Fic: Beneath the wave (for House-Wilson Fest 2006)
Title:Beneath the wave (1/4)
Author: Petriepuss
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slash, AU, not exactly a MIB crossover, but yes, there are aliens (Yes, I have to, look at the prompt!).
Author notes: Could you image James Wilson as the little mermaid? Thankfully you were saved from that Disney-disaster plot bunny by my hubby, who suggested, why not aliens?
Word count: 2621
Prompt 60: House watches sick, barely breathing Wilson submerge himself in Lake Ontario only to emerge from the water three hours later in perfect health. What does House do? How does Wilson react when he realizes that House knows? What is Wilson?
Day minus one, 2:06 a.m.
House ignored the red light; in fact he stepped on the accelerator, riding like a bat out of hell in his single-mindedness to catch up/get away from the black, nightmarish image in his head. In his haste, he had not had the time to retrieve the leather jacket from his room and, although it was the beginning of summer, the night air still had a chilly edge which was now wrapping its cold fingers around him like a wet blanket. He could feel the throbbing in his right thigh picking up the tempo in sync with the rumbling engine, but it was nowhere near the frantic beating within his chest.
Throughout last month, Wilson’s behavior had been puzzling, which was fine because House loved puzzles. But tonight, before he left near midnight to return to his new apartment, instead of the usual ‘See you tomorrow’, Wilson had stepped up to House and, without a word, hugged him so tight that he had difficulty breathing.
“What the…! Jimmy…did you do a body swap with Cameron while my back was turned?”
“Just…please…I need this.” Wilson’s voice came muffled, his face buried in House’s vintage tee.
“Come on man, you are freaking me out.” House tried to push his best friend away, partly being his old bastard self - hugs being in the same category as, euwww, rainbow and puppy love - and partly because Wilson’s unusual clinginess worried him enough for him to want to see his friend’s expression.
“I…if I’m not here, you’ll be Ok, right? I…I think Chase has been jostling for the best buddy position in a secretive campaign, and Cameron…well, we all know how interested she is in healing the sick and needy. And…Cuddy, she will keep you in line, you’ve nothing on that woman when it comes to matters concerning her hospital…”
“Why! Thinking of going somewhere Jimmy? Are you… breaking up with me?” House did a fine imitation of a whining three year old.
A small muffled laugh was followed by a sharp intake of breath, “I don’t know, were we together?”
“Well, at the moment, I would say the physical evidence is pretty convincing.”
Instead of reply, Wilson just stood there, holding on as if his life was depending on it, or on him.
He had a sense of something was very wrong; of course he did, no one would chance his prickly excuse for a personality without a good cause. And at two a.m., after a long debate with Mr. Porcupine, and just because it looked like a fine night for riding, he decided to jump on his bike and go to his friend’s apartment, determined to get to the bottom of all this weirdness. And besides, it was an anomaly.
“Wilson!” he opened the door with the spare key after banging on it for close to one minute without getting a response. Sure, he could have just called first, but why do the sensible thing when you can annoy the shit out of your best buddy’s neighbors, and maybe get them pissed-off enough to kick your friend’s sorry ass out of the complex? After all, he could use an extra pair of hands in his apartment; especially if the said hands came culinary-enabled.
The apartment was not large; he remembered the lay-out from the time Wilson gave him a quick 50 cent tour. There was only one bedroom off the living room area, but the suite did contain an oversized bathroom, complete with an excess of mirrors, decadent bath and a huge under-sink cabinet - home for all those hairdryers, he thought. Given how much time Wilson spent grooming himself, he supposed that was the attraction that had finally lured his friend away from his beloved lumpy couch. The fact that this place was only few blocks away from his own might just be a fortuitous bonus.
He flicked the light on, and called out again. There was every possibility that Wilson was in bed, sleeping like the majority of sane people at two o’clock in the morning, but he knew for a fact that Wilson was a light sleeper.
“Wilson?” The bedroom door was ajar; he opened the door slowly, already listing excuses for seeking out his friend out at 2 a.m., especially when they had just parted two hours ago. The bed, however, was devoid of a lump of any shape, size or form.
There was, however, light coming from underneath the bathroom door, and he raised his cane to knock on the door.
“Hello, your hooker is here!” he sang in a mockingly cheerful voice. The feeling of wrongness however, had just increased ten fold. What is Wilson doing in the bathroom at two o’clock in the morning? There was no answer. “Jimmy, are you in there?”
Silence.
