Because I haven't in while...
Disintegration
By Angelfirenze
Disclaimer: Shore, Jacobs, Singer, et al., own everything. The lyrics belong to various bands. Also, the poisonous jug of eggnog really did exist. It was disgusting.
Summary: I threw him away like a piece of garbage! I'll have to live with that for the rest of his life--for the rest of mine! The point is that we have to live!
Pairing: House/Cuddy, eventually. *nods*
Rating: R for bounds of angst that have yet to fully materialize...
Notes: There's a wee bit of implied, unrequited House/Cuddy/Wilson in this chapter because I couldn't resist and goddesspharo quite kindly allowed me to reference her awesome fic Five Dates that Lisa Cuddy Never Finished for a scene here. Much, much thanks to her for it. Besides, it's practically CANON now! How could I not? Plus, a mention of a recent plot-point from 'House Training' because of that and because I think Wilson has a little bit to go before I fully forgive him.
...Rock bottom's where we live...
He was hot...too hot, but he was freezing. Theoretically, he understood that he had a dangerous fever and that it had to be brought down but that didn't stop him from screaming when Chase and Wilson tried to put him in that stupid ice bath. Now he knew how his homeless patient felt. He didn't have hydrophobia--well, not technically. A fear of cold water is different from fear of water in and of itself. But it didn't stop him from screaming, from thrashing (mindless, heedless of his bad leg) so much that they had to get people to hold him down. Eventually they gave up and Cuddy ended up doing the same thing for him that she'd done for Alice that night he'd made her cry. He sat there with her and Mom in the shower, crying and damned near unconscious as Cuddy and Mom both held him under the icy spray. He wanted to hate them (no, he didn't--honest), clawed weakly at them, swore and snarled all the things he wanted to say to the one who put him in this position, but he couldn't. Eventually, he got too tired and couldn't move and they wrapped him in towels and blankets, rubbing with renewed vigor to bring the feeling back to his hands and feet and he was given something (a sharp poke of a needle and he knew nothing for a while and it was nice) but that wore off and then everything hurt.
He kept his eyes shut, hoping the throbbing and the shaking would go away. He knew he wasn't shaking on the outside because he couldn't move, just like the hurt wasn't on the outside either. It was all trapped inside him and he didn't know how to get it out. So he just lay there like he had so often and just hurt and hurt. Mom was holding him, he thought, and Lisa was there, too, doing something...but he couldn't think and it hurt.
...I don't know what's worth fighting for or why I have to scream...
John stared and balled his hands into fists as he watched Gregory thrashing and screaming as the water fell down on him. He didn't realize he'd cut his palms until someone was prying his hands apart. He didn't look at them as they swiped something that stung (far less than he deserved, he knew) over what must have been cuts and didn't react as he was led to a chair or some damned thing and made to sit down.
He didn't realize he was crying again until Wilson murmured something in what he vaguely recognized as Hebrew and John glanced at the younger man before his eyes alighted on his own palms. There was dried blood in the cuts his hands had created, with more smeared across his skin.
"You've really done a number on yourself," Wilson sighed, throwing the bloodstained swabs into the wastepaper basket and ripping open new ones. John noticed, then, that he was wearing latex gloves and holding John's right palm open in a firm, but gentle grip.
"I deserve worse," John heard himself say, a pain lancing through him as Wilson paused while cleaning his palm. The younger man frowned and pulled out a sort of squirt bottle before dribbling cold, clean water onto his hand and rinsing the blood away. They were positioned over a small sink and John watched as the stained water swirled down the drain.
"You're not helping him, you know--apologizing all the time. Hating yourself." Wilson was frowning now, his eyes trained firmly on John's cleaner hand. He finished squirting more water and wiped the rest of the blood away before adding gauze and taping a bandage to the hand he held. He seemed to gesture for the other hand before simply giving his head a small shake and reaching for it himself. "How is he going to be able to enjoy what time he has left with you if you won't let either of yourselves learn from what happened before?"
"How can I--?" John started to ask but Wilson cut him off with a terse shake of his head.
"He can't forget. There's no way anyone should ever expect him to. He's not supposed to and neither are you. Trying to forget is what's caused you both to be so miserable in the first place. I didn't say 'forget'. I said learn. You--you screwed up," Wilson looked up from the remaining hand, then, his grip on John's wrist increasing just a fraction. "But it doesn't mean anything for either one of you if you keep harping on it like it happened yesterday."
"Look at him!" John said desperately, his eyes widening as he remembered Gregory's screams. "He can't stand cold water! That's my--"
"Yes! Yes, it is! You're the son of a bitch who did that to him! Who took his power away and his security and told him he was nothing! But you conveniently forget that someone did that to you first! You forget that you're just as much of a victim as he is, even if it kills you to admit it! You took his sense of self because someone took yours first!"
