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How To Manage Your Alpha Male

2. Alpha Males Anonymous

Earlier, in the bar along the road...


“So, you’re not worried?” Angel asked O'Neill.

The man shrugged. “Nope.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“Not even a teeny weeny little bit.”

“Why not?” Angel demanded in some irritation.

O'Neill surveyed the group of men at the table at which he was sitting. “Because after six weeks of Daniel hearing about you guys, I am going to be looking so good to him.”

House tossed a Vicodin up into the air and caught it in his mouth with practised ease, nodding between the two of them. “You kill people for a living. And you kill…not-people for a living. I may not be Mister Kitten Cuddler of the Universe but even I’ve got to look as good as Cuddy’s cleavage beside the two of you.”

“You harass dying patients,” O'Neill pointed out.

“Only for their own good. And occasionally because it’s funny. But at least I don’t shoot them with automatic weapons. Do you know what a bullet does to the large intestine, Colonel?”

“I don’t kill people unless they’re trying to kill me.”

“Have you ever thought that there might be a reason why they’re trying to kill you? Perhaps they know something you don’t?”

O'Neill moved his chair around and nodded to Angel. “You talk to him.”

House looked Angel up and down. “Oh, it’s the scary vampire. Save me. Save me.”

Angel scowled at him. “Aren’t you worried you might poison yourself with all that bile?”

“Luckily, painkillers are the perfect antidote and by good fortune here’s a Vicodin habit I picked up earlier.” House took a sip from his glass. “I saw Mister Gunn in here earlier. What a remarkably handsome young man. Not to mention his excellent cardio-vascular system – has his own blood flow and everything.”

Angel thought longingly about how much fun eating people had been in the old days. “Don’t you have some patients you should be misdiagnosing?”

“I have trained assistants to do that for me. But, tell me, I’ve always wondered, what do babies taste like?”

His glass refilled, Josh Lyman sat down in one of the vacant chairs, which, not surprisingly, was next to House. “Can I just point out that I’ve never killed anyone – intentionally or through medical incompetence.”

“You’re a politician,” O'Neill pointed out disdainfully.

Angel nodded. “Lawyers wash their hands after they talk to people like you.”

“But I’m a Democrat. I have principles.”

“You lie and you compromise and you do what’s best for your party, not what’s best for the people. That’s the nature of politics.”

Josh looked horrified. “Don’t ever say that to Sam. He’ll have a crisis of faith.”

“Oh, has Paul been in already?”

They turned to find a genial British-accented newcomer in a long black coat that made Angel finger his own defensively. “Who are you?”

The newcomer held out a hand. “Alva Keel. Pleased to meet you. Supernatural phenomena a speciality.”

“That’s my speciality,” Angel retorted, aggrieved.

“Yes, but we look at it from a slightly different viewpoint, and, of course, we at Sodalitas Quaerito are human.”

Angel shifted self-consciously. “How did you...?”

Keel nodded to the window. “No reflection. Don’t worry, I’m not judgemental. Has Paul been in?”

O'Neill assessed the newcomer suspiciously. “He’s your beta male?”

“Well, I don’t claim ownership.” Keel nodded to the bartender. “A pint of best, if you please. But I do feel a certain protective interest in his well-being. He’s an extraordinary young man for whom I think fate has a special purpose in mind – not someone who has just happened along by chance.”

“Except he probably did,” House pointed out. “Intelligent design, or indeed intelligence of any kind, usually plays no part in making babies. It’s mostly hormones.”

“Not Paul,” Keel insisted. “He’s been shown things that other people haven’t. He has a spiritual quality unlike that of any other person I’ve ever met.”

Angel frowned. “Are you sure you’re an alpha male?”

“I’ve never really considered the point. Why...?”

“It’s just that they usually talk about us like that.”

As they all gazed at him in confusion, Angel cleared his throat. “Okay, maybe Wesley’s a little more beta than some. But that’s why he’s getting therapy, right?”

O'Neill, feeling a little irritated by Keel’s apparent conviction that his beta male was the most special and unusual, sat up straighter. “This Paul guy, has he come back from the dead?”

“A couple of times, yes.”

“How many exactly? Daniel’s done it at least five times.”

“Wesley’s been tortured by a psychopathic Slayer, blown up by a demon who had to be raised by magical incantation, and shot by a zombie policeman, and still hasn’t died,” Angel put in. “Some people’s friends just don’t keel over and expire at the least little thing.”

House raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t efficient alpha males supposed to prevent that sort of thing from happening in the first place?”

O'Neill felt stung by the injustice. “I can’t watch him every minute!”

