House was convinced that Wilson was secretly evil. Not through any specific evil-doing - it was more of an atmospheric thing. Encouraging others to do his hideous bidding. The man had just dropped off muffins for his staff. Muffins. For his staff. This was obviously some sort of take-over attempt - perhaps sponsored by Cuddy. He swooped into the office and grabbed a muffin out of Chase's hand.

"I was eating that!"

"Now I'm eating it. Don't we have some sort of patient you're supposed to be perving on?"

There was nothing to make them scurry out of the office like a good call-back to some of the more absurd patient relations his underlings were responsible for. Master of his domain, indeed. Unless Cuddy swung by, but that was more of a Cold War situation than a true conflict.

Gathering up the likely poisoned but remarkably delicious muffins, he retreated to his desk. It was time to do some digging on one James Evan Wilson, M.D. If he died here they could always pump his stomach for evidence of treachery anyway.

Before he could hit what was surely pay-dirt on the forty-fifth page of Google results, Cuddy materialized, as if she had heard him contemplating violence as an aid to information-gathering. She forced him down to the clinic, fingers hovering as if at any moment she was going to grab his ear and literally drag him into an exam room. Squawking loudly about domestic violence in the halls did not, unfortunately, lead to rescue, so here he was, stuck examining nose after crotch after throat.

So it was a welcome though suspicious break when Wilson himself showed up, unpaged, to relieve the boredom and allow him an opportunity for heckling.

"So, are you here for your yearly prostate check or have you already found a nurse for that?"

Wilson just rolled his eyes. Unacceptable.

"Don't roll your eyes at me you, whore-monger. I'm trying to work here and you're interrupting me."

"House, I just wanted to see what's up with you. You've been acting weird. Well, weirder than usual," Wilson said, both eyes focusing narrowly on him, though on two different sides of his body.

"Just because I saved my lackeys from eating your poison muffins? I don't know what you're trying to pull there, but I can assure you they know who signs their paychecks. Your department's not grabbing them from me. They may be slow and hopeless, but they're mine."

"What?"

"You heard me! Poison, muffins, backstabbing. Hands off."

"That doesn't make sense to anyone who can't see into the cavern of your brain, House. Anyway, Cuddy signs their paychecks. Why would I want your fellows? They're not even oncologists."

"Untrue - they're jacks of all trades. Now why are you here?"

"I told you already! To see why you're acting so bizarre that even the orderlies have noticed!"

House stood up and made a wide, if slow, arc around Wilson.

"I told you - I think you're up to something or hiding something and I need to know what it is. If you don't feel like coming clean right now, I'll just let you think about all the stalking I'm going to get in while you're here finishing my clinic duty."

With a valiant hauling of ass he was out the door before Wilson could even reply.

Right now, his plan of action was to break into Wilson's hotel room while blowing off clinic duty, which made the whole venture doubly appealing, and then to go home and finish marathoning his TiVo'ed second season of Dexter.

***

Later, about two-thirds of the way through breaking into Wilson's hotel room, it occurred to House that maybe Wilson was just trying to be nice with the muffins.

Still, there was no harm in checking around for murder weapons. Or porn.