Not What You Want
Title: Not What You Want
Pairing: House+Wilson friendship
Author: alanwolfmoon
Rating: PG-13-ish
Warnings: AU, Depression
Summary: Wilson has the infarction instead of House. Goes from the onset of pain to the end of the Pilot episode.
Disclaimer: MINE! ALL MINE!....uh, no. Not mine.
Feedback: Reviews and flames are welcome. (They make it look like I'm writing fast)
Notes: I know this is kind of a cliche'd plot in House fandom, but I thought I'd take a crack at it anyway.
T
It was humid.
His pants were sticking to his legs, and his shirt bunched uncomfortably when he swung.
But he didn’t care, because he was winning, and Baker and Reynolds were going down. House, not so much, but he didn’t care, because House would definitely share the victory food with him.
He moved the club up, angled his hips, eyed the ball, and swung.
Except the club never contacted the ball.
Because suddenly, he was on the ground, in agony.
There were hands on him, familiar hands, hands and arms cradling him, as he cried and fought.
He dimly heard someone, baker or Reynolds, he couldn’t tell, on the phone, calling an ambulance.
But the only thing that really registered was blue eyes, worried eyes, as he screamed.
Bonnie was there, then.
“House wouldn’t leave,” she said, quietly, “but I got a nurse to kick him out.”
Wilson closed his eyes. He couldn’t feel his body, with the amount of morphine he was on.
A sudden panic gripped him, and his eyes shot open, and he sat up.
Oh, god. Oh, god that was scary. That was horrible.
He’d thought they’d had to take it off, that that was why he couldn’t feel the leg.
He stared at the twin mountains under the sheets at the end of the bed, his feet.
He wiggled them.
They moved.
He slumped back into the pillows, and slept.
He dreamed of it.
He woke up screaming, and not because of the pain that was starting to break through the morphine.
Bonnie was still there, but where was House?!
Oh… Bonnie sent him out…
“What is it?” he asked, shivering, as Bonnie smoothed the blankets over his chest, “what’s going on?”
“They don’t know, honey.”
A sudden wave of pain ripped through the leg, and his mouth snapped open, as he let out a cry.
Bonnie was trying to hold him still, keep him from hurting himself, but oh, god, it hurt!
Strong hands on his shoulders, strong hands holding him down, strong hands anchoring him, bracing him.
He opened his eyes, as tears streamed out of them.
“It’s okay, Jimmy. It’s okay. I won’t let them take it. You can go to sleep.”
He nodded, and allowed himself to pass out.
House looked at Bonnie, blue eyes smoldering with anger, “you better not make me a liar.”
“They don’t know what’s wrong. How can you promise that... it won’t be necessary.”
“I can’t.”
“Get out of this room. Now.”
Three days later, a nurse saw the tea-colored urine, and yelled for House, who came in at a run.
House yelled for Wilson’s doctor, and started shouting at Bonnie, as Wilson shook.
Someone called security.
House punched them, when they tried to get him to leave-he knew what Bonnie would do.
Wilson was unconscious under the pain, his body unable to handle the sheer overload of information his nerves were sending to his brain.
Five more security guys showed up, guns drawn.
House had enough sense to hold up his hands and not get shot.
It’s a week later, when Wilson calls him, saying that Bonnie’s gone, and please come, he asked security to not arrest him.
House drives from Princeton up to New York, and walks quickly to his friend’s hospital room.
Wilson is there, obviously, looking pained and worn down.
He’s still got both feet, so apparently Bonnie didn’t get her way.
“How’d you get her to leave?”
“I begged a nurse to tell her she had to.”
“Wus.”
“House.”
House sighed, shrugging slightly, “how long is it gonna take to recover from the bypass? Shouldn’t be more than another couple days or so, right?”
Wilson closed his eyes, miserably, “they had to put me in a chemically induced coma because of the pain. Bonnie okayed a middle ground, because of the toxins….”
House frowned, “what?”
Wilson slowly pulled the blankets back, revealing a bandage on his leg, “more than a few days.”
“You okay this?”
Wilson shook his head, almost near tears.
“I’m taking you home.”
“House… no, she… she thought I was gonna die. And Stacy…?”
“bros before hos. In this case, friends before backstabbing witches.”
“Stacy’s a backstabbing witch?
“Friends before backstabbing witches *and* fairly decent girlfriends.”
Two months later….
House grunted, pulling his friend’s arm over his shoulders, “you okay to walk?”
Wilson nodded, miserably, staggering painfully against the older doctor, as they slowly worked their way from the living room to the bedroom.
“You should be home with Stacy.”
“You shouldn’t be missing a leg muscle.”
“I’m not your responsibility.”
“you’re my friend.”
“She’s your girlfriend. She gives you sex. I puke on your shoes when I take too much pain medication.”
“You only did that once.”
“That’s your argument? That I’ve only puked on you *once*?”
“You’ve actually puked on me more than once, but the other times you were just drunk.”
