H/W fic: "Hit the Cripple" (3/3 + epilogue)
Author: Fiorediloto
Part: 3/3 + Epilogue
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season two (so practically none)
Disclaimers: Huh... don't own them but the words are all mine, mine, mine.
Feedback: Would you really do this for me? *sparkling eyes*
Thanks: To nakannalee for beta-ing, correcting, editing, anything else. This editing nearly killed both of us, I'm sure. All the errors you could find are mine.
Old episodes. Did you miss anything?
Prologue and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
[3] Heart (∞ points)
There was a ringing phone. The sound wasn’t pleasant per se, and it wouldn’t be either with the Beethoven’s Ninth or Vivaldi’s Spring, but in that moment it was joining a sleepless night and a not-completely-past leg cramp. James Wilson turned in the cocoon of his sheets, muttering for Rachel to answer.
Not only did the phone keeping ringing, but Rachel gave out a sound that sounded very little like a feminine grunt.
«… House?» mumbled Wilson, opening an eye. The other man snorted, still sleeping, and curled up on his side.
Wilson reached the phone, which in the meantime had stopped ringing, and then tenaciously started again. It was kilometres far away from him, on the other nightstand.
To grab it, he should have turned around the bed, but this would mean taking off the warm, warm sheets from his body, putting his feet on the frigid floor, facing the hostile world outside of his cocoon and going to answer a call which had oh-so-many odds to ruin his day.
The phone’s shrill ring cut through Wilson’s still-groggy daze.
At least, no way he was going to get up.
He stretched out towards the phone, not totally aware that House was an obstacle in the middle that was firmer than it looked like, and House grunted: «Back off, fuck you», and then, not much more coherently, «Make it stop».
Wilson's morning grogginess impeded a reply, and the fact that he’d given up on his morning stretching exercises when he was twenty-four frustrated his attempts to grab the receiver.
When he was about to give up, House snatched up the phone and handed it to him.
«… Wilson,» he mumbled. He closed his eyes. «Yes… fine. Hold on.»
He leaned the receiver against House’s ear, without the other man making any movement to take it.
«… fine,» he murmured, with a lower and rougher voice than usually. «Really?... We didn’t hear you, we were having sex. Wilson is a tough lover, my ass still…» Brief pause. « Say hi to Francine for me,» he added, before nodding Wilson to take back the receiver.
Wilson sighed. «Stacy?»
Her voice came over the receiver. «Is he fine, James?»
«Yes,» he lied. «You?»
«Fine. Fine.»
At least they all agreed to say they were fine while still thinking the contrary. That’s the power of friendship, he thought, reaching out to put down the receiver.
«Do you need to rub it between my ass like that?» grunted House.
«Why don’t you thank me? It’s your phone, it’s your apartment, it’s…»
«… my ass.»
Wilson let himself fall on his side, already tired. The arguments with House in the early morning were at the very bottom of his To-Absolutely-Do-Before-Dying list. And anyway, what time was it?
Six o’ clock.
He grabbed the Vicodin bottle from where he had left it and let fall two pills, then a third one, into his palm. House turned, hearing the noise, stretched his hand and immediately swallowed them. Then he half-closed his eyes, leaning against the headboard.
«Maybe… we might want to talk about that.»
«You’re asking if I want?»
«Is it a ‘no’?»
«Really it’s a ‘why don’t you go and make me breakfast?’.»
«’Cause I wanna sleep and ‘cause that dose is enough for you to run the 100 metres. Make it by yourself,» muttered Wilson, turning on his side and finally going back to sleep.
«You’re a tease» he heard House reply, with an offended voice, before he closed his eyes.
Around eight, Wilson awoke definitively. The other half of the bed was empty, and he nearly felt surprised - he still had the vague but tangible feeling of another body embracing his own, a light hand resting on his stomach, a slow and long caress on his abdomen. He kept that feeling tightly in his mind while he entered the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
The James Wilson staring back at him from the mirror looked tired, but he also had a vague, unmotivated half smile on his lips.
«There’s nothing to smile at all,» he reproached him, knitting his eyebrows as Rachel momentarily crossed his mind.
After few minutes House opened wide the door, walking triumphantly despite the limp. «Cuddy called while you were sleeping,» he announced.
Wilson raised his eyes, still brushing his teeth.
«Don’t tell me, I know you can’t wait to know what she said.»
Wilson rinsed his mouth and spit in the sink. «Yes, I’ll go and pick your patient’s file,» he finally replied.
«How can you know that?»
«I knew Cuddy would send you a patient’s file. I'd do the same thing.» He passed him by, moving toward the living room, where he had left his bag with the clean clothes.
«And I mentioned it yesterday, but you were in your
I-searched-for-my-pills-everywhere-exhausting-myself-like-an-idiot-so-I’ll-take-it-out-on-Wilson crisis.» Actually, he hadn’t talked to Cuddy yet, but when the problem was about House the two of them were able to develop a strange telepathy.
House grabbed Wilson’s left arm and lifted it to look at the bruise he’d left on his wrist. It was less evident than it looked the evening before, but still visible.
Wilson watched House calmly. «It’s nothing.»
«Does it hurt?»
«Are you worried about another human being?»
«Coaxing. To avoid you to sue me.»
«I don’t have enough money to sue you. I spend it all to buy you lunch.»
«And for Sally’s alimony.»
«Sarah.»
«Whatever.»
«Can I have my arm back, now?»
«Just a moment.» House let his fingers slide on the wrist, squeezing it, and did a step to fill the distance between him and Wilson - they came so close they breathed each other’s air, so close that a kiss would’ve been just a little step more. Wilson felt the blood burning his face.
