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The Vampire's Apprentice	By : Evilida44 Category: G through L > House Views: 1787 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own House or its fandom nor do I make any money from it.

Chapter List
- 11
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The Importance of Good Grooming

House's clothing requirements were simple. Oxford shirt, t-shirt, jeans, socks, underwear and running shoes. He knew his sizes and his brands and he knew what looked good on him. It took him only a few minutes to get the items he needed, which left him time to look for a present for Cuddy. He had decided on a necklace of lapis and jet beads, when a display case across the aisle caught his attention.

House was right. They couldn't convince Lisa Cuddy of the wonders of life as a vampire looking like road-weary hobos. Still Wilson had never much cared for shopping for clothing, and now he had a new reason for his dislike. Too many mirrors.
Wilson hesitated, looking at the racks of ties. He picked one out with blue and burgundy stripes, and another with a subtle pattern in shades of brown and gold. Which one looked better on him? How could he tell when he couldn't see himself? He knew nothing about choosing ties. His wives and girlfriends had always bought his ties for him.
The saleswoman spotted Wilson's five-hundred-dollar watch peeking out from the cuff of his faded sweatshirt and felt a thrill of avaricious glee. She knew his type because she'd seen him many times before. He was a man who had been stunned by divorce. The wife he had spent the past few years ignoring had finally decided to leave him, and his male ego had suffered a crippling blow. He'd let himself go for a while, but now he was starting to pull himself together. He was back in the dating game and had to present a good appearance. He needed a whole new wardrobe, and she was just the person to sell him one.
She rushed over to serve him. A middle-aged woman was waving at her, trying to attract her attention, but she walked right by without giving her a glance.
"I love that striped tie on you," she said. Reaching for the tie, her hand deliberately brushed against his.
"You think so?" asked Wilson.
"Oh, yes," she took both ties from his hand and held the blue and burgundy one up against his collar. "You look powerful and distinguished. It tells the world that you're a man of influence – a real captain of industry."
"If you were a captain of industry - and Wilson isn't; he's not even a deckhand of industry - is that something you'd want the world to know? In this economy, wouldn't that be like admitting that you're the captain of the Titanic?"
The saleswoman turned around. House looked at her. Though he said and did nothing overtly threatening, she dropped her hand, which had been resting on Wilson's sleeve, and backed away. She was still holding both ties. House took the brown and gold one from her and handed it to Wilson.
"This one.It brings out the colour of your eyes,." He said sarcastically.
The shaken saleswoman went to the nearest till to ring up Wilson's order. House and Wilson trailed after her.
"I thought we were supposed to be keeping a low profile, blending in with the crowd."
"She was flirting with you."
"No kidding. To soften me up. She was trying to sell me a hundred and fifty dollar silk tie. She wasn't going to drag me into the back room to ravish me. I hate to destroy your illusions, but the real world isn't anything like Debbie Does Nordstrom's."
You were flirting back."
Wilson rolled his eyes.
"Why should what I do matter to you anyway? You don't want me, but I can't even talk to anyone else. How is that fair?"
"You still belong to me."
"The vampire rules again. I belong to you, but not vice versa. You can do whatever you want, with whomever you want, but I have to ask your permission to brush my teeth. I don't like being kept on a short leash, House, and Cuddy won't either. You could turn her into a vampire and then end up losing her anyway."
House gave Wilson a sharp glance. Wilson was becoming less obedient and more outspoken. House recognized that he had lost much of his influence over the younger vampire. Once Wilson had lost House's love, there was nothing else that House could take from him that had any meaning for him. It was difficult to discipline someone who had nothing left to lose.

As dawn approached, Wilson became anxious. His anxiety had nothing to do with the deadly rays of the sun and everything to do with the bad dreams that tormented him day after day. He was afraid to fall asleep.
He sealed the doors and windows of their hotel room with duct tape and aluminum foil, but after that was done, he still had a lot of excess nervous energy to expend. House watched him with annoyance as he added a second, wholly unnecessary, layer of duct tape on top of the first.
"Go and take a shower," House said. "When you come out, I have a surprise for you."
Wilson looked at him dubiously.
"Your surprise wouldn't have anything to do with whips or chains or tying me up, would it?"
"Not unless you want it to," House teased.
Wilson looked worried.
"No, nothing like that," he gave Wilson a vampire smile that didn't reassure him at all.

