Five years - chapter eleven
Title: Five years
Author: snark-bait
Rating: Adult
Character/Paring: House/Cameron
Chapter: 11
Thank you lynettinspaghet for the beta.
Chapter eleven
House was sitting on the bottom step in his yard, trying to tune the guitar he’d bought the day before. He’d wanted to occupy his mind with something that had nothing to do with his life, especially anything to do with prison. It was probably too cold out here to tune the instrument without it going straight out of tune again, but he needed the fresh air and something for his hands to do. So he’d started on the top E and was working his way down the strings, ruminating as he did, that the weekend had been going pretty well, until he’d read the letter Wilson had written.
He wanted to tune up the guitar, play a few songs and lose himself in the chords. He just wasn’t sure if it was possible to lose yourself when you were already lost and didn’t want to be found.
He heard the kitchen door creak open behind him and then close again. He twisted around so he could look up at Cameron as she sat down on the top step. He turned away again and didn’t acknowledge her.
At least the day was starting to brighten up. A patch of blue was bravely fighting its way though the grey, trying to break the sky of its dreary deportment and overpower it with color.
Cameron watched House fiddle with the instrument for a moment or two, but eventually got bored with giving him the space he’d come out here looking for. “Are you alright?”
He felt like telling her that, no actually, he wasn’t and hadn’t been for quite sometime. He felt like informing her that he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with his life now. He could even try and explain that this was too hard, and that everything felt pointless, but he didn’t. He rarely gave voice to the things he felt. Instead he plucked a string on the guitar, grimaced at the tone it made then tweaked the machine head at the top to make the pitch change.
“That sound like an A to you?” He asked thoughtfully. He plucked the string again and frowned at the sound. He held his head close to the body of the instrument, as if to get closer to the tone as it changed and curled into the air.
He turned to look at Cameron again; she brushed a few strands of hair from her eyes then folded her arms against the cold. “I have no idea,” she admitted.
House shrugged, “Close enough,” he offered and then turned around again.
“I should go soon; Jack will be dropping Dan off in about an hour from now.”
House nodded but he was getting her words on a five second delay, intent as he was with what he was doing. They also had to fight their way through the fog of thought in his mind. He played the string again then tweaked it some more. “Thanks for the help,” he mumbled distractedly.
“With the letter or the painting?” She said carefully.
House stopped fiddling. He sat up straight and let a finger graze his chin, scratching for the distraction rather than any perceived itch. He cleared his throat and then offered a quiet, “Both.”
“Are you going to talk to him? I bet he’s not doing much today. I could drop you off on the way to my place.”
“We’ve talked,” House returned quietly. He was trying to convince himself that the letter didn’t really change things for him, and if he kept telling himself that he’d believe it. But it did change things. Wilson being forced to testify and not choosing to, like House had thought. That changed things immensely.
The topic of Wilson was a prickly conversation at the best of times, but House really didn’t want to talk about this now. He just needed time to digest it. He’d left the bedroom straight after reading the letter and had been out here ever since, wondering why the hell he’d never tossed it in the trash. If he had, it’d be over and done with now.
“What he wrote must change things,” Cameron considered. She was trying to poke this God damn conversation out of him, and he didn’t want it.
“It does and it doesn’t,” he said distantly.
“What he did, making sure you got the minimum sentence,” Cameron continued. “He didn’t really have a choice.”
“I know,” House replied, and he did know that. Wilson had been left with no other option but it was born of circumstances he’d created. Ones he only had himself to blame for. “What would you have done?” he asked her then; it was a rhetorical question, but for some reason he wanted to hear the answer.
“Exactly the same thing,” Cameron said firmly. House turned to look at her again. That wasn’t quite what he’d been asking.
“But would you have gone to Tritter in the first place?”
She couldn’t hold onto his look for very long. She glanced away from him and didn’t reply. House smiled to himself; her silence answered his question.
“That’s the problem,” he said simply.
“He thought he was doing the right thing,” Cameron said then. She was clearly determined to see them put everything aside and patch up all their differences, forgive and forget. But life just wasn’t that simple.
“Someone had to do something; I don’t think he ever meant to hurt you,” she continued.
“Yeah you’re right. Having me lose five years of my life in that place was the right thing to do, he’s a hero. I’ll go around and thank him right now.”
She sighed, very lightly. It was her wordless way of saying he was being stubborn.
His tone was changing; this was becoming less of a conversation and more of an argument to him because he was getting uncomfortable with where things were heading. He could see her point, he could. Back then he’d been sliding dangerously out of control; someone had been forced to act. Wilson hadn’t done it with malicious intent; he’d grown fairly certain of that. He’d been trying to help and it had backfired.
Unfortunately for Wilson, the thing with him was that he didn’t recognize try. Only do or don’t, succeed and fail. Try was a grey area of nothing to him. It meant nothing, therefore it was nothing. That and the fact that Wilson’s ‘try’ had seriously fucked him over in the end. If Wilson was acting with his best interests at heart he should have known that he’d never take the deal.
Wilson’s intentions didn’t resonate as far through him as they did through Cameron. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to put all this behind him, he did, desperately. But that betrayal, whenever he thought about it, it hurt as much now as it had five years ago in his office. The image the letter had left in his head, of Wilson and Tritter bargaining over his life, didn’t sit well with him at all.
“I think he was put in a desperate situation, and he did the best he could. You can’t blame him.”
“I don’t blame him,” House returned. “But he had a part to play, if he’d never gone to Tritter…” he stopped and scratched an eyebrow with his thumb. “I don’t owe him anything either.”
Cameron got up from the step slowly; she stepped down until she was behind him then she placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it once. “I’ve got to go. You really should talk to Wilson about this, even if it’s just to tell him what you just told me.”
House didn’t respond. He just shrugged off her hand then carried on plucking the strings of the guitar.
~
Wilson was pulling his front door shut, first thing Monday morning when his cell phone started bleating…somewhere. He patted himself down and then realised why he couldn’t find it and unlocked his door again.
He quickly retrieved his cell phone from the kitchen counter where he’d left it by accident.
“Hello,” he answered quickly, not looking at the caller ID and then headed for the door of the apartment again. He had a busy case load today and didn’t want to be late.
“Wilson? Have you left yet?”
It took a second to establish the anxious voice as Allison Cameron’s, which was odd. He didn’t usually get calls from her first thing Monday morning, “Good morning to you too Allison, nice weekend?” He returned.
“Sorry; good morning, are you on your way to work?”
“No, still at my place, although technically I’m half way out of the door, so I’m sort of on my way to work,” he explained as he wedged the cell between his shoulder and his cheek and re-locked his door. “What’s up?”
There was some sort of angry, ‘I’m having a crappy start to the week’ sigh on the other end before she explained herself.
“I’m not going to make it in today; Danny spent most of last night puking up the crap Jack spent the weekend feeding him,” Cameron said, an unmistakable annoyance warming every word. “House doesn’t have a phone line at his place yet, he’s been coming in with me. Could you take him in today?”
“Oh, sure,” Wilson replied, feeling none of the joviality his tone suggested. Yeah, he could swing by and pick House up. That’d be…perfectly normal. No prior warning on House’s end too- just perfect. He pulled out a small notepad and scribbled down House’s new address as Cameron read it out to him. She thanked him profusely and then had to hang up. He’d heard Danny whimpering in the background, and explaining he’d missed the toilet. Wilson, for Cameron’s sake, hoped that wasn’t as disgusting as it sounded.
Wilson got into his car and sat at the wheel for a moment; he wanted to speak to House again, badly wanted to, but an awkward, mostly silent drive to work probably wasn’t the best time to talk through their issues.
~
Wilson tapped lightly on the front door and stood patiently on the step, holding his briefcase in front of him and hoping he’d read his messily scribbled directions correctly. A few moments later House pulled the door open. His shirt was unbuttoned, his hair was wet and he had a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth. He seemed surprised to see Wilson standing there; House removed the toast from his mouth and tilted his head to the side.
“Dr Cameron, you look different this morning; rough night?” He said flatly, raising one eyebrow. Wilson was about to explain, but House held his hand up.
“No, it’ll come to me,” he studied Wilson for a second, “Did you highlight your hair?”
Wilson smiled quickly at him, “Daniel is sick, Cameron asked me to give you a ride in today.”
“Thoughtful of her,” House said. “I’m running late, I’ll get the bus.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Wilson offered, it wasn’t readily accepted; House just observed him for a moment, then shrugged and stepped aside so he could let Wilson in.
House disappeared into what appeared to be the bathroom so Wilson went into the living room to wait for him; the smell of fresh paint assaulted his senses as soon as he was in the room. “Nice place,’ Wilson said politely.
“Right, you can tell it’s nice from one unfurnished room?” was House’s muffled reply. Wilson smiled to himself; House was still a grumpy bastard first thing in the morning. He scratched all of the pre-planned small talk off the mental list of potential things to say and went and stood by the front window.
Wilson was standing with his hands in pockets and his briefcase on the floor by his feet, observing House’s neighbour when House returned ten minutes later.
“Your neighbor is weird,” Wilson noted.
“Is he locking and re-locking his front door?” House enquired. Wilson sensed House move up behind him so he could peer out of the window.
‘No; he’s in his car,” Wilson turned to face him. “You know in driver’s ed, they make you do all those mirror checks before you pull away? He’s just sitting there doing those over and over.”
House smiled to himself, shook his head and headed for the door of the living room.
“Are we going or what? I don’t want to be late.”
~
The car journey started out with a heavy dose of uncomfortable silence so Wilson placed all of his focus on the rush hour traffic. House was holding his cane in front of him, scrutinising the head with great interest. Of course, when they decided to break the ice they did it at exactly the same time.
“So, where are you…” House began as Wilson started to ask him about his weekend.
“Oh, you go,” Wilson said civilly.
“No, it was nothing important,’ House said dismissively, almost flustered. It seemed the pressure of an uncomfortable silence was taking its toll on them both. They quickly found themselves at another stalemate. Eventually they hit heavy gridlock as they approached Princeton centre and House tried again; keeping his focus on anything that wasn’t inside the car.
“I read that letter yesterday,” he said quietly.
“Oh, well that only took two and half years,” Wilson mused playfully.
House shrugged, “I’m a slow reader. Is it true?”
