Yes, it's here - the House, M.D./Supernatural crossover fic (Part One)
Supernatural House: The Devil’s in the Details
Author:
starhawk2005
Date: August 2006
Pairing: House/Cameron.
Fandoms: House, M.D. and Supernatural. Yes, it’s a crossover fic, kids.
Rating: Adult (18+), because the characters have sex. Oh, and there’s some really bad language - Demons aren’t known for their decorum.
Summary: Ten patients come down with a mysterious, lethal ailment, and House can’t figure it out. Luckily, the ‘CDC’ sent over its finest - the Winchester Three.
Disclaimer: Don’t own any of these very pretty people. If anyone knows where I can rent John, Dean, or House for my personal pr0n amusement, however, I’ll be your BFF.
Please note that “
starhawk2005 cannot be held responsible for any brain melting, spontaneous combusting, or ovary exploding that occurs before/during/after reading this fanfiction. Thank you.” (credit to
_vicodin for the detailed legal disclaimer. *snerk*).
Many thanks to: Boy, I have a whole army of people to thank this time.
vartanluvva, for talking me into this and swapping plot ideas back and forth.
vartanluvva and
daisy123 for suggesting the title.
medicinal_mirth for beta’ing this monster.
phantomas for so graciously letting me steal borrow the text she transcribed from the Roman Rituals.
Author Notes: AU and all of that jazz. In terms of spoilers, this fic is set after the end of the entire series, presumably, for SPN. In terms of House canon, I’d say around the end of S2, but before all the OMIGODDRAMA of the final episode. So if you don’t want to be spoiled for either show, avoid accordingly.
It was just another typical day in the Diagnostics Department at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Or so Greg House had first thought.
Another patient had been brought in with an odd presentation. Nothing unusual there. Originally, the attending had thought it was some kind of psychosis. The patient had been acting crazy, speaking in a guttural voice, laughing and shouting obscenities. No family history of psychiatric disorders. Maybe it was a post-amphetamine or post-cocaine psychosis? That had been the consensus at the time, even though all drug tests came back clean. They’d figured if it was drug-induced, the guy would calm down eventually.
Instead, the patient died forty hours after admission.
Last House heard, psychosis wasn’t fatal. Unless the person obviously did something to hurt themselves, and that wasn’t the case here. There’d been no obvious injuries on admission, and the patient was in full restraints the entire time, according to the report from the nurses and the attending. Assuming the staff wasn’t lying, of course.
A few hours later, two more people were admitted. Same symptoms. More fruitless tests. More hours of Princeton’s best ER staff, wringing their hands and wondering what the Hell was going on.
That was when Cuddy had barged into the Diagnostic office, interrupting him in the midst of asking the Magic Eight-Ball some important questions - such as the likelihood of Wilson doing Debbie from Accounting before his divorce from Julie was finalized. House, as usual, had resisted taking the case at first, but a quick scan of the three files had hooked him in. It didn’t sound like any psychosis - or disease, for that matter - that he knew of. Interesting.
Apparently, his colleagues had waited too long to get House’s attention. A mere day later - again, forty hours after admission - same deal. The patients no longer had to worry about scoring the wrong drug. Or scoring anything else, for that matter, because they were dead.
House was angry, with a generous side of self-loathing. He didn’t like mysteries he couldn’t solve, or patients dying on him before he was good and ready for that to occur. But before he could get too depressed about it, another three identical cases came into the ER. Followed shortly after by another two.
This time, now that House knew the stakes, he was going to leave no stone un-turned. He sent Cameron to get a history from all of them, which proved fruitless. Most of them just ignored her, or just kept on yakking in guttural voices, but not saying anything intelligible. One patient just growled and stared at the ceiling, and then ended the history-taking by puking in Cameron’s face. Seemed to be a trend, House had noticed. Maybe it was time to make face-shields mandatory for her.
Chase and Foreman hooked each patient up to a few monitors, and took samples of blood and other bodily fluids, repeating everything the ER staff had done. Just in case. But all these tests told them little. They noticed a few unusual symptoms, but nothing added up to a likely diagnosis. Red marks, like scratches, that would appear for a few hours and then disappear. Sudden sharp rises and drops in blood pressure. House had heard other things, too, from the nurses - how they’d go in and the room would suddenly turn very cold, how they’d look into the patients’ eyes, and the eyes would be their usual colour one moment, and utterly black the next, though that ‘only lasted for a second’. The creepy, guttural voices. How they’d insulted the nurses, knowing things about them that the nurses claimed the patients had no way of knowing. Strange, sulfurous smells inside the hospital rooms. But House discounted all of that. There was only room in his universe for science. Physics, chemistry, biology. Medicine. There was a logical, biological explanation for what was going on. He just hadn’t found it yet.