"They're beautiful," Wilson said, reaching out to touch the black velvet roll that protected House's prize. He looked up at House, silently asking his permission, and when House nodded slightly, he took out one of the pairs of scissors.
That pair is made for left-handers. Feel how it sits in your hand. And watch this."
House took a sheet of the tissue paper that the department store had used to wrap their purchases. He removed his favourite piece – the straight edge razor – from the roll. He threw the tissue paper into the air. With one swift move, he cut it in half in midair.
"I could cut snowflakes out of toilet paper. It's sharp enough to split atoms."
"They're like surgical instruments. So perfectly designed," Wilson said.
Professional quality. The salesman said Ken Paves has a set just like them."
Who's Ken Paves?"
"I have no idea."
Wilson carefully replaced the pair of scissors in the roll and reached out for the razor that House still had in his hand. House wouldn't let him touch it.
"They must have cost a fortune. You'll start out your life with Cuddy sleeping under bridges."
"Still worth it, anyway."
"Yes," Wilson said. "Definitely worth it."
They actually weren't that expensive though. The salesman decided to give me a deep discount. One hundred percent."
"You didn't..."
"Kill him. Right there in the middle of a brightly lit store full of customers. Of course not. All I had to do was smile at him and he was pleased to give me whatever I wanted."
House demonstrated the smile he had given the salesman. Wilson backed away and lowered his eyes. House replaced the razor in its proper compartment.
"They're a practical investment. I can't very well go to a barber shop and ask for a shave and haircut any more. I think the barber might notice something a bit different about me when he sits me down in front of his mirror."
"So you want me to cut your hair."
"I'll cut yours first, and then you can do mine. You should see yourself. You don't look like the respectable head of an oncology department. You look like the guy who sits outside the bus station playing the harmonica for spare change."

House was enjoying himself. He held up a lock of Wilson's hair, and peered at it intently, measuring it by eye as he had seen his own barber do. With a frown of concentration, he cut it at precisely the right length. He hummed "O Sole Mio." The barber he was pretending to be was stereotypically Italian.
"Ecco la perfezione!"
He whipped the towel away from Wilson's neck, sending little snippets of hair flying. He took the special brush from the barber's roll and carefully swept Wilson's neck for any stray hairs. Wilson had shut his eyes, the better to enjoy the sensation of House's hands running through his hair. He opened them and was getting out of the chair, when House put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Not done yet. You still need a shave."
"I've got an electric shaver for that."
"It does a piss poor job. You could light a match on your whiskers. Sit back down. First, there's the astringent to open up your pores. It smells like peppermint. It's supposed to make your skin tingle. Is your skin tingling?"
"Yes."
"Just lean back, close your eyes and relax."
House went into the bathroom, got a facecloth and put it under the hot water tap. When it was almost too hot to touch, he wrapped it in another towel and wrung it out. Then he came back out and put the hot damp facecloth over Wilson's face.
"This is going to draw out all the dirt that's lurking in your pores. Considering all the time you spend in filthy alleys, there's going to be a lot. It's not too hot?"
Wilson shook his head, almost dislodging the facecloth.
"Then there's the lather. The shaving soap comes from the milk of Tuscan goats. Apparently Tuscan goats are much better than goats from anywhere else. The shaving brush is made from badger hair. British badgers. I don't know how they compare to Tuscan badgers."
For variety's sake, House was now humming La donna è mobile instead of O Sole Mio. He removed the facecloth and started to apply the thick rich lather with a sure stroke.
"Lift up your chin a bit. Okay, move your head to the left. This lather is supposed to soften the bristles and make them easier to cut."
"It smells good."
"Now comes the fun part," House said.
He took out the straight-edge razor and ran it against the strop, just for the effect. He knew it was already sharp enough.
House placed the lethally sharp blade against Wilson's cheek. With his left hand, he held Wilson's chin to steady his head. There was no need. Wilson was perfectly still, except when House told him to move his head left or right, up or down. House leaned down close to get a particularly stubborn patch of whiskers underneath Wilson's chin. Wilson lifted up his head, exposing his vulnerable neck, so that House could reach that spot.
This demonstration of his trust in House, despite everything that had happened between them, had more of an effect on House than he had anticipated. House's hand slipped, just a tiny bit, and a bead of blood appeared where the other vampire had been nicked. Without thinking, House licked away that droplet of blood.
Wilson tasted even better than he remembered.
The cut had been so quick, and the blade so sharp, that Wilson hadn't even noticed. He felt House tongue against his neck though.
"You were right. I like this surprise."

