Title: All Over but the Crying; Prompt: A spilled drink in a bad place
Title: All Over but the Crying
Author: simple__man
Rating: PG
Words: 4605
Prompt: “A spilled drink in a bad place.”
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Not making any money.
Notes: Kind of angsty, but in a good way. Warning for the mentions of possible character death. Tried not to make it too sappy, but it may well be. Probably not what the prompt submitter was going for, but this is what came to me. Special thanks to my lovely boyfriend, K, for the quick and dirty beta. Beta, I said. Buncha pervs *mutter*
Deep within the recesses of Wilson's desk, House finds a scrap of paper, emblazoned with Jimmy's illegible scrawl. He feels a sharp pride at being able to decipher it, not unlike the feeling he gets when solving a particularly confounding case. The paper is actually an old napkin, probably from a bar or something like, and House can just barely make out the smeared ink, notwithstanding Jimmy's notoriously atrocious handwriting.
"A spilled drink in a bad place" is what the napkin says, apropos of nothing. What does it mean, House's traitorous mind wants to know, even as he tosses it into the wastebasket. He continues his rifling of Jimmy's papers and personal belongings, sorting everything into neat little piles of this and that, and all the while his brain is churning away, tumbling various clues over and over and over in his mind, trying to make some sense of it.
A beer and two boxes later, House gives into his natural instincts and fishes the little paper out of the trash, and holds it up to the light. It's such a silly, stupid thing to obsess over, and some part of him knows and accepts this, but it's there just the same, settling itself into the forefront of his brain and demanding to be analyzed, deciphered, figured out, pulled apart and put together again, whatever it takes to make it make sense. .
There is a small, sane part of House (the same part that recognizes and accepts his obsessions as just that) that realizes that this small little scrap of nothing has been elevated to such a level of importance not because it actually means anything or proves anything, it isn't a grand clue and it won't change a thing that has happened or will happen, but because House needs something to hold onto, to give his life purpose and meaning and direction.
Anything will do, really. Anything at all to keep his mind off of brown eyes devoid of anything resembling life, and boyish features devoid of anything resembling humor, and a hospital room devoid of anything resembling hope.
As things stand, House's small, sane part sounds an awful lot like Jimmy Wilson, if not as sanctimonious and self-righteous as the original version. The voice is dead-on, though, as are the expressiveness of his sanity's eyebrows. It's fitting that as his memories of Jimmy fade (and they will, naturally, with time, no matter how hard he tries to reverse the process), so will his sanity.
So House holds onto the napkin, and puzzles at it's meaning, it's origins, it's history, the wheres and whens and whys and hows of Jimmy's desk drawer and why such an object would be kept, seemingly on purpose (it hadn't been balled up, and it had been allowed to sprawl out, unmolested by pens and paper clips and rolling papers and the other sundried detritus of Jimmy's office supply fetish), and seemingly with some sort of personal meaning attached to it.
Not that he knows this for certain. It's part of Jimmy's charm, really, the reason behind their ongoing friendship that grew and flourished despite overwhelming odds (people who are not them wonder about it, but it's one of the few things in life that House does not question). House reads people like other men read books, and where others might consider the fresh-faced Wilson boy (always a boy, never a man, except to the one who knows him best) an open book, House has always found Wilson to be an intriguing read.
Sometimes locked tighter than a girl's diary, and sometimes written in invisible inks, and always written in his own unique code that House can only hope to decipher every now and again, usually with Wilson's help, and always with the knowledge that there is more, more, more, hidden just beneath the calm, cool, collected surface, if only he could just find the key to the mystery that is Wilson.
Jimmy has always been intriguing, yes, and also irritating, maddening, and infuriating. Wilson has never been able to read people with anything approaching House's proficiency, but he has always been able to read House with deadly accuracy. He only knows the one language, but he speaks it well.
And it's like dying himself, knowing that the one person who ever knew him at all, who ever tried to know him without changing him (Jimmy's efforts at House-improvement were always half-hearted, seeing as he berated with one hand and wrote out the script with the other) will soon be gone. Along with House's sanity, of course, and the greatest puzzle that House's brain has ever tried to wrap itself around.
The napkin pales considerably in comparison, but then, it's just a lifeline, an anchor, something to keep him tethered to this horrible, miserable life that will only be that much more unbearably painful and dull without Wilson's ready smiles and mischievous eyes and smartassed comments. The first in a line of stupid, inane puzzles designed to keep his mind occupied with something other than the heart-wrenching pain that's already started to pulse with every beat of his heart.
He's beginning to realize that there are worse things than his current chronic pain, that being physical and somewhat treatable, even if it isn't exactly curable. The leg is nothing compared to this. At least he still has his leg.
He's already feeling the phantom pains of Wilson's absence, pangs of loss as he walks down the halls alone, as he sits and eats alone, as he turns his head to snark or to gossip or to edify and finds himself alone. The leg was just a dry run, giving him a taste of what was to come, and he'd been too stupid to realize it.
He's never learned to deal with pain well; and hell, he's never learned how to deal with life at all. He knows this, and he knows that Wilson was his one and only link to the world outside his own tortured genius. Without Jimmy, who will be his translator? Who will be his confessor? Who will be his partner in crime, his co-conspirator? Who will be his friend?
