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Post by Lisa Cuddy on Mar 16, 2007 3:13:41 GMT -5
For a long while Cuddy lingered between reality and dreams, where thoughts became wonderful, like tangible fantasies, and visions eased into truths. It was usually fleeting, ten minutes tops, but somehow it managed to linger as she dozed on the sofa. She was not as comfortable as she would like to have been, and maybe the slight ache in the arch of her neck was what kept her from true sleep. She did not move, the images that infiltrated her mind too beautiful and real to willingly escape from.
Then, in what seemed like less time than it took to blink, she was sitting upright on the sofa, gasping and struggling for air, her heart racing and sweat drenching her forehead. She could not remember having a nightmare and as her body worked to relax itself the vivid images of her daydream returned to her, only momentarily forgotten in an instance of panic. It was not a nightmare, but something on the other end of the spectrum.
She considered it even worse.
Sighing, she stood. Sleeping was a bad idea, it seemed. Moving to her desk, she reclined in her rolling chair and picked up some paperwork she had no real desire, or need, to complete. Yawning, she rubbed her eyes with her free hand, then reached for her desktop phone. Hitting a button, she informed her secretary that she was accepting calls again.
She preferred conscious House than subconscious. At least this way she could remain in control, or at least close to it. The tone in her secretaries voice indicated that her message had been delivered, but when Cuddy asked about it she got no real information. Which meant House had somehow deflected it. It wasn't surprising. If she was going to participate in this game, she would have to step up her game. Feeling more drained now than she had when she first entered her office, she doubted she would leave this day the winner.
She couldn't help but wonder about the patient she had left to House's machinations. Hopefully House wasn't torturing her too terribly. The last thing she wanted was an emotional trauma lawsuit.
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Post by Gregory House on Mar 16, 2007 17:34:32 GMT -5
He hoped she was squeamish around needles.
In fact, he preferred her to faint at the sight of them, for then he could hand her off to another doctor. But he knew he wasn't that lucky.
And so he brandished the needle in question and prepared to take a blood sample. As he pushed up her sleeve, he was vaguely considering sticking her in various places before 'finally' finding the right vein. Then he decided against it, figuring he had already filled his lawsuit quota for the month. Or year.
He wrapped a tourniquet around her upper arm, perhaps tying it a bit tighter than needed. As he did so, he listened, offering disdainful snorts when appropriate.
Molly was an interesting one, he admitted thoughtfully to himself. She wasn't easily intimidated, and instead had an annoying habit of not being visibly offended by anything he said. She managed to maintain a calm, mature disposition that was growing more irritating by the second. She also had the audacity to think she could talk to him like they were on the same level- which, of course, they weren't.
And House wanted to make that clear.
He stood a little straighter, knowing that his height in itself was a threatening aspect. He was bent on regaining the control of the conversation.
"So, basically, you're being nosy for the hell of it," He told her slowly, confidently, as if he had just summarized all of what she just said. "Some call your behavior passive-aggressive. I call it being a bitch." He dabbed a spot of alcohol over the designated spot, then hovered the needle over it. "And, just to you know, it's not as much fun when the patient guesses the relationship I have with Cuddy as it is when I allude to it through witty remarks." It was then that he drove the needle home.
Truthfully, he had rolled his eyes when she had made the comment about Cuddy and him. He heard it all-too often from Wilson, or from the gossipy whispers of the nurses. It was impossibly infuriating when they thought they had House and Cuddy all figured out, chalked it all up to 'flirtations' or a misplaced sexual affair. He always felt incredibly insulted by it. At this train of thought, House usually steered to another path, for the one he was on would lead straight to the mental admittance that he and Cuddy shared something much, much more than that inferred passing affinity.
"If you're really determined to have a personal conversation with a doctor you just met, then you chose the wrong one." He informed her matter-of-factly, removing the needle and tossing a cotton ball into her lap. He moved to put the blood in the proper container, and as he did so, he checked the time on the cell phone Molly had returned to him. It had been a good ten minutes since he estimated that Cuddy had fled to rest. Plenty of time, he decided.
A part of him was distantly pointing out how anxious he was to contact Cuddy after such a short absence, but it was promptly silenced.
He held up the phone after pressing the proper numbers, awaiting her answer. Once he heard someone pick up, he acted impulsively on the inference that the someone was Cuddy.