Wilson looked across at him, surprised that House was approaching such a heavy topic after fifteen minutes of dead air. “Yeah,” he replied. “I wanted to speak to you after the trial, but you wouldn’t let me. Then I didn’t get the chance because you wouldn’t read the mail I sent.”
House frowned and thought about it for a moment, “You could have just told Cameron.”
“No I couldn’t, I didn’t want a messenger. I wanted you to hear it from me,” Wilson frowned at his own words. “Well not exactly hear, but I wanted it to come from me.”
“Would you take it back, if you could? Going to Tritter,” House said suddenly, shifting slightly in his seat as he said it.
Wilson was watching House now and didn’t notice a gap opening in the traffic in front of him, he was about to answer when a car beeped him from behind. He checked his mirror then crawled the meter or so forward to become gridlocked again.
“Would you? Would you forge the prescription and steal the oxy?”
House shot him a quick look but didn’t reply, so neither got an answer to their question. The air filled with silence again and Wilson decided that trying to have this conversation in gridlocked traffic was a disaster. He rolled down his window half way and distractedly fingered the knot on his tie.
Nothing else was said until they’d arrived at the hospital. They got out of the car and he caught House looking at him across the roof.
“You think I deserved five years and my life wiped out for what I did?” House asked seriously, looking Wilson in the eye as he said it.
Wilson eyebrows fused together and shook his head; of course he didn’t think that. He was disappointed that House would ever believe that of him, “No, of course not.”
“I know I screwed up; believe me I had a long time to think about it. But it seems to me that you still can’t admit that maybe you screwed up too,” House said, searching Wilson’s expression for his reaction.
Wilson wasn’t sure what House wanted from him, an apology perhaps, but he didn’t know exactly what to apologize for.
“If you want me to say I’m sorry I went to Tritter I will, but if I don’t mean it, what’s the point?” Wilson offered. House features pulled tight at his words and he realized instantly he could have phrased that better about a hundred different ways. They were staring each other in the eye, neither looking away and neither backing down.
“So you stand by what you did?” House questioned.
“What choice did I have House?”
House was the one to look away first; he stared at the ground for a moment. Then he headed away from the car as quickly as he could, leaving Wilson to watch him go. He threw a subdued, “Thanks for the ride,” as he went.
~
“You’re late,” were not the sour words House wanted to hear from Paul when he entered the lab. ‘I’m resigning’ would have suited him better, however wishfully thought the words were. Paul was even prissy enough to tap his watch as he said the words.
“And you have an annoying face,” House replied, raising his eyebrows as he looked over at the senior scientist. He shrugged off his jacket and Paul stared at him for a moment, trying to decide what to say next. He settled on saying nothing, and went into the other section of the lab. Paul was anal enough to email him his workload and they didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the morning, but that suited House just fine.
Just before lunch, House felt a tap on his shoulder and turned away from the microscope he was working with, to find a familiar looking young man standing behind him, smiling awkwardly at him. He was wearing a neatly pressed lab coat complete with a pocket protector and three pens sticking out of the top. He held his hand out to House and swallowed nervously.
“My names Howard Ross, we met in the cafeteria last week,” he said. House stared at the proffered hand for a moment then at the kid.
‘Oh,” he replied and then he turned back toward the microscope again. “Paul’s not here, I don’t know where he’s gone and I don’t care,” he said miserably.
“Ahh, I didn’t come down to see him actually, it’s you I want to speak to,” Howard said. It was at this point he noticed the guy had a noticeable accent. He resembled a sort of dark haired Chase only taller and with better dress sense.
“You a wombat?” House said, sounding bored and only half interested.
“Eh, excuse me?” Howard replied.
“Are you from Australia?”
“Oh, no. I’m English,” he said. “Originally from Wiltshire,” he said happily.
“What do you want Harold?”
‘Howard,” he corrected quickly then he flipped open a file he was holding and tried to hand it to House, who merely looked at it, and then at Howard.
“I work in diagnostics, and we have quite a difficult case,” he began. “Dr Cameron isn’t in today and we need some assistance,” he explained.
“Where’s Rittberg?” House asked.
“He’s in a meeting,” Howard replied.
“So go page him,” House said distastefully, batting the file out of the way as Howard tried to give it to him again.
“He told us not to page him unless it was an emergency.”
House tilted his head to the side, “So, instead you decided to annoy me,” House shook his head and got up. It was time for lunch anyway. “Page Rittberg or call Cameron, or go and throw melons off the roof, just don’t bother me.”
“Dr. Cameron told me to come and talk to you,” Howard said as House moved him to one side so he could reach his cane propped up by the door.
House frowned at those words, “Well Dr. Cameron obviously doesn’t like you very much, because this was a waste of your time.”
House left the little room and then the office, greatly relieved Howard didn’t follow behind him.
~
When House returned from lunch someone was waiting for him, but it wasn’t Howard. Wilson was leaning against the bench with his arms folded, staring down at his shoes.
“We need to talk,” Wilson said softly.
“No, we don’t,” House said, his tone clipped and impolite. He placed his cane against the wall by the door, and sat down at the PC beside Wilson in the middle of the work bench.
“You’re right, I screwed up too, and I’m sorry,” Wilson said gently.
“I thought you said there was no point in saying it if you didn’t mean it,” House replied. He logged onto the PC, he was going to send Cameron the foulest, bitchiest email about the stupidity of sending her minions to him in her absence.
Wilson unfolded his arms and placed his hands on his hips, “I mean it,” he said seriously. “Will you listen to me for a minute?” He said irritably, reaching down and turning off House’s PC again. House looked up at him like a chastised adolescent who was being forced to listen to a motherly lecture.
“I don’t think you realize how much everyone has missed you…” Wilson said quietly, he cleared his throat and looked away again. “…how much I’ve missed you, and if I could take it all back I would, I’m sure we’d all do things differently.”
House was trying to formulate a reply when Howard appeared again and knocked on the door.
“Please, could I just have a minute of your time,” he said, boldly.
“Not now Howard,” Wilson and House shouted in unison; House’s version differing only very slightly with the word Henry in place of Howard.
“I’m sorry” Howard replied, “Didn’t realise…” he began to explain and abandoned explanation in favour of retreat. He jittered into the door and returned to the main lab again. Neither House nor Wilson said anything for a moment.
“Can we go for a beer after work, talk this through some more?” Wilson said.
“I’m busy,” House replied moodily, but it mostly for show and Wilson could tell.
“Liar,” Wilson said. “Doing what?”
House smiled and shrugged. “Alright, but you’re buying,”
Wilson was about to protest, but then he shook his head and decide to stay quiet on the matter. “I’ll meet you in the front entrance at six.”
“Alright,” House said then added, “Send that stupid kid in here if he’s still hanging around.
~
Two years earlier
House was standing at the front of his cell with his head against the bars. His eyes were closed as he massaged his thigh. He hadn’t received any pain medication in over two days now. The block was running with two guards down, so everything had either ground to a halt or was taking three times longer than normal. A forty-eight hour lockdown had been imposed following the attack on Preedy. Things were only just getting back to normal.
House opened his eyes when he heard the sound of the gate at the far end being unlocked, opened and then locked again. A few minutes later Steve approached his cell; he was escorting the guy housed at the opposite end, to the showers.
“Hey, what happened to my medication?” House barked at Steve. The guard said nothing.
Steve had been very elusive since the incident in the yard. House suspected it had something to do with the fact that he’d freaked out and he’d been witness to his hysterical fretting. Steve probably felt embarrassed because he’d been forced to hand the reigns of the situation over to a prisoner.
In a place with such a serious pecking order, where the general perception was ‘us’ and ‘them’, Steve probably didn’t feel too clever for delegating responsibility to an inmate. But no one else knew about it, and House didn’t give a crap because who did handle a situation like that with grace and finesse? Michael and Preedy had survived; as far as he was concerned that situation had turned out very well.
But still he had to catch crap after essentially doing what he’d been ordered to do.
The kid in the cell next to House, Tobias Denver, piped up then. “My asthma inhaler’s run out too Mr Wilkinson, I need another.”
“I’ll take you up tomorrow; I told you I would and I will,” Steve replied, acknowledging the kid but ignoring House which did nothing but piss him off further.
“What if I have an attack tonight?” Denver continued. “I could die.”
Steve shook his head with a sigh and rolled his eyes. “You haven’t had one in months; you’ll be fine,” Steve assured him dismissively. Famous last words House thought; it shouldn’t happen, therefore it’ll probably happen in about two minutes from now.
“Unlike me,” House interjected, trying to slide the focus back over to him. “My pain is chronic and I’ve been without medication for two days now,” he reiterated.
Steve finally gave him the time of day and glanced over at him. “They’re being really harsh about who they let on and off here at the moment; only permanent members of staff are allowed on the block. It’ll only be until Harris’s squad has been through here.”
“Harris?” House questioned worriedly.
“He’s doing the shake down,” Steve informed him.
House noticed the guards usual ruddy complexion was gone, he looked pale and worn out. His short, sandy blonde hair also looked greasy and his uniform was crumpled. It seemed general hygiene had becoming a chore for him. Things were obviously getting on top of Steve so it was no surprise to House that Redfield had ordered someone else to come and search the block, but the fact that it had fallen to Edgar Harris, was not good news.
Steve carried on past him and he came away from the gate. The pain in his leg became a secondary concern for the first time in two days. Harris was a king-size prick of the highest order. House considered if he were ever asked to describe the man in three words he’d use - sinewy little shit.
Harris was what some people would call, well weathered. He had a constant five o’clock shadow and the frown lines on his face made him look ten years older than he probably was. He had tan, leathery skin; almost as if it had rusted. House guessed he was around forty years old; he was short, lean and very physically fit and definitely ex military, always talking about knives and guns and very much into martial arts.
A real boo yah head-case, with a thirst for hostile situations. He liked to prod and poke and aggravate things to the point of kicking off so he could intervene in his customary, heavy handed, over the top way.
House had heard the guard bragging about bar fights he’d been in on numerous occasions. There was always a detailed description of how big the guys were, how outnumbered he’d been, and how much ass he’d kicked.
