Author's Note: This was written for the Fox board's Friday Night O/C Challenge. This was for October and the topic was Sarcasm Awareness Month. It is also another entry in my House's Patience series in which House meets characters that he has a connection with - in an unusual way. if you don't knwo where this one comes from, see the bottom.
House's Patience Fiftysomething
"Why don't you just suck it up and stop complaining?" James Wilson asked his best friend. "You've yelled, screamed, threatened and held your breath until you're blue, but Cuddy hasn't changed her mind."
'Why is she picking on me?" House complained, despite Wilson's advice.
"Well, let's see. It could be because she hates you. Or maybe because you annoy her and make her job harder. Or because you destroy hospital equipment on a regular basis."
House just glared at him.
"Or maybe it's because you're the best doctor in this hospital and one of the best in the country. Do you think that's why a doctor would come all the way from England to work with you for a week?"
"Do I really need to have some goofy British doc with bad teeth following me around with his 'I say's' and 'blimeys' and "bloody hells'. Don't I have more important things to do?"
"Yes, like playing with your Gameboy or watching your soap. House, it's only a week. You really don't have to do anything different than normal. And if you spend this week with him, Cuddy's promised you the next two weeks off clinic. Isn't it worth it for that?"
It was, although House wouldn't admit it. Actually, it would be kind of fun to mess with the Brit. And he was a little stoked as well that the guy was making this trip especially to meet with him. Still, he had to make sure everyone thought this was a huge imposition on him.
"She should give me a month off clinic for doing this."
"Don't push your luck." His friend told him as they headed down on the elevator to the Dean of Medicine's office.
"Why are you coming with me? He's not working with you." House asked.
"Just wanted to meet him."
House eyed him suspiciously. "She wants you to make sure I get there."
"Now why would she do that?"
"Because she knows that if I had the chance, I'd bolt."
The look on Wilson's face belied the truth of House's words.
"Relax. I want those two weeks of no clinic. I'm going to do this."
Wilson only partially believed him, so he stayed at his side until they got to Cuddy's office. She was standing by her desk, smiling and talking to a tall man who had his back to them.
When she saw them enter, she stopped talking and said, "Here he is now."
The man turned around and smiled at House and Wilson.
Cuddy made the introductions. "Dr. Slippery, this is Dr. Wilson, the head of Oncology."
Wilson held out his hand and Dr. Slippery took it.
"And this," she said with a small sigh, "Is Dr. House. House, this is Dr. Paul Slippery from London."
Slippery beamed and held out his hand. "It's truly an honor Dr. House."
House ignored the hand, but studied the man. He was tall, about as tall as himself, with blue eyes as well. However, this man was clean-shaven and neatly dressed in a brown suit with a tie. He didn't look like too much of a moron – despite the suit – but House was still reserving judgment on that.
Slippery eventually lowered his hand and looked at Cuddy who just shook her head.
"House, you will take Dr. Slippery to the clinic with you, please."
"Hey, you said I didn't have to do clinic for two weeks!"
"I said you didn't have to do clinic AFTER you worked with Dr. Slippery. And since you don't have a patient right now, you'll take him to the clinic." As House opened his mouth to protest, she added, "And for every complaint you make, you lose one day of those two weeks."
She turned to Slippery. "Good luck, Doctor. Let me know if he tries to run away or hide from you or play practical jokes or anything."
She returned to her desk, effectively dismissing them.
House glared at her once more for effect, then turned and exited the office. Slippery followed.
"So, Dr. House, Dr. Cuddy told me you don't currently have a patient to treat. I can't tell you how that amazes me. Our office is always full of patients. My partners and I can barely…"
House interrupted him. "First, it's just House. Second, stop talking. You can watch me perform magic, but you have to do it silently. Understand?"
"Of course, if.." he stopped when he saw the warning look on House's face and nodded instead.
"Good." House limped to the clinic, the Englishman following behind him. He went to the desk and grabbed a file, glanced at it and then walked to the exam room. Slippery easily kept pace and tried to peek at the file, but House hid it.
Inside the exam room, a man was standing by the table, looking uncomfortable.
"So, what's the problem, Mr., uh," House took a quick look at the file, "Jackson?"
"I had heart surgery a few weeks ago."
"Good for you."
"I'm having trouble with my medication."
"Why didn't you call your doctor?"
