Photograph of Time
title: Photograph of Time
pairing: House/Wilson (friendshippy except for a passing reference to sex)
words: 1, 000
rating: PG-13 for subject matter; drug use; porn
disclaimer: Just borrowing these characters; promise to give them back in (relatively) good condition.
notes: Beta’d by the lovely phinnia. I can’t thank her enough for fixing awkwardness and suggesting ways to improve.
summary: Ten drabbles about things that are stashed away.
five things Greg House keeps in boxes:
model rocket.
Birthday gift from an aunt and uncle to an eight-year-old House. It’s stored in the same box it was shipped in, complete with markered-in happy faces on the cardboard. He remembers gleefully tearing open the wrapping paper, and the way his face lit up. He worked on that model rocket for days, reading the manual religiously and selecting the best fiery red for it, making sure every last detail was perfect.
It was gone the next day, confiscated by John and presumably destroyed for “his own good”. Blythe sent it to him at college, no explanation needed.
first guitar.
He’d started to teach himself guitar around age eleven, to John’s disgust. He’d bought the guitar with his own money, earned from odd jobs around the base. Purchased from a seedy pawnshop with an even seedier owner on the outskirts of town, third-hand, dented, in need of fresh strings. Plastered with old band stickers, most of which he hadn’t heard of, and Sharpie-scribbled on with ideas for lyrics and doodles. He couldn’t even afford a case, so he fashioned a makeshift one out of an old blanket.
It was a poor protective shield for his most prized possession.
mix tape.
Christmas gift from Wilson a few years after they met. Wilson slipped it into House’s coat pocket a week after the fact, trying to avoid directly giving House a present, but House couldn’t be fooled by the not-so-subtle attempt. He pictured Wilson, sitting cross-legged on his apartment floor, painstakingly pressing buttons on his stereo and sliding tapes in and out. When House finally got a chance to listen, he couldn’t decide whether he was more amused or horrified. How could his best friend have such terrible taste in music? ABBA, The Village People, Elton John, Genesis, Wham!
lacrosse stick.
Weather-worn, the leather soft and wearing through in the pocket. He hasn’t looked at it since the ketamine failed. He’d nearly played the shit out of it - a starting right attack in college, and in pickup games in the park during those too-few months. He could barely bring himself to think about it; if he did, he’d smell the sweaty stench of the locker room, hear the noisy bus rides, taste the post-game pizza.
Once, he walked by a field of boys playing - high-schoolers with mediocre skill - and felt a twinge of envy in his stomach.
morphine.
Relief for desperation locked inside a cold metal box, stashed away until those times when he can’t fucking breathe. Hidden behind books, on a high shelf (away from Wilson’s line of vision, and easy access). Blue-tinged liquid in a clear bottle is a miracle for man who doubts their existence. Drops of heaven making their way into his bloodstream, from syringe to drawn-up vein. He knows that eventually the walls will trap him. But for now, he can ignore Wilson’s words: “Call me if the pain spikes or you need anything.”
Opiates are easier - they don’t give lectures.
five things James Wilson keeps in boxes:
tallis.
Hand-stitched blue embroidery decorating champagne-gold wool; tzitzit hanging off the four corners. Wilson had trembled on the bima, and he could almost hear his bones rattling during the haftarah. He’d looked out hopefully, into the Saturday-morning crowd, trying to soak up liquid courage. He caught a glimpse of his first girlfriend, Bethany, and willed his voice not to crack in front of her. It did, though, which earned him a sympathetic look from an aunt.
He hasn’t worn it since his great-uncle’s funeral (not even a Yom Kippur Jew lately), but having it there comforts him.
daniel’s journal.
Daniel’s journal was one-third of the set: leather-bound with thick 0ff-white pages, a “lame” Hanukkah gift from their grandparents. Elijah (the eldest) used it to draw dirty pictures and crude diagrams for his less-experienced classmates. Wilson left it mostly blank, occasionally jotting down anatomy facts or physics problems. Daniel wrote poetry, and expressed what he couldn’t aloud.
When Daniel left, Wilson stopped by his parent’s place to pick up the journal. He scoured it for any clues. Was there something he’d missed? Could he have prevented it?
He then knew how House felt when Ester died.
blunts.
Being the good, solicitous oncologist that Wilson is, House figures the man’s got to have a few joints stored away somewhere. Nausea control and all that.
Wilson does, in fact, have six blunts - in a wooden keepsake box, of all things.
“Come on, you give them to your patients to take away their pain. Percocet makes me vomit and I can’t shit if I take Tramadol. Pot is less dangerous anyway. My leg fucking hurts. Just gimme one, Wilson. It’ll help... I’ll even replace it... I know a guy... fine, I’ll blow you if you let me get toke up.”
wedding rings.
One, two, three - different bands with various declarations of love and meaningless promises engraved on the inside. Mia’s was stainless steel; the cash had been scraped together from friends with promises of paying them back. Bonnie had demanded an extravagant wedding, with a two-tone gold, diamond-studded ring to match. Julie hadn’t really given a fuck either way, so he purchased a simple, no-frills gold one.
Each of them had handed back their rings at some point: after he cheated, during their separation, before meeting with the divorce lawyer House joked Wilson should have kept on speed-dial.
porn.
He doesn’t keep it in a box, but rather, in the hotel’s airtight safe. Free from the wandering eyes of the maids (and House). A gift to himself after a particularly rough day. He has needs, after all. Three or four magazines (neatly stacked) with a NEJM on top, in case House was to crack the code.
Hustler, Playboy, and sandwiched between them, Freshmen (just for variety, of course). The glossy, airbrushed pages are a poor substitute for the real thing - the real thing that, suddenly, is out of reach, teasing him, tantalizing him with what he used to have.