FECD sequel thingy for barefootpuddles
Title: Welcome to the first day of the rest of your (after)life.
Author: Starlingthefool
Fandom: House MD/Dead Like Me crossover
Warnings: Sort of explicit sex, character death (obviously) (but not depressing!)
Summary: Nothing is ever simple.
Author's Notes: For the help_haiti auction, barefootpuddles requested a sequel (of sorts) to For Every Closed Door. After a certain amount of panic, I wrote it. And enjoyed the hell out of it. This wasn't quite what her prompt asked for, but I dunno. I'm pretty happy with it.
This story takes place right after Chapter 14.
Also, petrichor_fizz beta'd this. She beta'd it HARD. For which I thank her. <3
***
Murphy’s law apparently applied to the afterlife as well. Why the hell, Wilson wondered, wasn’t anything ever simple?
“What the hell do you mean, he’s still breathing?” House shouted at Colby. “He’s not in there, he must be dead.”
“Look at him!” Colby shouted, voice cracking. He pointed at Wilson’s broken body, which was oozing blood on the ground. “I swear to god, I saw him breathing.”
House knelt down and put a trembling hand on the body’s neck. Wilson looked at him, rather than on the thing that used to be him. As much as he’d enjoyed living in it - well, enjoyed it in a broad sense - looking at the thing disturbed him.
After a second, House muttered, “He’s right. Shit.”
“Shit,” Ada repeated, turning away.
“Shitbears,” Colby added. “Should we call an ambulance?”
“Kind of counter-productive, don’t you think?” House said. It sounded like he was gritting his teeth.
“Too late,” Ada said. The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance.
“Should we, you know-” House made a vaguely violent gesture at Wilson’s body, “-before they get here?”
“No way,” Colby said. “They’ll totally know he didn’t die from his injuries.”
“Nobody’s going to look at him and think he didn’t die from being hit by a car. You’ve been watching too much CSI, kid,” House said.
“Don’t call me kid, I’m older than you are, you bastard-”
They were still arguing when the ambulance pulled up. Wilson had never, ever, wanted a cigarette more in his life.
“How long were you incorporeal for?” he asked House. They were in Colby’s car, following the ambulance. The one that had Wilson’s body in it. This was so fucking weird.
“Three days. You buried me pretty quick.”
“So I get a new body after my old one is buried?”
“Or burned or whatever, I guess. Oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“You’re an organ donor, aren’t you?”
“...Shit.”
“Well, maybe you’ll kick off on the way to the hospital.”
His afterlife, Wilson reflected, had not had the most auspicious start.
“Why the hell couldn’t I have been killed on impact?” he complained to House. They were sitting on a bench in a PPTH hallway. Wilson’s body was in the ICU. He could have walked right in there to see it, but really, bitching to House felt a lot better. “This is so fucking unbelievable. Now I have to wait until I get all of my organs pulled out before I can feel anything again.”
“Too much clean-living. I told you, self-abuse was the way to go, but noooo-”
“Why the fuck couldn’t you have stopped insulting Colby long enough to kill me when you had the chance? Damn it, House-”
“Shut your face, will ya?” said a new voice. Both Wilson and House turned to see Coma Guy from room 224. He sat down next to Wilson. “You got it good compared to some of us.”
Wilson looked at House, whose expression of horror probably mirrored his own.
“Hey, don’t you guys work here?” Coma Guy asked. “You’re the ones who come eat lunch in the vegetable ward sometimes.”
“Not anymore,” House said. “Medical licenses aren’t valid after death, apparently.”
“Pity,” Coma Guy said. “I was gonna ask if you wouldn’t mind helping a guy out, if you know what I mean. Slip me a little extra one day, or something. Ah well.” He turned to Wilson. “You should be thankful that you at least got an expiration date.”
***
Cigarette. Cigarette, cigarette, cigarette, Wilson thought idly. He’d never felt such a longing for tobacco. House had indulged him in lighting one up and blowing smoke into his face, but it wasn’t the same. He couldn't taste it, or feel it, or smell it. It was like living in some kind of existential vacuum. Wilson had no ability to process any sort of physical sensations, so all he was left was the exquisite torture of cravings. It was that way with nearly everything.
