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Dr. Snark & Wonder Boy Wilson, episode 3
by gena
Doctor Snark and his sidekick Wonder Boy Wilson: The Case of the Plague carrying Leper who, it turns out, didn't have Anthrax, Bronchitis or a Seizure - it was Vasculitis all the time!
The normal hustling bustle of a big city hospital is so constant, so routine, so, uh, normal that it takes something completely out of left field, way passed the Green Monster and clear up in the bleachers to disrupt it. Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, the unofficial Bermuda Triangle of medical weirdness, had assembled a staff so immune to the odd, the bizarre and the downright WTF that Michael Jackson had been known to personally drop in to purchase his medical masks without causing a stir. They barely paused when faced with fifteen thousand people exposed to cinnamon bun poisoning descending on the clinic. They rolled their eyes at patients wheeled in with spatulas sticking out of various orifices claiming alien experimentation and yawned when faced with the dead eye stares of those suffering from "reality" television syndrome. So getting the unflappable staff at PPTH to stop and gawk took not just the ordinarily bizarre, it took something bizarrely ordinary with a twist. Luckily the hospital employed an individual who filled the bill quite perfectly - no, Regis Philbin was still doing his show with the woman who isn't Kathy Lee. PPTH employed Dr. Gregory House in an attempt to provide some kind of bizarre display and thus prove the unflappable can take to the skies like those funny birds from old Disney adventure documentaries, the ones that kinda stumble and tumble and crash before they fly.
On a sparkly Tuesday morning the sparkly glass front doors opened wide and Drs. House and Wilson hobbled through them. The entire staff, having suffered through mandatory Sensitivity Training courses where they endured hours of mind numbing speakers, stilted role playing, and bad egg salad sandwiches, knew not to point and stare at Dr. Gregory "Hard-Wood" House's severe limp and cane but Dr. James "Man-Ho" Wilson's equally hampered gait was something else entirely. It was THE something else entirely that caused the first ripples of flapping. Everyone at PPTH, and thanks to the internet most of the medical community in New Jersey, New York and several counties in Connecticut, knew House and Wilson were basically joined at the hip and some of the more adventurous of the lot had spent many pleasant coffee breaks speculating on the exact duration and configuration involved in this symbiotic relationship. There were diagrams, charts and a hell of a lot of photo manips, still, the sight of both men limping like Walter Brennan in the Real McCoy's - uh, Dennis Weaver in Gun Smoke? Or someone more contemporary whose name escapes me at the moment, shocked them speechless and staring.
"Stop mocking me!" House shouted as the Semi-Ambulatory Duo lurched across the lobby the morning after Dr. Snark and Company had begun their Campaign Reconnaissance for American Medical Programs or C.R.A.M.P. - the meetings which were to be held monthly. Wilson turned a quizzical eye on his colleague. "Awkward silence," House whispered, "I'm being facetious." Wilson, through ease of long practice and a great migraine drug, ignored House's attempt at levity. He was feeling anything but amused.
"You got some kind of - cream? Wilson asked, struggling to keep his walk as normal as possible. House smirked. "It's from the tights, House, not - anything else."
"Uh, didn't bother me," House pointed out.
"Who the hell could tell," Wilson hissed, his gaze fixing on House's cane, "and you weren't the one sandwiched between Foreman and Cameron after that last debacle, were you? I think I have duck bill prints on my ass and I know Cameron's the one who stepped on my balls."
"All you do is whine," House snapped. "I practically had to beat Chase off me! Who knew our little dingo lovin' Crocodile Dundee was afraid of cockroaches? He climbed me like a tree, nearly strangled me with that god-awful tie."
"Your own fault," Wilson said, "it clashed horribly with his Duckling costume, you should have made him take it off."
"You can talk?" House grabbed Wilson's shocking yellow and red striped tie, reeling him in like a marlin. "Your tie looks like Ronald McDonald's socks knotted around your neck." Standing nose to nose in front of the elevators, the eerie silence still reverberating around them, neither man knew they were being scrutinized by a nefarious being who would stop at nothing less than their total destruction - well he might stop at Dunkin' Donuts but only on his way to their total destruction. Edward Voglar staggered back into the shadowy recesses from whence he came, the only sign of his having been there the faint smell of money and a deathly chill in the air.
