This is # 5 in my series of one-shots about people who have an odd connection to House. This was done for the April Friday Night O/C Challenge on the Fox Forum. It's just a bit of fun. So enjoy!
House was about to leave the clinic, when the nurse handed him another file.
"I'm finished!" he told her.
"Sorry, Dr. House." She said. "Before she left, Dr. Cuddy told me to make sure you did at least five more patients. This is the last one."
House sighed and rolled his eyes. But he had promised Cuddy ten clinic patients in exchange for standing up for him with his last patient. He could just leave, since she was in a board meeting, but he might need her good will in the near future. So he took the file and went into the exam room.
He saw a man in his forties sitting there. The man was tall and slim, with a short, dark beard. He held his hat in his hand and had a towel wrapped around his ankle.
"So, what's going on here?" House asked him.
"The blokes I works with thought it'd be funny to play a practical joke on me." The man said with a cockney English accent. "Locked me in a room with a dog."
"And that was funny…how?"
"They know I hates dogs. All animals, really. But dogs especially."
"What have you got against dogs?"
"I spent six years in gaol because of dogs."
"Gaol? Oh, you mean jail. For what?"
"The charge was robbery. I should have got five years and out in three for good behaviour. Which I had! But the bloody judge was an animal lover. He sentenced me to ten and I had to serve six." He said disgustedly.
"What did you steal?"
The man eyed House, then muttered, "Doesn't matter, now does it?"
"So, what's wrong with your leg?"
"Bloody animal bit me!"
House motioned for him to put his leg up on the exam table. He pulled off the towel to reveal a very small puncture wound. It wasn't bleeding and was barely even visible.
"How big was this dog?" House asked him.
"What difference does that make? Bloody animal bit me! I could get really sick. I heard that people DIE from dog bites!"
"Was the dog vaccinated?"
"What?"
"Was it vaccinated for rabies?"
"Well, how the bloody hell should I know? It wasn't my dog. As if I'd ever have one of those bloody things."
"Okay, I got it. You hate dogs. A dog sent you to prison …somehow. But if you want me to help you, you'll need to tell me more about this dog."
The man sighed. "It was a …little, stupid little dog. All…fluffy. With a stupid little pink bow on its head."
House titled his head and looked at the man in confusion. "You were bit by a little poofy lap dog? And you're crying and complaining?"
"I don't care how small it is! They can still kill you! And it hurts."
House sighed and took another look at the wound. The chances that a lap dog with a little pink bow wasn't vaccinated for rabies was very slim. It certainly wouldn't be hard to find out. But he got some gauze and antiseptic and cleaned the wound.
"You just need to find out if the dog was vaccinated. If it was, you won't get rabies."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
The man relaxed. "Well, that's good. I can tell you, doctor, I was a bit worried. I hates dogs."
"Yeah, yeah, so you said. So, how did a dog send you to jail?"
"Not 'a' dog. A lot of dogs. Almost a hundred."
"You were attacked by a hundred dogs?"
"Nah, I wasn't attacked by them. Well, not by all of them. I was hired by this woman to, uh, nick some dogs for her."
"Was she an animal lover?"
The man chuckled. "You could say that. Just not the way you mean. She wanted a spotted coat. So this other bloke and me, we sort of nicked some puppies for her."
"Wait a minute, you stole a hundred puppies so that she could make a coat out of them?"
The man looked sheepish. "Well, she was paying us a lot of money."
"All the puppies had spots?"
"Yeah, they were those dogs, you know, white with black spots?"
"Dalmatians?"
"Yeah, that's it."
"You stole a hundred Dalmatians to make a coat for some woman?"
"Nah, we only nicked ninety-nine."
House was not a dog lover or an animal lover by any means. His one brush with a canine – Wilson's dog Hector - had been less than successful. But there was something just wrong about this guy stealing puppies to make some rich bitch a coat. He looked at the file again.
"Uh, Jasper, is it? You know, I was just thinking about the dog. You said it was 'fluffy'?"
"Yeah, it had lots of fluffy fur."
"Did it have a little pink tongue?"
"Yeah, yeah, it did."
"Oh, dear."
"What? What's wrong, doctor?"
""Well, fluffy little dogs with little pink tongues are immune to rabies vaccines."
"Oh, bloody hell!"
"Yes, I'm afraid you were probably exposed to it."
"I'm gonna die, ain't I?"
"No, no, of course not. But I will have to administer a series of injections."
"Injections? You mean needles?"
"Yes."
"I hates needles."
"Well, it's either needles… or death."
Jasper looked ashen, but he said, "Well, I don't want to die, so I guess you'll have to do it. Bloody hell!"
House smiled. "I'll just get the first injection of immunoglobin. Half of it will be injected near the bite. The other half will be administered intramuscularly through the abdominal wall. Sorry, but that one is going to hurt."
Jasper did not look happy.
Actually, the second injection only needed to be intramuscularly away from the bite. Doctors no longer did it through the abdominal wall. It was too painful that way. But something about this guy made House want this treatment to be as painful as possible.
"Then, you'll need to come back four more times for injections." He said as he prepared the dose.
"Will they all hurt?"
"Sorry, but yes."
"So should I ask for you? Do you need to give them all to me?"
"Oh, yeah, I NEED to give them all to you." House said, with a grin, as he pushed the needle in and heard Jasper yelp in pain.
THE END