Later, watching House brew coffee, it was the same torturous progression of thoughts; coffee, coffee, coffee. No sugar, little bit of cream. Or a latte with cinnamon and vanilla dusted on it. Mocha. Black Americano, with a biscotti. His mouth would have watered, if it could have.
Watching House take a sip of that coffee, long fingers curved around the handle of a mug, all Wilson could think of was the last time those fingers had touched him; holding him back from an unimaginable and unavoidable fate, and then letting him go to meet it.
Wilson stood and walked out of the kitchen. He wasn’t ready to think about that.
***
It was three long days before Wilson finally, really died. But then, of course, the funeral wasn’t for another four days after that.
It was a long week; Wilson spent much of it in what he still thought of as Mika’s apartment, watching television. House, of course, refused to change the channels when he asked, and forced him to watch a marathon of As the World Turns. Wilson got him back by singing every 90s pop song he could think of at full volume while House was trying to sleep.
Then House made him watch while he jerked off. Being aroused without a body (and therefore any method of relief) was possibly worse than dying had actually been.
Thank god he hadn’t donated his body to science. He could have been stuck like this for months.
***
The first thing Wilson did when he got a new body was punch House in the face, because he’d promised himself he would after the second time House masturbated in front of him for Wilson’s explicit torture.
The second thing he did was grab him by the shirt collar, clamber into his lap, and start kissing him. Things might have gotten out of hand if they hadn’t gotten thrown out of the cafe, which wasn’t much of a loss really, though they’d probably traumatized Colby. Wilson was too busy inhaling the scent of House's body and relearning the taste of his skin to care.
They walked home, and Wilson kept inhaling deeply, breathing in a heady wash of scents- gasoline and exhaust and rain and dirt and garbage and stone and cologne and skin. He catalogued each physical sensation like it was the first time he’d ever experienced it; the breeze against his scalp, his bare arms breaking out in goosebumps, the solid ground beneath his sneakers. Everything made him shiver. He felt incredibly turned on, not just by House's lips against his own and House’s stubble scraping against his jaw, but by a rough brick wall against his back, the movement of the air around them.
They barely made it home. House went down on him in the hallway of the apartment, and it was only through some extreme effort of will that Wilson managed to unlock the door and pull them both inside. They didn't even bother trying to make it to the bedroom.
It was odd that kissing House was different than kissing House-as-Mika. That had been something illicit, something he had enjoyed while knowing he shouldn’t. Kissing House was just electric. Like someone had wired his nerves to 10,000 volts, and shocks were singing down his spine and across the expanse of his skin.
Maybe it was because House didn’t have to keep up a facade, pretend he was someone else. Maybe it was just because the entire world of sensation still felt shiny and new. Maybe it was because Wilson hadn’t been able to relieve himself of an incorporeal erection for close to a week. At any rate, it didn’t take long before he was coming hard and loud and fast down House’s throat.
House didn’t hold it against him. Luckily, one of the benefits to being a Reaper was quicker recovery time.
***
Wilson had his first Reap. And his second. And his third. They went well enough. It wasn’t hard work. He used to tell people they were dying. Telling people that they were already dead was infinitely easier.
Sometimes Wilson remembered that he was going to be doing this indefinitely, and he had to sit down for a while and concentrate on breathing. He felt hemmed in by the long stretch of years in front of him. How had House managed to adjust so easily?
“I didn’t,” House said, over a dinner of tamales and margaritas. The green chile sauce burned exquisitely in his mouth and sinuses, and the tequila bloomed warmth in his chest. He’d figured out why almost every Reaper he met ate and drank with such gusto.
“You seemed all right for a dead guy when you were stalking me.”
“It was not stalking. And that was after I... you know. Calmed down about things.”
Wilson looked sharply at House. It was odd to hear him make such an honest and vulnerable statement. He was not sure he was ready to have that kind of serious conversation with House. “The stalking was an improvement?”
