Why Dr. House Cancelled Poker Night (R)
Aug. 4th, 2006 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deelaundryPosted to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
house_wilson and house_slash
Title: Why Dr. House Cancelled Poker Night
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Words: 4196
Summary: Dry-cleaner, Tax Accountant, and Bus Stop Guy had been surprised when House abruptly shut down poker night, but they went on with their lives.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, not even the poker guys.
Note: This is set quite a bit after the events of No Reason. Spoilers for House vs. God and No Reason. Thanks again to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daisylily and Media for the beta read. There is a sequel to this fic: Out of Clean Clothes.
Dry-cleaner Was the First to Know
I’m not normally the kind of person who talks on planes. Halfway through this flight home, though, I had to give up my book for dead. The jacket blurb had been a complete misrepresentation, and the writing had devolved into the worst kind of dreck. I’d read the in-flight magazine on the way up to Boston, so nothing to be gained there.
Snores were emanating from the passenger in the window seat, so I took a look around the darkened cabin. The flight attendants were MIA – it made me think again how eventually, the pilot will be the sole crew member, and we passengers will be getting drinks from vending machines mid-flight.
The guy across the aisle from me was bathed in the glow of his reading light. He was reading a magazine, but it didn’t look like Business Week. The guy must have sensed me trying to check out the cover, because he turned to me and smiled.
“It’s the Journal of Clinical Oncology,” he said. “I’m almost done with this article; you can borrow it, if you’d like.”
“Not my line of work,” I chuckled. Now that I’d seen his face more clearly, he was starting to look a little familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
Wondering about that occupied a few minutes, but then my attention wandered. With nothing to fix on, I turned back to the man with the magazine.
“Excuse me. This is going to sound like a stupid pick-up line, but I swear it’s not: don’t I know you from somewhere?”
It was clear from his blank look that he had no clue who I was.
“Sorry, I don’t know. I meet a lot of people working at the hospital. Are you maybe a family member? Do you know someone with cancer?”
“Oh, no. No, no, thank the Lord.” I felt like a goose had crossed my grave; I couldn’t decide between knocking wood and crossing myself.
He smiled gently. Maybe he gets that reaction a lot.
“Then, sorry, I can’t help you.” He turned back to his magazine, and I put my head back onto my headrest and closed my eyes. Cancer’s a scary thing to me; it seems once it gets in your body, it takes a hold and you never quite get rid of it. I hoped the cancer doc was good at his job.
I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew the plane was at the gate. Getting my bag from the overhead bin, I bumped into magazine guy as he stood from his seat.
“Sorry.” He smiled tightly, and we stood, awkward due to the cramped cabin and the almost-conversation we’d had. How do you recover from that? It’s a mystery.
I breathed a sigh of relief when they finally opened the door and the passengers ahead of us started leaving. I let the guy go ahead of me – least I could do.
Things were busy at Newark, with not much room to maneuver, so I ended up staying right behind the guy practically all the way through the airport. Looking at his head, well, not really looking looking, it was just there in my view, and seeing the jacket he’d put on in the plane, bells started to ring. It was coming to me, where I knew this guy from…
Right before we made the last turn to go past security, it hit me. No wonder it had taken me so long to figure out; I’d only met him once. He came to one of Dr. House’s poker games, back when those were still going on. I think he was a friend or something; Dr. House had actually addressed him by name. What was the name? I couldn’t recall.
Funny, I hadn’t thought of those poker games in a while. Dr. House had been pretty passionate about the games – they happened every week without fail. Even after he got shot, I think he skipped maybe one or two, and then he was hounding us all to come by again.
But then, a while later, the poker games had shut down very suddenly. Just one night, I went and Dr. House wasn’t there. I ran into the other guys outside of his place – they had no clue either. He didn’t return calls and even stopped bringing me his cleaning. I had thought maybe he died, but I never saw an obit. It was strange.
I nodded to the TSA security guys through the glass when I passed by, and then looked back up ahead. Speak of the devil, there was Dr. House himself, waiting. The guy from the plane – what was his name? Will, or something like that – walked up to him and leaned in, as if he was going to hug or even kiss him, then stopped and pulled back.
His nose wrinkled, and he said, “You’re kind of rank there, House.”
Dr. House gave a little pout, but there was humor in his eyes. “Is that any way to greet me after a week away?”
“Seriously, House, what is that smell? Is it…mildew?”
“I’m out of clean clothes. Somebody didn’t pick up the laundry.”
“It wasn’t ready before I left! I put the ticket smack in the middle of the fridge and reminded you at least three times.”
I was a little embarrassed to be listening in, but I had always been curious what had happened to Dr. House. Now it looked like I had found out.
Will, if that was his name, had his hands on his hips and looked ready to start a tirade when I stepped up to them.
“You know, we have free pick-up and drop-off service.”
Dr. House turned to me and gave me a warm greeting – well, warm for him. “Dry-cleaner! It’s been ages!”
“Dr. House, good to see you. We also give a ten percent, um, family volume discount.” I looked from Dr. House to Will and back, hoping my interruption wasn’t a bother.
