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sick_wilson2007-07-12 03:01 pm
blackmare.livejournal.com) wrote in sick_wilson2007-07-12 03:01 pm
Entry tags:
Light Fuse and -- (A 13th part for Welcome To Wherever You Are)
TITLE: Light Fuse and --
AUTHOR:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blackmare_9
PAIRING: No 'pairing'. Tooey, House, and Wilson.
RATING: Soft "R" for some language, some violence and remembered violence.
WARNINGS: No, but if you haven't readnightdog_barks's Welcome To Wherever You Are, this will make no sense.
SPOILERS: Yes, for the S3 Tritter Arc and how it ended.
SUMMARY: There are things Lt. "Tooey" has simply got to know.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the House characters, or any ofnightdog_barks's characters either.
AUTHOR NOTES: I said I wouldn't write any more of these. Oh well; everybody lies.nightdog_barks creates ficverses that pull me in like quicksand.
BETA: Nightdog,perspi, deelaundry, daisylily, pwcorgigirl.
______________________________________
When this is over, the shouting and the trials, convictions and releases, he'll have ninety days' leave. It's too long and not long enough. Too long to be unemployed, at loose ends, alone. Not long enough to forget what he's just done, or to be ready for the next operation, which might mean more choices like the one he'd had to make that night.
There was a lot of truth to what he'd told the New Guy. He has no wife, no family to speak of, no one waiting for him; he has his job. That, and a bare little apartment on the base. They'd had to make room for him at the last minute, as the investigation drew to a close just a little sooner than expected. 'Sooner than expected' is a funny thought, now -- seeing as he really was, at the start of it all, only supposed to have been in that camp for thirty days.
He wants out of the desert, but he's stuck for a while, because everyone has questions and he's among those who has to answer. When he's not making statements and appearing before various courts and officials, though, there's little for him to do. Vegas holds no charm for him, and he's already seen more of Nevada's great outdoors than he ever wanted to see.
That's why he's at Nellis now, checking in on the New Guy. James Wilson, a harmless MD from New Jersey, a man who deals with death every day. Maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising that a cancer specialist had turned out to have brass balls, but it was. No way would he have expected that from the guy who'd named him Tooey.
They know who he is, at the base hospital. He's Lt. Nathan Long, who has been calling every couple days for updates about the man they pulled out of the pit. The nurses, who don't know the first half of that story, think Lt. Long is a hero. They point him quietly in the direction of Wilson's room, and they warn him that the doctor has a watchdog. A big angry jerk with a cane. "I'll take that under advisement," he says, and smiles a little because that means House has stuck around.
He approaches the room slowly, silently, each step heavier than the last. There's no telling whether House remembered or conveyed his apology to Wilson, or whether Wilson accepted it if he did. It's probably a bad idea for him to be here. Who knows if Wilson will go out of his mind with fear or rage the moment he sees Nate Long. His friend, Tooey, who held a gun to his head and then left him there to face such an agonizing death.
No -- he shouldn't be here at all. It's not safe for either of them. He's ready to turn around and leave, even though he's already standing at the correct door. There's no window; he can't see in and James Wilson can't see out. No one needs to know he's even been here. It'll be better that way. He turns to go, just as the door swings open and he gets damn near bowled over by a big angry jerk with a cane.
"He's asleep. Leave him alone," growls House, and then he squints and cocks his head. "Do I know -- you're him. 'Tooey said he's sorry.' You're ... Tooey? What the hell kind of name is Tooey?"
"My prisoner number. Had a lot of twos in it."
"Asinine." House shakes his head. "Must've been Wilson's idea."
"Yeah, he spoke highly of you, too," Nate retorts, and at that moment, House's whole body simply stops moving. There's no military posture, but this man is standing at attention all the same. Well. How very, very interesting.
House recovers, makes a sharp turn and walks off, obviously expecting the Lieutenant to follow. Keeping up is harder than he'd have thought; the guy's lame, but he's damn tall and he moves so well that you don't much notice the limp. "Poker game on," he says. "Doctors only, but I'll get 'em to deal you in. Maybe."
"What's the catch?"
"No catch," says House, but the corner of his mouth is curling upward like a hook. There's a catch, all right.
"You're out of cash," Nate guesses.
House stops again, bouncing his cane on the tiles as he scans his would-be opponent from head to toe. "How much did Wilson tell you?"
"I don't know. Buy me lunch and I'll see what I can recall."
"No cash, remember?"
"You're on a trip out of state without credit cards? I'm Special Ops, not Special Ed."
"All right, Mister Special Ops. Tell me what you were sorry about and I'll consider feeding you."
