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Unplugged - A Drabble Compilation
by Teyla
Beta ( = kick-starting, being awesome and nagging until I did what they wanted): Neery and TLI
AN: For these drabbles, I used Eric Clapton's album "Unplugged" for inspiration. There's one drabble for each song.
Most of these are double drabbles, because I find it incredibly hard to write anything only marginally interesting in 100 words. They're all H/W, most of them established, one or two pre-slash, and with the rest, take your pick. One drabble includes character death; it will be marked with a big flashing neon arrow ;).
Feedback will be hugged and kissed!
1) Signe
It had been some time since Wilson had heard him play the guitar. It had happened only once or twice since the infarction. Not surprising, considering that since House was right-handed, the body of the guitar was pressing directly into his right thigh.
He'd almost forgotten how good House was. He was reminded now, puttering around in the kitchen and listening to House plucking at his steel string acoustic. It was a tune he knew, something bluesy, with a shuffling rhythm. Johnson, or maybe Clapton.
It's perfect, he thought as he tried to clean the dishes as quietly as possible.
~~~~~***~~~~~
2) Before You Accuse Me
House stepped out of the exam room and slammed the door behind him. Last idiotic, shit-for-brains moron, aka patient, for the day. And what an outrageous and annoying specimen he had been.
House tossed the chart onto the counter and was just about to leave when his eyes fell on two people on the other side of the lobby. He stopped, and his frown deepened.
Wilson was chatting up that nurse chick again. They were standing much too close to each other, she with a star-struck expression in her eyes if House had ever seen one.
Until a month ago, House would have pretended not to notice or care. Things had changed, though. Seeing Wilson chatting up pretty girls not only annoyed him anymore. It made him angry. To be honest, it also scared him a little.
He set off in direction of the elevators, planning on making an acerbic side comment when he passed the two of them. As he got closer, though, the girl smiled and turned to go. Wilson looked up, and, as he met House's eyes, gave him a warm, sincere smile.
A little sheepish, House answered it and headed for the elevators without another word.
~~~~~***~~~~~
3) Hey Hey
House was woken up by a heap of dirty laundry being dumped on his face. Digging himself up from underneath smelly socks and t-shirts, he found the angry face of the most annoying man in the universe, aka James Wilson, glaring at him. He blinked a few times.
"Why, Jimmy," he said. "This is a new and exciting way to seduce me. But I don't think I'm all that much into that sock fetish of yours."
"I haven't got one single clean pair of shorts left," said Wilson, positively seething. "It's your month to do the laundry. It's the end of the month. You will get up now, and you will do the laundry."
"But I'd much rather do you," purred House, enjoying the way Wilson's cheeks reddened.
"Stop it," Wilson said. "I'm not doing the laundry again. I mean it."
"I've got plenty of clean shorts," House answered, turning around and making sure to show as much skin as possible. "You can borrow some."
"This isn't gonna work." Wilson crossed his arms. "No sex until you've done the laundry."
Fifteen minutes later, while stuffing the laundry into the machine, House wondered whether denial of conjugal duties was even legal.
~~~~~***~~~~~
AN: Character death!
4) Tears in Heaven
"Come on," said Cuddy in a quiet tone of voice. "Let's go and get plastered."
He didn't look up, hands buried in the pockets of his black coat. "I don't think I want to get plastered."
Cuddy shrugged. "Doesn't matter what you want. He told me he wants me to take you out and get you drunk after the funeral. I really don't want him to haunt me for not following orders."
Wilson laughed, feeling the air hitch a little in his throat. He blinked a couple of times. "No," he said. "Wouldn't want that."
He followed Cuddy to her car, and she drove him to the nearest bar and got him drunk. After that, she drove him home and maneuvered him towards the couch, sitting him down and disappearing into the kitchen. Through the hazy layer the alcohol had created, Wilson looked around the room and saw him everywhere: the piano, the many books in all different kinds of languages. The cane.
He'd shed many tears while he'd stood and watched these last few weeks, while House's liver had finally surrendered and given out. But he still had some left. He didn't think he'd ever run out of them.