“Damn it, I was only trying to-”
Wilson laughed at House’s sulky face. House glared and vindictively stole the rest of Wilson’s guacamole before telling him about experimenting with trying to die a second time.
That night, Wilson couldn’t sleep. He was plagued by thoughts of what House would have done if Wilson hadn’t been fated to replace Kay as a Reaper. The man in question lay snoring softly in bed next to him. Wilson suddenly remembered identifying his mangled body in the morgue at the hospital. The memory hurt; he could feel the impact of it jarring through him mentally.
And yet, against all odds, here they both were. Sharing a bed in a cozy apartment. There was even a cat in the room. Just as though they were normal people, rather than an undead couple with more issues than The New Yorker, who, on top of anything else, had been drafted to be psychopomps.
Yesterday, he had Reaped a five year old boy who was hit by a car. The day before, it was a woman in her thirties who fell off her roof. Who would it be tomorrow? How many lives would he end, how many entrances into the afterlife would he witness before he finally got out of this limbo? Did he regret becoming a Reaper? Would it always be this hard?
And what about this new thing with House? How long before the honeymoon was over, and they couldn’t stand each other? Everything had changed. Again. And Wilson wasn’t sure he’d be able to roll with them this time-
“Would you stop thinking so loud?”
Wilson turned to see House glaring at him, ruffled and half-awake. “Sorry. I, uh, couldn’t... I think I’m-” About to have a panic attack, he should have said, but his breath felt inadequate to keep speaking.
House seemed to shake himself out of sleep, reaching an arm out to him, touching his shoulder. Wilson struggled to control his breathing. God, this was embarrassing.
“I’ve never met anyone so good at thinking themselves into a knot,” House said. His tone was almost affectionate. It kind of made Wilson want to hit him, but since the feel of House’s hand was the only thing grounding him right now, he settled for shooting him a withering look.
House smiled, but it faded quickly. “It all just hit you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Wilson nodded.
“Would it help if I said everything is going to be okay?” House asked doubtfully. Wilson shook his head. But he let House tug him back down onto the bed and wrap a warm arm around his chest.
When he finally got his breathing close to normal, he said, “Five weeks ago, we were both well-respected doctors.”
“You were well-respected. I was feared.”
“Whatever. Point is-”
“Your point is that we are now undead, have been drafted to usher people to their afterlives, have had to sever all of our other connections, and that is a little overwhelming.”
“And we’re a couple.”
House’s silence echoed through the empty room. Wilson could have been cuddling a statue.
“Shit,” Wilson said. “Never mind.”
House didn’t stop him when Wilson pulled away from him and got out of bed.
“So, how did you end up like this, exactly?” Wilson asked Coma Guy. He was back at the hospital. A few hours had passed from the time that he had left House’s (Mika’s) apartment. He’d spent a lot of time walking, and a little time drinking, then made his way to the hospital.
“Fucked if I know. One minute, I’m in there,” he said, nodding to the wasted figure on the bed. “Next thing I know, this girl has me by the arm, saying it shouldn’t be long.”
“Long?”
“Long before I get to go. Before the tunnel of lights and the voices of my loved ones and the harps and all that shit. She kinda panicked when nothing happened.”
“I’d panic too,” Wilson said.
“I mean, the way she was acting, she thought the world was gonna end. That was about six months ago, so it didn’t, obviously. Best we could figure, one of the higher-ups had a screw-up, y’know? Some dick made a typo, Kay pulled G. Anderson instead of B. Anderson or some damn thing. She felt bad, but I couldn’t really hold it against her.”
“Kay?”
“Yeah, that was the girl, the one who pulled me out. I always told her, hey, this ain’t so bad. It’s an improvement over being a vegetable, ain’t it? Least I get some exercise.”
Of course G. Anderson had been Kay’s Reap. Wilson was getting tired of the number of coincidences in this job.
“She usually stops by once a week,” Coma Guy was saying. “Just to chat, see how I’m doing. Shoot the shit. She ain’t been by in a little while, though.”
Wilson sighed. “She’s not coming back.”
Coma Guy nodded. “I figured. What’d her place look like?”
“Her place?”
