House M.D. Fanfiction: Fell For It
Title: Fell For It
Author: pgrabia
Disclaimer: House M.D., its character’s, locations, and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and Fox Television. All Rights Reserved.
Characters/Pairing: J. Wilson, David Wilson, Tabitha Wilson, G. House; mention of the Senior Wilsons, L Cuddy and L. Douglas; House/Wilson established relationship.
A/N: This story is written as an entry for the Camp Sick!Wilson 2011 Child’s Play challenge. Set during the Memorial Day weekend a year after 6x22: “Help Me.” Beta-ed by the marvelous George Stark II. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fit to read. Check out her House-Wilson fics at Fanfiction.net if you haven’t already.
Genre: AU /hurt!Wilson/drama/fluff.
Spoiler Alert: This story involves spoilers for all seasons of House M.D. up to and including Season 6x22 “Help Me” minus the last horrible five minutes that set up the very disappointing Season Seven. Set in the “Feverishly” universe where Wilson showed up at House’s bathroom, not Cuddy; Sam was kicked to the curb and House agreed to move back into the loft after which a romantic relationship between the two friends evolved.
Word Count: ~2900
Rating: PG-13 for coarse language, and innuendo.
Fell For It
“Uncle James!”
Dr. James Wilson looked up at the sound of his niece’s squeal. The seven-year-old tomboy had hidden from him in the treehouse her father-his older brother David-had built in the huge oak in his backyard. Tabitha had asked her favorite uncle to play hide and seek with her because her older brother Seth told her that hide and seek was for babies and had ridden off on his bike. It had been James’s turn to ‘seek,’ and when he had finished counting to twenty and opened his eyes, he realized that she really had done a good job of disappearing. He’d suspected that she went up the rope ladder to the treehouse 25 feet straight up but had hoped that he was wrong; he had to physically tag her before she would allow him to quit playing and go into the house for a glass of lemonade, which meant he would have to climb that ladder to get to her.
Expecting to see Tabitha peering down at him, Wilson was surprised when he didn’t. He was certain that the girl’s call had come from up there.
David had invited Wilson and their parents to join him and the kids for the Memorial Day weekend. Since David’s wife, Sherri, had passed away suddenly in a car accident six months before, it had been just him and the two kids trying to keep going on as normally as possible without her. The problem was David’s family lived in Billings, Montana, where he had his own legal practice and had built his home, but the entirety of his family-including his parents and James (even Danny in the hospital) lived in the Northeast. Sherri’s family lived in Texas so it really was David, Seth, and Tabitha against the world. That being the case, there had been no way that Wilson was going to turn down the invitation to spend the long weekend with him in Billings.
“Uncle James!” Tabitha called again, only this time it sounded less playful and more distressed. Wilson frowned with concern and turned to look toward the house before turning his face back up at the treehouse. David and their parents were inside the house, in the kitchen, and couldn’t hear her cries. Her voice had definitely come from up there.
“Tabi,” Wilson called in concern. “Are you okay?”
As his life partner, Dr. Gregory House had been invited for the weekend as well; however, House had made it perfectly clear from the moment he’d heard about the invitation that there was no way he was going to ‘haul his crippled ass to militia country to become a limping target for a bunch of homophobic, gun-toting ranchers.’ Wilson had known better than to press the matter even though he had really wanted House to be with him at the family gathering; as far as Wilson was concerned House was just as much a part of his family now as any of his ex-wives had been, and his parents, after a few days to work through their qualms on the matter, had come around to fully embrace Wilson’s relationship with House. Wilson’s mother had assured House that she was fine with the same-sex aspect of their relationship so long as her son was happy and this relationship lasted. House had assured her that he would do everything in his power to keep Wilson happy and to not ‘screw this up.’ One had to have been there to fully appreciate how meaningful the moment had actually been.
“Oww-iee,” the little girl called out in intense pain. “It hurts, Uncle James!” She began to sob pathetically.
Wilson felt his heart sink into his stomach. What on earth could have happened to the child? She had been fine just minutes before. Was it as serious as it sounded?
House would be mocking him for worrying so much over what was likely a sliver in the kid’s foot or a scraped knee. Still, it was, after all, his niece (who had no mother and only his clueless brother to take care of her).
“What hurts, Sweetheart?” he called up, looking at the rope ladder warily. There was a reason why he had faked sick from gym class in grade school every time the activity involved climbing or dealing with heights.
“My tummy!” she cried and then moaned in such a way that it sent a shiver down Wilson’s spine.
Wilson looked desperately back at the house, but his brother and parents were no longer in the window.
