Housefic: Come Around Again to Find
Title: Come Around Again to Find
Author: nightdog_barks and third_owl
Characters: House, Wilson, some OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No
Spoilers: Yes, for the Season 8 series finale arc.
Summary: An unscheduled stop makes House unaccountably nervous. 3,169 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is set in the Riververse -- a ficverse set after the end of Season 8 and in which House and Wilson's road trip has continued longer than either of them would've ever thought. This fic takes place a few weeks after the events of Sleeping in the Devil's Bed. The title is from Elton John's Rocket Man, cut-text is from Over There, by George M. Cohan.
Beta: Our intrepid First Readers, with especial thanks to srsly_yes and romeo46. All errors remaining are our own.
Come Around Again to Find
More often than not, he sleeps in the same bed with Wilson.
It's a different song, same as the first -- since that night in Vegas where he took Wilson's hand (or did Wilson take his hand? House gets confused on those points), they've kept the routine they'd already settled into. There'd been no other choice; if they'd begun sleeping apart, it would have meant that the thing with the hands meant something, and something big enough to be scary. And since it didn't mean anything and they're not scared, nothing has changed.
It's always the bed closest to the window, and Wilson always wants the side that gets the sunlight first in the morning. Which is fine, because everything's fine.
Really.
House was thinking, the morning after, that Wilson could not possibly have meant anything by it. It was one of those vagaries of Vegas and they wouldn't mention it again, and if on occasion his brain took him places he didn't plan to go (Wilson's hands on his chest, the shape of Wilson's mouth), well, he wouldn't mention that either.
What he knows is that he's dreamed of ... doing something, with Wilson. He wakes with memories, not of any particular narrative but of having felt Wilson's skin against his own, just fragments of things like that, now and then. But for the most part he's awake when his thoughts go there, and he wishes it would stop and yet picks at it on rare occasions. It's a little too interesting, as a hypothetical exercise, to leave entirely alone.
But that's all it is. Hypothetical, abstract, a sometime toy for his bored brain on the long flat desert highways, when the air stands still and the only thing moving besides them is a hawk making wide, lazy circles in the sky.
Like so many other things, human sexuality is not a fixed construct. House knows this, perhaps better than most people but not as well as some.
You're in love with your best friend, a tiny voice in his brain whispers.
I've always been in love with my best friend, House thinks. I'm just now admitting it. With thirty yards of hot asphalt between us, at seventy miles an hour, and both our helmets on.
Wilson's riding out ahead of him, nearly silhouetted in the glaring sun, long arms and legs and those square shoulders House always kind of liked even though he never thought about it.
Not that he's thinking about it now, and when the exit for Barstow comes up, a big white arrow on a green field, he can think about it even less.
They only needed gas, or so House had thought, but there's Wilson, leaning over and scowling at the flank of his bike like it's his latest patient.
"It's making a noise," he says.
House snorts at him. "What part of 'motorcycle' have you failed to comprehend?"
"You're the diagnostics guy," Wilson answers. "Take it around the block."
"No." House doesn't want to. He doesn't even want to get back on his own bike; his ass is sore, his back is sore, his head itches from day after day in that lid, and his hands are half numb after hours of riding crappy bone-rattling roads. "Find us a shop and a hotel. Not necessarily in that order."
"There's a motorcycle repair place on West Main," someone says, and House looks over at the young guy filling up his Honda Civic a few feet away. The kid's casually dressed -- a plain white t-shirt tucked neatly into belted jeans, he's a walking fashion ad for Calvin Klein, but House would recognize that haircut anywhere.
"Aren't you due back at Twentynine Palms?" House says.
The Marine grins. "No sir," he says. "I'm stationed over at the Maintenance Center."
It only takes House a moment. "Logistics Base Barstow."
"That's the one."
House leans back against his bike, starts to pull his gloves off, one finger at a time.
"Thanks for the shop reference," Wilson says. "What about hotels, motels? Anyplace around here you'd recommend?"
