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"Distinct lack of obnoxious cheerfulness, absence of any insipid platitudes about the value of our patients…you get high and sleep with Chase again?"
House's voice cut, but it lacked the real glee it would have held if his fellows' sexual relationship were still a juicy secret.
"You're half right," Cameron managed to leer. House shuddered theatrically, Foreman managed to keep his internal.
"Wow, that image backfired on me!" He said with mock horror. "But if you're sick you will have to stay in here – our patient's immune system is compromised and apparently if she's exposed to germs, something bad might happen!"
Foreman sighed loudly and pointedly turned a page in the casefile with an exaggerated show of indulgence. House ignored him; his digression was largely a ploy to try the other man's patience. He certainly wasn't concerned about the patient – Cameron might be pretty, but she wasn't stupid, she knew better than to expose an immuno-compromised girl to contagion.
Chase hadn't noticed anything amiss with his girlfriend; she hadn't mentioned feeling ill and didn't exhibit any obvious symptoms. Still, perhaps she was a little pale, difficult to be sure in the strange mixture of sunlight from the broad windows and fluorescent glare from the hallway.
"You alright?" He said over his coffee cup.
Her eyes flicked over to him. What was he supposed to read there? She had so many shades of emotion it was difficult to tell just which were playing across her face at any one time. House never bothered with them, preferring to analyze behavior, and Foreman tended to lump all emotion into the category of distraction.
"If Cameron's sick, she would have stayed home." Foreman's patience on delay of diagnosis had run thin. Eleven minutes, getting awfully antsy these days, House logged mentally.
"Foreman's right, do we have any ideas that will help the real sick person? Dr. Chase? No? Sickie? Wow, you're all so dull this morning. You know, I heard they make this magical drink called…co-fay? Coffee? That was it." His voice dropped suddenly from taunting to angry, he slid his chair from the table to the white board. "You people should try some and come up with some real ideas before this kid's liver's completely boxed. Come on, that's why I hired you."
Dutifully they each spit out a suggestion or two, most already formed and merely waiting for the obligatory harangue. It was a dance they all did. 1-2-3, taunt-object-test, 5-6-7, snipe-cure-die inside. Difficult to learn the rhythm of this music, and requiring constant attention to stay in step.
Most of the suggestions were received with customary bad grace, one or two were inoffensive enough to be ignored, and one merited testing – Chase's call, this time, and Foreman's innate competitiveness couldn't help but note that despite House's continual description of him as stupid, the intensivist had solved more cases than Foreman himself.
"Foreman, you run the test. Chase, go find out what they're hiding. Oh they're hiding something, they always are, just save us the time of doing it later, go on, go on," Chase had looked up to protest and House's exasperated flapping of the hand almost shooed him towards the door. Foreman was already there, straightening his white jacket, and Cameron had just stood from behind the table.
"Sickie stays here." House announced firmly, satisfaction glinting in his eyes that he could have some sport at her expense after all.
"House, I'm not sick. Foreman's right. We have an immuno-suppressed patient, if I were sick I would have called in." Her voice was three-quarters condescension – you're an idiot – and one-quarter whine – that's not fair.
"Well either your lip gloss went on strike or you're pale today, plus you looked like you were going to ralph after you drank that coffee, and Foreman didn't even make it! You're sick." House ticked off points on his fingers with an air of finality.
"I'm not sick." Cameron repeated with equal finality. "Just a little Irish toothache." She glared at House for a moment, daring him to object.
"Foreman, I can help you with that test if you want." The man knew better than to argue with his colleague in one of her feistier moods. Chase, last to leave, managed to catch House's eye on the way out and cast him an apologetic look. Don't blame me.
Alone in his office, House briefly amused himself rearranging Cameron's filing, and dripped some hot sauce into the half-filled coffee cups Chase and Foreman had left behind. He'd been experimenting with a different condiment every day that week, so far only the peanut butter had gotten any decent reaction and Chase had liked the lemon juice.
A couple rounds of gameboy, and the curious expression Cameron had used wormed its way back into his brain. Greg House knew a great many turns of phrase, especially those of questionable racial, ethnic, or sexual acceptability, but he didn't know that one. "Irish confetti", yes; that was bricks thrown in riots, and the "Irish disease" – syphilis or alcoholism, depending on one's source – but not Irish toothache. House shuffled through the Rolodex of his brain to recall her background. Cameron was an Anglo name, certainly, but Irish? He didn't think so.
He'd get around to googling it. General Hospital was on.