«Tachycardia,» decided House, letting him go. «Interesting symptom.»
And Wilson remained still like the last idiot on the earth in front of the bathroom’s door, while House came back limping to the kitchen, more cheerfully then he had been in the last month.
What was that?
Wilson shook his head, already resigned to the inexplicability of the mysteries of cosmos. His mind couldn’t solve questions like the infinity of universe, the existence of God, Gregory House’s mental processes and how that gravy squirt could evade your napkin and splash right on your new 200-dollars trousers. His mind was relatively simple. Deductive, but simple. Capable of moments of cleverness, unusual connections, incredible shows of lateral thinking. But there were things his mind couldn’t catch, and he hadn’t any intention to break his head running into a cement wall.
He came back to the bedroom, taking out the Vicodin from its cache - between the mattress and the nightstand - and locked in the bathroom for the usual time necessary to him to feel okay.
House appeared again while he was knotting his tie. He had still on the dark grey shirt he had slept with; meanwhile, Wilson’s shirt was cream white which reminded him of when House had accurately divided the colours into virile and not virile categories. Wilson looked at him in the mirror out of the corner of his eye, and couldn’t help but think of him as a big hornet fluttering and buzzing around a cream puff.
«Yeah?» he asked, turning the two laps of the tie between his fingers.
«Why not blue?»
«What?»
«Why not blue? It’s Tuesday.»
«And so?»
«You always dress a blue tie on Tuesday. You used to dress it on Thursday, but that nurse with her double-Ds told you that blue wasn’t flattering. Since then, you dress it only on Tuesday, which is when she has off.»
Wilson remained astonished for a moment, then he resumed knotting his red tie. «Just wanted a change,» he answered, perfectly aware that House wouldn’t believe him.
«Yeah, of course. And the blue tie?»
«Which blue tie?»
«That one.» He made a pause. «What was that? Second anniversary? Bar Mitzvah?»
«Bar Mitzvah is celebrated at thirteen.»
«And I bet you already had three girlfriends too, you womanizer, you,» replied House, giving him a little punch on his shoulder.
Wilson sighed, loosing nervously the knot that - first time in years and years of morning ties - he hadn’t been able to make at the first attempt. There was no hoping that would go unnoticed.
«Yes, that one Rachel gave me. I took my clothes as fast as I could to avoid you to choke with your tongue while I was out.»
«I wonder how many ties a wife needs to give her husband before you can declare the marriage gone.»
«And I wonder how many sacrifices a guy needs to make for his friend before you can give him the right to some privacy!» replied Wilson, violently. He took off the tie, whipping the air with the red fabric in the air, and left the bathroom. He put the tie in his bag, cursing under his breath against every ungrateful friend on the earth.
«You should give up,» said House, leaning to the doorframe. «After all, anger is the second stage. You’re up-to-date with the work.»
«And you should stop meddling in my life, because you have no rights to do this.»
«You didn’t seem to think so, yesterday.»
Wilson closed his mouth, taken by surprise. «I didn’t… yesterday I…»
«Yesterday you…?»
Wilson lowered his eyes, closing the bag with a violent draw which left the zipper in his hand. He threw it behind him, progressively more nervous. «Yesterday nothing happened. I asked you if you wanted to talk about that and you said no. All right. Neither I do. We’re okay.»
«Technically I didn’t say no, I said “make me breakfast”.»
«Because you wanted to change the topic. And I said it’s okay, I don’t wanna talk about it.»
House looked away. «That’s a problem for you.»
«What? You not being able to mind your own business?»
House’s eyes came back to gaze him, deeply.
«… I don’t wanna talk about it, House.» Wilson grabbed his coat from the clothing rack, dressed it and thrust his hands in the pockets, searching for the Volvo’s keys. He rummaged for a while, getting more and more nervous, until a metallic tinkle caught his attention.
«These?» asked House, with the most innocent expression ever.
«Give me.»
«I don’t think so.»
«What’s your game?»
House raised his eyes, pretending to think.
«I’d say… Hit the Cripple.»
«Do you want me to hit you?» replied Wilson, spreading his arms. «What? Isn’t your leg enough to satisfy your masochism?»
«It’s just the second round. The first one has been Give the Cripple a hand-job, and you passed it brilliantly.»
Wilson shook his head, mentally denying that all of this was really happening to him. He knew that House would mock him forever for that thing, he knew it as he knew that the sun was going to rise tomorrow. But he still had hoped, prayed, implored it wouldn’t happen.
He stepped onward with his stretched hand, to rip off the keys. «Give me them and stop it, House. I don’t have time to argue.»
House didn’t move. He just withdrew his arm, with a provocative expression.
«How long has it been since you last hit someone, Jimmy? Ten years?»
«I’m not going to hit you, idiot!»
«Why? Bet I’ll win.»
«Give me the keys.»
«No.»
Wilson lifted his arms in a surrender. «Ok. Keep them. I’m gonna call a taxi.»
«Already giving up?»
Wilson didn’t raise his eyes from the cell. «Do you know what your problem is, House? You never understand when you pass the line,» he said, voice not completely firm. «Now you think that getting a punch in your face would show you are equal to everyone else, you lost nothing, what happened didn’t change you. But you know what? It’s not true, you want to be special, you want to be different, and you come and ask me to punch you ‘cause you perfectly know I won’t do that. So you can tell yourself that it’s ‘cause of your leg and strengthen your self-pity. Hello? Yeah, can you send me a taxi at 221B…» He closed the cell and raised his eyes again. «Well, do you want to know? It’s not ‘cause of your leg. And now find someone else to annoy, ‘cause it’s enough for me.»