“Exactly,” Angel nodded emphatically. “I didn’t know there was a bomb in the building and I rescued him as soon as it blew up. And the other time it was Gunn’s responsibility.”

House shrugged and looked across at Josh. “How many times has Seaborn seen the white light?”

“He hasn’t. He’s fallen off a couple of boats but apart from that he’s never even sprained an ankle.”

House nodded. “Same with Doctor Wilson. Despite his being married several times to some singularly neurotic women, any one of whom could have brained him with his own golf clubs, I have never once had to inject him with epinephrine or shock him back to life. I think we can see who is doing a good job of taking care of his friend and who isn’t.”

“We do live in slightly different worlds,” Angel pointed out.

“And face different problems,” O'Neill added. “When was the last time you had to take Wilson through a Stargate into another world to do battle with Jaffa armed with staff weapons?”

“When was the last time you had to face an enraged soccer mom whose child wasn’t showing signs of recovery even after being the subject of invasive and painful tests?”

“And I was shot,” Josh pointed out. “So, it’s not as if politics isn’t dangerous. Our roll call of dead presidents confirms that.”

“Yes, but you can hardly compare the professions,” House shrugged. “We save lives. You push paper around and take meetings.”

“There wouldn’t be any lives left for you to save if the Goa'uld had invaded,” O'Neill pointed out.

“Or if the world had been sucked into a hell dimension,” Angel added emphatically.

“Oh, was that a possibility?” Keel came back with his glass of bitter. “Can you remember the date? I’ve found some references in a proto-Bantu text but I’m not quite sure of the chronology.”

Angel looked at him warily. “You can read Proto-Bantu?”

“Yes.”

“What about Geshundi?”

“I’ve studied it, of course, although I wouldn’t describe myself as an expert. Are you interested in demonic languages?”

“No, but I have a friend who...” Angel broke off. “Just curious.”

O'Neill also regarded Keel warily. “Do you speak lots of languages as well as reading them?”

Keel shrugged. “I wouldn’t say ‘a lot’. About eighteen on the last count where I consider myself actually fluent...”

O'Neill looked at his watch. “I think I should collect Daniel now. We should be getting back.”

“Me too.” Angel also rose to his feet.

Josh paled abruptly and made frantic motions with his hand. “Sit down.”

O'Neill and Angel both turned and saw who had come in the door. At once they shot down in their chairs and bowed their heads. “What’s he doing?” O'Neill hissed at Josh.

“He’s going to the bar.”

“Is the redhead working today?” Angel demanded.

Keel looked at them curiously. “There was a young lady with auburn hair there just a moment ago. Very nice girl. Had some interesting insights into the nature of reality.”

O'Neill breathed a sigh of relief. “He’ll stay at the bar as long as there’s a redhead in sight.”

House looked up. “Or I could wave to him. Invite him over?”

Angel’s face changed briefly into his demonic aspect. “Try it,” he said through a mouthful of teeth.

House smiled. “I like to think it hurts when you do that.”

Keel gazed at Angel with rapt fascination. “Would you mind staying that way for a moment longer? I’d really like a chance to study...”

Angel changed back. “It’s not a party trick.” The hint of a pout took off much of the demonic power with which the transition had briefly invested him.

“The chap at the bar? Is he some kind of demon too...?”

“He’s in NCIS,” O'Neill shuddered. “He’s got this smile...”

Angel made a sign that was vaguely cruciform. “Don’t.”

“He seems quite affable,” Keel observed, turning around in his chair.

“Don’t look at him,” O'Neill hissed.

“He’s only affable if you’re a pneumatic redhead,” House explained. “If you’re not he tends to make people wet themselves. Well, Lyman anyway.”

“I did not ‘wet myself’,” Josh protested. “I spilled my drink when he appeared behind me without any warning.”

A beautiful brunette walked into the bar as if she not only owned everyone in it but also held the mortgage papers for his soul. Angel grimaced. “Lilah.”

House, Josh, and O'Neill all gazed at her appreciatively while Keel began to show Angel pictures of some recent supernatural phenomena they had encountered. “And this is an x-ray photograph of the bullet lodged in Evie’s head. This is the mortuary photograph of a dead child whose need for her corpse to be claimed by her mother caused tears in the fabric of reality that resulted in innumerable tragedies. This is a nice one of Paul sitting by her graveside. I think it’s really captured that spiritual quality I was talking about. Pay no attention to the cuts and bruises – he was just a little concussed that day.”

Lilah Morgan sashayed over to the table; House making no attempt not to look down her blouse as she bent down to give them all a dazzling smile – and a very good view of her cleavage. “Those beta boys of yours and their little crushes…? I could make real men out of any one of them in two hours flat.”

