H/W fic: "Hit the Cripple" (0/3 + 1/3) + Fanart
Fic: Hit the Cripple
Part: 0/3 + 1/3
Spoilers: Need to know (2nd Season)
Pairing: mmm... just let me think... H/W?
Rating: PG-13, I'd say.
Summary: It starts from the ending scene of 'Need to know' but deviates from the canon. What happened five years ago?
Note: My first "serious" H/W (I've written another one, but it's just a demential crossover H/LOTR). English is not my mothertongue, but I've had the wonderful help and beta-reading of nakannalee, so I think that the result, for the language part, is quite good. To be honest, I've to say that this was a crap before nakannalee's beta-reading, so many many many thanks ♥
Thanks: To nakannalee again, to morgana82, eowyn_stark and eryslash for pre-readings, comments, suggests and everything else.
Feedback: It would be great ♥
Before ending this, I asked eryslash to make a sort of "logo" for my fic. And she made this little masterpiece:
http://eryslash.livejournal.com/8331.html#cutid2
Then, since I was too happy, I had to make a double cover with that picture, and you can find it here:
Hit the Cripple front
Hit the Cripple back
I think that all this stuff is infinitely better than the fic itself.
Hit the cripple
[0] Aim
When James Wilson came out of the door to the roof, a night gust assailed his face above the loose scarf and the winter coat, advising him that if his mood was not so rosy, the elements’ one was seriously getting angry. If he hadn’t been so annoyed, and annoyed with House, he’d maybe start the conversation with some calm appreciation about the weather, which was bringing rain, and the rain, which he usually didn’t mind. Instead, as he was so annoyed, and moreover with House, he came out of the door with five flights in his lungs and not even an ounce of his proverbial diplomacy.
«What did you tell her?»
«I told her she’s better off without me.»
«Huh. That's probably true,» he replied, attempting a sarcasm which, a little because of his panting, a little because sarcasm was House’s thing, came out quite winded.
From his position upon the ledge, House didn’t look at him at all. Bad sign. That was the gesture he reserved for two emotions, both less rare than you could expect from him: pain and guilt. Which one, this time?
He opened his Vicodin and dry-swallowed the two usual pills.
Probably both.
«You're an idiot,» he told him, increasing his voice tone more than he’d want to. «You don't think she'd be better off without you.»
«Right. I sent her off on a whim.»
«You have no idea why you sent her off.» And neither do I, he mentally added.
House let one leg, then the other, glide off the ledge, rising slowly to his feet.
He kept not looking at him. «Don't do this,» he replied, with an inexpressive voice, but Wilson could swear he heard an appealing note creeping between the rough wrinkles of his voice.
«This was no great sacrifice!» he went off, groping for an explanation, any one, which could recompose that story in his head. Which could take off that fog which covered his eyes every time he was trying to make light. Vain attempt, anyway. «You sent her away because you've got to be miserable.»
He had given worse news with more tact.
The answer assailed him more harshly than he was expecting to. «That kind of psycho-crap help get your patients through the long nights? Or is it just for you? Tough love make you feel good? Helping people feel their pain?»
«You don't like yourself,» he replied, without really replying. «But you do admire yourself. It's all you've got, so you cling to it. You're so afraid if you change, you'll lose what makes you special.» He paused, glancing at his leg. He could say with two words what did make him so special, and it was everything but the pain. He ended, with a much lower voice: «Being miserable doesn't make you better than anybody else, House. It just makes you miserable.»
He didn’t wait for an answer he didn’t expect to come, and passed him by towards the door. A thunder rumbled in his ears as House squeezed his arm, but he hadn’t been aware of House walking after him.
«And the rest?»
«Which rest?» he replied, with a sigh.
«That one you didn’t mention ‘cause thinking it could be the reason would kill you with guilt.»
«You…» Wilson opened his mouth and closed it again, like a fish, not managing to pronounce a word. «You couldn’t have done it,» he murmured. «Don’t tell me.»
«I’ll send you a fax,» House sighed, rubbing his wounded leg.
«But… but why? What is the meaning?» He lifted his hands as if to put them around his neck, or on his shoulders, but they just dropped down along his hips. «Why?»
«’Cause I love you,» House answered, with a rough voice. «And now get out,» he added, turning back to the ledge.
[1] Head (100 points)
Five years before
There had been something definitive in the way Stacy told him that she was going for two days in Trenton. «For that lawsuit I told you» she added.
Even if he didn’t reach House’s excellent level, James Wilson was quite clever in detecting lies. The symptoms were quite evident. Her forcedly resolute voice tone, her red and swollen eyes, her hands desperately clutching her forearms; her elusive glance, when she always used to look in people’s eyes.