“I told you we should have gone with my dry-cleaner! Your plumber, much cheaper than mine, and your mechanic, simply a genius. But my dry-cleaner’s the best.”
Will’s look was well-worn but fond exasperation. It seemed to amuse Dr. House.
“Hey, thanks,” I said. “Here, remind me of your address, and I’ll send someone tomorrow morning to pick up your things.” I held out my card; Dr. House stared at Will until he took it and began scribbling on the back. “If we pick it up before nine, we can have it back to you by six. What time is good for you?”
Will passed the card back and said, “Seven thirty.”
Dr. House looked at Will, seeming disappointed. “I haven’t seen you in a week.” They did that eye-talking thing they had done at the poker game, and then, decision apparently made, Dr. House turned back to me.
“Eight thirty. Toodle-oo!” I nodded in farewell, and Dr. House and Will turned and left, walking a little closer together than the smell from Dr. House’s shirt should really have permitted.
Accountant Deduced It at Tax Time
I live by my calendar. The appointment blocks on each date are anchors, securing me from a life of aimless floating. My assistant takes the calls and writes each appointment in my leather bound book – substantial, heavy, worthwhile. My review of the next month of my calendar is the most satisfying and calming activity of each Monday morning.
Which is not to say that there are never surprises. This past January, I was hit with quite a big one.
“Helen, who is this on February 1? I thought we discussed that the schedule for this season is too full to take on any new clients.”
Her typing didn’t slow as she glanced up at the calendar in my hand.
“New clients are always highlighted in yellow. That can’t be a new client.”
I put the calendar down on her desk and pointed. “Here. 10 am on February 1, you’ve written ‘G. House.’”
The typing continued; Helen is excellent at multi-tasking. “House is not a very common name. That must be Dr. Greg House.”
“On February 1? He never comes in that early in the season. It’s April 10 if we remind him, and April 14 if we don’t.”
“Let me think.” Helen finished typing, and the printer began to whir. “OK, now I remember. The call to make the appointment came through in December, right before Christmas. You were on vacation.”
I felt gob-smacked. My mouth must have been hanging open, but Helen didn’t notice because she was reviewing the letter she’d just printed.
“December? He called more than a month ahead of time?”
Finally she looked at me.
“Let me find the call slip.” She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out last year’s call log. She flipped through a few pages, quickly narrowing her search to the right slip.
“Here it is. The call came in on December 23. Dr. Greg House, for his annual tax appointment, late morning, early February. Settled on February 1, 10 am.”
I stared at her precise lettering on the call slip. There was no doubting her; she was always right on things like this.
“Sign this letter, please.” She handed me a pen, and I signed absently, still trying to wrap my mind around the anomaly of this block on my calendar: G. House, February 1. What was the world coming to?
I went back to my desk and turned my focus to the latest Internal Revenue Bulletin. I was halfway through the Administrative, Procedural, and Miscellaneous section, when a thought hit me. If I was right, we needed to change the schedule for February 1.
“Helen?” I called loudly.
She poked her head around the doorframe. “Yes?”
“The morning of February 1, you have Mrs. Alvarez directly after Dr. House. See if she can move to the afternoon or the next day, and give me an extra hour with Dr. House.”
“Sure. Why?”
“The only reason I can think of that he would have set his appointment so early in the season is that he has a terminal disease. If I’m going to do his estate work too, we’ll need the extra time.”
***
Apparently a death sentence doesn’t change everything, I remember thinking, when Dr. House was fifteen minutes late to his appointment.
He walked in looking hale and hearty. Leaning on his cane and certainly not cheerful, but that was typical.
He greeted Helen – she insists on it – then pushed back to my office without so much as a nod to me. Again, typical. Maybe my analysis was off.
When I walked in my office, he had already taken the best of my guest chairs and his long legs were sprawled. I had to climb over them to get to my chair.
“Dr. House, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
His look of confusion was comical but apparently sincere. “It’s tax time, my dear Accountant. Why else do you ever see me?”
I placed his file squarely in the middle of my blotter and opened it. “There were those poker games you organized. But it’s been a while since those occurred.” I didn’t expect an apology for the abrupt cancellation of those games, and I didn’t get one.
He shrugged. “Life gets busy. Speaking of which, let’s get this hell over with so I can go watch SpongeBob.” He passed an accordion folder to me.
“Your W-2 indicates you do have gainful employment. When do you actually do work for your employer?” I stopped, amazed by the contents of the folder: 1099s neatly stacked in one section, W-2 in another, and crisp white envelopes, each labeled with a category, holding Dr. House’s receipts. I pulled out the first envelope and checked; the receipts were sorted in chronological order. Quite a change from the smashed up ball of receipts he’d handed over each of the past several years.
After a quick reassessment of my “fatal illness” analysis, I looked up to see a smirk on Dr. House’s face.
“Congratulations,” I told him.
“What?”
