Edge of Chaos (15.7/15)
Title: Edge of Chaos, Chapter Fifteen (Part Seven)
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: House, Cuddy, Wilson -- friendship between the three, maybe some Huddy if you squint. This chapter also features some Foreman and Thirteen.
Summary: House wakes up from the deep brain stimulation to a life without Wilson. Now, as House's life begins to falls into chaos, he searches for meaning, forgiveness, and friendship. House/Cuddy, Wilson/Cuddy, and House/Wilson friendships
Previous Chapters: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three (Part One), Chapter Three (Part Two), Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven (Part One), Chapter Seven (Part Two), Chapter Eight (Part One), Chapter Eight (Part Two), Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten (Part One), Chapter Ten (Part Two), Chapter Ten (Part Three), Chapter Ten (Part Four), Chapter Eleven (Part One), Chapter Eleven (Part Two), Chapter Eleven (Part Three), Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen (Part One), Chapter Thirteen (Part Two), Chapter Fourteen (Part One), Chapter Fourteen (Part Two), Chapter Fourteen (Part Three), Chapter Fourteen (Part Four), Chapter Fifteen (Part One), Chapter Fifteen (Part Two), Chapter Fifteen (Part Three), Chapter Fifteen (Part Four), Chapter Fifteen (Part Five), Chapter Fifteen (Part Six)
Disclaimer: I don't own the show!
Author's Note: Spoilers for "Wilson's Heart." Some chapters are split into parts because of Livejournal's character/word limit.
Once more, Wilson shook his head. “You asked me to come here so I could tell him everything I needed to say.”
“And in return, you need to hear him out,” she reminded him. “You need to listen to him, or else there’s no reason for him to listen to you.”
Wilson narrowed his eyes on her, almost as though he couldn’t possibly consider what she was trying to tell him. In the back of his mind, curious, House tried to remember the last time Wilson had been too furious to even consider what was going on around him. And almost immediately, another memory from the past washed over House.
This one was much more recent than the recollection involving his mother, but it still felt like a lifetime ago. Wilson had been in the process of realizing his third marriage was a failure; he’d been living with House, and at the time, House had been trying to solve a case involving…
Heart failure?
Something involving ticks?
He couldn’t really remember at the moment what the case had been about. That he was willing to blame on his brain injury, the impulse to fully recollect what had happened stomped out by the ringing in his ear.
But anyway, he’d been trying to think without interruption, so he’d put the stethoscope on the doorknob, and Wilson had thought he’d been jerking off. Of course that was more disgust than anger, but nevertheless, it was probably the last time House could remember Wilson being too upset to speak, much less reason.
And the memory, though incomplete, was enough to make House smirk, an unwanted chuckle sneaking past his defenses.
Immediately, both Wilson and Cuddy snapped their attention, with varying degrees of ire obviously, to him. Cuddy spoke first, a curious “House?” escaping her lips.
He opened his mouth to respond, but Wilson interrupted with such rage that he looked like he was about have a heart attack. “You see?” House noted that Wilson had said that multiple times this evening - as though believing that House was awful wasn’t enough; Wilson apparently wanted, needed, Cuddy to see it as well. “He thinks this is a joke. He’s actually laughing. And if he’s not going to take this seriously, then -”
“You don’t even know what I was laughing at,” House retorted lamely. It wasn’t his best defense in the world, but it was true enough in this case.
Wilson stood up once more, hands on his hips. “Then what were you laughing at? Huh?”
House hesitated to tell the truth. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to remind Wilson of better times; at this point he just didn’t know if Wilson would respond to it or if he would see it as a cheap attempt to make things better.
Probably the latter, House decided. But then at this point, he didn’t exactly have many other options. So he sighed, his right hand instinctively beginning to rub at his right thigh as he said, “You’re so pissy you can’t speak right now, which is odd for you, because you normally like to overanalyze and rationalize everything.”
Wilson understandably took offense to this, but House kept talking, never giving the other man the opportunity to speak. “So I was thinking about the last time you got this way. You were living with me, and you thought I’d been masturbating in the apartment for hours.”
Wilson’s eyebrows knitted together as he tried to remember such a time. But in all honesty, it was Cuddy’s response that was truly worth noting; she’d been around House’s antics long enough to be nearly immune to them. Sometimes she responded with anger - only a robot would be able to deal with him on a day-to-day basis without getting upset at some point. But for the most part, she looked at his antics with rather bored eyes, as though she were expecting him to be a jackass.
Yet this was different.
She wasn’t angry or unimpressed by any means. If anything, she was looking at him as though she had no idea what he was talking about. But the bemused expression on her face was hardly noteworthy; the touch of relief flitting across her features, on the other hand, definitely was.
Behind the confusion was clearly an amount of gratitude that she’d never had to experience such things. Which was really stupid in House’s estimation. She wanted to sit there and act like him masturbating was gross, but she’d also had sex with him and had admitted that she’d always thought they’d do it again. In her own words, the night they’d spent together had been more than a moment of weakness. In her opinion, the sex had been good enough that she’d assumed it would happen again at some point. And without feelings of regret or disgust, she didn’t really have a right to be disgusted over the idea of him getting off with his hand. Because truly, how was using her body any different than jerking off in private?
House decided to file that question away for later. He definitely wanted an answer, but he supposed that right now wasn’t the perfect time to ask her. Considering Wilson didn’t even know that they’d slept together (unless she’d confirmed it at some point, which House doubted), it would probably be weird to remind her of that moment in time now.
So knowing that, he waited silently for a response, giving Wilson the time he needed to recall what House was saying.
And eventually, Wilson confessed, scrubbing his face with one of his hands, “I didn’t really remember that.”
His tone was much less accusatory than it had been moments before. The anger that had been in his voice was nearly gone, and House took this as a sign that he’d done something right just then. His tinnitus backed off just a little bit, allowing him the mental clarity to see that Wilson was calmer. And House could use the change in mood to his advantage.
He would use it to his advantage.
“I don’t know why you were so freaked out about the idea,” House said conversationally. “After your bachelor parties, I thought you would have been more understanding about -”
Wilson interrupted speedily, “Karamel and I never -”
“Karamel?”
This time Cuddy was the one to interrupt.
Disgust was audible in the single word she spoke, and she had an expression on her face that matched her tone. Her features distorted, smushed together, she looked as though she were about to change the sheets of an incontinent sufferer of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. “That sounds like the name of a stripper.”
“She is,” House and Wilson replied simultaneously.
But only Wilson added, “Well, she was. She easily could have -”
“Stopped stripping?” Cuddy asked doubtfully.
She looked like she wanted to say more - say more judgmental things, House instantly corrected. Which could have been really amusing, he understood. Hearing her take on the role of the stereotypical woman unable to resist being prejudiced against an incredibly hot chick taking off her clothes would have been hilarious. But somehow he thought that Wilson wouldn’t be similarly amused.
So he told her, “That’s nothing. You should have seen him with the duck.”
Her eyes widened, her mouth falling open. She looked like a child who’d just been told for the first time that gullible wasn’t in the dictionary. She was horrified at the thought but convinced that it was also the truth. “You had sex with a -”
“There was no sex!” Wilson was half-shouting hysterically. “It wasn’t even a real duck.”
And though it was the truth, what he was saying sounded lame enough to be a lie.
Using this to his advantage, House said with a smirk on his face, “That might have been what you thought at first, but once it started quacking, surely you realized…”
Wilson opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but Cuddy held up a hand to tell him to stop. Her eyes closed as though she were trying to wipe the image from her mind, it took a beat to ask, “There was quacking involved?”
“No,” Wilson whined loudly, his dark eyes imploring her to believe him.
When that didn’t work, he turned his attention back on House. “Why did you say that? Why are you telling her this… this garbage?”
The questions weren’t as angry as they could have been. If anything, this was all at a normal level of Wilson irritation, and House was pleased with this. Although he was careful to keep that to himself, he believed it was a good sign.
Shrugging he said, “Hey. If she’s dumb enough to believe you enjoy a little bestiality every now and then…”
”So you’re just lying to me then,” Cuddy stated in a dangerous voice.
“Duh.”
“And that part about Wilson peeing on your couch,” she continued in an undeserving knowing voice. “That was a lie too.”
House said nothing in response.
It would be better, he thought, if Wilson had to handle this one on his own.
Casting his gaze innocently on Wilson, House blinked a couple of times in an exaggerated and expectant way. “I don’t know. Is that a lie? Who can say?”
“I think you can,” Cuddy replied irritably, her arms folding across her chest.
And finally Wilson, perhaps understanding that there was no avoiding the truth, spoke up hesitantly, “Well…”
“It is true?” Her words were caught between being a statement and a question. And though it seemed physically impossible, her eyes widened even further.
Which made Wilson go on the defensive. “Yes, but.” He held his hands up as if to say, “Hear me out.”
When she didn’t interrupt, he continued, “But I don’t have a problem. House stuck my hand in a pot of warm water.”
