His eyes hurt. It was obscenely late at night, and he was on call for the Clinic emergency room. It was uncommon for the Head of Oncology to be reduced to something so menial, but every few months it was only fair to be thrown into the rotation. While he was sitting around doing nothing, he had decided to toil through some of his paperwork. It had a way of biting one in the ass if you ignored it.

This brought to mind his best friend, whose fear of a paper trail rivaled an embezzler's. It made him smile, just a little, even through the yellowish light of his desk lamp. He wrote another line on a report on a case of advanced melanoma in a very sweet fifty-year-old woman. Alone at 3 a.m., she seemed very far away. He was nearly dozing when there was a quick knock on his door and House pushed it open without an invitation.

He was still hazy as House sat down comfortably in the padded chair. "Nice piece of furniture you've got," House commented brightly. "What, you want them to have awesome posture when you tell them about the terminal leukemia?"

"What are you doing here? I thought that neither heaven nor hell could keep you past your assigned hours."

House seemed wounded. "Are you suggesting that I don't take pride in my work? I'm certain that I'm helping to better the world." After a little answering chuckle, House explained, "I heard you had the graveyard shift and I decided to keep you from straying from the straight and narrow path. You're a regular narcoleptic after midnight. How did you live through med school?"

He rubbed his temples with a groan. "Caffeine and the promise of giving a supermodel a physical."

"I remember that being in the syllabus somewhere," House nodded sagely. "Lying bastards, the lot of them." There was silence for a bit, as he ticked off boxes on an allergy card. "Whatcha doing?" House asked.

"Work. I know, an alien concept for you."

"You're not very nice, you know? What would that chick from accounting think?" House chided, twirling his cane between his fingers.

"You're not so nice yourself."

"I find that offensive. You're the host, here. Be more host-y."

"I don't have to-" He paused as his beeper went off. It was the front office paging him for an emergency operation.

As he hesitated, House settled his chin on his cane and suggested, "I think you should get scrubbed up."

"I know. I was just trying to enjoy this for a bit more." He took a deep breath, laughed at himself, and Wilson walked out of his empty office.

It wasn't as though House would ever come to keep him company...because House didn't care about anyone but himself.

I wrote this because it was really late and I was tired and now it's one thirty and I'm still tired but I've accomplished something with my staying up.

This turned out more sad than I intended. And you know that you expected something to be off, just from the writing... Review, please!