"Back from your beauty sleep already? Hope you and the girls are refreshed." He said with a smirk that he wondered if she could hear, careful to use that tone of voice, the one that made it seem House was standing right behind you, speaking into your ear. It was deep and resounding, low yet pronouncing, and he used it only to help her shake off that lingering, lethargic atmosphere of slumber.
While he spoke, he tugged on the handle of a drawer and drew a small flashlight. He gestured for Molly to face him with a careless jerk of the hand, not feeling like hobbling around the table. He still didn't want to pick up his cane, for he needed the use of his hands, but the pain in his leg was starting to become more persistent.
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Post by Molly Martinez on Mar 16, 2007 21:05:48 GMT -5
Molly's face twisted with slight agony as she saw the needle. The truth was she hated needles, but she didn't pass out or throw up, she just hated sharp things digging into her arm. She listened to him, blinking somewhat when she was called a 'bitch'. "First of all," She said suddenly, before he had talked to, she assumed, Cuddy. "I do not appreciate you calling me a 'bitch', Dr. House. I knew you were immature, but I wasn't aware you would stoop to that level." She had a very motherly voice about her, and if she were talking to a child (which she practically was), he would be writhing with guilt. She shifted somewhat.
Molly wrinkled her nose. "And I promise you, I was not determined to have a conversation with you at all, Dr. House," Ooh, the way she said his name was sick, really. "I was merely offering some normal advice, which I knew you had no intention of taking, but I had absolutely nothing to lose," Molly said with a small smile to her, and she put the cotton swab to her arm. Ooh, thank goodness that was over with, she could relax a little bit. She pushed back some of her hair, then, a bit of hair that managed to escape her ponytail. That's what I get for using a stupid scrunchie, she thought to herself, and she looked up to him.
And then he began talking to the phone, and she shook her head. "Except for perhaps the breath from my body..." She mumbled, and she looked ready to continue the exam.
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Post by Lisa Cuddy on Mar 17, 2007 14:48:45 GMT -5
Cuddy yawned into the receiver, despite House’s best effort to wake her up. Propping her elbow on her desk and leaning her chin on her hand, she used the other to hold the phone listlessly to her ear, sighing, “You are a terrible human being, do you know that?”
She was aware that he understood and regulated just how terrible he was. Everything he did was calculated, even this phone call. She knew she needed to step up her retaliatory tactics if she wanted to get any rest at all. Sitting at her desk, her mind blinking between the current conversation and the dream she had just woken up from, she had a tough time in coming up with something biting to say.
Her plan, for the moment, was to keep him on the phone. At least in this way she would know where he was, and what he was doing. She was calm and relaxed, but for the small effort it took to keep the phone up, and she imagined this was the closest she was going to get to actual sleep. She would take what she could from it. After all, she only wanted to take a short break. Soon enough she would return to the trenches, and engage in battle with House directly.
This phone call, she reckoned, was the equivalent of an unwritten cease fire.
“What, exactly, are you doing on a phone while you have patients to examine? I can imagine how warm and comforting you must appear to your patients, popping pills and talking on the phone. Your bedside manner is unmatched, House. Truly.”
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Post by Gregory House on Mar 18, 2007 18:19:08 GMT -5
House rolled his eyes at Molly, starting to get severely annoyed as opposed to amused. He detested being talked down to. He turned the phone away from his mouth, so Cuddy wouldn't overhear what he was about to say.
"And might I say that haughtiness of yours really is an appealing aspect." He said with cheery, overbearing sarcasm, a mocking nod added for reassurance. He returned to Cuddy as he held up the flashlight, shining it into Molly's right eye.
"I forgot how cranky you get when you're sleep deprived." House remarked, though he actually would never forget such a thing, and he was sure Cuddy was aware of that. He was smirking, still enjoying the fact that she was vulnerable, if only for the time being. While he was sore about being unable to take full advantage of it, he was content with this, with talking.
"Just wanted to hear the sound of you voice, of course. Your voice sounds sexy when you're tired." He stated with the appropriate sarcasm, though it differed greatly than the kind he used with Molly. The sarcasm he just used was more playful and roguish, the kind that almost sounded like it could be true- and was, in part. House found that the slight growl in Cuddy's voice, derived from her weariness, was highly attractive and wished he could record it for future listening. It was certainly something he could get used to.
