The Return of Sweet-Meat
It was so big that it looked like a floral arrangement had grown legs and was walking itself down the hall. Occasionally eyes would poke through the bird-of-paradise at the top, trying to read the signs. It stopped when it got to Diagnostic Medicine. A Converse-shod foot nudged the door open and put the basket down on the table.
Cameron laughed as she recognized the face, "Declan! What are you doing here?" She flung herself at him and gave him a big kiss on the mouth, in front of House, God and everybody.
"Dunno actually, I could say I was in the neighborhood, but that'd be a lie, I got lost twice driving here. I wanted to bring you a nice surprise." He indicated the basket of flowers.
"It's beautiful, and very thoughtful, thank you." She amused herself by checking out the arrangement. It was full of exotic, unscented flowers. Ginger, antherium, and some purply thing that was pretty as all get-back.
Chase stood up and shook his hand and clapped him on the back in a big Aussie clutch. "Oi, mate!" Then they leapt up and slammed each other in the chest.
Wilson, who was going over some paperwork for House, winced, "Ow!"
"S'nothin'," Chase confirmed as he sat back down to review a chart.
House stepped forward, having been roused from his game of Donkey Kong. "So Cameron, who's this? Cousin? Friend from school? Brother?" He surveyed the young man.
Cameron shot him a quizzical look, "Declan, this is my boss, Dr. House." She turned to House, "This is Declan, one of my boyfriends." She said it casually, knowing that it would sting more than if she had been pointed.
Foreman smiled and bit his lip, pretending to be intrigued with the Star-Ledger.
House nodded, "Boyfriend? One of many boyfriends?" It just begged to be explained.
Declan was only too happy to accommodate him, "Allison here is juggling three of us currently. I'm, Declan, then there's Ted, he's in advertising and Malcolm, what's he do again?"
"Hockey player." She informed him.
"Unemployed," House added.
Chase guffawed, "too right."
"And where in the British Isles are you from?" House asked, being a little too polite.
"Scotland, Glasgow to be precise. But I'm here for now and Cameron's m'girl." With that he grabbed her around the shoulders in a rugged embrace.
House motioned for Wilson to join him in interrogating the newcomer. "So…Declan…what is it that you do here in New Jersey?"
Wilson smiled at House, he was transparent as glass.
"I'm teaching over at the university." He said nonchalantly.
"He's poet in residence," Cameron quickly explained.
"Ooh, swanky." House suddenly darkened, "Wait a minute, you're not Declan McMannus?"
"I'm not? Who am I then?" Declan toyed with a lock of Cameron's hair.
"Stop that. It's distracting. So you're one of this century's most important poets?" House just stared.
"Well, last century too, if we're being honest and not modest." He jumped up. "I've got a class in an hour, but I wanted to see you this evening."
Cameron's face fell, "I can't."
"Ted?" He asked.
"No. Night off." She shrugged.
"Rinsing out your delicates? Well, I suppose the mundane needs attention as much as the grand. We're still on for Saturday, right?" He put his forehead against hers.
"Absolutely." She kissed him on the nose.
"Oh, come on. We're right here!" House protested.
Wilson rubbed House's shoulder and whispered in his ear, "Be nice, we can claw out his eyes later in study hall."
House shot him a dirty look.
Foreman waved at Declan as he left. "I don't know Cameron, right now he's number one. At least in the romance department." He commented once he was out of sight.
Cameron considered it, "Sure, he's romantic and a great kisser."
"And charming," Chase threw in.
"Yeah, totally charming, but…" She let her thought trail off.
"He doesn't ring your chimes?" House seemed a little too happy about her ambivalence.
Cameron fixed him with a cold stare, the one she learned from him. "Not everyone was blessed with your social graces."
Foreman chuckled and Chase stifled his laugh.
Wilson turned his attention back to his chart, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
"Et tu, Brute?" House said bitterly.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves." Wilson responded.
House sighed, "The most unkindest cut of all." He returned to his Game-Boy. Glancing up periodically to see if the team had somehow conspired…what? To antagonize him? To make him miserable? To go out and have a life outside of the hospital? The nerve of them.
It was Cameron's night to host Thursday Pizza and Crap TV Night. She was also doing her laundry, conditioning her hair and giving herself a pedicure. All the benefits of hosting. Foreman watched her as she waddled around her apartment with toe-spacers and a plastic shower cap on her head.