“I don’t remember puking on you before...”
“I know. You were drunk.”
“Oh.”
“And in your defense, I’ve probably puked on you more than once.”
“I wouldn’t know. if you did, I was probably already passed out. You’ve got way better alcohol tolerance than I do…”
“I also spent eight years in college drinking. That might have something to do with it.”
Wilson gasped, as his bad leg buckled beneath him.
House had him though, holding him up.
“You okay?”
Wilson nodded, gritting his teeth, as he waited for the fiery pain to fade.
It did. But not completely.
Never completely.
House sighed, as he walked into the bar he’d gotten a call from-apparently it was closing time, and there was an unconscious guy who had House’s pager as his emergency contact on a card in his wallet.
The unconscious guy was, predictably, Wilson.
“You the guy I called?”
House nodded, “yeah. Greg House.”
The bartender nodded, and helped him pick Wilson up off the stool without dropping the young doctor.
“Sorry,” said House, quietly, noticing the mess Wilson had made on the floor.
The bartender shook his head, “I’m pretty sure he was mixing with meds, so I was more worried than annoyed.”
“Yeah, he was. Thanks for the call.”
House managed to get Wilson slumped over his shoulder, and carried his unconscious friend to the car.
He went back inside the bar to get his friend’s crutches, and drove Wilson to House’s own apartment.
Stacy would be livid, but it wasn’t like he could just leave his friend passed out in bed, or something.
When he got home, it turned out that Stacy wasn’t there to be angry at him.
Apparently this had been one too many interrupted nights.
House sighed, depositing his unconscious friend on the bed, making sure he was on his side so if he puked again, he wouldn’t aspirate, then going to read the note Stacy had left.
Predictably, it was all his fault, and she had done nothing wrong.
Yay.
He shook his head. This wasn’t a surprise.
He’d known he had a choice, and his choice had been to go to the bar and pick up his friend, because, somehow, he knew Wilson would, without a doubt, have done the same thing for him.
Wilson moaned, slightly, on the bed, and House turned, sitting by him silently, as he started to wake a little.
“Wilson?”
Wilson looked at him, not particularly coherent, but managing a wide, drunken smile upon seeing his friend’s face, “Houshe….”
House rolled his eyes, and picked Wilson up again, this time under the knees and back, rather than over his shoulder. Wilson’s arms wrapped around his neck, and he could smell the alcohol on his friend’s breath. Beer, he couldn’t smell anything stronger. Typical. even getting smashed, Wilson didn’t go for the strong stuff.
He put his friend on the floor, in front of the toilet, and made him drink a quarter bottle of ipecac.
Wilson started to throw up, and House knelt behind him, holding his head up out of the toilet bowl, and cradling his friend back against his chest when Wilson was done puking.
Wilson was crying, now, quietly, and turned around, hiding in his face in the crook of House’s neck.
House sighed, and just sat, resting his hand on his friend’s back, as Wilson started to sob.
Eventually, Wilson cried himself to sleep, and House carried him to the bedroom.
He wasn’t going to let his friend sleep on the couch in this state.
He was often a crappy friend, but he wasn’t that irresponsible.
He set Wilson on Stacy’s side, and laughed slightly at the symbolism of that.
He’d have time to miss Stacy later.
He’d probably even be mad at Wilson for being the cause of her leaving.
But right now, he just got a bowl of water and a washcloth, and wiped the dried vomit off his friend’s face.
He knew that doing this now probably meant doing this in the future.
That he was signing on for more than just helping his friend function on bad days, and driving him to PT and back.
But again… he was somehow certain that Wilson would do the same for him.
And… plus…
It wasn’t like anyone was watching.
And that made it bearable to do.
Wilson has changed, though he doesn’t know it.
He knows he drinks more than he used to, and maybe takes a few too many pills.
He knows that the fact he’s been sleeping in the empty half of his male best friend’s bed probably isn’t normal.
But House doesn’t think he realizes just how much he’s changed.
He looks old.
Both outwardly, and on the inside.
House sees weariness in those brown eyes that used to hold energy and compassion.
Wilson is sucked dry.
That’s how he’s changed.
He’s just… drained.
He’s got a job again, and he’s doing it, but he hasn’t flirted with anyone in over two years.
House hasn’t come home to see a stethoscope hanging on the doorknob since Wilson started staying with him.
And that’s something that he never would have predicted would happen to James E. Wilson, panty-peeler extraordinaire.
House has actually had a few dates.
But…
He’s got a drugged up cripple sleeping on the other side of his bed, which is kind of hard to explain.
And while Wilson would understand totally if he were asked to move out, or at least to the couch, House isn’t going to do that.
Because, though Wilson does not have boobs, in a contest between a friend of fifteen years and a girl he’s just met, Wilson is always going to win.
It took House a while to resign himself to this.
That his friendship with Wilson was now, in some way, an exclusive relationship.
Sure, he still keeps in touch with the other people he knew, still went bowling once in a while with Matheson and Chang, but it’s not really the same without the fourth member of the team.
