New Hosue Fic: Predators and Friends
Title: Predators and Friends
Author: Megan
Summary: What happens when Wilson does Cuddy a favor and takes a potential donor out to dinner?
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing.
Author’s Notes: Written for Camp Sick!Wilson’s Tic Tack Toe Challenge. My Items: Magick 8 Ball, Filing Cabinet and Scissors
2) I apologize if this is weird or has an odd flow. I’m in a weird mood and this is what came out.
Dr. James Wilson sat in a very comfortable chair, his long legs outstretched on the desk, tossing a ball into the air and catching it again and again.
The September breeze rattled a few trees out the balcony door making the sunlight dance across the carpet in dizzying patterns.
“What are you doing here?” House asked, scaring him.
He’d just tossed the ball into the air but in his startle he didn’t catch it quite like he should have and the ball landed hard on top of his fingers. Allowing the ball to clatter to the ground, Wilson shook the pained hand in the air before bringing the bruising fingers to his lips. “It’s an office, I work here,” he explained annoyed.
House walked further into the office, planting his backpack on the glass desk. “Yes but you have your own office so again I ask you, what are you doing here?”
“Will you keep your voice down?” Wilson snapped, looking around the office and adjoining conference room like he expected the boogey man to appear at any moment.
A mischievous smirk appeared on the gruff face, lighting the blue eyes a few degrees. “Is little Jimmy hiding from someone?”
Wilson grimaced, “Don’t call me that.”
The smirk deepened and House made sure to raise his voice particularly loud as he announced, “You didn’t answer the question!”
“House!” Wilson exclaimed, crossing the short distance between them easily and placing his hand over the diagnostician’s mouth. “Gah!” he exclaimed as he wiped his now wet hand on his slacks. “Okay fine,” the oncologist conceded grudgingly, “I’m hiding from Cuddy. The new donor has a crush on me and she wants me to take them out for dinner.”
“And she’s forcing you do to this? Normally all anyone has to say is “sex” and you jump on the chance, or the woman whichever it is.” House drawled out, sitting down in his own office chair. He watched Wilson with a calculating expression, his mind slowly working through the slight puzzle that this presented.
“I never said it was a woman,” Wilson commented collapsing into one of the chairs opposite House’s desk.
House’s smirk grew until it was a full blown laugh. “Cuddy wants you to take a man out to dinner?” he asked in between panting breaths. His laughter continued for another minute drawing looks of worry from the team in the adjoining conference room.
“Shh,” Wilson hissed stretching out his hands as if to attempt to stamp out the fiery sounds of laughter, “Yes she wants me to take out a guy and I really don’t want to do it.”
“Why not?” House asked with a shrug, “it’s a chance to make your boss extremely happy which always ends up making your best friend extremely happy. Everyone wins!”
“Yes, I forgot that this was all about you,” Wilson grumbled, getting up out of the chair as he checked his watch. “I have a patient,” he announced heading towards the balcony door.
House politely waited until Wilson had at least opened the door before he released the tumultuous laughter that he’d been keeping in, the noise resounding loudly through Wilson’s head as he exited to the depressed quietness of his own office.
~~~~~~~~~
The next day Wilson was in his office when an unfamiliar knock on the door sounded. He didn’t know who it could be since the only person who actually enters his office doesn’t knock. He got up, placing the scissors which had previously been in his hand on the desk, and opened the door.
Mark Shellburg, the donor from last night’s dinner, leaned lazily against the outer wall of his office, a smug look on his face that reminded Wilson of a door to door salesman about to sleep with a client.
“Good morning James,” Mark greeted with a sleezy smile that showed every single one of his bleach-white teeth. He made his way into the office, not bothering to ask if it was okay, then sat down on the couch which sat against the wall opposite his door.
Wilson imagined that Mark thought it was enough time to give the oncologist a look at how his pleasant figure swayed slightly with the movement but to Wilson it was a disgusting display.
“I know we had discussed maybe getting together later on this week but I didn’t want to wait,” Mark said, spreading his arms across the back of the couch. His body language did all but grab Wilson, pull him onto the couch and undress him.
