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[Accidental Voice;]
I don't know what the problem is with the carpet, it's got a blood stain trapped in it not a fragment of his soul. Cuddy should tell him she incinerated it, see what he does then. In fact, why wasn't it incinerated?
Foreman? Foreman.Great. I shouldn't have switched my damn service. Can you hear me now? No, obviously not, ( Read more... )
I don't know what the problem is with the carpet, it's got a blood stain trapped in it not a fragment of his soul. Cuddy should tell him she incinerated it, see what he does then. In fact, why wasn't it incinerated?
Foreman? Foreman.Great. I shouldn't have switched my damn service. Can you hear me now? No, obviously not, ( Read more... )
It would be the simplest, best explanation, and it's the one Robert is least inclined to believe. He's never been an especially creative dreamer; memories replay themselves as nightmares and the occasional big screen monster makes a cameo, but nothing lucid or particularly original. While he doesn't discredit his intelligence, his imagination wouldn't do this to him while he was trying to rest.
So he waits by the fountain, the spray catching one side of his face as a further, damp reminder that this all feels too real. Stands and waits for a man with a gimp leg to hobble his way from god knows where to come and find him in the midst of his own mental disarray. Maybe if he concentrates hard enough he can inspire House to an uncharacteristic burst of speed. His coming out at all is almost evidence enough to go on the mental whiteboard.
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Then again... House sucks down more of his cherry flavored (and colored) slurpee thoughtfully. This would be an excellent test of deduction.
God this place made him bored. That twenty-five minute mark was coming up fast. Lo and behold, there was yet another little lost lamb of Princeton Plainsborough flock. Belatedly, House wished he brought something to throw. Pennies would have been perfect. Anybody throws them at a fountain.
No sense denying the inevitable. "G'day," is his greeting before another long slurp.
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Ah, that chihuahua in the winter is visible. It's almost funny. Could be later. This is a private talk between The Beaver and Ward.
"Cameron's right. The only reason why I haven't been kicked out is because they're playing with loaded dice and all the rules. Think Cuddy if there was no such thing as Midol or chocolate."
Sluuuuurp.
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Chase knows from experience and from vague, despairing comments made by Wilson, that House's diet is devoid of nutritional content as a general rule. So the slurpee is big and bright but not a beacon of anything out of the ordinary. Not something he wouldn't picture House with. It's possible to rationalize it, just like everything else here if he tries hard enough.
Speaking of, down to business. Chase crosses close enough to speak with a lowered voice, lowering his eyes too, for this. "Delirium tremens. I know, I'm not a drug user, I'm not an alocholic, but I know-"
His hands are getting too expressive, compensating for the level he's trying to keep in his tone. He folds them. "I know how real the DTs can be. And this could be head trauma, it could be a virus. Hell, it could be full system shut down acting as a trigger, but I'd prefer it if the ticking clock didn't really lead to the end of the world."
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Blondie still stares, or tries not to. "I could always hit you and see if you wake up." Not that he's that dumb. Or so House hopes that he's not that dumb, as therapeutic as it would be. "I was convinced that this was a delusion. I've had some great ones." A grin sits lopsided and very foreign looking on his scruffy face. He'll remember that dream on his own time.
"The ticking isn't counting down to the end of the world. Just this one." Help him figure it out or let him do the wondering on his own, decisions, decisions.
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He's addressing his masochistic side, then. It does exist, and why else would he still be in his fourth year as Diagnostic's kicked puppy if it didn't. But he hasn't even thought to pinch himself since walking into a waking dream. He does so now, subtly, glad of his folded arms to disguise the attempt.
It hurts as much as pinching ever really does.
So no, that's not the reason House is here. Chase knows why Wilson would be: counterpoint and counterbalance to the aforementioned miserable hermit. He's damn certain why Cameron would feature in the inner realms of his self examination, but House? "The world is me. The ticking could be my heartbeat, it could be a clock on the wall that I've co-opted into my delusions. Either way, it's the same thing winding down."