House shivered, face paling as he swayed on his cane. "You okay?" Wilson asked quickly and not waiting for an answer nearly scooped House into his arms and bolted through the elevator doors - which had thankfully opened by that time. "Hang on, House. You'll be okay! I knew all that Vicodin and alcohol and snorting cough syrup would be the end of you -" Whatever else the staff might have discovered about House's vices was cut off by the doors closing. A collective whine of disappointment surged through the hospital staff before they returned to their duties, secure in the knowledge that more weirdness would shortly be unloaded on their doorstep.
Inside the elevator Wilson had House pressed to his chest, murmuring incoherently. House was neither murmuring nor incoherent. "Get off me!" He shouted, struggling to detach the limpid squeezing him by using his cane like a crowbar. "I-m fi-" With a noise like mud-sucking off a shoe, Wilson flew backwards and House fell like a pine tree, landing on his back in a way that predicted Vicodin - lots and lots of Vicodin - in his near future.
"Don't die!" Wilson wailed and proceeded to throw himself on House, administering mouth to mouth with gusto. It was at that moment the door dinged open on the fourth floor and Chase, Foreman and Cameron were greeted with the sight of Wilson humping - uh, administering the kiss of life to his friend.
"Get a room," Foreman said and stepped over them.
"Can I watch?" Chase asked.
"Is this your scalpel?" Cameron demanded, raising a sharp and deadly weapon. Chase wrestled her to the ground before she could plunge it into Wilson's unprotected back.
"Get him off me!" House demanded. His ducklings managed to extricate him from Wilson's grip and lean him against the wall. "Cane," he muttered looking dazed, "I need my cane and lots of drugs."
"Sorry, House," Wilson said with a sheepish look. "I'm your only friend and that's a heavy burden. Some times it seems I only exist to wander the halls with you, acting as a sounding board for your farfetched schemes, a kind of walking talking conscience merely here to explain your actions to others. But because I am the only person you open up to and because I have nothing else to do and a fear that if you no longer need me some day I might go to my office and never return it causes me to live my entire life around your whims, and tangents, dedicating myself to you. My obsession not only with your health and mental state, the amount of drugs you ingest daily, not to mention your sex life, has cost me two perfectly good marriages and is slowly eroding the loving trust Julie has in my fidelity. I don't mind, really, because I need to be needed and though you don't need anyone you secretly need me because unlike all the others in your life who have left you a miserable and bitter man, my love is unconditional and in fact I find your misanthropic ways and snarky attitude a complete turn-on. Rawr!!"
Stunned speechless, four sets of eyes locked on Wilson, staring unblinkingly, there might have been some droolage but I don't want to start rumors. It was House who finally, with great difficulty, dislodged the astonishment which had taken hold of them. "That's really nice, Jimmy, but we have a case to deal with right now." House quickly popped the lid off his Vicodin, tipped the bottle into his mouth and dry swallowed seventeen pills. Burping, he cast Wilson an appraising glance and took three more. "Okay, everyone to the Den of Diagnostics!"
Hobbling ahead of his team and Wilson, House did not see the collective eye-roll his words provoked in the others. He heard the sniggering and the sotto voce opinions on his sanity, but it only reaffirmed his view that everyone else on the planet were idiots unworthy of his time and effort - unless they amused him in some fashion. In his office House struggled with the white board, pulling it into position before the long conference table. "What the hell is that?" He snapped, staring at Cameron. "I told you you could only touch them when I was incapacitated." Some anonymous author had used The Scared Markers and written Mrs. Gregory House. Mr& Mrs. Greg House. Greg "Hottie" House complete with big loopy "G"s in a definitely girlie hand.
"Sorry," Cam whispered and sank into the chair furthest away.
Appeased by her guilt and the fact that Wilson was sitting front and center in Cameron's usual chair, House scribbled MYSTERIOUS MALEVOLENT CHILL on the white board. "Okay, 46 year old male. Deviously handsome. Intense blue eyes and sexy beard stubble. Two good arms, one good leg and everything in between functioning at tiptop condition. Guy walks into the lobby and immediately feels a bone deep cold seeping through him. What's the differential diagnosis, people?"