And, over time, House has drifted away from even them.
But even though he’s giving up pretty much everyone else for Wilson’s sake, he’s not mad.
He comes home after having turned down an invite to go golfing, and sees Wilson zonked out on the couch, some soap opera in a language Wilson doesn’t even speak-though House does, so he knows how pathetic the dialogue is-playing on the TV.
And he can’t stay mad.
He sits on the coffee table, and gently smoothes Wilson’s longish, curly brown hair away, out of his slightly lined face.
Wilson stirs a little, opening big brown eyes, and House gives him a small smile, and Wilson manages one in return.
And he can’t stay mad.
Winter comes, the third one since the infarction.
They know from the previous two that Wilson’s pain is going to rise as the weather gets colder.
He’ll have to take more meds, and like last year, and the year before, probably miss work because of it.
He curls on the couch, with House sitting next to his head, and watch Japanese tv programs because he likes how the language sounds, and House tells him what’s going on if he doesn’t understand from the visual stuff.
House rests a hand on his shoulder, and he scoots up a bit, resting his head on the older doctor’s right leg.
Wilson shifts the heating pad on his aching leg, and closes his eyes, just listening to the TV and resting.
House sits with him for hours, after work, on the bad days, because it’s the only thing he can to help, and sometimes on the worst days he’ll come home early.
His boss is fairly lenient with things like that, at least if he’s got a good excuse-and a best friend suffering at home counts as a good one.
Granted, Sheffield, his boss, doesn’t like him particularly much, which may have something to do with having no problem with him being out of the way.
It’s four years after the infarction, when Sheffield leaves… and therefore House is out of a job.
But the Dean of Medicine gives him an offer to start his own department, and he accepts.
It’s diagnostics, which is what he was doing under Sheffield.
He’s got a budget for one fellow, as it is a teaching hospital.
Unfortunately, he never managed to meet with anyone during the week he was supposed to be interviewing them, as Wilson had accidentally OD’d mixing alcohol and meds and spent a week recovering.
The dean, a screechy woman who House vaguely remembered having had a one-night stand with in college, would not have been amused if she’d found out he hadn’t chosen someone.
House found a message from someone’s father, saying that their kid, who had apparently applied for the job, wasn’t motivated by a real wish to practice medicine and shouldn’t be considered for the job.
That was vaguely interesting, so he gave the applicant a call, and told him he was hired.
Five minutes later, Cuddy called him to demand a name.
Wilson, sitting on the couch, smiled into his hand.
It’s harder, to take off work, that year.
She’s making him do clinic, something Sheffield didn’t make him do, and he hates it.
She isn’t pleased with Wilson, either, but Wilson still has a boss between him and Cuddy to mediate things, telling her that Wilson was pretty much the best oncologist in the hospital.
House thinks, from the way she looks at him, that if it were him missing work because of an injury, she would be less likely to be so screechy.
But although she has sympathy for Wilson, she refuses to cut him a break.
But Wilson’s pain is just as bad.
So House just walks out, when he knows she won’t say he can leave early.
He disconnects the phone when he knows she’ll call and ask why he’s not at work.
He turns off his pager when he knows she’ll page him.
He sits on the couch, and Wilson rests his head on House’s leg, and he rubs, just between Wilson’s shoulder blades, then down, widening out at the lower back, giving each aching muscle group its own massage.
And Wilson manages to close his eyes, and get a little rest.
When the ice and snow give way to rain and cold spring damp, Cuddy is hampering on House to get a second fellow.
House tells her to buzz off, and makes do with just Chase.
Cuddy starts scheduling interviews, and half the time, Chase is the one who does them.
But one of the ones House happens to be there for, is a very pretty woman.
He decides that at least that’s interesting, that she worked so hard when she didn’t have to... and she’s nice to look out, so he figures if it gets Cuddy off his back, he might as well hire her.
So he does... and then regrets it. Because she’s really damn annoying, whining all the time about patient rights and ethics.
When House finally starts having to actually do his job, he realizes he actually might need another fellow-not that he needs three fellows, but Chase isn’t quite enough just on his own, and Cameron isn’t particularly useful, so he hires a guy he thinks can get stuff done.
It’s a few days after he hired the guy, when he’s walking down the hall with Wilson, on the way to Wilson’s office.
“29 year old female, first seizure one month ago, lost the ability to speak. Babbled like a baby. Present deterioration of mental status,” says Wilson, then sighs, getting a sympatric look as he grimaces slightly in pain, “they all think I’m your patient.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left your labcoat in the car ‘accidentally’.”
“If I wear my labcoat, then someone yells doctor, and people get mad at me if I don’t come running.”
“Hit them with your cane.”
Wilson snorts, “the 29 year old female?”
“The one who can’t talk? I like that part.”
“Take the case.”
“Cuddy asked you to pitch the case, didn’t she?”
“No. She’s my cousin.”
