God, i'm glad that's overwith., Open to one. =)

[James House]

God. Another day long gone. After another day of torment from students, it was finally over with. But, then again, he had succeeded in refusing to let any of the students break him down into his wonderful state of madness; therefore, the day wasn't a complete loss, now was it? No, of course not. Either way, the students were becoming more annoying by the day -- ESPECIALLY the freshmen. God, stupid, annoying freshmen. With the attention span of a 10 month old, and the work ability of a five week old, his attempts to teach were becoming more and more pointless. And yet still, he continued to teach, even with the unbearable conditions.

And some of the things the stupid kids wrote down on their papers, you'd think they're still in first grade or something. What species is an ant, you ask? Well, i'll tell you Professor House, it's a god damned dinosaur, that's what! Honestly. What imbiseles! It's as if they are purposfully trying to get me to smash them over the head with a book while i attempt to push the information into their skulls. No, of course, that will never work.

With a loud sigh, James sat down at his desk. The school day had successfully been over for nearly twenty minutes, and the thoughts of student critisism ran through his mind faster than a speeding bullet. And now, he had at least an hour of school work to collect. That is, school work that he might as well put absolute zeros on without even having to look at them. Well, except for his favorite few who actually managed to care about their education.

Five minutes went by before he looked up at the clock. "Bloody hell." He muttered aloud. Yes, his british background still leaked through every now and again, even though his accent was mainly gone and covered up by the wonderful american slang. After taking a soft sigh, he looked down towards his papers, hoping for a reason or a disruption to give him a reason to forget about the grading for a few minutes, at least.

[Naomi Blake]

It had been a year since she'd had his class, but that never stopped the small blonde from bounding into the classroom to visit. The bright and vivacious young girl hadn't ever really had any problems in Professor House's class. In fact, she rather liked his teaching style. If she didn't take her work so seriously, she might have hated his cruelty. Fortunately, Naomi believed every bit of what he wrote on papers to students who didn't try at all.

Her work ethic lead her to be one of the few students who didn't get constant zeroes in his class, and even if he'd never admit it, Naomi was sure she'd wormed her way into his black hole of a heart. Grinning as soon as she opened the door, paying no attention to the noise level of her entry, she took up a seat on top of students desk next to his.

"Swearing's no good in school. We'll have to give you a detention for that one, House." The bright grin never left her face as she watched him from her seat. She half expected to be yelled at for sitting on top of a desk, but she didn't much mind. If he really wanted her to get off he'd have to do more than just yelling at her. After all, anyone who knew Naomi knew she didn't really listen all that well. At least, as far as things outside of her schoolwork were concerned.

Trying to see from where she was, she could just detect a few zeroes lying on top of a fairly large pile. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head at him, "With all those zeroes, parents are going to start thinking you're the problem here." She was completely in jest, of course, and were she anyone else, the comment would have seemed rude. But somehow, that funny little thing called charisma made it sound, coming from Naomi, as friendly as if she'd just offered half her sandwhich to someone at lunch time.

[James House]

Professor House paid nearly any attention as the classroom door opened. Fairly often, students would open his door and shut it, as if to psych him out or something.. now he barely paid any mind to the sound of doors opening or shutting. It were the voices that got his attention.

Ah, yes. A smartass reply like that could only come from one person. "Yes, Miss Blake, perhaps you're right. But then again, it'd probably be more of a detention for the person who got the deal of watching over me. Hm?" House replied with a soft chuckle under his breath as he looked up to see none other than the senior student herself, Naomi Blake.

House barely took into account the fact that she was sitting on the student's desk. He knew that she was nearly as stubborn as he, and knew that him even attempting to try and get her off of the desk was basically near impossible, so what was the point of trying? He gently set down his pen and folded his hands, expecting her to form some sort of conversation about the school happenings or some sort of gossip. That was what most girls talked about, right?

"What brings you back to the classroom, Miss Blake? Bringing along some worthless bits of campus gossip perhaps?" Even though he hated the fact of gossip, and how gruesome some of it could be, he would hate to admit that every now and again he was intregued by some of the things that he heard around the school. Some of them being told by his fellow teachers. Gossip was a cruel, cruel thing. Yet then again.. he was a cruel man, so perhaps the two were destined to meet every now and again.

[Naomi Blake]

Naomi laughed at his reply. She had to admit, anyone who had to watch over him in detention would have their hands full. "I suppose you're right then. Really, you're worse than some of the little freshman running around."