House is disgusted now. With himself, with the situation, with life in general, and most distressingly, with Jimmy. He wants a good old-fashioned fight, but as both of them are not really up to fisticuffs, a bracing confrontation will do nicely. Maybe it won't help a thing, maybe it will only hurt, but it's not in House's nature to leave things alone if he can interfere and get a reaction. That's all he wants really, a reaction. He'll settle for interaction. His time with Jimmy is short, and he's wasted precious hours cleaning out Jimmy's desk (and crying, not that he'd ever admit it).
With the napkin in one hand and his cane in the other, he marches as best as he can out into the hall, slamming Jimmy's office door (although it won't be Jimmy's much longer, and he hates the usurper who will sit at Jimmy's desk and talk with Jimmy's patients and stand on Jimmy's balcony, hates him or her with a passion he didn't realize he was still capable of feeling) and tearing down the hall towards the elevator.
There are probably people of the patient/doctor/nurse/visitor varieties littering the hallways, getting in his way, but he doesn't give them a second thought, barrelling along in his straightforward way, damn the torpedos and full speed ahead. If they move, fine; if they don't, fine as well.
There is most likely someone sharing his elevator space, also, but he ignores them as completely as he can without squinting up his eyes and trying. He hates the idea of being alone, but he doesn't want to be not-alone with these people. His mind is already in Wilson's room, sitting in the despicably familiar visitor's chair, questioning and conversing, and perhaps pretending, if just for a moment, that things are not as they are.
His mind has always been faster than his body, and this is probably a good thing. By the time his body catches up, he's able to remind himself that Wilson is most likely asleep, as exhausted as he's been, and that waking him for something so petty and trivial is, well, petty and trivial.
He's saved from self-flagellation by Wilson's questioning eyes meeting his, as soon as he slides open the door, not quite as quietly as he might have, but not with the manic glee that usually accompanies a visit to a patient's room.
"Found a cure?" Wilson croaks from his pillow, his eyes catching a bit of light from the window, and the old familiar mischief seems to glint there for a moment.
In that moment, House falls in love. All over again.
How could House not love a man who jokes about his own death? Who has somehow retained his dark sense of the macabre, even as he's lost everything else?
Not that they ever speak of their feelings or their friendship or the what might have beens of their relationship. But House is far too self-aware, and Wilson far too House-aware for the truth of the matter not to have made itself known to both of them. It's real, it's there, but it's too honest and raw for them to deal with, and so they don't.
Moments like this, House wishes they could. Even if just for a moment, to put a name to this pull that exists between them, the tie that binds them together, stronger than any bond he's ever known or wants to know.
Instead, he pulls up the hateful backbreaker of a chair (if it were up to him, he'd burn Wilson's body on a funeral pyre; a bonfire fueled by that chair, the hospital bed, the wires and tubes and machinery that beeps and whines and interferes with the lines of Jimmy's face and body, and last but not least, the ubiquitous hospital gown. He's having trouble remembering Wilson's body every wearing anything else, and that pisses him off almost as much as the whole death thing) and pushes the napkin onto the bed.
Wilson peers at the scrap, then blinks rapidly, and surprisingly, lets out a sharp bark of a laugh. It's nothing close to Jimmy's old full-throated belly laughs, but it's a good thing just the same. It's been too long since House has heard anything close to a laugh from Jimmy, and the corners of his mouth twitch upward slightly. "Alright, spill."
A cough, and then, "Packing up my stuff, Mom? Renting out my room?" More coughing. House grins. As Wilson's words had deserted him, so had House's, until they would simply sit for hours in each other's company, silent as the grave. They had never needed words between them, but it was nice to have them back, even if only for a little while.
"Yep. Cuddy's got some hot little number all lined up for that spiffy office of yours," House teases, leaning back into the chair, joints cracking and popping as he settles into place.
"Damn. And I'm gonna miss it." Wilson gives a ghost of a grin, and picks up the napkin. Running his fingers over the smeared ink, he cocks an eyebrow at House. "Come to bully me into giving you answers?"
House shrugs, scratching his chin absently, "It's what I do. You should feel honored."
Jimmy smiles, but his eyes have lost their gleam and the smile doesn't reach them. "There aren't any answers here, Greg. Sorry."
He's not talking about the napkin. House doesn't know what to say, not really, and he loves Wilson too much to fall back on his usual habit of cutting remarks and biting sarcasm to cover up the way Jimmy's words have hurt him. He just sits there, eyes suspiciously wet, staring at the skeletal hands of his best friend and wishing for a miracle.
Praying, if truth be told, praying to a God he hates and despises, but praying just the same. Give me something, he wants to scream, just give me something. A spark, a hint of an idea, and I'll find a way, like I always do. But you've got to give me something.
There's nothing. They both know it. So does everyone else. That's what terminal means.
"You should remember this, House. I'm surprised that you don't, with that big brain of yours," Wilson says after the silence gets too heavy for too long.
House startles for a moment, but collects himself. He's got to try, try to be positive and helpful and non-suicidal, at least until Jimmy's gone. All bets are off after that, he thinks. "I have not a clue. It's a bar napkin, I know that much, and it's not new, but beyond that..." He trails off for a moment, then rallies. He rattles off a few more of his impressions of the napkin, then looks at Wilson expectantly. He doesn't want to solve this one, he wants to hear Jimmy tell him what it means. That's what Jimmy does, what he's best at, telling House what it all means.
"Remember the night we met," Jimmy asks softly, but it's not really a question. House grins, it's a long-standing joke between them. Anyone stupid enough to ask them how they met is regaled with the story of how they met...it's always different, always overblown, and, if House is telling it, always vulgar or obscene.
