Hi everybody. Sorry this is late. This is rough but I think it is kind of fun. I actually played with a yo-yo to come up with the beginning. Have fun and remember any and all comments are welcome.

Rated: PG13 for some suggestive language

Spoilers: Not much for spoilers, maybe All In

Dropping In

All good things come to those who wait. House was sure of this as he poised leaning over the hand rails of the second story atrium carefully watching for any possible witnesses and gauging the distance of his target. Below him stood the back of a busy nurse’s station with Nurse Brenda presiding over a group of three others. In addition, a doctor new to the hospital leaned in to a conversation with the group.

His thumb dragged in anticipation across the engraved word Duncan on the yo-yo firmly palmed with the string around his finger. The flawless new surface was already warm from holding it so long. The touch was both foreign and familiar. This was not his old red companion he spent many an hour on over the last five years. He would not give that one up. He knew this one carried the potential of being commandeered from him soon if something went wrong. It was one that he had purchased and modified just over an hour ago to protect his old toy.

His thoughts were interrupted by footfalls from behind. House did not bother turning around to see whom it was; he already knew from the squeak of the shoes who had walked up behind him, and he did not want to hear what he had to say, “You still owe me three thousand dollars from yesterday, House. Why did you page me?”

House ignored the not so subtle reminder of his dept as well as the presence of his friend as he continued to watch the nurse’s station from above. As his mind raced with thoughts and his gaze fixed on a solitary tray below with various medications bottles, he finally lifted his hand and waved Wilson beside him.

Wilson stood even with House and peered over the railing at the clinic below. “You hate the clinic; you’ve already finished your day in there. Now you’re you spying on it?”

House was silent for another moment before he finally pulled his eyes away from the desk and met Wilson’s face for a fast moment and settled eyeing the file in his hand. “She told me I dropped in from hell,” he answered offhandedly as he gazed down at the busy floor below.

“No.” Wilson breathed in mock horror. “Who did?”

House finally straightened from his bent position over the rail and answered somewhat airily, “The bed pan princess.”

“Nurse Brenda?”

“Nope, Dr. Collins.”

“What? Dr. Tara Collins? The neurologist that’s only been here a week?”

House nodded very slightly as he returned his gaze to the main floor.

By that time Wilson noticed the green yo-yo snuggly placed inside his friend’s fingers and asked, “What happened to your red one?”

House pulled his right hand over his head, allowed the yo-yo to fall and hit the floor and it rolled another two feet before running out of string. “I needed a special one.”

Wilson looked up and down the length of the string before he settled his gaze on House, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When no answer was forthcoming, he pressed with, “Why do you have a ten foot string on your yo-yo?” Wilson then caught sight of House’s clothes under the open sport jacket, “What on earth are you wearing?”

Instead of House’s usual solid colored untucked and unkempt shirt or the occasional ‘Pink Floyd’ under a sports jacket, he was wearing something far more unique today. Most prominent was the chimp, marmoset, lemur, and four other types of monkeys that stared out at everybody he faced. The next more prominent thing was the letters ‘Primates’ on top of the faces. House gave a quick jerk on the string and caught the yo-yo on its flight upward. He rewound the toy before replying. “In answering to your first question: so I can reach the counter below.” He indicated a tray sitting on the back of the nurse’s station.

“So you spent the last hour plotting a drop in revenge on a brand new doctor but can’t spend ten seconds to write me a check?”

“Humm, I’m thinking of prioritizing.” House craned his head to accentuate the point that he was not going to pay anytime soon.

“Yeah,” Wilson said as he looked down at the file in his hands, “I’m thinking now you could pay me back in another way.” He held out the file for House. House afforded little more than a glance at it before Wilson continued, “She’s been in the clinic more than once with these symptoms, and I think that you can do more for her than I can.”

House never made a move to see the file, “Did I mention that I’m allergic to bologna?”

“Oh come on House. You take this case and were square.”

“Not now, I’m busy.”

“What did Tara do to you anyway? From what I hear from Foreman, she’s good.”

“You’re on a first name bases with her?” If not for the previous conversation, his tone of voice would have been taken seriously, “I didn’t think she’s been here that long. When did this happen?”

The false accusation amused Wilson not at all, “Answer the question.”

“She played my game and lost.”

“Oh?” That was just cryptic enough to be useless to Wilson. “Did she tell Cuddy on you or something? Did she make a bet with you about a patient with clinic hours as the wager?”

“You play by my rules, the odds are against you.”

Wilson sighed, “I’ll make a note to remember that.”

House never moved his weight from the railing, but he tilted his head toward his friend, giving him a sidelong glance, “So, do you dare me?”

The question caught Wilson off guard, “What? No.”