"Well," the kid says, "there's the place my parents stayed when they visited that one time -- the Holiday Inn Express on West Main. And it's not too far from the bike shop. Walking distance." He gazes off into the distance as the gas nozzle hose burps and chuggles away. "You want someplace nicer, the Barstow Mojave Inn is your best bet."
"Yeah?" House says. "What are they known for? Rattlesnake races?"
The kid smiles a little. "No, it's ... it's nice." His knuckles clench, pale against desert tan. "Taking my honeymoon there."
House stares at him. Wilson is mercifully silent for once.
"We woulda driven north up the coast, San Luis Obispo," the kid confesses. "But Renee's gotta work two shifts on Monday and I didn't want her to be all tired out." The gas nozzle in his hand gives a loud click, signalling a full tank. "Say, were you stationed out here or what? How'd you know about the Logistics Base?"
"My dad was a Marine," House says.
The kid nods. "Makes sense."
House knows he should stop himself, shut his mouth, but he can't. "Getting married, huh?" he says. "Let me guess. Thinking you'll start a nice little family soon?"
It's clear the kid doesn't know why he's asking. There's that tense grip again as he puts the nozzle back into its cradle. "Sure. Pretty soon."
"Great," House says. "Don't re-up." He turns away, knowing he should say something better, more encouraging. Congratulate the kid, wish him well, tell him to break a leg. Mazel fucking tov. He takes a breath and turns back again, meaning at least to thank the guy for the information, but Wilson is already there, smoothing everything over.
House's skull is pounding, and he's grateful for the reprieve from social niceties -- even if he knows Wilson is trying to spare the poor kid from House, and not the other way around.
He catches the Marine's eye, gives him a simple nod, and limps off into the gas station in search of the john.
Don't you mean the head? his dad's voice inquires, an echo of an echo in his mind. House doesn't bother answering.
The whole damn town is full of Devil Dogs, or at least that's the way it appears to House, who seems to see them everywhere.
The bike repair guy, who's six foot six, with "Semper fi" tattooed down one ropy forearm. He agrees there's something wrong with Wilson's bike and allows as how Ricky will fix it right up. While they're there, House picks out a new saddle, something with different ergonomics and more cushioning in the right places.
The front desk guy at the Holiday Inn Express, two hundred sixty-five pounds of muscle and stringy gristle who accepts Wilson's Visa card and has CNN on in the background, occasionally looking around at the latest reports from the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico and the tropical storm churning through the Keys. He's got a shiny bald head that reminds House of Foreman, and House guesses that he's the kind of guy who has his blood type inked under one armpit and DNR scrawled across his clavicle. He's seen those meat tags different places -- Detroit General, Bethesda, St. Francis. His job. Well, his former job.
The liquor store owner, a skinny runt who's got the look of a guy who's always searching the corners and the darkness behind the door, waiting for something to jump out at him. He's wearing ink, too, a sleeve of swirling colors, mostly red, black, and blue, with a lettered scroll trailing through a gaping skull. House squints a little to bring the scroll into sharper focus.
ALL MEN ANSWER TO GOD, it says, and, below that, GOD IS A MARINE
A wristband of barbed wire, or maybe it's thorns, completes the panoply. The guy honks out a sneeze as he yanks a paper bag from under the counter. His eyes dart around the store, light on the bottle of bourbon he's stuffing into the sack, flit back to House's face.
"That'll be all for you, then?" he says. His voice is soft, almost whispery.
House hands him a twenty. There's another tat, this one flat black script, on the inside of the guy's left forearm.
WAR DOG
"Anyplace to rent a car around here?" House says.
"Yessir," the guy says, taking the bill, and House knows there's not going to be any mention of visiting parents or honeymoons. "There's an Enterprise establishment on West Main." He makes the twenty disappear, and rifles through the register for change. "My cousin works there, behind the desk." His fingertips are dry and cool as a lizard's on House's palm, handing over two dollars and change. "Tell him Brian sent you."
