Previously:
"You have a patient," Wilson bribed, sing-song, 'ha-ha' style. "Do you think they'll ever notice all that sexual tension between them?" one asked the other, thinking she was being discreet when really she wasn't. The other giggled. House suggested they go home early and have massive amounts of hot sweaty sex. A bubble of disappointment sparked when Wilson sighed, dropped his pen, and rubbed his eyes. "Hey, House. Is Wilson with you?" It was Foreman. House groggily sat up halfway.
"S'too early for those, too." Now it was the indulgent Wilson chuckle's turn to come out and play. House didn't smile at that. He didn't.
"No." House snatched another fry. He smirked over at his friend (lover).
"Do you think they'll ever notice we've already noticed?"
"Not tonight, House," the tired oncologist muttered. "My back is killing me."
"A patient's asking after him. Apparently they had a consult meeting half an hour ago."
=
"Herniated disc, Sciatica, degenerative disc disease, viral or bacterial prostatitis, Chlamydia, Copper toxicity, kidney cancer." House limped noisily into his and Wilson's apartment, dropping his keys and popping a pill.
"What are diseases that cause lower extremity pain or discomfort?" Wilson guessed, scratching his thigh as he lounged farther into the cushions of the couch, remote in one hand and a beer on the coffee table.
"Yup," House plopped down roughly on the couch next to Wilson and stole the remote, flipping away from whatever the oncologist was watching without glancing at it. "Lower back, mostly. If it's Chlamydia, you're dead, just so you know."
"House, I'm not sick," said Wilson, exasperated. "I probably just slept on it wrong after being on my feet or bent over a desk all week." House nodded, not believing it for a second, flipping through channels much too fast to see what he was skipping past. Wilson shifted uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck, sliding a hand up and down his thigh.
"Do you have Chlamydia?" House settled on a reality show he knew Wilson would probably find annoying.
"Not unless I got it from you. Which only begs the question, 'where did you get it?'"
"House, I don't have Chlamydia. I think I would have noticed by now. And besides, if you don't, I don't. You're the only person I've slept with in almost three years."
"Honored, I'm sure." He really was, but he wasn't about to say that in a way that showed he meant it. Gregory House did not tell people he was thrilled to be with them. Unless he was being sarcastic.
Wilson wiggled deeper into the cushions again, flinching, hissing, and hugging his sides. House froze, then slowly turned to look at his lover, calculating look in place. Wilson leaned away from him cautiously.
"What?" Deftly and with grace, speed, and precision that no one ever expected of him (the morons), House poked Wilson gently in the side, between his hip and his ribs, in the general area of the love-handle.
"Ow, House!" House sat up straighter, his calculating look turning to a diagnostic one, and he looked at Wilson down his nose like he was a specimen for examination under a microscope.
"Lower back and side pain," he said. Wilson raised a condescending eyebrow.
"Yes, and exasperation. Is that a symptom, too?" House thoughtfully moved his mouth over to one side of his face, wrinkling up his cheek.
"Don't think so," he muttered, looking Wilson over, searching for another clue. "You're always exasperated."
"I always have lower back pain!" House ignored him, instead thinking up easy, here-and-now tests that Wilson couldn't really prevent him from doing. Ah, there was an idea! House grabbed Wilson on either side of his face, leaned forward, and pressed a kiss against his forehead.
"House, what – ?"
"You have a fever!" House proclaimed triumphantly. "Which means you're sick."
"It could just mean I'm too hot," Wilson argued with half a heart, self-consciously scratching his thigh and pouting. House narrowed his eyes.
"Take off your pants," he demanded. Wilson looked at him incredulously.
"You just declared me sick, and now you want sex?" House glared at him, scowling.
"No. I want to see what's making you itch."
"Nothing's making me itch except you, House." But he got up and (gingerly) pulled of his pants anyway. House gestured for him to remove the underwear, too, and after a second of indignant glaring, Wilson slipped out of those as well.
House got all up in his personal space (not that that was unusual) and figuratively poked and prodded, finally finding a small rash on the inside of Wilson's upper thighs that looked like it could've come from wearing too-small underwear or something. He narrowed his eyes at it. Not wet, but not overly dry. Raised bumps, but it didn't look like there was any pus. They'd do a test. But first they'd have to think about it. This was Wilson, after all. Caution was a requisite here where it wasn't with other patients.
=
House was early to work. He got there only fifteen minutes after Taub.
House limped into the conference room noisily but not impressively. He immediately set a course for the white board and began writing. When he was done he stepped away, and waited. When nothing was forthcoming, he looked pointedly at his fellows, then pointedly at the white board and said, "Go."
"Back pain, side pain, fever," Foreman read. "Could be a kidney problem. Any urinary symptoms?"
"Are there any urinary symptoms up there?" House asked with a roll of the eyes.
"No."
"Then… no." House really did love being condescending, but it wasn't quite as fun when they asked for it like that.
"Could also be pelvic bone-marrow infection or inflammation. Lupus, juvenile diabetes. We still need to know more symptoms," Thirteen provided.
"It could still be prostatitis or Chlamydia, too. Or maybe a bladder infection. Has the patient been excessively sexually active recently?" Taub wondered. House held up a finger as he pulled out his cell phone, leaning on his cane with his elbow.
"Hang on, lemme ask." The phone rang four times before Wilson picked up. "Have you been excessively sexually active recently?"
"House, I told you I didn't cheat on you."
"Is that a yes or a no?" The fellows raised their collective eyebrow.
"You've had all the sex I've had. Do you think it's excessive?"
"That's a no. 'Kay, bye." The fellows all gave each other significant looks, wondering who House would say goodbye to instead of just hanging up.
"Wait, House, are you having your team diagnose me?" House snapped the phone shut and turned back to the ducklings, Taub in particular. "That's a no," he repeated.
"Okay, then it's probably not Chlamydia, and he would've had to have gotten prostatitis or a bladder or kidney infection some other way," concluded Foreman decisively.
"Grave's disease causes pretibial myxedema," Thirteen continued. "How itchy is the rash?"
"Relatively mild," House replied. "But it keeps getting worse."
"Could be eczema, we should get a history and look for recent triggers. We're not diagnosing you, are we?" said Taub, giving House a sideways suspicious look.
"Do I look like I'm in my mid-thirties to you?"
"Ah, no, definitely not."
"Then you're definitely not diagnosing me. Keep going. Gimme everything you got."
"Cushing's could cause the rash, or Conn's disease," Thirteen mumbled.
"Cystic fibrosis could, too. Hemochromatosis…" Foreman branched off for her, then trailed off into thoughtfulness.
"I still think it's kidney cancer. Wait, when did the itch start, and how bad is it now?"
"About twenty-four hours after the back pain. Just beginning to get annoying." The three lapsed into silence, and House decided that while they were scratching their heads, he'd go figure out how to get Wilson in to do some tests.
=
On Our Next Episode: House gritted his teeth as he helped Wilson up, the role reversal somewhat confusing to both of them. Whatever was doing this to Wilson had better be scared, because House was coming after it with a vengeance now. He was going to find it, and he was going to kill it dead. He quickly (and with worse handwriting than usual) wrote 'slight urinary burning' on the board and added 'severe' in front of 'back pain.'
Wilson appeared in the doorway of the conference room and listlessly gestured to the white board. =
"Fev'r induced h'lucinations," he mumbled.