“You know, her place. Heaven, or whatever the fuck you wanna call it.”
“Ireland,” Wilson said.
“Ha! Figures. She’d talk about Ireland till she was blue in the face, if you’d let her. Christ knows why, I went there with my ex-wife, what, twenty years ago? Gloomy fucking place. Yeah, kinda pretty, but too much rain for me. Tell you what, when I finally get outta here, wherever I’m going better be sunny.”
Wilson smiled, then dug around in his pocket. He unfolded a pink sticky note and showed it to the ghost sitting next to him.
G. Anderson*
4:41 am
PPTH - Room 224
(”What’s the asterisk for?” he’d asked Ada when she gave it to him. “Special case. You’ll see.” Then he’d read the room number and said, “Actually, I think I already know.”)
“Huh,” Coma Guy said. “No shit. What time is it?”
There was a loud bang from outside. All of the lights in the room blinked out at once. A second later, they flickered once, twice, and then went black. A transformer must have blown.
“I’m guessing it’s 4:41,” Wilson said. He stood up, went to the breathing corpse on the bed, and put his hand on the thin arm. There was a soft flare of blue-green light.
“Hot damn,” Coma Guy said. When Wilson turned to him, he looked a little more there than he had before. “I felt that.”
The room was suddenly washed in warm light. The sun was shining. There was the sound of a water washing against a sandy beach, distant voices, faint music.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” G. Anderson shouted. “No more New Jersey winters for me.” He turned back to Wilson quickly. “Thanks a lot, friend. Catch you on the flip side.”
Wilson held up his hand in farewell as Coma Guy strode off into the sunset. A second later, the lights from the beach faded. A few seconds after that, the lights in the room turned back on. Reality reasserted itself.
Wilson made his exit as the alarm at the nurses’ desk started to sound, walking at a steady pace until he was outside. The night air was pleasantly cool against his skin. Wilson looked up at the stars, willing his pulse to slow down. He felt like he’d just pulled off a heist or something.
He heard the rumble of the engine before he saw the bike. He watched it slowly roll up to him, watched its rider watching him. House pulled up in front of him, put the kickstand down, and killed the engine. It ticked loudly in the quiet night.
“You know, just because you’ve already died on that thing once doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear a helmet,” Wilson said.
House snorted. “Does that mean you don’t want a ride?” When Wilson hesitated, he said, “Come on. Live a little, dead guy.”
Wilson laughed, then stepped up to the bike. He put his hands on House’s shoulders to steady himself, and swung a leg over.
“Scoot forward,” House said, quietly.“I can’t believe we both had to die before you’d actually get on this thing.”
“Got nothing to lose at this point,” Wilson said. He’d meant the words to be light, but they fell flat, heavy as lead, burdened by the truth. He had nothing to lose, because he’d already lost everything. Even House; he had him now, but he’d spent weeks grieving for him. Miracles were double-edged swords, and they cut deep. That was the root of the problem here. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful to Kay and Delia - and the Universe in general - for somehow doing this, or absolutely livid.
Well. Time would tell. There was no going back, anyway.
He wrapped his arms around House’s chest. “Are we going home?”
“Do you want to?”
“No. Not really.”
House tapped a finger on one of the handlebars. “I know a good place to watch the sun rise.”
Wilson raised his eyebrows. He wondered if the place was somewhere House had taken Stacy. It wouldn’t surprise him if it was. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
When House didn’t turn on the engine, Wilson pulled back a little. There was tension in the line of House’s shoulders, and he was avoiding looking at Wilson.
“What is it?” Wilson asked.
“I’m not good at... declarations of emotions,” House said. “And I’m out of practice at being half of a couple. Doesn’t mean I don’t... that I...”
Wilson was tempted to let House flail a bit longer, but took pity on him. “Don’t worry about it, House. I don’t need that.”
“Oh, thank god. Let’s go get drunk and grope each other while watching the sun rise.”
Wilson knew at some point they’d have to have a deeper conversation about it, but he was willing to let it go for now. “Agreed. But if you pull a wheelie while I’m on this thing, I will find a way to kill you again.”
