War and Peace on the Kindergarten Playground: Ch. 1-3
Chapter 1: Jelly Bean Roulette
“Good Lord!”
His iron stomach had survived most of his college years, med school, and that two-month stint where he and his roommate had lived on nothing but Ramen noodles in order to buy a VCR and begin an all-important collection of porn tapes. And in two seconds and with a single piece of candy, the reputation that he had spent years of schoolboy pranks and dares building was dangerously close to toppling.
The repulsive flavor that had amped his gag reflex past eleven had assumed the shape of a single jelly bean, but surely it was some sort of clever guise - something this disgusting must have been fermenting in the center of a garbage heap for a thousand years before being dug up, chewed on, and spat back out by the devil himself.
Eyes watering, House grabbed at the paper napkin that was held out to him and spat into it, scrubbing his tongue like a five-year-old and glaring at the now-suspicious bowl of candy before him. “What the hell was that? It tasted like it had already been digested.”
“Vomit’s one option,” Wilson answered, once he could stop laughing long enough to speak. Reaching into his desk, he tossed House a small purple box. “Or earwax or sardine.”
House eyed the box of Every Flavor Beans, which included an array of tastes to satisfy almost any madcap craving: from cherry to grass to rotten egg. “Spew-flavored candy? We should stock this instead of ipecac.”
“Gave a kid in the clinic fifteen bucks for the box - five for the candy, ten to separate out the favors. After seeing your face, it was completely worth it.”
“What did I do to you - ?”
“Recently?”
There was a half-eaten Tupperware of something on Wilson’s desk and House snagged it. It looked strikingly unsuspicious and smelled more-or-less okay, but Wilson’s yelped protest at its sudden disappearance clinched it: House took a bite.
“Mmm. Deliciously vomit-free. My compliments to the chef.”
“I’ll let him know you enjoyed it,” Wilson answered dryly. “He’ll be thrilled.” Seeming to resign himself to the fact that he would have to relinquish his lunch for the moment, he sighed, reaching for the bowl of candy and tipping it into the trash.
“Hey!” House reached out to stop him, grabbing the bowl and managing to save a few of the precious, grossly-colored jellybeans. “Give me that. That stuff’s a disgusting goldmine.”
Wilson took this opportunity to win back his lunch, hurriedly taking a bite before House could seize the container from him again. “They’re revolting.”
“You know that. I know that. But my three little pigs don’t.” He propped his cane up against the edge of Wilson’s desk and leaned beside it. “I don’t know about the other two, but I can definitely get Chase to down a couple of these. Wanna come watch?”
“As scintillating as that sounds - no. And why are you hiding from Cuddy?”
“Why do you think I’m hiding from Cuddy?”
“She’s asked me where you were three times in the last two hours. And...”
He was watching Wilson carefully, saw his eyes flick to the doorway a split-second too late.
“House.”
Her voice lilted roughly, unpurified honey straight from the hive and streaming stickily over him - sweet and abhorrent, unwanted and erotic all in a single word.
Something must have been jamming her radar, because he had successfully avoided her the entire morning - no easy task: Cuddy was an efficiently-trained general with built in tracking technology and artillery that he had not only become very good at dodging, but also, luckily, was very rarely switched from stun to kill. But just like that - in the course of a few seconds and with food as a decoy - all his careful efforts at evasion churned down the drain, and he hadn’t even had time to reach for his weapon or radio for backup.
Only deviating half a moment to glare at Wilson, House turned, sculpting his features into the most innocent expression he could muster, puppy dog eyes included. He held out the bowl and shook it enticingly, its contents rattling. “Jelly bean?”
“No.”
Her eyes were sizzling, flashing sparks at the end of twin fuses. A lesser man would have raised the white flag and begun slapdash negotiations for an immediate cease-fire.
House grinned.
“C’mon…” he snorted in disbelief, cocking his head. The jelly beans clinked against the glass as he swirled the bowl. “I saw you at the fro-yo machine in the cafeteria yesterday. You could’ve given that German kid in the chocolate factory a run for his money.”
Cuddy didn’t crack, folding her arms across her chest as she glowered at him. “If you’re giving away food, there has to be something wrong with it.”
“You tipped her off,” House accused with a frown, turning to Wilson.
Wilson shrugged. “She’s good.”
“You’re supposed to be in my office.”
He’d known Cuddy long enough to realize her smooth tone was forced. It was written in the way her breath hitched as she tried to conceal emotion, how her chin tilted towards the ground so she had to peer up at him with raised eyes. The pose was characteristic of her, used to express a dozen different sentiments. But it was the ever-so-subtle way the corners of her mouth turned downward and the narrowing of the eyes that did it: this was pure, slowly simmering rage.
