Moebius Imaginings (II)

Lists!

2008-11-17T20:43:43Z

Things that make me happy:

- Surprise visit from tormenta! She came to town on the flimsy pretext of visiting her parents, when obviously it was an ingeniously concocted plan to invite yours truly over for lunch. Lunch was yummy and catching up was great. I realize that I'm, like, the only person in the world who's still in the same hometown as high school. Man, I gotta get those grad school applications in and move somewhere.

- Crusoe. It's ridiculously slashy and, well, pretty awful--I mean, as far as the "plots" and "characterization" go. But...FRIDAY. CRUSOE. DESERT ISLAND. THEIR NOT-SO-SEKRIT GAY LOVE! Crusoe keeps saying things like "When we get back to England, we'll just have to overcome all that prejudice," and while I'm sure most of the television viewing audience finishes that phrase with "because you are black", all I can hear is "because we are gay." (He also says, "But for now there is a man on an island, burning with desire...*HUGEASS PAUSE*...togetbacktohishomeandfamily." Yes, Crusoe. "To get back to his home and family", I'm sure.)

- Shrimp and mango salad! Courtesy of a recipe from troutkitty, who has taught me all the good things about cooking. The very definition of "NOM", and I made it all myself!

- RP! One of my favourite things to wake up to in the morning is tags in my inbox; tags and feedback in my inbox, on the same morning--you know life is going well! As I was saying to shutterbug_12, "Sometimes I fantasize that I get to read a long, plotty, detailed, explicit story with my pairing that was not, y'know, written by me. ...Then I come back to reality." But RP is a wonderful stopgap solution; it's a lot like a story that I didn't write, because I never know what's going to happen next. It's long, it's plotty (well, um, plottier than Crusoe, anyway), it's detailed and I have high hopes that it'll gradually get explicit. So there's a win right there.

- Weekends! Even if I waste them watching Crusoe and RPing.

Things that make me whimper:

- This CanLit essay that I am so determinedly not writing. HAAAAAAATE. My research is a third again as long as the essay needs to be. WHY IS IT NOT SIMPLY WRITTEN?

- I'm going to get critted in creative writing class tonight...on a piece of first-draft stream-of-consciousness must-write-for-deadline not-even-real-scenes word-vomit. I hate that. I am better than that! (Except not this time.) I also hate that my pride will prevent me from saying, "Look, I know that it's crap, okay, so don't even bother with the critique because I already KNOW, and this is not even ending up in the book, and this is pointless and I'm sorry but it is a waste of your time and I apologize." Never apologize for your writing, y'all! Even if sometimes you should.

- Nano. I will never ever catch up. Because I have three more essays to write before December. And I am avoiding them.

- Honours Thesis. *pulls covers over head*

- Definitely going blind. Need new prescription, new glasses. More money. Blah.

Things that are going okay, but that do not fill me with an overwhelming sense of joy:

- Grad school applications. I've filled out four of them and sent them in, including fees, which means I can't not finish them because what a waste of money that would be. Now I need to fill out the last one and then start on gathering my supporting documents together. They all want a personal statement but they all want it differently; here, 300 words, there, 500 words, in another place, 800 words. So I get to edit that statement five more times. It's getting progressively better, at least? I want to finish these apps by the end of the semester and then spend the holidays pretending that they never happened, so that I can be astonished if and when they reply to me begging me to join their school because they will collapse under the weight of their own suckitude if I don't immediately go there to shore them up. Which I will benevolently agree to do, as a special favour just to them--if they give me many scholarships.

Yes. Life is going pretty well. Except for this CanLit essay. *glares at it* *starts last episode of Crusoe*

FIC: Skin Diving (House, House/Foreman, R)

2008-11-15T08:52:57Z

Title: Skin Diving
Fandom: House, M.D.
Pairing/Rating: House/Foreman, R.
Length: 2000 words
Spoilers: Season four
Author's Notes: This is for rawiyaparand, who prompted me in a meme some time ago. It's also for coffeesuperhero's first fluff_friday. A bit of betaing by the ever-lovely leiascully and even more by the equally-lovely shutterbug_12.

Summary: Revenge is a dish best served soaking wet.

House paused halfway through writing symptoms up on the whiteboard. Part of the reason was to annoy Foreman. Part of the reason was to grapple more effectively for the marker, which Foreman was trying to pull out of his hands.

Okay, so most of the reason was to annoy Foreman. "Why do you smell like chlorine?" he asked.

Foreman rolled his eyes and tugged the whiteboard marker the rest of the way out of House's hand. "I don't." He turned back to Taub, Kutner, and Thirteen with a smile, as if he was Ron Popeil demonstrating a juicer and trying to ignore the amateur juicing-moron beside him, decorated with the mutilated corpses of a dozen oranges. "As I was saying about the patient--"

Actually, that made House the amateur juicing moron in question, which wasn't the most flattering image in the world. Also, Foreman was evading. "Yes, you do," he said.

Foreman glared at him. The underlings had dropped their folders and were sitting back, taking on the expression of tennis spectators who were trampled in line and got the leftover tickets to the boring dregs of Wimbledon. "It doesn't matter," Foreman said flatly. As if he thought House might drop it.

Triumph. House proceeded to forget the patient entirely. "If it didn't matter, you would have given me a reason."

"If I'd given you a reason, you would have assumed I was lying. Cytokine storm fits the autoimmune symptoms--"

"And instead of lying, you're choosing to avoid the question." House leaned in for another whiff. Definitely chlorine. He took a thoughtful sip from his coffee mug, narrowing down the possibilities. "You've been swimming."

"Yes, House, I exercise. I also practice medicine."

"But you can't do both at the same time. Not when you've been on call for forty-eight hours."

Foreman stopped, resting two hands on the back of the nearest chair, and stared through the glass tabletop. House spread his benevolent interest through the room. He was certain that Kutner, at least, and possibly Thirteen, were already brainstorming all the possible times and locations that Foreman might have been swimming.

"Gym down the street," Thirteen said. House nodded his approval; the place was a haven for attractive young professionals with more muscles than brains and the cash to blow on ridiculous member fees. Foreman's kind of place.

"Chemical spill in the locker room showers?" Taub offered reluctantly, clearly trying to cut Foreman a break. House would be noting that on Taub's YES column on his next 'who shall I prank' checklist.

"Occupational therapy pool," Kutner said, with the bored tone of someone who is irrefutably correct. "No one's there after hours, Foreman would have access without leaving the campus, they've recently changed from salt water to chlorine, and his shirt was damp when he got here this morning."

Taub and Thirteen turned to stare at Foreman, Taub mildly inquiring and Thirteen with her ridiculously pretty sloe-eyed 'seriously?' look.

Foreman took one deep breath and started to look up, hands gripping the back of the chair like he was no doubt imagining it was Kutner's skinny neck. House sipped his coffee, working at radiating a general sense of glee through a series of blinks without once changing expression. His true minions would understand that their lord and master was pleased. If not, at least their confusion would be entertaining. If Kutner didn't watch out, he might learn something during this fellowship, and then he'd be unstoppable. House thought about adopting him from the lost-animal shelter and parading him through hospital fundraisers as a conversation-stopper.

Kutner glanced back and forth from Taub to Thirteen, as if he wasn't exactly sure what he'd said that had made Foreman start breathing like an enraged rodeo bull, and added, "Cytokine storm could mean hyperthyroidism...Think the patient has Graves disease?"

Which was when everybody's pagers went off, and Foreman led the charge to escape the conference room. Obviously because he cared deeply about patient care and resuscitating their mystery for House to solve. Couldn't be anything like the fact that Kutner was exactly right--and that wasn't the end of the story.

House ambled back to his lounge chair, folded his hands across his stomach, and started plotting.

***

Thirteen was up to three YESes in the pranks sweepstakes. Taub had recently been reset down to zero, after a very successful fake phone call to his wife which revealed that she really was paying that much for plumbers to fix her piping, and not, as House had so ardently hoped, 'fix her piping'. Kutner was beyond hope with sixteen, and it was a wonder House hadn't drowned him in an avalanche of rubber duckies from an innocent-looking supply closet, but recently he'd said something not entirely ludicrous during a differential that had led to House pulling a cure pretty much out of his ass right in front of Cuddy and the patient's already-on-retainer personal injury lawyer, so House reluctantly added a NO in the opposite column, which took Kutner off the list for today.

