It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere, Part 1
It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere, Part 1/4
Characters, Pairing: House/Cuddy, Wilson, Cameron
Warning: Crack. Meta.
Summary: I honestly have no explanation for this. But if you've ever wondered, "who were those awful people in season 7, and where did House and Cuddy go?" then here is my gift to you.
Comments welcome.
It had to happen, House supposed. He'd been clean for almost a year before his first relapse. The opiates would naturally be more potent, and the side effects more immediate, after a period of sobriety. Throw in emotional trauma, the injuries and the physical exhaustion, and he really, really should have seen this coming when he took those two -- or had it been three? -- pills.
He just hadn't thought his first hallucination would be so crowded.
Idly fingering the bandage at the neck of his t-shirt, he looked around the beach bar, counting heads. Some police procedural show was blaring out of a large-screen tv in the back corner of the deck, and waitresses hovered around the tables and lounges carrying trays of brightly colored drinks embellished with little umbrellas and skewers of fruit.
There were four bar stools,three of them occupied by men exuding "I don't want to talk about it." House took the last one, and ordered a bourbon.
"You're new," the bartender said.
"Just got here."
"Welcome to Gemini Point. I'm Chuck."
"House."
"House? Oh, you must be --"
"Oh, now that is just ridiculous." A brunette was gesturing at the television screen.
"Settle down," a rectangular man seated next to her advised wearily.
"But I am a scientist, for God's sake! I'm not some teenaged idiot!"
"And I'm a sweet but socially awkward eagle scout from Michigan, not a psychotic serial killer," a young man sitting beside her said cheerlessly. "What's your point?"
"Zack, let it go, okay?" the rectangle demanded impatiently. He turned back to the brunette. "Look, I get it. I'm a parent. I take fatherhood very seriously. If I had unprotected sex, or a birth control failure, I'd have been freaking out for the last eight episodes."
"I've been contemplating the pros and cons of parenthood for over a year." The brunette shook her head. "I have my ovulation cycle timed down to the day. I'm deliberate about everything I do; you know I am. Getting pregnant inadvertently? Come on. I would not do that."
At that, Chuck reached over the bar and wagged a cord attached to the clapper of a large brass bell. Scattered applause and cheers drowned out the brunette's continued grumblings.
A second bourbon slid into place next to House's elbow as the waitresses swarmed the bar. "Third time this week," Chuck said, shoveling ice into a pitcher. "If this story arc keeps up, the free drink rounds are going to bankrupt us."
There was a key card in his jacket packet: The Hotel Arizona. One of the waitresses pointed toward a spot down the moonlit beach. How very cliche, House decided scornfully: his mind had decided that he needed a tropical vacation, the ultimate healing fantasy of washed out middle-aged men. And, his mind being his mind, it had added the feature of a mysterious, and kind of cranky, population.
Room 622 was tucked into a corner of the courtyard. Sliding glass doors led to a patio facing the beach. House found a prescription bottle of Vicodin in the bathroom and clean clothing, his sizes, in the closet. There was, oddly, no television.
House stripped and climbed into bed, consigning the puzzles to the recesses of his evidently overtaxed mind. He'd figure it all out, he told himself, as soon as he detoxed. Eventually.
"So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
The hallucination also featured room service. For the first three weeks, House had woken up every morning hoping to see his own ceiling in his own apartment from his own bed; every morning, he'd instead found a different, smiling, attractive woman bringing coffee and breakfast. Sometimes he and the woman would have sex after breakfast; sometimes, like today, they ambled out onto his patio and looked out at the sea as they talked about stellar cartography or vast international conspiracies or jewelry theft or temporal physics.
It was a little troubling to realize that his middle-aged washed-out ultimate healing fantasy was just as solitary and incomprehensible as the middle-aged washed-out life that he'd had before Mayfield, only with better weather. Recently, artifacts from his old apartment had been appearing in his hotel room overnight: bookcases, prints on the walls, even the piano. He was, apparently, here to stay for a while.
The woman frowned at him. "I'll tell you what I'm not doing in a place like this," she said bitterly. "I'm not abandoning my mission and risking my ship, along with the fate of the entire Alliance, to go gallivanting off to the Deneb Ring to rescue my boyfriend from Zebulonian raiders. I'm a professional."