The simple fact was the guy had little big man syndrome. He was short, so he had to shout instead of talk and get right in your face so you knew how tough he was. Ultimately, House had surmised that ninety percent of what came out of the guys mouth was bullshit, but he also had a reputation for trouble and it wasn’t for nothing. Harris had a nasty little temper, and he could snap with the gentlest of provocation. House had seen him lose it on a few occasions when he’d been housed in general population. Harris went off like a rocket when he was angry, and it seemed like his fuse was always lit. House also had first hand knowledge of what Harris was like when he snapped.
The prison guards that House had met so far fell into varied categories; Harris fell into a group he’d labelled, ‘Do not fuck with.’ It meant Harris was to be avoided at all costs, and didn’t take well to sarcasm, especially in relation to his stature. Just two weeks into his sentence, House had been given the beating of his life for an off the cuff remark about the guys size. He had a two-inch scar along his jaw line to remind him what category Harris fell into in case he ever forgot.
His week was getting worse by the minute. He’d anticipated that the whole block was going to get a thorough shake down, but not by Harris.
“House, can you do me a favour?” Denver asked, breaking into his worried thoughts. “Could you read this letter out loud for me?” Denver stuck his hand out of the side of his cell and shook some mail so House could see it.
“No,” he said offhandedly; he sat down on the uncomfortable metal stool that was bolted to the wall and continued to rub his thigh. Preedy normally read Denver his mail because the kid couldn’t read. It took a minute or two for him to feel crappy about saying no, but he’d come to realise it got you nowhere doing people favours in this place.
“Please, my girl only writes me once a month,” Denver tried to appeal to his good side, obviously the guy was unaware he didn’t have one.
“Have a look around and tell someone that gives a crap.” House replied bitterly. Then he closed his eyes and grit his teeth against the pain in his leg.
He wasn’t doing anyone a free favour. He’d tended to two injured men and been left in his cell covered in their blood for twenty hours for the effort. He’d not had his meds since. No one was helping him, so he couldn’t see why the hell he should help anyone else.
~
It was just after lunch when Harris and his team arrived. House could always hear him approach before he saw him. He was complaining about something, yapping like a small terrier dog. He bitched at every prisoner he came to. Preedy had been attacked, so of course everyone on the block was involved; they were all scum, and probably all in on it together.
Harris was questioning people to see if they knew anything about how Felix had managed to get something as deadly as a screwdriver onto the block, prompting that someone, must know something. So far no one was giving anything up. He was getting in people’s faces, and then barking threats at them if they didn’t cooperate. Everyone was cooperating, but no one seemed to know how Felix had got his weapon.
They were getting cons out two at a time. House was right on the end and dreading his turn. Harris had old school views; everyone in here was a piece of crap and being in prison certainly wasn’t punishment enough for some people. He didn’t see any problem with doling out punishment of his own if someone disobeyed him.
One of their own had been stabbed and nearly killed, that was going to breed resentment regardless, but Harris was the sort of guard that would seek to even things up off the back of any sort of minor offense. Harris’s temper combined with House’s smart mouth and lack of self control had never been a comfortable mix.
“Oh great, it’s the special needs section,” Harris quipped when he approached House’s cell. “The retard and the cripple, this should be fun.”
Harris and four of his men kitted out with riot equipment, gathered around the last two cells.
“Out here now,” he yelled, pointing at the far wall with his nightstick as his deputies opened the gates. It didn’t surprise House that Harris was now running the Tactical Response Team. They ran difficult cell extractions and dealt with the aftermath of lock downs; the heavy handed stuff. If there was trouble or God forbid a riot, these were the people that got sent in first.
“Face the wall, place your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers,” Harris yelled. House and Denver complied. Once House was standing by the far wall, Harris came over and tapped him on the jaw with his nightstick.
“Keep that shut, because I am not in the fucking mood for you today, got it?” He warned in a low voice. House chanced a quick look down at him.
“Head straight and eyes forward,” Harris shouted.
House did so without saying a word. They actually had mutual interests for once. Harris wanted him silent, and House felt crappy enough already without getting his ass kicked.
Harris stood between the two prisoners with his arms folded as his men searched both of the cells, although search probably wasn’t the right word, they were spins really. Spins were careless destructive hunts; stuff got ripped, broken and damaged. Toiletries were emptied out all over the floor, and they even sliced open the mattresses and checked inside those. They were evidently very serious about what had happened.
After ten minutes of silence Harris placed his hand on the wall by Denver, leaned in close and started to question him; spitting his words angrily into the kids face.
“One of you shit heads must know something; I’m not leaving the wuss wing until I know how that shiv got on here. So I want to know what you know you retarded piece of crap.”
“I don’t know anything,” Denver replied quietly, shaking his head but not daring to look down at the man. The kid was kind of dopey looking, gangly and thin and almost as tall as House with bright yellow blonde hair.
It was probably a comical sight, this stupid little man bitching up at a guy who was much taller than him.
“Fuck you,” Harris shouted in his face. “Someone knows something. Give it up now or you’re going to solitary,” Harris prodded the younger man in the chest. Denver was the youngest guy on the wing, barely twenty, what some would call a soft target, and probably the reason he was in protective custody. House had worked out long back that they’d both been put there for the same reason.
Harris carried on yapping at the poor kid. He sure had a way with words, House thought to himself. Get in someone’s face and abuse them; that would get him all the answers he needed, even though it hadn’t worked with the other guys so far. It was mainly gang bangers who’d been put on this block. Only House and Denver were actually there for their own protection. The others were there for the protection of the prison at large.
House was aiming to zone out, when he noticed Denver’s breathing, or rather, wheezing. It sounded like the air had started to snag on some debris in Denver’s chest on its way out, Harris was going to give the kid an asthma attack.
“A six inch piece of metal doesn’t just magic itself up here,” he began clipping Denver round the head, increasing the force in the swats each time.
“Honestly,” Denver gasped. “I didn’t know he had it. I never spoke to him once.”
Harris shook his head, the ghost of his patience had deserted him long ago; he threw a hard backhander at Denver’s face. He hadn’t been this rough with anyone else and it bothered House that the little shit only had the balls to pick on a scrawny little kid that would never fight him back.
“It troubles me that you think I’m screwing around here retard; in a moment it’s going to trouble you too.”
House got a flashback of the conversation that had taken place an hour earlier; Denver’s asthma inhaler had run out. Harris was milliseconds away from giving the kid an attack.
Great, House thought, closing his eyes. This block really didn’t need another medical emergency after everything that had happened recently. He shook his head deciding his next move was probably going to hurt, one way or another. House turned to face them.
“Denver, does Harris still punch like a girl?” He said calmly. But the provocation in his words pricked every ear on the block who’d heard them, prisoners and guards alike.
Denver’s eyes widened into capital O’s; he shot him a petrified look, like he wasn’t sure what the hell House was up to, but whatever it was he really didn’t want to be involved, but then Denver always looked nervous and worried.
Harris snapped his head around as if House’s words had smacked him on the side of the cheek. His head tilted sideways, sort of like a dog puzzling over a high pitched sound. It seemed he couldn’t quite believe his own ears. His mouth dropped open halfway. He was probably thinking, I couldn’t have heard that, surely, no one would be so stupid.
Then slowly the cogs started to grind away in the guards mind as he told himself, actually this is House, someone would be that stupid. Harris let Denver alone and took one step away from him; his hand dropped absently to his nightstick on his belt and his fingers smoothed the handle, House’s eyes tracked the movement.
“What did you just say to me?” He said slowly.
“Oh, I wasn’t talking to you, sir, I was talking to Denver,” House said politely, his hands were still behind his head.
Harris looked utterly dumfounded, he’d spent two hours or more tearing through cells looking for answers, screaming and yelling and scaring the shit out of everybody. It hadn’t gotten him very far, except maybe putting a twenty year old on the brink of an asthma attack. He had managed to get himself all worked up and angry though, Harris’s breath seemed to stall, then he sprang into life and lunged for House. Someone had just given him something to centre his anger on.
Harris gripped the head of his nightstick, yanked it from his belt and raised it over his head.
“Whoa, I wouldn’t do that,” House said quickly as Harris spun him around and with his free hand and pinned him against the wall, holding him by the throat.
“Why the hell not?” Harris challenged angrily. He leant his weight onto House so he could pin him in place.
“I won’t be able to tell you how that screwdriver got on the block if you kick my ass,” House said as calmly as he could manage, but his eyes were glued to the officer’s raised nightstick. He just got his words out before Harris’s grip tightened around his windpipe.
Harris thought about it, he was clearly itching to level the playing field. The quota on inmate vs officer casualties this week in favour of the cons just wouldn’t do. House was very thankful when the officer’s arm slowly dropped down. But the weapon remained tightly in his grip.
“If you’re screwing with me House you’ll be spending the night in the infirmary, because you’ll have multiple broken bones,” Harris said dangerously. But he eased his grip from House’s throat and backed off
“Start talking,” he said impatiently. Glancing at Denver as if he couldn’t be bothered looking at House.
House cleared his throat, giving it a rub because it was sore, but also because these words needed coaxing; they didn’t want to come out. He was going to piss off every con on the block when he coughed this up. But he was really fucked now if he didn’t fess up. Screwed either way, he picked the lesser of two evils.
“There’s an orderly, he hasn’t been up in a few days. Fat guy called Marco; he brings the medication here,” House explained.
Harris looked at him again and then the hint of a smile teased the corners of his lips before he hardened his features.
“That guy will get you anything for a price,” House said. “Drugs, food…weapons.”
“I know that fat sack of shit,” Harris said, shaking his head as his words trailed off and his nostrils flared. Harris turned to look back at the other prisoners; they were all glaring at House now, which went someway to back up his words.
“Boy are you going to be popular on here now,” Harris said and then he turned and House almost believed things were going to pass without incident. But then Harris turned quickly toward him again and then heaved a powerful stomp at House’s thigh, the sort a fire-fighter threw at the door of a burning building to get inside.
House dropped to the floor instantly, for one split second every sensation in his body seemed to blur and become one single feeling; a red hot burst of noise, vision, taste, sense and smell that he couldn’t differentiate between.
Then everything separated again and the pain in his thigh was so intense he felt he might throw up. He felt like he’d been burned there, it was like someone had tried to extract a badly infected tooth with a punch to the jaw, doing nothing but exacerbate the pain there and make it ten times worse.
A few seconds later he started breathing again; he let out a loud growl of hurt with his exhaled breath, but his eyes were still tightly shut. He had about a thousand insults he’d like to hurl at Harris but he bit his tongue, literally. If he said anything else the guy would only do it again.
