Work Text:
“Chase!” House yelled, stepping out of the elevator.
Chase turned around, looking like he had just been caught with his hand in the metaphorical cookie jar.
House limped over purposely slowly and didn’t explain himself until he had led Chase to his office and sat down. “So, what’s up?” He said, knocking his cane obnoxiously on the desk.
“Uh- you called me over here?”
House sighed exasperatedly. “I mean, what’s up with that thing in your pocket?”
Chase looked at him weirdly. House gestured exaggeratedly to his coat pocket. Throw this dummy a bone.
“You mean- these gingerbread men?” There we go, the cogs fell into place.
“Obviously! I’m not going to call you out for being ableist because you’ve got a pen in your pocket, that would be stupid.”
Chase laughed for a second before registering House’s words. “Ableist-? What? For having some gingerbread men?”
House nodded, putting on his most serious face. “Tell me, Robert, have you ever seen a gingerbread man in a wheelchair? Maybe with a knee brace? A cane?” He lifted his own cane for effect.
“Uh- no. But that doesn’t-”
House tutted. “Oh but it does, Robert. Do you think being disabled makes somebody less than a man?”
Chase sighed. “Obviously not.”
“Then hand it over.” House nodded at him. “Yes, I mean the gingerbread men.”
This is where he made his serious face turn sadder, hurt. To really sell the act.
“Are you genuinely upset about this?” Chase asked hesitantly.
“Yes.” Not at all, idiot.
He sighed. “Fine, you can take it. Bite its leg off or whatever.”
Chase took the gingerbread men from his pocket and handed them to House, who made a show of putting them in his trash can. (Of course, when Chase was out of sight he took them right out and hid them in his desk.).
-
He saw Foreman walking around next. Nothing in his pockets… Oh! An imaginary lightbulb just went off over his head. “Foreman!”
The aforementioned man turned around. “Yes, boss?”
“Could you be a dear and get me something from the cafeteria? It’s a bad pain day and Wilson’s in a meeting right now.” He batted his eyelashes to really seal the deal.
Foreman eyed him suspiciously. “You’ve interrupted Wilson’s meetings before, what’s different?”
House thought for a total of 0.5 seconds before coming up with an excuse. “He told me if I interrupt this one he won’t buy any lunch, which means I won’t be able eat his lunch, so you can see the predicament I’m in.”
“Will you give me money to buy you food, or will I have to use my own?”
“Oh, Foreman! You’re offering to pay for me? Thank you!” He stood up and left his office before his employee could complain.
“Get me two of those Christmas cakes, thanks!” He called out before disappearing into Wilson’s office.
-
“Honey, I’m home!”
“Are they really falling for it again this year?” Wilson asked immediately, used to his husband’s Christmas antics.
“Yup.” House said, popping the ‘p’. He nestled down on the couch and rested his legs on the desk. “I’m surprised they don’t know me better by now.”
“You know,” Wilson started, shoving House’s feet off his desk, “Maybe it’s because they know if they don’t you’ll resort to more drastic measures.”
House put a hand to his chest in faux hurt. “Qui, moi?”
He glanced out the door and saw a familiar looking head of bisexual hair. “I’ve got my next victim.”
-
“Oh, lucky number Thirteen!” House said as he stuck his head around the corner of Wilson’s office.
“Have you done something with your hair?” He asked as she came closer. “Smells almost like… peppermint!”
“I know what you’re doing, House.”
House furrowed his eyebrows. “What am I doing? And- wait hold that thought. I think they’re serving hot chocolate over there.” He made a show of squinting to look further. “It seems they’re serving peppermint hot chocolate as well! What are the chances?”
Thirteen rolled her eyes. “I will buy you one- and one for Wilson I know- but not because you tricked me, I’m just not wasting any more time on you when we’ve got actual patients to look after.”
House grumbled. “You could at least pretend to be fooled… Can you at least tell me where Taub is?”
“At home, spending time with his kids.” She said before turning on her heel and heading to the hot chocolate stand that House didn’t even really want anymore. It tasted better knowing he had fooled an unknowing and unwilling employee into doing his bidding.
-
House’s last target was Cameron. With her tendencies to act like she was better than everyone, she would no doubt be trying to be kind by handing out little Christmas gifts to the staff, and what better for hospital staff than candy canes?
Just like he imagined, he found a basket of them sitting on her desk in the E.R. He could just take them and leave because Cameron wasn’t looking over here, but that wasn’t nearly as much fun.
He made a big show of picking up the basket and walking out where Cameron would see him with it.
“House! What are you doing with my candy canes? Those are for the staff to share.” There was that obnoxious, moral, shrill voice he missed during differentials.
“I know I don’t have a lab coat, but I am staff, too.” House said, turning back to continue walking- well, limping. Despite what most people might think- or at least conspire, he wasn’t faking the cripple part.
Cameron marched up to him and took back the basket.
“You can take one.” House sighed.
“Well, I didn’t want to bring this up… but these are candy canes. Keyword being ‘cane’.” He took back the basket.
