Sick!Kutner's First Challenge Submission! :)
Title: Hard Knock Life (1/2)
Author: rivercrossing2
Rating: PG, for some disturbing subject matter
Word Count: 1,013
Summary: Kutner has a panic attack. Wilson lends advice.
Pairings: None. Kutner+Wilson friendship...a rare thing indeed.
Warnings: Spoilers for Season 5's "Here Kitty"
Disclaimer: Do I sound like David Shore? I hope not, because if I do, this might mean that I have a brain problem!
A/N: Written for sick_kutner's Sick!Kutner/Sick!Wilson Challenge!
Prompt #1: Kutner (or Wilson) begins seeing a therapist specialized in treating doctors and discovers that Wilson (or Kutner) is seeing the same shrink. (I have taken some liberties with the prompt, no offense to the creator as it was a wonderful prompt! In my story Wilson is already seeing a shrink but Kutner isn’t; I couldn’t think of a better way it could work for them both to be seeing the same shrink already and then this idea came to mind.)
Kutner couldn’t remember a time when he’d been this angry before, except if you counted becoming an orphan at six years old and watching everything you knew and loved disappear right in front of your eyes. Back then he’d been so full of rage that he had hated not only the man but the whole world and everything in it, including himself for not having done more.
That however, was twenty-two years ago. Since then he’d managed to put most of his tragic past behind him and move on with his life---and had done so for the most part successfully. Being adopted by the Kutners had played a key role in his long and perilous journey towards healing---as he’d found a family once again, someplace he knew that he belonged. Becoming a doctor had helped tremendously as well---for with each life he saved, he felt as though he were atoning for the two lives that were lost. Ironically, as a doctor he’d also learned that when it came to his patients there were some things that were beyond not only his but everyone’s control (such as bus crashes and amantadine poisoning).
Another lesson he learned was that not only was House the boss, but that being the boss meant that House could do anything he pleased---including making a fool out of not only Kutner, but every single one of his employees whenever he felt like it.
Today apparently Kutner had been the main target, as House had first conned them all into thinking that he had a terrible illness. He had stopped talking suddenly in the middle of a sentence to bend over, looking very pale---as though he were about to be sick. Before anyone had a chance to react, he had turned in Kutner’s direction, proceeding to puke blood all over Kutner’s immaculately clean shirt and white jacket. The “blood” itself had turned out later to be only cranberry juice, yet another one of House’s sick jokes---yet, at the time, Kutner had thought it was real (as had everyone else who had witnessed the truly terrifying scene).
As soon as he had looked down and saw that he was covered with blood, Kutner felt faint---and his head started to spin. As House’s taunting words “do you like cranberry juice” echoed in sickening repetition over and over again in his mind, he felt his legs beginning to buckle, and he knew that if he wanted to hold onto the last of his dignity that he had to get out of there-- and fast.
The longer that House continued to leer at him with his crooked, evil grin, the more light-headed Kutner felt, until he was so dizzy that he could barely see straight. “Hey Kutner, why don’t you go back inside and change your shirt,” Foreman suggested, sounding understanding, much to Kutner’s surprise. (It was as though Foreman could tell that he was inches away from falling, using all of his willpower just to keep standing.)
“Yeah,” he slowly agreed, but it was as though someone else had made the decision for him. “I’ll go do that. I’ll be right back,” he added, and before House could stop him he began to break into a run, making sure that he wouldn’t look back and find the Devil nipping at his heels.
Once he was inside he slowed down, but his heart seemed to think that he was still running, as it was racing at an unusually fast pace. Trying to suppress his alarm, Kutner struggled to catch his breath, but it felt as though he were choking or suffocating to death. A horrifying thought immediately popped into his brain and it caused him to stop in his tracks and gasp out loud: Oh my God, House drugged the juice…
The idea of House wanting to kill him was absolutely absurd, but weirder things had happened and everyone else already thought that House was crazy enough as it was. (Could House really hate him to the point that he’d want to do him harm?) He was probably just being paranoid. After his parents had been killed, Kutner---as a young boy---had feared that the man would come after him too. Even though his adoptive parents had tried time and again to convince him that the man was in jail (and would remain so for a very long time) Kutner had continued to be afraid that someday he too, would meet his parents’ fate.
Now he was afraid that his time had truly come, and the terror ran like electricity throughout his body, shocking the core of his very soul. An overwhelming feeling of nausea overcame him almost immediately, and he knew that the poison must have already spread through his veins. Soon it would eventually paralyze him, after which he would most likely go into shock and then die.
There had to be another explanation for what he was feeling; because even though he knew House did weird things, House wasn’t really crazy. (Kutner was determined to believe this at all costs as his life depended on it. He would continue to believe it even if no one else did; at least, he would hold onto this belief until House was carted off to the loony bin…but until then, he would simply have to try to give House the benefit of the doubt). He didn’t know if House was crazy or not. All he knew for sure was that his stomach was killing him and he knew he had to find a bathroom immediately, or else he would soon be sick all over the floor, and he could not---he would not---allow that to happen. His dignity had suffered more than enough already that day. Yet the more his stomach ached and the more everything spun, Kutner feared he was doomed---but then he remembered that there was at least one bathroom that he knew of on the first floor. Without a moments hesitation he took off running.