"Maybe if you sound like that more often, I'd actually listen to you once in a while." He added, merely for the fact that the thought had actually occurred to him, and he mulled it over. Upon reflection, he doubted he would be more attentive; instead, he would focus more on her voice, as opposed to the words that it was forming.
"You know how I just love to please." He quipped in response to her last statement, giving Molly a smirk because she knew just as well what a blatant lie it was. But then, as he examined Molly more closely, he frowned, and flicked the flashlight between her eyes a few more times. Then he turned it off, staring at her eyes himself. Turning the phone from his mouth again, he spoke:
"Haven't been eating your regular serving of carrots, I see. Your pupils are constricting and dilating slowly, meaning you haven't been getting the necessary amount of Vitamin A. Fix that." He told her boredly, disheartened by the thought that that was probably the biggest medical mystery he'd get all day.
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Post by Molly Martinez on Mar 18, 2007 22:36:50 GMT -5
"Why thank you," She said simply to him, knowing that he was getting irritated by her. And Molly was very proud of that.
Molly listened a little closely to their conversation, though she tried to look like she wasn't. She winced slightly when the light went back and forth in front of her eyes, and she sighed somewhat, both annoyed at what he was doing and curious as to why. She sighed gently, and watched him, chuckling lightly when he said she sounded sexy when she was tired, and she mumbled a little something about them being the cutest little couple in the hospital. She swung her feet, and listened to him when he then talked to him. Vitamin A, right...she assumed hot pockets and pizza bagels didn't have enough of that, then.
She nodded to House. "Thank you, Dr. House, for giving me this exam. I appreciate this," Molly said, loud enough for Cuddy to hear, hoping she would use the whip to make him be polite back.
((Sorry for the shortness, guys x.x.))
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Post by Lisa Cuddy on Mar 18, 2007 22:52:28 GMT -5
Cuddy leaned smiled into her palm, hiding her face in her hand as if she were concerned that someone might be watching her. The last thing she wanted was some spy working for House to go run off and tell him that she was laughing at his jokes. There was no room left in the hospital to accommodate that subtle inflation of his already bloated ego.
“I’m not cranky,” she said, trying to keep from bristling at the obvious jab at her memory, “It’s too petulant a term. If I were cranky I’d be retaliating. Instead, I’m suffering through your little game. Because one of us is going to be heading home soon, and the other will remain trapped in the clinic. And I can tell you this, for certain: I won’t be stepping back into that clinic again tonight.”
She leaned back in her seat, letting out a profound sigh despite her best efforts not to. It was accompanied quickly by a yawn, which she stifled before continuing. She let her voice remain low and gritty, almost growling for him, her playfulness getting the better of her senses for half a sentence, “The only time I could get you to listen to me is if I…”
She trailed off, catching herself in the process of saying something completely inappropriate. She frowned, chiding herself. It was the fatigue, numbing her inhibitions as if she were inebriated. At least, that’s what she chose to believe. Even as the back of her mind hummed with the possibility that it was House, his playful teasing and the thoughts his words stirred, having this drunken affect on her, she cleared her throat and dawned her professional voice once more, trying her hardest to shake the tone House had spoken about away.
She heard the phone muffle on his end, the second time in short span, and shook her head, not surprised. She was thankful for the distraction.
“You’re treating a patient -as- you’re teasing me? Very classy, House. That poor woman. I hope she’s giving you trouble for being so rude to her.”
She paused, hearing Molly's voice, or what she assumed was Molly's voice, filter through the line.
"Oh, good. I see that she is." Cuddy grinned.
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Post by Gregory House on Mar 19, 2007 1:15:37 GMT -5
He snorted in replace of a disbelieving chuckle as he shuffled to Molly's side, pointing the flashlight into her ear. Enthused that Cuddy was playing along, he almost forget that he was in the clinic, until she reminded him. He grunted crossly as he moved to Molly's other side. He had thought, earlier, that Molly had quietly uttered something, and he had a feeling it was about him and Cuddy; he let it go, only because he felt he had more important things to focus on.
"You ramble when you're cranky." He replied simply with a smug half-smile, feeling that by stating that, he won the argument. She still had a fight left in her, even at the brink of debility, and he appreciated her endurance a moment before setting out to test it further. "And I'll take that statement as a challenge." He added implicatively, referring to the one about her not coming to the clinic that evening. He ran through methods to cause chaos that would force Cuddy's attention and put them aside for later use.