Surely she had never told him about a lawsuit. Even if in that last months’ chaos Wilson had difficulty in recalling where he parked his car or what he had for lunch, Stacy didn’t use to be vague when she gave information. Wilson knew Stacy was tempted to take advantage of his fatigue and sneak in a lie, thinking it would be imperceptible; but Wilson had energy reserves unknown to the most of people.
«Did you tell him?»
«I…» she hesitated.
«I can’t tell him.»
She nodded. The fact she hadn’t already told House proved that it had been a sudden, not intended idea. Probably it jumped in her mind after that morning’s crisis. Probably she was going to stay at her mother’s place for two days, just to clear her mind.
Wilson didn’t want to blame her. Even if a part of him was trying to push him to indignation and slapping reality in his face - that Stacy was escaping, while he was still fighting to help House, that Stacy wanted a truce, while he had not seen his wife for four days - despite of that voice in his mind, he really could not be angry with her.
And that wasn’t selfishness, he was repeating to himself with an alarming frequency, as like justifying with… with who? That wasn’t selfishness. Selfishness would be leaving everything - leaving House - and going and take Rachel and make love to her until rubbing out every residual of that apartment, of that air - of House - from his skin and breath. Not just staying there and feeling his marriage sliding away through his fingers.
The split with Rachel didn’t seem so clear until a week and half before. Rachel vaguely knew House (“the one with the Chinese food”, in her definition, which hid an implicit negative connotation. Something against the pork meat). But she was used to Wilson’s long absences and a friend in trouble is always a friend in trouble - even if he’s loathed your wallpaper and tie number 15 you presented to your husband.
Then, somehow, the situation spiralled from Wilson’s control. If he had saved and ranked her post-its he could re-enact the story of their falling apart in seven steps. It went from the first one, written with care and seasoned with a little heart at bottom (“I’m at my mother’s, I’ll come back around 11 pm. Don’t be too late. Love you. R.”), to the quick impatience of the third-fourth (“Midnight. I’m going to bed. See you tomorrow. R.”), to the palpable annoyance of the fifth (“Why do u need a cell if u never respond? I’m going to bed. R.”), to the coldness of the seventh (“Dinner’s in the fridge”), even devoid of the comfort of that initial.
Four nights before, that was the last time he’d seen her, he had come back home around 1 am. He had thrown his bag on the couch, gone through the apartment dipped in the darkness and hotfoot slipped in the shower. The hot water calmed him, even too much, so after a little time he found himself dozing on his feet to the wall. In moving his arm he bumped the slack handle and a sudden frozen jet totally awoke him. When he entered in the bedroom, the tiredness somehow vanished or just set apart, Rachel was sleeping on her side, turned to the bedside table.
Wilson took off the bathrobe and pulled on his pyjamas. He’d decided to do nothing more than sleep and procrastinate his responsibilities until some later time, just as he had done for the past week. But when he raised the sheets to crawl into bed, he discovered the cell phone. The last call, flashed on his face by the blue light of the screen, was for “Jimmy”.
He slid under the sheets, letting his body kindly adhere to his wife’s thin one, and leaned a kiss on her neck and his hand on her stomach. Either she had pretended to sleep or just suddenly woken up, he didn’t care. When Rachel intertwined her fingers with his and turned in his embrace with a sheets’ rustle and a fresh shampoo smell, Wilson told himself that there, between the darkness, the daze and the excitation, there should be the reason he had married her.
Then House destroyed his own bathroom’s mirror with a punch, and Wilson’s home phone rang for the last time.
Stacy came out of the bedroom with the wild ticking of her heels, passed by Wilson sobbing a greeting, grabbed her luggage ready next to the door and stopped on the threshold murmuring she was going to call as she arrived.
Rachel also took her reflective pause, but unlike Stacy, she found an easier way to tell him.. A voicemail, Wilson thought, is always the best way to make your husband know you’re leaving him alone in a difficult moment.
Actually, the message was very sweet and tired, and it ended with a “Love you” which sounded like a last minute afterthought, but should mean something too. Four years together should mean something. She said she was going to stay at a friend’s place for some days, just not to feel alone while he was busy with his friend. There was something taut and accusatory beneath her calm voice on the answering machine, but he couldn’t help it at all. He had tried to call her several times, only to find that Rachel didn’t want to answer. Maybe it was just a revenge. Or maybe she didn’t really want to talk with him.
He watched at House’s couch, which he knew uncomfortable as a matter of principle. He had slept some nights on it after his breaking with Sarah, or during his breaking with Sarah, and given the precedent he hadn’t much wish to come back there. It wasn’t like he was superstitious, but he had bad memories related to that couch. (He had some good ones too, and those were the majority, but he didn’t want to think about this now.)
He was still trying to decide what to do when he heard a bustle from the bathroom. He suddenly had a sinking feeling that those two days would be the longest of his life - and he was scared.