House pouted thoughtfully. Wilson had threatened to change his locks the last time House had burst on him at this hour. Cameron and Chase weren't even working night-shifts these days, those slackers. Their current patient was stable, if 'requiring constant transfusions to stay ahead of the internal bleeding' could be considered stable (House figured it totally could; she wasn't vomiting arterial red any more, which was an improvement over this afternoon).

But he was still at work. And bored. And restless. And vaguely annoyed that everyone had gone home without doing anything remotely interesting.

House frowned through the glass wall. Actually, not everyone had gone home. Foreman's coat was hanging from the coat tree in the conference room. He was on-call. And he hadn't taken the weekend pager home.

And it was three in the morning.

House lifted his leg down from the desk and grabbed his cane, reviewing the evidence as he went. Foreman needed some way to stay awake; coffee was less effective than the icy waters of the North Atlantic that the physios in this hospital called their occupational therapy pool; and House had spent the last two months carefully pretending he'd forgotten all about Foreman's misuse of hospital resources, waiting for him to drop his guard.

Conclusion: Foreman would be happy to entertain him until the patient picked up the slack.

***

The pool room was dim, with just a few of the overhead lights on. House made his way carefully across the room to stand at the edge that Foreman was heading for. "Patient's dying!" he barked. "Up and at 'em!"

Which was when he actually looked at Foreman. Who had--very clearly, since House had a very direct view--gotten rid of the stick up his ass.

"House--" Foreman stopped his forward crawl, sucked in a breath that was mostly water, and started coughing and sputtering.

"Oh my God," House said loudly, his voice echoing around the tiled pool deck. Laughter challenged complete disbelief to a duel to the death somewhere between his chest and his larynx. House sat the battle out and wondered if he could get to the switch for the underwater lights and back to the poolside before Foreman recovered and decided to murder him to keep his secret intact.

Foreman's glare of death was somewhat the worse for wear when he delivered it while treading water. "Get the hell out, House," he said, managing his breathing pretty well for someone who was swimming naked in his workplace.

"If I'd known you were going to take the boring comment this much to heart," House said, with all the leering appreciation he could muster, "I would've told you sooner."

Foreman pushed water out of his face with one hand. "House--"

"No need to defend yourself. I know it's just water shrinkage."

"Look," Foreman said, hooking his elbow over the side of the pool and staring up at House with the same look of complete aggravation that House had always liked so well for him. Amazing that he could maintain that much put-upon indignation under the circumstances. The way he was trying to cling to the tattered shreds of his dignity was absurdly disappointing, though. "Can you save the humiliation for some other time?"

"Some other time meaning mid-differential tomorrow?" House wasn't beyond pity, though, so he pushed the nearest towel to the pool edge with the tip of his cane, innocently pretending not to ogle. Somehow he didn't think Foreman was buying the act. It might have had something to do with the fact that House hadn't actually looked away since he realized that Foreman was a) naked, b) stupidly well-muscled, and c) no, seriously, naked. It was incredibly distracting, and House crept closer to the edge of the pool to improve his view. And dumped Foreman's towel into the water. "Oops?" he offered.

For a second, Foreman looked resigned, and House felt a little flip of disappointment somewhere south of his stomach.

The next thing he knew, he was being yanked forward. Foreman grabbed his cane, just within reach, and hauled him forward. House stumbled on the pool edge, let go of his cane too fast, and then plunged headfirst and fully clothed into the pool.

Chlorinated water went up his nose, he was barely able to push off the bottom of the pool to get back to the surface, choking and flinging his arm out for something to hold on to.

'Something' happened to be Foreman. Who was staring at him with a flat, nearly unreadable look. House let go of him as soon as he realized he wasn't drowning, and groped for the pool edge. "Your concept of revenge needs work," he managed to get out, still coughing up pool water. He checked in with his various body parts: they agreed that he was soaked and likely to remain so because he hadn't brought a change of clothes to the hospital. After consultation, they delivered a hesitant verdict of 'not about to revolt in debilitating pain'. They also were firmly of the opinion that priority number one was getting back at Foreman. House narrowed his eyes. Foreman was looking far less pissed off than he really should be.

"You're not laughing," he said.

Foreman tilted his head, still with that half-smug, half-smirking look. "So?"

House peered at him. There was less than a foot between them and Foreman wasn't trying to get away. Hadn't dived for his towel. Let House use him as a buoy. "You're enjoying this," he said in realization. He shivered and decided to blame the water.

Foreman snorted. "Your impression of a drowned rat? Yeah, I am."

House didn't even bother replying. People who served revenge cold were obviously idiots. He liked it best piping hot and preferably with a side of total astonishment. He grabbed for Foreman again, as if he was making his way to the steps at the shallow end, but instead of moving past him, House shouldered him back against the edge of the pool.

Naked only had one solution, as far as House was concerned, which he proceeded to demonstrate.

Foreman's body was warmer than the water, and the smug increased the closer House got until he wasn't looking surprised at all. Which was less disappointing than it might of been, because he was showing no signs of drowning House and staging it as a suicide. In fact, he had one hand pushed up under House's shirt and was dragging him closer. House grunted, the water lapping at his throat, and tried to wriggle to a more comfortable position. Jeans were really not built to be drenched and then have this kind of pressure put on them.

"Moron," he said at last. "You didn't shower on purpose two months ago."

Foreman chuckled. "And you figured that out when?"

House rolled his eyes. Just now was obviously not an answer he'd ever admit. He reached for Foreman again, vengeance uppermost in his mind. "You don't care," he said, since he had the proof of that well in hand.

"Bastard," Foreman muttered, and kissed him again.

He tasted of chlorine.

end

Triumph!

2008-11-14T06:43:27Z

It's nice to be able to report some triumphs. They might help offset the Terrible To-dos!

- Filled out U of C application! Paid fee!
- Filled out U of T application! Paid fee!
- Filled out UVic application!
- Talked with advisor RE: big ol' presentation next week. Conclusion: well, at least I'll have stuff to talk about ("and here's what I haven't done yet, and also this, ooh and that part I haven't started but I'm sure it'll be interesting...") Given that the title is "Work In Progress Talk", I think this is probably okay.
- Bought a chair. Oh god you guys! I have been waiting most of my life for an office chair of my very own. Have been pissing off family members sitting in theirs. Finally broke down and went to Staples. They were right in the middle of a CHAIR EVENT. It was like kismet! I sat in all their chairs like a bargain-hunting Goldilocks. Several of them twice. Finally decided on the one I'd sat in second. $150 chair for $115, including assembly and a two-year warranty. (Who the hell needs a two-year warranty on a chair? But they threw it in for two bucks, so...okay, I can deal.) Chair is decadently comfortable. Leans back nicely. Hydraulics up and down. Me? A happy Zulu.

And a good thing too, because I'm going to be sitting in it a lot:
- outline CanLit paper
- draft CanLit paper (Thursday)
- outline French paper
- draft French paper
- fill out Laurier application, send fee
- re-double-check all other applications, send fees
- accumulate supporting documents: statements of intent, transcripts. (This item needs its own sub-to-do list, oh gods).
- write documentation sub-to-do list!
- prepare Work In Progress Talk for Wednesday
- study for French quiz, Tuesday
- critique story for Monday
- outline Brit Lit paper
- draft Brit Lit paper
- draft OW, Fluidity, ACQOL? Send to advisor.
- catch up on Nano (only...four days behind. it can be done!)
- Library: return LeGuin, get Delaney.
- Find TessQ, reread.
- Find SF poets: ask flist?
- close reading of Wild Seed, Imago, Dawn.
- OEB research
- Gender Trouble
- draft polite 'dear referees: where are you? love, me' email.
- collapse

That should do for the weekend. Oh, toss 'clean house' on there. Yes. Okay. Doable. Here we go.