Then House froze, only hearing his own breathing as he waited for Cuddy to finish that sentence, which she never did. But he knew how she had planned on finishing it, and that was enough.
He glared down at the floor and was suddenly even more bitter about being stuck in the clinic. If he could actually see Cuddy this way and observe the glint that must've, he was sure, shone in her eyes when she said that partial sentence, he could act more accordingly. This kind of conversation, he decided, was the kind one needed to have face-to-face. And he was impossibly frustrated with the fact that he couldn't. On top of that, she had cleared her throat and robbed him of her seductive sleep-derived voice.
Out of misplaced vexation, he tossed the flashlight carelessly onto the counter, where it clattered upon landing. He limped a few steps, picking up Molly's file where he had left it, flipping through a few pages. The family history was completed well enough, though he didn't look at it much, for he knew if Molly was in danger of inheriting any illness, she already knew about it.
He was partly trying to distract himself from the sentence that was never completed, the one that was vaguely echoing, in that voice, in his head.
"She's fine; I'm a good multi-tasker." He said defensively, glancing to Molly to let her know she was the subject of whom they was talking about. "And you'd be 'seeing' a lot better if you would just come down here yourself." He mentioned in an airy-yet-impatient manner, turning the phone away a moment.
"You pregnant? Any noteworthy idiotic decisions?" He asked Molly crudely, of course inquiring about unprotected sex, drugs, or anything else she might be willing to tell him while he was on the phone. Which was little, he assumed, and precisely why he did it.
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Post by Lisa Cuddy on Mar 19, 2007 21:57:29 GMT -5
Cuddy rolled her eyes, reaching for a pen to get some work done while keeping House on the phone. She was an expert at managing a phone call while writing something completely unrelated at this point in her career, as if managing the two tasks with independent portions of her brain, simultaneously yet without any connection at all. It was meaningless paperwork, anyway: just important enough to warrant her attention, yet just mindless enough to do while severely fatigued.
She could almost feel the tension through the phone, driven through his pause. For a moment she imagined his expression thrown off while his mind worked to fill in the blanks she left for him. She coughed and then yawned again, subtly correcting her voice for him. It was subtle move, but one she knew he would not only notice, but see right through. She had found something that worked, and had seen, or rather heard, the affect it had on him. For the moment she did not know how to fully harness this new found power, and decided her best course of action was to experiment.
Heaving a sigh and turning to the next page of her paperwork, she shifted the phone to her shoulder and spoke as if she were worried someone might hear her. Some nonexistent person who did not need to know who she was speaking to, or what about. Why this feeling hit her she was not entirely sure, though, she had a pretty good guess.
“I already told you, House,” she said, her yawn and cough combo having the perfect affect on her voice, returning it to how it had been before she cleared her throat, “I’m not going back to the clinic tonight. Nothing you can do or say will get me there. Of course, I am a doctor, and it an emergency arose I would do my job, since we’re so short staffed. I don’t suggest trying to organize some sort of faux-emergency, or anything alone those lines. I’m not going to make it that easy.”
She paused thoughtfully, having said words without exploring the meaning behind them. She heard him speak to Molly, charming bedside manner in tact, and wondered if had missed that last sentence of hers. It would be better for her if he had. She knew of a number of ways, all taunting and embarrassing for her, that he could interpret those last eight words.
Sighing once more, she did her best to focus on her work.
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Post by Molly Martinez on Mar 20, 2007 3:15:46 GMT -5
Molly listened to the conversation, looking up to the ceiling as she did. They really were the cutest thing, she thought to herself, ad she smirked slightly as she did. She imagined they would never erase what sick sexual tension there was between them, though, much to the dismay of the many gossipers. Molly wasn't much of a gossiper herself in that she didn't talk about what would happen in the hospital--but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy watching it fold out like a cheesy soap opera.
At his question, Molly came back to their world, and she shook her head. "No sir, none of that," She said with a quick nod. "Though, I didn't tell the nurse..." She hesitated, then, sighing somewhat.
There was nothing wrong with taking medicine, everyone knows that. When she did first move here, however, Molly slipped into depression (since it was so easy to do in those teen years), was taken to the doctor, and she was given medicine for both that and some anxiety. Her parents weren't ashamed, they just didn't talk about that sort of thing--because where they came from, that sort of thing just wasn't discussed, at all. It was much better to just sweep it under the rug, and keep it there. And Molly also knew that he was a doctor, he had to know there were so many things worse than just a bit of that. But she didn't know him--she wasn't used to telling people she didn't know this sort of thing.
