The Golden Calf
Fic: The Golden Calf
Author: thosewerepearls
Fandom: House, MD
Pairings: House/Wilson
Rating: T, maybe M
A/N: After Episode 2.2 [Autopsy]
Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
You see him, staring down from the balcony at the scene. Cameron is pretty and blushing, as always. Smiling wide, showing the back of her teeth to Andy-who is smiling as well. Chase shifts around, his eyes never falling on one person. He won’t meet the mother’s eyes. You don’t blame him. You’ve done awful things in your life, but kissing a dying nine year old girl-no, never. Never that. Foreman is, like always, watching the scene with a strange discerning gaze. Though he hugs the poor girl, he is a stranger to these interplays. Like always-like his boss-he is a stranger looking in, watching reality from the side lines. Cuddy is there, looking beautiful and too worn down from her job, from House, from dealing with his insanities.
House has come down from the balcony and has put himself in the path your poor procession will make. Andy is marched in a wheelchair past him and he smiles at her, a small mistaken smile. As though it were not truly there. But Andy’s grin spreads wider than you could even imagine. House twists his mouth into a grimace. He leaves, going back to his office, you imagine. You follow Andy out to her car. The sun is almost painful in its intensity, but it is beginning to set. There is ice on the trees. For miles and miles, it looks like the branches were covered in diamonds. They are glittering in the light. Andy seems happy about this. The women blush. Chase is waiting near the wall of the hospital, scared to get near the girl again. Probably scared to hurt her.
When they leave, you walk back into the hospital, intent on finding your friend. Hospital hallways are always too bright and they always smell of death-except, on the rare occasions, when you visit the maternity ward and find the smell of warm, beating life. There is always a sea of white lab coats and people gossiping. The nurses in their bright scrubs dimpling at you, blushing at you as if every rumor spread was true. The patients being wheeled for tests, and more tests, tests and surgeries. There is the mechanical sound that defines this place . The beeping of heart monitors, the occasional shock of the AEDs, the humming of the respirators. On occasion there is laughing, sometimes singing. But there is almost always a strand of joy buried here.
You go into your office, to recollect yourself before seeing House, because you’re angry and rightly so. Because, in part, you’re tired of the damn risks he takes and the unwillingness to consider anyone’s feeling-to consider emotions at all. Because he could have killed her and everyone told him this, and even you told him this but it didn’t change a thing.
You lie down on the couch, stare up at the ceiling and loosen your tie. Shadows play games on your walls. The sun is setting outside, turning everything orange and red, as though lighting everything on fire.
You try to picture how you would confront him, what you will say, how you could change him. Because you know you are the sole voice of reason in his world, and maybe you can still reach him. Because you are his only friend. And though you know he is not nearly as cold as he behaves, his actions still chill you. He is not a cruel man, and he is not heartless and rash, but you think that one day he could become that, and that terrifies you. You refuse to allow him to because something distant and made of ice, something monstrous and inhuman. You refuse to lose your friend, because you lose your patients every day, because you have lost your family and brothers from too many moves and a lack of love, you have lost your wives and mistresses, you have lost so many, so you will not lose him.
You argue over faith because he has lost it and you are beginning to think that he has never had it. But you have so much of it that it makes you sick. Faith in your patients, in the goodness of humanity, in House himself. You’ve become a disciple in this regard, following him through trials and tribulations, watching his miracles and then finally, throughout every persecution, repeating these miracles to everyone who would listen. You did this to others, to your wives in the first few months, to your patients in remission, but it was House who you followed, unquestioningly. The oration you spun of his work moved others to tears. They almost believed there was goodness under his skin. You had so much faith in him that it brought you to tears some days. The fact that he was your lover was, to you, almost completely irrelevant.
“Idolizing is pathological with you people,” he told you and he was right.
You worshipped him; you had to. Crawling to bed those nights, always very slowly so not to hurt him. His temple of skin. His gold pleated throat. Even the pillows would crease to form broken halos around his head. The blankets would become wings. And you moved slowly, as if to pay homage. He would be glowing in the middle of the night, from the light filtering in from the window. Lit up. Idolized.
You put spirituality in sex to save yourself. To make it all easier; to lessen the pain because every time you kissed it felt like you had suffered a blow. Because the fucking scared you and moved you in ways you didn’t understand. Couldn’t make yourself understand. Some nights, you didn’t even want to understand. So you learned how to worship him, how to pray and repent and kneel. How to give tithe, which was often your own body. Learned how to make him an alter. Learned that his every comment could be turned into a gospel.