He had twenty-three hours left.
*~*~*
Sam Winchester flipped through the newspaper while Dean and Dad sipped their morning coffee.
Sometimes, Sam wasn’t sure why he was still doing this. The Demon was dead. It had been an uphill battle all the way, and Sam himself had nearly died, but Dean had put the Colt’s last bullet through the thing’s heart. It was over.
Sam hadn’t been able to go back to his old life, though. It had been three years, and sitting in a library or dorm room studying for hours seemed rather pedestrian. Prosecuting human criminals seemed so…boring. Not when true evil was out there, lurking in the shadows.Waiting to pounce.
Of course Dad and Dean hadn’t been ready to give the life up yet, either. Predictably, killing the Demon hadn’t been enough for Dad. He wanted all the thing’s ‘kids’ as well. Failing that, he’d just settle for any demon stupid enough to cross his path. Or any demon-possessed human.
Which of course meant that Dean was still in the game, too. Dad had tried, Sam gave him credit for that. He’d eavesdropped while John had sat Dean down, giving him a slightly modified version of the same talk he’d given Sam himself. That he was proud of them. That he was sorry he’d dragged them through Hell on his quest to keep them safe. That he acknowledged that he’d made mistakes, that he wished things had been different. But that he loved them, and if they wanted to follow their own dreams - a law degree for Sam, a stable home of his own for Dean - he’d give them his blessing. Come visit them between hunting trips, too, if they’d have him.
Paradoxically, now that they had a choice, they’d chosen to remain with Dad, at least for now. Chosen to uphold the ‘family business’, of hunting and killing supernatural beings. Like Dean had once quipped, this job had its perks.
Sam flipped over another page, and a small article caught his eye. A hospital in New Jersey, where eight people in total had been brought in, showing signs that looked like psychosis, but the disease apparently proved lethal forty hours after admission, as three unfortunate patients had already discovered personally. The authorities were blaming dealers that were cutting their meth with things that had no business being in the human body, but....the symptoms mentioned in the article and the forty-hour lethality both raised alarm bells in Sam’s mind. And it was only about a five-hour drive. Four hours, if John let Dean take the lead.
“Hey, I think I’ve got something.” He passed Dad the paper, waiting while John scanned it quickly. Dad then got up from the table, passing the article over to Dean, and went to their duffle bags, starting to pack up. A sure sign they were about to hit the road, that Dad thought this was something they should look into.
So Sam followed suit, grinning to himself as he heard Dean mumble behind him. “Crap. Dude, I hate hospitals.”
*~*~*
Eighteen hours and counting.
*~*~*
More patients had come in, and now there were ten cases total of this strange disease.
Allison Cameron took off her glasses and rubbed at the ache between her eyes. What a crappy day. Getting yelled at by one patient, puked on by another (much to the amusement of the rest of the team), and now they were stuck staring at a whiteboard, covered with symptoms and rejected diagnoses, while House limp-paced angrily and hurled insults at their every suggestion.
She tried not to think about the fact that being in the same room with said patients had made the little hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She couldn’t discuss it with anyone else, least of all House. He’d mock her, call her crazy. Probably order her tied onto a bed next to the patients. No thanks.
The patients had known about her late husband Thomas. How he’d died. They’d even known that she wanted House. One of them had even said: “You’d like to fuck him, wouldn’t you, Alli?” She’d hesitantly told House about that aspect - the fact they seemed to know things they shouldn’t - and she’d left out the more personal details, but House had only waved his hand dismissively. “They overheard some staff gossiping. Whatever. See,” he’d said, holding up the Magic Eight-Ball, “my all-knowing toy agrees with me.”
Something was going on. She didn’t believe in God, not really, but something evil was in that room. In those people.
House called them useless for the eighth or ninth time, and then ordered Chase and Foreman to run more tests. And told her to make herself useful and make more coffee, before he limped off to his desk, turning on the TV. Asshole.
She was standing over the coffee-maker, breathing in the welcome smell, running over even vaguely plausible diagnoses in her mind, when she heard the conference room door open.
An unfamiliar voice asked behind her: “Are you Doctor House?”
She turned, to see three men standing in the doorway. One was an older man, with dark hair and eyes. Another was tall and scruffy-looking, and the final guy had short spiky hair and some kind of odd charm around his neck. All were in jeans and wearing leather jackets.
They looked rather out of place, actually.
“No,” she said, stepping forward. “I’m Doctor Cameron. Can I…help you?”
One of the young men - the shorter one - smirked and let his eyes roam the length of her body, but it was the older man who stepped forward and addressed her. “I’m Dr. John Colt, with the CDC.” He quickly flashed her his credentials. “This is Sam Kaplan and Dean Connors. We’re here about the fatal psychosis disease.”