In fact, in the years they've known each other, House has come up with so many different tales, he can barely remember the actual event. That's the other thing Wilson is for, keeping the truth straight from the lies, another talent of his that will be lost, and only House knows him well enough to mourn it.
"I had just signed the papers," Jimmy begins, and the memory blooms. A younger version of himself, in a bar that he used to frequent in the days before Stacy and the infarction, watching a puppy-faced young man weave drunkenly through the crowd. House had experienced a feeling of deja vu at the time, as if he'd seen this play before and knew all the lines. The dark hair and dark eyes reeling towards him, and the sense that time had stopped completely.
"You spilled your drink on me," House finishes. Still confused, but pleased, because it meant something to Jimmy, also. Maybe not at the time, but later on, and he had written it down, because it meant something.
Wilson nods, and lays his head back tiredly. As if he'd telepathically sent the memory of their meeting to House, and the effort of it had exhausted him. It wouldn't have surprised House if such a thing were true. He had never known anyone else in his life to ever be remotely on the same wavelength as he for any period of time, and especially not as often and as frequently as Jimmy usually was.
His eyelashes shutter closed for a few minutes, and House wonders if he's fallen asleep. He resists the urge to kick the bed childishly, but it's a near thing. He's not a saint, after all.
Wilson comes to with a guilty start, embarrassed at having dozed off, the blush that rises in his cheeks the first color House has seen there in weeks. House shakes his head against the offered apology, continuing as if the conversation had never stopped. Not that any of their conversations ever really stopped. Put on pause, maybe, but always to be picked up at a later date, with neither party needing to be reminded where to pick up the thread. "You didn't write it there. I would have noticed. Besides, you were way too wasted."
An almost-imperceptible nod. "Didn't think it was important at the time. I knew that it was something, though."
And there it was. The bond between them that had begun that night, and had only strengthened with time, Wilson had felt the pull of it, too. Even as the gin had soaked into his clothes, House had known. This is it, he'd thought, although he couldn't have put a name to what it was, not then.
Almost ten years later, and he still can't form the words, even in his own mind. To think that the embarrassed flush on Jimmy's face that night had perhaps covered the same knowledge, the same feeling of destiny and rightness, it was awe-inspiring, left him feeling naked and humble.
"But you figured it out later..." House begins. A nurse slides in, and he breaks off, watching her movements critically, ready to pounce at any mistake. The nurses on this shift are scared of him, just the way he likes it, but the night shift nurses are a horse of an entirely different color. He's working on it, though. She stutters a bit as she speaks to Wilson, but her face brightens when he asks her about her daughter and her day. Saint Jimmy, full of grace, House thinks, rolling his eyes and snorting softly.
Wilson is used to being poked and inspected, and as the nurse finishes her ministrations, he finishes House's thought. "The second divorce." The nurse's head jerks up, but House's double-barrelled glare silences anything she might have said. As she slips away, House works that over in his mind. Short marriage, that second one, and he'd never been so glad to be rid of anyone in his life. Julie had been a nightmare, but her predecessor had been a bitch of outstanding proportions. He couldn't imagine how relieved Jimmy had been, but he could well remember how guilty that relief had made him.
"You were drinking pretty heavily," House says, "I couldn't keep up with you." That was saying something. House had always been the drinker of the two, even before the infarction, but he had been forced into caretaker mode in the days and weeks following Wilson's second divorce. He'd almost been glad to foist Jimmy off on new-girlfriend Julie, the memory of which made him shudder. Lamb to the slaughter, and all. Julie was a parasite of the first degree, and Wilson never took, always gave. A match made in Hell, they'd been, and House had suffered many pains for his sin of neglect during her tenure. And not a little guilt, too.
"Yeah," Wilson's voice is soft, reedy, and House imagines that he can hear the rattle beginning deep in Wilson's lungs, signaling the end. He hopes it's just imagining. He's been hearing it for so long now, since the diagnosis, he can't trust his own ears. It doesn't matter, really. Jimmy will be dead soon enough. No need to rush it along. It's a coping mechanism, he knows this, but he likes to think that if he doesn't actually notice something, it isn't really happening. Hard to tell truth from reality that way, but it beats the alternative.
An aborted attempt at a deep breath leads to a coughing fit, and House levers himself out of the chair to push a cup of water to Wilson's lips. Flashbacks to Jimmy doing the same thing for him after the infarction, when Stacy had been cut to shreds by his razor-sharp tongue and couldn't take any more. The same vitriol hadn't affected Jimmy in the slightest, his smile never wavering, his eyes never once taking on that sheen of pity that had sickened House with so many others of his acquaintance. He had just been, and that had been enough. House doesn't know how to just be, but he's trying. For Jimmy's sake, he's trying.
As his lungs settle, Wilson tries again to speak, despite House's attempts to shush him. Wilson thumps him between the eyes, scowling, and House takes the hint, settling back into his chair with a put-upon sigh. He didn't realize he had so much protectiveness in him, but it's rolling around his gut, making him sick at his own helplessness.
"Long story short," Wilson says, gesturing at his chest distastefully, "Was drunk, got to thinking, wrote it down." It's not everything, of course, it still doesn't make sense, but for once in his life, House isn't worried about finding out the answer. Not anymore. Not if it hurts Jimmy.
That's important, somehow.
"Don't worry about it," House mutters, fingers tapping on the arms of the chair nervously. Wonders why he never thought to have someone bring over a more comfortable chair, considering all the time he's spent here. He knows the answer to that one, however. No comfort for him, nothing good or nice or gentle, not as long as Jimmy lies there in pain. He know it's not his fault, on some level, but he blames himself just the same. He'll do penance in a thousand ways, until the day he dies.