John stared as Wilson let go of his hand momentarily to begin the gesticulating that Greg always seemed to find so funny. "Whoever hurt you--they stole your ability to appreciate connections to other people. Blythe is the only person in the world you've ever confided in and I'm sure that wasn't even a choice you made. You can't sleep alone. You have nightmares and flashbacks, you lash out and don't understand why--you say horrible things to people and hurt them, but if I asked you what they did wrong, you wouldn't be able to give me a valid reason. You have anxiety attacks, you can't figure out for yourself how you're feeling at any given time. Your attachment to Blythe is such that whenever she was away, everything--even your son was a threat! None of this has ever occurred to you because you're too damaged to ever believe it! You and your son are a textbook example of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder! You both have flashbacks--Greg's been having night terrors since he was three years old! You named your son after the people who destroyed your life! You both self-injure! You haven't slept more than three hours since you got here YESTERDAY! You and Greg NEED HELP, JOHN!"
John couldn't breathe. He could feel hands on his shoulders, gripping tightly. "John, listen to me. LISTEN. You think you're the only one who's hurt Greg? I've ignored him all fucking year! I'm an oncologist and my best friend--my brother didn't trust me enough to tell me he had a brain tumor! And I didn't give him any reason to! I threw him away like a piece of garbage! I'll have to live with that for the rest of his life--for the rest of mine! The point is that we have to live!"
John stared as Wilson let go of him and swiped at his eyes with his left arm. "He can't live and we owe it to him to try, ourselves. We've caused him enough pain. Forced him to bear ours. We weren't fair. I..." Wilson turned away and stared at the opposite wall.
"My first wife--I've been married three times. The first two I cheated on because...well, I don't know why. I'm stupid. Anyway, my third cheated on me and it's what I deserved. Anyway, Bonnie and I--we had this dog. He's hers now. House has never met him and I don't want him to. Out of spite, Bonnie named him Hector Does Go Rug. An anagram for Dr. Gregory House--and I let her. I--she hates him just as much as Julie did. They thought Greg took up too much of my time, that he knew I had a wife at home and didn't care. But the truth is, I let him--and Lisa, truth be told...distract me from them. I...didn't...care...about them as much as I do about Greg, about Lisa, about the things we have in common like our jobs. They were just...space fillers...or something."
John is staring at Wilson now, wondering and at the same time dreading where the younger man was going with this revelation of his. "They were replacements for the ones I couldn't have."
John blinked. "Are...you're tellin' me..."
Wilson spun around, his face a strange mix of exhilaration and devastation. "I don't know. I don't know about any of that. I just know that even with Lisa and I...Greg is what holds us together. I'm confident that if I didn't know him, Lisa and I wouldn't have two words to say to each other. Hell, she might have fired me by now, I don't know. I just know that when we're all together, we mock each other endlessly--it's the land of ties and canes and three-inch heels from Hell and we have this thing where Lisa goes on these dates and she hated us at first for interrupting all the time--House started it, of course, but I knew what was going on after that. She blamed us both and then she started calling us because I think she enjoyed the easy out we gave her...one time she made Frank or Fred or Fresco or whatever the hell his name was cry and not five minutes later, she was out with us, eating frozen yogurt. It was brilliant and we made a sideline out of being her personal homewreckers."
Then John watches Wilson sigh in a helpless-seeming fashion. "And I think I--because I know Greg did--enjoyed it, too. I knew what we were going to do, after that first time. I knew and she did, too. We were her knights in shining armor, for once, and I--we loved it."
John listens to Wilson sigh again. "And I'm afraid because I've spent the last year being the worst friend, the worst anything...for Greg and I'm afraid because when he's gone, I'm going to lose Lisa and she'll lose me because it'll hurt too much. Everything we ever did--every joke we ever told. How on Lisa's birthday a couple of weeks ago, Greg and I snuck into her office and played 'Cupid's Chokehold' by Gym Class Heroes on the loudspeaker and..."
And here Wilson begins to laugh and cry at once and John suddenly notices that Wilson's done bandaging both hands and he turns them over flat on the metal table beneath them and looks back at the man now beginning to pace through the small examination room they're in.
"There's a part where the song goes: ...And man, she even cooks me pancakes and Alka-Seltzer when my tummy aches...If that ain't love then I don't know what love is...We even got a secret handshake, she loves the music that my band makes...I know I'm young, but if I had to choose her or the sun, I'd be one nocturnal son of a gun..."
