fandom_muses Topic #41: The five stages of grief
The five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Everyone grieves in their life, be it over the loss of a loved one or a dream they just can't reach. How do you grieve?
[OOC: This is completely and utterly AU.]
1. Denial
de‧ni‧al [di-nahy-uhl]
-noun: an assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false
"House is dead."
There are a lot of different sets of three-word statements Wilson has heard (and used) in his lifetime; three-word statements that conjure up the very essence of the message, in three powerful yet simple words: you have cancer, the tumor's inoperable, I'm going home, I want you, I hate you, I love you, please marry me, I'm getting married, I'm leaving you, I'm getting divorced, we are finished. These are all words he's mulled over for as long as it was necessary to before he neatly compartmentalised them and moved on.
Those three words he just heard about House are ringing in his ears.
House is dead. House is dead. House is dead. Like a mantra, over and over, his mind trying to sift through the magnitude of the words, yet unable to process their meaning.
Can't be true, another part of his mind says. Can't be. It just can't. House can't be dead. How is that possible? How is it possible that the great Gregory House is dead? It's not possible, it's not.
The cold, icy feeling seeping into his gut and crawling into his veins tells him it is, though. Something about the weight of the cold, the heaviness, the way it makes his stomach feel like lead has dropped into it. Coiling, churning, writhing around in the pit of his stomach like snakes slithering over each other. He still has the phone in his hand from when he'd answered it. It had been Cuddy, of all people, who phoned. Her voice was thick with disbelief, her attempts at wrangling professionalism over the top of how shocked she obviously felt, not working too well. A flight of stairs, she'd told Wilson; House had lost his footing, tumbled, fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck.
Wilson had been so shocked that he'd laughed. He'd laughed. In disbelief, of course. Denial. Complete and utter denial. And Cuddy had hung up, leaving Wilson standing there in the middle of his silent, empty apartment with those words echoing around in his head.
House is dead, House is dead, House is dead.
He numbly replaces the phone onto its cradle and then pushes his hands into his pockets, and stares at the wall. He can't feel anything. He doesn't know what he's supposed to feel. He doesn't believe that House is dead. But the more he lets his mind turn over that piece of news, the more he feels shock slowly starting to sink in. The sound of blood roaring in his ears, his skin prickling with coldness, his stomach feeling heavier and heavier.
Wilson finds himself automatically trying to picture House's face, and he's horrified to realise that, for some reason, he can't remember what it looks like. It's like his mind if refusing to let him remember, because remembering would be acknowledging that it's actually true; that House is dead.
House is dead. House is dead.
Not he's not. He's not. How can he be dead when Wilson only saw him yesterday before finishing work? He frowns as he tries to recall how the conversation went in his office, when House had barged in, and -- again, to his horror -- Wilson can't seem to remember anything about it. It's as though he's trying to remember a dream he just woke up from, a dream that instantly starts to fade around the edges the moment consciousness kicks in.
Wilson doesn't know how long he stands there, staring at the wall. Five minutes, five hours, he doesn't know. But when he finally moves away from the spot he's standing on, he feels heavy and weightless at the same time, as though he's floating in space and unable to properly coordinate himself to walk because his mind feels completely shut off. In denial. In complete denial.
When he grabs up his jacket and car keys to go to the hospital, he's certain that when he gets there he'll find it's been all a joke and House will be there in his office laughing at him, and Wilson will feel anger at first for being made a fool of before relief settles in and he begins to laugh with him.
Yeah. That's what will happen, he thinks to himself as he shuts the door of his apartment behind him.
2. Anger
an‧ger [ang-ger]
-noun: a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.
It's been a month since House died.
Wilson has spent that month silent, closed off, in denial. He goes to work, walks past House's office and he's certain, each and every time, that he'll see House sitting there at his desk, or standing at his whiteboard, or coming out of his office. When Wilson goes down to the cafeteria, he's certain that a hand will come out of nowhere and steal his fries. When he consults with a patient, he's certain House's cane is going to be heard thump-thumping on his door.
