Dialogic Hegemony, Or How Controlling The Conversation Means More Naptime

House is trying to nap outside the infirmary on a stone slab that passes for a bench on Atlantis apparently, when he hears the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. Most people avoid the area out of paranoia, though it hasn’t been officially quarantined, and so it’s usually empty and quiet. The doors are soundproof, which means House doesn’t have to deal with the buzz of the nurses and other doctors and beepy machines inside.

There’s only one of set of footsteps, even and unrushed, and it’s not accompanied by the smooth sound of wheels on the floor. So it’s not a new patient then. Good. House really didn’t want to deal with one. They get all panicky and nervous, and it’s not like he can do anything for them. He cracks open one eye to see who it is. Black military boots, a slouched posture, spiky dark hair. Must be Colonel Sheppard, then. House closes his eye again and tries to resume his nap.

The footsteps stop right front of the infirmary doors, right in front of House’s not-bench. House knows what that means, but he doesn’t budge. Nothing personal, of course. House only hates him about half as much as he used to hate his father’s friends, which is a pretty high compliment for someone who serves in the armed forces. If Sheppard wants to talk to him, he’ll talk, and until then, House can work in some sleep between dying patients.

“So,” Sheppard says, “You and McKay…” His voice trails off, shifting back and forth on his feet.

House lets loose a false snore, the one he’s perfected to annoy Cuddy. He’ll wait for Sheppard spit out whatever he needs to say before he’ll respond.

“He’s weird around you,” Sheppard finally says, being completely unhelpful. Rodney was weird around everyone, House had noticed. It was one of his more endearing traits.

And anyway, House is convinced that Atlantis will sink into the ocean before Sheppard manages to say what he means. “So? What do you care?” House says, not even bothering to open his eyes. He’d been expecting this, at some point, because Sheppard has been giving him odd looks since he and Rodney had first beamed down from the Daedalus.

Another long, long pause. “He’s never been this weird about anything before,” Sheppard says.

House snorts. He doubts that’s true, knowing Rodney. On a place as dangerous and quickly-changing as Atlantis, Rodney must have run the entire gamut of emotions by now?. Hell, Rodney would regularly go through the whole gamut of emotions in the few minutes before the final results of a math meet would be announced. “I still don’t see how this is any of your business,” House says. “Unless you’re just nosy. Me, I ask highly personal questions of people I don’t know very well because I know it annoys them a lot.” At this point in the conversation, House is pretty sure he’ll spill the beans of the exact nature of his history with Rodney. He just needs to figure out the best way to use it to get a reaction out of Sheppard, because he’s sure Sheppard’s reaction will be up there with the time House left a large, furry object in Wilson’s bed and dumped ketchup all over the sheets. They’d watched The Godfather the night before.

“So it is highly personal then?” Sheppard asks, displaying some rudimentary deductive skill. House can hear the tension in his voice, wound tighter than it was before. Sheppard probably now has all these ideas in his head about what House could mean, about what House is trying to say about Rodney. For a moment, House considers making up a story about Rodney doing blow off his stomach at the tender age of fifteen before getting involved in a giant orgy with entire math team, but really, the truth is better and more convenient.

He opens his eyes and sits up, because he really wants to see the exact way Sheppard’s face changes, and he can’t really do that while he’s laying down. “I can’t believe he’s never mentioned me before now,” House says, pitching his voice a little higher and mocking. “And here I thought prom night meant something to him.”

Sheppard’s expression becomes more pinched as he tries to decide whether or not House is just fucking with him. “Prom?” he asks.

House sighs wistfully as he says, “He even asked me to it in front of the whole math team! It was so romantic.” He flutters his eyelashes, because otherwise he might think of the way Rodney had looked at that moment, like he was lit up from the inside by a small sun, the way his hands had felt warm and clammy against House’s cheeks. But House doesn’t have to tell Sheppard any of that, doesn’t even want to; he can just keep it to the juicy stuff.

The expression on Sheppard’s face has become completely indecipherable, mostly because House is fairly sure he’s never seen anything resembling it on another human being before. “Huh,” Sheppard says.

“Yeah,” House says, grinning, because he figures he has Sheppard on the hook now, might as well make the most of it. “It’s crazy when your high school boyfriend shows up at work out of nowhere, right?” At first, House had wondered if he was hallucinating when he saw Rodney standing at the door to his office. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. But what had convinced him was the way Rodney had been different from the boy he’d known and yet completely the same. The thinning hair, the wider-set shoulders, but with the same crooked frown, the same impatient snap of his fingers. House had never really considered what Rodney would be like all grown up before, but then there he was.

“Uh, yeah,” Sheppard says, like he’s not sure what to say. His expression has changed, but it still remains completely indecipherable. “Thanks.”

He turns around and walks away, his footsteps less even than they were when he first came. And if House were keeping track, he’d totally put this in the win column. House: 10,000; Atlantis: 0, give or take a few points here and there.

He lays back down and closes his eyes. Serves them right for interrupting his nap.

FIN.