«Where are you going?» asked House, to his back.
Wilson didn’t care to turn back while he answered: «Doing two clinic hours, taking your damned patient file, doing your shopping and asking myself why the hell I’m still here talking to you».
House breathed in. «Wilson?»
«… what?»
«Since you’re going, buy me a lollipop too.»
Half an hour later, while passing the hospital entrance, Wilson was already wondering if he hadn’t gone too far. House was provocative by nature. Since Wilson had known him, he had never acted differently, and Wilson had often been pleased to be the only person in the world - unless, maybe, Stacy - used to House’s behaviour.
Instead he had lost control.
Unlike most people, when Wilson lost control, he didn't act very different from his usual behaviour. He didn’t raise his voice too much, he didn’t gesture, he didn’t try to vent his rage against the objects. He didn’t tell things he didn’t think. But when the anger went away, he couldn’t help but feel guilt.
For this reason, even though he was sure he had been right in telling Rachel “you can’t expect me to abandon my best friend when he barely stands on his feet”, actually he kept repeating that was all his fault - that he had neglected her, and not only that time; that House was House, but Rachel was his wife.
So, even though he had told House only the truth they both knew, he now ardently wished he hadn’t.
That clinic thing, moreover, was a lie. After the mirror’s break he had asked Cuddy a week of anticipated vacation, in order to stay a little more with Rachel. Then, after closing the call, he had found Rachel’s message in the voicemail.
He still didn’t know why he’d lied to House. Maybe his nerves were going too, like Stacy’s.
«Wilson? What do you do here? Aren’t you off?»
The oncologist rubbed a hand on his forehead, nodding and, at the same time, pushing his glance away from the always inviting neckline of his hospital administrator. «I’ve come to take that patient file.»
«Which file?» she asked, turning toward the receptionist. «Cindy, who’s in the clinic this morning?»
«Just a moment,» said the woman.
«‘Which file’? Cuddy, House’s one.»
«House’s file? Why does he need it? Does he want to bring a suit against us?»
«It’s Dr. Davidson, Dr. Cuddy.»
«Okay, thank you.»
«No, not House’s file. The file for him. That one… of the patient you can’t find what’s wrong with. That one to keep him busy, Cuddy.»
Lisa Cuddy raised her eyes on him, confused. «What are you talking about?»
«You called an hour ago to his place and told him you had a case for him.»
«Wilson, I just got here a half an hour ago.»
Confusion, then astonishment, then realization flickered across Wilson’s face in such a familiar sequence that cuddy didn’t need any other explanations. House had lied to get what he wanted. Again.
«Stacy's with him, isn't she?» She read the answer on Wilson’s face. «Go, I’ll try to call him.»
«I don’t have my car!»
«Take mine. The keys in my bag, on the couch in my room.» She grabbed the receptionist’s phone, turning it toward herself and nearly pulling it from its wire, while Wilson ran away with a frozen expression.
House had cheated, cheated, cheated him once again - and he had let him do it, obviously, as like he didn’t know - as like he didn’t know - that House did everything for a purpose, and a precise one. He had thought House just wanted to mock him after the night… because that thing was draining his judgment capability.
Fortunately the Volvo was still parked in front of the apartment, but there wasn’t anybody inside the house.
Wilson checked every room, the kitchen, the bedroom, he checked even inside the shower. He yelled that if that was a joke it wasn’t funny at all, but the silence which answered him seemed planned as well to mock him. When the phone rang, he ran and answered, but it was Cuddy.
House had left without his pager nor his cell. If there was a place where he could expect to find House it was a pharmacy, searching for his precious Vicodin, but he hadn’t any prescription for that.
At Stacy’s mother’s? Francine lived at the opposite side of the city, he would take the car. Or maybe call a taxi. That brought him back to the start point.
The only thing Wilson knew for sure was that House wouldn't last more than a couple hours without painkillers. Wilson knew what House was like detoxing all too well. At least House would be relatively safe in his apartment; but out in public there was no telling how much damage House could do to others and to himself.
He took a post-it, quickly wrote some words and attached it on the piano’s lid. House surely would see it there. Then he left again.
He wasn’t at the hospital, nor in his favourite bar, nor at Stacy’s mother’s - Wilson asked her not to inform her daughter, otherwise it would be a mess. He hadn’t been in any of the pharmacies of the zone, nor at the newsstand, nor at the library, nor nowhere, but a man in his condition couldn’t go unnoticed, shit, someone should have seen him!
Around midday Wilson entered House’s place with a desolate expression. His post-it was still on the piano, and no signs of House passing there.
He let himself fall on the couch, exhausted. The worry had become a continuous prickle, a dull and tangible pain placed between his heart and his stomach. It became a stab when he let himself make any conjecture.
He moved a hand through his hair and in that moment his cell vibrated and rang in his pocket. He took it out hopefully, but found himself disappointed once again.
Funny. After waiting for days for Rachel answering his calls, now her name flashing on the screen had no effect on him.
Sorry.
He let fall the cell on the couch, covering it with a pillow to ignore its furious ring.
Without House, his apartment had an unbearably bare aspect, and Wilson doubted he could stand it anymore. He took his cell, which had shut up, put it in his pocket and rummaged searching for his house’s keys.
After ten minutes of searching all around the apartment - nevertheless he was sure, sure he had left them in the coat - Wilson froze, the fabric pulled out of his pockets like two funny balloons.
