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Diagnosis: Demon
by Tigertrapped
Diagnosis: Demon
"You're hovering," House objected to Cameron, "and someone's been buffing your halo." He squinted past her, at Chase. "Not you, obviously, you're much too busy conditioning your hair."
He tossed a pill bottle from one palm to the other. "Well, spit it out! Who's at death's door and how cute if she, or he? Judging by Sister Cameron's crinkle of concern," he mimed a beatific frown, "it's a he, and he's cute as a sick puppy with a stumpy tail."
"John Constantine," Cameron held out the notes, "he says he's got demons."
"Demons," House echoed. "You mean his mommy breast-fed him too long? Or he boned his best-friend one night when the wine flowed free and he forgot he played for the other side?"
"Demons," Chase said. "You know - scaly wings. Claws." He sketched the latter with both hands.
"Ah." House gave a grave nod. "He's met Cuddy. So what else is amiss with Johnny, that can't be cured by exorcising the admin department?"
"Some sort of infection." Cameron creased her brow, gesturing at the notes. "In his blood." She hesitated. "It's..."
"Green," Chase supplied cheerfully. "Bright green. Differential diagnosis: demonic possession."
"Does his head turn 360 degrees?" House wanted to know. "Only I've always wanted to see that, up close." He pretended to stifle a fit of giggles. "You crazy kids! Just because it's Hallowe'en, you thought the grumpy doc needed cheering up? Where's Foreman - hiding in the medicine cupboard in a skeleton suit?"
"Foreman's running tests on the blood," said Chase, deadpan.
"All right." House swung his legs off the desk and made a long arm for his cane. "Take me to this freakshow, you pair of goof-balls. But it'd better be good."
*
"You didn't say he was pretty." House poked a hole in the blinds with the end of his cane. Then made big eyes at Cameron. "No wonder you want to save his soul."
"He's sick," Cameron insisted flatly.
"Of course he is. Just the way you like them." House took another look at the body in the bed, then flicked a glance at Chase. "Someone's got a rival in the shiny hair stakes. Of course he's not blond, and you've got that whole floppy fringe thing going for you, so -" He broke off, faking a shudder as a shadow darkened the window of the room. "Get a priest. I could swear someone's walking on my grave."
"Dancing on it," Cuddy returned, "given half a chance. Is this the radioactive exorcist? Honestly, House, the lengths you'll go to avoid admitting you've no idea what's wrong with a patient..."
"On the contrary. I know exactly what's wrong with him. He's got demons. Just as well we've got you on our side." He pretended to confide in Chase: "One look at Cuddy and they'll be running back down to Hell with their scaly tails between their legs."
"Is this the exorcist?" Wilson materialised at House's back.
"What's your interest?" House wanted to know. "Demons don't get cancer."
"No, but he did." Wilson pointed at the body in the bed. "It's in his records. Six months ago he was dying of lung cancer. Then," he snapped his fingers and shrugged.
"So you're in on it, too." House shook his head. "I expected better of you, Jimmy." He yawned and turned away, muttering, "I hate Hallowe'en." He looked at the other four with impatience. "Well, I'm all out of treats so I guess you'll have to egg my office, or whatever trick you've got up your collective sleeve." He eyed Wilson wrathfully. "You've not papered the bike, have you? Only if you have -"
"This isn't a joke." Cameron set her jaw. "He's sick - dying!"
"If it isn't a Hallowe'en prank," House demanded, "why's Cuddy wearing a spooky mask?" He did a double-take. "Oh, she's not. My mistake."
"Dash darn!" Cuddy put a finger under her chin, looking cute. "Now I guess you'll have to stop acting the fool and actually save someone's life. That's going to put a big dent in your record for the longest week without any work in it." She turned on her heel. "I want a diagnosis before sundown."
Watching her walk away, Chase frowned. "Why sundown?"
"Because," House leaned in to inform him, "that's when she sheds her human form to feast on the flesh of the innocent. Obviously we won't want to be interrupting her with trivia like this, then."
"Trivia?" Cameron prompted, pointing at the patient through the glass.
House rolled his eyes. "No rest for the wicked." He plucked the notes from her hand, finally, and flipped through them. "Any next of kin, to fill in the blanks? Who brought him in?"
"Some smooth guy," Chase said, "in pinstripes. He's around here somewhere." He took his cue from House's look of enquiry. "I'll go and find him."
"You," House pointed his cane at Cameron, "go and see what's taking Foreman so long."
He looked at the handle of the door to the patient's room, as if he could see germs writhing on it.
"You're actually going to talk to the patient?" Cameron marvelled.
"Like I said," House opened the door, "he's pretty. Which probably means he's dumber than the average dying man, but I have to start somewhere."
Part II
The patient turned his head (not 360 degrees, just slightly to the left and with an effort) and gave House a feverish look of dislike.
"Who the Hell am I?" House suggested, helpfully.
"Yeah."
Disappointed, House said, "Shame about the accent. I was expecting something more exotic." He kept his distance. "You aren't going to puke peas on me, are you? Only I hear that's all the rage with you possessed people."
"Jesus," the patient murmured, looking House up and down, "I can't get the cute nurse. Have to get the smartass social worker."
"The - what?"
"Social worker," the patient repeated. "You're not telling me you dress like that from choice."
House stirred the hem of Constantine's hospital gown with the end of his cane. "At least I am dressed, seen from the back."
"Yeah, you've got all the advantages." Constantine balled his fists in the bed, setting his teeth together.
As House watched, he started to shake. House reached for his wrist, feeling the pulse leaping like salmon under his fingers.
When the seizure had passed, the patient looked at the long fingers around his wrist with suspicion. "You're a doctor?" He was out of breath, his voice cracking at the corners, sweat greying the pillow under his head.
"What gave it away?" House wondered. "The bedside manner?"
"Yeah. That." Constantine's gaze shifted past him, to the door.
"You're thinking 'cute nurse at last'?" House tutted. "Keep it in your gown, spell-boy. He's a doctor. And he's mine." He took a stab at introductions. "Chase - Possessed Exorcist. Exorcist - Bobby Chase."
"I'm yours?" Chase demanded under his breath, turning pink. "Since when?"
"Since you sold your soul to the Devil Vogler and he palmed it off on me." House quirked his eyebrows, watching Chase squirm. "Where's the smooth pal in the pinstripes?"
"He took off."
"Too bad." House looked down at the man in the bed. "We could've used a history from someone whose blood isn't the colour of Lime Jello."
On cue, Foreman and Cameron showed up, squabbling over a vial of green blood.
House snapped his fingers, and the vial was handed over. House held it to the light, squinted at it, shook it, squinted again and tossed it back to Foreman who caught it just in time.
Cameron had gravitated to the patient's bedside and was looking down at him, soulfully.
House rolled his eyes. "It's not like his blood is blue. I bet Bobby's is bluer, right Bobby?"
Chase ignored him.
"It's not just that it's green," Foreman said. He cleared his throat. "It's, well, it's not human."
"Not human!" House took a step backwards in mock alarm. He twitched the sheet from the patient's feet and gasped. "Cloven hooves! No, wait." He leaned in, pretending to peer. "No, false alarm. The feet are human. But the blood-!" He clapped knuckles to his open mouth. "What are we dealing with Dr Death? Break it to me gently."
"Asshole," the patient said very clearly, from the pillows.
Part III
"He says I'm an asshole," House informed Wilson as he entered the patient's room.
"Huh." Wilson considered this in his best no-surprises-there manner. "So there's nothing wrong with his cognitive powers, then."
House pulled a face at him before going to the medical trolley and sliding open a drawer.
From between gritted teeth, Constantine said, "Can someone stop this woman looking at me like that?"
House tutted his tongue. "You've gazed into the mouth of Hell and still Cameron creeps you out? Time to tone down the healing angel act, Allison."
"What about the green blood?" Wilson asked.
"Oh it's green all right," House scavenged in the drawer, "but we've only got Foreman's word from it that it came from the patient."
"It came from the patient," Foreman said flatly.
There was the sound of ripping paper and House turned on his heel, brandishing a hypodermic. He waved Chase aside and took a step forward, stabbing the needle into Constantine's thigh, deep.
"This," he said, depressing the hypo, "is coming from the patient."
Constantine cursed and tensed all over, his eyes rolling back in his head, his fists twisting into the sheets.
There was a thin, snapping sound and House stepped back, holding up what was left of the hypo with an expression of unqualified surprise. A centimetre of steel protruded from the patient's rigid thigh, where the rest of the needle was buried.
