The very first person that House thought of at the sound of a woman's voice screaming his name was little miss Cellular Regeneration-what was her name? Cassie? Cathy? whatever-but whoever was outside his door shrieking at the top of her lungs, it didn't sound like the cheerleader from Odessa.
He had actually already started limping towards the door-intent on telling whoever the hell was out there that they should try taking a moonlit stroll down the docks and under no circumstances call him in the morning, when he heard Daisya's voice. Great. Lovely. That was the problem with taking in strays. They always just had to bring friends.
He pulled open the door with a ready scowl and glared first at Daisya and then at his companion (not bearing weight on one leg, he noted reflexively) in turn. "I know how easy it is to miss, what with the dark sky and the moon and all, but you might have noticed-it's the middle of the night. Some people are trying to sleep." Some people, apparently, not including him, since most of the lights in his house were on and he didn't look the least bit bed rumpled, but that was scarcely the point, in his mind.
Kanda simply growled, in far too much pain and a foul mood to reply to the man's sarcasm. If he had any hope in a full recovery, he had to take care of this injury now. Last thing he wanted was Lenalee jumping all over him like a rabid hellcat for hurting her body. She never broke a damn leg in her life. And he hadn't even been in it for forty-eight hours when BAM! he broke one.
He decided to let Daisya do all the talking. The moron was good for something every once in a while, after all.
Daisya sighed and supported Kanda so she wouldn't fall off of the porch. Honestly, if he wasn't such a hot-headed bastard, they wouldn't be in these situations nearly as often.
"'m sorry to bug you," Daisya began, looking up at House with a pained expression. "She's not usually so, ah, impatient. We got into a little scuffle with that Noah I told you 'bout... uh, the one who killed me. She went a little overboard an' messed her knee up bad... an' you're the best person I know for this kinda thing. I mean... I don't trust some random person with her. So... please..."
House glowered--positively glowered--at Daisya, because god damn it, as badly as he really wanted to say "Sorry, not interested," Daisya was his patient and House had a vested interest in keeping their relationship copacetic so that the next time he had a test he wanted to run he would have a minimum of convincing, arguing, or cajoling to do first.
He pushed the door open wordlessly to allow them to come inside, and said simply, "Kitchen," before closing the door more loudly than was strictly necessary.
Since Daisya had last been here, House had been doing some planning, some stocking, some rearranging. He had a lot more supplies and more than a few new brainstorms. He also had freshly scrawled-upon kitchen walls, and though none of the information he'd put there was attached to names in a way that would be directly compromising to anyone, if he was going to have random people banging on his door asking for medical attention at all hours of the night, he would have to come up with a way to cover up his impromptu white board in short order.
"Sit down," he told the girl, gesturing impatiently with his cane to a chair by the kitchen table. "Tell me where it hurts and exactly what you were doing when the pain started."
He kind of liked this guy. Straight to the point. Good. With Daisya's help, Kanda sat down on the chair, trying to find the most comfortable position to rest his injured leg that didn't make him want to rip something apart from the pain. He only vaguely noticed the untidiness of the kitchen; Kanda, while one of the curious sort, didn't extend it to sticking his nose in other peoples' businesses. If the guy liked to paper mache his house in his spare time, then to each their own.
"I was in a fight," Kanda explained. "I put too much momentum in my jump and landed on my leg improperly. In fact, I don't need much of a diagnosis, I already know what's wrong. I tore my medial collateral. I'm just here to see if I'm going to need some kind of surgery or not."
He had not been trying to brag, by any means, in his anatomical knowledge. Kanda had sustained almost every injury imaginable short of severed limbs during his career as an Exorcist. After years and years of doctor after doctor telling you exactly why you can't leave the hospital after only a couple of hours in intensive care, you tended to pick up a few things.
"Oh, well good," returned House scathingly, "I'm so glad that you decided to come all the way over here to share your diagnosis with me. Because really, I just can't get to bed at night without a knee injury to soothe me to sleep. It's like counting sheep."
Charming. He didn't just get a patient with a boring knee injury that he didn't want to treat, he got a self-diagnosing, know-it-all patient who was going to try and tell him how to treat her. His favorite.