"No." Wilson's voice from the bed is harsh, the one word spat like a curse. House jumps, staring, and he knows that without saying a word, he's pissed Jimmy off. "It matters. More now than ever. If I don't say it now..." His voice trails off, but the cause is more emotional than physical.
"Okay, okay," House surrenders, throwing his hands up, "I'm listening. Just take it slow. I'm not going anywhere." He winces at that, but Jimmy doesn't catch it, or if he does, chooses not to acknowledge it.
The words come, slowly, painfully, as Wilson tries to get the message on the napkin across to House. He'd been thinking that night, drinking but not yet in a stupor, just drunk enough to be feeling philosophical. Thinking about his relationships, or lack thereof. And it had occurred to him then, the incredible luck involved in their meeting, the fact that he had never been to that particular bar before, and it wasn't a bar that many outsiders frequented. He'd just happened to speak to a friend, who knew a guy, whose dad drank there sometimes, and he had suggested it off-hand to Wilson, for no apparent reason. Had he not signed the papers that morning, he wouldn't have been anywhere near any bar, much less that one.
House interrupts, more to give Wilson a break than for any other reason, but he points out that he hadn't been a regular at the bar either, he'd been waiting to visit some much-needed revenge on a colleague at the time. Jimmy nods emphatically, to indicate that House is making his point for him. "So just think, Greg, if I'd made it out the door without falling..."
Or picked up some woman who took him back to her place. Or had reeled in the opposite direction to the john. Or had spilled his drink on the guy at the table ahead or behind him. "A spilled drink in a bad place," House whispers, awed. This is how friendships are made, hinged on the perfect timing of one drunken oncologist and his loosely held tumbler of gin.
"Christ," House swears under his breath. Out of habit, he peers at Jimmy, who, despite being Jewish, still manages to be offended by House taking the Messiah's name in vain. Wilson grins, shaking his head. "We cut it pretty close, didn't we."
He could be talking about their meeting, but then again, he could be referring to the here and now. House tilts his head, and Wilson clarifies, "Could be in love with some guy named Hank right about now."
The words are like a fist in House's gut. Actually, he's had fists in his gut, and this hurts more. More, because it feels so incredibly wonderful, like Christmas, like Heaven, like flying, all that crap he pretends he doesn't want anymore, but directly behind it is the certain knowledge that this room is all that they have left. This room, and then a box. Or an urn. He can't remember which one Jimmy decided on, but both are sickening, cruel in the face of what he's just heard.
When he can raise his eyes, Wilson is looking at him with an unknown emotion clouding his thin face. It could be fear, or pain, or even sadness. It's probably a mixture of all three, but beneath it all is that incredible love that fills Jimmy from time to time, so much love that he can barely stand it, has to give it to someone, spread it to the masses.
House never realized until this moment that all that love belonged to him. Scared doesn't even begin to cover what he's feeling, nor hurt, nor sadness. He can't name the emotion, but it's enough that Jimmy is feeling it too.
House isn't sure if he's capable of that kind of love, that level of acceptance and affection seems outside his grasp, but he tries to communicate what he does feel, intense emotions that have lain dormant for so long, tries to make his face as open and readable as Wilson's. What he fails to realize is that Jimmy knows, has known for a long time, has let fear get in the way of this, but he's beyond fear now. If he does not fear Death, what is there left to fear?
Their eyes meet, and time does that thing it does, stretching and slowing, civilizations rising and falling and all that romantic nonsense, and it seems so very cliched that they would just figure this out now. Stupid, really, and they both know it. As Wilson lowers his eyes, he mumbles, "Better to have loved and lost", just as House intones, "Better late than never".
A pause that stretches on forever, and the pair dissolves into laughter. House's full-throated laugh rumbling through the room, Wilson's shoulders shaking silently, tears welling and leaking from the corners of their eyes. "Oh, we're meant for each other alright," Wilson wheezes. House clambers to his feet, cane suddenly in the way, legs refusing cooperation, as he assents, saying, "A pair of idiots. A matching set."
He's leaning on the bed now, looming over Wilson in a way that has irritated him in the past, but his eyes are bright and shining with love (or fever, but House quickly squashes the differential part of his brain). He hesitates, unsure of himself, unsure of anything except the twin certainties of Jimmy's love and Jimmy's death. It stands to reason, Wilson has been the only sure thing in his life for many, many years.
Skinny fingers rise to grasp his face, dark eyes searching his for something, House isn't sure what. "You're about to get kissed," he warns, and Wilson breathes, "Finally." Those slim hands carry him the rest of the way home, and then there is only Jimmy's mouth, Jimmy's lips, Jimmy's tongue.
It's awkward, and it's painful, and it's nowhere near earth-shattering, but it's all them.
It's not a cure, and it's not fairy tale, and there won't be any happy ending.
It's regret, and love, and pain, and death, and life, and understanding, and acceptance, all of the things that they already knew they had, just magnified ten thousand times, immediate and necessary.
In the end, it's not a miracle that they kissed. That miracle happened years ago, the night they met, the phone call the next day that led to another drink, the meeting in a bookshop near the hospital, a shared meal at a Japanese steak house. It lasted three divorces, two miserable breakups, the crippling of one, and the illness of the other. Through arguments and disagreements, sarcasm and good intentions, addiction and neuroses.
The miracle has been there all along, unfolding between them, nameless and beautiful and terrifying.