The taste of Wilson's blood still lingering in his mouth. The look of concentration in his soft brown eyes, as he leaned down to cut House's hair. The warm, familiar sound of his laughter. The feel of his breath, soft against the back of his neck, as he blew away the clippings that clung to House's collar. And most importantly, Wilson's smell - the exotic citrus-scented shower gel House had given him, and beneath it, like the undertone of a complex perfume, the dusty, papery odor of the vampire.
Vampires are sensual creatures. They don't resist temptation.
House had been gentle. He had asked rather than demanded, and he took only what Wilson freely gave him. He let Wilson set the pace. Slow and sweet. A long, steady slope leading ever upwards, taking them to giddy, vertiginous heights.
If it had just been lust, only the satisfaction of an appetite, it wouldn't have mattered. But that wasn't all that it had been.
House's plan had been simple. He'd replace a flawed companion with one more suitable to the role. He had never intended to abandon Wilson entirely. (Although threatening to leave him by the side of the road was a good disciplinary tool, and about the only one that still worked.) He had recognized that Wilson's devotion to him was too valuable an asset to be thrown away. He had planned on demoting him instead. Cuddy would be the one he trusted most and relied upon, his "first wife". She would have authority over Wilson, his "concubine", and over any other vampires, male or female, he decided to add to their family.
Suddenly his simple plan had become much more complicated. Messy, inconvenient emotions, feelings he didn't want to have, got in the way. What would happen to his neat organizational structure if he loved his concubine more than his wife?
House had once loved Wilson, and his love had cost him dearly. House had been the apprentice of a powerful vampire, who had offered to share his knowledge, the product of centuries of observation, in return for his obedience. This vampire, who called himself the Professor of Esoteric Studies, had warned him that Wilson was not suited for vampire life, and he would only distract him from his studies. He'd been right.
When House had discovered the Professor and Wilson together, he knew that he would have to kill one or the other or both. He'd attacked the Professor. When he'd last seen the Professor, his injuries had made him little more that a walking corpse, mindless and animated only by hatred. House didn't mourn the Professor, who had been a thoroughly unpleasant creature, but he mourned the loss of his knowledge every day.
Of course, the Professor was a relic from a pre-rational age. Mixed in with the good solid information that House had craved had been a whole lot of speculation, opinion, and even outright falsehood. He expected House to believe his wild stories.
The Professor told House that he had once been the vampire king of a small country in Central Asia. Nobles and courtiers willingly gave him their sons and daughters to feed upon, knowing that he would reward them well for their sacrifices.
He said he had paid a witch three silver coins to put a curse on his enemy, and one month later, his enemy's wife had given birth to a child with the head of a wolf.
claimed to have visited his mistress's dreams to learn all of her secrets. One night, she dreamt of another man, so as soon as he returned, the Professor reached for his sword and cut off her head as she lay sleeping.
Nonsense, of course. Exaggerations and lies. Although not too long ago, House would have said that vampires were nonsense as well. He wasn't quite as sure as he used to be about what was and was not possible.

House woke when Wilson stirred in his arms. The other vampire was mumbling in his sleep, his words too indistinct for even House's keen vampiric hearing to make out. House recognized the signs that Wilson was having another bad dream. He went to wake Wilson up but then hesitated. Wilson needed to dream; the REM stage was a natural part of the sleeping cycle, and he'd suffer if deprived of it. What Wilson really needed was a way to change his dreams.
The Professor claimed to know how to enter another's dreams, and he had taught his method to House. Of course, House was sceptical. Still trying out his method couldn't hurt. It was an experiment. A rational way to prove or disprove an hypothesis. Physical contact first, skin to skin. A map. So that when House entered the world of dreams, he could make his way to Wilson's country. Without a map, he could wander forever in the mist and never find it.
House held Wilson close, his chest against Wilson's back. His head fit comfortably against Wilson's shoulder. He laid his whiskery cheek against Wilson's smooth-shaven one. Next, blood. A passport. Good enough to get past the border guards but no further. House kissed Wilson.
"I need your blood, okay?" he said softly. "Just a nip."
He bit him, quickly and cleanly piercing the earlobe of the sleeping vampire. Wilson's eyes fluttered, but he didn't wake up. House drank.
Finally, the consent of the dreamer. An invitation to the king's palace.
"Wilson," he whispered in the sleeping vampire's ear. "I'm coming to help you. When I knock on your door, let me in."
House closed his eyes and fell asleep.
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The Vampire's Apprentice