«House! What are you…»
«Where… where the fuck is that bottle?» shouted House, hardly leaning with a hand on the edge of the sink, while the other one was rummaging inside the bathroom cabinet and knocking boxes and medicine bottles over the floor. The noise he had heard had been produced by the break of a cough syrup bottle. House was barefoot.
«You’ve had your Vicodin an hour ago,» said Wilson, grabbing his free wrist and then the other too, when House left his support to rummage with the other hand. This way, the already precarious balance went off at all, and House collapsed on him. Wilson’s arms took his weight without much effort.
He was trembling.
«I need it,» growled House, trying to disentangle himself from his friend’s body. «I need it. Again.»
«You’re fine. Now go back to bed and stop working yourself up.»
House hardly swallowed, his forehead leaned against Wilson’s collarbone. He was panting. The sweat which beaded his face gathered in a drop on his chin, and fell between the creases of Wilson’s shirt.
The oncologist stroked his shoulders, gently. «Come on» he murmured.
«So…» panted House, gaspingly. «So… did she leave you the honour to tell me?»
«She’s gonna come back.»
«You’re a crappy liar, Wilson. And a crappy…»
Wilson expected the phrase to be 'crappy friend', and then he didn't know what his reaction would be --complete shock or lashing out physically.
«… nurse. Give me those pills.»
«You’re gonna have your dose when you’re scheduled to, that is tomorrow at 6 on morning,» replied Wilson, trying to make the relief not filter so clearly out of his words. «Go to bed.»
House’s right hand, bandaged after the mirror’s break, touched Wilson’s hip and trailed a caressing path slowly up from there. Wilson felt House’s hand trembling against his body. «House…»
The older man turned slightly his face leaned against his shoulder, so that his hot breath pressed on Wilson’s neck. «House…» repeated Wilson, embarrassed.
The fingers brushed his nipple through the shirt’s fabric. Wilson stopped his breath.
Among the many more or less illegal things he had done in his life, House should have had a past as a pickpocket. This, judging by the quickness he dipped his fingers in the pocket of his shirt and took out the Vicodin bottle before Wilson could react. His reflexes woke up from the daze as House left his support - namely, him - and uncapped the bottle with a low pop.
Pickpocketing wasn’t anything new. Wilson had the vague memory of a free ticket for a Mets’ game and House taking it out of his jeans’ back pocket with as much fluency as now. Only, at that time he had both his legs healthy and the chance to escape when Wilson ran after him.
This time, instead, it was enough for him to grab his forearms and House lost his balance. The pills spluttered out of the open bottle, spreading on the floor, and just by chance House partially fell onto Wilson and not vice versa.
With a grunt, the oncologist stretched a hand to grab House’s wrist, which was already held out for the nearest pill. «Stop. Stop it,» he panted, twisted in an unnatural position. His shoulder was painfully pulsing because of his bump against the sink.
House rubbed his thigh spasmodically, gasping. His face was bent at few centimetres from the floor, which was covered with cough syrup and broken shards from the mirror. Wilson feared he would let himself fall, causing himself new injuries. «Go to bed» he repeated, for the umpteenth time, sliding away from beneath his body.
«Give me… that shit» House panted, his eyes fixed on the light blue pill which seemed to mock him, so near and yet out of reach. «Just one,» he negotiated.
«This isn’t your leg, House,» said Wilson, trying to raise him on his feet. «It’s a hysterics.»
While Wilson was bringing him to his bed (without much help for House’s part), he noticed that House had his shirt soaked with sweat, and that the bandaging on his palm was reduced to a rag. But he doubted whether House would have enough strength to have a shower or enough patience to bandage his hand again.
«Smell like… roses, don’t I?» House puffed, with a vague embarrassment that, for a person who didn’t know him well, would sound strange. It was not like Gregory House’s sense of modesty was simple to catch. It was something about feeling weaker than who he was talking with - and there were the beginnings of doubt that maybe now he might be a bit weaker than everyone else.
«I’ll send you the laundry bill,» replied Wilson, contemplating the sweat stain printed on his shirt.
«Save it. I’ve become quite famous in the fetish-necrophiliac circle. They’ll pay you good money for that.» He closed his eyes, tightening the sheets in his hands. «I’ll leave you my CDs. But that one signed by Bob Dylan. I want that buried with me.»
«Didn’t you wanna be cremated?»
«Burning a Dylan CD? Are you crazy?» panted House, opening wide his eyes.
Wilson lightly smiled. «Can you manage to have a bath?»
«Didn’t you say I mustn’t work myself up?»
«Nor should you rot in your cutaneous secretions.»
«Uh, the medical humour» grunted House, rubbing his leg.
Since he hadn’t protested, Wilson took it as a consent. He came back in the bathroom armed with rag, broom and dustpan and made a clean sweep out of the mess, saving only what was still in reasonable condition and the Vicodin pills. After a moment of reflection, he put the bottle in his jeans’ front pocket. He doubted whether House would manage to put a hand in his trousers to take his pills - or wouldn’t he?
