Chapter 5
Well, it seems you all liked the lampshade gag. This chapter is for Oni, who told me not to stop, alipeeps,who told me she loved, sneaky, omnipotent House and freaked out ducklings, Siyavash, who didn't give a novel sized review >:( QT Roo, who found things amusing, paige fan, who couldn't wait, Ataea, who wants duckling torture (sadist), Elbereth Gilthoniel, who LOVED the story, Calwyn, who has a sore stomach, Yamiyugistalker, who can see it happening, and Chromo26, who scares me by comparing it to a movie. Now, bring on the goat!
The door into House's office was slightly ajar, and Foreman held up a hand for pause, wary. 'Wilson, open it,' he ordered, eyes narrowing.
Nervously chewing on a lip, and smelling danger just as clearly as Foreman, Wilson craned his neck to see all he could through the glass doors before carefully prodding the door with a foot. It swung open a little further, and a bucket full of flour came plummeting down, hitting the floor inside the office and sending white clouds billowing. Wilson got some on his trousers, but everyone remained relatively unharmed.
Satisfied at outwitting House for once, Foreman nodded and boldly strode into the office. He got hit with a second bucket of flour, rigged to a trip wire just inside the door.
Spluttering, Foreman angrily kicked the now empty bucket, thoroughly covered in flour. 'Shut up,' he snarled at his three colleagues, who were in fits of laughter. House's office was a mess, flour over everything.
'Get his iPod,' Cameron finally managed to order, sparks of her cooling anger still showing through, although it had been largely doused by Foreman's mishap. Scowling, Foreman ventured forward again, eyes peeled for danger. He made it to the desk without mishap, and began searching through the various paraphernalia scattered across it.
'He usually keeps it in the second draw down,' Wilson offered helpfully. Foreman looked at him suspiciously. 'You open it,' he ordered, stepping back to allow Wilson to do so. Rolling his eyes at the paranoia, Wilson opened the draw, pausing for a moment with an contemplative look on his face.
'What?' asked Cameron, watching him from across the desk. Silently, Wilson reached into the draw and pulled out the single note that lay within, holding it out to her. Confused, Cameron took it and read it. Her expression morphed into one of bemused resignation.
'"Theft- three to five years, no bail. Oh, and more clinic hours." He hasn't signed it, but it's in his writing,' she told them, flipping the note over just in case. Nothing.
Dejected at being beaten again, they trailed into the conference room, Foreman trailing floury footprints and all of them looking around for more traps. Except for Wilson, who had an indefinably smug air about him, and didn't so much trail as… perambulate in an indefinably smug fashion.
The whoopee cushion Forman somehow managed to sit on barely even drew a reaction from the sullen mood of the room, apart from a twinkle in the oncologist's eye that he always developed when suppressing inappropriate laughter. All was silent for a few long moments; the sort of silence when no one wants to say anything because they're beaten, well and truly.
'I blame you Chase,' Cameron said eventually, her hair frizzing slightly since it was drying without the aid of much careful hairdryer work. He turned injured puppy eyes on her.
'How is it my fault?' he demanded.
'To be fair,' started Wilson, smugness still apparent, 'you did suggest this in the first place. So you've only got yourself to blame by any trouble caused by trying to best House.'
'Hah,' muttered Chase bitterly. 'That's why you sold at out the earliest possible opportunity I suppose?'
All eyes turned to Wilson for the rebuttle. He shrugged mildly. 'Yes.'
'Oh come on!' grumbled Foreman. 'The man's not invincible. The closest thing he's got to a super power is a cane.'
There was another mild shrug, which made them all scowl. Wilson could be masterfully annoying when he wanted to be.
'I'm going home,' snapped Chase, standing and making to stalk out.
'But the day's not finished,' protested Cameron, predictably. He turned to glare at her. 'We come here to get work done. Right now, there is no point in being here.' He went to finish his storming exit with a flourish, only to be pelted with a rigged water balloon when the door was yanked open.