This, Nate thinks, is getting more fascinating all the time. "He didn't tell you." Nate had figured as much, seeing as House had reacted to him with relative neutrality. Still, it makes his chest ache to think of it, to know that Doctor Wilson -- did what? Protected him? Was too hurt to talk about it?
"Wilson won't say a word. It's a big, fat, hairy secret. I love big, fat, hairy secrets. They're like pinatas; I hit 'em with my cane 'til all the goodies fall out."
"So if I told you now, where'd be the fun in that? Let's go. None of that cheap Tex-Mex crap, either. I want real food. I've spent a year and a half eating boloney sandwiches."
"Not my problem!" House declares, as he turns in the direction of the parking lot. "But I'll humor you, because I'm a nosy bastard."
So I heard, thinks Nate. He's not going to relay even one more piece of information until he's got a steak in front of him.
Outside, the sun glares off pavement and cars. House's long-sleeved shirt is pale blue, but in this heat it glows starkly white as House strides along ahead of him. The desert hates Nate, and it's mutual. The wind picks up, kicking grit into Nate's hair and pressing the shirt fabric against House's broad back. Crippled or not, that's a powerful man. This is stupid, says some tiny part of Nate's brain, and he agrees wholeheartedly, even as he jogs a few steps to catch up.
_____
"How did you even know about this place?"
The Mine Shaft Tavern looks like a junkyard, or a ruined small-town theatre. There are faded panels of painted canvas on one wall, landscapes with trains and ghosts, like the background for a long-past melodrama. But the steak is a thing of simple beauty, a thick, tender antidote to eighteen months' worth of bologna poisoning. "I've been around town two weeks now and nobody's mentioned it."
"Hangin' with the wrong crowd, Tooey," says House, who's grinning like a shark. "You wanna know about food, you ask the chopper pilots." He sinks those sharp teeth into an enormous cheeseburger, leans back his head with an expression of pure bliss. If Nate didn't know better, he'd think House hadn't eaten in two days.
"For a guy who hates everybody, you seem to make a lot of friends. Poker with the docs at Nellis. Lunch with the chopper jocks."
"One chopper jock. Sheppard, who's certifiable. And the poker games are slightly less boring than watching The Price Is Right while Wilson snores. Didn't he tell you I have no use for human beings unless I have a use for them?"
"He told me you were the only person who might actually come looking for him."
House goes still again, and it's like catching a flash of gold, a doubloon beneath the water on the shoreline, in that fleeting moment of clarity between one wave and the next. There's something there, something unusual, strong enough to have sustained a man who'd had no real hope of ever tasting freedom again.
"Shows you how pathetic --" House starts, but he decides against insulting Wilson again, and fishes a pill bottle from his pocket instead. He swallows the pills with practiced carelessness, waiting for Nate to fill in the silence.
"Oh, he admitted that much. Pathetic, he said, that his last best hope was a crippled jerk who'd only miss him because the source of free lunches was gone." There's that half-second of stillness in House again, before he turns his face away. "And because his disappearance would be ... an anomaly, which you probably couldn't resist. He made no claims about your warm and caring heart."
"Wilson knows me."
"Did you really blackmail him into helping you toilet-paper your boss's house?"
"It was Halloween, and you can't prove anything," says House, and there is New Guy's friend, fighting the smile that wants to emerge, the surge of pleasure that comes with that memory. "Didn't he tell you anything interesting? I'm not paying for lunch just for that."
"He said that if one of you had to be in that camp, it was better him than you."
"I'm sure it was," replies House, but he's stopped fidgeting again. He's staring at Nate as if he's going to whip out a scalpel and dissect him right there on the restaurant table. "Wilson's an idiot. He actually said that?"
"Not in those words. What he said was that if it had been you, you'd have pissed the Warden off so bad he'd have killed you on the spot. Now that we've met, I'm inclined to agree." Nate's smiling, savoring the cool, dark room around him, the flavor of another bite of steak (dear God, he's missed real meat) and the first truly fun conversation he's had in three weeks. Since the last time he ate lunch with New Guy.
"Why don't you cut the crap," says House, and that look of his has gotten even sharper, when Nate wouldn't have thought that was possible. "You want something, or you wouldn't be here. What is it? Forgiveness for whatever you did, or think you did, to Wilson? If he really told you that much, you should know better than to ask me. Ask him yourself, if you're not too much of a coward."
"I will, if he's willing to see me," Nate says. He's no coward, and that's not a button House can push. "I think you're the only one who can tell me that. And I wanted to meet you, because I'm a nosy bastard too."
"He did tell you you'd hate me, right? And how'd I become the topic of jailhouse conversation, anyway?"