The keys. House. The keys and House.
He ran away.
He looked like one with no troubles in his life. Leaning comfortably on Wilson’s couch, with a leg spread on the opposite armrest and the other foot laying on the floor, one of Wilson’s napkins put inside the border of his shirt, one of Wilson’s plates resting on his chest with a hamburger on it, supposedly ordered at the nearby Mc Donald’s. Wilson’s television on some second-rate teenager series - worried faces of girl number one and boy number two facing dramatically each other.
A new Vicodin bottle resting on the floor, near to his head.
The way House pretended not to notice him, as he had every right to be there, made Wilson understood that everything had been planned for a more complicated reason than a pills’ bottle - for a reason that House, ignoring him, was practically shoving in his face.
«Four hours we’re searching for you, and you were at my place watching TV?»
«Can we talk during the commercial?»
Wilson went and switched off the TV, leaning his fists on his hips.
«Hey! I was watching that!»
«What did you do?»
House snorted, leaning the plate on the floor - and taking the chance to put the Vicodin in his pocket. «I’ve called a taxi, gone out, did some useless shopping, then come back here to wait for you. Am not I a good little wife?»
«You scared the hell out of us, we didn’t know what to do. We searched for you everywhere.»
«’Cause you’re ignorant. There’s an Edgar Allan Poe’s story about putting a letter in an evident pla-»
«Stop playing, House!»
James Wilson shouting was an event rare enough to make even Gregory House close his mouth. At least for a moment.
For the strange connection they shared, Wilson felt the change with prompt precision. House closed his mouth, lowered his eyes, granted himself a light, interior sigh and pulled the napkin out of his neckline. Then he put down the other leg and straighten himself up on the couch. He raised his eyes. «Did you worry?»
«I’ve never seen Cuddy so worried.»
House looked at him, still waiting.
Wilson let himself fall next to him, elbows on his knees and hands between his hair. «I didn’t know what to do,» he murmured, gazing the floor. He closed his eyes. «I don’t know what to do,» he added, in a whisper.
He felt House’s jaw against his shoulder, and his so light warmth was something he could stand, yes, he could definitely stand. He felt House taking his left hand between his grasp, and he let him do because this too - the way House’s bony flesh rubbed against his - this too was bearable.
What he couldn’t manage to bear (because there wasn’t a bed, because there wasn’t the darkness, because there wasn’t a damn bed in the full darkness of the night) was the way House’s fingers ran across his bruise around the wrist once again, and stopped on the bluish line of the vein.
He tried to withdraw his hand, but House didn’t allow him. «Wilson. Look at me.»
«No.»
House gripped his face with his free hand, forcing it. «I said ‘look at me’, Wilson.»
The oncologist raised his eyes. He half-opened his lips, maybe attempting to say something, maybe just for an unconscious gesture, but, anything it was, it ended lost in the collision with the more aggressive and thinner House’s lips. Anything it was, Wilson forgot it when House leaned a firm hand on the back of his neck, and every escape attempt appeared vain in Wilson’s mind before in a motion.
When House’s tongue stroked his lower line of teeth, Wilson felt the shreds of his will crumbling and flying away as feathers in the wind. He felt that there was nothing to do, nothing anymore.
«Okay,» he whispered, catching his breath. «Okay.»
«Okay?» repeated House, on his cheek.
«Let me… let me take off the coat.»
House’s hands slid on his shoulders, between the coat and the shirt, undressing him from the useless layer which flew on the opposite armrest.
«How many of them did you take?» muttered Wilson, while they hardly disentangled between the embarrassment and the disordered entanglement of their limbs.
«What I needed. We can go for a while.»
«House…» Wilson started, letting a hand pass through his hair.
«Don’t you ever close that mouth?»
(Stacy found them asleep. Curled together, they were barely covered by their disordered clothes, shirts pushed off of shoulders and pants loosened from waists.
Nothing less than this could have made Wilson lose his usual thoroughness - the half-open door he’d forgotten was really a 16-year-old error. She inhaled and exhaled quickly and nervously, only marginally aware that the crumpled post-it slid from her fist and reached the floor with a weak thud.
When she left, she shut the door behind her without making noise.)
*Please, stop playing. J.*
[0+] Prize
Five years later
«I… I love you so get out?» repeated Wilson, with a low voice. «What is that? Do you wanna send me away too?»
«I’m not sending you away. I told you to get out.»
«Explain to me the difference.»
House squeezed his hands on the balcony ledge, rubbing the knuckles with his fingers. «I need to think.»
«I don’t see your iPod or your Game Boy.»
«Wilson.»
«House.»
The wind whistled between them, intrusive.
«… okay,» murmured the younger man, raising his hands. He turned back, stepping toward the door, really purposeful to leave, this time.
«What would you rather have?» continued House, without moving. «Me admitting your brilliant theory about me being miserable is right, or me proving it’s all bullshit?»
Wilson replied slowly, measuring his words. «You’d rather hammer a nail in your hand than admit I’m right.»
«… which brings us back to the question: what would you rather have?»
«Well, lucky for me I'm not the one who has to decide.»
«Hey, I say that to the patients. I thought you cared about me much more than I cared about them.»
Wilson sighed, rubbing the thumb against the handle he hadn’t left yet. «Okay, then, do it. Prove me wrong. Show me that even an insane addict like you has some links with the real world.» Pause. «Although I’m doubtful.»
Then the silence stagnated so deeply for a minute or two that Wilson had to turn back to see what House was doing. He found him still where he had left him, intently gazing him.
«… tonight at my place?»
