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Coffee
by Aurelia Priscus
"What is this?" Dr. Wilson asked. "If I didn't know it to be a statistical impossibility, I'd say this was actually good."
Wouldn't that be a hospital-wide first? Even the oncology lounge with its overstuffed armchairs and newly-installed TiVo had failed to produce anything but consistently mediocre coffee since he'd arrived at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital some years before. There was something in the water that condemned even the most expensive coffee beans to a miserable and unfulfilled existence as warm, brown dishwater. The aftertaste was, more often than not, sharp and bitter, and if he was going to be entirely honest with himself he got enough of that at work.
Coffee had lost its luster, and he wasn't entirely sure why. After three new coffee machines and a landmark transition to bottled water last August, Wilson had resigned himself to the fact that whatever bad karma he had collected over the years was poisoning his lattes. Part of him wondered if rubbing shoulders with House for so long had thrown his chi permanently out of alignment, and he subsequently made a mental note to amend the evidently gaping holes in his understanding of Taoist theology. His eyes drifted back to the rich brown liquid currently sloshing around in his mug. The drink had an enticing, almost seductive quality to it, but there was something about this situation that bothered him. He couldn't quite put his finger on it...
Of course.
Wilson groaned inwardly.
"No idea," Dr. House replied with an indifferent shrug. The battered carcass of a Reuben sandwich--sans pickles, of course--was strewn across his plate. He cradled a coffee mug in his hands; a gift from Dr. Cuddy from about three years back, he guessed. Wilson thought it a Christmas miracle the thing had even survived that long, especially given that Cuddy had taken to giving House coffee mugs on an annual basis. The most recent model--sporting a reindeer, no less--had conspicuously disappeared in the weeks after the Christmas decorations had been taken down. It had gone to the coffee mug's graveyard, House had later reassured him, where unwanted Christmas presents went to die. Wilson suspected the only reason the mug had been pressed into service was the dangerously large pile of unwashed dishes that had built up beside the sink.
House's expression was one of smug self-satisfaction. "It was in a bag in the cupboard. You know what the great statesman Winston Churchill once said about `finders' and `keepers'..."
"Well, I suppose it's possible you're thinking of the Beach Boys," Wilson sighed, leaning back in the stainless steel chair. It squeaked threateningly. "I'm pretty confident a man awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his `brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values' was a step beyond schoolboy rhymes when it came time to vindicate his actions."
House studied him from across the expanse of the glass table, his eyes betraying his own amusement. "Well, aren't you just full of surprises? You know, I--`
"No!" Wilson interrupted, perhaps more forcefully than he would have liked. "I mean, I'm not letting you drag me into another extended discussion of the merits of Great Britain's wartime leadership right now. It's not going to work. Well, not this time, anyway. Okay?"
House fell silent, though his stare put Wilson in mind of a shabby gray tomcat who thought it good for a laugh if he actually humored his prey once and a while. He took some solace in the fact that House probably had no intention of biting him in the jugular.
"Thank you, Gregg," he said warily. "Now where was--"
"Actually," House interjected with surprising vigor, "I was more interested in your apparently encyclopedic knowledge of Beach Boys lyrics, but now that you mention it--"
"No more! Stop!" Wilson soon found himself laughing, though he wasn't entirely sure why. He surmised that it probably had something to do with the obvious futility of the situation. Wilson brought his hand to his face and rubbed his forehead wearily, any remnants of his previous train of thought all since scattered to the four winds. "Fuck, what was I saying?"
And House laughed. "Don't worry, James," he said. "Your dirty little secret is safe with me, like so many other dirty little secrets I might add--"
"What secrets?" Wilson exclaimed in exasperation, and he was at once seized by the desire to throw sandwich crusts at the self-satisfied smirk across the table.
"Coffee," House offered.
Wilson stared at him, perplexed. "What?"
"You were talking about coffee," House said conversationally as he raised the truly awful mug to his lips, drinking deeply. Drained of its cherished contents, House set the mug down with a clang and wiped a couple of errant drops from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. He gave Wilson a look. "Don't say I'm not good to you."
"Your benevolence is overwhelming," Wilson replied wearily. "What about coffee?"
"You don't expect me to do all the work for you, do you?" House said, feigning an exasperated sigh. He leaned back in his own chair and fixed his heavy-lidded gaze on the harassed figure across the table. "Go on, reason it out for yourself. You're an at least moderately intelligent person, or so people keep telling me. I'm sure you'll get there eventually."
Wilson glared at him, but he played along. "Well, you wouldn't have tried to distract me in the first place unless I was about to call you on something--"
"Don't you ever get tired of playing the nagging housewife?"
"Well, yeah, but that's not the point. You stole the coffee?!"
"It was in a bag!" House protested.
"That wouldn't happen to be the bag clearly marked, `This coffee belongs to Robert Chase--Please do not touch,' would it?" After years of shaking his head at the sometimes amoral and almost always self-serving actions of his renowned friend and colleague, he should have known better. "You know, call me old-fashioned but I'm not sure stealing from your doctors is the most reliable way to earn their trust and admiration."
"If they trust me," House said, taking a bite out of an apple, "I'm doing something wrong."
Wilson gave him an exasperated look. "So, you're punishing Chase for trusting you? Isn't that kind of, well, twisted?"
"There is a kind of perverse elegance to it, isn't there?" House leaned over and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "But between you and me, I mostly just like the coffee."
Wilson snorted. "So by your own admission the excuse for your little act of thievery is nothing more than an afterthought? You know," he added dryly, "if you really wanted to teach them not to trust you, there's always more overt conditioning. I'm told electrodes are popular educational devices."
