snowblindrpg | [log] I Think We're Alone Now [semi-open]

Those luscious locks deserve a little TLC. Treat yourself to some real shampoo. I'll start washing things in the sink.

[He can at least enjoy the heat and steam from the shower sooner that way.]

I've got plenty of dish soap for detergent.

[He makes a shooing motion, urging Will into the bathroom with his clothes.]

Set everything on the sink.

[ Will turned with a cheekily raised eyebrow, because really? House volunteering to do laundry?? ]

We could just pretend it's a locker room shower. [ He suggested, looking innocent but also a little playful, before tiredness took over once more.

Without further demur, Will did as he was shooed off to do. Soon enough the sound of water running could be heard and when House entered the bathroom, Will was safely behind the curtain, his dirty clothes folded neatly on the sink. ]

[Wipe that grin off your face, asshole. House just sticks his tongue out at Will. That's high school locker room-appropriate, right?

When he hears the shower start, House steps in. He's already started taking off his own clothes and strips down completely when he's inside and the warm steam begins to fill the small bathroom. Thank the spiderbots for small favors. Because he does actually want clean clothes, he turns on the sink and plugs it when it comes out warm, tossing in a generous amount of dish soap to get it sudsy. House also has his spare sets of socks and underwear and he starts washing those first, tossing all of his and Will's 'delicates' in together to scrub.]

You know they have to have a bathroom in that damn Bunker. Everything's probably radioactive as hell, but you can't have a military base without a john. That's just impractical and unsanitary. Which of the rooms that're left are you betting on?

Edited 2018-10-08 02:01 (UTC)

[ The psyche was a funny thing. House sticking his tongue out at him should have had Will rolling his eyes with long suffering exasperation, and ... okay well he does do that.

But he's also tossed back into the memories of the first weeks he was in Norfinbury. When he'd first come across House, and they'd started to travel together. It had just been the two of them, and long nights that had been filled with verbal jousting, information sharing (House sharing, Will listening), strategic planning and hours of the utterly ridiculous.

Conversations that had left both of them struggling not to be the one who broke first, and which were promptly shuffled into the boxes of 'do not discuss' when they woke the next morning. With the memories came the realization that it hadn't been just he and House traveling like that ... in a very long time.

Even with the barrier of a shower curtain and the bro code between them, they would never have been able to do what they were doing now, with other people sharing the same space. Neither of them would have been able to relax within their own skin enough to attempt it. And that was what was happening, as he stood there beneath the hot running water, letting it pound down on his shoulders.

There was no awkwardness when he heard House's voice, just on the other side of a thin piece of plastic. It was the most natural thing in the world to answer. ]

I honestly haven't been paying attention to which rooms are left. [ An anti-climatic response he knows. ] It's been enough to focus on those that are available to us, then there was the lot of you in a coma; that was distracting.

[ Very ... distracting, and a little distressing. ]

[House isn't thinking too much about the 'good' old days, but he is considering that this is the first time in a long time that he feels... safe. Or unharried might be a better was of thinking of it. He'd felt safe enough in the Bunker, but there was always someone who might walk in on them. House had heard the locks click before he'd stepped into the bathroom. He and Will are alone tonight, as they'd been alone in the high school. It means he doesn't have to keep his guard up like he would in the Bunker or even with someone like Quark or Ecks, and those are people he's comfortable with.

House, for better or worse, knows that he's an extrovert, as Will pointed out. He can't help but act differently when there's an 'audience.' Will doesn't count in that. Not when it's just them. This is easier. It's comfortable to settle into.]

I'd think a coma would make me, personally, less distracting. I know you didn't just sit around biting your nails, waiting for us to wake up.

[Which House approves of, really. Be productive when he can't be, Will.]

It took me at least two hours to talk myself out of drawing on your face with your pen. [ Not really, but this is what happens when it's just the two of them. House stops acting for an audience, and Will stops trying to protect himself from an audience.

He knows he should pick up the soap and get about his business, but just a few more minutes to just be. ]

Eventually I wandered off and investigated the room full of corpses. Was in the midst of that when you all started screaming.

[There's a long silence that House will never admit is him actually double-checking himself in the mirror. He hadn't been paying attention at the high school, knowing they'd be coming here. As Will seems to be speaking the truth, he responds:]

At least you were in the quiet room. I still don't like my memories getting half-wiped from that bullshit.

[He scrubs socks and underwear a little more vigorously. There are only snippets he can remember from the conversation with Will, blurred out. He remembers the other man touching him, but their voices and the words are muffled in the fog around his memories.]

We made... a bet, didn't we? Did we?

[ Err ... ] Yeah, just ... the usual ridiculous sort of thing. [ He was not going to think about that bet in the current circumstances.

