"Race"

Chapter One: Black and White

"Alright! Ready?"

"C'mon! Jesse! Jey!"

"On your marks…get set…GO!"

The boys shot off. House watched the boys racing in the park, but particularly on the one he assumed was Jesse, the clay colored boy who had been winning the last of the races so far. His hair was thick, but short, he'd styled it to flip upward toward the front. It reminded him of an Abercrombie and Fitch model. His limbs were lanky, and though they didn't have much volume, his muscles were rather defined. His skin was just starting to get clammy, and Jesse pulled the bottom end of his shirt up to his face and gave it a once over.

He let his eyes trail onto the grass below the bench, where birds were starting to waddle around his feet. He tapped his cane on the ground and they dispersed; he set his eyes back on Jesse, who had won another race. The park boys, racers and watchers surrounded him, acknowledging his skills.

"Man you got mad skills!"

"Jess-ay! You did good, bro."

Jesse smiled and House could tell that had he'd been light enough, he'd blush.

"Yo, don't act like you ain' got no skills. All that smiling and ''if I were white I'd be blushin'" crap. "You can run, and you know it."

"Good Race," the only white boy from the group popped Jesse's collar.

"You're praising like I'm a god," Jesse "blushed".

Their voices trailed as the group migrated out of earshot, and House got to his feet to head to the Hospital: as much as he hated it, he had to work today.

"Good Morning, House," Cuddy greeted without looking up at him from her desk: he'd decided to bring the laser pointer today, just to aim it at Cuddy's cleavage.

"Oxymoron. Nothing's good about morning: Morning breath, hangovers, forgetting the morning after pill. And that's just yours." House replied, relieving the red light.

"Why aren't you—"

"Don't have a case. I could've skipped a whole day of work if I wanted to," He interrupted, a rough disappointment in his tone.

Cuddy remained silent as she walked past him, obviously pissed off, but not before shoving what was clearly a new case into his chest.

—

"Hell-lo, my little duckies!"

Damn. There it was. The We've-Got-A-New-Case-So-I'm-Gonna-Make-You-Suffer-Tone. Chase dropped his head. It was Tuesday, and that meant not only was he not going to get any sleep tonight, but he was likely to get paired with Cameron, to his current spite. Cameron's eyes darted to the floor, for the same reason.

"Hey, aren't you gonna drop your head in disappointment, too?"

Foreman looked up from the newspaper he was reading, his expression cool and nonchalant, and maybe even some innocence, as expected.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you're doomed for only 3 hours of sleep in the next 48 hours, maybe?" House dropped the case file onto the table.

"That's always," he replied, as his co-workers rose from their pit of despair.

"He's 15, he's had all immunizations…the only thing that is anomalous about him is that he started coughing up blood this morning…" Foreman thought aloud, peering through the files House had lain openly on the table. "What was he doing before that?"

"Go ask him." House blurted, writing down 'coughs blood' to the list of symptoms on the dry-erase board. "Ideas, anyone?"

"It could be infection."

"But then he should have a fever."

"What if the fever hasn't shown up yet?"

"What if we're missing something?"

Chase and Cameron apparently had stopped having sex with each other, because they now disagreed and contradicted everything the other said.

"Well, we need to find out exactly where the blood is coming from…if it's pulmonary or not."

House mentally sighed in relief. At least someone was acting their age. He set his eyes on Foreman, for apparently he had the brain today.

"Bingo…or something like it. Foreman, check him out. Chase, go with him."

Chase rather not question why Cameron hadn't been thrown into the mix yet. If he had, he was sure House was going to switch Foreman for Cameron just to piss him off. He stood with Foreman to leave the Conference room until…

"On second thought…Chase, go with Cameron and get the kid's medical history: Other hospitalizations, most recent physical, anything, but don't come back with nothing."

Chase mentally cursed his thoughts. He wondered if House was psychic or something, because he seemed to be able to read minds…

—

He laughed. "They always give me the black doctor. At least it's not a girl this time though."

Foreman could tell the boy was joking judging by the smile on his face. His laughter faded into a coughing fit, which left a small amount of blood in his palm.

"Hey…I know you." He said, rather weakly now, but his eyes were trying their best to get a full view of House, who was in his peripheral vision. "From the park. The finish line was close to you."

"He started coughing after you left." The white kid was with him.

"Great. I have the Kiss of Death." House rolled his eyes as he droned in his signature sardonic tone. Jesse chuckled a bit, but it turned into a cough and more blood dotted his palms.

"Hey, uh…Jesse's friend," Foreman really didn't know what to call him yet, as if it weren't painfully obvious. "I need your name."

