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ACES, DEUCES, & THE SUICIDE KING
They were all such good poker players now.
Cameron had learned the rules once, at some point before her residency, like she learned everything else – painstakingly, her technical proficiency good but her inability to conceal emotions standing her in poor stead. Foreman had a good poker face but had never liked card games – exposed to them late and without the patience to sit out other peoples' poor decisions when he knew better himself. Chase, too, had the studiously bland look of a man concealing his intellect until he had gauged his opponents', both in life and at cards. He, however, like Foreman, usually had other interests: in his case, the women and the occasional martini to be found in conjunction with the casino atmosphere.
That was before. Before Chase traded in Melbourne's sunshine, Cameron the pristine ethics of the Mayo Clinic, and Foreman the solid greenbacks of the west coast, for the icy winters, questionable morals, and smaller salaries of Princeton, New Jersey.
Before deadly puzzles and HIV scares and everybody lies. Before parents were lost and patients were killed and mistakes were made. Before Cuddy's half-ass attempts, and Vogler's suffocating attempts, and Tritter's terrifying attempts, at control.
In short, before House.
And now, four years later, they could play poker. Now Cameron could smile sweetly even as she depressed the plunger of a morphine-filled syringe. Her innocent face no longer played emotions like a movie screen, just a mixed sort of smile some thought compassionate and others found sad. Chase, a truly fine doctor disguised by accent and indifference, caught between the country that colored his speech and the one that was home to the woman he loved. He had found a focus now to go with his straight expression, a maturity than belied entirely his altarboy looks. Foreman would play for the satisfaction of showing others their own errors. At best, he was a harder man, a more impatient man, less cutthroat but concerned now about the disease and not the person with it. At worst, he might be nearly everything the others had accused.
Poker was a metaphor for life, of course, but sometimes it was also real. A perennial favorite, the casino-style fundraiser where all the staff who cleaned up well turned out in their best to dazzle the moneyed stiffs, Cuddy turned the usual charm all the way up to "vamp" and House was dragged kicking and screaming when he could be found at all. The three fellows were usually responsible for making sure he behaved himself once he'd finished his tantrum, and that generally required the finding or inventing of a case requiring his immediate attention anywhere but the fundraising venue.
This time, Foreman was keeping his eye on their boss while Cameron posed prettily for potential investors. Chase had already done his bit with the accent and was now cleaning up at a card table. The losers grumbled, but knew the man worked for House, after all, so the money would probably buy much-needed alcohol to dull the body blows his boss dealt him.
Scraps of card jargon drifted around, games in various stages of play. One eyed jacks and the man with the axe….Two of the four jacks were in profile, showing only one eye, and the King of Diamonds carried an axe instead of a sword. It was a trump, a hard combination to acquire, but a winning one. Deuces, aces, one-eyed faces….Something similar, the one-eyed jacks, the aces, and twos. Suicide King wild….The Suicide King: three of the kings had swords, but only the King of Hearts was apparently sticking it into his own head. Something poetic about that notion, the Suicide King. The face cards all represented real people at one time, but Chase didn't know who. Foreman neither knew nor cared. Cameron probably knew, but she was laughing widely with a donor, one eye towards House. Chase had an eye that way himself; it was a hard habit to break. One-eyed faces…
House, of course, would be the Suicide King. In one way or another, destroying himself a piece at a time, because the last best way to conquer the random poor hand life had dealt him was to take control of how the game ended.
All poetic of course. All metaphor. But, like the game that night, not all was metaphor. Miraculously, they did find a patient before House's misbehavior gave Cuddy an apoplexy, before Chase had bankrupted every last resident, and before Foreman drank himself into a Housian plane of philosophy.
TBC...
AN: Short chapters for easy reading. Feedback welcome.