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” He heard Harris say under his breath, but there was some respite because the guard’s footsteps were heading away from him. House’s eyes fluttered open and he watched the man leave.
“You boys finish off here, I’ve got me an orderly to fuck up,” Harris said as he went.
~
House was sat in the corner of his cell, surrounded by the aftermath of the search and holding onto his leg like it would cease to be part of him if he didn’t grip onto it tightly with both hands. He was quite sure he’d trade a limb for some Vicodin right now. And he knew exactly which one he’d pick.
The only difference between Harris and the cons was a uniform. Everything was a front in here anyway. You had no idea what people were really thinking or how they really felt. Every action was covered in a dustsheet of bullshit and bravado. The guards started fights to show how tough they were, cons started trouble out of boredom and wanting to feel something, wanting to confirm they were still alive.
He felt, like he’d done many times, that he didn’t belong here, with these people. Times like this really hit home the fact that his life before hadn’t been the elongated suck he’d once thought it was, not compared to this.
This, what he had now, was not life; this was just existing from one moment to the next. Everyday was exactly the same.
Steve appeared at the front of the cell, “How’s your leg?” He asked quietly.
“Tickles,” House said, keeping his eyes closed; he was sweating and it was making them sting.
“They just fired that orderly. So I don’t know when or who will be bringing the medication down here. If I get time I’ll go up and get yours and Denver’s. But we’re so short staffed I don’t know if I can.”
Oh, he’d shot himself in both feet with that confession. A typical lose - lose situation.
“House?” Steve said seriously. House finally opened his eyes and looked up at him.
“Harris is going to be supervising down here for a while; you need to keep your mouth shut, alright?” The guard said uneasily.
House didn’t reply, but as undesirable as it was, he was very much on the same page as Steve.
“Preedy’s surgery went well. His wife called before, said he should make a full recovery.”
“Well he’d better get his fat ass back here as soon as possible then,” House croaked bitterly.
Steve frowned, “Yeah, I’ll make sure I pass that on when I go and see him later,” he said sarcastically.
~
House fell asleep sitting on the floor because his bed was a mess he couldn’t be bothered to clean up. The pain had worn him down and then put him out. He woke to the sound of insults being hurled at him from the gate. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Harris standing there. He got a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Sometimes, he just couldn’t control his mouth; however hard he tried the words just fell out.
Harris was holding a food tray; House rubbed his face unsure of the time but sensing he’d been asleep for hours. He struggled to sit up and then stood unsteadily, which only seemed to amuse Harris.
“Hurry the fuck up, I haven’t got all day,’ he barked. “Your fat assed friend got fired, well done.”
House looked down at the food, instantly noticing a problem. “I’m a vegetarian,” he said evenly, not looking at the guy.
He’d been a hypothetical vegetarian ever since he’d arrived on this block and Preedy had never questioned it. The meat served in this place wasn’t identifiable. Vegetarian food wasn’t much better but he did get peanut butter, vegetables and didn’t have to worry if the meat was going to jump back to life and attack him from the plate.
It was bad enough the sort of stuff that turned up in the food as it was without having to worry about what the food actually was. Harris wasn’t buying it though, “You’re so full of shit, you weren’t a vegetarian in general population,” he noted.
‘I went looking for God but couldn’t find him, found vegetarianism on the way,” House offered, wondering what the big deal was, so what if there was no mystery meat on the plate.
Harris cleared his throat then spat in the centre of the food, the sight of the goober in the middle of the plate turned his stomach again as he took the tray.
‘I seasoned it for you,’ Harris said, chuckling to himself.
He placed the tray down on the table, deciding that putting up with Harris for longer than a week was probably going to be the end of him.
~
House had been forced out into the yard the day after the block search. It had hurt like hell getting there, but Steve’s warning had been echoing though his mind urging him not to push things with Harris.
Denver was shooting the ball at the basketball net, it hadn’t gone in once. The repetitive thud of the ball rebounding off the floor was making House’s head thump. He hadn’t slept very well the night before, unable to find a position that was comfortable; he’d finally thrown up in the early hours of the morning because the pain in his thigh was excruciating. He’d gone three days without any medication now. His stomach was empty and sore, and his thigh was not just aching, but badly bruised as well.
“Denver,” House said shakily. “Come here.”
Denver turned away from the net and looked at him. “I’m sorry I got you into to trouble,” he said worriedly.
“You didn’t get me into trouble, I got me into trouble; come here.”
Denver let the ball drop from his hands and went over, cautiously. House took a deep breath than placed his hand beside him on the floor.
“I need you to do something for me, need you to stomp real hard on my hand.”
Denver’s facial expression was blank and remained that way with the request. “No.”
“You won’t get into trouble, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Why do you want me to do that?” He asked. He looked over at the gate, checking they were still unsupervised; Steve had left them in here alone because he was busy. “You get off on pain or something?”
House snorted out a laugh and wondered how the hell he was supposed to explain the gating mechanism for pain to a guy that couldn’t even read.
“No, I get off on not being in pain. You know I have a bum leg right?”
Denver nodded.
“Well, today it hurts a lot and the only way I can relieve the pain in my leg is by hurting myself somewhere else,” House explained.
“That doesn’t make any sense; won’t you just hurt in two places?”
“Not if you do this properly,” House replied. Denver shook his head again and took a few steps back.
“Officer Wilkinson will kill me,” he said, referring to Steve.
“He won’t even find out. If you do it, I’ll read your mail to you until Preedy gets back,” Denver stopped retreating at the words, and then House added, “If Preedy comes back.”
Denver thought about the offer. “You won’t tell anyone I did it?” He said carefully.
“I won’t say anything; I’m not interesting in getting you into trouble. I’m interested in not feeling like crap for an hour or two,” House said.
Denver looked at the gate again then came back over to him, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, do it like you’re stomping on a bug, I need a broken bone so don’t hold back, alright?”
Denver was chewing the side of his mouth now and his hands were nestled under his armpits. He shook his head again.
“I’ll get in trouble,” he whined
House growled out his frustration, this was the closest thing he was getting to a Vicodin hit and he was getting edgy for it in the same way. “No you won’t. Do you want to know what’s in your mail or not?”
Denver thought about it, “Alright,” he said then.
House took a deep breath then tapped the floor with his - soon to be mangled - right hand. “Do it now, before I change my mind.”
”Like stomping on a bug?” Denver said quickly.
“Yeah, hard as you can,” House replied, looking up at him. Then he closed his eyes.
“Okay on three,” Denver said, and then he began counting, “one, two…”
He slammed his foot down on two, and House yelped and rolled away, falling onto his good side and pulling his hand close to his body.
“What happened to three?” He gasped, eyes shut tight.
“Sorry I thought that would make it less intense, shit, was that wrong?”
His hand stung like a bitch but his leg felt much better. House breathed in and out quickly then smiled. “No, that was perfect,” he said before hugging his hand close to his body.
~
“How the hell did that happen?” Steve asked House when he saw the ugly bruise on the back of his hand. House had been trying to hide it, but by the time they’d reached the cell block Steve had sussed something wasn’t quite right.
“Denver! What the hell did you do to him?”
“I didn’t do nothing,” Denver said, shooting House an over obvious worried look.
“It wasn’t him, I fell on it,” House said, holding his hand awkwardly.
“You fell on the back of your hand,” Steve said dubiously. “Like I have time to cart you to medical,” he said to himself, shaking his head. He locked Denver’s cell then motioned for House to follow him to the office.
~
House, deciding that if his medication wouldn’t come to him, he’d go to it, was sitting on the examination table as Doctor Clayton examined his hand.
“So how’d this happen?” She asked him. He guessed she was in her late thirties; she wore no make-up but had pleasant enough features. Her medium length hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail and it was a light enough ginger to pass for strawberry blonde on internet dating applications. He’d never seen this one before, and he’d been up here plenty of times.
“Fencing injury,” House replied. He was staring out of the window that looked out over the general population yard. The doctor lifted his right hand and carefully observed it. It was puffed up and had gone a vivid purple color in the middle. “We don’t have the facilities to X-ray it but I don’t think it’s bad enough that I can request a visit to the hospital.”
The doctor looked down at his history, “Of course I can give you something for the pain, none opiate based, right?”
His rehab details were probably in the history; he figured he’d get something stronger than Tylenol though at least.
“Quite a colourful medical history you have here,” she said then. “This is the seventh time in a year and a half you’ve been up here.”
“I like the view,” House said, glancing out of the window again.
“You’ve had a fractured jaw then you dislocated your shoulder,” she carried on listing various injuries and then stopped suddenly when she came to the last time he’d been admitted to the infirmary. She looked at him but he kept his focus out of the window.
“You’re on the protective custody wing now?” House nodded, still not looking at her. “So how did this happen?” she asked again as she reached for some bandage and a splint.
“I fell on it,” he said slowly. “What does it matter?”
“I can’t give you anything if you did this to yourself, so I need to know how it happened. You’ve got a history of drug abuse; I need to rule out drug seeking behaviour.”
“I also have a chronic pain condition and I haven’t had my meds in three days,” House said.
“Who did this to you?” she asked.
“Can I at least have my medication now that I’m up here?” He said, ignoring her question and wincing when she pulled the bandage tight around his hand to secure the splint.
“I can give you some Ibuprofen, and I’m going to recommend switching you onto that for good. Tylenol in the amounts you’ve been taking could have toxic effects on your liver,” she said. She reached down and made a note on his file. House watched her writing for a moment then stared curiously at her.
“How does a female doctor end up at a male prison?” House asked, deigning to return to the conversation.
“I could ask you the same question,” she said. “Well, except for the female part,” she added with a smile.
“How do you know I’m a doctor?”
She laughed once, “Every doctor who works here knows who you are.”
“Famous for all the wrong reasons, but I asked you first.”
House didn’t get an answer to his question right away, which sparked his interest a little more. “It can’t pay well, did you get fired for over prescribing Tylenol to someone?” he said sarcastically.
“I chose to work in this environment because I wanted a challenge, and I wanted to make a difference,” she said. It sounded well rehearsed and fake to him.
“Some people just go rock climbing for a challenge, probably safer too,” House offered.
She went over to a small cabinet on the opposite side of the room and found some Ibuprofen. She came back and handed him two pills and smiled politely at him.