A rain drop wet his lips in the same moment Wilson opened them to answer.
Part: 3/3 + Epilogue
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season two (so practically none)
Disclaimers: Huh... don't own them but the words are all mine, mine, mine.
Feedback: Would you really do this for me? *sparkling eyes*
Thanks: To nakannalee for beta-ing, correcting, editing, anything else. This editing nearly killed both of us, I'm sure. All the errors you could find are mine.
Old episodes. Did you miss anything?
Prologue and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
[3] Heart (∞ points)
There was a ringing phone. The sound wasn’t pleasant per se, and it wouldn’t be either with the Beethoven’s Ninth or Vivaldi’s Spring, but in that moment it was joining a sleepless night and a not-completely-past leg cramp. James Wilson turned in the cocoon of his sheets, muttering for Rachel to answer.
Not only did the phone keeping ringing, but Rachel gave out a sound that sounded very little like a feminine grunt.
«… House?» mumbled Wilson, opening an eye. The other man snorted, still sleeping, and curled up on his side.
Wilson reached the phone, which in the meantime had stopped ringing, and then tenaciously started again. It was kilometres far away from him, on the other nightstand.
To grab it, he should have turned around the bed, but this would mean taking off the warm, warm sheets from his body, putting his feet on the frigid floor, facing the hostile world outside of his cocoon and going to answer a call which had oh-so-many odds to ruin his day.
The phone’s shrill ring cut through Wilson’s still-groggy daze.
At least, no way he was going to get up.
He stretched out towards the phone, not totally aware that House was an obstacle in the middle that was firmer than it looked like, and House grunted: «Back off, fuck you», and then, not much more coherently, «Make it stop».
Wilson's morning grogginess impeded a reply, and the fact that he’d given up on his morning stretching exercises when he was twenty-four frustrated his attempts to grab the receiver.
When he was about to give up, House snatched up the phone and handed it to him.
«… Wilson,» he mumbled. He closed his eyes. «Yes… fine. Hold on.»
He leaned the receiver against House’s ear, without the other man making any movement to take it.
«… fine,» he murmured, with a lower and rougher voice than usually. «Really?... We didn’t hear you, we were having sex. Wilson is a tough lover, my ass still…» Brief pause. « Say hi to Francine for me,» he added, before nodding Wilson to take back the receiver.
Wilson sighed. «Stacy?»
Her voice came over the receiver. «Is he fine, James?»
«Yes,» he lied. «You?»
«Fine. Fine.»
At least they all agreed to say they were fine while still thinking the contrary. That’s the power of friendship, he thought, reaching out to put down the receiver.
«Do you need to rub it between my ass like that?» grunted House.
«Why don’t you thank me? It’s your phone, it’s your apartment, it’s…»
«… my ass.»
Wilson let himself fall on his side, already tired. The arguments with House in the early morning were at the very bottom of his To-Absolutely-Do-Before-Dying list. And anyway, what time was it?
Six o’ clock.
He grabbed the Vicodin bottle from where he had left it and let fall two pills, then a third one, into his palm. House turned, hearing the noise, stretched his hand and immediately swallowed them. Then he half-closed his eyes, leaning against the headboard.
«Maybe… we might want to talk about that.»
«You’re asking if I want?»
«Is it a ‘no’?»
«Really it’s a ‘why don’t you go and make me breakfast?’.»
«’Cause I wanna sleep and ‘cause that dose is enough for you to run the 100 metres. Make it by yourself,» muttered Wilson, turning on his side and finally going back to sleep.
«You’re a tease» he heard House reply, with an offended voice, before he closed his eyes.
Around eight, Wilson awoke definitively. The other half of the bed was empty, and he nearly felt surprised - he still had the vague but tangible feeling of another body embracing his own, a light hand resting on his stomach, a slow and long caress on his abdomen. He kept that feeling tightly in his mind while he entered the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
The James Wilson staring back at him from the mirror looked tired, but he also had a vague, unmotivated half smile on his lips.
«There’s nothing to smile at all,» he reproached him, knitting his eyebrows as Rachel momentarily crossed his mind.
After few minutes House opened wide the door, walking triumphantly despite the limp. «Cuddy called while you were sleeping,» he announced.
Wilson raised his eyes, still brushing his teeth.
«Don’t tell me, I know you can’t wait to know what she said.»
Wilson rinsed his mouth and spit in the sink. «Yes, I’ll go and pick your patient’s file,» he finally replied.
«How can you know that?»
«I knew Cuddy would send you a patient’s file. I'd do the same thing.» He passed him by, moving toward the living room, where he had left his bag with the clean clothes.
«And I mentioned it yesterday, but you were in your
I-searched-for-my-pills-everywhere-exhausting-myself-like-an-idiot-so-I’ll-take-it-out-on-Wilson crisis.» Actually, he hadn’t talked to Cuddy yet, but when the problem was about House the two of them were able to develop a strange telepathy.
House grabbed Wilson’s left arm and lifted it to look at the bruise he’d left on his wrist. It was less evident than it looked the evening before, but still visible.
Wilson watched House calmly. «It’s nothing.»
«Does it hurt?»
«Are you worried about another human being?»
«Coaxing. To avoid you to sue me.»
«I don’t have enough money to sue you. I spend it all to buy you lunch.»
«And for Sally’s alimony.»
«Sarah.»
«Whatever.»
«Can I have my arm back, now?»
«Just a moment.» House let his fingers slide on the wrist, squeezing it, and did a step to fill the distance between him and Wilson - they came so close they breathed each other’s air, so close that a kiss would’ve been just a little step more. Wilson felt the blood burning his face.
