Blue Milk is Best Served Cold
This fan fiction was inspired by the episode "Safe", but the idea for the entire story happened during a fan forum fun posting game with a very enthusiastic member code-named "Mrs. House". One thing led to another, and right before our very eyes was a potential for a fan fiction with a premise that was too good to pass up. What makes this unique was that the plot conspirators are separated not by the anonymity of the internet, but also by a lot of water: yours truly in Asia, "Mrs. House" in the USA.
Dr. James Wilson was going to kill him.
He jumped up from the couch—never mind that he was "tracking" on the floor—and stomped towards the master bedroom. By the time he reached the door, Wilson had mentally broken his Hippocratic Oath with many different ways of torturing one Dr. Gregory House.
Wilson opened the door in a dramatic display of rage, which fizzled the moment he realized the room was empty. Frustrated, he was about to sit on House's bed in retaliation when he heard his pager go off.
"Shit!"
He ran out of the room to answer his pager, which he left on the table next to the couch. If the page wasn't urgent, he'll mop up the mess he left on the floor. Duty calls…
As he read the brief message flashing across the green LED, he suddenly remembered; House isn't really going to get away with it. Well, technically, House wasn't going to get away with filching his food and letting him wait outside the flat for hours. For today's transgression, he's cooking up a new one that's sure to teach House a lesson, but first…
Later that night, two men were watching television in companionable silence. Neither of them was concentrating on the show, and if you asked them the next day what they watched that night, they wouldn't have remembered save for a scene here or there.
The usually expressive face of Dr. Gregory House is free of emotion for most of the show. He is mulling over the events that happened that day and some discoveries he'd made in the job and out of it. As a man who doesn't need a recap of the night's success story with the immuno-compromised and promiscuous teenaged patient, it is the latter that was making him wool-gathering.
He had to hand it to Jimmy. To the rest of the world, he's the teddy bear oncologist, Dr. Approachable. The seemingly mild mannered oncologist had something up his sleeve to admire, after all.
Of course, he shouldn't have been so surprised. The man was a veteran of three divorces, with one more coming soon after his wife, Julie, beat her own husband to the cheating line.
Then again, he could always attribute it to beginner's luck.
House shifted his weight on Wilson's pillow to a comfortable stance as he tried to focus in on the show.
Wilson could've knocked him over on the head with the bits that was left of House's cane, but that would've spoiled the whole operation. Eventually, the hint of a promise/threat of a lengthy shower forced House to call it a night.
"And don't forget to clean up the couch, Spot," House added as a parting shot.
"Well, you made me do it!" Wilson parried—House would've been suspicious if he didn't. "And you soiled my pillow, too!" he added as an afterthought.
"Hey, it's your pee-pee! You know what they say—Give back to Caesar what is owed to Caesar," House replied cheekily before slamming the bedroom door.
Wilson just smirked. As he cleaned up, he reflected on the quick dinner they shared before calling it a night. He ought to pat himself on the back, and if Cuddy knew about his plan, she ought to give him a pay raise…
House almost couldn't sleep, but he wanted to make sure that Wilson was completely asleep before making his move. Sawing through his cane and violating his couch made House wary to get caught in the act of filching Wilson's food from his own refrigerator. The irony wasn't lost on him.
During dinner, House spotted a new carton of dairy goodness—chocolate milk, to be precise—but just as he was about to swipe it from the fridge…
"Touch the chocolate milk, and cane production and sales will hit the roof," Wilson said quietly.
House stopped in his tracks. "What's that got to do with--?"
Wilson looked meaningfully at the cane House had to bandage up after it snapped in half under him. House took the hint immediately. This required a night air raid…
So the best offensive move he made was to retreat and wait for Wilson the Hun to start on his beauty sleep before making his move. Its his fridge, after all, and with Wilson about to make the move, he'll take a chance while he's still here to provide the sustenance.
And just in case, he hid the special occasions cane in a secret place…
A beeper sounded off in the living room.
House's eyes opened. He'd dozed off, but briefly, if his reading of the digital alarm clock was correct. Apparently, he didn't have to wait for Wilson to knock out. Hopefully, he received a code red and won't have to bring the chocolate milk with him.