In the lab, all three fellows went through various motions of working. Foreman was preparing a slide for Cameron to examine, though he could have done it himself – work smarter, not harder – and Chase made no attempt to look busy. He had talked to the family and learned some minimal new information, but not enough to crack the case or fill the time until House would deem it acceptable for them to report back. He leaned back on a counter and watched Foreman's tightly gloved hand move from one Pyrex dish to another and back again.
"Scuse me guys, Foreman I'll look at that in a second." Cameron excused herself, smiling faintly at Chase as she passed in a swish of white lab coat and vaguely vanilla scent. Maybe she was pale, Chase thought briefly, or slightly green? He'd check on her later. She didn't like him to show her special concern at work.
"You're not Irish, are you?" Foreman asked after a moment of scientific silence.
Chase raised a blond eyebrow. "Nooo, I'm Australian. You're as bad as House. My dad was Czech, not Irish." He supposed he could forgive his colleague's ignorance, a lot of Australians were from Irish stock, but still, any idiot could tell the difference in accent.
Foreman's expression said he knew what Chase was thinking, and wasn't as big idiot as he thought. "I meant what Cameron said earlier. Thought it might be related to…" he gestured vaguely towards the other man. You know, 'cause you're foreign and all. "I know I've heard that expression somewhere." He furrowed his brow but whatever half-memory had peeped out had already escaped him.
Chase shrugged. "I've never heard it, I just thought it was something Americans said, like 'cool' and 'what's up, man'." He imitated a nasal Midwestern teenager's drawl, making Foreman wince. That's for thinking I was Irish.
By the time Cameron returned and examined Foreman's sample, they had killed enough time to get back to House.
House, meantime, had finished his soap and remembered what he'd wanted to look up on the internet. Google was enlightening: it meant two things, and only one could apply to Cameron. House was positively brimming with malicious mirth by the time his fellows trundled back in from the lab.
"Cameron, how's that toothache?"
They were all suspicious at his guileless tone; when House sounded most sincere he was most dangerous, but four words wasn't enough to deduce his game.
Cameron looked confused for a moment and then the shutters came down behind her eyes. Keep Out. "Oh – better – thanks."
"You know, I just love an opportunity to learn something new. Why, just this morning Dr. Cameron presented me with a euphemism I had never heard before."
Don't do it, House…but he was in full crow now; she had set him up so marvelously. It wasn't a nice expression she had used, would be considered racist except that no one knew what it meant any longer. Where she'd picked it up she didn't know, her grandmother maybe, or a book, but her earlier satisfaction at having gotten a good sarcastic comment over on House was about to be punctured now by the natural consequence of having presented him with a puzzle.
Chase wore his mild, blank schoolboy expression, the one that had the dual advantage of betraying nothing to his boss while making him appear as if there was nothing very exciting going on inside his head. It had served him well with his father, nuns, professors, and his boss alike, and he used it now because he hadn't figured out where House was going with his story yet.
On the other side of Cameron, Foreman suddenly dropped his file and his jaw simultaneously. He didn't pick up the former, either, but started laughing. It wasn't a polite, obligatory laugh either, but dangerously approaching hearty. Oh god this is going to be bad.
"Dr. Foreman, would you like to share with the class?" House interrupted his spiel. Normally he'd be annoyed to have to play straight man, but Foreman figuring it out before Chase did – that was totally worth it. Chase, for his part, still not in on the joke, looked from his coworker to his boss with suspicion. Cameron, of course, was glaring at him.
"I just – haha – I knew – ah – I'd heard that expression before. Hahaha…It's from the early 1900's – ha – back when the Irish first came here – haha – the history's not important, but Chase – hahaha…" Foreman reached across Cameron to clap his coworker on the back, and dissolved into gales of laughter. It was only mock-friendly, and Chase looked first at House, then at Cameron.
"Care to share with the class?" He asked her, repeating House.
Cameron sighed, lifted a hand in what seemed like despair in the face of House's rapt attention and Foreman's helpless giggles.
"I'm not sick, really…"
Foreman managed to composed himself a little. "An Irish toothache, man, hahaha, she doesn't have an Irish toothache, she has an Australian one – Chase, an Irish toothache means she's pregnant!"
The only thing that could make House's day better now was their faces when they finally tasted their coffee.
AN: In Great Britain an "Irish toothache" is an erection. In early 1900's U.S., it was a euphemism for pregnancy. It is slightly less than a polite thing to say, but as the expression is now obsolete and I am Irish myself, little harm done. I hardly ever write fanfic; if you want another, say so.