My first House fic – I think this only came about because my beta has been kidnapped by aliens with my latest update to my ongoing CSI Fic: if anyone sees my beta can they kindly return her, or at least get her comments on my last chapter.
Anyway…House. This was going to be a comedy and turned into a philosophical work; I must be unwell. I like House, some of the people at work call me House…pity my staff .
Note: I write in a highly grammatical style and some of my sentences may confuse, hell, they confuse me and I write them…persevere…
Please read and shower me in reviews – or not. Love it, Hate it, any commentary is good commentary. At the least tell me if you actually want everyone to get to the clinic?
NB: 11/7/2011 - Have started writing again and have decided to revise and revisit this fic: it's only been six years. Am tghtening grammar adn phrasing though the first 6 chapters and will then start to, occasionally, add more: should be interesting.
Dr Gregory House appeared to be in a somewhat ebullient mood, which was reason enough to put the three young doctors in his charge on alert. While Foreman, Cameron and Chase were used to the predatory sadism of his usual smirk this - they were hesitant to use the word, smile - expression was reminiscent of something different, something darker, more malevolent; like a piranha that had brushed its teeth in anticipation of getting a sacred cow for its birthday.
"Alright minions, are you ready?"
"Minions?"
"Would you prefer lackeys? How about peons? That has a suitably servile ring to it."
"Minions it is," sighed Foreman.
"Ready for what?" inquired Chase, his usually facile intelligence taking a moment to catch up with the conversation; lack of caffeine will do that to a man. At present, Chase was especially cautious, his fifth columnist activities for the resident Lord of the Sith, and Chairman of the Board, Vogler, making the necessity of asking questions of his boss especially important lest he be led into a trap.
"Clinic duty."
"You're getting us to do your clinic duty? Can you get any lazier, House?"
"No Cameron, I'm coming too, I'm going to observe your diagnostic skills in action; consider it part of your ongoing development. Now, before we go, a few points. Cameron, don't automatically sympathise with the patients, it only encourages them to come back …."
"…Didn't you get the memo, House? We're a hospital, we want sick people to come and see us…"
"…Well, you might, Cameron; now, where was I?" House began ticking the points off on his fingers. "So…don't encourage them, don't listen to them …"
"But how then are we going to know what's wrong with them?"
House looked incredulous, "You'd listen to a patient to find out what's wrong with them? You're supposed to be a doctor, Cameron, not a counsellor; I believe we store those in the basement," he added as an afterthought. "I'll ask Cuddy, she'll know. What else?" he continued, "That's right! Don't smile at them; they can smell it like a lion smells fear and once you've smiled for the first time they'll begin to think you actually care and then they'll start telling you their life stories, their myopic hopes, their pointless dreams and, if you're really lucky," he made lucky sound like an mummy's curse, you'll get photographs of their children and grandchildren and even ... pets …."
The sound of a throat being cleared interrupted House mid-diatribe.
"What is it Foreman?"
"Are we actually going to the clinic in the foreseeable future, or are we going to sit here listening to you telling us how not to do our jobs?"
House smirked "Well, Foreman, since I'd pretty much given up on telling you how to do your job I thought the opposite might have some small effect and, speaking of things I don't want you to do, don't automatically assume the patient's an idiot …."
"But you do that all the time."
"That's because the patients are idiots."
"So you're allowed to treat the patients like they are idiots, but I'm not."
House looked thoughtful for all of ten seconds, "Sounds about right."
"That's inconsistent."
"What's your point?"
Foreman knew better than to answer that particular question.
"What about me?"
The look House levelled at the Australian was mildly glacial. "Indeed, what about you, Doctor Chase? Perhaps you'd like a moment to inform Vogler that I'm inflicting you all on the hapless innocents in the clinic before we leave?"
Chase was determined to meet the older doctor's gaze, however, this was to prove somewhat difficult as House was already on the move and Chase's show of defiance met only retreating back; he wasn't helped by an unsupportive snigger from Cameron and Foreman's barely suppressed smile, "C'mon guys, cut me a bit of slack."