House 5.07

2008-11-12T05:34:52Z

I don't know if it's noticeable when I stopped posting. So in case you missed it...I stopped posting for a week. I was pouting over getting dumped, and over a couple of (well-meaning!) comments from RL people saying "Dude, you...sure post a lot." Yeah. It's nice to know I can kick the habit cold-turkey for a week, and I wasn't even going to post tonight, but then I was talking with shutterbug_12 about tonight's episode and I felt inspired to say a few things after all.

queenzulu: I liked Cuddy much better this week. Cuddy this week should get together with House. Cuddy last week, I was meh about her relationship with House.
shutterbug_12: Well, Cuddy this week doesn't want to get together with House.
queenzulu: That's what makes it so good!
queenzulu: *This* is the Cuddy I've always *wanted* to get together with House. The strong, realistic, knowing-it's-a-disaster Cuddy.
queenzulu: Cuddy who has fun with him and who is mature; Cuddy who *tries* to give him the brush off while secretly wanting him.
shutterbug_12: Okay. But if she doesn't want to get together with House...how would she ever agree to get together with House. She's not...an idiot.
queenzulu: She knows it's a bad idea. But when has "it's a bad idea" ever stopped anyone?
queenzulu: You can't always get what you want--because sometimes you say to yourself, "what I want is a bad idea". But even if you try not to sometimes...you get what you need.

That pretty much sums it up, guys. Last ep House and Cuddy had this "desperate" "emotional" "comforting" kiss, and I stared at the screen with largely this expression: o_0. It came completely out of nowhere and I was like, "Um...what."

Okay, I get that the adoption was a huge thing for Cuddy. But I found the plotline quite sentimental and not believable (even for House!), where even with open adoption there should be some sort of paper-signing going on at the very least! And maybe a social-worker type! (As a social-worker type myself, I resent this exclusion.) And Cuddy...well, Lisa Edelstein does a marvelous job, but I hate to see how desperate Cuddy is. I want the show to stop hurting her and give her a freakin' break. Plus, the kiss? My quotation marks around the word "emotional" might give you a clue to how I was feeling. The most emotional kiss I've ever seen on House was when Stacy kissed House on the cheek at the end of Honeymoon--no tongues necessary to convey their loss and yearning and realization that they'll never forget what they had. A cheek-peck said so much more to me then than House and Cuddy did last ep. So the adoption storyline did very little for me. Also, "Joy Cuddy" is a stupid-sounding name. I'M JUST SAYIN'.

THIS WEEK, however, I loved Cuddy so freakin' much! She talked to House even though he didn't want to, and she dismissed him--really no better way to get the guy interested, you want my opinion. She out-cunninged Wilson's rather pathetic cunning plan, and she kissed him on the cheek (aww! again a kiss I liked better than last week's!), and she was smiling and confident and in control. It's clear, as Wilson says, that she's thought about it, perhaps too much, but that's what I love about House/Cuddy! That they mostly know it wouldn't work out but want it anyway.

I love yearning and nostalgia, they're two of my favourite emotions, and they were here in spades: but not blatant, not over the top. House and Cuddy are both terrified of what they might let themselves have, but you know they both wish so hard that they weren't afraid...that they trusted themselves and each other enough to go for it. That's what that last scene with House at Cuddy's door said to me.

Also, having watched television before, I'm super-confident that they will get together, kiss again and maybe have sex, and there might even been a tentative step towards a 'relationship' (that will, per Cuddy's prediction, crash and burn). No spoilers, please, but speculation in this vein is fine!

Wilson continues to use conduits to try and deny his love for House, by the way. Oh, Wilson. At this point it's only a little pathetic. We all know what you really want. (Answer: sex with Cuddy up against House's glass-walled office, for the purpose of making him jealous!)

And, in other news in the ep, AWW TEAM ORIGINAL. I loved House showing he's fond of them: "The Forester and the Camster! Kickin' it old skool!" He loves Cameron and will sex her as soon as she's legal; he knows Foreman's becoming more like him with every passing day ("Come on, Foreman--listen to that little voice in your head: the one that's coming from the phone."); and Chase is the only surgeon he'll ever have, IN DEFIANCE OF ALL LOGICAL SENSE. Wonderful inclusion of the other characters, too: I liked the way they're showing Thirteen and Cameron aren't, in fact, clones, and that Taub's storyline gets a little continuation.

Patient of the week: I totally believe the lead poisoning, because it's pretty clear the man SWALLOWED AN ANVIL. But beyond that, he was pretty good, and I liked the way the different clues came together and still didn't solve anything for him. (You knew the flowers were important, but not how.)

Generally, good episode. And if House/Cuddy continues like this, then they've brought me back on board their ship.

Dear Yuletide Santa:

2008-11-11T21:04:11Z

Hi, I love you.

That said, I think I could probably stand to elaborate on my requests!

First, I asked for Rick/Lily from Once and Again. Well, I'll tell you. I love pretty much all the characters on that show unreservedly. I like the angst and the hilarious moments of miscommunication, where, you know, ONE WORD in the first five minutes would've prevented a whole episode's worth of flailing. I love the kids and their relationships with all their parents. I love that there's job stress and kid stress and these moments of yay!family. So any of that would be totally awesome, hijinks and shenanigans and whatnot, especially focusing, I think, on the integration of the two families. But what would be really really awesome? Would be those moments of downtime between Rick and Lily when they FINALLY FINALLY have some time to themselves...and then make the most of it (coitus interruptus and helpless giggling would be cute, also). I'd very much love some explicit (yet tender!) het lovin' here. But if het's not your thing, then all those gen shenanigans and moments of awwww would rock like a rocking thing.

Second, I asked for Ida/Dub Dub from The Middleman. HEAR ME OUT, OKAY? Who else but Ida slaps Wendy on the butt? Who else mocks her--calls her a druggie, hates her friends, denigrates every single one of her hopes, dreams, and aspirations? Who else watches her smooch Tyler and blames it all on protocol? IF THAT ISN'T ~~LOVE~~ ~~LUST~~ TOTAL MISUNDERSTANDING OF ONE'S OWN STRANGE REACTION TO A MEAT-BAG, I FAIL TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS. If this idea breaks your brain--and I'd understand if it did--then something with Ida POV, how she came to work for O2STK (was built?), Ida's Brain, or maybe just crazy casefile Fighting Crime So You Don't Have To goings-on. Please feel free to include The Middleman and any/all of the other regular characters! Wacky villains also a plus, especially if their plots are just, you know, totally elegant in their simplicity.

Third, I asked for Omar Little from The Wire. I want...well, mostly I just want more Omar. I love him so! His code about not killing civilians; his patience in carrying out his hijackings; his alliances with other characters for fun and profit; his love for Brandon (and perhaps others? OMCs totally okay by me here, or other characters from the show if you'd like to ship them) and his subsequent revenge...any and all of that. Backstory? Yes! Future story? Sure! Boyslash? Why thanks, I'd love some.

So there you go! From this you can see that I love gen, het, boyslash, and girlslash. I love stories with hijinks and wackiness insofar as canon warrants, and angst to the same extent. I don't know that there's anything I don't like...I guess, no AUs? Kink is fine as long as it's in character. Any other questions, please feel free to ask via the mods. But know this: I WILL LOVE YOU AND YOUR STORY WITH MUCH LOVE.

Yours happily,
Zulu.

Failing at Nano one day at a time...

2008-11-02T19:34:00Z

435 / 50,000
(0.9%)

I don't have a filter for this, so...prepare to suffer my spam, I guess? This is yesterday's count. I'm about to start today's, but I will abandon it the instant it looks like I could be doing something more fun.

I fail at going to World Fantasy. I went in the evening Friday and Saturday, but partying was about the last thing on my mind. I'd much rather hang out in my bednest. It was good to see people, though.

zulu @ 2008-10-28T23:30:00

2008-10-29T05:30:58Z

No House post tonight. I saw it, so don't worry about spoilers if you want to talk about it in comments.

I am-- I am freaking out about grad school applications. Not because I fail at them, but because I am a perfectionist and they aren't good enough. My grades for my first degree are bad.

Oh, look what I typed there. That's sort of a lie--I mean, I made the Dean's List one year and I have a whole schwack of scholarships. But seriously. I have not one D+, but two. Grades I had to take because they were program requirements or because I didn't know I sucked so bad before the withdrawal date. Which reminds me: two withdrawals, too. And a C-. Shit, and another C-. Shit shit shit why the hell am I looking at my transcript when I already feel this sucky? Oh fucking hell I once had a term GPA of 2.4, what the hell am I doing?

Look, just because for the last three years my lowest grade was a B+ means nothing right now. And it should. I mean, I calculated my GPA today for my current degree and it is over 4.0 (if you count an A+ as 4.3). I need to focus on that. Fuck. And I made the Dean's List again. And I have four scholarships this year so far. Fuck, fuck, why can't I focus on that?