He could've identified Wilson's progression from waking up to departure just from the racket he made. It's a miracle the neighbors didn't call the riot police—Wilson could've single-handedly waken up the John Doe coma patient in the 17th floor if given the chance. If that happened, where's he going to watch his soaps and Monster truck jams in peace?
Finally, Wilson left the building.
House waited for Wilson's car to rev out and away before he got up. He popped in a Vicodin as he limped to a spare cane he hid in his closet—good thing he's always prepared for any eventuality.
He opened the door and made his way to the kitchen, noting that even the blanket and pillow Wilson used was neatly set up. Gotta hand it to Jimmy—even in life-threatening situations, he won't leave for the hospital without making sure the bed—or in this case, couch—is made. Wondering how fast Wilson folded the blanket before leaving, House reached the fridge.
As he opened the door of the refrigerator, House wondered if he should make a pre-order of 5 canes, just in case.
On the way to the hospital, Wilson flipped open his cellular phone and pressed a speed-dial button. After three rings, a click was heard and a voice slow and low with sleep said, "Hello?"
"Hello, sweetness!" House cooed as he reached in for the plastic blue container—he observed Wilson transferring the milk to this container during dinner. Now that he was awake, House figured that he'd take in some early morning TV time as well.
The TV was on, the couch reasonably sanitized & dry (otherwise Wilson wouldn't have slept in it), and a bottle of chocolate milk freshly pilfered from his own fridge. House switched to a late night repeat of "The New Yankee Workshop" as he took a generous swig from the bottle. He was halfway done with his drink when he heard a knock on the door.
House groaned. Wilson's back—did the man have the milk booby-trapped or something?
"Forgetting the key, I'd understand," House called out as he awkwardly lifted himself off the couch and hobbled to the door. "but leaving the hospital to check on the safety of your groceries? Wilson, honestly—"
House opened the door and was about to continue in his tirade when he paused, open-mouthed, in unguarded surprise. "Cameron?"
Dr. Allison Cameron didn't answer immediately, looking up at her boss as though he'd had a spontaneous hair re-growth the likes of which Robin Williams would've envied.
She snapped back to Earth, "I may have come at a bad time—"
"Well, about time you figured that ou—" House muttered when he felt something—stirring. He made a strange facial expression that momentarily alarmed the immunologist in front of him.
"What's wrong?" Cameron said, frowning in concern as she entered the apartment. The recent reckless behavior she'd witnessed House display conjured up all matter of medical scenarios with questionable ethical responsibilities that would've sent Cuddy into a rage.
"N-no, nothing," House replied in a low voice. Then, "Well, what're you doing here this time of night? Want to get your hundred bucks back?"
Cameron frowned at that.
House found himself focusing on her pouty little mouth.
"Wilson called me up," Cameron said. "He'd left his notes on one of the patients here, while he was rushing to answer a code. He couldn't come back for them, so he asked me to pick them up for him." Cameron looked at House closely—his pupils were dilated and he was kind of flushed. "Are you sure you're--?"
"I'm fine," House muttered—the body-hugging t-shirt Cameron was wearing at the moment looked very suggestive to him all of a sudden. He tried to sound sarcastic when he said, "He knows I'm here…"
"That's exactly why he called me to pick it up for him," Cameron interrupted him patiently. "I'm the only one he knows who lives the closest to you. Now if you don't mind—" Cameron made the rest of her statement clear by making her way inside the apartment past House, who wondered if jumping his subordinate would give Cuddy heart failure.
Wilson parked his car in front of a convenience store, humming tunelessly as he killed the engine and searched his pockets for a bottle of blue pills he surreptitiously bought at the hospital pharmacy yesterday. At the pharmacist's bemused look, Wilson said in a confidential tone, "It's for a friend of mine who's having trouble romantically, if you get my drift. He's taking his sweet time getting help from a professional, and I thought I'd lend him a hand, you know, to get him back into the swing of things…"
"Oh," the pharmacist answered in a knowing tone. He looked down at the number of pills Wilson requested and whistled softly. "That bad, huh?"
"You have no idea," Wilson replied with just the right intonation.
Wilson grinned cheekily as he locked the car and walked towards the convenience store. Technically, he didn't lie—House did need to get his head out of his ass and face the music and his feelings for Cameron. All he did was set up the "mood".
He wondered how long they're going to take—oh well.
As he reached the entrance of the store, he dumped the bottle of Viagra at the handy waste basket before entering the premises.