Well, alright, apparently he was and that meant at some point he was going to have to do a cold rinse. For now, he shuffled the conversation along, targeting a tidbit he knew would distract House away from discussions of the bet. ]

You still don't remember our testing the eye app on the drawn eye vs the carved eyes? [ House just didn't lose memories, which was a concern in and of itself, never mind when connected with everything else going on. ]

No.

[And that concerns him in a way he hasn't been concerned since Winter and the Admin deleted portions of their memories to get rid of anomalies.]

If our brains, or memories, really are in the cloud somewhere, then it has to be out there. I wanna know what Miller did with it and why copying us would delete it. Unless he copied and then restored an earlier version?

[Which means there might be a House out there that has more memories than him. That's troubling of a metaphysical level that the doctor doesn't particularly like to think about. He starts wringing out clean underwear and socks.]

Copies also suffer from degradation over time. We've been here, well you and some of the others, have been here a very long time indeed. [ That probably was not a particularly comforting thought, but Will wasn't going to Molly Coddle.

He was finally moving forward with applying shampoo to his hair, the sound of his body shifting under the water a clear indicator that he's gotten on about the business of actually washing. ]

Though if he did a reboot from an earlier copy, one that hadn't backed-up the most recent memories, that would make sense. [ Twisted, incredibly disquieting sense. Especially if they had been infected with some sort of virus; you wouldn't want a back-up that contained the virus, it would simply replicate the problem you were trying to fix. ]

[It's not comforting.]

That would make sense if some of the 'newer' people hadn't been involved. There are months between some of us. And Quark's been here longer than I have, but he wasn't affected.

Seems like it was whatever malware... which I thought was a certain program. [Shirts are going into the sink now for washing.] Guess not, though.

'Do robots dream of electric sheep?' [ It is not really a question, but rather a quote and Will expects House to recognize it as such.

The scent of conditioner perfumed the air, and while he was not going to admit it to House -because the teasing would never end- Will left it in his hair to do it's job, while he began to work on trimming the scruff on his jaw. He'd rinse it out at the very end; luscious locks indeed. ]

House ... talk to me about monster trucks. [ The words were a little muffled, the universal slur of a man pulling his lips to the side so he can scrape a blade (in this case his switchblade) over his cheek.

They were also an unspoken request. They had been chasing their tails since House had woken up, a combination of work therapy and flat out avoidance. While there had been some revelations, there hadn't been any real step forward, and in Will's mind they were still holding a bag of unknowns.

His mind needed a break from battering into walls of questionable substance, but unyielding stubbornness. ]

[House recognizes the request for what it is, but strongly suspects that Will is going to take little interest in the rally side of the equation. He thinks of something more relateable to the ex-profiler and has to reach back to his childhood. They'd talked about building a track to race Hot Wheels cars.]

I had four of 'em when I was a kid. Green Machine, the Executioner, Red Hot Murder, and my favorite... Big, Orange Mothertrucker. I'd build tracks for them to jump my Hot Wheels. Or just drive over 'em.

My dad stepped on Big, Orange Mothertrucker when we were stationed in Egypt and broke her. Threw her out. [Along with ordering him to clean the house from top to bottom at 9 PM at night. He'd stayed up until 3 AM.] I managed to rescue her from the trash, fixed her up and painted her black. She was reborn as Nightmare Phoenix.

[ Will remembered this story, but it still make him smile when he heard it. Not because of the obvious signs of abuse in House's childhood, but rather for the way the man persevered. ]

Do you think I'd be able to make it through an entire rally?

[ It was, perhaps, a bit of a rhetorical question. But, Will was also curious to see how House would approach such a puzzle. A puzzle that had nothing to do with Norfinbury, life and death. But rather how to get an introverted friend, who didn't even bother to own a tv, to stay through an entire Monster Truck rally. ]

And before you suggest it, no you may not get me drunk, drug me or render me unconscious.

Tie you to the seat?

[Look, if you're going to put the kibosh on all the fun ways. House glances upward, quiet for a moment as he thinks and wrings out Will's shirt to hang up.]

I know a couple of guys from the mob. I could have one of 'em show up, too, and have you try to pick him out in the crowd.

[The game would hold House's interest, but he's not as sure about Will. He's not nearly as competitive, overall.]

Kinky. [ He was done with his shave, set the knife down and began to rinse off his hair. ]

I said an entire rally, House. Not the first ten minutes.

[ It was rare that Will expressed arrogance about his skills. He tended to be quietly competent and just went about his business. But when it was just he and House?

Let the smack talk commence. ]

That's how I like it.

[The quip is quick, slid in before he pauses to consider his next move. The doctor's lips do quirk up in a smirk and he wrings out his own shirt and drains the sink to get some fresh water into it for washing their pants.]

So, I get multiple guys, but I'm not telling you how many. You like Where's Waldo-cum-scavenger hunts? I can think of ways to keep you engaged for more than ten minutes. I am that good.