The tub was nearly full. He turned back to go and help House and found him leaning to the doorframe. If there weren’t those deep bags under his eyes and that wasted face, you could define his expression even mischievous.
Wilson opened his mouth to ask him if he needed any help, but immediately thought that was an awful idea. You could just ask or impose help on House, and even in these two cases the result was unpredictable.
«Know your secret dream is seeing me naked,» mumbled House, limping in the room, «but I’ll do by myself.»
Wilson lifted his hands in a sign of surrender. «I’m gonna make dinner.» He halfway turned back. House was sitting on the edge of the tub, with a contemplative expression.
«Uh… just to inform you, in this bathroom there’s nothing similar to a painkiller» said Wilson. «Unless you use the bleach, but in that case you should substitute “painkiller” with “detergent” and “pain stopping” with “death through atrocious pain”. So… I mean, don’t tire yourself pointlessly.»
He left shutting the door after him.
(«Bastard» hissed House, on the other side.)
Wilson came back in the bedroom, and in the meantime he hoped his friend could relax and stop thinking about his leg. He changed the sheets, prepared some clean clothes and filled a pot with water for the pasta. The couch seemed to call him from the living room, and Wilson mentally surrendered to another one of those uncomfortable and lonely nights he had tried to kick out of his memory. After all, he was not the one who needed help this time, but House. House.
Something like his best friend.
While the spaghetti started cooking, he took the clean clothes and gently knocked at the bathroom door. No answers. Though he had the half certainty that House would not reply anyway, out of spite, for a moment he felt his stomach contracting. He opened the door a little more quickly than he was supposed to.
House was lying down in the tub, his back leaned on the light slope which sank between the water and foam; he had his head reclining on his shoulder.
As far as Wilson knew (not much, in that apartment he had always used the shower), it was virtually impossible to fall asleep in that bath - that was as uncomfortable as around everything else at House’s place - House included. Yet, his breath was regular, his body seemed to have found his own joint in the twisted geometry of the porcelain and House seemed calm, for once.
He slipped silently in, placing the clothes on a stool near the tub. He also tried to convince himself that his glance had fallen between the thin foam only because, after the surgery and the stitches’ removal, the only ones who’d seen the scar had been Cuddy, House and Stacy. Just a pinch of curiosity, nothing more.
The scar was long and visibly deep, of an intense rosé colour which Wilson doubted would ever lighten much. All around, the flesh was deformed, pressed around the missing muscle in a sort of mute sign of solidarity. Crumpled up. Contracted.
Wilson sighed, taking off House’s bathrobe from the wall and placing it, folded, upon the clothes.
«Did you finish counting my hairs or will it take you a long time?»
Wilson winced, not expecting a reaction by House. «I was... I’ve brought you some clean clothes.»
«That’s what they all say.»
Wilson shook his head, without replying. He left shutting the door after him.
House breathed out slowly.
There’s a breaking point in everything. Stacy’s one was nearly reached. And that ‘nearly’ meant that she would reach it when, coming back from his reflecting pause, she would find him twice more healthy and self-sufficient than he had been until that. He obviously wouldn’t be, not really, because in the pauses from Vicodin he needed to spend nearly every gram of energy to avoid shouting - and so little remained to him to give breath to his useless talks and to walk around in his home. But he would pretend. And she would simply feel unnecessary.
It was contradictive, obviously; he’d do it to make her not feel too oppressed by the situation and she’d leave him for that. And the fact he could clearly see their relationship’s next developments didn’t mean he’d do anything to stop them.
When there’s necrosis, you can just cut. This was her lesson, wasn’t it?
Wilson’s breakpoint was still far off, but not so much. It was surely less far than Wilson thought, but maybe a little futher than House’s estimates. Before asking them to put him in pharmacological coma (or maybe during, or after; not that it mattered), he had done some bets with himself. On how long people around him could stand before collapsing and deciding that after all, yeah, he was not so sick not to be able to manage by himself.
The lowest estimates were for Stacy, the highest for Cuddy. But this was simply because Cuddy was one of those House had the smallest amount of contact with. Wilson… Wilson was in the middle, a fluctuating position. He could resist until House again would take his self-control or leave him in the most critical moment. In the second case, obviously, he would build a world of reasonable explanations to justify the thing, exactly like his matrimonial failures number one and two.
But, actually, Wilson was the only one whose actions House didn’t feel able to predict. He was tired, but not exhausted; he was sad, but not depressed; he felt guilt, but not so much. His cell had stopped ringing, thus Rebecca or however she was called had stopped searching for him. On the other hand, Wilson now always kept it in his pocket, thus Roxanne had stopped to answer too.
He opened his eyes, stretching a hand toward the bathrobe.
The pain seemed vaguely more bearable, now.
