1Author's Note: Not only is this chapter long, it's also about 50 mush. It starts with mush, ends with mush, and has comedy in the middle. Kind of like an Oreo, except an Oreo has taste, unlike this story.

Warning: Don't wear polyester pants if you plan to light farts.

House woke the next morning to find he had an armful of warm, sleeping oncologist. Sometime during the night Wilson had cuddled up and thrown an arm around House's waist. House had apparently rolled over and pulled him close so that their faces were inches apart. With no one to observe, he took a precious moment to examine the sleeping form.

He was so adorable when he slept. No suit and godawful tie, hair mussed, lips parted, head snuggled into House's chest. He reached over and gently ran a finger across one elegant cheekbone, tracing the arc to Wilson's temple, where the soft hair was just starting to show the barest hint of gray. House smiled softly. When they'd met almost 12 years ago, Wilson had been just a kid, barely out of medical school. The years and the cares they'd brought had added some fine lines to his face, but all in all he had held up well. Truth be told, House himself was probably responsible for most of those lines. Nice to know he'd made an impression, anyway.

House might have resisted the urge to plant a kiss on those parted lips, but Wilson stirred against him and started making his patented sleepy noises. He had lain awake listening to those noises on the many nights Wilson had crashed on his couch over the years. Soft sighs, murmurs, and contented moans that the oncologist vehemently denied making in the light of day.

Wilson sighed quietly and House was undone. Slowly, gently so as not to wake him, House leaned in and touched his lips to Wilson's. The younger doctor smiled in his sleep and muttered something.

Oh, this isn't gay at all, Greg. Might as well buy a Village People CD. Might as well go to a Liza Minelli concert. Might as well buy a cat and stick a rainbow flag to my bumper. Might as well-

Might as well kiss Wilson again.

So he did. This time, Wilson sighed and pursed his lips a little, leaning into the contact. He frowned and made a soft sound of protest when House pulled away.

Okay, that's it! When this is over I'm going back to my apartment alone and digging out my Man Show DVDs. Midgets, ziggy zoggies, and girls jumping on trampolines-that's what I need right now. Jimmy Kimmel, not Jimmy Wilson, dammit!

He gently disentangled himself from Wilson, ignoring the feeling of regret at the loss of the warm body. Climbing to his knees, he reached down, grabbed theend of Wilson's sleeping bag, and gave an almighty yank. Wilson was sent tumbling ass over teakettle across the cold floor of the tent. He came to rest against the far wall with a squawk.

"What-? Where-?" Wilson looked around, bleary-eyed and blinking.

House grinned down at him. Wilson was a morning person, always had been, but the exact moment of waking was never his best and brightest. In fact, at that moment the celebrated Cancer Superman, Guardian of Truth, Justice, and North American Oncology looked more like the D student in the special ed class, if the special ed class in question had a doe-eyed male model section.

"House, you asshole," he said wearily, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Wakey wakey, " House said smugly. "Get your lazy ass out of bed or we'll miss out on leftover World War I scrambled eggs."

They dressed quickly, shivering from the cold now that the shared blankets and body heat had been removed from the equation.

"Just for reference, and not that it will make any difference," the oncologist grunted sleepily as they crossed the field to the mess tent, "but there are nicer ways to wake someone."

House rolled his eyes. "What did you expect? A gentle kiss on the lips?"

Wilson looked up at him with a strange expression, then dropped his gaze quickly. "I guess I should be grateful I didn't find my hand in a pan of water again."

House took a mental snapshot of that brief gaze and filed it away under Wilson.James.new expressions to be examined later. "Oh please! That was soooo 2005! Besides, not gonna happen as long as you're sharing a sleeping bag with me, Dr. Pissypants ."

He held the flap of the mess tent open, then pushed Wilson aside and walked in first. "Cripples before retards," he announced.

"Guess you win on both scorecards," Wilson shot back, and quickly maneuvered ahead of him in line.

"Ooooh, got me." He raised his voice to megaphone volume. "It's okay. I don't mind following you, Jimmy. You have a great ass."

Wilson colored slightly. "He's recovering from a full frontal lobotomy," he explained to the soldier handing out MREs.

House got his own meal and waved Wilson toward a table. "Come on," he said, "lunch is on me today."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It was late morning when House met the AntiChrist.

He felt somewhat better, having had a brief shower and a change into scrubs and sneakers. It was almost 10:30 and, in House's opinion, well past time for lunch, but Wilson was busy, so he decided to see one more patient to pass the time. He looked around until he found an easy-looking one, a man with a burned arm.

The AntiChrist was sitting on a cot, reading a back issue of People magazine andpatiently waiting his turn. He looked close to House's age, but short, pudgy, balding, with thick glasses and a knit sweater. All things considered, he looked like a chartered accountant.

"I'm Dr. House. Let's make it quick."

The AntiChrist looked up and smiled pleasantly. "Busy day for you?" he asked, folding the magazine.