“And your cousin doesn’t like the diagnosis. I wouldn’t either. Brain tumor, she’s gonna die, boring.”
“No wonder you’re such a renowned diagnostician. You don’t need to actually know anything to figure out what’s wrong.”
“You’re the oncologist; I’m just a lowly infectious disease guy.”
“Hah, yes, just a simple country doctor. Brain tumors at her age are highly unlikely.”
“She’s 29. Whatever she’s got is highly unlikely.”
“I was twenty nine.”
House looked at his friend.
“When it happened, five years ago.”
“You’re screwing with me. You’re not that young.”
“No, I’m not screwing with you.”
“Well then check her for a brain aneurism, or clots.”
But he had already taken the folder.
Wilson raised his eyebrows, amused, “you’re taking the case?”
“Why leave all the fun for the coroner? He’d probably screw it up, anyway.”
Rebecca smiled, as Wilson told her to squeeze his hands, “am I ever gonna meet Dr. House?”
“It’s...unlikely. He prefers not to meet with patients.”
“Is he a good man?”
“He’s... a good doctor.”
“Can you be one without the other? Don’t you have to care about people?”
“Caring’s a good motivator. He’s found something else.”
“He’s your friend, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he care about you?”
Wilson smiled, “yeah. He cares about me.”
She tilted her head, “does he say he cares about you?”
Wilson shook his head, still smiling, “never.”
She smiled a little as well, “it’s not what people say, it’s what they do?”
Wilson nodded, “yeah.”
“I can’t see... I can’t...see...”
She started to seize, and Wilson yelled for help, struggling to keep her from hurting herself without hurting *him*self.
House sighed, holding the icepack against the back of his friend’s head, where he’d hit it falling as the seizing patient flopped off the bed and on top of him.
Foreman, the new guy, looked angry and kind of disgusted by this, as he reported what he’d found in her home, “she’s not Wilson’s cousin.”
“What do you mean, of course she is.”
“She’s not Jewish!”
“Rachel Adler’s not Jewish.”
“She had ham at her apartment.”
“Dr. Foreman, a lot of Jews have non-Jewish relatives, and most of us don’t keep kosher. I can see getting through high school without learning a thing about Jews, but medical school…”
“Ok, maybe she’s Jewish, but she’s definitely not your cousin.”
“House-this guy-“
“You don’t even know her name! You called her Rachel; her name is Rebecca!”
“He’s concussed,” said House, shortly, “and you’re an idiot! You said you didn’t find anything!”
“Everything I found was-“
“You found ham.”
“So?”
“Where there’s ham there’s pork, where there’s pork there’s neurocysticercosis.”
Wilson sighed, as House’s team argued back and forth, and House finished the discussion with his signature statement, “I can prove it by treating it.”
“No, you can’t. I was just with her, she doesn’t want any more treatments, she doesn’t want any more experiments, she wants to go home and die.”
House sighed, walking out of the patient’s room, “no treatment.”
Foreman scowled, :maybe we can get a court order, override her wishes. Claim she doesn’t have the capacity to make this decision.
House shook his head, “but she does.”
Cameron stepped forwards, “but we could claim that the illness made her mentally incompetent.
“Pretty common result,” agreed Foreman, nodding.
House shook his head, “that didn’t happen here.”
Sighed, meeting his friend’s eyes, “he’s not gonna do it. She’s not just a file to him anymore. He respects her.”
Cameron looked appalled, “so because you respect her, you’re going to let her die?”
House turned away, “I solved the case, my work is done.”
Wilson followed him, feeling depressed.
“I think we can prove it’s a worm. It’s noninvasive, it’s safe. I’m not completely sure but…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, what’s the damn idea?”
“Have you ever seen a worm under an x-ray, a regular old no contrast 100-year-old technology x-ray? They light up like shotgun pellets. Just like on a contrast MRI.”
House stopped walking, turning to look at the blond.
House leaned back in the exam room chair, You said she was your cousin. Why would you lie?”
Wilson, “I thought you said I had a concussion.”
“I didn’t want to argue in front of the help.”
“It got you to take the case.”
House snorted, “you lied to a friend to save a stranger, you don’t think that’s screwed up?”
Wilson laughed, “you’ve never lied to me?
“I never lie.”
Wilson nodded, amused, “right.”
House picked up his labcoat, and Wilson’s cane, “ready?”
Wilson nodded, turning the mini TV off and handing it to House, as House handed him his cane.
“I never thanked you.”
“Never thanked me for what? Holding stuff for you?”
“During the infarction... you were the only one who actually respected my decision.”
“Oh... well, that... I guess... yeah...”
Wilson shook his head, “not I guess. Thank you.”
“Uh... you’re welcome.”
“Jimmy?” said House, waiting in line with him as Wilson waited for his prescription to be filled, Wilson rubbing the bruised back of his head and looking a little ill.
“Hmm?”
“I know it’s not what you wanted... but I think you’re gonna be okay.”
Wilson looked at him, and smiled, “yeah.”