Chase would be arriving with pizza momentarily.
Cameron sat down and pointed the blow dryer at her toes, speaking loudly over the noise. "He looked like his feelings were hurt." She said, picking up the thread of a conversation that never seemed to end.
Foreman rolled his eyes and flipped the page of his Esquire, "So? How many times has he hurt your feelings? Besides, when does he ever offer even to buy us a drink after work?"
She turned off the dryer; it was, after all, one-minute color. She admired her feet, "Purple Passion. Is this hot?" She waved her toes in his face.
Foreman looked at her violet colored nails, "Looks like they're bruised."
Cameron smiled as she whipped out a sheet of decals, "Wait!" She peeled off the flowers and stuck them on her toe nails. "Now what do you think?" Again with the wiggling toes.
"Adorable. Where did Chase go for the pie? The North Pole?" Foreman stood up and stretched.
"Conte's. He forgot to call ahead." She put a clear coat over her nails and put her implements back in the basket set aside strictly for manicure tools.
"Damn." He headed into the kitchen for a beer. "Are you saving this Guinness for anything?" He called out.
"No." He heard faintly from her bedroom.
He could hear the water running; he assumed that she was rinsing out her hair. She'd be back there a while. He sat back down and waited for his dinner. Wheel of Fortune played on the TV with the volume turned down low. He boosted the sound. "Last of the Red-Hot Lovers" he guessed at the partially illuminated puzzle.
There was a knock at the door. He figured that with the water that Cameron didn't hear it, so he got up to let Chase in. "About damn time, I could eat my shoes…" He came face to face with House.
"Oh." They said simultaneously. Each stunned into silence momentarily.
Cameron came out of the bedroom in her running shorts, damp T-shirt and hair in a towel-turban. "Finally! Oh!" She too was taken aback.
House blushed, "I guess I should take a number?"
Cameron laughed, "No, come on in. We're waiting for Chase to come with the pizza." She avoided the implication of his embarrassment.
Foreman stationed himself back on the couch and picked up his magazine. "I'm bringing it next time. He probably got green peppers on it. I hate those things." He took a sip of his beer. "Hey, can I get you something to drink? She's got Heineken."
House nodded, not knowing what to make of the scene. It looked domestic, but from the way they were acting, there was no way that he interrupted anything interesting. Foreman handed him a bottle and sat back down.
Cameron toweled her hair bent over, giving both men a view of her cleavage. "That was worth the drive over." House commented.
Foreman shrugged, "I guess I'm used to it."
House's eyebrows shot up, but saying nothing, he took another swig of beer.
Cameron threw her towel into the laundry room and went back to the bedroom to finish drying her hair, ignoring the two of them.
House tried again, "Come here often?"
Foreman put down his magazine, "What is it that you really want to know?"
House leaned his chin on his cane, "I don't know. What should I know?"
There was a knock at the door and it swung open, "Dinner's here! That place was a zoo!" Chase called. He moved to put the pie on the coffee table and seeing House, exclaimed, "Damn." Collecting himself, he added, "Good thing I got the garlic rolls."
Foreman glanced over at House, "Staying for dinner?"
House went to stand up, "No, you have your little menage-a-tois, or whatever it is that you're doing, I'll just toddle along."
Cameron returned, having removed her toe separators, blown her hair dry and if Foreman wasn't mistaken, applied lip gloss. "No stay, there's plenty. I made a salad."
He paused, it was too weird. Them sitting there, relaxed, casual…too casual for it not to be intimate, but it didn't have that vibe.
Foreman added, "Come on, you know you want to."
Chase had grabbed a slice and filled his mouth. He wished House would leave, having had quite enough of him at work.
Cameron grabbed a plate and served him a slice before he could say no.
"I guess I'm staying." He sat back down.
Cameron smiled and filled her plate with salad. "Good. The rule is we don't talk about work."
Foreman swore he could hear crickets chirping.
As their show came on, it turned out it was one that House watched and conversation naturally turned to who was an idiot, who was trying too hard and who had the best prospects for winning and why.
Chase turned to Foreman, "Okay mate, what's for dessert?"