House goggled around the chaotic tent. "Uh. Yeah. Suddenly everyone wants medical attention. Has something to do with this bomb thing, I think."

The AntiChrist nodded. "One of my finer moments, if I do say so myself."

House frowned. "Your finer moments? Forgive me for racially profiling, but you don't look North Korean."

"Oh, no. For the moment I've chosen your standard Anglo-Saxon appearance. Makes things here go more smoothly, you know." The man laughed.

"Uh huh." House sat down, taking the weight off his aching leg, and popped a Vicodin. He had a feeling he'd need it. "And your normal appearance would be...?"

"Oh, your mind couldn't comprehend it. Melt your brain and send you into madness if you gazed upon it, see." He shrugged. "Always easier when dealing with humans to assume their shape, don't you think?"

"Absolutely." This made a great deal of sense to House, who had often been accused of being a supernatural creature stuffed into a human body.

The man blinked. "Oh, you told me your name and I forgot to give you mine. Rude of me. I'm the AntiChrist, Eater of Worlds, Collector of Souls, Prince of Damnation. You can call me Ed, though." He held out his uninjured hand.

House shook it. "Call me Greg." This was turning out to be the most interesting thing that had happened for years. "So, the arm. What happened to it?"

"I leaned against the roof of a car right after the blast. I'd forgotten how fragile these bodies are."

"You would, if you haven't had one in a few centuries," House agreed. "Could you hang on a sec? I'll just go get what I need."

The AntiChrist waved indulgently.

House grabbed his cane and limped across the tent to where Wilson was just finishing up. He stole a few items from Wilson's bag. "Wilson! Need you over here."

He led his friend back to the accountant-looking man in the cot. "James Wilson, meet Ed the AntiChrist. Ed, Jimmy."

Ed held out his hand. "A pleasure."

Wilson shook automatically. "Likewise, Mr...Antecrist?"

"AntiChrist," Ed corrected. "The AntiChrist. Call me Ed."

Wilson squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them hard. House wondered idly if Wilson believed that if he rubbed hard enough, a genie would pop out and end whatever was annoying him. "Okaaaay."

House jerked a thumb at him. "Jimmy's Jewish. He doesn't believe in hell and the devil and cool theological stuff like that." He sat down and watched the fun like a Roman at the Coliseum.

Ed brightened. "One of God's Chosen! You people are notoriously hard to corrupt, you know." He lowered his voice and leaned in. "I get extra points for Jews, you know, on account of your integrity. I don't suppose you'd want to donate your soul? Just as a favor?"

Wilson sighed. "Actually, no. I have plans for it later."

Ed sighed back. "I thought not. It's that darned Jewish independence. That's exactly why I don't work Brooklyn and Palm Springs."

"This has been fun, but I do have patients waiting. I'm sure you two have a lot in common, considering you both hail from the same place." Wilson shot one more put-upon look at House for good measure and went back to work.

House busied himself cleaning and bandaging the burn on Ed's arm. He was just about to ask what the fair market value would be for the soul of a slightly cynical, people-hating, atheistic diagnostician when a middle-aged woman in a nurse's uniform hurried up.

"There you are, Ed!" She bustled up and shook a finger at him. "You just disappeared on me again." She smiled up at House. "Thank you for tending to that burn for me."

"And you would be...?"

"Amanda. I work night shift at St. Ignatius' Home. Ed lives there." She shook her head. "We evacuated this morning. Ed was on my bus, we all got off, and all of a sudden he's gone missing." She took Ed's uninjured arm. "Come on, Ed. Let's go join the rest of the group."

"Nice to have met you, Greg," Ed said, waving cheerfully over his shoulder.

"Back atcha, Ed." House waved back, disappointed. He'd hoped to parlay Ed into an afternoon of loafing, and besides, he was interesting, unlike anything else going down around here.

Oh well. He hadn't come off badly. After all, how many people were on a first-name basis with the Prince of Darkness?

HHHHHHHHHHHHHH

House had lost track of Wilson at some point during the day and had therefore had to eat lunch alone for the first time in forever. That was bad. On the bright side, he'd managed to avoid most real work by limping around and "checking" on patients all day. That was good. When someone would ask him to do something, he'd simply clutch his leg and fake a cramp. Eventually, a nice nurse or sympathetic orderly always led him to a chair, where he'd sit until the danger of work went bye-bye. All things considered, not a bad day at all. Still, it was well past dark when the next shift of doctors came in to take over. Far past House's usual 4pm quitting time, but that was okay. No electricity meant no L-Word, anyway.

He showered and changed into a clean set of scrubs, grabbed two MREs, then headed for the tent he shared with Wilson. He saw that Wilson was already in bed, curled up with his back to House's side, asleep. He had separated the sleeping bags, House noticed with a frown.