“Congratulations on sharing your life with someone. You’d tell me if you were married, to get the deduction, so I’m assuming it’s a live-in situation, at least for now.” I was a bit at a loss for what to do with my hands; I was so used to spending this part of the appointment unfolding receipts.
“How would you know?”
“Yes, I can well and fully believe that this year you magically put all your affairs in order and made your appointment with me two months early.” I snorted. “You’re either seriously involved with someone who’s doing this for you, or you’re about to die. You look a little too well for the illness option to be true.”
He laughed. “You caught me. He actually nagged me to do the organizing for a while – stupid of him, hasn’t he known me for years? Eventually, he gave in and did it himself. I told him that’s what you get the big bucks for, but he’s too fastidious for his own good.”
He, is it? I hadn’t seen that one coming. Eh, what did I care? Anybody who sorts receipts properly is good enough in my book.
“Tell your, uh,” – I cast about in my mind: Friend? Lover? Boyfriend? Partner? Husband? – “uh, live-in I appreciate it.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him. It’ll please him inordinately, which means in turn he’ll make my evening even more pleasant, so it’s a win all around.” Dr. House sat up straighter, as if he was about to leave, but seemed to think of something else to say.
“Hey, that gives me a thought. Could you take Wilson on as a client? He does his own taxes now, but there are many other ways he could put that time to good use.” I decided to ignore the smirking leer.
“Wilson is his name? Why does that sound familiar?”
I finished transferring all the paperwork into Dr. House’s file and handed him back the accordion folder. He took the folder and promptly began bending it in half, back and forth, back and forth. He must drive this Wilson fellow nuts.
“In some ways, you’ve got a steel-trap memory. I’m surprised you don’t count cards at poker.”
“That would be cheating,” I replied off-handedly, as my mind made the connection. “Didn’t you say his name was not Wilson? At that one poker game?”
“Ah ha, you do remember!” He slapped the folder against my desk.
“And didn’t you two argue because he was sleeping with a woman?”
“Yeah, I hate it when he cheats on me.”
The mock pout was not as amusing as Dr. House clearly thought it was. Maybe the stern look on my face told him something, because he continued, “No, that was ages before he and I got together. He’s had a, well, I guess you could say change of heart since then. You going to take him on as a client, or are you bi-phobic?”
“I’m very busy this season, but since he’s so well prepared, I guess I can consider it. His situation’s about the same level of complexity as yours, similar deductions and so forth?”
“He’s mostly in stocks and bonds. Financially, he’s pretty much a straight shooter. Funny, because in other ways –” He began to gesture; I immediately looked down at his file.
“Please don’t make me say this again, Dr. House: you and I talk boardroom, not bedroom.”
He sank back into his chair. “You’re not that much fun in this stuffy office.”
“I’m not really that much fun out of this office. Too much work to be done. OK, assuming you’re being straight with me – put your eyebrow down – and his situation’s as described, I’ll squeeze him in as a client.”
Dr. House got up to leave. “I’ll have him call you. Do I get a finders’ fee for bringing you a new customer?”
“No. Double the work for me means double the bill for you.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. You know what, double the bill for Wilson; send both to him. I’d end up sponging the money off of him anyway.”
He called a cheery farewell to Helen as he left. I handed Helen his file and told her we’d be taking just one new client. She smiled and went back to her typing.
Bus Stop Guy Saw the Moon in June
I hate riding the bus late at night. Or, really, I should say I hate waiting for the bus late at night. Bus stops are odd places at night, and you never can tell who might come by, looking for trouble.
During the day, I read while I’m waiting, but at night, I just find the deepest shadow I can and wait silently. No use drawing attention to yourself.
Fortunately, my regular bus stop is enclosed, and the enclosure casts one good, deep shadow, right in the corner, where the side wall meets the solid portion of the back wall. The light from the moon and the streetlamp streams in through the glass part of the back wall, but it can’t reach the shadow. It’s as if the designer knew someone might feel the need to escape from the light; he or she even included a seat right there so a person could rest.
One night I was nestled in that shadow at my regular stop, waiting for the number 13 bus. The bus was late, not surprising. The 11A rumbled its way up the street and then suddenly hit the brakes, overshooting the stop by about three feet. Obviously, someone had waited a bit too long to pull the cord.
The bus doors opened, and two men got off, stumbling, laughing. I pulled my feet back to ensure they were tucked in the shadow.
The two men stood on the sidewalk a few moments. The shorter one was swaying side-to-side gently, and the taller one laughed, trying to still his movements.
“Come on, this way,” the taller one said, and as he moved, I noticed he used a cane. Then he stepped more fully into the light, and I recognized him: Dr. House. I hadn’t thought of him in a long time.
I started to open my mouth to say hello, or maybe I would have said, “Where the hell have you been? Those poker games were damn fun, and you cut us off without a word.” But then the other man caught up to Dr. House and flung his arms around his neck.
“Give me a kiss,” the man cried, and swung himself around Dr. House as if Dr. House were a stripper’s pole. They stumbled, but Dr. House managed somehow to get them both upright again.
