EVEN TRADE Part X

[geelady.livejournal.com]

A bit late, but at least it's here on the day I said it would be....

EVEN TRADE
Part X

By GeeLady

Pairing: H/OMC, W/OFC & H/W

Ratings: NC-17 Adult, SLASH, ANGSTY. (What else have you ever got from me??)

Warnings: Non-con, blackmail, mentions of addictions, drugs, self-harm.

Summary: House becomes the object of someone's dangerous obsession, but it's Wilson's freedom

that hangs in the balance.

 

This Story: I started writing before I saw episode 6x10, and it acknowledges everything up to and

including "Wilson", with the exception of Wilson and House going in together on the loft Cuddy

didn't get. In my fic', they are not living together and it continues to deviate from there.

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"I need you to tell me what he did to you." Was the first question Wilson had for him when he

woke up hours later.

House didn't roll over or move. Damned if he knew how Wilson had known he was awake. "Do you have

an eye on the back of your head?"

"You always wake up in the middle of the night. My body's tuned to it."

"You already know."

"I want all of it."

"Why? So you can learn how fucked up I really am? So you can stock-pile reasons to leave me

behind?"

Wilson caught his breath. He had no intention of leaving House, or ending what they had. So far

they'd shared a bed for several nights. Not a thick foundation upon which to base an intimate

relationship, but the twenty years of friendship prior to that was. So, eventually, they would

have sex. "Why does your mind automatically go to the worst case scenario?"

"Because you walked away before, and I was in rougher shape than I am now. Only then I tried to

do the noble thing; I tried to save your girlfriend. So why now, when I'm sleeping with the

enemy, are you so anxious to hang around?"

"Because,..." Wilson had avoided it until now. House would eventually ask the reason why Wilson

wanted to try a relationship with him. House had to have good, non-sentimental reasons to be

loved. "Because we fit together cosmically." Stupid. "I mean it always comes back to us, doesn't

it? Why not just keep it that way? And I apologized for leaving before."

House was quiet. "What do you want to know."

Wilson licked his lips. House was about to open up to him and he had no idea how he was going to

react to what House was about to tell him. Don't blubber. Don't blame. Don't say anything stupid.

"Did he hurt you?"

"Yes."

As simple as that. "How did he hurt you?"

"What do you think? He raped me, beat on me a few times - you saw the bite marks, can't you guess

the rest of it?"

"I guess I was hoping it wasn't as bad as I imagined. You're never going near him again."

House sat up, suddenly, like he needed to jump out of his skin. "Why are we talking about this

again? When we get Royston, then it's safe for me to be..."

"-Safe?"

"With you exclusively." House slipped on his jacket that he had abandoned to the dresser top

short hours ago.

Wilson sat up, too. It was the middle of the night. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to go pay Lucas a visit and see if we can't get this kid on our side before Royston

catches on that there's something to catch on to."

Wilson followed him to the door, but didn't protest the sudden midnight trip to Cuddy's house. So

she would be irritated, puzzled, curious. House would spin a tale worthy of a man spurned.
-
-
Lucas answered the door on faded green pajama bottoms and a two day shadow. After staring at

House for a few seconds, he recovered quickly, and turned to pad to the living room, leaving the

door open so House could follow of his own accord.

Lucas plopped in an easy chair. House recognized it as one from Cuddy's old house, before she and

Lucas decided to cram themselves and an eighteen month-old in to his inadequate two bedroom

apartment. "What's up House?" Lucas nose for detecting told him, whatever this was, was new.

Newer than even bringing the kid back from the west coast.

House perched on the couch arm. "How scared is that kid?"

Lucas picked lint off his pajama leg. "Pretty scared. And screwed up. He's on anti-depressants

and a pharmacy of other shit."

"Too scared to get back at Royston for sticking it to his entire life?"

Lucas nodded slowly, trying to convince himself that such might not be the case. "No-o, I

wouldn't say that scared. What did you have in mind? Besides confronting Royston, I mean, and

hoping like hell he falls for the bluff you're about to tell me."