Pairing: House+Wilson friendship
Author: alanwolfmoon
Rating: PG-13-ish
Warnings: AU, Depression
Summary: Wilson has the infarction instead of House. Goes from the onset of pain to the end of the Pilot episode.
Disclaimer: MINE! ALL MINE!....uh, no. Not mine.
Feedback: Reviews and flames are welcome. (They make it look like I'm writing fast)
Notes: I know this is kind of a cliche'd plot in House fandom, but I thought I'd take a crack at it anyway.
T
It was humid.
His pants were sticking to his legs, and his shirt bunched uncomfortably when he swung.
But he didn’t care, because he was winning, and Baker and Reynolds were going down. House, not so much, but he didn’t care, because House would definitely share the victory food with him.
He moved the club up, angled his hips, eyed the ball, and swung.
Except the club never contacted the ball.
Because suddenly, he was on the ground, in agony.
There were hands on him, familiar hands, hands and arms cradling him, as he cried and fought.
He dimly heard someone, baker or Reynolds, he couldn’t tell, on the phone, calling an ambulance.
But the only thing that really registered was blue eyes, worried eyes, as he screamed.
Bonnie was there, then.
“House wouldn’t leave,” she said, quietly, “but I got a nurse to kick him out.”
Wilson closed his eyes. He couldn’t feel his body, with the amount of morphine he was on.
A sudden panic gripped him, and his eyes shot open, and he sat up.
Oh, god. Oh, god that was scary. That was horrible.
He’d thought they’d had to take it off, that that was why he couldn’t feel the leg.
He stared at the twin mountains under the sheets at the end of the bed, his feet.
He wiggled them.
They moved.
He slumped back into the pillows, and slept.
He dreamed of it.
He woke up screaming, and not because of the pain that was starting to break through the morphine.
Bonnie was still there, but where was House?!
Oh… Bonnie sent him out…
“What is it?” he asked, shivering, as Bonnie smoothed the blankets over his chest, “what’s going on?”
“They don’t know, honey.”
A sudden wave of pain ripped through the leg, and his mouth snapped open, as he let out a cry.
Bonnie was trying to hold him still, keep him from hurting himself, but oh, god, it hurt!
Strong hands on his shoulders, strong hands holding him down, strong hands anchoring him, bracing him.
He opened his eyes, as tears streamed out of them.
“It’s okay, Jimmy. It’s okay. I won’t let them take it. You can go to sleep.”
He nodded, and allowed himself to pass out.
House looked at Bonnie, blue eyes smoldering with anger, “you better not make me a liar.”
“They don’t know what’s wrong. How can you promise that... it won’t be necessary.”
“I can’t.”
“Get out of this room. Now.”
Three days later, a nurse saw the tea-colored urine, and yelled for House, who came in at a run.
House yelled for Wilson’s doctor, and started shouting at Bonnie, as Wilson shook.
Someone called security.
House punched them, when they tried to get him to leave-he knew what Bonnie would do.
Wilson was unconscious under the pain, his body unable to handle the sheer overload of information his nerves were sending to his brain.
Five more security guys showed up, guns drawn.
House had enough sense to hold up his hands and not get shot.
It’s a week later, when Wilson calls him, saying that Bonnie’s gone, and please come, he asked security to not arrest him.
House drives from Princeton up to New York, and walks quickly to his friend’s hospital room.
Wilson is there, obviously, looking pained and worn down.
He’s still got both feet, so apparently Bonnie didn’t get her way.
“How’d you get her to leave?”
“I begged a nurse to tell her she had to.”
“Wus.”
“House.”
House sighed, shrugging slightly, “how long is it gonna take to recover from the bypass? Shouldn’t be more than another couple days or so, right?”
Wilson closed his eyes, miserably, “they had to put me in a chemically induced coma because of the pain. Bonnie okayed a middle ground, because of the toxins….”
House frowned, “what?”
Wilson slowly pulled the blankets back, revealing a bandage on his leg, “more than a few days.”
“You okay this?”
Wilson shook his head, almost near tears.
“I’m taking you home.”
“House… no, she… she thought I was gonna die. And Stacy…?”
“bros before hos. In this case, friends before backstabbing witches.”
“Stacy’s a backstabbing witch?
“Friends before backstabbing witches *and* fairly decent girlfriends.”
Two months later….
House grunted, pulling his friend’s arm over his shoulders, “you okay to walk?”
Wilson nodded, miserably, staggering painfully against the older doctor, as they slowly worked their way from the living room to the bedroom.
“You should be home with Stacy.”
“You shouldn’t be missing a leg muscle.”
“I’m not your responsibility.”
“you’re my friend.”
“She’s your girlfriend. She gives you sex. I puke on your shoes when I take too much pain medication.”
“You only did that once.”
“That’s your argument? That I’ve only puked on you *once*?”
“You’ve actually puked on me more than once, but the other times you were just drunk.”
“I don’t remember puking on you before...”