As it turns out, "Brian sent me" is apparently the secret code for "All we have left are Ford Tauruses, painted an appealingly vomitous factory green." Wilson makes a face, but the car has air conditioning and that's all that matters to House, who cranks it up to MAX as soon as they get in. From there it's a short drive to a bookstore for Wilson, who is on one of his periodic Field Guide with Pretty Pictures of Local Flora and Fauna kicks, and after that, the sun is starting to go down so it's dinner at a '50s-era steakhouse, where Wilson has chicken and House makes short work of a New York strip, medium-rare.
Back at the hotel, they argue over the remote for a while, until it turns out that the TV seems to be stuck in some scheduling time warp, with every available movie emanating from Military Command Central. Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Sands of Iwo Jima -- House flips channels, and flips again, but aside from CNN, the Weather Channel, and a few desultory reruns of Two and a Half Men and NCIS, which is also military if you think about it, there's nothing but war. They end up settling for A Few Good Men, so House can snipe at Tom Cruise's prettiness, as he secretly tries to imagine Wilson as a Marine officer and fails utterly. No; Wilson would have been one of those gentlemen volunteers who went to war because it was the right thing to do, in the days when soldiers got together and elected their leaders -- a captain or lieutenant leading a hopeless charge at Antietam or rallying his men around a bloody plot of ground in The Wilderness.
Later that night he dreams of battle, a confused fight in a ruined land, a company commander with Wilson's face waving a sabre, turning to shout but his words carried away by the roar of cannon fire.
"Get down, you idiot!" House yells, but it's a dream and Wilson can't hear him, and in the next moment it doesn't matter anyway as Wilson falls dead, shot through the chest, right under the breastbone.
House jerks awake, covered in sweat, and because he and Wilson are still doing this weird bunkmate experience, of course Wilson wakes up too.
"Hnhh?" Wilson says.
House rolls onto his back, swallows to try and get some moisture into his seriously dry throat, and while he may have thought he'd lost that annoying mental soundtrack back around Buffalo Hump, Nowheresville, here it comes again.
"Hey, Wilson, I dreamed we were in this crazy battle."
Hey, Wilson, I dreamed you were dead.
Hey, Wilson, I dreamed I was -- "
House coughs. "Nothing," he says. "Nothing, go back to sleep."
"Um," Wilson says obligingly, and turns away.
House ends up sitting by the window, watching the parking lot until the sun comes up. When at last he turns around, he finds Wilson lying very still in bed, awake, watching him.
House doesn't ask how long Wilson's been that way. Wouldn't matter; it's not like he's done anything embarrassing. Just proven himself to have a massive insomnia problem.
"I'm sorry," Wilson says.
House's brain lurches like it's just missed a gear. "What'd you do this time?"
"Not now. Then. Before. When I had cancer. Obviously it ended ... better than we imagined, but -- "
"You were still a moron." The words are out of his mouth before he can call them back.
"Says the guy who mainlined heroin and got himself trapped in a burning building," Wilson says, but there's no anger there, no accusation, and okay, he has a point. "Nothing was ever going to be good enough. Nothing I tried. But it was my decision to make."
"I accepted that. You know I did."
"I do," Wilson says, and the set of his jaw softens, and he opens his mouth to say something else, but whatever he might have said is cut off at that moment by the roaring blattt! of a car with a bad muffler outside. So all he ends up saying is "C'mon, let's get some breakfast."
The diner has a pile of tiny toys in sealed plastic packets in a wicker basket next to the cashier. House grabs one as they walk in -- little green army men, the kind he used to play with when he was a kid. The cashier rolls her eyes but doesn't say anything, and when they take their seats he rips the bag apart and dumps the green soldiers on the table. They're boring -- six little infantrymen, rifles frozen to their shoulders, aiming wherever House points them. He lines them up to fire at Wilson, at the waitress who takes their orders, at the traitorous salt and pepper shakers.
"Daleks," Wilson says. "Your guys are doomed."