Anger, much like her many well-cut suits, was something Cuddy wore strikingly well. But she generally cast it off rather quickly (the suits, unfortunately, almost always stayed).
There was really only one thing to do: rile her. He threw a grenade up from the trenches, smirking wickedly. “Someone’s a little anxious for some afternoon delight. You know, next time, you can always do a little composing on the single-key piano while you wait….”
She crossed the room, only needing a few quick strides to be practically on top of him - the heat of her body and wrath radiating, and he half-wondered if Wilson was close enough to notice. “Something, I’m sure, you’re remarkably well-versed in.”
He shook his head, near laughter but able to hold it in. “Nice try - doesn’t really work both ways. I’m more for two hands on the solo air guitar.”
Leaning toward him now, she was so close that he caught the minty scent of her breath as she spoke. Her voice was dangerous, thrilling and she emphasized each of her words as if it were its own sentence. “You owe me.”
Caught between her and Wilson’s desk, there was nowhere to go but sideways, and to do that would be too obvious an attempt at escape. House stayed where he was, raising an eyebrow. “You weren’t that good last night.”
She mirrored his gaze, a hint of amusement curdling her anger. “If that’s the case, think of how awful your performance must’ve been. My office. Now.”
“Demanding. Just the way I like it.” Without taking his eyes from her, he managed to steal the plastic container back from Wilson. If she hadn’t budged on this whole you’re supposed to be in my office thing with the last few minutes’ spin in the conversation, she wasn’t going to. “Can I at least finish Wilson’s lunch first?”
She sighed, ever a sucker for placating him, a flaw, perhaps, only because he knew it and wasn’t above using it against her.
“Five minutes. Not a second more, House - I mean it.”
“He’ll be there if I have to drag him by his ear,” Wilson chimed in, having watched this entire exchange without concealing his amusement.
“Traitor.”
Cuddy eyed them both, no doubt unable to miss the sincerity oozing from every one of Wilson’s pores, the stench of it stronger than that of sweat in a men’s locker room. Finally, she nodded, pausing to glare at House one final time before striding from the room, the swift clicking of her heels like gunshots, fading as she disappeared down the hall.
“What did you do to set her off?” Wilson asked, seeming to think better of the question and tacking on, “This time.”
“Do your lips have a thing for her ass just because its hers - ”
“I’ve seen her angry before - even angry at you - but somehow this topped it….”
“ - or would you kiss the hairy rear-end of a 65-year-old man if he happened to be your boss?” He paused for a moment, semi-considering what Wilson had said. “She wasn’t even yelling.”
“No,” Wilson replied, adopting the deep, self-righteous tone that he considered sarcastic, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. “It was that quiet female anger. Even someone like you knows how quickly that’s going to explode in your face.”
“I think you need at least two ex-wives to come to that conclusion.” As predicted, this elicited an eye-roll. “Cuddy can’t stay mad at me. It’s against her genetic code.”
“You go farther to piss her off than you’re willing to go to the vending machine. Just add a couple of dead worms and a frog or two and you’re a twelve-year-old chasing after his crush. Do us all a favor and ask her out already.”
“But if I touch her, I’ll get cooties,” House whined.
Wilson sighed. “A twelve-year-old with a drug addiction, a sex drive, and a motorcycle license. Society’s worst nightmare.”
“Funny. You’d think it’d be something a little more globally-threatening like war or nuclear holocaust.”
“Friday night. I have two tickets to an art exhibit.”
“Are you asking me out?” House deadpanned. “Because I’m not sure I’m ready to take our relationship to the next level….”
“If you don’t take her, I will.”
The way Wilson twisted the words, it seemed almost a threat, but not one that House was even close to taking seriously. Fortunately, Wilson was much easier to annoy than Cuddy; so much so that it almost took all the fun out of irritating him. Almost.
The formula was simple, might have been printed in the faded blue of a mimeographed ditto, the instructions to a kindergarten art project: make a back-handed comment, color, paste together, and let dry.
House spun his cane, batting the crook from hand to hand. “What makes you think she’d even want to go out with you?”
“Right.” There it was - aggravation just beginning to scribble itself over Wilson’s tone. “That’s a fair question from the guy who hasn’t been on a date with her to the guy who’s been on three.”
“Those weren’t dates,” House scoffed. He never passed up a chance to point this out: the more he said it, the more he would begin to believe it himself. There had to be some magic number for the amount of times you had to repeat a lie before it began to sound true. So far, it wasn’t anything under 37, but House was hoping he’d hit on it soon.
“If you don’t want to go out with her, I don’t see why it matters to you whether they were dates or not.”