But... no.
He wakes up this morning, a sunny October morning, and that familiar numb feeling is there. He's still thinking he's going to wake up from a bad dream or something. He goes about the motions of the day, getting ready for work, eating breakfast, checking his voicemail, driving to work, still feeling numb, empty, in denial. He consults with several patients, goes to lunch, meets up with Cuddy, who seems to be as distant as Wilson is feeling while trying to maintain her professional stance, and he eventually returns to his office.
Fresh air, he decides. He needs some fresh air. He goes out onto the balcony that separates his office from House's, and he stands by the wall with his hands braced against it. Breathes in, breathes out, in, out, his eyes closed and he doesn't know why, but when he opens his eyes he glances at House's office.
If House was there, he'd be barging out of his office now, annoucing something to Wilson that would make Wilson retort cynically, or maybe make him smile. If House was there, if House was there.
Out of nowhere, Wilson feels a spark of anger. It's the first thing he's really felt in a month. It's only slight. But it's there.
If House was there, if House was alive. If House hadn't fallen down those fucking stairs. House, stupid House, stupid fucking House.
Wilson swallows thickly as he stares at the door to House's office, and the feeling of anger swells in him, and swells, and swells. Like hands clawing out of the pit of his stomach and creeping up to seize him around the throat. This isn't fair, this isn't right. Why the hell did House have to be such a fucking idiot? Why did he have to be near those stairs, why couldn't Wilson have been there with him? Maybe if he had been House would've never fallen, and he'd still be here. And he'd be walking out of that office, out onto the balcony, declaring something about god, or idiots, or people, or human nature, or maybe he'd even be demanding Wilson buy him lunch.
The anger feels almost sickening with how strong it feels. Twisting in his gut, aflame, burning, simmering. Out of nowhere, this anger erupted. As though his mind suddenly switched itself on after being stunned into silence.
Wilson looks away from House's office and tries to quell his anger, and when that doesn't work, he pushes himself away from the balcony wall and silently walks back into his office. It's a good thing his office door that leads out into the hospital corridor is shut, because Wilson starts to pound his fist onto the desk. Once, twice, three times, hard and loud, enough that it leaves a painful throbbing feeling in his hand.
He wants to punch, hit, hurt, strike out, bruise something or someone. House, maybe. If House was here. But he's not, and that fact makes Wilson strike his desk again, this time keeping his clenched fist pressed against the desk so the pain reverberates up his wrist and forearm.
I hate you, he thinks. A three-word statement. Not House is dead, but I hate you. I hate you, House, for what you did. You idiot. You stupid fucking moron. I hate you.
He sits at his desk with his head in his hands, waiting for the anger to dissipate.
Five hours later, when he's packing up to go home, the anger is there, thick and heavy as ever.
3. Bargaining
bar·gain [bahr-guhn-ing]
-verb: to negotiate
It's been three months since House died.
Wilson knows sex doesn't solve a thing. He knows that. He deliberately doesn't let himself think that as he presses his mouth to Beth's, a pretty, young oncology nurse he'd chatted up in the cafeteria. He'd asked her out for coffee after work, chatted over two lattes and before he knew it he was back at his apartment with Beth, and now he had her pressed up against the wall.
The anger he'd felt, he'd hated every minute of it. He couldn't quite work out how he went from feeling nothing but hatred towards House to wanting to bargain away how he feels about House's death. Perhaps it had been slowly happening over the last few weeks. Slowly, but surely.
But god, Beth feels good up against his body. Short but well-rounded, curves all in the right places, handful-sized breasts, a mouth that kisses in a way that promises him more to come. Wilson focuses all of his energy into her, shredding her clothes off pieve by piece while she tugs his shirt and his pants from him. Like this, he can push House far into the back of his mind, bargaining grief for sex. Sounds like a good bargain to him right now. Sounds very good, especially when he feels Beth's mouth close over his cock and start to suck him off.
