A seasonal extra for CollarRedux... a six-part story covering six of Greg House's Christmas Days at PPTH in the Collar!Verse. All six Days take place pre-infarction.

This is the Collar!Verse. This story takes place some months after the end of "Sixteen Days". There are slaves, Greg House is one of them. Warnings for non-con and crude language.

Six Days of Christmas

1: God rest you merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay

There was a huge Christmas tree in the lobby, and fake snow on the windows obscuring the real snow outside. The Diagnostics patient had been turned over to cardiology, and the Diagnostics fellow had left in a rush to catch a flight. House went down to the basement early to eat.

None of the slaves spoke to him. He was used to that.

One of the supervisors was circling the canteen tables, drawing either a red or a green mark on the back of the slaves' hands. Most of the slaves got red. Red circle meant the vampires took blood, light duty, but this wasn't a circle, it was just a solid mark on back of hand and palm. None of the slaves showed any surprise or fear: each sat head down as the supervisor marked his hand, and as she moved on, went back to eating their food. The supervisor paused when she got to him. "You're Doctor Cuddy's boy, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," House said. He preferred "You're the Diagnostics slave" but either one was some kind of defense in the basement.

The supervisor looked at the list on her clipboard. "I don't have an assignment for you for tomorrow."

"Doctor Cuddy gave me some work to do," House said. He hadn't seen Cuddy in two days, he'd heard her say to someone else that she was going to her mother's for Christmas, and he had no idea if she'd agree that the journals he hadn't read yet constituted 'work'. But he didn't think anyone was likely to call her to check.

The supervisor uncapped the red marker pen. "Well, there's no room for you in green dorm." She scrawled a red mark on the back of his hand.

House finished his food. Last year he'd celebrated Christmas by getting drunk. He'd showed up to work on December 26 with a hangover and Doctor Shea had threatened to fire him. A week later he'd figured out what was causing a patient's kidney failure and saved her from a second-trimester abortion and probable death and Shea had very publicly forgiven him. In February he'd been let go with excuses about budget cuts, and from then on...

...there was no use thinking about that.

House got up, showing his empty bowl to the kitchen overseer, and climbed the stairs out of the basement. He heard the medical students before he saw them, talking loudly running down the stairs, and reflexively he backed into a corner to let them pass, keeping his head down. One of the students smacked him with the back of his hand, not hard, and didn't stop, didn't even bother to look to see if he reacted. They were in a good mood, laughing, talking cheerfully, he could hear them laughing until they left the stair and the door closed behind them. He walked on up the stairs. There was no use thinking about that either.

A few people had sent Christmas cards at work to the Diagnostics fellow. They stood in a row along one shelf, cheery representations of robins and religion, snowmen and cheery trees.

The balcony was clotted with snow and ice. He could turn all the lights off and it was still bright enough for him to sleep, with the city lights giving the snow an eerie white glow. Today going outside for an hour had been bitterly unpleasant, the balcony wasn't large enough to do more than walk up and down, with his hands tucked into his armpits. Tomorrow he supposed it would be warmer to go to the exercise field, at least there he could run. The clinic was closed tomorrow. There would be no comforting sandwich from Nurse Previn, no time in the day at all when he would be called "Doctor House". He lay still, pressing his face into the pillow, and sleep arrived at last.

When he went down for breakfast at six am on December 25th, he knew there was something wrong from the top of the stair into the basement. There was no smell of cooking food, cleaning materials, even the smell of unwashed slaves seemed diminished. The hall was empty, and the dorms - all but one - were locked.

So was the canteen. House pushed at the door, as if wishing would make it open, knowing with awful certainty that something was wrong, not knowing what.

One of the guards came unhurriedly out of the security station. "You. Boy. Get down on your knees. What are you doing here?"

"Sir," House said. He dropped to his knees. The guard didn't sound angry, he sounded cheerful. Happy. House dropped his eyes. "Sir, this slave wasn't..." he trailed off. He literally wasn't sure what to say that didn't sound like a criticism or a complaint. "This slave has work to do for Doctor Cuddy, today, sir..."

The guard took hold of his arm, not roughly, and turned his hand up towards the light. "You're the slave that stays upstairs, aren't you, boy? The expensive one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. Guess no one thought to sort you into a dorm for today." He still didn't sound angry. House relaxed fractionally. The guard tugged at his wrist. "Come on, boy."

There were three guards on duty in the security station. There was tinsel and balloons, holiday cards and plastic holly: the room felt bright and cheerful, and there was food - a basket of fruit, a plate of mince pies and cookies, a platter of sweet rolls, steaming mugs of coffee.

There were security cameras in the dorms. The screen at the workstation was showing constantly shifting images, three seconds at a time, of each dorm.

"What the hell's this?" The other guards didn't sound angry. One of them was keeping an eye on the shifting screens. The dorms looked crowded - none of the slaves were doing anything. They sat or lay still.

"Diagnostics slave," the guard said. "Doctor Cuddy's boy. He sleeps upstairs, remember? He got tagged red, but I guess no one thought to get him into one of the red dorms for today."

"They're all pretty full," the third guard said. He hadn't taken his eyes off the screens. "We can put him in four dorm for the night." His tone of voice had changed. He sounded greedy. "Til then, let's keep him here."

"Sir," House said. "I have work to do for Doctor Cuddy, sir."

The second guard got to his feet and took hold of his hand and waggled it, grinning at House. "Pretty sure you don't, boy."

"You won't get into trouble," the guard who'd collected him said. "That's what the red mark's for. Don't worry about it, boy." He ran a hand down House's back. He might have meant to be soothing. House swallowed.

"Sir, this slave does have work to do for Doctor Cuddy. This slave is sorry. This slave..." His voice trailed off as the other guard put a hand on his belly and rubbed him.