In the brief silence that followed, Constantine started to shake, violently.
Foreman, Cameron and Chase all dashed to check stats, coming to an abrupt standstill as the patient's body rose half a foot from the bed and hovered there. Vibrating from head to toe, sweat running everywhere, Constantine spat incantations at them, savagely. With a zipping sound, the needle left his thigh and darted across the room, burying itself in the wall behind Wilson's head.
Constantine's body slumped limply back onto the bed, and stopped moving.
Cameron was the first to his side, her fingers pressed to the damp skin at his throat. "No pulse!" She put her cheek to his pale lips. "He's stopped breathing!"
As she said it, the patient's tongue snaked from between his lips and licked her face from jaw to temple with a sizzling hiss. Cameron screamed and leapt back from the bed, clutching a hand to her wet, red face.
Chase made a move towards the bed but House put his cane out and stopped him.
At Cameron's side, Foreman was examining her face. "Son of a bitch -! He's burned her!"
House looked down at the body on the bed, his expression grim. He removed his cane from Chase's chest and pointed it at the patient. "Get security," he said, "and restrain him."
A hard sound snapped from Constantine, like laughter. His eyes swivelled blackly, his gaze locking to House. He spoke a string of words in a language none of them knew and the cane was snatched from House's hand and spun up towards the ceiling, rotating like the blade of a helicopter before it burst into orange flame.
They all stared up at the burning cane, ducking their heads back down as the sprinkler system sprang into action.
"Huh," Wilson said again.
The charred remains of House's cane dropped onto the bed, breaking into wet splinters.
House leant on the bed with his right hand and looked at the patient. "Now it's personal," he said.
"Jeez, d'you think so?" Constantine's voice was reed-thin. He rolled his head on the pillows, flinching a little as the steady stream of water from above washed his face. "It's just getting your attention, asshole. Stick around and you'll find out how personal it gets."
"It?" House echoed.
"The demon," Foreman hazarded, giving a shrug.
House plucked the patient's wrist from the sheets and took his pulse. "This - says he's human." He dropped the wrist. "Better find out if he's got insurance before we try anything else. Put a new cane on his bill." He glanced at Cameron. "And some heavy makeup for Allison."
Wilson had picked up the wrist dropped by House and was checking the patient's pulse for himself. "What happened to the cancer?" he asked, in a conversational tone.
Constantine shut his eyes, looking infeasibly weary. "You wouldn't believe me."
Wilson blinked, making himself look impressionable. "Try me."
"Explain the Balance to someone with a God-complex? I don't think so."
"You think all doctors have God-complexes?" Wilson was amused. "That's a very old-fashioned point of view. Nowadays we have inferiority complexes. Right, House?"
"Speak for yourself," House grumbled, retrieving the burnt rubber end of his cane from the wreckage on the bed.
"Or, as Doctor House demonstrates, Senex complexes." Wilson gave the patient a complacent smile.
"You're a riot," Constantine told him tiredly.
"So - the cancer? You were dying, right?"
"We're all dying, doc. I'd have thought your creed covered that."
"I saw the scans," Wilson said, persevering with the light tone. "You were being fast-tracked. Then your lungs... just cleared. What happened to the cancer?"
In a blah-blah voice, Constantine recited: "It was ripped out by his infernal majesty, the prince of darkness."
"Pardon me?"
"Beelzebub. Belial. The father of all lies. Son of perdition. Abaddon."
"A bad 'un?" House echoed.
"Jesus," Constantine sighed, "next time I get sick, someone take me to Las Vegas. Or leave me in the street to die. Anywhere but a hospital."
"Ingrate," House accused.
"Asshole," Constantine returned.
"Are you two going to keep this up all day?" Foreman demanded. "Only apart from getting soaked to the skin standing here, I'd like to start working on a diagnosis."
"Foreman's found religion!" House waved his hands like a preacher. "Hallelujah!"
"Pardon me?" Foreman asked, unamused.
"Only the God Squad would believe in this boy's recovery." House straightened, turning away from the bed. "Take him to the psych ward."
Constantine swore beneath his breath, making House raise his brows. "I saw the scars on your wrists, whack-job. I want you off my floor before you half-drown, or half-burn any more of my staff."
There was a static pause, then:
"You want personal?" The patient narrowed his stare to a band of black. "You got it."
Part IV
"Another day in Hell."
House hated clinic duty the way lesser men loathed taxation.
"Saddle up," Cuddy advised, holding out a stethoscope like a bridle and bit, "and ride it out."
"You're using cowboy metaphors?" House snorted. "How gay are you?"
He hung the stethoscope around his neck like a noose. "So what's wrong with this jackass?"
"Looks anaemic." Cuddy shrugged. "And he can't stop crying."
"Great. So mister-sad-sack's forgetting to pop his iron pills and I get to mop up his tears. I'd have been better off sticking it out with the spell-boy."
"Where is John Constantine?"
"Upstairs." House jerked his thumb. "With all the other loonies."
"Do you have a diagnosis yet?"
"He's a pyromaniac with a taste for skin. Slobbered all over Cameron. You'll be OK." House eyed her smooth face. "I mean that's not skin, right?"
"Get your ass in clinic." Cuddy bit off a smile. "And better take these." She threw him a box of tissues.
*
House drew a deep breath and opened the door to the exam room. "Good afternoon, I'm Doctor House. You must be the man with the leaky face."
He shut the door and stood with his back to it, looking at the man on the trolley who was dressed in a once-white crumpled linen suit and had his head in his hands.
"No shoes?" House asked him.
The man's bony feet were pointed towards the floor, long toes grazing the tiles. The feet were filthy; black. It made House wonder how often the floors got cleaned in this place.
He stifled a sigh and said, "So, why the tears? Someone steal your sneakers?"
Into his hands, the man sobbed, "It's my heart."
"Is it?" House reached for the Vicodin with a practised hand. "Open up to Uncle Greg." He popped a pill. "Let me make you all better."
The man lifted his head from his hands and looked at House, who took a step back in spite of himself, coming up short against the door.
"It's broke in bitty pieces," the man said, slurring the words from a pouting mouth.
"Your heart?" House tried to focus on the patient's face without flinching.
The face was like a death mask: skin the colour of quick-lime; features etched in lines so deep and black they looked like they'd been drawn on by a cosmetic surgeon's marker-pen.
"Can you fix me, doc?"
The man had the doleful look of a Pierrot, the lower lids of his eyes dropping and drooping into the sagging hollows of his cheeks. The eyes themselves were pitch-black with an iridescent surface slick like oil.
House's brain ran through any number of diagnoses, from Cuddy's pedestrian "anaemia", via the more inventive STDs, to cancer so terminal he expected the patient to drop dead any second.
"Fix you?" he echoed. "That... might be a tall order." It was inconceivable that the man had reached this advanced state of sickness without seeing other doctors, so House asked, "What's wrong with you?"
"I lost my little all," the patient drawled.
"Money?"
"Johnny." The corners of the pout turned South, the white face resembling a melting candle.
"What?"
"C-c-con," the stutter had House wincing, it was so pronounced, "Constantine."
"John Constantine?"
The long hands lifted, their discoloured tips tapping together. With an expression which could only be described, if it could be described at all, as rapturous, the patient nodded.
"You're here for John Constantine?" House demanded.
"Came a long way to see him, sonny. Got him safe and sound for me?" The man swung himself off the trolley and came across the room, moving with a disjointed roll as if his pelvis had been recently dislocated.
"You want the next floor up," House said.
"Came up already. Long way up." The man's breath was sulphurous.
Tonsil crypts, House added to the diagnosis, classic breeding ground for halitosis.
"Next floor up," he repeated. "Psychiatric ward."
"Johnny's got a screw-loose, that what you're saying?"
"A shed-load of screws."
The man sniggered. "Loose screw. Sounds like Johnny." His expression darkened abruptly and he leaned in to say, "ain't seen a smooth-skinned 'breed hereabouts, by any chance?"
"A - what?"
"All chalkstripes and silk tie," the drawl had a screech to it, like pen up a whiteboard, "costly little whore. Pretty, too. Been poaching on my patch ever since I was fool enough to give him a second skin."
House'd had enough. He lifted his cane (the spare one he kept in his locker) and set the rubber end of it square in the centre of the madman's chest. "Back off, buddy. If you're a relative, you can make an appointment to see Constantine. If you're a patient, same story: upstairs on psych."
There was a knock on the door and the blond profile of Robert Chase appeared at the window.
