#but we can absolutely do the reverse as well where Hameron is a deeply valued platonic friendship

[thefandomlesbian]

Okay I hear you but I think the relationship we get with House and Cameron is infinitely more compelling where there's neither a parental dynamic nor a romance arc.

We see a number of parental relationships with House, really toward almost all of the fellows, though Chase and Thirteen get the most attention. Even Taub, in spite of being similar to House in age, follows a narrative arc in which he learns from House and attributes this to him in the eulogies at the end of the show. The emphasis falls on what House can teach them and what he learns from growing attached to them, but it's a very specific dynamic.

Cameron is different. She doesn't look at him like a father or even, really, like an authority figure, from the pilot. She listens to him and obeys like a good employee, all the way up until she believes he's wrong, following the appropriate boss/employee rule, where she has no problem following orders unless her own skin is put in the game. Cameron views House as a peer from the word go. She treats him with respect and accommodates him in a way that could fool others into thinking she's his inferior. But from the first episode, when her conscience gets in the way, she intervenes where Chase and Foreman often hang their heads and suck it up.

It makes sense when this particular scene is introduced that we learn Cameron went through a terrible loss at a tender age. House theorizes later that her fixation on him is his brokenness because she's a fixer, but I think this stems more from brokenness on her part—"There is something wrong with you that is also wrong with me." She feels like damaged goods, which she relays to Chase in the course of their relationship, including her permanent contingency plan in keeping her dead husband's sperm. She relays this to Wilson in S5 after Amber's death. This experience is something Cameron will not share with anyone her age, or with many people at all, and House is someone visibly disabled. She's drawn to him because he is someone who might understand where she's coming from, not necessarily in terms of losing a spouse, but in terms of losing something very precious and irreplaceable and forever having the world view her differently for this experience (the stigma associated with the word "widow").

Cameron is still young, she's in a position where she hasn't had any meaningful relationships since her husband died, she has something to prove by becoming a doctor while keeping everyone at arm's length; it makes sense that she would mistake her feelings for House as romantic instead of the natural draw of a lonely person to someone who understands.

House, too, values Cameron for her role as a friend. He specifically seeks her out in lieu of Wilson to take her to see monster trucks. He goes to her before Foreman or Chase to do something he does with his best friend. He isn't thinking of it as a date, and their exchange at the end of the episode is not first date material; House treats her like Wilson, taking her food and relishing in the exuberance of their friendship.

Moreover, House doesn't get to have peers. Everyone around him either views him with worship or resentment. Wilson is unique in being House's friend. And on the professional level, he treats Cameron like Wilson once she leaves his tutelage, constantly receiving cases just because she asked, often appearing in the ED to annoy her, which she views fondly. She interferes with his team and manipulates, and he's okay with that, and he enlists her help to play pranks on his new fellows. House doesn't worry about keeping her at arm's length or maintaining some illusion of emotional distance.

House gets something important from his very few peer relationships where he will go soft for them and display his vulnerability in a way he won't for his fellows, where they rely on him to be the father figure. House needs to play a role in the dynamics with Thirteen, Chase, Kutner, where he doesn't need to fill any shoes with Wilson or Cuddy or Cameron. In that, he is freed from the expectations of a social contract, and the mask comes off.

The series isn't quiet about using Wilson and Cameron as mirror characters, where her conscience and moral code are her hurdles to inheriting the proverbial throne. I don't think that's lost on House, who desperately needs friends.

(I also think their friendship, like House's fascination at being with Thirteen at the lesbian bar, is related to the innate LGBT joy at being with a fellow community member.)

House being friends with Cameron, finding value specifically in a platonic peer relationship with her, is so important to me.

He is so gentle with her. I'm going to put my head through drywall