"No bluff. We get that kid on tape. We get him to get his wife on tape-"

"Mmm, the wife isn't especially inclined to helping out her cheating ex. I tried that already. An

extra two hundred, by the way. I had to buy a new digital recorder."

"I'll make sure Wilson sends you a check." House tapped his cane on the floor. "There has to be a

way."

"Secretly tape Royston? Get him to confess?"

"He's not that stupid."

Lucas pursed his lips doubtfully. "How do you know if you've never - "

"-he makes me strip off my clothes, that's how. No where to hide a recorder that doesn't only

hurt a lot, but muffles the sound."

"Ah." Lucas tried not to let images of House and Royston sweating and groaning on stained hotel

sheets burn so deeply into his brain that they upset the rest of his good night sleep. "New hotel

every time?"

House nodded.

"Maybe you could pay him off." It was a lame, and usually pointless gesture. Most psychopaths

don't do what they do because it was lucrative. Unless their psycho-pathology was money itself.

House shook his head silently. "What hotel is that kid staying in? And the room?"

Lucas fetched him a empty envelope from the living room trash-basket, and a pen. "Here." He

recited the information and House scribbled it down.

"Thanks."

Lucas saw his old sort-of-pal to the door. "Good luck."

House said a one-two goodbye and Lucas shut the door. He returned to bed, easing himself under

the covers.

But Lisa was a light sleeper. "Who was that?"

"The paper-boy."

"It's one AM."

"He had a lot of papers."

"Lucas...Five, four, three, two-"

"-fine, fine. It was House."

Cuddy sat up. "House? What was he doing here at this hour?"

"You're not his boss anymore, you shouldn't have to care why. You should go back under the covers

and get your beauty sleep - not that you really need it, hot-stuff."

"Don't try to flatter your way out of this conversation. Why was House in my house in the middle

of the night? If he was here, he was here to see you, which means he's up to something, which

means you're up to something."

Lucas was utterly unflappable when it came to Lisa's stern voice. "that's where you're wrong. I'm

not up to anything, but I am up to helping House get up to whatever he's getting up to."

"You're being cryptic."

Lucas sighed. "I was sworn not to tell."

"This isn't high school."

"Sorry. P.I's honor." He leaned over to her. "But now that we're both up, how about a little -?"

"-forget it."
-
-
House slipped passed the night manager without any trouble. It was barely a three star hotel.

Two-point-five at best. Two-point-five's didn't pay anyone enough money to take their job

seriously.

House took the old and slow elevator to the seventh floor, located room number 42 and knocked.

There was no answer. He knocked again, harder this time. nothing.

Maybe the kid had taken an early flight home. House tried to the door and was surprised to find

it unlocked. He pushed his way inside. Everything was dark and he could barely make out the large

heavy form of a bed, a table in one corner, a chair. And, weirdly, a long coat rack or something

in the middle of the floor.

Fumbling for a light switch on the wall, he toggled it on and was educated without warning that

the coat rack was not a coat rack. It was the kid, Nilu, hanging by the neck from the ceiling

fan. He had strung together a couple of neck ties, and they had been sufficient to do the job.

House swallowed his first reaction of revulsion and horror, and let his physician's training step

further into the room, having presence of mind enough to close the door after him. He didn't need

to find a pulse or check the kid's respirations to know that he was dead as a door nail. The

pallor of his skin told him that. Face red, petechiae in the whites of his slightly bulging eyes,

and deep bruising around his throat where the tie had choked off his airway, suffocating him in

minutes.

As ways to meet your maker went, it was one of the more unpleasant. House put his hands in his

pockets and stared up at his ticket out of Royston's greedy, slimy clutches. "Fuck."

House picked up the phone and placed the tip of his right index finger on the necessary buttons.

All he had to do was push 911 and explain. But then what else, beyond finding a corpse hanging in

a hotel room that he by rights had no business being in, might he have to explain after that

explanation? At what point would the policeman's questions turn to "Who are you? How did you know

the deceased? Why were you visiting him in the middle of the night? Is this the first time you've

ever been to this hotel? What was the nature of your relationship?" Then  "We'll need you to come

down to the station and answer some further questions. Plus we'll need you to fill out a witness

statement."