Need to do an insane number of things tomorrow. And not just tomorrow. For about the next two weeks. Talk to me about not freaking right the hell out after November 6, okay? After the sixth, things will be better. They've got to be.

Except for that other essay. And that presentation. And that story that's due.

Five full courses is fucking insane. And if I don't get As in everything then I must be a bad person.

I don't know if I want to leave comments open on this entry.

I don't know if I want to post this entry.

I am really glad I live with my family right now. There are hugs available on-demand. Also, my mom totally just spent the last forty-five minutes saying things like "I love you for you," and "You're an amazing person," and "You are going to kick ass at grad school," and "Oh, god, did I cause this low self-esteem by pressuring you as a gifted child?" (I don't know that I ever really was a gifted child, but it's always nice to hear.)

So, about House again--I would say things, but I think you can see I'm in no headspace to. But you should flail at me if you want to, because right now, I really really don't want to think about grad school.

I am going to post this, and leave comments open, but...I don't want advice, okay? Please don't advise me. Anything else is fair game. Thank you.

I am the luckiest tinhat shipper in all the world!

2008-10-28T22:07:11Z

YOU GUYS, THE MOST AMAZING THING HAS BEEN POSTED!

Has David Shore admitted that next season's storyline will be all House/Foreman, all the time? Keep guessing!

Have those lazy paparazzi finally caught Hugh Laurie and Omar Epps in a desperate and loving embrace in the doorway of their adjacent trailers? Better!

Have I just received the best present a rarepair shipper can ever dare to wish for? YES I HAVE!

It's Rolling Stone, by deelaundry, and it's a sequel to There's No Such Thing In The World (As An Undo Button). That's right, you heard me, it's MPREG KIDFIC HOUSE/FOREMAN, AND IT IS ALL FOR ME ME ME ME ME.

Well, not just for me: you, too, may go and bask in the utter adorableness that is House and Foreman's five-year-old son. I have yet to read anything on this earth that's cuter, you guys, for so much serious. There are shennanigans and hijinks and Foreman being smug and House being smug right back at him and also Wilson and Cuddy being baffled, flabbergasted, and insanely tolerant, just as they should be.

LOOK. LOOK AT THIS FACE. Tell me you don't want to read a story about this little guy:

I MEAN COME ON.

YOU HAD BEST ALL HOP RIGHT ALONG TO deelaundry's journal and tell her she is the most amazing person ever ever ever.

Wherein I go from panic to awesome: a pretty nice progression, all in all.

2008-10-27T16:20:50Z

PANIC!

When you email profs and ask them to give you letters of reference, that takes one kind of courage: it's mostly about wording the email in a professional yet engaging manner, reminding them that you totally got an A in their class, and that their specialty is soooo interesting. (Which, to be fair, many of their specialties are!) Then: you screw your eyes shut and click "send" before you can stop yourself, just, boom, send! ohnoes, it's done, can't take it back now.

But it takes a whole different kind of courage to actually open their reply emails. What if they despise you? (I can see from gmail's preview function that they don't.) What if they will never ever write for you in a million years? (The preview says "I'd be glad to write for you"...but I really, really sense a big ol' BUT coming along.) Oh god, she can't know me well enough, she can't possibly want to actually write for me, fuck fuck fuck I should just open the damn email. Then at least the BUT would be out there.

Yeah, I think I'll go shower and eat breakfast first.

ONCE YOU GO PORTMANTEAU...

foreteen has...wait for it...14 members. Since, when I started pimping it, it had two, I can feel the flex of my BNFy muscles. Yeah, that's right, I septupled their membership! (That verb sounds...way dirtier than it should.)

ICK

I have a cold. It is icky. I hope I'm better by Friday, when I may have a date.

AWESOME

Yesterday I had the awesomest dirtbike ride ever. (You know it was awesome when, the next morning, you find mud in your ear.) We went about 30 kilometers, over gravel and ruts and chasms and ice and through streams and puddles and vroom! VROOM VROOM! Grades of at least forty, fifty degrees. I only fell off once! Big ol' bruise this morning and achey muscles. Here's something you may not know: you have so much more control when you're powering the bike. Do not brake! You only fishtail. When you're in gear, the bike can only go as fast as the engine. In first, you don't have to worry about going too fast. And, if you're worried about a gulf or a tree trunk? Go faster, just rip right over it. Much less likely to spin out. Which is all very well in theory, but my instinct had me reaching for the brakes rather than the throttle more than once! Whoosh, that was enough adrenaline for me to last a while. But by the end of it, I was far better than when we'd started. In the beginning I had to stop before a hill and get up my courage. On the way back, I was like "Oh this? Pfft, one vroom and I'm already down and up the other side!"

My daddy is the best daddy and teaches me all the cool death-defying sports. So there.

To Do List

2008-10-24T18:27:17Z

- email advisor RE: cutting down to three specific books? presentation Nov 19 @ 3:00? writing rec letter?
- email three or four other profs RE: writing rec letters; ask for meetings
- email CanLit prof RE: essay, presentation grade
- email BritLit prof RE: essay (check office hours)
- research, let's say, five Canadian universities. Profs; recent publications; interest areas; courses offered.
- outline & rough draft of CanLit paper (research 3 secondary sources)
- outline & rough draft of BritLit paper
- read & crit story for Monday's class
- read assignment for French class (email prof RE: details of assignment? check Blackboard)
- finish The Secret Agent
- write short story (1800-2100 words)
- edit previous short story with advisor's suggestions (10% solution: cut 500 words)
- write out notes for one Butler novel; thoughts, impressions, inspirations. Themes.
- draft email for seminar prof RE: what I have accomplished this week(end)

S'all I can think of off the top of my head. Let's see if the list grows over the weekend. Whee.

REWARDS:
For every five tasks completed, I may...
- clip one episode of House OR
- write drabble for foreteen OR
- cut one vidsong

House 5.05

2008-10-22T04:24:08Z

OMG THIRTEEN. YOU GO GIRL!

LOL WILSON.

Pretty much my motto for this episode is, "Yes, do it; it's clearly "MEDICALLY" RELEVANT." I mean, I'm not the hugest fan of using Thirteen-on-girl action to attract viewers--I mean, I am, I really appreciated that aspect in the beginning, but when Thirteen's trying to be "doctorly" and still examine the girl for spider bites? Yeah, sorry, that was too voyeuristic for me, that was embarrassment squick territory. But I liked their relationship throughout, for being what it was: it didn't grate on me, and I like Thirteen even more now than I did before.

"He mistakes immaturity for edginess." Yep, that's House, all right!

How awesome was Foreman tonight, you guys? SO AWESOME, is the answer. I was totally down with the 14, which is the only smushed pairing name that I will ever love. He was there for her! He said all the right things, at exactly the right time! Right at the end, when she said, "I'm going home, I'm tired," I was so very much rooting for them: "Foreman, you boring idiot! Take a RISK. Go WITH her!" But alas, Boring Foreman did not take a risk and did not go with her. Stupid Boring Foreman.

Oh man, I could not have cared less about the medicine tonight, you guys. For so much serious. I was just happy that Foreman and House investigated Thirteen together--which OMG YOU GUYS, is EXACTLY what House and Foreman are currently doing on wooedforyears. Like, are shutterbug_12 and I prognosticators, or what? We've been playing the "stalk Thirteen" thread for a week! AND. God, the two of them! Stalking together; Foreman being needy about how much House has investigated him; the moment when Foreman says "Conversations go both ways," and the both of them chime in unison, "Like Thirteen!" Seriously, there has been so, so much House/Foreman vidding potential in tonight's episode, I'm downloading the hi-res version the instant it's available. And I love love love that he found something that House didn't, and that it was the big deal, and that he dealt with it outside of House's knowledge. YES. That's the Foreman I know and love in my fanon!

And Chase and Foreman! Foreman's still such a jackass about his "friends"--they are his friends, but it's certainly not because he believes it/works for it. Foreman, you ass! Chase is totally your BFF. And he's totally right in everything he says about you. I HOPE THIS LEADS TO FOREMAN TAKING A RISK. (Foreman, here's a hint: nothing says "suddenly unboring" like making out with your boss.)

