History Fanfic / TheContract

* StuffedInTheFridge: Cameron's death is ''supposed'' to be senseless.

!! ''Tropes'':

* AbusiveParents: John House is in fine form, visiting the prison to tell House in the cruellest way possible that his mother died.

* DeusAngstMachina -- neither House nor the reader get much of a break in the main story.
* DisproportionateRetribution: While the details of what happened differs in the spin-offs, the main gist is that Thompson's daughter died even after House was the last minute call to save her, and is more the scapegoat than did anything terrible.

* {{gorn}}: Says something where House getting beaten with his cane is one of the ''least'' terrible things to happen to him.
* IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight -- done very slowly InUniverse, but done

* NonIndicativeTitle -- the "contract" has the form of a contract, complete with sections and clauses, but is not ''legally'' enforceable.
* StuffedInTheFridge -- Cameron's death is ''supposed'' to be senseless.
* WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma -- the original author had not got the hang of punctuating dialogue tags -- and this work has a lot of dialogue. There is also an occasional misplaced question mark.

Synopsis: House has signed a "contract" in blood which allows the other party to abuse him any time, anyhow, anywhere. This other party is expert at both physical and psychological torture. He did this because the other party would have killed Wilson, and might still kill him and others, otherwise. He isn't allowed to tell anyone that he is under this "contract" or to find out who the other party is... Anyhow, because no one knows what's going on, no one is sympathetic to him; though they can see changes in his behavior, he manages to alienate them enough that they don't want to dig deeper. (The one time Wilson seriously tries, House gets him so mad that Wilson breaks his cane.)

After a period of calm, House is forced to watch the murder of Cameron and feels forced to confess to it. Wilson immediately regrets how he had treated House, but it's too late by then. The prison is a new "tough-on-crime" prison, and the personnel have already been corrupted by the party who is torturing House, ensuring that the torture continues and intensifies. House eventually gets to meet his tormentor, but by then he's in a solitary cell in chains and is thoroughly demoralized. House survives by sheer willpower -- if he dies, so does everyone named on the kill list -- and thinking of Wilson.

Such is the original story, told in three Fanfiction.net chapters (all subdivided), of which only the first two were in the original draft. In many ways, it is an improbable cornerstone for a multiverse. The story is written mostly in BeigeProse with some PurpleProse mixed in. There is WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma and the occasional RougeAnglesOfSatin. There is some debate about whether key characters are, in fact, in character. And it is a hard M; all sorts of {{gorn}} are present and RapeAsDrama is included. The story is almost, possibly unintentionally, a demonstration of the banality of evil...

But something about this story struck a chord in readers in the ''Series/{{House}}'' fandom. If the characters were {{out of character}}, it was in ways frequently seen in the fandom in House [[HurtComfortFic hurt/comfort fics]]. And this fandom has always enjoyed wrestling with the nature of morality -- a subject that this story does deal with. And so others have asked to write in this 'verse and have been allowed to. Almost all of the other authors are technically better than [=DIYSheep=] -- which can be a mixed bag, given that many of them choose to explore the torture more-or-less directly.

* ForTheEvuls: Thompson gets written with a bit of sympathy even from House for his daughter's death, but the lawyer carries out most of the torture including essentially a rape party (it doesn't go into {{gorn}} detail, but he's tied down and has to wait for people to "have fun" with him), and seems to be just doing it for kicks.

* AcquittedTooLate -- played with.

* ArtMajorBiology (we hope)
* AuthorTract: The descriptions of the "zero-tolerance" prison system.
* BeigeProse
* BlackAndGreyMorality
* BurgerFool
* ButForMeItWasTuesday -- inverted.
* CantGetAwayWithNuthin
* CuffsOffRubWrists -- inverted.
* DespairEventHorizon

* DeusExMachina
* DirectorsCut -- the third chapter came well after the other two.
* ExternalRetcon -- some of the sequels
* FanVerse
* GambitRoulette
* {{Gorn}}
* GuiltyPleasures
* HappyPlace
* HeroicBSOD

* ItsNotMeItsMyEnemies - House can't ''say'' this, but he thinks it.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope
* KickTheDog
* KnightTemplar
* MoralEventHorizon
* TheMultiverse

* NoSympathy
* OutOfCharacter
* PurpleProse
* RapeAsDrama
* RougeAnglesOfSatin -- a few misspellings and a few Briticisms.
* SerialEscalation-- this work deliberately tries to go there
* SharedUniverse

* VillainSue -- the other party of the contract

Then House's tormentor is murdered in broad daylight. The FBI is on this case, as House's tormentor was ''very'' influential, and they quickly discover the "contract" and {{DVD}}s of House's torture. House is moved to the prison hospital, and Wilson is at his side ASAP. Eventually, they get the bad guys convicted and House cleared -- at which point House regresses majorly. Wilson then has to take care of him in hopes that he comes back...

''The Contract'' is a ''Series/{{House}}'' fanfic by [=DIYSheep=] which can be found on Fanfiction.net and which is the cornerstone for a [[SharedUniverse shared]] [[FanVerse fan]] [[TheMultiVerse multiverse]].

There is a LiveJournal community indexing all Contractverse {K-verse] works...

* WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma -- the original author had not got the hang of punctuating dialogue tags -- and this work has a lot of dialogue. There is also an occasional misplaced question mark.

But something about this story struck a chord in readers in the ''Series/{{House}}'' fandom. If the characters were {{out of character}}, it was in ways frequently seen in the fandom in House HurtComfort fics. And this fandom has always enjoyed wrestling with the nature of morality -- a subject that this story does deal with. And so others have asked to write in this 'verse and have been allowed to. Almost all of the other authors are technically better than [=DIYSheep=] -- which can be a mixed bag, given that many of them choose to explore the torture more-or-less directly.

* JumpOffTheSlipperySlope

* BeyondTheImpossible -- this work deliberately tries to go there

* XanatosRoulette

''The Contract'' is a {{House}} fanfic by [=DIYSheep=] which can be found on Fanfiction.net and which is the cornerstone for a [[SharedUniverse shared]] [[FanVerse fan]] [[TheMultiVerse multiverse]].

But something about this story struck a chord in readers in the {{House}} fandom. If the characters were {{out of character}}, it was in ways frequently seen in the fandom in House HurtComfort fics. And this fandom has always enjoyed wrestling with the nature of morality -- a subject that this story does deal with. And so others have asked to write in this 'verse and have been allowed to. Almost all of the other authors are technically better than [=DIYSheep=] -- which can be a mixed bag, given that many of them choose to explore the torture more-or-less directly.

*AcquittedTooLate -- played with.