"I did. He told me to just keep using it and everything would be fine. But I'm really getting upset so I came here."
"Sure, don't bother the doctor that got paid big bucks to operate on you. Come to the free clinic and torture me. That's a much better idea."
"Are you aware you're being sarcastic, doctor?"
"Are you aware that you're a –" House began.
Slippery spoke up. "So what medication is bothering you?"
"The patch. The nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I'm running out of places to put it."
House stared at the man for a moment, a thought entering his mind that he hoped wasn't right.
"Uh, could you take your shirt off."
Mr. Jackson nodded and quickly unbuttoned his shirt and removed it. House's mouth dropped open when he saw close to a hundred patches on the man's body. He heard something behind him and turned quickly to see Slippery covering his face with his hand and trying to stifle the laugh that was trying to escape.
After instructing the patient to REMOVE the old patch before applying a new one, House and Slippery left the exam room. House dropped the file on the desk and grabbed another.
Slippery was still smiling. "I'm sorry, House, I know you'd prefer it if I don't speak, but I have to ask: are all of the patients here like …that?"
"No, of course not."
"Good."
"Usually they're worse."
Slippery just stared at him as he walked into the next exam room.
There was an older woman sitting on the table and she smiled at the doctors.
House sighed. "Mrs. Parker, what's up?"
"I need an MRI, doctor."
"Okay, well, you're lucky, the hospital's running a special on them today."
Mrs. Parker frowned. "Are you aware you're being sarcastic?"
"Very. Do you want to tell me why you need an MRI? I mean, why should we waste time by having me examine you and figure that out?"
"I want to see Jesus." She said reverently.
House couldn't help himself. He turned and looked at Slippery who just shrugged and shook his head.
"And Jesus has taken residence in the MRI machine?" House asked her.
"Oh, no, Jesus lives with his heavenly father."
"If you say so."
"Please let me explain, doctor."
"Please do."
"Last year I was having pain in my neck and the doctor did an MRI. And when I looked at the scan, there He was."
"There who was?"
"Jesus. He was there in the scan of my spine. You could actually see the hands. They looked like they were nailed on the cross. You could see the body. It was in a straight line and then you could see His feet. They looked like they were together and the knees were bent."
She smiled at House. "It was a miracle. And six weeks after that, my neck actually felt better. I knew it was Jesus."
"Yeah, either Jesus or physical therapy."
"But I want to see Him again, to find out what plan He has for me. He healed me for a reason. So if you give me an MRI, maybe I can find out."
House's eyes met Slippery's. "What do you think, Doctor? Should she have another MRI?"
"Well, Doctor, perhaps if the second scan shows the same thing, it may very well be the much-anticipated Second Scanning of Christ."
House smiled. "I'm going to send a nurse in to take you up to get your scan."
"Oh, thank you! I'll be sure to tell Jesus to pray for you."
"That's okay, I'm not a big believer in the Church of the MRI. I tend to follow the Apostles of the EKG. "
Both men left the room and once outside, Slippery couldn't back the laughter. "I thought you were joking. But you're absolutely right."
House smiled at him. "Time for lunch, Slippery."
They headed to the cafeteria, where Slippery offered to buy House lunch.
"Oh, you don't have to do that, but since you're a guest…"
Slippery paid for House's Rueben and his own chicken salad sandwich. They sat a table and began to eat.
Finally, House spoke. "So why were you so determined to work with me?"
"I've read about you and I believed it would be beneficial to my practice if I had the chance to work with you."
House stared at him. "Do you really believe that rot?"
Slippery was quiet for several minutes. Finally, he looked up, his blue eyes sparkling. "Actually, no."
"Ah. So what's the real story?"
"There was a grant for a doctor to come to the United States. All that was needed was to write up a proposal naming an American doctor and why it would benefit you to work with him. I went on the internet and looked up American doctors. When I read about you, I knew you'd be perfect. You would impress the committee because of the cases you solved. But I also read about your attitude. You wouldn't make us work too hard.
"So I wrote my proposal and spoke of how I wished to meet and work with the brilliant Dr. House because of his great abilities. And I was given the grant."
"But why were you so determined to do that? Just to come to the U.S.?"
"Just to get away from London. My practice. And my family."
"Now we're getting to it."
