Believing in Futures; H/W one shot
Title: Believing in Futures
Author: simple__man
Fandom/Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13 for the cursings and foul language
Warning: Spoilers up to 3.21 Family (tiny, small spoilers, but spoilers nevertheless)
Word Count: 3431 words
Summary: Party in House's psyche (mind, hallucinations, dreams, screwed-up life) and you're all invited. No, really, I have no idea how to summarize this. I don't know where it came from. Make it stop looking at me like that.
Author's Note: This is what happens when 1) I haven't written anything in ages, 2) I go on a Stephen King/Jhonen Vasquez/George Carlin binge, 3) I eat ice cream sandwiches and drink cherry limeades, 4) lose my ever-loving mind, 5) listen to Flyleaf's Fully Alive ad infinitum or, y'know, all of the above. Not in my usual style, I don't think, but all the more fun to write because of it.
This is one of those book-challenge stories (grab a book, take a sentence from 10, 20, 30 and so on), and again, I can't remember who I stole it from bc I'm retardated that way, but the book is "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" by George Carlin...and maybe that's all I need to say.
I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
House hates people, everyone knows that. All people; young and old, rich and poor, black and white and red all over. It's obvious, ingrained into his very DNA, shining through in his every word, thought, deed.
Isn't it? Unfortunately, prosecutor, there's too much evidence to the contrary.
Saving lives and all that, muddies the water a bit. Puts his ass on the line too often to just be a puzzle, a game, a cipher. Plays fast and loose with the whole moral/ethical right/wrong dilemmas, though, and maybe he doesn't hate people, but he sure as hell doesn't like them.
That's okay, people don't like him either, and as long as they aren't actively pursuing dirt naps, his interest in them is nil anyway.
Except...he studies them. (people that is) Generally, and sometimes specifically.
Only the interesting ones, the people who don't bore him to tears. The Wilsons and Cuddys and Foremans and Chases and Camerons of the world. The damaged ones, the fucked-up ones. Especially the ones who don't know they're broken, and try to fix him instead of fixing themselves.
He likes that. Not the attempted fixing, the unintentional hypocrisy.
And all the people were screamin'? Remember that? Remember the screamin'?
Every night, it's the same old thing.
Cold, clammy sweat and encroaching terror, a scream that builds in his gut and claws, clamors, scrabbles for purchase and if he doesn't sit up and turn on the light he'll scream and scream and scream until his throat is nothing but raw ground meat and who will hear him when he can't scream anymore, who will find him dead and stinking and rotten and bloated beloved mind and hated body reduced to nothing more than a maggot nursery.
Click.
The lamplight rushes through the tiny room, chasing away the last vestiges of his good old friend, that nightly visitor of unearthly horrors, the nightmare.
Goddamn, my mind is fucked up, he thinks, rubbing a hand over his stubbled cheeks, as if to remind himself that he is a Grown Man, not a child anymore, not young Gregory Greg Greggy sweetie, but House, M.D., Dr. House, House You-Fucking-Ass-Bastard.
Unfortunately, his sleeping mind doesn't give a shit about age, degrees, titles, or lovingly bestowed nicknames. It's a trap, and the bitch of it is that it's a self-made trap, one that he's constructed for himself out of his own twisted, demented imagination, and who better to fuck you up than your very own self?
Every night, it's the same old thing. The dream itself is immaterial; names, dates, places, identities changed to protect the innocent. No, it's not the various and sundry macabre, hateful, vile things that creep inside his subconscious, unconscious mind.
In his dreams, no one can hear him scream.
How the fuck should I know?
Eventually, they'll be able to make simple decisions on their own. To test or not to test, to poke or not to poke, to prod or not to prod, or whatever the hell they're worrying him about this time. This is what he thought in the beginning, but this has not been the case.
He has been lied to.
Three years, or as perilously close as you can get, and still they eyeball him when a decision must be made. The "But Daddy, I CAN'T!" look is how he thinks of it, although not out loud, not even to Wilson, because the whole thing is faintly incestuous anyway (although that probably says more about his own hangups than theirs).
He plays the druggie, the mad scientist, the matchmaker, the stalker, the suicidal maniac, and still they look to him for answers. It really pisses him off. What does he have to do, kill somebody?
Daddy's taking off the training wheels, kiddies, and you little shits had better start pedaling your fine little asses off, or you're gonna come back with more than just skinned knees and snotty noses, and you best believe the Batman/Superman/My Little Pony/Barbie bandaids aren't gonna do a fucking thing.