"Quack-quack." The madman grinned at House, showing teeth like tombstones. "You got your ducklings, I got mine. Crispy, just the way I like 'em. Southern-fried." He slapped his tongue at the dirty tips of his fingers.
House rolled his eyes and repeated what he'd said to Cuddy: "Another day in Hell."
"See you soon, sonny."
The man shouldered past him, opening the door and sauntering out. He looked Chase up and down with a leer, drooping a lid over one eye in a salacious wink aimed at House. "Nice duckling."
Only House could've sworn he substituted an F for the D in duckling.
"Who was that?" Chase asked, staring after the shambling figure as it headed for the elevator.
"God knows," House replied.
*
"Excuse me."
Cuddy looked up from her desk to see an extraordinary man standing in the doorway to her office. She couldn't say exactly what was so extraordinary about him, except that he was rather better-dressed than the average patient's relative and his expression was significantly more serene.
Most days, Cuddy was accosted in her office by at least half a dozen next-of-kin, demanding news of loved ones, or a shoulder to cry on, or someone to bawl out about better standards of care and treatment. She tried to figure out if this man was likely to weep on her suit or yell in her ear. He did neither, simply standing there until she gestured for him to enter, standing and offering her hand from the safe side of the desk.
"Doctor Cuddy?"
The man's hand was cool and slim-fingered in hers. Up close, he was even more extraordinary, the planes of his face too perfect to be handsome. Rather, he had the classical symmetry of a Greek statue -
Cuddy halted this ridiculous train of thought by imagining what House would say if he could hear her swooning over this beautiful stranger. Giving herself a mental slap for sloppiness, Cuddy offered the man a seat and asked how she could help.
"You have a patient here - John Constantine?" The man folded his hands in his lap. His clothes were exquisite: pearl-grey pinstriped flannel tailored to within a hair's breadth of his slender frame.
"You're a relative?" Cuddy asked.
"Next of kin," the man said solemnly.
Cuddy gave a sympathetic nod. "Mister Constantine was moved upstairs, to the psychiatric ward."
"I see. Do you know, yet, what is wrong with him?"
"He's being examined upstairs. You'll have to ask the doctor on duty -"
"I was under the impression he'd been examined already. By... Doctor House, was it?"
"Doctor House was on call when he was brought in. It was his professional opinion that Mister Constantine would receive the best care on the psychiatric ward."
"Was that your opinion also, Doctor Cuddy?"
"I... didn't examine him." Cuddy felt faintly hypnotised by the intensity of the stare. The man had eyes the colour of honey'd hazel, drowningly deep.
She gave herself a second, sharper mental slap. "I'll get someone to take you upstairs," she said. "They'll be able to tell you if Mister Constantine is comfortable."
"Thank you." The slim hand took hers a second time and it wasn't until she'd seen him out of her office that Cuddy realised she didn't know the man's name.
"Who was that?" Wilson asked, passing in the corridor as the pinstriped stranger was escorted to the elevator.
"Constantine's next-of-kin." Cuddy stopped what she was doing when she realised Wilson was looking at her with his mouth crooked in amusement. "What?"
"You're patting your hair."
"Am not." Cuddy tossed her locks.
"Are too."
"Well, he's dishy."
"He's - what?"
"Dishy," Cuddy repeated. "You know, like House thinks he's dishy. And you think you're dishy." She swung back into her office.
"Huh," said Wilson, and went on his way.
Part V
"They want you on psych," Cuddy told House. "Constantine developed a skin condition."
"So he got a rash from the sheets. Not my area of expertise." House popped another pill. For some reason, ever since the clinic duty, the Vicodin tasted like candy and was having about as much impact on the pain.
"Plus he stopped breathing, again. Plus he arrested. They got him back, but they're not happy. They want you up there and so do I. Otherwise I'll have his next-of-kin on my back for negligence."
As she said it, she flushed, smoothing her hair over her shoulder.
House peered at her. "The guy in the Great Gatsby suit?"
"Hmm."
"You've got the hots for that? He looked like death warmed over."
"Get with the programme, House. Not everyone's turned on by the walking-stick-and-stubble look."
"You're sick."
"No, Constantine is sick. Go see what you can do."
House muttered something about my lucky day, and headed out.
*
On the psychiatric ward, the patient was confined to a private room, flat on his back with both wrists cuffed to the bed. House flicked through the stats at the end of the bed, saying nothing.
Constantine looked washed-out against the white sheets, his skin glazed with fever and his eyes burning with it. As House approached, Constantine's hands opened and closed in the padded restraints.
"You bastard son of a bitch," he said in a fraying voice. "You let him up here. You cuff me to the fucking bed and you let him up here."
"It's called visitation rights." House leaned on his spare cane to look down at the patient. "He said he was your next-of-kin."
"Did he look like my next-of-fucking-kin?"
House shrugged. "He fooled Cuddy." He used the cane to push back the gown from Constantine's torso.
Skin condition was an understatement. Constantine was a mess of bruises and burns. House squinted at the worst of them, trying to figure out if it was his imagination or if he could actually see hand prints on the patient's chest. He leaned in, seeing the smudged oval of a thumbprint either side of the patient's bruised left nipple.
"Kinky," he muttered, reaching for the Vicodin. Like every other time since clinic, the pill hit the pain like a matador's cloak hitting a charging bull.
House bent down and studied the splayed hand in the nearest restraint. He looked at the long fingers and the tell-tale stains that marked the first two digits. Then he pulled the gown from the patient's left shoulder and studied the marks on his upper arm.
"Fancy a smoke?" he asked.
Constantine ground his teeth. "Let me out of the cuffs, asshole."
"It's been - how long? The gum didn't work for you, so you switched to patches." He prodded at the pale square of pristine skin just below Constantine's shoulder, wrinkling his nose. "How long?"
"Months. Why?"
"Where d'you get the patches?"
"Drugstore. Where d'you get the painkillers?"
House glanced down at the pill-bottle which he was rattling in his hand. "If I didn't know better..." he began. Then stopped and shook his head. "What am I thinking? Of course I know better. Tsk." He gave the patient a stern frown. "So the next-of- spells kin with an extra K. Where is he now?"
"How the Hell should I know?"
Constantine swallowed and House noticed the marks at his throat for the first time. He filled a tumbler with water and held it to the patient's lips. "Any bit of you that isn't bruised?" he enquired, as he did this.
"Any bit of you that's not an asshole?" Constantine flung back, gulping at the water before sinking into the pillows again. Pain tightened his face, shutting House out for a long moment. Then he opened his eyes and said, "You'd better warn your blond friend."
"Doctor Chase?"
"Yeah. He stinks of priest - was he raised by them? Whatever. It's like musk to that bastard."
House gave a snort. "Chase has God on his side."
Constantine's snort was louder. "Like that ever helped anyone."
*
Chase frowned at the TV screen. Trying to fathom House's fascination for the daytime soap was worse than trying to see patterns in the shadows on a dodgy scan -
He spun the rubber ball in his fingers, intent on mastering at least one of House's circus tricks. On the third spin, the ball slipped from his grasp and bounced across the floor. Chase looked for it and saw the ball resting against the polished toe of a brogue. He straightened in the chair, taking his feet from the table quickly.
"Doctor Chase?"
Dressed by Savile Row, a benign smile hinting at white teeth behind the plush red curve of his mouth, the man in the doorway was a total stranger.
"Yes?" Chase got to his feet, the suit acting like a magnet for his nice manners. The manners House liked to sneer at, when he wasn't sneering at Chase's accent, or his upbringing, or his hair.
"Doctor House told me I could find you here." The man slipped inside the room, closing the door behind him. He walked towards Chase, the leather soles of his shoes silenced by the carpeting in the room.
He started to circle Chase, slowly, looking him up and down. Chase felt edgy. The feeling surprised him. He'd done such a thorough job, or so he liked to think, of thickening his skin against House, that it seemed dim of him, now, to be nervous of a complete stranger's inspection. God knows he was used to being made to feel like dirt. This man, though, made him feel like... meat.
"Mmm," the man nodded. "Quite so."
"What?" Chase started to get dizzy, watching the man circle him. "Look, d'you want something?"
"You could say that." The man came to a standstill, smiling into Chase's reddened face. "The question is, do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Want something." Elegant fingers toyed with a bloodstone link at one cuff of the poplin shirt that was dazzling Chase only slightly less than the man's smile. "You look to me like an ambitious young man. And a frustrated one. The rungs of the ladder have been oiled, perhaps." He dipped his head, the smile dimpling as he appraised Chase through dusky lashes. "Hard to climb when things are... slippy."