Deciding it was best to keep as much space as possible between he and the potential donor, Wilson sat down at his desk, beginning his project again.
With Halloween coming up, Wilson had decided to make some paper cut outs of scary jack o’lanterns, spooky skeletons and evil witches. Unfortunately it involved a lot of cutting which was not one of his most favorite things to do. He used most right handed scissors well enough (he had been brought up in a right handed world after all!) but he was much steadier with his left. However since the hospital was made up of mostly right handed people, he was stuck with the right handed scissors.
His bruised fingers groaned with the movement of cutting the construction paper but he used it to help ignore the sleezy man currently sitting on his couch. All he had to do was tolerate the man until he left so that Cuddy could have her funding.
Tolerating a man who was used to getting what he wanted turned out to be harder than he originally thought.
When Mark noticed that Wilson wasn’t pay any attention to him, he leaned forward on the couch, staring at the oncologist with a look that one could only call predatory. He’d known from the moment he’d walked into the PPTH and into Dr. Lisa Cuddy’s office, offering her massive amounts of money what he’d wanted and that was the man who was diligently pretending he didn’t exist.
Annoyance mixed with anger surged in him. Being ignored was not something he’d ever been good at handling and from a man who was well beneath him, it was intolerable.
Slithering from the couch to Wilson’s desk, he placed himself in a provocatively sexy position, covering the sheets of white, orange and black construction paper. “You know James,” he began as he slid the sharp scissors out of numb hands, “I get the feeling that you don’t want me here. Now how would it look to Doctor Cuddy if she didn’t get her funding because you refused to pay attention to me?”
Wilson’s head snapped up to look into hungry green eyes. There had been a pouting tone in the man’s voice but he’d heard the veiled threat underneath. Indignance swirled within him. That threat hadn’t worked with Volger and all he’d wanted was to fire House, it sure as hell wasn’t going to work when the man before him wanted much much more than that.
“Listen, Mark,” he began but he stopped abruptly as a strong hand clasped his wrist just as the knife-sharp scissors that had been taken out of his hand were trailed lightly across the delicate skin of his right hand. Thin lines of blood began to form and the edge of the blade continued its pattern around his hand, across his sensitive palm and to the noticeable wrist.
“I know that you think you can do whatever you want, treat people however you want because you’re Doctor Cuddy’s favorite,” Mark explained, continuing to trace patterns on Wilson’s arm. He stopped briefly but the relief was short lived when he renewed his actions, applying much more pressure, “but now I’m the boss and in order to keep doing what you love, you need to give me what I want.”
He’d just begun to apply even more pressure as he cut patterns into the back of Wilson’s hand, the sharp scissors digging deep, slicing nearly through the epidermis, when Wilson’s office door slammed open in appropriate Housian fashion.
“Hey Wilson, I’m hungry!” House announced walking into the office, nonchalance flowing off every movement. He stopped dead as he took in the sight before him and the nonchalance quickly changed to disgust. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you had,” he offered Mark a look of hatred before saying, “company.”
Never the less he continued further into Wilson’s office with a limping gracefulness, eyes tracking Mark’s every move. “Should I leave you two alone?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind,” Mark answered prissly. His hand clasped tighter onto Wilson’s wrist, earning a wince as the salty sweat from his hand mixed with the new cuts.
“Actually, you’re just in time,” Wilson said with more bravado than he felt, “Mark was just leaving.” By the end of his sentence Wilson was no longer forcing bravado but holding back cries of pain as Mark ground his thumb into the deepest of the cuts.
Suddenly the pressure lifted as House pulled Mark off the desk without waiting to find out what was going on and flung him to the office exit.
Mark, caught off guard by how fast the crippled doctor could move, didn’t have time to catch himself and fell to the floor as his ankle twisted beneath him. He grimaced as he eased off the ground and limped towards the door. Before he left, the potential donor turned around with a malicious glint in his eyes. “You’ll regret doing that,” he warned before slamming the door behind him.
House hadn’t even bothered waiting for the man to finish his threat before he’d turned his attention back to Wilson, eyes scanning for the reason why his friend was in pain. The small rivulets of blood flowing down from his hand quickly caught his attention, the deep crimson against the ivory flesh not easy to miss.