~~~~~***~~~~~
5) Lonely Stranger
After checking out his new office, Dr. James Wilson headed down the corridor towards the elevators, planning to drop by Dr. Cuddy's office before leaving to come back tomorrow as PPTH's new head of oncology. The thought made him swallow.
He rounded a corner and nearly caused himself severe bruising by running headlong into... a chair. A swivel chair that stood against the wall with a tall guy using it as a stepladder, balancing on the seat and looking like he might slip any second. Wilson took a few steps back.
"Um," he said. "Need help?"
"Come here, hold this for a sec," the guy said, indicating... something at the air duct he was fiddling with. Wilson hesitated, and the guy turned a pair of piercing blue eyes on him.
"Hello, you deaf or dumb? I need you to hold this!"
"Ah," said Wilson, and was shocked to find himself following the guy's orders. Before he could do anything, however, there was a yell from direction of the elevators.
"House!!"
The guy jumped off the chair. "You never saw me," he hissed, and was gone quickly enough to leave Wilson confused and wondering whether he might have been a hallucination.
~~~~~***~~~~~
6) Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
There was a clatter next to his head, and he dimly realized that it must have been the empty pill bottle that had been dropped to the floor. House turned his head, and through a drugged haze, he could see his best and only friend turn his back on him and leave. He wanted to call out to him, tell him not to go, but he couldn't. He wasn't able to process the urge and put it into action. The door snapped shut, and House let his eyes close again. He wished there had been more of the pills left.
~~~~~***~~~~~
7) Layla
Dr. Lisa Cuddy hadn't gotten where she was today by being dumb or not knowing people. She didn't need anyone to tell her what was going on. She'd kept an eye on them ever since marriage number three had finally frayed and broken. There had been a lot of moving around on Wilson's part, and then there had been the Tritter disaster. Now, Wilson had moved out of the hotel and back in with House. She didn't know that, of course, but she would have bet a month's pay that if she called the hotel, James Wilson would have had checked out two weeks ago.
She wouldn't have believed it; it wasn't just House, but Wilson also seemed to profit from this. While House was acting more like a human being than ever, Wilson from time to time actually wore an expression that didn't look either miserable or annoyed or just plain unhappy. She'd thought that an intimate relationship between those two would have been like a case study out of "Solving domestic crime - the police asks for your help". If she'd known that this would have been the result, she would have played matchmaker a long time ago.
~~~~~***~~~~~
8) Runnin' On Faith
"Another one?" Wilson looked up at House, who was standing in front of his desk, leaning on his cane. "Already?"
"Quit your nagging," House said with an annoyed frown. "It's been almost two weeks since you wrote the last script."
"More like six days," Wilson said, not able to keep the worry out of his voice. As House heard it, his expression grew even more closed-off. Wilson couldn't keep himself from shaking his head in a small gesture of helpless despair. He knew that the pain had been bad the last few days, had seen it in House's walk and the pinched lines around his mouth. In the way he had kept to himself and had been even more aloof than usual.
But fifty pills in six days?
He opened his mouth to try and say something - anything - when House cut him off. "Just write the damn script, Wilson. Or should I do it myself?"
That hurt. Against all better knowledge, Wilson reached for his prescription block and wrote the script. He handed it over with a tight knot of concern twisting his insides. House snatched it out of his hand, and, without another word, left the office.
~~~~~***~~~~~
9) Walkin' Blues
House hated the cold season. In situations like this, he hated it even more.
He was lying on his back on the sidewalk, his side aching where he'd fallen on the edge of the last porch step. His knee was also hurting. He'd twisted it when he had slipped on the ice.
Cursing under his breath, he began to pick himself up, using the wall of the house for support. When he had regained his precarious balance and gotten his breath back, he made his way to his car.
Some days you would be better off just staying in bed.
~~~~~***~~~~~
10) Alberta
House barged into Wilson's office, as usual without knocking. "Come on," he said to his friend. "Lunch. I need to tell you the exciting story of how the nurses found a set of handcuffs in the on-call room."
Wilson looked up, and the expression on his face was a promise of a lunch with little talk about handcuffs and a lot of talk about "serious" stuff. Or maybe no lunch at all.