Wilson laughs again and rips the latex gloves off his hands. "I'm the one who makes the pancakes and Greg gets the Alka-Seltzer, but...I always chose them. Both of them--Greg, more...than I ever even thought about my wives. He could call in the middle of dinner, sex, whatever--and I'd just leave. The same for Lisa paging either one of us. Greg used to get into trouble with Stacy because he stays here for days on end, drowning himself in his cases and she wouldn't hear from him for all that time. She hated that. And she hated that he didn't...well, there is no seem. He chose his job over her and wouldn't talk to her for days at a time. He talked to me all the time, though, and she would come to me asking about him because he wouldn't tell her anything. Lisa would page him for a case and suddenly, she didn't exist. But he never cheated on her, so she was just...I think she would have preferred if he'd cheated because then he could claim some sort of excuse. But if there's one thing Greg's never done, it's made excuses. He refuses to and I think that's what she couldn't understand. I never did either and Bonnie, Julie--they wanted a target for their anger. They could excuse Lisa for taking up my time because she's my boss and pays the paychecks that now fuel their alimony--well, Julie's at any rate. Anyway, they couldn't fault Lisa, so they focused on Greg. I'm sure they really hate both because they're my best friends, our lives are in this building. We really don't have to leave, if we try. Our refrigerators here are stocked in ways our own never will be--Greg's should be autoclaved. Last month, I found a carton of eggnog in the back at the apartment that had an expiration date of December sixth of last year. It was so solidified, it got stuck when I tried to pour it down the drain and I had to run the hot water as high it would go before it liquified enough to go down for the garbage disposal. It was absurd. The point is...you don't get to be a Department Head or Dean of Medicine if your aim is to have some sort of life."
...Awake, alone, in a woman's room, I hardly know...
Wilson glowers at him, then, and frowns. "I hated how you used to ask Greg what he'd been doing beside work. Like...like he's too boring for you or something. Even before the infarction, he worked constantly but unlike you, he didn't neglect any family to do it. We're already here. He lives inside his head--the excitement he gets from just thinking about something...from every angle, considering every possibility. Lisa once told him he got high on his ideas and you can't comprehend that, so you make him feel bad for it, as though there's something wrong with the inner workings of his mind. It's why he never tried to explain. You're trying to change that, now, and I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Because you've missed out on knowing this spectacular person for far too long and it makes me mourn for both of you. And for Blythe because she's always been stuck in the middle. But I guess it's how my wives used to feel. I shared things with Greg and Lisa that I never could with my wives. They've never lost patients--they've never laughed because Greg got sued for the hundredth time. They don't know what Paperfest is. They don't know me half as well as these two people. And I don't know them. I call them 'my wives' in plural, like they're all one entity, like they're this chapter in my life that I'd like to rip out. I really should. They should rip me out, too."
...We'll always have each other...When everyone else is gone...
Wilson lowers himself back onto the metal stool he'd occupied earlier and took a deep breath. "Lisa says that Greg and I are like a couple of teenagers when we're together, but she can't talk. We make her petty, apparently. But I'm closer to them than I ever was to anyone else. They feel like home. Seriously, if you ask me what their favorite colors are, I can tell you but My Wives--capital letters are important there--I'd probably have to randomly stab at the rainbow and see what happened. An apology to Lisa means he's playing 'Tangled' by Maroon 5. A surprise is a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia with sprinkles. On the other hand, it took me weeks to notice my wives were angry with me.
"Julie threw my copy of Gray's Anatomy at my head--ironically the one Lisa had bought me for Chrismukkah. I think she convinced herself that Greg bought it so that made it okay to throw. He bought me a silver scalpel and I'm glad she didn't throw that. I can't remember my anniversaries but the ninth of October, 1994, will always stand out for me because I started working here that day. I met Lisa and shook her hand, then I met Greg when he decided that because our offices are next door to each other, he'd come out on the balcony and throw popcorn at me. I still don't know what the significance was, but I know Lisa had a hard time wiping the smile off her face when Greg told her about it. Whatever. Everyone thinks I'm a saint--that Lisa and I are both saints because we continue to 'subject' ourselves to Greg's presence, seemingly of our own free will. I'll be the first to tell you I'm a huge asshole and more often than not he puts up with me. Lisa's a ball-breaker and if you think that's an insult, you don't know her very well. I..."
Wilson took another deep breath and turned to face the window adjacent to where they sat. He balled his fist and made a motion like he was going to punch the glass, but seemed to think better of it. "It's like we're a birdhouse. Lisa's the base and I'm the roof. Greg's the glue holding us together and we're about to fall apart. We're going to break into pieces and there's nothing anyone can do about that--chemotherapy, medication, surgery...more often than not, they mean nothing. And I was so busy being the unsympathetic bastard that everyone paints him to be that I didn't even bother to help him. I'm an oncologist--the fucking Chief here and my own best friend didn't trust me enough to tell me about the mass currently pressing on his parietal lobe. How selfish am I?"
John watches, mesmerized at the sheer emotion in Wilson's voice when talking about Greg and Lisa. He used to lecture Greg on friendship, saying he didn't know what being a friend was. But he was wrong. Again. He wouldn't get this worked up for any of his buddies that he went to fucking war with. He doesn't know a damned thing about them. Not really. So it's a surprise and a shock how upset Wilson is. How much he obviously cares for Greg and Lisa. How much Greg cares for them.
