TITLE: Two-Faced
AUTHOR: Phate_Phoenix
PAIRING: House/Wilson small(eventually)/small, Tendershipping small(if you're really looking for it)/small
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: Crossover with Yu-Gi-Oh!
SUMMARY: Ryou Bakura thought it was only the flu. He was wrong. Now House and his team must figure out what is ailing the young Duelist, while trying to figure out if Ryou's strange, and sometimes violent, mood-swings are part of his symptoms or something else entirely…
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or House M.D.
NOTES: Has an actual interesting medical case! Odd symptoms? Check! Odd patient? Check! Odd illness? Check! We're good to go! You might want some background knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh!, but I think you can get by without.

Timeline for House MD: After 'THE GREATER GOOD', before 'UNFAITHFUL'
Timeline for YGO: After Battle City, sometime during the Dragons Arc. Gets rather 'AU' from there.

--

Chapter One: Atrophic Albino

From underneath a bundle of blankets rose a low groan. Beside the bed stood a blue-haired man, arms crossed, tapping his foot. Agitation was glowing in his bright green eyes. He reached out and nudged the lump, frowning. When the lump made no further attempt to move, the green eyes narrowed in frustration.

"Ryou," the man said, voice sharp with aggravation, "get up. You still need to pack. And don't tell me you're still sick- you've had the 'flu' for over a week now. We're heading back to Japan today."

Ryou coughed dryly, pushing the blankets away from his white-haired head. His brown eyes were half-closed. "Sorry, Father," he mumbled. He ran a hand through his tangled mess of hair, wincing with every movement his aching body would make.

The man raised an eyebrow at him. "Are yousick?" he asked, disbelief evident in his tone. Ryou shrugged, but winced as he got out of bed. As he shuffled around the bed and to the window to open the blinds, his father sighed. Turning around and marching out of Ryou's room, he called over his shoulder, "That's it. I'm taking you to the doctors today. Get dressed, have some coffee. Just be ready in twenty minutes."

Ryou watched the man leave before he exhaled, leaning against the white wall of the hotel room he was staying in. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, feeling every ache in his muscles as he moved towards his suitcase at the foot of his bed. His father was right, of course- he'd been sick for over a week, and there was no sign of him getting better. As he dug around from some mostly clean socks, he felt a familiar stirring in the back of his mind.

'Oh by Apophis… are you still unwell?' came the annoyed chastisement from the spirit.

Ryou ignored him as he went on in dressing. After the fiasco that was Battle City, Yami Bakura had taken up a permanent residence in the back of Ryou's mind, even though the Millennium Ring itself was currently halfway around the world in Japan with Yuugi Mutou. According to the Spirit, he had split his soul so that the main portion resided within Ryou, and a smaller part remained with the Ring. Something about always having a host this way. Ryou wasn't so sure that was the real reason- the Spirit of the Ring had probably saved his life back on Kaiba's blimp by throwing himself in front of the Dragon of Ra's attack. That, and Bakura had been better to him lately, key word being better. Ryou had lost track of how many times he came back to himself, hours later, sleeping in his hotel room, with no idea what had happened the day before.

But Ryou was getting used to it.

'Fix this shell, Yadonushi, or I'll break into a Pharmacy and fix it myself.'

Ryou sighed and then coughed loudly into his hands, feeling the aches running up and down his body. He groaned softly, straightening and walking forward. 'Father is taking me to the doctor's today. They'll give me some medicine that should relieve the symptoms.'

He could feel Bakura roll his eyes. The spirit never did anything to personal as take a spiritual form- it was either all or nothing with him. 'Your father was the one to drag us to America in the first place,' Bakura snapped. 'Away from the Pharaoh and his brat. Here, you got sick. It's his fault.'

'Probably,' Ryou admitted, wandering into the main room of the hotel suite and pouring a cup of sub-par coffee from the tiny coffee pot on top of the microwave, 'but he's spending time with me. He hasn't done that in awhile.'

Bakura went silent for a moment, and then Ryou felt him settle in the back of his mind, like a cat curling onto a pillow. 'Fix this and get me back to Japan,' he growled, and the link went silent.

Ryou sighed, massaging his forehead. Life with a vengeful thief in the back of one's mind made life so much more interesting….

--

Gregory House slipped in through the automatic doors of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, glancing around cautiously, carefully. He was toeing a treacherous line, he realized, especially since it had come to light that the line might be booby trapped with tripwire. House ended up being two hours late to work (again), but he had not meant to oversleep this time. He had hit the snooze button on his alarm and, in doing so, knocked it from his nightstand and unplugged it from the wall. It was only when Wilson had called him three hours later that House realized his error. The diagnostician scanned the clinic quickly, wondering if he should test his luck in trying to dart across the room to the elevator. Sure, he was slow, but if he tried to move without limping….

"Glad to see you at work, Doctor House."

Busted.

House turned around to face down the blue-eyed dragon behind him. He sneered at her. "Ah, it's Momma Bear." He eyed the tell-tale spit up stain on Cuddy's low-cut brown blouse. "And I take it Baby Bear is somewhere nearby?"

Cuddy had decided that instead of taking out her woes on House's leg, she would fix it herself. Thus, every Tuesday and Thursday Cuddy brought the Vominator into the building with her. Those days, the nurse station was put on Baby Call, just in case Cuddy was needed somewhere in the building. The first time, House had tried to keep her busy the whole day. By noon, House decided that she and the munchkin could have Tuesdays and Thursdays, just as long as House never saw another waxed floor again.

Cuddy glanced at her shoulder and then back towards her office, where one of the nurses was standing and bouncing the infant. She looked back at him. "Yes. Isn't it funny that Rachel, who is less than a year old, is more punctual that you?"

