Title: Casus Belli
Summary: (n.) An act or event that provokes or is used to justify war.
Damn him.
Wilson thought as he stood in the elevator alone. Usually you could hear him all over the hospital. Now he's under the radar and I can't find him for the life of me... He'd had been walking around the hospital for thirty minutes looking for the limping doctor but he'd had no luck in finding him. Wilson had searched his office, House's office, the roof, the conference room, and almost every other place House would likely be hiding out. The only place left was the clinic, and, even though the oncologist knew it was a dead end, he decided to look anyway.
Wilson found his way to the clinic and glanced around. Several patients were waiting to be seen and a few nurses were wandering doing various tasks. As he was about to leave, he jumped at the sight of a large pair of binoculars staring at him from the nurse's station.
"What in the-" he began. The binoculars moved to reveal an annoyed House, wearing a backwards camouflage cap on his head and a Dumdum stick hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
"You're not Windex, Wonder Boy." House stated.
"What are you doing?"
"Something unethical, I'm sure."
"Umm.."
"Here." he handed Wilson another pair of binoculars.
"What a-"
"Shut up and take the binoculars."
"Who or what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?" he questioned as he came around into the nurse's station.
"The main attraction." House told him, looking through the binoculars across the lobby. He drew Wilson's attention to a middle aged woman with a low cut shirt.
"House, this is wrong," Wilson pointed out.
"The twins are kind of cute, right?"
"Well, yes, but.."
"Now move up to see who they belong to," House corrected him. Wilson did so and found that he was staring at none other than the Dean of Medicine's chest. He jerked the binoculars away from his eyes and turned to the diagnostician, who calmly continued spying on their boss.
"House, what the hell is wrong with you? We're spying on Cuddy!" he quickly whispered.
"Well, what else would I be doing here?" he asked like it was a normal occurrence.
"I don't know, maybe doing your job?" he told with a look of grimace. House couldn't stifle a laugh.
"I've got better things to do than work, dear Wilson."
"Like spying on your boss?"
"That's high on the list," House admitted, "but it's not what I'm doing right now."
"What do you call it?"
"Starting a justified war."
"War is never justified, House."
"Tell that to my ego," he answered, reaching over to the side and bringing up a laptop.
"Where did you get the laptop?" Wilson asked, skeptical. "It looks strikingly similar to the new Macbook Dr. Shaw just bought."
"He let me borrow it." House said with a smirk. Suddenly the door to the clinic opened, revealing a forty-something year old man known as Dr. Bradley Shaw. He walked up to the nurse's station, right above Wilson and House's heads. Oblivious to their presence, he began talking to one of the nurses.
"Nurse Victoria?" A tall nurse turned around and smiled.
"Dr. Shaw. What can I do for you?"
"You wouldn't have by chance seen a new seventeen-inch Apple Macbook Pro floating around, have you?" House slowly shut the laptop and covered the logo on the back of the screen. Wilson shook his head and sat forward to say something, presumably to Shaw. Suddenly House's hand was over his mouth; Wilson looked at him with wide, confused eyes. House motioned to his cane with his head and silently threatened to beat the neediness out of him with it if he voiced one word. Wilson sat back and stayed quiet.
"I'm sorry, no I haven't." The nurse said finally, after thinking for a moment. "I'll keep my eyes peeled for it though."
"Thanks, Victoria." He said gratefully.
"You're welcome." She replied as he left the clinic. Wilson gave House a reproachful look.
"He let you 'borrow' it, huh?"
"'Borrow' is such a strong word.." He reopened the laptop to continue.
"Alright, ignoring that one little factor, what is so important you have to steal a laptop?" Wilson asked with intrigue. After all, he went to the trouble of stealing a computer; it must be good.
"This," House said, bringing up a picture, "is what I did," he gestured in Cuddy's general direction, "to that sandwich."
"Oh my God, is that-"
"You're damn right it is." he interrupted, proud of himself.
"That's disgusting!" Wilson told him.
"It gets better," the older doctor said, minimizing the window and restoring the Internet browser. He keyed a few letters as Wilson soon realized he was in his Yahoo! email account, composing a new message. With the picture of the tainted sandwich attached.
"Who are you sending that to?" he slowly inquired. House irately glanced at him.
"Who the hell do you think I'm sending it to?"
"Don't you dare!" he warned the mad doctor. House smirked and pressed send.
"I already had it saved as a draft." House informed him. "Little preemptive move on my part."
"She's going to kill you when she goes back to her office and checks her email!"
"Like hell she is." he said defiantly, pausing for a moment to stand and briefly rub his thigh. After, House resumed looking through the binoculars. "Cuddy gets email on her phone, so the show should start any second now..."
When Wilson resumed looking through his own pair of binoculars, he watched as Cuddy continued eating her sandwich in peace, until she reached into her pocket. She brought out her phone and stared at the screen for a few moments, pressing a button here and there with one hand and holding the sandwich in the other. Cuddy took a bite of the sandwich while she waited for the page to load, and then abruptly stopped chewing. The piece of the sandwich dropped out of her mouth.
"Not good.." he whispered. Their boss turned around in her chair and glared across the lobby, searching for the culprit. Wilson quickly ducked (more like fell) behind the station wall, while House sweetly waved at her.
"I don't know when this started, I don't know who threw the first punch, but it's on!" he said while removing the binoculars and grinning widely.
"It was you, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. Totally."
"But, why did you show the picture to me?"
"Why else? To get you involved." House told him, limping out of the nurse's station and leaving the clinic. Wilson stared at his back as he walked away, and then to the cafeteria, muttering,
"This man is going to get me killed."
