The Male Man
By GeeLady
Pairing: Established H/W
Rating: NC-17 Adult.
Summary: House had hidden his condition for a many years. But what happens when it becomes known at the worst possible time?
Disclaimer: Not mine...blah, blah, blah - though a fantasy never hurt anyone.
This story is in response to a prompt by AdamtheAnt. Thank you for the excellent idea! I hope the resulting fic' meets with your approval.
AN: I only know as much about Aspergers as I have read and researched. There are several chairs of opinion when it comes to what makes up an "Aspie's" mind; one such opinion suggests that the Aspberger mind is the extreme male spectrum of the human brain, an opinion many Aspies firmly denounce (particularly women with the disorder).
Aspergers has been called the "high functioning autistic". In my story, I have decided that House is a high functioning Aspie.
I can only write as I imagine it might be like to view the world through the mind of a man with Aspergers (or to be the friend of the man with Aspergers), therefore some of my renderings may be inaccurate or just plain wrong! All other medical misunderstandings that may arise in this fic' about Aspergers, and autism in general, are mine and mine alone.
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"He's early." Thirteen sounded positively stunned. She brushed long brunette hair out of her eyes and turned her quizzical look to Chase. "House is never early." She said. "I can't remember him ever being on time."
Chase glanced in House's directions. His boss was shedding his overcoat and dumping his back pack on the floor. He looked the same. Was dressed the same. "Maybe he got some."
Thirteen privately agreed. She was pretty sure House and Doctor Wilson were not only sharing a big, shiny new apartment, but probably a bed and a big, shiny new romance as well. Though she suspected their new love-in was not common knowledge, she'd noticed a change in him that she didn't think others saw. She mused - does it take one to know one? House was in possession of a quiet glow about him that had surfaced over the last year or so. The way one looks when they're in love, and then one day waking up to the realization that it's going to last, too. He looked happy.
But happy or not, he was never early. Though he did often stay at the hospital for days when he had a baffling case.
House entered the conference room, going for his habitual AM mug of thick coffee with two creams, no sugar. "Kid?"
No "good morning" or "how are ya?". Thirteen sighed. Some things never changed. "No change."
House snatched up his black marker, pulling the lid off with his teeth. "Tho," he said through a mouth full of plastic marker lid, "we nee' to make sun'ting change."
"What?" Taub asked.
House removed the lid. "I thaid," He carefully articulated "We nee' to make sun'ting change. Are you deaf?"
Thirteen couldn't help but smile just a little at House's mocking humor. Taub noticed his boss's good mood, too, but stuck to the medicine.
House stuck the marker back in his mouth. "Tho, Docktah Taub - wha' shud we jew?"
Taub read from their patient's chart. "How about we take him off everything and see what happens?"
House frowned. "You're tho humo'theth. Eat a thmile cookie for godth's thake." Then he spoke sans marker lid. "Fine, boring guy, what do we have him on?"
"Steroids, enteral feed, analgesics...it's about the only combination that didn't make him worse."
House looked from him to Thirteen. "And does the prettier colleague who appreciates good humor agree?"
Chase shrugged. "I got nothing. Take him off everything and see what happens."
House looked to Thirteen. "And the even prettier colleague..?"
She pointed to Taub and Chase. "What they said."
House narrowed his eyes. "You all still think this is environmental, don't you?" An evil anticipation washed across his face. "You did the swabs - you got a big, fat zero."
"In the light of clean blood work," Taub insisted, "it's still the most reasonable diagnosis."
House smirked. "Wanna' bet on it? And", he underlined, "a diagnosis without an actual diagnosis isn't actually a diagnosis. Hoping the cards turn in your patient's favor is a lousy way to play doctor." House pulled five twenties from his wallet. "Anyone who cares to be humiliated later this week put your money down."
Taub added his money as did Chase. House waited for Thirteen. "Well?"
"I'm betting on the long shot." She said. "Except I'm not actually betting."
House handed her the three hundred bucks. "Then you're our escrow." Thirteen stuffed the bills down her shirt.
"The winner gets to retrieve the bills himself." House announced.
Thirteen ignored the joke and followed Taub and Chase out the door to go tend to their young patient.