“Just trying to keep you in the kiddy league where it’s safe. You might hurt yourself if you play with the big kids.” He glanced up at Wilson before continuing, wanted to be sure he had a good view of his friend’s face before delivering the final jolt. “You should try Cameron - she’s the all-star T-baller for the New Jersey Cripple Lovers. I’m sure she’d let you pinch hit….”
“You’re an ass. You couldn’t get Cuddy if you tried.”
This held about as much weight as a schoolyard threat. At this rate, Wilson would be triple-dog-daring him before his five minutes were up, even without the slowly tightening circle of a hundred playground brats and the chants of fight! fight! fight! vibrating the air.
“I forget: is this the part where I became an instant idiot and fall for your reverse psychology?”
“No, this is the part where you admit that somewhere inside that black heart of yours, there’s a tiny part of you that actually cares about Cuddy.”
Timing was of the essence. He couldn’t miss a beat here: Wilson would surely notice. Wit and crassness, of course, would also help.
“Maybe some not-so-tiny parts of her….” House held his cupped hands up to his chest, palms up, and pretended to squeeze.
“And Gregory House’s inability to have a happy long-term relationship is summed up in a single gesture.” Exasperation now - they were already at the don’t-eat-the-paste portion of the instructions, the bane of every five-year-old’s existence. “Never mind. I’ll take her.”
“No you won’t,” House pointed out, grinning smugly. “You know she only has thighs for me.”
Wilson watched him curiously, as if, having heard the statement once before, trying to gauge how much of it might actually be true. “Okay, we’ll make it interesting. Lunch. A month’s worth. You win, I’ll make lunch for you. I win, you won’t take mine.”
“Isn’t is usually customary to bet on something before naming the stakes?”
Now it was Wilson’s turn to grin, and House had a sudden sneaking feeling that if he didn’t watch his back, he’d find his nose pressed to the pavement. “That when you take Cuddy out Friday night, it won’t be considered a date. And you’ll be lucky if she doesn’t strangle you before the night’s over.”
On a playground, a chorus of knowing ooohs would have echoed across the asphalt, stopping jump-ropes and swishing the nets on rusty basketball hoops. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were at stake here, the highest commodity on the grammar school black market. The question now was whether or not he would accept the challenge with dignity and stick his tongue to the frozen flagpole….
The phone rang.
It was the cue House had been waiting for. Taking it, he lurched to the door, only pausing to call over his shoulder. “Tell her I’ll be there right after I grab the whip and handcuffs.”
Wilson stuttered a flustered greeting into the phone behind him.
Chapter 2: Tag for Two Players
“… at least fifteen minutes… will last the entire time… stand up straight. You will not say anything vulgar… And you will….”
House had no idea what she was talking about - or at least was fairly certain that what he heard of her list of demands didn’t at all align with those that immediately came to him.
All he knew with absolute conviction at that moment was that Cuddy was livid. She sat back easily in her chair but her jaw was set, her eyes narrowed.
If the scene were animated, the sky outside the window would have darkened ominously: black clouds billowing, throwing handfuls of hail and rain against the glass between forked spears of vivid lightning and ear-splitting, crackling thunder. An unseen harpsichord would have struck a wailing minor chord at the exact moment that Cuddy’s skin turned an instant, alarming red, her pen morphing into a pitchfork as two horns sprouted at the top of her head. Then, as if nothing had happened, everything would be suddenly back to normal - the sun smiling, birds twittering innocently in blue sky - leaving his cartoon self with the sinking feeling that a giant anvil was hanging by a single fraying threat somewhere up in the rafters.
“House!” The sharpness of her tone told him it wasn’t the first time she had called his name. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said.”
“Fifteen minutes, stand up straight, and vulgar,” he quickly replied, not even trying to hide his smile. “And is fifteen minutes really all you think - ?”
“Of course not,” Cuddy interrupted swiftly, waspishly. “I know your stamina for that is well under ten.”
She said it smoothly, unblushing. And he almost had to pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep: this Cuddy, the one that snapped back at his quips with equal vigor no matter how crude they might be, was the stuff that dreams were made of.
“You must be confusing me with Wilson.” His tone was teasing, a play at seriousness that they both knew was just that - still, House half said it in hope that the statement would be instantly denied.
He was disappointed; she steered the conversation back on track. “Friday night. Eight o’clock. The Mercer Medical Symposium. Morgan was scheduled to speak this year, but - ”
Her first two sentences had shocked him: he had almost allowed himself to think that this bet with Wilson was going to be much easier for him to win than either of them had anticipated. The whole conference idea, of course, threw a bit of a snag into the whole thing, but he could make it work.
