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Menagerie
by Mer
At 3:57 pm, Dr. Gregory House told the man torturing him with tales of haemorrhoids and heartburn to step away from the buffet and stop wasting his time. He gave him some antacid tablets and a tube of Preparation H and sent him skulking away, shuffling slightly in the aftermath of a zealous rectal exam. House scribbled a note in the chart, glanced at his watch, and exited the exam room with a spring in his step.
His occasional partner in crime, James Wilson, looked up from the charts he was studiously completing at the nurse's station. Wilson's charts were always up-to-date. Unfortunately, his handwriting was so atrocious that he could have been writing in hieroglyphics for all anyone could translate.
"Free at last, free at last," House proclaimed, dropping his single file on Wilson's completed stack. "Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."
"Tough day in the cotton fields?" Wilson asked with not nearly as much sympathy as House deserved after spending three hours closeted with hypochondriacs, idiots, and lawsuits waiting to happen. But then Wilson actually seemed to like clinic duty - or at least he did it without complaining, which amounted to a tacit admission of enjoyment.
A patient stood up and started to approach, but House glared her back to her seat. "They're relentless," House whispered. "Cure one, and a dozen take its place."
"Stop scaring away the patients, House," Cuddy said, materializing behind them.
House only just managed to keep himself from starting and jostling his leg. "Jesus, you're like some malevolent spirit haunting the hospital corridors. Give us some warning before you appear, like the death of all first-born children in the land."
Cuddy just glared at him and beckoned for the woman to follow her into the exam room. The patient looked even more frightened now, which House thought was to her credit.
"Cuddy is a cat," Wilson commented, as they watched their boss stalk away, dignified despite the whispers of laughter in her wake. "Sleek and elegant, and supremely self-reliant, but watch out for the claws."
"Why do you always compare women to cats?" House wondered. "Last week, you said Cameron was yowling like a Siamese."
"Well, she was." Wilson winced at the memory. "The pitch went right through the wall. I don't know what you did to piss her off this time, but try not to do it again when I have small children in my office."
"See, I thought she was squealing like a pig." He grinned when Wilson cringed. "Squeal like a pig," he repeated until Wilson started humming "Duelling Banjos" to drown him out.
"Cameron's not a pig," Wilson said firmly at the first opportunity.
"I didn't say she was - I said she squealed like a pig." This time House squealed to illustrate his point. "Chase, on the other hand, looked like a guppy, with his mouth opening and closing and nothing coming out."
"What did Foreman look like?" Wilson asked.
House thought about it carefully. Foreman had clearly enjoyed watching House torment Cameron and Chase over their latest sexual indiscretion, but he had been careful to stay out of the conversation. "An owl maybe, silent and aloof, but ready to strike if threatened."
Wilson shuddered. "Owls are creepy. One time, I was staying at a friend's cabin and went out to pee in the middle of the night. I turned my head and there was an owl sitting on a stump, just staring at me. It had dead eyes. Scared the piss out of me. Literally."
It was probably a barred owl, House decided. The dark brown eyes, nearly black and staring, in a blank, eerie face. Wilson's eyes were nearly the same colour, especially when he was angry, but they were always alive with emotion. Wilson could say more with his eyes than a parliament of politicians arguing over expense accounts.
He wondered why Wilson told him these things. He was fairly certain the hospital gift shop carried a stuffed owl and it wouldn't be too difficult to rig it to swoop down when Wilson opened his office door. It would be worth coming in early just to hear Wilson shriek like a spider monkey.
"You're smiling," Wilson observed. "It makes me nervous when you smile. It's so...unnatural."
"I'm a happy-go-lucky guy," House replied, though he wiped the smile off his face. Wilson was too good at reading visual cues.
"Right. And I'm the King of Siam."
House groaned as a medley from The King and I played in his head.
"Getting to know you, getting to know all about you," Wilson sang, proving once again that he was a cruel, cruel man with an unhealthy knowledge of Broadway musicals.
"What would it take for you to never sing that song again?"
"What would it take for you to forget whatever plan you've come up with to humiliate me?" Wilson countered.
It didn't seem like a fair trade to House, and surely spider monkeys trumped Rogers and Hammerstein, but he still feigned innocence. It wouldn't do for Wilson to think that he could read him that easily. "I have no plan, but any more musical numbers and I'll come up with a dozen."
Wilson shrugged. "You will anyway." He hummed another phrase. "I may as well have my own fun."
