Permutations (House/Wilson, NC-17)
Title: Permutations
By:
daasgrrl
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: (brief) NC-17
Word count: 3,300
Summary: Sometimes, when he’s bored or pensive, House toys with the universe, and right now seems as good a time as any.
Beta: Thank you as always to
evila_elf for beta and currency guidance *g*
Notes: This fic is essentially my reaction to the first few episodes of Season 3. Almost a post-ep, but not really. Spoilers up to and including S3E03, “Informed Consent”.
Permutations
Sometimes, when he’s bored or pensive, House toys with the universe, and right now seems as good a time as any. He sits in his office chair, leans his cane against the desk, and pulls a random coin out of the change in his pocket. He looks at it first; it’s a Connecticut quarter, 1999, George Washington on one side and an oak tree on the other, its sturdy trunk tapering off into thinner branches, the branches tapering off into finer and finer detail. It has a patina of wear, but is still shiny for its age. He balances it on his forefinger, and flicks it into the air. There’s a well-known theory about universes running in parallel - that every decision made or not made, every action taken or not taken creates, in effect, its own world, with paths leading off at every juncture. Infinite possibilities, almost close enough to touch, but what passes for us, our consciousness, getting to experience only one out of all of them. With each toss of the coin, House likes to think he can almost see this process in action.
There are many more substantial things he could do to actually change his universe, of course - keeping the Vicodin in its bottle instead of taking it, learning to meditate instead of playing Gameboy and watching soap operas, grabbing Wilson and shaking him until all his hidden truths are laid bare. Those are possibilities, too. But the coin flipping is neat, efficient - creating all of the paths with none of the pain. He doesn’t need his universes to be very different from each other; he just likes the feeling of power as he fashions them cleanly out of air and metal.
Heads. Tails. Tails.
And already, in a matter of under a minute, there are at least eight universes forced into existence by his actions. He likes to vary the flips, seeing how long he can make the coin spin in the air, or alternating his catching and flipping hands, sometimes even standing up and trying to flip it over his shoulder for a backhand catch. Because the exercise is recreational as well as philosophical. Sometimes he misses the catch altogether, but then it doesn’t count. He wonders if the failures piss off the God of Coin Tossing, who has to call extra worlds into existence just to deal with his carelessness.
The pain is back, the pills are back, and the cane is back, but his bullet wounds are more or less healed. In this moment, it’s almost as though the shooting never happened, if he doesn’t look through the glass walls for the tell-tale splotch still visible on the carpet next door. Nothing much has changed, and yet at the same time, everything has. When it had become clear that the ketamine treatment was a success, he had begun to feel that small, nagging hope of permanence. He had been well aware of the odds, but he had allowed the hope to flourish anyway, and now in some ways the memory of the hope hurts even more than the leg. And his return to work had brought a few other things he never expected - Cuddy’s lies, Wilson’s betrayal, and now, the failure with Powell. He had won the diagnosis, but lost the patient. It must be such a comfort to die knowing exactly what would have killed you.
Tails. Heads.
“House?”
He looks up from his latest throw, a spectacular shimmering beauty.
“Heads,” he announces with satisfaction, uncovering the result to Wilson, who just looks at him. “That’s sixty-four variations, right there.”
“You can’t just sit in here brooding,” Wilson says, taking up a position just inside the doorway, out of range, and House wonders exactly when Wilson became this humorless.
“I’m not brooding, I’m creating worlds. Watch!”
The coin goes into the air again, and House smirks a little, but there’s nothing in return from Wilson, who continues to look serious and mildly reproachful. It’s been like this since House got back to work, the awkwardness, the feeling that neither of them really understands the other any more. Maybe he shouldn’t have forbidden Wilson to move back in during his rehab, forbidden him even to come over more than once a week. At the time it had clearly been the only thing to do - he’d just wanted to recover in peace and quiet, without dealing with the endless bags of groceries and expressions of concern Wilson would have brought along with him. It would have made him feel terminal instead of in recovery. He’d fielded the phone calls, and they had had an occasional Friday night on the couch, but cooking had been strictly forbidden, and Wilson had been restricted to no more than three probing questions concerning the progress of his recovery per visit. If House were honest, the awkwardness had probably started right there, when he had started placing rules on their friendship.