"Uh, draft?" Chase ventured.
"AC?" Cameron guessed.
"You had your pants down around your ankles?" Foreman suggested.
"No, no, and not this time," House said with a smirk. "Think people. What would cause the blood to freeze in veins of the Righteous?" More blanks stares and drool, although the drool seemed to be coming from Wilson but his eyes were locked on House's groin at the time so he had a valid excuse. "Evil! Pure Evil in the form of Edward "Darth" Vogler!!"
Cameron fainted. Chase and Foreman threw themselves into each others arms and held on until the creepy music which always accompanies these kind of ghastly developments died away. That left only Wilson and he managed to stifle a gasp by cramming his mouth against House's ample manhood. House couldn't stifle his own gasp and merely took a moment to enjoy the supple way Wilson's lips could fold around........ "Okay, okay. Focus people, focus." Foreman and Chase reluctantly released each other, their eyes lingering just a moment too long and twin smiles seeming to promise a deeper investigation into mutual fear-based response.
"Hey? I'm unconscious, here," Cameron said indignantly from her position beneath the table.
"Sorry, Cam," Foreman reached down and gently patted her cheeks until she opened her eyes.
"Gee thanks."
The sound of House stamping his cane on the floor brought all eyes back to him. "Vogler has returned to spread a foul plague here at PPTH. You know what this calls for."
"No, bloody way-"
"Please, for pity's sake-"
"But it makes me look fat -"
"I've still got that rash -"
"Doc Snark and Cramp!"
"Hey, cramps are nothing to make fun of," Cameron snarled, chewing her way through a Hersey bar.
"Not cramps, C.R.A.M.P.," House said, "it stands for Cute Radically Annoying Medical People....or something. Doesn't matter what it stand for but it means," he paused for dramatic effect, eyes bulging, cane twirling like a propeller, "into your costumes and then to the Snark-Mobile!" No one moved. "I have a cane and I will use it."
"We can't change here," Cameron said, "all those people walking by." She rose, turning to face the busy corridor. "They might be staring," her hand teased at the top button of her tight vest, seductively slipping it free. "I wouldn't want any of those big, strong men getting the wrong idea about little ol' me -"
"That's why we're taking the Super Secret Balcony of Afternoon Delight." House said, limping towards his office, followed by Wilson. The others shared confused glances but followed as well. House stood near his desk, Wilson beside him. "Concentrate," he commanded, flicking his cane towards the corner, "only those who have experienced serious nookie in their lives can see it." All three of the younger doctors stared at the glass panels. Time passed slowly, the ticking of a clock the only sound as they focused all their attention on the glass. Sweat trickled down their attractive faces until finally, with a crack! They saw what House and Wilson had obviously been seeing for a long time. A door had appeared and through it they could see a balcony and passed that-
"Hey, Wilson's office is on the sixth floor," Foreman said. "How-?"
"We don't know how it works," Wilson admitted with a shrug. "It just does, for us." He smiled at House who, legend has it, blushed but it could have been some rare dermatological condition.
"Let's go." House pushed open the door and the five of them made their way to Wilson's office. With a bit of confusion, since the configuration of his office seemed to shift at odd moments, the five changed from their normal doctor clothes to the colorful costumes House had provided for them. Chase, Foreman and Cameron wore skintight yellow spandex, their faces shadowed by large orange duck bill hats, DUCKLING scrawled in black marker across their downy breasts, and oversized webbed boots on their feet. Wilson's discarded suit revealed he was wearing green spandex tights and shirt with a short yellow gold cape bearing the letter "W". He pulled a small mask, made from the green tie Julie hated, from his pocket and fit it over his eyes. House stood leaning on his cane, his slender body sheathed in silver spandex, a billowing cerulean cape hanging from his shoulders, his chest decorated with a stylized DS.
"We are so pathetic," Chase quacked.
"No," House said, "we are the last hope some people have. We are that thin line between Good and Evil. We are Snark & Co!"
"I thought we were cramps?"
"I thought it was Wonder Boy and the Duck Tones?"
"Slim Shady and his Medico Crew?"