"Maybe...maybe I let my wives think the things I did about Greg because it meant they didn't want anything to do with him. They didn't care to know Lisa--she was just a nameless, faceless Boss--but Greg was tangible. They've heard his voice, they've seen his face. So they thought all these things about him and wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole and I liked it that way because that meant I didn't have to share him with them. He was my friend not ours." Wilson laughs then and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm the youngest of my brothers. Lisa is the oldest of her family. Greg--you obviously know he's an only child. If anyone should be acting like they're entitled to anything, it should be them. But here I was, hoarding them, being a greedy little prick. I didn't want to share him with my wives. Hell, even when he was with Stacy, I only gave her the bare minimum of information and she let me because she liked blaming him. I guess he didn't see the point of caring about it because he's used to being to blame for everything. He saw it as another immutable fact of life, choices be damned. But me? He once said I was a closeted asshole. Never mind being gay, I give new meaning to being in the closet because I'm sweet caring Doctor Wilson with everyone else, but I'm a fucking devil when it comes to those closest to me. Like you, I always thought this was something he was doing to himself. That he was pursuing some kind of high. To hell with a high. Last year, I...and Greg laughs about how it happened to this day...I tripped over the balcony between our offices and fell and fractured my hand. My left hand. I'm left-handed. I was an absolute baby about it. I was put on hydrocodone for the first two weeks and you wouldn't believe the pain I was in when it wore off. And all Greg would do was look at me with this strange expression and refill my prescription. He didn't ask me why I felt I needed the relief. He just...took care of me."
Then Wilson got an indescribably bitter expression on his face. "I, on the other hand, told him how his leg was feeling--how much pain he was in, refused to write him a scrip, and lied to him about a patient he cured that used to be mine. I'm a prideful, deceitful...motherfucking asshole and I don't know why he puts up with me."
Wilson was gripping the edge of the padded table before him so hard John could hear it creak. He was crying now and John didn't think he realized he was. "I left him all alone. I'm just like you, but I'm worse because I put my pride before our friendship. His never occurred to me. He doesn't ask for help. Lisa's right. We don't deserve him. Maybe now we're getting our comeuppance."
...I wipe my feelings off...Make me untouchable for life...
Blythe stroked Greg's hair as he lay motionless in the scrubs she and Lisa had dressed him in. She knew that if he'd been at all coherent, he would have tried to hide his leg from her the way he usually did. She bit her lip and tried not to think of the way he'd sounded in the shower, screaming and crying at the feel of the water hitting his feverish skin. She had held him as hard as she could, crying only after Greg had been sedated into unconsciousness. His fever was gone now, which was the only upside that she could see.
His hair, unruly as always, was soft and fluffy from the toweling she'd given it and she ran her hand through it now. He never let her touch him for very long when he was awake and aware. Most of her knew he didn't avoid her on purpose, that he wasn't trying to push her away...but it was painful, knowing that even as his mother, she couldn't soothe whatever hurts he had. And it hurt even worse to wonder just how many there were, open and bleeding even now. So she relished the fact that he wasn't fighting right now, that he'd allow her to hold him because there wasn't anything else he could do. Sighing and biting her lip, she gently took hold of his torso and wrapped her arms around his, squeezing him in that way he used to like when he was very small. She could feel the tension in his body, even sedated as he was now, and squeezed a little more before kissing the top of his head. He seemed to resist just for a fraction of a second before sliding downward back into the sheets and blankets. She could feel him shaking, still.
...Play it off like stigmata for crossover fans...Some red-handed slight of hand...
"I love you," she whispered, wishing for once in her life that she was what her grandmother had called 'properly religious'. She wondered if it would give her comfort at the moment. Greg called himself a 'third generation agnostic, first generation atheist.' He found it darkly humorous that his mother's family (Jewish, for all intents and purposes, and in name if nothing else) firmly embraced the idea that none of them could say for sure that God existed, but his father's family--all Catholics and devoutly obedient to the end--were a group of people so singularly miserable that from the moment she'd met John, she'd liked nothing better than to take him away from them, show him what love and family were really about. Country, she'd seen time and time again, and so-called duty were secondary to love and being happy with your place in the world and everything in it. She's asked John before what he would have been if he'd never been a Marine. She's never received an answer. Over the years, she came to believe there wasn't one. She thinks that John believes that God meant for him to live the way he has and that doesn't sit well with her. She can't fathom the idea that any supreme being so supposedly loving would have ever wanted her husband or son to suffer in the ways that they have. From the beginning, she's never believed that God had anything to do with the terrible ordeals inflicted upon either of them. But the knowledge that people like Robert or Lisa or James would see her son as someone worth praying for, worth pondering the state of his soul, his body, his sanity...the fact that they feel that close to him, gives her a sort of comfort she cherishes more than she can say. Because she knows he is loved and it makes her indescribably happy.
She laughs a little inside, the very thought bringing tears to her eyes, and she leans forward to kiss his hair again. She can speak Hebrew, though she hasn't in a very long time. She does now, giving his hand another little squeeze and letting go as she feels him slide into sleep.
"Ani ohevet otcha," she whispers and watches his chest rise and fall slowly. She hopes he'll have an amusing dream to comfort him, make him laugh and smile. She hopes he'll sing in his sleep.
...Our Father, who art in Heaven, save me from the wreck I'm about to drown in...
