A/N: Final entry in the 10/27/07 Saturday Night Writing Challenge at the Fox Forum.
Prompts: First Line It was a dark and stormy night.
Last Line And they were never seen again.
Word Prompts trick or treat

Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine. In fact, I'm sure I've read a story with leechy, blob like things in it before. I'm just playing with them. (ew)

You Don't Know Me

It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder rolled through the streets like the hoof beats of a phantom cavalry; lightning danced across the sky like the fleeting touch of a young lover. Gregory House stood in his office, shoulders tensed defensively, right hand clenched tightly around the curved handle of his flame adorned cane, left hand gripping a Magic Eight Ball, as he listened to the angry footsteps of James Wilson recede in the background.

When the footfalls no longer reached his keen ears, he allowed himself to fall back heavily into his chair. He closed his eyes tightly and rested his cane against his desk, freeing his right hand to grip his mangled thigh.

It had been a pretty good day, from House's point of view, up until that point. The pain in his leg had been only three notches above tolerable, he'd avoided clinic duty and Chase had gotten puked on. The kids from nearby group homes that Cuddy invariably invited to the hospital to trick or treat had steered clear of his office and their patient was finally on the mend, Chase-coating vomit aside. Then Wilson had come in to drop off his prescription and things had gone downhill disturbingly quickly.

"You know I just wrote you a prescription barely three weeks ago," Wilson sighed as he held out the slip of paper to House.

"The memory is a little hazy, Vicodin high and all, but yes I do recall," House retorted, reaching his hand out for the precious square.

"That should have been a thirty day supply, even considering the excessive amount you take," Wilson said slowly, holding the prescription mere millimeters from House's grasp.

"Cold weather's coming," Wilson nodded. "Cuddy's been wearing sweaters. The lack of cleavage is painful," House continued, leaning forward from his desk chair and snatching the paper from Wilson's fingers. Wilson winced as the prescription left him with a nasty paper cut and House couldn't suppress the vindictive glee he felt.

"House," Wilson said, using the soft and placating tone generally reserved for a small child who refuses to eat his broccoli, "I get that you're in pain…"

"No. You don't," House said sharply. He stood from his chair and turned his back on his friend, staring out the window at the fleeting sunlight. "I know you think you get it, but you don't. You can't. When you've lived six years in constant, gut-wrenching, soul-sucking pain then you can talk to me about it."

"Everyone has pain, House," Wilson said, annoyed and not for the first time at his friend's insistence that he couldn't be understood. "You don't have the monopoly on misery. But not everyone buries their pain in opiates."

"Then everyone is an idiot," House said. "You think that you know pain, because your marriages didn't last, because your mother didn't love you enough, because your brother lost at life. You don't know pain like I know pain."

"You don't know pain at all; you've been stuffing Vicodin down your throat for the past six years!" Wilson shouted angrily.

House grabbed his Magic Eight Ball with his left hand and willed himself not to throw it at Wilson's head. It would be too difficult to replace. Instead he clenched it tightly, just as he clenched the handle of his cane.

"I know all there is to know," House said slowly, quietly, venomously. "You can go now."

House leaned back in his chair, exhaustion flooding his features. He sat quietly for a few minutes, waiting until the anger slowly seeped from his body. He didn't know pain, he thought scornfully. He knew pain. He knew everything there was to know about pain.

Checking his watch he decided that he'd had more than enough of the hospital for one day. He moved to stand and started when he saw something on his leg. Quickly he tried to brush it away. His hand slid through the blob as though it weren't there. He felt no physical contact with whatever it was, and yet he was left with the impression of having run his hand through something slimy and hot. He frowned and tried to brush it away again, more purposefully. His hand definitely moved through the blob as though it weren't there, while at the same time his hand felt heat and moisture. It was similar to the feeling of someone's blood pouring over your skin, but different.

House stilled his movements and watched as the blob swirled around his hand. It was gray when still, but when he moved his hand through it crimson and black ebbed and flowed. House withdrew his hand and watched the colors as they eddied in its wake.

He looked around cautiously, trying to decide if he was really seeing this thing on his leg or if maybe somebody was trying to have some fun at his expense. If they were, it was a great trick. But his sharp eyes saw nothing out of the ordinary. He waved his hand experimentally around his leg, trying to interrupt any projection signal, but the blob remained where it was, quivering slightly.

