This takes place in no particular episode. It's basicaly a bit of expositional fic, told from the point of view of a new security guard at PPTH being introduced to the handling of slave!House by an older guard, who also explains some of the background of how House became a slave. Some of the details haven't yet come out in the course of the CollarRedux story (end of 1st Season) but all of them will come out, by the end of 2nd season: if you want to wait to find out in the ordinary course of the "episodes", you can safely skip this story. It's basicly slightly-porny metafic.

INTERVAL: 1

Princeton-Plainsborough Teaching Hospital ran a free walk-in clinic, as well as an emergency room, which both had their security challenges. Nick Castle enjoyed a challenge, and besides, PPTH paid competent security guards above-average wages.

"How tall are you?" someone asked on his first day. "Okay, if you want to earn a bonus, tell the driver squad boss."

The driver squad was the security detail that looked after troublesome slaves. Nick had done his share but it wasn't work he particularly enjoyed. But it was his first day and he didn't want to look like a lazy kind of guy, so he went along to speak with the boss.

"No, you don't have to do regular driver squad duties if you don't want to," Chris Barrie said. "I understand, it's not work for everyone. But we're always looking for guys your height, big build, to handle a particular slave we got here."

"Why's that?"

"He's an expensive slave. Valuable. Real valuable. He cost a lot when the hospital bought him, and he is worth more than you could imagine now."

Nick thought about it. "How much?"

"How much is your house worth?" Nick saw Barrie see Nick react, and Barrie grinned. "No, kid, don't think you have to tell me. Whatever your house is worth, this guy is probably worth three of it, plus your car, plus my car, and I have a nice car. He's valuable as all hell, and if you ever do him any actual damage, let me tell you, you better pray the worst happens is you get canned."

"How hard can he be to handle?"

"He's a big guy," Chris said. "Tall. Pretty strong. He's lame, but that doesn't help you, because it means he's allowed to have a cane. We look for guards taller than him, broader than him, and we send you at least two at a time, because we do not want him to fight you. We just want you to take him, nice and gentle, wherever he's wanted. Think you can handle that?"

Nick thought about it. "Maybe," he said cautiously. "Can I get to meet him?"

"Sure. We'll do a practice takedown. Pretend he's going down to the basement. If that was happening for real, the first thing that happens is you'd take his cane away, then you'd put his wrists in cuffs behind his back, then two of you would take him to the elevator and get him down to the basement." He glanced at his watch. "Peter's just going offshift, I'll ask him if he'll stay another half hour for this. You should be on duty in the clinic? I'll call your supervisor."

"Sure," Nick said. He understood the reference to "the basement": he'd been told the slave disciplinary suite was there. "How real does this get? I mean, how far do we take him to the basement?"

"We don't take him outside the Diagnostics department," Barrie said. "The Dean of the hospital, Doctor Cuddy, she's got to sign off on all of his punishments. If Doctor Cuddy isn't physically there, you can bet that as soon as we got him to the hall outside, he would start yelling. And boy, he can yell!" Barrie chuckled. "You can hear him through the elevator walls. If you've ever got to take him down to the basement and Doctor Cuddy won't be there to tell him the punishment's authorized, well, try to take him outside the day shift. Are you good at getting a gag in a slave's mouth?"

"No," Nick admitted.

"Then don't even try. If you have to, just ignore his yelling."

The other security guard, Peter ("You can't pronounce my family name, so it's just Peter") was even taller than Nick. "I get overtime for this, right?"

"Sure, sure," Barrie said. "Double time plus a bonus. It's going to take half an hour, max, and just so you know, I'm counting in the time you spent arguing about whether you get overtime. Give me a break, man. Just help me show the new guy the ropes."

"I hate that guy," Peter said to Nick, when they were in the elevator. Peter was holding a set of cuffs.

"Who, Barrie?"

"No, he's okay," Peter said. "He likes to let on he's a hardass, but he's an okay guy. No." Peter rolled his head. "'Doctor Greg House'."

"Who?"

"Didn't Barrie give you the lecture? The hospital's most valuable asset? He's a fucking slave, and we have to treat him with kid gloves. See these cuffs?" Peter held them up. "Specially made for him. Specially sized to fit his wrists, specially rounded so they shouldn't leave a bruise, and if he gets wild and hits us, which has been known to happen, do you think we get to slap him around, teach him a bit of respect?"