Their coffee arrives, then the orange juice, and in record time, their breakfasts. House takes a sip of juice as he watches Wilson set to work on scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and hash browns. Wilson's hair is still a little damp from his shower, and the beginning of a cowlick peeks up at the crown of his head. No way House is going to tell him, just like he'll never tell him about the things he saw in the burning warehouse. No Kutner, no Amber, no Cameron, and hell no to that squirming bundle of blue-eyed baby boy.
"Bikes won't be ready until tomorrow," he says -- unnecessarily, but he wants to get any hint of those images out of his head. "What do you want to do today?" He plucks the green army men from their defensive position around the bottle of Tabasco sauce and arranges them into a circular firing squad.
Wilson raises an eyebrow. "You're obsessed," he says. "Let's get away from this base for a while."
He drives them out to a ghost town. Which turns out to be pretty damn pointless, going to an old mining village if you don't want to take the mine tour, which Wilson doesn't, and that's fine with House except that it makes no sense, so they stand just inside the mine entrance while Wilson chats up the guide, who happens to be young, blonde, and not wearing a wedding ring.
All Wilson wants to know is how dangerous were the caves, and were there any things living down there besides bats and rats, and while the guide corrects him and says mines, House gives him the side-eye, not because these are strange things to ask but because Wilson is all tensed up, as if they were. The records are lost, says the guide, and hazards, and lanterns and invention of blue jeans, and House tunes her out and jabs at the timbers with his cane to see if anything falls down.
"I'm hot," Wilson says as they wander away from the mine; already he's less jittery, and House makes a mental note to start tracking Wilson's caffeine intake. There's a snack bar, so they go, and House comes out with a pound bag of old-fashioned saltwater taffy.
A couple hours later, that taffy holds him in good stead while they watch a godawful movie at the Skyline Drive-In.
It's some live-action cartoon with superheroes -- Avengers IV: Field of Phantom Skulls, The Prologue, or something like that. House watches the guy dressed as Captain America and thinks about his father.
He wants to get out of here.
The next day starts with the kind of tedium that normally drives House mad -- get up too early, stumble around in the half-light, grumble at each other, pack, drop off the car, walk a block to get the bikes, only to discover the bike shop isn't open yet.
"Ninja," House says. "Ninja. Ronin. Another ninja." He's playing Guess the Occupation of the People Waiting at the Bus Stop Across the Street.
Wilson squints at the line of commuters. "They're all accountants," he says. "It's Casual Friday."
"It's Wednesday," House replies, "and they're just that well disguised." He's just starting to think about sending Wilson over to the Frosty Donuts for some high-octane powdered sugar when the growl of a V-twin engine interrupts his train of thought.
It's a Heritage Softail, blue and silver, the Harley shield gleaming on the side of the tank. It glides to a stop a few feet away and falls silent; the rider lowers the kickstand, dismounts, takes off her helmet.
Because that's who it is, a her, a woman in her late thirties, early forties, shaking out her long brown ponytail.
"Hi guys," she says with a smile. "You here to pick up your bikes? I'm Rickie."
House is in love.
"You aren't in love, House, you're in lust. There's a difference, even for you." It's already hot, dust devils swirling across the hotel's parking lot.
"Says the guy who used to buy his girlfriend Norwegian candy." House buckles up one of the straps on his saddlebag, then decides to tighten it a notch.
Wilson scrubs at his face with both hands and leaves them there for a minute. "It was Lindor Truffles, and they were for my wife."
The parking lot is edged with boulders as so many lots are out here, a half-assed attempt at landscaping in an unforgiving land. House stops, pulls one of the green army men from his jacket pocket and poses it on a rock. He takes a cell phone picture, types "Help! I'm being held against my will," and sends it to Foreman.
"You're an idiot," Wilson says, watching over House's shoulder, his voice way too close to House's left ear, but he doesn't sound angry, or even surprised.
"Smart enough to use my fake account. Thought you'd be smart enough to know that."
"You need a job, House." What would ordinarily be the start of a lecture seems to be the end of one, today. Wilson's strapping his helmet into place.
They'll be in Loma Linda by late afternoon, dusty, thirsty, tired and hot, but not surrounded by soldiers.