"Wow, wouldn't Cuddy like that," House cried, his eyes widening in feigned excitement as Wilson began to chuckle. "You know, she actually compared me to Josef Mengele once."
"Only once?" Wilson said skeptically.
"Nice." House slid the empty coffee mug across the table and watched come to rest a few inches from Wilson's left hand. He looked at the mug pointedly. "Cut out my heart, why don't you? You've hurt my feelings now. I'm very sensitive."
"I can tell," Wilson chuckled, pushing the empty mug to one side. He moved to set his own steaming coffee down, confident in his own if not intellectual at least moral superiority, but once again it was temptation that ultimately won the day. He was good, but not that good. He sighed. "Why is it our conversations usually end with my facing some kind of terrible ethical dilemma?"
There was a note of hesitation in his voice, and, true to form, House seized upon the apparent vulnerability with relish. "The good Dr. Wilson wouldn't abandon a helpless cripple to his own devices, would he?" he wheedled.
"Helpless, my ass." Setting his own coffee reluctantly aside, Wilson scooped up the empty mug and rose to his feet. House grinned, and quietly savored his victory as the other man crossed the room and came to a stop in front of the steaming pot of coffee that had been left on the counter beside the sink.
There was a cough. Wilson looked to the doorway in time to see a familiar blond Australian clearing his throat in what can only be described as a meaningful fashion. There was a file tucked in the crux of his arm. "Dr. House," Dr. Chase began carefully. "I've finished running the blood work on Arthur Welles and so far everything appears normal. Is that coffee?"
Wilson nodded dumbly. He realized after a couple of moments that hand was hovering hesitantly above the coffee pot and he quickly pulled it away.
"That reminds me. Now, I don't suspect this involves either of you, obviously, but I think somebody's been stealing my coffee," Chase continued nonchalantly. "It's been happening for a couple of weeks at least, so I took the precaution of lacing the fresh bag with a mild laxative and chances are I'll know who it is sometime over the next few days depending on when the thief strikes again, but if you see anything suspicious I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know."
"Yeah, yeah," Wilson smiled, hoping the nervousness in his voice wasn't too obvious. "Will do."
Chase seemed satisfied with this and, with a brief nod of the head and a couple of muttered goodbyes, he disappeared in the direction of the lab. The other men watched him leave in understandably awkward silence.
"He's bluffing," House said finally, glancing back towards the door as though concerned the Australian would return. "At least I think he's bluffing."
The once tempting, aromatic liquid had taken on a mysterious, unsettling sheen. For whatever reason, Wilson was no longer thirsty. "You still want this?" he said, gesturing at the sinister Yuletide coffee mug distastefully.
House waved it aside, and Wilson emptied both the mug and the coffee pot into the sink with a sigh. He watched the brown liquid circle the drain mournfully. Setting the dishes to one side, he warily surveyed the remaining pile. "Gregg," Wilson began hesitantly, watching for any signs of unexpected movement. Strange and mysterious food-like substances clung stubbornly to the plates, but for the most part they appeared harmless. "When was the last time you actually washed your own dishes?"
"The dish soap irritates my delicate hands."
"What, do you think they're just going to go away if you ignore them enough?" Wilson asked, running the empty coffee mug under the faucet. "Because once evolution kicks in, they'll probably just leave on their own."
House shrugged, slipping a lollypop from the depths of his jacket pocket and began tearing the plastic with his teeth. "Cameron does them. No idea why."
"Is there anything that woman doesn't do? She answers your mail and now she does your housework too, apparently. She's an immunologist, not an indentured servant."
"I don't know," House said, eyeing Wilson as he reached for the dish soap. "She seems to enjoy it."
"You're a pig."
"Well," House said, pushing his own plate across the table. "You could always save her the trouble."
Shaking his head, Wilson collected the other plates and set them in the sink. Wordlessly, he shrugged off his lab coat and set it on a nearby chair. House watched in amusement as the oncologist proceeded to roll up his sleeves and tuck his tie in between a couple of shirt buttons for safekeeping. Finally, he slipped the watch from his wrist and dropped it onto the table. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "Is it too much to hope you know where she keeps the steel wool? Of course it is. Never mind."
House smirked as Wilson stopped the sink and started in on the great mass of plates, mugs and cutlery. After a few minutes of silent observation, he rolled the candy wrapping into a little ball and tossed it at Wilson's head. He missed. "I can't say that I'm surprised. After three wives, I guess something had to sink in. When you're finished, I have some ironing that you could do."
"House," Wilson said, brushing the hair out of his eyes with a sudsy hand, "if you have ironed anything in the past five years, I would be very surprised."
"Well, aren't you two the picture of domestic bliss?" Dr. Cuddy said, from her privileged position in the doorway. For a room constructed almost entirely out of glass, Wilson thought, people seemed to sneak up on them a lot.
"I didn't enter into this relationship with any preconceived notions about divisions of labor," Wilson replied with a strained smile.
House leaned back in his chair and grinned. "We were just talking about how oncologists make the greatest whipping boys. Come to think of it, do you have a whip in your office or something? You always struck me as owing more to Theresa Berkley than to Mother Theresa, anyway. I ask because that'd be fun--"
"Eww, no," she said distastefully. "Sorry, Dr. Wilson."
Wilson shrugged. For whatever reason, this reluctance didn't bother him.
"You were supposed to be in my office an hour ago," Cuddy scolded, her tone reflecting the commonly held perception that she was more of a headmistress than a hospital administrator. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
House considered this, and after a moment of hesitation he opened his mouth to speak. "...Wilson likes the Beach Boys?"
"I do not! You shut up."
Dr. Cuddy threw up her hands and left.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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