“Powell was terminal. Not your fault,” Wilson says, and House catches the coin with a sigh of irritation. Tails. Obviously, his control over the newly created universe is strictly limited. He wonders idly if he could do the same to Wilson, flip him until he landed right side up and started talking out of his mouth again instead of his ass.
“I know that.”
“So a patient died, for once. Some of us have to deal with that all the time.”
“I said, I know that. I’m not brooding. What do I have to do to convince you, break into a tap dance from the sheer joy of living? Oh, wait, I forgot. Can’t do that either.”
Wilson shakes his head, and the gesture reminds House that his leg aches. He shoves the quarter roughly back in his pocket and fishes out the pills instead, pointedly ignoring Wilson as he takes one. It doesn’t make any difference, of course.
“How much are you taking now?”
“That’s none of your business. Don’t worry, I’ll go raid someone else’s prescription pad next time.”
Irritation flickers across Wilson’s face at the reminder of House‘s deceit. It’s all about control with Wilson, too.
“You should have told me.”
“And you should have told me,” House snaps back, before he can help it. He’s tried not to let it fester within him, he really has, but his patience only goes so far. Wilson was only trying to help, he’s almost always just trying to help, and that’s what makes him so goddamn annoying.
“I said I was sorry,” Wilson mutters.
And Wilson does look repentant, and House knows he’s probably already been over it a million times in private, but he doesn’t care to indulge Wilson’s guilt anymore. All of a sudden all he cares about is getting Wilson the hell out of his office. He’s had enough of this - he’s overwhelmed with his own pain, and he’s more than ready to share it around.
“Sorry? Why should you be sorry?”
Wilson flinches at the cutting edge in House‘s voice, but he doesn’t move. House gets up from behind his desk, picks up the cane, and takes a few hobbled steps forward.
“Look.”
House indicates his damaged leg with his right hand.
“Look.”
His left holds up the cane.
“Look,” he demands again, louder, grabbing the pill bottle and shaking it. Finally, he turns back and picks up Powell’s file, which has been lying on his desk all along.
“You’re right. He’s dead and I couldn’t cure him. Not even me.”
He throws it back on the desk.
“But it’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You were worried I’d soar too close to the sun. You wanted me to be caring, to be careful, to be humble. Is this humble enough for you?”
He’s gesturing at himself, close to rage now, and Wilson’s mouth opens, and closes, shock on his face, and -
“House?”
“I said, is this humble enough for you?”
There’s an insistent pressure on his shoulder, and he tries to shrug it off, but it won’t leave him alone.
“House, Greg, wake up. Come on. You’re scaring me.”
House opens his eyes to the darkness, and he has to blink a couple of times, sleep-fogged and addled, before shifting onto his left side, towards the voice. He can feel the mattress yielding underneath him, the sheets bunched up in his hands. He looks up, bemused, and the ambient light from the half-uncovered window is just strong enough for him to make out Wilson’s face, the concern glinting in his eyes.
“What?” he says, not knowing what he’s asking.
“You were yelling. It’s okay. Everything’s fine.”
“What?” he says again, intelligently, trying to concentrate on Wilson’s words rather than the question of his presence.
Wilson sighs. “I said, you’re fine. No-one’s shooting at you. I thought we were done with the nightmares.”
“This wasn’t… about the shooting. It was… something else.” House’s attention turns back for a moment to himself, his body, and he slowly focuses on the lack of pain. He props himself up on his left forearm and touches his neck, his abdomen, tracing the roughened surfaces, then runs a tentative hand down his right leg. It feels fine. He flexes it a little, just to check. Barely a twinge. The scar tissue is still there, of course, hard and ridged and ugly under his fingers, but otherwise, fine. And Wilson seems to be in his bed, but he only has space to worry about one thing at a time.
