[log] Clowning Around [closed]

[rubikscomplex]

Characters: Gregory House, Alfie Solomons, Royce Melborn
Location Building 42
Date: Day 134
Summary: Trading and investigating in the clown house
Warnings: None anticipated; will edit if anything comes up

A standard single-story house with a kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom, and bedroom. Whoever owned this house once liked clowns; there are countless clown figurines and plushes decorating the bedroom and living room. There's also a life-sized clown statue in the corner of the living room. There's a piece of painting tape on the wall opposite the door that reads as follows: "Angel and Rhys: If you find this, please find a way to tell me. - Clayton".

Comments

[rubikscomplex]

House reaches the building first... it is a clown building. There are clowns everywhere. He's heard of this fabled place, and he hates it immediately. But all of those figurines give him an idea. House gathers as many of them as he can along with the plushes, and settles himself on the sofa in the living room. He doesn't particularly want Alfie and Duster to see his scalpel, so he uses the back end of his hammer to rip into the plushes and start tearing them apart.

By the time the others arrive, there's very likely a small pile of murdered plush clowns on the floor, their stuffing picked over. The figurines await smashing.

[devoutish]

Alfie just... squints down at the scene before him. He's ripped open a stuffed animal to take the stuffing to use as insulation, but House looks like he's just discarding it, and what's the point of that?

"I won't ask, mate," he says, poking at one of the little stuffing piles with the toe of his boot. At least he can probably walk away with a lot of this, on their way out of the building.

[bywolves]

Royce isn't going to ask either. In fact, he's completely silent! He raises his eyebrows, sure, at the massacre, but he keeps close and a little behind Alfie, hood up and cloak pulled around him. He's got his broomstick minus the broom head in hand, which has metal bits hammered into the end of it - but he's not actively being threatening just yet, at least.

[rubikscomplex]

"Oh, please. Like you haven't wanted to murder a fake clown before." House glances up only briefly at Alfie and Royce, on his guard immediately. "I'm looking for SD Cards or other things. They put them in weird places. The Irish kid found a code hidden in a quilt square. If you can break or rip it open and it's not something you have to wear, do it. Free advice.

"Got the pills, Solomons?" Down to business while he just... casually keeps ripping into clowns and sifting through the fluff with his fingers.

[devoutish]

"Yeah. Let's sit down in the dining room, shall we?" He picks up one of the toys and uses his hands to rip along the seam. It's a good tip - thanks, House.

[bywolves]

Good information to know, really. Royce would be more surprised that House just offered it up, but he's seen House do teamwork before. It's related to getting out of Norfinbury, anyway, so it makes sense. Royce doesn't move yet; he'll follow both of them and lean against the wall near the door after they're both sitting down, should House agree.

[rubikscomplex]

"Got something against the living room? Bozo there's my bodyguard. You brought yours. I get mine." House jerks a thumb at the life-sized clown statue. Mostly he doesn't want to get up and have to carry his pack while faking a limp.

[devoutish]

"I want to sit at a table. Do this properly." Alfie turns to walk into the dining room, pulling out a chair for House and then taking a seat opposite it. Part of taking control of a situation, he's found, is just doing what you're going to do - and expecting those around you to follow.

"You're welcome to bring the clown if you'd like, House," he calls back towards the living room.

[bywolves]

Royce stays where he is for a moment, and then gives House a look, eyebrows raised like well? as he gestures with his broomstick for House to follow Alfie.

"You heard the man," Royce says, voice soft, casual. He'll wait!

[rubikscomplex]

Yeah, that? That's going to make House dig in his heels, at least as a token. He recognizes what Alfie's doing; it's a tactic he's used himself. House just sits back where he is, looking up at Duster and raising his voice.

"Well, you've got your table, I've got my sofa, and we can hear each other. Guess we're good, dude!"

[devoutish]

"That's no way to do a deal, House." He takes out the Vicodin bottle, tapping it on the table so House can hear it. "You wanna finish up with your work, though, yeah? I'll wait. We've got a bit of time."

[bywolves]

"Not very polite of you," Royce says to House, in that same tone. It's almost light. Nice, even.