House forestalled him. "Who died?"
Wilson looked back down. "The ovarian cancer patient I told you about the other day. Alberta."
House couldn't help it, names like that just made him laugh. Wilson didn't even give him a reproachful look. "I don't think I'm all that hungry right now," he said. "I think I'll grab something later on."
House leaned on his cane, staying silent for a while and watching his friend. "Come on," he said then. "I'll steal you a steak."
Wilson shook his head, but House noticed a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth. "It wasn't just handcuffs," he said. "There was also a stack of really naughty glossy magazines."
Wilson frowned, then slowly looked up. "Who was on call that night?"
House smirked.
~~~~~***~~~~~
11) San Francisco Bay Blues
"If I'd known this is what you do on conferences, I'd've tagged along on more of these," House said. Wilson smiled as he leaned back against the backrest of the bench. He still marveled at the fact that he'd managed to convince House to take a walk. When he'd suggested they go down to the San Francisco Bay to get some fresh air before the meeting, House had, surprisingly enough, put up almost no fight at all.
Wilson was happy that House had come along. Sitting here and enjoying the breeze wouldn't have been half as much fun without him.
~~~~~***~~~~~
12) Malted Milk
"I hate it when you do that."
House put the milk carton, from which he'd just taken a gulp, back into the fridge. "I hate it when you do that," he said.
Wilson, leaning against the doorframe, crossed his arms. "Tell you I hate your disgusting habits?"
"Exactly." House passed Wilson in direction of the TV. "Especially since you know they're not gonna change."
House thought Wilson would just let it go. Later, when he opened the fridge door and found the milk transferred to a glass jug, he silently admitted that he should have known better. "You think I can't drink from that?" he called. "Watch me."
Ten minutes later, he was sorting through the shirts drawer to find a clean shirt to wear. Wilson was lying on the bed, and had the grin on his face been any broader, his teeth would have fallen out of his mouth.
"I'm not cleaning up the mess, you know," he said.
"Cripple here," House said. "I can't crawl around on the floor and wipe up splashed milk."
"And I won't catch you if you slip in the milk puddle." Wilson smirked, and House wondered what he'd done to deserve this man.
~~~~~***~~~~~
13) Old Love
She'd seen them today. She'd been having a business lunch in Princeton when they'd passed by outside in the street. They'd been walking beside each other; James with the usual bounce in his step, Greg with his lopsided gait, both looking inconspicuous enough.
She'd been a little unsettled by the emotions she'd felt at the sight. Finding out about the two of them two months ago had been harder on her than she'd ever willingly admit. It shouldn't have surprised her. As long as she'd known Greg, James had always been around. When Greg had been in the hospital, James had been there, the pinched and worried expression on his face never changing. When she hadn't been able to deal anymore and left, James had been there to keep Greg from falling apart completely.
She knew she should be happy for the both of them. They were right for each other, everyone could see that. Hell, each one of them was probably the only one who could put up with the other in the long run.
Still, she wasn't happy. She was jealous. More than she'd ever been. Jealous of James getting what she had been too weak to have.
~~~~~***~~~~~
14) Rollin' And Tumblin'
"This is not a good idea," Wilson said, but without much conviction.
"Yes it is." House was wearing a concentrated frown, and if he hadn't felt long fingers unbuckling his belt, Wilson might have laughed at the expression.
"Someone might come in," he said unsteadily.
"You locked the door."
"You'll hurt your leg," Wilson tried in a last feeble attempt at protest.
"I'll hurt you if you don't shut up and let me do this," House growled, and Wilson gasped as a warm hot mouth suddenly closed over his hard erection.
"Oh, God," he breathed. "Oh, House."
House had his fingers wrapped around the base of his cock, massaging it gently, and his tongue was doing delicious things to the rest of it, licking and sucking and it was all Wilson could do to bite his lip and hold his breath and keep his voice down because he knew how fucking thin these walls were-
His orgasm made him claw his fingers into the armrests of the chair he was in, and he had to take some deep breaths before he could open his eyes. House's smug face was grinning up at him.
"Told you I could do this position."
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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 NBC/Universal, 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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