“And this is a shared basket. Keyword being ‘share’.” Cameron tugged the basket, and House tugged back. He braced his good leg behind him.
A few people, mainly patients, were watching the tug of war battle playing out in front of their eyes.
Soon everyone was watching as House tugged hard, trying to catch Cameron off guard. She retaliated by tugging even harder, which caused her old boss’s cane to slip and the basket of candy canes flew into the air.
Everything went into slow motion (to make it more cinematic). It felt like a piñata falling to the ground at a little kids party the way everyone fell to their knees and scrambled for the candy canes. House was one of the people scrambling for the candy canes, despite how badly it hurt his leg. It was practically a free for all until a very commanding voice boomed overhead.
“Everybody, stop!”
Everybody stopped.
“What is going on here?” Cuddy asked, hands on hips.
“I-”
“House, don’t answer.”
“I-”
“Not Cameron, either. Somebody impartial, tell me what happened.”
A nurse sitting at the desk put his hand up. Cuddy nodded at him.
“They were fighting over the basket of candy canes and it fell to the ground.”
Cuddy sighed. “Thank you, Kieran. Can everybody put the candy canes back in the basket, and can Drs. House and Cameron please talk to me in my office?”
-
Cuddy was pacing back and forth.
“I don’t know what the hell inspired you to do something so stupid! You were in the E.R. for god’s sake! You have more important things to do than fight over candy canes! And what if somebody had tripped on them? Fallen over? Hit their head? That’s one more patient for you to take care of.” She slowed to a halt. “I’d expect this behaviour from House, not you Cameron.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m just stressed today- not that that’s an excuse.” Cameron sunk into her chair.
Cuddy sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “House, could you please tell me why you were trying to take Cameron’s candy canes in the first place?”
“Sure. They’re ableist.” He held up his cane for show.
“Candy canes are not ableist, House.” Cuddy sat down in her own chair. “Cameron bought them with her own money. You can’t take them.”
“I think you’re being ableist.”
“Fine, House, tell me why you think candy canes are ableist.”
He cleared his throat. “Since I don’t wear a lab coat, everyone thinks I’m a patient, and think they can treat me badly.” It wasn’t a lie, but these things didn’t actually bother him. In fact, he liked it because he loved revealing that he was in fact a doctor and see them scramble for their apologies.
“But on Christmas,” House continued, “Everyone’s walking around with candy canes, either in their mouth, or life size ones they use as props. I think if anyone deserves candy canes on Christmas, it’s the people that use real canes during the year, not the ones that berate people for needing canes.” He made sure to keep all the amusement out of his voice as he saw Cuddy and Cameron’s faces fall. Mainly Cameron, though. Cuddy was used to his false sob stories. Luckily for him, Cuddy was too bothered to continue fighting him.
“Give him some candy canes.”
Cameron started to protest but she stopped her. “Not all, just a few.”
Cameron sighed and gestured for him to take a handful. House did so with pleasure.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
-
House spilled his treasure onto Wilson’s desk. “Two gingerbread men, two Christmas cakes, two hot chocolates, and a shit ton of candy canes.” House grinned. Wilson whistled appreciatively.
“Nice haul.” He reached for a cup of hot chocolate. House slapped his hand away.
“That’s the normal one, this one’s your freaky mint one.” He said, pushing the correct one towards his husband. He took a sip and hummed contentedly.
“How many of these did you get via manipulation, and how much via brute force?”
“You mean to say that people didn’t give me these out of the goodness of their hearts?” Wilson glared at him over his hot chocolate.
“I got Chase and Foreman. Thirteen knew I was tricking her and gave in anyway, and Cameron only gave up some candy canes after Cuddy told her to.”
House sat down in the chair opposite Wilson’s, taking a sip of his own normal hot chocolate. “Should we have the Christmas cakes now or when we get home?”
One look told him that none of this food was making it home.
-
Foreman poked his head back out from the window. “It worked.”
“Why are we doing this again?” Thirteen asked.
Cameron turned to her. “House is practically allergic to just spending time with people he loves, so we make a game out of it. He tries to trick us into giving him our Christmas treats, and we pretend to fall for it. At the end of the day he has a mini Christmas feast with Wilson.”
Foreman nodded. “If we don’t, he’ll completely forget to do something for Wilson for Christmas. We’re just giving him a little nudge.”
“Is Wilson in on it?” Thirteen peered into the oncologist’s office, where she could see House and Wilson laughing, pretending to smoke candy canes.
“Yeah,” Chase laughs, “He tells us what to set up based on whatever House mentioned he was craving in the previous weeks.”
Thirteen huffs. “Do you think they’ll ever tell us they’re married?”
Foreman shrugged. “It keeps the mystery alive, I suppose. For them at least.”
They all looked through the window as they saw House lean over and give Wilson a small kiss on the cheek.
Their voices were muffled, but they could make out what they were saying.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.” House said, taking the candy cane out of Wilson’s mouth to kiss him properly.
Wilson smiled. “Merry Christmas, love.”