FF: Too Many Second Chances
Title: Too Many Second Chances
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG13
Summary: “Not merely wrong, but unnecessary.”
Seven, 100-word drabbles. Spoilers through “One Day, One Room.”
House/Cuddy, Wilson
---
Even as he snuck into the dark office, he knew he was doing something wrong. Not merely wrong, but unnecessary. Wilson would write him the scripts if he asked for them. But asking would require admitting that the pain had returned. As long as no one knew, then maybe it wasn’t real.
It was completely illogical, he knew, but being willful and in denial were a powerful combination. They led him into Wilson’s office and back out with the prescription, surprisingly unnoticed for a six-foot-something cripple.
Leaving, his step was just a little easier with the prescription in his pocket.
---
They’d fought before, in those bitter days he’d been in the hospital and was refusing to even speak with anyone else, not Stacy or Cuddy or his mother. It hadn’t been so much fighting as angry accusations on House’s part, fueled by misplaced anger, frustration, and unimaginable pain.
Then, Wilson had said nothing, merely nodded and took the abuse, understood it all. This time, he refused to nod, refused to listen to the insults, refused to cave, knowing he was in the right.
House’s silence was far more fearsome in its anger than any words he could viciously spew forth.
---
He sat in his chair, and she sat in his lap. There were very few articles of clothing left between them, and only blinds between them and the rest of the hospital.
“This won’t fix anything, you know,” she whispered against his neck, breath cool against hot flesh.
“No,” he said, lazily running a hand up the silky expanse of her arm. “But it made us both feel better, didn’t it?”
She pulled away, reaching for her discarded blouse. “Now that you’re feeling better, do something about fixing things.”
He didn’t say anything as she left, just watched her go.
---
He rolled over, still groggy and nauseous, and saw the bottles still on the coffee table. It was dark outside, and only one lamp fought back the bleak winter gloom. As he levered himself upright, his hand brushed the drying puddle of cold vomit and bile. It took all his willpower to get onto the couch without retching again.
Rummaging through the debris on the sofa, he found his cell phone. With trembling fingers, he found the two buttons for speed dial, then tried to steady his breathing as the phone rang, once, twice.
“I’m going to take the deal.”
---
Given the option between overdosing and detoxing, next time House would gladly opt for the overdose. Detox left him nauseous, trembling and weak, with white-hot pain arcing through his entire body. Something deep behind his eyes throbbed a little every time he opened them, or the light shifted. He spent the morning lying still, eyes shut.
Every nerve ending was still on fire when he met with Wilson and Cuddy that afternoon, but the throbbing had muted to a low rumble. When she touched his back, it sent a jolt through his whole being, a quiet counterpoint to the pain.
---
Wilson stood and stared down at him a lingering moment, then turned away and followed Cuddy down the hall. He listened to the clang of metal doors as they both left him alone in the Spartan cell.
What she had done for him was perplexing. She always gave him too many second chances, bent too many rules, but he never expected her to go to the mattresses like that. He’d never done anything to deserve it from her.
She said he owed her, in time and clinic and donors. He wondered if donations of another kind could ever repay her.
---
He liked her best like this, even as he hated what she wanted from him, hated her reasoning and her scheming and her bribery. She wanted him to find humanity in clinic patients. It wasn’t that he failed to see the humanity, it was that humanity was so terribly disappointing.
There was nothing fascinating, nothing challenging, nothing brilliant in them. Voltaire made him believe in humanity, Miles Davis, Albert Einstein. They let him believe people were capable of something beyond the monotonous pedestrianism that wandered through the doors each day.
When she challenged him, she sparked. She made him believe.
---
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG13
Summary: “Not merely wrong, but unnecessary.”
Seven, 100-word drabbles. Spoilers through “One Day, One Room.”
House/Cuddy, Wilson
---
Even as he snuck into the dark office, he knew he was doing something wrong. Not merely wrong, but unnecessary. Wilson would write him the scripts if he asked for them. But asking would require admitting that the pain had returned. As long as no one knew, then maybe it wasn’t real.
It was completely illogical, he knew, but being willful and in denial were a powerful combination. They led him into Wilson’s office and back out with the prescription, surprisingly unnoticed for a six-foot-something cripple.
Leaving, his step was just a little easier with the prescription in his pocket.
---
They’d fought before, in those bitter days he’d been in the hospital and was refusing to even speak with anyone else, not Stacy or Cuddy or his mother. It hadn’t been so much fighting as angry accusations on House’s part, fueled by misplaced anger, frustration, and unimaginable pain.
Then, Wilson had said nothing, merely nodded and took the abuse, understood it all. This time, he refused to nod, refused to listen to the insults, refused to cave, knowing he was in the right.
House’s silence was far more fearsome in its anger than any words he could viciously spew forth.
---
He sat in his chair, and she sat in his lap. There were very few articles of clothing left between them, and only blinds between them and the rest of the hospital.
“This won’t fix anything, you know,” she whispered against his neck, breath cool against hot flesh.
“No,” he said, lazily running a hand up the silky expanse of her arm. “But it made us both feel better, didn’t it?”
She pulled away, reaching for her discarded blouse. “Now that you’re feeling better, do something about fixing things.”
He didn’t say anything as she left, just watched her go.
---
He rolled over, still groggy and nauseous, and saw the bottles still on the coffee table. It was dark outside, and only one lamp fought back the bleak winter gloom. As he levered himself upright, his hand brushed the drying puddle of cold vomit and bile. It took all his willpower to get onto the couch without retching again.
Rummaging through the debris on the sofa, he found his cell phone. With trembling fingers, he found the two buttons for speed dial, then tried to steady his breathing as the phone rang, once, twice.
“I’m going to take the deal.”
---
Given the option between overdosing and detoxing, next time House would gladly opt for the overdose. Detox left him nauseous, trembling and weak, with white-hot pain arcing through his entire body. Something deep behind his eyes throbbed a little every time he opened them, or the light shifted. He spent the morning lying still, eyes shut.
Every nerve ending was still on fire when he met with Wilson and Cuddy that afternoon, but the throbbing had muted to a low rumble. When she touched his back, it sent a jolt through his whole being, a quiet counterpoint to the pain.
---
Wilson stood and stared down at him a lingering moment, then turned away and followed Cuddy down the hall. He listened to the clang of metal doors as they both left him alone in the Spartan cell.
What she had done for him was perplexing. She always gave him too many second chances, bent too many rules, but he never expected her to go to the mattresses like that. He’d never done anything to deserve it from her.
She said he owed her, in time and clinic and donors. He wondered if donations of another kind could ever repay her.
---
He liked her best like this, even as he hated what she wanted from him, hated her reasoning and her scheming and her bribery. She wanted him to find humanity in clinic patients. It wasn’t that he failed to see the humanity, it was that humanity was so terribly disappointing.
There was nothing fascinating, nothing challenging, nothing brilliant in them. Voltaire made him believe in humanity, Miles Davis, Albert Einstein. They let him believe people were capable of something beyond the monotonous pedestrianism that wandered through the doors each day.
When she challenged him, she sparked. She made him believe.
---