Nate almost thinks better of it, but he's still seeing something in House, and he wants to know what. "Like this," he says, and snatches a single thick french fry off House's plate.
There's a second in which he's sure he's just misjudged, pushed it too far, and House is going to punch him. A dozen wild emotions are jostling for position on House's face -- this son of a bitch who's been pretending not to have any emotions at all. God, but he's fun to mess with.
"Second time I swiped food from him," Nate says, grinning as he pops the pilfered fry into his mouth. "He got this really weird look and said, 'Your name wouldn't happen to be House?' 'Nope,' I said. 'What the hell kinda name is House?'" He pauses, sipping beer (and oh, he's missed beer). "So he told me. First time I ever saw New Guy smile."
House appears -- almost dumbstruck, for just the briefest span of time. Nate has learned to watch people so closely, to read the most fleeting reactions, picking out new information as if from thin air. Disbelief, hope, anger, fear. Fear? Oh yes, just for that split second. And there's something else going on in there, a series of swift calculations, House reading him and putting pieces together.
"That," says Nate, "wasn't the last time he accused me of being a lot like you." He hadn't planned to mention this, but he'll need something that counts in his favor. That, and he simply wants to see what House will do. "He said it again the next day. Right after I stopped him from killing himself."
House puts down his glass of Coke and sits up very, very straight. If Nate had thought this man was ready to dissect him before, that was nothing compared to this. He's fully expecting House to lunge across the table, sending furniture and food and everything flying. Shit. Too soon, he thinks, and suddenly he knows just what he's doing, what he has intended to do all along. It's an incredibly bad idea. Especially here, because someone will call the cops and that is not what he wants, but it's about to happen -- or maybe it's not.
"Exactly," demands House, at last, in a tone that makes Nate's skin prickle, "exactly what the hell are you talking about?"
"He was a half a step from the dead line, the point where they shoot first and don't ask questions later. He was picking up his foot to cross it."
"When you came riding in on your milk-white steed and told him to think of all the puppy dogs and rainbows he'd never get to see. What? You think I should thank you?"
"No. And what I said," he continues lightly, "was, 'Hey, moron, get your head out of your ass.' I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist. I definitely used the word 'moron,' though." He toys with what's left of his steak, picks at it. He's not that hungry anymore, and he needs not to overeat. He's resolved; he knows exactly how he'll go about this thing. Stupid thing, but he knows himself and he's going to do it anyway. The need to find out is irresistible.
"I find it hard to believe," he ponders, "that you once crashed an oncology department Christmas party."
"Then don't believe it. Not true, anyway."
"By showing up at the restaurant with a guitar and a sombrero."
"My Feliz Navidad drove 'em wild." House is smiling again, or trying not to smile -- and Nate relaxes, just a little. He's bought himself some time, and that's all he needs.
_______
It was a late lunch to start with, and by the time they emerge from the Mine Shaft it's close to seventeen hundred -- five o'clock, he reminds himself; this is the civilian world. The sky's overcast, the sun's a mere pale spot behind a dusty purple curtain. Already the temperature's falling, a front moving in, and that's good.
"How bad was it?" he asks, abruptly, as the door closes behind them. "Yeah, I know he almost died, I know he looked like a damn strip of jerky by the time we got him out." Nate pulls out a cigarette, lights up, offers one to House, who declines. "It looked like they did more than just throw him in the box, though. Didn't they." It's really not a question. Of course they did.
"The hell do you wanna know that for?" House growls at him. "Get your entertainment somewhere else. Rent a movie, hire a hooker, whatever gets you off. I'm not giving you the gory details of how Wilson got tortured." They're making their way through the nearly-vacant parking lot, stirring spirals of dust in their wake as they head for House's car.
"But the fact that you're asking -- that tells me something," House says, and abruptly stops. Nate has to turn around, backtrack a step to face him. "Means you're either a garden-variety voyeuristic sicko ..." he continues, with a perilous kind of realization creeping into his voice, "... or it has something to do with what you were sorry about."
Nate's fingers tingle. He drops his cigarette, crushes it, looks up at House, who's studying him like he's a bug on a pin. This is oh so dumb, and he ought to stop but like hell he will. He's on autopilot, has been since the moment he met this man. This thing is as inevitable as gravity. "I'm sorry," he says -- and he doesn't back down while he's saying it -- "that I had to sacrifice Wilson to cover my tracks. I made him stand there like an idiot, made him get caught in the Warden's office, so that they wouldn't catch me."
"You made him," House repeats, and it's a low sound like an earthquake, things shifting into place.