“You can go now.”
Author: snark-bait
Rating: Adult
Character/Paring: House/Cameron
Chapter: 11
Thank you lynettinspaghet for the beta.
Chapter eleven
House was sitting on the bottom step in his yard, trying to tune the guitar he’d bought the day before. He’d wanted to occupy his mind with something that had nothing to do with his life, especially anything to do with prison. It was probably too cold out here to tune the instrument without it going straight out of tune again, but he needed the fresh air and something for his hands to do. So he’d started on the top E and was working his way down the strings, ruminating as he did, that the weekend had been going pretty well, until he’d read the letter Wilson had written.
He wanted to tune up the guitar, play a few songs and lose himself in the chords. He just wasn’t sure if it was possible to lose yourself when you were already lost and didn’t want to be found.
He heard the kitchen door creak open behind him and then close again. He twisted around so he could look up at Cameron as she sat down on the top step. He turned away again and didn’t acknowledge her.
At least the day was starting to brighten up. A patch of blue was bravely fighting its way though the grey, trying to break the sky of its dreary deportment and overpower it with color.
Cameron watched House fiddle with the instrument for a moment or two, but eventually got bored with giving him the space he’d come out here looking for. “Are you alright?”
He felt like telling her that, no actually, he wasn’t and hadn’t been for quite sometime. He felt like informing her that he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with his life now. He could even try and explain that this was too hard, and that everything felt pointless, but he didn’t. He rarely gave voice to the things he felt. Instead he plucked a string on the guitar, grimaced at the tone it made then tweaked the machine head at the top to make the pitch change.
“That sound like an A to you?” He asked thoughtfully. He plucked the string again and frowned at the sound. He held his head close to the body of the instrument, as if to get closer to the tone as it changed and curled into the air.
He turned to look at Cameron again; she brushed a few strands of hair from her eyes then folded her arms against the cold. “I have no idea,” she admitted.
House shrugged, “Close enough,” he offered and then turned around again.
“I should go soon; Jack will be dropping Dan off in about an hour from now.”
House nodded but he was getting her words on a five second delay, intent as he was with what he was doing. They also had to fight their way through the fog of thought in his mind. He played the string again then tweaked it some more. “Thanks for the help,” he mumbled distractedly.
“With the letter or the painting?” She said carefully.
House stopped fiddling. He sat up straight and let a finger graze his chin, scratching for the distraction rather than any perceived itch. He cleared his throat and then offered a quiet, “Both.”
“Are you going to talk to him? I bet he’s not doing much today. I could drop you off on the way to my place.”
“We’ve talked,” House returned quietly. He was trying to convince himself that the letter didn’t really change things for him, and if he kept telling himself that he’d believe it. But it did change things. Wilson being forced to testify and not choosing to, like House had thought. That changed things immensely.
The topic of Wilson was a prickly conversation at the best of times, but House really didn’t want to talk about this now. He just needed time to digest it. He’d left the bedroom straight after reading the letter and had been out here ever since, wondering why the hell he’d never tossed it in the trash. If he had, it’d be over and done with now.
“What he wrote must change things,” Cameron considered. She was trying to poke this God damn conversation out of him, and he didn’t want it.
“It does and it doesn’t,” he said distantly.
“What he did, making sure you got the minimum sentence,” Cameron continued. “He didn’t really have a choice.”
“I know,” House replied, and he did know that. Wilson had been left with no other option but it was born of circumstances he’d created. Ones he only had himself to blame for. “What would you have done?” he asked her then; it was a rhetorical question, but for some reason he wanted to hear the answer.
“Exactly the same thing,” Cameron said firmly. House turned to look at her again. That wasn’t quite what he’d been asking.
“But would you have gone to Tritter in the first place?”
She couldn’t hold onto his look for very long. She glanced away from him and didn’t reply. House smiled to himself; her silence answered his question.
“That’s the problem,” he said simply.
“He thought he was doing the right thing,” Cameron said then. She was clearly determined to see them put everything aside and patch up all their differences, forgive and forget. But life just wasn’t that simple.
“Someone had to do something; I don’t think he ever meant to hurt you,” she continued.
“Yeah you’re right. Having me lose five years of my life in that place was the right thing to do, he’s a hero. I’ll go around and thank him right now.”
She sighed, very lightly. It was her wordless way of saying he was being stubborn.
His tone was changing; this was becoming less of a conversation and more of an argument to him because he was getting uncomfortable with where things were heading. He could see her point, he could. Back then he’d been sliding dangerously out of control; someone had been forced to act. Wilson hadn’t done it with malicious intent; he’d grown fairly certain of that. He’d been trying to help and it had backfired.
Unfortunately for Wilson, the thing with him was that he didn’t recognize try. Only do or don’t, succeed and fail. Try was a grey area of nothing to him. It meant nothing, therefore it was nothing. That and the fact that Wilson’s ‘try’ had seriously fucked him over in the end. If Wilson was acting with his best interests at heart he should have known that he’d never take the deal.
Wilson’s intentions didn’t resonate as far through him as they did through Cameron. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to put all this behind him, he did, desperately. But that betrayal, whenever he thought about it, it hurt as much now as it had five years ago in his office. The image the letter had left in his head, of Wilson and Tritter bargaining over his life, didn’t sit well with him at all.
“I think he was put in a desperate situation, and he did the best he could. You can’t blame him.”
“I don’t blame him,” House returned. “But he had a part to play, if he’d never gone to Tritter…” he stopped and scratched an eyebrow with his thumb. “I don’t owe him anything either.”
Cameron got up from the step slowly; she stepped down until she was behind him then she placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it once. “I’ve got to go. You really should talk to Wilson about this, even if it’s just to tell him what you just told me.”
House didn’t respond. He just shrugged off her hand then carried on plucking the strings of the guitar.
~
Wilson was pulling his front door shut, first thing Monday morning when his cell phone started bleating…somewhere. He patted himself down and then realised why he couldn’t find it and unlocked his door again.
He quickly retrieved his cell phone from the kitchen counter where he’d left it by accident.
“Hello,” he answered quickly, not looking at the caller ID and then headed for the door of the apartment again. He had a busy case load today and didn’t want to be late.
“Wilson? Have you left yet?”
It took a second to establish the anxious voice as Allison Cameron’s, which was odd. He didn’t usually get calls from her first thing Monday morning, “Good morning to you too Allison, nice weekend?” He returned.
“Sorry; good morning, are you on your way to work?”
“No, still at my place, although technically I’m half way out of the door, so I’m sort of on my way to work,” he explained as he wedged the cell between his shoulder and his cheek and re-locked his door. “What’s up?”
There was some sort of angry, ‘I’m having a crappy start to the week’ sigh on the other end before she explained herself.
“I’m not going to make it in today; Danny spent most of last night puking up the crap Jack spent the weekend feeding him,” Cameron said, an unmistakable annoyance warming every word. “House doesn’t have a phone line at his place yet, he’s been coming in with me. Could you take him in today?”
“Oh, sure,” Wilson replied, feeling none of the joviality his tone suggested. Yeah, he could swing by and pick House up. That’d be…perfectly normal. No prior warning on House’s end too- just perfect. He pulled out a small notepad and scribbled down House’s new address as Cameron read it out to him. She thanked him profusely and then had to hang up. He’d heard Danny whimpering in the background, and explaining he’d missed the toilet. Wilson, for Cameron’s sake, hoped that wasn’t as disgusting as it sounded.
Wilson got into his car and sat at the wheel for a moment; he wanted to speak to House again, badly wanted to, but an awkward, mostly silent drive to work probably wasn’t the best time to talk through their issues.
~
Wilson tapped lightly on the front door and stood patiently on the step, holding his briefcase in front of him and hoping he’d read his messily scribbled directions correctly. A few moments later House pulled the door open. His shirt was unbuttoned, his hair was wet and he had a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth. He seemed surprised to see Wilson standing there; House removed the toast from his mouth and tilted his head to the side.
“Dr Cameron, you look different this morning; rough night?” He said flatly, raising one eyebrow. Wilson was about to explain, but House held his hand up.
“No, it’ll come to me,” he studied Wilson for a second, “Did you highlight your hair?”
Wilson smiled quickly at him, “Daniel is sick, Cameron asked me to give you a ride in today.”
“Thoughtful of her,” House said. “I’m running late, I’ll get the bus.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Wilson offered, it wasn’t readily accepted; House just observed him for a moment, then shrugged and stepped aside so he could let Wilson in.
House disappeared into what appeared to be the bathroom so Wilson went into the living room to wait for him; the smell of fresh paint assaulted his senses as soon as he was in the room. “Nice place,’ Wilson said politely.
“Right, you can tell it’s nice from one unfurnished room?” was House’s muffled reply. Wilson smiled to himself; House was still a grumpy bastard first thing in the morning. He scratched all of the pre-planned small talk off the mental list of potential things to say and went and stood by the front window.
Wilson was standing with his hands in pockets and his briefcase on the floor by his feet, observing House’s neighbour when House returned ten minutes later.
“Your neighbor is weird,” Wilson noted.
“Is he locking and re-locking his front door?” House enquired. Wilson sensed House move up behind him so he could peer out of the window.
‘No; he’s in his car,” Wilson turned to face him. “You know in driver’s ed, they make you do all those mirror checks before you pull away? He’s just sitting there doing those over and over.”
House smiled to himself, shook his head and headed for the door of the living room.
“Are we going or what? I don’t want to be late.”
~
The car journey started out with a heavy dose of uncomfortable silence so Wilson placed all of his focus on the rush hour traffic. House was holding his cane in front of him, scrutinising the head with great interest. Of course, when they decided to break the ice they did it at exactly the same time.
“So, where are you…” House began as Wilson started to ask him about his weekend.
“Oh, you go,” Wilson said civilly.
“No, it was nothing important,’ House said dismissively, almost flustered. It seemed the pressure of an uncomfortable silence was taking its toll on them both. They quickly found themselves at another stalemate. Eventually they hit heavy gridlock as they approached Princeton centre and House tried again; keeping his focus on anything that wasn’t inside the car.
“I read that letter yesterday,” he said quietly.
“Oh, well that only took two and half years,” Wilson mused playfully.
House shrugged, “I’m a slow reader. Is it true?”