House returned to his office and his own, more comfortable chair. That little exchange was fun, but tiring. He'd practically perfected social domination when the "crowd" was less than five and had mastered (mostly) taking turns when conversing. Several people screaming at him all at once, however...House shuddered. His worst nightmare. After so many years of forced interaction and daily practice, House was pretty good at faking the right emotions and reactions (when absolutely necessary), though he still didn't much like most crowds, or most people for that matter. The real stuff that was in him, he kept for those he trusted most. With his closest friends, he could be himself almost all the time, and that figure amounted to one - Wilson.
Cuddy and his team he didn't trust well enough yet to divulge his "condition", as his own physician/psychologist termed it. Give a thing a name, people suddenly think it's contagious and start acting like they've got rocks in their mouths and ants in their pants. How many rocks would it take in an average sized adult mouth to muddle speech? Would ants try and make their way into all the holes in a persons body? People had an awful lot of holes. Two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, a mouth, an anus, a belly button, a pee-hole and, on women, a vagina too. Men: 10. Women: 11. Ten points of entry, not counting cuts or abrasions. Weird. No wonder people caught colds. So how many ants would that need to be - to make a person dance? Figuring their capacity to tickle or bite - probably less than ten.
House sat for a moment and imagined ants crawling under his shirt. Actually, it would probably take only one or two ants to cause an almost explosive reaction in most people. Somatosensation was the most "trustworthy" of human senses, and an ant or other insect walking around on your largest organ was a tickle with travel plans. House didn't like being tickled, as Wilson had found out soon after their first night together.
A feather had been Wilson's weapon of choice and House had reacting by bucking him off the bed onto the floor, cracking Wilson's right thumb. He'd paid for his unintentional physical gaff by walking around for the next month looking like he was trying to hitch a ride. It was sufficient payback. House laughed when he thought of it, even now. He bit his lip. You're not supposed to laugh at another's pain. House had given him some good advice the day the cast came off. "Remember - tickling me hurts you."
House wandered back out to the white board to once more read over the pathetically short list of symptoms. What causes radiating abdominal pain, other than cancer or stomach upset? The kid had not thrown up since arriving. He was getting proper enteral feeds, analgesics and steroids to combat this; if it should happen to be an allergic reaction, which it was sort of acting like. House shook his head. This was no good. He needed more details. He needed a deck of cards.
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Wilson entered House's office to find his friend surrounded by playing cards stuck on the walls and to the surface of his desk. The cards were either standing alone or were grouped together in numbers that appeared, to him, to have no pattern. "Um,.." Wilson pointed around at the bizarre configurations. "New card game?" Of course, it wasn't.
House shook his head. "No. This is better than the white board. I can sort not only the symptoms but the underlying possible conditions that would cause each one. So far, I'm up to forty-seven."
Wilson stepped closer to one card House has taped to his computer screen. He could see no writing on it, other than the printed smile of the Jack of Spades staring back at him. "You don't have anything written on them."
House said it as though his partner ought to get it for crying out loud. "I remember the conditions they represent. No need to scribble."
Wilson knew House had an astounding memory for details and specific minutia. In particular was he able to recall almost everything he ever read with emphasis on medical or medically-related information, but to remember in his head what he hadn't actually needed to write down in order to remember it by looking at playing cards used to represent what was already in his memory...that was a new corridor. "Then why not just use what's already in your head?"
"Visuals are an aid to memory."
"But there's nothing written on the cards."
"I told you, I remember what they represent. You see the Queen of Hearts - I see mesenteric ischemia."
That could cause abdominal pain. Wilson was beginning to see the back roads logic behind it, but now he just had to know the whole trip. "Why didn't you just write the words on the cards so they can represent the conditions even better?"
"It hurts my hand."
"Oh. Um, ready to go?"
House glanced around the room. "I'm going to stay late and look at the cards some more."
"What do you do if you come up with a winning hand?"
"I shuffle the deck." House said, then explained further when he saw that his reasoning wasn't getting through. "I keep my winning hand, and start a new game."
"'Kay. See you at home. Any particular thoughts for dinner?"
House shook his head.
He'd make salad and teriyaki chicken breasts. House liked those.
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Two members of his team shuffled back in after a day of sharing clinic duty and keeping an eye on their patient, watching for change.
"Kid okay?" House asked.
Taub and Thirteen made note of the weird spectacle of House sitting in his chair, rotating back and forth, hands resting on his cane, and staring at the playing cards. They'd seen stranger things from him. On the House-Odd scale, this was relatively tame. "Yes." Thirteen answered, gathering up her coat. "He's good for night, his fluids are up, and he's in no pain."
