Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. You couldn't get enough to justify the legal fees!
A/N: This chapter isn't quite what it was supposed to be, but I think I kept the OOCness to a minimum. Or at least, I hope! Please read and review.
"You don't remember?" House asked cautiously. As fanatical as Wilson was about his hair, this could easily lead to taking shots from a clock tower, as Wilson had once thought him capable.
"If I remembered, would I have shouted at you, even at the risk of shattering both our heads?! What the hell happened last night?"
House tried to clear the fog from his mind. Nothing had ever gotten him as drunk as a relatively small amount of that hillbilly kid's homemade hooch had. "I remember watching the movie. The one where Gary Sinese had that bar full of hostages. Then we were playing a game with cards…Do you owe me money?"
Wilson gave him a withering look. "Would I admit to that, even if I remembered?" He went back to the mirror to examine the bright green hue his hair had acquired. "What am I going to do?! I can't go back to work like this!"
House groaned as he rolled over to sit up, and was pleasantly surprised to find that his leg didn't hurt all that bad. Chalk one up to the Kentucky paramedic. That kid could make some good stuff! "Look, first off, take a shower. Maybe when we did that, we were in enough of our right minds to get the wash-out stuff. Then, if it doesn't, we'll figure that out next." He wished Wilson would hurry and leave the room. He was trying so hard not to laugh, he was almost unable to breathe.
Unfortunately, Wilson shed his t-shirt before he left the bedroom, and House had one more astounding sight to take in before Wilson disappeared from sight. "Oh, SHIT!"
Wilson, who had just turned the corner stuck his head back around when House spoke. "What? What now?"
House was so shocked that it took him a moment to catch his breath, and Wilson's expression got more and more frightened by the millisecond. Finally, he got enough air to speak. "A tattoo?! Under your shoulder blade! Shit, Jimmy, what got into us last night?!"
Wilson's eyes got so wide, House thought his eyeballs would just fall out of their sockets and roll under the bed. "WHAT?!?" Wilson exclaimed, making a good attempt at the physiologically impossible task of looking at his own back. House got out of the bed, noticing he was also in jeans, and his t-shirt was inside-out. He put a firm grip on Wilson's bare shoulders, effectively holding him still to inspect the swollen area, new to the pale flesh.
Wilson stopped squirming and trying to see. "What is it?" he asked with a groan.
House couldn't resist messing with him a little. "It's a heart. Who's Joyce?"
If possible, Wilson's eyes got even wider, and in a moment of clarity, he turned his back to the mirror. He sighed with something like relief. "It's a caduceus."
"Not so bad, huh?" he was still on alert for a meltdown, but he was surprised.
"No, not so bad. I was actually thinking about getting one, just never had the guts to do it. Now's as good a time as any."
House nodded, but took in the way his friend flinched when he gently prodded the tender flesh. "Hurt?" he asked.
Wilson nodded. "A little. Kinda feels like a really bad sunburn."
House grinned and shook his head. James Wilson with a tattoo, who would have thought? He patted Wilson's shoulder reassuringly. "Get in the shower. I'll be back, and we'll see what we can do about your hair."
Wilson looked embarrassed, but still a little worried. Somewhere between the green hair and the tattoo, he felt sure he had accomplished his goal of not being himself for a while. He nodded again, unsure of what to say, then shed his pants on the way to the shower. "Fix your shirt!" he called over his shoulder to House.
House turned his shirt right-side-out, and actually waited until he heard the shower running before he collapsed on the bed laughing.
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The shower did nothing to help Wilson's hair, but it did a lot for his mind and body. He was less nauseated, the throbbing in his head had died down, and if it didn't look like he had celery growing from his head, he would be totally relaxed. He honestly wasn't that upset about the tattoo. It would make a nice souvenir from this adventure. The hair, however, was troubling. It would be sincerely embarrassing to explain, and how would he even begin to explain it to his patients? House would just make something up about making a deal with a patient that when her hair fell out, he would color his green, but he just couldn't bring himself to lie to dying people.
And of course, he was aware that he was an attractive man. House was always giving him a hard time about trying to look his best, but it was just a part of him. It was one of the few things within his control that made him feel good about himself. In fact, it was a little troubling how apathetic he actually was. If he was back home and this happened when he was sleeping over with House, he would have completely spazzed out, and made an emergency hair appointment. He would have given House hell over it until he was back to normal and then some. And speaking of which, where was House?
He sat sprawled out on the bed, flipping through channels until House returned, holding a bag from Walgreens .He pulled out a tub of Vasoline first. "Lose the shirt, Jimmy."
He looked at House strangely. "Why, Greg, no flowers, or even dinner first? What kind of lady do you think I am?"
House rolled his eyes. "It's for your tattoo, moron! You have to keep this on it until it heals, so it doesn't dry out. Hold still."
Wilson pulled off his fresh t-shirt and turned his back to House, allowing him to rub the soothing gel onto the irritated flesh. It actually felt good. Once that was done, House took two boxes out of the bag. "Which one looks more like your natural color?" He asked Wilson, holding up two boxes of hair dye.
"What?" asked Wilson. "We're going to dye it brown again?"
"Do you have a better idea? Sit down!"
House had dragged a chair to the middle of the floor and limped to the sink to mix the hair color. Wilson grabbed some towels from the bathroom, and stood behind him to watch. When he didn't look completely lost at what he was doing, Wilson asked him about it. "Why do you look like you've done this before?"
House smirked. "What? Fixed a bad dye job after a night of drinking? Could be because I have. Stacy did this a time or two. I had to fix it for her. Remember that time she became a redhead?"
"Uh, yeah, but that looked horrible!"
"Well, it was better than the yellow-orange that it covered. Now, hold still. I'll have you back to looking like a respectable doctor in no time."
Wilson pulled a towel around his shoulders, and tried to relax. How bad a job could House do, really? It wasn't like it could get any worse.
