Seven Percent
Title: Seven Percent
Author: magie_05
Word Count: ~700
Pairing: House/Wilson, mentions of other characters
Rating/Warnings: R for sex. And drugs.
Summary: Seven drabbles, each dealing with a different drug--distraction--that House has tried. My first attempt at 'drabbles,' (and I use the term loosely) and an attempt at angst, because I feel all unbalanced what with all the smut that's been going on around here lately. I hope you guys recognize where the title comes from 'cause if not I'm just a big dork, lol.
“My mind,” [Holmes] said, “rebels at stagnation.”
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four.
Morphine
Pain, a fall, a handful of pills in the middle of the night.
He’d laugh, if it made any sense, sweating against the leather of his couch, jumping at small noises in the dark, noises that turn out to be his own short, sharp moans. It’s almost funny, that for a moment he wondered why she didn’t come running, pills in her hand, cool washcloth to his forehead.
But he remembers. No one to hear, nothing but silence and four walls staring at him, hunched over half a leg in his living room.
The phone is five feet away, and Wilson’s vague reassurance in his ear, anything, any time.
The syringe is closer.
Vicodin
He functions.
They’re part of his life now, like medical mysteries, like music and motorcycles, like stealing Wilson’s lunch.
Like pain.
They’re the first things he thinks about in the morning only because he needs them. His leg needs them. Doesn’t make him what they all seem to think he is. He’s not babbling on street corners.
He doesn’t think about the fact that he doesn’t think about it. They’re here, and he needs them, and that’s all that matters, even if after one or two or three have dissolved with metal-sharpness on his tongue, he sometimes forgets.
One more won’t hurt.
Alcohol
He’s warm and numb and half-dead on his sofa.
It’s quiet, and he’ll be able to fall asleep soon, day melting away, cops and forged prescriptions meaningless as he falls into a place without dreams. It only exists in the daytime, only matters if you think about it, only hurts if you care.
Shapes are distorted through the bottom of the glass, bottle empty on the coffee table. He supposes Wilson would say he needs help for this, too; that it’s dangerous, or childish, that’s it’s proof he’s lost control.
He finishes the last glass and takes a long, unworried breath.
Wilson will never understand. This is self-control.
LSD
He watches shapes unfold themselves.
It’s all made of circles and squares and triangles, different sizes, moving all over. Boxes with sounds dripping out. He watches and the sounds come to him, slide under his skin, change him and he doesn’t care why.
Time is elsewhere, moving backwards or perhaps revolving around this room, but he can remember the taste from a long time ago, dry paper under his tongue. He can remember watching as Wilson’s voice changed color.
But he’s alone now, no colors speaking, and there’s no antidepressants to cut it short this time.
He sees movement as spheres, a fly leaving a rainbow-spectrum in its wake, cutting through thick, gelatinous air. He looks down at his body to see his color.
He’s disappointed, though he should have known. House is not made of color.
Nicotine
He’ll admit the first pack was mostly to annoy Wilson.
But he’d forgotten how easy it is, breathe in, breathe out, let it trickle through his lungs. Didn’t remember how well it goes with booze and music, sex and Vicodin. Never realized it could take the edge off between refills, between doses or when Wilson makes him wait a day, twirling a cigarette in his fingers and watching the clock. If he lights up another, he can wait ten minutes; if it’s in his hand, he can’t reach into his pocket for cool, familiar plastic.
He doesn’t bother most days, but there’s never a pack far away.
Amphetamines
It’s interesting, watching them disintegrate, turning to powder under razor’s edge. Mind’s edge.
It’s not a habit and it won’t become one. It’s just interesting. Different. Change is good, Wilson tells him.
Change is breathing in fire and never wanting to stop. Change is that first breath, stars bursting before his eyes and in his veins. Feels that lift, feels weightless, like he’s run for miles, like he could run for miles.
Feels like he’s God.
He should go, should move, should get free, should get anything. He could take the bike out, ride until it’s morning, forget where he’s going or where he’s been or why it matters. He can go anywhere. Anywhere but here.
Anywhere but down.
Placebo
Wilson’s lips are on his neck, hand moving slowly down House’s side, moaning lowly in his throat, intense and hungry and desperate, like he can never get enough.
House knows that feeling.
It’s every drug he ever took, blood singing, heart pounding, just as unable to say no. Want makes him blind and need takes over, hands over bare, heated skin, tongue dipping into Wilson’s mouth and one name leaking out of every pore. The pain is quiet and, for a moment, he doesn’t want to crawl out of his own skin, for once without the use of chemicals. Love as a placebo.
A new kind of high, but House knows what to expect. It always wears off, comes down, leaves him in pain and alone. Wilson chokes out his name and heat spills out between them, and he wants to believe that this one is different, that it’ll last, that it’s not fake.
But already he’s falling back to earth, back into himself. Wilson’s still here, for now, damp hair on House’s shoulder, eyes closed and panting. And smiling.