This is the real world, the real deal, it's not just fun and games anymore, and it's all fun until someone gets hurt and we aren't talking an owie-boo-boo kiss it and make it all better.
Guess what, children, Daddy's not going down alone Daddy's not taking the blame Daddy's got a brand new bag.
Nothing better than shared guilt. Nothing at all.
Fortunately, my cosurvivor was a fantastic-looking woman; a registered nurse who had taken survival courses.
Zombie dreams. Fun. Evil Brenda with a machine-gun leg. House sends a prayer of thanks to the twin gods, Tarantino and Rodriguez. Not that Brenda is his ideal, but hey, you gotta have somebody who knows what the fuck they're doing when sewing up zombie-bestowed wounds.
Besides, chewing on Cuddy's tits had been a rather enjoyable experience. It always was.
He dials the phone, glancing over his shoulder at the alarm clock. 3 a.m., the Bitching Hour.
"What in the name of all that's unholy do you want at this time in the morning?"
"Just to hear your melodious voice, precious."
"Fuck off."
"Language, language. I'm frankly appalled."
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
"Oh, Rhett!" House gushes, letting Wilson's sarcasm flow into his bloodstream like the whatever-it-was that had infected those poor zombie folks in his dream.
Silence reigns, and Wilson may or may not be snoring--he could be jacking off, House thinks with sleepy hopefulness--but he is real and alive and so comfortingly Wilson.
"Bad dream?" No more concern in his voice than usual, and that's good. It's embarrassing, to be this old and still fear the monsters--not the ones under the bed or in the closet but those chewy/bitey/stabby mental monsters that don't go away when the light comes on but stare with unblinking eyes and smile toothytoothymuchtootoothy smiles that aren't smiles and wait and wait and wait for sleep beautiful sleep.
"I hate bacon," House says, seemingly apropos (zombie teeth lovingly caress those pretty, slippery Cuddy intestines chewy quite chewy like bacon chewy that's exactly it bacon) but Wilson is Wilson is Wilson and he laughs and assures House that he does, too, and launches into a eight and a half minute diatribe against the foodstuff that would be very interesting except that House is already
snoring.
"Good night, House," Wilson says fondly, but he doesn't hang up. House dreams of Wilson sleeping, snoring happily in bed beside him.
Who knows what Wilson dreams.
Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables.
"Fuck you."
He can't even remember why he said it (what brought that on? what were you thinking? did you really mean that?) but there it is, those two little words that mean so much, far too much, it means Wilson has won this round and House can't even remember what the silly bastard said to set him off but there you go, there you have it, you can't show weakness, never let 'em see you sweat, don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.
And then Wilson (sweet, kind, good, fine upstanding little Jew boy that he is) retorts, "Maybe when you're older."
Well, if that doesn't just fuck up my entire day, House thinks as his brain cells explode car-bomb style, leaving nothing in their wake but stinking, burning wreckage and the wailing of women.
This is why you never have a battle of half-wits with a person who isn't a complete and utter moron. Surely we learned something from the Stacy debacle? Fall for the stupid ones, because you aren't nearly as smart as you want them to think you are. Should've rode the Cameron train, but that one's left the station and now he's said the words, introduced this alien thought into my fragile little ecosystem, and what the fuck do I say to that?
He ends up turning on his heel and stalking off to lick his wounds in his office.
Embarrassing? Humiliating? Emasculating? Irritating? All these things and more, that's what Christmas means to me, my love, but he said it he said the words there were words that were said when he said them and there was hearing and interpreting and he said what he said when he said it and oh my fucking crap gods in hell.
Wilson brings him lunch in one of those spiffy hinged styrofoam plate things. Nothing more is said on the subject.
I'm starting to get more compassionate. I gotta watch that.
Sometimes, and it isn't very often, just sometimes, he feels the creep creep creep of compassion, a stalking lioness of pride and hope and love and joy and all of those things that he can't afford to have chewing on his guts.
He has a job to do. He can do this job much better without those pesky little things that people are always trying to make him have (i.e. feelings, emotions, guilt, moral dilemmas, scruples, second thoughts, crises of conscience, and the ever-encroaching tendrils of compassion).
Not that he doesn't have these things. He does, oh how he does, and if it seems that he fights them with gladiator-style larger-than-life fury it is only because he has a greater than average incidence of occurrence and recurrence and he just can't seem to get rid of the little cloying fucks no matter how hard he tries.