Foreman shrugged, "Sorry Chase, you brought this on yourself, you chose the wrong butt to kiss and it's come back to bite you on…the…err…arse; face it, you're just going to have to let House kick you around for a while ..."
"... And how long do you think that's going to take?"
"Until he, in the fashion of God, decides to have mercy on your unfortunate soul," noted Cameron, "However, considering that it's House and not God, probably never."
"None of you will be shown any mercy if you don't shift your incompetent selves from here to the clinic within the next five seconds," came the retort from the door, where House, having noted that his staff hadn't followed, had doubled back to see what was keeping them. Admittedly, House had a point, he wasn't exactly renowned for racing through the hallways and was even less renowned for racing down the halls to the clinic and, as such, the non-compliance of his prodigies in following along behind was readily apparent especially since he'd only made it about twenty metres down the corridor himself. It was rumoured throughout the hospital, but never within the hearing distance of the irascible doctor, that the only thing that could prompt him to move with any degree of rapidity was, when he received word through the grapevine - namely his friend, Wilson, since no one else would talk to him - that Doctor Cuddy had work with his name on it and was looking for him.
Knowing better than to argue, the three filed quietly past House who regarded their progress with the [apparent] level of disinterest common to officers reviewing their troops.
To be fair, House, he didn't think that the clinic was a complete waste of time; certainly it gave the hospital somewhere to put the myriad of brainless hacks they employed as doctors, however, in the grand scheme of things, he thought the clinic to be a total waste of his abilities, and to serve -in the manner of minor functionary - when he could be engaged in far more productive pursuits (such as like setting a new high score on his Gameboy or catching up with intricacies of his soaps) was an insult of the highest order. That being said, the clinic was a useful tool for training for his minions because, in House's opinion, it was the best place to ingrain the concept that medicine was not about looking after the sick but about solving problems: once the problem was solved the sickness was usually taken care of by the body as part of a wholly natural process.
If House were being candid, he wasn't so misanthropic as to believe that making sick-people well was a bad thing but, in his opinion and historically speaking, it wasn't really that big of a deal. Village wise-woman had being doing exactly that for millennia with little more to help them than a few roots and berries; House had actually sent Cuddy a memo suggesting that the hospital should employ some wise-women and sack some of the less competent doctors.
Cuddy had responded by asking what sort of severance package House wanted.
To House, being firmly of the opinion that - as people were idiots - any illness or malady was largely self-inflicted, and that the body would usually sort itself out if left alone, albeit with a little nudging if necessary. Medicine, he propounded, was where common sense and polite nudging stopped and where an investigative process began. It was all about cause and effect, and House, while doing everything in his power to avoid clinic duty himself, was a firm believer in using it as a teaching tool, if only to demonstrate to his students that the only thing stupider than an ignorant patient was a doctor who thought that they could, not only, tell the body what do to but thought that the body would actually listen.
Those doctors that didn't know House well, which was pretty much all of them, would have accused him of being vastly hypocritical in holding such a view contending that his arrogance was at best, boorish and, at worst, megalomaniacal. Those that did know House knew that his arrogance came not through an overwhelming sense of superiority but from his absolute hatred of being beaten and his preparedness to take risks that no sane, or less competent, physician would even consider in the pursuit of solving the latest puzzle. The thing was, House knew that he was fallible and he loathed it. It was because he recognised his own fallibility that House held those doctors, who never treated anything more difficult than a snotty nose and, when faced with such, threw pills at it, in absolute contempt. House challenged himself to be better than that, and as such, felt it was his due to deride those of narrower vision.
Not, of course, that he informed Cameron, Foreman and Chase of this philosophy. It was, House believed far better to let his minions believe him a self-serving tyrant and to spend their waking moments trying to prove him wrong - from this were good doctors made.
House allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction and wandered off in the direction of the clinic.