Fully in play mode, House replied, “Come on, just one little dare?” he turned his head back to the floor below, “What if you double dare me?”

With an alarming sense of the possibilities of trouble that this change of events could bring, Wilson stated, “House, I’m not daring you.”

“We could call it an initiation.”

Wilson snorted, “The infamous Dr. House does not give initiations. He gives hell.”

“What Dr. Wilson?” House cupped his hand to his ear, “You double dog dare me? Alright.” In a well-practiced form, House released the toy from his hands and allowed it to sail to the counter below. With the with speed and accuracy from its marksman, the yo-yo met with the region of the tray that laid off the edge of the counter and arced the medications onto the gaggle of nurses and onto the target doctor.

With the sound of screams and the rattling confusion from below, Wilson turned and left House to his prank. He had already retreated to the wall after his yo-yo returned to him. The excitement in his eyes for his little trick was unmistakable.

_______________________________________________________________
Wilson found House nearly an hour later settling at the nurse’s station with an air of contentment as he leaned his weight against the nurse’s station. It had been twenty minutes before when Cuddy pulled him aside between patients and vented on him about House’s prank on the new doctor and Nurse Brenda. In her hands were House’s green and red yo-yos she had lifted off him after she intercepted him in his office. House eyed Nurse Brenda’s reaction as he took the lollypop from his mouth and announced contently, “Dr. House signing in.”

Brenda gave House a scowl and walked off as Wilson walked up to the desk, “Let me guess…, “Wilson said as he discreetly pointed Nurse Brenda’s way, “someone saw you?”

House scoffed and indicated where the two had stood above, “Brenda saw a green streak disappear over the rails,” he paused long enough to pull out his usual red yo-yo, “She figured it on me; told all these nurses.” He let it roll out of his fingers and spin past his waist before it caught the end of the string and gyrated back to his hand.

Wilson watched House’s actions in utter bemusement, “I thought Cuddy confiscated your red and green yo-yos.”

House absently watched his toy alternate from his hand and mid thigh level as he stated almost offhandedly, “Cuddy thinks that by giving me another four hours in the clinic today she’s punished me. But Brenda and I know that’s not going to happen.” With unbridled braggadocio, he called out well above the noise of the waiting room, “Isn’t that right, Brenda?” In the wake of the stunned silence, he craned his head back and forth to see where the nurse had retreated. Satisfied that neither she nor anyone else were nearby, he confided, “Cuddy confiscated a green and a red yo-yo. But neither of them were my yo-yo.”

Wilson almost laughed from exasperation, “You had a decoy red yo-yo?”

“Hey,” House stopped the oscillations long enough to hold out his toy directly in front of Wilson. Under the florescent lighting, the surface bore scores of scuffs and scrapes on his well-worn toy. “She wasn’t getting this.”

“Of course. Now will to take this?” Wilson held out the file from their meeting earlier.

The repeat surprised House, and he cautiously took the proffered file, “You still haven’t seen her yet? It’s been an hour.”

“She’ll be coming to a simmer soon.”

“The great Chef Wilson knows nothing about soup? The best soups must come to a simmer before serving.”

“I’m afraid it’s witch’s brew this time.”

House was silent for a moment as he looked at the readouts on the paper. “You know, my grandfather could tell any sudden change in the weather just by how his joints ached.”

“House, don’t change the subject.”

“I always thought he was full of crap.”

Wilson sighed as he conceded to the non-sequitor, “It’s not totally crap; it’s a biological system responding to changes in the atmosphere. Why? Is your spider sense tingling?”

But House was not listening. “The human body is bombarded by thousands of imputes at once.” He looked down at the file in his hands, “Perhaps premonitions are the ability to look at those thousands of inputs and noticing that one is off.”

“If you are such a prescient, then why didn’t you know you were going to be caught while pulling the yo-yo stunt?”

“I didn’t need premonitions for that.”

“House!”

House slid the file back to Wilson and quickly pocketed his yo-yo, “And there it is.” he said under his breath as he turned to face Cuddy.

“You have four extra hours of clinic duty again today; and they don’t begin until you go into those exam rooms.”

“But Mommy I don’t wanna go.” He exaggerated the second word so hard that most of the conversations in the seating stopped again.

“Why don’t you say that a little louder? I don’t think everyone heard you,” Cuddy whispered fiercely, “You are a fully grown, mature adult, act like one!”

“But you haven’t weaned me off the milk yet,” he stated, clearly looking at her breasts.

“And here I thought you were ‘overweening’.” Wilson’s comment was directly to House as he waved his file in front of him.

The pun and the biting remark behind it was not lost on House who desperately wanted to conversation to end, “How can you give such tactful insults?” he asked, pointedly ignoring the file in Wilson’s hand.

