The Last Mile, Part 2 of 3
Title: The Last Mile, Part 2 of 3
Author: ExtraBitter
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, drama, tension of all kinds.
Summary: House watches the sky; Wilson watches the Weather Channel.
Disclaimer: Standard, as usual, just an exercise that exceeded its boundaries.
Read Part One
Those last, sick moments rattled around House’s gut as he settled himself into his car.
He couldn’t stop looking at his hand on the steering wheel. He really had punched Wilson: skin and fatty tissue displacing; blood vessels spilling; tendons and muscles in the neck tensing, then giving. He remembered the hardness of bone, how it felt under his fist, and the rage in his blood. It all happened in the passing of seconds. That was a good, solid blow. House wanted to feel some pride in having thrown it, or guilt at having landed it, but he felt like an idiot for hitting the one person in the world who would never hit back.
At least not with fists.
He turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine loud enough to drown out the recriminations. Miles and miles of road led him to a dark spot near the river’s edge. The water moved slowly, but it moved. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut for once in his life?
“ ‘I could break you,’ “ House quoted to himself. “I don’t need your help, Doc.”
House worked himself out of the car and nudged the ground with his cane. It was solid enough. He walked the bank for a while, not tracking the time. He looked up at the sky. The place was far enough from the city that he noticed stars and the winking moon. Thick, flat clouds lurked off to the west. They were coming in, not moving out. Something about the sky, the darkness over darkness, spoke to him of heartbreak and despair. He couldn’t let himself hear that voice. Heartbreak was a needless luxury, and besides, it wasn’t his voice.
He lost himself imagining the scenery under the darkness. Trees, water, sky, soil--a jumble of greens and blues gave him cover until his mind wandered back to the ordinary, and he thought he ought to get Wilson to come out here with him some time. If they ever spoke again… The rest was too much for House to consider. He walked back to the car and sat with the door open and his legs on the ground, wishing today had gone differently. If his deepest fear proved true, if all was said and done between them, he could do nothing to repair the damage. Cracks like the ones they’d shown each other went beyond today.
House knew how very badly he treated Wilson. He didn’t give enough; he tried not to show that he cared at all, and when he could not help himself, he made a mess of the whole thing. His heart was a lousy metaphor: it just pumped blood.
His leg felt very heavy. It ached, which was good; for once he was happy to have the pain to keep him grounded. The sound House made as he locked his fingers behind his hamstring and dragged the leg inside the car masqueraded as part of the physical pain, but he recognized the howl-wail as mourning.
He felt like a liar as he pulled away from the river.
House was preoccupied as he drove, but he wasn’t so far out of it that he failed to notice the gas gauge slipping too close to empty for comfort. He stopped at a service station. The bell clanged and he waited for the attendant.
“Fill it up,” he barked at the college-aged kid who approached.
“You in some kind of a hurry, mister?”
House sighed. What was he going home to? Not much.
He reached into his pocket and took out the slip of paper Wilson had given him, seemed like a hundred years ago. He loved Wilson’s signature, the funny, back-slanted letters that formed his name crawled along the bottom line like a bleary-eyed frat boy looking for a place to sleep off a hazing incident. Seeing the DEA number printed under Wilson’s name reminded him why they fought. House wasn’t sure how to feel at this point, or what to think.
He leaned his head against the steering wheel and wondered if there might be a way to keep the scrip, as a kind of souvenir. Souvenir, from the French verb meaning “remember.” Pathetic. He had to fill it, anyway. What else could he do? The attendant was tapping on the hood to get his attention.
“Watch the paint job, idiot. This is a classic.” House stated the obvious. No, he wasn't that far gone.
“I said $27.55.”
House paid for his gas. He wanted to be angry with Wilson, anger would be a comfort, at least it would be something. Fifty miles from home, maybe sixty, what a long fucking day.
Wilson wanted to go to a bar to celebrate his victory. It seemed like the right kind of wrong thing to do, but he did not fully trust the invincibility. He didn’t know how it worked, so instead he made his way to the place he and Julie lived. He pulled into his driveway after dark.
Home possessed a vaguely alien calm for Wilson; nothing ever happened there. As soon as he walked in the front door and saw every light in the house blazing, he knew Julie was home, too. The brightness made his head hurt and blunted his lingering buzz. Perhaps he should have gone someplace else, but he was here now, and he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of having both his wife and House angry with him for different sides of the same thing. The concept made him cranky.
He puffed up his cheeks and blew out as he climbed the stairs with heavy feet. Immature, certainly, but he didn’t care. Julie was in their bedroom. She sat cross-legged on the bed surrounded by bits of brightly colored paper and piles of photographs. He had no idea what she was working on, but he knew he wasn’t in any of those pictures.
“Are you home late or early?” she said without looking up from her pasting. Her posture said that she did not expect an answer from the man who was her husband. His suit was beginning to itch. He walked to the closet, hung up his jacket and stripped off his tie.
“There’s chicken in the icebox, if you want,” she said.
“Yeah, OK.” He would have said the same if she told him there was a dead body in the back yard.