No one knows (maybe some guess) what the Vicodin and alcohol and morphine and mindfucks and silly games and children's toys and revenge sweet revenge and porn lesbian and otherwise and bad movies and novels comics nonfiction medical journals dictionaries magazines girly and otherwise encyclopedias true crime horror fantasy scifi are actually keeping at bay.
Not the nightmares, that's for fucking sure.
One time, I had a few friends over and we played cards all night.
He thinks that he must be the only pushing-fifty pussy in existence to ever wake up screaming from a dream about poker night.
He lets his mind ruminate on that thought (arguing with Wilson in the street, another glimpse into the sad pathetic fucked up waste of breathing air that is Gregory House, almost lost him that time, kiddo) as he limp limp limp stumble stagger limps to the bathroom.
Takes a piss, takes a drink of water, takes stock of his deteriorating looks (they weren't ever very much to begin with it), takes the long walk back to bed.
Can't figure out what's more disturbing, the idea that he's the only person in ever-so-many years to have this dream since the world scratch that poker began, or that there might be someone else with the same landmine psyche.
Somehow, it's Wilson's fault. It's always Wilson's fault.
One particularly awful night, he stayed awake watching old John Wayne movies and cataloguing every mistake of his life. He had a chart (mental, but now he wishes he'd drawn it out) and there were lines and there might have been a graph of some type, but somehow it all proved that everything in his life that had ever gone wrong had either begun or ended with James Wilson.
If he digs deep enough, he'll probably find it. No thanks, it's not worth risking. Dip a toe into that tar pit, Greg my boy, and you might not get your toe back. Or, you might disturb something best left undisturbed. (as if in example, the image of a disembodied corpse-gray arm bubbling to the top of a rather impressive tar pit--would it do that, would it bubble--accosts him and he makes a grab for the phone).
"Hey, beautiful."
"Go to hell and die."
"I dreamt about you."
"I hope Dream-Me was sleeping. Lucky him."
"Dream-You was playing poker."
"If you want me to come over and keep you company, just ask."
That's because, in yet another stunning attempt to stand reality on its head, cripples have been assigned a new designation, the physically challenged.
There is nothing in life that is too horrible that sex can't fix.
Except, y'know, horrible sex.
Not that he thinks Wilson is capable of horrible sex. That's just the point. He knows that he (himself) is.
And there it is, marquee-scrolling across his brain, every fear of inadequacy that has ever shaken him down to his very core,
back to when he was a nerdy, repressed teenager (oh, believe it),
back to when he was a twentysomething antisocial asshole (not that this has changed),
back to when both legs were still ship-shape and even then, he wasn't any great shakes in the sack (oh Greg that's it that's it that's exactly it, the faking lying slut whore bitch),
back before Internet porn was there to show him just how unimaginative and uncoordinated he really is/was/will be (he could do that, really he could, but he's old and crippled and repressed-still-repressed no matter what he says or does or thinks about all day long and fuck it's just not fair).
So there will be no sex-having. Or, if there is, he won't be initiating it.
That way, if it sucks, then it's Wilson's fault. Right?
Doesn't that sound like a plan? Wilson's fault, and until then, he can still flirt, and tease, and wish, and hope, and pray, and jack off into his hand at night and sleep and dream and wake up screaming covered in sweat heart head cock pounding agonizing shooting pains in his leg (heart? head? cock?).
Then he can call Wilson.
"We're trying to get to the bottom of this, so we can get the facts out to the American people."
In many ways, Wilson is a lot like House. I won't bore you with exactly how, I'm really just trying to make a point about one particular way in which he is.
You see, where I am intrigued with many people many puzzles and will follow them down the yellow brick road until they get boring boring much too boring, Wilson is only intrigued with one person one puzzle but he hasn't gotten bored yet.
He will, though. It's only a matter of time. Everyone gets bored, eventually. (with me)
He's close, so close to figuring me out, though, he's right on my heels and breathing down my neck and he'll be on top of me soon. Nice imagery, there, but I'm thinking less in the rape in a dark alley way and more in the detective (driven by obsession) about to nab the villain sort of way.
Not that there's anything wrong with the whole rape in a dark alley scenario.
Wilson will have his answer soon enough, I'm really not that strong, I can't hold out forever, he'll look into my eyes with that soul-flushing (toilet humor, no more sins staining the rim of that bowl, look at that sparkling fresh soul!) or maybe I mean soul-baring (soul-healing, soul-stealing, soulful, at any rate) look of his and I'm finished, done, finito, caput, stick a fork in my ass I'm done.