No, the kiss is not a miracle...but it's damned close.
End.
Author: simple__man
Rating: PG
Words: 4605
Prompt: “A spilled drink in a bad place.”
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Not making any money.
Notes: Kind of angsty, but in a good way. Warning for the mentions of possible character death. Tried not to make it too sappy, but it may well be. Probably not what the prompt submitter was going for, but this is what came to me. Special thanks to my lovely boyfriend, K, for the quick and dirty beta. Beta, I said. Buncha pervs *mutter*
Deep within the recesses of Wilson's desk, House finds a scrap of paper, emblazoned with Jimmy's illegible scrawl. He feels a sharp pride at being able to decipher it, not unlike the feeling he gets when solving a particularly confounding case. The paper is actually an old napkin, probably from a bar or something like, and House can just barely make out the smeared ink, notwithstanding Jimmy's notoriously atrocious handwriting.
"A spilled drink in a bad place" is what the napkin says, apropos of nothing. What does it mean, House's traitorous mind wants to know, even as he tosses it into the wastebasket. He continues his rifling of Jimmy's papers and personal belongings, sorting everything into neat little piles of this and that, and all the while his brain is churning away, tumbling various clues over and over and over in his mind, trying to make some sense of it.
A beer and two boxes later, House gives into his natural instincts and fishes the little paper out of the trash, and holds it up to the light. It's such a silly, stupid thing to obsess over, and some part of him knows and accepts this, but it's there just the same, settling itself into the forefront of his brain and demanding to be analyzed, deciphered, figured out, pulled apart and put together again, whatever it takes to make it make sense. .
There is a small, sane part of House (the same part that recognizes and accepts his obsessions as just that) that realizes that this small little scrap of nothing has been elevated to such a level of importance not because it actually means anything or proves anything, it isn't a grand clue and it won't change a thing that has happened or will happen, but because House needs something to hold onto, to give his life purpose and meaning and direction.
Anything will do, really. Anything at all to keep his mind off of brown eyes devoid of anything resembling life, and boyish features devoid of anything resembling humor, and a hospital room devoid of anything resembling hope.
As things stand, House's small, sane part sounds an awful lot like Jimmy Wilson, if not as sanctimonious and self-righteous as the original version. The voice is dead-on, though, as are the expressiveness of his sanity's eyebrows. It's fitting that as his memories of Jimmy fade (and they will, naturally, with time, no matter how hard he tries to reverse the process), so will his sanity.
So House holds onto the napkin, and puzzles at it's meaning, it's origins, it's history, the wheres and whens and whys and hows of Jimmy's desk drawer and why such an object would be kept, seemingly on purpose (it hadn't been balled up, and it had been allowed to sprawl out, unmolested by pens and paper clips and rolling papers and the other sundried detritus of Jimmy's office supply fetish), and seemingly with some sort of personal meaning attached to it.
Not that he knows this for certain. It's part of Jimmy's charm, really, the reason behind their ongoing friendship that grew and flourished despite overwhelming odds (people who are not them wonder about it, but it's one of the few things in life that House does not question). House reads people like other men read books, and where others might consider the fresh-faced Wilson boy (always a boy, never a man, except to the one who knows him best) an open book, House has always found Wilson to be an intriguing read.
Sometimes locked tighter than a girl's diary, and sometimes written in invisible inks, and always written in his own unique code that House can only hope to decipher every now and again, usually with Wilson's help, and always with the knowledge that there is more, more, more, hidden just beneath the calm, cool, collected surface, if only he could just find the key to the mystery that is Wilson.
Jimmy has always been intriguing, yes, and also irritating, maddening, and infuriating. Wilson has never been able to read people with anything approaching House's proficiency, but he has always been able to read House with deadly accuracy. He only knows the one language, but he speaks it well.
And it's like dying himself, knowing that the one person who ever knew him at all, who ever tried to know him without changing him (Jimmy's efforts at House-improvement were always half-hearted, seeing as he berated with one hand and wrote out the script with the other) will soon be gone. Along with House's sanity, of course, and the greatest puzzle that House's brain has ever tried to wrap itself around.
The napkin pales considerably in comparison, but then, it's just a lifeline, an anchor, something to keep him tethered to this horrible, miserable life that will only be that much more unbearably painful and dull without Wilson's ready smiles and mischievous eyes and smartassed comments. The first in a line of stupid, inane puzzles designed to keep his mind occupied with something other than the heart-wrenching pain that's already started to pulse with every beat of his heart.
He's beginning to realize that there are worse things than his current chronic pain, that being physical and somewhat treatable, even if it isn't exactly curable. The leg is nothing compared to this. At least he still has his leg.
He's already feeling the phantom pains of Wilson's absence, pangs of loss as he walks down the halls alone, as he sits and eats alone, as he turns his head to snark or to gossip or to edify and finds himself alone. The leg was just a dry run, giving him a taste of what was to come, and he'd been too stupid to realize it.
He's never learned to deal with pain well; and hell, he's never learned how to deal with life at all. He knows this, and he knows that Wilson was his one and only link to the world outside his own tortured genius. Without Jimmy, who will be his translator? Who will be his confessor? Who will be his partner in crime, his co-conspirator? Who will be his friend?
House is disgusted now. With himself, with the situation, with life in general, and most distressingly, with Jimmy. He wants a good old-fashioned fight, but as both of them are not really up to fisticuffs, a bracing confrontation will do nicely. Maybe it won't help a thing, maybe it will only hurt, but it's not in House's nature to leave things alone if he can interfere and get a reaction. That's all he wants really, a reaction. He'll settle for interaction. His time with Jimmy is short, and he's wasted precious hours cleaning out Jimmy's desk (and crying, not that he'd ever admit it).