He walked across the hall to the bathroom to clean up. Julie’s perfunctory questions followed him. “How was your day?” Wilson shut the door rather than respond.
He didn’t want to think about House, or what had happened between them, so he thought about his wife. Julie was still pretty, but the attraction between them had long since cooled. She was nice enough, and people liked her. She had her crafts, which he could see all around the house even though he never bothered to ask her what they were. She had the same friends she’d had since college, she had clubs and a schedule full of activities; Julie had built herself a life with little connection to her husband. She had all these little, stupid things.
And he? He had a tender spot on his right cheek. A bruise would rise by morning. His neck hurt. What did it matter, really? What did any of it matter? It didn’t, he told himself as he changed into comfortable clothes and walked away from his reflection.
His thumb pounded the channel button without mercy. He enjoyed the act of racing through, which helped him keep his mind blank. He cycled through the lineup twice before stopping on a program about a tornado. He laid back on the couch and set the remote on his chest as he watched buildings in a one of those flat states disintegrate in the face of violent winds.
House’s voice crept up on him, a familiar tone in a different timbre. I’m worried about you. Those were Wilson’s words, not House’s. Wilson had said them hundreds of times over the course of their friendship. He had said them so many time that he couldn’t have responded to hearing House say them any other way. The fight was inevitable as soon as House upset the balance between them.
Wilson wanted to feel something like regret, but he stopped regretting long ago. He felt cold inside, restless, guilty. He hadn’t listened to House; he hadn’t even heard him. Wilson had simply let his own fury fly, without regard for what might be in its path.
What, or whom. None of it had mattered to him. None of it got in the way of his goal. Which was what, exactly?
He was the tornado.
He lay still and closed his eyes as two meteorologists discussed a tropical system off the coast of Florida. He couldn’t resist drifting a little bit; back to the way he left House standing alone. Wilson played the whole scene in his head. It was screwed up, twisted all wrong, as if they’d been reading each other’s lines from a script.
“Is that what it’s like, to be you?” He whispered to a figment that looked exactly like House. “So focused that you’d rip me apart if I stayed one more second? Is that what it’s like?”
He wasn’t supposed to be the tornado. His throat clenched. He would do anything to fight off the tears. There might be a time to break down, but it wasn’t now.
He prowled around downstairs for a while, banging his fist against light switches as he passed from room to room. It hurt. Finally he sat in front of his computer to calm down. He saw an e-mail from Cuddy: a link from the New York Times and a curt message: read this.
Wilson froze as soon as he read the first paragraph.
The local forecast for the night called for rain.
Read Part Three
Author: ExtraBitter
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, drama, tension of all kinds.
Summary: House watches the sky; Wilson watches the Weather Channel.
Disclaimer: Standard, as usual, just an exercise that exceeded its boundaries.
Read Part One
Those last, sick moments rattled around House’s gut as he settled himself into his car.
He couldn’t stop looking at his hand on the steering wheel. He really had punched Wilson: skin and fatty tissue displacing; blood vessels spilling; tendons and muscles in the neck tensing, then giving. He remembered the hardness of bone, how it felt under his fist, and the rage in his blood. It all happened in the passing of seconds. That was a good, solid blow. House wanted to feel some pride in having thrown it, or guilt at having landed it, but he felt like an idiot for hitting the one person in the world who would never hit back.
At least not with fists.
He turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine loud enough to drown out the recriminations. Miles and miles of road led him to a dark spot near the river’s edge. The water moved slowly, but it moved. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut for once in his life?
“ ‘I could break you,’ “ House quoted to himself. “I don’t need your help, Doc.”
House worked himself out of the car and nudged the ground with his cane. It was solid enough. He walked the bank for a while, not tracking the time. He looked up at the sky. The place was far enough from the city that he noticed stars and the winking moon. Thick, flat clouds lurked off to the west. They were coming in, not moving out. Something about the sky, the darkness over darkness, spoke to him of heartbreak and despair. He couldn’t let himself hear that voice. Heartbreak was a needless luxury, and besides, it wasn’t his voice.
He lost himself imagining the scenery under the darkness. Trees, water, sky, soil--a jumble of greens and blues gave him cover until his mind wandered back to the ordinary, and he thought he ought to get Wilson to come out here with him some time. If they ever spoke again… The rest was too much for House to consider. He walked back to the car and sat with the door open and his legs on the ground, wishing today had gone differently. If his deepest fear proved true, if all was said and done between them, he could do nothing to repair the damage. Cracks like the ones they’d shown each other went beyond today.
House knew how very badly he treated Wilson. He didn’t give enough; he tried not to show that he cared at all, and when he could not help himself, he made a mess of the whole thing. His heart was a lousy metaphor: it just pumped blood.
His leg felt very heavy. It ached, which was good; for once he was happy to have the pain to keep him grounded. The sound House made as he locked his fingers behind his hamstring and dragged the leg inside the car masqueraded as part of the physical pain, but he recognized the howl-wail as mourning.
He felt like a liar as he pulled away from the river.