«Tachycardia,» decided House, letting him go. «Interesting symptom.»
And Wilson remained still like the last idiot on the earth in front of the bathroom’s door, while House came back limping to the kitchen, more cheerfully then he had been in the last month.
What was that?
Wilson shook his head, already resigned to the inexplicability of the mysteries of cosmos. His mind couldn’t solve questions like the infinity of universe, the existence of God, Gregory House’s mental processes and how that gravy squirt could evade your napkin and splash right on your new 200-dollars trousers. His mind was relatively simple. Deductive, but simple. Capable of moments of cleverness, unusual connections, incredible shows of lateral thinking. But there were things his mind couldn’t catch, and he hadn’t any intention to break his head running into a cement wall.
He came back to the bedroom, taking out the Vicodin from its cache - between the mattress and the nightstand - and locked in the bathroom for the usual time necessary to him to feel okay.
House appeared again while he was knotting his tie. He had still on the dark grey shirt he had slept with; meanwhile, Wilson’s shirt was cream white which reminded him of when House had accurately divided the colours into virile and not virile categories. Wilson looked at him in the mirror out of the corner of his eye, and couldn’t help but think of him as a big hornet fluttering and buzzing around a cream puff.
«Yeah?» he asked, turning the two laps of the tie between his fingers.
«Why not blue?»
«What?»
«Why not blue? It’s Tuesday.»
«And so?»
«You always dress a blue tie on Tuesday. You used to dress it on Thursday, but that nurse with her double-Ds told you that blue wasn’t flattering. Since then, you dress it only on Tuesday, which is when she has off.»
Wilson remained astonished for a moment, then he resumed knotting his red tie. «Just wanted a change,» he answered, perfectly aware that House wouldn’t believe him.
«Yeah, of course. And the blue tie?»
«Which blue tie?»
«That one.» He made a pause. «What was that? Second anniversary? Bar Mitzvah?»
«Bar Mitzvah is celebrated at thirteen.»
«And I bet you already had three girlfriends too, you womanizer, you,» replied House, giving him a little punch on his shoulder.
Wilson sighed, loosing nervously the knot that - first time in years and years of morning ties - he hadn’t been able to make at the first attempt. There was no hoping that would go unnoticed.
«Yes, that one Rachel gave me. I took my clothes as fast as I could to avoid you to choke with your tongue while I was out.»
«I wonder how many ties a wife needs to give her husband before you can declare the marriage gone.»
«And I wonder how many sacrifices a guy needs to make for his friend before you can give him the right to some privacy!» replied Wilson, violently. He took off the tie, whipping the air with the red fabric in the air, and left the bathroom. He put the tie in his bag, cursing under his breath against every ungrateful friend on the earth.
«You should give up,» said House, leaning to the doorframe. «After all, anger is the second stage. You’re up-to-date with the work.»
«And you should stop meddling in my life, because you have no rights to do this.»
«You didn’t seem to think so, yesterday.»
Wilson closed his mouth, taken by surprise. «I didn’t… yesterday I…»
«Yesterday you…?»
Wilson lowered his eyes, closing the bag with a violent draw which left the zipper in his hand. He threw it behind him, progressively more nervous. «Yesterday nothing happened. I asked you if you wanted to talk about that and you said no. All right. Neither I do. We’re okay.»
«Technically I didn’t say no, I said “make me breakfast”.»
«Because you wanted to change the topic. And I said it’s okay, I don’t wanna talk about it.»
House looked away. «That’s a problem for you.»
«What? You not being able to mind your own business?»
House’s eyes came back to gaze him, deeply.
«… I don’t wanna talk about it, House.» Wilson grabbed his coat from the clothing rack, dressed it and thrust his hands in the pockets, searching for the Volvo’s keys. He rummaged for a while, getting more and more nervous, until a metallic tinkle caught his attention.
«These?» asked House, with the most innocent expression ever.
«Give me.»
«I don’t think so.»
«What’s your game?»
House raised his eyes, pretending to think.
«I’d say… Hit the Cripple.»
«Do you want me to hit you?» replied Wilson, spreading his arms. «What? Isn’t your leg enough to satisfy your masochism?»
«It’s just the second round. The first one has been Give the Cripple a hand-job, and you passed it brilliantly.»
Wilson shook his head, mentally denying that all of this was really happening to him. He knew that House would mock him forever for that thing, he knew it as he knew that the sun was going to rise tomorrow. But he still had hoped, prayed, implored it wouldn’t happen.
He stepped onward with his stretched hand, to rip off the keys. «Give me them and stop it, House. I don’t have time to argue.»
House didn’t move. He just withdrew his arm, with a provocative expression.
«How long has it been since you last hit someone, Jimmy? Ten years?»
«I’m not going to hit you, idiot!»
«Why? Bet I’ll win.»
«Give me the keys.»
«No.»
Wilson lifted his arms in a surrender. «Ok. Keep them. I’m gonna call a taxi.»
«Already giving up?»
Wilson didn’t raise his eyes from the cell. «Do you know what your problem is, House? You never understand when you pass the line,» he said, voice not completely firm. «Now you think that getting a punch in your face would show you are equal to everyone else, you lost nothing, what happened didn’t change you. But you know what? It’s not true, you want to be special, you want to be different, and you come and ask me to punch you ‘cause you perfectly know I won’t do that. So you can tell yourself that it’s ‘cause of your leg and strengthen your self-pity. Hello? Yeah, can you send me a taxi at 221B…» He closed the cell and raised his eyes again. «Well, do you want to know? It’s not ‘cause of your leg. And now find someone else to annoy, ‘cause it’s enough for me.»