Wilson looked across at him, surprised that House was approaching such a heavy topic after fifteen minutes of dead air. “Yeah,” he replied. “I wanted to speak to you after the trial, but you wouldn’t let me. Then I didn’t get the chance because you wouldn’t read the mail I sent.”
House frowned and thought about it for a moment, “You could have just told Cameron.”
“No I couldn’t, I didn’t want a messenger. I wanted you to hear it from me,” Wilson frowned at his own words. “Well not exactly hear, but I wanted it to come from me.”
“Would you take it back, if you could? Going to Tritter,” House said suddenly, shifting slightly in his seat as he said it.
Wilson was watching House now and didn’t notice a gap opening in the traffic in front of him, he was about to answer when a car beeped him from behind. He checked his mirror then crawled the meter or so forward to become gridlocked again.
“Would you? Would you forge the prescription and steal the oxy?”
House shot him a quick look but didn’t reply, so neither got an answer to their question. The air filled with silence again and Wilson decided that trying to have this conversation in gridlocked traffic was a disaster. He rolled down his window half way and distractedly fingered the knot on his tie.
Nothing else was said until they’d arrived at the hospital. They got out of the car and he caught House looking at him across the roof.
“You think I deserved five years and my life wiped out for what I did?” House asked seriously, looking Wilson in the eye as he said it.
Wilson eyebrows fused together and shook his head; of course he didn’t think that. He was disappointed that House would ever believe that of him, “No, of course not.”
“I know I screwed up; believe me I had a long time to think about it. But it seems to me that you still can’t admit that maybe you screwed up too,” House said, searching Wilson’s expression for his reaction.
Wilson wasn’t sure what House wanted from him, an apology perhaps, but he didn’t know exactly what to apologize for.
“If you want me to say I’m sorry I went to Tritter I will, but if I don’t mean it, what’s the point?” Wilson offered. House features pulled tight at his words and he realized instantly he could have phrased that better about a hundred different ways. They were staring each other in the eye, neither looking away and neither backing down.
“So you stand by what you did?” House questioned.
“What choice did I have House?”
House was the one to look away first; he stared at the ground for a moment. Then he headed away from the car as quickly as he could, leaving Wilson to watch him go. He threw a subdued, “Thanks for the ride,” as he went.
~
“You’re late,” were not the sour words House wanted to hear from Paul when he entered the lab. ‘I’m resigning’ would have suited him better, however wishfully thought the words were. Paul was even prissy enough to tap his watch as he said the words.
“And you have an annoying face,” House replied, raising his eyebrows as he looked over at the senior scientist. He shrugged off his jacket and Paul stared at him for a moment, trying to decide what to say next. He settled on saying nothing, and went into the other section of the lab. Paul was anal enough to email him his workload and they didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the morning, but that suited House just fine.
Just before lunch, House felt a tap on his shoulder and turned away from the microscope he was working with, to find a familiar looking young man standing behind him, smiling awkwardly at him. He was wearing a neatly pressed lab coat complete with a pocket protector and three pens sticking out of the top. He held his hand out to House and swallowed nervously.
“My names Howard Ross, we met in the cafeteria last week,” he said. House stared at the proffered hand for a moment then at the kid.
‘Oh,” he replied and then he turned back toward the microscope again. “Paul’s not here, I don’t know where he’s gone and I don’t care,” he said miserably.
“Ahh, I didn’t come down to see him actually, it’s you I want to speak to,” Howard said. It was at this point he noticed the guy had a noticeable accent. He resembled a sort of dark haired Chase only taller and with better dress sense.
“You a wombat?” House said, sounding bored and only half interested.
“Eh, excuse me?” Howard replied.
“Are you from Australia?”
“Oh, no. I’m English,” he said. “Originally from Wiltshire,” he said happily.
“What do you want Harold?”
‘Howard,” he corrected quickly then he flipped open a file he was holding and tried to hand it to House, who merely looked at it, and then at Howard.
“I work in diagnostics, and we have quite a difficult case,” he began. “Dr Cameron isn’t in today and we need some assistance,” he explained.
“Where’s Rittberg?” House asked.
“He’s in a meeting,” Howard replied.
“So go page him,” House said distastefully, batting the file out of the way as Howard tried to give it to him again.
“He told us not to page him unless it was an emergency.”
House tilted his head to the side, “So, instead you decided to annoy me,” House shook his head and got up. It was time for lunch anyway. “Page Rittberg or call Cameron, or go and throw melons off the roof, just don’t bother me.”
“Dr. Cameron told me to come and talk to you,” Howard said as House moved him to one side so he could reach his cane propped up by the door.
House frowned at those words, “Well Dr. Cameron obviously doesn’t like you very much, because this was a waste of your time.”
House left the little room and then the office, greatly relieved Howard didn’t follow behind him.
~
When House returned from lunch someone was waiting for him, but it wasn’t Howard. Wilson was leaning against the bench with his arms folded, staring down at his shoes.
“We need to talk,” Wilson said softly.
“No, we don’t,” House said, his tone clipped and impolite. He placed his cane against the wall by the door, and sat down at the PC beside Wilson in the middle of the work bench.
“You’re right, I screwed up too, and I’m sorry,” Wilson said gently.
“I thought you said there was no point in saying it if you didn’t mean it,” House replied. He logged onto the PC, he was going to send Cameron the foulest, bitchiest email about the stupidity of sending her minions to him in her absence.
Wilson unfolded his arms and placed his hands on his hips, “I mean it,” he said seriously. “Will you listen to me for a minute?” He said irritably, reaching down and turning off House’s PC again. House looked up at him like a chastised adolescent who was being forced to listen to a motherly lecture.
“I don’t think you realize how much everyone has missed you…” Wilson said quietly, he cleared his throat and looked away again. “…how much I’ve missed you, and if I could take it all back I would, I’m sure we’d all do things differently.”
House was trying to formulate a reply when Howard appeared again and knocked on the door.
“Please, could I just have a minute of your time,” he said, boldly.
“Not now Howard,” Wilson and House shouted in unison; House’s version differing only very slightly with the word Henry in place of Howard.
“I’m sorry” Howard replied, “Didn’t realise…” he began to explain and abandoned explanation in favour of retreat. He jittered into the door and returned to the main lab again. Neither House nor Wilson said anything for a moment.
“Can we go for a beer after work, talk this through some more?” Wilson said.
“I’m busy,” House replied moodily, but it mostly for show and Wilson could tell.
“Liar,” Wilson said. “Doing what?”
House smiled and shrugged. “Alright, but you’re buying,”
Wilson was about to protest, but then he shook his head and decide to stay quiet on the matter. “I’ll meet you in the front entrance at six.”
“Alright,” House said then added, “Send that stupid kid in here if he’s still hanging around.
~
Two years earlier
House was standing at the front of his cell with his head against the bars. His eyes were closed as he massaged his thigh. He hadn’t received any pain medication in over two days now. The block was running with two guards down, so everything had either ground to a halt or was taking three times longer than normal. A forty-eight hour lockdown had been imposed following the attack on Preedy. Things were only just getting back to normal.
House opened his eyes when he heard the sound of the gate at the far end being unlocked, opened and then locked again. A few minutes later Steve approached his cell; he was escorting the guy housed at the opposite end, to the showers.
“Hey, what happened to my medication?” House barked at Steve. The guard said nothing.
Steve had been very elusive since the incident in the yard. House suspected it had something to do with the fact that he’d freaked out and he’d been witness to his hysterical fretting. Steve probably felt embarrassed because he’d been forced to hand the reigns of the situation over to a prisoner.
In a place with such a serious pecking order, where the general perception was ‘us’ and ‘them’, Steve probably didn’t feel too clever for delegating responsibility to an inmate. But no one else knew about it, and House didn’t give a crap because who did handle a situation like that with grace and finesse? Michael and Preedy had survived; as far as he was concerned that situation had turned out very well.
But still he had to catch crap after essentially doing what he’d been ordered to do.
The kid in the cell next to House, Tobias Denver, piped up then. “My asthma inhaler’s run out too Mr Wilkinson, I need another.”
“I’ll take you up tomorrow; I told you I would and I will,” Steve replied, acknowledging the kid but ignoring House which did nothing but piss him off further.
“What if I have an attack tonight?” Denver continued. “I could die.”
Steve shook his head with a sigh and rolled his eyes. “You haven’t had one in months; you’ll be fine,” Steve assured him dismissively. Famous last words House thought; it shouldn’t happen, therefore it’ll probably happen in about two minutes from now.
“Unlike me,” House interjected, trying to slide the focus back over to him. “My pain is chronic and I’ve been without medication for two days now,” he reiterated.
Steve finally gave him the time of day and glanced over at him. “They’re being really harsh about who they let on and off here at the moment; only permanent members of staff are allowed on the block. It’ll only be until Harris’s squad has been through here.”
“Harris?” House questioned worriedly.
“He’s doing the shake down,” Steve informed him.
House noticed the guards usual ruddy complexion was gone, he looked pale and worn out. His short, sandy blonde hair also looked greasy and his uniform was crumpled. It seemed general hygiene had becoming a chore for him. Things were obviously getting on top of Steve so it was no surprise to House that Redfield had ordered someone else to come and search the block, but the fact that it had fallen to Edgar Harris, was not good news.
Steve carried on past him and he came away from the gate. The pain in his leg became a secondary concern for the first time in two days. Harris was a king-size prick of the highest order. House considered if he were ever asked to describe the man in three words he’d use - sinewy little shit.
Harris was what some people would call, well weathered. He had a constant five o’clock shadow and the frown lines on his face made him look ten years older than he probably was. He had tan, leathery skin; almost as if it had rusted. House guessed he was around forty years old; he was short, lean and very physically fit and definitely ex military, always talking about knives and guns and very much into martial arts.
A real boo yah head-case, with a thirst for hostile situations. He liked to prod and poke and aggravate things to the point of kicking off so he could intervene in his customary, heavy handed, over the top way.
House had heard the guard bragging about bar fights he’d been in on numerous occasions. There was always a detailed description of how big the guys were, how outnumbered he’d been, and how much ass he’d kicked.
The simple fact was the guy had little big man syndrome. He was short, so he had to shout instead of talk and get right in your face so you knew how tough he was. Ultimately, House had surmised that ninety percent of what came out of the guys mouth was bullshit, but he also had a reputation for trouble and it wasn’t for nothing. Harris had a nasty little temper, and he could snap with the gentlest of provocation. House had seen him lose it on a few occasions when he’d been housed in general population. Harris went off like a rocket when he was angry, and it seemed like his fuse was always lit. House also had first hand knowledge of what Harris was like when he snapped.