It's only a matter of time. And motive. He'll have to want to do it, of course, and maybe he doesn't, but I wouldn't fear it if it wasn't there.
And then, no more puzzle. No more, what is House thinking? What is House doing? What is House all about? No more mystery.
Everyone gets bored, eventually. (with me. especially me. and how can mad can i get, really, how much can i ask him to put up with, how much can he take, i get bored with me, i can't stand myself, how did i get along without him, how will it be once he's gone.)
It's a puzzle, a game, a cipher, a mystery. (to me) That's how I know we're fucked.
By the way, when those deselected people begin to look for new jobs, they won't have to be bothered reading the want ads.
Foreman's put in his notice. That, ladies and gentleman, is what we call a twist. A curve-ball. A...fuck it, where's Wilson.
"Great work there, killer."
"Shut up, I need more food and less lip out of you."
"Yes, dear, I'll get right on that."
Chewing in mostly-silence, except, y'know, for the chewing. He doesn't know what the hell he's eating, and can't raise up enough ass within himself to care. (parental Southernisms rise from the grave of his childhood at the most fucked-up strange times)
"It's not my fault."
"Of course it isn't. It never is."
More chewing. Wilson chews cutely. How disgusting.
"It's good for him. Time to march to the beat of his own drummer, get a new attitude, put on his dancing shoes..."
"You're rambling, and we all know what that means."
Damn him for a damned thing, always getting in there, past all the off-putting things that never ever ever seem to put him off.
"I'm not guilty. I don't feel guilty. I'm trying to teach them things. Important things. Isn't that my job? Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"
"Mmhmm. Guilty as homemade sin."
"You're henceforth grounded from talking to my parents."
"Go talk to him. With words of compassion. Dredge them up from the vicinity of your bowels, that's probably where you're hiding them."
House doesn't finish the thought for Wilson, 'because you're so full of shit'. He doesn't have to.
Besides, Wilson's still holed up in Cuddy's office, probably trying to sort out this whole mess. It's for House's own good, he'll say, and Cuddy will nod and all the while she doesn't give a shit about Foreman or House or dying/not dying people, she just wants in Wilson's starched ironed nicely creased pants.
Oh well, hypotheticalWilson chews almost as cutely as the real thing.
I will say, though, it was a lot more fun when you were really fucked up and couldn't remember anything.
"What the...what the fuck?" that old creepy, crawly feeling again, tendrils of compassion tentacles of guilt and what the fuck is going on here i'm not alone i'm not alone oh my gods of fuck i'm not alone.
"Why is there yelling? Don't turn on the light yet, you'll blind me."
"Wilson?" Tries not to sound pathetically grateful, hey you aren't a monster but we'd better be sure turn on the light before those brown eyes (like tar) suck me in...
"You were expecting maybe?" Dry dry dry, love that sarcasm, love that voice, love that Wilson. Don't know how I got here, don't remember what led up to this, don't know how or why or what but thank god thank God thank gods Allah Buddha Criminy Christ thank you so fucking much.
"Bad dream." By way of explanation. Apparently it's enough, as there are strong arms and soft words and yet somehow it doesn't feel as gay (awkward awkward awkward) as he thought it would.
After a while, he does extricate himself because he has a reputation to maintain and better cut those lights on just to make sure this isn't another brain hiccup okay let's just be honest hallucination.
Frowning Jimmy-brows and burrowing under the pillows muttering 'asshole' but their eyes adjust and fasten on each other and this is exactly what I always wanted how did you know and look it fits just right.
Wilson holds out his arms, and House is folded into that (loving, is it loving, have we progressed already to loving?) embrace and the lights are off and there is something going on that might be called snuggling, might be called cuddling, but if I told you I'd have to kill you so just take it as a read.
Fuck it. If this is a hallucination, it's the best one House has ever had. Maybe tomorrow he'll figure out (of course he will, it's a mysterious anomaly, he likes those) how the fuck he got here, how Wilson got here, how to get Foreman (Chase Cameron Cuddy Wilson especially Wilson) to stay and never go, how to hang onto this strange and tenuous thing that he doesn't want to call love.
Until then, he's got some sleeping to do. He turns his head into Wilson's neck and breathes deep, nuzzles in as close as he can, asleep before his eyes are even closed. He dreams of sleeping in Wilson's arms.