She cleared her throat, then. "I've been on Lexapro and Lorazepam for a few years, now, I just...forgot to mention, you know, so it probably isn't on the chart..." Ahh, her first sign of weakness. She was clearly uncomfortable talking to this stranger about this, and he was on the /phone/. She sighed a little nervously, and looked down to her feet.
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Post by Gregory House on Mar 20, 2007 22:46:23 GMT -5
He had returned to Cuddy just in time to catch the last half of her sentence, just enough to deduce the rest.
'I’m not going to make it that easy.'
"Not with that voice, you're not." He agreed evenly, sounding impressed, knowing that sleep-originated voices didn't come and go at chance. Cuddy was using that voice against him- an ingenius plan, really, for even though it had a manipulative purpose, he still found himself hanging on every syllable pronounced. If anything, he listened even more intently, for he knew she couldn't keep it much longer. A voice derived from sleep couldn't be maintained all day, no matter how much the idea appealed to him.
"I don't waste my time on creating fake emergencies. I prefer the real ones. More exciting. Fires, computer crashes, lack of toilet paper in the bathrooms, the like." He babbled, having a knack to ramble when amused. He was working the gears in his head, striving toward the perfect scenerio that would leave Cuddy no choice but to enter the clinic. He was suddenly adamant in his urge to see her in person, like the image of her in his head wasn't enough.
House was acutely aware of his audience and occasionally glanced Molly's way, just to see if she was actively eavesdropping. She was being polite about her obvious nosiness, and he wondered if he should be relieved or irriated at that. He impulsively chose the latter.
He averted the phone and eyed her cynically.
"Right. You 'forgot'. Maybe I should prescribe some medicine for that awful memory of yours." He was being unnecessarily sarcastic and droll, but his initial exasperation was softened by the fact he had Cuddy and her voice to preoccupy his attention. "But for now, try not to 'forget' that stuff. You'd be surprised at what a big deal they make things like what kind of medication your taking. Cuddy would know. She's always bugging me about my medication." He added, the last part said half to Molly, half into the phone, though he was fairly sure Cuddy hadn't heard the earlier part of the conversation. He didn't elaborate for her.
He liked leaving her guessing.
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Post by Lisa Cuddy on Mar 21, 2007 20:53:05 GMT -5
Cuddy sighed, shaking her head. Her eyes felt heavy, her inactivity getting the better of her. Even the words on the paper, which up until that point had meant something and kept her mind active, began to blur, running together incoherently. She rubbed her eyes, dropping her pen to accomplish this, and watched as it rolled almost mockingly off the desk and onto the floor. She watched it, almost not hearing House, contemplating the amount of energy she would require to pick it up.
Coming to a conclusion was not difficult. There were other pens on the desk.
She heard him speak about real emergencies, but knew she did not have to warn him about that. It would not simply give her grounds to fire him, but give her no choice. The lattermost of his suggestions excluded, of course. She doubted he could kill anyone by a lack of toilet paper.
Then his voice became muffled for a moment, and she wondered if it was her perception blinking in and out. He was in her ear again soon enough, however, and she understood the meaning of his half-speech. She rolled her eyes, unable to keep from smiling, then hummed into the phone, thoughtfully with a slightly sensual air that she would never be able to reproduce, unless she was under these exact circumstances: sleep deprived and talking to House.
Thoughts about the first time she had ever discovered this tone drifted back to her as she stepped her game up a level, taking a risk to see if she could affect him the way she thought she could.
"You know, House," she said innocuously, changing the subject without grace, "if you want to see me so badly, why don't you just come to me? You know where my office is."
It was both an accusation and an invitation.
She was fairly certain that he would not back down so easily. His working in the clinic was now a testament to his will, and in that Cuddy had already gained a victory. For him to leave, to come for her rather than force her to go to him, he would admit a complete defeat. House was not the kind of man who would hand himself to loss so easily, more likely to come kicking and screaming. In a figurative, ingenuitive kind of way, of course.
She smiled as she dealt the first hand, wondering what cards he would throw her way. Her hand was promising, to say the least, but she never counted House out when it came to these games. She would take her time, playing carefully, mixing bluff with honesty, and make sure things came out in her favor when all was said and done. When all the cards were on the table.