Shaking her blonde head, she grinned at him. She was glad that they weren't going to go into it about her being on the desk. After all, this was suppsed to be a friendly chat, and arguing, well, that'd just ruin it. And frankly, he would lose anyway, and she just couldn't hurt his poor male ego like that. So really, it turned out in his favor that he didn't pursue the subject of her seat choice.

Smirking at him, she raised her eyebrows and leaned forward slightly, "Now, Professor, I know how much you love the gossip around the school, but really, I expected more of you." Brushing a hand through her hair, she leaned back on her arms and looked up at the cieling, absently counting the tiles. "You could at least be patient and wait for me to offer you gossip to satisfy your fix."

Stopping at the count of 12, she looked back at him with a smirk. He wasn't the type of man who thrived on gossip, and she certainly wasn't the girl who went digging for it. She assumed, though, he only wanted to know for his own cruel tendencies, to make fun of it, or put it in the students face. Naomi didn't exactly agree with it, but it was just gossip, anyway.

"But, since you're so curious, I suppose I can spare a bit of information." She took a moment to collect her thoughts and separate the gossip from the truth before starting in, "There were a lot of summer flings, most of them are split up now, though. Two freshman boys got into a fight over some girl. The drama club has quite a few new freshman this year, and you remember the Corie twin? She's not happy about it. I hear the fall sports teams are doing really well, but our senior quarterback might be out for some of the season because he was caught with contraband. That's the most of it, I think. Anything else, and you'll have to ask some of the school gossips."

Naomi grinned, and vaguely realized she hadn't actually answered his question. In light of that fact, she threw on to the end of her news a simple, "And no, I'm just here to see my favorite teacher." The sarcasm evident in her tone, however, nearly falsified the favorite she threw in there.

[James House]

James looked up towards her, a sarcastic face that was attempting to scream "How dare you insult me like that! At least i know that ants aren't in the dinosaur species!" But as opposed to saying something along those lines, he just raised an eyebrow and let out a low, but dark laugh. It was one of those things that he did on rare occasions, and they happened to be quite hysterical, but of course, he would never laugh at himself afterwards. He's not that kind of man.

House tried his hardest not to let out a loud, fulfilled laugh as the girl began to pour out a load of gossip about summer flings and fights and a bunch of immature preteen things that he had probably done himself at that age. Yet, he would never tell anyone, even if he had. After Naomi finished her plentiful words of gossip, he let out a soft chuckle and shook his head and he propped his feet on top of his desk and rest his hands behind his head as he leaned his chair back into a comfortable position. "Ah, teenage rebellion and stupidity. It ceases to amaze me." An obvious smirk began to appear clearly across his face.

He quickly gave her a simple, confused look, which he quickly covered up with a raised eyebrow. "Favorite teacher, hm?" He let out another laugh. "Come on now, Naomi. You're not even in any of my classes anymore. It's not like buttering me up is going to bring up your grades." He replied, his hands moving into a new position, folded across his chest. "Not like you ever really needed it anyway, though."

[Naomi Blake]

Naomi very purposely ignored the look. She knew exactly what it meant, but ignoring it was much easier. Besides, he obviously didn't deem it important enough to speak aloud. That, or he just trusted Naomi to be smart enough to catch it. Then again, the girl never was one for doing what she was supposed to do, or stopping before she pushed too far. Besides, House knew it was just a joke. Naomi wouldn't actually put him on level with some of the idiots the school had admitted that year.

She heard the laugh, too. That was something anyone rarely heard from the old man. It was nice to know he wasn't as bitter as he actually seemed. Naomi gave him a bright smile, though hers didn't fade near as fast as his laughter seemed to. Ah, well, not everything could last all that long. She'd just have to visit more and use her charming nature to make him laugh.

"You'd be surprised, House, just how stupid they really are. You should see them with alcohol in their systems," Naomi, of course, would never give names. Sure, it was illegal for the kids to drink, and Professor House could do something about it, but without names the idea wasn't even legit.

Giving him a coy shrug, she smirked at the confused look. That was so typical of the old teacher. "I know that, but what would you do if you really were one of my favorite teachers?" Naomi seriously doubted he'd ever been anyone's favorite teacher. Sure, some students liked him, but he was a hard man to call your favorite. The school was full of friendly, more down to earth teachers the students connected to, so if he'd never heard a student call him their favorite, it wouldn't surprise her one bit. "Don't worry about it too much, House. I don't need the grade boost any more now than I did before."