Fic: Things That Go Bump - Chapter Three
Title: Things That Go Bump - Ch. Three
Author: Kaye
Pairing: House/Wilson - a little more obvious this chapter
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Yes, they're mine - I'm selling them on Ebay as soon as I can get them to hold still for the picture . . .
Wilson's nightmares continue; House takes matters into his own hands
Ch 1: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/497045.html#cutid1
Ch 2: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/501279.html#cutid1
Things That Go Bump - Chapter Three
By Friday, Wilson was positive he was losing his mind. Unlike House, who had regulated his body with caffeine and Vicodin to the point of making sleep optional, Wilson needed at least six hours each night in order to function in any way close to normal. But the nightmares kept coming. He had spent the last three nights alternating between the couch and House’s bed. Last night House had just grabbed him by the shoulders, and limped him toward the bedroom without a word. Had it been anyone else but House, he would have questioned the motives, the intentions. But this was House. And so, when he woke up bathed in a cold sweat with House leaning over him, rubbing his chest and stroking his hair, he just chalked it up to . . . to what?
He stretched out on the couch in the oncology lounge and propped his ankle up on a pillow. He was between a blastocytoma and a stage four lung, which shouldn’t arrive for at least another hour, so he closed his eyes and folded his hands across his stomach. Surely the demons would never come back to the scene of the crime.
He felt a pressure on his arm. He opened his eyes and was horrified to see Mrs. Harold, who had died of colon cancer last year. She was gaunt, her skin hanging off her bones. Literally. Her breath came in gasps and her bony fingers wrapped around his arm, squeezing, burning. He tried to squirm away but other hands held him down. He looked up as another hand covered his mouth and nose. Henry Errington. Farmer. Pancreatic. Some say the worse way to go. Pushed Wilson into two rounds of useless chemo. Died in horrible pain. Wilson tried to shout, scream, breathe - finally one of these people had the strength to actually kill him. In his sleep. He wondered if he could be dreaming that he was dreaming. He tried counting back from a hundred. He got to ninety-three before the lack of oxygen started turning the edges of his vision fuzzy. He gathered every ounce of his strength and threw himself at the hands.
The room cleared and he was on the floor. He tried to get up, but the hands were still there.
“Dr. Wilson, are you okay?” Cameron. Worried. Shit.
He struggled to get up, and she tried to help, but they got tangled up in arms and legs and he ended up pulling her down on top of him. Between the embarrassment and the pain of Cameron’s knee digging into his groin, he heard the lounge door swish open.
“Jesus, Cameron. I said find him, not fuck him. Although I see where you could have gotten confused. Four letters - starts with F.”
Cameron, mortified, hopped up and brushed off her lab coat.
“Shut-up, House.” Wilson rolled over and used the couch to pull himself up. House held out his cane, but Wilson batted it away. “I was asleep.” He tried to smile at Cameron, but only managed a slight grimace. “I guess you just scared me.”
“You were shouting and I thought you were going to hurt yourself.”
House frowned and moved Cameron out of the way with his cane. He placed a hand on Wilson’s shoulder, forcing him to look up. “Another one?”
“I guess. I was trying to take a nap.”
“That’s it, you’re getting an MRI.” House turned to Cameron. “Schedule that. And a full work up.”
Cameron started to say something, saw the look on House’s face, and left without a word.
“I don’t need an MRI.” Wilson got up and faced House, his hands on his hips.
“How long since you slept?”
“I slept last night, remember? You complained about the drool.”
“I mean really slept.”
“How long since you slept? Without help? Let’s look at that instead.”
House turned and headed for the door. “Come on.”
Wilson reluctantly followed. “Where’re we going?”
“Just come on. I’ve got a case and I need your help. And after that, we’re going to have a long talk about you and this . . . sleep thing.”
“This sleep thing?” Wilson caught up and they limped together down the hall. “You know, a parade float would garner less attention,” he observed as he watched all the heads turn on their way to the elevator. “Matching outfits are the only thing we’re missing now.”
“It would help if you learned to limp faster.”