"I'm guessing not," Nick said, with a bit of amusement.

"You guess fucking right. Immobilize without harm, that's the standard order for taking him down. I'm not even allowed to gag him because of one time I split his lip getting his mouth open. A split lip, how could that have damaged him?"

The elevator doors opened. They were on the fourth floor. Nephrology, Cardiology, Diagnostics, Oncology.

"Okay, we play this straight," Peter said, all business now. "We just go in, you take his cane, I'll put the cuffs on. I'll tell him we're going on a trip to the basement. He'll ask why, we don't answer. You take his left arm, I'll take his right. He's lame in his right leg. You lift him high enough to put his weight on his right side, that gets him offbalance, we should be able to get him to the door of the conference room. Then we drop him on his ass." Peter grinned. "That's allowed." He put his hand on Nick's shoulder. "Okay?"

"Sure," Nick said. "I guess."

Peter was looking at him with concern. "Listen, let's just do this. Nobody's going to get hurt. You're going to do fine, kid."

They walked along the hall. Nick was feeling uneasy. Diagnostics was a glass wall through which there was a conference room: there were three people in it, all young, sitting at the table. The woman was sorting through a stack of mail. The two men had laptops open in front of them. "He's in his cubby-hole," Peter said. "That's behind the conference room. Those are the three doctors who work for him."

None of them seemed to be collared. Nick stared through the glass wall. "Are they slaves?"

Peter snorted. "No. They just agreed to work for one. Seriously. Inside that department, they have to do what the slave says. They have to call him 'Doctor House'. Can you imagine having to call a fucking slave 'Doctor House' and jump when he says 'boo'?"

"What if he tells them to stop us?"

"Now you're thinking. They're not allowed. He might tell them to call Doctor Cuddy, so let's try and get him to those doors - " Peter reached out and set his hand on the double glass " - before they can call the number. Okay, kid. We're on."

Peter pushed the doors open and walked through. He ignored the black guy's sharp query "What are you doing here?" and went briskly to the other door, yanking it open. Nick followed on his heels.

Somehow Nick hadn't expected the slave to be old. He had to be in his forties or fifties, bony, hair going grey in streaks. He was sitting in a lean-back chair - Nick spotted the cane leaning against the arm of the chair, and went for it, his hand closing around the cane just as the slave's hand reached it. He pulled the cane back out of the slave's reach: the slave's head lifted and he stared at Nick, his eyes wide blue.

Simultaneously, Peter got one cuff round the slave's left wrist, grabbed for his right arm, slapped the cuff round his right wrist. The cuffs locked.

Nick dropped the cane on the floor, kicked it away, and grabbed the slave's right arm. He was solid muscle. Nick glanced across at Peter, who nodded sharply, and they lifted, simultaneously, then Nick shoved higher, and he felt the slave wobble, offbalance, almost falling off his feet. He was a big guy, Nick's height, even if he was skinny, and it was surprisingly hard to keep him upright.

"Basement," Peter said.

Nick and Peter walked in lockstep towards the door. The slave was like a bent-over sack of wet straw between them, resisting only by his weight, but it was considerable resistance. Nick was counting his paces, telling himself, this is only to the door into the hall, only to there.

"Okay," he said, only realizing he had spoken outloud when the slave's head jerked sideways and Nick knew he was being stared at.

"Okay?" the slave said.

They were into the main conference room. The slave squinted.

All three of the doctors were on their feet. The white man said, in a foreign accent, "Where are you taking him?"

"Basement," Peter said.

"No they're not," the slave said. He wasn't struggling. He hung there in their grip. "This is a new guy. I haven't seen him before."

Nick only realized Peter had stopped walking towards the door when the slave's weight tugged at his grip. He turned, surprised. Peter was looking at him.
"This is a new guy, and Peter Rabbit here went off shift twenty minutes ago. They're not here to take me down to the basement, they're here to rehearse taking me down to the basement."

Peter let go: Nick felt the slave's tall body tipping away from him, and let go hastily before he got into big trouble on his first day by dislocating this valuable slave's valuable arm. The slave landed on his butt on the floor. He didn't even yelp.

"Besides," the slave said, "I haven't done anything worth whipping me for, lately."

"That's got to be a first," the black guy said.

Peter shook his head. He glanced at Nick, beckoning him with his eyes.