Slowly, deliberately, Nate forms his hand into the shape of a gun, and raises it to his own head, resting the pointed fingers at his temple. Damn, but this is stupid. He'll be all right; he's a trained combatant, but House --
House hits hard.
______
"What kind of idiot are you?" grumbles House, from somewhere off to the left. "You wanted a fight, we could've done this at the hospital. Convenient."
"Didn' want the authorities involved," Nate replies, and that hurts because the inside of his lip is split open. He's bleeding from his nose, too, but that's all right. So's House.
"You're not gonna press charges?"
"Against a guy --" he pants, pushing back a wave of nausea, the result of House having punched him in the gut. "Guy whose best friend I damn near killed? Only be a crime if you didn't hit me."
Nate raises one hand off the ground, meaning to wipe the blood off his face. Not much good, though, since it turns out his hand's bleeding too. Pretty badly. "Damn," he mutters. "I didn't wanna get up yet, but gonna have to. Need stitches."
"Bullshit. No way did I mess you up that bad." House isn't budging either; they're both on their backs in the gravel and dust, waiting for the worst of the pain to pass.
"Not you, old man. Think it was a piece of glass. Got my hand." The actual brawl had happened on the ground, because House had hit him and then immediately pulled him down. There'd been as much wrestling as punching, and -- just as Nate had suspected -- House's bad leg hadn't seemed to be much of a handicap.
He inspects the cut, which is deep and full of grit, and thinks about what he's just done. He could have been coldly victorious, could've ended the fight rather than diving into it. With his training, he might've had the big man pinned and helpless, if that was what he'd wanted. He's seen so much of it, though, so many restraints and so much humiliation. What he'd done to House was something else. A little more like picking the lock on the cage, letting the beast out just to see how strong it was.
"The AVIS people are gonna be pissed," House gripes. "They charge me for cleaning blood out of the car, I'm sending you the bill." He still isn't moving.
"That mean you're actually gonna take me back to Nellis?" Nate can barely believe it. He had figured he'd have to call a cab.
"Nope. Means you're gonna take me. You screwed my leg up so bad that there's no way in hell I'm driving. Normally," says House -- and the pain is making his throat constrict, Nate can hear it -- "this is when I'd call Wilson, and Wilson would do his Ride of the Valkyries thing. Swoop in, take the fallen warrior to Valhalla. Aaaaaaahhh. What'd you do with my pills?"
Nate turns his head one way, then the other. Both directions hurt. To the right, there's a prescription bottle, some twenty feet away. He picks himself up, tears a strip from the bottom of his t-shirt and binds up his right palm as best he can. Once that's done, he plucks House's vial of pills from the dirt, dusts it off. Vicodin, just like New Guy said.
He chokes down two before shuffling over and handing the bottle to House. His head pounds every time he leans down; he holds his sleeve against his face to try and avoid actually bleeding on House, although he's not sure why it should matter.
"Damn," House croaks, and drops three pills in his mouth. "I hope I don't look as bad as you."
______
He cracks the door open just a little, peering in. Doctor Wilson's sitting up in bed, dressed in a soft set of old green scrubs, looking pretty much human again. They'll release him in another day or two, and Nate will never see him again, unless they both wind up at one of the same hearings or trials in the coming months. It's a shame; they might've really been friends, had things not been what they were.
"Hey, New Guy," he says. The words come out with about half the volume he'd intended. It feels like there's something crushing his chest, the rock and the hard place pressing in on him. How do you face someone when the last time they saw you, you'd held a gun to their head? "I --"
"Didn't have a choice. Did you?" Wilson says, flatly. Setting down the magazine he's been reading, the doctor looks him over, as the door swings open just a bit more.
"I wish to God I did. You have to know that. Hardest fucking thing I ever had to do."
"Tooey," Wilson sighs, "I ... once had to do something that almost killed me, and I -- I get it. Come in. You ... look like hell." Wilson's rubbing his hand through his hair, considering him, taking stock of the bruises, the blackened eye, the bandaged hand. "I'm sorry about House."
Nate can't help grinning, even though it pulls at the healing cuts in his lip. "I'm not," he says, settling into the chair that sits alongside Wilson's bed. "It was a stupid thing to do, but I'd do it again. He was either all bark, or he wasn't."
The look Wilson gives him is incisive, calculating. "You ... provoked House?" he asks, in that slow, careful way of his. House must've told him a different tale. "That ... isn't easy to do. I mean, it's easy to piss him off, but for House to have actually hit you?" Wilson pauses, scowling. "Do I even want to know what you did?"