“That Swedish stewardess on layover in Trenton again?”
“His appendix ruptured.”
“No one ever wants to speak at this thing,” he grumbled. “He’s faking.”
“It’s a little hard to fake peritonitis and septic shock. But if you want to pay him a visit in the ICU to make sure he’s not trying to pull one over on you, be my guest.”
Cuddy gestured wildly towards the door, brandishing her pen like a sword, her expression clearly stating that she’d have him drawn and quartered if he so much as moved.
His mind was suddenly inundated with flickering, fleeting images of the offices of his numerous past principals and headmasters - all basically the same, differing only in the varying degrees of baldness and corpulence of the disapproving man behind the desk. Had any of them even remotely resembled Cuddy, with little more than a second X chromosome and an age on the right side of fifty, the buildings would have been clamoring with rowdy schoolboys up to no good not simply for the sheer fun of it, but with the obvious intent of gaining a one-on-one meeting with the headmistress to fuel another desperate teenaged wet dream - any detentions or demerits racked up along the way well worth the time and effort for just a glimpse of that cleavage.
Cuddy had no idea how lucky she was that she only had him to deal with - and well after his adolescence (his “spirited” years, as his mother termed them; his father only meeting the idea of his pubescent son with a silent scowl).
“Can’t.” House stepped forward. All that was between them was her desk now, and he truly had to stare down at her. “Gotta case. Important one.”
“No. You don’t.” She may have had to look up at him, but the power-play didn’t seem to faze her - she was the one behind the desk, after all. “And you won’t until after Friday. Your team has already been informed of their other assignments. Chase is in the NICU, Foreman’s up in Neurology, and Cameron - ”
“You’re taking away all my toys?” he whined, picking up a stack of addressed envelopes from Cuddy’s desk and flipping through them, as if that were some form of retaliation.
“You’re lucky that’s all I’m taking away,” she replied, snatching the envelopes from him and placing them well out of his reach.
His fingers tingled where hers had brushed them, and as she didn’t seem to have noticed the contact, he tried to ignore it.
“Nice.”
“Wouldn’t be for you.”
“Or you either - if you know what I mean….” He leaned towards her, waggling his eyebrows lasciviously, and she pushed her chair slowly backwards, the first clue that his closeness was having any effect on her.
“You have clinic duty for the rest of the week. When you’re not in the clinic, you will be on call in the clinic. And you’ll be writing your speech for Friday.”
“You’re grounding me? I didn’t even do anything that - ”
The glare she shot him would have surely been capable of killing small birds and rodents, perhaps stunning a small dog or cat. “Only the medical equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.”
“You have no proof that was me.”
Swiping some of her things out of his way, he sat on the edge of her desk. Cuddy arched an eyebrow, staring pointedly from him to her desk and back again.
“I’d swab the perimeter of the lecture hall for fingerprints,” Cuddy began sardonically, “but we both already know what I’d find.”
“That a lot of people have touched stuff outside the lecture hall?”
“House….”
“Fine.” He sighed theatrically. “But to set the record straight before you go all CSI on me, any bodily fluids that show up under the UV lamp are all Chase and Foreman’s.”
Thus far, she had brushed off his comments admirably, but his constant poking and prodding, his complete lack of remorse and disregard for the thick indelibly-markered line between right and wrong, was finally beginning to achieve its desired effect.
And they were off: running full-tilt across the playground, two schoolchildren in a game of tag that no one else was playing- her ahead, of course, trying to get away, and him behind, arms outstretched and out of breath already, woodchips flying beneath his feet.
Cuddy gripped the arms of her chair, knuckles whitening and nostrils flaring, voice rising with each successive syllable. “Two hundred med students, an eighth of the staff, including all the Board members, three potential donors, all of whom have oddly decided to distribute their funds elsewhere, and the international panel….”
He grinned, only making her frown more furiously. “Some party.”
Her sadness was graceful but made him pricklingly uncomfortable (no doubt a sensation close to guilt if he would admit to having a conscience); her guilt confused and frustrated him; her frustration was entertaining; her amusement a reaction he craved and enjoyed. But her anger… that was something glorious: cheeks and chest flushing, eyes igniting as she locked horns with him like no one else would.
For most, fury was just another emotion, expressed with shouting, perhaps, rather than tears or laughter. But for Cuddy, it was a fully-body Olympic sport: every nerve-ending firing right on target, pulse pounding in a perfect rhythm that he could feel throbbing in the air. And it was then that he felt more in sync with her than he had ever been with anyone else.