But Cuddy clearly didn’t believe that. “Oh come on,” she said doubtfully. “That doesn’t actually make you pee. It’s an urban legend.”
“Tell that to my bladder,” Wilson replied immediately. “The hand in the water works, because it worked on me.” Her doubtful expression didn’t change, forcing him to look at House. “Tell her.”
At that moment, House knew he had to tell the truth. As funny as it might have been to let Wilson flounder a bit more, House understood that whatever progress he’d made would be lost in doing so.
Rolling his eyes, he admitted to Cuddy, “There might have been a bowl of water involved, but -”
“But that’s all there is to it,” Wilson finished. “You made me pee on the couch. I didn’t have a problem holding it.” Saying that, however, only seemed to make him more flustered, his cheeks burning with embarrassment as he added, “I’m not incontinent. I don’t have a problem. I’m not a baby.”
His voice becoming more accusatory once more, he finished by saying, “The only person with an issue is House and his inability to be a mature adult.”
Cuddy looked at House at that moment. She didn’t say anything at first, and she didn’t need to; he could feel her eyes silently roving over him, her mind trying to assess him in the context of Wilson’s words. It was as though she was trying to figure out whether or not to admonish him or try and move on from the subject.
But in the end, Wilson made that decision for her. “Don’t look at him like that,” he ordered her in a fed up tone. “Like you don’t know what he’s capable of. You’ve lived with him for two months! Think of how many pranks has he pulled on you since then.”
She blinked. “He hasn’t pulled any, Wilson.”
House wanted to smirk. She was clearly ignoring the event that had only happened days ago. He didn’t know why that was; although he didn’t really think kicking the useless moron of a hospice worker out counted as a prank, his phone calls, his attempts at getting her back home… those things were.
But, hey, if she were willing to look past all of that, he was too.
Wilson, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to take her at her word for it. “He hasn’t done anything. That’s what you’re telling me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying he’s been perfect - just that, for all of his immaturity, he hasn’t felt the need to stick my hand in a bowl of water at night.”
Hearing about his own perpetual adolescence, House felt the urge to stick his tongue out at her. He didn’t, of course, settling for a way more mature scowl in her direction. Which Wilson clearly noted and immediately commented on. “Yeah, he really seems like he’s learned how to act his age.”
“Says the person who sawed through my cane,” House replied immediately.
Once again, this shocked Cuddy… although for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. “You sawed through -”
“It was justified,” Wilson said in a manner so haughty that it was almost easy to forget that they were talking about hurting a cripple. “He started it, and if you were in my position… though I don’t understand why…”
His voice trailed off, and House and Cuddy looked at him, waiting for him to finish the thought.
But Wilson didn’t say anything right away. His gaze darting back and forth between House and Cuddy, it was obvious that Wilson was drawing some sort of conclusion about the situation, about their relationship.
A wrong conclusion, House decided as Wilson, features filled with shock, explained, “You two are sleeping together!”
House smirked at the accusation while Cuddy practically shouted, “No!”
Admittedly it was not a good way to start off a defense or denial. If anything, the combination of their behaviors just made them look guilty. And though they hadn’t been sleeping together (in the slang sense, anyway), their reactions did nothing to convince Wilson of that fact.
So it made perfect sense for Wilson to run a hand through his hair and say, “Oh God. You really are.”
Out of the corner of his eye, House could see Cuddy looking at him as though she were going to kill him if he didn’t start denying it. And he must have been too slow for her liking, because no sooner had she glared at him that she was telling Wilson firmly, “We’re not having sex. I promise you. I would never -”
“Never?” House asked curiously. “Because -”
“Shut up,” she warned him in a low voice. “Unless you want me to cut your precious rabbit into a million pieces, be quiet.”
He hated to take note of it, but his cheeks burned with embarrassment. The admonishment and threat aside, it bothered him to hear her mention Hitler. Now, maybe Wilson already knew about it, and this was a moot point, but House couldn’t be sure either way. And he definitely didn’t want to hear what Wilson would have to say on the matter regardless. If only because House wasn’t sure how to defend himself, he’d wanted to keep the rabbit’s existence between Cuddy and himself.
It was odd in a way, because he’d never really cared what other people thought of him before. Then again, he’d never been a fifty-year-old man with a pet rabbit named Hitler before either. And when Wilson’s judgment would completely determine whether or not they had a friendship, House resented Cuddy for bringing it up. Especially when Wilson, his eyebrows raised, asked, “Rabbit?”
House was fast in responding; he certainly didn’t want her to talk anymore. “Her nickname for my penis. I keep telling her that I’m really that good and that she’s not home alone with her vibrator, but with all those orgasms, it’s a little -”
“What part of shut up do you not understand?” Cuddy growled. He opened his mouth to respond, but she didn’t let him speak. “Nevermind,” she continued as she stood up. Her voice authoritative, she explained to both men, “I’m going to go get a drink.” House wasn’t sure if she actually wanted a beverage or if there were something else going on - like, say, she was pissed at them both or wanting to give them some alone time so they could work things out.
Whatever her motivation, he simply watched her leave; her plan - whatever it might have been - wouldn’t be nearly as effective if he quizzed her about it beforehand. And unlike at work, he supposed he would like her to succeed. So he stayed quiet as she told them both, “When I come back, we’re not talking about this anymore. I’m not sleeping with him.”
She walked towards the kitchen, her gaze only looking back at them once threateningly.
Not that it did much good, because the second she was more than an earshot away, Wilson said, “So you are sleeping with her.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
As soon as the words escaped him, House knew he’d misstepped. He hadn’t been particularly nasty about it, but at this point, any bite to his remarks warranted a game over. And the last thing he wanted was to earn defeat because of a casual comment he hadn’t even meant.
Unfortunately, the only immediate way to soften the blow was to absorb it himself. House really didn’t want to stray into self-hating territory. He supposed that it was worth it though if it meant earning Wilson’s forgiveness.
Hastily attempting to move past calling Wilson an idiot, House explained, “We both know Cuddy could and should do better than me.”
His eyes searching Wilson’s for any trace of incredulousness, he added, “I wasn’t lying when I said she was here out of pity… we’re not together.”
But the remark didn’t appease Wilson. “She’s not here out of pity,” he said with disdain. “She’s here, because she cares about you enough to put up with your crap. And if she’s willing to do that, then it’s really not that much of a stretch to think -”
Refusing to even consider what Wilson was saying, House interrupted with barely concealed agitation in his voice, “It’s not like that. Like I said, she can do better than me.”
She really could, and House thought that she must have known that as well. If she hadn’t, all of their flirting, all of their back and forth over the years probably would have led to more by now.
Although maybe it wouldn’t have, he conceded. Whether she knew or not, he most certainly did. And what that meant for him was that he was never not aware of how much better she really was. He was never clueless about how much of a prize she was, and though he hesitated to say the logical, painful conclusion that had been percolating in his mind for the last two months, he did say it. “She deserves better than me, and I wouldn’t -”
“You wouldn’t what?” Wilson demanded to know with a ferocity that surprised House. “You wouldn’t take advantage of her feelings for you? You have. You wouldn’t ask her to be in your life like that? You have. You are. Every time you get her to defend you, in one way or another, you are using her.”
There was no point in denying what Wilson was saying.
He was right.
About all of it.
And House didn’t have the words within him to put up anything resembling a fight. He didn’t even have the wherewithal to lie to himself about how he was treating Cuddy. So he glanced at the side of the couch instead. His gaze trained on the golden afghan precariously draped over the arm of the sofa, he said nothing.
But he didn’t need to, because Wilson sat back down in his chair and said, “The thing is… in a weird way, I get it. You treat her like garbage to push her away, to prove to her that you don’t deserve to have her in your life.”
There was something in Wilson’s voice that suggested that he knew what it was like to do that - to push her away. Experience laced his tone as though he was all too familiar with the concept. Yet he didn’t elaborate on the matter.
Instead House could feel a dark set of eyes trained on him, looking, waiting for him to respond. But he didn’t say anything. More than anything, he was curious as to where this was going, feeling neither the need to confirm or deny Wilson’s words. He was interested in seeing where Wilson might take the conversation.
“And each time you do that, you’re surprised when she still talks to you the next day. Cause no matter how much Cuddy should hate you, she doesn’t. Every. Time. She forgives you,” Wilson told him in disgust. “And you - hating to be wrong or happy about anything - never take that as a sign to be appreciative of what you have.”
Wilson laughed humorlessly. “No, you think you have to work harder to push her away.”
It was then that House realized that this was why he hated Wilson… sometimes anyway; Wilson had that uncanny ability to say in a few words everything House tried to hide. Whereas Cuddy typically reacted to his façade, Wilson - only Wilson - had a way of seeing past all of that to get to the truth. Masks, defenses, walls - whatever purple prose you wanted to use… Wilson was immune to that.
He could see everything for what it was.
He could see House for who he was.