Chase cleared his throat. "Seriously, did you want something?"
The next he knew he was on the couch, hot hands finding their way through the starched white of his coat and the softer white of his shirt, all the way to his bare skin. At the same time, teeth grazed his throat, the sharpness of the sensation dissolving as lips fastened to his skin and sucked.
Chase squirmed and gasped, the sound stoppered by the sudden thrust of tongue into his mouth. Eyes widening in shock, Chase saw himself reflected, twice, in the bronze irises of the stranger's stare. There was a long moment when it felt like he was melting into the couch, his spine turning to slush while the rest of his body stiffened until it ached. When the tongue withdrew from his mouth, Chase moaned shamelessly, his hips lifting from the couch like a girl's.
The stranger drew back, standing and straightening his tie.
Confused and appalled, Chase struggled upright, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "What are you -?"
"Doing? It's called contagion. Now House has two patients to cure. The survival odds just increased to fifty percent."
"What?"
"You might tell him," the stranger studied the shine on his nails, "that I prefer he save John Constantine. But failing that, you'll do. By way of consolation prize."
"Consolation -?" Chase tried to stand, reeled and sat back down again.
The man creased his brow, fastidiously. "It would be a little like eggplant-spread after caviar. But needs must..."
He left the proverb unfinished, strolling to the door and opening it.
The last thing Chase heard was the stranger's voice, smooth and unhurried, calling for a crash team.
Part VI
"Are you all right?" Wilson eyed the sweat on House's brow. "Only you look -"
"Sick?" House flipped another Vicodin into his open mouth - how many was that now? Six, since clinic? - he might as well be flipping a coin for all the good it was doing him. "You're confusing me with Chase."
"No." Wilson folded his arms, looking across them steadily. "Chase has a fever and an as-yet undiagnosed infection. What's eating you?"
"Pain." House put his knuckles on the desk, pressing them there and concentrating on the small discomfort thus afforded him. "If you must know it's eating me alive." He twisted his mouth at the other man. "What, did you think I was consumed with guilt? Because Chase got whatever I failed to cure in the whack-job?"
"I hadn't thought that far," Wilson confessed. "Now I come to think about it, this would be a classic moment for choosing pain as a distraction from the real problem."
"Does Cuddy know?"
"Know what?"
"That you're after her title as Bitch One of Princeton," House snarled at him, shoving past and heading for the elevator.
*
Robert Chase was not a pretty sight. Skin blanched to parchment save for twin spots of feverish red in the hollows under his eyes, he was twisting his body on the bed, moaning at intervals, lost under so many layers of pain that he'd stopped speaking, stopped weeping; stopped everything other than this restive writhing from which nothing offered respite.
Cameron looked across the bed at Foreman, her shake of the head matching his. She did as she'd been told and kept applying the ice-packs, one after another, to the patient's forehead which was furrowed and so hot the ice-packs didn't last longer than half a minute before a fresh one was needed.
Cameron swallowed the lump in her throat, not saying what she and Foreman both knew: that a fever this high that refused to break wasn't possible; wasn't human. Wasn't treatable.
Cuddy paused in the doorway to the room. "Where's House?"
"He's gone to see Constantine."
"Is he coping?"
"House, or Constantine?"
"House," Cuddy clipped the words, "Wilson said something about pain..."
"Yes," Foreman nodded, wincing as Chase's moaning rode to a near-scream, "there's a lot of it going around."
*
Constantine looked up as the door to his room slammed open and House swung himself to the side of the bed. As he reached it, House put a hand into his pocket and extracted a hypodermic. He held it to the light and played with the level of the drug until a single drop was flushed from the tip of the needle.
"Morphine," House said. His voice came out sounding clenched. "The question is: whose need is the greater? Yours, or mine?"
"Yours," Constantine conceded. "By the look of you. What happened?"
"Your next-of-kin pays me a visit in the clinic this morning, explaining how he's missing having you around and how he's counting on me to make you all well again. Ever since then, these," he rattled the Vicodin bottle, "stopped working."
Constantine wet his lips and nodded. "Yeah."
"Yeah?" House repeated. "Yeah?"
"He does that. Your pills don't work. Your cane gets burned. He has a thing about crutches. Likes to strip them away. If you'd been religious, he'd have seen to it your prayers didn't work. As it is," he jerked his head at the Vicodin, "he hits you where it really hurts."
"He - being what?" Not who. What. When you've exhausted all possibilities, House had decided, whatever remained, however improbable -
"The same he who cured my cancer and gave me a craving for nicotine gum. And patches." Constantine paused. "You checked the patches, right? I had a box on me when they brought me in here."
"Same stuff that's in your blood. You absorbed it through the skin." House toyed with the hypodermic a moment longer, then capped it and returned it to his pocket. "So what's the cure?"
"You're the doctor. Think I'd be here, if I could cure myself?"
House watched as Constantine's face closed like a fist, beads of sweat running from his temples into the already wet pillow under his head.
"How bad is it?" House demanded. "For someone who hasn't got a history of self-harming, I mean."
Constantine opened his eyes. "The blond kid?"
House nodded.
"Greedy bastard." As he said it, Constantine's head jerked to one side like he'd been slapped, hard. "Well he fucking is."
His head continued to jerk, then his body joined in, until the bed was rattling under the impact and Constantine was cursing, biting his bottom lip until it bled. House watched as the hospital-gown was shredded from the patient's chest by something he couldn't see, new bruises springing up bluely all over his torso to obliterate the batch from the morning.
"How do I make it stop?" House demanded, his own pain thrown into stark relief by the spectacle of Constantine's body being systematically battered.
It stopped as abruptly as it had begun. With a shudder, Constantine collapsed back into the pillows. After a moment, he twisted his head sideways and spat blood from his bitten mouth.
"You don't," he said in answer to House's question.
"Hemodialysis," House insisted. "If it's in his blood - your blood - I'll wash it out like any other toxin."
"Yeah," Constantine's voice was fading, "drain us dry. Good idea."
House reached a hand for the nearest shoulder and shook it. "You can sleep later. Right now I need a steer on how not to end up with an intensevist-shaped hole in my fellowship programme."
"D'you actually care, or is this just an inconvenience to you?"
"Does it make a difference?"
"Yeah it makes a difference. To him." Constantine flexed his fists, his wrists making a chaffing sound inside the restraints. He looked up at House, all blown-pupils and barely-contained pain: "You don't get it, do you? This isn't about medicine. The symptoms may be demonic, but disease is humanity. That's how he's hitching a ride here. How're you going to cure humanity?"
"Chase's symptoms aren't the same as yours. For one thing, there's none of this -" House gestured at the bruises.
"There will be. Give the pain long enough and he'll be hosting Happy Hour at the Hellraiser Cafe." The sentence ended on a gasp. Constantine bit back down on the bloodied lip, hard, struggling to stay still. Then he forced his gaze back up to House and continued: "That bastard's probably opening an auction right now. The kid'll go to the highest bidder. The pain is just -" he appeared to grope for the right words, ones which House would understand, "the breeding ground. It paves the way for the possession." He dropped his stare to House's right leg. "That's why so many people who live with acute pain end up going crazy. Only it's not crazy; it's possession. One in every ten, on average. The pain strips the usual defences. It's like having a permanently compromised immune system. The bastards don't even have to crash the party, because the door's wide open."
"Possession is one-tenth of the law..." House considered this. "So why Chase? If this is about humanity, Cameron's the obvious des res."
"Yeah. But he likes boys. Especially cute ones with a whiff of the seminary. The kid's ambitious, too. At least I assume he is. And working for you probably makes him a masochist." Constantine shrugged. "Room with a view."
"So where do I get an eviction order?"
You got a chapel here?"
"Yes." House had to bite his tongue not to resort to the snark which was his first line of defence in situations like this. Not there had been situations, like this. "We have a chapel."
"Stake it out."
"For what?"
"The go-between." Constantine moved his jaw dryly. "You'll know him when you see him. Piece of shit in a pretty suit. Find out how deep he screwed the odds."
The monitor at the bedside began to beep. House glanced at it. The patient's stats had been off the scale since his admittance. According to the monitor, he was about to flatline.
"Are you dying?" House demanded, angry at being made to question the machinery. "Or is that just playing a pretty tune to cheer us up?"
"Guess they don't factor in nester demons when they make these things."
"Nester -? As in squatter?"
"As in figure-out-how-the-fuck-to-fix-us, or-me-and-the-dumb-blond-die." Constantine drew a breath that rattled in his chest. "And it won't be quietly."