“Yes,” Cuddy answered dryly. “They were all thrilled when the debate on infectious epidemics turned into a five-hour hands-on workshop on how to quickly rule out - ”
“No one even appreciated the irony?” he teased, knowing the answer even before he had asked the question, rolling his eyes when she refused to respond. “There was never any meningitis.”
“Funny,” she snapped. “That’s not what a group of students in the back claims a man in a Monster Jam hat and sunglasses told them in a very fake British accent after “accidentally” breaking open a suspicious vial and perfectly demonstrating the symptoms.”
“Obviously not me. My fake British accent sounds like the real thing.”
Cuddy rolled her eyes, scowling viciously as she finally rose, relinquishing the authority of her desk for restless movement and crossing the room to search for something in a file cabinet. “I was on the phone with Rīga Stradiņš University until two in the morning trying to explain, without an interpreter, why their Head of Traditional Infectiology wouldn’t - ”
“Should’ve let me know. I could’ve - ”
“What, House?” she interjected without turning. “Asked if his sister was over eighteen?”
The little girl in the schoolyard was red-faced and panting, hair flying around her face, and she yelped as the boy’s fingers brushed against the back of her plaid jumper, stumbling in her saddle shoes and darting dangerously between two moving swings and deftly skipping into a game of double Dutch, assuming he wouldn’t dare follow.
Inching slowly so the location of his voice wouldn’t give him away, he crept up behind her. “Twenty. My Latvian’s a little rusty.”
There was no point in smirking when her back was to him, but he knew Cuddy would hear the gesture in his tone. She bristled, angrily slamming one drawer closed so she could open and begin flicking through another.
“What the hell were you thinking, House?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” he answered conversationally, not surprised when she didn’t ask him what about. He was so close to her now, he could make out the individual curls at the nape of her neck that had escaped from the clip twisting the rest of her hair up and off her shoulders.
“Oh, come on, Cuddy. You can’t stay mad at me.”
The words rumbled softly, his head bent so they practically whispered into her ear. Cuddy flinched at his sudden closeness, just perceptibly, those stray curls trembling, but recovered with lightning speed, simultaneously banging the drawer shut and turning to glare at him. “Just because you’re easier to deal with when humored and bribed, doesn’t - ”
“Then bribe me.” Anticipating that she would take advantage of the extra space behind her, he closed in just as she moved back - a clear violation of the hula hoop of personal space elementary school had taught and office decorum called for, if his nearness to her hadn’t been already.
“No.” She raised an eyebrow, eyes sweeping up and down the length of his body as she searched for an exit. “You’re speaking at the conference.”
She twisted out from between him and the file cabinet - only because he let her - not a very graceful move for most Deans of Medicine, perhaps, but for Cuddy, it worked wonders.
The other grade-schoolers would be vicious, pointing and laughing, sing-songing that schoolyard chant about trees and love and a carriage and marriage: the blushing horror of every child whose secret crush had been discovered. The schoolboy was being too obvious, lips already puckered, but he improvised, reaching out and yanking the girl’s hair.
“I dare you.”
House watched as Cuddy whirled on the spot, safely behind her desk once again and quickly rolling her chair between them as he began to lumber her way. “You dare me? What are you, five?”
Tossing his cane to get a better grip towards the bottom, he flipped it quickly, hooking the end over the arm of her chair and tugging. The chair rolled easily: Cuddy had removed her hand, stood now with her arms folded, watching him come closer.
“A five-year-old wouldn’t be tall enough to appreciate this view of your cleavage,” House responded after a moment, turning his gaze downward and ogling - taking advantage of the fact that she wouldn’t push him away because that would require physical contact, and, by now, with the amount of static and tension built up on their two opposite charges, the spark would be jolting, the air between them already crackling with electricity. “We both know you can’t stay mad at me - it’s against the laws of nature.”
Following the path of his stare down to her own chest and up again with that amused-but-annoyed look of disbelief, even when they both knew she didn’t expect anything less of him, Cuddy tilted her head, eying him. “That’s your dare - that I can’t stay mad at you? What exactly do you hope to gain from that?”
“Aside from countless hours of entertainment?”
“House….”
“You know how much I love screamers, Cuddy.”
“Grow up.”
“Oh, you’re so good - starting already….”
“House, I’m not - ”
“When I win, you have to deduct my clinic hours this week from the ones I owe you.” This new knowledge refused to budge her: he would have to up the ante, watched her carefully as he continued. “And you admit that, while you may be higher up on the food chain in this jungle, I have more control over you than you like to admit.”
Cuddy’s eyes flashed - denial and indignation. He had her now.
“And when I win?”
