i spent three years driving around

House had only been to Cuddy’s home twice over the last ten years, and once had been a break-in, so that didn’t technically count as an invitation.  Tonight was a bit different.  The sun had already dipped red below the sky and paper skeletons hung in the backyard.  Wilson pushed House in his wheelchair up the sidewalk, while House gave him an earful about watching his leg’s cast.

Sighing, Wilson parked the wheelchair at the foot of the porch.  He stepped over a row of grinning pumpkins and walked up the steps.

“Why are we here again?” House complained.

“Because we were invited and it’s going to be fun,” Wilson said.  House rolled his eyes and tried to pop a wheelie.

Cuddy opened the door seconds after Wilson rang it.  Below the porch light, tinted orange, her sleek black dress dove between her breasts, clinging to her legs until it sloped out at her ankles.  Her hair was straightened and fell in a glossy river to her mid-back.  She pushed a strand of her bangs aside momentarily.  Her nails were longer than usual and painted black; a large, silver ring glistened on her middle finger.

“Morticia?” House asked.  He shifted his balance so the wheelchair righted, making sure she noticed him gawking at her bust.

Her smile was the same despite the pallid makeup on her face.  House shook his head as if he had to wrench his eyes away from her outfit.

“You made it,” Cuddy said, surprised.  She glanced over his broken body, unsure.  “Now what did you do to yourself?”

House tapped the cast on his left leg and spread his arms grandly as if seated upon a throne.  “James Stewart.”

“Rear Window,” Cuddy added with a nod both impressed and relieved that it was only a costume.  “But that wheelchair is not going to go over well.  With the guests or my floors.”

“Well I can’t not use it,” House said.  “It would break character.  And how else could I get this fascinating view of your cleavage?”

“Persuasive, but no, sorry.  No wheelchairs in my house.”

House gawked at her indignantly.  “Do you know how long it took me to throw this together—?”

“About as long as it took me to smuggle a wheelchair out of the hospital and jam it into my car,” Wilson interrupted.

“See?  It would have been easier just to let me not go,” House retorted.  “James Stewart got Grace Kelly.  Cruel twist of fate I got you.”

Cuddy looked as if she’d just realized what she was bringing into her house.  She ignored House’s griping and turned to Wilson, offering a fresh welcome, then hesitated at his nondescript top hat, white tie and tails.

“And you are…?” she asked.

Wilson looked mildly disappointed that she couldn’t guess.

“Fred Astaire,” House provided, “which I think we can all enjoy the irony of if we remember him trying to dance at last year’s Christmas party.”

Cuddy, amused, nodded to the invented memory of a holiday bash that never happened, although House was certain Cuddy believed Wilson couldn’t be a very good dancer anyway.  He was too stiff.

House jumped at the opportunity and continued, jutting a thumb at Wilson, “I told him he should be a naughty nurse but he said the panties itched.”

“Horrible story, we’ll spare you the details,” Wilson played along.  He scanned the house, draped in dark streamers and strobe lights, and set to an unsettling background music of chains and low, evil laughter.  “This looks really amazing.”

“Wait until you see the inside.  Come in.”  Cuddy watched House until he’d slipped off the cast and made Wilson fold up the wheelchair and cram it back into the car.  She opened the door wider, and more darkness spilled out as House and Wilson entered.

The foyer and living room were already milling with guests, most of whom were shrouded in their costumes and shadow.  Lit crystal balls along the windows and coffee table supplied the only illumination.  Fog from dried ice lurked along the floor and kicked up in violent swirls.

By contrast, regular overhead lights set the kitchen ablaze, and the room was comically untouched by all decoration.  Tupperware covered the countertop between holiday-themed plates and appetizers.  Alcohol lined the table or was already floating in ice.  Barbeque in crock pots and trays of sandwiches, vegetables, and snacks filled whatever open spaces had remained.  Something warm and spicy wafted from the oven.

Cuddy encouraged them to help themselves to food, and warned House—only half-jokingly—not to do anything disgusting to it.  The doorbell rang, a faint pitch over the murky hum of perpetual conversation and background music.  Cuddy poked her head out of the kitchen and called for someone to get it.

“I’ve been greeting people for the last two hours.  It would be nice to socialize at my own party,” she said to House and Wilson.  “I’m thinking of just sticking a sign on the door that says, ‘Come One, Come All.’”

“Might get a few freaks that way,” House said.

She smiled.  “Well I let you through the door.”

“Lax standards, obviously,” Wilson put in.  House saw him about to compliment something in the kitchen and quickly interrupted about what plans were for the night.

For the most part, Cuddy said, it was going to be a relaxing evening.  There was plenty of food and drinks to last well into the early hours of morning.  A haunted yard was set up for those who wanted to risk surprise corpses popping out around corners, and thankfully the neighbors to the right were in Florida for the weekend and the house on the left was still on the market.