“I know. You were drunk.”
“Oh.”
“And in your defense, I’ve probably puked on you more than once.”
“I wouldn’t know. if you did, I was probably already passed out. You’ve got way better alcohol tolerance than I do…”
“I also spent eight years in college drinking. That might have something to do with it.”
Wilson gasped, as his bad leg buckled beneath him.
House had him though, holding him up.
“You okay?”
Wilson nodded, gritting his teeth, as he waited for the fiery pain to fade.
It did. But not completely.
Never completely.
House sighed, as he walked into the bar he’d gotten a call from-apparently it was closing time, and there was an unconscious guy who had House’s pager as his emergency contact on a card in his wallet.
The unconscious guy was, predictably, Wilson.
“You the guy I called?”
House nodded, “yeah. Greg House.”
The bartender nodded, and helped him pick Wilson up off the stool without dropping the young doctor.
“Sorry,” said House, quietly, noticing the mess Wilson had made on the floor.
The bartender shook his head, “I’m pretty sure he was mixing with meds, so I was more worried than annoyed.”
“Yeah, he was. Thanks for the call.”
House managed to get Wilson slumped over his shoulder, and carried his unconscious friend to the car.
He went back inside the bar to get his friend’s crutches, and drove Wilson to House’s own apartment.
Stacy would be livid, but it wasn’t like he could just leave his friend passed out in bed, or something.
When he got home, it turned out that Stacy wasn’t there to be angry at him.
Apparently this had been one too many interrupted nights.
House sighed, depositing his unconscious friend on the bed, making sure he was on his side so if he puked again, he wouldn’t aspirate, then going to read the note Stacy had left.
Predictably, it was all his fault, and she had done nothing wrong.
Yay.
He shook his head. This wasn’t a surprise.
He’d known he had a choice, and his choice had been to go to the bar and pick up his friend, because, somehow, he knew Wilson would, without a doubt, have done the same thing for him.
Wilson moaned, slightly, on the bed, and House turned, sitting by him silently, as he started to wake a little.
“Wilson?”
Wilson looked at him, not particularly coherent, but managing a wide, drunken smile upon seeing his friend’s face, “Houshe….”
House rolled his eyes, and picked Wilson up again, this time under the knees and back, rather than over his shoulder. Wilson’s arms wrapped around his neck, and he could smell the alcohol on his friend’s breath. Beer, he couldn’t smell anything stronger. Typical. even getting smashed, Wilson didn’t go for the strong stuff.
He put his friend on the floor, in front of the toilet, and made him drink a quarter bottle of ipecac.
Wilson started to throw up, and House knelt behind him, holding his head up out of the toilet bowl, and cradling his friend back against his chest when Wilson was done puking.
Wilson was crying, now, quietly, and turned around, hiding in his face in the crook of House’s neck.
House sighed, and just sat, resting his hand on his friend’s back, as Wilson started to sob.
Eventually, Wilson cried himself to sleep, and House carried him to the bedroom.
He wasn’t going to let his friend sleep on the couch in this state.
He was often a crappy friend, but he wasn’t that irresponsible.
He set Wilson on Stacy’s side, and laughed slightly at the symbolism of that.
He’d have time to miss Stacy later.
He’d probably even be mad at Wilson for being the cause of her leaving.
But right now, he just got a bowl of water and a washcloth, and wiped the dried vomit off his friend’s face.
He knew that doing this now probably meant doing this in the future.
That he was signing on for more than just helping his friend function on bad days, and driving him to PT and back.
But again… he was somehow certain that Wilson would do the same for him.
And… plus…
It wasn’t like anyone was watching.
And that made it bearable to do.
Wilson has changed, though he doesn’t know it.
He knows he drinks more than he used to, and maybe takes a few too many pills.
He knows that the fact he’s been sleeping in the empty half of his male best friend’s bed probably isn’t normal.
But House doesn’t think he realizes just how much he’s changed.
He looks old.
Both outwardly, and on the inside.
House sees weariness in those brown eyes that used to hold energy and compassion.
Wilson is sucked dry.
That’s how he’s changed.
He’s just… drained.
He’s got a job again, and he’s doing it, but he hasn’t flirted with anyone in over two years.
House hasn’t come home to see a stethoscope hanging on the doorknob since Wilson started staying with him.
And that’s something that he never would have predicted would happen to James E. Wilson, panty-peeler extraordinaire.
House has actually had a few dates.
But…
He’s got a drugged up cripple sleeping on the other side of his bed, which is kind of hard to explain.
And while Wilson would understand totally if he were asked to move out, or at least to the couch, House isn’t going to do that.
Because, though Wilson does not have boobs, in a contest between a friend of fifteen years and a girl he’s just met, Wilson is always going to win.
It took House a while to resign himself to this.
That his friendship with Wilson was now, in some way, an exclusive relationship.
Sure, he still keeps in touch with the other people he knew, still went bowling once in a while with Matheson and Chang, but it’s not really the same without the fourth member of the team.