With the napkin in one hand and his cane in the other, he marches as best as he can out into the hall, slamming Jimmy's office door (although it won't be Jimmy's much longer, and he hates the usurper who will sit at Jimmy's desk and talk with Jimmy's patients and stand on Jimmy's balcony, hates him or her with a passion he didn't realize he was still capable of feeling) and tearing down the hall towards the elevator.
There are probably people of the patient/doctor/nurse/visitor varieties littering the hallways, getting in his way, but he doesn't give them a second thought, barrelling along in his straightforward way, damn the torpedos and full speed ahead. If they move, fine; if they don't, fine as well.
There is most likely someone sharing his elevator space, also, but he ignores them as completely as he can without squinting up his eyes and trying. He hates the idea of being alone, but he doesn't want to be not-alone with these people. His mind is already in Wilson's room, sitting in the despicably familiar visitor's chair, questioning and conversing, and perhaps pretending, if just for a moment, that things are not as they are.
His mind has always been faster than his body, and this is probably a good thing. By the time his body catches up, he's able to remind himself that Wilson is most likely asleep, as exhausted as he's been, and that waking him for something so petty and trivial is, well, petty and trivial.
He's saved from self-flagellation by Wilson's questioning eyes meeting his, as soon as he slides open the door, not quite as quietly as he might have, but not with the manic glee that usually accompanies a visit to a patient's room.
"Found a cure?" Wilson croaks from his pillow, his eyes catching a bit of light from the window, and the old familiar mischief seems to glint there for a moment.
In that moment, House falls in love. All over again.
How could House not love a man who jokes about his own death? Who has somehow retained his dark sense of the macabre, even as he's lost everything else?
Not that they ever speak of their feelings or their friendship or the what might have beens of their relationship. But House is far too self-aware, and Wilson far too House-aware for the truth of the matter not to have made itself known to both of them. It's real, it's there, but it's too honest and raw for them to deal with, and so they don't.
Moments like this, House wishes they could. Even if just for a moment, to put a name to this pull that exists between them, the tie that binds them together, stronger than any bond he's ever known or wants to know.
Instead, he pulls up the hateful backbreaker of a chair (if it were up to him, he'd burn Wilson's body on a funeral pyre; a bonfire fueled by that chair, the hospital bed, the wires and tubes and machinery that beeps and whines and interferes with the lines of Jimmy's face and body, and last but not least, the ubiquitous hospital gown. He's having trouble remembering Wilson's body every wearing anything else, and that pisses him off almost as much as the whole death thing) and pushes the napkin onto the bed.
Wilson peers at the scrap, then blinks rapidly, and surprisingly, lets out a sharp bark of a laugh. It's nothing close to Jimmy's old full-throated belly laughs, but it's a good thing just the same. It's been too long since House has heard anything close to a laugh from Jimmy, and the corners of his mouth twitch upward slightly. "Alright, spill."
A cough, and then, "Packing up my stuff, Mom? Renting out my room?" More coughing. House grins. As Wilson's words had deserted him, so had House's, until they would simply sit for hours in each other's company, silent as the grave. They had never needed words between them, but it was nice to have them back, even if only for a little while.
"Yep. Cuddy's got some hot little number all lined up for that spiffy office of yours," House teases, leaning back into the chair, joints cracking and popping as he settles into place.
"Damn. And I'm gonna miss it." Wilson gives a ghost of a grin, and picks up the napkin. Running his fingers over the smeared ink, he cocks an eyebrow at House. "Come to bully me into giving you answers?"
House shrugs, scratching his chin absently, "It's what I do. You should feel honored."
Jimmy smiles, but his eyes have lost their gleam and the smile doesn't reach them. "There aren't any answers here, Greg. Sorry."
He's not talking about the napkin. House doesn't know what to say, not really, and he loves Wilson too much to fall back on his usual habit of cutting remarks and biting sarcasm to cover up the way Jimmy's words have hurt him. He just sits there, eyes suspiciously wet, staring at the skeletal hands of his best friend and wishing for a miracle.
Praying, if truth be told, praying to a God he hates and despises, but praying just the same. Give me something, he wants to scream, just give me something. A spark, a hint of an idea, and I'll find a way, like I always do. But you've got to give me something.
There's nothing. They both know it. So does everyone else. That's what terminal means.
"You should remember this, House. I'm surprised that you don't, with that big brain of yours," Wilson says after the silence gets too heavy for too long.
House startles for a moment, but collects himself. He's got to try, try to be positive and helpful and non-suicidal, at least until Jimmy's gone. All bets are off after that, he thinks. "I have not a clue. It's a bar napkin, I know that much, and it's not new, but beyond that..." He trails off for a moment, then rallies. He rattles off a few more of his impressions of the napkin, then looks at Wilson expectantly. He doesn't want to solve this one, he wants to hear Jimmy tell him what it means. That's what Jimmy does, what he's best at, telling House what it all means.
"Remember the night we met," Jimmy asks softly, but it's not really a question. House grins, it's a long-standing joke between them. Anyone stupid enough to ask them how they met is regaled with the story of how they met...it's always different, always overblown, and, if House is telling it, always vulgar or obscene.
In fact, in the years they've known each other, House has come up with so many different tales, he can barely remember the actual event. That's the other thing Wilson is for, keeping the truth straight from the lies, another talent of his that will be lost, and only House knows him well enough to mourn it.