A sudden stab of pain ran through his leg and his hand shot out instinctively to grip his thigh. His eyes snapped down to the blob on his leg and it pulsed. House removed his hand and waited. Another shooting pain ripped through him, but this time he gripped the arm of the chair instead. The blob pulsed again, and the colors darkened.

House was revolted. The blob was feeding off his pain.

House splashed cool water on his face and stared into the men's room mirror. Hallucinations were not foreign to him. But hallucinations that weren't prompted by massive blood loss, heart arrhythmias or LSD were worrisome.

And this particular hallucination was extremely vivid.

It was persistent.

It was tactile.

It was on his chest!

House stumbled back from the sinks and brushed frantically at his chest, to no avail. This blob, positioned directly above his heart, was a mottled crimson and black. House watched as gray that matched the one on his leg swirled in a trail behind his flailing hand.

"I want you to tell me what this is," House barked, slapping one of his Vicodin down in front of a harried looking lab tech.

"It's a pill?" the tech offered sarcastically. House stared in revolted fascination as the tech's profile revealed one of the things on her face. It was thin and small, but a vibrant orange color. "What should it be?"

House choked back the bile that had risen in his throat. The thing on her face, the thing House has mistakenly thought was small, actually extending into her mouth. When she spoke, House could see flashes of orange in her teeth. He took a deep breath and continued.

"If I told you, that would be cheating," House said. The tech closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I know what it's supposed to be. I'm not so sure that's what it is."

"And you want to make sure I'm not unduly influenced," the tech said, taking the pill from the table and turning.

"Congratulations," House muttered. "You're only half as moronic as I first thought." He stood in the corner of the lab, staring darkly and nibbling his thumb nail while he watched the tech work. Finally, she turned back to him.

"It's Vicodin," she said.

"You're sure?"

She handed him the results. "Just Vicodin. It's not laced with anything, no trace amounts of anything except what's supposed to be in there."

House nodded and limped to the door. He opened it and stepped half-way through. He turned back to the lab tech. "It's not migraines. Wisdom teeth, go call your dentist."

The tech stared at his retreating back.

House stood outside Cuddy's office, waiting for Wilson to come out. If he was going to figure this out, he needed a sounding board and Wilson was the only one who wouldn't have him committed. He watched the two discussing something animatedly. Wilson rubbed at the back of his neck tensely, and House wondered at his hand moving unawares through a plum colored pain-leech, as he had decided to call them.

Cuddy stood from behind her desk and House's eyes narrowed. A leech, a ghostly pale imitation of the one on House's leg, was on Cuddy's. He watched her pace easily in front of desk, gesticulating at Wilson. Guilt, House realized. Wilson turned his back to Cuddy and revealed three tiny leeches on his chest.

House stepped back from Cuddy's office and walked through the clinic, trying to avoid looking at the leeches crawling over the patients, the nurses, everyone. He didn't know why he was seeing these things; he only knew he wanted it to stop.

You can't always get what you want. Cameron, Chase and Foreman crossed the lobby in front of House on their way toward the elevators and House was inexplicably drawn to them. He looked them all over quickly as they walked. Foreman and Chase each sported small and random leeches, a stubbed toe, a sore wrist which gave House a smirk, and probably a strained shoulder.

"House?" Foreman asked, as their boss stalked up behind them and let his eyes rove over their bodies. There must have been something in his expression, because Foreman almost sounded concerned. "You okay?"

"Fine," House replied shortly. "Lonely night last night?" Foreman frowned, not really sure what House meant. "Don't be embarrassed, sometimes I have trouble logging off too."

The innuendo dripping from his voice was enough to annoy Cameron. She had been ignoring him, but now turned to confront him angrily. House nearly choked. A leech the size of a small dog was on Cameron's chest. It was the sickly black-red color of clotted blood and it was pulsing in a slow and repulsive rhythm.

"Maybe if you were capable of handling actual human contact, you wouldn't have to resort to cyber-love," Cameron shot at him.

"Ouch," House said reflexively. "Rabbit run out of batteries?"

Even as House saw her mouth drop open in horror, the leech on her chest rippled, shuddered and then grew. Is that what I'm doing to her?

He turned and limped as quickly as possible from the hospital, not sure which was more revolting, the leech or knowing he was responsible for it.

