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'HEY, CYCLOPS!'

Wilson sighed, already resignedly putting down his pen and looking up to the familiar sight that he was usually greeted with, AKA the limping twerp that was currently vaulting the partitioning wall outside to gracefully land on his balcony and proceed to yank the glass door open to the previously tranquil office.

'Original, House. Sorry to disappoint, but three kids on the ward have already beaten you to that one.'

'I'm surprised they didn't run away screaming,' observed House dryly as he plonked himself down in his usual spec on the couch, eying Wilson's red, swollen, pus-oozing eye with distaste, 'Seriously… 'terrifying' doesn't even cover it. You could tell your baldies that your eye had blown up right there in your head, and they'd believe you.'

'Cheers, friend. I feel much better.'

House felt a rare stab of sympathy for his friend then – it was quite clear that Wilson was totally fed up with having his eye the way it was. He'd been bathing it with gauze and sterile water, hoping against hope that the eye drops wouldn't be needed, resisting the urge to rub away the constant, gritty itch that distracted him constantly from his work and his patients.

And yet, sadly, his home treatment didn't appear to be working… if anything, House was quite certain he was only making it worse.

It looked sore.

Of course, the solution was quite simple…

'No,' stated Wilson firmly at the tiny bottle of hated eye drops House whipped out of his pocket then and set down on the corner of the desk, feeling the panic squeezing his stomach at the very sight of them. He didn't know why he hated them, he couldn't remember ever being on the receiving end of some horrifying experience that had totally averted him to the necessary treatment, but all he knew, right now, was that he was not going to voluntarily drop something into his eye that would make it sting even more than it already was.

'You need them.'

'I'm fine.'

'Is that your default answer for everything?'

'I'm fine.'

'You're clearly not.'

'I am. And anyway, it's my eye.'

'And they're my ears!'

'And it's got nothing to do with – hang on, what?' asked Wilson, confused now as to why House's ears of all things had suddenly entered into this conversation.

'I said,' began House, speaking to Wilson in a deliberately slow, patronizing voice, 'AND. THEY'RE. MY. E-'

'Yeah, yeah, I got that, idiot – what have your ears got to do with my eye?'

'You whining about it has grated through them to turn my brain to mush,' said House simply.

'I don't whine,' retorted Wilson automatically, feeling the heat tellingly rising to his cheeks as he spoke. He had moaned about his eye, of course he had – who wouldn't when it was absolute torture to put up with? And who best to moan to but your best friend, for God's sake?

Not that he was about to admit any of that to House.

'Well my bleeding ears, and your beautifully blushing cheeks, beg to differ.'

Wilson had no comeback to that, feeing more dejected than ever now, his voice clipped as he picked up his pen and pointedly turned his attention back to his notes.

'If your going to just sit there moaning about me, then I suggest you go back to your team and do the 'work' Cuddy pays you to do, if that's what lording it over your minions constitutes these days.'

'Oh, come on, Wilson, suck it up – will you just do the damn eye drops, already?'

'No.'

'Then you give me no choice, I'm afraid.'

'In what, exactly?' asked Wilson incredulously, unable to help looking up again to stare first at House, following his gaze down to the ominous eye drops, before flitting back up to House again.

And then it clicked.

Quite horribly so.

His snatching fingers weren't quite quick enough to beat House, who whipped the eye drops from Wilson's desk with startling speed, the supposedly 'crippled' Diagnostician jumping to his feet faster than Wilson could say 'Vicodin' as he shot past the front of Wilson's desk in a scruffy blur to block his main exit out into the corridor, cornering the wide-eyed Oncologist behind the desk of his own office.

'You wouldn't dare,' breathed Wilson tensely, hands braced against the desk in front of him as he spoke to House, never breaking eye contact and simultaneously trying to work out his chances of a successful escape if he simply bolted from his office, fleeing onto the balcony and over into the relative safety House's office next door.

'Ah, but Wilson… after all these years, you know I would,' pointed out House devilishly, the glint in his eye nothing short of evil as he advanced on his prey.

Wilson had no choice… he knew that look.

It was the same deadly expression that filled the vision of most TV murder victims as they had the life squeezed out of them at the hands of their killer, those evil eyes the last thing they saw before their world faded to black, wishing they'd just bloody well ran instead of putting up a fight.

Luckily, Wilson wasn't so stupid.

He made a break for it, his chair crashing loudly into the cabinet behind him as he flung himself around the desk, past the couch and towards the balcony, hearing the telling clatter of his prestigious awards, certificates, qualifications, teddy… everything came crashing down behind him as he ran, his ears ringing with the almighty roar that House unleashed as he tailed Wilson in practically falling out of the door and out onto the balcony in their frenzied chase:

'GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'

Wilson was over the wall now, not having a fucking clue as to what House was yelling about, concentrating only on landing on his feet to throw himself across House's balcony and yank his office door open, thanking Christ for small mercies that he would be able to escape this limping nutter he called his best friend once he'd escaped into the land of witnesses, that sacred place also known as the corridor-

'Oof-'

'GOTCHA!'

