Fic: Cycles: Reminiscence (1/3)
Yes folks, Cycles has made its debut. Come along for the ride, and read if you wish.
Title: Cycles: Reminiscence
Rating: PG-13 overall
Pairing: House/Wilson in parts 2 and 3, Gen now
Spoilers/Warnings: No spoilers, warning for AU
Summary: Wilson was hiding something. House knew that much. But, what he was hiding was still a mystery.
Notes: Written for we_take_five challenge, my prompt was 'karma'. This is the first part of three.
September 23rd, 1733-London, England
The cobbled streets were dark with the coming midnight. The heavy fog blocked the light of the full moon, clouding the city of London in a light mist. The flickering flames of the streetlamps cast small circles of light, but visibility was so low, they were useless unless you were standing directly beneath one.
The shutters on the stone buildings were closed against the cold. Even if they had been open, no one would have seen the lone figure striding briskly down the walkway. The only sign that the man was even there was a slight disturbance in the swirling mist seen by the lamplight, but then, it could’ve just been the wind.
The man looked to the street signs, reassuring himself that he was indeed going the right direction. Adjusting his broad-brimmed hat, he started again, his cloak flowing silently behind him. He clutched the surrounding garment closer to his body, preserving the warmth within. His pace quickened, soon developing into a run as he realized that he was short on time. Soon enough, the large, Victorian manor was within sight. A grin spread across his face in anticipation of what was going to happen…
April 2nd, 2007
“Did you kill a puppy today?” Wilson flinched at the voice, sighing before turning from the elevators to face the man coming toward him.
“What?” he asked, wondering what House was up to. The other man closed the distance between them, obviously leaving for the night. His backpack was slung over his shoulder and his iPod ear buds were in his hand.
It was late, and Wilson was surprised to see that House was still here. He would’ve been out of here by now, but paperwork and patient meetings had kept him late. House had no patients at all; his most recent one had been discharged that morning. As the elevator doors opened, House gave his reply.
“You have that look Cameron gets when she’s forced to tell someone they’re dying. Since you don’t seem to have a problem with that, it must be something worse.” House and Wilson walked through the doors, and House pressed the button for the lobby.
“Paperwork,” Wilson explained. “I’m just tired.”
“Well, I have beer. It’s guaranteed to counteract the effects of cancer kiddies and… paperwork,” House said, quirking an eyebrow at Wilson.
“Yes. That’s the cure for everything. Get drunk and forget about it. However, the idea of being hung over tomorrow morning in board meetings doesn’t sit well with me. Your ‘cure’ will have to wait,” Wilson replied, sighing again.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open, revealing the lobby.
“Well, if that doesn’t work, then there’s always the chicken chow mien as backup,” House said, limping through the opened doors to the darkened lobby.
“Sorry. I have other things that I have to… take care of,” he replied hesitantly. The two friends walked together to the double doors leading outside before stopping. House turned to Wilson and stared at him for a few seconds before raising an eyebrow and shrugging.
“Suit yourself, then. If you change your mind, you still have your key,” he said and pushed through the double doors. Wilson stared after him, watching as the yellowish parking lamps flickered, adding to the illumination of the full moon.
Tonight was going to be a long night.
As the man arrived at the front gate of the manor, he glanced around the area for any sign of surveillance before removing his hat and cloak, folding them neatly, and hiding them in a nearby bush. He then climbed the fence and dropped down the other side. Crouching in the grass, he listened again for signs of alarm before dashing to the rear face of the building for his entry point. The tenant was bothered by the heat and kept a ground level window cracked open every night, making it easier for the man to make his entrance.
Silently easing the window open wider, he stepped in, careful of the scattered objects lying about. The tenant must be a messy housekeeper, leaving breakables underfoot, the man thought, tip-toeing over the trinkets. Reaching around to his back, he made sure the proper tools were close at hand in case he needed them quickly.
Taking a deep breath, the man quickened his pace to the stairs before ascending to the top level, where the master bedroom resided…
The darkened forest was silent, the only sounds being the patter of paws against the soft, dirt surface. The canopy of leaves almost completely blocked the moon’s illumination. If the light had revealed the path, anyone would have seen the creature’s footprints change as they traveled further, shrinking and morphing. The creature sped through the rows of trees, set on a specific destination, and nothing would keep him from it. The map of trees was etched in his mind, and he didn’t even have to think before moving to avoid a tree or jumping over a large root or ducking under a stray branch.