Quickly he grabbed a few tissues and pressed them tightly to the injured arm in an effort to staunch the free-flowing liquid of life. Thankfully most of the cuts were superficial but there was one particularly deep one that had House marginally worried. “Raise your hand above your head,” he commanded sharply.
Wilson’s focus snapped from the recently vacated door to where House was busily trying to take care of his hurting hand. Without even really thinking about it, he did as he was bid and raised his hand above his head.
“Come on,” House said, herding the oncologist with his cane out the balcony door and to his office. He sat Wilson down on the yellow chair then went into the diagnostic’s conference room where there was an amazingly fully stocked first aid kit complete with suture kits, iodine, bandages, tape, antiseptic, braces, ice and heating packs - almost anything a doctor who’s prone to his own share of injuries could need.
“Is Wilson alright?” Cameron’s eager eyes asked.
“He’s fine, just had a slight scissor accident,” House answered hoping to add as much snark as possible in his tone. He easily located the first aid kit then hastily returned to his office to begin applying first aid to Wilson’s hand.
He’d just finished injecting a local anesthetic when an angry and agitated Cuddy came into his office.
“What did you do to Mark?!” She snapped, her furious gaze focusing solely on House’s face. The man was an expert liar but even he had his own ticks and over the last few years she’d begun to catch onto a few.
“Who?” House asked feigning innocence as he grabbed the suture kit.
“Mark Shellburg, the man who you threw across Wilson’s office where he ended up twisting his ankle,” Cuddy supplied in annoyance.
“Oh, you mean the man who wanted to slice Wilson up bit by bit?” House asked more than annoyed himself that she hadn’t happened to notice that he was busy trying to sew her Head of Oncology’s hand.
“He-“ she began ranting before House’s words finally registered in her mind. She took a mental step back and refocused on the scene before her.
Wilson sat in House’s recliner with a pained expression slowly fading from his face. His right hand was cradled in House’s soft touch, a suture sheet covering the hand to allow the diagnostician to focus on the deepest cut.
Cuddy winced when she saw just how deep the cut had gone. “What happened?”
“Mark wanted something he couldn’t have,” House answered before Wilson had a chance to open his mouth.
The Dean of Medicine began to open her mouth to ask exactly what House was talking about when the combination of Wilson’s deep blush and her clever mind put it all together. Slowly, she sat down on the part of ottoman that House wasn’t occupying, her gaze never leaving her Head of Oncology. “Are you alright?” she asked, placing a soft hand on his knee.
Wilson jerked slightly at the touch but it was more from surprise than anything else. He hadn’t really been paying attention to what was going on between House and Cuddy though he’d heard absently what was being said. So when Cuddy had reached out and actually touched him, he wasn’t expecting it.
He looked up into her slate-blue eyes, shocked to see concern and anger battling for dominancy in them.
“We should get an X-Ray and MRI done of his wrist and hand,” House supplied snappily, “I don’t think anything’s actually broken but I don’t like the look of the bruising over his wrist either.”
“Okay, why don’t you do that? I have something,” she put particular emphasis on the word thing as she spat it out, “to take care of.” Immediately, Cuddy stood up and marched out of House’s office for her own where a very whiney potential donor was about to get a big surprise.
~~~~~~~~~
“You have got to be kidding me!” Mark exclaimed as he stared horrified at the cops flanking Lisa Cuddy.
“I kid you not sir,” one of the cops answered sternly, “assault is an offence that we take very seriously.”
“I didn’t assault anyone,” Mark argued with a scoff. He crossed his arms and tried to look particularly pathetic as the two police officers stepped forward.
“So then we imagined the several cuts, couple broken bones and newly sewn skin on Doctor James Wilson’s hand?” One of the cops challenged knowing full well that was what the woman between them was thinking.
“Oh please, that doesn’t prove anything except that Doctor Wilson is a clutz.”
“Normally I would agree with you but see we have this new thing in the hospital called security cameras that we have placed in every room,” Cuddy answered snidely, an inner smile growing wider the more fear she saw in the animal before her, “They handily recorded your little session with Doctor Wilson.”