“David!” he shouted at the top of his lungs but nobody from within the home appeared to hear him.
“Uncle James!” Tabitha cried out again, the agony in her voice just as intense but the volume was much weaker.
You’re not climbing up there?! Wilson imagined House asking if he were there standing next to him. You’re acrophobic, idiot. You’ll panic and end up falling on your head!
“Shut up, House,” Wilson muttered. He reached for his cell phone to find that he’d left it inside the house. Swallowing hard, Wilson steeled himself before grabbing onto the ladder and beginning to ascend. He trembled from head to toe as he climbed the swaying set of rungs and rope, keeping his eyes up instead of looking down. He had no idea whether or not the ladder was built to hold his weight, but James assumed it was because David would have to climb up to the treehouse to make any repairs or round up his children when it was time to come down and go to bed. Since losing a lot of the extra weight he’d put on over the past few years, James was now not only shorter but also lighter than his brother.
“I’m coming, Tabi!” James called to her, hating that his voice was quavering. “I’m on my way up!”
The girl simply moaned and sobbed in response. Wilson lifted his foot and sought out another rung when it missed and kicked out desperately for a hold-thankfully he still had three points with a hold but it was enough to cause his heart to leap into his throat. He made the mistake of looking down to find the rung and saw that he was about twenty feet above the ground. His head spun and his stomach twisted with nausea.
Quit looking down, James! he told himself angrily, squeezing his eyes shut tightly and forcing himself to ignore the nausea. He faced upward, opened his eyes and continued to climb.
“James!” Wilson heard from below and behind him. It was David’s voice but James was unwilling to look down at him.
“David!” Wilson shouted back, “Tabi is in trouble! Serious stomach pain! Call 911!”
His arms were growing tired and his palms were sweaty and slippery now. Just five more feet, Wilson told himself. Fleetingly he wondered what House was doing just then; the older man was probably sitting in front of the TV eating pizza, drinking a beer and watching a ball game. God, Wilson wished he were with him just then.
“James,” David called, his voice now coming from directly below, “Tabi is down here with me!”
Wilson stopped where he was, uncertain whether David was pulling his leg or not. “David, she’s been calling me from up here!”
“It’s the wireless intercom I put up there to call the kids in for meals and shit,” was his brother’s response. He sounded like he was on the verge of laughing. “She’s been playing a practical joke on you. Tabi, tell him.”
“I gotcha good, Uncle James!” she giggled from below.
“James!” It was Wilson’s mother now. He imagined her standing below, staring up at him disapprovingly with her hands on her hips like she had when he was a kid and he’d been caught sneaking his brussels sprouts into his napkin instead of eating them.
Wilson, feeling like a fool and definitely pissed off at being tricked, forgot momentarily where he was and tried to spin around and look down at the same time. When he remembered that he was hanging twenty feet up on a rope ladder it was too late. The sudden movement along with the swinging ladder, a rush of dizziness, and plain old-fashioned clumsiness caused Wilson to lose first two and then quickly one more of his three holds; he found himself flailing arm and legs in the air, vaguely felt the fall onto the hardened earth below and then was aware of nothing.
__
Wilson woke up to the sound of snoring coming from his left side. His hearing was the first of his five senses to return but the others soon followed in quick succession. There was the whisper of oxygen-enriched moist air passing through a tube which apparently fed into his nose because he could feel its coolness blowing inside his nostrils; he heard a soft, steady beeping that was there but low enough to be non-obtrusive. He smelled what he immediately recognized to be hospital disinfectant and Zest soap and felt the catheter that had been inserted into his urethra as it stung the second he moved an eighth of an inch. There was a soreness in his wrist and the weight of the IV tubing that ran from it to what he knew was a bag hanging on the pole of a regulator pump. Then he felt the pain; it was dull but ever-present in his head, behind his eyes and from his C1 vertebra to his tailbone. From his waist down he felt numb. There was the tiniest bit of feeling, but it was little more than a bit of pressure that gave him the ability to sense the position of his hips and legs in relation to his thorax. His mouth tasted stale and somewhat plastic-like, and when he swallowed his throat hurt like a sonofabitch.
He opened his eyes slowly, but the room around him was very dimly lit and from the lack of any sounds of activity it had to be night. Wilson had already figured out that he was in a hospital room, that he was being given oxygen and that his heart rate was too slow but he wasn’t in danger of dying so it wasn’t much to worry about yet. His brain wasn’t functioning at full speed or else he would have been more concerned over the fact that he couldn’t remember why he was in the hospital or that he had next to no feeling below his waist. When he tried to move his legs he couldn’t, but that also failed to raise a sense of concern or panic. He felt as if he was detached from his body somehow and yet still able to tap into his five senses and observe them in a dispassionate manner. It was incredibly odd, yet peaceful and almost euphoric.