"Shut up! Why do I have to keep telling you people to shut up?" House glared at them. "Now, to the Snark-mobile and if anyone says another word they'll be babysitting those whiners in the clinic for the rest of their lives! Got it? Now," he gave his cape a dramatic flip and limped back onto the balcony. Several doors had appeared at random intervals. House shared a look with Wilson. "Guess we'll try," he placed a hand on one doorknob, "this one." The door swung open to reveal Dr. Lisa Cuddy standing behind her desk.
Cuddy stared at the Ducklings. The Ducklings stared at Cuddy. House and Wilson stared at Cuddy's boobs. She got that reaction a lot but this time House and Wilson had good reason - Cuddy was wearing something that resembled a long sleeved ruby red bathing suit, cut high on her hips, and low over her breasts. Her stunning legs were covered with fishnet hose and red stilettos added four inches in height. A black cape was draped over one shoulder, her grey/green eyes peered out from behind a sexy mask, and a rectal probe dangled from her utility belt. Her magnificent bosom heaved as she stared at her uninvited guests making the two giant "P"s emblazoned there shimmer like waves on a very soft and round ocean. "House!"
"Damn, my arch nemesis, Party Pants!" House bellowed and ducked back onto the balcony, slamming the door behind him. "She must have sensed Darth Vogler as well," he murmured. "We have to stop him before she does."
"Why?" Wilson asked. He followed House along the balcony, his walk a little odd as he endeavored to keep his chapped thighs from getting worse. "If Cuddy, I mean Party Pants, takes him down it just means we have time to, you know."
House sighed, head dropping to his chest before rising to give Wilson a baleful stare. "Is sex all you think about? I give and give and you never even thank me. You know it's not easy for me to have sex, what with all the drugs I take and then there's the little problem of my leg killing me every time you want me on my knees. You don't even buy me dinner first. You just waltz in complaining that Julie doesn't understand you and I'm suppose to just spread my legs and let you have your wicked way with me. Damn, it Jim I'm a doctor not a sex toy!"
"I - I," Wilson, face a sick shade of scarlet, stuttered, "I was talking about treating the plague carrying leper, House."
"Oh." House grinned. "I was just testing your dedication to the mission, Wilson. If Party Pants stops Vogler before we do I'll never hear the end of it. You know how much she whined about the 100 million dollars and if she ends his reign of terror too there'll be no living with her. Not that I'd want to, she snores," he confided with a roll of his eyes. House led the way along the balcony to another door well aware that Wilson was trying the Eyebrows of Doom move on him but his shiny cape protected him. He chose a door and peeked in before nodding. "It's safe," House called over his shoulder. They emerged in the dim parking garage and made their way towards the shiny red Vette. Just as they got close to the car House paused. "It's cold in here," he said quietly and shivered. It was at that exact moment that something whipped out of the darkness, slicing the air over House's head, parting Wilson's hair on the other side and embedding itself in the concrete pillar beside them where it quivered with a rich ringing sound.
Foreman extracted the object, holding it out for the others to see. It was a hundred dollar bill coated in some substance that made it hard as a rock and the edges sharp as a knife. Before the five could do more than stare in utter confusion more deadly bills came hurtling out of the dark pinging off automobiles. "Down!" They scrambled for cover among the cars, House and Wilson managed to cram themselves into the Vette's tiny backseat. For nearly twenty minutes Vogler chucked lethal legal tender at them. Pinned down, Chase and Foreman watched in horrified silence as the Vette took the brunt of the assault. From inside it they could hear a lot of moaning and occasionally see writhing limbs as the car rocked on its tires. They could only imagine the worst - that House and Wilson were doing IT right there in front of them! Cameron, in a fit of uneven writing, daubed motor oil she found pooled on the floor onto her cheeks, fashioned a bow out of old hubcaps and used fast food containers, arrows out of illegally disposed of syringes and was steadily creeping nearer the Snark-mobile.
"You think she'll kill just Wilson or both of them?" Foreman asked.
"You never know with Cam," Chase admitted, "one week she mooning over House, the next she's making eyes at Wilson. She seems to have a thing for emotionally distant men. I believe it's an unresolved issue from her repressed childhood. More than likely she felt abandoned by her father and alienated by her mother. She's looking for a replacement who will accept her and she's confusing those feelings with love."