And things would only get worse after that.

House put the phone down. Should he call Lucas? If so, only on his cell for now. And what would

Lucas advise? Probably  "It's a suicide. You didn't kill him. Go to the police, House." Lucas

didn't hate him, but House wagered he wasn't interested in screwing up his good thing with Cuddy

by getting himself involved any further in House-brand problems. Smart boy.

Wilson would gasp and feel bad for the kid, then pick up the phone and call the police. "This is

over. I'm going to turn myself in and take my punishment. I've had enough seeing this slowly kill

you."

Yeah. Pretty much Wilson style.

House took up his cane and then, feeling like a criminal, took some tissues from the bathroom,

making certain not to touch anything but the paper roll, wiped his fingerprints off of the

telephone. He knew he had not touched anything else in the room but the door knob, inside and

out. So House wiped those too, inside and out, letting the door swing shut on its own. Before

walking away, he turned the Make Up Room sign over to Do Not Disturb.

House slipped out of the hotel without so much as another's glance in his direction.

Thank god for cheap hotel salaries. The night manager didn't lift his head once from his science

fiction novel.
-
-
House rode around on his Honda for the next forty minutes, trying to decide where was the best

place for him to go at this time of night under these circumstances.
There was only one person he could think of that fit the bill.

Royston answered the fearless rap on his two-thirty AM door. He stared for a moment. "Greg?" He

was surprised to see him. "Doctor Wilson said you were sick."

"I am." I'm here, aren't I?

Royston, not displeased at his visit, never-the-less liked the know reasons for all things Greg.

"He said you were very sick. Too sick to go out."

"I missed you." House intoned. A crow's squawk would have sounded more convincing.

Even Royston chuckled a bit. "Of course you did."

House looked over at him, challenging him a little with narrowed eyes. "You want me to leave?"

Truthfully, his heart was in it for one final, sticky hurrah.

Royston, in a rare good mood, did not rise to the bait of his lover's dangling meaning. He looked

forward to making other dangling things rise. "Ha ha, not at all."

"Oh my god! fuck, baby, that's so good." Royston moaned and rolled his own pair as House

swallowed him and sucked for all damnation. "You suck me so fine, Greg. I fucking love your

mouth."

Royston's sex-chat was getting boring. House sped up his technique, changing the angle of his

head, tilting it, so he could get Royston's greedy cock as deeply as he could into his throat

without choking. when he knew Royston was too close to the edge to call it off, House let the

appendage slid out, and finished him off with a hand job, making certain to wipe up most of the

milky fluid with a couple of clean tissues. For a change, none of it got on his own skin or in

his hair.

Royston panted, coming down from his coming. "How-how come you finished me off with your fist?"

House coughed. "Sorry. 'Guess the stomach isn't as back to normal as I though it was." House

looked up at Royston, who sat up and looked down at his lover still on his knees before him. 

House did his best impression of regret. "It won't happen again."

Royston, somehow goddamn how, actually summoned up a moment of sympathy for his ill cock-sucker.

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure it won't." Then he damn near toppled House from his good sense by

leaning over and kissing him on the lips. "What was that for?" House asked, honestly surprised.

"For being so sexy for me. for sucking my cock when I tell you to." Royston ran a gentle thumb

over House's cheek. "I'm very fond of you, Greg. I doubt you believe that though."

Shit loads of doubt, House thought but wisely said nothing.

Undisturbed by his lover's lack of acknowledgment, Royston rose and entered the bathroom for his

body, - if not soul - cleansing shower.

House looked at the closed door for a moment, feeling an out-of-place, just-off-the-mark sense of

loss. He said under his breath - "Now you turn into a marginally nicer guy." Stuffing the tissues

in to his pocket, he watched the bathroom door to make sure it did not open again. When he heard

the shower curtain being pulled back, the water come on and the unmistakable sounds of a body

beneath the hot spray, scrubbing away a day's layer of filth, only then did he limp on his cane

to the hotel room door.