"So you think you know me," a deep, raspy voice said. House froze in the doorway of his apartment.

"Wilson?"

"Hardly," the voice answered. House dropped his keys on the table near the door and closed it behind him.

"Who's there?"

"You don't recognize me?" the voice asked. "You think you know me so well."

"A fact which would seem to be negated by my asking who's there," House said. This day couldn't get any weirder, and he wasn't really in the mood for whatever this was. He flipped the light switch.

Standing by the piano was a man. He was tall, almost impossibly so. He appeared thin, but the long, flowing robes he wore robbed his body of any definition. He was old; hair and teeth both yellowed with age. And yet, as he moved, he did not appear slow or stiff.

"I am Pain."

"You look like death," House replied.

"Are you acquainted with Death?" the man asked, amused curiosity in his voice.

"He's been by for me a few times. Always seems to miss me by a hair," House answered.

"How disappointing for him."

"Ha," House said. "Who are you?"

"I am Pain."

"Right," House replied. "Look, I don't know who you are, although I'll give you props for the costume and the makeup. But why don't you …"

Pain flicked a long, bony finger in House's direction and immediately pain like he had never known flared up House's leg and ripped through his entire body. Air escaped from his lungs in a hiss; screaming would have taken too much effort. He collapsed to the floor like a house of cards in a stiff breeze. House squeezed his eyes closed and tears leaked unbidden from beneath his lashes.

And then the pain stopped. It didn't fade or ebb, as House was accustomed to, it simply ceased. House drew in a desperate and ragged breath. He kept his eyes screwed tightly shut. Although he heard no movement, he became aware of a presence. He opened his eyes, and saw Pain leaning over him, a cruelly satisfied smirk playing across his aged lips.

"You don't know me."

House managed to pull himself into a sitting position, and slid backwards on the floor until his back was against the door.

"What are all these things?" House asked, motioning to the leech on his leg.

"Ah, my minions," Pain replied, something almost like love resonating in his tone. "They are vessels. Conduits, if you will. They feed on the pain of your kind. I feed through them."

"So, what, you're like a vampire. But instead of blood, you feed on pain?" House asked, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

"Essentially," Pain confirmed. "Like Death, I am simply a part of the process. I do not cause pain. I am Pain. I am … inevitable."

"Into every life a little pain must fall," House muttered.

Pain smiled. It was a ghastly sight. "That is very much correct. Every living thing experiences pain, in some form. And I am sustained by it."

"My pain, my agony, my misery sustains you," House spat out, suddenly and dangerously angry.

"Yes, but I am not the cause of your pain. I simply am. And that is why I've come to you today, Gregory David House. You told your friend that you knew all there was to know about me." Pain loomed ominously over him again. "You don't know me."

"I've lived for six years with these, these things of yours feeding off me," House retorted. "I know what pain is about."

Pain flicked a finger at House again, and for just an instant, every cell in House's body flamed with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.

"You …don't…know…me."

Breathless, House could only nod his head. Even if this was just a hallucination, Pain was not somebody to mess with if those were the consequences. Unthinking, he reached into his pocket for his Vicodin.

"I can do something about that," Pain said quietly.

House paused with a pill half way to his mouth. He looked up at Pain distrustfully.

"Oh?"

"I can stop them from ever working for you again," Pain said. House felt himself pale, and his hand trembled violently enough to cause the pill to fall from his palm and roll across the floor.

"I need them," House whispered desperately.

"I know."

House looked up, and if it was possible for him to pale further, he did. If he never again saw such intense displeasure he could die a happy man.

"Rarely before in my existence has a man's arrogance angered me so," Pain said slowly. "You think because you have pain, that you know pain. Everyone has pain. You are not unique. You are not different. You are not special."

Pain squatted down level with House. House tried to swallow, but his throat only clicked nervously.

"I can make you special. I can give you pain no man has ever felt before. I can make it last. I can make you beg for Death."

House clenched his teeth.

"I can stop Death from coming for you."

"Please," House whispered. "Don't."

"Pain is pain. What makes your pain different from that of another is how you deal with it. Deal with yours, instead of cowering from it."

Pain reached out and snatched the prescription bottle out of House's pocket. He stood up, now towering over House's prone form.

"Find another cane to lean on," Pain told him and disappeared, House's pills in hand.

And they were never seen again.