House is here for a purpose, the abuse only a side effect. "You're going to help me figure out what to do about it."
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"I never took you to be that selfish. It isn't always about you. For a hallucination that's startlingly coherent. Clocks tell the time. It's regulated, measured. Can you hear it right now?"
Of course he can't. All the same, House cups a hand to his ear. His cane rests in the crook of his elbow, slurpee still at hand. For a few seconds his face mimics strain trying to hear the ticking. Nothing, just as he knew. Done with standing, House takes a seat too.
"I'm not going to do anything I don't feel like doing. Is this the important talk? I walked here for this?"
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He sets his jaw, listening to the click of bone. He can still hear the fountain, the whir and circus tunes from the carousel. Those would both be internally produced paracusia, his theory still holds.
He smooths his hands over his knees as he crouches beside house. "No. My mum had... severe delusions tremens before she died. Depression, mania, who the hell knows what other psychoses she was keeping down with the gin. I couldn't put names to any of it then. But if there were other contributory conditions-"
It should be implicit, but he gives it voice anyway, "I know how many of them are hereditary."
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With a doubled effort to annoy, House drinks down more of the icy cherry slush loudly.
"The ticking is what everyone hears when they're alone. I hear it to. Maddening I suppose, but mostly because there's never a chime for the hour. And if one thing is sure, I'm not crazy. You could be."
House folds his arms. "By your theory, you've been slammed with the whole family Gum tree of mental defects in one fell swoop."
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He tilts his head toward his employer, but keeps his gaze on the fountain. Light catching the water makes it look like the images are under the surface, playing there instead of reflecting passers-by.
"House. You've employed some kind of alternate therapist spiritualist who looks about thirteen and calls herself a blood specialist. You're spending cosy nights in together. Are you paying her by the hour?"
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Oh, no he didn't.
That simple wooden cane with a rubber end, swings to hit across Chase's shins.
"She has no medical training to speak of or breasts for that matter. In the absence of Manny, Moe and Kangaroo Jack the show had to go on. Given the right kind of reading, she knows how to ask questions. And she knows an exploitable, non-deus ex machina 'magic' for lack of a better term that is more accurate and cheap than blood tests. Don't be jealous." All of this is said with the utmost disgust at the notion. House wasn't blind or cross eyed.
Talk about a bad taste in your mouth.
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He looks up, eyes wide, as though he's the offended party, here. To be fair, House has form, and Chase is just trying to puzzle out the nature of this new relationship. That it's not the kind of intimate he implied was obvious enough in talking to Eden. The kind of intimate it seems to be is far more unsettling. Why would he come up with that?
Maybe it's what he thinks House needs. If so, Chase has wished him on some poor Irish kid who never did him any harm. He'll have to find a way to make amends.
"Fine, you're not crazy. I might not be crazy." he rests his hands on his knees, the backs of his knuckles a defensive shield against further onslaught. "Then what?"
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This slurpee isn't going to hold him all night. He was hoping that it would.
"Then you're a sane person in a realm with minimal logic. It's a realm of sight, of sound," the Twilight Zone introduction ends there, "of sensory overload. You think it's freaky now?" House ruefully shakes his head. "You're in for it."
Diagnostics perch themselves on the shelf of his mind to think over. Not that he'll share. At least not now.
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"Thanks for that contribution. If all you've got for me is the harbinger of doom speech we really could have done this over the web. You'd be a hit on all sorts of niche cultist sites, somebody might even build you a spaceship."
Maybe he'll think on it himself, come back to House when he's got a case to present instead of nostalgic paranoia and half-formed assumptions. At least when he's had some coffee and some time to calm down.
His gaze slides sideways and up. "You really meant it, about the couch?"
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"Only ugly chicks dig spaceships. I'd be in it for the babes if anything. I can't stand brown-nosers or sheep." That could have earned him another knock. "Besides, minions are better than followers. Remember that one."
The drink is gone. Man, time flies when you're beating a dead horse with facts frail as noodles.
"Yes I did. However, the floor only has the rug. You can make it a threesome."
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