The man beside him was certainly normal enough: perhaps thirty years old, maybe a little younger, with dark brown eyes and black hair clipped short. His stare seemed slightly glazed through the horn-rimmed glasses perched on the very tip of his nose, but that could be attributed to the fact that he had spent the better half of an hour gazing at a too-bright computer screen. House tapped a rhythm with his cane impatiently, and snuck a peak at the laptop as the young man cursed in annoyance. Another page had come up blocked.
House had never had much of an interest in the internet, but he could understand the frustration simmering beside him. While this particular ward in the hospital was somewhat lenient, the restrictions were mind-numbing. Every single violent website ever imagined was blocked, as were any site you couldn't access if you were under eighteen, and all networking sites. It was like a public library. He leaned back uncomfortably onto the hard cushions of the sofa, and tried to focus on the news program he was watching. Some moron had insisted on muting it, but he could get the basic idea from the pictures and captions. Finally, it cut to commercials, and the young man cursed again as youtube came up blocked.
"I can't stand this anymore!" He slammed the laptop shut with finality, and glared at an ad for shampoo that was just ending.
House smirked silently, but was quickly interrupted by a gentle voice from his left.
"What a nut job," Amber hissed evenly, lowering her fingers one by one onto House's shoulders, "someone ought to lock him up. Don't talk to him."
Obviously, the next step was to give a nod towards the guy and introduce yourself.
"Problems with the computer?"
The man huffed and nodded slightly. "You have no idea: I can't even watch a video, apparently.
"Hey, I'm Doctor Greg House," he said, uncharacteristically cordial. "You?"
"Theo Kael." Theo stuck a hand out awkwardly as he put the laptop away, but House ignored it.
"Kael? Like the stuff guinea pigs eat?"
"Listen, I didn't name myself. We can't all go by "House". Is that even a real name?"
House glared at Kael before nodding and twirling his cane. "Better name then yours.
There was a long, somewhat tense pause, before House spoke again.
"Anyway.....are you one of those...hipster scene people, or are you just unoriginal?"
"Are you just an asshole or do you have some ulterior motive?"
"Little bit of both." Kael smiled, and opened his posture slightly.
"Well, me too. I mean, about the hipster scene thing. I guess I am kind of one in the crowd, eh? Still, it's not like..." he trailed off and glanced behind him for a long time, his eyes widening slightly.
Right...House thought bitterly, trying to ignore this blank out. Crazy house. Everyone here's crazy, not just me.
Amber sniffed disapprovingly. "God, what an ass. He stops right in the middle of a sentence and ignores you."
House glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear besides the preoccupied Theo Kael before replying, "Oh, shut up, and leave me alone. He seems nice enough. Anyway, at least he's not talking to himself like some of the morons I've met."
"Kind of like your doing right now?"
House glanced up in dismay; apparently Kael hadn't trailed off after all, but House certainly had. He lowered his eyes slightly, and felt Kael shift the tiniest bit further away.
"And you're a doctor?" Kael smirked, and House was relieved to see humor in his dark eyes. "Who the hell would hire you?"
"Yeah? What could you have possibly been doing? Graphic design?"
"Architecture," Kael looked slightly awkward as the questions that had been bobbing just below the surface finally started to rear its ugly head.
"And...you're here beca-." House began, but the other man cut him off.
"You want to see my last floor plan? It was for a hospital, actually, sooo...small world." Without waiting for a reply, he fished in the laptop case beside him before pulling out a very worn, very torn piece of paper, and handing it to House.
The picture was simply a few stark lines running crookedly at each other, with a huge anthropomorphic flower grinning creepily from within the web of penned lines. Ink splatters decorated the edges, and someone had spilled coffee over the 'plans'.
"Pretty." House quipped, handing the picture back. "How long did that take you?"
"A few weeks," Kael answered seriously, his voice quiet. "Needless to say, they fired me, and a few days later my girlfriend found me passed out with some copy toner I had downed."
"Funny, I once had a patient who swallowed copy toner."
"Did he live?"
"Yeah, but he was on death row, so it didn't make much of a difference."
"Suicide seems pretty pathetic, doesn't it?" Kael questioned, ignoring House's last comment.
House stared intently at the young man before nodding. "Yes. It kind of does."
Suddenly, Kael's eyes turned defiant and he pointed sharply at House. "Yeah, and nothing pathetic about chatting with yourself."
"Go to hell."
Kael noted the dejectedness in House's response, and settled down somewhat. "Sorry. I...I don't have any right to make fun of you."
"You asked my opinion."
"I know."
"I gave it."
"I know!" Kael wrinkled his brow in frustration but nodded slightly. "Anyway, I answered your question. What about you?"
"Isn't it obvious? I hallucinate."
"Hallucinations? Or are they delusions?" House looked up in surprise, but Kael simply waved it away. "Sister in Med school. She loves to show off."
"Hmm. Mainly hallucinations. Sometimes...both."
"Did someone you know die?" Kael's expression was consoling, but his eyes were curious and sharp.
