Ch 18: The Rules of Fame and Infamy

House lounged around his apartment in his boxers and socks for the better part of the day on Sunday, having spent the previous night wrapped up in his fiancé. She had dismissed him to get some things done regarding Rachel and her house early in the morning, much to his displeasure, so he had decided to rebel a bit. He considered skiving off work the next day, but his patient was becoming sicker and more interesting, and his team seemed to be barely holding together, so he resigned to pouting into a bottle of beer with Wilson Sunday night.

"I think Foreman's cheating," he disclosed as his best friend and star oncologist settled in with their large pepperoni pizza.

"On you?" Wilson asked. "That whore."

"No, not on me…he'd better not be dipping into another diagnostician's team, anyway. I think he's stepping out on Thirteen."

"Why are you so interested?" the younger man asked around a bit of the gooey goodness that was their dinner.

"She told me he was meeting with a drug rep," House said significantly.

"So."

"So, she's not invited to come along," House replied, sinking his teeth into a slice as well. "Ebony and Ivory are near calling it splits! They'll never have a montage of caramel and toffee offspring!"

"That's a tragedy in your world, is it?" Wilson asked, one eyebrow raised. "I know you like to get inside people's heads, but maybe you should leave this one alone. Unless you want to have to find another team, that is."

"Well I could do with replacing Taub…" House mused.

"Why don't you focus on your relationship with Cuddy to take your mind off things?"

"She reminds me of work. I work with Foreman and Thirteen…"

"Not for long, if you keep this fanatical nonsense up."

"Well what am I supposed to do? Let him ruin a perfectly good thing just so he can get a few tabs of hydrocodone out of some sleazy hospital scrounger?" House asked.

"You didn't seem to have a problem with 'sleazy hospital scroungers' when you were the one getting the drugs out of the deal," Wilson pointed out.

"That's different. I wasn't involved."

Wilson rolled his eyes skyward and replied by pointedly biting into another slice of pizza. House narrowed his eyes, but let Wilson stew for a bit, ignoring him in favor of food and the cheesy porn he had rented from the video store. "You going to keep your thoughts to yourself, now?" Wilson asked finally after nearly ten minutes where the only sound in the apartment was a blonde bimbo yelling out 'oh yes, yes oh yes!' to a guy with a mullet as he pounded into her ass. "Might be a nice change actually," the oncologist thought aloud.

"I'd be more inclined to talk if you were interested in the subject matter," House said shortly. "You used to be more fun!"

"And you used to be single. I hope this isn't another ploy to throw Cuddy off track with the wedding by focusing all your energy on some miniscule thing Foreman is doing in his relationship. If you really want her…"

"I know," House cut him off. "I've got to keep her happy…blah, blah, blah!" It was his turn to roll his eyes. "This isn't about my fiancé or approaching nuptials."

"Ok," Wilson replied. "Just wanted to be sure you had YOUR best interests in mind."

"Yes, Mommy," House said sarcastically. He sighed. "This porno is a bust. We should order the expensive stuff next time. Or find one with Asian girls." Wilson didn't reply, figuring it was best to let House cool off in regard to their earlier discussion before going into a tirade about the declining quality of adult entertainment with the master of movies.

Monday was less than pleasing where work was concerned for the bored diagnostician. He found out that the patient's broken leg had stemmed from alcohol abuse mixed with a rare mushroom allergy and solved the case, before moving on to studying Foreman's interactions with his girlfriend. He was able to spot nothing out of the ordinary between the two and wondered if Thirteen had been overreacting to something the previous Friday. He sighed and turned on his television, watching whatever happened to come on until deciding that Cuddy would be more fun to focus on.

He sent his team off to scour the building for interestingly sick people, then headed down to her office, locked the doors, drew the blinds, and hung up the phone before she was done with her conversation with her sister about the next weekend's activities. Before she could question his motives, however, he had stripped down to his boxers and was waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Care for a midday romp?" he asked in a seductive a voice as he could manage.

Less than a minute later he had her spread out on her desk fully nude and was easing into her tight body. He took his frustration about the decidedly uninteresting quality of the Foreteen relationship and channeled it into animalistic enthusiasm and plunged into her over and again, harder and harder until she was practically screaming his name. His orgasm followed shortly after hers and he lay still inside her on the desk for fifteen minutes basking in the afterglow of their heated session.

"I've got a meeting at 1," she said breathlessly as she kissed his collarbone.

"I'll meet you in exam room 3 for round two at 2," he told her. Smirking to himself he returned to his floor in a good mood. He spotted Wilson going into his office and noticed the blood red tie and his heart nearly skipped a beat. Wilson always wore that tie when he was doing something he shouldn't be doing. It was a subconscious thing that House had yet to inform him about as it was very useful. House returned to his own office and tried to come up with something that would fit the tie mood.

It seemed his let down about the Foreteen situation had been replaced by a new mystery. House decided that he would get to the bottom of the tie situation, starting the moment his next session with Cuddy ended that afternoon.