Infuriated, Chase spluttered in a wombat-like manner.
'Seriously, that's just child-like,' Foreman said with amusement. Somehow, all of House's pranks were a lot funnier when played on other people. He looked to Wilson for confirmation, but Wilson was just watching with a composed expression, a strange gleam in his eye. Narrowing his own eyes, Foreman looked back to the wetted Chase (now starting to rant), a premonition hitting him that even in this bizarre scene, not all was as it seemed. He never would have guessed what would happen next.
The substance in the water balloon didn't seem to have been water. It dried off Chase with the rapidity of an alcohol or ether, but Foreman could smell neither. Chase's angry rantings had also tailed off into puzzlement as he tried to work out what it was he had been covered with.
'Poor Chase,' cooed Cameron, rising from her seat. Her hurt expression from when he had snapped at her now morphed into one of tender sympathy. Puzzled, Chase cocked his head on one side slightly. 'Huh?' he commented eloquently.
'Being splattered with all that nasty stuff. Why don't you take your clothes off? Here, I'll help…' she advanced towards him. Mystified and slightly worried, Chase backed up, his back bumping against the glass door, which he started to push open for a second time. Very, very curious, Foreman looked at Wilson, whose eyes were riveted on the scene, a small smile on the lips.
'What's he done?' he asked suspiciously. Wilson glanced at him only briefly, but Foreman still caught that eerily familiar mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
'Come on Chase, I won't bite. Just peel off that shirt of yours.'
'Cameron,' tried Chase in a reasonable tone. 'What the hell are you talking about?'
She licked her lips, the look on her face enough to make any sane man run. Chase ran, although it was not necessarily a comment on his sanity right at that moment.
As the sound of Cameron's pursuing footsteps faded down the hall, Foreman turned to Wilson again. 'What…?' But Wilson was gone, and Foreman just put his head in his hands, smiling despite himself.
After a few moments, he became aware of a quiet chewing sound. Confused, and not a little scared, he looked around, finally tentatively pushing back his chair and venturing a glance under the table. He couldn't help the groan that escaped him. The goat under the table just eyed him calmly, peaceably chewing its cud. Or her cud, noticed Foreman with a touch of insanity. The goat had an eerie resemblance to Cuddy and was wearing... Foreman blinked and scrubbed his eyes with his hand. No, it was still definitely wearing a pink thong.
oo00OO00oo
Desperate, and a little scared, Chase pounded down the hospital halls, mind working furiously on an escape plan. He wove down the halls, the sight of a speeding intensivist (especially one that worked for House) barely causing most to blink, although the occasional female turned her head after him. Cameron, with her frizzy hair, blue scrubs and wild expression elicited a little more of a stir, but there were lots of weird things in this hospital.
The chase continued. Chase continued, running for his virtue. Over a year working for House and he knew the hospital well- its shortcuts and quickest routes- using them all now to put distance between himself and his manic pursuer. He only realized just in time that he did not have the keys to his car on him, and so it would offer no safety. Heart pounding, he changed course, ducking through a thru-ward to double back, just travelling whilst he tried to think where to go. He didn't like the answer that hit him along with the small key bumping around in his pocket, but under pressure from a half-mad immunologist bearing down on him even now, no other place with a firmly lockable door came to his frantic mind. Pausing for only a moment, he changed course yet again.
He slammed the door behind him as he entered, panting and gulping for all he was worth. Blinking innocently, House pulled his iPod ear-buds out and regarded the intruder to his peaceful cell. With eyes wide like a deer, Chase looked back, although he was still panting too much to say anything. Moments later, someone began to pound on the door, and he jumped, nervously sidling away from it although not taking his eyes off House.
'Thought you'd join me did you?'
'House… what… where…?' Chase panted a little more, although he was starting to recover slightly. Smirking in amusement, House leaned back and waited, cushioned comfortably by the rubber floor he sat on.