************
He managed to stay away from House for the rest of the day. Avoided the MRI when House got caught up in his own problems - 38 year old man with skin lesions, arrhythmia, and rectal bleeding. He admitted Stage Four Lung, and then got called to the ER when Cuddy got bogged down with whatever Cuddy gets bogged down with. Then as a nightcap he spent some time with Molly, who had a fever of 103 and a mother who was slowly picking all the skin off her hands.
The apartment was dark when he got home. He limped into the kitchen and opened the fridge and immediately spied a strange red container with a note attached. “Dearest Jimmy. Please eat this. Me.” If he had been inclined to take a look before, that note changed his mind. He could only imagine what House deemed fit for him to eat. Instead he grabbed a beer, and limped over to the couch. He thought about turning on the TV, but knew House would wake up and so he just sat in the dark, drinking and thinking.
He felt like he could sleep for days. And days. But he knew the minute his body hit REM, the dreams would come. And then he’d wake up. Or House would wake him up. Or both. He scooped up the Vicodin bottle from the coffee table and chuckled at the note taped to the cap. “This will makes you small. Take one.” He shook out two and swallowed them with a sip of beer.
He sighed and laid his head back against the cushions and closed his eyes. Maybe this was the beginning of the end. The burn-out. Had to happen eventually. Or maybe he was just tired of watching everyone die. Everyone. Oh, sure there were those two cases last year. Leukemia. Remission. And the breast cancer guy was having great success with the new treatment. But he wasn’t a breast guy. He just oversaw the breast guy. And so those victories were not his. No, he got all the bad ones. The hopeless ones. The dead ones.
He rubbed his face with a hand and switched his brain to another channel. The House channel. He wondered if House was really sleeping. Knew he had to have heard him come in. Maybe he took an extra dose of something. Probably exhausted. House’s sleep had been almost as erratic as his own. House’s behavior had definitely been as erratic as his own. House’s behavior was not House’s behavior.
They had now officially shared a bed for five days. Nights. And on each of those nights there had come a moment of real awkwardness. The touching was just a little too frequent, too familiar; the talk was just this side of too intimate. Sure, most of it could be explained away as dream-induced paranoia. House was probably just taking his well-worn path of least resistance by insisting on the sleeping arrangements. Convenience instead of concern. What he couldn’t explain was the growing need he felt to walk down that hall and crawl into bed. With House.
“I know you’re out there,” a voice growled in the darkness. “I can hear you obsessing.”
“Just watching some TV.” Wilson reached for the remote.
“Neat trick - considering the TV isn’t on.” The voice was coming closer.
“Didn’t mean to wake you, “Wilson said loudly, hoping House would stay in his room.
A cane tapped his shoulder, and he dropped his beer into his lap. He leaped up, grabbed the bottle and set it on the coffee table, where it erupted and the liquid oozed out all over the place.
“Shit, House.”
“Shithouse?”
“No, I said shit. House. What the hell are you doing?”
House backed up two steps and leaned both hands on his cane. “I’m staying far away from you. Last time this happened, you gave me a black eye.”
Wilson took the bottle into the kitchen sink and returned with a tea towel. He mopped up the beer. House stood watching.
“Go back to bed.”
“Does the redundancy of this ever get to you?”
“You get to me. Just go to bed. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. And you’re making me not fine. Did you know I had to take three extra pills today? I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, all I think about is you and your goddamn nightmares.”
“Nice try blaming me for your increasing dependence. And I told you I am fine out here on the couch, so I hardly think that your sleep patterns . . .”
House took his cane and flung it across the room. At Wilson. Stopped him from talking, since he had to duck. The cane smashed against the fireplace and rattled to the floor.
“There. That’s what you do to me.”
“I make you throw your cane?”
“You make me crazy.”
“I make you crazy?”
“Stop talking. Yes, you make me crazy because you live here, day after day, night after night, acting like nothing’s wrong. Acting like it’s completely normal for you to wake up several times a night screaming. Like it’s all good that you have stitches and crutches and can’t carry on a normal conversation with anyone. Like it’s completely normal for you to never eat, except my Vicodin, which you swallow like a diabetic with a newly discovered Skittles stash. Cuddy accused me today of stealing your soul and Cameron is afraid to go near you.”
