drenched in cold sweat, your head pounding. For a second, you can't work out where you are, and then the dark, blurry outlines around you resolve into the familiar surroundings of your bedroom. Although it feels like the middle of the night, it's actually six am, so you take your morning dose of antivirals and get ready for work. Another day, another dollar.
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Hopes (three months)
You hate going to parents' evenings. As you get out of your SUV and walk towards the low-rise school buildings, Allison gives you a meaningful look. "We're not here to have fun," she reminds you, "We're here for Stella."
As usual, the school gym smells of the ghosts of overcooked vegetables and the persistent tang of childish sweaty feet. Your footsteps are muffled by the heavy covering the school has put down to protect the floor.
Your daughter's class teacher is sitting behind a desk on the far side of the room. She is wearing a black suit and a crisp open necked white blouse, which sets off her sleek, dark hair. She greets you, and says, "I've got Stella's test results." She passes an envelope across the desk to you, and adds, "Don't look so worried."
You can hardly bring yourself to open the envelope; your hands are shaking slightly. "Knowing is always better than not knowing," Mrs. Warner tells you, smiling and fiddling with her crucifix. Allison sighs and takes the envelope from your nerveless grip, ripping it open efficiently and scanning the contents. "It's good news," she confirms.
Refreshments are being served at a long table to the side of the room. Your father is pouring coffee from a large metal urn. His face is deeply tanned from his last tour of duty and his white dress uniform makes a striking contrast with the bright plaid of the tablecloth. As he hands you a chipped red mug of coffee, he says, "You know what your problem is, Greg? You don't know how lucky you are."
-----
Allison leads you upstairs to the bedroom, where she settles herself across your lap and places one small hand on your cock. You are hard already, just from the way she's looking at you, and when she takes you into her hot mouth, you moan from the overload of sensation.
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The sound of a door slamming wakes you up with a start. You must have dozed off in your chair. You are disorientated and very aware of the throbbing pain in your leg and your insistent hard-on.
You are wondering whether you can be bothered to fetch the Vicodin out of your desk drawer, when Cameron walks in. She has something white in her right hand. She pauses a few feet short of you. You can see her reflected in the darkness of the windows.
"Did you put this in my locker?" she asks.
You turn your head enough so you can see her. The expression on her face is hard to read. You nod your head. You're still not sure why you didn't open it this time.
"It's negative. Again. I thought you'd want to know," she says, twisting the piece of paper in her hands.
"Good," you say, simply.
She closes the distance between you, leans over, kisses you briefly, sweetly, on the lips, and then in a flurry of movement, backs away, turns and leaves.
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Aspirations (six months)
"Why Iceland?" she asks you. "It was cheap," you say. This is a lie. Your long weekend in Reykjavk has so far cost you approximately the same amount as the gross national product of some small third world nation, but she doesn't need to know that.
You have imagined Cameron in swimwear many times, but the reality blows you away. As she emerges from the tunnel in her cornflower blue bikini, with her hair twisted up on top of her head, she looks like a nereid rising from the waves.
"It's not quite how I expected," she says, laughing, standing thigh-deep in the viscous water, "It's not even blue!" You can't even remember the last time you heard her laugh.
The steam rises off the water in clouds; distant shadowy shapes might be other people, or just shifting bodies of water. The landscape is strange, alien, like the surface of the moon.
Your feet and torso are in warm, gritty, silica mud; your neck and face in the cold wind. You half swim, half crawl to the other side of the lagoon. It's very quiet in here on a late March afternoon; the few people who were around when you got in have scattered in every direction. Sounds echo and are muffled by the thick blanket of cloud rolling off the hot water.
The mist is so dense; you can't see her face, so you don't know what expression is on it, when she feels you carefully peel her bikini bottoms off. You hear her gasp of surprise though. She tastes salty like the sea, and as she shifts under your questing tongue, the movement of her body makes little ripples which catch and break on the sides of the inlet.
------
You float in the warm, glutinous water, feeling the aftershocks of your orgasm cresting and falling through your body. You are suspended between today and tomorrow; between real life and a dream.
"Are you all right?" he asks you. You are.
Tomorrow you'll go back to Princeton; back to differential diagnosis and clinic hours. But today you feel renewed; reborn.
Today, you feel clean.
FIN
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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