Fic: Decameron part 2, Cam/H one-sided, H/W
Fic: Decameron, part 2/10
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: Cam/H one-sided, H/W
Rating: PG-13 -- R
A/N: Hoping to post these installments reguarly... Enjoy, feedback appreciated as always. :)
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DAY TWO
You’ve cut your hair and expect it to symbolize some drastic, personal change.
But life goes on just like any other day; patients die just like any other day. House can’t accept the latter, and when you walk back from the OR in a daze, he knows it before you’ve even said a word. A curse, a pound against the table, and then he’s gone, off to seethe furiously in his office.
You send someone else to tell the family. You can’t stand to see suffering, and there is little time to console loved ones who will disappear after today and leave you with the burden of their grief. You wonder how you used to be able to handle it: that frantic, tear-stained face that lies unappeased in the back of your mind. House has done it to you. He’s made you feel guilty about your pity.
It makes you feel so bad for him.
You walk into House’s office briskly, not even bothering to knock. Force, maybe that’s it. House needs someone to challenge him, someone like an equal. Stacy-you could tell when she was here-put up with no sarcasm from House; she dealt it right back. And Wilson mimics the strength of male anatomy. It isn’t Wilson he’s attracted to per se; it’s the equality of the opponent.
That’s the reason, after all, why House handpicks his cases. What’s the point in dealing with something small and weak and easy, when you can prove your worth by taking on difficulty? The challenger speaks volumes of its conqueror.
You’ll read all the psychology books you have to in order to figure him out. If he wants a challenge, he can get one from you. You are not weak and small and uselessly beautiful.
You stalk in, strides strong and confident. House glances up once and glares a hole through your forehead before turning away.
“House, there was nothing you could do.”
“Yeah, that whole diagnosing thing-who’s responsibility was that, anyway?” he snaps back.
You brush your bangs to the side with a shake of your head, hoping it comes across as pretentious. “It was yours. Ours. But it doesn’t matter, House, because you can’t fix everything-”
He scoffs, and then it somehow bulges outward into a scathingly uproarious laugh. “This coming from you?”
“I don’t try to fix everything.”
“Then what are you doing now?”
You stare into the ice of his eyes, willing it to melt. Restraint has painfully crusted his emotions over. Whatever aspect Wilson has breached, it’s done nothing for him, nothing to help him.
“I’m telling you to stop wallowing in your damn misery.”
There are no psychology books with studies on House’s unreadable expressions. He throws an answerless one at you now, and you hope silence can convey your concern.
* * *
You park two blocks away from House’s apartment, then loiter in the shade of an alley before slipping the heliotrope necklace on. There is no change that you can sense, but suddenly you find yourself oddly bereft of a shadow, and your vision bobs as if it’s suspended in midair. There are no long legs to see below you, no arms swaying beside you. It would be frighteningly disconcerting if you weren’t doing this for the greater good.
Wilson comes by a few minutes later, as you overheard them discussing in the cafeteria. House had been stabbing his food and not eating much, apparently blaming his sandwich for the patient’s inept surgery. Wilson chewed thoughtfully, and when you caught his eye as you grabbed your mineral water, he gave a slight nod and accepting smile, as if to say, It’s House. What can you do?
Wilson is deliberate, that’s what it is. Picking apart the pieces and bundling them up for his own selfish confines. You told yourself to smile back, act normal, but Dr. Wilson isn’t worth lying to.
Now, he opens the door with his key, leaving just enough space for you to slip through at the same time. The door hits your elbow as he closes it, and you just manage to evade running into him by ducking beneath his extended arm. Skittering off to the side, you listen as House calls out from the sitting room, where piano notes cascade loosely upward.
Watching them both over the next hour, you wonder how far the relationship has gotten. There’s a hesitation around personal space, a two-left-footed dance of awkwardness whenever they’re near one another. Perhaps it’s been one-sided up until this point. Wilson, clinging and desperate, must have dropped by after work once, and House humored him when he pressed for more than just a night on the couch.
You look around, noting the beer bottles sprawled dejectedly over the coffee table and floor. Some even regress into the hallway. They’re remnants from the past week, most likely. A grimace and smile get tangled on your face. They couldn’t possibly have known what they were doing. Whatever it was they did.
Curling up on the corner loveseat, you feel like you’ve just snuck into a movie theatre while House and Wilson drag out the previews. They fumble around the kitchen, bags crinkling and cans clinking, a stove sizzling and Wilson trying his best to pass off as domestic. Their conversation is littered with sports references and some particularly crude comments-mostly from House’s side-about some accounting secretary named Debbie.
It’s so sad how aggressive he’s become to cover up his pain. You tilt your head, pursing your lips in sympathy. If he only knew how much you wanted to help him.
* * *
“Try it,” Wilson says. Askance, House accepts the offered spoon like it’s a concealed nuclear weapon, then tests the steaming broth. His brows furrow, examining the utensil. “What is…?”
“Good, right?” Wilson smiles. Stepping close, he swipes a thumb across House’s thin lower lip, catching the dribbling soup. Your jaw sets as you watch his hands. Manipulatively unassuming, pale and sure. How many people do they have to touch until he’s finally tired of them? He’s like an architect structuring faulty buildings just so he can have a chance to fix them. The bastard likes things crumbling.
It’s okay, you want to tell House; you want to brush your lithe fingers along his temples. Most people do find themselves in unhealthy relationships at one point or another. But staying in them is false hope. Please, listen to me.
They mustn’t be too far along, though, you figure, because after Wilson touches his face House continues staring at him, even when he goes back to the food. House’s eyes rest like waiting infantry on the younger man’s shoulders. It’s strange; you flashback to him analytically twirling his cane in his hand, thoughts revolving in perfect time.