He limped over till he was face to face with Wilson, who stood with his mouth open, unable to comprehend most of the tirade. “And how the hell can I justify this if you’re too fucked up to notice?”
House leaned in and brushed his lips against Wilson’s. Then he took a step forward and grabbed Wilson’s shoulders and pulled him closer. Wilson swayed a little and then everything went to static. He pressed his lips against House’s; thrust his tongue into the heat and the wet and the musty combo of Tanqueray and toothpaste. House moaned from somewhere far away, their tongues tangled, their breaths coming fast and hard and then they were falling onto the couch and Wilson pulled House down onto him, and he heard himself moan as House nipped at his neck and licked his throat and caressed his chest and then Wilson reached down between them, trying to find House’s . . .
And then House stopped. Lifted himself up and looked at Wilson. “See? You just went from friend to fuckbuddy in less than a minute.” He awkwardly rolled off the couch and stood.
“What are you doing?” Wilson lay on the couch, panting, confused.
“I’m saving you from yourself.”
“But you just kissed me.”
“And you kissed back.” House fingered his lip, red and starting to swell. “And you have no idea why.”
Wilson sat up. “Because I wanted to. I . . .”
House limped over and retrieved his cane. “Don’t talk. It’ll just piss me off.”
Wilson stood and stopped House from leaving. “We need to talk about this.”
“No, actually, that’s the last thing we need to be doing right now, and if you had any sense in your sorry albeit gorgeous ass, you’d figure that out.” House used his cane and moved Wilson out of his way. “I’m going to bed. You sit out here and think some more - it’s been working so well for you.”
He limped down the hall. “And that apartment hunting thing you were doing? Probably should start that again. Gonna need my couch back.” He disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door.
Wilson stood in the dark living room, rubbing his stubble-scraped cheek and wondered two things at once: how long can a person go without sleep and when the hell had he fallen in love with his best friend?
tbc . . .
Author: Kaye
Pairing: House/Wilson - a little more obvious this chapter
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Yes, they're mine - I'm selling them on Ebay as soon as I can get them to hold still for the picture . . .
Wilson's nightmares continue; House takes matters into his own hands
Ch 1: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/497045.html#cutid1
Ch 2: http://community.livejournal.com/housefic/501279.html#cutid1
Things That Go Bump - Chapter Three
By Friday, Wilson was positive he was losing his mind. Unlike House, who had regulated his body with caffeine and Vicodin to the point of making sleep optional, Wilson needed at least six hours each night in order to function in any way close to normal. But the nightmares kept coming. He had spent the last three nights alternating between the couch and House’s bed. Last night House had just grabbed him by the shoulders, and limped him toward the bedroom without a word. Had it been anyone else but House, he would have questioned the motives, the intentions. But this was House. And so, when he woke up bathed in a cold sweat with House leaning over him, rubbing his chest and stroking his hair, he just chalked it up to . . . to what?
He stretched out on the couch in the oncology lounge and propped his ankle up on a pillow. He was between a blastocytoma and a stage four lung, which shouldn’t arrive for at least another hour, so he closed his eyes and folded his hands across his stomach. Surely the demons would never come back to the scene of the crime.
He felt a pressure on his arm. He opened his eyes and was horrified to see Mrs. Harold, who had died of colon cancer last year. She was gaunt, her skin hanging off her bones. Literally. Her breath came in gasps and her bony fingers wrapped around his arm, squeezing, burning. He tried to squirm away but other hands held him down. He looked up as another hand covered his mouth and nose. Henry Errington. Farmer. Pancreatic. Some say the worse way to go. Pushed Wilson into two rounds of useless chemo. Died in horrible pain. Wilson tried to shout, scream, breathe - finally one of these people had the strength to actually kill him. In his sleep. He wondered if he could be dreaming that he was dreaming. He tried counting back from a hundred. He got to ninety-three before the lack of oxygen started turning the edges of his vision fuzzy. He gathered every ounce of his strength and threw himself at the hands.