The engine roared to life, and the bike took off.
Author: Starlingthefool
Fandom: House MD/Dead Like Me crossover
Warnings: Sort of explicit sex, character death (obviously) (but not depressing!)
Summary: Nothing is ever simple.
Author's Notes: For the help_haiti auction, barefootpuddles requested a sequel (of sorts) to For Every Closed Door. After a certain amount of panic, I wrote it. And enjoyed the hell out of it. This wasn't quite what her prompt asked for, but I dunno. I'm pretty happy with it.
This story takes place right after Chapter 14.
Also, petrichor_fizz beta'd this. She beta'd it HARD. For which I thank her. <3
***
Murphy’s law apparently applied to the afterlife as well. Why the hell, Wilson wondered, wasn’t anything ever simple?
“What the hell do you mean, he’s still breathing?” House shouted at Colby. “He’s not in there, he must be dead.”
“Look at him!” Colby shouted, voice cracking. He pointed at Wilson’s broken body, which was oozing blood on the ground. “I swear to god, I saw him breathing.”
House knelt down and put a trembling hand on the body’s neck. Wilson looked at him, rather than on the thing that used to be him. As much as he’d enjoyed living in it - well, enjoyed it in a broad sense - looking at the thing disturbed him.
After a second, House muttered, “He’s right. Shit.”
“Shit,” Ada repeated, turning away.
“Shitbears,” Colby added. “Should we call an ambulance?”
“Kind of counter-productive, don’t you think?” House said. It sounded like he was gritting his teeth.
“Too late,” Ada said. The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance.
“Should we, you know-” House made a vaguely violent gesture at Wilson’s body, “-before they get here?”
“No way,” Colby said. “They’ll totally know he didn’t die from his injuries.”
“Nobody’s going to look at him and think he didn’t die from being hit by a car. You’ve been watching too much CSI, kid,” House said.
“Don’t call me kid, I’m older than you are, you bastard-”
They were still arguing when the ambulance pulled up. Wilson had never, ever, wanted a cigarette more in his life.
“How long were you incorporeal for?” he asked House. They were in Colby’s car, following the ambulance. The one that had Wilson’s body in it. This was so fucking weird.
“Three days. You buried me pretty quick.”
“So I get a new body after my old one is buried?”
“Or burned or whatever, I guess. Oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“You’re an organ donor, aren’t you?”
“...Shit.”
“Well, maybe you’ll kick off on the way to the hospital.”
His afterlife, Wilson reflected, had not had the most auspicious start.
“Why the hell couldn’t I have been killed on impact?” he complained to House. They were sitting on a bench in a PPTH hallway. Wilson’s body was in the ICU. He could have walked right in there to see it, but really, bitching to House felt a lot better. “This is so fucking unbelievable. Now I have to wait until I get all of my organs pulled out before I can feel anything again.”
“Too much clean-living. I told you, self-abuse was the way to go, but noooo-”
“Why the fuck couldn’t you have stopped insulting Colby long enough to kill me when you had the chance? Damn it, House-”
“Shut your face, will ya?” said a new voice. Both Wilson and House turned to see Coma Guy from room 224. He sat down next to Wilson. “You got it good compared to some of us.”
Wilson looked at House, whose expression of horror probably mirrored his own.
“Hey, don’t you guys work here?” Coma Guy asked. “You’re the ones who come eat lunch in the vegetable ward sometimes.”
“Not anymore,” House said. “Medical licenses aren’t valid after death, apparently.”
“Pity,” Coma Guy said. “I was gonna ask if you wouldn’t mind helping a guy out, if you know what I mean. Slip me a little extra one day, or something. Ah well.” He turned to Wilson. “You should be thankful that you at least got an expiration date.”
***
Cigarette. Cigarette, cigarette, cigarette, Wilson thought idly. He’d never felt such a longing for tobacco. House had indulged him in lighting one up and blowing smoke into his face, but it wasn’t the same. He couldn't taste it, or feel it, or smell it. It was like living in some kind of existential vacuum. Wilson had no ability to process any sort of physical sensations, so all he was left was the exquisite torture of cravings. It was that way with nearly everything.