Foreman blinked and shook his head. "Where the hell do you come up with all this?"
"While you're wasting time with dying people I'm busy working the Cosmo crossword," Chase said. "It's very educational."
So engrossed in their physiological profile of their co-worker it too both men several moments to notice the sudden stillness. Vogler had stopped his attack! Cautiously, Chase and Foreman eased out from under a Lexus and scurried towards the Vette. "Dr. House? Dr. Wilson? Are you two still alive?" The small red car looked like a strange sporty porcupine, its quills metallic hundred dollar bills. Carefully shielding their eyes, least they see something which would scar them for life, Foreman and Chase peered into the Vette.
"Oh, did we win?" House asked, puffing on a cigarette. Beside him Wilson, looking more rumpled than they'd ever see him, wore a satisfied grin.
"Well, he stopped throwing money at us," Foreman pointed out. House climbed awkwardly out of the small sports car and waited as Wilson did the same on the other side. "Maybe he gave up?" An inhuman sound reverberated around the parking structure, so loud the walls shook and all four men whirled towards it. Edward "Darth" Vogler stumbled out of the shadows, his enormous face contorted with rage, a last killer bill held in his hand. Time seemed to slow, all actions happening in really cool slow motion with those weird guttural sound effects and everything. Vogler drew back and let the bill fly from his meaty hand. Foreman grabbed Chase and shoved him to the floor, shielding the Australian with his own masculine physique. The metal edged hundred sliced through the air, its whistling progress marked by the widening of House's brilliant blue eyes as it raced straight towards his silver clad chest. House raised his cane, hurling it with all his strength, flinging it like a misshapen boomerang, but the sinister money splintered the wood. House cursed in Chinese, a habit he'd picked up from watching Firefly over and over, and resigned himself to death at the hands of a megalomaniac the size of a Toyota who thought he could buy something as priceless as Gregory House's integrity. He hadn't even tried bribing him with a cool car, the gorram fool.
And then, like something out of a nightmare, a green and gold streak flew across the car, its trajectory clearly going to intersect with the incoming killer cash. "Noooooo," House shouted, his voice distorted by fear and that cool slo-mo effect thing which was, yes, still going on. Time, which some people say is fluid and some claim is cylindrical, but is really a plot device, chose that moment to speed up again. Suddenly the green and gold streak became a 180 pounds of studly doctor crashing into him and while he had always been partial to Wilson pouncing on him, it was usually someplace close to a mattress and both of them were naked. House had only a split second to see Voglar's triumphant grin, then Wilson went limp and they both slammed to the ground.
He could hear voices, and not like the usual voice he heard, the ones that told him to say and do things, these were actually other people talking. "House? House, can you hear me?" That voice was Cuddy's. He really didn't want to open his eyes, not if she was still wearing her Party Pants garb.
"Leave me alone," House said quietly. "I might be a miserable excuse for a human being. A man so closed off by pain and bitterness that even the thought of happiness is no longer something I entertain. I had one thing in my life, well, other than my neat new iPod and my brand new motorcycle, oh yeah, and that kick-ass stereo system I had installed in the Vette, I had Wilson. I never truly appreciated my only friend, a man who would drop anything to help me. A man who loved me more than the women he married. A man who loved me unconditional - no, some times there were conditions, but I honestly didn't mind wearing fleece mittens to bed, and I grew to enjoy the scent of pine over the years, but Wilson loved me. He loved me enough to sacrifice his personal live for me, his job, and now - his life. Just leave my lying here, I have no will to live if my best and truest love is dead."
The sound of sobbing as well as a kink in his back finally made House sit up and open his eyes. Cuddy, still dressed as Party Pants, knelt beside him, her eyes streaming tears. "So, beautiful," Party Pants was mumbling over and over. "I knew they were soul mates, destined to be together forever." Beside her Chase and Foreman were in each other's arms, weeping and - well, it kind of looked like they were kissing, too but it was sort of dim in the parking garage. Even Edward Vogler's huge face was wet with tears.
"What the hell!" House sprang to his knee, levered himself painfully upright through use of his cane, the car beside him, and one of Cuddy's breasts, and stood staring at the behemoth bullying billionaire.
