The Boy Next Door CH2
Author: resm
Pairing: None. House-Wilson strong friendship
Disclaimer: do not own
Summary: House trying to adjust to a regressive Wilson after misc. accident
Unbeta'd so please forgive me. Hopefully not too OOC
This is largely inspired by / borrowed from a clip of one of RSL's film's (Boys Next Door) which you can find here:
www.youtube.com/watch
Previous chapter: One
~ Chapter Two ~
House isn't surprised to see Cuddy hovering at the nurse's station when he frog-marches Wilson through the main entrance of PPTH. He also isn't surprised when she saddles up alongside their friend's left and seizes onto his other elbow even though House already has a good grip on him. He isn't surprised because they're used to this by now.
Wilson has developed a tendency to wander - or twist and pull away from them to be more precise - whenever he's brought back to his private room at the hospital. It usually takes one ride in the elevator and a few turns of the corridors before he remembers the evening ritual all over again; and his tantrums can be a real bitch for House who's already leaning too heavily on his cane because he doesn't rely on the Vicodin to take effect on the dull, constant ache in his leg anymore. It's hard just to remain upright most days without having to deal with Wilson upsetting his balance by trying to drag his arm free.
Owing to the stony set to House's face, Cuddy has the good grace not to ask of Wilson's father. The trip to the driving range obviously didn't go well if he isn't here to help tackle his son into bed. But from the way Wilson's shoulders are sagging as if completely depleted already, Cuddy judges that it won't be all that difficult to get him to bed tonight anyway.
Usually he panics because he knows that he'll be left alone in the dark with nothing to do but lay and think and pray for sleep. More often than they would care to admit, he'll work himself up so much that he presents them with no other option but to sedate him because it's the surest solution they have. And it suits House just fine. He'd rather drug his best friend if the alternative is to sit up with him and talk things out.
“I don't want,” Wilson frowns, turning his head towards his former employer.
“What James?”
“I don't want to sleep here tonight.”
Cuddy expels a breath and tries to pull a tight smile up into her eyes, pretending that there's a warmth there when there simply isn't anymore, “I know you don't but... but we've been over this, haven't we? Haven't we explained to you that it's important to have doctors and nurses around to check up on you during the night?”
“House said it was time to go home.”
“Yes,” Cuddy agrees instantly. “But he meant - he meant that he was taking you home... back here, instead of your father. That's what he meant.”
Wilson whips his head around to House and swallows the lump in his throat when he realises that the man is refusing to return his stare. Instead, the piercing blue eyes are fixed ahead of him as they drudge on in their conjoined pace.
He doesn't have the capacity to consider the pros and cons of grinding his heels into the ground: he either wants to or he doesn't want to. His thought processes don't meticulously flow. Usually he wants to. But tonight he doesn't. He's too tired to try to resist his curfew again. They'll only strip him, force a stupid gown over his head and manhandle him into bed then steal his clothes away to be cleaned anyway. He knows enough to know that he doesn't have the energy to fight the good fight tonight.
Cuddy watches him from the corner of her eye as they round a corner together and she can only imagine the cogs turning in his mind as he tries to process what she's just said. His face is puckered in concentration or perhaps just weariness at the mention of his father and she can't contain her sigh when he looks to House for confirmation but gets nothing in return. She tries to remember a time when it wasn't like this for them, tries to conjure up a single solitary memory of House actually being there for him. She wonders if House recognises and appreciates it now - how much Wilson looks up to him.
When they reach the hospital room, Wilson disengages his arms and helps himself onto the bed without the usual kicking and screaming, and Cuddy has to admit that it's certainly a welcome change. He folds into himself, bringing his knees up to his chest to hug loosely around his legs, and stares at the far wall without a single word.
She runs her tongue along her lips, made dry from Winter, and strides quickly to the bedside so that she doesn't have to regard House. Wilson blinks in sync with the quick click of her heels against the linoleum and is reminded of his flight plan just minutes beforehand.
“Goodnight, James,” she whispers against his ear in a genuinely affectionate lilt that he hasn't heard in a long time. There's no pity in her voice like Cameron's, who has made a point of visiting him despite her departure; no showy display of emotion because it feels good to indulge oneself in a good old sob story like his mother; no strained words plucked from tight lips out of obligation like Foreman, Thirteen, Taub or Chase. Cuddy always was a good friend and he closes his eyes over on this thought when she leans down to plant a little kiss on his cheek. He needs to shave.
He hears her move away from the bed just as quickly and the unmistakable shuffling and tapping of House's feet and cane draw nearer. Suddenly he becomes aware of the nipping cold as a shoe is being pulled from his foot. House, presumably, rests a hand on his sock, squeezes him gently, and then reaches out to remove the second shoe.
Wilson forces his eyes open, itching with a wave of tiredness though they are, and allows House to lift the blanket up over him to tuck him in. He's just grateful that they haven't undressed him tonight and closes his eyes again in case they remember that there's a fresh hospital gown waiting for him on the visitor's chair.
Cuddy is standing by the door, trying to respect their privacy. If she thought House hadn't changed, she would be right. But it's not that he had neglected Wilson and was refusing point blank to make up for it. It's that he had always been looking over the younger man's shoulder probably without Wilson even realising it himself, and he was still doing it now.