(who knows what Wilson dreams)
Author: simple__man
Fandom/Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13 for the cursings and foul language
Warning: Spoilers up to 3.21 Family (tiny, small spoilers, but spoilers nevertheless)
Word Count: 3431 words
Summary: Party in House's psyche (mind, hallucinations, dreams, screwed-up life) and you're all invited. No, really, I have no idea how to summarize this. I don't know where it came from. Make it stop looking at me like that.
Author's Note: This is what happens when 1) I haven't written anything in ages, 2) I go on a Stephen King/Jhonen Vasquez/George Carlin binge, 3) I eat ice cream sandwiches and drink cherry limeades, 4) lose my ever-loving mind, 5) listen to Flyleaf's Fully Alive ad infinitum or, y'know, all of the above. Not in my usual style, I don't think, but all the more fun to write because of it.
This is one of those book-challenge stories (grab a book, take a sentence from 10, 20, 30 and so on), and again, I can't remember who I stole it from bc I'm retardated that way, but the book is "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" by George Carlin...and maybe that's all I need to say.
I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
House hates people, everyone knows that. All people; young and old, rich and poor, black and white and red all over. It's obvious, ingrained into his very DNA, shining through in his every word, thought, deed.
Isn't it? Unfortunately, prosecutor, there's too much evidence to the contrary.
Saving lives and all that, muddies the water a bit. Puts his ass on the line too often to just be a puzzle, a game, a cipher. Plays fast and loose with the whole moral/ethical right/wrong dilemmas, though, and maybe he doesn't hate people, but he sure as hell doesn't like them.
That's okay, people don't like him either, and as long as they aren't actively pursuing dirt naps, his interest in them is nil anyway.
Except...he studies them. (people that is) Generally, and sometimes specifically.
Only the interesting ones, the people who don't bore him to tears. The Wilsons and Cuddys and Foremans and Chases and Camerons of the world. The damaged ones, the fucked-up ones. Especially the ones who don't know they're broken, and try to fix him instead of fixing themselves.
He likes that. Not the attempted fixing, the unintentional hypocrisy.
And all the people were screamin'? Remember that? Remember the screamin'?
Every night, it's the same old thing.
Cold, clammy sweat and encroaching terror, a scream that builds in his gut and claws, clamors, scrabbles for purchase and if he doesn't sit up and turn on the light he'll scream and scream and scream until his throat is nothing but raw ground meat and who will hear him when he can't scream anymore, who will find him dead and stinking and rotten and bloated beloved mind and hated body reduced to nothing more than a maggot nursery.
Click.
The lamplight rushes through the tiny room, chasing away the last vestiges of his good old friend, that nightly visitor of unearthly horrors, the nightmare.
Goddamn, my mind is fucked up, he thinks, rubbing a hand over his stubbled cheeks, as if to remind himself that he is a Grown Man, not a child anymore, not young Gregory Greg Greggy sweetie, but House, M.D., Dr. House, House You-Fucking-Ass-Bastard.
Unfortunately, his sleeping mind doesn't give a shit about age, degrees, titles, or lovingly bestowed nicknames. It's a trap, and the bitch of it is that it's a self-made trap, one that he's constructed for himself out of his own twisted, demented imagination, and who better to fuck you up than your very own self?
Every night, it's the same old thing. The dream itself is immaterial; names, dates, places, identities changed to protect the innocent. No, it's not the various and sundry macabre, hateful, vile things that creep inside his subconscious, unconscious mind.
In his dreams, no one can hear him scream.
How the fuck should I know?
Eventually, they'll be able to make simple decisions on their own. To test or not to test, to poke or not to poke, to prod or not to prod, or whatever the hell they're worrying him about this time. This is what he thought in the beginning, but this has not been the case.
He has been lied to.
Three years, or as perilously close as you can get, and still they eyeball him when a decision must be made. The "But Daddy, I CAN'T!" look is how he thinks of it, although not out loud, not even to Wilson, because the whole thing is faintly incestuous anyway (although that probably says more about his own hangups than theirs).
He plays the druggie, the mad scientist, the matchmaker, the stalker, the suicidal maniac, and still they look to him for answers. It really pisses him off. What does he have to do, kill somebody?
Daddy's taking off the training wheels, kiddies, and you little shits had better start pedaling your fine little asses off, or you're gonna come back with more than just skinned knees and snotty noses, and you best believe the Batman/Superman/My Little Pony/Barbie bandaids aren't gonna do a fucking thing.