"No need to get into a panic, boy. It's Christmas."

"No one's got any work for you to do, boy," the first guard said.

"Hey," the third guard said. He hadn't moved. "You two aren't going to get all the fun. Time."

They were evidently taking turns to keep a close eye on the dorm cameras. The third guard was tall, and smiling with anticipation. "What have we got to grease him up?" He went round behind House and began pulling down his jeans.

House froze. His hands clutched at his jeans. No one had fucked his ass since - the guard who'd disappeared, the obscene intern - they had used jelly from doughnuts, stuffed his anus with food -

He'd had his mouth fucked. He could deal with that. He didn't think he could deal with this.

"No," he said. He thought he'd said it. His mouth was locked up. He was afraid of what they'd do if he said it. The guard was yanking at his jeans, hitting his hands to make him move them.

"Please," he got out. "Please, sir, this slave..." His voice was small and terrified.

"No need to panic, boy," the guard who was rubbing his belly said, gently, not angrily. "Hey, Jim, quit it for a minute. Boy, we're not going to hurt you." He went on rubbing House's belly and chest, long palm strokes like soothing an animal. "Want some food? Hey, we got food right here. We're going to have a party. It's Christmas Day. Food sound good, boy?"

No.

"I want to fuck him," the third guard said.

"Jim, you're not going to fuck him right here," the first guard said. "It's not sanitary."

"When did you get religion?"

"Shut the fuck up. We can party right here with the slave, everybody gets a blow-job, everybody's happy, but I don't want to smell the slave's crap all day long."

The third guard - Jim - stopped tugging at his jeans. "Okay." He sounded sulky. "I want a blow-job."

The other two guards laughed. The guard who'd been rubbing House's belly stopped, and turned House, pushing him down on his knees. "Okay boy, open wide. Jim, you horny motherfucker, you better not wear him out."

The cock shoved into his mouth was fat and white and none too clean. The guard grabbed hold of his head and jerked his mouth back and forward, fucking his face. He came quick, thin bitter-tasting fluid. House swallowed, choked, swallowed.

They all wanted blow-jobs. They took turns. One of them always watched the camera screens. They put a paper plate down on the floor for him and put food on it for him. He paid attention.

Most of the slaves PPTH owned spent the 25th day of December locked in the dorms. They were issued a double ration of slave chow and, as House knew from his first two weeks, each of the dorms had a water tap and a latrine: most of the basement staff could get the day off. There was one dorm left open for slaves who were needed to work, but they spent the day upstairs, from four in the morning til six at night: the groomer didn't work that day and the kitchens were closed down till the 26th, so the slaves who worked were just sent upstairs with a bag of slave chow to eat when their supervisor gave them a break.

All the other slaves could be supervised through the security cameras from the guards' station. The three guards on duty had drawn the short straw, though none of them seemed to mind. They were having a party.

"Let's fuck him before we put him in the dorm," Jim proposed. He gave House's buttocks a hard slap. The guard who'd found him, Larry, was watching the dorms on screen then, but he looked round.

"Eyes," the third guard said, to Larry. He was Nick. "Jim, quit it, he's being a good boy. What about it, boy?" He put half a sandwich down on the paper plate and tousled House's hair. "You want a good fucking from the three of us? You'd like that, wouldn't you, boy?"

None of the three guards left the security station for more than five minutes, and only one at a time. There must be supposed to be two there all the time and three except for toilet breaks. They were working a long shift. They'd started before six, probably at four in the morning. They would have to quit about four in the afternoon. They weren't supposed to be using a hospital slave for sex during work hours.

House ate the food. He tried not to flinch away from the heavy, almost affectionate handling. He swallowed when they came. He didn't say anything.

And when finally he saw a moment - when Jim was on a toilet break, and Nick was sitting watching the screen, and Larry was standing by the coffeemaker pouring himself a fresh cup - he moved.

Out of the door. He had planned this, every step, knowing if he didn't think it through he would flinch, drop to his knees, obey. Larry yelled and House made his feet keep moving: he knew they couldn't leave the station, there had to be two of them there, Jim was in the washroom. They had guns but they didn't dare shoot him, they had taser batons but they had to catch him first -

He ran. Up the stairs. He had to get to his office. He had to.

The Diagnostics office had a standard listing of all internal hospital numbers. House never used it. He had his fellow make all phone calls. No one wanted a slave using the phone. House fell to his knees beside the desk he used, reaching for the phone, scrabbling for the list of numbers. He could do this. He could. He had to do it fast before the three of them involved someone else, before they reported he'd run away -

"Security, basement," Nick answered the phone. "We got a situation here - "

House swallowed. "This is Diagnostics," he said. He guessed Nick would recognize his voice, and from the swearing, Nick did. He grinned, feeling better. "This is the expensive Diagnostics slave in the Diagnostics office. Where this slave has work to do for Doctor Cuddy. This slave will work in the Diagnostics office today." He paused. "Is that clear, sir?"

Nick explained the situation to Jim and Larry. House pressed the phone to his ear and listened. Nick sounded loud and angry, and he wasn't explaining it the way House just had, but it was clear he'd got the gist. House was feeling better by the minute.

"You better not leave that office, boy," Nick said.

"Thank you, sir," House said. He was still grinning, and it was probably audible in his voice. He put the phone down. His belly felt rough from the too-rich food and the come he'd swallowed, and he wasn't going to get anything else to eat till six tomorrow.

But he'd take whatever Christmas treat he could get. And the thought of the three frustrated stooges in the basement, not able to leave it til the end of their shift, not able to do anything to him in Diagnostics by Doctor Cuddy's order...

That was the best present he was likely to get all year.

tba

Happy holidays! Continued soon!