His instincts guided his movements, and before long, he realized that he was at a clearing, blissfully illuminated by the moon. It was a small area; nothing special. There was a small pond to the side, but everything else was dirt. There was the trunk of a long fallen tree near the pond, and the creature jumped onto it, casting an eye to the silver sphere in the sky, all the while, feeling the instinctual bloodlust of so many years past…
Upon noticing the soft breathing of sleep from the interior of the master bedroom, the man opened the door silently, ever careful of his footing. His instincts guided his hand as he pulled out his weapon of choice: a thin dagger approximately 8 inches long. The blade was on both edges, so he didn’t need to check his hand placement before moving forward.
The bed appeared occupied, the sleeping body turned away from him as he entered the room fully. He monitored his breathing, making sure it was in sync with the sleeper’s before coming any closer. He stepped with long, sure, and silent strides, making it to the bedside in less than five paces. Taking a deep breath, he reached out with a hand and seized the edge of the cover, jumping back with a gasp as the figure caved in and the blanket flattened to the bed.
Hearing the door slam shut behind him, he twisted sharply, holding his knife out in defense. Upon seeing the other man standing with his back to the wall and arm still out at his side, he discovered that he couldn’t move. Paralyzed by magic or some other force he did not know, but this man caused it, whatever it was.
“I’ve been expecting you for quite some time, Mr. Wilson.”
The creature lifted his head from the pond, twitching his ears in a slight irritation. This late at night, everything was asleep and burrowed deep in the ground. Nothing was within reach that could even be considered food. Climbing back onto the decaying trunk, he listened carefully, hoping with some sense that he would actually hear some poor foolish animal trying to wander around this late.
He turned an eye to the moon again, resisting the urge to announce his presence throughout the entire forest, and instead letting out a low growl. He pawed the dewy surface of the log, wishing it were some caribou’s throat he was crushing instead. At least then the gnawing hunger wouldn’t be coursing through him like a virus threatening to take over his mind.
There was no way he could go back the way he had come. If the chance even presented itself he would strike, and then a mountain of suspicion would arise, making sure that he had to escape to New York before even thinking of running about again. That thought, though an unimportant, weaker instinct, was enough to keep him in his spot, staring at the moon for as long as he needed.
“You’re supposed to be asleep!” he exclaimed, shifting his foot slightly. If he couldn’t get the man while he was asleep, he would kill him where he stood. Granted it would be messier, but it was necessary.
“Not everything is as it seems, Mr. Wilson. I knew that you would be after my life tonight, and so I lied in wait for you. You aren’t as stealthy as you think you are.”
Wilson raised his blade, shifting his weight on his hind foot. “Die,”-and he pushed off, dashing the short distance to the wall. Before his foot touched the ground again, he was stopped, frozen in time, unable to move an inch. He struggled, trying to move his hand in any direction at all. If at all possible, he could throw his blade to cover the distance he couldn’t and finish the job that way. Alas, it was futile, for he couldn’t escape the spell.
“What is this?” he asked, becoming still. The other man stepped from the wall, raising a hand to Wilson’s eye level. With a quick flick of the wrist that Wilson almost didn’t catch, he stilled his hand again, and Wilson squinted his eyes, feeling his head throb in a coming headache.
“This is your punishment. I’m not your first attempted victim. You have tried and succeeded in killing hundreds before me. You are a cold-blooded murderer, and you cannot be allowed to live without consequences. I’ll make you live in regret, counting your eternal life by each painful month.” Wilson was released then, and he moved to swiftly end the life of his captor, halting as a sickening feeling overcame him.
The curtains behind him had been blown aside by the wind, and the full moon’s light cut through the heavy fog, shining through the one window and shedding its light on Wilson. He dropped to his knees, dropping the knife in his hand to the floor next to him as he clutched his head, feeling a strange, yet painful pulsing in the deepest recesses of his mind.