"Can I treat him to bring the fever down, or are modern medicines off the menu?"
Constantine appeared to debate the matter, then he shifted his head and nodded down at the mattress. "Under my heart," he instructed.
House lifted the edge of the mattress gingerly, and slid a hand beneath it. Between the underside of the mattress and the wire frame of the bed, was a crucifix of some description. Very old. Very heavy. Solid gold, House guessed, weighing it in his hand, inscribed with symbols he didn't know.
"Cool," he acknowledged, turning the thing to the light.
"Put it under the kid's heart, just like it was under mine." Constantine shifted on the bed, looking sicker than ever since the crucifix was dislodged. "It'll slow things down. Make the pain easier to take."
"And you?" House asked.
Constantine shook his head, sweat weaving through the black strands of his hair and spreading into the pillow. The monitor was going crazy at his side. House reached a hand and unplugged it, before the crash team could get the wind up.
"The chapel," he said, pocketing the crucifix. "Any tips on how to deal with this character?"
"Yeah," Constantine's voice slipped to a whisper, haggard with hurt, "don't let him kiss you."
Part VII
"A crucifix." Foreman stared at the gold in House's hand. "You're going to treat him with a crucifix?"
"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," House told him. "Failing all else, you can melt it down and make yourself some chains, bro'."
He limped to the left side of the bed where Chase was writhing. "Help me with the mattress."
Foreman did, watching as House positioned the heavy gold cross between the mattress and the bed springs. When it was done, House straightened and stood looking down at the patient.
Chase was shivering, his knees drawn up to his chest, his fair hair blackened with sweat. Cameron was replacing the ice-packs on his forehead. Her hand moved to brush back his fringe and Chase screamed, curling in on himself even closer.
"Has he said anything?" House asked.
Foreman shook his head, dropping the latest melted ice-pack into the trash. "Just screams, like that. Mostly he moans."
"No... violence?" House insisted. "Cursing?" He glanced at Cameron. "Licking?"
"No." She returned the stare, watchfully. "Why? You think he's going to end up like Constantine?"
House didn't answer. Chase had calmed down since the crucifix was lodged in place. After a moment, he stopped moaning and went still. House reached down and slipped his fingers around the pulse in Chase's right wrist, feeling it skip and hitch.
Chase whimpered and turned his hand in House's grip, clutching at House's fingers. "Help me..." It was a whisper.
House squeezed the frantic fingers, once, and tried to free his hand.
"Help me," Chase repeated. He lifted his head, his stare swimming up to House's face, dazed with pain. "Please."
"Great," House muttered, "guilt and pathos. This really is all-about-the-humanity."
Chase moved on the bed, his hips squirming against the sweat-spoiled sheets, his tongue snaking from between bitten lips to press into House's palm. It didn't burn; the tongue was hot but there was no sizzling sound as there had been when Constantine licked Cameron's face. Even so, House recoiled, dragging on his hand in a bid to reclaim it.
Chase swivelled his gaze up to House's face, his eyes liquid with lust as he mouthed hungrily at the palm and licked, tongue and teeth teasing, along the fine calluses marked out by the constant handling of the cane. He sucked two of House's fingers into his mouth and swallowed, as if trying to drink them down his throat.
House let out a half sound - disgust laced with warning - and shook Chase away.
"You taste good," Chase murmured, licking his lips with a dazed, dreamy expression. "Always..." He reached out again.
House wiped his wet hand on his shirt and pushed Chase firmly down into the pillows.
Chase gasped, wriggling his hips. "Punish me," he moaned. "Oh God -! Please..."
When House turned around, Cameron and Foreman were staring at him, open-mouthed.
House rolled his eyes at them. "Gee, I guess now you know why I didn't sack him after that stitch-up with Vogler." He dropped the snark. "He's sick, people! Cut him some slack."
"Okay," Foreman said slowly. He eyed the bed with suspicion. "But it would help if we knew what we were dealing with here."
"What? Is the big brave neurologist scared of a little hand licking? Get over yourself."
"Didn't look like he wanted to lick anyone but you." Foreman shrugged, returning to the ice-packs.
"I guess you've either got it or you've not." House held up his palms. "Just call me Doctor Candy Hands."
"Thanks, but I'll stick with the nickname Constantine came up with." Foreman arched an eyebrow at Cameron.
She shook her head, placing a fresh pack on Chase's forehead. When House turned on his heel, she asked, "Where are you going?"
"To pray. I'll be in the chapel if you need me."
*
Despite the lilies and the scented candles, the chapel, like every other part of the hospital, smelled first and last of disinfectant. It was empty, save for a man sitting on a fold-out chair in place of a pew.
"Pretty suit." House nodded at the stranger. "You must be the piece of poop I was warned about." He sketched a smile of apology. "I'm paraphrasing. I was also advised: no tongues on a first date."
"Johnny's been talkative," the man murmured, "in-between screams." He turned and appraised House with his mouth smiling, his eyes not. "He's mine, incidentally."
"You can have him." House shrugged. "I'd like my intensevist back, if it's all the same to you."
"The seminary boy?" The stranger drew his lower lip into his mouth, tasting it. "Tell me, does he look sweet on his knees?"
"Does Johnny?" House retorted, coming closer to try and fathom the depths of the stranger's surface shine.
"Not sweet. But pretty." The man gave a benign smile, folding his hands like a priest. "Really very, very pretty."
"Nice." House nodded. "So tell me, you pinstriped pervert, how are we going to fix the pair of them?"
"I was rather relying on you to come up with a strategy in that respect."
"That's why you gave Chase a dose of whatever you gave Constantine? So I'd have a proper incentive to find a cure?"
A frown came and went in an instant. "What happened to Constantine was an accident."
"Ah!" House nodded sagely. "You're going with the old non-culpability clause. You want us to think he fell sick like some women fall pregnant. So what happened to Chase - did he slip and land on your tongue?"
"Something like that." The man moved out of the shadows, letting House see him properly for the first time. His face was flawlessly smooth, save for a tiny crease between his black brows, which might have been anxiety or simply impatience. "So, what are we going do?"
"We?" House echoed. "You stuff my rota full of sick people and expect us to work as a team?"
The man's gaze fell to the cane in House's hand. House knew his knuckles were white. "The pain must be appalling," the man deduced, "is it impairing your much-vaunted diagnostic ability?"
"It's impairing my ability to stand here taking crap from a guy in a Saks suit," House snapped, "thanks for asking."
The man took a step forward suddenly, and smiled. "Let me help you."
Before House could back away, he was in the pull of a force coming off the stranger like pulsar. He staggered forward two paces, his cane clattering to the floor, and found himself held upright by hands around his biceps while something - some invisible, impossible thing - poured through him with the icy flood of a morphine drip, dosing him from the tips of his toes to the balls of his eyes.
He gave a shuddering gasp of pure pleasure - relief - and clutched at the stranger the way Chase had clutched at him. "Ah-h!"
A soft laugh sounded from the man holding his arms. "Better?"
"Oh... God." House went limp, nearly out of his mind on endorphins. He was dropped as he said it, the stranger smothering the sound which was wrenched from him as House uttered the heartfelt blasphemy.
From the floor, House squinted upwards, basking in the glow of recently-relieved pain. "If you can do... that, can't you heal Constantine yourself?"
The stranger examined his palms, the parts of his hands that had held House upright. "If I could get near him, possibly," he said. "But as you may have noticed, he has a guard-dog in residence."
"Exorcist with an extra shot?" House drew his right leg to his chest and groped a hand for his cane. He climbed to his feet, still giddy from the good feeling that had chased every last vestige of discomfort from his body. "So - he's got a demon under his skin and you are demon under the skin - what's your big dilemma?"
"There's a hierarchy." The man flicked invisible dust off his sleeve, flaring his nostrils delicately. "I'd no more shake hands with a nester demon than you'd give a second glance to the common cold."
"You're a snob?" House shook his head. "There must be more to it than that. This is Johnny we're talking about, remember? You'd give your right arm to have him up from his sick bed and back on his knees looking pretty."
"My right leg, perhaps." The demon quirked his mouth at House. "But even then I'd be at a disadvantage. Johnny can be a little... kicky. I have enough trouble keeping him in line with all my limbs intact."
"Spare me the sordid details," House protested. "Can you or can you not cure him, if we can get past the demon-in-residence?"
"Possibly." The stranger's gaze was luminous. "The trouble is, possessed, he poses too great a challenge."
"You don't like a challenge?"
"Not when the odds are in favour of my spending all eternity being spit-roasted over a slow fire in Hell," the man replied smoothly.
