9A/N:  This story got a good response, so I'm continuing it...plus I think it'll be good for me to write something that has an actual linear plot, as opposed to a series of episodes.  

In this chapter:  Inspector Foreman and Sergeant Chase make the acquaintence of the local police in Shortleighborough, and House checks out the crime scenes.

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As they drove into Shortleighborough, Chase observed that the village looked like a picture postcard. There was a little stone church in the gothic style, a small stream with an arched bridge that looked like it ought to have a troll hiding under it and billy goats trotting across, and a half-timbered pub with a painted wood sign. A few--not many, but a few--of the cottages even had honest-to-God thatched roofs. Pretty much every structure in sight was older than anything in Sergeant Chase’s native Australia.

There was one thing that marred the bucolic picture: the streets were deserted. As Chase watched, someone came out of the pub and hastily pushed back the shutters before dashing back inside. Of course--two of the victims had been taken in broad daylight, and they represented a diversity of age, race, social class, and sex. No one could count on being safe.

With "P.L.O.T." finished, I'm looking for another project to start.  I am going to keep going with "Pencils  Are Dangerous," but it's a little too grim to have as my sole WIP.  

This is the first chapter of an AU in which House and Company are detectives.  It's supposed to be sort of an English village mystery, a genre I read a lot of (which is why I think I can pull it off, even though I've never been to England--the setting will be based on conventions of the genre rather than what England is actually like in real life).  We haven't gotten to the village part yet, but there will be plot twists, village eccentrics, and of course...everybody lies.  Let me know what you think!  I'm undecided between continuing this and picking up on this.

Summary : Detective Chief Inspector House, Detective Inspector Foreman, Detective Sergeant Chase, and Detective Constable Cameron work to solve a series of brutal murders in the picturesque village of Shortleighborough.  Will they track down the killer before the death toll mounts?  Meanwhile, best friends DCI House and Chief Medical Examiner Wilson begin to realize that their feelings for each other are deeper and warmer than ordinary friendship.  

Chief Inspector House slammed the office door open so hard that the doorknob was embedded in the wall plaster. “Wakey-wakey, kids, we got the case.”

DS Chase looked up from the file he was working on. “Those murders in Shortleighborough?” he asked, pronouncing the name of the nearby village, “Shorlbow,” as everyone except the occasional American tourist did.

“That’s the one.” House quickly erased the details of the team’s last major case from the whiteboard that dominated the office. Immediately after the third victim was found, meaning they officially had a serial killer on their hands, the Shortleighborough force had admitted that the case was over their heads. “The Chief wanted to call in Scotland Yard, but I convinced her to send us instead. Promised her sexual favors,” he added with a leer. In fact, he’d had to promise Chief Constable Cuddy far worse--that he’d play nicely with the Shortleighborough clods while he was on their patch.

Now that I've finished my ongoing projects, I'm at a bit of a loss for what to write next.   I've got a couple of ideas floating around, but none of them seem that promising. 

Anyway, this is one of them--another House-has-a-long-lost-kid story.  Cause that's what we need more of in this fandom, isn't it? 

Let me know if you think there's any point going on.

Nate kicked the leg of his chair idly.  He was bored, but you couldn’t just sit and play with your Game Boy or your transformers or whatever on the day of your mother’s funeral.  Not really.  Even just being bored felt wrong somehow, like he ought to be too busy being sad to realize he didn’t have anything to do.

 

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Rooting Fossicking around on my hard drive for more House stuff that I haven't put up here yet, I stumbled on this little gem.  I concieved (heh) it as the beginning of yet-another-long-epic-thingy, but actually, I think it works pretty well as a oneshot.  Twoshot, rather. 

            “I want it,” House said.  He was surprised to hear the words coming out of his own mouth.  If anyone had asked him, as a hypothetical, what he would do in this situation, he would never in a million years have predicted his reaction.  But as soon as he heard the words, he realized they were true.  “If you…I mean, it is your body and your decision.  But if you…if what I want matters….”