And the intimacy such knowledge and abilities created was far more powerful than anything House could have ever had with Cuddy.
Oh, she tried. She’d been trying so hard for the last two months, and he would always be grateful for that, love her for doing that for him. She put more effort into him than anyone ever should have, maybe more than anyone else ever had. He was a lemon of a human being, and that she should ever have ignored that fact made her both the sweetest and the dumbest person he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.
And still none of it amounted to the totality of what House shared… had shared with Wilson.
Because as hard as she tried, Wilson had never really had to do that. He’d always just gotten it.
House had told himself earlier in the day that Wilson clearly didn’t understand him anymore, didn’t want to understand him anymore if he could say those things. But now House suspected that he did.
Wilson always understood.
… Even if he reviled such comprehension.
Which was surely the case now. Wilson was sitting across form him with deduction, understanding, and disgust in his brown eyes. The irises giving it all away, the totality of the look practically screamed, “I hate you, but I still know you, and that makes me hate myself.”
And as though the realization had suddenly hit him, House felt his body exhale with a shudder. The breath had literally been knocked out of him, and replacing that oxygen was the knowledge of exactly what he had to say.
“I’m sorry.”
The words sounded pained. They were not forced; they didn’t sound that way by any means. But although it was a simple sentence, it was audible just how depressing it was to take responsibility for it.
Yet Wilson was not moved by the emotion. “You should tell that to Cuddy.”
House blinked numbly, as though he couldn’t feel his nerves fire or anything else not related to the burning, horrible realization: Wilson didn’t get the apology.
It was a cruel irony that left House feeling betrayed and parched.
He wanted a glass of water, though there was no cup for him on the table. But he didn’t dare go get one; he was neck deep in an apology that would determine everything.
Everything.
Clearing his throat, the weight of the matter resting heavily on his shoulders, House tried again, “I mean I’m sorry for -”
“I know what you meant,” Wilson replied smoothly, his voice low. “I was just hoping you’d take the hint and realize that I’m not accepting the apology. Or interested in it.”
His words felt like a slap in the face. It might have only been a blow to House’s plan to earn Wilson’s friendship and forgiveness, but House could feel his cheeks redden nonetheless. And for all of his speaking talents, for all of his ways to manipulate and deflect, all he could say in that moment was “Oh.”
“I don’t know what Cuddy told you to get you to sit down with me, but I can tell you now that I didn’t come here to make up with you.” Wilson paused, perhaps to let the heartbreaking words cleave through House’s left ventricle. “What I came here for,” Wilson said in a calm voice. “Is to tell you that… I’m done. No more phone calls. No more pranks. No more free lunches. I’m out. It’s done.”
He ran his left hand parallel to the width of his chest to emphasize the finality of the words.
“You’re saying you’ll never forgive me?”
House meant for the softly uttered words to sound more like a statement, but somehow, in the space between his throat and his lips, the sentence had morphed into a question.
And that made Wilson angry. His hands clenching into fists once more, he snapped, “You killed my girlfriend. That’s different than stealing my iPhone. You killed Amber!”
House ignored the way his aorta seemed to detach itself upon hearing Wilson’s accusation. He ignored the way his body felt as though the freed artery began to spray blood and guilt into the pit of his stomach. The feeling was on the verge of consuming him. And he feared that, if he saw Cuddy’s sympathetic eyes now, the emotion would overwhelm and send him running into her arms like a scared child.
But with her still in the kitchen, he was able to funnel that hurt feeling into adrenaline, into motivation. “You think I wanted her dead?” He shook his head sadly. “I did everything I could to save her.”
He swallowed hard, fighting off the memory of his failure. “I didn’t want her to die.”
“Oh, yes, you did,” Wilson snapped coldly, apparently barely able to even register the hurt inside of House. “You didn’t approve of my relationship with her.”
“That’s a lie. I told you you had my -”
“Your blessing?” Wilson offered viciously. Shaking his head, he continued, “If this were any sort of a normal friendship, you would know that I didn’t need your blessing. And if you didn’t have your head so far up your own ass, you would realize that I never had it anyway. You were always trying to break us up.”
For a brief moment, House sat there speechless. His stunned silence came to him unexpectedly, because, to be honest, he’d already figured out how Wilson would interpret the events of the last six or seven months. House had deduced that he would be blamed for all of it going wrong, for all of the time not spent with Amber. And hearing Wilson say that now came as no surprise.
But nevertheless, House didn’t speak. Truthfully he didn’t exactly know how to respond. Should he apologize? Defend himself? He wasn’t sure what the best move would be, although he did recognize that taking either path could lead to disaster. If he apologized and Wilson didn’t believe him, game over. If he defended himself and Wilson didn’t accept the defense, game over.
Nothing, he realized, was a guarantee, and in the end, lost in his indecisiveness, House spoke slowly. Calmly he chose his words as he went. “I never believed you needed me. I always knew how this friendship worked: I… needed you.”
He looked away from Wilson as soon as the words had been uttered. As much as House would have liked to gauge his audience’s reaction, he was too afraid of what that response might be. Obviously it was cowardly, but he preferred cowardice to any more pain.
His gaze focused on the afghan spread across the arm of the couch once more, he continued to explain. “I didn’t give you the okay, because I thought you needed it.”
“Then why -”
“Because it needed to be said,” House spit out quickly. But it was with less speed that he continued. Almost as though his mouth had run out of gas, he sputtered to find the right words. And his thumb running along his brow, he said, “Because… I wanted you to know I was… trying… to, I don’t know, back off, I guess.”
He frowned at the choice of words but kept talking. “I didn’t want to lose you, but I… was trying to let you go. I was trying,” he stressed.
Wilson threw his hands in the air. “But then you thought… what? ‘That’s too hard, so I’ll break them up’?”
House shook his head once solemnly. “I wanted you to be happy. But I also knew that without you, I’d be completely alone.” His voice broke on the last word, and he swallowed back the bitter taste of fear and regret. “I just didn’t want to lose you.”
The words hung heavily in the air. A truth he’d never wanted to speak of emitted into the heavy, heated climate, it made him sweat with the realization that he couldn’t take it back.
Ever.
There was no rewind, no undo… no forgetting how he’d uttered his greatest fear of all: losing his one and only friend.
Just as there was no ignoring Wilson’s harsh reply.
“Well, you did,” he announced sarcastically. “You murdered her. And with that, you killed any hope of us ever being friends.”
House had known the words were coming; he’d known that resolution would never be quite so simple.
But it killed him to hear Wilson say those things nonetheless.
And it angered House as well.
Although that might have been the head trauma talking, he couldn’t help but feel enraged.
He hadn’t expected things to be easy, but he also had expected his honesty to leave him empty handed in the end either.
“All I wanted,” he insisted, “was to know that I had a place in your life. I didn’t want to hurt her. Or you.”
Wilson opened his mouth to speak, but House stopped him. “She was important to me too. I worked with her, saw her everyday for months. I know what I did. I know what you lost.”
“But you still want me to forgive you,” Wilson deduced in a sad, knowing voice.
House couldn’t deny that fact. Yes, he did want his friend to forgive him. But he only nodded his head once before adding, “I want it, but I don’t expect it. I want it,” he repeated, making a grabbing motion with his right hand. “But I know I don’t deserve it.”
Wilson remained unmoved. “And yet, you have Cuddy bringing me -”
“That was all her,” House admitted. “I had nothing to do with that…. If she’d asked me, I would have told her not to bring you here.”
His voice was filled with honesty, especially when he said, “You don’t deserve this - this conversation. You didn’t deserve any of it.” He shrugged. “What you’re doing… not talking to me, not being in my life - I more than earned that.”
Whether it was those words or his overall commitment to the sentiment that gave Wilson pause, House didn’t know. Either way, the fact of the matter was that Wilson’s eyes seemed to soften then; the why completely damned in House’s mind, he didn’t care how he’d managed to make this breakthrough.
He just cared that he had.
No questions asked.
Of course, if House had asked, Wilson wouldn’t have known what to say. Forgiveness wasn’t coming suddenly, but a cool trickle of the feeling was beginning to seep into his bones. And though he couldn’t spot the crack in his exterior that had allowed for it to happen, Wilson could feel it nevertheless. The tension in his muscles was beginning to ease, the ramrod stiffness of his back settling into something less formal. His once overwhelming hostility no longer consumed him, and he was able to look at House with clearer eyes.
The man Wilson had desperately wanted to break was clearly already broken.
He hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, but it was impossible to deny it anymore. Everything House was saying, everything he was doing pointed to the same thing - that House already felt as guilty as was humanly possible. He already blamed himself, already accepted that he had been the one in the wrong and that he had been the one to kill Amber and destroy their friendship.
And to be honest, Wilson couldn’t help but feel that that revelation was completely anticlimactic.
He supposed he could have been relieved by the fact that House accepted his part in what had happened. Surely, it was better for him to feel guilty than for Wilson to have to explain to him why killing Amber was wrong.