She was surprised, frankly. “Forgive me,” she said, shaking hands all around. “You don’t look like typical CDC employees.”
“Yeah,” said the one introduced as Dean. “We were called here off of our respective vacations. ‘Your health is important to us’, and all of that.”
Dr. Colt turned and glared at the younger man, then turned back to Allison. “Sorry. Apparently some of us are still on vacation. Is Doctor House around, then? It’s very important that we discuss this case with him immediately.”
“Yes, he’s right in the next room,” Allison motioned towards the glass connecting-door. Everyone present could clearly see House was watching TV, and Allison had to shove back the urge to defend his behaviour to the CDC men. House might come across as slacking off while their patients were dying, but although she knew better, she wasn’t going to go to bat for him. Not after being treated like his personal doormat for the last five hours.
“Could my associates go over the patient histories with you, Dr. Cameron? I’m going to go speak to Dr. House.”
“Of course,” she answered, going back to her desk and collecting the necessary files.
*~*~*
John pushed the door open, mystified by this doctor’s behaviour. This guy had patients dying somewhere in this hospital, and he was just sitting here? Even if he couldn’t do anything to save them, the doctor didn’t know that. John shook his head slightly.
“Dr. House?” he asked.
“That’s what the writing on the door says,” the scruffy man returned sourly, stabbing in the direction of the office door with his cane. Boy, John sometimes felt underdressed for some of the places he tried to infiltrate, but this fellow put even Sammy’s perpetual grunge look to shame.
“I’m John Colt, with the CDC. We’re here about those psychotic-“
The man cut him off, eyes still locked to the TV. Looked like he was watching “General Hospital”, of all things. “What, is it ‘Casual Friday’ at the CDC? Niiiiice. I should have our head administrator institute the same policy here.” He paused to glance down at himself. “Oh, wait a minute-“
“Dr. House.” John interrupted him. He tried very hard not to get impatient with the man. He didn’t have time for pompous assholes who had no idea what they were dealing with. The clock was ticking. “If we could focus on the matter at hand. The psychotic patients, the ones who are dying-“
House cut him off again. “Yes, I know they’re dying. Thanks for that bit of intell. I take it you’re here to take them off my hands.”
Ah, that was it. The man was expecting a territorial dispute. Well, he was getting one, but not in the way he expected. “Not at the moment,” John assured him, trying to put the right dose of sincerity into his voice. “But we should probably quarantine them. Isolate them from the rest-“
Once again, the interruption. John felt his annoyance increasing. “Thank you, Doctor. I know what ‘quarantine’ is. That shiny medical degree over there-“ he waved his arm towards the bookshelves, where John could see an untidy pile of papers, a somewhat-rumpled medical degree peeking out of a battered envelope uppermost, “-says so.”
“Then we’re in agreement,” John said, trying again to quell his irritation. “I’m going to supervise the implementation of the quarantine procedures. Personally.” This not only meant he’d get to see all the victims and observe their symptoms, but have them all in one place. Easier to perform the mass exorcism tonight.
“Not so fast,” the other man said, propping his foot on the TV stand with both hands and then leaning back languidly. “How do we know it’s communicable? It could be some new party drug or something. No one who’s been treating them has developed any symptoms.”
Give it time, John thought to himself. It was sheer luck that the demons hadn’t jumped into any hospital personnel yet. With all the stresses and strains they went through, staff were prime targets for possession.
“Still, I’m sure you agree that being prudent-“
The man cut him off a final time. “Prudence isn’t one of my virtues. Just ask the Dean of Medicine.”
John had reached his limit. “Dr. House,” he hissed, fixing the man with his best death-glare, honed by years in the service and years of raising rebellious sons, “you will put these patients in quarantine. Now.”
House gave him a sharp look, momentarily startled. But then his expression hardened. “It’s not my call. Take it up with Cuddy, the aforementioned Dean. In fact, there she is - see the impressive melons? That’s her. Do us both a favour and go catch up with her. Out in the hall, thanks. I’m busy saving lives here.”
If House hadn’t already been a cripple, John Winchester would’ve been sorely tempted to hurt him - and badly - right then and there…
*~*~*
Dean flipped through the histories, sneaking glances at Dr. Cameron.
He let Sam do most of the work, seeing if there were any connections between the patients. Any commonalities in their histories. Sam always had been better at the research end of things.
Not that they expected to find any commonalities. Given that demons usually wormed their way into people through their emotional vulnerabilities, that made for a lot of potential human hosts. But you never knew. Maybe all the possess-ees were all in the same rehab program. Maybe they were all seeing the same family doctor or shrink. Someone foolish enough to summon the demons and put them into hapless people, just for their own sick amusement. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time Dean and his family had encountered something like that.