This is the real world, the real deal, it's not just fun and games anymore, and it's all fun until someone gets hurt and we aren't talking an owie-boo-boo kiss it and make it all better.
Guess what, children, Daddy's not going down alone Daddy's not taking the blame Daddy's got a brand new bag.
Nothing better than shared guilt. Nothing at all.
Fortunately, my cosurvivor was a fantastic-looking woman; a registered nurse who had taken survival courses.
Zombie dreams. Fun. Evil Brenda with a machine-gun leg. House sends a prayer of thanks to the twin gods, Tarantino and Rodriguez. Not that Brenda is his ideal, but hey, you gotta have somebody who knows what the fuck they're doing when sewing up zombie-bestowed wounds.
Besides, chewing on Cuddy's tits had been a rather enjoyable experience. It always was.
He dials the phone, glancing over his shoulder at the alarm clock. 3 a.m., the Bitching Hour.
"What in the name of all that's unholy do you want at this time in the morning?"
"Just to hear your melodious voice, precious."
"Fuck off."
"Language, language. I'm frankly appalled."
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
"Oh, Rhett!" House gushes, letting Wilson's sarcasm flow into his bloodstream like the whatever-it-was that had infected those poor zombie folks in his dream.
Silence reigns, and Wilson may or may not be snoring--he could be jacking off, House thinks with sleepy hopefulness--but he is real and alive and so comfortingly Wilson.
"Bad dream?" No more concern in his voice than usual, and that's good. It's embarrassing, to be this old and still fear the monsters--not the ones under the bed or in the closet but those chewy/bitey/stabby mental monsters that don't go away when the light comes on but stare with unblinking eyes and smile toothytoothymuchtootoothy smiles that aren't smiles and wait and wait and wait for sleep beautiful sleep.
"I hate bacon," House says, seemingly apropos (zombie teeth lovingly caress those pretty, slippery Cuddy intestines chewy quite chewy like bacon chewy that's exactly it bacon) but Wilson is Wilson is Wilson and he laughs and assures House that he does, too, and launches into a eight and a half minute diatribe against the foodstuff that would be very interesting except that House is already
snoring.
"Good night, House," Wilson says fondly, but he doesn't hang up. House dreams of Wilson sleeping, snoring happily in bed beside him.
Who knows what Wilson dreams.
Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables.
"Fuck you."
He can't even remember why he said it (what brought that on? what were you thinking? did you really mean that?) but there it is, those two little words that mean so much, far too much, it means Wilson has won this round and House can't even remember what the silly bastard said to set him off but there you go, there you have it, you can't show weakness, never let 'em see you sweat, don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.
And then Wilson (sweet, kind, good, fine upstanding little Jew boy that he is) retorts, "Maybe when you're older."
Well, if that doesn't just fuck up my entire day, House thinks as his brain cells explode car-bomb style, leaving nothing in their wake but stinking, burning wreckage and the wailing of women.
This is why you never have a battle of half-wits with a person who isn't a complete and utter moron. Surely we learned something from the Stacy debacle? Fall for the stupid ones, because you aren't nearly as smart as you want them to think you are. Should've rode the Cameron train, but that one's left the station and now he's said the words, introduced this alien thought into my fragile little ecosystem, and what the fuck do I say to that?
He ends up turning on his heel and stalking off to lick his wounds in his office.
Embarrassing? Humiliating? Emasculating? Irritating? All these things and more, that's what Christmas means to me, my love, but he said it he said the words there were words that were said when he said them and there was hearing and interpreting and he said what he said when he said it and oh my fucking crap gods in hell.
Wilson brings him lunch in one of those spiffy hinged styrofoam plate things. Nothing more is said on the subject.
I'm starting to get more compassionate. I gotta watch that.
Sometimes, and it isn't very often, just sometimes, he feels the creep creep creep of compassion, a stalking lioness of pride and hope and love and joy and all of those things that he can't afford to have chewing on his guts.
He has a job to do. He can do this job much better without those pesky little things that people are always trying to make him have (i.e. feelings, emotions, guilt, moral dilemmas, scruples, second thoughts, crises of conscience, and the ever-encroaching tendrils of compassion).
Not that he doesn't have these things. He does, oh how he does, and if it seems that he fights them with gladiator-style larger-than-life fury it is only because he has a greater than average incidence of occurrence and recurrence and he just can't seem to get rid of the little cloying fucks no matter how hard he tries.