The owls in the gift shop were probably too fluffy and cute, House decided. He'd go to a taxidermist and find an especially frightening specimen. One with dead eyes. And then he'd steal Wilson's key card and dangle the owl from the ceiling so it would be the first thing Wilson saw when he woke up. "Go ahead," he said. "Sing whatever you want."
Wilson frowned and for a moment House thought he had given in, but apparently Wilson was only deciding on his song selection. Standing up, he threw his arms out dramatically. "The sun'll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun."
House glanced around, wondering if he would have to help Wilson fend off the orderlies from the third floor. But the waiting patients just smiled indulgently, laughing with Wilson, not at him. It was sickening. One little girl, whose ringlets would be the envy of Little Orphan Annie herself, edged slowly towards them until she reached the counter, standing on tiptoes to gaze up at Wilson in adoration. House wanted to smack her fingers off the countertop, but the only thing worse than an adoring waif was a crying waif.
"Do you like The Lion King?" she asked, glancing warily at House, as if he were the human embodiment of Scar.
Wilson's smile should have come with a warning label for cardiac patients. "I love The Lion King," he replied, though House knew that Wilson refused to go down to the Peds ward when that DVD was on rotation.
It was probably a case of familiarity breeding contempt, House mused, when Wilson broke into an embarrassingly accurate imitation of both Pumbaa and Timon. House wondered what he had done lately to deserve such manna. He had enough material now to torment Wilson for months. It was frightening, really, how little sense of self-preservation the man had.
Wilson was beginning to draw a pride of hungry females around the counter and House realized that he might have to call up to the psych ward for Wilson's own protection. "It's time for your meds, Mr. Wilson," he said loudly. "Let's get you back to your room before you violate that restraining order."
The women started to slink away, but Wilson's original fan lingered long enough to glare at House. "You're not very nice," she said with the full weight of a six-year-old's disapproval. "He was just having fun."
"Another 15 years and she'll be Mrs. Wilson the Eighth - or Ninth," House observed as the little girl stomped away.
Wilson sat down and gave him a thin-lipped smile that just barely curved the corners of his mouth. "Well, she's certainly got a head-start on disliking you, which seems to be one of the criteria. Or is it just a natural by-product?"
"I can't help it if you have terrible taste in women," House retorted. "Or that your wives have terrible taste in men."
But apparently Disney musicals provided a temporary immunity to insults, because Wilson's smile broadened. "I certainly have terrible taste in men."
A less secure man would have ignored that statement or found a suitably macho retort. House leered. "Baby, I'm the best piece of ass you'll ever have."
Wilson just rolled his eyes. It was getting harder and harder to shock him. "You certainly are an ass," he commented mildly, and then brayed.
"Better get off Pleasure Island while you still can," House warned. "Your ears are starting to grow."
Wilson stretched his legs out and slouched deeper into the chair, looking more like a lazy tomcat basking in the sun than a naughty boy turning into a donkey. "That must be your favourite story of all time," he mused. "Everybody lies, even puppets."
"Marionettes," House replied. "And you can't blame them. Someone's obviously just pulling their strings." He tapped Wilson's closest shin with his cane. "Come on. Let's get out of here before Cuddy traps us and we have to gnaw our way to freedom."
Wilson looked pointedly at House's damaged leg. "Well, the good news is, you're already halfway there." He opened another chart. "Let me finish up and then we can head to the nearest watering hole."
Every second of delay meant the possibility of Cuddy emerging from her lair. House tapped his cane on the floor and watched Wilson write. "Are those supposed to be words?" he demanded, trying to decipher Wilson's southpaw scrawl. "They look like Rorschach blots. Do you even psychoanalyze your clinic patients?"
"Maybe I should see if Cuddy needs a consult," Wilson retorted, picking up the phone. "You can diagnose that the patient is sleeping with her yoga teacher from the strained muscle in her neck."
"Don't be ridiculous," House scoffed. "It's her back, not her neck, so obviously it's her golf pro." He eyed Wilson's hand warily, waiting to see if he would actually dial. He hated that he couldn't always tell when Wilson was bluffing. "I don't care if you finger paint. Just finish the damn file. At this rate the day will actually be over, and what's the fun of that?"
Wilson grinned and dropped the receiver back on the cradle. "You could always sneak out now and I'll meet you in the smoke hole."
"Oh please, as if anyone would tell a kiss-ass like you where the smoke hole is. You've got a direct line to Principal Cuddy." He rolled his eyes when Wilson picked up the phone again. "Is that supposed to scare me? If you really wanted to talk to her, you'd just knock on the exam room door."