But at least it’s a step in the right direction: House opening up to someone. It might not be the right person, but he’s showing willingness to emerge from his self-confined shell. And Wilson-once again, the saint of a man rescues the fallen-knew just when House would be ready, and he knows just when the inevitable cane will shove itself back into his life. Then he’ll crash. And Wilson, so conveniently, will be reveling in the downfall. He might even move in again.
“When’s the rest of your stuff coming?” House asks minutes later.
“Tomorrow. I rented a U-Haul.”
Your theories spurn themselves into dust. House must be even more desperate than you thought. Why can’t he just admit it to everyone else? Does he expect people to look at weakness and condemn him? Just because that’s his treatment of other’s faults hardly means the rest of the normal, clear-thinking world feels the same way.
You slip into an empty seat at the end of the table and unnoticeably join them over dinner, watching them murmur idle conversation. Wilson rudely neglects to bring up the dead patient. House still must be grieving; it must be killing him beneath that rough exterior. What he needs isn’t a bowl full of spiced soup and a side of whatever the hell Wilson thinks constitutes as a meal. He needs to talk out his pain, before it festers along with everything else he harbors so sacrificially.
The nauseous smell of dinner pervades the house, and you can’t stop associating it with Wilson. You’re sick of examining each time Wilson dabs his unfaithful mouth with a napkin, each time House pretends to listen to him speaking. Before they’re even done, you quietly rise to your feet and return to the living room. You can watch from the loveseat again, a pacifying distance away from the painful charade in the kitchen.
Eventually, a pair of dishes and bowls lags in the sink. Neither gets to them before House suddenly pulls Wilson near him. His eyes glint, as hard as the heliotrope, and there’s an uncharted color floating there, confusing and unfamiliar.
You realize it’s a trade-off of sorts. Wilson needs physicality; House needs emotional support. In getting what they need, they surrender their boundaries. You feel uncomfortable for House, who clearly wouldn’t even consider kissing a man, when he strokes a hand through Wilson’s hair.
You watch for a second, trying to decide if it’s hard or soft. You’ve never seen two men kiss before. It’s almost abstract. There’s nothing petite and graceful to beautify the picture, yet somehow it’s not entirely primal or rough. Their wandering hands are less tentative, uncouthly groping denim and creasing shirts. Your face burns as Wilson silently urges House to open his mouth for him.
There’s no modesty, that’s what’s wrong. Your painted nails dig into the armrest, and suddenly you wish the television was on, or there could be some other place to avert your eyes. They can’t be serious. Not in the kitchen. Not right now, when they so obviously just lapsed into this experimental relationship recently.
“House-” Wilson manages amid converging mouths. His hand works between their chests, solidly keeping them separate. Gasps rustle in the abrupt silence.
Coward, you think. How dare you.
Wilson wets his lips, then whispers something in House’s ear that makes his eyes flutter halfway closed. His smile is false-you know it-it’s false and humoring, and you wonder if it would be possible to stealthily sneak close and push Wilson away. He’s far stronger; all it really would do is frighten him a bit. The force would come from seemingly nowhere. Then maybe he’d leave, returning to House some memory of freedom.
Instead, you cover your yelp with a palm and leap to your feet as Wilson’s hands move lower, unhooking House’s belt. You hadn’t planned on seeing this. Honestly. Stumbling to your feet, you forget about keeping quiet and scatter to the front door-
To do what? You suddenly realize you can’t just open it and leave; House and Wilson are standing a few mere feet away from you, and a door seemingly opening on its own accord will not go unnoticed this time.
You clutch the heliotrope to your chest with one hand and shield your eyes with the other, but House’s strangled cry chases after you as you run down the hallway. The first open door is good enough. It turns out to be House’s bedroom, which really doesn’t penetrate your numb mind until a few seconds later.
You can still hear them, though, the uncensored murmurs and explicits and nicknames- You can’t possibly imagine House calling him “Jimmy,” voice contorted in a shallow, gruff gasp, and your stomach curdles thinking about the extremes he’s going to, all to make it believable. To make himself believe it.
A choking cry struggles its way up your throat, and suddenly you want to leave, you need to get out now. Wilson’s become vocal now, even more so than House, and his foreboding cry hangs in the air like a banner, staying so long you wish you could shred your ears’ memory of it.
As long as they’re still in the kitchen, stumbling into the living room, you’re going to be forced to hear this out to the end, to imagine each detail of hands and entwining legs and arched bodies from House’s neglected bedroom. Desperate, you move out into the hallway again, catching sight of the sink and mirror at the end.
Your face is invisible in the reflective glass. You’re panicked, the unwanted sounds escaping from Wilson’s mouth swirl back around you, and in a frantic moment of needing something, anything stable, you lift the necklace up from your chest.
In the mirror, the palest outline of your form appears. Details are blurry, two-dimensional, and you seem to skip like static from a disconnected television reception, but you’re still there. You can still think, can still be effective.
The crash is so shattering, even you flinch backwards, and you’re the one who threw the discarded beer bottle at the mirror.
They stop. Someone stumbles into a semi-upright position; it’s House, murmuring groggy apologies as he pulls his jeans back in order and limps down the hall, obviously taken-aback.
You almost say sorry as you unsteadily move passed him.
Wilson, half-undressed and moaning to himself in pathetic desolation, regains a bit of self-control and pulls himself out of his desirous haze. He calls for House to come back, then decides whatever the noise was had been serious as House utters an unusually befuddled curse beneath his breath.
When they're off down the hallway, staring at the glittering shards, you leave.
tbc... http://nakannalee.livejournal.com/10259.html