“Hathor tried,” O'Neill growled at her in warning.

“Some wannabe goddess with a line in alien Rohypnol?” Lilah snorted in disdain. “What an amateur. An afternoon with me and any of those sweet innocent sidekicks of yours would be more alpha than you are.”

“Stay away from Wesley,” Angel told her shortly.

“But he’s so badly in need of…therapy.”

Angel shot to his feet; O'Neill and Josh both grabbing him by the arm and yanking him back down before the man at the bar saw him. Lilah switched her attention to Josh. “I hear your boy already puts out for lawyers…”

“Try it,” Josh said flatly. “I will get your firm legislated straight to hell. And don’t think those senators you think you own would help you. I can squeeze their state funding until they squeak.”

She smiled slowly. “You impress me, Mr. Lyman. There’s nothing like a man all hot and bothered about his best friend’s virtue to get a gal horny.”

As she turned to House he fixed her with a gimlet gaze. “Trust me, Ms Morgan, you really don’t want to find out about the kind of tests I order for people I don’t like.” As they continued to exchange unblinking stares, he added quietly: “And if you’re thinking that my Hippocratic oath would protect you if you came after Doctor Wilson, think again.”

O'Neill pointed to the bar. “Why don’t you tell him that he needs to start dusting his boy for your fingerprints?”

Lilah glanced up at the bar and then blanched. “DiNozzo’s not my type,” she said quickly.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire, Ms Morgan,” House observed.

Ignoring House, she looked Keel up and down. “New exhibit in the freak show, I see. I’ll need to research you and your little friend.”

“Please do,” Keel suggested. “Given the resources that your firm possesses, perhaps you can provide Paul with a current address for his father. We would be most appreciative.”

A little disconcerted by Keel’s lack of hostility, she snapped her fingers under Angel’s nose. “I can have Wyndam-Pryce just like that, any time I want him.” Then – thankfully – she was gone.

O'Neill looked at Angel in some confusion. “That English guy of yours isn’t gay?”

“Of course he’s gay,” House snorted. “He makes Chase look manly and testosterone-fuelled, and I’ve always assumed Chase moonlights as a pole dancer on his evenings off.”

“Wesley has sex with women.” Angel grimaced as he said it. “I’m not saying it’s good for him, but it’s something he does.”

“Well, stop him at once, before he breeds,” House pleaded. “No one with those kind of emotional problems should be reproducing.”

“They’re caused by nurture, not nature,” Angel insisted.

“They’re caused by being English. And there is no cure for that – trust me, I’m a doctor.”

O'Neill looked at Keel curiously. “You know, if the vampire bred with Wyndam-Pryce they’d have a kid that was just like him.”

Everyone looked at Keel for a moment who looked down at his black clothing in some confusion. House nodded. “It’s true – the clothes, the brooding, the intellect, the combination of over-protectiveness coupled with clingy neediness. Tell me, Keel, do you live in your place of work? Fall asleep doing research a lot?”

Keel seemed surprised by the question. “Doesn’t everyone?”

O'Neill sat back in his chair and nodded to Angel. “No more breeding.”

“For the last time, Wesley isn’t Connor’s mother.”

Josh snorted. “How come they have his name down as ‘co-parent’ at the hospital?”

“That was an administrative error.”

House shrugged. “Just sign that baby of yours up for counselling now. It will save time in the long run.”

O'Neill was still gazing at Keel curiously. “How did your boy find out about this gig anyway?”

“Oh, I saw the coded message in the newspaper. I left it folded onto the correct page where Paul could puzzle it out for himself. He has a very quick mind.”

“You wanted him to come?”

“Well, of course. If Paul isn’t happy then it’s important that he should seek guidance from others.”

“You do get that he’s only going to these sessions because he thinks you’re the problem?”

“I’m confident that after some discussion he’ll realize that I’m not.” Keel reached for the paper and shook it out. “Ah, another mysterious death in Bakersfield, I see. We may need to pay a little visit while we’re in California.”

“Of course, I know I’m not really Wesley’s problem either,” Angel said hastily. “It’s his father that has him so…messed up.”

“Sam isn’t getting therapy, he’s just learning how to be a therapist,” Josh added. “I’m definitely not his problem. He doesn’t have a problem. And if he did, it wouldn’t be me.”

“Well, I am Wilson’s problem,” House announced comfortably. “I’ve helped screw up several of his marriages and most of his relationships, and I intend to keep on doing it for the very good reason that none of his wives and girlfriends are good for him, whereas I am. And even if I’m not, they have plenty of other men they could be sleeping with whereas I only have one friend. Therefore I take precedence.”