There's no House is dead or I hate you running through his head. But there is, "I want you," spilling from his mouth when Beth pulls away from him before he can get a chance to come.
I want you, I want to not think about House, I want to fuck you until I can't think or feel. I want you, I want you, I want you.
The orgasm he has when he fucks Beth into his mattress is the most powerful he's had in a while; that might have something to do with the fact that he hasn't had sex in a while. It might have something to do with how good she is in bed.
It might have something to do with how much Wilson is aiming to bargain away his grief.
He doesn't think about that, though.
He tries not to think about it when he falls asleep next to Beth, or when he wakes up in the morning to find her gone. He tries not to think about it when he brings Beth back to his place again the following weekend, or how much he bargains his grief away by screwing her senseless, until she's finally had enough of him.
Depression
de‧pres‧sion [di-presh-uhn]
-noun: a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason
It's been five months since House died.
Wilson doesn't wake up in the mornings very well anymore. He wakes up tired, lethargic, like he has the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. His days aren't much better, though he's good at pretending he's okay. He can still smile that same smile and he can still joke when he's supposed to, but it's all empty. He feels empty.
House's death has slowly started to sink in, and Wilson hates that. He hates how he no longer expects House to turn up in his office or to turn up in the cafeteria to steal his fries, or to turn up in the middle of a consult with one of his cancer patients. He no longer expects that. He almost feels like he can't feel. Yet, at the same time, he feels grief slowly starting to strangle him.
The thing that depresses Wilson the most is that he's beginning to remember how House looked again. That roguish smile, the blue eyes, the way he'd smirk, the way he'd frown, the way he'd talk, the way he'd laugh. Sometimes he finds himself getting lost in thought about House and the times they had together. The painful part of that is realising -- after five long months -- that he's never going to have any of those times with House again.
He's sitting in his apartment, staring at the television. Nothing important or interesting is on, though nothing seems interesting to Wilson at all lately. Everything feels dull and pointless, and useless. He feels useless. He feels dead inside. But he finds himself thinking about House again and before he knows it he's up off the sofa and walking across to the bookcase, where he keeps his photos. Sitting himself on the floor, he pulls out the photo album that has pictures of him and House when they went away to Colorado for a week.
He opens the album, and the first picture he sees is of House glaring at the camera. That had been taken early in the morning when they were supposed to be going out for the day.
He turns the page, and on the next page is photos of House and Wilson sitting in a restaurant, eating a meal. The waitress had taken that picture, and while Wilson was smiling, House was scowling. He hated having his photo taken.
He turns the page again. A photo of House sleeping, this time. He'd got drunk at the lodge's bar, and passed out on the bed. Wilson had had a moment of being immature and took the photo. House hadn't been too impressed when the photo was developed.
Again, he turns this page. It's him and House again, standing close together outside the lodge, except this time House is smiling. It was a big, broad smile; he'd been laughing at something Wilson had said when the photo was taken, and Wilson in the photo is looking at House with an equally large, laughing smile. It's a candid shot, one of the only pictures Wilson has of House smiling like that.
Wilson doesn't realise he's crying until two tears drop down onto the photo album. He wipes them away quickly, trying to pull himself together, but he finds another two tears leaking out. And another. And another. Until he's left the photo album discarded on the floor and he has his hand covering his face while he silently starts to weep.
And for the first time in five months, he finds himself thinking, I miss you.
5. Acceptance
ac·cep·tance [ak-sep-tuhns]
-noun: The act or process of accepting.
It's been almost a year since House has died.
On the mantlepiece in Wilson's living room stands that picture of him and House, the one where House is laughing and Wilson is smiling. Each morning that he passes the mantlepiece he looks at that picture, and smiles. And sometimes he finds himself thinking, I love you.
It's the closest he'll ever get to acceptance.