The teeter-totter had shifted on the playground - all the weight suddenly on the other side, the girl chasing the boy now, just like he wanted (though he would deny it until the recess bell rang). He scrambled to the jungle gym, swiftly climbing with the other schoolyard monkeys - all boys: no girls brave enough to risk a public display of underpants to those mischievous hooligans crouching underneath the jungle gym hoping for just such a glimpse.
The answer was simple. “Not gonna happen.”
But the girl clambered up beside him with a gap-toothed grin: anything you can do I can do better. The schoolboy slid headfirst through the monkey bars, hooking his knees and letting go, swinging wildly, everything in the recess world upside-down. Except for her face as she swung right alongside him, a chorus of shrieks echoing across the playground, crossed with the unmistakable refrain: I see London. I see France. I see….
“When it does?” Cuddy insisted, voice sultry in these close quarters.
Of course, there was nothing for the boy to do but bring his forefingers to the corners of his mouth and pull it wide, sticking out his tongue before grasping the cool metal of a bar above him and flipping over backwards and down, diving out from beneath the jungle gym and dashing off across the playground.
House grinned, conceding. “Whatever you want.”
Cuddy smiled, almost sweetly, reaching out to place her palm softly on is chest, holding it there so long that he was sure she must have felt his heartbeat begin to race. He swallowed, watching her and waiting. Her gaze held his, unblinking, and the sudden force as she pushed against him came as such a surprise that he nearly lost his balance, stumbling backwards.
When he caught himself and her eyes again, she was grinning smugly, arms folded in triumph, her chair once again in its proper place.
House tried to look shocked, and he was, but the struggle to keep his thrill at her willingness to play along from smearing itself too obviously over his features was proving a bit more difficult. Rubbing the back of his neck - it was very possible she had given him whiplash and he intended to milk that for all it was worth - he amended his terms, feigning annoyance: “Within reason.”
Cuddy’s response was clipped, perfect with a finger pointed at the door in accompaniment. “Clinic. Now.”
He grinned. He’d give her an hour. Maybe two. There was no way she could keep this up until Friday - he would make sure of it.
Chapter 3: Whistled Revenge
“You can’t do that!”
The red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes of the formerly sulky college student widened as he inched backwards on the exam table, mouth snapping shut to keep House from slipping the tongue depressor inside. House rolled his eyes, annoyed, tongue depressor still in mid-air. He hadn’t spent more than ten minutes on any of the twenty-seven patients he had seen since waltzing into the clinic six minutes before the time allotted on the schedule that morning, and he didn’t plan on letting Wilson’s intrusion spoil his record.
“You’re… with a patient,” Wilson observed from the doorway, obviously surprised.
“I hear that’s all the rage in medicine right now.”
“And you’re wearing a lab coat.”
The boy on the playground had been caught by his best friend somewhere between a game of four-square and the chain-link fence, the friend hurt and accusatory - he had been picked last for kickball ten minutes earlier without the other boy’s intimidating power-kick to back him up.
“It’s almost like I’m a real doctor.” Wielding the tongue depressor like a sword, House held it right in between his patient’s eyes, sliding it down his nose and pressing it to the seam of his lips. “Open up, Puff the Magic Dragon.”
“I’m not - ”
Taking advantage of the open mouth, House jabbed the wooden stick inside, the kid’s voice muffling with an incomprehensible splutter. House tilted his head back towards Wilson. “Whaddya think? Tonsillitis?”
“You need a consult? Seriously?”
“I’m between that and strep,” House mused, turning and eying his friend. “I didn’t call you for a consult.”
Wilson stared at him, not even pretending to look into the patient’s mouth. “You can’t make a counter-bet just to - ”
“Different horses, different tracks, different race times.” House paused. “Okay, so maybe the horses and the timeframe are the same. But my bet with Cuddy has nothing to do with my bet with you.”
“Not on the surface. But there’s got to be some connection in that twisted mind of yours.”
Word on the playground had spread wildly from the jungle gym, to the tip-top of the wooden castle’s tallest tower, and down the twisty slide. He had been seen chasing and being chased by a girl, and he had been grinning like it was Christmas morning - or the first night of Hanukah, as this particular little friend might more likely say.
“I won your bet already,” House said with a shrug. “We’re going out Friday night.”
“The Mercer Medical Symposium - ”
“Ungh….” This was the patient, still sitting with the tongue depressor in his open mouth.
“Is a real snore-fest.” House removed the instrument, making a face at the string of saliva that escaped along with it and handing the wooden to his patient, wiping his hand on his lab coat.
“Is not a date,” Wilson finally finished.
“They serve dinner. You have to dress up and make annoying small-talk with a bunch of people you hope you never have to see again. I don’t see the difference.”