“You are three sheets to the wind, my friend,” Dr. House said, gazing down with affection at the other man. The man threw his head back and laughed, and I caught sight of his face. It was McGill, the guy I met at that one strange poker game. That wasn’t really the guy’s name – I don’t remember his name, but oddly, the McGill sweatshirt he wore had stuck with me.
What a strange night that had been. McGill barging in, playing a few hands, the whispered fight in the kitchen, then bam, out the door McGill went. Dr. House went out after him, we heard a little bit of yelling, and then they both disappeared. The other two guys and I waited a little while, then we drank Dr. House’s beer, cleaned out his refrigerator, which was fairly empty anyway, and left.
We never saw McGill again, and Dr. House had never mentioned him or that night again. For some reason, it had seemed like it’d be rude to ask, so none of us did.
But here, at the bus stop tonight, McGill and Dr. House were together. I guess their argument wasn’t fatal, then.
“Am not,” McGill said petulantly.
“You’re not drunk? I beg to differ.”
“Not your friend.” He was swaying again, back and forth this time, and seemed to be attempting to pull Dr. House along by his neck. The cane was planted firmly, though; Dr. House would move only when he was ready.
“No? Really? I might cry.”
“Don’t cry, sweetheart.” McGill patted Dr. House’s face. “I’m not your friend; I’m your lover. That’s even better. Like a friend plus.”
“Plus what?”
McGill laughed. “If you haven’t figured out the plus yet, then you are not as smart as you think you are.”
“Hmm,” said Dr. House, and he began pushing McGill gently backwards. “You’re setting out a puzzle for me; I’d better figure this out.”
I wondered vaguely where the two of them were going. Dr. House’s place, I supposed; it was near here. I heard them crossing behind the enclosure, a strange shuffle, step, thump rhythm sounding out McGill’s sloppy steps and Dr. House’s cane. Then they stopped.
The thwack of a body hitting the glass next to me startled me almost out of my skin.
“Hmm,” hummed McGill. It was him against the glass. I could just see the back of his shirt and pants. I would have had to lean forward to see more, and I was not interested. If you made a list of everything in the universe I might possibly ever be interested in, men kissing each other would not make the cut.
I was tempted to put my fingers in my ears to block out the sounds so close to me. The glass hardly muffled a thing. They’ll leave soon, I told myself, or the bus will come.
The kiss broke off with a gasp, and one of them – probably McGill – whimpered.
“That’s a plus,” Dr. House said teasingly.
“You got one part of it,” McGill replied.
“So there’s more?”
“Yes, yes.” Then a buckle jangled, and a zipper ripped, and oh God, I did not need to be hearing this. Where’s a bus when you need it?
“And here’s another, very big plus,” continued Dr. House, as McGill moaned softly. No thwapping, I thought. I can’t take thwapping. I was spared that momentarily, but heard a rustle and another thwack against the glass.
This was a higher pitched thwack than before, and I was compelled to look. Damn! I pinched my eyes closed and twisted away. Bare ass. Bare guy ass, pressed against the glass, and then the thwapping began.
If there had been more shadows, I would have made a break for it, but all around me was light. No way to leave without them seeing me, and my humiliation would have been complete. I pushed myself further back against the wall, further over against the side wall, to the deepest part of the shadow, and silently begged the bus to come.
McGill was rocking his hips, causing little squeaks against the glass, and his moans were getting louder. Then I heard a light slap.
“Hands down,” Dr. House said firmly. “You can touch me later. This is all about you.”
McGill shuddered. “And your pleasure’s not a plus?”
“For now, this is my pleasure. Touching your hard cock, pulling those moans from your throat, and especially seeing your face. I want to watch that gorgeous face in the moonlight as you come.”
McGill’s moan was so loud that I thought the neighbors might wake. I did something then that I had never imagined myself doing, and I know I’ll never do again: I started begging for a guy to come. Silently, of course. Please come, please come. McGill, baby, come for me, because I can’t stand to listen to your moaning and panting any longer.
And just when I thought my nerves would snap, McGill let out a cry and Dr. House let out a gasp, and I think I heard a splatter on the ground. That last part might have been my imagination, though.
McGill laughed from deep in his throat. He was cut off abruptly – another kiss from Dr. House if the sound was anything to go by.
That ended with another gasp, a rustle, and a quiet zip. I didn’t hear the buckle, so maybe they left the belt open. What the hell was I thinking about? What did it matter?
“I love you,” McGill whispered hoarsely.
“You are still three sheets to the wind,” Dr. House replied, but his tone was lilting, musical, warm. It was my mother’s tone, talking to my dad. It was my girlfriend’s tone in the one enchanting week before that all went to hell. Somehow the tone, expressed by one man to another, was more shocking than McGill’s declaration, more shocking than the thwapping and the ass against the glass. I love you too rang clear as day under Dr. House’s words, and when I pushed aside my natural feeling, I hoped to heaven that McGill understood it, too.
They walked off then, with an odd step-step-thump beat. Hugging as they walked, must have been.