House was preoccupied as he drove, but he wasn’t so far out of it that he failed to notice the gas gauge slipping too close to empty for comfort. He stopped at a service station. The bell clanged and he waited for the attendant.
“Fill it up,” he barked at the college-aged kid who approached.
“You in some kind of a hurry, mister?”
House sighed. What was he going home to? Not much.
He reached into his pocket and took out the slip of paper Wilson had given him, seemed like a hundred years ago. He loved Wilson’s signature, the funny, back-slanted letters that formed his name crawled along the bottom line like a bleary-eyed frat boy looking for a place to sleep off a hazing incident. Seeing the DEA number printed under Wilson’s name reminded him why they fought. House wasn’t sure how to feel at this point, or what to think.
He leaned his head against the steering wheel and wondered if there might be a way to keep the scrip, as a kind of souvenir. Souvenir, from the French verb meaning “remember.” Pathetic. He had to fill it, anyway. What else could he do? The attendant was tapping on the hood to get his attention.
“Watch the paint job, idiot. This is a classic.” House stated the obvious. No, he wasn't that far gone.
“I said $27.55.”
House paid for his gas. He wanted to be angry with Wilson, anger would be a comfort, at least it would be something. Fifty miles from home, maybe sixty, what a long fucking day.
Wilson wanted to go to a bar to celebrate his victory. It seemed like the right kind of wrong thing to do, but he did not fully trust the invincibility. He didn’t know how it worked, so instead he made his way to the place he and Julie lived. He pulled into his driveway after dark.
Home possessed a vaguely alien calm for Wilson; nothing ever happened there. As soon as he walked in the front door and saw every light in the house blazing, he knew Julie was home, too. The brightness made his head hurt and blunted his lingering buzz. Perhaps he should have gone someplace else, but he was here now, and he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of having both his wife and House angry with him for different sides of the same thing. The concept made him cranky.
He puffed up his cheeks and blew out as he climbed the stairs with heavy feet. Immature, certainly, but he didn’t care. Julie was in their bedroom. She sat cross-legged on the bed surrounded by bits of brightly colored paper and piles of photographs. He had no idea what she was working on, but he knew he wasn’t in any of those pictures.
“Are you home late or early?” she said without looking up from her pasting. Her posture said that she did not expect an answer from the man who was her husband. His suit was beginning to itch. He walked to the closet, hung up his jacket and stripped off his tie.
“There’s chicken in the icebox, if you want,” she said.
“Yeah, OK.” He would have said the same if she told him there was a dead body in the back yard.
He walked across the hall to the bathroom to clean up. Julie’s perfunctory questions followed him. “How was your day?” Wilson shut the door rather than respond.
He didn’t want to think about House, or what had happened between them, so he thought about his wife. Julie was still pretty, but the attraction between them had long since cooled. She was nice enough, and people liked her. She had her crafts, which he could see all around the house even though he never bothered to ask her what they were. She had the same friends she’d had since college, she had clubs and a schedule full of activities; Julie had built herself a life with little connection to her husband. She had all these little, stupid things.
And he? He had a tender spot on his right cheek. A bruise would rise by morning. His neck hurt. What did it matter, really? What did any of it matter? It didn’t, he told himself as he changed into comfortable clothes and walked away from his reflection.
His thumb pounded the channel button without mercy. He enjoyed the act of racing through, which helped him keep his mind blank. He cycled through the lineup twice before stopping on a program about a tornado. He laid back on the couch and set the remote on his chest as he watched buildings in a one of those flat states disintegrate in the face of violent winds.
House’s voice crept up on him, a familiar tone in a different timbre. I’m worried about you. Those were Wilson’s words, not House’s. Wilson had said them hundreds of times over the course of their friendship. He had said them so many time that he couldn’t have responded to hearing House say them any other way. The fight was inevitable as soon as House upset the balance between them.
Wilson wanted to feel something like regret, but he stopped regretting long ago. He felt cold inside, restless, guilty. He hadn’t listened to House; he hadn’t even heard him. Wilson had simply let his own fury fly, without regard for what might be in its path.
What, or whom. None of it had mattered to him. None of it got in the way of his goal. Which was what, exactly?
He was the tornado.
He lay still and closed his eyes as two meteorologists discussed a tropical system off the coast of Florida. He couldn’t resist drifting a little bit; back to the way he left House standing alone. Wilson played the whole scene in his head. It was screwed up, twisted all wrong, as if they’d been reading each other’s lines from a script.
“Is that what it’s like, to be you?” He whispered to a figment that looked exactly like House. “So focused that you’d rip me apart if I stayed one more second? Is that what it’s like?”
He wasn’t supposed to be the tornado. His throat clenched. He would do anything to fight off the tears. There might be a time to break down, but it wasn’t now.
He prowled around downstairs for a while, banging his fist against light switches as he passed from room to room. It hurt. Finally he sat in front of his computer to calm down. He saw an e-mail from Cuddy: a link from the New York Times and a curt message: read this.
Wilson froze as soon as he read the first paragraph.
The local forecast for the night called for rain.
Read Part Three