[House is proud of his gaming skills. He would absolutely devise some elaborate nonsense to keep Will entertained for a few hours at a rally just to prove he could.]

You're in over your head doctor. [ Will challenged back. ] That would draw it out to an hour, maybe ninety minutes.

[ He paused and peeked his head around the curtain, devolving into complete juvenile humor. Something he hadn't done when there were others around. ]

Unless you're saying that as long as these truck rallys can last.

[Really, Will? If that's how he wants to play it...

House is wearing his birthday suit, so the other man will just get a view of his too-skinny form as he lathers and scrubs a pair of jeans. Most of his scars are on his front now with the others being healed away by various deaths, so there's not much to see.]

We're going for at least three hours.

[He considers suggesting blind-folding the other man to enhance the challenge, but that would mean he wouldn't get to see the monster trucks, and that would be a travesty.]

You find all my guys, we go to the bonus round. It's called 'find where I put the body.' I know a couple of dead guys in the hospital morgue who might wanna get around before going into the ground.

Three hours? Sounds like a high risk of chafing. [ You know, sitting on their butts that long.

Seeing House in his birthday suit, caused Will to realize something. ]

House. At this point in the grand scheme of things, do you have any change of clothing?

[ Because Will was damn sure he didn't. Everything needed washed and aired, and even then it was going to be the hobo life for them. ]

And stop body napping from the morgue. It's rude.

[House is about to retort, but the question draws him up short as he stares down at the pants he's scrubbing. The doctor glances to the door where his pack is sitting outside. He'd brought all of his clothes in for a thorough cleaning. About the only things that aren't at least a little damp now are their outer coats, which he isn't sure about washing, anyway. The doctor's eyes track back to the underwear and shirts hanging up.]

They donated their bodies to science. It's science.

And I've seen you naked before. Think we can survive.

[It's going to be a very cold night in his sleeping bag, though. Unless...]

Especially if we combine sleeping bag forces. As much as I like frostbite and all.

Edited 2018-10-11 02:15 (UTC)

Alright, I'll ask. How exactly would you explain taking them to a monster truck rally as being good for science?

[ Because this had to be a doozy. As for the cold and the lack of clothing. Will is quiet for a few breaths, before he responds. ]

If it weren't for the fact that it's colder now than it's ever been, since I got here, I'd challenge you on the cheesiness of that line. [ Because it really did feel like something out of a movie. ]

However, I'd like to avoid frostbite as well, and it's a very real risk. Even being indoors.

[ -100 degrees was nothing to be messed with, and besides they were adults. Perfectly rational adults. ]

[Good! They're in agreement. They're going to huddle like manly men. Naked. In a couple of sleeping bags. It's fine. House is just going to focus on the first question for the time being. They can cross the 'who's playing big spoon' bridge when they get to it.

The answer is, of course, House is playing big spoon. Will is short as all hell and just feels small when you look at him. It probably has something to do with him pulling himself in to take up the smallest space possible.]

I'd be studying the effects of loud, continuous noise on the eardrum. Easier to do it with a fresh corpse than a living person. Those ones kick when you try to vivisect their ears.

[This is complete bullshit, but he could spin it.]

[ He doesn't just feel small, he is small. Dolarhyde had tossed him around like a paper doll on more than one occasion, and Hannibal had princess carried him for miles.

The good news was he tended to run hot when he slept, so he'd definitely keep House from suffering frostbite to delicate places. As they were huddling, like manly men, naked in a couple of sleeping bags.

Just another night in Norfinbury, nothing to see here.

Speaking of nothing to see, Will was finally finished with his shower but he didn't shut off the water. The steam was a blessing. ]

I thought that's what paralytic drugs were for? Also tag, you're it.

[ Will came out from behind the shower curtain like it was no big deal. They had the same equipment, nothing to see here. If he was currently dredging up images of some of the worst murder scenes he'd worked, that was just ... standard operating procedure? ]

[Oh, they're just... doing this. Okay. Sure. He's seen Will naked or mostly naked. Nothing to see. Move along. If House averts his eyes to the shower a little too quickly, that's just because he's eager to get in and clean off after far too long.]

I mean I can vivisect a guy, but my usual surgeon gets all whiny about things like that. Have you ever heard an Aussie cry? It's like drunk dingos howling.

[House leaves the clothes for Will to continue working on and steps into the shower, drawing in a deep breath as the hot water crashes down over his head. He closes his eyes and an immediate image of Will standing here a few seconds ago comes into his head.

Okay. Shoving that off and to the side. He picks up the shampoo first. his hair has felt greasy for days and while he might be all right with looking disheveled, feeling completely dirty isn't something pleasant for him. Not unless he has a hot shower to look forward to.]

Edited 2018-10-11 03:15 (UTC)

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cw: mention of vivisection/ear trauma

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