Placebos work if you believe they will.
Author: magie_05
Word Count: ~700
Pairing: House/Wilson, mentions of other characters
Rating/Warnings: R for sex. And drugs.
Summary: Seven drabbles, each dealing with a different drug--distraction--that House has tried. My first attempt at 'drabbles,' (and I use the term loosely) and an attempt at angst, because I feel all unbalanced what with all the smut that's been going on around here lately. I hope you guys recognize where the title comes from 'cause if not I'm just a big dork, lol.
“My mind,” [Holmes] said, “rebels at stagnation.”
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four.
Morphine
Pain, a fall, a handful of pills in the middle of the night.
He’d laugh, if it made any sense, sweating against the leather of his couch, jumping at small noises in the dark, noises that turn out to be his own short, sharp moans. It’s almost funny, that for a moment he wondered why she didn’t come running, pills in her hand, cool washcloth to his forehead.
But he remembers. No one to hear, nothing but silence and four walls staring at him, hunched over half a leg in his living room.
The phone is five feet away, and Wilson’s vague reassurance in his ear, anything, any time.
The syringe is closer.
Vicodin
He functions.
They’re part of his life now, like medical mysteries, like music and motorcycles, like stealing Wilson’s lunch.
Like pain.
They’re the first things he thinks about in the morning only because he needs them. His leg needs them. Doesn’t make him what they all seem to think he is. He’s not babbling on street corners.
He doesn’t think about the fact that he doesn’t think about it. They’re here, and he needs them, and that’s all that matters, even if after one or two or three have dissolved with metal-sharpness on his tongue, he sometimes forgets.
One more won’t hurt.
Alcohol
He’s warm and numb and half-dead on his sofa.
It’s quiet, and he’ll be able to fall asleep soon, day melting away, cops and forged prescriptions meaningless as he falls into a place without dreams. It only exists in the daytime, only matters if you think about it, only hurts if you care.
Shapes are distorted through the bottom of the glass, bottle empty on the coffee table. He supposes Wilson would say he needs help for this, too; that it’s dangerous, or childish, that’s it’s proof he’s lost control.
He finishes the last glass and takes a long, unworried breath.
Wilson will never understand. This is self-control.
LSD
He watches shapes unfold themselves.
It’s all made of circles and squares and triangles, different sizes, moving all over. Boxes with sounds dripping out. He watches and the sounds come to him, slide under his skin, change him and he doesn’t care why.
Time is elsewhere, moving backwards or perhaps revolving around this room, but he can remember the taste from a long time ago, dry paper under his tongue. He can remember watching as Wilson’s voice changed color.
But he’s alone now, no colors speaking, and there’s no antidepressants to cut it short this time.
He sees movement as spheres, a fly leaving a rainbow-spectrum in its wake, cutting through thick, gelatinous air. He looks down at his body to see his color.
He’s disappointed, though he should have known. House is not made of color.
Nicotine
He’ll admit the first pack was mostly to annoy Wilson.
But he’d forgotten how easy it is, breathe in, breathe out, let it trickle through his lungs. Didn’t remember how well it goes with booze and music, sex and Vicodin. Never realized it could take the edge off between refills, between doses or when Wilson makes him wait a day, twirling a cigarette in his fingers and watching the clock. If he lights up another, he can wait ten minutes; if it’s in his hand, he can’t reach into his pocket for cool, familiar plastic.
He doesn’t bother most days, but there’s never a pack far away.
Amphetamines
It’s interesting, watching them disintegrate, turning to powder under razor’s edge. Mind’s edge.
It’s not a habit and it won’t become one. It’s just interesting. Different. Change is good, Wilson tells him.
Change is breathing in fire and never wanting to stop. Change is that first breath, stars bursting before his eyes and in his veins. Feels that lift, feels weightless, like he’s run for miles, like he could run for miles.
Feels like he’s God.
He should go, should move, should get free, should get anything. He could take the bike out, ride until it’s morning, forget where he’s going or where he’s been or why it matters. He can go anywhere. Anywhere but here.
Anywhere but down.
Placebo
Wilson’s lips are on his neck, hand moving slowly down House’s side, moaning lowly in his throat, intense and hungry and desperate, like he can never get enough.
House knows that feeling.
It’s every drug he ever took, blood singing, heart pounding, just as unable to say no. Want makes him blind and need takes over, hands over bare, heated skin, tongue dipping into Wilson’s mouth and one name leaking out of every pore. The pain is quiet and, for a moment, he doesn’t want to crawl out of his own skin, for once without the use of chemicals. Love as a placebo.
A new kind of high, but House knows what to expect. It always wears off, comes down, leaves him in pain and alone. Wilson chokes out his name and heat spills out between them, and he wants to believe that this one is different, that it’ll last, that it’s not fake.
But already he’s falling back to earth, back into himself. Wilson’s still here, for now, damp hair on House’s shoulder, eyes closed and panting. And smiling.
Placebos work if you believe they will.