Wilson wasn't quite sure of the exact point he slammed straight into the solid form of a blond, good-looking Australian, his world suddenly blotted out thanks to a crushing face full of Chase, the two men stumbling forth before falling heavily to the floor in front of House's desk in a tangle of white Doctor's coats that saw a winded, startled Wilson flattened as Foreman and Cameron proceeded to jump in too, the whole ambush nothing but a horrible blur as Wilson tried and failed to cry out, attempting to wriggle out of their iron grips and getting absolutely nowhere.

It didn't take a genius to work out that House's yell at been the signal to prepare the ducklings for phase two of this plan.

The four of them only came to a standstill once a panting Wilson was eventually immobilized, a disheveled Chase holding his legs down and Foreman and Cameron pinning each of his arms to the carpeted floor…

And the three of them looked mortified.

Wilson sighed, giving up and letting his head loll back to the floor, where his gaze came to rest on the upside-down view of the madman who had masterminded this cunning little plan.

'You're an ass.'

'My thoughts exactly,' replied House cheerfully, limping around his best friend to stand next to Cameron, who looked so guiltily apologetic that Wilson couldn't help but reassure her, even from beneath the death grip she had on his right arm.

'You work for a sadistic jerk who has nothing better to do with his time than obsess over his ex-best friend at every given moment. It's only inevitable that he'll steamroll you into doing something totally idiotic to your next door Department Head every once in a while.'

'Now, now, Jimmy, honey, you know we shouldn't argue in front of the kids,' reprimanded House, taking a moment to step back and survey the scene before him, silently pondering his next move as Wilson rolled his eyes and stared resignedly at the ceiling.

He needed a course of action that would keep Wilson's legs utterly useless, whilst at the same time keeping his arms pinned and his head totally still…

It shocked all of them, even Wilson, when House proceeded to step forth and positively straddle the Oncologist, discarding his cane so he could slowly lower himself until he was sitting across the middle of his friend.

'Wh-what are you doing?' stammered Wilson, having gone bright red now at the sudden proximity of House, who had totally kept his cool as he fished the eye drops from his pocket to idly place them on Wilson's chest.

'Thought we could spice this up with a little man-on-man action,' explained House, 'Cause, you see Jimmy, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. I mean, did you know it's the only thing that there's just too little of?'

'Shut up.'

'And, you know it's what the people wanna see-'

'Shut up.'

'Are we doing this today or not?' interjected Foreman irately, fed up now of kneeling on the floor to partake in restraining a man he both admired and respected, if not for the work he did then for the way he handled his screwed up boss.

Plus, Cuddy would be less than impressed if she walked in on the five of them to discover what could only appear to be some strange little game of foreplay that had broken out in the Diagnostics Department.

'Killjoy,' muttered House, smirking at the tiny smile that played on Wilson's lips beneath him and offering him a quick wink before straightening up again and wiping his face clean as he dished out instructions that would keep their prey totally helpless.

'Cameron – stay where you are. Chase – take over from Foreman and keep Wilson's arm pinned. I've got his legs covered. Foreman, you take Wilson's head and hold him still while I do the drops.'

Wilson, for his part, felt like an extra on an acting set – there to look pretty and do nothing else, totally forgotten about for most of it.

'You can't make me open my eyes,' he declared as the ducklings followed their newest order, shooting House a victorious look before settling down again to allow his eye lids to drift shut, knowing that even House wouldn't be so mean as to forcefully open the lid of his sore eye.

'A hundred bucks says I can make you open your legs-'

'House!' admonished Cameron, her face flaming at the crude comment, wondering how the hell Wilson put up with this crap every day of his life – bar his face going the tiniest bit pinker, he'd barely even flinched, let alone open his eyes.

'House, if you think that you can shock me into opening my eyes, then you're going to be sorely disappointed,' stated Wilson defiantly from beneath the Diagnostician, stubbornly determined to keep his eyes shut to any and all eye drops forced on him at the hands of the idiot currently straddling him, 'You've made too many 'gay' comments to surprise me these days, nothing you say now will make me open my eyes for you and those damned eye drops. Accept your defeat now, with what little dignity you have left still intact, or face Cuddy's wrath when she walks in here to find you harassing – actually, scrap that – assaulting her Head of Oncology. The choice is yours, my friend.'

The logistical smirk on Wilson's face that just emanated victory was doing nothing but fuelling House's desire to win at this point. He needed to win, and he needed to win quickly, before Wilson's quite reasonable plan of waiting this out until Cuddy came walking on in became a reality and the extra clinic hours on House's head sky-rocketed.

This called for drastic action.

'Foreman, let go of his head and take these,' requested House seriously, relinquishing his grip on the coveted eye drops to place his own hands on either side of Wilson's head, his gaze serious as he entrusted the vital part of this plan to his unofficial head duckling, 'As soon as Wilson opens his eyes, you are to place one drop of that into the sore one. You will not sit there in shock, you will not delay in that action for any reason, you will not waste the five second time frame we'll have to do this – you will simply follow my instruction immediately and then afterwards react however the hell you want to what I am about to do. Is that clear?'

Foreman nodded uncertainly, uncapping the lid from the eye drops, wondering simultaneously just what House was about to do to Wilson that was so horrifying that he might me too shocked to move.

He found out two seconds later.