Taub only said a simple goodnight to them both and left.
House waited for the third and fourth team members, but they didn't make an appearance. "Where's Foreman and Chase?"
"They already went home." Thirteen said. She was dying to ask him about the cards, but she was tired, and she didn't think House would tell her anyway.
House nodded. Kid was okay for now. That was good - an improvement at least, and that meant he could go home, too. He gathered up his backpack and his winter coat and followed Thirteen out the door, shutting off the lights on the way out.
But the cards were staying up.
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When Cuddy convinced the boy's parents to once again speak to Doctor House about their son, she was delighted they reluctantly agreed. Even though the father said: "He's a rude son-of-a-bitch, and if nothing changes in the next day with my son's condition, we're pulling him outta' here and taking him to back to Boston General." The wide solemnly agreed with him.
Cuddy, clucking assurances, lead them to House's office. She brought the angry parents right up and into House's private domain, entering without knocking, without so much as a glance through the door to see if House was awake, or asleep or naked.
House wasn't naked or asleep. He was staring at his playing cards, now up to three different colored decks, pasted all over his walls and desk. His cane swung back and forth like a sword, it's soothing rhythm a salve to his tumbling thoughts as he tried to decipher what this kid's problem might be.
Cuddy stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the state of her employee's think-space. She turned and quickly ushered the parents back into the hallway, not that it did any good at this point, she realized, since they had already laid eyes on the strange sight, and the walls of House's office were see-through anyway.
At first he had evidently not even seen the parents she had towed in on her good nature, but he did now as they stood in the corridor looking at him as though he were the last of a dying species, of a type no one would miss.
Cuddy stomped over to the accordion-ed blinds, located the cord, taking it harshly in hand, and sweeping the blinds shut with a single, vicious yank. She turned. "What in god's name is all this?" She asked, barely masking the frenzy in her voice. Sweeping her hand around the room, "Do you have any idea what this looks like?"
House didn't take his eyes off his cards. "A doctor trying to work?"
Cuddy stepped close to a section of cards crowded together on the surface of his desk. She shook her head. "House - playing cards on your walls?? This makes you look insane."
"Only to whomever you decide to drag in here." House turned to her, unable to keep his mind on its own work as it was obvious now that she intended to keep on talking. "What do you want? I'm trying to figure something out here."
"The parents want results in the next twenty-four hours, or they're taking their son back to Boston."
House shrugged. "Okay. Can I get back to work now?"
Cuddy threw up her hands. "Okay? Okay??" They had seen the nutty professor in all his kookiness, and it was too late to undo the kooky. "They've already seen this, whatever this is. You have to cure the kid now, or they'll leave and spread this weirdness - your weirdness - all over the medical community."
"So?"
Cuddy forced herself to calm down. Shouting at House was a useless waste of energy. He either didn't react at all, shouted back insults, or walked away. Today she could afford none of them. Cuddy walked up to him until she was standing only a few feet away. "You just got your license back. You can't afford to lose your position again."
That was true. He supposed he ought to take the time to explain to her why he was wallpapering with Hoyle brand playing cards. So much think-time wasted with hands-on "there-there" so his boss will smile, skip away and leave him blissfully alone. "These are memory aids. I'm categorizing what might be the more likely underlying cause of the kid's symptoms. Each likely cause for each symptom." there he had explained it in as few words as possible. She ought to shut up and spin on her two-inch heels.
Cuddy's face was smeared with suspicion. It was a mask he could virtually peel off of her. She wore ugly when she was around him. Cuddy stepped closer to the section of pasted-up cards House had been examining when she had burst into the room with the disgruntled mom and pop caboose.
She took a moment to actually look at the cards, not at the seeming lunacy they wore. They did seem to be grouped into a kind of order. Certain spades were with other certain spades, though the colors were different. Below, there appeared to be sub-categories, with a Jack's that smiled sideways with his buddy of a different deck, for example. She sighed. "Okay. Let's say this is some sort of research," she used the word as though its very nature was also in question. "what have you come up with?"
"Nothing yet."
Cuddy knew it was useless to keep up her side of a losing argument. House would act like House, and he didn't care who saw the show. "Fine. I'll take the parents to my office, and let Foreman speak to them. He at least, understands diplomacy."
"And break-in's. He's hell at break-ins."
Cuddy ignored that and left and, with a winning smile, shoo-ed the parents back down the corridor. turning back to his cards, he sunk into the world of order before Taub and Chase interrupted, standing there patiently.