“Looks like a new one for Powell,” Wilson says, following his movements. The statement puzzles House, disturbs him.
“Isn’t he dead?” The fog is clearing, but not fast enough.
Wilson smiles, his teeth gleaming in the half-light. “You only wish he were, because then you wouldn‘t have to see him anymore.”
“He’s a bastard.” Suddenly, he remembers. Wednesdays, 10 o’clock. Time for his weekly dose of “tell me how you feel about that”. Powell’s good at his job, House has to admit, and that’s why he hates him. Cuddy had warned him about the counseling he’d have to take before and after returning to work, and he’d expected some bleeding heart he could fob off within a session or two. Instead, he’d soon realized Powell was almost as relentlessly hard-nosed about his job as House himself. He’d almost been able to hear Cuddy laughing at the thought of their sessions together.
“Is that who you were yelling at?” Wilson puts a casual, consoling hand on House’s arm, just below the edge of his thin white T-shirt, which makes the shock ripple through him all over again. “I didn’t know you hated him that much. You know he’s one of you.”
“Don’t remind me.” His eyes have adjusted, and he can see Wilson better now. Wilson’s propped up on his right arm, bare shoulders and chest above the sheet lying softly across his stomach. His left hand continues to stroke its way absently over House’s skin. For a terrifying minute, House can’t think, can’t remember anything at all. He just stares at Wilson, frowning, struggling.
“Are you all right?” The soft concern again, and something moves and tightens in House’s chest.
“Just tell me something. The guy in a wheelchair a couple of weeks back. Had Addison’s.”
Wilson nods, and House breathes a small sigh of relief that he hasn‘t gone completely crazy.
“What happened to him? In the end.”
“You can’t remember?”
“Just tell me.”
Wilson’s hand stops its stroking, and he shifts a little as he thinks. “Well, they were about to wheel him out, when you grabbed him and stuck him with a hypo. And lo! He rose from his chair and walked. Well, staggered upright, really, but the effect was the same. And then you went and informed Cuddy of your success in a mature and professional manner. I… might be lying a little about that last part.”
He grins suddenly, and leans over, but House flinches away slightly before Wilson can kiss him. This puts the frown back on Wilson’s face.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just… I can’t remember anything. Or I can, but it’s all wrong. It’s all… everything’s in bits and pieces.”
“Powell said…it would take some time for your subconscious to process everything that’s happened in the last couple of months. I don’t think he mentioned memory lapses, though. You do actually… know who I am, don’t you?”
The question is mostly teasing, but with an undercurrent of worried seriousness, and House is forced into a smile.
“I’ve tried to forget, trust me.” And Wilson laughs and leans over again, and kisses him, and House discovers he does remember, after all.
***
“Hey.” He looks up to see Wilson peering around the door to his room, tentative. “You’re awake.”
House mutters something sarcastic about the uselessness of such a statement which fails to make it very far past his lips. He’s still hooked up to monitors, and his side hurts, his neck hurts. The leg doesn’t seem to hurt all that much, but that doesn’t mean anything, since his body obviously can’t be bothered dealing with the old stuff when it has new and exciting wounds to heal. He tries again.
“What, have you been checking up on me every hour?”
Wilson smiles.
“Patricia paged me.” He walks in and takes the empty seat by the bed.
Of course, that doesn’t actually answer the question, but House lets it go. He has a million questions about the guy with the gun, about the operation, about the ketamine, but just for a minute he’s content to bask in his continued existence, and the relief on Wilson’s face.
“Want some water?”
“No.”
House doesn’t fail to notice that Wilson pours him some anyway.
“So, next time you plan to get yourself shot, could you let me know in advance?”
“Aw, were you worried?’
“No, but Cuddy’s a mess.”
And then Cameron rushes in, and after another minute Wilson cruelly abandons House to his fate.
***
Now Wilson’s at his door, lugging a bag of groceries and what looks suspiciously like an overnight bag.
