Advice to the Lovelorn (a story)

[carose59]

The weird blond guy was back, this time in the cardiology lounge. House had seen him loitering around the hospital, but always in a shadowy way.

Of course, the cardio lounge was weird in itself, since cardiologists didn't hang around in the lounge, they strutted in, did their rock star jobs, and strutted out, signing a few autographs along the way. So why they needed a lounge, House didn't know. Probably they'd made Cuddy give them one just because it was something other specialties had, and they were rock stars, so of course they had to have what everyone else did just so they could not use it.

(House had tried to convince her that diagnostics needed its own lounge, but for some reason she felt that since he pretty much was diagnostics—him and his team—and since he already had an office, he wasn't getting a lounge all his own. "Especially since, knowing you, you wouldn't even let your team in it." Cuddy knew him a little too well.)

But as long as the cardiologists didn't catch him, their lounge worked just fine for House.

And, apparently, for some random weird blond guy who dressed like he thought he was a rock star, but a real one, and one from the eighties at that. The guy was definitely not a surgeon. He wasn't even a doctor, unless he was some kind of alternative-medicine fake-doctor. But those guys usually looked like hippies, and this guy was no hippie. The closest this guy came to being a doctor was maybe he was a drug dealer.

House took the remote away from him, switched from that lame-ass Passions he was watching over to his own soap, which was just about to begin.

"Hey!" the blond guy protested, tokenly.

"Real doctors get first dibs," House explained.

Weird Blond Guy subsided. He had a bag of Cheetos, and House considered swiping those, too, but instead he decided to be generous and just sat down on the sofa next to the guy and took a handful of cheesy, nutrition-void goodness out of the bag.

"Now, look," Weird Blond Guy started, jerking the bag away.

"Next round's on me," House lied. He didn't want the guy making him miss his show. Lance was about to tell Naomi that he wasn't the father of her baby, and House didn't want to miss that because some weird-o was causing a ruckus.

Weird Blond Guy grumbled a little, and still held the bag a little further away than as though he was really sharing, but close enough for House to reach without getting too friendly. Trusting idiot.

During the first commercial break, House got up and went to the Coke machine, finagled a couple of cans from it, and allowed Weird Blond Guy—who had upgraded to Weird English Blond Guy after he'd asked House a few questions about Johnny's missing arm, and why he was on the run from Massimo, and House caught the accent. If he got any more adjectives, House was going to have to give the guy an acronym, or maybe ask his name. Anyway, he'd allowed the guy to have one of the Cokes, and the guy got more generous with the Cheetos.

The show was good that day. Jax was back from Taiwan with a brand new sex change operation. His father—a notorious philanderer—had specified in his will that his multi-million dollar corporation should go "equally to any and all of my sons." Jax's brother, J.T., had already winnowed out a couple of impostors—he kept a DNA lab on retainer—but Jax had both a pee-pee and the right DNA, and he was determined to get his share.

"So, did she just get the sex change to get the company?" Annoying Weird Blond English Guy asked.

"No questions 'til the commercial break," House said, grabbing another handful of Cheetos.


When the show was over, House asked AWBEG if he wanted to go to the cafeteria, and when AWBEG said yes, House let him buy him a late lunch and they talked soaps which led to talking sex which led somehow to going out to a bar.

Well, before the bar they went to the clinic, where AWBEG (who had the annoyingly dull name of Randy) pretended to be a patient and they killed off House's clinic duty on an imaginary ear infection.

And then there were a couple of errands House needed to run. He had to stop at a pay phone a few blocks from Wilson's place and order a dozen pizzas from the new pizza place that had just opened in his delivery area. It had to be the new place, since none of the old places would deliver more than one pizza to Wilson anymore.

And he had to let the air out of Wilson's tires. Randy helped with that. In fact, Randy did all four tires, while House watched. Then they went to a bar.

Randy's other name—his real name, he said—was Spike. As though anybody's real name could be Spike.

"So why'd you sign in to the clinic as Randy Vquikdjyo?" House asked, because maybe this guy would work as a potential friend, and that was one thing you did with friends: you asked them nosy questions. It was one of the perks of having a friend.

"You could read that last name?" Spike asked. "It was supposed to be an illegible scrawl."

"I'm a doctor," House said with great pride. "We get a whole semester of illegible scrawl in doctor school. So, what's with the fake name?"

"I'm incognito," Spike said. "On the lam."

House assumed the part about being on the lam was a lie, but it was an interesting lie. "Mafia?" he asked. They were in New Jersey, so when somebody was hiding, it was a fifty-fifty thing whether they were hiding from the cops or the mob. The mob was more interesting.

Spike shook his head. "Demons. It's hard to explain."

Oh, the guy was crazy. Probably not good friend material then, but crazy was entertaining.

"Demons, eh? They're hard to get rid of. Or so I've heard."

"I'm not trying to get rid of them, mate, I'm trying to keep them from finding me. I'm on a quest."

"Oh, a quest. So, what, are you following a star? No matter how hopeless, no matter how far? Fighting for the right, without question or pause?"

Spike shook his head, said something that sounded like, "That's Angel," then changed the subject. "When's the pizza getting here?"

"Here?" House asked. "Nobody has pizza delivered to a bar." Spike seemed to be turning out to be not only crazy, but kind of dim. That wasn't a good combo. But House had already devoted practically a whole day to cultivating the guy as a friend, and he didn't want to have wasted a whole day. "The pizza's not coming here," he explained with great patience. "The pizza's going to Wilson's."

"Where's Wilson's?" Spike asked.

Not just dim; Spike was an idiot. Damn. "Wilson's," he explained with even more patience, "was where I let the air out of the tires. You remember that?"