"Coward." House eyed him, turning his cane between his fingers.
"What did you expect? I'm a damned soul. I leave heroics to the optimists amongst you." He drew an index finger down the seam of his sleeve, slowly. "I should warn you, if you fail with Constantine, I've a mind to take your boy."
"You don't want Chase." House scoffed at the idea. "He wouldn't last two minutes in whatever hellhole you call home - presumably a literal hellhole. And could you really stand that accent day in, day out, until the sands of time run dry?"
"You have an alternative in mind?" The demon enquired blandly.
"Without wishing to sound heroic -" House began.
He was cut short by a shake of the dark head. "No, no. I appreciate the gesture but, really," eyeing House's right leg, "it would be too easy to hurt you."
House bristled at the implied insult and the demon smiled. "Much too easy. You wear your injured pride like a cub-scout badge and besides," waving an elegant hand up and down the length of House, "you have this whole Sisyphus thing going on." He shook his head again. "No, it would be doomed from the outset."
"You don't do doomed-from-the-outset?" House said. "Call yourself a demon?"
"There is no fate which cannot be surmounted by scorn?" The stranger quoted in a light tone. "You see how happy you are! Humping your rock back and forth, forth and back." He smothered a yawn with a slim hand. "I'd be bored to tears, trying to break you."
House made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat. "What if I get the demon out of Constantine? Then you could cure him?"
"Possibly." The demon's gaze was intent.
"So you could cure Chase right now? Before any possession takes place?"
The stranger held up a finger. House fell silent, watching him as his eyelids fluttered shut then opened again. An apologetic smile was his answer. "Too late."
"What?"
"By about sixty seconds," the demon sympathised. "The possession just took place."
House glared at him. "How do you know that?"
The stranger tapped the side of his skull. "Orange network. Well, more of a burnt-umber, but still -" He dipped his head, as if listening to sounds House couldn't hear. "Your boy's putting up quite a fight. I'm afraid this is going to be all kinds of ugly."
House had turned and was leaving when the demon called after him, "Bring me John Constantine, doctor. I really don't want to settle for what's left of your boy. Sloppy seconds are simply not my style."
Part VIII
Cameron and Foreman were doing their best to look like bouncers outside Chase's room.
When House tried to get past, they blocked his way. House looked at them with a suppressed sigh. "I know, I know. He's puking peas, setting fire to stuff - right? Let me through."
"He's doing nothing," Foreman said, looking at House like he'd always known House was crazy and today was the day he'd finally flipped out. "Sleeping, that's all. The fever broke."
"The fever - broke?"
"Wilson's in there," Cameron said. She ventured a hand to House's arm. "Checking stats. Everything's fine but it's best if you let him rest."
House peered at her suspiciously. "Good Lord," he said, "he really is better. You'd never have left his side while there was a chance he'd breathe his last in your arms."
Cameron swallowed a sound of exasperation, and nodded. "So. Let him rest. OK?" She studied him. "You could do with a break, too."
"What about Johnny?"
"Who?"
"Constantine. How's his fever?"
"Cuddy's taking a look," Foreman said. He frowned at House. "What exactly were you expecting?"
"Someone... told me Chase got demons. Just like Johnny."
"Someone lied." Foreman looked smug. "Why're you finding that so hard to believe, all of a sudden?"
"Did you cure Chase?" House demanded, treating Foreman's smugness with a heavy dose of irony. "Did you even reach a diagnosis? People don't just get better. They get sick, but they don't just get better."
"Because that would do you out of a job, right?" Foreman folded his arms. "Well, this time it happened. Maybe there's a God, after all. And maybe his name's not House."
"Bite me," House advised him. "And move out of my way or I'll get Chase to bite you. Chase and whatever demon's hiding under his skin."
"Right. Chase is your puppy, so anything possessing him would roll over for you, too? Give it up, House. Chase is better. If you're lucky, he'll be licking your hand in time for supper."
"Then why are you keeping me this side of that door?" House wanted to know.
"It was Wilson's idea," Foreman said. "Take it up with him."
"Can anyone tell me what's wrong with that statement?" House mused, his knuckles on his chin. "Oh yes! You're my subordinates. Since when did you start taking orders from Wilson?"
"Since Chase spiked a fever and you tried to treat it with a crucifix."
"I wasn't treating anything," House sniped, giving him a nasty look. "If you had Brain One in that big head of yours, you'd have figured that out for yourself."
"Then what were you doing?" Cameron wanted to know.
"Moving in a mysterious way," House informed her. "Apparently it's all the rage around here."
He nudged at Foreman with the handle of his cane. "Scoot."
Foreman shrugged, and stood aside.
House slid the door open and stepped into the room. He closed the door behind him and drew the blinds in the watching faces of Cameron and Foreman.
"Pesky kids..." he muttered, turning to look at Wilson. "As for you, drop the steth and step away from the patient."
"House." Wilson went on with what he was doing, only straightening to record some detail in the stats sheet once he'd finished listening to Chase's chest.
House swung himself to the side of the bed and looked down at the patient. Chase appeared to be sleeping and breathing normally. He was no longer pale, or feverish.
"What d'you do?" House said, checking the patient's perfectly normal pulse. "Sell time-shares in your soul to the guy with the grubby feet?"
"Who..?" Wilson asked, still busy with the stats.
"Silly me, of course he already owns your ass, doesn't he? Mister-Sleeps-with-His-Dying-Patients." House sniffed, thumbing back Chase's eyelids and squinting at the perfectly normal pupils underneath. "You've wanted a piece of this case since it opened. Ever since you heard Johnny got the cancer cure. Is this professional jealousy? Or empathy?"
"There's nothing wrong with my soul," Wilson said, "if that's what you're implying."
"I'll bet you put those prissy little post-it-notes all over it." House made a fussy gesture with his fingers. "Property of James Wilson, do not damn."
"What's your problem?" Wilson wondered. "Chase is cured."
"Of what?"
"Of... whatever was wrong with him."
"See, that's the bit that bothers me. What was wrong with him?"
"I have no idea. But all his stats are back to normal." Wilson put down the paperwork and looked at House. "Isn't that enough?"
"No." House completed his checks and moved back towards the door. "It isn't."
"Where are you going?"
"To see if Cuddy's cured Johnny."
"Who?"
"Constantine." House paused in the doorway and looked back at Wilson. "Who'd better still be sick, or I'm going to start suspecting a conspiracy."
"Wait. You want him to still be sick? You want Chase to still be sick?"
"Inexplicable recoveries freak me out," House replied with a shudder. "Like the last scene in a horror film - you just know the crazy guy's corpse is going to sit up in the bath-tub even though he's got an axe sticking out of his skull."
"This isn't a crazy guy," Wilson said. "This is Chase."
"That's exactly the kind of simple-minded credulity gets you killed," House told him.
"You're actually upset he's better?"
"You don't think it's a bit weird?"
Wilson put his fists on his hips. "I think you're a bit weird," he offered.
"Greenhorn," House accused, leaving.
"Needy doctor with no patient to cure," Wilson threw after him.
*
On the psychiatric ward, Cuddy was writing up notes just outside Constantine's room.
"How is he?" House demanded.
"Sick," Cuddy replied. She lifted her head from the notes, looking grim. "Really sick."
"Ah!" House said brightly. "That's what I like to hear."
He swung past her, into the room.
"Is Chase still OK?" Cuddy asked, following him.
The room was in semi-darkness with the blinds drawn. House stabbed at the light-switch, dipping his head to listen to the sound of pain that came from the bed as the room was flooded with light.
"Chase is in remission." House took the notes from Cuddy's hand, flipping through them before handing them back. He stirred at the bedclothes with the handle of his cane. "Wakey-wakey, rise and shine!"
Constantine's head was a broken roll on the pillows. His eyes were unnaturally bright, their sockets bruised and the skin beneath them drawn taut with fever. After a couple of seconds, the eyes closed and the dark head rolled back to where it had been.
House started to unbuckle the cuffs at Constantine's wrists. "Shake a leg," he said, when he'd freed the patient's hands. "Time's a-ticking."
"House, what're you doing?" Cuddy demanded.
"What you pay me to do: I'm playing God." House prodded his cane at Constantine's battered ribs. "Get up!"
Constantine's breath hissed between his teeth. He tried to focus a glare on House, speaking in a ragged whisper, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Taking you to the chapel," House told him.
"You're not taking him anywhere," Cuddy said. "He's sick! He can't be moved."