He felt his entire body become itchy, and he was still in pain. His mouth was shifting, he could feel it but do nothing to stop it. Another consciousness was overcoming his mind, drowning his rational self in a mass of raw instinct. His hands were also changing, morphing painfully into something not himself. He lost himself in the pain, unknowing of any occurrences around him.
When the pain had receded to a dull throbbing at the back of his mind, he opened his eyes to see a sight that was not his. He smelled things that were not normal, the delicate wafts covering his senses in a near confusion until he figure out how to separate each strand of scent. His sense of touch was also not as it should be. He was constricted somehow, before realizing that the constraints were his own clothing.
“What is going on here!?” he asked, realizing that no words had come out of his mouth.
“Your punishment. This is the beast you will become the night of each month that the moon is full,” the man said, reaching behind him to grasp a mirror. When Wilson saw what he had become, he howled, unable to speak anything else.
As he ran back through the trees, Wilson got to thinking, like he did on all of these nights. He started thinking about how this change had affected how he lived today. How he treated House, his patients, and his job. It was almost a complete one-eighty from what he was before.
It was past midnight. As a matter of fact, it was nearing two in the morning. It was late enough to make it back to his apartment, push open his carefully adjusted door, and settle down for the night. He could do it unnoticed and make it in the next morning without any suspicion at all. Four hours of sleep was pushing it, but not impossible tonight. He called it a plan and dashed at full speed the rest of the way back, taking every alleyway shortcut he could find.
In fact, Wilson had managed to elude suspicion for the most part. He came in the next morning, though tired, reasonably well enough on the outside to pass for his usual self. However, there was one who knew that Wilson wasn’t completely as he seemed.
House looked on from the clinic room as his friend came in actually later than him for once. Of course, since he had come in early, that wasn’t saying much. However, it was still bothering him.
Wilson had been a no-show last night, and that was unusual. Even though he had said that he had other things to do, House would usually find him at his door at some later hour, having changed his mind. He didn’t even need to analyze the fact that his shoulders were slouched so much, it looked as if he would be dead on his feet if there weren’t so many people looking at him. House made a mental point to raid Wilson’s office later and figure out exactly what was going on.
To Be Continued
Part 2 linkage, Cycles: Suspicion
Title: Cycles: Reminiscence
Rating: PG-13 overall
Pairing: House/Wilson in parts 2 and 3, Gen now
Spoilers/Warnings: No spoilers, warning for AU
Summary: Wilson was hiding something. House knew that much. But, what he was hiding was still a mystery.
Notes: Written for we_take_five challenge, my prompt was 'karma'. This is the first part of three.
September 23rd, 1733-London, England
The cobbled streets were dark with the coming midnight. The heavy fog blocked the light of the full moon, clouding the city of London in a light mist. The flickering flames of the streetlamps cast small circles of light, but visibility was so low, they were useless unless you were standing directly beneath one.
The shutters on the stone buildings were closed against the cold. Even if they had been open, no one would have seen the lone figure striding briskly down the walkway. The only sign that the man was even there was a slight disturbance in the swirling mist seen by the lamplight, but then, it could’ve just been the wind.
The man looked to the street signs, reassuring himself that he was indeed going the right direction. Adjusting his broad-brimmed hat, he started again, his cloak flowing silently behind him. He clutched the surrounding garment closer to his body, preserving the warmth within. His pace quickened, soon developing into a run as he realized that he was short on time. Soon enough, the large, Victorian manor was within sight. A grin spread across his face in anticipation of what was going to happen…
April 2nd, 2007
“Did you kill a puppy today?” Wilson flinched at the voice, sighing before turning from the elevators to face the man coming toward him.
“What?” he asked, wondering what House was up to. The other man closed the distance between them, obviously leaving for the night. His backpack was slung over his shoulder and his iPod ear buds were in his hand.
It was late, and Wilson was surprised to see that House was still here. He would’ve been out of here by now, but paperwork and patient meetings had kept him late. House had no patients at all; his most recent one had been discharged that morning. As the elevator doors opened, House gave his reply.
“You have that look Cameron gets when she’s forced to tell someone they’re dying. Since you don’t seem to have a problem with that, it must be something worse.” House and Wilson walked through the doors, and House pressed the button for the lobby.