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Post by Molly Martinez on Mar 21, 2007 23:20:20 GMT -5
"Well, I certainly wasn't aware that more vitamin A would have clashed so horribly with those two medicines..." She mumbled, and she looked down, crossing her arms over her chest. She frowned somewhat, shaking her head. Molly wanted to say that she couldn't believe how horrible this man was, but she /could/ believe it. Now, she didn't know him personally, but she knew for a fact he was a self-righteous son of a bitch who was capable of this.
And then she realized that this wasn't even that bad. It was her, and her insecurities. Molly sighed roughly on the inside, realizing that she needed to stop being so insecure and move on that she was a little sad. It wasn't even that big of a deal. It was--
Molly overheard what Dr. Cuddy said, and then she realized why some of the people she worked with called her a little minx. Molly defended Dr. Cuddy, because of how much crap she obviously took from House, and yet...there it was. Dr. Cuddy enjoyed it. She smiled a little bit to herself, and even chuckled, looking up to Dr. House with a daring sort of look to go to her office. Because she pretty much knew that whatever punishment Dr. Cuddy was going to hand out would be worth it to him.
Even though Molly didn't gossip, she may have to start. This was gold for the tech department.
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Post by Gregory House on Mar 22, 2007 21:19:18 GMT -5
House glanced up to Molly a moment, having heard mutterings coming from her direction, and merely wanting to let her know that those words under her breath were not going unnoticed. He was getting annoyed at her knack to voice things inaudibly, thus negating their purpose of being uttered.
"You know, if you're going to waste your breath in saying something, it might as well be at a volume other people can hear." He mentioned conversationally with a hand over the phone, shooting her a bothered look as he returned to his call just in time to catch that voice.
'...why don't you just come to me? You know where my office is.'
Something about the phrasing and the tone in which it was presented made House shift his weight anxiously, as if he was eager to journey Cuddy's office right then. Her words seemed, if he didn't know any better, to hold a sensual promise. Suddenly the exam room seemed much too small, and House was itching to escape it.
"Because I'm humbly serving you in the clinic, of course. I couldn't just abandon my duties." He explained with appropriate exaggeration, though it half-hearted with a desire to see her and witness this voice firsthand. He threw open a drawer as he spoke, withdrawing a key and tossing it to Molly.
"There's a small metal cabinet in the private bathroom down the hall. Use the key to open it and you'll have all you need to get us a urine sample. When you're done, remember to leave the cup in the cabinet and lock it; you wouldn't believe the amount of thefts we've had." He instructed with a not-quite-a-smirk at the end, shaking his head in mock-grim disbelief. He limped to the door, snatching his cane along the way.
Opening the door wide so that Molly could follow his exit, he strode to the main reception desk, grinning wickedly as an idea that snuck, unnannounced, into his head.
He eyed the nurses working warily. In order for his plan to work, he needed them to be distracted. He glanced to the waiting area, spotting a few prime foils.
He turned to the nearest nurse and addressed her loudly, turning the phone away just slightly, purposely wanting to have Cuddy hear him.
"I'm going to get some lunch. Anything you want?" He asked her with painfully-forced politeness and charm, smiling genially. The nurse quirked a brow at him, looking around to see if he was talking to anyone else. He continued thoughtfully, "I was going to get one of those big, juicy steaks that have the fat dripping down the sides, and the partially-crusted mashed potatoes and runny gravy..."
The effect was immediate. One patient outright threw up (the same one from earlier, House noted), causing two others to jump up and race to the public restrooms, their faces a sickly shade of green. He was even in luck. Another patient was yelling his discontent, for he had been partly puked on. The nurses admirably sprang into action, consoling the ill, calming the hot-tempered.
While they were preoccupied, House slunk his way behind the desks, his eyes searching for the intercom system. Upon finding it, he smiled smugly into the phone.
"And also because I don't give up that easily. A wise woman with ample cleavage once said, 'It's a game. And I'm going to win.'" With that, House clamped the phone shut, silently saying goodbye to that voice, for he knew he wouldn't be hearing it after what he was about to do. He leaned in close to the microphone, pressing the availible button.
"This is Dr. House calling Dr. Lisa Cuddy to the clinic for her daily fornication appointment. Dr. Cuddy to the clinic for her fornication appointment."