"I had just signed the papers," Jimmy begins, and the memory blooms. A younger version of himself, in a bar that he used to frequent in the days before Stacy and the infarction, watching a puppy-faced young man weave drunkenly through the crowd. House had experienced a feeling of deja vu at the time, as if he'd seen this play before and knew all the lines. The dark hair and dark eyes reeling towards him, and the sense that time had stopped completely.
"You spilled your drink on me," House finishes. Still confused, but pleased, because it meant something to Jimmy, also. Maybe not at the time, but later on, and he had written it down, because it meant something.
Wilson nods, and lays his head back tiredly. As if he'd telepathically sent the memory of their meeting to House, and the effort of it had exhausted him. It wouldn't have surprised House if such a thing were true. He had never known anyone else in his life to ever be remotely on the same wavelength as he for any period of time, and especially not as often and as frequently as Jimmy usually was.
His eyelashes shutter closed for a few minutes, and House wonders if he's fallen asleep. He resists the urge to kick the bed childishly, but it's a near thing. He's not a saint, after all.
Wilson comes to with a guilty start, embarrassed at having dozed off, the blush that rises in his cheeks the first color House has seen there in weeks. House shakes his head against the offered apology, continuing as if the conversation had never stopped. Not that any of their conversations ever really stopped. Put on pause, maybe, but always to be picked up at a later date, with neither party needing to be reminded where to pick up the thread. "You didn't write it there. I would have noticed. Besides, you were way too wasted."
An almost-imperceptible nod. "Didn't think it was important at the time. I knew that it was something, though."
And there it was. The bond between them that had begun that night, and had only strengthened with time, Wilson had felt the pull of it, too. Even as the gin had soaked into his clothes, House had known. This is it, he'd thought, although he couldn't have put a name to what it was, not then.
Almost ten years later, and he still can't form the words, even in his own mind. To think that the embarrassed flush on Jimmy's face that night had perhaps covered the same knowledge, the same feeling of destiny and rightness, it was awe-inspiring, left him feeling naked and humble.
"But you figured it out later..." House begins. A nurse slides in, and he breaks off, watching her movements critically, ready to pounce at any mistake. The nurses on this shift are scared of him, just the way he likes it, but the night shift nurses are a horse of an entirely different color. He's working on it, though. She stutters a bit as she speaks to Wilson, but her face brightens when he asks her about her daughter and her day. Saint Jimmy, full of grace, House thinks, rolling his eyes and snorting softly.
Wilson is used to being poked and inspected, and as the nurse finishes her ministrations, he finishes House's thought. "The second divorce." The nurse's head jerks up, but House's double-barrelled glare silences anything she might have said. As she slips away, House works that over in his mind. Short marriage, that second one, and he'd never been so glad to be rid of anyone in his life. Julie had been a nightmare, but her predecessor had been a bitch of outstanding proportions. He couldn't imagine how relieved Jimmy had been, but he could well remember how guilty that relief had made him.
"You were drinking pretty heavily," House says, "I couldn't keep up with you." That was saying something. House had always been the drinker of the two, even before the infarction, but he had been forced into caretaker mode in the days and weeks following Wilson's second divorce. He'd almost been glad to foist Jimmy off on new-girlfriend Julie, the memory of which made him shudder. Lamb to the slaughter, and all. Julie was a parasite of the first degree, and Wilson never took, always gave. A match made in Hell, they'd been, and House had suffered many pains for his sin of neglect during her tenure. And not a little guilt, too.
"Yeah," Wilson's voice is soft, reedy, and House imagines that he can hear the rattle beginning deep in Wilson's lungs, signaling the end. He hopes it's just imagining. He's been hearing it for so long now, since the diagnosis, he can't trust his own ears. It doesn't matter, really. Jimmy will be dead soon enough. No need to rush it along. It's a coping mechanism, he knows this, but he likes to think that if he doesn't actually notice something, it isn't really happening. Hard to tell truth from reality that way, but it beats the alternative.
An aborted attempt at a deep breath leads to a coughing fit, and House levers himself out of the chair to push a cup of water to Wilson's lips. Flashbacks to Jimmy doing the same thing for him after the infarction, when Stacy had been cut to shreds by his razor-sharp tongue and couldn't take any more. The same vitriol hadn't affected Jimmy in the slightest, his smile never wavering, his eyes never once taking on that sheen of pity that had sickened House with so many others of his acquaintance. He had just been, and that had been enough. House doesn't know how to just be, but he's trying. For Jimmy's sake, he's trying.
As his lungs settle, Wilson tries again to speak, despite House's attempts to shush him. Wilson thumps him between the eyes, scowling, and House takes the hint, settling back into his chair with a put-upon sigh. He didn't realize he had so much protectiveness in him, but it's rolling around his gut, making him sick at his own helplessness.
"Long story short," Wilson says, gesturing at his chest distastefully, "Was drunk, got to thinking, wrote it down." It's not everything, of course, it still doesn't make sense, but for once in his life, House isn't worried about finding out the answer. Not anymore. Not if it hurts Jimmy.
That's important, somehow.
"Don't worry about it," House mutters, fingers tapping on the arms of the chair nervously. Wonders why he never thought to have someone bring over a more comfortable chair, considering all the time he's spent here. He knows the answer to that one, however. No comfort for him, nothing good or nice or gentle, not as long as Jimmy lies there in pain. He know it's not his fault, on some level, but he blames himself just the same. He'll do penance in a thousand ways, until the day he dies.