The room cleared and he was on the floor. He tried to get up, but the hands were still there.
“Dr. Wilson, are you okay?” Cameron. Worried. Shit.
He struggled to get up, and she tried to help, but they got tangled up in arms and legs and he ended up pulling her down on top of him. Between the embarrassment and the pain of Cameron’s knee digging into his groin, he heard the lounge door swish open.
“Jesus, Cameron. I said find him, not fuck him. Although I see where you could have gotten confused. Four letters - starts with F.”
Cameron, mortified, hopped up and brushed off her lab coat.
“Shut-up, House.” Wilson rolled over and used the couch to pull himself up. House held out his cane, but Wilson batted it away. “I was asleep.” He tried to smile at Cameron, but only managed a slight grimace. “I guess you just scared me.”
“You were shouting and I thought you were going to hurt yourself.”
House frowned and moved Cameron out of the way with his cane. He placed a hand on Wilson’s shoulder, forcing him to look up. “Another one?”
“I guess. I was trying to take a nap.”
“That’s it, you’re getting an MRI.” House turned to Cameron. “Schedule that. And a full work up.”
Cameron started to say something, saw the look on House’s face, and left without a word.
“I don’t need an MRI.” Wilson got up and faced House, his hands on his hips.
“How long since you slept?”
“I slept last night, remember? You complained about the drool.”
“I mean really slept.”
“How long since you slept? Without help? Let’s look at that instead.”
House turned and headed for the door. “Come on.”
Wilson reluctantly followed. “Where’re we going?”
“Just come on. I’ve got a case and I need your help. And after that, we’re going to have a long talk about you and this . . . sleep thing.”
“This sleep thing?” Wilson caught up and they limped together down the hall. “You know, a parade float would garner less attention,” he observed as he watched all the heads turn on their way to the elevator. “Matching outfits are the only thing we’re missing now.”
“It would help if you learned to limp faster.”
************
He managed to stay away from House for the rest of the day. Avoided the MRI when House got caught up in his own problems - 38 year old man with skin lesions, arrhythmia, and rectal bleeding. He admitted Stage Four Lung, and then got called to the ER when Cuddy got bogged down with whatever Cuddy gets bogged down with. Then as a nightcap he spent some time with Molly, who had a fever of 103 and a mother who was slowly picking all the skin off her hands.
The apartment was dark when he got home. He limped into the kitchen and opened the fridge and immediately spied a strange red container with a note attached. “Dearest Jimmy. Please eat this. Me.” If he had been inclined to take a look before, that note changed his mind. He could only imagine what House deemed fit for him to eat. Instead he grabbed a beer, and limped over to the couch. He thought about turning on the TV, but knew House would wake up and so he just sat in the dark, drinking and thinking.
He felt like he could sleep for days. And days. But he knew the minute his body hit REM, the dreams would come. And then he’d wake up. Or House would wake him up. Or both. He scooped up the Vicodin bottle from the coffee table and chuckled at the note taped to the cap. “This will makes you small. Take one.” He shook out two and swallowed them with a sip of beer.
He sighed and laid his head back against the cushions and closed his eyes. Maybe this was the beginning of the end. The burn-out. Had to happen eventually. Or maybe he was just tired of watching everyone die. Everyone. Oh, sure there were those two cases last year. Leukemia. Remission. And the breast cancer guy was having great success with the new treatment. But he wasn’t a breast guy. He just oversaw the breast guy. And so those victories were not his. No, he got all the bad ones. The hopeless ones. The dead ones.
He rubbed his face with a hand and switched his brain to another channel. The House channel. He wondered if House was really sleeping. Knew he had to have heard him come in. Maybe he took an extra dose of something. Probably exhausted. House’s sleep had been almost as erratic as his own. House’s behavior had definitely been as erratic as his own. House’s behavior was not House’s behavior.