The prison guards that House had met so far fell into varied categories; Harris fell into a group he’d labelled, ‘Do not fuck with.’ It meant Harris was to be avoided at all costs, and didn’t take well to sarcasm, especially in relation to his stature. Just two weeks into his sentence, House had been given the beating of his life for an off the cuff remark about the guys size. He had a two-inch scar along his jaw line to remind him what category Harris fell into in case he ever forgot.
His week was getting worse by the minute. He’d anticipated that the whole block was going to get a thorough shake down, but not by Harris.
“House, can you do me a favour?” Denver asked, breaking into his worried thoughts. “Could you read this letter out loud for me?” Denver stuck his hand out of the side of his cell and shook some mail so House could see it.
“No,” he said offhandedly; he sat down on the uncomfortable metal stool that was bolted to the wall and continued to rub his thigh. Preedy normally read Denver his mail because the kid couldn’t read. It took a minute or two for him to feel crappy about saying no, but he’d come to realise it got you nowhere doing people favours in this place.
“Please, my girl only writes me once a month,” Denver tried to appeal to his good side, obviously the guy was unaware he didn’t have one.
“Have a look around and tell someone that gives a crap.” House replied bitterly. Then he closed his eyes and grit his teeth against the pain in his leg.
He wasn’t doing anyone a free favour. He’d tended to two injured men and been left in his cell covered in their blood for twenty hours for the effort. He’d not had his meds since. No one was helping him, so he couldn’t see why the hell he should help anyone else.
~
It was just after lunch when Harris and his team arrived. House could always hear him approach before he saw him. He was complaining about something, yapping like a small terrier dog. He bitched at every prisoner he came to. Preedy had been attacked, so of course everyone on the block was involved; they were all scum, and probably all in on it together.
Harris was questioning people to see if they knew anything about how Felix had managed to get something as deadly as a screwdriver onto the block, prompting that someone, must know something. So far no one was giving anything up. He was getting in people’s faces, and then barking threats at them if they didn’t cooperate. Everyone was cooperating, but no one seemed to know how Felix had got his weapon.
They were getting cons out two at a time. House was right on the end and dreading his turn. Harris had old school views; everyone in here was a piece of crap and being in prison certainly wasn’t punishment enough for some people. He didn’t see any problem with doling out punishment of his own if someone disobeyed him.
One of their own had been stabbed and nearly killed, that was going to breed resentment regardless, but Harris was the sort of guard that would seek to even things up off the back of any sort of minor offense. Harris’s temper combined with House’s smart mouth and lack of self control had never been a comfortable mix.
“Oh great, it’s the special needs section,” Harris quipped when he approached House’s cell. “The retard and the cripple, this should be fun.”
Harris and four of his men kitted out with riot equipment, gathered around the last two cells.
“Out here now,” he yelled, pointing at the far wall with his nightstick as his deputies opened the gates. It didn’t surprise House that Harris was now running the Tactical Response Team. They ran difficult cell extractions and dealt with the aftermath of lock downs; the heavy handed stuff. If there was trouble or God forbid a riot, these were the people that got sent in first.
“Face the wall, place your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers,” Harris yelled. House and Denver complied. Once House was standing by the far wall, Harris came over and tapped him on the jaw with his nightstick.
“Keep that shut, because I am not in the fucking mood for you today, got it?” He warned in a low voice. House chanced a quick look down at him.
“Head straight and eyes forward,” Harris shouted.
House did so without saying a word. They actually had mutual interests for once. Harris wanted him silent, and House felt crappy enough already without getting his ass kicked.
Harris stood between the two prisoners with his arms folded as his men searched both of the cells, although search probably wasn’t the right word, they were spins really. Spins were careless destructive hunts; stuff got ripped, broken and damaged. Toiletries were emptied out all over the floor, and they even sliced open the mattresses and checked inside those. They were evidently very serious about what had happened.
After ten minutes of silence Harris placed his hand on the wall by Denver, leaned in close and started to question him; spitting his words angrily into the kids face.
“One of you shit heads must know something; I’m not leaving the wuss wing until I know how that shiv got on here. So I want to know what you know you retarded piece of crap.”
“I don’t know anything,” Denver replied quietly, shaking his head but not daring to look down at the man. The kid was kind of dopey looking, gangly and thin and almost as tall as House with bright yellow blonde hair.
It was probably a comical sight, this stupid little man bitching up at a guy who was much taller than him.
“Fuck you,” Harris shouted in his face. “Someone knows something. Give it up now or you’re going to solitary,” Harris prodded the younger man in the chest. Denver was the youngest guy on the wing, barely twenty, what some would call a soft target, and probably the reason he was in protective custody. House had worked out long back that they’d both been put there for the same reason.
Harris carried on yapping at the poor kid. He sure had a way with words, House thought to himself. Get in someone’s face and abuse them; that would get him all the answers he needed, even though it hadn’t worked with the other guys so far. It was mainly gang bangers who’d been put on this block. Only House and Denver were actually there for their own protection. The others were there for the protection of the prison at large.
House was aiming to zone out, when he noticed Denver’s breathing, or rather, wheezing. It sounded like the air had started to snag on some debris in Denver’s chest on its way out, Harris was going to give the kid an asthma attack.
“A six inch piece of metal doesn’t just magic itself up here,” he began clipping Denver round the head, increasing the force in the swats each time.
“Honestly,” Denver gasped. “I didn’t know he had it. I never spoke to him once.”
Harris shook his head, the ghost of his patience had deserted him long ago; he threw a hard backhander at Denver’s face. He hadn’t been this rough with anyone else and it bothered House that the little shit only had the balls to pick on a scrawny little kid that would never fight him back.
“It troubles me that you think I’m screwing around here retard; in a moment it’s going to trouble you too.”
House got a flashback of the conversation that had taken place an hour earlier; Denver’s asthma inhaler had run out. Harris was milliseconds away from giving the kid an attack.
Great, House thought, closing his eyes. This block really didn’t need another medical emergency after everything that had happened recently. He shook his head deciding his next move was probably going to hurt, one way or another. House turned to face them.
“Denver, does Harris still punch like a girl?” He said calmly. But the provocation in his words pricked every ear on the block who’d heard them, prisoners and guards alike.
Denver’s eyes widened into capital O’s; he shot him a petrified look, like he wasn’t sure what the hell House was up to, but whatever it was he really didn’t want to be involved, but then Denver always looked nervous and worried.
Harris snapped his head around as if House’s words had smacked him on the side of the cheek. His head tilted sideways, sort of like a dog puzzling over a high pitched sound. It seemed he couldn’t quite believe his own ears. His mouth dropped open halfway. He was probably thinking, I couldn’t have heard that, surely, no one would be so stupid.
Then slowly the cogs started to grind away in the guards mind as he told himself, actually this is House, someone would be that stupid. Harris let Denver alone and took one step away from him; his hand dropped absently to his nightstick on his belt and his fingers smoothed the handle, House’s eyes tracked the movement.
“What did you just say to me?” He said slowly.
“Oh, I wasn’t talking to you, sir, I was talking to Denver,” House said politely, his hands were still behind his head.
Harris looked utterly dumfounded, he’d spent two hours or more tearing through cells looking for answers, screaming and yelling and scaring the shit out of everybody. It hadn’t gotten him very far, except maybe putting a twenty year old on the brink of an asthma attack. He had managed to get himself all worked up and angry though, Harris’s breath seemed to stall, then he sprang into life and lunged for House. Someone had just given him something to centre his anger on.
Harris gripped the head of his nightstick, yanked it from his belt and raised it over his head.
“Whoa, I wouldn’t do that,” House said quickly as Harris spun him around and with his free hand and pinned him against the wall, holding him by the throat.
“Why the hell not?” Harris challenged angrily. He leant his weight onto House so he could pin him in place.
“I won’t be able to tell you how that screwdriver got on the block if you kick my ass,” House said as calmly as he could manage, but his eyes were glued to the officer’s raised nightstick. He just got his words out before Harris’s grip tightened around his windpipe.
Harris thought about it, he was clearly itching to level the playing field. The quota on inmate vs officer casualties this week in favour of the cons just wouldn’t do. House was very thankful when the officer’s arm slowly dropped down. But the weapon remained tightly in his grip.
“If you’re screwing with me House you’ll be spending the night in the infirmary, because you’ll have multiple broken bones,” Harris said dangerously. But he eased his grip from House’s throat and backed off
“Start talking,” he said impatiently. Glancing at Denver as if he couldn’t be bothered looking at House.
House cleared his throat, giving it a rub because it was sore, but also because these words needed coaxing; they didn’t want to come out. He was going to piss off every con on the block when he coughed this up. But he was really fucked now if he didn’t fess up. Screwed either way, he picked the lesser of two evils.
“There’s an orderly, he hasn’t been up in a few days. Fat guy called Marco; he brings the medication here,” House explained.
Harris looked at him again and then the hint of a smile teased the corners of his lips before he hardened his features.
“That guy will get you anything for a price,” House said. “Drugs, food…weapons.”
“I know that fat sack of shit,” Harris said, shaking his head as his words trailed off and his nostrils flared. Harris turned to look back at the other prisoners; they were all glaring at House now, which went someway to back up his words.
“Boy are you going to be popular on here now,” Harris said and then he turned and House almost believed things were going to pass without incident. But then Harris turned quickly toward him again and then heaved a powerful stomp at House’s thigh, the sort a fire-fighter threw at the door of a burning building to get inside.
House dropped to the floor instantly, for one split second every sensation in his body seemed to blur and become one single feeling; a red hot burst of noise, vision, taste, sense and smell that he couldn’t differentiate between.
Then everything separated again and the pain in his thigh was so intense he felt he might throw up. He felt like he’d been burned there, it was like someone had tried to extract a badly infected tooth with a punch to the jaw, doing nothing but exacerbate the pain there and make it ten times worse.
A few seconds later he started breathing again; he let out a loud growl of hurt with his exhaled breath, but his eyes were still tightly shut. He had about a thousand insults he’d like to hurl at Harris but he bit his tongue, literally. If he said anything else the guy would only do it again.