Later, watching House brew coffee, it was the same torturous progression of thoughts; coffee, coffee, coffee. No sugar, little bit of cream. Or a latte with cinnamon and vanilla dusted on it. Mocha. Black Americano, with a biscotti. His mouth would have watered, if it could have.
Watching House take a sip of that coffee, long fingers curved around the handle of a mug, all Wilson could think of was the last time those fingers had touched him; holding him back from an unimaginable and unavoidable fate, and then letting him go to meet it.
Wilson stood and walked out of the kitchen. He wasn’t ready to think about that.
***
It was three long days before Wilson finally, really died. But then, of course, the funeral wasn’t for another four days after that.
It was a long week; Wilson spent much of it in what he still thought of as Mika’s apartment, watching television. House, of course, refused to change the channels when he asked, and forced him to watch a marathon of As the World Turns. Wilson got him back by singing every 90s pop song he could think of at full volume while House was trying to sleep.
Then House made him watch while he jerked off. Being aroused without a body (and therefore any method of relief) was possibly worse than dying had actually been.
Thank god he hadn’t donated his body to science. He could have been stuck like this for months.
***
The first thing Wilson did when he got a new body was punch House in the face, because he’d promised himself he would after the second time House masturbated in front of him for Wilson’s explicit torture.
The second thing he did was grab him by the shirt collar, clamber into his lap, and start kissing him. Things might have gotten out of hand if they hadn’t gotten thrown out of the cafe, which wasn’t much of a loss really, though they’d probably traumatized Colby. Wilson was too busy inhaling the scent of House's body and relearning the taste of his skin to care.
They walked home, and Wilson kept inhaling deeply, breathing in a heady wash of scents- gasoline and exhaust and rain and dirt and garbage and stone and cologne and skin. He catalogued each physical sensation like it was the first time he’d ever experienced it; the breeze against his scalp, his bare arms breaking out in goosebumps, the solid ground beneath his sneakers. Everything made him shiver. He felt incredibly turned on, not just by House's lips against his own and House’s stubble scraping against his jaw, but by a rough brick wall against his back, the movement of the air around them.
They barely made it home. House went down on him in the hallway of the apartment, and it was only through some extreme effort of will that Wilson managed to unlock the door and pull them both inside. They didn't even bother trying to make it to the bedroom.
It was odd that kissing House was different than kissing House-as-Mika. That had been something illicit, something he had enjoyed while knowing he shouldn’t. Kissing House was just electric. Like someone had wired his nerves to 10,000 volts, and shocks were singing down his spine and across the expanse of his skin.
Maybe it was because House didn’t have to keep up a facade, pretend he was someone else. Maybe it was just because the entire world of sensation still felt shiny and new. Maybe it was because Wilson hadn’t been able to relieve himself of an incorporeal erection for close to a week. At any rate, it didn’t take long before he was coming hard and loud and fast down House’s throat.
House didn’t hold it against him. Luckily, one of the benefits to being a Reaper was quicker recovery time.
***
Wilson had his first Reap. And his second. And his third. They went well enough. It wasn’t hard work. He used to tell people they were dying. Telling people that they were already dead was infinitely easier.
Sometimes Wilson remembered that he was going to be doing this indefinitely, and he had to sit down for a while and concentrate on breathing. He felt hemmed in by the long stretch of years in front of him. How had House managed to adjust so easily?
“I didn’t,” House said, over a dinner of tamales and margaritas. The green chile sauce burned exquisitely in his mouth and sinuses, and the tequila bloomed warmth in his chest. He’d figured out why almost every Reaper he met ate and drank with such gusto.
“You seemed all right for a dead guy when you were stalking me.”
“It was not stalking. And that was after I... you know. Calmed down about things.”
Wilson looked sharply at House. It was odd to hear him make such an honest and vulnerable statement. He was not sure he was ready to have that kind of serious conversation with House. “The stalking was an improvement?”
“Damn it, I was only trying to-”
Wilson laughed at House’s sulky face. House glared and vindictively stole the rest of Wilson’s guacamole before telling him about experimenting with trying to die a second time.