House frowned at her. "That's not fair. She carpools."

Cuddy began to walk back to her office. "Why are you late today, anyway?"

"Same reason as always," House said as they entered her office, making sure to speak loud and clear once the doors were closed, "internet porn and hookers."

The nurse stared at House, horrified that he would speak such language in front of a baby. Cuddy scowled at him, taking Rachel from the nurse. "Thank you Cindy," she said. The nurse smiled back at her and quickly left the room. House leaned on his cane.

"So, what have you got for me?" he asked. "Any exploding eyeballs? Tell me you've got an interesting case."

Cuddy raised an eyebrow at him. "Afraid not," she said, leaning against her desk as she gently rocked the drooling creature in her arms. House stared at her, and Cuddy shrugged, smirking.

"You have to do clinic hours."

"But Mommy, I don't want to!"

House knew he was going to lose this battle- he had been shirking off his clinic hours for the past few days because of a most interesting case of interstitial cystitis that took forever to diagnose. Now that the patient was on his way to recovery, Cuddy had no reason to hold back. She now stood before him, glaring, one hand planted on her hip while the other gently bounced the three month old pinkish blob with a mop of dark hair named Rachel. She smiled at him, mockingly.

"We've been over this before, haven't we?" she said, turning and walking around her desk, and Rachel let out gurgling giggle. Cuddy sat the pink-clothed baby on her desk before handing her a small stuffed duck. "You can't always get what you want."

House mock-gasped. "You love the new baby more than me!"

"I do, House. Now get out."

He stuck out his tongue at her before turning around and heading towards the clinic. A lackluster attempt, really, but he currently had nothing to barter with, and he wasn't going to risk getting more hours tacked onto his already monstrous amount. He limped towards the main desk and pulled a red folder at random, glancing at it only to get the room number. Then he made his way towards the pale blue door and entered promptly.

"Room service?" he said as he made his way inside, scanning the occupants of the room with a quick glance. Two males were in the room, father and son if House's guess was correct, and he usually was. The eldest, with shocking blue hair and green eyes, was standing near the window, far from the door and the examination table, and a younger male, with white hair and light brown eyes, was sitting on the examination table and blinking owlishly at House. The pale teenaged male smiled a bit before coughing dryly into his hand. The father stepped forward, extending his hand to House.

"Ren Bakura," he said. When House merely wandered by him, Ren dropped his hand and cleared his throat awkwardly. He gestured to the white-haired teen. "This is Ryou. He's been sick with flu for over a week now, and since we're leaving the country later today, I wanted to make sure he'd be in good health."

House raised an eyebrow at the older man before looking at Ryou himself. "So, you're an albino?" he asked simply as he flipped through the file, taking note of the several different hospitalizations that the teen had, most of them dealing with some sort of stab wound. How odd.

Ryou blinked a few times, nodding his head. "Yes," he responded. "Is that relevant?"

"No," House said as he began to lay out a few tools to use, "but I don't see albinos very often, so you're kind of a freak to me."

Ryou blinked rapidly but his lips twitched in a smile. "Oh," Ryou said, eyes bright, "if that's all…"

Ren looked over at the two of them before pulling out a book to look through. House went through the motions of the examination, glad to have an easy case first-thing. Maybe he could slack off for half an hour in here before going off to another case. Had he brought his portable TV? First, though, he had to be a doctor.

"Well, you have some swelling in your lymph nodes," House said, spinning on the turn-table stool to grab his prescription pad, "and you have the lovely dry cough. Slight fever, throat's raw, muscle aches- I'd say you have the flu, but what do I know? I'm just a doctor."

Ryou smiled at him and took the prescription note from House and stood. "Thank you," he said, nodding. House simply turned around, fiddling with the drawers, and pretended to write something down on Ryou's file, while the other two gathered their things and prepared to leave. General Hospital reruns would be on in a few minutes, he thought, patting his right thigh to make sure he did indeed have his tiny TV stored away in his white lab coat pocket. Perfect.

Almost.

"Whoa!"

The cry and subsequent stumbling and banging made House spin back around on the stool, raising his eyebrows. The sight before him caused House reach for his cane. Ryou was clutching tightly to the door handle, placing far more weight on it than was necessary. His brown eyes were wide with horror as they stared down at his legs. Ren Bakura was standing stiffly a few paces behind Ryou, holding his jacket over one arm.

"Ryou?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

Ryou turned his eyes upon Doctor House, and the diagnostician could see the fear and curiosity that boiled within their brown depths.

"My-my leg," Ryou began, and House saw the teen try to put weight on the rather limp left limb to no avail, "it… won't let me stand on it…"

House pushed himself to his feet, limping towards Ryou. None too gently, he kicked Ryou's nonresponsive leg.

"Ow!" Ryou yelped, hopping away from House and the door. He leaned heavily against the nearest wall. Ren looked between his son and House, but the doctor had only eyes for Ryou.

"You have feeling in your leg," House said, a small smirk crossing his lips. Cautiously, Ryou nodded.

"Yes… I just can't move it."

House grinned, gesturing to the examination table. "Well, take a seat! Apparently what you have is not the flu." As Ryou hopped over to the examination table, dragging the afflicted leg, House poked his head out of the exam room. "I'm going to need a wheelchair!" he called, and a nurse darted out of sight.

Ren looked over at Ryou, brushing a strand of blue hair out of his face. "What…" he began, and then looked over at House. "What's wrong with him?"

Both father and son had their eyes upon House once more, and the blue-eyed-man could only shrug. "I have no idea," he said cheerfully, and dry-swallowed a Vicodin before he continued, "but I'm going to figure it out."