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” He heard Harris say under his breath, but there was some respite because the guard’s footsteps were heading away from him. House’s eyes fluttered open and he watched the man leave.
“You boys finish off here, I’ve got me an orderly to fuck up,” Harris said as he went.
~
House was sat in the corner of his cell, surrounded by the aftermath of the search and holding onto his leg like it would cease to be part of him if he didn’t grip onto it tightly with both hands. He was quite sure he’d trade a limb for some Vicodin right now. And he knew exactly which one he’d pick.
The only difference between Harris and the cons was a uniform. Everything was a front in here anyway. You had no idea what people were really thinking or how they really felt. Every action was covered in a dustsheet of bullshit and bravado. The guards started fights to show how tough they were, cons started trouble out of boredom and wanting to feel something, wanting to confirm they were still alive.
He felt, like he’d done many times, that he didn’t belong here, with these people. Times like this really hit home the fact that his life before hadn’t been the elongated suck he’d once thought it was, not compared to this.
This, what he had now, was not life; this was just existing from one moment to the next. Everyday was exactly the same.
Steve appeared at the front of the cell, “How’s your leg?” He asked quietly.
“Tickles,” House said, keeping his eyes closed; he was sweating and it was making them sting.
“They just fired that orderly. So I don’t know when or who will be bringing the medication down here. If I get time I’ll go up and get yours and Denver’s. But we’re so short staffed I don’t know if I can.”
Oh, he’d shot himself in both feet with that confession. A typical lose - lose situation.
“House?” Steve said seriously. House finally opened his eyes and looked up at him.
“Harris is going to be supervising down here for a while; you need to keep your mouth shut, alright?” The guard said uneasily.
House didn’t reply, but as undesirable as it was, he was very much on the same page as Steve.
“Preedy’s surgery went well. His wife called before, said he should make a full recovery.”
“Well he’d better get his fat ass back here as soon as possible then,” House croaked bitterly.
Steve frowned, “Yeah, I’ll make sure I pass that on when I go and see him later,” he said sarcastically.
~
House fell asleep sitting on the floor because his bed was a mess he couldn’t be bothered to clean up. The pain had worn him down and then put him out. He woke to the sound of insults being hurled at him from the gate. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Harris standing there. He got a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Sometimes, he just couldn’t control his mouth; however hard he tried the words just fell out.
Harris was holding a food tray; House rubbed his face unsure of the time but sensing he’d been asleep for hours. He struggled to sit up and then stood unsteadily, which only seemed to amuse Harris.
“Hurry the fuck up, I haven’t got all day,’ he barked. “Your fat assed friend got fired, well done.”
House looked down at the food, instantly noticing a problem. “I’m a vegetarian,” he said evenly, not looking at the guy.
He’d been a hypothetical vegetarian ever since he’d arrived on this block and Preedy had never questioned it. The meat served in this place wasn’t identifiable. Vegetarian food wasn’t much better but he did get peanut butter, vegetables and didn’t have to worry if the meat was going to jump back to life and attack him from the plate.
It was bad enough the sort of stuff that turned up in the food as it was without having to worry about what the food actually was. Harris wasn’t buying it though, “You’re so full of shit, you weren’t a vegetarian in general population,” he noted.
‘I went looking for God but couldn’t find him, found vegetarianism on the way,” House offered, wondering what the big deal was, so what if there was no mystery meat on the plate.
Harris cleared his throat then spat in the centre of the food, the sight of the goober in the middle of the plate turned his stomach again as he took the tray.
‘I seasoned it for you,’ Harris said, chuckling to himself.
He placed the tray down on the table, deciding that putting up with Harris for longer than a week was probably going to be the end of him.
~
House had been forced out into the yard the day after the block search. It had hurt like hell getting there, but Steve’s warning had been echoing though his mind urging him not to push things with Harris.
Denver was shooting the ball at the basketball net, it hadn’t gone in once. The repetitive thud of the ball rebounding off the floor was making House’s head thump. He hadn’t slept very well the night before, unable to find a position that was comfortable; he’d finally thrown up in the early hours of the morning because the pain in his thigh was excruciating. He’d gone three days without any medication now. His stomach was empty and sore, and his thigh was not just aching, but badly bruised as well.
“Denver,” House said shakily. “Come here.”
Denver turned away from the net and looked at him. “I’m sorry I got you into to trouble,” he said worriedly.
“You didn’t get me into trouble, I got me into trouble; come here.”
Denver let the ball drop from his hands and went over, cautiously. House took a deep breath than placed his hand beside him on the floor.
“I need you to do something for me, need you to stomp real hard on my hand.”
Denver’s facial expression was blank and remained that way with the request. “No.”
“You won’t get into trouble, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Why do you want me to do that?” He asked. He looked over at the gate, checking they were still unsupervised; Steve had left them in here alone because he was busy. “You get off on pain or something?”
House snorted out a laugh and wondered how the hell he was supposed to explain the gating mechanism for pain to a guy that couldn’t even read.
“No, I get off on not being in pain. You know I have a bum leg right?”
Denver nodded.
“Well, today it hurts a lot and the only way I can relieve the pain in my leg is by hurting myself somewhere else,” House explained.
“That doesn’t make any sense; won’t you just hurt in two places?”
“Not if you do this properly,” House replied. Denver shook his head again and took a few steps back.
“Officer Wilkinson will kill me,” he said, referring to Steve.
“He won’t even find out. If you do it, I’ll read your mail to you until Preedy gets back,” Denver stopped retreating at the words, and then House added, “If Preedy comes back.”
Denver thought about the offer. “You won’t tell anyone I did it?” He said carefully.
“I won’t say anything; I’m not interesting in getting you into trouble. I’m interested in not feeling like crap for an hour or two,” House said.
Denver looked at the gate again then came back over to him, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, do it like you’re stomping on a bug, I need a broken bone so don’t hold back, alright?”
Denver was chewing the side of his mouth now and his hands were nestled under his armpits. He shook his head again.
“I’ll get in trouble,” he whined
House growled out his frustration, this was the closest thing he was getting to a Vicodin hit and he was getting edgy for it in the same way. “No you won’t. Do you want to know what’s in your mail or not?”
Denver thought about it, “Alright,” he said then.
House took a deep breath then tapped the floor with his - soon to be mangled - right hand. “Do it now, before I change my mind.”
”Like stomping on a bug?” Denver said quickly.
“Yeah, hard as you can,” House replied, looking up at him. Then he closed his eyes.
“Okay on three,” Denver said, and then he began counting, “one, two…”
He slammed his foot down on two, and House yelped and rolled away, falling onto his good side and pulling his hand close to his body.
“What happened to three?” He gasped, eyes shut tight.
“Sorry I thought that would make it less intense, shit, was that wrong?”
His hand stung like a bitch but his leg felt much better. House breathed in and out quickly then smiled. “No, that was perfect,” he said before hugging his hand close to his body.
~
“How the hell did that happen?” Steve asked House when he saw the ugly bruise on the back of his hand. House had been trying to hide it, but by the time they’d reached the cell block Steve had sussed something wasn’t quite right.
“Denver! What the hell did you do to him?”
“I didn’t do nothing,” Denver said, shooting House an over obvious worried look.
“It wasn’t him, I fell on it,” House said, holding his hand awkwardly.
“You fell on the back of your hand,” Steve said dubiously. “Like I have time to cart you to medical,” he said to himself, shaking his head. He locked Denver’s cell then motioned for House to follow him to the office.
~
House, deciding that if his medication wouldn’t come to him, he’d go to it, was sitting on the examination table as Doctor Clayton examined his hand.
“So how’d this happen?” She asked him. He guessed she was in her late thirties; she wore no make-up but had pleasant enough features. Her medium length hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail and it was a light enough ginger to pass for strawberry blonde on internet dating applications. He’d never seen this one before, and he’d been up here plenty of times.
“Fencing injury,” House replied. He was staring out of the window that looked out over the general population yard. The doctor lifted his right hand and carefully observed it. It was puffed up and had gone a vivid purple color in the middle. “We don’t have the facilities to X-ray it but I don’t think it’s bad enough that I can request a visit to the hospital.”
The doctor looked down at his history, “Of course I can give you something for the pain, none opiate based, right?”
His rehab details were probably in the history; he figured he’d get something stronger than Tylenol though at least.
“Quite a colourful medical history you have here,” she said then. “This is the seventh time in a year and a half you’ve been up here.”
“I like the view,” House said, glancing out of the window again.
“You’ve had a fractured jaw then you dislocated your shoulder,” she carried on listing various injuries and then stopped suddenly when she came to the last time he’d been admitted to the infirmary. She looked at him but he kept his focus out of the window.
“You’re on the protective custody wing now?” House nodded, still not looking at her. “So how did this happen?” she asked again as she reached for some bandage and a splint.
“I fell on it,” he said slowly. “What does it matter?”
“I can’t give you anything if you did this to yourself, so I need to know how it happened. You’ve got a history of drug abuse; I need to rule out drug seeking behaviour.”
“I also have a chronic pain condition and I haven’t had my meds in three days,” House said.
“Who did this to you?” she asked.
“Can I at least have my medication now that I’m up here?” He said, ignoring her question and wincing when she pulled the bandage tight around his hand to secure the splint.
“I can give you some Ibuprofen, and I’m going to recommend switching you onto that for good. Tylenol in the amounts you’ve been taking could have toxic effects on your liver,” she said. She reached down and made a note on his file. House watched her writing for a moment then stared curiously at her.
“How does a female doctor end up at a male prison?” House asked, deigning to return to the conversation.
“I could ask you the same question,” she said. “Well, except for the female part,” she added with a smile.
“How do you know I’m a doctor?”
She laughed once, “Every doctor who works here knows who you are.”
“Famous for all the wrong reasons, but I asked you first.”
House didn’t get an answer to his question right away, which sparked his interest a little more. “It can’t pay well, did you get fired for over prescribing Tylenol to someone?” he said sarcastically.
“I chose to work in this environment because I wanted a challenge, and I wanted to make a difference,” she said. It sounded well rehearsed and fake to him.
“Some people just go rock climbing for a challenge, probably safer too,” House offered.
She went over to a small cabinet on the opposite side of the room and found some Ibuprofen. She came back and handed him two pills and smiled politely at him.
“You can go now.”