«Where are you going?» asked House, to his back.
Wilson didn’t care to turn back while he answered: «Doing two clinic hours, taking your damned patient file, doing your shopping and asking myself why the hell I’m still here talking to you».
House breathed in. «Wilson?»
«… what?»
«Since you’re going, buy me a lollipop too.»
Half an hour later, while passing the hospital entrance, Wilson was already wondering if he hadn’t gone too far. House was provocative by nature. Since Wilson had known him, he had never acted differently, and Wilson had often been pleased to be the only person in the world - unless, maybe, Stacy - used to House’s behaviour.
Instead he had lost control.
Unlike most people, when Wilson lost control, he didn't act very different from his usual behaviour. He didn’t raise his voice too much, he didn’t gesture, he didn’t try to vent his rage against the objects. He didn’t tell things he didn’t think. But when the anger went away, he couldn’t help but feel guilt.
For this reason, even though he was sure he had been right in telling Rachel “you can’t expect me to abandon my best friend when he barely stands on his feet”, actually he kept repeating that was all his fault - that he had neglected her, and not only that time; that House was House, but Rachel was his wife.
So, even though he had told House only the truth they both knew, he now ardently wished he hadn’t.
That clinic thing, moreover, was a lie. After the mirror’s break he had asked Cuddy a week of anticipated vacation, in order to stay a little more with Rachel. Then, after closing the call, he had found Rachel’s message in the voicemail.
He still didn’t know why he’d lied to House. Maybe his nerves were going too, like Stacy’s.
«Wilson? What do you do here? Aren’t you off?»
The oncologist rubbed a hand on his forehead, nodding and, at the same time, pushing his glance away from the always inviting neckline of his hospital administrator. «I’ve come to take that patient file.»
«Which file?» she asked, turning toward the receptionist. «Cindy, who’s in the clinic this morning?»
«Just a moment,» said the woman.
«‘Which file’? Cuddy, House’s one.»
«House’s file? Why does he need it? Does he want to bring a suit against us?»
«It’s Dr. Davidson, Dr. Cuddy.»
«Okay, thank you.»
«No, not House’s file. The file for him. That one… of the patient you can’t find what’s wrong with. That one to keep him busy, Cuddy.»
Lisa Cuddy raised her eyes on him, confused. «What are you talking about?»
«You called an hour ago to his place and told him you had a case for him.»
«Wilson, I just got here a half an hour ago.»
Confusion, then astonishment, then realization flickered across Wilson’s face in such a familiar sequence that cuddy didn’t need any other explanations. House had lied to get what he wanted. Again.
«Stacy's with him, isn't she?» She read the answer on Wilson’s face. «Go, I’ll try to call him.»
«I don’t have my car!»
«Take mine. The keys in my bag, on the couch in my room.» She grabbed the receptionist’s phone, turning it toward herself and nearly pulling it from its wire, while Wilson ran away with a frozen expression.
House had cheated, cheated, cheated him once again - and he had let him do it, obviously, as like he didn’t know - as like he didn’t know - that House did everything for a purpose, and a precise one. He had thought House just wanted to mock him after the night… because that thing was draining his judgment capability.
Fortunately the Volvo was still parked in front of the apartment, but there wasn’t anybody inside the house.
Wilson checked every room, the kitchen, the bedroom, he checked even inside the shower. He yelled that if that was a joke it wasn’t funny at all, but the silence which answered him seemed planned as well to mock him. When the phone rang, he ran and answered, but it was Cuddy.
House had left without his pager nor his cell. If there was a place where he could expect to find House it was a pharmacy, searching for his precious Vicodin, but he hadn’t any prescription for that.
At Stacy’s mother’s? Francine lived at the opposite side of the city, he would take the car. Or maybe call a taxi. That brought him back to the start point.
The only thing Wilson knew for sure was that House wouldn't last more than a couple hours without painkillers. Wilson knew what House was like detoxing all too well. At least House would be relatively safe in his apartment; but out in public there was no telling how much damage House could do to others and to himself.
He took a post-it, quickly wrote some words and attached it on the piano’s lid. House surely would see it there. Then he left again.
He wasn’t at the hospital, nor in his favourite bar, nor at Stacy’s mother’s - Wilson asked her not to inform her daughter, otherwise it would be a mess. He hadn’t been in any of the pharmacies of the zone, nor at the newsstand, nor at the library, nor nowhere, but a man in his condition couldn’t go unnoticed, shit, someone should have seen him!
Around midday Wilson entered House’s place with a desolate expression. His post-it was still on the piano, and no signs of House passing there.
He let himself fall on the couch, exhausted. The worry had become a continuous prickle, a dull and tangible pain placed between his heart and his stomach. It became a stab when he let himself make any conjecture.
He moved a hand through his hair and in that moment his cell vibrated and rang in his pocket. He took it out hopefully, but found himself disappointed once again.
Funny. After waiting for days for Rachel answering his calls, now her name flashing on the screen had no effect on him.
Sorry.
He let fall the cell on the couch, covering it with a pillow to ignore its furious ring.
Without House, his apartment had an unbearably bare aspect, and Wilson doubted he could stand it anymore. He took his cell, which had shut up, put it in his pocket and rummaged searching for his house’s keys.
After ten minutes of searching all around the apartment - nevertheless he was sure, sure he had left them in the coat - Wilson froze, the fabric pulled out of his pockets like two funny balloons.
The keys. House. The keys and House.
He ran away.