Here's a conversation my sisters and I had after Chase says that Foreman has a tattoo:

Xmas_holly: Foreman has a tattoo?
Me: Yeah, right here on his wrist. It's Omar's tattoo, so.
Youngest Sister: It'd be better if it was on his butt.
Me: We wouldn't get to see it then. *muttering* ...Much as we might like to.
Xmas_holly: And now, on the Best Episode Of House Ever...

And later:

Me: This episode has everything I like! Foreman! Hot girls! [pause] Foreman with hot girls!
Xmas_holly: Foreman and House! Foreman and House and hot girls!
Me: I'm just going to go to my happy place and stay there.

Hee, sisters.

And, of course, the House/Wilson, very cute; and the House/Cuddy, clearly in the cards. Even I, who have been avoiding spoilers like a mofo, can see that coming a mile away. (NO SPOILERS STILL, PLEASE.) I'm really enjoying this season, you guys! I love not being spoiled, it's the best thing ever.

VID: Can't Always (House, PG)

2008-10-21T00:19:35Z

Title: Can't Always
Fandom: House, MD
Pairing/Rating: UST, PG
Length: 3:03
Spoilers: Through BIRTHMARKS.
Vidder's Notes: This was inspired by and made for troutkitty, whose song choices I love. Thank you to my betas, thedeadparrot and xmas_holly.

Summary: Wilson is everything House needs, but that's not the whole story.

Download at my vids page - 20 MB

Streaming on iMeem

Thoughts On Vidding

2008-10-16T19:00:58Z

You know, sometimes, when I'm not vidding, I forget how much I love it. And I haven't been vidding for a long time--interestingly enough, since vividcon.

I loved VVC; I loved talking vids for three days straight (you know, except when I was watching vids, or critiquing vids, or learning how to make vids, and, on one memorable occasion, sleeping). I came away from the whole experience with a hell of a lot of inspiration, but also a rather sizeable inferiority complex.

See, I had my first premiere vid showing. And that was, oh, about a year pretty much exactly after I started vidding, and it was my...ninth vid? I think? And when you see that up on the big screen, after a string of AMAZING VIDS, and yours is, well, a beginner's vid...I mean, you can see that. And I think what that whole experience taught me is that I'm not a vidder's vidder. My vid was called "old school slash", which I assume means I am behind the times...but I rather love the times I ended up in. I want to make tributes to my 'ships using sappy pop songs. I am, with no apology, a sap for sappy pop songs.

Even though I got a billion vidbunnies through fannish osmosis at VVC, I couldn't sit down to them. I mean, I listened to some songs, I brainstormed a bit, but the vidding urge, she was not there. But two days ago, the vidding urge struck. It's like lightning when it comes. WHAM! Suddenly I am a vidding machine. I lugged two external harddrives to school today so that I could clip between classes.

It is, however, a sappy romance idea set to a pop song. And in the back of my mind, along with my usual Internal Editor (OMG YOU SUCK!) I have all these VVC vids made by The Vidders, and they're set to instrumentals or their essential building materiel was shinier and prettier or they had as many layers as an ogre or...they were better.

Better: what does that mean? I'm talking, essentially, a difference in genre, aren't I? "Old school slash" (which I keep typing 'old skool' for whatever reason, oh internet)--that's valid, isn't it? Obviously it was for the proponents of that previous tradition! So if I still want to learn and improve, does that mean that necessarily I'm going to have to move above and beyond my simple cuts and effectless vids and my "oh god they played to death on the radio when I was in high school" song choices, or does that just mean that I'll start making better and better old-school slash vids?

I do not know.

But man, I love vidding.

*bops along to sappy pop*

ROCK THE VOTE

2008-10-14T17:40:59Z

The world is now a safer place for democracy because of me!

*happily chooses the closest thing I have to a Canadian icon*

FIC: Who Listens For The Wingbeats (House, Chase/Cameron/Foreman, NC-17)

2008-10-14T00:32:49Z

Title: Who Listens For The Wingbeats
Fandom: House, M.D.
Pairing/Rating: Chase/Cameron/Foreman, NC-17
Length: 4000 words
Spoilers: Through 4.16, Wilson's Heart.
Author's Notes: For ignazwisdom: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Thank you to daemonluna, troutkitty, roga, and shutterbug_12 for their beta comments.

Summary: And they'll come back to this point. They'll always come back.

Foreman looks worn out, sitting alone in the restaurant with one hand wrapped around a glass. Chase remembers seeing that expression on his own face, when he dipped his hands under the taps and tried to wash the exhaustion away. He tried to do his job and keep up with duties that should have belonged to nurses, orderlies, and lab technicians--all for House. Maybe he should be surprised at how quickly he got used to the normal run of the hospital. It was easy to leave House's idiosyncrasies behind. Chase is a surgeon. He's learned to live for surgeries and only surgeries, competing for OR time, practicing stitch after stitch. He has begun to remember that not every kind word is a lie. Not every call from his supervisor will be designed to cut him down and force him out of anything resembling a comfort zone.

House saw robbing them of their comfort zones as the most rewarding part of his job. Chase had believed his complacency would be like a lost limb. He might still feel a twinge of ghosted laziness from time to time, but it would never be there to trust his weight to.

Now he knows it grows back. He finds himself thinking in circles, in solutions, in surgeries; less and less in bright, amazing flashes that should be crazy but aren't. Maybe that's why he consults for Diagnostics when a call comes; why, insults aside, he keeps coming back after walking away. There are paths in his brain that he thinks House recognized before hiring him. Chase explored them and broadened them for three years. Now he wonders if they, too, will grow together, grow closed. Atrophy without use.

Except self-assurance grows back, too. Chase once wondered if all his wondering will fail. He wondered if, without House, he would fall. After falling for nearly a year, Chase can believe that he's flying instead.

He and Cameron were holding hands when they walked into the bar. They let go as they cross the room. Chase claps his hand on Foreman's shoulder, and grips hard for an instant. Foreman is reassuringly solid, and Chase has to remind himself to let go. He wants to hold on. He'd like to be convinced that Foreman misses him. Misses both of them. They haven't met like this in longer than Chase likes to think, but Foreman shifts to the center of the booth, and Cameron sits on his other side, just like they've always done. Chase looks at them both and wishes he knew where the people they used to be have gone.

Foreman picks up his glass, swirling the last swallow of his drink. "I never thought I'd be here again," he says quietly, shaking his head.

Chase meets Cameron's eyes quickly. "Why?" he asks.

Foreman's laugh has always been more about putting other people down than about genuine amusement. His snort might be directed at Chase, for asking a stupid question, or at himself, for thinking it could have been so easy to escape House's gravity. "I was sure I was out of here," he said. "I got the job at Mercy, and I was gone."

Cameron's lips tighten--no matter what she says, she will never forgive Foreman for profiting from her article--but Foreman doesn't notice. He stares into his glass and shakes his head. "I shouldn't still be here," he mutters.

"It's not a failure," Cameron says sharply.

Foreman's shoulders lift when he snorts again. "Maybe not to you," he says, and Chase lets himself grin in agreement. For Cameron, quitting wasn't about questioning who she'd become. It was self-righteous, not Foreman's crisis of faith. She could have moved. House was willing to play little-boy-with-matches for Foreman's bridges, but once the pattern was set--when House decided it was time to rid himself of them--he wouldn't have interfered. But instead, Cameron stayed, and took the job that Cuddy offered. Chase stayed too: maybe because he was too comfortable with being uncomfortable. Maybe because Cameron smiled at him, half like she was in love with him and didn't know it, and half like he was a slow child that she needed to help through the complicated process of a relationship. Too soon, he remembers, and too complicated. They've waited for a year, all three of them in stasis, like butterflies that lighted in tree sap and didn't know they were trapped until they tried to take off.

Cameron takes the glass out of Foreman's hand. She eyes the contents, mostly melted ice and very little of the original bourbon. "How many have you had?"

"One," Foreman says, with a dark look. "I'm not House, you know."

Cameron sits back and lifts her eyes, signaling a waiter with a tilt of her head. She's not dismissing Foreman, quite, but she's never been the one to assign him any of House's good qualities. It would take something from her hero worship, her crush, if she admits that House is just as much of a jackass. Foreman's far from the most pleasant person to work with. House's behaviour is excused by his leg, his pain, whatever it is that Cameron sees in him that she believes runs deeper than his sarcasm. She's always been determined to understand House, sometimes with a cold and calculating ambition, other times with a soft, badly-hidden yearning. Admitting that Foreman might be as good would be admitting that House was right, that day he suggested it was only a matter of time before Cameron set her sights on Foreman. And House's comment may have been what set her wondering. Chase knows she has her fantasies, as he has his: both of them laughing it off as the fact that they've worked too closely with each other and with Foreman. Between them, they've each whispered their share of quiet what-ifs into the darkness.