Because, if he was a religion than you were allowed to feel this, allowed to have nothing but pure faith. You were allowed to not understand, or even question, why you would put your entire life behind a man who was bound to fail, a man who would grant you nothing, who would pull your strings just because he could. You were allowed to pray to this man, with his wax wings, with his calloused hands and his penchant for swearing. Allowed to love your puppet master. And he was a cruel god. An unmerciful one, like the one your mother once taught you to believe in when you were young. If he was a religion, your distinct and utter confusion was nothing but a beautiful gesture, it was inevitable-it was not a weak, ugly thing, it was nothing like it really was.
The fact that he was both your lover and a cruel man were two separate, irrelevant points.
So while you have spent nights seething about all the ways he has used his doctors and patients, how he’s manipulate you and Cuddy, you saw it as nothing but unavoidable. Still, you are scared for him. Scared if he keeps climbing higher and higher the wax will melt and he will be forced back down into the ocean and you are not quite sure if you will be able to catch him, or even if he wants you to. So you are terrified for him, but it is not because he is cruel or calculating. But it because you have read your history and arrogance is always shot down. You cannot spend the rest of your life watching him tread the fine line between complete genius and cruel pride. The worrying could kill you alone, but you know one day he will shoot his mouth off to the wrong person, he will drive too fast thinking he is untouchable, the pills will finally destroy his body, and he will be dead and there will be nothing left of you. And this is the only reason you want him to stop playing these games with people’s lives and emotions.
You hear the door to the balcony open and close your eyes because you already know who it is. There is the hollow sound of wood hitting the floor, only confirming that it is House slowly sneaking in. You know what he looks like already. Dark shirt, jeans. Hair graying slightly. Shadows under his eyes, from days awake-not to save a life, of course, only to solve a puzzle. You hear him approach him and feel his odd, discerning gaze on your body. He gives a sigh, one of annoyance, then moves away a bit. You crack your eyes open, just to see him. He is leaning against your desk, fingering a few pens. You close your eyes, almost content, and wait.
“I know you’re awake,” he begins, but you don’t open your eyes. He waits a few minutes before continuing, apparently ready to go along with the act, “You can’t honestly be mad at me for this,” he mutters, and you turn yourself away from him, showing him your back. “The girl’s terminal,” he continues, “Death is death. Doesn’t matter if it’s this moment or in a decade. You’re still dead. That’s the thing about your patients, the terminal ones, you can’t save them. Ashley’s not saved-”
“Her name is Andy,” you interrupt, pulling yourself up from the couch, “Her name is Andy and now she has another year with her mother. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course not. That’s the point. We’re doctors, not grief counselors. We’re not here to mourn with them, we’re here to cure them,” he lectures in a condescending, almost bored voice.
“That’s bull. You work harder than any other doctor in this place to find a cure, don’t tell me you don’t give a damn about your patients,” you snarl.
“They’re all just puzzles and anomalies. I offer a diagnosis, not a cure. There’s a difference,” he rebuts.
“I can see through the act, House. Don’t play this game with me,” you say, throwing your hands up in defeat, “I’m so tired of this.”
“Come here,” he beckons, and when you don’t move, he repeats himself, “Get your ass over here.” So you move and stand before him, he places a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it too hard. There’ll be a bruise there tomorrow. “It’s okay to be unaffected by death, you know” his voice is quieter, a bit more gentle as if imparting some great advice onto you, “You don’t have to feel guilty about it.”
And the truth is, maybe he’s right. You think of your patients that last only a few months and how while your heart clenches when you watch their loved ones cry over the cold corpse, you can still sleep at night. Their face doesn’t plague your dreams. When death is unexpected, it shocks you and sometimes you find solace in House’s bed. But the next day, you can’t even remember the cadence of their voice. And you feel ashamed. You try to build these small shrines to the dying, but that never works. You wonder if House knows this.
“So you’d like me to be you,” you mutter, pulling your lips up into a sad smile.
“Of course not, there’s no fun in that,” he declares, smirking a bit, “Just drop the show, alright?”
And before you are able to answer him, before you are able to tell him it’s not an act, that you do care, really care about people, that you need him to stop the goddamn mind games; he pushes his lips against yours. It is not a true kiss, but it hardly ever is. You push yourself against him, putting a hand on the side of his face. The hair on his face scratches your palm. The sensation is still an unusual one. Before you met him, you couldn’t even imagine kissing a man, but here you are, your lips pressing, mouths opening, tongues searching. All reservations thrown to the wind. You mouth onto the couch. It is almost night now. The last rays of orange are being laced through his hair.
An hour later, you are both in your car and you are driving him somewhere, but he won’t say where. He has a small, content smile on and his eyes are closing. The radio is playing soft jazz. House follows the melody with a few fingers in the air. He is being lit up by the streetlamps filtering in through the windows, glowing like something almost holy.