"Probably not." He's grinning again, like the idiot he knows he is sometimes. "Couldn't help myself. I'll be fine. I don't have any more hearings to attend for a week. What're you -- I mean, this thing is so huge that I don't even know who's got to testify and when. I ... I hope they won't make you."
Suddenly, it's as if New Guy is gone. He shuts down so quickly that Nate almost hears the steel doors slamming closed around him. There's nothing left but a dull, impenetrable surface. Shouldn't have brought it up. He's PTSD; who the hell wouldn't be?
The Lieutenant's team had found the Warden's basement. They'd sent in forensics guys who'd done a thorough job on the place. Taken samples of skin cells and hair from the chair, the ... electrical apparatus. The noose. They'd found a lot of blood on the floor, some of it pretty fresh. The DNA results aren't back yet, but Nate already knows this man was there. The last of the bruises haven't quite faded from Wilson's throat.
He should probably just go, but he can't leave Doctor Wilson like this, alone in this sorry state of mind. Someone's got to throw the guy a lifeline, and House is -- who knows where House is. Up in a Pave Hawk again, likely as not, flying while he can. "You were right about House," Nate says, watching the first signs of life return to Wilson's eyes at the mention of his friend. Same way it always worked, back in the camp. "Arrogant jackass. I like him a lot."
Wilson blinks as his mind returns to the present. "Well ... you've certainly got the bruises to show for it," he says, looking Nate over once more. "If you really did pick a fight with him, you're a braver man than I am."
"I did," he replies. And I doubt that. "Just one of those things that had to happen." Nate smiles when he thinks of it, smiles so wide that he thinks his lip will start bleeding again. It had been exhilirating, as freeing as it was painful, fighting with House on House's terms.
Wilson's watching him now, his manner so much softer than House's, but no less perceptive. Then he's smiling back, bemused, like he's admiring all the damage House did. Or maybe he's admiring Nate for being brave and dumb enough to have started that fight. "I think I get it about that, too," Wilson says, and that's all the invitation Tooey needs.
He spots the remote control on Wilson's bed, and snatches it up. Not like he's got anywhere else to be this afternoon, and he enjoys Wilson's company. He finds the appropriate button and clicks it.
" -- Carla Jean Fowler! Come on down! You're the next contestant on --"
______________________________________
AUTHOR:
blackmare_9PAIRING: No 'pairing'. Tooey, House, and Wilson.
RATING: Soft "R" for some language, some violence and remembered violence.
WARNINGS: No, but if you haven't read
nightdog_barks's Welcome To Wherever You Are, this will make no sense. SPOILERS: Yes, for the S3 Tritter Arc and how it ended.
SUMMARY: There are things Lt. "Tooey" has simply got to know.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the House characters, or any of
nightdog_barks's characters either. AUTHOR NOTES: I said I wouldn't write any more of these. Oh well; everybody lies.
nightdog_barks creates ficverses that pull me in like quicksand. BETA: Nightdog,
perspi, deelaundry, daisylily, pwcorgigirl.______________________________________
When this is over, the shouting and the trials, convictions and releases, he'll have ninety days' leave. It's too long and not long enough. Too long to be unemployed, at loose ends, alone. Not long enough to forget what he's just done, or to be ready for the next operation, which might mean more choices like the one he'd had to make that night.
There was a lot of truth to what he'd told the New Guy. He has no wife, no family to speak of, no one waiting for him; he has his job. That, and a bare little apartment on the base. They'd had to make room for him at the last minute, as the investigation drew to a close just a little sooner than expected. 'Sooner than expected' is a funny thought, now -- seeing as he really was, at the start of it all, only supposed to have been in that camp for thirty days.
He wants out of the desert, but he's stuck for a while, because everyone has questions and he's among those who has to answer. When he's not making statements and appearing before various courts and officials, though, there's little for him to do. Vegas holds no charm for him, and he's already seen more of Nevada's great outdoors than he ever wanted to see.
That's why he's at Nellis now, checking in on the New Guy. James Wilson, a harmless MD from New Jersey, a man who deals with death every day. Maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising that a cancer specialist had turned out to have brass balls, but it was. No way would he have expected that from the guy who'd named him Tooey.
They know who he is, at the base hospital. He's Lt. Nathan Long, who has been calling every couple days for updates about the man they pulled out of the pit. The nurses, who don't know the first half of that story, think Lt. Long is a hero. They point him quietly in the direction of Wilson's room, and they warn him that the doctor has a watchdog. A big angry jerk with a cane. "I'll take that under advisement," he says, and smiles a little because that means House has stuck around.