The two cops snarled in disgust. They’d seen what he’d done and had heard what he’d said and none of it sat well with them. They walked up and hauled Mark off the couch.
“Be gentle, I’ve hurt my ankle!” Mark both snapped and whined at the same time.
The two cops looked to Cuddy for confirmation. “He’s twisted his ankle. It’s nothing serious,” she confirmed lightly, walking around her desk and sitting down.
“If you can think of anything else, please call.” One of the cops said, handing her his card. “And we’ll need Doctor Wilson to come down to the station and formally fill out a report.”
Cuddy nodded, “I’ll tell him. Thank you.”
~~~~~~~~
House’s cane thumped heavily outside Wilson’s office moments before the man himself entered. “Hey,” he greeted, his eyes roaming over Wilson’s still form diagnostically, “you doing okay?”
Wilson sat behind his desk, writing in a patient’s chart. His right hand lay softly on top of the wooden desk, the wrist braced by a couple of compression bandages and a gauze square taped around the hand. “Yeah,” the oncologist answered looking up at surprisingly anxious blue eyes, “I went down to the station last night and filed an official report against Mark, went home, enjoyed a nice quiet dinner then went to bed.”
House nodded as he walked further into the office and sat down across from Wilson. “Take me to lunch,” he said though there was a hint of a question in there as well.
“House, I’m busy,” Wilson grumbled returning his attention back to the patient file.
“And I’m sure Suzy McBaldy will wait to keel over until after you’ve eaten.”
Wilson stared at his friend, slightly dumbfounded at how easily the older man can not care about another human being but himself. His stomach growled letting him know that it thought food sounded fantastic. “Fine,” he conceded with a wave towards his door.
Gleefully House got out of the chair and walked over to the door.
Wilson stopped by the filing cabinet to place the patient file in his hands inside it. He took confidentiality seriously, especially with House as a best friend, and didn’t want to leave it out in plain sight.
A poke to the back scared him and he turned sharply, twisting his very unhappy back a little too quickly. He felt a tearing sensation cross his lower back and tears sprang to his eyes as burning pain made its way up his spine.
“Wilson?” House asked, noticing that his friend hadn’t moved a millimeter since the wrenching twist.
“House,” Wilson choked out trying his best not to cry on the spot. He waited until he heard House’s footsteps closer to his side before he reached out his hand for help up. He hadn’t expected the clattering sound of a cane falling to the floor and a gentle hand on his back.
Wilson whimpered as House applied pressure to the tender back and tears began to trail intermittently down his cheeks. The diagnostician could tell that his friend was damn near close to breaking down in tears and while he couldn’t tell if it was from pain, embarrassment, yesterday finally getting to him or the combination of all three, he was tempted to leave and allow the man his privacy.
When Wilson let out another controlled whimper, House knew that he couldn’t just leave him on the floor, alone and in pain. “Do you think you can move?” he asked unsure as to how strong the pain was.
“I think so,” Wilson said shortly before he attempted to lean back on his heels. He groaned deeply as the movements sent shards of pain vibrating down his back.
House quickly grabbed one of the spare chairs and pushed it towards the fallen man, waiting patiently as he eased his body off the floor. Together they limped to the couch where they sat, bodies touching, in silence.
Shivers ran through Wilson’s otherwise still form and House knew he was crying openly, if not silently. He wondered who was controlling his body as his arm wrapped gingerly around Wilson’s shoulders and pulled him in for a comforting cuddle.
He held Wilson as the oncologist quietly cried, more than a little uncomfortable with the contact but not willing to move the man in his arms either. He couldn’t tell what the warm, viscous feeling that spread through him was but he knew that he’d hold Wilson all night if he had to if it meant keeping him safe.
Shivers ran through his own body as his mind conjured up images of what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up and House felt a resolve unlike anything he’d ever felt. He knew that he would do anything to protect James, even if it was from himself.
Both men fell asleep on that couch. House’s arms had not only curled around Wilson but had pulled him in tightly so that the oncologist was cuddled on his chest.
Cuddy closed the door quietly, not wanting to disturb either man. Let them rest, tomorrow would be a new day full of normal banter and distance. Tonight would be them expressing how they truly felt, even if it was subconsciously done.