“Paperwork,” Wilson explained. “I’m just tired.”
“Well, I have beer. It’s guaranteed to counteract the effects of cancer kiddies and… paperwork,” House said, quirking an eyebrow at Wilson.
“Yes. That’s the cure for everything. Get drunk and forget about it. However, the idea of being hung over tomorrow morning in board meetings doesn’t sit well with me. Your ‘cure’ will have to wait,” Wilson replied, sighing again.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open, revealing the lobby.
“Well, if that doesn’t work, then there’s always the chicken chow mien as backup,” House said, limping through the opened doors to the darkened lobby.
“Sorry. I have other things that I have to… take care of,” he replied hesitantly. The two friends walked together to the double doors leading outside before stopping. House turned to Wilson and stared at him for a few seconds before raising an eyebrow and shrugging.
“Suit yourself, then. If you change your mind, you still have your key,” he said and pushed through the double doors. Wilson stared after him, watching as the yellowish parking lamps flickered, adding to the illumination of the full moon.
Tonight was going to be a long night.
As the man arrived at the front gate of the manor, he glanced around the area for any sign of surveillance before removing his hat and cloak, folding them neatly, and hiding them in a nearby bush. He then climbed the fence and dropped down the other side. Crouching in the grass, he listened again for signs of alarm before dashing to the rear face of the building for his entry point. The tenant was bothered by the heat and kept a ground level window cracked open every night, making it easier for the man to make his entrance.
Silently easing the window open wider, he stepped in, careful of the scattered objects lying about. The tenant must be a messy housekeeper, leaving breakables underfoot, the man thought, tip-toeing over the trinkets. Reaching around to his back, he made sure the proper tools were close at hand in case he needed them quickly.
Taking a deep breath, the man quickened his pace to the stairs before ascending to the top level, where the master bedroom resided…
The darkened forest was silent, the only sounds being the patter of paws against the soft, dirt surface. The canopy of leaves almost completely blocked the moon’s illumination. If the light had revealed the path, anyone would have seen the creature’s footprints change as they traveled further, shrinking and morphing. The creature sped through the rows of trees, set on a specific destination, and nothing would keep him from it. The map of trees was etched in his mind, and he didn’t even have to think before moving to avoid a tree or jumping over a large root or ducking under a stray branch.
His instincts guided his movements, and before long, he realized that he was at a clearing, blissfully illuminated by the moon. It was a small area; nothing special. There was a small pond to the side, but everything else was dirt. There was the trunk of a long fallen tree near the pond, and the creature jumped onto it, casting an eye to the silver sphere in the sky, all the while, feeling the instinctual bloodlust of so many years past…
Upon noticing the soft breathing of sleep from the interior of the master bedroom, the man opened the door silently, ever careful of his footing. His instincts guided his hand as he pulled out his weapon of choice: a thin dagger approximately 8 inches long. The blade was on both edges, so he didn’t need to check his hand placement before moving forward.
The bed appeared occupied, the sleeping body turned away from him as he entered the room fully. He monitored his breathing, making sure it was in sync with the sleeper’s before coming any closer. He stepped with long, sure, and silent strides, making it to the bedside in less than five paces. Taking a deep breath, he reached out with a hand and seized the edge of the cover, jumping back with a gasp as the figure caved in and the blanket flattened to the bed.
Hearing the door slam shut behind him, he twisted sharply, holding his knife out in defense. Upon seeing the other man standing with his back to the wall and arm still out at his side, he discovered that he couldn’t move. Paralyzed by magic or some other force he did not know, but this man caused it, whatever it was.
“I’ve been expecting you for quite some time, Mr. Wilson.”
The creature lifted his head from the pond, twitching his ears in a slight irritation. This late at night, everything was asleep and burrowed deep in the ground. Nothing was within reach that could even be considered food. Climbing back onto the decaying trunk, he listened carefully, hoping with some sense that he would actually hear some poor foolish animal trying to wander around this late.
He turned an eye to the moon again, resisting the urge to announce his presence throughout the entire forest, and instead letting out a low growl. He pawed the dewy surface of the log, wishing it were some caribou’s throat he was crushing instead. At least then the gnawing hunger wouldn’t be coursing through him like a virus threatening to take over his mind.