And then he moves - intentionally walking forward like he's going to go straight to House, and then turning at the last second to settle against the door frame.

He's not going to let House be without supervision, basically. So he'll wait right here, in the doorway between the living room and the dining room, arms folded, all casual-like. This way he can watch Alfie and House.

[rubikscomplex]

House tenses further and falls silent, watching Royce. When the other man turns away and just stands in the door frame, the doctor relaxes again. Marginally. He resumes ripping the remaining clown plushes he has apart.

"Gee, boss. I've got a lot planned today. There's these guys, then the figurines, then I gotta search the house, prep Bozo for his afternoon open heart surgery. It'll be a while."

[devoutish]

"Goodness. We may be stuck here the night together, then." Outside of House's line of vision, Alfie raises his eyebrows at Royce.

[bywolves]

Good. That's what Royce was aiming for, that tensing. Royce glances at Alfie, giving him a flat look. What. He's behaving. Mostly. He doesn't move, just lazily rolls his head to the side to look at House again.

"Could be fun," Royce remarks. Almost drawls, really.

[rubikscomplex]

House rolls his eyes. "Well, Mom always said why put off to tomorrow what you can do today? Make yourself useful, Elfagorn, instead of just standing there and looming while your boyfriend and I deal." He proceeds to chuck a pair of the stuffed clowns at Royce.

[devoutish]

Don't worry, Royce, it's not an admonishing eyebrow raise. Though they do raise even higher at "boyfriend", because really?

"Throw some my way too, House."

[bywolves]

Royce, the show-offy bastard that he is, catches the clowns House tosses at him without much effort at all. Elfagorn is an annoyance, something that pricks at him, but he ignores it.

Boyfriend, on the other hand - that just makes him huff out a laugh, quiet and condescending like always. Royce glances at Alfie again, vaguely amused as he tosses Alfie one of the stuffed clowns.

And sure, he's more than happy to carve a stuffed toy to pieces with a letter opener while staring directly at House.

[rubikscomplex]

"Well, that's impressive, but can you juggle?"

Regardless, and getting less reaction than he really wanted, House snatches his cane from where it's leaning against the sofa and uses it to haul himself up with a fake grimace that should be fairly convincing. When they'd seen it, his right leg had been entirely useless. He'll hold to that illusion. His pack is sitting on the sofa and he pulls the mallet out of one of the loops before pulling the pack on.

House half-hops, half-limps over to the dining room, using the mallet to balance himself. He takes one look at the chair that Alfie's pulled out and promptly ignores it, picking out a spot so that they're next to each other around the corner of the table, rather than facing each other.

"Well, this is cozy. Thanks for making me get up, asshole." He pulls his pack off and sits down heavily.

[devoutish]

"Glad you could join me, mate." Alfie immediately stands and crosses to the other side of the table, sitting down in the chair that he'd designated for House. "Is your leg still hurting? You should have said. I would've been willing to compromise for you."

He taps the pill bottle on the table again, stroking his beard thoughtfully with the other hand. "Yeah. All right. Have you got what you promised?" Mirror, cutters, matches, rope. He's planning to angle for getting the wrench too, but that little detail can wait.

[bywolves]

Royce continues to lean against the door frame, methodically carving the plush. He saws a piece of fabric off, drops it on the floor, and then slowly pulls out as much stuffing as he can, before repeating the motion on another section of the plush.

He doesn't seem to be paying attention to the conversation, but he is.

[rubikscomplex]

"What do you think, mate?" The look House gives Alfie at the first question is nothing short of withering.

But he leans down after that and fishes out a small gold-plated hand mirror, wire cutters, a package of matches that has two left (the other five safely tucked away in a plastic bag deep in his pack). The jump rope he unwinds from the pack itself. All of it gets set on the table.

"Voila. Pills."

[devoutish]

"Yeah." He keeps one hand on the pill bottle and the other hand on his chin, seeming to think deeply about something.

"Now, we did talk about that wrench too, didn't we? Yeah, a bit."

[rubikscomplex]

"You want the wrench, I'm taking the cutters back. The talk was either/or on those two things, not an and."

[devoutish]

"House, be reasonable." He taps the bottle on the table again. "These pills are a valuable commodity."