"That's what they said about Lazarus." House put both hands under Constantine's shoulders and hauled him upright. "And look what happened to him."
Constantine shook in his grip, weakly. "Jesus..."
"Precisely," said House.
*
House dumped Constantine from the wheelchair onto the tiled floor of the chapel. "Hey, Saks! I brought Johnny. Get him while he's hot."
The chapel appeared to be deserted.
Constantine tried to push himself upright, failed and fell, sprawling, at House's feet. He twisted his head to the side and spat bright red blood onto the floor.
"You son of a bitch..." he said tiredly.
House leaned on his cane, looking down at Constantine. "Tell me about the balance," he said, "and make it snappy."
"What..?"
"You mentioned it to Doctor Wilson, during that first exam. Said you couldn't explain the balance to someone with a God complex."
Constantine looked up at him with feverish intent. "God and the Devil made a Wager." He stopped, his throat clenching dryly. "For the souls of all mankind."
"Okay." House made a hurry-up movement with his hand. "So this is a poker game and we're playing for big bucks. No wonder Wilson wanted in. Go on."
"The Balance... postpones folding. Keeps everyone in the game. Black and white. Good and evil."
"And this was whose idea - God's, or the other guy's?"
Constantine said, "I thought you didn't believe."
"Indulge me," House replied flippantly. "I'm indulging you."
"Yeah. This feels real indulgent - thanks. Who needs Le Meridian when you can come to Doctor Asshole's Luxury Spa and get spoiled?"
"See," House said, "you're fine. Fighting fit. So, the balance is in everyone's best interests?"
"That's the idea. Most of us still manage to get screwed by it, though."
"Speak of the Devil," said House, looking up, "or should I stick with minion..?"
Constantine craned his neck. "Oh, peachy." He gritted his teeth and rolled onto one side, managing to lever himself into a sitting position.
"He prefers you on your knees," House stage-whispered.
Constantine ignored him. He was shaking; cradling his neck in the palm of his hand as if trying to hold himself together.
The demon came to a standstill a few feet from House and Constantine. He was still wearing the Saks suit, with a pale yellow rosebud in his buttonhole, the shade an exact match for his woven silk neck tie. He looked down and said, "Hello, Johnny."
"Fuck off, Balthazar."
The demon's eyes shone. "Your patient," he told House, "would seem to be some way from being better."
"Nonsense," House replied brusquely. "All he needs is a little TLC."
"TLC?" Balthazar echoed.
"Not in your line?" House asked, feigning surprise.
"Gee," said Johnny, "d'you think?"
Balthazar reached an elegant hand in Constantine's direction, before dropping it to his side. "The... infection?"
"Coward." House twirled his cane like a baton.
The hazel gaze of the demon followed the path of the cane for a moment, then came to rest on House's face. "I assume the cheer-leader impersonation signifies that your boy made a full recovery."
"Nope," said House.
"No?"
"No one makes a full recovery without my help." House lowered his voice to a confidential level. "It's kind of like this rule I have. House Rule." He stopped the twirling, bringing the cane to rest between two splayed fingers. "These hands are made for healing!"
"And yet you failed to heal Johnny."
"Just waiting for the right incentive." House began twirling again.
On the floor at their feet, Constantine shifted wearily. "When you two are done comparing lengths, why not invite the biggest prick to the party?"
"Johnny..?"
"Hard to imagine," Constantine said, raising his eyes to Balthazar, "a bigger prick than you two, I know, but I was thinking of Lucifer."
"Good idea!" House enthused. "A party's not a party without a stripper jumping out a cake."
Constantine and Balthazar stared at him.
"I'm sorry," House said, "you did say you were thinking of inviting Cuddy?"
"Lucifer," Constantine repeated.
"Oh, right!" House flapped his left hand in apology. "My bad. I'm always getting those two mixed up. So... you get his infernal majesty and I'll round up the mortal audience."
"Why?" Balthazar enquired, with impeccable politeness.
"No reason." House shrugged. "I've just always wanted to do one of those Hercule Poirot finales - you know - gathering the cast together while the guy with the Big Brains explains everything to the cranially-challenged."
"The, er, guy with the Big Brains being... you?" Balthazar suggested sweetly.
"I like him," House confided to Constantine. "He's smarter than he looks."
Johnny ground his teeth in silence.
Part IX
"Wha-wha-what's up, doc?" The man in the white suit with the black feet stammered the greeting, grinning at House.
House returned the grin, snarked to the tonsils. "He who walks backwards, I presume?"
"Jus' call me Lu."
"Lu it is. I hear you're quite the poker fiend. If I can use that expression without, you know, damning my immortal soul."
"Hmm." Lucifer looked him over. "Seems like you got a headstart there, sonny."
"Oops." House chewed his knuckles. "Word got around?"
Cameron looked embarrassed, as if House had let her down personally by failing to pull-rank as an eternal atheist. "I thought you didn't believe in God?"
House threw her a look. "I don't. Blind faith? Pah. Putting on your Sunday best to worship someone who won't show his face even in an emergency? Again I say pah. But this freak?" Pointing at Lucifer. "With his bad breath and his tombstone teeth and his fake st-st-stammer? I totally buy this guy."
"You can't have the one without the other," Foreman objected.
"The package deal? Like cold sores and herpes, you think?" House nodded at Lucifer. "He's got a point. See in showing up like this, you've really put the spores in the petri-dish. Got to believe in the underlying cause, now I've seen the symptom. Shot yourself right in the cloven hoof there, buddy."
"Say what?" drawled the Devil.
"I thought your smartest party trick was making man doubt your existence, ergo God's." House gave an elaborate shrug. "Now I've seen his Fallen Angel, I can't very well deny the guy's got some substance; maybe even a dab hand at the whole Creation lark." He made his eyes wide. "Whadda you know, you just converted me! Now that," he guessed, "can't be good for business."
Lucifer made a low noise, like growling. He began to pace the floor of the chapel, appraising the congregation. Cuddy, Wilson, Foreman and Cameron had all gathered at House's say-so, to watch this showdown. Even Chase was there, looking a little pale and avoiding Balthazar's amused gaze, but otherwise healthy. Constantine was slumped on the floor, his breathing shallow, his teeth chattering. Cuddy and Wilson were taking turns to check his stats.
"Think you're pulling the wool over these eyes?" Lucifer demanded of House, showing the lurid red rims and dead pupils.
"The wool..." House repeated, appearing to muse on the matter. "Something about shepherds..." He clicked his fingers at the crew. "Come on! Wool - shepherds - Wilson, you're usually good with the cryptic puns."
"Flock," Wilson said, with a hard emphasis on the word. He folded his arms and gazed into the middle distance as if placing his thoughts far away from this pantomime of epic proportions.
"Fancy one?" Lucifer asked, of no one in particular. "A good hard flock," his stare swept the chapel, "on the altar?"
"Feeling the need to desecrate something?" House was sympathetic. "Well your stock is looking a little shaky, what with the converted atheist and all."
"Whadda you want?" Lucifer demanded, in an apparent fit of pique.
"Doctor Chase needs a demon enema," House said in a silken tone. "Evil irrigation. You catch my drift."
"I don't!" Chase protested but he fell silent when House looked at him.
Lucifer approached Chase, flaring his nostrils and sniffing at the air. "Smells good to me."
"Yes but that's bad, right?" House insisted. "If he smells good to you - who dines on, what? a diet of rotting corpse with Soul Veronique as a side-dish? - that must mean he's pretty unsavoury as seminary boys go."
The Devil snarled under his breath. "Never did like the clever ones..." He poked an oily foot at Constantine's crotch. "How's Johnny?"
"Just peachy," Constantine managed, baring his teeth.
"As for you," Lucifer told Balthazar, "I'll deal with you when I get you home."
"Your ass," House told Balthazar, "is so grounded."
"So I strip the tease outta your boy here," Lucifer said, eyeing Chase again. "Then what?"
"Then I don't start going to church on Sunday and telling my dying patients to repent. I revert to the whole gee-you're-damned-only-I-can-save-you thing." House contemplated the ceiling for a moment. "That was doing pretty well for me."
"This," Lucifer stirred at Constantine with his toes again, "part of the deal?"
"God, no!" House checked himself long enough to say, "See, I do believe!" Then continued, "I'll cure the dying guy myself."
Cuddy said, "You will?"
Wilson said, "How?"
House just looked at them.
"So this believing in God," Wilson wanted to clarify, "that's more than just a declaration of egotism?"
House quelled him with a look. "Oh ye of little faith..."
