☤ eighty-seven

[as_damaged]

[ ACTION ]

[After nearly four years in the City, one becomes adept at ignoring all sorts of unpleasant circumstances. It's a point of pride that Cameron rarely cancels her plans due to curse interference; doing so always feels like letting the City win, and she can't abide that.

Today, apart from work, she has a few errands to run; lunch at a café, a quick stop by the bakery. She's doing her best to avoid the scattered bunches of mistletoe, but no one can miss all of them...]

Comments

Action

[hulkbusted]

I can take it. You run into your share of sharp tongues among physicists, too.

[Not to mention what he'd spent the earliest part of his youth with.]

Is he that good or just the only game in town?

Action

[as_damaged]

Clever people and big egos? I can't be surprised.

[She glances away briefly, not avoiding, just thinking.]

House is an ass. If he can help it, he doesn't meet his patients. But the cases we see-- he's the best at what he does.

[And she doesn't say he doesn't care, though she won't say he does, mostly because he wouldn't want her to.]

Action

[hulkbusted]

Some of them would object to being called merely clever, even if they'll admit to the ego.

I can put up with a lot to work with the best. Have you met Tony Stark? Sometimes he's pretty hard to put up with, but he doesn't tiptoe. I doubt Dr. House does either.

Action

[as_damaged]

I don't think I have. But-- that's how I feel, or at least a large part of it.

Action

[hulkbusted]

What's the rest?

Action

[as_damaged]

[It takes a moment to find the fit way to phrase it.]

I like the work. Doing whatever it takes.

Action

[hulkbusted]

[Doing whatever it takes landed him in a world of trouble, but he understands nonetheless.]

How far do you go? Whatever it takes covers a lot of ground.

Action

[as_damaged]

[She smiles at that, a little mischievous, a little nostalgic.]

Oh, the usual. Long nights, experimental treatments, a little breaking and entering.

Action

[hulkbusted]

Breaking and entering is the usual?

Action

[as_damaged]

Looking for environmental factors. House's philosophy is, since everybody lies, there's no reason to ask.

Action

[hulkbusted]

Do you see things that way too? [It isn't so much believing that, it's being able to lie to yourself in order to set that aside to deal with people day to day...]

Action

[as_damaged]

I think... we'd lose a lot more patients if House had a better bedside manner.

Action

[hulkbusted]

Which is a remarkably circuitous way of saying yes. Fair enough, if you have to break into my apartment to help me, I won't hold it against you.

Action

[as_damaged]

[She laughs softly.]

I'll keep that in mind if it ever comes up.

Action

[hulkbusted]

I can tell you now you aren't going to find much of anything. A friend of mine compared my apartment to a monk's cell, which is... [he wrinkles his nose] ...mostly unfair.

Action

[as_damaged]

[There's nothing wrong with being neat and uncluttered, she thinks.]

It's not always a matter of lying; sometimes people just don't realize what might be relevant.

Action

[hulkbusted]

But I'm not people. [Bruce, your ego s showing.]

Action

[as_damaged]

[She doesn't dignify that with an answer, just a stern look and the hint of a repressed smile.]

Action

[hulkbusted]

[And he'll have the grace to laugh at himself.]

Action

[as_damaged]

I think you'd have bigger concerns than who was breaking into your apartment, anyway.

Re: Action

[hulkbusted]

[Sobering.] Considering my condition, if something brings me to that point, most people around me are going to have bigger concerns.

Action

[as_damaged]

[She just meant he'd be at the mercy of House's curiosity. While he tends to avoid his patients, she's sure Bruce's condition would merit more than a little interest.]

Considering our location, who knows?

Action

[hulkbusted]

Let's not borrow trouble. Just know that if it does come to searching for environmental factors ,I won't hold B&E against you.

Action

[as_damaged]

All right. I think I can agree to those terms, and keep hoping it won't come to that.

Action

[hulkbusted]

Cheers to that.

[A tip of his water glass to hers.]

You're welcome to come over for other reasons. I like having appreciative guests for my cooking.