Doctor Cameron was very pretty, he’d noticed. She had to have brains, too, to be a doctor. Just the kind of ‘full deal’ package Dean liked best. So long as Dad and Sam were handling things, he didn’t see why he couldn’t have a teeny bit of fun. Get on her good side. Maybe that would even help them later on.
“So, what kind of medicine do you do, Dr. Cameron?” he asked, trying to be smooth about it. He ignored Sam’s exasperated eye-roll, which he could see out of the corner of his eye.
She glanced up at him, smirking faintly, as if she knew what was really on his mind. “Immunology.”
“Cool,” Dean said. “So, what’s your take on these patients? It seem like a case of unexpected drug side-effects to you?”
She sighed and stood up, heading over to rinse her mug in the sink. “Not like any I’ve ever seen.” A frown crossed her features, but she said nothing else. Dean wondered what she was not telling them. “Would you like some coffee, Doctor?” she asked him.
He held up his hand. “Call me Dean. And yes, please.”
She brought him the coffee, but still looked uncomfortable. Like she was having some kind of internal debate. “If there’s nothing else I can do for you…” she finally said.
“Oh, I can probably think of a few things later,” Dean said, unable to keep a smirk off his face.
And a wince, as Sam’s foot connected with his ankle under the table.
Still, she smiled a little at his attempt at a pick-up. Almost worth the sharp pain in his ankle.
He was about to try to ask her what she was holding back - maybe he’d practice using Sammy’s famed ‘coaxing-voice’ to do it - when two more people came into the room. One blond guy, and one annoyed-looking black dude.
“Nothing and more nothing,” the blond said in an Australian accent, throwing some sheets onto the conference table. “No drugs, no viruses or bacteria of any kind…”
“No signs of brain tumours or other trauma,” Black Dude chimed in. “And you are-?” he asked, turning to Dean and his brother.
“They’re from the CDC,” Cameron explained, going through the introductions. Given the circumstances, Dean decided to wait until a little later to pump her for the information she was withholding.
In the meantime though, he could save himself a slap to the back of the head from Dad, if he did something useful. “So,” he started, shuffling the patient files, “patients come in, they’re acting crazy. Weird changes in blood pressure. ‘Temporary red marks’. Any idea what could be going on?” Of course, he and his family knew what was going on. Such biological signs were often associated with being possessed, but no one other than his fellow ‘players’ had documented it to date. The New England Journal of Medicine certainly hadn’t run any ‘Special Edition - Demon Possession’ that he knew of.
Before the trio of doctors could answer, however, the man in the other room shouted their names and they got to their feet and headed over. Dean hung back with Sammy, waiting to see who and how badly Dad had pissed someone off this time.
*~*~*
John watched impatiently as Cuddy and House duked it out verbally. She wanted House to be reasonable and put the patients in quarantine. He seemed to be disagreeing just to be disagreeable. How the man hadn’t been fired already, John had no idea.
Honestly, sometimes killing supernatural beings was so much easier than dealing with humans. People were freakin’ crazy.
“You do what the CDC wants, or I’m taking you off the case,” Cuddy finally proclaimed, hands on hips and extraordinary cleavage heaving. John had never seen a Dean of Medicine dress so provocatively, but he could admit he liked it. He’d bet Dean would, too.
“You wouldn’t,” House said dismissively.
“Why not?” Cuddy retorted hotly. “It’s not like you’ve done anything useful since the case was handed over to your department. And you’ve probably got less than fifteen hours left before the first of the new patients dies. Time to get a fresh perspective on the matter.”
When House only sat there, speechless for a long moment, she nodded over at John. “We’ll prep the patients and move them into isolation immediately.”
“Thank you.” John breathed an inner sigh of relief. One hurdle down.
House grimaced, now looking very pissed off. “Cameron! Chase! Foreman!” he yelled, “Get your pretty and incompetent asses in here!” He was obviously ignoring the look of immediate disapproval on Cuddy’s face.
Dr. Cameron and her two apparent colleagues materialized in the doorway. “Do something useful with your time, and go help the nurses move the patients into isolation,” he snarled.
Hiding his own annoyance with the man, John rejoined his boys in the other room.
“Wow,” Dean said, still looking over into the other room and obviously ogling Cuddy’s chest. “I think I like this hospital. Too bad I don’t do cougars, though.”
John looked around to make sure they were unobserved, and then gave the boy a smack across the back of the head. “Watch it, Dean.”
“Sorry, sir.”
John sighed inwardly. He knew he shouldn’t have pulled them out of the last truck-stop so quickly. Dean was going to drool over everything female and vaguely good-looking within a five-mile radius…
*~*~*
Ten hours and counting.