Author: Megan
Summary: What happens when Wilson does Cuddy a favor and takes a potential donor out to dinner?
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing.
Author’s Notes: Written for Camp Sick!Wilson’s Tic Tack Toe Challenge. My Items: Magick 8 Ball, Filing Cabinet and Scissors
2) I apologize if this is weird or has an odd flow. I’m in a weird mood and this is what came out.
Dr. James Wilson sat in a very comfortable chair, his long legs outstretched on the desk, tossing a ball into the air and catching it again and again.
The September breeze rattled a few trees out the balcony door making the sunlight dance across the carpet in dizzying patterns.
“What are you doing here?” House asked, scaring him.
He’d just tossed the ball into the air but in his startle he didn’t catch it quite like he should have and the ball landed hard on top of his fingers. Allowing the ball to clatter to the ground, Wilson shook the pained hand in the air before bringing the bruising fingers to his lips. “It’s an office, I work here,” he explained annoyed.
House walked further into the office, planting his backpack on the glass desk. “Yes but you have your own office so again I ask you, what are you doing here?”
“Will you keep your voice down?” Wilson snapped, looking around the office and adjoining conference room like he expected the boogey man to appear at any moment.
A mischievous smirk appeared on the gruff face, lighting the blue eyes a few degrees. “Is little Jimmy hiding from someone?”
Wilson grimaced, “Don’t call me that.”
The smirk deepened and House made sure to raise his voice particularly loud as he announced, “You didn’t answer the question!”
“House!” Wilson exclaimed, crossing the short distance between them easily and placing his hand over the diagnostician’s mouth. “Gah!” he exclaimed as he wiped his now wet hand on his slacks. “Okay fine,” the oncologist conceded grudgingly, “I’m hiding from Cuddy. The new donor has a crush on me and she wants me to take them out for dinner.”
“And she’s forcing you do to this? Normally all anyone has to say is “sex” and you jump on the chance, or the woman whichever it is.” House drawled out, sitting down in his own office chair. He watched Wilson with a calculating expression, his mind slowly working through the slight puzzle that this presented.
“I never said it was a woman,” Wilson commented collapsing into one of the chairs opposite House’s desk.
House’s smirk grew until it was a full blown laugh. “Cuddy wants you to take a man out to dinner?” he asked in between panting breaths. His laughter continued for another minute drawing looks of worry from the team in the adjoining conference room.
“Shh,” Wilson hissed stretching out his hands as if to attempt to stamp out the fiery sounds of laughter, “Yes she wants me to take out a guy and I really don’t want to do it.”
“Why not?” House asked with a shrug, “it’s a chance to make your boss extremely happy which always ends up making your best friend extremely happy. Everyone wins!”
“Yes, I forgot that this was all about you,” Wilson grumbled, getting up out of the chair as he checked his watch. “I have a patient,” he announced heading towards the balcony door.
House politely waited until Wilson had at least opened the door before he released the tumultuous laughter that he’d been keeping in, the noise resounding loudly through Wilson’s head as he exited to the depressed quietness of his own office.
~~~~~~~~~
The next day Wilson was in his office when an unfamiliar knock on the door sounded. He didn’t know who it could be since the only person who actually enters his office doesn’t knock. He got up, placing the scissors which had previously been in his hand on the desk, and opened the door.
Mark Shellburg, the donor from last night’s dinner, leaned lazily against the outer wall of his office, a smug look on his face that reminded Wilson of a door to door salesman about to sleep with a client.
“Good morning James,” Mark greeted with a sleezy smile that showed every single one of his bleach-white teeth. He made his way into the office, not bothering to ask if it was okay, then sat down on the couch which sat against the wall opposite his door.
Wilson imagined that Mark thought it was enough time to give the oncologist a look at how his pleasant figure swayed slightly with the movement but to Wilson it was a disgusting display.
“I know we had discussed maybe getting together later on this week but I didn’t want to wait,” Mark said, spreading his arms across the back of the couch. His body language did all but grab Wilson, pull him onto the couch and undress him.
Deciding it was best to keep as much space as possible between he and the potential donor, Wilson sat down at his desk, beginning his project again.