...TBC...
part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six
x-posted to house_cuddy, housefic and my journal
By Angelfirenze
Disclaimer: Shore, Jacobs, Singer, et al., own everything. The lyrics belong to various bands. Also, the poisonous jug of eggnog really did exist. It was disgusting.
Summary: I threw him away like a piece of garbage! I'll have to live with that for the rest of his life--for the rest of mine! The point is that we have to live!
Pairing: House/Cuddy, eventually. *nods*
Rating: R for bounds of angst that have yet to fully materialize...
Notes: There's a wee bit of implied, unrequited House/Cuddy/Wilson in this chapter because I couldn't resist and goddesspharo quite kindly allowed me to reference her awesome fic Five Dates that Lisa Cuddy Never Finished for a scene here. Much, much thanks to her for it. Besides, it's practically CANON now! How could I not? Plus, a mention of a recent plot-point from 'House Training' because of that and because I think Wilson has a little bit to go before I fully forgive him.
...Rock bottom's where we live...
He was hot...too hot, but he was freezing. Theoretically, he understood that he had a dangerous fever and that it had to be brought down but that didn't stop him from screaming when Chase and Wilson tried to put him in that stupid ice bath. Now he knew how his homeless patient felt. He didn't have hydrophobia--well, not technically. A fear of cold water is different from fear of water in and of itself. But it didn't stop him from screaming, from thrashing (mindless, heedless of his bad leg) so much that they had to get people to hold him down. Eventually they gave up and Cuddy ended up doing the same thing for him that she'd done for Alice that night he'd made her cry. He sat there with her and Mom in the shower, crying and damned near unconscious as Cuddy and Mom both held him under the icy spray. He wanted to hate them (no, he didn't--honest), clawed weakly at them, swore and snarled all the things he wanted to say to the one who put him in this position, but he couldn't. Eventually, he got too tired and couldn't move and they wrapped him in towels and blankets, rubbing with renewed vigor to bring the feeling back to his hands and feet and he was given something (a sharp poke of a needle and he knew nothing for a while and it was nice) but that wore off and then everything hurt.
He kept his eyes shut, hoping the throbbing and the shaking would go away. He knew he wasn't shaking on the outside because he couldn't move, just like the hurt wasn't on the outside either. It was all trapped inside him and he didn't know how to get it out. So he just lay there like he had so often and just hurt and hurt. Mom was holding him, he thought, and Lisa was there, too, doing something...but he couldn't think and it hurt.
...I don't know what's worth fighting for or why I have to scream...
John stared and balled his hands into fists as he watched Gregory thrashing and screaming as the water fell down on him. He didn't realize he'd cut his palms until someone was prying his hands apart. He didn't look at them as they swiped something that stung (far less than he deserved, he knew) over what must have been cuts and didn't react as he was led to a chair or some damned thing and made to sit down.
He didn't realize he was crying again until Wilson murmured something in what he vaguely recognized as Hebrew and John glanced at the younger man before his eyes alighted on his own palms. There was dried blood in the cuts his hands had created, with more smeared across his skin.
"You've really done a number on yourself," Wilson sighed, throwing the bloodstained swabs into the wastepaper basket and ripping open new ones. John noticed, then, that he was wearing latex gloves and holding John's right palm open in a firm, but gentle grip.
"I deserve worse," John heard himself say, a pain lancing through him as Wilson paused while cleaning his palm. The younger man frowned and pulled out a sort of squirt bottle before dribbling cold, clean water onto his hand and rinsing the blood away. They were positioned over a small sink and John watched as the stained water swirled down the drain.
"You're not helping him, you know--apologizing all the time. Hating yourself." Wilson was frowning now, his eyes trained firmly on John's cleaner hand. He finished squirting more water and wiped the rest of the blood away before adding gauze and taping a bandage to the hand he held. He seemed to gesture for the other hand before simply giving his head a small shake and reaching for it himself. "How is he going to be able to enjoy what time he has left with you if you won't let either of yourselves learn from what happened before?"
"How can I--?" John started to ask but Wilson cut him off with a terse shake of his head.
"He can't forget. There's no way anyone should ever expect him to. He's not supposed to and neither are you. Trying to forget is what's caused you both to be so miserable in the first place. I didn't say 'forget'. I said learn. You--you screwed up," Wilson looked up from the remaining hand, then, his grip on John's wrist increasing just a fraction. "But it doesn't mean anything for either one of you if you keep harping on it like it happened yesterday."
"Look at him!" John said desperately, his eyes widening as he remembered Gregory's screams. "He can't stand cold water! That's my--"
"Yes! Yes, it is! You're the son of a bitch who did that to him! Who took his power away and his security and told him he was nothing! But you conveniently forget that someone did that to you first! You forget that you're just as much of a victim as he is, even if it kills you to admit it! You took his sense of self because someone took yours first!"