Muse: James Wilson
Fandom: House, M.D
Words: 2,653
[OOC: This is completely and utterly AU.]
1. Denial
de‧ni‧al [di-nahy-uhl]
-noun: an assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false
"House is dead."
There are a lot of different sets of three-word statements Wilson has heard (and used) in his lifetime; three-word statements that conjure up the very essence of the message, in three powerful yet simple words: you have cancer, the tumor's inoperable, I'm going home, I want you, I hate you, I love you, please marry me, I'm getting married, I'm leaving you, I'm getting divorced, we are finished. These are all words he's mulled over for as long as it was necessary to before he neatly compartmentalised them and moved on.
Those three words he just heard about House are ringing in his ears.
House is dead. House is dead. House is dead. Like a mantra, over and over, his mind trying to sift through the magnitude of the words, yet unable to process their meaning.
Can't be true, another part of his mind says. Can't be. It just can't. House can't be dead. How is that possible? How is it possible that the great Gregory House is dead? It's not possible, it's not.
The cold, icy feeling seeping into his gut and crawling into his veins tells him it is, though. Something about the weight of the cold, the heaviness, the way it makes his stomach feel like lead has dropped into it. Coiling, churning, writhing around in the pit of his stomach like snakes slithering over each other. He still has the phone in his hand from when he'd answered it. It had been Cuddy, of all people, who phoned. Her voice was thick with disbelief, her attempts at wrangling professionalism over the top of how shocked she obviously felt, not working too well. A flight of stairs, she'd told Wilson; House had lost his footing, tumbled, fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck.
Wilson had been so shocked that he'd laughed. He'd laughed. In disbelief, of course. Denial. Complete and utter denial. And Cuddy had hung up, leaving Wilson standing there in the middle of his silent, empty apartment with those words echoing around in his head.
House is dead, House is dead, House is dead.
He numbly replaces the phone onto its cradle and then pushes his hands into his pockets, and stares at the wall. He can't feel anything. He doesn't know what he's supposed to feel. He doesn't believe that House is dead. But the more he lets his mind turn over that piece of news, the more he feels shock slowly starting to sink in. The sound of blood roaring in his ears, his skin prickling with coldness, his stomach feeling heavier and heavier.
Wilson finds himself automatically trying to picture House's face, and he's horrified to realise that, for some reason, he can't remember what it looks like. It's like his mind if refusing to let him remember, because remembering would be acknowledging that it's actually true; that House is dead.
House is dead. House is dead.
Not he's not. He's not. How can he be dead when Wilson only saw him yesterday before finishing work? He frowns as he tries to recall how the conversation went in his office, when House had barged in, and -- again, to his horror -- Wilson can't seem to remember anything about it. It's as though he's trying to remember a dream he just woke up from, a dream that instantly starts to fade around the edges the moment consciousness kicks in.
Wilson doesn't know how long he stands there, staring at the wall. Five minutes, five hours, he doesn't know. But when he finally moves away from the spot he's standing on, he feels heavy and weightless at the same time, as though he's floating in space and unable to properly coordinate himself to walk because his mind feels completely shut off. In denial. In complete denial.
When he grabs up his jacket and car keys to go to the hospital, he's certain that when he gets there he'll find it's been all a joke and House will be there in his office laughing at him, and Wilson will feel anger at first for being made a fool of before relief settles in and he begins to laugh with him.
Yeah. That's what will happen, he thinks to himself as he shuts the door of his apartment behind him.
2. Anger
an‧ger [ang-ger]
-noun: a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.
It's been a month since House died.
Wilson has spent that month silent, closed off, in denial. He goes to work, walks past House's office and he's certain, each and every time, that he'll see House sitting there at his desk, or standing at his whiteboard, or coming out of his office. When Wilson goes down to the cafeteria, he's certain that a hand will come out of nowhere and steal his fries. When he consults with a patient, he's certain House's cane is going to be heard thump-thumping on his door.