With Halloween coming up, Wilson had decided to make some paper cut outs of scary jack o’lanterns, spooky skeletons and evil witches. Unfortunately it involved a lot of cutting which was not one of his most favorite things to do. He used most right handed scissors well enough (he had been brought up in a right handed world after all!) but he was much steadier with his left. However since the hospital was made up of mostly right handed people, he was stuck with the right handed scissors.
His bruised fingers groaned with the movement of cutting the construction paper but he used it to help ignore the sleezy man currently sitting on his couch. All he had to do was tolerate the man until he left so that Cuddy could have her funding.
Tolerating a man who was used to getting what he wanted turned out to be harder than he originally thought.
When Mark noticed that Wilson wasn’t pay any attention to him, he leaned forward on the couch, staring at the oncologist with a look that one could only call predatory. He’d known from the moment he’d walked into the PPTH and into Dr. Lisa Cuddy’s office, offering her massive amounts of money what he’d wanted and that was the man who was diligently pretending he didn’t exist.
Annoyance mixed with anger surged in him. Being ignored was not something he’d ever been good at handling and from a man who was well beneath him, it was intolerable.
Slithering from the couch to Wilson’s desk, he placed himself in a provocatively sexy position, covering the sheets of white, orange and black construction paper. “You know James,” he began as he slid the sharp scissors out of numb hands, “I get the feeling that you don’t want me here. Now how would it look to Doctor Cuddy if she didn’t get her funding because you refused to pay attention to me?”
Wilson’s head snapped up to look into hungry green eyes. There had been a pouting tone in the man’s voice but he’d heard the veiled threat underneath. Indignance swirled within him. That threat hadn’t worked with Volger and all he’d wanted was to fire House, it sure as hell wasn’t going to work when the man before him wanted much much more than that.
“Listen, Mark,” he began but he stopped abruptly as a strong hand clasped his wrist just as the knife-sharp scissors that had been taken out of his hand were trailed lightly across the delicate skin of his right hand. Thin lines of blood began to form and the edge of the blade continued its pattern around his hand, across his sensitive palm and to the noticeable wrist.
“I know that you think you can do whatever you want, treat people however you want because you’re Doctor Cuddy’s favorite,” Mark explained, continuing to trace patterns on Wilson’s arm. He stopped briefly but the relief was short lived when he renewed his actions, applying much more pressure, “but now I’m the boss and in order to keep doing what you love, you need to give me what I want.”
He’d just begun to apply even more pressure as he cut patterns into the back of Wilson’s hand, the sharp scissors digging deep, slicing nearly through the epidermis, when Wilson’s office door slammed open in appropriate Housian fashion.
“Hey Wilson, I’m hungry!” House announced walking into the office, nonchalance flowing off every movement. He stopped dead as he took in the sight before him and the nonchalance quickly changed to disgust. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you had,” he offered Mark a look of hatred before saying, “company.”
Never the less he continued further into Wilson’s office with a limping gracefulness, eyes tracking Mark’s every move. “Should I leave you two alone?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind,” Mark answered prissly. His hand clasped tighter onto Wilson’s wrist, earning a wince as the salty sweat from his hand mixed with the new cuts.
“Actually, you’re just in time,” Wilson said with more bravado than he felt, “Mark was just leaving.” By the end of his sentence Wilson was no longer forcing bravado but holding back cries of pain as Mark ground his thumb into the deepest of the cuts.
Suddenly the pressure lifted as House pulled Mark off the desk without waiting to find out what was going on and flung him to the office exit.
Mark, caught off guard by how fast the crippled doctor could move, didn’t have time to catch himself and fell to the floor as his ankle twisted beneath him. He grimaced as he eased off the ground and limped towards the door. Before he left, the potential donor turned around with a malicious glint in his eyes. “You’ll regret doing that,” he warned before slamming the door behind him.
House hadn’t even bothered waiting for the man to finish his threat before he’d turned his attention back to Wilson, eyes scanning for the reason why his friend was in pain. The small rivulets of blood flowing down from his hand quickly caught his attention, the deep crimson against the ivory flesh not easy to miss.