Author: thosewerepearls
Fandom: House, MD
Pairings: House/Wilson
Rating: T, maybe M
A/N: After Episode 2.2 [Autopsy]
Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
You see him, staring down from the balcony at the scene. Cameron is pretty and blushing, as always. Smiling wide, showing the back of her teeth to Andy-who is smiling as well. Chase shifts around, his eyes never falling on one person. He won’t meet the mother’s eyes. You don’t blame him. You’ve done awful things in your life, but kissing a dying nine year old girl-no, never. Never that. Foreman is, like always, watching the scene with a strange discerning gaze. Though he hugs the poor girl, he is a stranger to these interplays. Like always-like his boss-he is a stranger looking in, watching reality from the side lines. Cuddy is there, looking beautiful and too worn down from her job, from House, from dealing with his insanities.
House has come down from the balcony and has put himself in the path your poor procession will make. Andy is marched in a wheelchair past him and he smiles at her, a small mistaken smile. As though it were not truly there. But Andy’s grin spreads wider than you could even imagine. House twists his mouth into a grimace. He leaves, going back to his office, you imagine. You follow Andy out to her car. The sun is almost painful in its intensity, but it is beginning to set. There is ice on the trees. For miles and miles, it looks like the branches were covered in diamonds. They are glittering in the light. Andy seems happy about this. The women blush. Chase is waiting near the wall of the hospital, scared to get near the girl again. Probably scared to hurt her.
When they leave, you walk back into the hospital, intent on finding your friend. Hospital hallways are always too bright and they always smell of death-except, on the rare occasions, when you visit the maternity ward and find the smell of warm, beating life. There is always a sea of white lab coats and people gossiping. The nurses in their bright scrubs dimpling at you, blushing at you as if every rumor spread was true. The patients being wheeled for tests, and more tests, tests and surgeries. There is the mechanical sound that defines this place . The beeping of heart monitors, the occasional shock of the AEDs, the humming of the respirators. On occasion there is laughing, sometimes singing. But there is almost always a strand of joy buried here.
You go into your office, to recollect yourself before seeing House, because you’re angry and rightly so. Because, in part, you’re tired of the damn risks he takes and the unwillingness to consider anyone’s feeling-to consider emotions at all. Because he could have killed her and everyone told him this, and even you told him this but it didn’t change a thing.
You lie down on the couch, stare up at the ceiling and loosen your tie. Shadows play games on your walls. The sun is setting outside, turning everything orange and red, as though lighting everything on fire.
You try to picture how you would confront him, what you will say, how you could change him. Because you know you are the sole voice of reason in his world, and maybe you can still reach him. Because you are his only friend. And though you know he is not nearly as cold as he behaves, his actions still chill you. He is not a cruel man, and he is not heartless and rash, but you think that one day he could become that, and that terrifies you. You refuse to allow him to because something distant and made of ice, something monstrous and inhuman. You refuse to lose your friend, because you lose your patients every day, because you have lost your family and brothers from too many moves and a lack of love, you have lost your wives and mistresses, you have lost so many, so you will not lose him.
You argue over faith because he has lost it and you are beginning to think that he has never had it. But you have so much of it that it makes you sick. Faith in your patients, in the goodness of humanity, in House himself. You’ve become a disciple in this regard, following him through trials and tribulations, watching his miracles and then finally, throughout every persecution, repeating these miracles to everyone who would listen. You did this to others, to your wives in the first few months, to your patients in remission, but it was House who you followed, unquestioningly. The oration you spun of his work moved others to tears. They almost believed there was goodness under his skin. You had so much faith in him that it brought you to tears some days. The fact that he was your lover was, to you, almost completely irrelevant.
“Idolizing is pathological with you people,” he told you and he was right.
You worshipped him; you had to. Crawling to bed those nights, always very slowly so not to hurt him. His temple of skin. His gold pleated throat. Even the pillows would crease to form broken halos around his head. The blankets would become wings. And you moved slowly, as if to pay homage. He would be glowing in the middle of the night, from the light filtering in from the window. Lit up. Idolized.
You put spirituality in sex to save yourself. To make it all easier; to lessen the pain because every time you kissed it felt like you had suffered a blow. Because the fucking scared you and moved you in ways you didn’t understand. Couldn’t make yourself understand. Some nights, you didn’t even want to understand. So you learned how to worship him, how to pray and repent and kneel. How to give tithe, which was often your own body. Learned how to make him an alter. Learned that his every comment could be turned into a gospel.