His savored the sound of his voice triumphantly echoing off the walls, surely being heard throughout the hospital. He repeated himself with added emphasis, just in case any had doubted their ears. He thanked his audience and hung up, for by then the nurses were scurrying back, not daring to scold him directly but instead trying to help control the situation by retracting his statement.
But the damage of done, and he knew it. He figured Cuddy knew it too.
He lounged against the reception desk's counter on an elbow, smiling cheerily to all who passed. They all knew what had put him in a good mood. He waited patiently (which he was surprised at, for he usually wasn't patient for anything), reflecting over his actions.
A bit immature, he was aware, but he figured that not much was beneath him at this point.
Most doctors would brush off the announcement without acknowledgment, knowing House was House and nothing could be done. Others would stop in the halls with bewildered faces or perhaps with laughter. A certain other named Cuddy...that was a little harder to predict. She was openly immune to this kind of amateur humiliation and would stalk through the halls with subtle ferocity and gravity, causing the crowds to make way at the sight of her. It was impossible to imagine what she'd be thinking, and that fact alone made him all the more intent on seeing her in person. If she ended up coming, that is.
He mourned the loss of the voice, dipping his head in respect. Still, it was a small price to pay; as pleasing at it was, it couldn't compare to Cuddy's actual presence.
Just the same, he made a mental note to make a habit of calling her before dawn.
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Post by Lisa Cuddy on Mar 23, 2007 18:05:25 GMT -5
For a long moment Cuddy did not know how to respond to the voice she heard over the PA system. Or more specifically, the words that echoed in her head and, she knew, in the heads of every single person in the hospital. The worst part of this situation was that House could get away with saying something like that about her, because he was House. All the suspicious, strange and curious glances would fall on her. She was Dean of Medicine, after all, and should be above behavior like that. She rolled her eyes.
House had managed to out wit her.
Returning the phone to the receiver, Cuddy stood from her desk and began the trek towards the clinic. For anyone else it would have been a walk of shame. The looks she was getting, the comments she heard in her wake, and even the calls that followed her would have broken someone who did not know exactly how they were going to redeem themselves.
She walked with pride. Not the kind of pride that made an embarrassed person puff out their chest and walk with purpose, but rather a subtle, burning strength that people in her path felt rather than saw. It sent them scattering, some wishing simply to escape, while others longed for the courage to follow her and see what she carved into House’s flesh.
She ignored most of them, taking her time in reaching her destination. She took the stairs, just because she could; a subconscious attack on House without even having him around. In due time she reached the Clinic, greeted by a wave of silence, a hum following her footsteps. Spying House at the front desk, she sauntered over to him, leaning on the desk that separated them. For a short moment she stared at him, arching an unimpressed eyebrow, then glanced around quizzically at the faces surrounding them.
Moving around the counter with an investigative look on her face, she came to a stop at House’s side, standing more than close to him. She ran her hand over the front of his pants, the touch slightly more heavy than she had intended, her eyes on his, the mumbles this action elicited from the growing crowd of staff and visitors egging her on. She frowned at House, breaking both the physical and sightline by looking down at him in disappointment.
“I thought I had been paged for a reason,” Cuddy said, her voice clear enough to be heard by everyone, while maintaining an air of conversation, “but it seems Doctor House here will not be rising to the occasion,” she eyed him seriously, “please, don’t page me unless you have the follow through.”
Turning abruptly, she addressed the staffers that were gathered around the desk. Her contact with them was met with mild applause and laughter, though, she stifled it by waving a dismissive hand. She had her best Administrator face on, and most of them knew what that meant. She was not playing anymore.
“The PA system is meant for emergencies or hospital business only. It is not for practical jokes or disappointing booty-calls. If I catch anyone following Doctor House’s example there will be consequences. Now, please, how about we all go back to treating patients?’ Grumbling, the nurses and doctors moved off, most of them finding a partner or group to chatter with. Sighing, Cuddy hoped that would be enough of a show for the word to spread through the hospital that it had been an ugly joke by House, and nothing more.
Sighing, she turned back to House, arms folded over her chest as she stared at him in disbelief. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought him capable of such a prank. In fact, she had been expecting something like it, sweepingly embarrassing for her, for quite some time. She did not know what enraged her the most about the situation, as used to House and his devious games as she was, yet this time she could not look at him without a flash of white rage in the corners of her sight, and a flush of heated humiliation pulsing through her body. Her hands, hidden under her arms, were balled into fists, her stance tight and threatening.
“What the hell was that, House?”
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