No one knows (maybe some guess) what the Vicodin and alcohol and morphine and mindfucks and silly games and children's toys and revenge sweet revenge and porn lesbian and otherwise and bad movies and novels comics nonfiction medical journals dictionaries magazines girly and otherwise encyclopedias true crime horror fantasy scifi are actually keeping at bay.
Not the nightmares, that's for fucking sure.
One time, I had a few friends over and we played cards all night.
He thinks that he must be the only pushing-fifty pussy in existence to ever wake up screaming from a dream about poker night.
He lets his mind ruminate on that thought (arguing with Wilson in the street, another glimpse into the sad pathetic fucked up waste of breathing air that is Gregory House, almost lost him that time, kiddo) as he limp limp limp stumble stagger limps to the bathroom.
Takes a piss, takes a drink of water, takes stock of his deteriorating looks (they weren't ever very much to begin with it), takes the long walk back to bed.
Can't figure out what's more disturbing, the idea that he's the only person in ever-so-many years to have this dream since the world scratch that poker began, or that there might be someone else with the same landmine psyche.
Somehow, it's Wilson's fault. It's always Wilson's fault.
One particularly awful night, he stayed awake watching old John Wayne movies and cataloguing every mistake of his life. He had a chart (mental, but now he wishes he'd drawn it out) and there were lines and there might have been a graph of some type, but somehow it all proved that everything in his life that had ever gone wrong had either begun or ended with James Wilson.
If he digs deep enough, he'll probably find it. No thanks, it's not worth risking. Dip a toe into that tar pit, Greg my boy, and you might not get your toe back. Or, you might disturb something best left undisturbed. (as if in example, the image of a disembodied corpse-gray arm bubbling to the top of a rather impressive tar pit--would it do that, would it bubble--accosts him and he makes a grab for the phone).
"Hey, beautiful."
"Go to hell and die."
"I dreamt about you."
"I hope Dream-Me was sleeping. Lucky him."
"Dream-You was playing poker."
"If you want me to come over and keep you company, just ask."
That's because, in yet another stunning attempt to stand reality on its head, cripples have been assigned a new designation, the physically challenged.
There is nothing in life that is too horrible that sex can't fix.
Except, y'know, horrible sex.
Not that he thinks Wilson is capable of horrible sex. That's just the point. He knows that he (himself) is.
And there it is, marquee-scrolling across his brain, every fear of inadequacy that has ever shaken him down to his very core,
back to when he was a nerdy, repressed teenager (oh, believe it),
back to when he was a twentysomething antisocial asshole (not that this has changed),
back to when both legs were still ship-shape and even then, he wasn't any great shakes in the sack (oh Greg that's it that's it that's exactly it, the faking lying slut whore bitch),
back before Internet porn was there to show him just how unimaginative and uncoordinated he really is/was/will be (he could do that, really he could, but he's old and crippled and repressed-still-repressed no matter what he says or does or thinks about all day long and fuck it's just not fair).
So there will be no sex-having. Or, if there is, he won't be initiating it.
That way, if it sucks, then it's Wilson's fault. Right?
Doesn't that sound like a plan? Wilson's fault, and until then, he can still flirt, and tease, and wish, and hope, and pray, and jack off into his hand at night and sleep and dream and wake up screaming covered in sweat heart head cock pounding agonizing shooting pains in his leg (heart? head? cock?).
Then he can call Wilson.
"We're trying to get to the bottom of this, so we can get the facts out to the American people."
In many ways, Wilson is a lot like House. I won't bore you with exactly how, I'm really just trying to make a point about one particular way in which he is.
You see, where I am intrigued with many people many puzzles and will follow them down the yellow brick road until they get boring boring much too boring, Wilson is only intrigued with one person one puzzle but he hasn't gotten bored yet.
He will, though. It's only a matter of time. Everyone gets bored, eventually. (with me)
He's close, so close to figuring me out, though, he's right on my heels and breathing down my neck and he'll be on top of me soon. Nice imagery, there, but I'm thinking less in the rape in a dark alley way and more in the detective (driven by obsession) about to nab the villain sort of way.
Not that there's anything wrong with the whole rape in a dark alley scenario.
Wilson will have his answer soon enough, I'm really not that strong, I can't hold out forever, he'll look into my eyes with that soul-flushing (toilet humor, no more sins staining the rim of that bowl, look at that sparkling fresh soul!) or maybe I mean soul-baring (soul-healing, soul-stealing, soulful, at any rate) look of his and I'm finished, done, finito, caput, stick a fork in my ass I'm done.