*~*~*
Continued in part two...
Crossposted to AO3
Author:
starhawk2005
Date: August 2006
Pairing: House/Cameron.
Fandoms: House, M.D. and Supernatural. Yes, it’s a crossover fic, kids.
Rating: Adult (18+), because the characters have sex. Oh, and there’s some really bad language - Demons aren’t known for their decorum.
Summary: Ten patients come down with a mysterious, lethal ailment, and House can’t figure it out. Luckily, the ‘CDC’ sent over its finest - the Winchester Three.
Disclaimer: Don’t own any of these very pretty people. If anyone knows where I can rent John, Dean, or House for my personal pr0n amusement, however, I’ll be your BFF.
Please note that “
starhawk2005 cannot be held responsible for any brain melting, spontaneous combusting, or ovary exploding that occurs before/during/after reading this fanfiction. Thank you.” (credit to
_vicodin for the detailed legal disclaimer. *snerk*).
Many thanks to: Boy, I have a whole army of people to thank this time.
vartanluvva, for talking me into this and swapping plot ideas back and forth.
vartanluvva and
daisy123 for suggesting the title.
medicinal_mirth for beta’ing this monster.
phantomas for so graciously letting me steal borrow the text she transcribed from the Roman Rituals.
Author Notes: AU and all of that jazz. In terms of spoilers, this fic is set after the end of the entire series, presumably, for SPN. In terms of House canon, I’d say around the end of S2, but before all the OMIGODDRAMA of the final episode. So if you don’t want to be spoiled for either show, avoid accordingly.
It was just another typical day in the Diagnostics Department at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Or so Greg House had first thought.
Another patient had been brought in with an odd presentation. Nothing unusual there. Originally, the attending had thought it was some kind of psychosis. The patient had been acting crazy, speaking in a guttural voice, laughing and shouting obscenities. No family history of psychiatric disorders. Maybe it was a post-amphetamine or post-cocaine psychosis? That had been the consensus at the time, even though all drug tests came back clean. They’d figured if it was drug-induced, the guy would calm down eventually.
Instead, the patient died forty hours after admission.
Last House heard, psychosis wasn’t fatal. Unless the person obviously did something to hurt themselves, and that wasn’t the case here. There’d been no obvious injuries on admission, and the patient was in full restraints the entire time, according to the report from the nurses and the attending. Assuming the staff wasn’t lying, of course.
A few hours later, two more people were admitted. Same symptoms. More fruitless tests. More hours of Princeton’s best ER staff, wringing their hands and wondering what the Hell was going on.
That was when Cuddy had barged into the Diagnostic office, interrupting him in the midst of asking the Magic Eight-Ball some important questions - such as the likelihood of Wilson doing Debbie from Accounting before his divorce from Julie was finalized. House, as usual, had resisted taking the case at first, but a quick scan of the three files had hooked him in. It didn’t sound like any psychosis - or disease, for that matter - that he knew of. Interesting.
Apparently, his colleagues had waited too long to get House’s attention. A mere day later - again, forty hours after admission - same deal. The patients no longer had to worry about scoring the wrong drug. Or scoring anything else, for that matter, because they were dead.
House was angry, with a generous side of self-loathing. He didn’t like mysteries he couldn’t solve, or patients dying on him before he was good and ready for that to occur. But before he could get too depressed about it, another three identical cases came into the ER. Followed shortly after by another two.
This time, now that House knew the stakes, he was going to leave no stone un-turned. He sent Cameron to get a history from all of them, which proved fruitless. Most of them just ignored her, or just kept on yakking in guttural voices, but not saying anything intelligible. One patient just growled and stared at the ceiling, and then ended the history-taking by puking in Cameron’s face. Seemed to be a trend, House had noticed. Maybe it was time to make face-shields mandatory for her.
Chase and Foreman hooked each patient up to a few monitors, and took samples of blood and other bodily fluids, repeating everything the ER staff had done. Just in case. But all these tests told them little. They noticed a few unusual symptoms, but nothing added up to a likely diagnosis. Red marks, like scratches, that would appear for a few hours and then disappear. Sudden sharp rises and drops in blood pressure. House had heard other things, too, from the nurses - how they’d go in and the room would suddenly turn very cold, how they’d look into the patients’ eyes, and the eyes would be their usual colour one moment, and utterly black the next, though that ‘only lasted for a second’. The creepy, guttural voices. How they’d insulted the nurses, knowing things about them that the nurses claimed the patients had no way of knowing. Strange, sulfurous smells inside the hospital rooms. But House discounted all of that. There was only room in his universe for science. Physics, chemistry, biology. Medicine. There was a logical, biological explanation for what was going on. He just hadn’t found it yet.
He had twenty-three hours left.