He limped around to the far counter and began going through drawers, pulling out syringes, bottles, bandages. "You allergic to any medications? Any family history of osteoarthritis? Degenerative bone disease?" He glanced over at her as he went to the ice chest, retrieving a small ice block, which he wrapped up in a square of cloth.
He caught a look at Daisya in the periphery of his vision as he did, his eyes flitting over him quickly-too brief a scrutiny to notice, but in a moment he took in his posture, the blood stain on his back, the expression on his face. Now that was what made this visit worth his time: Sunshine was looking distinctly less sunny. " We got into a little scuffle with that Noah I told you 'bout... uh, the one who killed me." Interesting. Significant.
Without acknowledging that he'd noticed anything about Daisya at all, House pulled up a chair in front of Lenalee and handed her the impromptu ice pack, "Here, hold that against the inside of your knee. I'm going to give you some codeine for the pain."
"No, no, and no," Kanda responded almost automatically to House's questions. Well, he definitely wasn't allergic to any medications. As far as his family history went, hell, he couldn't even remember his parents' faces, much less their health problems. But even if there had been any unfavorable hereditary characteristics, the Om would have already taken care of them. In fact, his little nifty ability could do anything except cure the common cold and a few minor flu symptoms.
Kanda sighed softly as he took the ice pack and placed it against his knee. It felt a bit better now, the pain was dwindling somewhat now that he wasn't trying to move all over the place at once.
Great. Drugs. That seemed to be every doctor's solution with each visit he made: pump him up with drugs.
"You sure about that, Lenalee?" Daisya asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
He shifted a bit and sat down next to her, grimacing a bit as his coat pulled at the wound on his back. He was tired, and he wanted to rest, but he had to take care of Kanda first before the idiot wrecked Lenalee's body further.
Oh, damn. Daisya's words reminded Kanda that he was no longer in his own body. He snarled at Daisya, as if it was all his fault, before glaring at the floor.
This was all starting to just get too damn confusing for him. Well, if anything, at least he no longer seemed too weirded out by it all.
House would have had to be a complete moron to miss, from that little exchange, that something was very definitely up with these two. People did not look cowed when asked if they were sure about their medical history unless they were hiding something.
The only question was how to get whatever it was out.
Drawing a dose of codeine into a syringe and tapping the air bubbles loose, House fixed the girl with the sort of maniacal smile that would have looked very much at home on a mad scientist. "Well, if she's not sure this should be a real adventure," he said, as though he found the prospect of a sudden allergic reaction to be the potential highlight of his evening.
"I'm quite sure," Kanda said with all confidence. Hell, this guy could ask everything about Lenalee from her health issues to her personal bad habits and Kanda could answer them all in all confidence. He had known that girl since forever, after all.
Didn't mean he could act like her, though, try as he might.
Kanda couldn't help feeling slightly unnerved at the way House looked at him. He was suddenly reminded of being underneath Komui's drill back at Headquarters. Definitely not pleasant memories. Instead, he made a point to glaring in the other direction. "Let's just get this over with," he muttered.
House watched the young woman with narrowed eyes. He already knew she was lying about something, the only questions were what and why. He certainly wasn't just going to come out and ask though. That would be like grinning in poker when you were dealt a straight flush: win the hand, lose out on the bets. The way House played, it was always better to up the ante.
He gave her the injection IV, so that the effect would be immediate: enough to take the edge off the pain but not so much as to relieve it completely. He still needed her to know what she was feeling, after all.
"All right," he told her, as he limped back across the room to drop the needle into a metal pot that looked a bit like an antique pressure cooker, "get up on the table and lie down on your back. And let Daisya help you, since you've already managed to demonstrate just how graceful you are at moving on your own."
Daisya snorted a bit and stood, picking Kanda up before she could protest. He put her carefully on the table, then stepped back and looked up at House, nodding.
"Thanks for your help again," he said quietly, and retreated to the chair he'd been in, sinking back into his thoughts.
