Everybody is Someone : House/Wilson
Stumbling I fall away it’s hard to make a change
“Cameron thinks I should stop ruining your life. Something about how I tend to make you more miserable than you already are,” Wilson says as he enters House’s office. House is twirling his cane unconsciously and staring into space and Wilson thinks that this would probably be a good time to do something like apologize and actually mean it. Notwithstanding the slightly disturbing fact that House isn’t even looking at him and that the cane is right back where it probably belongs, he isn’t even sure what he should be apologizing for. Maybe he should start with something like I should have told you about the patient but he keeps thinking about all those times when House didn’t hesitate before ripping him apart, and it’s not vengeance, not exactly, but it’s something similar.
“Well,” he prompts House, “do you think I make you miserable?”
House finally turns to look at him and there’s nothing in his gaze. Wilson isn’t particularly scared by this lack of emotion; he’s seen it hundreds of time courtesy of his ex-wives, cancer patients and all sorts of people he doesn’t care to remember, but this is supposed to be House. House looks almost austere without a sneer on his face as if he’s decided to sell his house and move to the Himalayas.
“If I said yes would you stop?” House asks in a matter-of-fact voice like it’s no big deal at all. But Wilson knows all about House’s hundred different forms of expression and this isn’t one of them and that’s which is slightly worrying. He contemplates the question for such a long time that House goes back to staring into nothingness.
“No,” he finally says and his hands tremble inside his pocket but his voice is firm and doesn’t crack. He wants to say something else like I can’t stop because I don’t fucking know how to but he’s afraid that what he’s about to say will actually be true, so he remains silent. House looks at him again for a very brief moment and before he can say, “Get the hell out of here,” Wilson is gone.
Easy to be who you are when no one knows your name
Wilson comes again that evening when House is leaving. He sits down on a chair and twiddles with the toys on House’s desks for a minute and he doesn’t look out of place or uncomfortable at all.
“What do you want me to do?” he finally speaks out and then breathes a sigh of relief. It is the closest thing to an apology that he can give and not hate himself for lying once again. House looks at him contemplatively and Wilson immediately wants to take it back because anything that’s going on inside House’s mind can’t possibly have a good outcome. House’s eyes have that mischievous twinkle that Wilson simultaneously loves and hates and he is glad, he really is, that House is beginning to get back some of his pre-Ketamine twisted jest but he would much rather not be the victim. House continues looking at him steadily before he smirks and Wilson doesn’t like it at all, not one bit.
“You really are a selfish bastard, you know that?” House asks, but they both know it’s true anyway.
“Since when do you actually care?” Wilson scoffs his reply.
House smiles this time, the sort of smile he hasn’t smiled in ages, but there’s an underlying sadness that Wilson can’t decipher.
“Since when did you stop, Jimmy?” House asks, almost sadly, and switches on his iPod.
Walking past the lonely walls with eyes as cold as stone
House looks back at the sound of the doorknob turning and sighs heavily.
“Are you stalking me?” he asks Wilson who silently picks up the used coasters from the table before sitting down and shaking his head. He eyes House for a few seconds and when the latter doesn’t say anything he gives up.
“Isn’t this becoming just a little childish?” Wilson asks almost desperately because House raging at him is still better than House showing this level of passive-aggressiveness.
“You’re telling me!” House exclaims. “You’re the one who’s been stalking me the whole day.”
“Stop being selfish,” Wilson says, and cringes immediately because even though he was always hypocritical to a certain extent, this is like taking his hypocrisy to an entirely new level where everything just crashes and breaks, “Why do you always have to make it all about you?”
House scoffs this time and looks at him as if to say something like are you kidding me? but in the end he doesn’t because it wouldn’t affect Wilson anyway. Wilson wears a bulletproof layer of something under his boyish charms and flirtatious looks so that whatever anyone else says or does just bounces off him and he doesn’t even look back and pretend to care.
“The only reason you’re following me around like a puppy is because you need to sleep at night without being hammered by your pretentious guilt,” House says and Wilson’s eyes narrow a little.
“At least I don’t stay up all night with my fucking pills to keep me alive,” Wilson replies back and it’s low and cheap and all kinds of wrong because he’s supposed to be the good guy who’s nice, caring and gentle. House looks at him sharply like he didn’t expect that at all, but no more is said because there’s nothing to be said over that.
“Fuck you, Wilson,” House grits out finally.
Wilson just smiles and takes another sip of his beer.
Climb inside the emptiness its safe when you’re alone
Wilson returns back to his cold, empty and frighteningly clean hotel room and plops down on the bed. It isn’t like he particularly enjoys making House miserable, he just doesn’t know when and how to stop. He lies on his bed and looks up at his ceiling and it’s a little terrifying that he actually doesn’t know what he wants. He knows that Cameron just wants to be loved in the way her dying husband somehow managed to love her, Chase only wants a father he can look up to and Foreman wants to work and work and work until he can show the world and his parents that he’s happy. He knows that House just wants to live in a world where there is no fucking pain, no Stacy and no paralyzed husband that can defeat him. It scares him to death that he, however, doesn’t know what he wants.
Maybe its three kids and a white picket fence, but three divorces really did give him a clue, or maybe it’s just to live for one single hour without having to worry about everything around him that’s crushing him slowly and rhythmically. Sometimes he thinks that maybe all he wants is to get away, go away and climb Mount Kilimanjaro or something so that no one can find him and he can meet people that have no expectations of him whatsoever, but he’s like a magnet to House’s clinging neediness and this is probably where he belongs.
He grabs his phone and dials House’s number halfway through to say something like I’m really sorry this time but then he has to have a conversation about something redundant like guilt or destruction so he snaps his phone shut.