And, over time, House has drifted away from even them.
But even though he’s giving up pretty much everyone else for Wilson’s sake, he’s not mad.
He comes home after having turned down an invite to go golfing, and sees Wilson zonked out on the couch, some soap opera in a language Wilson doesn’t even speak-though House does, so he knows how pathetic the dialogue is-playing on the TV.
And he can’t stay mad.
He sits on the coffee table, and gently smoothes Wilson’s longish, curly brown hair away, out of his slightly lined face.
Wilson stirs a little, opening big brown eyes, and House gives him a small smile, and Wilson manages one in return.
And he can’t stay mad.
Winter comes, the third one since the infarction.
They know from the previous two that Wilson’s pain is going to rise as the weather gets colder.
He’ll have to take more meds, and like last year, and the year before, probably miss work because of it.
He curls on the couch, with House sitting next to his head, and watch Japanese tv programs because he likes how the language sounds, and House tells him what’s going on if he doesn’t understand from the visual stuff.
House rests a hand on his shoulder, and he scoots up a bit, resting his head on the older doctor’s right leg.
Wilson shifts the heating pad on his aching leg, and closes his eyes, just listening to the TV and resting.
House sits with him for hours, after work, on the bad days, because it’s the only thing he can to help, and sometimes on the worst days he’ll come home early.
His boss is fairly lenient with things like that, at least if he’s got a good excuse-and a best friend suffering at home counts as a good one.
Granted, Sheffield, his boss, doesn’t like him particularly much, which may have something to do with having no problem with him being out of the way.
It’s four years after the infarction, when Sheffield leaves… and therefore House is out of a job.
But the Dean of Medicine gives him an offer to start his own department, and he accepts.
It’s diagnostics, which is what he was doing under Sheffield.
He’s got a budget for one fellow, as it is a teaching hospital.
Unfortunately, he never managed to meet with anyone during the week he was supposed to be interviewing them, as Wilson had accidentally OD’d mixing alcohol and meds and spent a week recovering.
The dean, a screechy woman who House vaguely remembered having had a one-night stand with in college, would not have been amused if she’d found out he hadn’t chosen someone.
House found a message from someone’s father, saying that their kid, who had apparently applied for the job, wasn’t motivated by a real wish to practice medicine and shouldn’t be considered for the job.
That was vaguely interesting, so he gave the applicant a call, and told him he was hired.
Five minutes later, Cuddy called him to demand a name.
Wilson, sitting on the couch, smiled into his hand.
It’s harder, to take off work, that year.
She’s making him do clinic, something Sheffield didn’t make him do, and he hates it.
She isn’t pleased with Wilson, either, but Wilson still has a boss between him and Cuddy to mediate things, telling her that Wilson was pretty much the best oncologist in the hospital.
House thinks, from the way she looks at him, that if it were him missing work because of an injury, she would be less likely to be so screechy.
But although she has sympathy for Wilson, she refuses to cut him a break.
But Wilson’s pain is just as bad.
So House just walks out, when he knows she won’t say he can leave early.
He disconnects the phone when he knows she’ll call and ask why he’s not at work.
He turns off his pager when he knows she’ll page him.
He sits on the couch, and Wilson rests his head on House’s leg, and he rubs, just between Wilson’s shoulder blades, then down, widening out at the lower back, giving each aching muscle group its own massage.
And Wilson manages to close his eyes, and get a little rest.
When the ice and snow give way to rain and cold spring damp, Cuddy is hampering on House to get a second fellow.
House tells her to buzz off, and makes do with just Chase.
Cuddy starts scheduling interviews, and half the time, Chase is the one who does them.
But one of the ones House happens to be there for, is a very pretty woman.
He decides that at least that’s interesting, that she worked so hard when she didn’t have to... and she’s nice to look out, so he figures if it gets Cuddy off his back, he might as well hire her.
So he does... and then regrets it. Because she’s really damn annoying, whining all the time about patient rights and ethics.
When House finally starts having to actually do his job, he realizes he actually might need another fellow-not that he needs three fellows, but Chase isn’t quite enough just on his own, and Cameron isn’t particularly useful, so he hires a guy he thinks can get stuff done.
It’s a few days after he hired the guy, when he’s walking down the hall with Wilson, on the way to Wilson’s office.
“29 year old female, first seizure one month ago, lost the ability to speak. Babbled like a baby. Present deterioration of mental status,” says Wilson, then sighs, getting a sympatric look as he grimaces slightly in pain, “they all think I’m your patient.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left your labcoat in the car ‘accidentally’.”
“If I wear my labcoat, then someone yells doctor, and people get mad at me if I don’t come running.”
“Hit them with your cane.”
Wilson snorts, “the 29 year old female?”
“The one who can’t talk? I like that part.”
“Take the case.”
“Cuddy asked you to pitch the case, didn’t she?”
“No. She’s my cousin.”