Quickly he grabbed a few tissues and pressed them tightly to the injured arm in an effort to staunch the free-flowing liquid of life. Thankfully most of the cuts were superficial but there was one particularly deep one that had House marginally worried. “Raise your hand above your head,” he commanded sharply.
Wilson’s focus snapped from the recently vacated door to where House was busily trying to take care of his hurting hand. Without even really thinking about it, he did as he was bid and raised his hand above his head.
“Come on,” House said, herding the oncologist with his cane out the balcony door and to his office. He sat Wilson down on the yellow chair then went into the diagnostic’s conference room where there was an amazingly fully stocked first aid kit complete with suture kits, iodine, bandages, tape, antiseptic, braces, ice and heating packs - almost anything a doctor who’s prone to his own share of injuries could need.
“Is Wilson alright?” Cameron’s eager eyes asked.
“He’s fine, just had a slight scissor accident,” House answered hoping to add as much snark as possible in his tone. He easily located the first aid kit then hastily returned to his office to begin applying first aid to Wilson’s hand.
He’d just finished injecting a local anesthetic when an angry and agitated Cuddy came into his office.
“What did you do to Mark?!” She snapped, her furious gaze focusing solely on House’s face. The man was an expert liar but even he had his own ticks and over the last few years she’d begun to catch onto a few.
“Who?” House asked feigning innocence as he grabbed the suture kit.
“Mark Shellburg, the man who you threw across Wilson’s office where he ended up twisting his ankle,” Cuddy supplied in annoyance.
“Oh, you mean the man who wanted to slice Wilson up bit by bit?” House asked more than annoyed himself that she hadn’t happened to notice that he was busy trying to sew her Head of Oncology’s hand.
“He-“ she began ranting before House’s words finally registered in her mind. She took a mental step back and refocused on the scene before her.
Wilson sat in House’s recliner with a pained expression slowly fading from his face. His right hand was cradled in House’s soft touch, a suture sheet covering the hand to allow the diagnostician to focus on the deepest cut.
Cuddy winced when she saw just how deep the cut had gone. “What happened?”
“Mark wanted something he couldn’t have,” House answered before Wilson had a chance to open his mouth.
The Dean of Medicine began to open her mouth to ask exactly what House was talking about when the combination of Wilson’s deep blush and her clever mind put it all together. Slowly, she sat down on the part of ottoman that House wasn’t occupying, her gaze never leaving her Head of Oncology. “Are you alright?” she asked, placing a soft hand on his knee.
Wilson jerked slightly at the touch but it was more from surprise than anything else. He hadn’t really been paying attention to what was going on between House and Cuddy though he’d heard absently what was being said. So when Cuddy had reached out and actually touched him, he wasn’t expecting it.
He looked up into her slate-blue eyes, shocked to see concern and anger battling for dominancy in them.
“We should get an X-Ray and MRI done of his wrist and hand,” House supplied snappily, “I don’t think anything’s actually broken but I don’t like the look of the bruising over his wrist either.”
“Okay, why don’t you do that? I have something,” she put particular emphasis on the word thing as she spat it out, “to take care of.” Immediately, Cuddy stood up and marched out of House’s office for her own where a very whiney potential donor was about to get a big surprise.
~~~~~~~~~
“You have got to be kidding me!” Mark exclaimed as he stared horrified at the cops flanking Lisa Cuddy.
“I kid you not sir,” one of the cops answered sternly, “assault is an offence that we take very seriously.”
“I didn’t assault anyone,” Mark argued with a scoff. He crossed his arms and tried to look particularly pathetic as the two police officers stepped forward.
“So then we imagined the several cuts, couple broken bones and newly sewn skin on Doctor James Wilson’s hand?” One of the cops challenged knowing full well that was what the woman between them was thinking.
“Oh please, that doesn’t prove anything except that Doctor Wilson is a clutz.”
“Normally I would agree with you but see we have this new thing in the hospital called security cameras that we have placed in every room,” Cuddy answered snidely, an inner smile growing wider the more fear she saw in the animal before her, “They handily recorded your little session with Doctor Wilson.”