He approaches the room slowly, silently, each step heavier than the last. There's no telling whether House remembered or conveyed his apology to Wilson, or whether Wilson accepted it if he did. It's probably a bad idea for him to be here. Who knows if Wilson will go out of his mind with fear or rage the moment he sees Nate Long. His friend, Tooey, who held a gun to his head and then left him there to face such an agonizing death.
No -- he shouldn't be here at all. It's not safe for either of them. He's ready to turn around and leave, even though he's already standing at the correct door. There's no window; he can't see in and James Wilson can't see out. No one needs to know he's even been here. It'll be better that way. He turns to go, just as the door swings open and he gets damn near bowled over by a big angry jerk with a cane.
"He's asleep. Leave him alone," growls House, and then he squints and cocks his head. "Do I know -- you're him. 'Tooey said he's sorry.' You're ... Tooey? What the hell kind of name is Tooey?"
"My prisoner number. Had a lot of twos in it."
"Asinine." House shakes his head. "Must've been Wilson's idea."
"Yeah, he spoke highly of you, too," Nate retorts, and at that moment, House's whole body simply stops moving. There's no military posture, but this man is standing at attention all the same. Well. How very, very interesting.
House recovers, makes a sharp turn and walks off, obviously expecting the Lieutenant to follow. Keeping up is harder than he'd have thought; the guy's lame, but he's damn tall and he moves so well that you don't much notice the limp. "Poker game on," he says. "Doctors only, but I'll get 'em to deal you in. Maybe."
"What's the catch?"
"No catch," says House, but the corner of his mouth is curling upward like a hook. There's a catch, all right.
"You're out of cash," Nate guesses.
House stops again, bouncing his cane on the tiles as he scans his would-be opponent from head to toe. "How much did Wilson tell you?"
"I don't know. Buy me lunch and I'll see what I can recall."
"No cash, remember?"
"You're on a trip out of state without credit cards? I'm Special Ops, not Special Ed."
"All right, Mister Special Ops. Tell me what you were sorry about and I'll consider feeding you."
This, Nate thinks, is getting more fascinating all the time. "He didn't tell you." Nate had figured as much, seeing as House had reacted to him with relative neutrality. Still, it makes his chest ache to think of it, to know that Doctor Wilson -- did what? Protected him? Was too hurt to talk about it?
"Wilson won't say a word. It's a big, fat, hairy secret. I love big, fat, hairy secrets. They're like pinatas; I hit 'em with my cane 'til all the goodies fall out."
"So if I told you now, where'd be the fun in that? Let's go. None of that cheap Tex-Mex crap, either. I want real food. I've spent a year and a half eating boloney sandwiches."
"Not my problem!" House declares, as he turns in the direction of the parking lot. "But I'll humor you, because I'm a nosy bastard."
So I heard, thinks Nate. He's not going to relay even one more piece of information until he's got a steak in front of him.
Outside, the sun glares off pavement and cars. House's long-sleeved shirt is pale blue, but in this heat it glows starkly white as House strides along ahead of him. The desert hates Nate, and it's mutual. The wind picks up, kicking grit into Nate's hair and pressing the shirt fabric against House's broad back. Crippled or not, that's a powerful man. This is stupid, says some tiny part of Nate's brain, and he agrees wholeheartedly, even as he jogs a few steps to catch up.
_____
"How did you even know about this place?"
The Mine Shaft Tavern looks like a junkyard, or a ruined small-town theatre. There are faded panels of painted canvas on one wall, landscapes with trains and ghosts, like the background for a long-past melodrama. But the steak is a thing of simple beauty, a thick, tender antidote to eighteen months' worth of bologna poisoning. "I've been around town two weeks now and nobody's mentioned it."
"Hangin' with the wrong crowd, Tooey," says House, who's grinning like a shark. "You wanna know about food, you ask the chopper pilots." He sinks those sharp teeth into an enormous cheeseburger, leans back his head with an expression of pure bliss. If Nate didn't know better, he'd think House hadn't eaten in two days.
"For a guy who hates everybody, you seem to make a lot of friends. Poker with the docs at Nellis. Lunch with the chopper jocks."
"One chopper jock. Sheppard, who's certifiable. And the poker games are slightly less boring than watching The Price Is Right while Wilson snores. Didn't he tell you I have no use for human beings unless I have a use for them?"
"He told me you were the only person who might actually come looking for him."
House goes still again, and it's like catching a flash of gold, a doubloon beneath the water on the shoreline, in that fleeting moment of clarity between one wave and the next. There's something there, something unusual, strong enough to have sustained a man who'd had no real hope of ever tasting freedom again.