“We’ll probably start the murder mystery game around eleven.  You’re both welcome to play.  And oh, there are tarot card readings in the washer and dryer room,” she continued.  “It’s down the hall—where that bead curtain is?”

“You hired a fortune teller?” House was bemused.

“Halloween comes but once a year,” Cuddy smiled back.  Someone called her name from the living room, and she gave one last welcoming but busy nod to her two newest guests before disappearing again.

House watched her and couldn’t begin to guess what prompted this party; Cuddy had entertained people from the hospital before, but never on so light an occasion.

Whatever the reason, it had been the talk of the hospital for the two weeks’ preceding it.  She’d taken the trouble to send out both emails and actual invitations.  House’s had had an ornery black cat hissing on the front.  Wilson’s was a pumpkin. Wilson also was the one who thought the party was a great idea from the start, and who threatened to kidnap a much less enthusiastic House, even if it meant tying him up and dragging him along.

House only agreed to go on the basis that he’d have the opportunity to mock everyone from corporate big heads to garden variety nurses.  He’d heard word that Cuddy had invited a janitor or two as well, which proved two things: that she intended this to be a relatively open party, and that she had no spatial perception.  The house was packed to the brim.  It would be a miracle if Cuddy even recognized half the people she invited.  House had made sure he and Wilson were fashionably late, but even now at nine-thirty people were still filing in and the general air of the room was hot and cramped.

At least House figured he had the costumes to look forward to.  It was a given that a few would be unforgivably devastating to someone’s self-respect, and House wasn’t going to miss that.

He wasn’t disappointed.  Wilson had just started pouring cinnamon-colored cider when a man dressed in wrinkled and fake-blood-stained scrubs wandered in, donning a Jason mask.

He probably thought it was creative, too.

Setting his plastic chainsaw down on the counter, he started to reach for a cold Heineken when he took notice of who else was in the room.

“Hey.”  It was muffled so he slipped the Jason mask down and let it hang from his neck.

“Chase,” House nodded.  Chase beamed a greeting.  House glanced over at Wilson before adding, “Nice costume.”

“Really?  Thanks.”

“Actually it’s horrible.  Cuddy should have sent you back to whatever Boy Scout Halloween parade you came from.”

“Unfortunately they said I was too frightening for the Boy Scouts.”  Chase looked flushed, hair disheveled, and House weighed out whether it was because he was idiotically walking around in an oxygen-restricting goalie mask or he’d found some woman from accounting who had a fetish for unimaginative costumes.  At any rate, Chase seemed in too pleased a mood to care.  “Hello, Dr. Wilson.  So you’re… The Penguin?”

Wilson’s eyebrows knitted confusedly for a second.  House bit back a grin.

“See?  I told you:  A thong up your ass is way better than nobody knowing who the hell you are.”

Chase glanced between them, as if looking for clues that his wide smile was what he should be sporting.  He wavered for an instant and then solved the momentary awkwardness by slipping the mask back over his face.

“All right, well, see you guys around,” Chase said, and left the room with beer in hand.

House grabbed a cheese-and-cracker appetizer shaped like a winking ghost.

“This is sickening.  Cuddy has no concept of theme,” he complained to Wilson as they exited the kitchen.  They both immediately were swept back into the shadows.  “Is this supposed to be Elm Street or the Overlook Hotel?  And these—” he held up his food, which had bitten ridges where the ghost’s head should have been “—don’t count as either.”

“For someone who didn’t want to come, you’re awfully concerned about the details.”

“God is in the details,” House quoted.  “Though on this occasion, it’s probably more appropriate to say the Devil is.”

Wilson sipped thoughtfully at his cider while House continued to scan the crowd.  Several pairs had started dancing in open areas, but for the most part people were perched on couches or leaning by windows, aimlessly playing with the streamers and skeletons and flirting inconsequentially.

“Can you really not tell who I’m supposed to be?” Wilson asked.  He sounded distressed.

“Let’s play a game,” House said, not listening.  He narrowed his eyes at familiarly-shaped guests, trying to discern who was who beneath the dimness and costumes.  “It’s called, ‘Make Fun of People without Being Seen.’  One of my favorites.”

“I’m not going to stand in a corner all night to indulge you,” Wilson said.

“Of course you are.  Now, is nurse Brenda supposed to be a mummy or a giant condom?”

Wilson sighed audibly.  “I’m going to get my fortune read.”

“Because you’re an idiot.”

“Yes.”  Wilson promptly handed House his cider.  “Feel free to spike it if it makes you feel any better.”

House watched him disappear down the hall until enough bodies moved in front, blocking his view.  Distantly, he could just make out the top of the bead curtain swing back and forth as Wilson entered and officially left him alone, stranded in the whirlpool of the party.

CONTINUED:  http://nakannalee.livejournal.com/61665.html