He needed a Vicodin.
continue? Chapter 2
Part: 0/3 + 1/3
Spoilers: Need to know (2nd Season)
Pairing: mmm... just let me think... H/W?
Rating: PG-13, I'd say.
Summary: It starts from the ending scene of 'Need to know' but deviates from the canon. What happened five years ago?
Note: My first "serious" H/W (I've written another one, but it's just a demential crossover H/LOTR). English is not my mothertongue, but I've had the wonderful help and beta-reading of nakannalee, so I think that the result, for the language part, is quite good. To be honest, I've to say that this was a crap before nakannalee's beta-reading, so many many many thanks ♥
Thanks: To nakannalee again, to morgana82, eowyn_stark and eryslash for pre-readings, comments, suggests and everything else.
Feedback: It would be great ♥
Before ending this, I asked eryslash to make a sort of "logo" for my fic. And she made this little masterpiece:
http://eryslash.livejournal.com/8331.html#cutid2
Then, since I was too happy, I had to make a double cover with that picture, and you can find it here:
Hit the Cripple front
Hit the Cripple back
I think that all this stuff is infinitely better than the fic itself.
Hit the cripple
[0] Aim
When James Wilson came out of the door to the roof, a night gust assailed his face above the loose scarf and the winter coat, advising him that if his mood was not so rosy, the elements’ one was seriously getting angry. If he hadn’t been so annoyed, and annoyed with House, he’d maybe start the conversation with some calm appreciation about the weather, which was bringing rain, and the rain, which he usually didn’t mind. Instead, as he was so annoyed, and moreover with House, he came out of the door with five flights in his lungs and not even an ounce of his proverbial diplomacy.
«What did you tell her?»
«I told her she’s better off without me.»
«Huh. That's probably true,» he replied, attempting a sarcasm which, a little because of his panting, a little because sarcasm was House’s thing, came out quite winded.
From his position upon the ledge, House didn’t look at him at all. Bad sign. That was the gesture he reserved for two emotions, both less rare than you could expect from him: pain and guilt. Which one, this time?
He opened his Vicodin and dry-swallowed the two usual pills.
Probably both.
«You're an idiot,» he told him, increasing his voice tone more than he’d want to. «You don't think she'd be better off without you.»
«Right. I sent her off on a whim.»
«You have no idea why you sent her off.» And neither do I, he mentally added.
House let one leg, then the other, glide off the ledge, rising slowly to his feet.
He kept not looking at him. «Don't do this,» he replied, with an inexpressive voice, but Wilson could swear he heard an appealing note creeping between the rough wrinkles of his voice.
«This was no great sacrifice!» he went off, groping for an explanation, any one, which could recompose that story in his head. Which could take off that fog which covered his eyes every time he was trying to make light. Vain attempt, anyway. «You sent her away because you've got to be miserable.»
He had given worse news with more tact.
The answer assailed him more harshly than he was expecting to. «That kind of psycho-crap help get your patients through the long nights? Or is it just for you? Tough love make you feel good? Helping people feel their pain?»
«You don't like yourself,» he replied, without really replying. «But you do admire yourself. It's all you've got, so you cling to it. You're so afraid if you change, you'll lose what makes you special.» He paused, glancing at his leg. He could say with two words what did make him so special, and it was everything but the pain. He ended, with a much lower voice: «Being miserable doesn't make you better than anybody else, House. It just makes you miserable.»
He didn’t wait for an answer he didn’t expect to come, and passed him by towards the door. A thunder rumbled in his ears as House squeezed his arm, but he hadn’t been aware of House walking after him.
«And the rest?»
«Which rest?» he replied, with a sigh.
«That one you didn’t mention ‘cause thinking it could be the reason would kill you with guilt.»
«You…» Wilson opened his mouth and closed it again, like a fish, not managing to pronounce a word. «You couldn’t have done it,» he murmured. «Don’t tell me.»
«I’ll send you a fax,» House sighed, rubbing his wounded leg.
«But… but why? What is the meaning?» He lifted his hands as if to put them around his neck, or on his shoulders, but they just dropped down along his hips. «Why?»
«’Cause I love you,» House answered, with a rough voice. «And now get out,» he added, turning back to the ledge.
[1] Head (100 points)
Five years before
There had been something definitive in the way Stacy told him that she was going for two days in Trenton. «For that lawsuit I told you» she added.
Even if he didn’t reach House’s excellent level, James Wilson was quite clever in detecting lies. The symptoms were quite evident. Her forcedly resolute voice tone, her red and swollen eyes, her hands desperately clutching her forearms; her elusive glance, when she always used to look in people’s eyes.
Surely she had never told him about a lawsuit. Even if in that last months’ chaos Wilson had difficulty in recalling where he parked his car or what he had for lunch, Stacy didn’t use to be vague when she gave information. Wilson knew Stacy was tempted to take advantage of his fatigue and sneak in a lie, thinking it would be imperceptible; but Wilson had energy reserves unknown to the most of people.
