Not a Pencils Update:
Inspired by this, this, and especially, this, I wrote, well, this.
(If you don't want to be spoiled, don't click the links until after you've read the story.)
Let me know if you think I should continue!
***
House gripped a pencil in his fist and used the eraser end to push the buttons on his phone. It was lucky he had speed dial--pressing all seven numbers could have taken all day.
The phone rang four times, then kicked him back to the front desk. “Sir, the guest you’re trying to reach isn’t answering. Would you like to leave a message?”
“No,” he growled. “He’s in there; let it ring.”
“Sir, we can’t allow our guests to be disturbed.”
“I’ll just call back, if you don’t do it,” he pointed out. “And it’s an emergency. I work with Dr. Wilson. At the hospital.”
She put him through.
After about ten more rings, Wilson finally picked up. “Wilson…what?” he answered blearily.
“Come over.”
“House? Why? It’s…okay, well, it’s almost seven, but--what are you doing up?”
“I need you to come over,” House repeated.
“What for?”
“I have a…problem.”
“What?” he said suspiciously. “Look, I don’t have to be at work for almost an hour and a half. Let me finish sleeping, and I’ll come in early and buy you breakfast.”
Apparently he’d tricked Wilson into coming over to feed or entertain him one too many times. House was reminded of the sad tale of the boy who cried “wolf.” “No, you have to come over here. Because of the problem.”
“What exactly is this mysterious ‘problem’?” Wilson wanted to know. House could hear him moving around in his hotel room--getting dressed, House hoped.
“It’s, uh….I had a date last night. With the vegan herbalist?”
“Right,” Wilson said guardedly.
“It went…badly.”
“Are you handcuffed to the headboard again?”
“Something like that.”
Wilson sighed. House knew that sigh--it was the sigh of his mother the sixth through twenty-seventh times he’d been sent home from school for fighting, cheating, or being generally disruptive. It indicated that she was no longer shocked or even disappointed, but had not quite gotten to angry yet. “I should just send the police over,” he threatened.
“Trust me, you don’t want the police to see me like…this.”
Another sigh. “Okay, I’m coming over. But you’re buying me breakfast at work.”
House was in no position to argue. “Sure, fine, anything you want. Caviar omelet, bald eagle fricassee, the sky’s the limit.” He was fairly confident that Wilson would forget those airy promises as soon as he got an eyeful of House’s current state, and if not, he could always come up with some way to get out of paying.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
#
Wilson was far from convinced that House had a genuine problem. But he harbored a deep fear that if he turned down a request for help, it would turn out to be the one time House really needed him. Tone of voice and word choice weren’t reliable indicators--in fact, the more trivial the reason for his summons, the more convincingly House feigned distress. One time he’d actually cried on the phone, and when Wilson got there, it turned out the battery in his remote control was dead, and he wanted Wilson to first change the channel and then go out for batteries. At the other end of the spectrum, if House was really in trouble, he was more likely to hide and lash out than to ask for help.
Since he had called and asked for help, Wilson assessed that the problem, if indeed it existed, was not acute. He ran through the shower but just towel-dried and combed his hair before heading over to House’s.
The bike was parked in its usual spot in front of 221 Baker Street--he wasn’t sure if that confirmed or disproved House’s story. He knocked twice on the door and let himself in--if House was in fact chained to the headboard, he wasn’t in a position to answer the door. “House?” he called.
“Here,” House said sheepishly. But the voice sounded like it came from the area in front of the couch. Maybe he’d fallen down there?
Wilson circled to the front of the couch. There was nothing there, except an old brown towel or something. “House? Where are you?”
“Here,” House said again. The voice was coming from the same place. Was he invisible?
“Where?” And was that towel moving? Given the way House kept house, it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. He turned on the lamp for a better look.
“Here.” The towel wasn’t a towel; it was a teddy bear. And it was slowly getting to its feet. Or paws? It waved its arms. “Earth to Wilson.”
Wilson rubbed his eyes. The teddy bear was still waving. But, obviously, it wasn’t what it looked like. House had all kinds of weird skills--why not ventriloquism and puppetry? “Goodness, House,” he said in a mock-dramatic voice. “You’ve turned into a teddy bear! How on earth did something like that happen?”
“I don’t know,” said the bear. “I think the vegan herbalist was actually a witch.”
“Right, a witch. That makes perfect sense.” He couldn’t believe he was missing out on sleep for this. He really was going to make House buy him breakfast.
“You don’t believe me,” the bear accused him.
“Oh, no, I do,” Wilson lied, looking around to see where House was hiding. Not in the kitchen, unless he was crouched behind the island (which seemed unlikely, given his leg). Maybe the hall closet? Wilson opened the door to check.
“It really is me,” House told him earnestly.
“I’m sure it is.” Wilson went into the kitchen and looked behind the island.
The teddy bear followed him, holding on to the sofa for support. “I know it’s hard to believe.”