Or if not relieved, Wilson thought he could have at least mustered up the courage to continue being annoyed. If he couldn’t take solace in this turn of events, then the very least he could do was continue on in his bitter fury. After all, he’d been so angry the last two months, he’d been so consumed by rage, that it should have been second hand at this point to keep that emotion going.
But no.
There was none of those emotions, neither relief nor anger, inside of him. There was nothing inside of him.
He just felt… numb.
He felt… completely drained of all emotional response, as though his hatred and regret from the last two months had left him entirely incapable of having any real feelings on the matter.
It wasn’t - was not - an act of forgiving House.
It was not like House said those things and every complaint Wilson had had before now was suddenly null and void (truth be told, he refused to let that happen). Because the rational part of himself realized that his criticisms of his relationship with House were valid. Even House himself had essentially agreed as much.
The codependency that had led to Amber’s demise, the things that had brought House and Wilson’s friendship literally to a screeching halt… it was all very real. And there could be no denying that those things would have to change in order for them to be friends again.
Of course, there was a chance (albeit a small one) that they’d already made those changes. Wilson could concede that much.
For his own part, he’d become a lot less of a doormat in the last two months, this current conversation proof of that. Well, it was if you ignored the part where Cuddy bribed him into coming here, he realized. But even if you didn’t, there was still no denying that he’d become more selfish, more angry, more judgmental.
He’d become a far worse person than he’d been eight weeks ago.
But maybe those things would allow for a healthier friendship with House, who ironically seemed (and maybe that was the keyword: seemed) like a better person. He seemed capable of adulthood - at least for extended periods of time. He was taking responsibility for the accident; he was apologizing and sharing his feelings. Sure, he was still being cruel to Cuddy, but he’d refrained from shoving parts of her unconscious form into buckets of warm water. And that was progress.
He was changing.
They both were.
But whether or not that was enough for Wilson, he didn’t know. Whether they could go without doing this, whether those changes would be lasting enough to avoid this kind of disaster in the future…
Wilson had no idea.
And though part of him was admittedly curious to see what would happen, the rest of him was still reluctant.
His body giving only the smallest of giveaways, he finally said, on the subject of each man getting what he deserved, “Well… at least we agree on that.”
There was an implication there - that House had deserved to lose Wilson’s friendship - but the remark’s bite was lost by the conversational tone.
And that did not go unnoticed by House, though Wilson knew it would have been foolish to think that it could.
“Is there any hope for me?” House asked in an almost hesitant, quiet manner.
Wilson’s own response was much quicker, to start with anyway. “I don’t know…. Maybe.”
It hadn’t been a no, which in Wilson’s mind felt like a yes, like a betrayal of Amber. To even suggest that there could be a friendship again felt like he was spitting in the face of the woman he loved.
Perhaps it was.
But at the same time… it felt like an even crueler betrayal of himself to say no to what House might have been offering. Because for all of these years… more than anything, what Wilson had wanted was a healthier House, a healthier friendship with him. All of this time, Wilson had wanted a friend who could understand the ramifications of selfish, destructive behavior. He’d wanted a friend who could look before he leaped, who could empathize, who could… see Wilson through the most awful things in the world.
And maybe House wasn’t like that; maybe the changes he’d made were superficial. But either way, wasn’t that a truth Wilson had to find out for himself?
Wasn’t it something he owed himself to figure out?
And if the answers to those questions were yeses, then wouldn’t Amber be happy for him? Supportive of him?
She’d given him the freedom to say no to her, to get the bed he wanted, even when he had no idea what it was that he really wanted. She’d done so much to encourage his self-exploration, and admittedly, being friends again with House was bigger than a waterbed, but nevertheless, didn’t the same rules apply?
Wouldn’t a cutthroat… bitch (Wilson’s mind stumbled over the words) understand the Ayn Rand-ish need to explore aspects of his life selfishly?
Especially since he wasn’t saying all was forgiven, wouldn’t Amber be okay with that?
Wouldn’t she?
For all of his attempts at reassuring himself, Wilson realized that he was not sure.
Not by any means.
But then he hadn’t said yes to House, Wilson reminded himself. And with House looking at him as though it had been a flat out no, Wilson thought his response had been an okay one. Definitely not a great one, but he felt that it would do for the time being.
House clearly didn’t like it though, his eyes sad and full of hurt. Which was impetus enough for Wilson to ask, “Did you expect me to answer that with a definite yes? You want a hug and some cookies for an answer instead?”
The deep and maybe uncharacteristic sarcasm seemed to cut House to the core. His lips turning downward into a frown, he replied with a pout, “No. Still sucks though.”
“You should be grateful,” Wilson admonished in a voice so breathless it was practically hissed.
Frankly, the presumption on House’s part that he somehow deserved a better answer infuriated Wilson.
That alone gave him pause. That alone was enough to make him reconsider giving House a shot.
And House must have sensed this, because he suddenly insisted, “I am grateful. Really I am.”
“You sure?”
“I am,” he stressed. “I just… I don’t know.” He shrugged apologetically. “It’s just that, if you’re holding out on a friendship with me, because I’m not doing something you want…”
He never ended up finishing the thought, and Wilson supposed that it was just too hard for House to ask for tips, for ways to improve his odds. To be honest, Wilson didn’t blame him for that and ended up finishing the thought for him. “You want me to tell you what to do?”
House didn’t say yes or no, which sort of said it all. He simply said sarcastically, “You’ve never hesitated before.” But the harshness of the words was outweighed greatly by the imploring look he was giving Wilson.
And House was right: Wilson hadn’t ever hesitated before to give advice. Yet in this case, Wilson wasn’t entirely sure what he needed to see from House. Sure, he wanted to see that the changes House made were real and permanent. But how he would know that that was the case… he couldn’t put that into words. And if there were something more Wilson wished to see, he didn’t know what that was.
Unless…
“You want something to do? Pull the hand-in-the-water trick on Cuddy,” Wilson said seriously.
Naturally though, House looked at him with suspicion. “You… want me to make Cuddy pee her pants.” It was almost a question he sounded so confused.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s going to continue to believe that I’m a bed wetter!”
“So?” Honestly House wasn’t opposed on principle, although he would have preferred to wait until Cuddy was no longer sleeping in his bed for obvious reasons.
“So,” Wilson repeated in annoyance, “If you want to be my friend, you’ll show me that you want to protect me from unkind opinions. You’ll defend me. Or something.”
Now Wilson was the unsure one, and House suspected that that had to do with the fact that Wilson was trying to take childish revenge on Cuddy for bringing him here and then also refusing to believe that House’s prank had worked.
But House was okay with doing this for him. His bed aside, there were no downsides to this. Tormenting Cuddy might have been wrong on many levels, but it could also be incredibly enjoyable. And if bothering her was the key to getting Wilson back, then why the hell not?
“Consider it done,” House said cheerfully. “Anything else?”
“No.”
“Want me to sleep with her too? Cause that would be just as easy…”
“No. I’d rather not have to deal with the mental image of you and Cuddy… doing it,” he said with friendly, immature disgust.
And House, brazen and pleased with the way Wilson was clearly warming up to him, was about to say something dirty when Cuddy reminded both men that she was still around. Obviously having heard what they were talking about, she angrily stormed back into the room.
Whoops.
“You two are still talking about this?” Cuddy demanded in a shrill voice that surprisingly didn’t make his ear ring.
She stomped in front of the couch, coming to stand over House with her hands on her hips. She looked at him as though she blamed him for the topic of conversation, and he guessed that technically she was right.
“Please,” she said in a voice that negated the polite word. “Stop telling people that we’re sleeping together.”
“Now, now, snookums. We don’t have to hide our love,” House tormented. One of his hands reached around her to squeeze her ass, but she caught the wandering appendage around the wrist.
“I’m going to kill you,” she seethed. “Wilson, it’s good you came; you can say your goodbyes to him now.”
Immediately she dropped his hand in order to use hers as a weapon against him. But unfortunately for her, House had expected this and grabbed her hands before she’d landed a single blow.
“Gonna have to try harder if you want to kill me,” he teased.
Had she been slow to respond, House might have considered just how inappropriate his words were in Wilson’s presence. But lucky for all of them, Cuddy was quick to growl as loudly as she could.
As she tried to wrench her hands free, he considered once more the state of his tinnitus… or rather the stunning lack of it.
If this had been any other day in the last two months, with the amount of noise she was making, he would have been curled up in a ball in pain by now.
But he wasn’t.
And that gave him pause. He didn’t dare, not even for a second, consider that his tinnitus might be permanently gone; he refused to give himself any sort of hope.
But it did make him wonder:
What was going on?
The question was enough to tear him away from what he was doing. It divided his attention, and doing that led him to instinctively loosen his grip on Cuddy.
Her wrists practically free, she yanked her hands back hard. So hard that she actually stumbled backwards a few steps. Which would have been fine…
If not for the coffee table covered in food behind her.