Chase has been watching her, and he wonders: does she love (except not love) him for the answers he was beginning to come up with on his own? Should he walk with a limp--walk away--instead of telling her he likes her with clockwork regularity?

It's a problem that he turns over in his mind, but he's not ready to treat her like a differential, to try radical treatments. He's been in relationships like that before, and he's worried more than anything that with her, they might work.

"Why are you still worried about Mercy?" Chase asks, once the waiter has taken their orders and left. His first attempt at the question has already slipped away. He wouldn't be surprised if Foreman didn't want to answer. "I thought you were happy."

Foreman shrugs a bit. "Yeah," he says. "It's been a real joyride."

He doesn't meet their eyes. It leaves room for Cameron to try and signal Chase over his head. They may not find a better time than this to tell Foreman what they've been thinking, what's been hanging between them in half-formed phrases and trailing touches. Chase wonders what Cameron really wants. For himself, he'd like to spend an hour, a day, not thinking, and maybe Foreman wants the same. Earlier tonight Chase was drilling into House's skull. He was the one who authorized the shocks. He could have stopped, instead of listening to House. Amber still would have died, but maybe House wouldn't have known the answer; maybe it's something that should have stayed a mystery.

One thing that hasn't faded from working with House is that there's only one question that matters. Did I do the right thing?

When the waiter returns, Chase takes his beer, but he's lost his taste for drinking. He didn't know Amber. He'd left the department before she joined, before she'd singled herself out from the gaggle of fellows following at House's heels. But she was his age, young, and he admired her determination to figure House out. He thought that she might turn out to be one of the few that could--after all, he's been there. He remembers laughing with Cameron when she found out that Amber was dating Wilson. He remembers thinking there was no surer way to get House's attention. There was even an instant when he thought about asking Cameron point-blank if she'd ever considered going after Wilson herself, although he knows she was never that coldblooded. It wouldn't have been love, to go through an intermediary...Chase himself aside.

There's an appeal to intermediaries, though. A certain safety. And if Foreman's arrogance isn't enough, then there's the way he looks at Chase sometimes, when Chase laughs at him for staying with House or tries to give advice--and Chase thinks, he knows we're going to ask. Foreman, amused and skeptical and unusually perceptive; it's a thought Chase has found hard to shake. His face feels hot, and Chase knows it shows against his skin. He slumps further into the booth, his knee nudging Foreman's, his foot finding Cameron's ankle under the table.

Cameron looks up quickly, and just as quickly goes back to flirting with the stem of her wine glass. The red she picked was fuller than her usual rose, and the barlights glint ruby through the wine. She looks tired, too, her hair falling around her face and her roots showing. She smiles gently, not at either of them, and it's far more beautiful than any time she's tried to convince him that what she feels is real. When she looks up at Foreman, Chase knows he was right: they're going to ask. "We should do something," she says.

Foreman takes a swallow of his second bourbon. House's drink. Chase wonders where Foreman picked up the habit. "Like a memorial?" he asks with a grimace. Chase imagines the heat of the drink, the burn in Foreman's throat. His beer is cold, and he suddenly wishes he'd chosen something stronger. "We didn't know her, Cameron. We should leave it to her family, or Wilson."

Cameron manages to bite back the obvious--Foreman certainly isn't reacting as if Amber was no more than a bystander in his life. "I meant for us," she says.

"Are we celebrating?" Foreman raises an eyebrow, a world of disdain in the gesture.

Chase swallows a laugh, but lets himself smile. A year ago, that would have been enough to send Cameron into a righteous fury. Instead, she lets out a sigh, almost scoffing. Chase watches her: the same way he always feels he's watching his life with her from afar. She defends herself to mirrors, but never to him. He should have left. He's moved from Melbourne to Princeton, but he still feels like he's missing so much of the world. He wants to break free of House's orbit. Here, right now, he feels like he's being pulled back in.

"No," he says, and he's surprised at the amusement that shows in his voice. "Cameron wants us to have a reunion."

He expects Foreman won't get it right away. He'll laugh and assume that Cameron wants them to hold a tea party and tell stories about House, and Cameron will have to come out and say it directly. But instead, Foreman looks up sharply, first at Cameron, and then his gaze swings to Chase. His eyes are intent, assessing, and his stare feels almost hot. Chase picks up his beer and swallows some, meeting Foreman's look evenly.

"And I suppose you're doing this for her?"

Chase can't help looking at Cameron. It's not for reassurance, or permission, even if that's what Foreman thinks. He wants to see the offended frown when she realizes that Foreman's already moved past whether she might want to sleep with him--in Foreman's mind, that's a given--and has moved on to consider Chase's motivations. She doesn't disappoint him, but she's quick enough to clip her mouth shut rather than interrupt. "Nope," Chase says, and gives in to the desire to grin. He will never say, Eric Foreman, you are that hot, but he will raise his eyebrows and take another drink of his beer. He has his own reason to be confident; Foreman has already brushed right past the stage where he might have shot them down without a thought.

Foreman tosses back the last of his drink and then sighs down into the empty glass. "This is stupid."

Chase doesn't contradict him. He can already imagine the regrets he'll have. Strange how that doesn't seem to slow his heartbeat, or make his palms sweat less.

Cameron smiles--she knows, now, what winning looks like. "You aren't saying no."

"No," Foreman says, and then he chuckles, broad and amused. "I'm not." His eyes stray to Chase's face again, but it's Cameron who gasps. Foreman's hand has disappeared beneath the table, and he's smugly checking Chase's reaction. Cameron blushes, but she watches him, too, with that smile he remembers from when she was using--both the drugs and him. That smile...she's gotten what she wanted, and she looks both prim and smug about it.

"I don't believe you'd had just one drink before we got here," Chase says to Foreman, but his gaze doesn't leave Cameron's face. A flush spreads across her cheekbones, and her eyes meeting his are bright.

"Everybody lies," Foreman says, and for once Chase doesn't hear any bitterness in his voice as he parrots House. Foreman believes it.

Cameron leans in, as if she's about to start telling secrets, and asks, "Can we continue this somewhere else?"

Foreman tilts his head, as if he's considering, but a moment later he's taken his wallet out and throws down enough cash to cover all their drinks, and probably three of his own. As he slides out of the booth, towards Chase, this time he's the one to grip Chase's shoulder, his hand strong and warm from the alcohol through Chase's jacket.

"My place," Cameron says, when they're out on the night-cool sidewalk, and neither Chase nor Foreman argues. They take separate cars, Chase driving as Cameron smiles out the window, Foreman following. Chase has been living at Cameron's more than not, and he unlocks her door as easily as he would his own. Cameron passes him, heading inside to turn on the lights. Chase waits on the stoop for Foreman, who shows up only a minute behind them. He's given up another chance to call them crazy and disappear. Foreman climbs the steps, with a faint smirk tugging at his lips. He raises his eyebrows when he reaches Chase, and follows him inside too closely to call it anything but eager.
Cameron has disappeared for the moment; Chase hears her back in the bedroom. He looks around at her apartment--it's still very much hers--and he can't help grinning at Foreman. "Beer?" he asks, even knowing there probably isn't any in the fridge.

"I don't think so." Foreman takes off his jacket, tosses it over a chair, and then he turns to Chase. He looks purposeful, intent. Chase has long enough to wonder why he agreed, what he wants, and then Chase lets out a sound when Foreman first touches him. The kiss is astonishing for the way it should be awkward, but isn't. Foreman kisses him, one hand warm against Chase's throat as if Chase is that kid they treated once, as if cutting off his air will make him come. Foreman's thumb strokes down Chase's carotid artery, their heartbeats mingling, and Foreman's lips are slow and certain enough to be sincere: he's inviting Chase to push forward, to kiss him back.