For now, House thinks, it's good enough.
~ fin
Author: nightdog_barks and third_owl
Characters: House, Wilson, some OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No
Spoilers: Yes, for the Season 8 series finale arc.
Summary: An unscheduled stop makes House unaccountably nervous. 3,169 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is set in the Riververse -- a ficverse set after the end of Season 8 and in which House and Wilson's road trip has continued longer than either of them would've ever thought. This fic takes place a few weeks after the events of Sleeping in the Devil's Bed. The title is from Elton John's Rocket Man, cut-text is from Over There, by George M. Cohan.
Beta: Our intrepid First Readers, with especial thanks to srsly_yes and romeo46. All errors remaining are our own.
Come Around Again to Find
More often than not, he sleeps in the same bed with Wilson.
It's a different song, same as the first -- since that night in Vegas where he took Wilson's hand (or did Wilson take his hand? House gets confused on those points), they've kept the routine they'd already settled into. There'd been no other choice; if they'd begun sleeping apart, it would have meant that the thing with the hands meant something, and something big enough to be scary. And since it didn't mean anything and they're not scared, nothing has changed.
It's always the bed closest to the window, and Wilson always wants the side that gets the sunlight first in the morning. Which is fine, because everything's fine.
Really.
House was thinking, the morning after, that Wilson could not possibly have meant anything by it. It was one of those vagaries of Vegas and they wouldn't mention it again, and if on occasion his brain took him places he didn't plan to go (Wilson's hands on his chest, the shape of Wilson's mouth), well, he wouldn't mention that either.
What he knows is that he's dreamed of ... doing something, with Wilson. He wakes with memories, not of any particular narrative but of having felt Wilson's skin against his own, just fragments of things like that, now and then. But for the most part he's awake when his thoughts go there, and he wishes it would stop and yet picks at it on rare occasions. It's a little too interesting, as a hypothetical exercise, to leave entirely alone.
But that's all it is. Hypothetical, abstract, a sometime toy for his bored brain on the long flat desert highways, when the air stands still and the only thing moving besides them is a hawk making wide, lazy circles in the sky.
Like so many other things, human sexuality is not a fixed construct. House knows this, perhaps better than most people but not as well as some.
You're in love with your best friend, a tiny voice in his brain whispers.
I've always been in love with my best friend, House thinks. I'm just now admitting it. With thirty yards of hot asphalt between us, at seventy miles an hour, and both our helmets on.
Wilson's riding out ahead of him, nearly silhouetted in the glaring sun, long arms and legs and those square shoulders House always kind of liked even though he never thought about it.
Not that he's thinking about it now, and when the exit for Barstow comes up, a big white arrow on a green field, he can think about it even less.
They only needed gas, or so House had thought, but there's Wilson, leaning over and scowling at the flank of his bike like it's his latest patient.
"It's making a noise," he says.
House snorts at him. "What part of 'motorcycle' have you failed to comprehend?"
"You're the diagnostics guy," Wilson answers. "Take it around the block."
"No." House doesn't want to. He doesn't even want to get back on his own bike; his ass is sore, his back is sore, his head itches from day after day in that lid, and his hands are half numb after hours of riding crappy bone-rattling roads. "Find us a shop and a hotel. Not necessarily in that order."
"There's a motorcycle repair place on West Main," someone says, and House looks over at the young guy filling up his Honda Civic a few feet away. The kid's casually dressed -- a plain white t-shirt tucked neatly into belted jeans, he's a walking fashion ad for Calvin Klein, but House would recognize that haircut anywhere.
"Aren't you due back at Twentynine Palms?" House says.
The Marine grins. "No sir," he says. "I'm stationed over at the Maintenance Center."
It only takes House a moment. "Logistics Base Barstow."
"That's the one."
House leans back against his bike, starts to pull his gloves off, one finger at a time.
"Thanks for the shop reference," Wilson says. "What about hotels, motels? Anyplace around here you'd recommend?"