Rubbing his hand over his eyes, Chase sighed and tried again. 'I'm sorry… Now please make it stop?'
'Make what stop? I've been in here the whole time.' The innocence laced his voice so thickly that it could have been used to make Girl Scout cookies. With a perfect sense of theatrical timing, Cameron began to call through the door, her tone cajoling. Chase shuddered.
Cautiously, he stepped sideways a little more then sat in a similar fashion to House, leaning his back on the bouncy wall. 'I really hope I'm the only one with a copy of this,' he mentioned, digging the key to the padded room out of his pocket and laying it on the floor next to him.
'I do too, for your sake. I hear sexual exhaustion is a nasty way to die.'
'What did you-' (he paused to cough from the running) '-do to her?' asked Chase, mortified afresh at this particular peril he was in. House eyed him, like he was considering whether to deny it all yet again, but he appeared to decide that he could have more fun with Chase by admitting it. Slowly, to show he was in no hurry, he took his yo-yo out of his pocket and began to attempt walk-the-dog.
Chase noticed, like he was supposed to, that it was the same yo-yo that had been in Wilson's office, but he bit his tongue and kept quiet, feeling more and more chastised as House's full mastery continued to sink in.
'Pheromones,' stated House with grand tones, 'are a very powerful force.'
Chase gulped, his body starting to really wind down from his exertions. He could feel his muscles seizing up, both from the running, and from a sinking dread. 'You covered me in pheromones,' he mono-toned.
'Oops,' said House with a mockingly apologetic little smile.
'How long,' uttered Chase, 'will they take, to wear off…?'
House shrugged. 'I think about two months. Not sure. When do you think it was Cameron well and truly dropped her crush on me?'
Chase just looked at him, a spanner abruptly yanked out of his mental cogs so they spun into motion with sudden and painful clarity. 'You tested this on yourself?'
'It was an accident. The wrong mixture of stuff I found in my bathroom cupboard the day I ran out of deodorant. But I figured that I shouldn't have been the only one to suffer.' There was some more innocent batting of the eyelashes, then he turned his concentration back to a successful yo-yo trick. Chase groaned, hunching over and burying his face in his hands.
'I hate you,' he muttered, muffled. 'I really, truly, hate you.'
'So you admit you cooked up this scheme to get back at me?'
'No!' replied Chase, head shooting up to reveal ruffled hair and wide eyes, startled in a sudden panic. He was terrified that an affirmative answer would land him in even more trouble, somehow. 'It was the… the… and the…' he opened and closed his mouth for a bit before: 'Foreman helped plan it too!' came out in a rush. House raised a slow eyebrow, gaze piercing. The yo-yo continued its steady path, almost stroked up and down by those elegant fingers. Chase shrunk down slightly where he was sitting.
'Good to see your ratting-out powers are only improving with time.'
'He's not stuck in a room with his insane boss whilst the door is being beaten down by a manic co-worker right now,' muttered Chase.
'So their good fortune means it's OK to grass on them? Interesting when applied to the Vogler situation…'
Chase just stared at him, doing a combination of deer, and ruffled rabbit. The image was so pathetic that House could see how a lesser man might take mercy. 'Don't worry,' he told Chase in mock kindness. 'Your big brother will be punished fairly too.'
'You call this fair?' demanded Chase miserably. 'You filled out my crossword in pen… and I've got Cameron on me for two months!'
House just smirked, and refrained from coming clean that it wouldn't last more than a couple of hours. The haunted look in Chase's eyes was just too good to relieve.
'I messed up Wilson's expensive pants too,' he offered.
End Chapter 5. TBC, with an epilogue, although probably not until Monday AEST, so half-way through Sunday for the rest of the world. Except China, and India, and Indonesia, and Japan, and Perth. Who together probably make up a majority of the world's population, but it doesn't count, since they're not on the internet. So half-way through Sunday for the important people. :P