Foreman smiled and went to the kitchen, returning with a pink box tied with white string. "I went to Olive's"
He opened up the box and there was a perfect little chocolate cake. Four sets of eyes admired it.
Cameron jumped up, "I'll put on the coffee."
Chase followed after her with the paper plates and napkins from their meal and followed her into the kitchen.
House looked at Foreman, "He's such a good helper."
Foreman chuckled, "So when are you going let up on him?"
House checked his watch, "I'd say another two weeks will suffice."
"He's not a bad guy. He's just insecure." Foreman wiped the condensation from the coasters with a leftover napkin.
House shrugged, "He's still here, isn't he?"
"So why torture him?"
"It's fun, besides, I'm so busy with him, I don't have time to torture you." House sat back on the cushions and turned his attention to the recently eliminated loser's final farewell, "If I were the boss, I'd have fired that guy on the first day. You just knew he'd never fit in." He motioned at the television.
"You are the boss. So how come you haven't fired Chase? I mean, if you're that pissed off at him?" Foreman could have sworn that he heard a towel snap in the kitchen.
House smiled, "Yes, I'm pissed off at him, what he did was unforgivable. He jeopardized Cameron's job, your job and he was positively gunning for my job." He paused to think and noticed that Foreman's face had clouded. "Forgot about that, did you? So busy getting your cadre together that you managed to befriend your enemy?"
Foreman blinked and smiled, wiping the look of concern from his face, "I choose to put it behind me."
"So did I." House replied, "Are we actually getting any cake here, or was that just a display designed to tempt us?"
Cameron and Chase emerged from the kitchen giggling like children. "Dessert's here, eat up!" Cameron said, placing the tray on the table.
House took a fork full of cake, "Foreman, what is this? It transcends cake. It's magnificent." He licked the tines.
Cameron's eyes were closed and she wore an ecstatic look on her face. "Mmmm."
"Y'know, the only thing better than eating this, would be eating it off of Cameron." Chase added.
"Trust you to lower the tone of the evening," Foreman admonished.
"Both of you, shut up. I'm eating chocolate." Cameron protested, carefully scraping the plate so as not to miss a crumb.
House had stopped eating to watch Cameron, "Look. She's eating. And it's not something I'd feed to a rabbit."
"We don't talk about that." Chase said sotto-voce. "It annoys her."
Cameron continued to eat, "I'm not hearing this," she warned.
At about ten, cake had been eaten and cleaned up, and since they had work the following day, Chase and Foreman got up to leave. Cameron had turned on the Simpsons, mostly as background noise.
She saw them to the door, but not before Foreman had asked House, "You coming too?"
House stood firmly in the living room, "Don't wait for me. I'll be along presently."
Cameron shut the door behind two curious partners-in-crime and then turned towards House. "So why are you here?"
"I thought you were going to be alone." He answered, making a show of looking for his keys.
"They're in your pocket. And if I were alone, why would you have been here?" She pressed.
"I wanted to talk to you." He put his hand in his pocket and brought them out, their jingle the universal symbol for 'this conversation is over and I'm leaving.'
"Okay, so talk." She crossed her arms over her chest, as though to protect herself from something he might say.
House looked at the carpet, "I'm sorry. I've been wanting to tell you that for a while, but there wasn't an opportunity."
Cameron was genuinely confused, "Sorry for what? You haven't done anything. Well, nothing you don't normally do," she amended.
"I know that I might have done…or said something that upset you and I wanted to apologize." He saw the look on her face, something between pity and anger, "I should go."
"No. Wait. I accept your apology. You've behaved badly towards me. But if you're truly sorry, than I forgive you." She waited.
"That's it?" He seemed relieved and disappointed.
"That's what you wanted, right?" She turned the television off and then moved towards the kitchen to turn the light off in there.
He opened his mouth to say something and thought better of it. "Yes. That's what I wanted." He walked towards that door, "Good night. Thank you for letting me stay. It was…" he almost said fun, "interesting."
She smiled, "you're welcome." She watched him walk down the hall to the elevator. It was only after she closed the door that she squeed and hugged herself.
A.N. Regarding Declan McMannus, yes, I know that's Elvis Costello's real name. So I borrowed it for the character who is clearly not Elvis Costello.
Also, thanks for the enthusiastic response.