Then the number 13 bus finally came – not “came.” Got there. I grimaced my complaint about the delay to Dee the driver, paid my fare, and took my seat. The doors closed, and off we went.
house_wilson and house_slashTitle: Why Dr. House Cancelled Poker Night
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Words: 4196
Summary: Dry-cleaner, Tax Accountant, and Bus Stop Guy had been surprised when House abruptly shut down poker night, but they went on with their lives.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, not even the poker guys.
Note: This is set quite a bit after the events of No Reason. Spoilers for House vs. God and No Reason. Thanks again to
daisylily and Media for the beta read. There is a sequel to this fic: Out of Clean Clothes.Dry-cleaner Was the First to Know
I’m not normally the kind of person who talks on planes. Halfway through this flight home, though, I had to give up my book for dead. The jacket blurb had been a complete misrepresentation, and the writing had devolved into the worst kind of dreck. I’d read the in-flight magazine on the way up to Boston, so nothing to be gained there.
Snores were emanating from the passenger in the window seat, so I took a look around the darkened cabin. The flight attendants were MIA – it made me think again how eventually, the pilot will be the sole crew member, and we passengers will be getting drinks from vending machines mid-flight.
The guy across the aisle from me was bathed in the glow of his reading light. He was reading a magazine, but it didn’t look like Business Week. The guy must have sensed me trying to check out the cover, because he turned to me and smiled.
“It’s the Journal of Clinical Oncology,” he said. “I’m almost done with this article; you can borrow it, if you’d like.”
“Not my line of work,” I chuckled. Now that I’d seen his face more clearly, he was starting to look a little familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
Wondering about that occupied a few minutes, but then my attention wandered. With nothing to fix on, I turned back to the man with the magazine.
“Excuse me. This is going to sound like a stupid pick-up line, but I swear it’s not: don’t I know you from somewhere?”
It was clear from his blank look that he had no clue who I was.
“Sorry, I don’t know. I meet a lot of people working at the hospital. Are you maybe a family member? Do you know someone with cancer?”
“Oh, no. No, no, thank the Lord.” I felt like a goose had crossed my grave; I couldn’t decide between knocking wood and crossing myself.
He smiled gently. Maybe he gets that reaction a lot.
“Then, sorry, I can’t help you.” He turned back to his magazine, and I put my head back onto my headrest and closed my eyes. Cancer’s a scary thing to me; it seems once it gets in your body, it takes a hold and you never quite get rid of it. I hoped the cancer doc was good at his job.
I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew the plane was at the gate. Getting my bag from the overhead bin, I bumped into magazine guy as he stood from his seat.
“Sorry.” He smiled tightly, and we stood, awkward due to the cramped cabin and the almost-conversation we’d had. How do you recover from that? It’s a mystery.
I breathed a sigh of relief when they finally opened the door and the passengers ahead of us started leaving. I let the guy go ahead of me – least I could do.
Things were busy at Newark, with not much room to maneuver, so I ended up staying right behind the guy practically all the way through the airport. Looking at his head, well, not really looking looking, it was just there in my view, and seeing the jacket he’d put on in the plane, bells started to ring. It was coming to me, where I knew this guy from…
Right before we made the last turn to go past security, it hit me. No wonder it had taken me so long to figure out; I’d only met him once. He came to one of Dr. House’s poker games, back when those were still going on. I think he was a friend or something; Dr. House had actually addressed him by name. What was the name? I couldn’t recall.
Funny, I hadn’t thought of those poker games in a while. Dr. House had been pretty passionate about the games – they happened every week without fail. Even after he got shot, I think he skipped maybe one or two, and then he was hounding us all to come by again.
But then, a while later, the poker games had shut down very suddenly. Just one night, I went and Dr. House wasn’t there. I ran into the other guys outside of his place – they had no clue either. He didn’t return calls and even stopped bringing me his cleaning. I had thought maybe he died, but I never saw an obit. It was strange.
I nodded to the TSA security guys through the glass when I passed by, and then looked back up ahead. Speak of the devil, there was Dr. House himself, waiting. The guy from the plane – what was his name? Will, or something like that – walked up to him and leaned in, as if he was going to hug or even kiss him, then stopped and pulled back.
His nose wrinkled, and he said, “You’re kind of rank there, House.”
Dr. House gave a little pout, but there was humor in his eyes. “Is that any way to greet me after a week away?”
“Seriously, House, what is that smell? Is it…mildew?”
“I’m out of clean clothes. Somebody didn’t pick up the laundry.”
“It wasn’t ready before I left! I put the ticket smack in the middle of the fridge and reminded you at least three times.”
I was a little embarrassed to be listening in, but I had always been curious what had happened to Dr. House. Now it looked like I had found out.
Will, if that was his name, had his hands on his hips and looked ready to start a tirade when I stepped up to them.
“You know, we have free pick-up and drop-off service.”
Dr. House turned to me and gave me a warm greeting – well, warm for him. “Dry-cleaner! It’s been ages!”
“Dr. House, good to see you. We also give a ten percent, um, family volume discount.” I looked from Dr. House to Will and back, hoping my interruption wasn’t a bother.