“No, I’m sure it happens all the time. Doesn’t the clinic see five or six cases a week of people who have been turned into plush animals?”
“How can I prove this is really me?” the teddy bear demanded.
“You can’t.” He checked the bathroom and bedroom, even getting down on the floor to look under House’s bed. He found a dust bunny that he initially mistook for a novelty slipper, but no House. “Okay, where the hell are you?”
“Right here.” The bear was leaning against the doorframe, one hind paw crossed over the other.
Wilson noticed that the bear’s right leg was marred by a large bald patch with a crooked seam running down the middle. “Come here,” he told the bear.
“What for?” House’s voice answered suspiciously.
“I want to figure out how you work.” He’d initially suspected strings or wires, but House would have to be very close to the bear for that to work. Maybe it was radio-controlled?
“Fine.” The bear spread its arms wide. “Maybe that’ll convince you I’m really me.”
“Doubt it.” As Wilson crouched to inspect the bear, it occurred to him that he might be playing right into House’s hands. He’d probably bounce out of--well, whatever hiding place Wilson hadn’t thought to check--announcing to all and sundry that he was sure Wilson had thought for a moment that he’d really been turned into a teddy bear.
But House didn’t spring into view, and he couldn’t detect any wires attached to or inside of the bear. He squeezed its middle to feel for a battery pack, but the bear batted at his hands with its paws. “Hey! No squishing.”
“You’re plush, it can’t possibly hurt.” Wilson kept feeling around.
“Hey--that’s my butt.”
“Your fuzzy butt,” Wilson pointed out. Maybe the batteries were in its head.
“Yow! No head squishing either!”
“Okay.” He sat back on his heels. “I give up. What’s the trick?”
“No trick. It’s all me.”
“People don’t turn into teddy bears,” Wilson pointed out.
“Yeah, until an hour ago, I thought that too.”
“And even if they could, the resulting teddy bear wouldn’t be able to walk and talk. You don’t have any bones or muscles.”
“I know,” the bear said mournfully. “But my leg still hurts. How unfair is that?”
Wilson decided that he must be dreaming. That being the case, he might as well go with it. “What did you do to…what was her name?”
“Bella,” the bear answered. “Bella Kirke.” He sat down. “It started out pretty well. She took me to her favorite macrobiotic vegan co-op for brown rice and a stir-fry made out of things that were fresh-picked from the side of the highway that morning. I had two helpings.”
“Okay….”
“After that we went to see some performance art by a troupe called Womyn In Rage. I thought watching shirtless lesbians for an hour would have to be fun, but surprisingly, no. By the way, don’t bring anything girl-on-girl to porn night for at least a month.”
“Fair enough.”
“So I managed to pretend I was Mr. Sensitive Guy who was into all that kind of thing for a couple of hours, and then we came back here.” The bear folded its arms across its chest. “We had a glass of wine--did you know that stuff you brought over last week was organic? I dug the bottle out of the recycling bin and poured some of the regular stuff in there. We were making out on the couch and everything was fine until she had to go to the bathroom.”
“Did she find your porn stash?” Wilson asked sympathetically.
“Nah. Rookie mistake. What she found was your froofy shampoo for color-treated hair.”
“Isn’t that under the sink?”
“Yeah, she snooped. And then she came out and told me how cute she thought it was that we men felt like we had to pretend to be someone we weren’t to be attractive to women, when what women really find sexy is a man who’s confident enough to be who he really is.”
“And you didn’t just go with it?”
“After I pretended to like eating weed salad? No. I told her if she had any idea who I really was she wouldn’t be about to have sex with me. Then I started pulling out all my pornography, matchbooks from strip clubs, telling her how much I hated angry lesbian performance art….”
"You just lost it, huh?” Wilson asked.
"Yeah. And then she asked me why I went out with her, if we so obviously had nothing in common. So I asked her if she's looked in a mirror lately."
"Ouch."
“So she said something about showing me what it was like to never be taken seriously because of my body, and the next thing I knew--I woke up like this.” The bear spread his furry arms again. “You have to fix me.”
“How?” Wilson asked.
“I don’t know--aren’t you supposed to be some kind of a doctor?”
“Yeah, but not a witch doctor.” Wilson ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, let’s go into the hospital. I’ll run some tests--maybe we can figure something out.” He wasn’t sure what tests, exactly, but if other people saw teddy-House, at least he’d know he wasn’t crazy.
“What? I can’t go in to work like this.” Teddy-House gestured at himself. “I’m naked.”
“You’ve got--fur,” Wilson pointed out.
“Fur is not the same as clothes.”
“You also don’t have any genitals.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Teddy-House looked mournfully at his crotch. “Go get me some clothes. I’ll wait here.”
“You’re, what, twelve inches tall?” Wilson said. “Where am I supposed to get clothes for you?”
“I think I’m bigger than that. We’d better take some measurements.”
Continued in chapter two!