But... no.
He wakes up this morning, a sunny October morning, and that familiar numb feeling is there. He's still thinking he's going to wake up from a bad dream or something. He goes about the motions of the day, getting ready for work, eating breakfast, checking his voicemail, driving to work, still feeling numb, empty, in denial. He consults with several patients, goes to lunch, meets up with Cuddy, who seems to be as distant as Wilson is feeling while trying to maintain her professional stance, and he eventually returns to his office.
Fresh air, he decides. He needs some fresh air. He goes out onto the balcony that separates his office from House's, and he stands by the wall with his hands braced against it. Breathes in, breathes out, in, out, his eyes closed and he doesn't know why, but when he opens his eyes he glances at House's office.
If House was there, he'd be barging out of his office now, annoucing something to Wilson that would make Wilson retort cynically, or maybe make him smile. If House was there, if House was there.
Out of nowhere, Wilson feels a spark of anger. It's the first thing he's really felt in a month. It's only slight. But it's there.
If House was there, if House was alive. If House hadn't fallen down those fucking stairs. House, stupid House, stupid fucking House.
Wilson swallows thickly as he stares at the door to House's office, and the feeling of anger swells in him, and swells, and swells. Like hands clawing out of the pit of his stomach and creeping up to seize him around the throat. This isn't fair, this isn't right. Why the hell did House have to be such a fucking idiot? Why did he have to be near those stairs, why couldn't Wilson have been there with him? Maybe if he had been House would've never fallen, and he'd still be here. And he'd be walking out of that office, out onto the balcony, declaring something about god, or idiots, or people, or human nature, or maybe he'd even be demanding Wilson buy him lunch.
The anger feels almost sickening with how strong it feels. Twisting in his gut, aflame, burning, simmering. Out of nowhere, this anger erupted. As though his mind suddenly switched itself on after being stunned into silence.
Wilson looks away from House's office and tries to quell his anger, and when that doesn't work, he pushes himself away from the balcony wall and silently walks back into his office. It's a good thing his office door that leads out into the hospital corridor is shut, because Wilson starts to pound his fist onto the desk. Once, twice, three times, hard and loud, enough that it leaves a painful throbbing feeling in his hand.
He wants to punch, hit, hurt, strike out, bruise something or someone. House, maybe. If House was here. But he's not, and that fact makes Wilson strike his desk again, this time keeping his clenched fist pressed against the desk so the pain reverberates up his wrist and forearm.
I hate you, he thinks. A three-word statement. Not House is dead, but I hate you. I hate you, House, for what you did. You idiot. You stupid fucking moron. I hate you.
He sits at his desk with his head in his hands, waiting for the anger to dissipate.
Five hours later, when he's packing up to go home, the anger is there, thick and heavy as ever.
3. Bargaining
bar·gain [bahr-guhn-ing]
-verb: to negotiate
It's been three months since House died.
Wilson knows sex doesn't solve a thing. He knows that. He deliberately doesn't let himself think that as he presses his mouth to Beth's, a pretty, young oncology nurse he'd chatted up in the cafeteria. He'd asked her out for coffee after work, chatted over two lattes and before he knew it he was back at his apartment with Beth, and now he had her pressed up against the wall.
The anger he'd felt, he'd hated every minute of it. He couldn't quite work out how he went from feeling nothing but hatred towards House to wanting to bargain away how he feels about House's death. Perhaps it had been slowly happening over the last few weeks. Slowly, but surely.
But god, Beth feels good up against his body. Short but well-rounded, curves all in the right places, handful-sized breasts, a mouth that kisses in a way that promises him more to come. Wilson focuses all of his energy into her, shredding her clothes off pieve by piece while she tugs his shirt and his pants from him. Like this, he can push House far into the back of his mind, bargaining grief for sex. Sounds like a good bargain to him right now. Sounds very good, especially when he feels Beth's mouth close over his cock and start to suck him off.