"Well," the kid says, "there's the place my parents stayed when they visited that one time -- the Holiday Inn Express on West Main. And it's not too far from the bike shop. Walking distance." He gazes off into the distance as the gas nozzle hose burps and chuggles away. "You want someplace nicer, the Barstow Mojave Inn is your best bet."
"Yeah?" House says. "What are they known for? Rattlesnake races?"
The kid smiles a little. "No, it's ... it's nice." His knuckles clench, pale against desert tan. "Taking my honeymoon there."
House stares at him. Wilson is mercifully silent for once.
"We woulda driven north up the coast, San Luis Obispo," the kid confesses. "But Renee's gotta work two shifts on Monday and I didn't want her to be all tired out." The gas nozzle in his hand gives a loud click, signalling a full tank. "Say, were you stationed out here or what? How'd you know about the Logistics Base?"
"My dad was a Marine," House says.
The kid nods. "Makes sense."
House knows he should stop himself, shut his mouth, but he can't. "Getting married, huh?" he says. "Let me guess. Thinking you'll start a nice little family soon?"
It's clear the kid doesn't know why he's asking. There's that tense grip again as he puts the nozzle back into its cradle. "Sure. Pretty soon."
"Great," House says. "Don't re-up." He turns away, knowing he should say something better, more encouraging. Congratulate the kid, wish him well, tell him to break a leg. Mazel fucking tov. He takes a breath and turns back again, meaning at least to thank the guy for the information, but Wilson is already there, smoothing everything over.
House's skull is pounding, and he's grateful for the reprieve from social niceties -- even if he knows Wilson is trying to spare the poor kid from House, and not the other way around.
He catches the Marine's eye, gives him a simple nod, and limps off into the gas station in search of the john.
Don't you mean the head? his dad's voice inquires, an echo of an echo in his mind. House doesn't bother answering.
The whole damn town is full of Devil Dogs, or at least that's the way it appears to House, who seems to see them everywhere.
The bike repair guy, who's six foot six, with "Semper fi" tattooed down one ropy forearm. He agrees there's something wrong with Wilson's bike and allows as how Ricky will fix it right up. While they're there, House picks out a new saddle, something with different ergonomics and more cushioning in the right places.
The front desk guy at the Holiday Inn Express, two hundred sixty-five pounds of muscle and stringy gristle who accepts Wilson's Visa card and has CNN on in the background, occasionally looking around at the latest reports from the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico and the tropical storm churning through the Keys. He's got a shiny bald head that reminds House of Foreman, and House guesses that he's the kind of guy who has his blood type inked under one armpit and DNR scrawled across his clavicle. He's seen those meat tags different places -- Detroit General, Bethesda, St. Francis. His job. Well, his former job.
The liquor store owner, a skinny runt who's got the look of a guy who's always searching the corners and the darkness behind the door, waiting for something to jump out at him. He's wearing ink, too, a sleeve of swirling colors, mostly red, black, and blue, with a lettered scroll trailing through a gaping skull. House squints a little to bring the scroll into sharper focus.
ALL MEN ANSWER TO GOD, it says, and, below that, GOD IS A MARINE
A wristband of barbed wire, or maybe it's thorns, completes the panoply. The guy honks out a sneeze as he yanks a paper bag from under the counter. His eyes dart around the store, light on the bottle of bourbon he's stuffing into the sack, flit back to House's face.
"That'll be all for you, then?" he says. His voice is soft, almost whispery.
House hands him a twenty. There's another tat, this one flat black script, on the inside of the guy's left forearm.
WAR DOG
"Anyplace to rent a car around here?" House says.
"Yessir," the guy says, taking the bill, and House knows there's not going to be any mention of visiting parents or honeymoons. "There's an Enterprise establishment on West Main." He makes the twenty disappear, and rifles through the register for change. "My cousin works there, behind the desk." His fingertips are dry and cool as a lizard's on House's palm, handing over two dollars and change. "Tell him Brian sent you."