Continue on to the rest of the chapter
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: House, Cuddy, Wilson -- friendship between the three, maybe some Huddy if you squint. This chapter also features some Foreman and Thirteen.
Summary: House wakes up from the deep brain stimulation to a life without Wilson. Now, as House's life begins to falls into chaos, he searches for meaning, forgiveness, and friendship. House/Cuddy, Wilson/Cuddy, and House/Wilson friendships
Previous Chapters: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three (Part One), Chapter Three (Part Two), Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven (Part One), Chapter Seven (Part Two), Chapter Eight (Part One), Chapter Eight (Part Two), Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten (Part One), Chapter Ten (Part Two), Chapter Ten (Part Three), Chapter Ten (Part Four), Chapter Eleven (Part One), Chapter Eleven (Part Two), Chapter Eleven (Part Three), Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen (Part One), Chapter Thirteen (Part Two), Chapter Fourteen (Part One), Chapter Fourteen (Part Two), Chapter Fourteen (Part Three), Chapter Fourteen (Part Four), Chapter Fifteen (Part One), Chapter Fifteen (Part Two), Chapter Fifteen (Part Three), Chapter Fifteen (Part Four), Chapter Fifteen (Part Five), Chapter Fifteen (Part Six)
Disclaimer: I don't own the show!
Author's Note: Spoilers for "Wilson's Heart." Some chapters are split into parts because of Livejournal's character/word limit.
Once more, Wilson shook his head. “You asked me to come here so I could tell him everything I needed to say.”
“And in return, you need to hear him out,” she reminded him. “You need to listen to him, or else there’s no reason for him to listen to you.”
Wilson narrowed his eyes on her, almost as though he couldn’t possibly consider what she was trying to tell him. In the back of his mind, curious, House tried to remember the last time Wilson had been too furious to even consider what was going on around him. And almost immediately, another memory from the past washed over House.
This one was much more recent than the recollection involving his mother, but it still felt like a lifetime ago. Wilson had been in the process of realizing his third marriage was a failure; he’d been living with House, and at the time, House had been trying to solve a case involving…
Heart failure?
Something involving ticks?
He couldn’t really remember at the moment what the case had been about. That he was willing to blame on his brain injury, the impulse to fully recollect what had happened stomped out by the ringing in his ear.
But anyway, he’d been trying to think without interruption, so he’d put the stethoscope on the doorknob, and Wilson had thought he’d been jerking off. Of course that was more disgust than anger, but nevertheless, it was probably the last time House could remember Wilson being too upset to speak, much less reason.
And the memory, though incomplete, was enough to make House smirk, an unwanted chuckle sneaking past his defenses.
Immediately, both Wilson and Cuddy snapped their attention, with varying degrees of ire obviously, to him. Cuddy spoke first, a curious “House?” escaping her lips.
He opened his mouth to respond, but Wilson interrupted with such rage that he looked like he was about have a heart attack. “You see?” House noted that Wilson had said that multiple times this evening - as though believing that House was awful wasn’t enough; Wilson apparently wanted, needed, Cuddy to see it as well. “He thinks this is a joke. He’s actually laughing. And if he’s not going to take this seriously, then -”
“You don’t even know what I was laughing at,” House retorted lamely. It wasn’t his best defense in the world, but it was true enough in this case.
Wilson stood up once more, hands on his hips. “Then what were you laughing at? Huh?”
House hesitated to tell the truth. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to remind Wilson of better times; at this point he just didn’t know if Wilson would respond to it or if he would see it as a cheap attempt to make things better.
Probably the latter, House decided. But then at this point, he didn’t exactly have many other options. So he sighed, his right hand instinctively beginning to rub at his right thigh as he said, “You’re so pissy you can’t speak right now, which is odd for you, because you normally like to overanalyze and rationalize everything.”
Wilson understandably took offense to this, but House kept talking, never giving the other man the opportunity to speak. “So I was thinking about the last time you got this way. You were living with me, and you thought I’d been masturbating in the apartment for hours.”
Wilson’s eyebrows knitted together as he tried to remember such a time. But in all honesty, it was Cuddy’s response that was truly worth noting; she’d been around House’s antics long enough to be nearly immune to them. Sometimes she responded with anger - only a robot would be able to deal with him on a day-to-day basis without getting upset at some point. But for the most part, she looked at his antics with rather bored eyes, as though she were expecting him to be a jackass.
Yet this was different.
She wasn’t angry or unimpressed by any means. If anything, she was looking at him as though she had no idea what he was talking about. But the bemused expression on her face was hardly noteworthy; the touch of relief flitting across her features, on the other hand, definitely was.
Behind the confusion was clearly an amount of gratitude that she’d never had to experience such things. Which was really stupid in House’s estimation. She wanted to sit there and act like him masturbating was gross, but she’d also had sex with him and had admitted that she’d always thought they’d do it again. In her own words, the night they’d spent together had been more than a moment of weakness. In her opinion, the sex had been good enough that she’d assumed it would happen again at some point. And without feelings of regret or disgust, she didn’t really have a right to be disgusted over the idea of him getting off with his hand. Because truly, how was using her body any different than jerking off in private?
House decided to file that question away for later. He definitely wanted an answer, but he supposed that right now wasn’t the perfect time to ask her. Considering Wilson didn’t even know that they’d slept together (unless she’d confirmed it at some point, which House doubted), it would probably be weird to remind her of that moment in time now.
So knowing that, he waited silently for a response, giving Wilson the time he needed to recall what House was saying.
And eventually, Wilson confessed, scrubbing his face with one of his hands, “I didn’t really remember that.”
His tone was much less accusatory than it had been moments before. The anger that had been in his voice was nearly gone, and House took this as a sign that he’d done something right just then. His tinnitus backed off just a little bit, allowing him the mental clarity to see that Wilson was calmer. And House could use the change in mood to his advantage.
He would use it to his advantage.
“I don’t know why you were so freaked out about the idea,” House said conversationally. “After your bachelor parties, I thought you would have been more understanding about -”
Wilson interrupted speedily, “Karamel and I never -”
“Karamel?”
This time Cuddy was the one to interrupt.
Disgust was audible in the single word she spoke, and she had an expression on her face that matched her tone. Her features distorted, smushed together, she looked as though she were about to change the sheets of an incontinent sufferer of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. “That sounds like the name of a stripper.”
“She is,” House and Wilson replied simultaneously.
But only Wilson added, “Well, she was. She easily could have -”
“Stopped stripping?” Cuddy asked doubtfully.
She looked like she wanted to say more - say more judgmental things, House instantly corrected. Which could have been really amusing, he understood. Hearing her take on the role of the stereotypical woman unable to resist being prejudiced against an incredibly hot chick taking off her clothes would have been hilarious. But somehow he thought that Wilson wouldn’t be similarly amused.
So he told her, “That’s nothing. You should have seen him with the duck.”
Her eyes widened, her mouth falling open. She looked like a child who’d just been told for the first time that gullible wasn’t in the dictionary. She was horrified at the thought but convinced that it was also the truth. “You had sex with a -”
“There was no sex!” Wilson was half-shouting hysterically. “It wasn’t even a real duck.”
And though it was the truth, what he was saying sounded lame enough to be a lie.
Using this to his advantage, House said with a smirk on his face, “That might have been what you thought at first, but once it started quacking, surely you realized…”
Wilson opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but Cuddy held up a hand to tell him to stop. Her eyes closed as though she were trying to wipe the image from her mind, it took a beat to ask, “There was quacking involved?”
“No,” Wilson whined loudly, his dark eyes imploring her to believe him.
When that didn’t work, he turned his attention back on House. “Why did you say that? Why are you telling her this… this garbage?”
The questions weren’t as angry as they could have been. If anything, this was all at a normal level of Wilson irritation, and House was pleased with this. Although he was careful to keep that to himself, he believed it was a good sign.
Shrugging he said, “Hey. If she’s dumb enough to believe you enjoy a little bestiality every now and then…”
”So you’re just lying to me then,” Cuddy stated in a dangerous voice.
“Duh.”
“And that part about Wilson peeing on your couch,” she continued in an undeserving knowing voice. “That was a lie too.”
House said nothing in response.
It would be better, he thought, if Wilson had to handle this one on his own.
Casting his gaze innocently on Wilson, House blinked a couple of times in an exaggerated and expectant way. “I don’t know. Is that a lie? Who can say?”
“I think you can,” Cuddy replied irritably, her arms folding across her chest.
And finally Wilson, perhaps understanding that there was no avoiding the truth, spoke up hesitantly, “Well…”
“It is true?” Her words were caught between being a statement and a question. And though it seemed physically impossible, her eyes widened even further.
Which made Wilson go on the defensive. “Yes, but.” He held his hands up as if to say, “Hear me out.”
When she didn’t interrupt, he continued, “But I don’t have a problem. House stuck my hand in a pot of warm water.”