That night, Wilson couldn’t sleep. He was plagued by thoughts of what House would have done if Wilson hadn’t been fated to replace Kay as a Reaper. The man in question lay snoring softly in bed next to him. Wilson suddenly remembered identifying his mangled body in the morgue at the hospital. The memory hurt; he could feel the impact of it jarring through him mentally.
And yet, against all odds, here they both were. Sharing a bed in a cozy apartment. There was even a cat in the room. Just as though they were normal people, rather than an undead couple with more issues than The New Yorker, who, on top of anything else, had been drafted to be psychopomps.
Yesterday, he had Reaped a five year old boy who was hit by a car. The day before, it was a woman in her thirties who fell off her roof. Who would it be tomorrow? How many lives would he end, how many entrances into the afterlife would he witness before he finally got out of this limbo? Did he regret becoming a Reaper? Would it always be this hard?
And what about this new thing with House? How long before the honeymoon was over, and they couldn’t stand each other? Everything had changed. Again. And Wilson wasn’t sure he’d be able to roll with them this time-
“Would you stop thinking so loud?”
Wilson turned to see House glaring at him, ruffled and half-awake. “Sorry. I, uh, couldn’t... I think I’m-” About to have a panic attack, he should have said, but his breath felt inadequate to keep speaking.
House seemed to shake himself out of sleep, reaching an arm out to him, touching his shoulder. Wilson struggled to control his breathing. God, this was embarrassing.
“I’ve never met anyone so good at thinking themselves into a knot,” House said. His tone was almost affectionate. It kind of made Wilson want to hit him, but since the feel of House’s hand was the only thing grounding him right now, he settled for shooting him a withering look.
House smiled, but it faded quickly. “It all just hit you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Wilson nodded.
“Would it help if I said everything is going to be okay?” House asked doubtfully. Wilson shook his head. But he let House tug him back down onto the bed and wrap a warm arm around his chest.
When he finally got his breathing close to normal, he said, “Five weeks ago, we were both well-respected doctors.”
“You were well-respected. I was feared.”
“Whatever. Point is-”
“Your point is that we are now undead, have been drafted to usher people to their afterlives, have had to sever all of our other connections, and that is a little overwhelming.”
“And we’re a couple.”
House’s silence echoed through the empty room. Wilson could have been cuddling a statue.
“Shit,” Wilson said. “Never mind.”
House didn’t stop him when Wilson pulled away from him and got out of bed.
“So, how did you end up like this, exactly?” Wilson asked Coma Guy. He was back at the hospital. A few hours had passed from the time that he had left House’s (Mika’s) apartment. He’d spent a lot of time walking, and a little time drinking, then made his way to the hospital.
“Fucked if I know. One minute, I’m in there,” he said, nodding to the wasted figure on the bed. “Next thing I know, this girl has me by the arm, saying it shouldn’t be long.”
“Long?”
“Long before I get to go. Before the tunnel of lights and the voices of my loved ones and the harps and all that shit. She kinda panicked when nothing happened.”
“I’d panic too,” Wilson said.
“I mean, the way she was acting, she thought the world was gonna end. That was about six months ago, so it didn’t, obviously. Best we could figure, one of the higher-ups had a screw-up, y’know? Some dick made a typo, Kay pulled G. Anderson instead of B. Anderson or some damn thing. She felt bad, but I couldn’t really hold it against her.”
“Kay?”
“Yeah, that was the girl, the one who pulled me out. I always told her, hey, this ain’t so bad. It’s an improvement over being a vegetable, ain’t it? Least I get some exercise.”
Of course G. Anderson had been Kay’s Reap. Wilson was getting tired of the number of coincidences in this job.
“She usually stops by once a week,” Coma Guy was saying. “Just to chat, see how I’m doing. Shoot the shit. She ain’t been by in a little while, though.”
Wilson sighed. “She’s not coming back.”
Coma Guy nodded. “I figured. What’d her place look like?”
“Her place?”
“You know, her place. Heaven, or whatever the fuck you wanna call it.”