“And your cousin doesn’t like the diagnosis. I wouldn’t either. Brain tumor, she’s gonna die, boring.”
“No wonder you’re such a renowned diagnostician. You don’t need to actually know anything to figure out what’s wrong.”
“You’re the oncologist; I’m just a lowly infectious disease guy.”
“Hah, yes, just a simple country doctor. Brain tumors at her age are highly unlikely.”
“She’s 29. Whatever she’s got is highly unlikely.”
“I was twenty nine.”
House looked at his friend.
“When it happened, five years ago.”
“You’re screwing with me. You’re not that young.”
“No, I’m not screwing with you.”
“Well then check her for a brain aneurism, or clots.”
But he had already taken the folder.
Wilson raised his eyebrows, amused, “you’re taking the case?”
“Why leave all the fun for the coroner? He’d probably screw it up, anyway.”
Rebecca smiled, as Wilson told her to squeeze his hands, “am I ever gonna meet Dr. House?”
“It’s...unlikely. He prefers not to meet with patients.”
“Is he a good man?”
“He’s... a good doctor.”
“Can you be one without the other? Don’t you have to care about people?”
“Caring’s a good motivator. He’s found something else.”
“He’s your friend, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he care about you?”
Wilson smiled, “yeah. He cares about me.”
She tilted her head, “does he say he cares about you?”
Wilson shook his head, still smiling, “never.”
She smiled a little as well, “it’s not what people say, it’s what they do?”
Wilson nodded, “yeah.”
“I can’t see... I can’t...see...”
She started to seize, and Wilson yelled for help, struggling to keep her from hurting herself without hurting *him*self.
House sighed, holding the icepack against the back of his friend’s head, where he’d hit it falling as the seizing patient flopped off the bed and on top of him.
Foreman, the new guy, looked angry and kind of disgusted by this, as he reported what he’d found in her home, “she’s not Wilson’s cousin.”
“What do you mean, of course she is.”
“She’s not Jewish!”
“Rachel Adler’s not Jewish.”
“She had ham at her apartment.”
“Dr. Foreman, a lot of Jews have non-Jewish relatives, and most of us don’t keep kosher. I can see getting through high school without learning a thing about Jews, but medical school…”
“Ok, maybe she’s Jewish, but she’s definitely not your cousin.”
“House-this guy-“
“You don’t even know her name! You called her Rachel; her name is Rebecca!”
“He’s concussed,” said House, shortly, “and you’re an idiot! You said you didn’t find anything!”
“Everything I found was-“
“You found ham.”
“So?”
“Where there’s ham there’s pork, where there’s pork there’s neurocysticercosis.”
Wilson sighed, as House’s team argued back and forth, and House finished the discussion with his signature statement, “I can prove it by treating it.”
“No, you can’t. I was just with her, she doesn’t want any more treatments, she doesn’t want any more experiments, she wants to go home and die.”
House sighed, walking out of the patient’s room, “no treatment.”
Foreman scowled, :maybe we can get a court order, override her wishes. Claim she doesn’t have the capacity to make this decision.
House shook his head, “but she does.”
Cameron stepped forwards, “but we could claim that the illness made her mentally incompetent.
“Pretty common result,” agreed Foreman, nodding.
House shook his head, “that didn’t happen here.”
Sighed, meeting his friend’s eyes, “he’s not gonna do it. She’s not just a file to him anymore. He respects her.”
Cameron looked appalled, “so because you respect her, you’re going to let her die?”
House turned away, “I solved the case, my work is done.”
Wilson followed him, feeling depressed.
“I think we can prove it’s a worm. It’s noninvasive, it’s safe. I’m not completely sure but…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, what’s the damn idea?”
“Have you ever seen a worm under an x-ray, a regular old no contrast 100-year-old technology x-ray? They light up like shotgun pellets. Just like on a contrast MRI.”
House stopped walking, turning to look at the blond.
House leaned back in the exam room chair, You said she was your cousin. Why would you lie?”
Wilson, “I thought you said I had a concussion.”
“I didn’t want to argue in front of the help.”
“It got you to take the case.”
House snorted, “you lied to a friend to save a stranger, you don’t think that’s screwed up?”
Wilson laughed, “you’ve never lied to me?
“I never lie.”
Wilson nodded, amused, “right.”
House picked up his labcoat, and Wilson’s cane, “ready?”
Wilson nodded, turning the mini TV off and handing it to House, as House handed him his cane.
“I never thanked you.”
“Never thanked me for what? Holding stuff for you?”
“During the infarction... you were the only one who actually respected my decision.”
“Oh... well, that... I guess... yeah...”
Wilson shook his head, “not I guess. Thank you.”
“Uh... you’re welcome.”
“Jimmy?” said House, waiting in line with him as Wilson waited for his prescription to be filled, Wilson rubbing the bruised back of his head and looking a little ill.
“Hmm?”
“I know it’s not what you wanted... but I think you’re gonna be okay.”
Wilson looked at him, and smiled, “yeah.”