But Cuddy clearly didn’t believe that. “Oh come on,” she said doubtfully. “That doesn’t actually make you pee. It’s an urban legend.”
“Tell that to my bladder,” Wilson replied immediately. “The hand in the water works, because it worked on me.” Her doubtful expression didn’t change, forcing him to look at House. “Tell her.”
At that moment, House knew he had to tell the truth. As funny as it might have been to let Wilson flounder a bit more, House understood that whatever progress he’d made would be lost in doing so.
Rolling his eyes, he admitted to Cuddy, “There might have been a bowl of water involved, but -”
“But that’s all there is to it,” Wilson finished. “You made me pee on the couch. I didn’t have a problem holding it.” Saying that, however, only seemed to make him more flustered, his cheeks burning with embarrassment as he added, “I’m not incontinent. I don’t have a problem. I’m not a baby.”
His voice becoming more accusatory once more, he finished by saying, “The only person with an issue is House and his inability to be a mature adult.”
Cuddy looked at House at that moment. She didn’t say anything at first, and she didn’t need to; he could feel her eyes silently roving over him, her mind trying to assess him in the context of Wilson’s words. It was as though she was trying to figure out whether or not to admonish him or try and move on from the subject.
But in the end, Wilson made that decision for her. “Don’t look at him like that,” he ordered her in a fed up tone. “Like you don’t know what he’s capable of. You’ve lived with him for two months! Think of how many pranks has he pulled on you since then.”
She blinked. “He hasn’t pulled any, Wilson.”
House wanted to smirk. She was clearly ignoring the event that had only happened days ago. He didn’t know why that was; although he didn’t really think kicking the useless moron of a hospice worker out counted as a prank, his phone calls, his attempts at getting her back home… those things were.
But, hey, if she were willing to look past all of that, he was too.
Wilson, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to take her at her word for it. “He hasn’t done anything. That’s what you’re telling me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying he’s been perfect - just that, for all of his immaturity, he hasn’t felt the need to stick my hand in a bowl of water at night.”
Hearing about his own perpetual adolescence, House felt the urge to stick his tongue out at her. He didn’t, of course, settling for a way more mature scowl in her direction. Which Wilson clearly noted and immediately commented on. “Yeah, he really seems like he’s learned how to act his age.”
“Says the person who sawed through my cane,” House replied immediately.
Once again, this shocked Cuddy… although for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. “You sawed through -”
“It was justified,” Wilson said in a manner so haughty that it was almost easy to forget that they were talking about hurting a cripple. “He started it, and if you were in my position… though I don’t understand why…”
His voice trailed off, and House and Cuddy looked at him, waiting for him to finish the thought.
But Wilson didn’t say anything right away. His gaze darting back and forth between House and Cuddy, it was obvious that Wilson was drawing some sort of conclusion about the situation, about their relationship.
A wrong conclusion, House decided as Wilson, features filled with shock, explained, “You two are sleeping together!”
House smirked at the accusation while Cuddy practically shouted, “No!”
Admittedly it was not a good way to start off a defense or denial. If anything, the combination of their behaviors just made them look guilty. And though they hadn’t been sleeping together (in the slang sense, anyway), their reactions did nothing to convince Wilson of that fact.
So it made perfect sense for Wilson to run a hand through his hair and say, “Oh God. You really are.”
Out of the corner of his eye, House could see Cuddy looking at him as though she were going to kill him if he didn’t start denying it. And he must have been too slow for her liking, because no sooner had she glared at him that she was telling Wilson firmly, “We’re not having sex. I promise you. I would never -”
“Never?” House asked curiously. “Because -”
“Shut up,” she warned him in a low voice. “Unless you want me to cut your precious rabbit into a million pieces, be quiet.”
He hated to take note of it, but his cheeks burned with embarrassment. The admonishment and threat aside, it bothered him to hear her mention Hitler. Now, maybe Wilson already knew about it, and this was a moot point, but House couldn’t be sure either way. And he definitely didn’t want to hear what Wilson would have to say on the matter regardless. If only because House wasn’t sure how to defend himself, he’d wanted to keep the rabbit’s existence between Cuddy and himself.
It was odd in a way, because he’d never really cared what other people thought of him before. Then again, he’d never been a fifty-year-old man with a pet rabbit named Hitler before either. And when Wilson’s judgment would completely determine whether or not they had a friendship, House resented Cuddy for bringing it up. Especially when Wilson, his eyebrows raised, asked, “Rabbit?”
House was fast in responding; he certainly didn’t want her to talk anymore. “Her nickname for my penis. I keep telling her that I’m really that good and that she’s not home alone with her vibrator, but with all those orgasms, it’s a little -”
“What part of shut up do you not understand?” Cuddy growled. He opened his mouth to respond, but she didn’t let him speak. “Nevermind,” she continued as she stood up. Her voice authoritative, she explained to both men, “I’m going to go get a drink.” House wasn’t sure if she actually wanted a beverage or if there were something else going on - like, say, she was pissed at them both or wanting to give them some alone time so they could work things out.
Whatever her motivation, he simply watched her leave; her plan - whatever it might have been - wouldn’t be nearly as effective if he quizzed her about it beforehand. And unlike at work, he supposed he would like her to succeed. So he stayed quiet as she told them both, “When I come back, we’re not talking about this anymore. I’m not sleeping with him.”
She walked towards the kitchen, her gaze only looking back at them once threateningly.
Not that it did much good, because the second she was more than an earshot away, Wilson said, “So you are sleeping with her.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
As soon as the words escaped him, House knew he’d misstepped. He hadn’t been particularly nasty about it, but at this point, any bite to his remarks warranted a game over. And the last thing he wanted was to earn defeat because of a casual comment he hadn’t even meant.
Unfortunately, the only immediate way to soften the blow was to absorb it himself. House really didn’t want to stray into self-hating territory. He supposed that it was worth it though if it meant earning Wilson’s forgiveness.
Hastily attempting to move past calling Wilson an idiot, House explained, “We both know Cuddy could and should do better than me.”
His eyes searching Wilson’s for any trace of incredulousness, he added, “I wasn’t lying when I said she was here out of pity… we’re not together.”
But the remark didn’t appease Wilson. “She’s not here out of pity,” he said with disdain. “She’s here, because she cares about you enough to put up with your crap. And if she’s willing to do that, then it’s really not that much of a stretch to think -”
Refusing to even consider what Wilson was saying, House interrupted with barely concealed agitation in his voice, “It’s not like that. Like I said, she can do better than me.”
She really could, and House thought that she must have known that as well. If she hadn’t, all of their flirting, all of their back and forth over the years probably would have led to more by now.
Although maybe it wouldn’t have, he conceded. Whether she knew or not, he most certainly did. And what that meant for him was that he was never not aware of how much better she really was. He was never clueless about how much of a prize she was, and though he hesitated to say the logical, painful conclusion that had been percolating in his mind for the last two months, he did say it. “She deserves better than me, and I wouldn’t -”
“You wouldn’t what?” Wilson demanded to know with a ferocity that surprised House. “You wouldn’t take advantage of her feelings for you? You have. You wouldn’t ask her to be in your life like that? You have. You are. Every time you get her to defend you, in one way or another, you are using her.”
There was no point in denying what Wilson was saying.
He was right.
About all of it.
And House didn’t have the words within him to put up anything resembling a fight. He didn’t even have the wherewithal to lie to himself about how he was treating Cuddy. So he glanced at the side of the couch instead. His gaze trained on the golden afghan precariously draped over the arm of the sofa, he said nothing.
But he didn’t need to, because Wilson sat back down in his chair and said, “The thing is… in a weird way, I get it. You treat her like garbage to push her away, to prove to her that you don’t deserve to have her in your life.”
There was something in Wilson’s voice that suggested that he knew what it was like to do that - to push her away. Experience laced his tone as though he was all too familiar with the concept. Yet he didn’t elaborate on the matter.
Instead House could feel a dark set of eyes trained on him, looking, waiting for him to respond. But he didn’t say anything. More than anything, he was curious as to where this was going, feeling neither the need to confirm or deny Wilson’s words. He was interested in seeing where Wilson might take the conversation.
“And each time you do that, you’re surprised when she still talks to you the next day. Cause no matter how much Cuddy should hate you, she doesn’t. Every. Time. She forgives you,” Wilson told him in disgust. “And you - hating to be wrong or happy about anything - never take that as a sign to be appreciative of what you have.”
Wilson laughed humorlessly. “No, you think you have to work harder to push her away.”
It was then that House realized that this was why he hated Wilson… sometimes anyway; Wilson had that uncanny ability to say in a few words everything House tried to hide. Whereas Cuddy typically reacted to his façade, Wilson - only Wilson - had a way of seeing past all of that to get to the truth. Masks, defenses, walls - whatever purple prose you wanted to use… Wilson was immune to that.
He could see everything for what it was.
He could see House for who he was.
And the intimacy such knowledge and abilities created was far more powerful than anything House could have ever had with Cuddy.