«Did you tell him?»
«I…» she hesitated.
«I can’t tell him.»
She nodded. The fact she hadn’t already told House proved that it had been a sudden, not intended idea. Probably it jumped in her mind after that morning’s crisis. Probably she was going to stay at her mother’s place for two days, just to clear her mind.
Wilson didn’t want to blame her. Even if a part of him was trying to push him to indignation and slapping reality in his face - that Stacy was escaping, while he was still fighting to help House, that Stacy wanted a truce, while he had not seen his wife for four days - despite of that voice in his mind, he really could not be angry with her.
And that wasn’t selfishness, he was repeating to himself with an alarming frequency, as like justifying with… with who? That wasn’t selfishness. Selfishness would be leaving everything - leaving House - and going and take Rachel and make love to her until rubbing out every residual of that apartment, of that air - of House - from his skin and breath. Not just staying there and feeling his marriage sliding away through his fingers.
The split with Rachel didn’t seem so clear until a week and half before. Rachel vaguely knew House (“the one with the Chinese food”, in her definition, which hid an implicit negative connotation. Something against the pork meat). But she was used to Wilson’s long absences and a friend in trouble is always a friend in trouble - even if he’s loathed your wallpaper and tie number 15 you presented to your husband.
Then, somehow, the situation spiralled from Wilson’s control. If he had saved and ranked her post-its he could re-enact the story of their falling apart in seven steps. It went from the first one, written with care and seasoned with a little heart at bottom (“I’m at my mother’s, I’ll come back around 11 pm. Don’t be too late. Love you. R.”), to the quick impatience of the third-fourth (“Midnight. I’m going to bed. See you tomorrow. R.”), to the palpable annoyance of the fifth (“Why do u need a cell if u never respond? I’m going to bed. R.”), to the coldness of the seventh (“Dinner’s in the fridge”), even devoid of the comfort of that initial.
Four nights before, that was the last time he’d seen her, he had come back home around 1 am. He had thrown his bag on the couch, gone through the apartment dipped in the darkness and hotfoot slipped in the shower. The hot water calmed him, even too much, so after a little time he found himself dozing on his feet to the wall. In moving his arm he bumped the slack handle and a sudden frozen jet totally awoke him. When he entered in the bedroom, the tiredness somehow vanished or just set apart, Rachel was sleeping on her side, turned to the bedside table.
Wilson took off the bathrobe and pulled on his pyjamas. He’d decided to do nothing more than sleep and procrastinate his responsibilities until some later time, just as he had done for the past week. But when he raised the sheets to crawl into bed, he discovered the cell phone. The last call, flashed on his face by the blue light of the screen, was for “Jimmy”.
He slid under the sheets, letting his body kindly adhere to his wife’s thin one, and leaned a kiss on her neck and his hand on her stomach. Either she had pretended to sleep or just suddenly woken up, he didn’t care. When Rachel intertwined her fingers with his and turned in his embrace with a sheets’ rustle and a fresh shampoo smell, Wilson told himself that there, between the darkness, the daze and the excitation, there should be the reason he had married her.
Then House destroyed his own bathroom’s mirror with a punch, and Wilson’s home phone rang for the last time.
Stacy came out of the bedroom with the wild ticking of her heels, passed by Wilson sobbing a greeting, grabbed her luggage ready next to the door and stopped on the threshold murmuring she was going to call as she arrived.
Rachel also took her reflective pause, but unlike Stacy, she found an easier way to tell him.. A voicemail, Wilson thought, is always the best way to make your husband know you’re leaving him alone in a difficult moment.
Actually, the message was very sweet and tired, and it ended with a “Love you” which sounded like a last minute afterthought, but should mean something too. Four years together should mean something. She said she was going to stay at a friend’s place for some days, just not to feel alone while he was busy with his friend. There was something taut and accusatory beneath her calm voice on the answering machine, but he couldn’t help it at all. He had tried to call her several times, only to find that Rachel didn’t want to answer. Maybe it was just a revenge. Or maybe she didn’t really want to talk with him.
He watched at House’s couch, which he knew uncomfortable as a matter of principle. He had slept some nights on it after his breaking with Sarah, or during his breaking with Sarah, and given the precedent he hadn’t much wish to come back there. It wasn’t like he was superstitious, but he had bad memories related to that couch. (He had some good ones too, and those were the majority, but he didn’t want to think about this now.)
He was still trying to decide what to do when he heard a bustle from the bathroom. He suddenly had a sinking feeling that those two days would be the longest of his life - and he was scared.
«House! What are you…»
«Where… where the fuck is that bottle?» shouted House, hardly leaning with a hand on the edge of the sink, while the other one was rummaging inside the bathroom cabinet and knocking boxes and medicine bottles over the floor. The noise he had heard had been produced by the break of a cough syrup bottle. House was barefoot.