"'Course I remember that," Spike said, offended. Why were idiots always offended by being treated like idiots? "I was the one who let the air out of the tires. Who's this Wilson?"

It occurred to House what having a friend who didn't ask why you were doing something like ordering a dozen pizzas or letting the air out of a car's tires—if he didn't ask questions along the way, that just meant you had to explain everything all at once later.

"He's a friend of mine," House said.

"Oh," Spike said, like he understood. And then he drank a little more, and then he said, "So, you think you if you torture him enough, he'll come back to you?"

House choked on his drink. "What makes you think—"

"Yeah, well, you're sitting here drinking with me, aren't you, not him? And it'd be different if we actually knew each other, but I'm just a guy you picked up in a hospital waiting room."

"That was the cardiology lounge," House said, as though that mattered.

Spike waved it away. "He's dumped you, and you think the best way to get him back—you've probably already tried the hearts and flowers routine, right? And now you think the best way is to torture him 'til he comes to his senses."

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure I do. Been in your shoes, a time or two, and let me tell you something, it doesn't work. You can't get somebody back who doesn't want to come back. Lemme ask you, does this guy like being tortured?"

"What?" House asked. Spike had been sounding a little smart there, but now he was back to moronic. "Who likes to be tortured?"

Spike shrugged, not bothering to argue. "Torture's the wrong word, anyhow. All you're doing is pulling pranks. Does he like pranks?"

House didn't even have to think about that. "It's a big part of our relationship," he said.

"Ah. And you want to remind him what he's missing. That's pretty good."

"Thanks, glad I've got your seal of approval," House said sarcastically.

"Beats getting a robot replacement," Spike said, nearly under his breath.

"What?" House asked.

"Oh, sure, they look just like the real thing. They even feel just like the real thing. But you know what they don't do? They don't think for themselves. They don't argue—which is what you think you want, but then when you got it, it's like talking to yourself. And if you're gonna do that, why bother with the robot? Except the sex is better."

House was staring at Spike. "How much have you had to drink?" he asked.

"What?" Spike asked, as though the question made no sense. "Not that it would matter if a robot was the solution, since the only guys I know who know how to make one, two of 'em are dead." He paused. "Or maybe just one. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of who's dead and who's not, in my line of work."

"What line of work are you in?" House asked.

Spike, about to take another drink, paused. "I'm a poet," he said finally, and drank some of his drink.

"Of course you are," House said. "That would explain your expertise in affairs of the heart."

Spike smirked at him. "That, and a few other things."

House gave that some thought. "Why have you been hanging around the hospital?"

Spike smiled. "I follow my muse," he said. "A poet writes about life and death, and a hospital is a good place—"

"We've been having blood go missing from the blood bank," House said slowly. Cuddy had been talking about nothing else for the last few weeks, which, come to think of it, was how long Spike had been hanging around.

"That's weird," Spike said very casually. "Who would want to steal blood?"

"My first suspect would be the guy who's hiding from demons and has a robot for a girlfriend," House said.

"I don't see where that leads to stealing blood," Spike said. "And I don't have a robot for a girlfriend."

"It's weird," House said. "And you're weird. I like to keep all the weird clumped together whenever possible. The odds of there being one guy stealing blood while there's another guy hiding from demons and—"

"There's no point bringing up the robot thing again," Spike said. "That was a long time ago, and she's been disassembled."

"Even without the robot, you're very weird," House said. "What do you do with the blood?"

"You don't want to know," Spike said.

"Yes, I do," House said.

"All right. I drink it."

Actually, that had been what House had figured he'd done with it. It was either that or Satanic rituals, and this guy didn't seem outgoing enough to be part of a Satanic cult.

"And you do this because—?"

"Well, it's because I'm a vampire, you silly git! Why else would a person drink blood?"

House nodded. "Instead of spending your day in a coffin, you spend it in a hospital lounge, instead of getting blood from the necks of beautiful girls in low-cut dresses, you steal it from a hospital. If that's your idea of what being a vampire is like, you're doing it wrong." House fished a Vicodin from his pocket, popped it in his mouth, and washed it down with a swig of beer. "Of course, if you're just a whack-job with Renfield's Syndrome, you're probably doing it just right."

Spike snorted derisively. "Renfield! That ponce. Wouldn't have a syndrome with his name on it if it came with a suite at the Waldorf."

"Oh, you know Renfield." House wasn't surprised. "Say, what was his first name?"

Now Spike was looking at House like he was the moron. "How the bloody hell would I know?"

"Well, you claim you know him, I just assumed—"

"Hey, I've spent my whole bloody day with you, and I got no idea what your first name is. Does that mean you don't exist?"

There was undoubtedly a hole in Spike's logic, but House was having a little trouble seeing it.

And anyway, Spike was back to being annoying. "Look, I get it. Your guy dumped you—"

"He is not my—" House tried to protest, but Spike was waving him away.

"—so you're lonely. Figure you can distract yourself a little. Makes perfect sense. Won't work, but it makes perfect sense."

"You don't like distraction, you don't like torture—I suppose your suggestion would be I should write him a poem."

Spike shook his head sadly. "No, I doubt you have the talent for it. And poetry's really better for seduction than for reconciliation."

"What, do you have an advice for the lovelorn column? Dear Dracula?"

"I am not Dracula," Spike said with absurd dignity. "I've just had a lot of experience with affairs of the heart."

"So what's your advice?" House asked. Not that he cared about the advice of a schizophrenic vampire poet, but he was really curious.

"It's love, mate." Spike said. "There is no answer. We're all doomed."