John stared as Wilson let go of his hand momentarily to begin the gesticulating that Greg always seemed to find so funny. "Whoever hurt you--they stole your ability to appreciate connections to other people. Blythe is the only person in the world you've ever confided in and I'm sure that wasn't even a choice you made. You can't sleep alone. You have nightmares and flashbacks, you lash out and don't understand why--you say horrible things to people and hurt them, but if I asked you what they did wrong, you wouldn't be able to give me a valid reason. You have anxiety attacks, you can't figure out for yourself how you're feeling at any given time. Your attachment to Blythe is such that whenever she was away, everything--even your son was a threat! None of this has ever occurred to you because you're too damaged to ever believe it! You and your son are a textbook example of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder! You both have flashbacks--Greg's been having night terrors since he was three years old! You named your son after the people who destroyed your life! You both self-injure! You haven't slept more than three hours since you got here YESTERDAY! You and Greg NEED HELP, JOHN!"
John couldn't breathe. He could feel hands on his shoulders, gripping tightly. "John, listen to me. LISTEN. You think you're the only one who's hurt Greg? I've ignored him all fucking year! I'm an oncologist and my best friend--my brother didn't trust me enough to tell me he had a brain tumor! And I didn't give him any reason to! I threw him away like a piece of garbage! I'll have to live with that for the rest of his life--for the rest of mine! The point is that we have to live!"
John stared as Wilson let go of him and swiped at his eyes with his left arm. "He can't live and we owe it to him to try, ourselves. We've caused him enough pain. Forced him to bear ours. We weren't fair. I..." Wilson turned away and stared at the opposite wall.
"My first wife--I've been married three times. The first two I cheated on because...well, I don't know why. I'm stupid. Anyway, my third cheated on me and it's what I deserved. Anyway, Bonnie and I--we had this dog. He's hers now. House has never met him and I don't want him to. Out of spite, Bonnie named him Hector Does Go Rug. An anagram for Dr. Gregory House--and I let her. I--she hates him just as much as Julie did. They thought Greg took up too much of my time, that he knew I had a wife at home and didn't care. But the truth is, I let him--and Lisa, truth be told...distract me from them. I...didn't...care...about them as much as I do about Greg, about Lisa, about the things we have in common like our jobs. They were just...space fillers...or something."
John is staring at Wilson now, wondering and at the same time dreading where the younger man was going with this revelation of his. "They were replacements for the ones I couldn't have."
John blinked. "Are...you're tellin' me..."
Wilson spun around, his face a strange mix of exhilaration and devastation. "I don't know. I don't know about any of that. I just know that even with Lisa and I...Greg is what holds us together. I'm confident that if I didn't know him, Lisa and I wouldn't have two words to say to each other. Hell, she might have fired me by now, I don't know. I just know that when we're all together, we mock each other endlessly--it's the land of ties and canes and three-inch heels from Hell and we have this thing where Lisa goes on these dates and she hated us at first for interrupting all the time--House started it, of course, but I knew what was going on after that. She blamed us both and then she started calling us because I think she enjoyed the easy out we gave her...one time she made Frank or Fred or Fresco or whatever the hell his name was cry and not five minutes later, she was out with us, eating frozen yogurt. It was brilliant and we made a sideline out of being her personal homewreckers."
Then John watches Wilson sigh in a helpless-seeming fashion. "And I think I--because I know Greg did--enjoyed it, too. I knew what we were going to do, after that first time. I knew and she did, too. We were her knights in shining armor, for once, and I--we loved it."
John listens to Wilson sigh again. "And I'm afraid because I've spent the last year being the worst friend, the worst anything...for Greg and I'm afraid because when he's gone, I'm going to lose Lisa and she'll lose me because it'll hurt too much. Everything we ever did--every joke we ever told. How on Lisa's birthday a couple of weeks ago, Greg and I snuck into her office and played 'Cupid's Chokehold' by Gym Class Heroes on the loudspeaker and..."
And here Wilson begins to laugh and cry at once and John suddenly notices that Wilson's done bandaging both hands and he turns them over flat on the metal table beneath them and looks back at the man now beginning to pace through the small examination room they're in.
"There's a part where the song goes: ...And man, she even cooks me pancakes and Alka-Seltzer when my tummy aches...If that ain't love then I don't know what love is...We even got a secret handshake, she loves the music that my band makes...I know I'm young, but if I had to choose her or the sun, I'd be one nocturnal son of a gun..."