"Shows you how pathetic --" House starts, but he decides against insulting Wilson again, and fishes a pill bottle from his pocket instead. He swallows the pills with practiced carelessness, waiting for Nate to fill in the silence.
"Oh, he admitted that much. Pathetic, he said, that his last best hope was a crippled jerk who'd only miss him because the source of free lunches was gone." There's that half-second of stillness in House again, before he turns his face away. "And because his disappearance would be ... an anomaly, which you probably couldn't resist. He made no claims about your warm and caring heart."
"Wilson knows me."
"Did you really blackmail him into helping you toilet-paper your boss's house?"
"It was Halloween, and you can't prove anything," says House, and there is New Guy's friend, fighting the smile that wants to emerge, the surge of pleasure that comes with that memory. "Didn't he tell you anything interesting? I'm not paying for lunch just for that."
"He said that if one of you had to be in that camp, it was better him than you."
"I'm sure it was," replies House, but he's stopped fidgeting again. He's staring at Nate as if he's going to whip out a scalpel and dissect him right there on the restaurant table. "Wilson's an idiot. He actually said that?"
"Not in those words. What he said was that if it had been you, you'd have pissed the Warden off so bad he'd have killed you on the spot. Now that we've met, I'm inclined to agree." Nate's smiling, savoring the cool, dark room around him, the flavor of another bite of steak (dear God, he's missed real meat) and the first truly fun conversation he's had in three weeks. Since the last time he ate lunch with New Guy.
"Why don't you cut the crap," says House, and that look of his has gotten even sharper, when Nate wouldn't have thought that was possible. "You want something, or you wouldn't be here. What is it? Forgiveness for whatever you did, or think you did, to Wilson? If he really told you that much, you should know better than to ask me. Ask him yourself, if you're not too much of a coward."
"I will, if he's willing to see me," Nate says. He's no coward, and that's not a button House can push. "I think you're the only one who can tell me that. And I wanted to meet you, because I'm a nosy bastard too."
"He did tell you you'd hate me, right? And how'd I become the topic of jailhouse conversation, anyway?"
Nate almost thinks better of it, but he's still seeing something in House, and he wants to know what. "Like this," he says, and snatches a single thick french fry off House's plate.
There's a second in which he's sure he's just misjudged, pushed it too far, and House is going to punch him. A dozen wild emotions are jostling for position on House's face -- this son of a bitch who's been pretending not to have any emotions at all. God, but he's fun to mess with.
"Second time I swiped food from him," Nate says, grinning as he pops the pilfered fry into his mouth. "He got this really weird look and said, 'Your name wouldn't happen to be House?' 'Nope,' I said. 'What the hell kinda name is House?'" He pauses, sipping beer (and oh, he's missed beer). "So he told me. First time I ever saw New Guy smile."
House appears -- almost dumbstruck, for just the briefest span of time. Nate has learned to watch people so closely, to read the most fleeting reactions, picking out new information as if from thin air. Disbelief, hope, anger, fear. Fear? Oh yes, just for that split second. And there's something else going on in there, a series of swift calculations, House reading him and putting pieces together.
"That," says Nate, "wasn't the last time he accused me of being a lot like you." He hadn't planned to mention this, but he'll need something that counts in his favor. That, and he simply wants to see what House will do. "He said it again the next day. Right after I stopped him from killing himself."
House puts down his glass of Coke and sits up very, very straight. If Nate had thought this man was ready to dissect him before, that was nothing compared to this. He's fully expecting House to lunge across the table, sending furniture and food and everything flying. Shit. Too soon, he thinks, and suddenly he knows just what he's doing, what he has intended to do all along. It's an incredibly bad idea. Especially here, because someone will call the cops and that is not what he wants, but it's about to happen -- or maybe it's not.
"Exactly," demands House, at last, in a tone that makes Nate's skin prickle, "exactly what the hell are you talking about?"
"He was a half a step from the dead line, the point where they shoot first and don't ask questions later. He was picking up his foot to cross it."
"When you came riding in on your milk-white steed and told him to think of all the puppy dogs and rainbows he'd never get to see. What? You think I should thank you?"
"No. And what I said," he continues lightly, "was, 'Hey, moron, get your head out of your ass.' I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist. I definitely used the word 'moron,' though." He toys with what's left of his steak, picks at it. He's not that hungry anymore, and he needs not to overeat. He's resolved; he knows exactly how he'll go about this thing. Stupid thing, but he knows himself and he's going to do it anyway. The need to find out is irresistible.
"I find it hard to believe," he ponders, "that you once crashed an oncology department Christmas party."
"Then don't believe it. Not true, anyway."
"By showing up at the restaurant with a guitar and a sombrero."