«You’ve had your Vicodin an hour ago,» said Wilson, grabbing his free wrist and then the other too, when House left his support to rummage with the other hand. This way, the already precarious balance went off at all, and House collapsed on him. Wilson’s arms took his weight without much effort.
He was trembling.
«I need it,» growled House, trying to disentangle himself from his friend’s body. «I need it. Again.»
«You’re fine. Now go back to bed and stop working yourself up.»
House hardly swallowed, his forehead leaned against Wilson’s collarbone. He was panting. The sweat which beaded his face gathered in a drop on his chin, and fell between the creases of Wilson’s shirt.
The oncologist stroked his shoulders, gently. «Come on» he murmured.
«So…» panted House, gaspingly. «So… did she leave you the honour to tell me?»
«She’s gonna come back.»
«You’re a crappy liar, Wilson. And a crappy…»
Wilson expected the phrase to be 'crappy friend', and then he didn't know what his reaction would be --complete shock or lashing out physically.
«… nurse. Give me those pills.»
«You’re gonna have your dose when you’re scheduled to, that is tomorrow at 6 on morning,» replied Wilson, trying to make the relief not filter so clearly out of his words. «Go to bed.»
House’s right hand, bandaged after the mirror’s break, touched Wilson’s hip and trailed a caressing path slowly up from there. Wilson felt House’s hand trembling against his body. «House…»
The older man turned slightly his face leaned against his shoulder, so that his hot breath pressed on Wilson’s neck. «House…» repeated Wilson, embarrassed.
The fingers brushed his nipple through the shirt’s fabric. Wilson stopped his breath.
Among the many more or less illegal things he had done in his life, House should have had a past as a pickpocket. This, judging by the quickness he dipped his fingers in the pocket of his shirt and took out the Vicodin bottle before Wilson could react. His reflexes woke up from the daze as House left his support - namely, him - and uncapped the bottle with a low pop.
Pickpocketing wasn’t anything new. Wilson had the vague memory of a free ticket for a Mets’ game and House taking it out of his jeans’ back pocket with as much fluency as now. Only, at that time he had both his legs healthy and the chance to escape when Wilson ran after him.
This time, instead, it was enough for him to grab his forearms and House lost his balance. The pills spluttered out of the open bottle, spreading on the floor, and just by chance House partially fell onto Wilson and not vice versa.
With a grunt, the oncologist stretched a hand to grab House’s wrist, which was already held out for the nearest pill. «Stop. Stop it,» he panted, twisted in an unnatural position. His shoulder was painfully pulsing because of his bump against the sink.
House rubbed his thigh spasmodically, gasping. His face was bent at few centimetres from the floor, which was covered with cough syrup and broken shards from the mirror. Wilson feared he would let himself fall, causing himself new injuries. «Go to bed» he repeated, for the umpteenth time, sliding away from beneath his body.
«Give me… that shit» House panted, his eyes fixed on the light blue pill which seemed to mock him, so near and yet out of reach. «Just one,» he negotiated.
«This isn’t your leg, House,» said Wilson, trying to raise him on his feet. «It’s a hysterics.»
While Wilson was bringing him to his bed (without much help for House’s part), he noticed that House had his shirt soaked with sweat, and that the bandaging on his palm was reduced to a rag. But he doubted whether House would have enough strength to have a shower or enough patience to bandage his hand again.
«Smell like… roses, don’t I?» House puffed, with a vague embarrassment that, for a person who didn’t know him well, would sound strange. It was not like Gregory House’s sense of modesty was simple to catch. It was something about feeling weaker than who he was talking with - and there were the beginnings of doubt that maybe now he might be a bit weaker than everyone else.
«I’ll send you the laundry bill,» replied Wilson, contemplating the sweat stain printed on his shirt.
«Save it. I’ve become quite famous in the fetish-necrophiliac circle. They’ll pay you good money for that.» He closed his eyes, tightening the sheets in his hands. «I’ll leave you my CDs. But that one signed by Bob Dylan. I want that buried with me.»
«Didn’t you wanna be cremated?»
«Burning a Dylan CD? Are you crazy?» panted House, opening wide his eyes.
Wilson lightly smiled. «Can you manage to have a bath?»
«Didn’t you say I mustn’t work myself up?»
«Nor should you rot in your cutaneous secretions.»
«Uh, the medical humour» grunted House, rubbing his leg.
Since he hadn’t protested, Wilson took it as a consent. He came back in the bathroom armed with rag, broom and dustpan and made a clean sweep out of the mess, saving only what was still in reasonable condition and the Vicodin pills. After a moment of reflection, he put the bottle in his jeans’ front pocket. He doubted whether House would manage to put a hand in his trousers to take his pills - or wouldn’t he?