*~*~*
Sam Winchester flipped through the newspaper while Dean and Dad sipped their morning coffee.
Sometimes, Sam wasn’t sure why he was still doing this. The Demon was dead. It had been an uphill battle all the way, and Sam himself had nearly died, but Dean had put the Colt’s last bullet through the thing’s heart. It was over.
Sam hadn’t been able to go back to his old life, though. It had been three years, and sitting in a library or dorm room studying for hours seemed rather pedestrian. Prosecuting human criminals seemed so…boring. Not when true evil was out there, lurking in the shadows.Waiting to pounce.
Of course Dad and Dean hadn’t been ready to give the life up yet, either. Predictably, killing the Demon hadn’t been enough for Dad. He wanted all the thing’s ‘kids’ as well. Failing that, he’d just settle for any demon stupid enough to cross his path. Or any demon-possessed human.
Which of course meant that Dean was still in the game, too. Dad had tried, Sam gave him credit for that. He’d eavesdropped while John had sat Dean down, giving him a slightly modified version of the same talk he’d given Sam himself. That he was proud of them. That he was sorry he’d dragged them through Hell on his quest to keep them safe. That he acknowledged that he’d made mistakes, that he wished things had been different. But that he loved them, and if they wanted to follow their own dreams - a law degree for Sam, a stable home of his own for Dean - he’d give them his blessing. Come visit them between hunting trips, too, if they’d have him.
Paradoxically, now that they had a choice, they’d chosen to remain with Dad, at least for now. Chosen to uphold the ‘family business’, of hunting and killing supernatural beings. Like Dean had once quipped, this job had its perks.
Sam flipped over another page, and a small article caught his eye. A hospital in New Jersey, where eight people in total had been brought in, showing signs that looked like psychosis, but the disease apparently proved lethal forty hours after admission, as three unfortunate patients had already discovered personally. The authorities were blaming dealers that were cutting their meth with things that had no business being in the human body, but....the symptoms mentioned in the article and the forty-hour lethality both raised alarm bells in Sam’s mind. And it was only about a five-hour drive. Four hours, if John let Dean take the lead.
“Hey, I think I’ve got something.” He passed Dad the paper, waiting while John scanned it quickly. Dad then got up from the table, passing the article over to Dean, and went to their duffle bags, starting to pack up. A sure sign they were about to hit the road, that Dad thought this was something they should look into.
So Sam followed suit, grinning to himself as he heard Dean mumble behind him. “Crap. Dude, I hate hospitals.”
*~*~*
Eighteen hours and counting.
*~*~*
More patients had come in, and now there were ten cases total of this strange disease.
Allison Cameron took off her glasses and rubbed at the ache between her eyes. What a crappy day. Getting yelled at by one patient, puked on by another (much to the amusement of the rest of the team), and now they were stuck staring at a whiteboard, covered with symptoms and rejected diagnoses, while House limp-paced angrily and hurled insults at their every suggestion.
She tried not to think about the fact that being in the same room with said patients had made the little hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She couldn’t discuss it with anyone else, least of all House. He’d mock her, call her crazy. Probably order her tied onto a bed next to the patients. No thanks.
The patients had known about her late husband Thomas. How he’d died. They’d even known that she wanted House. One of them had even said: “You’d like to fuck him, wouldn’t you, Alli?” She’d hesitantly told House about that aspect - the fact they seemed to know things they shouldn’t - and she’d left out the more personal details, but House had only waved his hand dismissively. “They overheard some staff gossiping. Whatever. See,” he’d said, holding up the Magic Eight-Ball, “my all-knowing toy agrees with me.”
Something was going on. She didn’t believe in God, not really, but something evil was in that room. In those people.
House called them useless for the eighth or ninth time, and then ordered Chase and Foreman to run more tests. And told her to make herself useful and make more coffee, before he limped off to his desk, turning on the TV. Asshole.
She was standing over the coffee-maker, breathing in the welcome smell, running over even vaguely plausible diagnoses in her mind, when she heard the conference room door open.
An unfamiliar voice asked behind her: “Are you Doctor House?”
She turned, to see three men standing in the doorway. One was an older man, with dark hair and eyes. Another was tall and scruffy-looking, and the final guy had short spiky hair and some kind of odd charm around his neck. All were in jeans and wearing leather jackets.
They looked rather out of place, actually.
“No,” she said, stepping forward. “I’m Doctor Cameron. Can I…help you?”
One of the young men - the shorter one - smirked and let his eyes roam the length of her body, but it was the older man who stepped forward and addressed her. “I’m Dr. John Colt, with the CDC.” He quickly flashed her his credentials. “This is Sam Kaplan and Dean Connors. We’re here about the fatal psychosis disease.”