The uneasy feeling that he’d had all night had just gone up to 8 on the panic scale. The unreadable expression on Wilson’s face before he had left that night led to several scenarios in his head. None of them were good. He tried the door, and found it was unlocked.
“Wilson, it’s me.” He opened the door slowly, the white porcelain sink shined in the bright bathroom light. The mirror above the sink unit reflected an empty bathroom. He’s not here? Stepping in to take a proper look around, what he saw almost made his blood turned cold as ice.
Wilson, naked, completely submerged in the bath - a cold bath, there is no steam - in perfect stillness. His eyes were closed, and he arms floated just below the surface in a relaxed pose above his body. The surface of the water was calm, flawlessly flat, and….
“Fuck! Wilson, what the hell!” he dashed forward, unconsciously calculating his fall so he landed right on top of the thick fluffy bathmat, one hand already in the water to pull his friend out. The fear momentarily kicked into submission by a rush of adrenaline, he hauled the body out of the water to land on the bathroom floor, fingers already frantically searching for a pulse.
There! The pulse was slow, perhaps 35 per minute, maybe close to 30. There was, however, no breathing.
“What the fuck happened! You stupid son of bitch, don’t you dare...” Ignoring the shooting pain from his mutilated leg muscles, House keeled beside his friend to perform rescue breathing. Body temperature, low. Airway, unobstructed. Chest, rising. Come on! Breathe!
Time stilled as he worked on his only friend, 12 breaths per minute. He heard his own rapid heartbeat in the Prestissimo poundings in his ears, felt the cold sweat breaking through his skin, but nonetheless performed the repetitive motions mechanically with single-minded precision. Finally, the sweet sound of air being sucked into a pair of lung could be heard. Only then, House pulled Wilson into the recovery position onto his left thigh; he circled his only friend within his arms, indulging in his panicked need to feel, to touch. Among the chaos of emotions, his heightened senses felt icy water drop from Wilson’s hair, skin cold to the touch beneath his lips - which successfully awakened him to the task at hand.
“Wilson, wake up!” He rocked the unconscious man slowly to try to wake him up; his own body shaking viciously, coming down from the adrenaline-high. Please! Let me be on time. The pulse, when he checked, was still way below normal range, but at least Wilson appeared to be breathing on his own.
Releasing a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, he felt his muscle weakened from the relief. From the back of his mind, the fear came back almost like a physical blow. What was he doing? What if I hadn’t come to check? An accident…
House checked Wilson’s head for sign of blunt trauma. Might he have slipped and fallen unconscious while getting into the bath? There was, however, no sign of any swelling. Searching the room, there was nothing that seemed unusual, certainly no empty prescription bottle or suspicious syringes. So what was the diagnosis for a healthy mid-age male lying in ice-cold water with no breathing and a lowered heart rate? There was no outward sign of illness and he saw Wilson’s face had recovered some color, and for all appearances, was sleeping peacefully - except for the not-able-to-wake part.
Brushing back the wet hair plastering on Wilson’s forehead, he scrutinized the man and felt an unusual tightness in his chest. Wilson looked…different somehow, all pale skin and soft contours, his brown chestnut hair sticking wildly in all directions, the wet lips….looked delicious in the shade of cotton candy….A strong impulse to touch those lips arrived with a mixed sense of fear, confusion and arousal.
God, did he mentioned that he was confused? Now was so not the time for an identify crisis. Adjusting his position painfully, he reached for the cell-phone inside his jacket pocket; time to call the cavalry.
*******
Day minus one, 2:39 a.m.
Cuddy was outside the entrance to the ER when the ambulance pulled in. She winced when an extremely haggard-looking Gregory House half-fell, half-jumped down from the back of the vehicle. He might have seen her, but his attention was solely on the occupant of the medical cart.
“House! What happened?” she asked while walking briskly alongside the paramedics, giving them the directions to the room already set up for Wilson. She might have been deeply asleep in her bed 15 minutes ago when House rang, but running a hospital had taught her to be efficient if nothing else.
“Found him in a cold bath, no breathing, no obvious cause. I need the three stooges in to run some tests.”
Short, straight answers; and that was when Cuddy knew how serious it was. “They won’t appreciate getting dragged out of their warm beds.” Both of them watched as Wilson was carefully transferred onto the hospital bed and attached to the EKG and BP monitors. House shook his head when a nurse held up an electrolyte IV in question.
Cuddy checked the stats. “Decreased heart and respiratory rates, but the EKG pattern looks normal. BP is also normal.”