“Have you even considered that in order for her to not be angry at you, you’d have to actually be nice. There’s no way you’ll win.”
“That’s not very nice of you,” House countered.
“Right. I’m the rude, anti-social one.”
“I’m doing my job.” He picked up the rubber mallet and hit it against his patient’s knee, to prove his point, even if it was a test the kid did not need. “She can’t yell at me for that.”
“No, but there are probably at least a dozen things you’ve already done that she hasn’t found out about yet.”
“Trouble with your girlfriend, Doc?” the patient interrupted, before House had a chance to respond.
No, the schoolboy tried to reason, he hadn’t liked being chased, and he didn’t like her. They had sung that song, everyone on the playground, and the last place he would be caught dead with that girl was sitting in a tree. He swore it across his heart and hoped to die, and would stick a needle in his eye if he had to, so of course, it had to be true. Or might have been if his fingers hadn’t been crossed behind his back the entire time.
Wilson, damn him, was chuckling. “She’s his boss.”
The patient raised an eyebrow, leering. “Oh yeah? My girl likes to be on top, too. Adds a little -”
Cursing the hospital’s policy of not keeping scalpels and needles more readily available in the clinic - not for the first time that day either - House grabbed a new tongue depressor and the patient’s chin, and jabbed the instrument inside the kid’s mouth. “Now I’m thinking throat cancer.”
Like a child promised candy, Wilson seemed to be of only one mind that afternoon. “I still don’t see how her being angry at you works to your benefit.”
House grinned. “Cuddy can’t stay angry when there’s nothing to be angry about. The guilt alone will make her explode, and I want a front-row seat for the fireworks.”
In the corner of the playground, the boys plotted elaborate, impossible revenge and emptied their pockets for possible props: a nickel, three pennies, a piece of string, two Lego blocks, a ball of lint, a pebble that looked like Superman’s emblem if you squinted just right, a few dried boogers, and the powder of crushed cornflakes that one of them had forgotten to eat.
“That’s cruel,” Wilson responded. “Even for you.”
The exam room door opened. “House.”
“Finally. My actual consult and not another annoying oncologist.”
The patient seemed to have forgotten the injustice of having a wooden stick jammed into his mouth and now sat slack-jawed and practically salivating, staring at the figure in the doorway.
Cameron stepped inside, arms folded over her lab coat and vest. “I’m not writing your speech.”
“Anaphylaxis?” House asked with practiced seriousness, ignoring her comment.
Cameron looked into the patient’s waiting mouth, which had widened considerably - probably not half as suave a gesture as the kid had hoped it would be. “No. And I mean it. I’m - ”
“Then don’t write it. Find me one someone else wrote.”
Cameron grabbed his wrist, pulling the tongue depressor out of the patient’s mouth. The kid probably would not at all have been thrilled to know that his fawning expression at the moment was that of a damsel in distress who had just been rescued by her knight in shining armor and was in rapidly increasing danger of swooning dead away.
“Cuddy said that if any of us so much as lift a finger to help you, she’d - ”
“Who cares what she says. I’m your boss.”
“Not this week,” Cameron answered matter-of-factly.
“And she’s not writing your speech,” Wilson added before House had a chance to retort.
“You’ve got your own people and you’re stealing mine?”
The door opened with just a little more force than was necessary and House didn’t need to turn to know who had entered this time. It was something of a sixth sense - not so much the simple scent of her as a tango of pheromones whenever she was within a certain distance, the hair standing up on the back of his neck.
Something sharp poked the back of the schoolboy’s head, the tip of a fingernail that needed to be cut, its surface covered with dirt and chipped red paint. The girl was grinning stupidly, her head on his shoulder; the boy too overwhelmed by the sudden closeness to do anything more than gasp. She smelled like apple juice, which he didn’t like, and bubble gum, which he did, and only when she giggled did he remember that he wasn’t supposed to be liking this at all.
On the exam table, the patient had blanched, losing his more or less cool demeanor and looking suddenly alarmed. “How many doctors do you need to - ”
House cut him off, turning and simpering sweetly, a schoolboy obediently chanting his daily recitation. “Good afternoon, Dr. Cuddy.”
She was dressed all in red today, as if to outwardly express the emotion he had dared her not to take off. The glaring white of her lab coat only served to heighten the flaming effect of her clothes, especially since what he could see of her lacy silk top pulled just right in a thousand and one barely visible places. He was fairly sure that his inability to pull his gaze from one of those places in particular added extra force to her tone when she finally spoke.
“Save it, House.”
“Over twenty-four hours and still going strong. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Cuddy folded her arms - a mistake if she was at all trying to get him to avert his eyes: the gesture and a low-cut v-neck formed one of his all-time favorite combinations, beating the classic cookies and milk hands-down.