She was surprised, frankly. “Forgive me,” she said, shaking hands all around. “You don’t look like typical CDC employees.”
“Yeah,” said the one introduced as Dean. “We were called here off of our respective vacations. ‘Your health is important to us’, and all of that.”
Dr. Colt turned and glared at the younger man, then turned back to Allison. “Sorry. Apparently some of us are still on vacation. Is Doctor House around, then? It’s very important that we discuss this case with him immediately.”
“Yes, he’s right in the next room,” Allison motioned towards the glass connecting-door. Everyone present could clearly see House was watching TV, and Allison had to shove back the urge to defend his behaviour to the CDC men. House might come across as slacking off while their patients were dying, but although she knew better, she wasn’t going to go to bat for him. Not after being treated like his personal doormat for the last five hours.
“Could my associates go over the patient histories with you, Dr. Cameron? I’m going to go speak to Dr. House.”
“Of course,” she answered, going back to her desk and collecting the necessary files.
*~*~*
John pushed the door open, mystified by this doctor’s behaviour. This guy had patients dying somewhere in this hospital, and he was just sitting here? Even if he couldn’t do anything to save them, the doctor didn’t know that. John shook his head slightly.
“Dr. House?” he asked.
“That’s what the writing on the door says,” the scruffy man returned sourly, stabbing in the direction of the office door with his cane. Boy, John sometimes felt underdressed for some of the places he tried to infiltrate, but this fellow put even Sammy’s perpetual grunge look to shame.
“I’m John Colt, with the CDC. We’re here about those psychotic-“
The man cut him off, eyes still locked to the TV. Looked like he was watching “General Hospital”, of all things. “What, is it ‘Casual Friday’ at the CDC? Niiiiice. I should have our head administrator institute the same policy here.” He paused to glance down at himself. “Oh, wait a minute-“
“Dr. House.” John interrupted him. He tried very hard not to get impatient with the man. He didn’t have time for pompous assholes who had no idea what they were dealing with. The clock was ticking. “If we could focus on the matter at hand. The psychotic patients, the ones who are dying-“
House cut him off again. “Yes, I know they’re dying. Thanks for that bit of intell. I take it you’re here to take them off my hands.”
Ah, that was it. The man was expecting a territorial dispute. Well, he was getting one, but not in the way he expected. “Not at the moment,” John assured him, trying to put the right dose of sincerity into his voice. “But we should probably quarantine them. Isolate them from the rest-“
Once again, the interruption. John felt his annoyance increasing. “Thank you, Doctor. I know what ‘quarantine’ is. That shiny medical degree over there-“ he waved his arm towards the bookshelves, where John could see an untidy pile of papers, a somewhat-rumpled medical degree peeking out of a battered envelope uppermost, “-says so.”
“Then we’re in agreement,” John said, trying again to quell his irritation. “I’m going to supervise the implementation of the quarantine procedures. Personally.” This not only meant he’d get to see all the victims and observe their symptoms, but have them all in one place. Easier to perform the mass exorcism tonight.
“Not so fast,” the other man said, propping his foot on the TV stand with both hands and then leaning back languidly. “How do we know it’s communicable? It could be some new party drug or something. No one who’s been treating them has developed any symptoms.”
Give it time, John thought to himself. It was sheer luck that the demons hadn’t jumped into any hospital personnel yet. With all the stresses and strains they went through, staff were prime targets for possession.
“Still, I’m sure you agree that being prudent-“
The man cut him off a final time. “Prudence isn’t one of my virtues. Just ask the Dean of Medicine.”
John had reached his limit. “Dr. House,” he hissed, fixing the man with his best death-glare, honed by years in the service and years of raising rebellious sons, “you will put these patients in quarantine. Now.”
House gave him a sharp look, momentarily startled. But then his expression hardened. “It’s not my call. Take it up with Cuddy, the aforementioned Dean. In fact, there she is - see the impressive melons? That’s her. Do us both a favour and go catch up with her. Out in the hall, thanks. I’m busy saving lives here.”
If House hadn’t already been a cripple, John Winchester would’ve been sorely tempted to hurt him - and badly - right then and there…
*~*~*
Dean flipped through the histories, sneaking glances at Dr. Cameron.
He let Sam do most of the work, seeing if there were any connections between the patients. Any commonalities in their histories. Sam always had been better at the research end of things.
Not that they expected to find any commonalities. Given that demons usually wormed their way into people through their emotional vulnerabilities, that made for a lot of potential human hosts. But you never knew. Maybe all the possess-ees were all in the same rehab program. Maybe they were all seeing the same family doctor or shrink. Someone foolish enough to summon the demons and put them into hapless people, just for their own sick amusement. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time Dean and his family had encountered something like that.