They had now officially shared a bed for five days. Nights. And on each of those nights there had come a moment of real awkwardness. The touching was just a little too frequent, too familiar; the talk was just this side of too intimate. Sure, most of it could be explained away as dream-induced paranoia. House was probably just taking his well-worn path of least resistance by insisting on the sleeping arrangements. Convenience instead of concern. What he couldn’t explain was the growing need he felt to walk down that hall and crawl into bed. With House.
“I know you’re out there,” a voice growled in the darkness. “I can hear you obsessing.”
“Just watching some TV.” Wilson reached for the remote.
“Neat trick - considering the TV isn’t on.” The voice was coming closer.
“Didn’t mean to wake you, “Wilson said loudly, hoping House would stay in his room.
A cane tapped his shoulder, and he dropped his beer into his lap. He leaped up, grabbed the bottle and set it on the coffee table, where it erupted and the liquid oozed out all over the place.
“Shit, House.”
“Shithouse?”
“No, I said shit. House. What the hell are you doing?”
House backed up two steps and leaned both hands on his cane. “I’m staying far away from you. Last time this happened, you gave me a black eye.”
Wilson took the bottle into the kitchen sink and returned with a tea towel. He mopped up the beer. House stood watching.
“Go back to bed.”
“Does the redundancy of this ever get to you?”
“You get to me. Just go to bed. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. And you’re making me not fine. Did you know I had to take three extra pills today? I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, all I think about is you and your goddamn nightmares.”
“Nice try blaming me for your increasing dependence. And I told you I am fine out here on the couch, so I hardly think that your sleep patterns . . .”
House took his cane and flung it across the room. At Wilson. Stopped him from talking, since he had to duck. The cane smashed against the fireplace and rattled to the floor.
“There. That’s what you do to me.”
“I make you throw your cane?”
“You make me crazy.”
“I make you crazy?”
“Stop talking. Yes, you make me crazy because you live here, day after day, night after night, acting like nothing’s wrong. Acting like it’s completely normal for you to wake up several times a night screaming. Like it’s all good that you have stitches and crutches and can’t carry on a normal conversation with anyone. Like it’s completely normal for you to never eat, except my Vicodin, which you swallow like a diabetic with a newly discovered Skittles stash. Cuddy accused me today of stealing your soul and Cameron is afraid to go near you.”
He limped over till he was face to face with Wilson, who stood with his mouth open, unable to comprehend most of the tirade. “And how the hell can I justify this if you’re too fucked up to notice?”
House leaned in and brushed his lips against Wilson’s. Then he took a step forward and grabbed Wilson’s shoulders and pulled him closer. Wilson swayed a little and then everything went to static. He pressed his lips against House’s; thrust his tongue into the heat and the wet and the musty combo of Tanqueray and toothpaste. House moaned from somewhere far away, their tongues tangled, their breaths coming fast and hard and then they were falling onto the couch and Wilson pulled House down onto him, and he heard himself moan as House nipped at his neck and licked his throat and caressed his chest and then Wilson reached down between them, trying to find House’s . . .
And then House stopped. Lifted himself up and looked at Wilson. “See? You just went from friend to fuckbuddy in less than a minute.” He awkwardly rolled off the couch and stood.
“What are you doing?” Wilson lay on the couch, panting, confused.
“I’m saving you from yourself.”
“But you just kissed me.”
“And you kissed back.” House fingered his lip, red and starting to swell. “And you have no idea why.”
Wilson sat up. “Because I wanted to. I . . .”
House limped over and retrieved his cane. “Don’t talk. It’ll just piss me off.”
Wilson stood and stopped House from leaving. “We need to talk about this.”
“No, actually, that’s the last thing we need to be doing right now, and if you had any sense in your sorry albeit gorgeous ass, you’d figure that out.” House used his cane and moved Wilson out of his way. “I’m going to bed. You sit out here and think some more - it’s been working so well for you.”
He limped down the hall. “And that apartment hunting thing you were doing? Probably should start that again. Gonna need my couch back.” He disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door.
Wilson stood in the dark living room, rubbing his stubble-scraped cheek and wondered two things at once: how long can a person go without sleep and when the hell had he fallen in love with his best friend?
tbc . . .