Wilson laughs again and rips the latex gloves off his hands. "I'm the one who makes the pancakes and Greg gets the Alka-Seltzer, but...I always chose them. Both of them--Greg, more...than I ever even thought about my wives. He could call in the middle of dinner, sex, whatever--and I'd just leave. The same for Lisa paging either one of us. Greg used to get into trouble with Stacy because he stays here for days on end, drowning himself in his cases and she wouldn't hear from him for all that time. She hated that. And she hated that he didn't...well, there is no seem. He chose his job over her and wouldn't talk to her for days at a time. He talked to me all the time, though, and she would come to me asking about him because he wouldn't tell her anything. Lisa would page him for a case and suddenly, she didn't exist. But he never cheated on her, so she was just...I think she would have preferred if he'd cheated because then he could claim some sort of excuse. But if there's one thing Greg's never done, it's made excuses. He refuses to and I think that's what she couldn't understand. I never did either and Bonnie, Julie--they wanted a target for their anger. They could excuse Lisa for taking up my time because she's my boss and pays the paychecks that now fuel their alimony--well, Julie's at any rate. Anyway, they couldn't fault Lisa, so they focused on Greg. I'm sure they really hate both because they're my best friends, our lives are in this building. We really don't have to leave, if we try. Our refrigerators here are stocked in ways our own never will be--Greg's should be autoclaved. Last month, I found a carton of eggnog in the back at the apartment that had an expiration date of December sixth of last year. It was so solidified, it got stuck when I tried to pour it down the drain and I had to run the hot water as high it would go before it liquified enough to go down for the garbage disposal. It was absurd. The point is...you don't get to be a Department Head or Dean of Medicine if your aim is to have some sort of life."
...Awake, alone, in a woman's room, I hardly know...
Wilson glowers at him, then, and frowns. "I hated how you used to ask Greg what he'd been doing beside work. Like...like he's too boring for you or something. Even before the infarction, he worked constantly but unlike you, he didn't neglect any family to do it. We're already here. He lives inside his head--the excitement he gets from just thinking about something...from every angle, considering every possibility. Lisa once told him he got high on his ideas and you can't comprehend that, so you make him feel bad for it, as though there's something wrong with the inner workings of his mind. It's why he never tried to explain. You're trying to change that, now, and I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Because you've missed out on knowing this spectacular person for far too long and it makes me mourn for both of you. And for Blythe because she's always been stuck in the middle. But I guess it's how my wives used to feel. I shared things with Greg and Lisa that I never could with my wives. They've never lost patients--they've never laughed because Greg got sued for the hundredth time. They don't know what Paperfest is. They don't know me half as well as these two people. And I don't know them. I call them 'my wives' in plural, like they're all one entity, like they're this chapter in my life that I'd like to rip out. I really should. They should rip me out, too."
...We'll always have each other...When everyone else is gone...
Wilson lowers himself back onto the metal stool he'd occupied earlier and took a deep breath. "Lisa says that Greg and I are like a couple of teenagers when we're together, but she can't talk. We make her petty, apparently. But I'm closer to them than I ever was to anyone else. They feel like home. Seriously, if you ask me what their favorite colors are, I can tell you but My Wives--capital letters are important there--I'd probably have to randomly stab at the rainbow and see what happened. An apology to Lisa means he's playing 'Tangled' by Maroon 5. A surprise is a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia with sprinkles. On the other hand, it took me weeks to notice my wives were angry with me.
"Julie threw my copy of Gray's Anatomy at my head--ironically the one Lisa had bought me for Chrismukkah. I think she convinced herself that Greg bought it so that made it okay to throw. He bought me a silver scalpel and I'm glad she didn't throw that. I can't remember my anniversaries but the ninth of October, 1994, will always stand out for me because I started working here that day. I met Lisa and shook her hand, then I met Greg when he decided that because our offices are next door to each other, he'd come out on the balcony and throw popcorn at me. I still don't know what the significance was, but I know Lisa had a hard time wiping the smile off her face when Greg told her about it. Whatever. Everyone thinks I'm a saint--that Lisa and I are both saints because we continue to 'subject' ourselves to Greg's presence, seemingly of our own free will. I'll be the first to tell you I'm a huge asshole and more often than not he puts up with me. Lisa's a ball-breaker and if you think that's an insult, you don't know her very well. I..."
Wilson took another deep breath and turned to face the window adjacent to where they sat. He balled his fist and made a motion like he was going to punch the glass, but seemed to think better of it. "It's like we're a birdhouse. Lisa's the base and I'm the roof. Greg's the glue holding us together and we're about to fall apart. We're going to break into pieces and there's nothing anyone can do about that--chemotherapy, medication, surgery...more often than not, they mean nothing. And I was so busy being the unsympathetic bastard that everyone paints him to be that I didn't even bother to help him. I'm an oncologist--the fucking Chief here and my own best friend didn't trust me enough to tell me about the mass currently pressing on his parietal lobe. How selfish am I?"
John watches, mesmerized at the sheer emotion in Wilson's voice when talking about Greg and Lisa. He used to lecture Greg on friendship, saying he didn't know what being a friend was. But he was wrong. Again. He wouldn't get this worked up for any of his buddies that he went to fucking war with. He doesn't know a damned thing about them. Not really. So it's a surprise and a shock how upset Wilson is. How much he obviously cares for Greg and Lisa. How much Greg cares for them.