“I need to check his temperature again. His skin felt cold but there is no shivering, not even goose-bumps.”
“At least he is not showing any sign of cyanosis.” She pulled out her cell, “I’ll ring your fellows. They will be less likely to suspect it’s another trick to build their characters.” She did not get an answer, as House had already busied himself with preparing samples for the tests. His brows closely pinched, expression almost angry, but his hands were surprisingly gentle and sure. Wilson looked…normal, like he was sleeping peacefully and Cuddy noticed for the first time that he had very kissable lips, full and slightly parted, as if waiting for…
Turning away from the room, she closed the door quietly, feeling like an intruder. “At least our sleeping beauty is in capable hands,” she thought with a weary smirk.
*******
Day minus one, 11: 05 a.m.
House stood in front of his beloved white board and thought for the hundredth time that he could do with a larger one, perhaps twice the width…or, no, maybe he could get a wall-mounted one covering the entire glass wall, as there was no point in doing things by halves after all. Whiteboards were nice, they didn’t talk or try to interact with him, and they helped him think. There had always been thoughts swirling in his head, constant and in a most complex pattern of chaos, each useful in the ultimate goal of obtaining a diagnosis, but useless unless he could catch them by the goolies and pin them down in neat rows on a white piece of office equipment. But…on the other hand, Cuddy would use it as an excuse to pile him with more cases - to fill up the space, she said. He could see her devil woman’s grin right now, crystal clear.
“The blood work showed no signs of abnormal chemicals, toxins or otherwise. The T lymphocyte counts were up, especially NKT cells, and there were signs of cellular apoptosis, but none of these are significant enough to be the cause of his unconsciousness. There must be a neurological underlying cause.” Foreman rushed in with the test results in one hand, the other hand holding the updated charts from Wilson’s room.
“Any hypoxia related necrosis? The cell abnormalities could be due to an infection. What’s his current temperature?” These words were out of his mouth without any conscious effort, he felt detached somehow, all emotions bolted down. He needed to solve this just like any other case. Seeing Foreman especially reminded him of that. It was for this same reason that he hadn’t been down to see Wilson since the fellows had come in this morning.
“The blood work showed no sign of necrosis, and there is no congestion in his lungs that we could hear. We’re wasting our time doing an infection panel, there’s no fever! Are we just doing random tests until something jumps out at us? The results clearly indicate an immunological problem.” Cameron gave her indignant look, having perfected the art of stating the obvious.
“Is there anything I could work with? People, a healthy middle-aged man does not just go unconscious, stop breathing and almost die for no apparent reason!” House jabbed the floor twice, hard, with his cane; his hand gripped its handle with white-knuckled tightness.
“His temperature is low, close to 95, but all his metabolites are elevated.”
For all intents and purposes, Wilson was in a coma, and for once House had more puzzles than he could shake a stick at, but at the same time never so desperate for the right solution. All the symptoms contradicted each other. His body was an overactive bag of chemicals, but instead of showing signs of an expected fever, his temperature remained low, much too low for a normal person.
“It could be a form of hypothermia.” Chase put down the medical text he was busy flipping through.
“Which explains everything except that he is still out cold and no amount of heat pads are able to bring up his temperature.” House smacked the board with his cane, making the three younger doctors flinch at the loud noise. “Think, people! What would cause a person to have low body temperature, respiratory stress and slip into a state of deep unresponsiveness without apparent head injury?”
“Drugs or poison. Sodium pentobarbital used in anesthesia could cause a drop of body temperature by about four degrees.” Foreman dropped the test results on the table and crossed his arms.
“Parasitic encephalitis. The worm could also cause an obstruction near the pituitary gland, blocking the release of hormones.” Cameron’s answer reminded House of the case of Wilson’s so-called cousin, and he rubbed his leg to get rid off a small spike of pain.
Chase pulled the pen from his mouth and remembered something he heard recently in a seminar, some big-shot from Scripps Research. “Brain tumor or infection causing a fever near the preoptic area of the hypothalamus.”
“Foreman, go check out Wilson’s apartment. Cameron can do the blood work, check for barbital levels as well as uncoupling protein 2, and do a hormone panel while you are at it. Chase, turn up your charm and see if you can get an MRI on his brain this morning. Lunchtime does not exist until I see some test results. Now get out of here!” Already turning back to write up the possible diagnosis, he missed the three synchronized sets of head shakes/eye rolls from the ducklings as they scrambled for the door of the conference room.
***** Part II