As it turns out, "Brian sent me" is apparently the secret code for "All we have left are Ford Tauruses, painted an appealingly vomitous factory green." Wilson makes a face, but the car has air conditioning and that's all that matters to House, who cranks it up to MAX as soon as they get in. From there it's a short drive to a bookstore for Wilson, who is on one of his periodic Field Guide with Pretty Pictures of Local Flora and Fauna kicks, and after that, the sun is starting to go down so it's dinner at a '50s-era steakhouse, where Wilson has chicken and House makes short work of a New York strip, medium-rare.
Back at the hotel, they argue over the remote for a while, until it turns out that the TV seems to be stuck in some scheduling time warp, with every available movie emanating from Military Command Central. Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Sands of Iwo Jima -- House flips channels, and flips again, but aside from CNN, the Weather Channel, and a few desultory reruns of Two and a Half Men and NCIS, which is also military if you think about it, there's nothing but war. They end up settling for A Few Good Men, so House can snipe at Tom Cruise's prettiness, as he secretly tries to imagine Wilson as a Marine officer and fails utterly. No; Wilson would have been one of those gentlemen volunteers who went to war because it was the right thing to do, in the days when soldiers got together and elected their leaders -- a captain or lieutenant leading a hopeless charge at Antietam or rallying his men around a bloody plot of ground in The Wilderness.
Later that night he dreams of battle, a confused fight in a ruined land, a company commander with Wilson's face waving a sabre, turning to shout but his words carried away by the roar of cannon fire.
"Get down, you idiot!" House yells, but it's a dream and Wilson can't hear him, and in the next moment it doesn't matter anyway as Wilson falls dead, shot through the chest, right under the breastbone.
House jerks awake, covered in sweat, and because he and Wilson are still doing this weird bunkmate experience, of course Wilson wakes up too.
"Hnhh?" Wilson says.
House rolls onto his back, swallows to try and get some moisture into his seriously dry throat, and while he may have thought he'd lost that annoying mental soundtrack back around Buffalo Hump, Nowheresville, here it comes again.
"Hey, Wilson, I dreamed we were in this crazy battle."
Hey, Wilson, I dreamed you were dead.
Hey, Wilson, I dreamed I was -- "
House coughs. "Nothing," he says. "Nothing, go back to sleep."
"Um," Wilson says obligingly, and turns away.
House ends up sitting by the window, watching the parking lot until the sun comes up. When at last he turns around, he finds Wilson lying very still in bed, awake, watching him.
House doesn't ask how long Wilson's been that way. Wouldn't matter; it's not like he's done anything embarrassing. Just proven himself to have a massive insomnia problem.
"I'm sorry," Wilson says.
House's brain lurches like it's just missed a gear. "What'd you do this time?"
"Not now. Then. Before. When I had cancer. Obviously it ended ... better than we imagined, but -- "
"You were still a moron." The words are out of his mouth before he can call them back.
"Says the guy who mainlined heroin and got himself trapped in a burning building," Wilson says, but there's no anger there, no accusation, and okay, he has a point. "Nothing was ever going to be good enough. Nothing I tried. But it was my decision to make."
"I accepted that. You know I did."
"I do," Wilson says, and the set of his jaw softens, and he opens his mouth to say something else, but whatever he might have said is cut off at that moment by the roaring blattt! of a car with a bad muffler outside. So all he ends up saying is "C'mon, let's get some breakfast."
The diner has a pile of tiny toys in sealed plastic packets in a wicker basket next to the cashier. House grabs one as they walk in -- little green army men, the kind he used to play with when he was a kid. The cashier rolls her eyes but doesn't say anything, and when they take their seats he rips the bag apart and dumps the green soldiers on the table. They're boring -- six little infantrymen, rifles frozen to their shoulders, aiming wherever House points them. He lines them up to fire at Wilson, at the waitress who takes their orders, at the traitorous salt and pepper shakers.
"Daleks," Wilson says. "Your guys are doomed."
Their coffee arrives, then the orange juice, and in record time, their breakfasts. House takes a sip of juice as he watches Wilson set to work on scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and hash browns. Wilson's hair is still a little damp from his shower, and the beginning of a cowlick peeks up at the crown of his head. No way House is going to tell him, just like he'll never tell him about the things he saw in the burning warehouse. No Kutner, no Amber, no Cameron, and hell no to that squirming bundle of blue-eyed baby boy.
