as_damaged | ☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

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☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

❝You've reached Allison Cameron, please leave a message.❞

☎ voicemail

☎ text message

☞ action

[ooc: retired thread, for reference, here.]

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That's true. How am I doing so far?

Do you really need me to tell you?

[He lives for positive reinforcement - that much will never change. So of course he does, Cameron. But it doesn't seem to be the correct response to say yes now, so he glances across the room to check if the food is on it's way.]

Maybe by the end of the evening.

Maybe.

[Too much feedback is against the rules, as surely as explaining the rules would be. But she's still wearing that ghost of a smile, leaning back in her seat with a forearm resting on the edge of the table.]

I hope it's an improvement in your evening, too.

Well, I was on the last chapter of a really great book.

[It's... not as much of a joke as he makes out. Chase has yet to figure out that the nights spent on his own with whatever the library has deigned to give him, takeout and a solitary bottle of beer might be considered less sad than the ones at random bars with random people. He is, at least, gradually working out that the latter don't make him feel less empty, or more than temporarily less alone.]

You still win, by a margin.

[Haha book joke?]

[Now, now, puns are a slippery slope into abject corniness. Evenings spent with takeout and a book are much closer to Cameron's usual-- and, truth be told, to her ideal-- though the City's peculiarities tend to drive her out to dinners alone in crowded restaurants more often than she'd like.]

I suppose I'll have to work on widening it.

[At the least, she's starting to relax a bit.]

[He grins into his wine glass, lifting it off the table as their starters arrive. And, at least on appearances, it seems that the restaurant's reputation is well deserved. When they're alone again:]

So, I decided something while I was locked in my office the other week. I've been trying to figure out whether you'll think it's a good idea or not.

Is this your way of buttering me up before you run it by me?

[The thought spoils her relaxation a bit, but it doesn't much show as she sips her wine.]

No, it's my way of getting to spend some time with you somewhere I thought you might like. Running it by you was going to happen either way.

Edited 2012-11-05 02:09 (UTC)

That's a relief.

[Can't take a joke, hmn?]

So?

[He's just a little nervous. She might be too if she had the potential to open Pandora's box.

(but at the bottom of the box is...)]

I don't want to keep secrets from you.

[That comes out quickly.]

From House, when it's possible, yes. Wilson, fine. I don't want to keep them from you. I also don't want to lay things out you might not want to know.

[He looks down at his hands and doesn't make the qualifier that what she thinks she wants to know may be different from the reality. For all that telling her had made things fall apart, not telling her was working the same trick in a different way. Not telling her just meant she yelled at patients and stalked him to the gym.]

What I'm saying is, next time I'll shut the door. I won't lock it.

[Well that's... something. She doesn't need to ask why she should be different (maybe that's telling; but then, perhaps not. It's not as though their history is a secret, even if her future ought to be.]

All right.

[It takes her a long moment of thought to add to that. She knows just enough to know that further knowledge won't make things any better; but not knowing weighs hard on her here, too.]

I don't-- that can't have been an easy decision, I'm sure.

[He doesn't want to seem like he's being gracious, here. Like this is a gift. It's not - he knows what it's lead to before. It's more like offering to share a heavy weight.]

I don't think it would be an easy decision for you to open the door.

You're right.

[Because she can't imagine anything that would destroy her then and there, that wouldn't trouble her as much here and now. And that's doubly troubling here, where there's only her small cohort from home and a City full of near strangers. It's hard to find anyone to trust; she's even less willing, under the circumstances, to risk cutting someone off. To risk the need to do so.]

But... [Sooner or later, they need to stop ignoring it.] I have to believe... openness... is a step in the right direction.

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☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

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