"You're right," Wilson replied serenely, punching in an extension. "I'm calling your team to see if they want to join us for a drink."
"You wouldn't," House breathed, impressed. Every once in a while Wilson came up with a move he hadn't anticipated.
Wilson just gave him a self-satisfied smirk, which was clearly a trademark violation. "Chase. You guys are done for the day. Do me a favour, though and bring House's backpack and jacket down to the clinic."
"Fetch, Ubu, fetch," House commented when Wilson hung up. "Good dog."
"You do have him well trained," Wilson mused. He tapped his index finger on his lips, thinking. "Cocker spaniel," he decided. "Floppy ears and an eager-to-please disposition."
House couldn't help smirking at an image of Chase begging with paws up and tongue hanging out. "Foreman's a Rottweiler," he suggested. "Bad rep, but loyal if trained properly. Just stay clear of his territory. What about Cameron?"
"One of those yappy little terriers that follows you around and nips at your heels," Wilson said, his tone flat.
The bloom was off the rose, House thought. He didn't know what Cameron had done to annoy someone who had put up with him for a decade, but the break-up of that little cabal was good news as far as he was concerned. Wilson had Cuddy to conspire with - he didn't need any more helpers in his eternal bid to modify House's behaviour.
Which was not to say that Wilson's behaviour couldn't use modifying, as he finished writing in one chart and pulled another from the stack.
House snatched it away from him. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop the insanity." He eyed the remaining charts suspiciously. "How many patients did you see, anyway? Are you trying to make me look bad?"
Wilson held out his hand until House gave the chart back. "At clinic duty? I'd have to try not to make you look bad." He ignored House's disapproving look and continued making notes.
House tapped his cane impatiently. "Shouldn't you be sending one of your minions to get your things?"
"I already have them," he said. "So we're waiting for you. Or, more accurately, Chase."
House glanced under the counter and saw Wilson's overcoat neatly folded over his briefcase. He frowned. It was no fun tempting Wilson to play hooky if he was actually ready to leave.
The exam room door opened and Cuddy's patient hurried out, giving House a wide berth. Cuddy walked out a moment later, frowning when she saw her two department heads. "Haven't you left yet? I can't get you through the doors when you're supposed to be here, and now I can't get rid of you."
Just then Chase arrived with House's jacket and backpack. "Well, when you put it that way," House said, retrieving his belongings and resisting the impulse to pat Chase on the head and send him off with a biscuit. "We'll be on our way, then. Try to avoid the patient in the corner. He looks like a puker."
"When I said leave, I meant the clinic, not the hospital," Cuddy retorted, when House slipped on his jacket and Wilson reached for his briefcase. "Don't you have any kind of work ethic?"
She made the mistake of including Wilson in that statement. If Chase were a cocker spaniel, Wilson was a good-natured lab, and he gave Cuddy a wounded, dark-eyed gaze that had melted far colder hearts. It was a milder version of the look that had forced House to dress like a penguin for two weddings and untold oncology benefits, but it was still enough to make Cuddy flinch. "Oh, just get out of here," she snapped. "You too," she added when Chase looked nervously at her.
Chase's whipped puppy look was almost as effective as Wilson's mournful disappointment. It was one of the reasons House kept them around. He watched Wilson slip several files and a journal in the main pocket of the soft leather case and glanced at the clinic roster. Wilson's shift had ended at 3:00 pm.
He waited until they were safely out of the building and Chase had scurried off in the opposite direction. "Were you waiting for me after class?" he teased. "Did you want to walk me home from school?" He shoved his backpack at Wilson. "I'll let you carry my books."
"You're the ass, but somehow I'm the pack mule," Wilson complained, yet still shifted the backpack over his shoulder. "I didn't have any appointments in the afternoon," he admitted, "and the clinic is as good a place as any to catch up on paperwork."
Which meant he had been waiting. That sparked a little quiver of emotion that House suspected was happiness. He stamped it down before he could get used to it. "You're such a girl," he snapped to cover the smile he couldn't quite suppress.
"I'm the one carrying the books," Wilson retorted, but ruined his point by looking away and blushing lightly.
This time House let the quiver take hold. He could always make a patient - or one of his fellows - cry to balance the scales. "Nachos, hot wings, and beer," he demanded.
"Big screen television and satellite," Wilson added.
"Well, duh." Some things went without saying. Like the stupidity of clinic patients, the simple joy of having a beer with a friend, and how much Cuddy really was like a cat.
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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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