Kanda would have said something, except, to be honest, he really didn't want to say anything. He felt rather lightheaded, but blissfully so. Like swimming. He liked to swim. He much preferred to bathe in lakes and streams than normal showers because it meant that he could swim...
House watched Daisya out of the corner of his eye, diagnosing him as much as he was the girl. Sunshine's mask of stoicism seemed held in place by a thread, and as much as he obviously wanted to retreat into his head, lick his wounds, whatever it was that would allow him to reassert his sunny demeanor, House had a distinct interest in keeping him from doing so: curiosity could be a devilish motivator.
"Here," he said, tossing him his cane as he returned to the table, "hold my metaphor for a minute, would you."
He then turned his attention to the girl. Now that she was lying down, he finally had a really good view of her footwear and thus could immediately cultivate a healthy appreciation for just how…elaborate it was. Great. And there'd probably be objections if he just cut the damn boots off. Well, fine, he could make this work to his advantage too.
Beginning at the topmost fastening, he started to unbuckle and remove the boots. Casting another look at Daisya as he did, he said wickedly, "I'm just gonna undress your girlfriend while you watch. I'm sure you don't mind, right?" All in the service of harvesting information, of course. (Besides, not like you could really tell, what with local trends and all, but she looked like she was about 17, if that: House would only have been interested in dropping sexual innuendos for the shock value of it anyway.)
He dropped one boot unceremoniously to the floor, then the other. And then, delivering a none-too-gentle wake-up call, he leaned in close to the girl and nearly yelled, "Hey! You! Lisa or Linda or whatever your name is! Pay attention! You need to tell me if you feel any discomfort, all right?"
"Mmm... fish would be good every once in a while," Kanda replied dreamily. "Fish and soba, soba and fish... tempura is the best ever. But no beansprouts. I fuckin' hate beansprouts."
The very first person that House thought of at the sound of a woman's voice screaming his name was little miss Cellular Regeneration-what was her name? Cassie? Cathy? whatever-but whoever was outside his door shrieking at the top of her lungs, it didn't sound like the cheerleader from Odessa.
He had actually already started limping towards the door-intent on telling whoever the hell was out there that they should try taking a moonlit stroll down the docks and under no circumstances call him in the morning, when he heard Daisya's voice. Great. Lovely. That was the problem with taking in strays. They always just had to bring friends.
He pulled open the door with a ready scowl and glared first at Daisya and then at his companion (not bearing weight on one leg, he noted reflexively) in turn. "I know how easy it is to miss, what with the dark sky and the moon and all, but you might have noticed-it's the middle of the night. Some people are trying to sleep." Some people, apparently, not including him, since most of the lights in his house were on and he didn't look the least bit bed rumpled, but that was scarcely the point, in his mind.
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He decided to let Daisya do all the talking. The moron was good for something every once in a while, after all.
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"'m sorry to bug you," Daisya began, looking up at House with a pained expression. "She's not usually so, ah, impatient. We got into a little scuffle with that Noah I told you 'bout... uh, the one who killed me. She went a little overboard an' messed her knee up bad... an' you're the best person I know for this kinda thing. I mean... I don't trust some random person with her. So... please..."
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He pushed the door open wordlessly to allow them to come inside, and said simply, "Kitchen," before closing the door more loudly than was strictly necessary.
Since Daisya had last been here, House had been doing some planning, some stocking, some rearranging. He had a lot more supplies and more than a few new brainstorms. He also had freshly scrawled-upon kitchen walls, and though none of the information he'd put there was attached to names in a way that would be directly compromising to anyone, if he was going to have random people banging on his door asking for medical attention at all hours of the night, he would have to come up with a way to cover up his impromptu white board in short order.
"Sit down," he told the girl, gesturing impatiently with his cane to a chair by the kitchen table. "Tell me where it hurts and exactly what you were doing when the pain started."
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"I was in a fight," Kanda explained. "I put too much momentum in my jump and landed on my leg improperly. In fact, I don't need much of a diagnosis, I already know what's wrong. I tore my medial collateral. I'm just here to see if I'm going to need some kind of surgery or not."
