A/N: Again, please ignore the dates :).

Thanks for the lovely reviews, the follows, the favorites, et cetera. If you guys keep supporting, I will keep writing!

Fun fact - my grandfather saw Elton John in concert "back in the day", and he actually opened the concert in the way that he and Billy (fictionally) do here.

Friday, July 8, 1994

"Why did we think this was a good idea?"

Wilson raked a hand through his slicked-back hair, attempting to look calm, cool, collected, and belonging. They'd just entered a medical conference in Philadelphia clad in tight jeans, band tee shirts, and leather jackets. They looked wildly out of place – the only other person not in a suit or formal attire was the janitor – but were trying vicariously to dodge the perturbed glances of their colleagues. They were headed, after this, to Billy Joel and Elton John's Face to Face concert approximately twenty minutes away.

"Because we're geniuses," House said as if he were stating the obvious, and whipped his sunglasses off of his jacket pocket and slid them over his eyes. Indoors. "Come on. You can't tell me you honestly wanted to go to this thing," House reasoned as he settled into a chair in the banquet area. There was a bowl of cashews on the center of the table, and he shoved his hand into the bowl, cramming several into his mouth. "You know the age old saying," he said through a mouthful of nuts, "each time a doctor attends a medical convention, a litter of kittens meets their demise."

No response met his ridiculous comment, and he cocked his head to the side and pivoted in his seat, directing his attention toward the other side of the convention center. A smile split across his face as Wilson came into focus, two glasses of gin in his hands. He took steady strides in an attempt to not spill the beverages. "The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem," House said, grinning, and accepted the drink.

Wilson settled in next to him, taking a generous sip before speaking. "Isn't this what 'pre-gaming' is?" he asked whimsically. He sighed contentedly and propped his feet up on the tablecloth, ignoring the fanciful table setting he was ruining and degrading by doing so. "Think we could've snuck a keg in here?" he wondered absently. He decided on draining the glass. "Want another?"

House stared at him with a crooked smile. "You animal," he accused. "What I wouldn't give to have partied with you during your undergrad." He shook his head and emptied his own glass easily, handing it back to Wilson.

Wilson returned to the table, an elderly gentleman hot on his tail. "Excuse me," the man said, tapping lightly on Wilson's shoulder as he set the drinks down. His nametag read Dr. Pascal. The oncologist's face lit up like a red light in embarrassment. "Where are you two gentlemen from?" he asked, agitation evident in his voice.

House didn't miss a beat. "My name is Dr. Cuddy," he said smoothly. "I believe in connecting with your inner self and balancing your chakras."

Wilson chortled and attempted to mask it with a violent cough, eventually needing to turn his back to the pair in order to hide his stupid grin.

The elder gentleman didn't seem entertained. "Dr. Cuddy is the Dean of Medicine at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital," he said wisely.

House nodded and stuck a hand out to shake. "Dr. Cuddy is pleased to meet Dr. Pascal. Does Dr. Pascal often speak in the third person?"

"She's also a woman."

"Sex change," House responded coolly, again not letting the conversation stall for even a split second too long. "I wrote my senior thesis on the evolutionary error that the second X chromosome presents in the human race. Foul creatures, women are." A genuine-looking grin was plastered on House's face. He turned to Wilson, whose entire fist was in his mouth.

"Suits are for pansies," House offered as a parting statement, and smiled happily in dismissal. Dr. Pascal, clearly confused, turned on his heel and stalked away, unsure of how to handle the two underdressed doctors with no regard for the medical convention they had signed up to attend.

The pair lingered another thirty minutes, consuming as much free alcohol as they could while evading the confused stares of other doctors, all dressed in their Sunday best. "I just love Sabbath!" House called to one guy, who continued to ogle at them. Wilson chuckled.

"Let's get out of here," House finally said, pushing himself back from the table. "I'm not missing a second of this show."

"I didn't realize you were such a huge fan of The Lion King."

"I have a shrine of Nathan Lane in my closet," House said simply. "And Billy Joel is my celebrity crush."

Wilson didn't ask.

They piled into House's 1975 Plymouth Duster, a car he argued would "someday be a classic." Wilson didn't understand why a doctor, of all people, would insist on driving a nearly 20-year-old car, but he had learned in his three years of friendship with House that some things were better left unasked, simply because the answer was always a smartass, sideways comment.

As they pulled into the Veterans Stadium parking lot, House began to fidget in the driver's seat, obviously anxious to get to their seats before he missed the opening number. "Whoa, cowboy," Wilson said, throwing his hands up as House parked the car and removed the keys. He practically threw himself from the vehicle and slammed the door behind him, breaking into a brisk jog through the parking lot.

Wilson followed as quickly as he could, extracting himself from the seatbelt and taking care to lock the doors before he followed his clearly inebriated friend.

"Elton John is a legend!" House called drunkenly over his shoulder, raising a defiant fist into the air Wilson chuckled and busted into a run, catching up to House just as they entered the stadium.

They maneuvered expertly to their seats which House christened as being "absurdly awesome," only five or six rows away from the massive stage. Deep in the shadows, they could make out the shapes of two massive grand pianos facing each other. There was a bit of movement before two spotlights came up on the empty piano benches.

Wilson shot a look over to House, whose eyebrows furrowed.

Then an ear-shattering chord filled the stadium, producing screams and applause from the crowd. Wilson looked back to House. He looked disappointed. Angry, even.

"This is bullshit!" House yelled to Wilson, motioning toward the empty stage before them. The harmony of two pianos still sang loud in the air, though presumably not from the unoccupied instruments in front of them. "We paid all this money, came all the way down here, attended that stupid convention for half an hour just to see some sound guy's fuck-up and a recording instead of a – "

The crowd burst into uproarious noise, people around them pointing, in awe, toward the stage. House mimicked them, and Wilson watched as his eyebrows shot up on his forehead, and a dumbfounded grin splattered across his face.

Wilson looked, and saw, at each piano, two pairs of hands banging on the keys. The benches were still empty – so how on earth…?

He followed the curvature of the wrists to under the piano, and realized with incredulity that the men were underneath the things, facing the benches, and playing backwards, blind, and upside-down. His own wonderment was broken by a deafening laugh from next to him, and he craned his head sideways and watched House, through the strobe lights, release sounds of delight into the air.

Wilson was dumbfounded. What the hell was so funny?

But when House turned to face him, Wilson saw an emotion that he'd never seen on his friend's face before – one of complete and utter amazement and respect. He continued to laugh, shouting a rhetorical question into the air before them. Are they serious? he'd said, and Wilson had shrugged his shoulders and chortled, felling his own body fill with warmth in response to House's cheer.

Then the sound of a harmonica split into the air, and Wilson was shoving his face into his hands as the pair of them bent over with hysteria, trying to not die of oxygen deprivation as Billy Joel performed the beautiful "Leave a Tender Moment Alone."