"A colleague. And another one the year before. And my...dad." House rolled his eyes. "Not so hard how you figured that one out: nearly everyone here's gone through some traumatic incident, most commonly death. Simple."
"It's not that simple."
House closed his eyes for a brief moment as Amber began to speak again, her voice cooing softly over his own as he continued to speak. "Right. Not that simple."
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
"Dr. House? Are you still paying attention?"
The truth was, House was not. Kutner and Amber were sitting, completely still, in the corners of his vision, and they simply wouldn't go away. When they got like this, everything else seemed to fade away completely into black and white, and House would feel himself go numb.
"Dr. House?"
"What?" He looked up briefly, then glanced away from the psychoanalyst in subtle embarrassment. "Sorry. What was the question?"
"I asked if you were paying attention."
"Oh, well then, no. I wasn't."
Dr. Owens made a brief note, then faced House with a slight smile. She was a woman, perhaps fifty ( or forty-five, if you were feeling generous), with medium-length red hair streaked with grey that she insisted on wearing up every single day of the week. A dull character, over all, not very interesting to analyze.
"So, Dr. House, have you had any delusions recently? False memories?"
House began to shake his head no, then switched to a nod as he remembered the conversation from the day before. "I was speaking to a man named...Kael. In the lounge. I thought he was listening to something in his head and blanking out, but...he wasn't. It was very brief, maybe thirty seconds or so. Nothing to worry about."
"Hmmm..." Dr. Owens looked concerned, and made another note. "Yes, but you haven't been having this false memories in some time now. Are you sure you're sticking strictly to your regimen?"
"Of course I have!" House glared from across the table at the other doctor, looking her up and down with disdain. "Not that you've told me much to do about this."
"This?" Oh, the good doctor loved to repeat this at least twice a week. "What is 'this', Dr. House?"
He sighed deeply. "Hallucinations. Delusions. Etc., etc....my god, you are annoying."
She did not respond, simply checking his charts again. "But the hallucinations aren't as often, are they?"
House began to nod again, when Amber sat down heavily beside him. "House, don't lie. That won't make you any better."
"You know you're not looking out for my well-being. Stop messing with my head."
Dr. Owens smiled, and tried bootlessly to reach out for House's hand. "Of course I'm looking out for your well-being."
"I wasn't– never mind."
Amber began rambling on about something or other, the usual nonsense, and Kutner stood stoically in the corner, but at this point it was impossible to listen to Dr. Owens. Finally, Amber gave a little wink and strolled back to Kutner, while Dr. Owens repeated her question. Again.
"I said, you've been interacting with the other residents?"
House sighed, and shook his head like an old dog before answering. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess a little. They're all pretty annoying, though. Worse then clinic patients."
Dr. Owens nodded, as she always did when House mentioned something she didn't fully understand. How ridiculous.
"And your other friends? How have those visits been?"
House was about to respond, when he caught himself and trailed off. Wilson visited at least twice a week, obviously, not that they spoke much. But Foreman, Chase, Cameron...none of them had even called. He didn't expect Thirteen or Taub to visit: they were his employees, not his friends. He didn't even care that Foreman hadn't tried contacting him. They had never really had conversations outside medicine. But at least Cameron and Chase, the newly weds. Cameron for the simple reason that she couldn't help but care for every single living thing in the history of...ever. And Chase because...well, House wasn't entirely sure, but they certainly felt like friends. For God's sake, he had thrown the man's bachelor party! Granted, the whole thing was just an elaborate scheme designed to subconsciously kill him, but Chase didn't know that! House reflected back on the day or so before the party, when he threw a carton of ice cream to Chase, and Chase had replied with "sweet!" He didn't have much experience when it came to friendships, but House knew the two of them were at least on good terms. And he didn't even bother thinking about Cuddy. The whole thing could be explained by Cuddy and Wilson not telling the other employees where House had gone, but Cuddy...Cuddy knew. She knew everything. Anyway, Wilson would never lie about that.
"She's ashamed of you."
House whipped around as a small voice began to hiss in his ear. It seemed to be Amber, but she flickered every now and then into some strange manipulation of Lisa Cuddy, a vision that tormented him almost every waking moment.
"She's ashamed of what she saw, of your feelings for her. She knows you weren't kidding about moving in with you. How embarrassing."
Kutner fingered Amber's hair lazily and looked at House with pity. "You deserve this. You know it's your fault for the Vicodin. Why did you take so much?"
"I was in pain." House put his head in his hands. "I'm still in pain: go away!"
"Why did you need that much? Why didn't you let them cut the leg off?" It was Stacy. Just for a moment, Stacy was holding House in her arms and asking him this eternal question, that damn 'what if' that lurked in the very back of his mind. "Why do you think your life is worth so much less then mine? Don't you deserve to be happy?"
"No!" He smacked her in the face, and Amber shot him a glare, her cheek red. "I told you, didn't I? I don't want to be in pain! I don't want to be miserable. But I am. I can't...be anything else. It's just who I am."
"Dr. House?"
House looked up in alarm as Dr. Owens began to open his file. "What?"
"Dr. House, have you had any delusions recently? False memories?"