"Maybe...maybe I let my wives think the things I did about Greg because it meant they didn't want anything to do with him. They didn't care to know Lisa--she was just a nameless, faceless Boss--but Greg was tangible. They've heard his voice, they've seen his face. So they thought all these things about him and wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole and I liked it that way because that meant I didn't have to share him with them. He was my friend not ours." Wilson laughs then and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm the youngest of my brothers. Lisa is the oldest of her family. Greg--you obviously know he's an only child. If anyone should be acting like they're entitled to anything, it should be them. But here I was, hoarding them, being a greedy little prick. I didn't want to share him with my wives. Hell, even when he was with Stacy, I only gave her the bare minimum of information and she let me because she liked blaming him. I guess he didn't see the point of caring about it because he's used to being to blame for everything. He saw it as another immutable fact of life, choices be damned. But me? He once said I was a closeted asshole. Never mind being gay, I give new meaning to being in the closet because I'm sweet caring Doctor Wilson with everyone else, but I'm a fucking devil when it comes to those closest to me. Like you, I always thought this was something he was doing to himself. That he was pursuing some kind of high. To hell with a high. Last year, I...and Greg laughs about how it happened to this day...I tripped over the balcony between our offices and fell and fractured my hand. My left hand. I'm left-handed. I was an absolute baby about it. I was put on hydrocodone for the first two weeks and you wouldn't believe the pain I was in when it wore off. And all Greg would do was look at me with this strange expression and refill my prescription. He didn't ask me why I felt I needed the relief. He just...took care of me."
Then Wilson got an indescribably bitter expression on his face. "I, on the other hand, told him how his leg was feeling--how much pain he was in, refused to write him a scrip, and lied to him about a patient he cured that used to be mine. I'm a prideful, deceitful...motherfucking asshole and I don't know why he puts up with me."
Wilson was gripping the edge of the padded table before him so hard John could hear it creak. He was crying now and John didn't think he realized he was. "I left him all alone. I'm just like you, but I'm worse because I put my pride before our friendship. His never occurred to me. He doesn't ask for help. Lisa's right. We don't deserve him. Maybe now we're getting our comeuppance."
...I wipe my feelings off...Make me untouchable for life...
Blythe stroked Greg's hair as he lay motionless in the scrubs she and Lisa had dressed him in. She knew that if he'd been at all coherent, he would have tried to hide his leg from her the way he usually did. She bit her lip and tried not to think of the way he'd sounded in the shower, screaming and crying at the feel of the water hitting his feverish skin. She had held him as hard as she could, crying only after Greg had been sedated into unconsciousness. His fever was gone now, which was the only upside that she could see.
His hair, unruly as always, was soft and fluffy from the toweling she'd given it and she ran her hand through it now. He never let her touch him for very long when he was awake and aware. Most of her knew he didn't avoid her on purpose, that he wasn't trying to push her away...but it was painful, knowing that even as his mother, she couldn't soothe whatever hurts he had. And it hurt even worse to wonder just how many there were, open and bleeding even now. So she relished the fact that he wasn't fighting right now, that he'd allow her to hold him because there wasn't anything else he could do. Sighing and biting her lip, she gently took hold of his torso and wrapped her arms around his, squeezing him in that way he used to like when he was very small. She could feel the tension in his body, even sedated as he was now, and squeezed a little more before kissing the top of his head. He seemed to resist just for a fraction of a second before sliding downward back into the sheets and blankets. She could feel him shaking, still.
...Play it off like stigmata for crossover fans...Some red-handed slight of hand...
"I love you," she whispered, wishing for once in her life that she was what her grandmother had called 'properly religious'. She wondered if it would give her comfort at the moment. Greg called himself a 'third generation agnostic, first generation atheist.' He found it darkly humorous that his mother's family (Jewish, for all intents and purposes, and in name if nothing else) firmly embraced the idea that none of them could say for sure that God existed, but his father's family--all Catholics and devoutly obedient to the end--were a group of people so singularly miserable that from the moment she'd met John, she'd liked nothing better than to take him away from them, show him what love and family were really about. Country, she'd seen time and time again, and so-called duty were secondary to love and being happy with your place in the world and everything in it. She's asked John before what he would have been if he'd never been a Marine. She's never received an answer. Over the years, she came to believe there wasn't one. She thinks that John believes that God meant for him to live the way he has and that doesn't sit well with her. She can't fathom the idea that any supreme being so supposedly loving would have ever wanted her husband or son to suffer in the ways that they have. From the beginning, she's never believed that God had anything to do with the terrible ordeals inflicted upon either of them. But the knowledge that people like Robert or Lisa or James would see her son as someone worth praying for, worth pondering the state of his soul, his body, his sanity...the fact that they feel that close to him, gives her a sort of comfort she cherishes more than she can say. Because she knows he is loved and it makes her indescribably happy.
She laughs a little inside, the very thought bringing tears to her eyes, and she leans forward to kiss his hair again. She can speak Hebrew, though she hasn't in a very long time. She does now, giving his hand another little squeeze and letting go as she feels him slide into sleep.
"Ani ohevet otcha," she whispers and watches his chest rise and fall slowly. She hopes he'll have an amusing dream to comfort him, make him laugh and smile. She hopes he'll sing in his sleep.
...Our Father, who art in Heaven, save me from the wreck I'm about to drown in...
...TBC...
part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six
x-posted to house_cuddy, housefic and my journal