A little while later Wilson was sitting in his office, not doing much of anything. He hadn't seen House for about an hour, and he wasn't sure if he should be worried or grateful. Soon his door opened to reveal the diagnostician in question holding a cup of coffee; he quickly shut the door and sat down in front of the desk.
"What are you up to now?" Wilson asked.
"Nothing." He set the cup down and pulled a black shiny object out of his jacket pocket.
"What is that?"
"Jesus phone." He gave House a confused look. "God, do you live under a rock? It's an iPhone."
"Where did you get it from?" House played with the gadget for a moment, intending on ignoring him, when suddenly a gut-wrenching shriek cut through the hospital. The two doctors glanced at each other, and listened as a male voice said,
"My phone is gone!!! Why is this happening to me?!?! All my Apple products are being stolen!!!"
"Sounds like all of Shaw's stuff is mysteriously disappearing." Wilson pointed out, giving House the same reproachful glare from earlier.
"I wouldn't know anything about that." House answered distractedly, finally setting the iPhone in his lap after a few minutes.
"Oh, you wouldn't?"
"Nope. Not a clue."
"Right." Wilson said sarcastically. House changed the subject from his theft record, pointing at the cup of coffee sitting between them.
"Taste that; I think they gave me decaf."
"Why can't you taste it?"
"I need a second opinion." He insisted. Wilson reluctantly grabbed the cup and tasted the coffee.
"Tastes fine to me." he announced, shrugging and taking another drink.
"I would have thought so too," House agreed, bringing up the iPhone to show him a picture on the screen, "till I saw this."
Wilson turned to the side and spat the coffee out all over the floor.
"See, this is why you need to be involved." House brought the iPhone back in front of him. "That could have been me."
"House!"
"What?" Wilson wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glowering at his friend.
"Why didn't you tell me the coffee was tainted?" he shouted.
"Wanted to find out if you were worthy candidate of those I have chosen to possibly scheme with."
"I'm not going to be your accomplice!" House frowned.
"Alright, 'candidate' is the wrong word. How about 'You're the only person in the contest and by default wins the prize of being my partner in conspiratorial crime'?"
"And I'm sure you have reasons why your conveniently placed team of doctors aren't in the raffle."
"Cameron would lecture me the entire time, Chase would be too afraid of getting fired, and Foreman, well…" House paused. "This is where you insert your choice of a racial slur."
"I guessed as much."
"There's no one else but you, plus this isn't going to be as fun if you're not more involved."
"I'm not helping you wage your war against Cuddy."
"You don't have to; all I need is someone to bounce ideas off of." He assured. "I'm doing all the legwork."
"No pun intended." Wilson unenthusiastically added, subtly agreeing to House's request.
"'Course not. Now, here's what we're gonna do..."
Lisa Cuddy came out of the bathroom annoyed for two reasons: 1) House was stalking around being a royal pain in her ass, and 2) she had just gotten thrown up on by a patient in the clinic. The staff was short-handed in the clinic, mainly because that limping smartass of a doctor was nowhere to be found (he seemed to have gotten very good at disappearing lately.) so she had to fill in for him. Cuddy was now on 24/7 House Alert to make sure he didn't pull a fast one on her and catch her off guard again like he did earlier. Then again, she couldn't help but wonder his motives for his actions.
Was it in response to the increased working hours in the clinic?
Was it for not letting him do the brain biopsy on his patient last week (that he did anyway)?
Or was he just being his typical proverbial ass self?
Honestly, with House, there was no telling. She shook her head as she rounded the corner into her office, surprised to see said doctor standing there, leaning on his cane, his free hand in his pocket. Cuddy carefully entered through the doors, eyeing him with evident contempt.
"Dr. Cuddy." He cheerfully greeted her.
"What are you doing here, House?" she asked, standing in front of him.
"What, no warm welcome for your most favoritest doctor?"
"Not after what you've been doing today."
"You haven't done too badly yourself."
"That coffee business was in response to you…" Cuddy stopped to find the right word.
"Contaminating?" he offered.
"…contaminating my sandwich."
"Two wrongs never make a right, Cuddy."
"And a limping, egotistical bastard torturing his boss doesn't make a right, either."
"Hey!" House said with a hint of hurt indignation in his voice. "I am not torturing you."
"House," Cuddy walked around to the other side of her desk, exasperate. She sent him a look reiterating her first question.
"I am here to give you these," he answered, taking his hand out of his pocket, moving over to her desk and holding it out to her. Cuddy grudgingly placed her hand out under his and was rewarded with a handful of screws. She glared at him.
"Does this have some kind of underlying message?" House glanced at her hand, then back up at her.
"Would you be mad if I said 'yes'?"
"Yeah. I'd be pretty upset."
"Then yes."
"Damnit House!" Cuddy slammed her fists on the desk. "I've had about en-" She cut herself off as the two glanced down at the desk that had started groaning and creaking. Soon, the desk fell apart, leaving a heaping pile of wood at Cuddy's feet. The Dean of Medicine gradually looked up at House, who informed her,
"'Watch out for falling desks…'" Cuddy sat down in her chair, which also promptly fell apart and landed her on the floor.
"'…and collapsing chairs.' Gotta love Chinese fortune cookie message; they're so accurate." He finished, a sly grin forming on his face. Her legs relaxed and she gave a frustrated sigh. House exited her office before she got up and limped through the clinic. Picking up his bag he'd tossed in the nurse's station and grabbing a DumDum, he allowed himself to smirk again, feeling pretty damn pleased with himself. Successfully harassing Cuddy the entire day had set him in a good mood for the last remaining hours of his shift, and now he was about to go home and plan what he could possibly do tomorrow.