Voglar wept harder, mopping at his swollen eyes. "Th-that was b-b-beautiful," Voglar wailed. "If only I'd had the love of a good man I might have been a better person. I might have known that money can not buy happiness. It can buy jets, and cars and tropical islands, of course, and provide you with an opportunity to pretend you're giving back when you're really trying to outrun the guilt of having abandoned your parents to a sad lonely existence, but it's no substitute for true love."
"You're so insightful," Cameron said, sniffling. "It just chokes me up." Her face looked like something off CSI, the Vegas show, not the others. Her eyes were ringed with sticky black oil and there were lines of it painted across her cheeks, but tears had left white tracks through the gunk and she kind of resembled raccoon on crack. The makeshift bow slung over her shoulder didn't help. "I almost hate to send you to jail."
"Jail? He's getting the chair for killing Wilson!" House shouted and surged towards the killer.
"Can't he just sit on the floor like the rest of us," Wilson asked, sitting up and rubbing his head.
House gaped at his boyfriend, I mean, just good friend. "Wilson! You're alive! I thought I'd never be happy again, I thought I'd end my days curled in a fetal position, covered in vomit and tabloids, pining for my one true love."
"That's fairly - disgusting," Wilson admitted.
"So, forgive my asking, but why aren't you dead?"
Wilson blushed. "Well, you know when I threw myself in front of you in my final act of unselfish devotion? My damn tie mask slipped and," he dropped his gaze to the cement floor, "I hit my head on the side of the car and knocked myself out."
House regarded his - good friend. "So who saved my life?"
Cameron cleared her throat. "That would be me, House. I saw Dr. Wilson wouldn't make it." She shot Wilson a nasty look, as if his failure to die for House somehow made him a bad person. "I used the arrows I'd fashioned out of syringes." She pointed to the Vette's mirror. Vogler's deadly money was pinned to the glass with a syringe. She grinned. "You know what this means, don't you?"
"No, please, I'm begging you," House whined. "Not that."
"I want another date! This time I want to go someplace where my friends will see me," she said, blue eyes glazing over in rapture. "I want you to buy me a really nice present and bring flowers. Oh, you have to pick me up at my mother's house and talk to my dad about lawn mowers. We'll date and then after you've met all my family we can-" She fell over.
"Sorry, House," Party Pants said. She replaced the now dented rectal probe on her utility belt. "I had to knock her out, I was getting nauseous."
"You did us all a favor." House spared Cameron a final roll of the eyes, then helped Wilson to his feet. "You'll take Voglar into custody, won't you?"He asked Party Pants.
Party Pants grinned, "Of course, Doc Snark. I have plans, big plans for him." Her hand went back to the probe. Voglar paled, yeah, he really did, as PP led him away.
"Ducks One and Two," House shouted. Foreman and Chase waddled to his side. "Take Duck Three back to the Den of Diagnosis and drop her in some sick person's room. She should latch on to them and leave me alone for a while."
"Yes, Doc." They each grabbed a wing and hauled the commando duckling away.
"Alone at last," House whispered. "So, wanna have some fun?"
"Are we going to save that leper guy now?" Wilson asked.
"I already did," House told him. "Remember that moment in the elevator, when you were squeezing the life out of me? Remember how I paused for a split second with an insightful tilt of my head and a thoughtful set to my lips?"
"Yeah, I thought you'd blacked out."
"I deduced he had vasculitis and ordered the swinebole tennison injections with sponge tipped hydrochronicflagellants." House grinned then turned serious, his bright blue eyes staring deeply into Wilson's dark brown ones. "I was afraid you were really gone, Wilson," he said in a wavering whisper.
"Would you really miss me?"
"Of course," House said, "I'm not heartless and I do love you. And, well, you owe me two blowjobs."
"Two? Are you sure?" Wilson asked. "I know you gave me one in Mark's hospital room, and I didn't appreciate having to wear Stacy's pants, either. I don't remember a second one."
"Of course not, you were unconscious." Wilson gave him a sultry look and with a ringing cry of "SNARK!" both men bounded into the little red corvette, making it rock on its springs....and rock.....and rock....and rock.
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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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