"Please don't misunderstand, House. I love my family very much. And I am very happy with my medical practice. But sometimes, they can all be a bit overwhelming. Do you know how that feels?"
"In a strange way, yes I do."
"Then you can understand. My wife, Estelle is a beautiful woman. But sometimes I feel like she's just preoccupied with other things instead of me. And my sons? All they can think about is having sex. And I can't even remember the last time I had sex. My partners? Well, Surinder is good. I don't know what I'd do without her. But Pilfrey? He's an idiot. Still, I have to work with these people. And I don't even know where my wife is working. And my sons' girlfriends are living at our house and…"
He saw the confused expression on House's face and stopped. After a few moments of silence, he finally said, "Anyway, when I saw the advertisement for the grant, I thought 'wouldn't it be nice to get away from all of them?' and so I applied for it and by some luck, I was selected."
House stared at him. "So you didn't come here to work with me? To learn all my magical methods?"
"Well, I'm sure you're an excellent doctor. Everything I read about you implied that you are. But you and I each have a very different sort of practice. I treat ten or twenty patients a day. You barely do that in a year. My practice would fall apart if I did."
"So, it doesn't matter to you if we don't treat patients together?" House asked him.
"Not really." Slippery replied.
"Cool. Life just got a whole lot easier."
Two hours later they were in House's office, the TV on, and a bag of potato chips between them.
Slippery was staring intently at the television. "So actually, it isn't the trucks that are monster, essentially it's the tires?"
"Well, if you want to get technical…"
"This is amazing. I have no idea why the BBC doesn't air this. It's so exciting."
"BBC is too busy with all that intelligent drama and witty comedy. No time on their schedules for an art form like Monster Trucks."
"Exactly!" Slippery said with a laugh.
House suddenly sat up and switched off the TV. "Incoming." He said.
Slippery turned on the lightscreen and stood in front of it, studying the image displayed when Lisa Cuddy walked in.
"House, why aren't you in the clinic?" she demanded.
"Dr. Slippery and I are studying the MRI for a patient we had this morning."
"Is it a case?" she asked with excitement, hoping to wow the Brit with House's knowledge.
"Probably not. We're just looking for some, uh, interesting formations, so to speak."
She looked at the screen. "This MRI is perfectly normal."
"The patient isn't."
She glanced at the potato chip bag and then back to the two doctors.
"I'm sure that deep consultation over a perfectly healthy patient goes much better with salt and grease." She said.
"Are you aware that you're being sarcastic, Dr. Cuddy?" Slippery asked.
She glared at him. "I don't know how House pulled you into his world and I don't believe I want to know. But I expect the two of you to be in the clinic tomorrow. All day."
She slammed her hands down on the potato chip bag and smiled at the blue-eyed doctors. "Enjoy your potato crumbs."
As she walked out, House called after her, "You just set American-British relations back about ten years.
The next day, they returned to the clinic, checked in and found an exam room to hide in. They managed that for about ninety minutes, until Cuddy found them and chased them out. They did one patient and made their way to the roof, where they sat for another hour before heading down to lunch.
The rest of the day became a cat and mouse game between the two men and Lisa Cuddy. Towards the end of the third day, she gave up looking for them and just announced in the general direction she hoped they were to stay out of trouble and not to break anything.
House took that as an authorization to play hooky. He took Slippery to the OTB parlor, to the local bar, bowling and anything else he could think of that was NOT in the hospital.
On the last day, they returned to the hospital just before five p.m. so that Slippery could bid farewell to Cuddy.
House led him to her office. She looked up when she saw them enter and let out a sigh.
"Well, are you two finished terrorizing Princeton?"
"Princeton should be so lucky." House said.
She turned to Slippery. "I assume this is your final night here?"
"Yes, I'll be flying back to London tomorrow."
"Well, I'm happy you chose our hospital to do…whatever the hell the two of you did all week."
"Why, Dr. Cuddy, I was instructed on advanced medical techniques from an eminent American physician."
Cuddy let out a short laugh. "Dr. Slippery, are you aware that you are being sarcastic?"
Slippery smiled and winked a blue eye.
"My work here is done. House said with a contented sigh.
If you don't know, Paul Slippery is the character Hugh Laurie played in the British series Fortysomething, about a doctor who sort of lost control of his life. If you haven't seen it and if you're a fan on Mr. Laurie, do yourself a favor and rent or buy it. It's very funny.