"Bikes won't be ready until tomorrow," he says -- unnecessarily, but he wants to get any hint of those images out of his head. "What do you want to do today?" He plucks the green army men from their defensive position around the bottle of Tabasco sauce and arranges them into a circular firing squad.
Wilson raises an eyebrow. "You're obsessed," he says. "Let's get away from this base for a while."
He drives them out to a ghost town. Which turns out to be pretty damn pointless, going to an old mining village if you don't want to take the mine tour, which Wilson doesn't, and that's fine with House except that it makes no sense, so they stand just inside the mine entrance while Wilson chats up the guide, who happens to be young, blonde, and not wearing a wedding ring.
All Wilson wants to know is how dangerous were the caves, and were there any things living down there besides bats and rats, and while the guide corrects him and says mines, House gives him the side-eye, not because these are strange things to ask but because Wilson is all tensed up, as if they were. The records are lost, says the guide, and hazards, and lanterns and invention of blue jeans, and House tunes her out and jabs at the timbers with his cane to see if anything falls down.
"I'm hot," Wilson says as they wander away from the mine; already he's less jittery, and House makes a mental note to start tracking Wilson's caffeine intake. There's a snack bar, so they go, and House comes out with a pound bag of old-fashioned saltwater taffy.
A couple hours later, that taffy holds him in good stead while they watch a godawful movie at the Skyline Drive-In.
It's some live-action cartoon with superheroes -- Avengers IV: Field of Phantom Skulls, The Prologue, or something like that. House watches the guy dressed as Captain America and thinks about his father.
He wants to get out of here.
The next day starts with the kind of tedium that normally drives House mad -- get up too early, stumble around in the half-light, grumble at each other, pack, drop off the car, walk a block to get the bikes, only to discover the bike shop isn't open yet.
"Ninja," House says. "Ninja. Ronin. Another ninja." He's playing Guess the Occupation of the People Waiting at the Bus Stop Across the Street.
Wilson squints at the line of commuters. "They're all accountants," he says. "It's Casual Friday."
"It's Wednesday," House replies, "and they're just that well disguised." He's just starting to think about sending Wilson over to the Frosty Donuts for some high-octane powdered sugar when the growl of a V-twin engine interrupts his train of thought.
It's a Heritage Softail, blue and silver, the Harley shield gleaming on the side of the tank. It glides to a stop a few feet away and falls silent; the rider lowers the kickstand, dismounts, takes off her helmet.
Because that's who it is, a her, a woman in her late thirties, early forties, shaking out her long brown ponytail.
"Hi guys," she says with a smile. "You here to pick up your bikes? I'm Rickie."
House is in love.
"You aren't in love, House, you're in lust. There's a difference, even for you." It's already hot, dust devils swirling across the hotel's parking lot.
"Says the guy who used to buy his girlfriend Norwegian candy." House buckles up one of the straps on his saddlebag, then decides to tighten it a notch.
Wilson scrubs at his face with both hands and leaves them there for a minute. "It was Lindor Truffles, and they were for my wife."
The parking lot is edged with boulders as so many lots are out here, a half-assed attempt at landscaping in an unforgiving land. House stops, pulls one of the green army men from his jacket pocket and poses it on a rock. He takes a cell phone picture, types "Help! I'm being held against my will," and sends it to Foreman.
"You're an idiot," Wilson says, watching over House's shoulder, his voice way too close to House's left ear, but he doesn't sound angry, or even surprised.
"Smart enough to use my fake account. Thought you'd be smart enough to know that."
"You need a job, House." What would ordinarily be the start of a lecture seems to be the end of one, today. Wilson's strapping his helmet into place.
They'll be in Loma Linda by late afternoon, dusty, thirsty, tired and hot, but not surrounded by soldiers.
For now, House thinks, it's good enough.
~ fin