InsaneJournal

Current mood:	lethargic
Current music:	HIM - Path
Entry tags:	fanfic, vampire

Death or Something Like It (5/6)
Title: Death or Something Like It
Chapter Title: Pleading
Rated: PG13
Pairing: none
Fandom: House MD
House MD belongs to Bad Hat Harry productions and its partners.

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This was written in response to listening to far too much HIM. It's like vampire rock. This was written just now.

This vampire story can be blamed on the fact that Wilson's actor, Robert Sean Leonard, had his debut in an '80s vampire film My Best Friend is a Vampire. It is a hilarious movie in which young Wilson played an obscenely cute vampire-ling.

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The department heads met behind closed doors. Despite being Head of Oncology, Wilson was not invited to the first session. The sun played bright light across the room, almost mocking the man sitting on the other side of the door, awaiting his fate. House sat with Wilson outside the conference room, silently lending support.

Inside, Cuddy was fighting for them. Wilson had to remember that. He wiped his mouth absently, cringing when he felt his own fangs brush his skin. “What if they rule against me?” he whispered.

“Cuddy won’t let them fire you,” House pointed out.

“I’d have to resign. It’ll look bad if I lose my department. Where would I go?”

The door to the conference room opened. Cuddy stuck her head out. “I got them to hear statements,” she said. “Make it good. Wilson, you first.”

Wilson stopped in the doorway, eyes already pricking with the sunlight flooding the room. He gave Cuddy a pitiful look. As counterproductive as it might seem to need darkness to work, it was preferable to not being able to defend himself. One by one Cuddy pulled the blinds, plunging the room into artificial lighting.

Wilson walked up to the table. He didn’t take his seat, it didn’t seem right.

“A few days ago I was at a conference in California,” he began. “The night before I came back I was jumped. I remember hearing the ambulance crew shouting they were losing me. I remember waking up in their morgue. I remember getting back to my hotel.

“The symptoms started right away. Sunlight is painful to me. According to bone marrow biopsy I’m not producing red blood cells anymore with no known cause. The anemia has resulted in some behavioral changes, I admit. However I do not feel any of these issues should interfere with my job or my patients.”

“Why not fix this with a bone marrow transplant?” asked one of the department heads. “Then we wouldn’t have to be here like this.”

“My marrow abnormalities have no known cause,” Wilson pointed out. “It’s possible I would develop the same problem after the transplant. We can’t know until we find the cause.”

“And how do you expect to find this cause?”

“Last I checked we still had a diagnostics department,” Wilson said wryly.

“What about these behavioral changes we’ve heard so much about?” asked a department head. “We all heard Dr. Chase running through the hospital shouting that you had fangs and had bit him. That’s a serious behavioral change.”

Wilson blushed slightly. “Ah, well, yes, Dr. Foreman has a theory that my… behavior was influenced by my anemia. As for fangs, they’re not necessarily relevant.”

“Of course they’re not relevant,” came a voice from the doorway. House strode in, Cuddy having let him in. “All of Wilson’s episodes occurred when he was anemic. Even the last one, he hadn’t even sucked down a pint by IV yet.”

“House…”

“No, this is relevant,” House said. He pulled out some papers. “I have the tests here showing Wilson was half-empty before his first episode. No human being can think straight then, it’s no wonder he went for Cameron’s throat.”

“House…”

“He went for Chase while he was being fitted for the blood drip, so of course he was still anemic and he went for me long before the first bag was even empty.”

Wilson finally gave into instinct and bared his fangs at House. He hissed long and loud at the man to try and frighten him into submission.

And then realized what he’d done. He was mortified. What blood he had drained from his face and he ran out the door.

“And that is the absolute most dangerous he is capable of being,” House said, pointing at the door. “Nothing more. When he’s not anemic he is perfectly capable of not biting people just as I assume when you’re not all in kindergarten you’re also perfectly capable of not biting people. His patients are all perfectly safe because it turns out Dr. Wilson the oncologist happens to be an oncologist, meaning he spends his days with patients whose veins are filled with more poison than blood.”

“And that would stop him from attacking them?!”

House only then seemed to realize how ill most of the department heads looked. Fine. They were doctors, they should respond to science.

“I have a theory,” House postured. “I’m AB positive. Wilson’s O negative. I pose this theory. If we were to draw blood from Wilson right now his blood would test as about half O negative, a bit of whatever Chase’s blood type is, and the rest would be AB positive.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Let’s test that shall we?”

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“Why am I doing this?” Wilson asked. “I know what they’re going to decide.”

House finished drawing blood from Wilson, only one vial. To make sure he wasn’t going to fudge the test the department heads were in the lab to watch.

“Because you’re going to let me blind them with science,” House said. He pipetted blood onto slides prepared with reactant.

Wilson’s stomach gave the tiniest of growls. He was technically still down a pint or two. “Can I have that when you’re done?” he asked.

House handed him the vial, still mostly full. He pointed to the slides as proof. “Apparently Chase is B negative,” he said.

Each of the department heads checked the results, their jaws dropping as they did. The proof before them was so impossible no one even noticed Wilson downing the vial of blood like a shot.

“So this is a previously unknown physical condition,” Cuddy pointed out. “Previously unknown.” She smiled as she could almost see the grant proposals being written in their heads. “Of course we have to figure out what it is first.”

“Vampirism?” Wilson suggested. He belched significantly, testing his own theory. He watched as the department heads turned to look at him, the blood on his lips and fangs, empty vial in his hand, deathly pale skin. He watched as they instead each focused on what they saw the most.

Grant proposals. Papers. Clinical studies. Practical applications. Not one of them really saw the vampiric threat beneath it all.

“You’re keeping him fed,” Cuddy said to House.

“All the time?” House asked.

“Not when you have a case,” she amended. “Otherwise you’re keeping him fed. We don’t need him making withdrawals from the blood bank.”

“I request the night shift,” Wilson said.

“Hard to run a department from the night shift.”

“Okay, the swing shift,” he pleaded. “Please?”

End Part 4