“It’s not like you’re making it especially difficult.”
“Hey,” he protested half-heartedly. “I’ve been in the clinic all day.”
“After that stunt you pulled Monday - ”
“You can’t still be mad about that.”
“ - for absolutely no reason….”
Somehow, even though he hadn’t taken his eyes from her, he had completely missed her stepping forward. It was as if she had been suddenly magnified - the space of half a room becoming less than two feet in an instant. She was radiating so much heat that they might as well have been touching, the air between them thick and heady.
“I told you I had to talk to you.”
There must have been something infused in his tone that he hadn’t realized was there, because her expression changed, still cautious, hard, but now with a slight tremor in her forehead - not the coordination of nearly enough muscles to furrow it, but deep down the reaction was there, even if she wouldn’t let it through. Her eyes were still unforgiving, cutting through him - no longer with the enraged hacking of a butcher-knife into a side of beef, but with the glinting grace and care of diamonds on a hard but fragile pane of glass.
“Fine.” Cuddy’s voice was low and quiet - still carried a hint of danger, but laced with a thread of concern that she was probably praying he wouldn’t notice. “Talk.”
The schoolgirl was leaning her weight against him now, daring him to push her off, but he couldn’t find the strength to do it. And this must be like drowning, the boy thought - at the bottom of the pond in the heat of summer, the weight of the water pressing down, down, down to the slimy, pebbled floor, and not being able to breathe….
Because swimming is something schoolboys know - love might as well be a phrase in Swahili or the essence of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.
Someone coughed. And only when House realized that the sound hadn’t come from Cuddy did he remember that they weren’t alone.
“In front of a patient?” he quickly teased, because one of them had to and teasing was one tone he could always pull off to perfection. “That’s not very professional.”
He had left her wide-open knowingly, would welcome a returning jab about his own bedside manner to keep the sudden humid heat in the small exam room from suffocating the both of them. “You wouldn’t know professionalism if it bit you on the ass.”
“Would you?” House asked, pokerfaced, as he pretended to consider this. “Anger, I might recognize. Hunger, even. But professionalism…?”
“My office. After you’re off clinic duty.” Her eyes narrowed, but her cheeks were beginning to flush, and it was much too difficult to take any threat from her seriously. “And don’t think I didn’t notice how every single roll of toilet paper from all the restrooms in the building ended up in your office.”
This caught him by surprise, and his face must have registered it, but a quick glance at Wilson - who was valiantly avoiding all attempts at eye-contact from anyone in the room - confirmed House’s suspicions. “I didn’t - ”
“Right.”
The final sarcastic fierceness in that one word and Cuddy’s stare spoke volumes of her anger, but his mind somehow kept confusing the emotion with lust and arousal - the slowly crumbling bricks of the palisade that were all that was left of the Great Wall of China between love and hate.
Without another word to any of them, Cuddy turned with a swish of fabric and stalked from the room.
The schoolgirl scampered off and away from the boy as quickly as she had come. And the boy was left staring sheepishly into his friend’s face, following an accusingly pointed finger down to the pile of pocket treasures that lay between them - the nickel and three pennies now gone.
“Am I dying?” The patient’s question was hoarse and cracked, as if his attempt to sound nonchalant had forced him into a second puberty. “I mean, I know I probably shouldn’t have - ”
“Yes,” House replied.
“No!” Cameron quickly intercepted, surely shooting him a glare. “House….”
“Maybe not right this second.” House stood, heading towards the door. “You have a cold. Lay off the ganja for a few days and stick to the VapoRub.”
Wilson caught his arm as he left the room. “I think we need to talk.”
“I think I need to go to the bathroom,” House replied easily, shaking him off. “Any idea where I can find some TP?”
“Like you’re against playing dirty. I’m just giving her a fighting chance.”
“You’re cheating.”
Catching a glint of red out of the corner of his eye, House followed Cuddy out of the clinic and down the hallway. Something grazed his arm before he could lumber off in her direction, and he turned, irritated, expecting to find Wilson.
It was his patient. Seemingly once again filled with a false sense of immortality now that he knew death wasn’t imminent, the kid winked, nodding in Cuddy’s direction and wolf-whistling loudly. The sound echoed in the oddly empty hall, and Cuddy glanced over her shoulder, stopping when she saw him and turning.
The kid was gone, must have disappeared even before she had turned around. Cuddy’s fixed stare was half shocked, mostly infuriated, and House did the only thing that could be done in this situation, repeating the kid’s whistle with greater force and enthusiasm, letting the sound drag out even after she had already turned and continued walking away.