"I hesitate to strike a knell of doom," Balthazar began.
"Do you?" House interrupted. "You know you really need to work on the whole I'm-a-demon-watch-me-damn thing."
"But," Balthazar continued, "I too would like to know how you intend to cure Constantine."
"Johnny," House corrected.
Balthazar stole a glance at Lucifer who was paring his nails with his teeth and looking pissed. "Constantine," he repeated.
"Leave it to me." House tapped the side of his nose, sagely. "I'll think of something."
"In the next hour?" Cuddy asked. She was kneeling at Constantine's side, checking the pulse in his clammy-looking throat.
"How does it go..?" House twirled his cane. "And on the seventh day, I rested."
He looked around the room at the sceptical faces of his congregation. "You people have serious trust issues. Serious trust issues."
"Okay-okay," Lucifer sulked, "You got yourself a deal. I'll settle up next round."
"Looking forward to it." House was solemn.
"Here, puss." The Devil chucked his fingers in the direction of Chase's chin. He sat on the nearest chair and stroked his lap, invitingly.
Chase stared wildly at House. "You're kidding, right? You want me to sit on Satan's lap?"
"Do as Daddy says." When they all looked at him oddly, House rolled his eyes. "I was talking to the demon. Geez!"
"There is no demon," Chase complained. He looked at the Devil with a sickly expression on his pale face, then back at House with a plea in his eyes.
"Now." House jerked his head, using his sternest tone.
"This I gotta see," Foreman told Cameron.
"Don't," she objected. "This whole thing - it's just... revolting. For all we know this guy's a delusional psychopath who gets off on this sort of attention -"
"Are you talking about House?" Cuddy put in. "Or the other one?"
Chase was still prevaricating.
"Do it," House snapped at him.
Instead of Lucifer, Chase approached House, reaching for his arm and hanging off it. "Please..."
"See this -" House shook him off, "this is how I know there's a demon in there." He put his stare close to Chase's. "Bobby doesn't do pawing. He wants my attention, he sticks a pencil in his mouth."
"A pencil..?" Wilson echoed.
"Some people use a buttonhole," House nodded at Balthazar, "some hang a stethoscope around their necks. Though that last one can be a bit of a minefield when you're working in a hospital. Right, Cuddy?"
"Hey House," Cuddy said. "Got a eulogy lined up for Johnny here? Only he's going to need one in about, oh, the next ten minutes?"
"Lap," House told Chase, turning him and pointing him at Lucifer.
Chase went and sat on Satan's knee. Lucifer walked the fingers of one hand up the front of Chase's shirt. "D-don't..!" Chase protested, squirming a bit.
"Got me a wriggler!" Lucifer purred. "Love a wriggler."
When Chase tried to stand up, Lucifer dropped his left knee, catching Chase's body as it slipped and hauling it into the crook of his arm, the manoeuvre as smooth as the sharp turn in a foxtrot. When Chase was horizontal, Lucifer leaned in and suckered his lips to Chase's with a greedy sound, gobbling.
When Chase's feet started to kick, Wilson asked, "How much further are you going to take this?"
The question was directed at House, who ignored it. He hadn't taken his eyes off the spectacle of Chase being kissed like a debutante on a first date with a cad.
Finally, Lucifer straightened, smacking his lips together and dropping Chase who rolled to the floor and lay there, panting. When the panting turned to retching, Cameron hurried to Chase's side.
"Is he okay?" House asked. "Still clingy at all?"
The question was answered by a loud belch from Lucifer, who put his fingers to his lips and simpered an apology. "Sleeper demon! Always gives me gas."
"He's fine," Cameron told House, helping Chase onto his knees and handing him a tissue.
"Right." House pointed his cane at the Devil. "Visiting time's over. The sooner you disappear, the sooner I start doubting in God again."
"I'll keep the home fires warm for you," Lucifer promised, and left.
"House!" Cuddy warned from Constantine's side. "I've got a dying pulse here!"
Balthazar took a step forward, and stopped short.
House curled his lip at him. "Seeing as how Mary Tyler Less is too prissy to put out and get her hands dirty, I'll see to this myself."
He took a spliff from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth, snapping a lighter at it. When it was lit, he handed it to Cuddy. "Tell Johnny to suck it up."
"Is this..?" Cuddy stared. Sniffed. Stared again. "Pot? Your cure is pot?"
"If he dies now," House said demurely, "it'll be your fault."
She hesitated, then stuck the spliff in Constantine's mouth. He began to cough, gasping as the smoke found his lungs. With a shaking hand, he retrieved the spliff from Cuddy and sucked at it, urgently, the colour returning to his face almost immediately.
Cuddy rechecked his pulse and looked up at House in awe. "How did you - know?"
"Jesus is the last resort of the pharmaceutically impaired," House replied. "I read that on JesusJournal dot com. Same place they said the Son of God and his little helpers used cannabis as part of their miracle healing kick."
"You read JesusJournal dot com?" Wilson was faintly incredulous.
"Well obviously I was surfing for porn and hit the wrong button. What I wanted was JiantJugs dot com -"
"Jesus smoked pot?" Foreman shook his head.
"Well," Wilson offered with reluctance, "the Bible is full of people getting stoned..."
"Kaneh-bosem," Cameron said suddenly. "Cannabis extract. I read that, too. They used it to anoint people with conditions like epilepsy."
House inclined his head in her direction. "Conditions which, before they were understood, were believed to signify demonic possession."
"So... he was dying of epilepsy?" Cameron wrinkled her brow, seeing Constantine sit up, still sucking at the spliff.
"Obviously not. That would be plain silly. No. He was dying of something much more serious." House looked at Balthazar. "Right, Saks?"
"I'm afraid there appears to have been a misunderstanding," Balthazar said smoothly. "Had I known Johnny was sans demon, I would of course have stepped in to cure him myself."
"There's no demon?" Foreman frowned. "We all saw what happened to House's cane."
"Oh there was a demon, sure. If you believe in that sort of thing." House shrugged. "Which of course I don't." He jerked his thumb in the direction of Hell, putting a finger to his lips.
"So where'd it go?" Cuddy asked. "The demon, I mean?"
"Where would you go, if the house you were squatting in was due for demolition? It cleared out the minute it thought Johnny was dying."
"So why didn't he tell us?" Cuddy looked exasperated. "He's the expert - the exorcist."
"Didn't want to get cured by the guy who likes him on his knees," House said. "I'm guessing there're some debt issues there."
Constantine gave a hard laugh. "Good guess." He pushed upright, throwing a glance in Balthazar's direction. "Thanks for nothing, you deck-stacking piece of shit."
"Johnny... I warned you this hand would cut up rough for you."
House acknowledged Wilson's expression of surprise with a smile. "He was dying of poker. To be precise, he'd been dealt a Dead Guy's Hand. Right, Saks?"
"Lucifer does like to keep the Wager alive and kicking," Balthazar sighed.
Constantine jerked his head at House. "Nice moves by the way."
"My pleasure."
Cameron was creasing her brow. "But how did you know the pot would work?"
"I didn't. It was a leap of faith. I gambled that the other side wanted me to believe in the Biblical cure."
"But that's... blind faith!"
"It's a gamble that paid off. You think the first guy who whacked a defibrillator into some stiff's chest had a clue if it would work or not? It's only blind faith if you bring God into it and even then you could stick with the gambling analogy."
"The Wager..." Wilson began, with a dawning expression. "So that's why -"
"That's why I thought of the grass," House nodded. "Johnny was being played for the jackpot."
"And your brain, in that sickly twisted way it has, arrived at the solution from that entirely incidental remark." Wilson nodded. "How could we ever have doubted you?"
"Well, quite," House agreed. "I hope if there's any doubting to be done around here in future it gets directed at the guy who didn't show his face once in this entire game."
"You expect us to doubt in God," Chase demanded, "after what we just witnessed?"
"Either that or we make this a special date in our diaries and celebrate it every year as Bobby-Hot-Lips Day." House mused. "We could have Devil's Food Cake and candles and wear those little novelty horns on our heads..."
Constantine muttered something under his breath.
"You think I have a soul?" House echoed.
"I think you're an asshole," Constantine clarified.
"Ah!" House nodded. "That sounds much more likely." He clapped his hands and made a dismissing gesture. "It's a wrap, people. Everyone out of the chapel."
He looked around, with a pained expression, at the lurid red and blue stained-glass, lit from behind with phony light, and said, "This place is giving me a bigger headache than Las Vegas. God's a showy sort of Devil, isn't he?"
Wisely, no-one said a word.
Fin
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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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