fills the whumptober prompts "kidnapped" (from #02) and "rescue" (from #05).

-

House sits with his back against the wall, hands bound in front of him in his lap as he stares at the guy keeping him here - wherever here is. He doesn't understand how he's expected to work like this, barely able to move his hands, let alone do much else.

"I don't know what you want from me," House sighs irritatedly, his leg aching without the pills to help. His head hurts, too, from where he'd been clocked.

"I want you to tell me what's wrong with me, dammit," the guy snaps at him as he takes a seat in the wooden chair across from where House sits on the floor. He's got House's cane in his hands, twirling it around. "I've told you all my symptoms, so you need to figure it out."

"Yeah," House replies satirically, "Well that's kinda hard to do without being able to use my hands, or being able to have access to a hospital to... oh, I don't know, say, run tests. You know, those things that you do when you wanna find out what's wrong with someone?" He pauses for a moment before adding, "And it's not like I have a way to treat you even without testing. I don't know what you're expecting from me besides a diagnosis that may end up being false."

"Shut up," the guy tells him as he grips the cane harder, so House does as he's told. "I've heard all about you and how good you are. You have a reputation. You're a smart doctor who tends to be mostly right, so I know you can figure it out. When you have, I'll let you be on your way and I'll start my treatments."

"So you'd rather settle for me being mostly right here alone with you, based solely on your symptoms, which may land you with a false diagnosis and treatments that do nothing to help you, rather than having me be definitely right in a hospital with a team of other doctors to help me run the tests I need to figure out what's wrong with you?" House questions in annoyed disbelief. He shakes his head. "Wow. I guess there's just nothing like crazy kidnappers with perfectly flawed logic."

The sound of the cane whacking his shin is loud in the room. House yells out in pain, gritting his teeth at the throbbing feeling that lingers after, but he does his best to try and just breathe through it. That's going to leave a bruise for sure.

He's only been here for a day at most, but it already feels like longer. He wonders how long he'll have to stay until this fucking wacko lets him go.

"All I'm asking for is a diagnosis," the guy says, weirdly calm now in a way that's unsettling. House glares up at him, grinds his teeth.

"Any diagnosis?" he grits out, but receives another whack to his leg for it. Right over the spot he'd already been hit in. House shouts, biting down on his bottom lip to quiet himself. His fingernails dig into his palms as a distraction, but it doesn't really help at all.

"A correct diagnosis," the guy responds with a roll of his eyes and a bite in his tone. House doesn't look up at the guy again.

"I just said-" he then tries, but is once again struck by his own cane in the same spot. "Goddammit, would- would you stop and listen to me?!"

"No," the guy says sharply and leans forward in his chair, "you need to stop and listen to me. Do as you're told and diagnose me. I'll go get checked out and tested by your team, and if you're right, you get to go free and they'll get you back. If you're wrong, you'll stay here and give me something else they can work with." The guy stops for a moment, smiling a little. "Nobody knows where you are except for me. Remember that."

House keeps his mouth shut in fear of being hit again, but he nods. He doesn't have much of a choice but to listen. He goes over the symptoms in his head again and lists the first thing he thinks of. "Could be MS. If you take my phone and call my team, I'll order them to test you."

If the guy wants a diagnosis, even if it means doing time in jail for kidnapping...

"This better not be a trick," the guy growls as he pulls out House's phone from his own pocket - he must've confiscated it earlier - and House shakes his head once.

"Nope, no tricks," he promises, watching the guy's eyes narrow before he selects the team's number from House's contacts and waits for the call to be answered.

As uninteresting as these symptoms are, House will give the guy his diagnosis. He'll let his team run the tests. Anything to get out of here.

-

It's not MS. His team did all the tests for him, but couldn't confirm it. Now, House is talking to them through his phone again, which is in the guy's hand. He holds it up for House to talk into, and keeps it on speaker so that they both can hear as well.

On the other end of the phone, House can also hear voices that don't belong to his team. In all, he hears Thirteen, Chase, Taub, and Foreman, but also two others - Cuddy and Wilson. House can hear the worry in all of their voices but especially Wilson's, in the way they ask if he's okay or if he's hurt, until the kidnapper orders them to shut up if they're not going to say anything useful.

All of them are throwing out random ideas then and House is bouncing some back, even if they don't fit. But when House finally suggests, "Sjögren's Syndrome?", everyone on the other end goes quiet.

"Could be," Wilson mumbles first, and House can hear murmurs of agreement. "Alright then, let's go with that for now. If he comes back in we can test some more and-"

The kidnapper quickly shuts the phone mid-conversation without a word, completely hanging up. Pocketing the device, he's leaving, heading off to PPTH again.

House is left alone once more and he's a little grateful for it. Another day has already passed and the pain in his leg is getting worse, both in his thigh and where he'd been struck. He's tired and starting to detox, unable to sleep because of how much it hurts.

But there's nothing he can do except deal with it and hope that Sjögren's Syndrome is the right diagnosis, because if it isn't, House isn't sure when he'll be leaving this place.

-

House knows something is up when the guy never comes back. Hours have gone by and it's dark now and kind of chilly. He's hungry, thirsty, nauseous, exhausted and in pain, shivering and sweating and shaking. He keeps expecting the door to the basement to open and the kidnapper to come down, but the door doesn't budge and nobody comes. Nothing happens for a long while, actually.

But then- something does.

Suddenly, the door opens and the streams of light from a few flashlights flood the basement and House has to squint his eyes at the brightness. He barely registers being asked questions, having his hands quickly unbound and then being lifted up onto his feet, but since he can't properly walk, he's given support to get up the stairs and out of the house.

There's an ambulance waiting outside and a few other police officers. The flashing lights are a little irritating but House deals with it as he looks around at his surroundings.

And then his eyes find Wilson, waiting worriedly by the ambulance. The oncologist immediately rushes over at the sight of House and the officers, taking over for the one giving House support.

House clings to Wilson, hearing his voice at first but not the words. He blocks it out for now, his head and his leg hurting too much to pay any kind of attention to anything else.

"House?" he eventually hears, Wilson's fingers touching his cheek. "Hey, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," House finally responds, exhaling tiredly. "What happened to the guy?"

"He told us where you were after the treatment started working for him and then he disappeared from the hospital before the cops showed up," Wilson explains, all but carrying House over to the ambulance to allow him to sit down. "What happened? Is your leg worse? You're barely walking on it."

Wilson kneels and gently pushes up House's pant leg to examine. He frowns at the dark bruise that had formed on part of both House's ankle and his shin from where the guy kept striking him. House winces as Wilson gently pokes at it and around it, but he doesn't try to pull away.

"Are you okay?" Wilson asks softly as he gets back to his feet. "Did he do this to you?" House simply nods as an answer to both questions and accepts someone's offer of a water bottle, chugging most of it down in one go. Wilson fidgets uncomfortably, shifting in place as he reaches into his pocket and then offers House the three white pills that now sit in the palm of his hand. "I, um... I brought you some Vicodin. I thought you'd probably need it."

House accepts them with a soft "thanks", watches Wilson gently placing them into his hand after. His fingers linger, but House doesn't comment on it. Instead, he wordlessly tips his head back and allows the three Vicodin to fall into his mouth and then he swallows them down.

House sighs and lets his head come forward to rest against Wilson's chest, knowing that relief will come soon enough.

Wilson's arms wrap around him, holds him close as the pain finally starts to subside. And right now, that's all House cares about.

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