“Ireland,” Wilson said.
“Ha! Figures. She’d talk about Ireland till she was blue in the face, if you’d let her. Christ knows why, I went there with my ex-wife, what, twenty years ago? Gloomy fucking place. Yeah, kinda pretty, but too much rain for me. Tell you what, when I finally get outta here, wherever I’m going better be sunny.”
Wilson smiled, then dug around in his pocket. He unfolded a pink sticky note and showed it to the ghost sitting next to him.
G. Anderson*
4:41 am
PPTH - Room 224
(”What’s the asterisk for?” he’d asked Ada when she gave it to him. “Special case. You’ll see.” Then he’d read the room number and said, “Actually, I think I already know.”)
“Huh,” Coma Guy said. “No shit. What time is it?”
There was a loud bang from outside. All of the lights in the room blinked out at once. A second later, they flickered once, twice, and then went black. A transformer must have blown.
“I’m guessing it’s 4:41,” Wilson said. He stood up, went to the breathing corpse on the bed, and put his hand on the thin arm. There was a soft flare of blue-green light.
“Hot damn,” Coma Guy said. When Wilson turned to him, he looked a little more there than he had before. “I felt that.”
The room was suddenly washed in warm light. The sun was shining. There was the sound of a water washing against a sandy beach, distant voices, faint music.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” G. Anderson shouted. “No more New Jersey winters for me.” He turned back to Wilson quickly. “Thanks a lot, friend. Catch you on the flip side.”
Wilson held up his hand in farewell as Coma Guy strode off into the sunset. A second later, the lights from the beach faded. A few seconds after that, the lights in the room turned back on. Reality reasserted itself.
Wilson made his exit as the alarm at the nurses’ desk started to sound, walking at a steady pace until he was outside. The night air was pleasantly cool against his skin. Wilson looked up at the stars, willing his pulse to slow down. He felt like he’d just pulled off a heist or something.
He heard the rumble of the engine before he saw the bike. He watched it slowly roll up to him, watched its rider watching him. House pulled up in front of him, put the kickstand down, and killed the engine. It ticked loudly in the quiet night.
“You know, just because you’ve already died on that thing once doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear a helmet,” Wilson said.
House snorted. “Does that mean you don’t want a ride?” When Wilson hesitated, he said, “Come on. Live a little, dead guy.”
Wilson laughed, then stepped up to the bike. He put his hands on House’s shoulders to steady himself, and swung a leg over.
“Scoot forward,” House said, quietly.“I can’t believe we both had to die before you’d actually get on this thing.”
“Got nothing to lose at this point,” Wilson said. He’d meant the words to be light, but they fell flat, heavy as lead, burdened by the truth. He had nothing to lose, because he’d already lost everything. Even House; he had him now, but he’d spent weeks grieving for him. Miracles were double-edged swords, and they cut deep. That was the root of the problem here. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful to Kay and Delia - and the Universe in general - for somehow doing this, or absolutely livid.
Well. Time would tell. There was no going back, anyway.
He wrapped his arms around House’s chest. “Are we going home?”
“Do you want to?”
“No. Not really.”
House tapped a finger on one of the handlebars. “I know a good place to watch the sun rise.”
Wilson raised his eyebrows. He wondered if the place was somewhere House had taken Stacy. It wouldn’t surprise him if it was. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
When House didn’t turn on the engine, Wilson pulled back a little. There was tension in the line of House’s shoulders, and he was avoiding looking at Wilson.
“What is it?” Wilson asked.
“I’m not good at... declarations of emotions,” House said. “And I’m out of practice at being half of a couple. Doesn’t mean I don’t... that I...”
Wilson was tempted to let House flail a bit longer, but took pity on him. “Don’t worry about it, House. I don’t need that.”
“Oh, thank god. Let’s go get drunk and grope each other while watching the sun rise.”
Wilson knew at some point they’d have to have a deeper conversation about it, but he was willing to let it go for now. “Agreed. But if you pull a wheelie while I’m on this thing, I will find a way to kill you again.”
The engine roared to life, and the bike took off.