Notice Anything?

House’s head was pounding, in time with the throbbing from his thigh. At least it wasn’t jackhammering, like it had been an hour ago; the Vicodin was good for something, at least. He mentally cursed at Wilson for the sixth time that morning—Wilson, that smooth-talking bastard who had somehow convinced him that karaoke would be fun. Never mind that, with generous amounts of liquoric lubrication, it actually was fun. No, Wilson was responsible for his current misery, and that was the single important fact of the day.

He would have successfully dodged clinic duty, too, if it weren’t for the page Cuddy had sent him. The fact that she paged him wasn’t unusual—it was Stage 1 in their daily little war. But the content of the page was enough to make him head for the elevators: BRING YOUR CAMERA.

So House, despite his puffy-feeling face and general hangoveriness, found himself standing in the middle of the clinic wishing that for once in his life he’d followed Cuddy’s directions. He leaned hard on his cane as a chorus of noise and color swirled around him.

The clinic was swamped. The nurses manning the desk wisely let each new doctor have a moment before herding doctor and patient into the exam rooms. House took his moment, and a few of everyone else’s, too.

Brenda was handing a patient an intake clipboard, except the griffin was having trouble grasping it in his talons and he clicked angrily at her. She glared back until he clicked apologetically and headed for a corner. A gargoyle perched on the other side of the admitting desk, near another nurse, who was talking quietly with a tall, broad-shouldered minotaur. Near the benches, a harried-looking woman was trying to corral a brood of leprechauns. Among the waiting throng, House spotted a red oni (must have been a Japanese person at one point), a mermaid, a Jersey Devil, what looked like either an elf or a vampire (he couldn't be sure without seeing her teeth, but she was eyeing her neighbor hungrily), three fauns, and a growling little chupacabra.

A few clop-clopping steps sidled up next to House, and he had the distinct and unusual feeling of being towered over. He glanced to the side to see a human chest in a scrub shirt, and looked down to see the front half of a chestnut-colored horse. He looked back up, farther than eye-level this time, to see Wilson, smugly sipping from a big cup of coffee, his other hand resting against the line where his horse-hair began (where his hip should be, House's brain helpfully supplied).

"So," Wilson said breezily. "Figured it out yet?"

House snorted. "I'm surprised you're not seeing patients."

"Eh." Wilson shrugged. "I don't fit in the exam rooms."

 

Desperate fingers scrabble through House's desk drawers, digging past files and magazines and game cartridges and stolen granola bars and pens and post-it pads, searching for whatever good stuff House might have stashed there. Nothing but a plain bottle of Advil; open the cap and—it’s plain Advil inside. Plain Advil won’t help, won’t even slow down this freight train of pain that’s pulling into the station today.

"Damn it!"

Okay, try the bookshelves. Vases, knickknacks, behind the books: nothing. Doesn't take long to find the lupus textbook; the pill-bottle cutout is sadly lacking a pill bottle. The book hits the floor with surprising force.

"FUCK!"

Maybe in the conference room. Books off the shelves, check for more cutouts, empty desk and kitchenette drawers, even the phrenology head is empty.

"Fucking asshole can't even keep his fucking pills in the same fucking places so I can—"

"Looking for something?" House leans against the door, watching his fellow rant in the middle of the trashed conference room. He holds up a Vicodin: a little white slice of heaven. "Like one of these?"

March over and snatch the pill from House's fingers, down it dry with a bare grimace. "Fucking cramps," Cameron snarls, and storms out.