November 10, 2007

[foreman-eric-md.livejournal.com]

Foreman paused before the doors of the clinic and took a deep breath. He had no idea what to expect when he walked in. The whole nursing staff might be lined up to gape at him incredulously, or worse, there would be nothing but carefully blank expressions and little sideways stares, and whispers that would follow him up to the fourth floor. Even if no one looked, Foreman knew he'd feel their eyes on him anyway. House could have gone through Chase and started a pool, or simply let the wrong word fall too loudly in the wrong ear. Or he might have done nothing. Foreman wouldn't put it past House to have told everyone or no one that they'd had sex. He hoped like hell that House had decided that his privacy was reason enough to respect Foreman's. If it came to a battle of wills over who'd blurt out the most embarrassing parts of the weekend, Foreman knew that House had the advantage of not caring in the least what anybody else thought of him, that fucker. Foreman had arrived early, but that was never any guarantee, not when House felt he had some juicy news to spread. Tightening his shoulders, he walked through the clinic, glaring straight ahead and not pausing until he made it to the elevators.

After House had walked out on him, Foreman had thrown himself back into bed--it had still been five in the fucking morning on a Sunday--but House's restlessness seemed to have infected him, because he tossed and turned and was completely unable to get back to sleep. Every time he thought he'd managed to excise House from his mind, the bastard popped back up, and Foreman was furious all over again. He refused to touch himself--he wasn't going to give House that satisfaction. He knew it was irrational, that House would never know if he'd jerked off or not. But Foreman wasn't interested in replaying the sex. Not in his mind; not at all. He wasn't going to think of it.

Finally getting up, still exhausted, he'd turned off his cell phone and taken his landline off the hook, locked the chain on the door, and spent the rest of the day glaring at the television and not taking in a single minute of it. He wouldn't have put it past House to break in all over again, although he couldn't imagine for what purpose--he'd already done a hell of a good job already at humiliating Foreman. What more could he possibly want?

When Foreman finally went back to the office, it was only to make sure that House hadn't had time to do even more damage than he'd first thought. There were papers everywhere--House wouldn't know organization if it punched him in the fucking face--but from what Foreman could tell, he hadn't spammed Foreman's entire contact list with penis-enlargement emails, or even answered any of Foreman's reference requests pretending to be him and destroying whatever goodwill Foreman had left. Foreman ignored his inbox, even though several people, Cuddy and Hamilton among them, had answered him.

He'd stayed up too late again Sunday night, and woke up with gritty eyes and a tension headache. He'd taken care dressing, wearing his charcoal suit, even as he told himself that trying to prove to House that he was missing something was the most infantile revenge tactic he could think of.

Foreman breathed a tiny bit easier to find Diagnostics dark when he got off the elevator. After turning on the lights, he hung up his jacket and started a pot of coffee, then opened the Financial Post and determinedly lost himself in tracing his portfolio back over the last quarter. They didn't have a patient; he only had to be present from eight to five; House could play his little head games on the idiots who'd signed up to work for him as if medicine was a brainless reality show; and Foreman was going to sit through it all and not say one word. He was not going to react to House. He wasn't going to even fucking acknowledge him.

Let the day of hell begin.

Comments

[house-greg-md.livejournal.com]

House rarely looked forward to dragging his ass into work on Monday mornings, but today he really wished he could call in and fake a sick day, except House hadn't had much success in clearing his mind since his cab had dropped him off early Sunday morning. He hadn't been able to get Foreman out of his fucking head. He's still felt aroused, no thanks to the images in his head, when he'd gotten home, and he'd hated his own damn brain for its inability to imagine nothing but Foreman as he'd fallen into bed, his hand wrapping around his penis and working himself erect. He tried to think of someone else--anyone else--but he couldn't, the night too fresh to forget, as much as he wanted to put it out of his mind completely. It was stupid, wouldn't happen again, and he wanted to forget about it.

After sleeping fitfully for a few hours overnight, into Monday morning, House had found himself up earlier than usual. He'd glanced at the alarm clock--just past four o'clock in the morning--and his brain had taken the opportunity to remind him of what he'd been doing, where he'd been, twenty four hours ago. He'd curled his hands in his hair, groaned to himself, and threw himself out of bed, determined to scrub the memory from his mind with mundane activities--sorting his laundry, watching early-morning TV, showering. Stupid shit, anything to keep his mind off of the previous night, of Foreman, of the fact that his ass was a little sore because of--No. No. He'd stopped himself from going there, thinking of that, several times. He'd driven his motorcycle to work, concentrating on the biting chill in the air that crept under his helmet and made his eyes water. Once he'd stepped through the door, he'd been sure to adopt his usual demeanor--aloof, distant--and he'd blustered into his office, dumped his backpack beside his chair, then walked out again without ever turning on the lights.

He wasn't worried about Foreman talking; Foreman was too concerned about himself, what everyone else would have to say about him. House was slightly concerned about what Foreman might say to him in private, or how he might try to undermine him, but House was ready to push back if Foreman made a move like that. House was relieved that Foreman wasn't around at the moment, that he wasn't forced to deal with him yet. He'd rather just avoid him, at least until he could get all of the past couple days out of his head, distract himself with something else. If House hadn't wanted to forget about the entire encounter so badly, he would have made an effort to humiliate Foreman in front of the remaining candidates. Of course, if Thirteen paved the way for an opportunity, maybe let something slip, House wouldn't be able to resist the chance to embarrass the both of them, but he doubted any kind of opportunity would open up for him. He would open one for himself, but, right now, all he really wanted to do was avoid the entire subject. It was easier to deal with anything if he pretended it just didn't exist.

After stealing Wilson's lunch for his own breakfast--a nice way to establish normalcy to start his day--he pow-wowed with Cuddy about a number of possible cases. A case would be useful; it would be a good distraction. When he got to the lecture hall, he found all of his eager candidates waiting, and was intrigued to find Foreman absent. He wondered if Foreman had went ahead and quit, had already gotten a job offer with someone else. Or maybe Foreman was avoiding him, which wouldn't make sense, if he didn't want to draw any attention to himself. His absence wouldn't go unnoticed by any of his potential fellows. And, even though he'd rather it if Foreman stayed the hell away, he found himself curious about where he actually was.

House paused inside the doorway and scanned the seats of the lecture hall before he said, as casually as possible, "Any of you seen your babysitter lately?"