"Wait a minute," the woman said. "Was this even authorized? You break in here, try to take Doctor House away with you - "

"Of course it's authorized," the slave said. He sounded completely confident, even contemptuous. He was sitting on the floor with a collar round his neck, his hands cuffed together behind his back, and he sounded like he thought he was better than any of them. "Chris Barrie probably authorized it. Wanted to find out how convincing the new boy could be." He tilted his head up and looked at Nick sideways. "Bet you he didn't think you could even get me as far as the elevator before I figured out this wasn't for real. Get these cuffs off."

Nick nearly did it. They were standard hospital design, didn't need keys. The tone of voice, rasping, sounded like he expected Nick to obey.

Nick looked up and caught Peter's eyes on him. He reached down and took hold of the slave's short hair, tilting the slave's head back. He cleared his throat. "I was told I couldn't damage you," he said. "We haven't damaged you. Get those cuffs off yourself." He let go of the slave's hair, and stood up, catching three pairs of eyes. "Doctors," he said, with a nod, and turned and walked out.

Peter's hand landed on his shoulder. He nodded at Nick, and grinned. "You're okay. Thought you were going to lose it in there."

"He figured it out."

"Yeah," Peter said. "He usually does. He's a smart guy. But you handled him like a pro. Hair-grabbing works. You can twist his earlobes too. Nice touch, leaving the cuffs on. Page him and tell him you want the cuffs back when he reports in to the clinic at eight."

They were in the elevator.

"He really is a doctor," Nick said.

"Medical genius, they said," Peter said. "Pretty fucking smart guy. When you have to take him down for real, don't trust him one inch, don't ever let your guard down."

"How did a slave get to be a doctor?"

"He was a doctor before he was a slave," Peter said. "Got into debt, had a drinking problem, you know the kind of thing. Sold to cover his debt. The way I hear it, Doctor Cuddy knew just how smart he was, knew how much he was really worth, bought him at a firesale price for the hospital, and invested big in him. Now he's worth millions." Peter shook his head, admiringly. "He's worth way more than his original price. He's even famous. And he started out as just another drunk on slave row."

"Jesus," Nick said, not altogether without sympathy. "Guy works hard, becomes a doctor, the slavers still get him?"

"Guy works hard, becomes a doctor, throws it all away because he can't quit drinking," Peter said. "Could've joined AA, could've checked himself into a clinic to dry out. Way I heard it, he got his final demand letter and he went on his last bender, didn't come round till he'd already been collared." Peter grinned. "He had to dry out then."

Barrie got up from behind his desk as they came in. "Hey. How'd it go?"

"Just fine," Peter said heartily. He punched Nick's shoulder. "We got him halfway across the conference room before he figured out we were faking him out. But Nick got his cane before he could use it, and didn't let him give us any shit. Now about my overtime - "

"Get out of here," Barrie said. As Peter turned to go, "Hey. Thanks for your help, Peter."

Peter nodded and left.

Barrie looked at Nick. "No trouble?"

"No trouble at all," Nick said.

"Good," Barrie said. "So you're willing to come work for my squad when we need to move that slave around?"

Nick thought about the tone of voice the slave had used to him. Harsh and angry. Just as if he thought he was better than Nick.

"Yes, sir," he said. "But - he figured me out. I just said one word - I said 'Okay', I was thinking about how I could get him to the hall, and he got from that, just what I said, that this wasn't for real. I know he did."

"It's okay," Barrie said. "I didn't expect you to be able to fake him out. Peter says you handled him well, and that's good enough. Tell you something, though - if you got him to the elevator, you'd have got a bonus." He grinned. "Blow jobs. That slave is the best face fuck in the hospital."

"We can use him?"

"Unless he's tagged, you can use him. He's a slave." Barrie laughed. "One of my guys said it was like you could fuck the MRI machine." He sobered up. "You can't touch him inside the Diagnostics department, unless it's a security issue. You can't touch him inside the clinic, or if a patient can see, or if he's with one of his doctors on authorized medical business. And you will not take unauthorized work breaks to fuck him, not even if he's kneeling in front of you with his mouth open and his pants down. Am I clear?"

"Clear," Nick said.

"Other than that, enjoy yourself." Barrie grinned. "He'll cause you real goddamned trouble when he can, so take what you can get if you want him."

end