“I told you we should have gone with my dry-cleaner! Your plumber, much cheaper than mine, and your mechanic, simply a genius. But my dry-cleaner’s the best.”
Will’s look was well-worn but fond exasperation. It seemed to amuse Dr. House.
“Hey, thanks,” I said. “Here, remind me of your address, and I’ll send someone tomorrow morning to pick up your things.” I held out my card; Dr. House stared at Will until he took it and began scribbling on the back. “If we pick it up before nine, we can have it back to you by six. What time is good for you?”
Will passed the card back and said, “Seven thirty.”
Dr. House looked at Will, seeming disappointed. “I haven’t seen you in a week.” They did that eye-talking thing they had done at the poker game, and then, decision apparently made, Dr. House turned back to me.
“Eight thirty. Toodle-oo!” I nodded in farewell, and Dr. House and Will turned and left, walking a little closer together than the smell from Dr. House’s shirt should really have permitted.
Accountant Deduced It at Tax Time
I live by my calendar. The appointment blocks on each date are anchors, securing me from a life of aimless floating. My assistant takes the calls and writes each appointment in my leather bound book – substantial, heavy, worthwhile. My review of the next month of my calendar is the most satisfying and calming activity of each Monday morning.
Which is not to say that there are never surprises. This past January, I was hit with quite a big one.
“Helen, who is this on February 1? I thought we discussed that the schedule for this season is too full to take on any new clients.”
Her typing didn’t slow as she glanced up at the calendar in my hand.
“New clients are always highlighted in yellow. That can’t be a new client.”
I put the calendar down on her desk and pointed. “Here. 10 am on February 1, you’ve written ‘G. House.’”
The typing continued; Helen is excellent at multi-tasking. “House is not a very common name. That must be Dr. Greg House.”
“On February 1? He never comes in that early in the season. It’s April 10 if we remind him, and April 14 if we don’t.”
“Let me think.” Helen finished typing, and the printer began to whir. “OK, now I remember. The call to make the appointment came through in December, right before Christmas. You were on vacation.”
I felt gob-smacked. My mouth must have been hanging open, but Helen didn’t notice because she was reviewing the letter she’d just printed.
“December? He called more than a month ahead of time?”
Finally she looked at me.
“Let me find the call slip.” She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out last year’s call log. She flipped through a few pages, quickly narrowing her search to the right slip.
“Here it is. The call came in on December 23. Dr. Greg House, for his annual tax appointment, late morning, early February. Settled on February 1, 10 am.”
I stared at her precise lettering on the call slip. There was no doubting her; she was always right on things like this.
“Sign this letter, please.” She handed me a pen, and I signed absently, still trying to wrap my mind around the anomaly of this block on my calendar: G. House, February 1. What was the world coming to?
I went back to my desk and turned my focus to the latest Internal Revenue Bulletin. I was halfway through the Administrative, Procedural, and Miscellaneous section, when a thought hit me. If I was right, we needed to change the schedule for February 1.
“Helen?” I called loudly.
She poked her head around the doorframe. “Yes?”
“The morning of February 1, you have Mrs. Alvarez directly after Dr. House. See if she can move to the afternoon or the next day, and give me an extra hour with Dr. House.”
“Sure. Why?”
“The only reason I can think of that he would have set his appointment so early in the season is that he has a terminal disease. If I’m going to do his estate work too, we’ll need the extra time.”
***
Apparently a death sentence doesn’t change everything, I remember thinking, when Dr. House was fifteen minutes late to his appointment.
He walked in looking hale and hearty. Leaning on his cane and certainly not cheerful, but that was typical.
He greeted Helen – she insists on it – then pushed back to my office without so much as a nod to me. Again, typical. Maybe my analysis was off.
When I walked in my office, he had already taken the best of my guest chairs and his long legs were sprawled. I had to climb over them to get to my chair.
“Dr. House, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
His look of confusion was comical but apparently sincere. “It’s tax time, my dear Accountant. Why else do you ever see me?”
I placed his file squarely in the middle of my blotter and opened it. “There were those poker games you organized. But it’s been a while since those occurred.” I didn’t expect an apology for the abrupt cancellation of those games, and I didn’t get one.
He shrugged. “Life gets busy. Speaking of which, let’s get this hell over with so I can go watch SpongeBob.” He passed an accordion folder to me.
“Your W-2 indicates you do have gainful employment. When do you actually do work for your employer?” I stopped, amazed by the contents of the folder: 1099s neatly stacked in one section, W-2 in another, and crisp white envelopes, each labeled with a category, holding Dr. House’s receipts. I pulled out the first envelope and checked; the receipts were sorted in chronological order. Quite a change from the smashed up ball of receipts he’d handed over each of the past several years.
After a quick reassessment of my “fatal illness” analysis, I looked up to see a smirk on Dr. House’s face.
“Congratulations,” I told him.
“What?”
“Congratulations on sharing your life with someone. You’d tell me if you were married, to get the deduction, so I’m assuming it’s a live-in situation, at least for now.” I was a bit at a loss for what to do with my hands; I was so used to spending this part of the appointment unfolding receipts.