Oh, she tried. She’d been trying so hard for the last two months, and he would always be grateful for that, love her for doing that for him. She put more effort into him than anyone ever should have, maybe more than anyone else ever had. He was a lemon of a human being, and that she should ever have ignored that fact made her both the sweetest and the dumbest person he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.
And still none of it amounted to the totality of what House shared… had shared with Wilson.
Because as hard as she tried, Wilson had never really had to do that. He’d always just gotten it.
House had told himself earlier in the day that Wilson clearly didn’t understand him anymore, didn’t want to understand him anymore if he could say those things. But now House suspected that he did.
Wilson always understood.
… Even if he reviled such comprehension.
Which was surely the case now. Wilson was sitting across form him with deduction, understanding, and disgust in his brown eyes. The irises giving it all away, the totality of the look practically screamed, “I hate you, but I still know you, and that makes me hate myself.”
And as though the realization had suddenly hit him, House felt his body exhale with a shudder. The breath had literally been knocked out of him, and replacing that oxygen was the knowledge of exactly what he had to say.
“I’m sorry.”
The words sounded pained. They were not forced; they didn’t sound that way by any means. But although it was a simple sentence, it was audible just how depressing it was to take responsibility for it.
Yet Wilson was not moved by the emotion. “You should tell that to Cuddy.”
House blinked numbly, as though he couldn’t feel his nerves fire or anything else not related to the burning, horrible realization: Wilson didn’t get the apology.
It was a cruel irony that left House feeling betrayed and parched.
He wanted a glass of water, though there was no cup for him on the table. But he didn’t dare go get one; he was neck deep in an apology that would determine everything.
Everything.
Clearing his throat, the weight of the matter resting heavily on his shoulders, House tried again, “I mean I’m sorry for -”
“I know what you meant,” Wilson replied smoothly, his voice low. “I was just hoping you’d take the hint and realize that I’m not accepting the apology. Or interested in it.”
His words felt like a slap in the face. It might have only been a blow to House’s plan to earn Wilson’s friendship and forgiveness, but House could feel his cheeks redden nonetheless. And for all of his speaking talents, for all of his ways to manipulate and deflect, all he could say in that moment was “Oh.”
“I don’t know what Cuddy told you to get you to sit down with me, but I can tell you now that I didn’t come here to make up with you.” Wilson paused, perhaps to let the heartbreaking words cleave through House’s left ventricle. “What I came here for,” Wilson said in a calm voice. “Is to tell you that… I’m done. No more phone calls. No more pranks. No more free lunches. I’m out. It’s done.”
He ran his left hand parallel to the width of his chest to emphasize the finality of the words.
“You’re saying you’ll never forgive me?”
House meant for the softly uttered words to sound more like a statement, but somehow, in the space between his throat and his lips, the sentence had morphed into a question.
And that made Wilson angry. His hands clenching into fists once more, he snapped, “You killed my girlfriend. That’s different than stealing my iPhone. You killed Amber!”
House ignored the way his aorta seemed to detach itself upon hearing Wilson’s accusation. He ignored the way his body felt as though the freed artery began to spray blood and guilt into the pit of his stomach. The feeling was on the verge of consuming him. And he feared that, if he saw Cuddy’s sympathetic eyes now, the emotion would overwhelm and send him running into her arms like a scared child.
But with her still in the kitchen, he was able to funnel that hurt feeling into adrenaline, into motivation. “You think I wanted her dead?” He shook his head sadly. “I did everything I could to save her.”
He swallowed hard, fighting off the memory of his failure. “I didn’t want her to die.”
“Oh, yes, you did,” Wilson snapped coldly, apparently barely able to even register the hurt inside of House. “You didn’t approve of my relationship with her.”
“That’s a lie. I told you you had my -”
“Your blessing?” Wilson offered viciously. Shaking his head, he continued, “If this were any sort of a normal friendship, you would know that I didn’t need your blessing. And if you didn’t have your head so far up your own ass, you would realize that I never had it anyway. You were always trying to break us up.”
For a brief moment, House sat there speechless. His stunned silence came to him unexpectedly, because, to be honest, he’d already figured out how Wilson would interpret the events of the last six or seven months. House had deduced that he would be blamed for all of it going wrong, for all of the time not spent with Amber. And hearing Wilson say that now came as no surprise.
But nevertheless, House didn’t speak. Truthfully he didn’t exactly know how to respond. Should he apologize? Defend himself? He wasn’t sure what the best move would be, although he did recognize that taking either path could lead to disaster. If he apologized and Wilson didn’t believe him, game over. If he defended himself and Wilson didn’t accept the defense, game over.
Nothing, he realized, was a guarantee, and in the end, lost in his indecisiveness, House spoke slowly. Calmly he chose his words as he went. “I never believed you needed me. I always knew how this friendship worked: I… needed you.”
He looked away from Wilson as soon as the words had been uttered. As much as House would have liked to gauge his audience’s reaction, he was too afraid of what that response might be. Obviously it was cowardly, but he preferred cowardice to any more pain.
His gaze focused on the afghan spread across the arm of the couch once more, he continued to explain. “I didn’t give you the okay, because I thought you needed it.”
“Then why -”
“Because it needed to be said,” House spit out quickly. But it was with less speed that he continued. Almost as though his mouth had run out of gas, he sputtered to find the right words. And his thumb running along his brow, he said, “Because… I wanted you to know I was… trying… to, I don’t know, back off, I guess.”
He frowned at the choice of words but kept talking. “I didn’t want to lose you, but I… was trying to let you go. I was trying,” he stressed.
Wilson threw his hands in the air. “But then you thought… what? ‘That’s too hard, so I’ll break them up’?”
House shook his head once solemnly. “I wanted you to be happy. But I also knew that without you, I’d be completely alone.” His voice broke on the last word, and he swallowed back the bitter taste of fear and regret. “I just didn’t want to lose you.”
The words hung heavily in the air. A truth he’d never wanted to speak of emitted into the heavy, heated climate, it made him sweat with the realization that he couldn’t take it back.
Ever.
There was no rewind, no undo… no forgetting how he’d uttered his greatest fear of all: losing his one and only friend.
Just as there was no ignoring Wilson’s harsh reply.
“Well, you did,” he announced sarcastically. “You murdered her. And with that, you killed any hope of us ever being friends.”
House had known the words were coming; he’d known that resolution would never be quite so simple.
But it killed him to hear Wilson say those things nonetheless.
And it angered House as well.
Although that might have been the head trauma talking, he couldn’t help but feel enraged.
He hadn’t expected things to be easy, but he also had expected his honesty to leave him empty handed in the end either.
“All I wanted,” he insisted, “was to know that I had a place in your life. I didn’t want to hurt her. Or you.”
Wilson opened his mouth to speak, but House stopped him. “She was important to me too. I worked with her, saw her everyday for months. I know what I did. I know what you lost.”
“But you still want me to forgive you,” Wilson deduced in a sad, knowing voice.
House couldn’t deny that fact. Yes, he did want his friend to forgive him. But he only nodded his head once before adding, “I want it, but I don’t expect it. I want it,” he repeated, making a grabbing motion with his right hand. “But I know I don’t deserve it.”
Wilson remained unmoved. “And yet, you have Cuddy bringing me -”
“That was all her,” House admitted. “I had nothing to do with that…. If she’d asked me, I would have told her not to bring you here.”
His voice was filled with honesty, especially when he said, “You don’t deserve this - this conversation. You didn’t deserve any of it.” He shrugged. “What you’re doing… not talking to me, not being in my life - I more than earned that.”
Whether it was those words or his overall commitment to the sentiment that gave Wilson pause, House didn’t know. Either way, the fact of the matter was that Wilson’s eyes seemed to soften then; the why completely damned in House’s mind, he didn’t care how he’d managed to make this breakthrough.
He just cared that he had.
No questions asked.
Of course, if House had asked, Wilson wouldn’t have known what to say. Forgiveness wasn’t coming suddenly, but a cool trickle of the feeling was beginning to seep into his bones. And though he couldn’t spot the crack in his exterior that had allowed for it to happen, Wilson could feel it nevertheless. The tension in his muscles was beginning to ease, the ramrod stiffness of his back settling into something less formal. His once overwhelming hostility no longer consumed him, and he was able to look at House with clearer eyes.
The man Wilson had desperately wanted to break was clearly already broken.
He hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, but it was impossible to deny it anymore. Everything House was saying, everything he was doing pointed to the same thing - that House already felt as guilty as was humanly possible. He already blamed himself, already accepted that he had been the one in the wrong and that he had been the one to kill Amber and destroy their friendship.
And to be honest, Wilson couldn’t help but feel that that revelation was completely anticlimactic.
He supposed he could have been relieved by the fact that House accepted his part in what had happened. Surely, it was better for him to feel guilty than for Wilson to have to explain to him why killing Amber was wrong.