“Only one friend? You? Color me amazed,” Angel observed with heavy-handed sarcasm.

“I’m so little of a problem that Daniel can use our friendship as an example of the way things are meant to be done,” O'Neill asserted firmly.

House looked at him sideways. “Or an assault course through which he has learned how to render even the most difficult of friends pliant and manageable.”

“I’m not pliant and manageable!”

“And there I was wasting perfectly good oxygen on tact. I’ll be sure not to do that again. Let’s go for ‘beta-whipped’.”

“I am not…!” O'Neill broke off as his cellphone beeped. He looked at the text message for a moment. “The session is over. I need to buy coffee and donuts before I collect him. He gets tetchy when he’s caffeine deprived.” He just hoped that the man at the bar hadn’t drunk the local Starbucks dry on his way here.

“There’s a book I promised Wesley I’d buy him,” Angel admitted. “He’s been wanting it for a while.”

“I should get Sam another sweater as he’s insisting on going sailing again. I don’t think the one he has now is warm enough.”

“While I don’t need to do anything except wait for Wilson to show up here and buy me another beer,” House said comfortably. “One of the many advantages of being a total bastard.”

“Did somebody say my name?”

O'Neill’s Special Ops skills had him across the room and out of the door when another man would still have been looking for his jacket. He noticed that Angel passed him in a flap of black coat and manly striding. Lyman had not been so efficient in his retreat and had a deer-in-headlights expression. House looked more amused than not, and Keel pleased to meet a new person, proffering his hand with a smile to the grey-haired man who had just joined them. O'Neill ducked out onto the sidewalk and flinched from the heat. He preferred it when they had the meetings on the east coast, but Angel kept insisting that his status as a single parent gave him the right to choose the venue. There was nothing natural about it being warm in the winter, when, by all that was holy, a man’s nuts should only ever be a degree away from being frozen in his scrotum.

Angel’s posermobile was parked around the corner and O'Neill saw that Gunn was remonstrating with an irritable Cordelia, who was insisting that Wesley was late. Wyndam-Pryce himself was assuring Gunn that the session had not been in any way traumatic and there had been no references to people’s sex lives or toilet training. O'Neill personally thought that by not making people talk about those things, Daniel was missing out on the chance to have some fun, but that was probably why Daniel was a people person and he…wasn’t. He wondered if the absent Fred and Lorne – left alone at the vampire’s hotel looking after his born-in-an-alley baby – found the days of Pryce’s therapy sessions a comparative haven of peace and tranquillity.

“Not that he has a sex life, thanks to you and your paranoia,” Cordelia pointed out.

“That woman matched the habits of a Sdenska,” Gunn insisted. “I wasn’t to know she just wanted to have sex with him to…have sex with him. You’d be the first person to blame me if Wes had a bellyful of demonspawn right now.”

“I’d say the family that slays together gets knocked up with little demon babies together. Or – wait – you could just not like Wesley getting laid.”

“I told you, I was just looking out for him.”

Cordelia looked at Wyndam-Pryce. “And yet you didn’t seem grateful when he and Angel burst into that bedroom and threatened the woman whose bed you were in with imminent death. How strange is that?”

“Cordelia, please, it’s water under the bridge…”

O'Neill walked on and left them to their wrangling. Any minute now Angel was going to turn up, fashionably late, giving Wyndam-Pryce the puppy dog eyes, and offering him a nice old book full of demon lore. All the good Daniel had done in his therapy sessions would immediately be overturned and things would go right back to how they were before.

O'Neill admired Daniel’s optimism, he really did, but he was pretty sure these guys were hopeless cases. Their alphas were supremely manipulative and not above using bribery, eyelash batting, brooding, sighing, troubled pasts, broken hearts, or a steadfast refusal to complain about their injuries while still reminding everyone that they had them to get their own way. Or, in the case of House and Gibbs, being plain ornery. He was just glad that he and Daniel were above all this petty scheming. He was still thinking how glad he was about that as he went into Starbucks, bought the biggest cup of Colombia Nariño Supremo he could carry, and a bag of chocolate walnut cookies. He didn’t believe in bribery or manipulation, but he did believe that consideration cost less than twenty bucks and it was a long flight back to Colorado, especially if Daniel was all righteously indignant about the bad behavior of other alpha males. O'Neill might not be able to speak eighteen different languages, harness his vampire strength to fight off demons, usher new legislation through congress, diagnose an illness that had baffled a dozen other doctors, or make grown men wet themselves in fear, but when it came to Daniel Jackson, care and treatment of, he was The Man.

The End