Disclaimers, etc. in chapter 1.

A/N: The setting of this one is late college or early medical school, depending on whether advanced organic chemistry is part of medical school. House is 22 or 23. Also, many thanks to those who have reviewed! I appreciate knowing what you think about a scene or chapter. Gracias!

Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to stop my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and to go home, as I was seized by a peculiar restlessness associated with a sensation of mild dizziness. On arriving home, I lay down and sank into a kind of drunkenness which was not unpleasant and which was characterized by extreme activity of imagination. As I lay in a dazed condition with my eyes closed (I experienced daylight as disagreeably bright) there surged upon me an uninterrupted stream of fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity and vividness and accompanied by an intense, kaleidoscope-like play of colors. This condition gradually passed off after about two hours.

—Albert Hoffman, address given to Arthur Stoll, Sandoz pharmaceutical department head, regarding the initial synthesis of LSD-25, 22 April 1943

Hallucinogens I

Absorbed it through the skin, House thought with a smile as he worked, gloveless for the first time, in the one of the organic chem. labs.

It was late now. He hadn't eaten since lunch, hoping to avoid the on-set nausea he recalled from a few youthful experiences with mushrooms, but his stomach fluttered nevertheless. Judging by its beginning ten minutes ago, he only had another ten to wait before he wouldn't care much if he felt sick or not.

He'd paused to observe the substance for a moment when a voice from the doorway made him jump.

"Mr. House."

His heart raced. He hadn't even heard the door opening. But he was still in control enough of himself to affect an outward calm.

"Dr. Noyes," he answered.

"No gloves I see," Noyes said, strolling into the room with his hands behind his back. Noyes' fading Swiss accent drifted lazily across the cavernous room.

House could tell from Noyes' expression that his organic chem. professor knew exactly what he was doing.

"Oops," he responded, eyes leveled on the approaching man.

Noyes came to a stop and leaned against the lab station next to House's.

"You got pretty far along," Noyes said, not without some approval.

He glanced over the chemicals at House's station, though he didn't need to.

"Separated the isometric forms," he noted, "and added the tartaric acid."

"Just about finished," House confirmed.

Noyes eyed him critically. "And you could have been gone by now if you'd worn your gloves," he said. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Everyone wants to be Hoffman."

House smirked, knowing that if Noyes wanted to lecture, he'd simply have to wait it out. Noyes was long-winded and tended to keep a student around until he was finished with his spiel. But now some of House's suspicions about this experiment were beginning to make sense.

"I knew it was too easy," House said.

Noyes' settled into a thin-lipped smile.

"One of you tries it ever year," he said. "After the first ten, I learned it was easier to leave the Ergoline out in the spring rather than replace the glass pane in the supply cabinet annually and explain the matter to the dean. That man has the shortest memory…"

House had no plan for getting himself out of this situation. If anyone else had come upon him, he could have talked his way out of it. But not Noyes. The man had an uncanny ability to sense deception, particularly in his students, and he was the one person on the faculty who could glance at a set of chemicals and know what one was up to immediately. House hated him and admired him at the same time. But while he knew he couldn't get out of this situation, instinct told him he should try to anyway. He would keep Noyes talking. Maybe some loophole would present itself.

"How many finish?" House asked.

"About half," Noyes answered, his eyes traveling over the lab station, inspecting it for cleanliness. "With the others, I have this conversation before they cause any damage to themselves or school property."

Noyes' eyes returned to House's with something akin to a challenge in them.

Now House appraised Noyes. He knew someone had been tampering with his work. In fact, although Noyes' appearance had initially surprised him, he'd almost expected him to turn up sooner or later.

"I knew it," House said, unable to keep the discovery to himself. "The past two nights, I've put everything away on the first shelf instead of the second, and both times you put them back on the wrong shelf."

Noyes' smile widened just a bit. "Attention to detail, Mr. House," he said. "That's why you made it to the end."

House noticed the slight widening of Noyes' eyes in addition to the change in his smile.

"I'm the first one who's caught you," he said confidently.

"You're the first one who's said anything about it," Noyes parried, a small frown appearing in the corner of his eyes.

House's ego doubled: Noyes thought he was too sneaky to get caught and now that he had been, he was put out.

"So," House said, leaning forward over his successful experiment, "what do you typically do about these extracurricular activities?"

Noyes smiled. "To begin, you get a special final exam," he said. "In twenty years, only four students have passed it."

House made himself return Noyes' smile to cover the squeezing in his stomach, which had nothing to do with the LSD he'd synthesized this time.

Noyes checked his watch. "And since you've picked a good night to conclude your research, we will prepare the sample in accordance with custom—" he tossed a box of sugar cubes, produced from his jacket, on to the lab table "—and adjourn to my office. Tomorrow morning you may take one third of it away with you. I will dispose of the remainder."

House narrowed his eyes at Noyes but still saw no way around the man. Possession of a Schedule I substance meant jail time for him, but for Noyes, a renown professor with years of tenure?

Deciding that he liked the smarmy Swiss bastard after all, House donned a pair of gloves and slid an expectant dish over to Noyes and the sugar cube box.