Or if not relieved, Wilson thought he could have at least mustered up the courage to continue being annoyed. If he couldn’t take solace in this turn of events, then the very least he could do was continue on in his bitter fury. After all, he’d been so angry the last two months, he’d been so consumed by rage, that it should have been second hand at this point to keep that emotion going.
But no.
There was none of those emotions, neither relief nor anger, inside of him. There was nothing inside of him.
He just felt… numb.
He felt… completely drained of all emotional response, as though his hatred and regret from the last two months had left him entirely incapable of having any real feelings on the matter.
It wasn’t - was not - an act of forgiving House.
It was not like House said those things and every complaint Wilson had had before now was suddenly null and void (truth be told, he refused to let that happen). Because the rational part of himself realized that his criticisms of his relationship with House were valid. Even House himself had essentially agreed as much.
The codependency that had led to Amber’s demise, the things that had brought House and Wilson’s friendship literally to a screeching halt… it was all very real. And there could be no denying that those things would have to change in order for them to be friends again.
Of course, there was a chance (albeit a small one) that they’d already made those changes. Wilson could concede that much.
For his own part, he’d become a lot less of a doormat in the last two months, this current conversation proof of that. Well, it was if you ignored the part where Cuddy bribed him into coming here, he realized. But even if you didn’t, there was still no denying that he’d become more selfish, more angry, more judgmental.
He’d become a far worse person than he’d been eight weeks ago.
But maybe those things would allow for a healthier friendship with House, who ironically seemed (and maybe that was the keyword: seemed) like a better person. He seemed capable of adulthood - at least for extended periods of time. He was taking responsibility for the accident; he was apologizing and sharing his feelings. Sure, he was still being cruel to Cuddy, but he’d refrained from shoving parts of her unconscious form into buckets of warm water. And that was progress.
He was changing.
They both were.
But whether or not that was enough for Wilson, he didn’t know. Whether they could go without doing this, whether those changes would be lasting enough to avoid this kind of disaster in the future…
Wilson had no idea.
And though part of him was admittedly curious to see what would happen, the rest of him was still reluctant.
His body giving only the smallest of giveaways, he finally said, on the subject of each man getting what he deserved, “Well… at least we agree on that.”
There was an implication there - that House had deserved to lose Wilson’s friendship - but the remark’s bite was lost by the conversational tone.
And that did not go unnoticed by House, though Wilson knew it would have been foolish to think that it could.
“Is there any hope for me?” House asked in an almost hesitant, quiet manner.
Wilson’s own response was much quicker, to start with anyway. “I don’t know…. Maybe.”
It hadn’t been a no, which in Wilson’s mind felt like a yes, like a betrayal of Amber. To even suggest that there could be a friendship again felt like he was spitting in the face of the woman he loved.
Perhaps it was.
But at the same time… it felt like an even crueler betrayal of himself to say no to what House might have been offering. Because for all of these years… more than anything, what Wilson had wanted was a healthier House, a healthier friendship with him. All of this time, Wilson had wanted a friend who could understand the ramifications of selfish, destructive behavior. He’d wanted a friend who could look before he leaped, who could empathize, who could… see Wilson through the most awful things in the world.
And maybe House wasn’t like that; maybe the changes he’d made were superficial. But either way, wasn’t that a truth Wilson had to find out for himself?
Wasn’t it something he owed himself to figure out?
And if the answers to those questions were yeses, then wouldn’t Amber be happy for him? Supportive of him?
She’d given him the freedom to say no to her, to get the bed he wanted, even when he had no idea what it was that he really wanted. She’d done so much to encourage his self-exploration, and admittedly, being friends again with House was bigger than a waterbed, but nevertheless, didn’t the same rules apply?
Wouldn’t a cutthroat… bitch (Wilson’s mind stumbled over the words) understand the Ayn Rand-ish need to explore aspects of his life selfishly?
Especially since he wasn’t saying all was forgiven, wouldn’t Amber be okay with that?
Wouldn’t she?
For all of his attempts at reassuring himself, Wilson realized that he was not sure.
Not by any means.
But then he hadn’t said yes to House, Wilson reminded himself. And with House looking at him as though it had been a flat out no, Wilson thought his response had been an okay one. Definitely not a great one, but he felt that it would do for the time being.
House clearly didn’t like it though, his eyes sad and full of hurt. Which was impetus enough for Wilson to ask, “Did you expect me to answer that with a definite yes? You want a hug and some cookies for an answer instead?”
The deep and maybe uncharacteristic sarcasm seemed to cut House to the core. His lips turning downward into a frown, he replied with a pout, “No. Still sucks though.”
“You should be grateful,” Wilson admonished in a voice so breathless it was practically hissed.
Frankly, the presumption on House’s part that he somehow deserved a better answer infuriated Wilson.
That alone gave him pause. That alone was enough to make him reconsider giving House a shot.
And House must have sensed this, because he suddenly insisted, “I am grateful. Really I am.”
“You sure?”
“I am,” he stressed. “I just… I don’t know.” He shrugged apologetically. “It’s just that, if you’re holding out on a friendship with me, because I’m not doing something you want…”
He never ended up finishing the thought, and Wilson supposed that it was just too hard for House to ask for tips, for ways to improve his odds. To be honest, Wilson didn’t blame him for that and ended up finishing the thought for him. “You want me to tell you what to do?”
House didn’t say yes or no, which sort of said it all. He simply said sarcastically, “You’ve never hesitated before.” But the harshness of the words was outweighed greatly by the imploring look he was giving Wilson.
And House was right: Wilson hadn’t ever hesitated before to give advice. Yet in this case, Wilson wasn’t entirely sure what he needed to see from House. Sure, he wanted to see that the changes House made were real and permanent. But how he would know that that was the case… he couldn’t put that into words. And if there were something more Wilson wished to see, he didn’t know what that was.
Unless…
“You want something to do? Pull the hand-in-the-water trick on Cuddy,” Wilson said seriously.
Naturally though, House looked at him with suspicion. “You… want me to make Cuddy pee her pants.” It was almost a question he sounded so confused.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s going to continue to believe that I’m a bed wetter!”
“So?” Honestly House wasn’t opposed on principle, although he would have preferred to wait until Cuddy was no longer sleeping in his bed for obvious reasons.
“So,” Wilson repeated in annoyance, “If you want to be my friend, you’ll show me that you want to protect me from unkind opinions. You’ll defend me. Or something.”
Now Wilson was the unsure one, and House suspected that that had to do with the fact that Wilson was trying to take childish revenge on Cuddy for bringing him here and then also refusing to believe that House’s prank had worked.
But House was okay with doing this for him. His bed aside, there were no downsides to this. Tormenting Cuddy might have been wrong on many levels, but it could also be incredibly enjoyable. And if bothering her was the key to getting Wilson back, then why the hell not?
“Consider it done,” House said cheerfully. “Anything else?”
“No.”
“Want me to sleep with her too? Cause that would be just as easy…”
“No. I’d rather not have to deal with the mental image of you and Cuddy… doing it,” he said with friendly, immature disgust.
And House, brazen and pleased with the way Wilson was clearly warming up to him, was about to say something dirty when Cuddy reminded both men that she was still around. Obviously having heard what they were talking about, she angrily stormed back into the room.
Whoops.
“You two are still talking about this?” Cuddy demanded in a shrill voice that surprisingly didn’t make his ear ring.
She stomped in front of the couch, coming to stand over House with her hands on her hips. She looked at him as though she blamed him for the topic of conversation, and he guessed that technically she was right.
“Please,” she said in a voice that negated the polite word. “Stop telling people that we’re sleeping together.”
“Now, now, snookums. We don’t have to hide our love,” House tormented. One of his hands reached around her to squeeze her ass, but she caught the wandering appendage around the wrist.
“I’m going to kill you,” she seethed. “Wilson, it’s good you came; you can say your goodbyes to him now.”
Immediately she dropped his hand in order to use hers as a weapon against him. But unfortunately for her, House had expected this and grabbed her hands before she’d landed a single blow.
“Gonna have to try harder if you want to kill me,” he teased.
Had she been slow to respond, House might have considered just how inappropriate his words were in Wilson’s presence. But lucky for all of them, Cuddy was quick to growl as loudly as she could.
As she tried to wrench her hands free, he considered once more the state of his tinnitus… or rather the stunning lack of it.
If this had been any other day in the last two months, with the amount of noise she was making, he would have been curled up in a ball in pain by now.
But he wasn’t.
And that gave him pause. He didn’t dare, not even for a second, consider that his tinnitus might be permanently gone; he refused to give himself any sort of hope.
But it did make him wonder:
What was going on?
The question was enough to tear him away from what he was doing. It divided his attention, and doing that led him to instinctively loosen his grip on Cuddy.
Her wrists practically free, she yanked her hands back hard. So hard that she actually stumbled backwards a few steps. Which would have been fine…
If not for the coffee table covered in food behind her.
Continue on to the rest of the chapter