Chase first knows Cameron's back when he feels her fingers whispering against his chest. She's unbuttoning his shirt, her hands brushing occasionally against Foreman's stomach. Chase feels her drop a kiss against his shoulder once it's bared, and then Foreman extends an arm to her and brings her closer, bends so that he can kiss her too. Chase presses his mouth to her throat, tasting her skin, and undoes clasps and buttons, baring more skin to follow with his tongue. He likes the look of Foreman's hand against Cameron's stomach. He unhooks her bra, lets it fall away, while Foreman's fingers work slow and sure against her zipper and brush her pants off her hips. Cameron laughs breathlessly between them, naked, and then leads the way to the bedroom. She pushes Chase down on the mattress and then pulls Foreman after her.

Everything seems to be happening slowly. They're trapped in a golden light that's solidified around them, with everything inside sharply outlined. Chase feels every moment that he kisses and is kissed. He's hard, and when Foreman's hand drops to his dick, his grip is stronger and surer than Cameron's. Chase groans and pushes forward. Cameron is watching them, he knows, touching herself as Foreman rubs off against his hip. Their mouths slip together, their breaths combine. In the middle of all this sensation, Chase can't help but try and untangle their strange choreography, how they work together as if they've never left each other, how they know what's needed and where to tease.

Foreman catches Cameron's hand in his and presses her wrist to the bed as he rolls on top of her. Cameron's eyes are dark and wide, and she breathes in short, quick bursts. Foreman's hand goes to his cock, stroking quickly before he guides himself into her. They both freeze for an instant, Foreman's eyes closing and Cameron letting out a sound between a whimper and a moan. Chase leans in and kisses her, and she answers him immediately, one hand tangling in his hair. He palms her breast, then pinches her nipple, the way he knows she likes when he's inside her, fucking her. Foreman grunts quietly, and Chase looks up to see Cameron wrapping her legs around his waist, pulling him closer.

Chase wants to touch them both, as if he'd fit between them. He knows, now, what Cameron wants, and it's not him. He should resent her more, he should hate watching her with Foreman. They're looking at each other as Foreman rolls his hips forward. But Chase wants to memorize the expression on Cameron's face, the way the muscles of Foreman's back ripple and bunch. His dick is heavy and blood-warm and familiar in his hand. He thrusts into his own fist as he watches them. They're together in a way Chase couldn't have predicted; he knows this, from the way he catches the watch-tick of Cameron's pulse in the hollow of her throat, the way Foreman's hand is gentle, brushing her hair back from her face. They move slowly, then faster. Gasping together.

Chase already knows how Cameron's face opens when she comes. Foreman, though, is new to him, and Chase touches him, feels the sweat along his shoulders. His face twists in ecstasy and he pants hard, prolonging both their pleasure as long as he can, and when he's done, he grabs the back of Chase's neck and kisses him again. Chase wasn't expecting it, but he kisses back. It's a fight as much as a kiss, hard enough that it's revenge for what Foreman's taken from him without even knowing he's done it. But Foreman seems to understand, because he slows the kiss and makes it last. Their chests press together and Foreman uses his weight to push Chase down, until he's paying more attention to the kiss than to Cameron.

When Foreman backs off, though, she's there; Chase thinks, however briefly, that he'll never quiet escape her.

"Hey," she says softly. It's part of their call and response. I like you, he'll answer. Yeah, she'll say, with a smile, I think I like you too. In front of Foreman, though, it's changed, and Chase doesn't want to make whatever they have into a litany. This once, he won't give her what she wants; he's not going to forgive her for the way she was with Foreman. "Hey," he answers instead, and kisses her until she moans, and moves her hips against him; she is still bright and high with desire.

"Come on," Foreman says in a husky voice. "This I want to see."

Chase laughs, because they are never going to cure Foreman of thinking he knows everything about them, down to the motions of their lovemaking. Cameron lifts herself on one elbow, smiling down at him, nearly laughing at Foreman for wanting a show. Chase pulls her on top, wanting her badly now. Cameron sinks down, and he slides inside her. She's wet and swollen and she clenches against him almost immediately. Chase holds her hands against his chest and tips his head back, swallowing.

He can feel Foreman beside him, his cock still half-hard and damp. Chase opens his eyes when Foreman slides a hand down his chest, moving to the base of his dick. God, the feeling is intense. Foreman alternates between squeezing him and rubbing Cameron's clit when she moves her hips against him. "Oh," she says, her eyes closing, her thighs pressing him tighter. Chase pants hard, waiting, thrusting as best he can. When Foreman scrapes his chin down Chase's neck and then bites, quick and sharp, against his collarbone, that's when his orgasm rushes through him like a sudden tide. He can feel Cameron coming as well, from the way she moves frantically against him, from the sound of her breath in his ears. Sometimes, he thinks it's a lie; tonight, he believes her.

Afterward, Cameron sinks down on top of both of them, a slim weight holding them down. Chase closes his eyes, tries to feel where he's pressed against Cameron and where it's Foreman instead. He finds himself thinking that in medicine, it's the recovery that takes longest. Whether he's a surgeon or a diagnostician, though, recovery is pushed aside, forgotten. They find the illness, they cut it out. What happens after is left for someone else to deal with.

Foreman moves first. He sighs, and rolls away from Chase, leaving Cameron to settle against him.

"You don't have to leave," Cameron says, but she doesn't move to hold him back.

Foreman shakes his head. "I know," he says. "It doesn't work, anyway."

Chase blinks up at him, catching Foreman's bitter smile. But there's nothing he can say to that, and Foreman's as self-possessed as ever, picking up his clothes and dressing quickly, so that he's left the room--the apartment--faster than either of them might have put up any resistance.

Chase rolls closer to Cameron, kisses her earlobe and frowns as he doesn't tell her he loves her. His hand is on her belly, her fingers meshed with his, their legs entangled, but he knows she's staring across the room. He knows, because he is too. Does it mean something, that she's in his arms? Does he still care?

Where are the rest of them tonight? Does it bother Foreman that he's going home to an empty apartment? Does he care that House is in the ICU? Does he remember the look of devastated disbelief on Wilson's face when House told him there was nothing they could do? Chase knows what he would say: nothing they did tonight will change that; they did everything they could, and if it wasn't enough, then sometimes that's what happens. Sometimes, nights like this happen.

Chase closes his eyes. He was once in the center, and everyone else was leaving. Now he feels like he's the one travelling. Foreman will stay with House. Cameron will let him drift away, let whatever connection he looked for with her fade.

Foreman was right. They should all have left. They should have moved on. Chase has been flying for a year and he knows he'll leave again. He wants to see the world; and whether Foreman knows it or not, he's the one who's standing still and waiting. He's the one who's found a home. This time, Chase is ready to leave Cameron behind while he finds his own route. No matter where the three of them go, though, following the magnetic lines that guide their migrations, Chase knows they'll always come back to this point.

They'll keep coming back.

end

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-10-13T02:17:40Z

Oh, man, I think I'm gonna need a root canal. Don't worry, it only hurts when I chew. Eating is so unnecessary, don't you think?

...stupid teeth.

More importantly, we went and visited my aunt for Thanksgiving. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm unless the wind picked up. My aunt and my new uncle have bought themselves a parcel of land, about nine acres, right up in the forest up against Crown land. So it's all private and surrounded with firs, and they have the most gorgeous view of the valley and the mountains. The sun rises right in a notch of a pass east of them, so they get the morning sun, and they're building a house with a deck and such to take advantage of the evening light as well. So far, they've levelled themselves a road, built a garage, fenced in a horse corral, and started the foundation of the house. Oh, also, an outhouse: and to go with it, a septic field. Can't forget the important parts. Part of the reason we went was to get a tour, but also to chop ourselves as much wood as the pickup truck could carry. My dad and aunt did the chainsawing while my mom spotted and held the logs, my sisters hauled the wood about, and I split the logs up into halves and quarters for easy firewood use. I am an excellent axeperson! I've got pictures of the huge stack of wood I split. I'm going to say it was a cord, or a bushel, or some large measurement of firewood. It was a lot, anyway. After we loaded up the wood, we took a walk along the hydro line, where there was a track about an ATV wide, perfect for hiking or track-setting for crosscountry skiing in the winter. We walked until we came to a cliff overlooking Horse Creek, which is partly diverted onto their land, so they have a little gurgle of water during the summer months as well.

