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"I'm looking to get something on House," Wilson said with a determined look.

"Couldn't you just... Ask the love nymphs for the secret?" Chase said.

"Don't." Wilson cut in before he'd fully finished the sentence. "My mission is to find something that House would not like to see made public, and make it public."

"In." Chase looked confused yet intrigued. "But you know him better than anyone. Why do you need my help?"

"House would never leave something secret around the condo. But you've worked in the same office with him, on and off, for years. Think back. Was there any odd phone calls or visitors from the past?"

"Heopenlybrings prostitutes into the Hospital," Chase cut in, "and he gambles with bookies 'cause he's too lazy to go to the OTB. I don't think there's anything he'd want to keep hidden."

Wilson leaned back slightly in his chair in defeat. Chase looked at him expectantly.

"We could at least try. Let's just look around his office, see what we might find," Wilson said.

"Well, I don't know of any place where he'd keep something hidden. Except his lupus book but we checked that after he sobered up," Chase said.

Wilson thought for a moment. Then he furrowed his eyebrows as he focused on a thought.

"Then, we'll just have to look everywhere except those places."

Despite neither of them knowing what they were searching for, or where they should be looking, Chase still tried to help Wilson. He seemed intrigued enough by even the smallest chance of finding something on House.

They searched the office from top to bottom. It wasn't hard seeing as House spent most of his time avoiding the room either way. They searched every drawer, file and carny. Even the more obvious places weren't left. When they hadn't found anything Wilson checked the drawers and books for secret compartments but found nothing.

Well… not nothing. They found plenty of things any normal human being might feel embarrassed about, but nothing that would even put a dent in House's self-esteem or his (already rather beat up) image.

Wilson had been ready to give up when Chase had insisted they'd search the apartment too. Despite Wilson's conviction that they'd find nothing there, he managed to persuade him to take the long shot. It wasn't like they had anything to lose. Which led them to the condo where they dug through House's half-unpacked things, hoping for a miracle.

"We're not going to find anything here," Wilson said. "I already told you, I've looked. I wouldknowif there was something here."

"C'mon. He's got to havesomesecret. It's not at the office, so it must be here." Chase flickered through a book looking over the pages as they flipped by.

Wilson sighed and lifted House's mattress to look under it. He dragged a hand over the underside, hoping to feel a cut made to cram something into.

"It wouldn't surprise me if House had some… secret bank box under a fake name somewhere where he kept all personal stuff," Wilson said frustrated. "If he even has anything left to be embarrassed about."

"We don't know until we try," Chase argued.

He sighed and let down the mattress again, putting his hands on his hips. The room had been messy even before they began but he tried to return anything he'd touched to how it had been before.

"I am trying!" Wilson said. He watched as Chase flickered through another book before putting it down in the cardboard box taking out the next one repeating the process. "Do you really think he'd hide something in a book?"

"He kept that extra bottle of Vicodin in a book," Chase said. "Perhaps he keeps more secrets hidden that way."

He put down a book and picked up another. House had an infinite amount of medical books. Chase could spend eternity flipping through them all and it would probably still lead to nothing. Wilson sighed and moved on to digging through an unpacked cardboard box of clothes instead. More fancy clothes, ones House rarely used and thus had been neglected to unpack thus far.

They kept at it for a while more. Chase had told Thirteen to send him a text if House left the hospital, as a warning, so they didn't have to fear House interrupting. Well, not overly much at least.

"Ha!" Chase exclaimed sometime later, which made Wilson's head snap up. "I was right. The golden ticket."

Chase held up a small photograph between his thumb and forefinger. There was a proud grin on his face. His other hand held onto a book with its last page flipped open.

Wilson rounded a few boxes to see what Chase had found more specifically. Chase held out the picture for Wilson to see. For a moment, he actually felt shocked by the motive.

"That'sHouse?"

"No doubt about it."

There really was no mistaking it. He had very characteristic facial features, and with those big eyes, it could only be him or a doppelganger. But House in the picture looked little like the House Wilson knew.

He was much younger. Quite a lot younger—younger than Wilson had ever seen him in real life— though a bit similar to how he'd looked the first time Wilson met him.

House in the photo stood on a stage wearing a revealing outfit consisting of a corset-like black sparkly top, with matching underwear for pants. Additionally, he wore stockings, an astonishingly big pearl necklace and even a bit of a leather strap moment going on. His eyes were framed by eyeliner and his lips seemed darker than usual. He struck a rather strange pose too. There was another boy in a similar outfit behind him to the right, but House was in focus at the centre of the photo with the stage lights shining right on him.

"He was a theatre kid?" Wilson asked still shocked.

"So it would seem," Chase said, looking at the picture with an amused glint in his eyes.

"I know little in this world can embarrass House, but I'm sure even he can't withstand this."

A collage of House's most embarrassing situations flashed through Wilson's brain and purely from instinct alone he sceptically asked:

"Are you sure?"

"Why else would he hide it?" Chase said with a shrug. "Much less the back of a mediocre medical book from the eighties."

Wilson nodded once. They had found what they were looking for. Now they only had to make sure House didn't find out about their snooping before they could finish putting their plan to work.

"Let's use it."

A/N

Thank you for reading!

Crossposting this on AO3

Warnings:

Minor Character Death, AIDS

Also just about anything honestly... Basically, canon typical jargon. It's House.

Author does not stand for any hate crimes or insults in the fic.