“You look like you’re moving back in. Are you?”
“Tossed Cameron for it. I won.”
***
Then there comes the day when he can bear enough weight on his leg to throw the cane into the closet. He waits for Wilson to come home, and shows off his new walk. Wilson smiles.
“That’s great,” Wilson says, sounding genuinely happy for him. “Soon you won’t need me any more,” he adds a moment later, with self-mocking dismay.
House studies him for a moment as Wilson takes his jacket off, hangs it neatly in the closet. Then he pushes Wilson up against the door with new-found strength, pinning him neatly with his weaker leg.
“I think you could be wrong about that,” he says, and kisses him.
***
Three weeks later, Wilson is on his back, legs splayed apart, as House gets into a kneeling position and slowly, gently pushes into him. Wilson bites his lip and moans, a sound which sends shockwaves up House’s spine. When he’s all the way in, he stops for a moment, and Wilson’s eyes flicker open. Carefully, Wilson curls himself upwards and House leans in for a kiss, and then House starts to move inside him, a little cautiously at first, then with more assurance. As his thrusts quicken, Wilson cries out, and curses, and pleads, and House’s pleasure is tinged with a growing sense of triumph.
***
He remembers that moment even as his mouth returns to Wilson’s again and again and his fingers begin to slide over the smooth skin of Wilson’s shoulders, his back, finally venturing a little further south, under the sheet.
“For god’s sake, it’s…” Wilson stops kissing him long enough to lean over and peer at the clock “…4am!”
But Wilson’s breathing is coming fast and shallow, and he isn’t pushing House’s hand away.
“So? It‘ll help me get back to sleep.”
“Too bad it won’t help me get up in the morning.”
The sincerity of Wilson’s complaint is cast into doubt by the fact that his hand chooses that moment to close on the fabric covering House’s cock, and House grins, taking Wilson’s hand away and pushing him back down on the bed, where he belongs. He moves up to straddle him, with no difficulty at all, and bends low over him. He’s transfixed by the look on Wilson’s face -
as he stands there in the doorway, staring at House, the shock still evident. The fury is still raging in House’s blood, but now it feels strangely detached from the rest of him.
“I didn’t mean…” Wilson says, and then bites his lip and raises one hand in a half-hearted gesture of self-defense. He turns and walks away.
House is left leaning on his cane in the middle of his empty office, breathing hard, confused. Part of him is trembling with anger, but the rest is still thinking of Wilson’s mouth, Wilson’s skin. He stands there for a long moment, then regroups his thoughts and moves to sit back down at his desk. He leans his chin on the curve of his cane and stares thoughtfully into space. All of this is happening. None of this is happening. He can’t decide. Experimentally, he pinches himself, but nothing happens, and he only feels stupid for having done so.
There’s only one thing he can think of to do. He leans back in his chair, and slowly sorts through his change until he finds the quarter again. Somehow, he knows it’s vitally important that it should be the same one, even though he can’t explain why. He studies its surfaces once more, rubbing the oak tree in some kind of instinctive appeal for luck, and then flicks it up, up, into the air. The sunlight strikes it and it glints in the air as it falls. Then he catches it, slapping it down onto the back of his left wrist, just above the watchband.
With that, a terrible high-pitched beeping noise begins all around him, piercing his concentration, freezing him into helplessness. It seems to be coming from the walls, which begin to close in on him, blocking out the sunlight, pulling him down into darkness. In the fleeting moments before he is swallowed up, he feels the press of the coin against his palm and wonders - heads or tails? But before he can uncurl his fingers, it slips away from him. His brain is slow and foggy, and his body still doesn’t really feel connected up yet, but he’s just awake enough to be able to differentiate reality from dreaming. Awake enough to know that the dream - both dreams - are gone. And the coin with them. He still sees it in his mind’s eye, though, spinning end over end, gleaming with possibilities.
And any minute now, with the sound of the clock alarm still shrilling in his ears, he’s going to turn, and open his eyes, and discover just which way it landed.