There's no House is dead or I hate you running through his head. But there is, "I want you," spilling from his mouth when Beth pulls away from him before he can get a chance to come.
I want you, I want to not think about House, I want to fuck you until I can't think or feel. I want you, I want you, I want you.
The orgasm he has when he fucks Beth into his mattress is the most powerful he's had in a while; that might have something to do with the fact that he hasn't had sex in a while. It might have something to do with how good she is in bed.
It might have something to do with how much Wilson is aiming to bargain away his grief.
He doesn't think about that, though.
He tries not to think about it when he falls asleep next to Beth, or when he wakes up in the morning to find her gone. He tries not to think about it when he brings Beth back to his place again the following weekend, or how much he bargains his grief away by screwing her senseless, until she's finally had enough of him.
Depression
de‧pres‧sion [di-presh-uhn]
-noun: a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason
It's been five months since House died.
Wilson doesn't wake up in the mornings very well anymore. He wakes up tired, lethargic, like he has the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. His days aren't much better, though he's good at pretending he's okay. He can still smile that same smile and he can still joke when he's supposed to, but it's all empty. He feels empty.
House's death has slowly started to sink in, and Wilson hates that. He hates how he no longer expects House to turn up in his office or to turn up in the cafeteria to steal his fries, or to turn up in the middle of a consult with one of his cancer patients. He no longer expects that. He almost feels like he can't feel. Yet, at the same time, he feels grief slowly starting to strangle him.
The thing that depresses Wilson the most is that he's beginning to remember how House looked again. That roguish smile, the blue eyes, the way he'd smirk, the way he'd frown, the way he'd talk, the way he'd laugh. Sometimes he finds himself getting lost in thought about House and the times they had together. The painful part of that is realising -- after five long months -- that he's never going to have any of those times with House again.
He's sitting in his apartment, staring at the television. Nothing important or interesting is on, though nothing seems interesting to Wilson at all lately. Everything feels dull and pointless, and useless. He feels useless. He feels dead inside. But he finds himself thinking about House again and before he knows it he's up off the sofa and walking across to the bookcase, where he keeps his photos. Sitting himself on the floor, he pulls out the photo album that has pictures of him and House when they went away to Colorado for a week.
He opens the album, and the first picture he sees is of House glaring at the camera. That had been taken early in the morning when they were supposed to be going out for the day.
He turns the page, and on the next page is photos of House and Wilson sitting in a restaurant, eating a meal. The waitress had taken that picture, and while Wilson was smiling, House was scowling. He hated having his photo taken.
He turns the page again. A photo of House sleeping, this time. He'd got drunk at the lodge's bar, and passed out on the bed. Wilson had had a moment of being immature and took the photo. House hadn't been too impressed when the photo was developed.
Again, he turns this page. It's him and House again, standing close together outside the lodge, except this time House is smiling. It was a big, broad smile; he'd been laughing at something Wilson had said when the photo was taken, and Wilson in the photo is looking at House with an equally large, laughing smile. It's a candid shot, one of the only pictures Wilson has of House smiling like that.
Wilson doesn't realise he's crying until two tears drop down onto the photo album. He wipes them away quickly, trying to pull himself together, but he finds another two tears leaking out. And another. And another. Until he's left the photo album discarded on the floor and he has his hand covering his face while he silently starts to weep.
And for the first time in five months, he finds himself thinking, I miss you.
5. Acceptance
ac·cep·tance [ak-sep-tuhns]
-noun: The act or process of accepting.
It's been almost a year since House has died.
On the mantlepiece in Wilson's living room stands that picture of him and House, the one where House is laughing and Wilson is smiling. Each morning that he passes the mantlepiece he looks at that picture, and smiles. And sometimes he finds himself thinking, I love you.
It's the closest he'll ever get to acceptance.
Muse: James Wilson
Fandom: House, M.D
Words: 2,653