“How would you know?”
“Yes, I can well and fully believe that this year you magically put all your affairs in order and made your appointment with me two months early.” I snorted. “You’re either seriously involved with someone who’s doing this for you, or you’re about to die. You look a little too well for the illness option to be true.”
He laughed. “You caught me. He actually nagged me to do the organizing for a while – stupid of him, hasn’t he known me for years? Eventually, he gave in and did it himself. I told him that’s what you get the big bucks for, but he’s too fastidious for his own good.”
He, is it? I hadn’t seen that one coming. Eh, what did I care? Anybody who sorts receipts properly is good enough in my book.
“Tell your, uh,” – I cast about in my mind: Friend? Lover? Boyfriend? Partner? Husband? – “uh, live-in I appreciate it.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him. It’ll please him inordinately, which means in turn he’ll make my evening even more pleasant, so it’s a win all around.” Dr. House sat up straighter, as if he was about to leave, but seemed to think of something else to say.
“Hey, that gives me a thought. Could you take Wilson on as a client? He does his own taxes now, but there are many other ways he could put that time to good use.” I decided to ignore the smirking leer.
“Wilson is his name? Why does that sound familiar?”
I finished transferring all the paperwork into Dr. House’s file and handed him back the accordion folder. He took the folder and promptly began bending it in half, back and forth, back and forth. He must drive this Wilson fellow nuts.
“In some ways, you’ve got a steel-trap memory. I’m surprised you don’t count cards at poker.”
“That would be cheating,” I replied off-handedly, as my mind made the connection. “Didn’t you say his name was not Wilson? At that one poker game?”
“Ah ha, you do remember!” He slapped the folder against my desk.
“And didn’t you two argue because he was sleeping with a woman?”
“Yeah, I hate it when he cheats on me.”
The mock pout was not as amusing as Dr. House clearly thought it was. Maybe the stern look on my face told him something, because he continued, “No, that was ages before he and I got together. He’s had a, well, I guess you could say change of heart since then. You going to take him on as a client, or are you bi-phobic?”
“I’m very busy this season, but since he’s so well prepared, I guess I can consider it. His situation’s about the same level of complexity as yours, similar deductions and so forth?”
“He’s mostly in stocks and bonds. Financially, he’s pretty much a straight shooter. Funny, because in other ways –” He began to gesture; I immediately looked down at his file.
“Please don’t make me say this again, Dr. House: you and I talk boardroom, not bedroom.”
He sank back into his chair. “You’re not that much fun in this stuffy office.”
“I’m not really that much fun out of this office. Too much work to be done. OK, assuming you’re being straight with me – put your eyebrow down – and his situation’s as described, I’ll squeeze him in as a client.”
Dr. House got up to leave. “I’ll have him call you. Do I get a finders’ fee for bringing you a new customer?”
“No. Double the work for me means double the bill for you.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. You know what, double the bill for Wilson; send both to him. I’d end up sponging the money off of him anyway.”
He called a cheery farewell to Helen as he left. I handed Helen his file and told her we’d be taking just one new client. She smiled and went back to her typing.
Bus Stop Guy Saw the Moon in June
I hate riding the bus late at night. Or, really, I should say I hate waiting for the bus late at night. Bus stops are odd places at night, and you never can tell who might come by, looking for trouble.
During the day, I read while I’m waiting, but at night, I just find the deepest shadow I can and wait silently. No use drawing attention to yourself.
Fortunately, my regular bus stop is enclosed, and the enclosure casts one good, deep shadow, right in the corner, where the side wall meets the solid portion of the back wall. The light from the moon and the streetlamp streams in through the glass part of the back wall, but it can’t reach the shadow. It’s as if the designer knew someone might feel the need to escape from the light; he or she even included a seat right there so a person could rest.
One night I was nestled in that shadow at my regular stop, waiting for the number 13 bus. The bus was late, not surprising. The 11A rumbled its way up the street and then suddenly hit the brakes, overshooting the stop by about three feet. Obviously, someone had waited a bit too long to pull the cord.
The bus doors opened, and two men got off, stumbling, laughing. I pulled my feet back to ensure they were tucked in the shadow.
The two men stood on the sidewalk a few moments. The shorter one was swaying side-to-side gently, and the taller one laughed, trying to still his movements.
“Come on, this way,” the taller one said, and as he moved, I noticed he used a cane. Then he stepped more fully into the light, and I recognized him: Dr. House. I hadn’t thought of him in a long time.
I started to open my mouth to say hello, or maybe I would have said, “Where the hell have you been? Those poker games were damn fun, and you cut us off without a word.” But then the other man caught up to Dr. House and flung his arms around his neck.
“Give me a kiss,” the man cried, and swung himself around Dr. House as if Dr. House were a stripper’s pole. They stumbled, but Dr. House managed somehow to get them both upright again.
