#sorry if this isnt exactly what you wanted i CANNOT do uncomplicated fluff

[eliotquillon]

Drabble req: the first time chameron say "I love you" to each other. Cause you know it was messy and you know they didn't say it at the same time.

obligatory @all-pacas already has a fic about this that is VERY GOOD and you should read (https://archiveofourown.org/works/57257620) but:

“I love you,” Chase blurts out while they’re doing the dishes; he washes, she dries, because when she first started staying at his apartment she was aghast to see water spots on all his dishes and broke her self-imposed rule to never clean up after a man just for her own peace of mind. Cameron freezes, hand gripping a pasta bowl with the edge of a dishtowel, and Chase adds, “You don’t have to say it back.”

It’s early to say it. Too early to say it, Cameron thinks; ever since her husband died, she’s been a big believer in the six month rule, unwilling to allow herself to be caught off-guard again. Words mean things. She knows it’s different, for men, read a psychology case study about how they almost always say it first in heterosexual relationships, but it doesn't change the fact that this is still too early. They've barely been together for two months, if you don't count their bout of casual sex beforehand. Cameron has a sinking feeling that Chase probably does count it. Which would make it closer to three months, but that's still—

"It was just dinner,” she jokes, trying to deflect. She’s been trying to ease herself into letting him into her life; he doesn’t have a drawer at her apartment yet, but they go to her favourite Chinese place often enough that the staff have started to recognise him, ask how that nice British boy is doing on the rare occasion that she still goes there by herself. She never corrects them. It feels more intimate than just sharing space; if they break up, she’ll probably never be able to go back to that Chinese place again. Or she will, out of spite, but it won’t be the same. “Though their egg rolls are pretty good.”

“You don’t have to say it back,” Chase repeats, flushing pink—she tells herself it’s just steam rising up from the sink full of dirty dishes and hot water—“but don’t make a joke of it, Allison.”

Cameron swallows. “I don’t know what to say,” she admits, which feels worse than the joke. Admitting she doesn’t know what to say is tantamount to admitting that she hasn’t considered loving him yet, that she’s nowhere near ready to say it back; if she’d seen it coming, she would’ve had an answer prepared. Something nice, confident but not glib—thank you, maybe, or I really like you, too. She doesn’t like this off-kilter, unmoored feeling. Maybe it would be easier, if they were at her apartment and if she could stare at the kitchen wall to collect her thoughts without seeing Chase everywhere, but they aren’t. It isn’t.

“That’s alright,” Chase says kindly. She forgets, occasionally, that he is capable of graciousness. It’s still strange, sometimes, interacting with him outside of the gilded cage of the conference room. They drive to work together, and a part of her is always a little bit surprised that they go their own separate ways; that this isn’t some elaborate charade, and that one day they’re not both going to walk up to House and go we really had you going, huh? Not because things are going badly. If anything, it’s because they’re going well. If she pretends that she’s pretending, then maybe things won’t hurt so much if they end. “I can take over, if you want.”

He means the dishes. Cameron smiles, relieved. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?” she says. “I’ll have a better answer next time.”

It doesn’t mean she’ll be ready to say it back then. But it’s a promise, sort of. Eventually. Eventually, Cameron thinks, and she sets the pasta bowl out on the rack to dry.