The tub was nearly full. He turned back to go and help House and found him leaning to the doorframe. If there weren’t those deep bags under his eyes and that wasted face, you could define his expression even mischievous.
Wilson opened his mouth to ask him if he needed any help, but immediately thought that was an awful idea. You could just ask or impose help on House, and even in these two cases the result was unpredictable.
«Know your secret dream is seeing me naked,» mumbled House, limping in the room, «but I’ll do by myself.»
Wilson lifted his hands in a sign of surrender. «I’m gonna make dinner.» He halfway turned back. House was sitting on the edge of the tub, with a contemplative expression.
«Uh… just to inform you, in this bathroom there’s nothing similar to a painkiller» said Wilson. «Unless you use the bleach, but in that case you should substitute “painkiller” with “detergent” and “pain stopping” with “death through atrocious pain”. So… I mean, don’t tire yourself pointlessly.»
He left shutting the door after him.
(«Bastard» hissed House, on the other side.)
Wilson came back in the bedroom, and in the meantime he hoped his friend could relax and stop thinking about his leg. He changed the sheets, prepared some clean clothes and filled a pot with water for the pasta. The couch seemed to call him from the living room, and Wilson mentally surrendered to another one of those uncomfortable and lonely nights he had tried to kick out of his memory. After all, he was not the one who needed help this time, but House. House.
Something like his best friend.
While the spaghetti started cooking, he took the clean clothes and gently knocked at the bathroom door. No answers. Though he had the half certainty that House would not reply anyway, out of spite, for a moment he felt his stomach contracting. He opened the door a little more quickly than he was supposed to.
House was lying down in the tub, his back leaned on the light slope which sank between the water and foam; he had his head reclining on his shoulder.
As far as Wilson knew (not much, in that apartment he had always used the shower), it was virtually impossible to fall asleep in that bath - that was as uncomfortable as around everything else at House’s place - House included. Yet, his breath was regular, his body seemed to have found his own joint in the twisted geometry of the porcelain and House seemed calm, for once.
He slipped silently in, placing the clothes on a stool near the tub. He also tried to convince himself that his glance had fallen between the thin foam only because, after the surgery and the stitches’ removal, the only ones who’d seen the scar had been Cuddy, House and Stacy. Just a pinch of curiosity, nothing more.
The scar was long and visibly deep, of an intense rosé colour which Wilson doubted would ever lighten much. All around, the flesh was deformed, pressed around the missing muscle in a sort of mute sign of solidarity. Crumpled up. Contracted.
Wilson sighed, taking off House’s bathrobe from the wall and placing it, folded, upon the clothes.
«Did you finish counting my hairs or will it take you a long time?»
Wilson winced, not expecting a reaction by House. «I was... I’ve brought you some clean clothes.»
«That’s what they all say.»
Wilson shook his head, without replying. He left shutting the door after him.
House breathed out slowly.
There’s a breaking point in everything. Stacy’s one was nearly reached. And that ‘nearly’ meant that she would reach it when, coming back from his reflecting pause, she would find him twice more healthy and self-sufficient than he had been until that. He obviously wouldn’t be, not really, because in the pauses from Vicodin he needed to spend nearly every gram of energy to avoid shouting - and so little remained to him to give breath to his useless talks and to walk around in his home. But he would pretend. And she would simply feel unnecessary.
It was contradictive, obviously; he’d do it to make her not feel too oppressed by the situation and she’d leave him for that. And the fact he could clearly see their relationship’s next developments didn’t mean he’d do anything to stop them.
When there’s necrosis, you can just cut. This was her lesson, wasn’t it?
Wilson’s breakpoint was still far off, but not so much. It was surely less far than Wilson thought, but maybe a little futher than House’s estimates. Before asking them to put him in pharmacological coma (or maybe during, or after; not that it mattered), he had done some bets with himself. On how long people around him could stand before collapsing and deciding that after all, yeah, he was not so sick not to be able to manage by himself.
The lowest estimates were for Stacy, the highest for Cuddy. But this was simply because Cuddy was one of those House had the smallest amount of contact with. Wilson… Wilson was in the middle, a fluctuating position. He could resist until House again would take his self-control or leave him in the most critical moment. In the second case, obviously, he would build a world of reasonable explanations to justify the thing, exactly like his matrimonial failures number one and two.
But, actually, Wilson was the only one whose actions House didn’t feel able to predict. He was tired, but not exhausted; he was sad, but not depressed; he felt guilt, but not so much. His cell had stopped ringing, thus Rebecca or however she was called had stopped searching for him. On the other hand, Wilson now always kept it in his pocket, thus Roxanne had stopped to answer too.
He opened his eyes, stretching a hand toward the bathrobe.
The pain seemed vaguely more bearable, now.
He needed a Vicodin.
continue? Chapter 2