“You are three sheets to the wind, my friend,” Dr. House said, gazing down with affection at the other man. The man threw his head back and laughed, and I caught sight of his face. It was McGill, the guy I met at that one strange poker game. That wasn’t really the guy’s name – I don’t remember his name, but oddly, the McGill sweatshirt he wore had stuck with me.
What a strange night that had been. McGill barging in, playing a few hands, the whispered fight in the kitchen, then bam, out the door McGill went. Dr. House went out after him, we heard a little bit of yelling, and then they both disappeared. The other two guys and I waited a little while, then we drank Dr. House’s beer, cleaned out his refrigerator, which was fairly empty anyway, and left.
We never saw McGill again, and Dr. House had never mentioned him or that night again. For some reason, it had seemed like it’d be rude to ask, so none of us did.
But here, at the bus stop tonight, McGill and Dr. House were together. I guess their argument wasn’t fatal, then.
“Am not,” McGill said petulantly.
“You’re not drunk? I beg to differ.”
“Not your friend.” He was swaying again, back and forth this time, and seemed to be attempting to pull Dr. House along by his neck. The cane was planted firmly, though; Dr. House would move only when he was ready.
“No? Really? I might cry.”
“Don’t cry, sweetheart.” McGill patted Dr. House’s face. “I’m not your friend; I’m your lover. That’s even better. Like a friend plus.”
“Plus what?”
McGill laughed. “If you haven’t figured out the plus yet, then you are not as smart as you think you are.”
“Hmm,” said Dr. House, and he began pushing McGill gently backwards. “You’re setting out a puzzle for me; I’d better figure this out.”
I wondered vaguely where the two of them were going. Dr. House’s place, I supposed; it was near here. I heard them crossing behind the enclosure, a strange shuffle, step, thump rhythm sounding out McGill’s sloppy steps and Dr. House’s cane. Then they stopped.
The thwack of a body hitting the glass next to me startled me almost out of my skin.
“Hmm,” hummed McGill. It was him against the glass. I could just see the back of his shirt and pants. I would have had to lean forward to see more, and I was not interested. If you made a list of everything in the universe I might possibly ever be interested in, men kissing each other would not make the cut.
I was tempted to put my fingers in my ears to block out the sounds so close to me. The glass hardly muffled a thing. They’ll leave soon, I told myself, or the bus will come.
The kiss broke off with a gasp, and one of them – probably McGill – whimpered.
“That’s a plus,” Dr. House said teasingly.
“You got one part of it,” McGill replied.
“So there’s more?”
“Yes, yes.” Then a buckle jangled, and a zipper ripped, and oh God, I did not need to be hearing this. Where’s a bus when you need it?
“And here’s another, very big plus,” continued Dr. House, as McGill moaned softly. No thwapping, I thought. I can’t take thwapping. I was spared that momentarily, but heard a rustle and another thwack against the glass.
This was a higher pitched thwack than before, and I was compelled to look. Damn! I pinched my eyes closed and twisted away. Bare ass. Bare guy ass, pressed against the glass, and then the thwapping began.
If there had been more shadows, I would have made a break for it, but all around me was light. No way to leave without them seeing me, and my humiliation would have been complete. I pushed myself further back against the wall, further over against the side wall, to the deepest part of the shadow, and silently begged the bus to come.
McGill was rocking his hips, causing little squeaks against the glass, and his moans were getting louder. Then I heard a light slap.
“Hands down,” Dr. House said firmly. “You can touch me later. This is all about you.”
McGill shuddered. “And your pleasure’s not a plus?”
“For now, this is my pleasure. Touching your hard cock, pulling those moans from your throat, and especially seeing your face. I want to watch that gorgeous face in the moonlight as you come.”
McGill’s moan was so loud that I thought the neighbors might wake. I did something then that I had never imagined myself doing, and I know I’ll never do again: I started begging for a guy to come. Silently, of course. Please come, please come. McGill, baby, come for me, because I can’t stand to listen to your moaning and panting any longer.
And just when I thought my nerves would snap, McGill let out a cry and Dr. House let out a gasp, and I think I heard a splatter on the ground. That last part might have been my imagination, though.
McGill laughed from deep in his throat. He was cut off abruptly – another kiss from Dr. House if the sound was anything to go by.
That ended with another gasp, a rustle, and a quiet zip. I didn’t hear the buckle, so maybe they left the belt open. What the hell was I thinking about? What did it matter?
“I love you,” McGill whispered hoarsely.
“You are still three sheets to the wind,” Dr. House replied, but his tone was lilting, musical, warm. It was my mother’s tone, talking to my dad. It was my girlfriend’s tone in the one enchanting week before that all went to hell. Somehow the tone, expressed by one man to another, was more shocking than McGill’s declaration, more shocking than the thwapping and the ass against the glass. I love you too rang clear as day under Dr. House’s words, and when I pushed aside my natural feeling, I hoped to heaven that McGill understood it, too.
They walked off then, with an odd step-step-thump beat. Hugging as they walked, must have been.
Then the number 13 bus finally came – not “came.” Got there. I grimaced my complaint about the delay to Dee the driver, paid my fare, and took my seat. The doors closed, and off we went.