Because, if he was a religion than you were allowed to feel this, allowed to have nothing but pure faith. You were allowed to not understand, or even question, why you would put your entire life behind a man who was bound to fail, a man who would grant you nothing, who would pull your strings just because he could. You were allowed to pray to this man, with his wax wings, with his calloused hands and his penchant for swearing. Allowed to love your puppet master. And he was a cruel god. An unmerciful one, like the one your mother once taught you to believe in when you were young. If he was a religion, your distinct and utter confusion was nothing but a beautiful gesture, it was inevitable-it was not a weak, ugly thing, it was nothing like it really was.
The fact that he was both your lover and a cruel man were two separate, irrelevant points.
So while you have spent nights seething about all the ways he has used his doctors and patients, how he’s manipulate you and Cuddy, you saw it as nothing but unavoidable. Still, you are scared for him. Scared if he keeps climbing higher and higher the wax will melt and he will be forced back down into the ocean and you are not quite sure if you will be able to catch him, or even if he wants you to. So you are terrified for him, but it is not because he is cruel or calculating. But it because you have read your history and arrogance is always shot down. You cannot spend the rest of your life watching him tread the fine line between complete genius and cruel pride. The worrying could kill you alone, but you know one day he will shoot his mouth off to the wrong person, he will drive too fast thinking he is untouchable, the pills will finally destroy his body, and he will be dead and there will be nothing left of you. And this is the only reason you want him to stop playing these games with people’s lives and emotions.
You hear the door to the balcony open and close your eyes because you already know who it is. There is the hollow sound of wood hitting the floor, only confirming that it is House slowly sneaking in. You know what he looks like already. Dark shirt, jeans. Hair graying slightly. Shadows under his eyes, from days awake-not to save a life, of course, only to solve a puzzle. You hear him approach him and feel his odd, discerning gaze on your body. He gives a sigh, one of annoyance, then moves away a bit. You crack your eyes open, just to see him. He is leaning against your desk, fingering a few pens. You close your eyes, almost content, and wait.
“I know you’re awake,” he begins, but you don’t open your eyes. He waits a few minutes before continuing, apparently ready to go along with the act, “You can’t honestly be mad at me for this,” he mutters, and you turn yourself away from him, showing him your back. “The girl’s terminal,” he continues, “Death is death. Doesn’t matter if it’s this moment or in a decade. You’re still dead. That’s the thing about your patients, the terminal ones, you can’t save them. Ashley’s not saved-”
“Her name is Andy,” you interrupt, pulling yourself up from the couch, “Her name is Andy and now she has another year with her mother. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course not. That’s the point. We’re doctors, not grief counselors. We’re not here to mourn with them, we’re here to cure them,” he lectures in a condescending, almost bored voice.
“That’s bull. You work harder than any other doctor in this place to find a cure, don’t tell me you don’t give a damn about your patients,” you snarl.
“They’re all just puzzles and anomalies. I offer a diagnosis, not a cure. There’s a difference,” he rebuts.
“I can see through the act, House. Don’t play this game with me,” you say, throwing your hands up in defeat, “I’m so tired of this.”
“Come here,” he beckons, and when you don’t move, he repeats himself, “Get your ass over here.” So you move and stand before him, he places a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it too hard. There’ll be a bruise there tomorrow. “It’s okay to be unaffected by death, you know” his voice is quieter, a bit more gentle as if imparting some great advice onto you, “You don’t have to feel guilty about it.”
And the truth is, maybe he’s right. You think of your patients that last only a few months and how while your heart clenches when you watch their loved ones cry over the cold corpse, you can still sleep at night. Their face doesn’t plague your dreams. When death is unexpected, it shocks you and sometimes you find solace in House’s bed. But the next day, you can’t even remember the cadence of their voice. And you feel ashamed. You try to build these small shrines to the dying, but that never works. You wonder if House knows this.
“So you’d like me to be you,” you mutter, pulling your lips up into a sad smile.
“Of course not, there’s no fun in that,” he declares, smirking a bit, “Just drop the show, alright?”
And before you are able to answer him, before you are able to tell him it’s not an act, that you do care, really care about people, that you need him to stop the goddamn mind games; he pushes his lips against yours. It is not a true kiss, but it hardly ever is. You push yourself against him, putting a hand on the side of his face. The hair on his face scratches your palm. The sensation is still an unusual one. Before you met him, you couldn’t even imagine kissing a man, but here you are, your lips pressing, mouths opening, tongues searching. All reservations thrown to the wind. You mouth onto the couch. It is almost night now. The last rays of orange are being laced through his hair.
An hour later, you are both in your car and you are driving him somewhere, but he won’t say where. He has a small, content smile on and his eyes are closing. The radio is playing soft jazz. House follows the melody with a few fingers in the air. He is being lit up by the streetlamps filtering in through the windows, glowing like something almost holy.