“Comes with the job,” answered Wilson with a smile.

“If you not going to do these four hours," Cuddy warned as her cheeks reddened from anger and embarrisment, "it will be an extra eight for the week. Do you understand me?”

House’s head jerked his head to the side as though the threat were a physical blow and paused a moment before he arched his eyebrows and answered, “No ajblo ingles.” He grabbed Wilson’s file straight out of his hands and headed for exam room one.

Without looking up, House resorted to rote for greeting, “Hello, my name is Dr. House and I see on your file that you have severe headaches?”

“That’s right,” said the woman with a voice far too loud and terse for the small room.

House look up at the woman who was clearly into her forties. She was well dressed in her conservative clothes, her hands clasped on her lap. “When did these headaches start?”

“About two weeks ago. And I know it’s not sleep. That other doctor just kept talking about sleep. I get eight hours a night and have been for the last twenty six years.”

Now with a clearer understanding of why Wilson wanted House to take this over three thousand dollars, he started with some standard questions, “Do you smoke?”

With venom in the tone of her voice that matched her red hair, she tersely replied, “Never,”

“Have you been drinking more than two drinks a night?”

“I’ve never drink.”

“Okay.” House breathed as he looked down at her file, as if the bare notes from the last few times she had come to the clinic would reveal something significant.

“I like your shirt.”

“What this? It’s the latest fashion in dude wear. Now when did-”

“I don’t believe in evolution. I don’t believe that man came from an ape. Evolution doesn’t stand a chance against divine intervention. Did you know that they’re taking the ten commandments out of the Supreme Court? They’re taking creationism out of science classes. They’re taking religion out of everything. They might as well burn all the books with it too!” Her speech quickly turned and ended in yelling.

House had enough of this before it began. “Lady, do you see family in this shirt? I can assure you I didn’t mean to buy it at your last family reunion.”

“There is no evolution!” She shouted as House stood and made his way for the door, “Where are you going? Why haven’t you diagnosed me?”

“Oh, I think I’ve found the cause of your headaches.” House said as he took one-step out the door.

“Oh”

“Your halo’s on too tight.”

The slam of the door behind House muffled her livid reply at his answer, but not enough that Wilson, who was waiting excitedly waiting near the door, did not hear a piece of it. “That was quick,” he remarked with a glimmer of his own humor, “So she thinks you’re the devil?”

House pulled his yo-yo out of his pocket. “Doesn’t everybody?” He contemplated a moment and thumbed the door behind him, “Was that actually worth three thousand dollars?”

“I think it was. We’re square now.”

“I could have sworn you only had two pair.”

“It was two pair….of jacks.”

“I still don’t see how you got that past me.”

“You played my game and lost. Remember, you play my game, the odds are against you.”

The remark caught House slightly off guard, but he smiled slightly as he headed for the file of his next patient, “I’ll make a note to remember that.”

:unsure: Sorry, sorry, sorry. I promise, Saturday. I forgot I had a Law exam and had to study Wednesday night. I will read this but just in glancing over it I like it!!

Did I post a rpely here once and it disappeared or did I post that somewhere else??? :unsure:

Man I need a vacation1

Okay, Cakemixo, I love it!(not to mention I love the fact that you experimented with an actual yo-yo for research. :D You make me smile!

Barring some technical issues (typos and such. and I know it was posted in a hurry so I'm not picking) it's got good flow. I love how you've got House, in typical fashion, putting the "I double dog dare you" into Wilson's mouth.

I'm a little confused about whether he's after Brenda or the new gal. I think it's the new gal and Brenda is just perpetually after him, therefore turned him in to Cuddy when she suspected. Am I right?

And the fact that House anticipated the consequences and actually hid 'his' yo-yo under two layers of bluff. Sooo very House! :D

One question that really doesn't have bearing on the story, I'm just curious, it seems Wilson had an annoying clinic patient all picked out before House pulled the yo-yo thing. Why? or did I misunderstand and the second folder was different from the first?

Thanks again for satisfying my craving! I had hoped for more response but this certainly filled the hole!

This was part of the roughness of the story, but yes, you have it right. The new doc was House's intended target and Brenda got in his way. The new doc was to have a bigger part at the end, (House was originally going to pass the patient Wilson gave him to her) but setting her up against House was getting too messy for me.

This was all the same folder. And after rereading the story, I agree that it does look at little convenient. I will say in defense that Wilson could possibly have already seen that patient's file well before House's page and stalled seeing her. House owed Wilson $3000 at that time. So when House paged him, Wilson had his open chance to push the patient on him.

I'm glad you enjoyed. And let it be known that I am a danger to myself and everyone around me with a yo-yo in my hands. :P