All this time you lived alone without a memory
House is in a particularly bad mood the next morning and by noon Wilson has already received about six complaints from various department heads.
Cameron comes by in the afternoon and shuts the door behind her before he can even speak. If he were House he would leer and say something about trying to get him into bed but he has different styles all revolving around restaurants and flowers and hopes, dreams and aspirations.
“What did you do to him?” Cameron folds her hands on her chest and glares at him. He smiles almost pityingly and offers her water because that must’ve taken a hell lot of willpower. Then he almost says something like what makes you think I did something? but Cameron is smart enough to figure that out.
“I told him that he has to rely on Vicodin to survive,” Wilson says, although the irony that the one time he speaks the truth is probably the one time he shouldn’t have isn’t lost on him.
“You did what?” Cameron screeches out loud, distinctly reminding him of all of his ex-wives simultaneously. “You’re despicable,” Cameron says bravely and there’s nothing Wilson wants to do right then other than go over to her and kiss her until she cries.
Instead he just smiles and goes back to finishing the chart he was working on.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he says mildly and watches as Cameron seethes like there is a fire erupting inside her.
“Go back, Cameron,” he offers kindly a few minutes later; seeing her glaring right at him is admittedly a little disconcerting.
She leaves and slams the door on her way out but comes back almost immediately.
“How can you live with yourself, Wilson?” she asks, propping her arms on his table, “How can you live with yourself knowing that you ruin everyone on a daily basis?”
Wilson shrugs and picks up his pen again. “You’ll be surprised at what you can live with,” he says and watches as Cameron stares at him with an incredulous expression.
Funny, Wilson thinks, how she still doesn’t get what that means.
Built your life upon the ground that sinks beneath your feet.
On his way to the elevator, he sees House in his office, legs propped on the table and his hand holding the cane like that’s what’s keeping him going. He wants to go in and ask something along the lines of are you alright? or is your leg worse today? but this time he probably doesn’t have the right.
He sees House watching General Hospital with apt concentration and perhaps stopping in front of a glass door without a convincing excuse isn’t the most sensible thing to do but he doesn’t care. He’s distinctly glad that Foreman is the only one in the conference room because he knows that Chase will probably give him a pitying look and Cameron will tell him to leave House alone and both options are equally unbearable.
He motions Foreman to come out and raises his eyebrows in question.
“We don’t have a patient. House is…being House,” is all he says but at least he isn’t looking like Wilson has committed a sinful crime and that’s not a bad start.
“Do you think I’m doing this to him?” Wilson asks him, and it’s the right thing to do after all. Chase won’t reply at all, Cameron will tell him yes irrespective of the situation and Cuddy will probably try to delegate. He asks Foreman because Foreman has nothing whatsoever to lose from his answer and what he will say will probably leave a bad taste in his mouth but at least it will be true.
Foreman shrugs and shakes his head in a please don’t involve me in your shit kind of way.
“You do this to everyone,” he says finally, “this is what you’re good at.”
Step outside the misery for once you feel alive
He stops by at House’s office against his better judgment on his way to the hotel.
“Want a ride?” he asks casually, and he tells himself that it’s called ‘testing the waters’ when he knows it’s really called digression.
House looks at him like he’s a diagnostic puzzle before smiling as if he’s gotten the answer.
“You know,” he speaks speculatively, “that guilt thing of yours is getting pathetic.”
“You shouldn’t really be complaining, should you?” he replies and it’s not completely like what they had before but it’s something similar. It’s been a long time since they’ve talked to each other without an underlying feeling of hatred, desperation or a mix of both. Long ago before Ketamine and Vogler and the infarction and Stacy, Wilson can vaguely remember a time when they used to not hurt each other with every single sentence, but those days are almost over.
“Let me get my coat,” House says.
Wilson looks towards the conference room, cursing whoever it is that decided that glass doors would be a good thing and sees Cameron glaring at him with a look that plainly says how do you keep on winning?
Wilson wants to sit her down and explain that this isn’t even remotely close to winning, this is just not losing and that there is a hell lot of difference, but House comes back and gently shoves him with his cane.
They leave together; Cameron glaring at him so hard that Wilson almost fears his jacket might be on fire.
Second chances only come around once in a life
“I’m coming in,” Wilson says resolutely when they reach House’s apartment.
“Would it make a difference if I said no?” House asks, giving a long-suffering sigh and Wilson smiles because they both know that he wouldn’t say no in the first place.
They sit together, side by side, on the couch and House resolutely watches the television and Wilson watches people walking on the pavement listlessly before snatching the remote and turning the TV off. He doesn’t know what to say to make it all better, and that was probably one of the biggest flaws in his marriage, but he isn’t ready to lose House like he lost his wives.
“I’m not going to apologize,” he finally says.
House smiles slightly, as if he’d known it all along, and he probably did. “I don’t expect you to.”
They sit in silence a little longer until it becomes unbearable for a second consecutive time.
“What now?” House is the one breaking the silence this time and Wilson doesn’t trust himself to speak because there’s a good chance he will say something stupid and inappropriate like I can’t lose you like I lost everyone else.
He settles for a casual I don’t know and House says nothing in reply.
“Do you just want to go?” House asks again exasperatedly, grabbing the remote and turning the TV on. Wilson rises from the couch and seriously contemplates leaving for a whole lot of reasons. He can list at least twenty different reasons why he should leave when he has the chance because this is like entering a maze and he was never good at jigsaw puzzles anyway. He doesn’t actually know why staying back would even be an option other than reasons such as masochism and idiocy but he’s really, really good at being masochistic and at being the occasional idiot.
“No,” he replies firmly, and sits back down.