House abandoned the cards for now. Solitaire would have to wait. "What do you got?" He sat down, butt and leg thankful.
"It has to be diabetes." Chase ventured. If House wasn't mistaken, he swore he saw Chase back up a few inches. Smart kid. "Diabetes?? Are you pulling my leg? Not a good idea."
Taub came to his co-workers defense. "It's the only thing that makes any sense."
"No it doesn't. Any medical student would be able to understand the results of a blood glucose test. You think his previous doctors went golfing and missed it?"
Taub handed him a sheet of paper. "We did a blood-glucose. He's plus eleven. Way too high for his pancreas to be working right."
House looked at the test result himself. "So you do think all those previous physicians and lab tech's missed this? No! stares us in the face. It can't be diabetes that brought the kid this far. The parents never allowed sugar in his diet. There is no way he developed insulin resistance."
"We gave him one unit of insulin." Chase handed House a second sheet of paper. "His levels dropped to normal."
House shook his head. Can't be that simple. "Of course he had sugar in his blood, we gave him IV glucose."
Chase shook his head. "Yes, but his pancreas didn't produce enough insulin to counter it. therefore sugar in the blood. That's diabetes."
House grabbed his cane. "His parents are veggan hippies." He stood up. "They insist their son hates sugar and sweets. Let's test out if Hippy Junior is a liar. Order him up a humongous slab of chocolate cake for dinner and watch him to see if he eats like a normal kid when the parents aren't around."
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"House? The cake." Thirteen called in the door to Wilson's office. If House wasn't at home or in his own or Cuddy's office, he was here. House was sitting beside Wilson. Both had jumped when she suddenly opened the door. It made her wonder what. "The kid's refusing to eat. He really does dislike sweets just like his parents said."
"Did you do another blood glucose?"
"Yes." She said, her voice betraying her confusion. "And his insulin level has gone up."
House stared at her. "Are you sure he didn't eat any of the cake?"
She nodded.
"Did anyone sneak him an IV when you weren't looking?"
"No. And his abdominal pain is back."
House sighed. "Do a CT. Find out what the hell his digestive track is doing down there."
Wilson waited until she left. "Heard you had a run-in with Cuddy."
"Technically, she ran into me. I was minding my own business."
Wilson gave House his best look of sympathy. He knew House hated talking to patients, and understood the whys, but talking to the patient's families? An even worse nightmare. And talking to a patient's parents and Cuddy, all of them screaming at him to "do something", without specifying exactly what they thought he ought to do...no wonder House had turned to stone. "Eventually, you're going to have to talk to these parents again you know."
"Sure. Right after I've cured the kid, I'll find a cool way for the dad to thank me. Him going away would be a good start."
Wilson wouldn't want to be anywhere near that conversation, unless it went downhill somehow. Maybe he ought to attend? Lately, he spent more and more time "consulting" with House during such encounters; any that he could manage to squeeze in while running his own oncology practice. More and more often he made certain he "just happened" to be near-by whenever he figured House was having a rougher time with the relatives than with the actual case.
But the team was getting suspicious. Once upon a time, Wilson had used his and House's new intimate relationship as a cover for helping House out of the little jams he occasionally got himself in to, but that guise was wearing thin. Other than a case that might be in some way cancer-related, he really didn't have any good reason to spend so much time hanging around House's office. Since there hadn't been any cases lately that required his input, he made a small show of being a trifle more cuddly (more than House publicly appreciated) whenever one of the team happened to be watching, as an excuse to stay close. He played up being in love to divert their attention onto him.
It was easy to see, though, that Foreman - naturally, being the neurologist, was the first to notice that some things about House were a bit off. More off than could be explained by the Vicodin or House's drinking or leg pain. And now that House was rid of the first two going on two years, his infrequent but noticeable "differences" were becoming clearer to anyone with enough of the specific medical training to notice.
For now, Wilson wanted House at home to himself. "Come on, I'll cook us up lasagna." That never failed to lure House anywhere he wanted him to go.
Dinner was short and an after dinner kiss from House on Wilson's cheek, as he had his hands in scummy water scrubbing the baked-on cheese from his best lasagna dish, had turned to lips on lips and then some. Soon the bed was squeaking under their arduous, naked thrusting and moans of pleasure.
House - his BFF with benefits. This was by far the biggest reason Wilson hung around him.
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TBC asap