The two cops snarled in disgust. They’d seen what he’d done and had heard what he’d said and none of it sat well with them. They walked up and hauled Mark off the couch.
“Be gentle, I’ve hurt my ankle!” Mark both snapped and whined at the same time.
The two cops looked to Cuddy for confirmation. “He’s twisted his ankle. It’s nothing serious,” she confirmed lightly, walking around her desk and sitting down.
“If you can think of anything else, please call.” One of the cops said, handing her his card. “And we’ll need Doctor Wilson to come down to the station and formally fill out a report.”
Cuddy nodded, “I’ll tell him. Thank you.”
~~~~~~~~
House’s cane thumped heavily outside Wilson’s office moments before the man himself entered. “Hey,” he greeted, his eyes roaming over Wilson’s still form diagnostically, “you doing okay?”
Wilson sat behind his desk, writing in a patient’s chart. His right hand lay softly on top of the wooden desk, the wrist braced by a couple of compression bandages and a gauze square taped around the hand. “Yeah,” the oncologist answered looking up at surprisingly anxious blue eyes, “I went down to the station last night and filed an official report against Mark, went home, enjoyed a nice quiet dinner then went to bed.”
House nodded as he walked further into the office and sat down across from Wilson. “Take me to lunch,” he said though there was a hint of a question in there as well.
“House, I’m busy,” Wilson grumbled returning his attention back to the patient file.
“And I’m sure Suzy McBaldy will wait to keel over until after you’ve eaten.”
Wilson stared at his friend, slightly dumbfounded at how easily the older man can not care about another human being but himself. His stomach growled letting him know that it thought food sounded fantastic. “Fine,” he conceded with a wave towards his door.
Gleefully House got out of the chair and walked over to the door.
Wilson stopped by the filing cabinet to place the patient file in his hands inside it. He took confidentiality seriously, especially with House as a best friend, and didn’t want to leave it out in plain sight.
A poke to the back scared him and he turned sharply, twisting his very unhappy back a little too quickly. He felt a tearing sensation cross his lower back and tears sprang to his eyes as burning pain made its way up his spine.
“Wilson?” House asked, noticing that his friend hadn’t moved a millimeter since the wrenching twist.
“House,” Wilson choked out trying his best not to cry on the spot. He waited until he heard House’s footsteps closer to his side before he reached out his hand for help up. He hadn’t expected the clattering sound of a cane falling to the floor and a gentle hand on his back.
Wilson whimpered as House applied pressure to the tender back and tears began to trail intermittently down his cheeks. The diagnostician could tell that his friend was damn near close to breaking down in tears and while he couldn’t tell if it was from pain, embarrassment, yesterday finally getting to him or the combination of all three, he was tempted to leave and allow the man his privacy.
When Wilson let out another controlled whimper, House knew that he couldn’t just leave him on the floor, alone and in pain. “Do you think you can move?” he asked unsure as to how strong the pain was.
“I think so,” Wilson said shortly before he attempted to lean back on his heels. He groaned deeply as the movements sent shards of pain vibrating down his back.
House quickly grabbed one of the spare chairs and pushed it towards the fallen man, waiting patiently as he eased his body off the floor. Together they limped to the couch where they sat, bodies touching, in silence.
Shivers ran through Wilson’s otherwise still form and House knew he was crying openly, if not silently. He wondered who was controlling his body as his arm wrapped gingerly around Wilson’s shoulders and pulled him in for a comforting cuddle.
He held Wilson as the oncologist quietly cried, more than a little uncomfortable with the contact but not willing to move the man in his arms either. He couldn’t tell what the warm, viscous feeling that spread through him was but he knew that he’d hold Wilson all night if he had to if it meant keeping him safe.
Shivers ran through his own body as his mind conjured up images of what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up and House felt a resolve unlike anything he’d ever felt. He knew that he would do anything to protect James, even if it was from himself.
Both men fell asleep on that couch. House’s arms had not only curled around Wilson but had pulled him in tightly so that the oncologist was cuddled on his chest.
Cuddy closed the door quietly, not wanting to disturb either man. Let them rest, tomorrow would be a new day full of normal banter and distance. Tonight would be them expressing how they truly felt, even if it was subconsciously done.