"Right." House had concluded that he'd overdosed on the night of the crane collapse and was in a coma. Wilson had probably turned on the television in the hospital room where House was vegetating. House's senses were somehow processing the input from cheesy dramas and science documentaries bizarrely, through the drugs and his damaged neurological pathways.
The thought of Wilson, probably half-crazy with grief and worry about House back in Princeton, stimulated more processing. There had to be way out of this situation; House just needed the right trigger to provoke an epiphany.
"What is there to do around here?" he asked.
"I mostly have no-commitment sex and get hammered. But my crew's talked about shark-jumping contests, kayaking, hiking, poker, golf, tours of the ruins..."
"Ruins?" House cocked his head. "That sounds about right."
The locale of House's coma hallucinations was not an island, but a long, narrow peninsula. That geographical reality didn't prevent most of what passed for local businesses, like the "archeology tour," from operating on island time.
"Boat's busted." The tour boat captain leaned back in his deck chair, wiggled his bare, sand-encrusted toes over the boat railing and pulled his cap down over his eyes. "We're working on it. Hey, Allie!" he directed a shout over his shoulder. "Get the customer a beer! Buzz, you got a handle on this?"
"Of course I do. This is me you're talking to, remember, not some candy-ass insurance investigator," a female voice answered. From within the cabin there was a clanking sound. "I once broke into a maximum security storage vault with stuff I scrounged off a buffet table during a wedding reception, and then escaped in a four hundred thousand dollar Lamborghini I hotwired with the bride's cell phone. While I was wearing heels. If you think I can't get this tub going with one hand tied behind my back, you've been watching too much season fo -- SHIT!" A harsh screech of grinding metal was punctuated by a cry of pain.
"Allie!" The captain yelled again as he stood up. "That beer, please? And bring the first aid kit, Buzz skinned her knuckles again."
"Do it yourself. There are band-aids in the toolbox, and I put a bottle of hand sanitizer on the dashboard."
House, squinting out over the horizon, turned at the sound of the voice. The boat lurched, and he gripped the railing.
Holding out a bottle of beer, wearing a hot pink bikini, her skin tanned a golden brown and her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, was the inimitable Allison Cameron, M.D.
"Oh, crap," she said. "You're here."
TBC.
Part 2
Characters, Pairing: House/Cuddy, Wilson, Cameron
Warning: Crack. Meta.
Summary: I honestly have no explanation for this. But if you've ever wondered, "who were those awful people in season 7, and where did House and Cuddy go?" then here is my gift to you.
Comments welcome.
It had to happen, House supposed. He'd been clean for almost a year before his first relapse. The opiates would naturally be more potent, and the side effects more immediate, after a period of sobriety. Throw in emotional trauma, the injuries and the physical exhaustion, and he really, really should have seen this coming when he took those two -- or had it been three? -- pills.
He just hadn't thought his first hallucination would be so crowded.
Idly fingering the bandage at the neck of his t-shirt, he looked around the beach bar, counting heads. Some police procedural show was blaring out of a large-screen tv in the back corner of the deck, and waitresses hovered around the tables and lounges carrying trays of brightly colored drinks embellished with little umbrellas and skewers of fruit.
There were four bar stools,three of them occupied by men exuding "I don't want to talk about it." House took the last one, and ordered a bourbon.
"You're new," the bartender said.
"Just got here."
"Welcome to Gemini Point. I'm Chuck."
"House."
"House? Oh, you must be --"
"Oh, now that is just ridiculous." A brunette was gesturing at the television screen.
"Settle down," a rectangular man seated next to her advised wearily.
"But I am a scientist, for God's sake! I'm not some teenaged idiot!"
"And I'm a sweet but socially awkward eagle scout from Michigan, not a psychotic serial killer," a young man sitting beside her said cheerlessly. "What's your point?"
"Zack, let it go, okay?" the rectangle demanded impatiently. He turned back to the brunette. "Look, I get it. I'm a parent. I take fatherhood very seriously. If I had unprotected sex, or a birth control failure, I'd have been freaking out for the last eight episodes."
"I've been contemplating the pros and cons of parenthood for over a year." The brunette shook her head. "I have my ovulation cycle timed down to the day. I'm deliberate about everything I do; you know I am. Getting pregnant inadvertently? Come on. I would not do that."
At that, Chuck reached over the bar and wagged a cord attached to the clapper of a large brass bell. Scattered applause and cheers drowned out the brunette's continued grumblings.