He had not been trying to brag, by any means, in his anatomical knowledge. Kanda had sustained almost every injury imaginable short of severed limbs during his career as an Exorcist. After years and years of doctor after doctor telling you exactly why you can't leave the hospital after only a couple of hours in intensive care, you tended to pick up a few things.
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Charming. He didn't just get a patient with a boring knee injury that he didn't want to treat, he got a self-diagnosing, know-it-all patient who was going to try and tell him how to treat her. His favorite.
He limped around to the far counter and began going through drawers, pulling out syringes, bottles, bandages. "You allergic to any medications? Any family history of osteoarthritis? Degenerative bone disease?" He glanced over at her as he went to the ice chest, retrieving a small ice block, which he wrapped up in a square of cloth.
He caught a look at Daisya in the periphery of his vision as he did, his eyes flitting over him quickly-too brief a scrutiny to notice, but in a moment he took in his posture, the blood stain on his back, the expression on his face. Now that was what made this visit worth his time: Sunshine was looking distinctly less sunny. " We got into a little scuffle with that Noah I told you 'bout... uh, the one who killed me." Interesting. Significant.
Without acknowledging that he'd noticed anything about Daisya at all, House pulled up a chair in front of Lenalee and handed her the impromptu ice pack, "Here, hold that against the inside of your knee. I'm going to give you some codeine for the pain."
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Kanda sighed softly as he took the ice pack and placed it against his knee. It felt a bit better now, the pain was dwindling somewhat now that he wasn't trying to move all over the place at once.
Great. Drugs. That seemed to be every doctor's solution with each visit he made: pump him up with drugs.
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He shifted a bit and sat down next to her, grimacing a bit as his coat pulled at the wound on his back. He was tired, and he wanted to rest, but he had to take care of Kanda first before the idiot wrecked Lenalee's body further.
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This was all starting to just get too damn confusing for him. Well, if anything, at least he no longer seemed too weirded out by it all.
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The only question was how to get whatever it was out.
Drawing a dose of codeine into a syringe and tapping the air bubbles loose, House fixed the girl with the sort of maniacal smile that would have looked very much at home on a mad scientist. "Well, if she's not sure this should be a real adventure," he said, as though he found the prospect of a sudden allergic reaction to be the potential highlight of his evening.
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Didn't mean he could act like her, though, try as he might.
Kanda couldn't help feeling slightly unnerved at the way House looked at him. He was suddenly reminded of being underneath Komui's drill back at Headquarters. Definitely not pleasant memories. Instead, he made a point to glaring in the other direction. "Let's just get this over with," he muttered.
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He gave her the injection IV, so that the effect would be immediate: enough to take the edge off the pain but not so much as to relieve it completely. He still needed her to know what she was feeling, after all.
"All right," he told her, as he limped back across the room to drop the needle into a metal pot that looked a bit like an antique pressure cooker, "get up on the table and lie down on your back. And let Daisya help you, since you've already managed to demonstrate just how graceful you are at moving on your own."
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"Thanks for your help again," he said quietly, and retreated to the chair he'd been in, sinking back into his thoughts.
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Hang on, what the hell was he thinking about!?
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"Here," he said, tossing him his cane as he returned to the table, "hold my metaphor for a minute, would you."
He then turned his attention to the girl. Now that she was lying down, he finally had a really good view of her footwear and thus could immediately cultivate a healthy appreciation for just how…elaborate it was. Great. And there'd probably be objections if he just cut the damn boots off. Well, fine, he could make this work to his advantage too.
Beginning at the topmost fastening, he started to unbuckle and remove the boots. Casting another look at Daisya as he did, he said wickedly, "I'm just gonna undress your girlfriend while you watch. I'm sure you don't mind, right?" All in the service of harvesting information, of course. (Besides, not like you could really tell, what with local trends and all, but she looked like she was about 17, if that: House would only have been interested in dropping sexual innuendos for the shock value of it anyway.)
He dropped one boot unceremoniously to the floor, then the other. And then, delivering a none-too-gentle wake-up call, he leaned in close to the girl and nearly yelled, "Hey! You! Lisa or Linda or whatever your name is! Pay attention! You need to tell me if you feel any discomfort, all right?"
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