He looked like one with no troubles in his life. Leaning comfortably on Wilson’s couch, with a leg spread on the opposite armrest and the other foot laying on the floor, one of Wilson’s napkins put inside the border of his shirt, one of Wilson’s plates resting on his chest with a hamburger on it, supposedly ordered at the nearby Mc Donald’s. Wilson’s television on some second-rate teenager series - worried faces of girl number one and boy number two facing dramatically each other.
A new Vicodin bottle resting on the floor, near to his head.
The way House pretended not to notice him, as he had every right to be there, made Wilson understood that everything had been planned for a more complicated reason than a pills’ bottle - for a reason that House, ignoring him, was practically shoving in his face.
«Four hours we’re searching for you, and you were at my place watching TV?»
«Can we talk during the commercial?»
Wilson went and switched off the TV, leaning his fists on his hips.
«Hey! I was watching that!»
«What did you do?»
House snorted, leaning the plate on the floor - and taking the chance to put the Vicodin in his pocket. «I’ve called a taxi, gone out, did some useless shopping, then come back here to wait for you. Am not I a good little wife?»
«You scared the hell out of us, we didn’t know what to do. We searched for you everywhere.»
«’Cause you’re ignorant. There’s an Edgar Allan Poe’s story about putting a letter in an evident pla-»
«Stop playing, House!»
James Wilson shouting was an event rare enough to make even Gregory House close his mouth. At least for a moment.
For the strange connection they shared, Wilson felt the change with prompt precision. House closed his mouth, lowered his eyes, granted himself a light, interior sigh and pulled the napkin out of his neckline. Then he put down the other leg and straighten himself up on the couch. He raised his eyes. «Did you worry?»
«I’ve never seen Cuddy so worried.»
House looked at him, still waiting.
Wilson let himself fall next to him, elbows on his knees and hands between his hair. «I didn’t know what to do,» he murmured, gazing the floor. He closed his eyes. «I don’t know what to do,» he added, in a whisper.
He felt House’s jaw against his shoulder, and his so light warmth was something he could stand, yes, he could definitely stand. He felt House taking his left hand between his grasp, and he let him do because this too - the way House’s bony flesh rubbed against his - this too was bearable.
What he couldn’t manage to bear (because there wasn’t a bed, because there wasn’t the darkness, because there wasn’t a damn bed in the full darkness of the night) was the way House’s fingers ran across his bruise around the wrist once again, and stopped on the bluish line of the vein.
He tried to withdraw his hand, but House didn’t allow him. «Wilson. Look at me.»
«No.»
House gripped his face with his free hand, forcing it. «I said ‘look at me’, Wilson.»
The oncologist raised his eyes. He half-opened his lips, maybe attempting to say something, maybe just for an unconscious gesture, but, anything it was, it ended lost in the collision with the more aggressive and thinner House’s lips. Anything it was, Wilson forgot it when House leaned a firm hand on the back of his neck, and every escape attempt appeared vain in Wilson’s mind before in a motion.
When House’s tongue stroked his lower line of teeth, Wilson felt the shreds of his will crumbling and flying away as feathers in the wind. He felt that there was nothing to do, nothing anymore.
«Okay,» he whispered, catching his breath. «Okay.»
«Okay?» repeated House, on his cheek.
«Let me… let me take off the coat.»
House’s hands slid on his shoulders, between the coat and the shirt, undressing him from the useless layer which flew on the opposite armrest.
«How many of them did you take?» muttered Wilson, while they hardly disentangled between the embarrassment and the disordered entanglement of their limbs.
«What I needed. We can go for a while.»
«House…» Wilson started, letting a hand pass through his hair.
«Don’t you ever close that mouth?»
(Stacy found them asleep. Curled together, they were barely covered by their disordered clothes, shirts pushed off of shoulders and pants loosened from waists.
Nothing less than this could have made Wilson lose his usual thoroughness - the half-open door he’d forgotten was really a 16-year-old error. She inhaled and exhaled quickly and nervously, only marginally aware that the crumpled post-it slid from her fist and reached the floor with a weak thud.
When she left, she shut the door behind her without making noise.)
*Please, stop playing. J.*
[0+] Prize
Five years later
«I… I love you so get out?» repeated Wilson, with a low voice. «What is that? Do you wanna send me away too?»
«I’m not sending you away. I told you to get out.»
«Explain to me the difference.»
House squeezed his hands on the balcony ledge, rubbing the knuckles with his fingers. «I need to think.»
«I don’t see your iPod or your Game Boy.»
«Wilson.»
«House.»
The wind whistled between them, intrusive.
«… okay,» murmured the younger man, raising his hands. He turned back, stepping toward the door, really purposeful to leave, this time.
«What would you rather have?» continued House, without moving. «Me admitting your brilliant theory about me being miserable is right, or me proving it’s all bullshit?»
Wilson replied slowly, measuring his words. «You’d rather hammer a nail in your hand than admit I’m right.»
«… which brings us back to the question: what would you rather have?»
«Well, lucky for me I'm not the one who has to decide.»
«Hey, I say that to the patients. I thought you cared about me much more than I cared about them.»
Wilson sighed, rubbing the thumb against the handle he hadn’t left yet. «Okay, then, do it. Prove me wrong. Show me that even an insane addict like you has some links with the real world.» Pause. «Although I’m doubtful.»
Then the silence stagnated so deeply for a minute or two that Wilson had to turn back to see what House was doing. He found him still where he had left him, intently gazing him.
«… tonight at my place?»
A rain drop wet his lips in the same moment Wilson opened them to answer.