It's only a matter of time. And motive. He'll have to want to do it, of course, and maybe he doesn't, but I wouldn't fear it if it wasn't there.
And then, no more puzzle. No more, what is House thinking? What is House doing? What is House all about? No more mystery.
Everyone gets bored, eventually. (with me. especially me. and how can mad can i get, really, how much can i ask him to put up with, how much can he take, i get bored with me, i can't stand myself, how did i get along without him, how will it be once he's gone.)
It's a puzzle, a game, a cipher, a mystery. (to me) That's how I know we're fucked.
By the way, when those deselected people begin to look for new jobs, they won't have to be bothered reading the want ads.
Foreman's put in his notice. That, ladies and gentleman, is what we call a twist. A curve-ball. A...fuck it, where's Wilson.
"Great work there, killer."
"Shut up, I need more food and less lip out of you."
"Yes, dear, I'll get right on that."
Chewing in mostly-silence, except, y'know, for the chewing. He doesn't know what the hell he's eating, and can't raise up enough ass within himself to care. (parental Southernisms rise from the grave of his childhood at the most fucked-up strange times)
"It's not my fault."
"Of course it isn't. It never is."
More chewing. Wilson chews cutely. How disgusting.
"It's good for him. Time to march to the beat of his own drummer, get a new attitude, put on his dancing shoes..."
"You're rambling, and we all know what that means."
Damn him for a damned thing, always getting in there, past all the off-putting things that never ever ever seem to put him off.
"I'm not guilty. I don't feel guilty. I'm trying to teach them things. Important things. Isn't that my job? Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"
"Mmhmm. Guilty as homemade sin."
"You're henceforth grounded from talking to my parents."
"Go talk to him. With words of compassion. Dredge them up from the vicinity of your bowels, that's probably where you're hiding them."
House doesn't finish the thought for Wilson, 'because you're so full of shit'. He doesn't have to.
Besides, Wilson's still holed up in Cuddy's office, probably trying to sort out this whole mess. It's for House's own good, he'll say, and Cuddy will nod and all the while she doesn't give a shit about Foreman or House or dying/not dying people, she just wants in Wilson's starched ironed nicely creased pants.
Oh well, hypotheticalWilson chews almost as cutely as the real thing.
I will say, though, it was a lot more fun when you were really fucked up and couldn't remember anything.
"What the...what the fuck?" that old creepy, crawly feeling again, tendrils of compassion tentacles of guilt and what the fuck is going on here i'm not alone i'm not alone oh my gods of fuck i'm not alone.
"Why is there yelling? Don't turn on the light yet, you'll blind me."
"Wilson?" Tries not to sound pathetically grateful, hey you aren't a monster but we'd better be sure turn on the light before those brown eyes (like tar) suck me in...
"You were expecting maybe?" Dry dry dry, love that sarcasm, love that voice, love that Wilson. Don't know how I got here, don't remember what led up to this, don't know how or why or what but thank god thank God thank gods Allah Buddha Criminy Christ thank you so fucking much.
"Bad dream." By way of explanation. Apparently it's enough, as there are strong arms and soft words and yet somehow it doesn't feel as gay (awkward awkward awkward) as he thought it would.
After a while, he does extricate himself because he has a reputation to maintain and better cut those lights on just to make sure this isn't another brain hiccup okay let's just be honest hallucination.
Frowning Jimmy-brows and burrowing under the pillows muttering 'asshole' but their eyes adjust and fasten on each other and this is exactly what I always wanted how did you know and look it fits just right.
Wilson holds out his arms, and House is folded into that (loving, is it loving, have we progressed already to loving?) embrace and the lights are off and there is something going on that might be called snuggling, might be called cuddling, but if I told you I'd have to kill you so just take it as a read.
Fuck it. If this is a hallucination, it's the best one House has ever had. Maybe tomorrow he'll figure out (of course he will, it's a mysterious anomaly, he likes those) how the fuck he got here, how Wilson got here, how to get Foreman (Chase Cameron Cuddy Wilson especially Wilson) to stay and never go, how to hang onto this strange and tenuous thing that he doesn't want to call love.
Until then, he's got some sleeping to do. He turns his head into Wilson's neck and breathes deep, nuzzles in as close as he can, asleep before his eyes are even closed. He dreams of sleeping in Wilson's arms.
(who knows what Wilson dreams)