"No." Wilson's voice from the bed is harsh, the one word spat like a curse. House jumps, staring, and he knows that without saying a word, he's pissed Jimmy off. "It matters. More now than ever. If I don't say it now..." His voice trails off, but the cause is more emotional than physical.
"Okay, okay," House surrenders, throwing his hands up, "I'm listening. Just take it slow. I'm not going anywhere." He winces at that, but Jimmy doesn't catch it, or if he does, chooses not to acknowledge it.
The words come, slowly, painfully, as Wilson tries to get the message on the napkin across to House. He'd been thinking that night, drinking but not yet in a stupor, just drunk enough to be feeling philosophical. Thinking about his relationships, or lack thereof. And it had occurred to him then, the incredible luck involved in their meeting, the fact that he had never been to that particular bar before, and it wasn't a bar that many outsiders frequented. He'd just happened to speak to a friend, who knew a guy, whose dad drank there sometimes, and he had suggested it off-hand to Wilson, for no apparent reason. Had he not signed the papers that morning, he wouldn't have been anywhere near any bar, much less that one.
House interrupts, more to give Wilson a break than for any other reason, but he points out that he hadn't been a regular at the bar either, he'd been waiting to visit some much-needed revenge on a colleague at the time. Jimmy nods emphatically, to indicate that House is making his point for him. "So just think, Greg, if I'd made it out the door without falling..."
Or picked up some woman who took him back to her place. Or had reeled in the opposite direction to the john. Or had spilled his drink on the guy at the table ahead or behind him. "A spilled drink in a bad place," House whispers, awed. This is how friendships are made, hinged on the perfect timing of one drunken oncologist and his loosely held tumbler of gin.
"Christ," House swears under his breath. Out of habit, he peers at Jimmy, who, despite being Jewish, still manages to be offended by House taking the Messiah's name in vain. Wilson grins, shaking his head. "We cut it pretty close, didn't we."
He could be talking about their meeting, but then again, he could be referring to the here and now. House tilts his head, and Wilson clarifies, "Could be in love with some guy named Hank right about now."
The words are like a fist in House's gut. Actually, he's had fists in his gut, and this hurts more. More, because it feels so incredibly wonderful, like Christmas, like Heaven, like flying, all that crap he pretends he doesn't want anymore, but directly behind it is the certain knowledge that this room is all that they have left. This room, and then a box. Or an urn. He can't remember which one Jimmy decided on, but both are sickening, cruel in the face of what he's just heard.
When he can raise his eyes, Wilson is looking at him with an unknown emotion clouding his thin face. It could be fear, or pain, or even sadness. It's probably a mixture of all three, but beneath it all is that incredible love that fills Jimmy from time to time, so much love that he can barely stand it, has to give it to someone, spread it to the masses.
House never realized until this moment that all that love belonged to him. Scared doesn't even begin to cover what he's feeling, nor hurt, nor sadness. He can't name the emotion, but it's enough that Jimmy is feeling it too.
House isn't sure if he's capable of that kind of love, that level of acceptance and affection seems outside his grasp, but he tries to communicate what he does feel, intense emotions that have lain dormant for so long, tries to make his face as open and readable as Wilson's. What he fails to realize is that Jimmy knows, has known for a long time, has let fear get in the way of this, but he's beyond fear now. If he does not fear Death, what is there left to fear?
Their eyes meet, and time does that thing it does, stretching and slowing, civilizations rising and falling and all that romantic nonsense, and it seems so very cliched that they would just figure this out now. Stupid, really, and they both know it. As Wilson lowers his eyes, he mumbles, "Better to have loved and lost", just as House intones, "Better late than never".
A pause that stretches on forever, and the pair dissolves into laughter. House's full-throated laugh rumbling through the room, Wilson's shoulders shaking silently, tears welling and leaking from the corners of their eyes. "Oh, we're meant for each other alright," Wilson wheezes. House clambers to his feet, cane suddenly in the way, legs refusing cooperation, as he assents, saying, "A pair of idiots. A matching set."
He's leaning on the bed now, looming over Wilson in a way that has irritated him in the past, but his eyes are bright and shining with love (or fever, but House quickly squashes the differential part of his brain). He hesitates, unsure of himself, unsure of anything except the twin certainties of Jimmy's love and Jimmy's death. It stands to reason, Wilson has been the only sure thing in his life for many, many years.
Skinny fingers rise to grasp his face, dark eyes searching his for something, House isn't sure what. "You're about to get kissed," he warns, and Wilson breathes, "Finally." Those slim hands carry him the rest of the way home, and then there is only Jimmy's mouth, Jimmy's lips, Jimmy's tongue.
It's awkward, and it's painful, and it's nowhere near earth-shattering, but it's all them.
It's not a cure, and it's not fairy tale, and there won't be any happy ending.
It's regret, and love, and pain, and death, and life, and understanding, and acceptance, all of the things that they already knew they had, just magnified ten thousand times, immediate and necessary.
In the end, it's not a miracle that they kissed. That miracle happened years ago, the night they met, the phone call the next day that led to another drink, the meeting in a bookshop near the hospital, a shared meal at a Japanese steak house. It lasted three divorces, two miserable breakups, the crippling of one, and the illness of the other. Through arguments and disagreements, sarcasm and good intentions, addiction and neuroses.
The miracle has been there all along, unfolding between them, nameless and beautiful and terrifying.
No, the kiss is not a miracle...but it's damned close.
End.