"Jeyson." He had a really noticeable accent, somewhere between Spanish and something he couldn't quite put a finger on; Foreman made a mental note. "J-E-Y-S-O-N. No hockey-mask jokes, please." Jeyson said this more to House than Foreman.

"Crap, I was just gonna ask what was the point in wearing the damned thing if you weren't deformed. So…where'd you learn to swim? It certainly wasn't Camp Crystal Lake." Jeyson stared at the comment with fresh loathing. "What? You said no hockey-mask jokes. You didn't ban anything about Friday the Thirteenth."

"House. If you're gonna make a disturbance, do it quietly." Foreman was sure how stupid this sounded, but he was busy peering into Jesse's mouth, searching for any clues to where the blood may be coming from. Foreman ended his observation of Jesse's oral cavity, discarding the oversized Popsicle stick.

"I'm gonna ask you to keep talking to a minimum if it hurts you, okay, Jesse? Did I get it right?" Jesse nodded. "So, Jesse…have you been sick lately?" He shook his head. "Any of your siblings, parents?" Jesse didn't confirm, or deny, he gave a sort of blank stare in House's general direction, who'd decided to take a nearby chair. "Jesse? Yes, no…maybe?" Nothing. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Of course not, Foreman. You just brought up the fact that he has either negligent parents or no parents at all."

"What makes you think that?" Jeyson blurted, his eyes narrowed on the doctor who was seriously invading his personal space, in more ways than one. He sat too, next to House, because it was the only other chair.

"It's Tuesday."

"So?"

"Kids have school on Tuesday. However, you were found out having a bit of fun after the bell rang. Playing hooky?"

"That doesn't mean his parents are negligent." Foreman defended, now checking Jesse's blood pressure. Jesse smirked when Foreman made his statement.

"I don't spend a lot of time around my family…"

"Who do you spend a lot of time with?"

"Jey. He would've carried me here if I'd let him." He grinned to the best of current ability. "We do just about everything together."

"He's a good friend, isn't he?"

"Yeah." Jeyson flushed at Jesse's conversation with Dr. Foreman, who was now moving on to shining a light into Jesse's eyes.

"I need you to—"

"Follow your finger with my eyes." Jesse finished. Left, right, up, down, cross-eyed, then reversed. "Why'd you do it a second time?"

"Because…your eyes move before my fingers. Do you practice this? Or is it that you really can't see where my fingers are going? We're gonna do this again, OK, Jess?"

"OK." Left, Rig—no, up, Dow-no, left again. Crossed. Well, at least he got something right.

"You can't see too well when it's kind of dark, can you?"

"It's just how it is." Jeyson said, now moving to sit on the windowsill to get away from House. Foreman half-nodded, reaching for the thermometer covers. "Under your tongue, keep your mouth closed." Jesse cooperated. The thermometer beeped done and Foreman took note of Jesse's low grade fever. From there it seemed like an almost normal doctor's appointment, except for the fact that most of Jesse's laughs turned into coughs which left blood in his palm.

"By the way, what were you doing before you started coughing?"

"I was racing some of my friends…"

"Did you feel tired at all during that? Tightness in the chest, shortness of breath?"

"No. I love to run. If I didn't need sleep, I could run for a clear 24 hours." Jesse laugh-coughed.

"Done." Foreman announced, adjusting the lights so that they were brighter. "Alright. If you need anything, I'm Doctor Foreman, and that's Doctor House."

"Don't volunteer me! I have the Kiss of Death, remember?"

"Well…you're not a bullet…there's probably nothing to worry about," Jeyson shrugged as he made his way back to his old seat now that House was raising from it.

—

"It's funny…" Foreman thought aloud, now on his way to the elevator with his boss.

"'Ha-ha' funny or 'strange' funny?"

"'Why can't it be like that more often' funny."

"What?" House asked, though it sounded as if he really didn't want to know.

"Jesse and Jeyson. Their unity as friends…they're like brothers. The only way you know their not blood related is the color of their skin." He smiled at the thought. Jesse was a lucky kid, even if he was coughing up blood. He had something a lot of people spent their whole lives looking for: a friend of true loyalty.

"Is this the part where you lecture me about being nicer to you?"

"No, because you're an ass," Foreman answered, pressing the down arrow on the wall. "I'm saying that…you shouldn't push everyone away from you the way you do. You'll miss you on someone who could be really priceless to you."

"Too late. Jesse's already pushed everyone away."

Black and White-End

—

A/N:

This took me practically forever. I will somehow get to the whole H/F trip…eventually. I promise you, Jey and Jess have some real importance, though I am working on his diagnosis. Legal Crap about not owning House or related characters, except the park boys goes here. Much Love to those who read and review.