This time he would leave first. "See ya' around."
-
-
"Where the hell have you been?" Wilson had the appearance of a man who had spent the previous

night pacing in his work shoes.

House tossed his keys on the desk by his front door. He shed his jacket, a stirring of hope in

his heart. the room looked brighter. Even Wilson's red, frustrated face wasn't enough to dampen

his new spirit of freedom seen though not yet in his grasp. "I told you."

"I called Lucas. You left there at one-thirty-five." Wilson held up his wrist-watch to House's

face in order to drive his point home. "It's almost five AM, what the hell were you doing for the

last four hours?"

House sucked in a huge breath and then let it out into Wilson's face, thus driving home his own

point at how annoying Wilson was being. He slipped past his dark haired friend and mother to ease

aching muscles and bones down onto the leather pads of his couch. "Any coffee?"

"Coffee? Coffee??" Wilson shook stiff, disapproving hands back and forth in front of him like he

was trying to ward off a landing jetliner. "No, no coffee until you tell me where you were and

what you were doing."

House rolled his head from left to right on the back of the couch, so he could follow Wilson's

erratic pacing. "You know, you're ugly when you love me."

Wilson stopped and dropped his arms. It was true enough. "Okay, yes, I admit, I'm over-reacting.

But I do love you and that's why I was worried, and that's why you owe me an explanation." When

Wilson got nothing from House, his face fell from one of irked to one of sick disappointment.

"You didn't go to see-"

"-I went to talk to the kid." House said, putting Wilson's mind, he hoped, at ease. "I wanted to

know if he was going to help me pull the smugness out from under Royston."

Wilson stopped, thinking for a few seconds. Then - "Oh." He sat beside House on the couch,

utterly exhausted, and not just because he hadn't had much sleep. "what did he say?"

"He said he's going to think about it."

"Oh."Wilson tried to sound hopeful. "Well, that's better than nothing."

"Since nothing's completely useless, I suppose you're right. How many nights did you pay for his

hotel by the way?"

"Um, six, I think."

House did a mental calculation. Two days and nine hours or so from that moment, the maid was

going to enter the kid's room and discover more than just a few cockroaches doing the backstroke

in the toilet.

Wilson asked "Why?"

"Hm?"

"Why did you want to know?" Wilson asked again.

"No reason."

Wilson got up and stretched. "Well, I'm going to go get the last two hours of sleep this night

has left in it. You coming?"

House shook his head. "Gotta' get to work - I have a patient."

Wilson watched his beleagered friend slip on his leather jacket once more. "You could use some

sleep, you know."

"I know."

"House..."

House tied his shoes, took up his cane but paused at the door. "Wilson, I gotta' go." But he made

himself turn around when his lover, his actual, wanted lover, walked over to him.

"You won't ever see Royston again, will you?"

"I said I wouldn't, and I won't."

Wilson slipped his arms around House's waist. He was not going to let him leave until he believed

it was the truth. "Promise? I want you to promise." Wilson kissed him once on the mouth. "And I

mean really promise, not the House kind of promise which is just a wacky word game for us

foolish, trusting souls."

House squirmed under his friend's close scrutiny and his iron grip. "You're bending my ribs."

"Still waiting."

House sighed. "Obviously I'm not getting out of here until I do the Boy Scout thingy, so.." House

bent the little finger of his right hand double against his palm, placed his other three

straightened fingers at his forehead in a mocking approximation of a Boy Scout salute, clicked

his heels and recited: "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to Wilson and my country; to

help other people; to keep myself mentally strong and morally straight. Therefore, from this

moment forward, I, Gregory House, will no longer drop my pants for my big, bad Scout Master, no

matter how much money he gives me. Amen!"

Wilson smiled a little while doing his best to keep the eyebrows scrunched, for political

correctness' sake. "Okay then. Go save a life."
-
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TBC asap