Doctor Cameron was very pretty, he’d noticed. She had to have brains, too, to be a doctor. Just the kind of ‘full deal’ package Dean liked best. So long as Dad and Sam were handling things, he didn’t see why he couldn’t have a teeny bit of fun. Get on her good side. Maybe that would even help them later on.
“So, what kind of medicine do you do, Dr. Cameron?” he asked, trying to be smooth about it. He ignored Sam’s exasperated eye-roll, which he could see out of the corner of his eye.
She glanced up at him, smirking faintly, as if she knew what was really on his mind. “Immunology.”
“Cool,” Dean said. “So, what’s your take on these patients? It seem like a case of unexpected drug side-effects to you?”
She sighed and stood up, heading over to rinse her mug in the sink. “Not like any I’ve ever seen.” A frown crossed her features, but she said nothing else. Dean wondered what she was not telling them. “Would you like some coffee, Doctor?” she asked him.
He held up his hand. “Call me Dean. And yes, please.”
She brought him the coffee, but still looked uncomfortable. Like she was having some kind of internal debate. “If there’s nothing else I can do for you…” she finally said.
“Oh, I can probably think of a few things later,” Dean said, unable to keep a smirk off his face.
And a wince, as Sam’s foot connected with his ankle under the table.
Still, she smiled a little at his attempt at a pick-up. Almost worth the sharp pain in his ankle.
He was about to try to ask her what she was holding back - maybe he’d practice using Sammy’s famed ‘coaxing-voice’ to do it - when two more people came into the room. One blond guy, and one annoyed-looking black dude.
“Nothing and more nothing,” the blond said in an Australian accent, throwing some sheets onto the conference table. “No drugs, no viruses or bacteria of any kind…”
“No signs of brain tumours or other trauma,” Black Dude chimed in. “And you are-?” he asked, turning to Dean and his brother.
“They’re from the CDC,” Cameron explained, going through the introductions. Given the circumstances, Dean decided to wait until a little later to pump her for the information she was withholding.
In the meantime though, he could save himself a slap to the back of the head from Dad, if he did something useful. “So,” he started, shuffling the patient files, “patients come in, they’re acting crazy. Weird changes in blood pressure. ‘Temporary red marks’. Any idea what could be going on?” Of course, he and his family knew what was going on. Such biological signs were often associated with being possessed, but no one other than his fellow ‘players’ had documented it to date. The New England Journal of Medicine certainly hadn’t run any ‘Special Edition - Demon Possession’ that he knew of.
Before the trio of doctors could answer, however, the man in the other room shouted their names and they got to their feet and headed over. Dean hung back with Sammy, waiting to see who and how badly Dad had pissed someone off this time.
*~*~*
John watched impatiently as Cuddy and House duked it out verbally. She wanted House to be reasonable and put the patients in quarantine. He seemed to be disagreeing just to be disagreeable. How the man hadn’t been fired already, John had no idea.
Honestly, sometimes killing supernatural beings was so much easier than dealing with humans. People were freakin’ crazy.
“You do what the CDC wants, or I’m taking you off the case,” Cuddy finally proclaimed, hands on hips and extraordinary cleavage heaving. John had never seen a Dean of Medicine dress so provocatively, but he could admit he liked it. He’d bet Dean would, too.
“You wouldn’t,” House said dismissively.
“Why not?” Cuddy retorted hotly. “It’s not like you’ve done anything useful since the case was handed over to your department. And you’ve probably got less than fifteen hours left before the first of the new patients dies. Time to get a fresh perspective on the matter.”
When House only sat there, speechless for a long moment, she nodded over at John. “We’ll prep the patients and move them into isolation immediately.”
“Thank you.” John breathed an inner sigh of relief. One hurdle down.
House grimaced, now looking very pissed off. “Cameron! Chase! Foreman!” he yelled, “Get your pretty and incompetent asses in here!” He was obviously ignoring the look of immediate disapproval on Cuddy’s face.
Dr. Cameron and her two apparent colleagues materialized in the doorway. “Do something useful with your time, and go help the nurses move the patients into isolation,” he snarled.
Hiding his own annoyance with the man, John rejoined his boys in the other room.
“Wow,” Dean said, still looking over into the other room and obviously ogling Cuddy’s chest. “I think I like this hospital. Too bad I don’t do cougars, though.”
John looked around to make sure they were unobserved, and then gave the boy a smack across the back of the head. “Watch it, Dean.”
“Sorry, sir.”
John sighed inwardly. He knew he shouldn’t have pulled them out of the last truck-stop so quickly. Dean was going to drool over everything female and vaguely good-looking within a five-mile radius…
*~*~*
Ten hours and counting.
*~*~*
Continued in part two...
Crossposted to AO3