There was no way he could go back the way he had come. If the chance even presented itself he would strike, and then a mountain of suspicion would arise, making sure that he had to escape to New York before even thinking of running about again. That thought, though an unimportant, weaker instinct, was enough to keep him in his spot, staring at the moon for as long as he needed.
“You’re supposed to be asleep!” he exclaimed, shifting his foot slightly. If he couldn’t get the man while he was asleep, he would kill him where he stood. Granted it would be messier, but it was necessary.
“Not everything is as it seems, Mr. Wilson. I knew that you would be after my life tonight, and so I lied in wait for you. You aren’t as stealthy as you think you are.”
Wilson raised his blade, shifting his weight on his hind foot. “Die,”-and he pushed off, dashing the short distance to the wall. Before his foot touched the ground again, he was stopped, frozen in time, unable to move an inch. He struggled, trying to move his hand in any direction at all. If at all possible, he could throw his blade to cover the distance he couldn’t and finish the job that way. Alas, it was futile, for he couldn’t escape the spell.
“What is this?” he asked, becoming still. The other man stepped from the wall, raising a hand to Wilson’s eye level. With a quick flick of the wrist that Wilson almost didn’t catch, he stilled his hand again, and Wilson squinted his eyes, feeling his head throb in a coming headache.
“This is your punishment. I’m not your first attempted victim. You have tried and succeeded in killing hundreds before me. You are a cold-blooded murderer, and you cannot be allowed to live without consequences. I’ll make you live in regret, counting your eternal life by each painful month.” Wilson was released then, and he moved to swiftly end the life of his captor, halting as a sickening feeling overcame him.
The curtains behind him had been blown aside by the wind, and the full moon’s light cut through the heavy fog, shining through the one window and shedding its light on Wilson. He dropped to his knees, dropping the knife in his hand to the floor next to him as he clutched his head, feeling a strange, yet painful pulsing in the deepest recesses of his mind.
He felt his entire body become itchy, and he was still in pain. His mouth was shifting, he could feel it but do nothing to stop it. Another consciousness was overcoming his mind, drowning his rational self in a mass of raw instinct. His hands were also changing, morphing painfully into something not himself. He lost himself in the pain, unknowing of any occurrences around him.
When the pain had receded to a dull throbbing at the back of his mind, he opened his eyes to see a sight that was not his. He smelled things that were not normal, the delicate wafts covering his senses in a near confusion until he figure out how to separate each strand of scent. His sense of touch was also not as it should be. He was constricted somehow, before realizing that the constraints were his own clothing.
“What is going on here!?” he asked, realizing that no words had come out of his mouth.
“Your punishment. This is the beast you will become the night of each month that the moon is full,” the man said, reaching behind him to grasp a mirror. When Wilson saw what he had become, he howled, unable to speak anything else.
As he ran back through the trees, Wilson got to thinking, like he did on all of these nights. He started thinking about how this change had affected how he lived today. How he treated House, his patients, and his job. It was almost a complete one-eighty from what he was before.
It was past midnight. As a matter of fact, it was nearing two in the morning. It was late enough to make it back to his apartment, push open his carefully adjusted door, and settle down for the night. He could do it unnoticed and make it in the next morning without any suspicion at all. Four hours of sleep was pushing it, but not impossible tonight. He called it a plan and dashed at full speed the rest of the way back, taking every alleyway shortcut he could find.
In fact, Wilson had managed to elude suspicion for the most part. He came in the next morning, though tired, reasonably well enough on the outside to pass for his usual self. However, there was one who knew that Wilson wasn’t completely as he seemed.
House looked on from the clinic room as his friend came in actually later than him for once. Of course, since he had come in early, that wasn’t saying much. However, it was still bothering him.
Wilson had been a no-show last night, and that was unusual. Even though he had said that he had other things to do, House would usually find him at his door at some later hour, having changed his mind. He didn’t even need to analyze the fact that his shoulders were slouched so much, it looked as if he would be dead on his feet if there weren’t so many people looking at him. House made a mental point to raid Wilson’s office later and figure out exactly what was going on.
To Be Continued
Part 2 linkage, Cycles: Suspicion