A second bourbon slid into place next to House's elbow as the waitresses swarmed the bar. "Third time this week," Chuck said, shoveling ice into a pitcher. "If this story arc keeps up, the free drink rounds are going to bankrupt us."
There was a key card in his jacket packet: The Hotel Arizona. One of the waitresses pointed toward a spot down the moonlit beach. How very cliche, House decided scornfully: his mind had decided that he needed a tropical vacation, the ultimate healing fantasy of washed out middle-aged men. And, his mind being his mind, it had added the feature of a mysterious, and kind of cranky, population.
Room 622 was tucked into a corner of the courtyard. Sliding glass doors led to a patio facing the beach. House found a prescription bottle of Vicodin in the bathroom and clean clothing, his sizes, in the closet. There was, oddly, no television.
House stripped and climbed into bed, consigning the puzzles to the recesses of his evidently overtaxed mind. He'd figure it all out, he told himself, as soon as he detoxed. Eventually.
"So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
The hallucination also featured room service. For the first three weeks, House had woken up every morning hoping to see his own ceiling in his own apartment from his own bed; every morning, he'd instead found a different, smiling, attractive woman bringing coffee and breakfast. Sometimes he and the woman would have sex after breakfast; sometimes, like today, they ambled out onto his patio and looked out at the sea as they talked about stellar cartography or vast international conspiracies or jewelry theft or temporal physics.
It was a little troubling to realize that his middle-aged washed-out ultimate healing fantasy was just as solitary and incomprehensible as the middle-aged washed-out life that he'd had before Mayfield, only with better weather. Recently, artifacts from his old apartment had been appearing in his hotel room overnight: bookcases, prints on the walls, even the piano. He was, apparently, here to stay for a while.
The woman frowned at him. "I'll tell you what I'm not doing in a place like this," she said bitterly. "I'm not abandoning my mission and risking my ship, along with the fate of the entire Alliance, to go gallivanting off to the Deneb Ring to rescue my boyfriend from Zebulonian raiders. I'm a professional."
"Right." House had concluded that he'd overdosed on the night of the crane collapse and was in a coma. Wilson had probably turned on the television in the hospital room where House was vegetating. House's senses were somehow processing the input from cheesy dramas and science documentaries bizarrely, through the drugs and his damaged neurological pathways.
The thought of Wilson, probably half-crazy with grief and worry about House back in Princeton, stimulated more processing. There had to be way out of this situation; House just needed the right trigger to provoke an epiphany.
"What is there to do around here?" he asked.
"I mostly have no-commitment sex and get hammered. But my crew's talked about shark-jumping contests, kayaking, hiking, poker, golf, tours of the ruins..."
"Ruins?" House cocked his head. "That sounds about right."
The locale of House's coma hallucinations was not an island, but a long, narrow peninsula. That geographical reality didn't prevent most of what passed for local businesses, like the "archeology tour," from operating on island time.
"Boat's busted." The tour boat captain leaned back in his deck chair, wiggled his bare, sand-encrusted toes over the boat railing and pulled his cap down over his eyes. "We're working on it. Hey, Allie!" he directed a shout over his shoulder. "Get the customer a beer! Buzz, you got a handle on this?"
"Of course I do. This is me you're talking to, remember, not some candy-ass insurance investigator," a female voice answered. From within the cabin there was a clanking sound. "I once broke into a maximum security storage vault with stuff I scrounged off a buffet table during a wedding reception, and then escaped in a four hundred thousand dollar Lamborghini I hotwired with the bride's cell phone. While I was wearing heels. If you think I can't get this tub going with one hand tied behind my back, you've been watching too much season fo -- SHIT!" A harsh screech of grinding metal was punctuated by a cry of pain.
"Allie!" The captain yelled again as he stood up. "That beer, please? And bring the first aid kit, Buzz skinned her knuckles again."
"Do it yourself. There are band-aids in the toolbox, and I put a bottle of hand sanitizer on the dashboard."
House, squinting out over the horizon, turned at the sound of the voice. The boat lurched, and he gripped the railing.
Holding out a bottle of beer, wearing a hot pink bikini, her skin tanned a golden brown and her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, was the inimitable Allison Cameron, M.D.
"Oh, crap," she said. "You're here."
TBC.
Part 2