Tonight's feast was chicken breast, peas, mashed potatoes with gravy and lemon sponge cake, Wilson's favorite. And, unfortunately for him, House's favorite, too. He practically lived for lemon sponge cake. He figured he'd let Wilson just start on the cake before stabbing his own fork into it and claiming it for himself. Being woke up so abruptly would slow the younger man's reflexes, giving House the competitive edge that was so important in contact sports.

He splatted gracelessly on his sleeping bag and was just about to poke Wilson into wakefulness when he heard the sound. It wasn't one of Wilson's usual sleep noises-House was familiar with all of them. He listened and it came again. No, the quiet hitch of breath was definitely new, especially when followed by an almost inaudible sniffle.

Oh shit. Wilson was crying. House shifted uncomfortably on his sleeping bag. Not the most compassionate person in the world, he didn't deal well with crying people. Normally, he'd deal with it by getting Wilson to deal with it, but that wouldn't help here and now.

Wilson was the most sensitive man House knew, but he didn't cry often. He couldn't operate at full sensitivity and still be an effective oncologist, but House had very occasionally seen a tear or two escape when a favorite patient died. Otherwise, Wilson had turned on the waterworks on two occasions: when his first wife had kicked him out for good and during his young cousin's funeral. Otherwise, Wilson was the rock that everyone else clung to.

House ripped open his MRE. Let it go. The Boy Wonder will be fine. Better to let him work whatever it was out on his own. He'll be okay by morning and there'll be no awkward there-there-chin-up scenes that I'd just fuck up anyway.

It was better this way. Really.

He started in on his mashed potatoes when a memory hit him. There had been a third time he'd seen Wilson cry. It was hazy and pain-addled, but he distinctly remembered waking up from his infarction surgery, after his heart had stopped, to see tears streaming down Wilson's cheeks. He'd been so quiet, sitting there beside the bed, but through his pain House had heard the same hitching breaths and soft sniffles his friend was making now.

He set the meal aside and turned toward Wilson. "Hey. I got a meal for you."

"Not hungry right now."

"Want to tell me what happened that got the big bad doc's tightie whities in a wad?" Hm. That hadn't come out right.

Wilson turned over to face him. Damn. It would be easier to talk to his back and not have to see his swollen eyes and wet cheeks. "This woman this morning... her husband was killed yesterday and her ten-year-old died on the table last night. I was working on her five-year-old daughter, but I knew she wasn't going to make it. The last thing on Earth this woman had and I couldn't save her. So after the child died the woman smiled at me, thanked me for everything I did, and-" His breath hitched again and he took a moment to compose himself. "They found her about an hour later, in the woods. I guess she'd broken a bottle and used the pieces."

Not knowing the proper reply, House shifted again, bringing his body a few inches closer to Wilson's. "If you couldn't do anything, no one could, " he said finally. "You were there with that woman and sometimes that's enough. You didn't make her choice." He wanted to say so much more, but Wilson was sitting up now, looking at him. He handed over the unopened MRE. "Here, crybaby. Eat it or I swear I'll slip it into your shorts in the middle of the night."

Wilson wiped his face on his napkin and tore open the meal. "Thanks."

They ate in companionable silence, shoulders just touching. House stole glances at Wilson whenever the other man wasn't looking. His eyes were still red and he still wasn't quite the old James Wilson.

House sighed mentally and came to a decision. I guess he's worth it.

"Here." He handed Wilson his lemon sponge cake.

Wilson looked over, surprised out of his depression. "You're giving me food?" His eyes narrowed. "What'd you do to it?"

House shrugged. "Licked it. Wiped my armpits with it. Dropped it on the ground. Rolled it around in dogshit."

"So, the usual."

"Yeah."

"Cool." Wilson split the cake in half and gave one to House. "Thanks." He ate his piece in small, bites, savoring the taste.

"Don't mention it." He downed his half in one bite and shook the crumbs on Wilson's sleeping bag.

They used a bottle of water and government-issued toothbrushes that thankfully did not have "Property of US Government" stamped on them.

Wilson dragged his sleeping bag back to lay next to House's. "Do you mind?" he asked.

House gave what he hoped was a casual "Nah. Cold tonight." He relaxed when he felt Wilson's warmth pressing against his back.

They were silent for a moment, then:

"Just so this isn't too gay, Wilson, I'm pretending you're Halle Berry right now."

Wilson snickered. "Fair enough. I'm pretending you're Anna Kournikova."

House opened his mouth to say that he doubted that Halle Berry was the owner of the sizeable package pressed up against his lower back, but thought better of it. That comment might embarrass Wilson into moving away and he definitely did not want that.

"Hey, Jimmy?"

"Huh?"

"Wouldn't it be weird if Halle Berry and Anna Kornikova were in bed together right now pretending they were with us?"

Wilson's answering laugh, deep and sleepy in his ear, made him grin in the dark where no one could see.

Wouldn't you shit twice and die if you knew that if Halle Berry was here I'd be pretending she was you?

END PART FOUR