She was more than insulted when she thought even up until five minutes ago that House was limiting or downplaying the responsibility he had to his best friend - that Wilson had changed ergo he wasn't his best friend anymore, he was the mere shell of. But she should have known not to underestimate the fact that House only let certain people 'in' and next to herself, at a stretch, and Stacy, Wilson was his most constant, had been for years, and even a man as callous as House couldn't ignore the bond that they shared.
It's just sad that it has taken a car accident on a bad stretch of road to render House the most open he's been in aeons even if he thinks he's being deathly secretive about it. It's sad because House is finding consolation in Wilson's unawareness. It's sad because Wilson never really gets to know.
Cuddy feels her eyes actually begin to tear up when House finally drops a hand onto Wilson's shoulder, squeezes him a second time tonight, although more obviously, and lowers his head so that he may hear the husky “Night, Jimmy.”
She clears her throat and releases a shuddered breath, knowing he's hovering next to the bed not to ensure that Wilson passes over into his night's sleep but that he's waiting for some kind of sign that their friend's still in there reading them loud and clear. A smile would suffice. Even a “night” in response, no matter how automated.
Nothing.
And she's suddenly reminded of how much the diagnostician isn't allowed to know anymore either. Ironically, just as House is trying out how his heart might look on his sleeve if only for Wilson, Wilson can't express himself well enough to counteract his genius other half. House is rarely on an equal intellectual footing with other people, but in Wilson he found his little Boy Wonder commodity and enjoyed it. He enjoyed Wilson's brightness, the ambitious moves he made in his career. Wilson accomplished more before he was thirty than Foreman, arguably House's most ambitious, has accomplished in his entire fellowship - including his stint outside of PPTH.
“Sweet dreams,” she calls out as House limps passed her into the corridor again. She slides the glass door closed and then rounds on him, “House, what-”
“I thought you were already playing mommy to someone else's kid?” and she can hear the sneer in his voice. “Poor little Jim gets a boo-boo and you just can't help yourself, can you?”
For a moment Cuddy looks thoroughly upset, until she slips into pissed-off administrator mode and knows not to take his bait, “He's a close friend of mine too, House, and he was an asset to this hospital. He's not just some... pet project. And even if he was, I think you've learned since Amber that you're quite capable of sharing him. I know compassion isn't exactly your forte but you shouldn't judge me for knowing how and when to employ it.”
“See, your argument sounds convincing enough but your breasts say otherwise,” he leers openly at her. “They tend to push out of those inappropriate low-cuts when you're lying.”
“House,” she warns although she can't deny the slight pleasure she derives from his perverse compliments. “Look, for once can you not fight me on every little thing and just accept that I'm actually on your side and, believe it or not, am genuinely concerned about him too? What happened tonight?”
It was House's turn to back up.
“Ignoring how stoic he was, lets start with Mr Wilson's absence. Why the hell did he take off?”
“The guy's an ass.”
Cuddy rolls her eyes slowly and sucks in a breath, “What did you do now? Better yet. Just cut out the middle man. A straight yes or no answer. Am I going to be playing mediator between you and Wilson's family first thing tomorrow morning whilst we try to settle whatever complaint they're going to file against you?”
House cocks his chin, studying Wilson's now sleeping form through the half-drawn blinds and how they are casting shadows like prison bars across him and the bed.
“He washed his hands of him, Cuddy.”
Cuddy struggles with the implications, “Wilson?”
“No, not Wilson. Wilson's that much of an idiot it's ingrained into him to be polite to people he doesn't even like.”
“You should take a leaf out of his book some time.”
“Apparently we're not too far off the mark as it is,” he scoffs. “Wilson has daddy issues.”
“Well, I gathered as much when you said they're fighting.”
House shrugs almost casually, “He blew up at him, told him he was ashamed of him.”
He pauses, allowing Cuddy the time to allow the hurt to pass over her face before he reverts back to his most favourite defence: sarcasm, “I can't exactly blame him though. I know I'd be pissed if I raised a kid, sent the little dork to an all boy's boarding school and watched him excel there and later go on study medicine only to have the ungrateful brat run his car off an embankment and smash into a tree. Talk about the runt of the litter!”
“When you say ashamed...” she stutters for meaning, still taken aback by House's rushed words as he'd managed everything in almost the one breath.
“It was like watching a car crash, Cuddy,” House smirks and then clears his throat, pretending to be apologetic about it, “Metaphorically speaking, of course. See what I did there?”
Cuddy glares appropriately at him and then holds off on a sigh, although her shoulders drop as if she had, “House... if his parents can't cope with him, I can't...”
“You can discharge him and you will,” House says seriously. “He's bored here, Cuddy. Not to mention humiliated. Do you know how crippling it is to a man's ego having people he's supposed to be professionally superior to running around checking his meds and fluffing his pillows like he's just another dumb patient without a clue?”
“Except that he is another... patient without a clue,” she omits a word, turning his argument onto him. “And this isn't like you having a motorcycle accident or getting shot or making your heart stop or - House, he isn't you.”
And she knows what their conversation is coming down to. The same thing that has been sitting between them since Mayfield. The issue that Wilson himself has been interceding for weeks up until they got word of the crash. Is House responsible enough to be involved in someone else's life? Not Cuddy's, she knows that she can pacify him, but Rachel's. If Cuddy can't trust a relationship with House because of her daughter, how then can she justify trusting him enough to loan out Wilson?
“I want to take care of him,” he says resolutely and she knows from the determined set to his eyes that he can't be pacified this time, not about this. “And I am prepared to fight you on it.”
Chapter Three