Brain damage, Wilson’s internal voice told him, causing him to giggle; brain damage and morphine, no doubt.
He heard the rustling of material against material and vinyl, an aborted snore, an unintelligible grumble and then unidentified movement. Wilson turned his head slightly and saw House, still looking sleepy with a cowlick sticking up at the crown of his head, rising from a recliner and limping toward his bed. House sat down on the edge and looked down at him with a smirk on his face.
“Climb any good treehouses lately?” the older man asked him quietly.
“You came…to Billings?” Wilson asked hoarsely. He fumbled for the controller to elevate his head but couldn’t find it. House did it for him.
“Well, I couldn’t mock you appropriately all the way from Princeton, could I?” House replied quietly; there was no heart behind his attempt at sarcasm. “The hospital called me to tell me that you had fallen twenty feet onto your head, were comatose, and that you were in surgery for a craniotomy to drain a ten centimeter subdural hematoma. I figured it was worth the risk of running into the yahoos with guns.”
Wilson shook his head then wished he hadn’t. After the world quit spinning and he was through cringing from the pain, he said, “I don’t remember falling. My niece was crying out in pain so I needed to get to her. I started climbing but that’s all I remember. Is Tabi okay?”
“You mean the brat who used an intercom in the treehouse to play a practical joke on you?” House asked him. “The one that was safe in the house with your idiot brother the entire time?”
“Seriously?” Wilson sighed angrily. “Here I thought she’d had a ruptured appendix or something…well, she never intended on me falling.”
“You have acrophobia, moron,” House reminded him, still smirking but there was a slight edge to his voice that hinted at frustration or even fear. “And you’re the clumsiest person I know.”
“Thanks.”
House shook his head at him, frowning now. “You could have died.”
“Obviously I didn’t,” Wilson retorted flippantly. He regretted doing so when he saw the hurt in House’s eyes. “I’m sorry…”
Clasping one of Wilson’s hands in both of his, House told him, “It was the longest flight I’ve ever been on. I’ve been banned from flying with that air carrier just because I was a little impatient.”
“What, you, impatient?” Wilson said in mock-surprise. “Impossible.”
“That’s what I told them but they wouldn’t listen to reason,” House told him, his eyes smiling as he did. “Cuddy sends her best wishes, by the way, and has authorized your sick leave with pay. Lucas must be getting better under the sheets to put her in that good of a mood.”
A chuckle escaped the younger man at that, followed by pain coming from his right side.
“Oh-oww! I broke a rib, didn’t I?”
“Two,” House confirmed, “and fractured another.”
“Perfect.” Wilson pouted a little. Why was it that every time summer rolled around, he became the clumsiest man in America? It was like someone or something was out to get him. The only good thing about getting hurt was that it brought the tenderer, more caring side out of his partner, which was always a rare treat. “How soon can I go home?”
“Your attending said that you have to remain here until the swelling along your spine goes down and it can be confirmed whether or not there is any injury done to the cord itself,” he was informed. “I’m supposedly staying at a hotel just down the road even though I think the last time I was actually in the room was when I dropped off my bag. I don’t want to leave you. The doctors around here probably got their degrees by mail order.”
House sounded derisive and aloof but Wilson knew that was an act to hide his concern and fear.
“I love you, Greg, but you stink and you need a good night’s sleep in a bed instead of a chair,” Wilson told him, smiling. “I’ll still be here in eight hours.”
A grin spread across House’s face. “Fine, I suppose I could afford to lose a couple of layers of man-crud and some shut-eye. Promise me something: that you will not leave this bed except with supervision until I get back. I don’t want you to get dizzy and land on your head again; it’s a whole three feet to the floor, you know.”
Wilson rolled his eyes but nodded anyway. “You know, Greg,” he said as an afterthought, “I can’t help but feel like there’s a malevolent collective intelligence out there that gets a thrill out of seeing me get sick or hurt and that I probably don’t have to leave my bed for something bad to happen.”
“Right,” House responded, shaking his head at him. “I think you need to have another MRI done of your head if you believe that.” The older man kissed him lovingly, lingering for a few seconds before heading back to the hotel.
After House left, Wilson hunkered down in his bed, pulling the blanket up to his ear lobes, his eyes nervously searching the shadowy corners of his room; he could have sworn he heard a snicker followed by a giggle or two coming from the walls. Maybe House was right; he probably should have another MRI done, just to be safe.
~fin~