That evening, Saturday, we made ourselves the most sumptuous turkey dinner. There were turnips (I peeled 'em!), mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, gravy, cranberry sauce, dressing, the works. Nom nom nom nom. The deliciousness was unbounded. My uncle's two daughters were also there (cousins-in-law?), so it was a merry party. Felt very Canadian: after pie, we all watched the Flames get rather embarrassed by the Canucks and talked politics. Voting on Tuesday, y'all! We pretty much all agreed we don't want the Conservatives to get in; we pretty much all also agreed that they probably will, mainly on the "Look, We Haven't Screwed Up Too Badly, Right?" platform. Politics talk goes down real smooth if you happen to be drinking Bailey's on the rocks (and the rocks consist of French vanilla ice cream). Nom again!

This morning, we went back out to the land, this time to set four bonfires. These, along with the wood we'd cut the day before, is all the logging-detritus from opening the land up with the road and house-clearing and such. The bonfire piles were huge, probably ten or more feet tall, and we set 'em alight with oil and diesel fuel. WHOOSH! FLAMES! Those things put out some serious heat. We hazed up the whole valley, pretty much. Then we sat in the sunlight and ate campstove-cooked chili while my sisters riled up the dogs.

Aunt: "[Sister]'s playing fetch."
Me: "...and what's the dog doing?"

Beautiful weather, tons of delicious food, great visit with family, dog-chasing and wood-chopping and hiking...it was a most beautiful Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for my family. I am thankful that I have everything I need in this world. I am thankful that I have a good majority of what I want. I am thankful that I am a happy person.

I hope y'all have had just as wonderful a holiday. (Or, that you will, when you get around to it, you lollygagging Americans.) (Or, that it was a good weekend, rest of the world!)

My point is: *satisfied joy*

Reasons I love House/Foreman, #omgyoutinhat

2008-10-10T21:53:57Z

Look look look at the pretty layout cryptictac made for wooedforyears!

And revel in the truthiness:

troutkitty: God, H/F love is so true. It's like a true thing, you can shake up like an eight ball, and it always comes up "twu luv"
queenzulu: TESTIFY, SISTAH
troutkitty: plus, H's scruffiness looks so pretty next to F's not scruffiness
queenzulu: Contrasts, yes. See, they aren't clones!
queenzulu: I paid in porn for that journal layout. I love paying in porn.
queenzulu: Everybody wins!
troutkitty: no! And House can lash as hard as he wants and won't have to worry about hurting Wilson, because he knows Foreman can take it, and he can't not lash out, because then he's not himself
troutkitty: sigh
queenzulu: YES
queenzulu: YES
queenzulu: I AM QUOTING YOU IN MY LIVEJOURNAL
troutkitty: :)

Okay, the deal is.

2008-10-10T14:13:20Z

The deal is, 750 words original writing and then I may write fic.

I'm going back to the short story, and hopefully, after a day or two of distance and some rethinking, it will not resist my authority.

If it resists, the 750 words may be on the novel.

If it doesn't resist, and it's going well, I need not stop on word 750 precisely; finishing the story would not be a bad thing.

With regard to fic: today I shall be finishing older plotbunnies that have been languishing far too long.

That is the deal.

I'm going to eat breakfast, and then let's do this thang.

I love House. And Foreman. And House/Foreman.

2008-10-05T02:16:57Z

This is, like, one of those things about me that is probably pretty self-evident. But I've been thinking about it recently and I have this urge to share, so! Whee!

(I should be doing homework. That's probably what brought it on.)

Anyway!

Today I was rereading No Such Thing at its new home on the Archive, because I had to edit one of the chapters (I had two eights instead of an eight and a nine). And whenever I read that story, even a bit, I get sucked in right to the end.

deelaundry's writing more in that 'verse, by the way. And it's totally open, I swear. Anyone who wants to write, say, House's lost summer with Dylan Crandall when they both disappeared for three months with Dylan's car and an out-of-date roadmap...or Cuddy's secret crush on Jeff Yeager, the high school quarterback senior she beat for class president in her freshman year...or Wilson's family coming for a visit to see their "golden boy" son with his two kids and white picket fence, only to meet House who tells them the reason Wilson's first marriage failed was because he cheated, and if he ever does that to Cuddy, House will be castrating him...Mrs. Winkirk! I so want a story about Mrs. Winkirk--her POV must be awesome; maybe Dylan throws a ball into her yard and has to ring her doorbell to get it back, and he learns about her seven cats and her binoculars and her chrysanthemums and her casserole recipes and her niece Victoria with her fpreg daughter, and she tells him the story of how his parents got together and pinches his cheeks...I want Robert getting jealous of Dylan because House lets Dylan hug him without rules!

Ahem. Yes. Those things are things I want.

I also have recs! usomitai wrote Convincing, which is everything I love about the House/Foreman pairing: they use each other, they love the fight, except secretly it means more than they let on. She also wrote After Ambition, which is Foreman gen, and a good look at him after Euphoria, which of course the show never got into.

While you're enjoying your daily allotment of House-Foreman interaction, check out this snippet that deelaundry commented to me: United Nations. More arguments, with Foreman being smug. YES. YOU SEE. This is what I like!

AND. I said a few days ago that I was getting my House/Foreman needs met--or at least, more met than usual! It's because I took the plunge and started wooedforyears. It's a House/Foreman RPG set in season four, just after Foreman comes back from New York. It's gonna be awesome. I already have ideas for threads that may not happen for months, but I don't care, because IT IS SO MUCH FUN. The tagging will probably go really slowly--we two are muns with commitments--but just the idea is enough to make me wriggle happily. And cryptictac is going to make us a layout! And I'm going to upload even more Foreman icons to be my emotions!

I'm also thinking of following up my Knocked Up fusion success with another movie-fusion that's going to be so cool. It'll probably be a WiP because it's going to be one of those things that's really for me, so how I write it and how I post it I'm not worried about so much. But here, have a sneak peek:

This is a story about a man named Eric Foreman...and a bookstore.

Eric Foreman was not a reader. Oh, he read stories--stories about market crashes, about business tycoons, about start-ups and dot-coms--but he read them all in Forbes and Newsweek, and the only time he was truly excited over rising action was when the rows upon rows of digits on his stock listings in the newspaper ticked, gently, upwards.

For the past nine years, Eric Foreman's mind was taken up not with words, but with numbers. His calculations were precise and exact. He knew how many scratches to a superior's back would lead to a scratch of his own. He knew the percentage of his performance bonus before it arrived, for he would have long since tallied up his interesting cases resolved and his unprofitable cases passed on. He knew the price of what he wanted and of what he needed; he knew the mathematical difference between a colleague and a friend.

Every day, for nine years, Eric Foreman reveled in his superiority. He parked his BMW beside his co-workers' Fords. He wore pastel ties and tailored suit jackets, and raised a subtle eyebrow at anyone who bought off-the-rack. For nine years, Foreman was the best employee the IRS had; for nine years, he knew it, and made sure everyone around him did as well. For nine years, Eric Foreman lived alone, and didn't think much of it.

That is, before Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Eric Foreman walked into a bookstore...and that changed everything.

*grin*

Sounds fun, n'est-ce pas?

LOOK AT THE PRETTY

2008-10-03T13:47:32Z

Hey, it's the beta version of the Archive Of Our Own.

Right now, not to brag or anything, my stories comprise about 17% of the archive. (Yes, I did the math. I like math!)

I've found it pretty easy to use so far, with a few bugs that I'm making a list of to send to the accessibility and design people. Right now, I'm just happy to know that I have 185 stories. You should go and read them and leave feedback...y'know, to test the archive. TO ITS LIMITS. *beams innocently* Also, on this all-new archive, you can search by tags (whee!), and so for every story I've written with someone specifically in mind, I've tagged them with for:ljusername. In case you wanted to check in on the extent of my love for you, you can search and see if you're there. If not, you should probably say, "Tsk, tsk, no story for me? I had best prompt Zulu forthwith!"

It would also appear that I have ONE (1) invite to the archive, so that you too could have all your stuff up there, where there's probably going to be a large audience in the very near future. I mentioned it to a couple of you, that I hoped I'd have enough to spread around to a few folk on the flist. I DO NOT. I HAVE ONE (1). General etiquette question: it would be wrong of me to auction it off to the first person who wrote me a House/Foreman ficlet, wouldn't it? So very, very...wrong...

*eyes flist furtively*

SO CLEARLY I WOULD NOT DO THAT, IT BEING WRONG. AHEM.