"My Feliz Navidad drove 'em wild." House is smiling again, or trying not to smile -- and Nate relaxes, just a little. He's bought himself some time, and that's all he needs.
_______
It was a late lunch to start with, and by the time they emerge from the Mine Shaft it's close to seventeen hundred -- five o'clock, he reminds himself; this is the civilian world. The sky's overcast, the sun's a mere pale spot behind a dusty purple curtain. Already the temperature's falling, a front moving in, and that's good.
"How bad was it?" he asks, abruptly, as the door closes behind them. "Yeah, I know he almost died, I know he looked like a damn strip of jerky by the time we got him out." Nate pulls out a cigarette, lights up, offers one to House, who declines. "It looked like they did more than just throw him in the box, though. Didn't they." It's really not a question. Of course they did.
"The hell do you wanna know that for?" House growls at him. "Get your entertainment somewhere else. Rent a movie, hire a hooker, whatever gets you off. I'm not giving you the gory details of how Wilson got tortured." They're making their way through the nearly-vacant parking lot, stirring spirals of dust in their wake as they head for House's car.
"But the fact that you're asking -- that tells me something," House says, and abruptly stops. Nate has to turn around, backtrack a step to face him. "Means you're either a garden-variety voyeuristic sicko ..." he continues, with a perilous kind of realization creeping into his voice, "... or it has something to do with what you were sorry about."
Nate's fingers tingle. He drops his cigarette, crushes it, looks up at House, who's studying him like he's a bug on a pin. This is oh so dumb, and he ought to stop but like hell he will. He's on autopilot, has been since the moment he met this man. This thing is as inevitable as gravity. "I'm sorry," he says -- and he doesn't back down while he's saying it -- "that I had to sacrifice Wilson to cover my tracks. I made him stand there like an idiot, made him get caught in the Warden's office, so that they wouldn't catch me."
"You made him," House repeats, and it's a low sound like an earthquake, things shifting into place.
Slowly, deliberately, Nate forms his hand into the shape of a gun, and raises it to his own head, resting the pointed fingers at his temple. Damn, but this is stupid. He'll be all right; he's a trained combatant, but House --
House hits hard.
______
"What kind of idiot are you?" grumbles House, from somewhere off to the left. "You wanted a fight, we could've done this at the hospital. Convenient."
"Didn' want the authorities involved," Nate replies, and that hurts because the inside of his lip is split open. He's bleeding from his nose, too, but that's all right. So's House.
"You're not gonna press charges?"
"Against a guy --" he pants, pushing back a wave of nausea, the result of House having punched him in the gut. "Guy whose best friend I damn near killed? Only be a crime if you didn't hit me."
Nate raises one hand off the ground, meaning to wipe the blood off his face. Not much good, though, since it turns out his hand's bleeding too. Pretty badly. "Damn," he mutters. "I didn't wanna get up yet, but gonna have to. Need stitches."
"Bullshit. No way did I mess you up that bad." House isn't budging either; they're both on their backs in the gravel and dust, waiting for the worst of the pain to pass.
"Not you, old man. Think it was a piece of glass. Got my hand." The actual brawl had happened on the ground, because House had hit him and then immediately pulled him down. There'd been as much wrestling as punching, and -- just as Nate had suspected -- House's bad leg hadn't seemed to be much of a handicap.
He inspects the cut, which is deep and full of grit, and thinks about what he's just done. He could have been coldly victorious, could've ended the fight rather than diving into it. With his training, he might've had the big man pinned and helpless, if that was what he'd wanted. He's seen so much of it, though, so many restraints and so much humiliation. What he'd done to House was something else. A little more like picking the lock on the cage, letting the beast out just to see how strong it was.
"The AVIS people are gonna be pissed," House gripes. "They charge me for cleaning blood out of the car, I'm sending you the bill." He still isn't moving.
"That mean you're actually gonna take me back to Nellis?" Nate can barely believe it. He had figured he'd have to call a cab.
"Nope. Means you're gonna take me. You screwed my leg up so bad that there's no way in hell I'm driving. Normally," says House -- and the pain is making his throat constrict, Nate can hear it -- "this is when I'd call Wilson, and Wilson would do his Ride of the Valkyries thing. Swoop in, take the fallen warrior to Valhalla. Aaaaaaahhh. What'd you do with my pills?"
Nate turns his head one way, then the other. Both directions hurt. To the right, there's a prescription bottle, some twenty feet away. He picks himself up, tears a strip from the bottom of his t-shirt and binds up his right palm as best he can. Once that's done, he plucks House's vial of pills from the dirt, dusts it off. Vicodin, just like New Guy said.
He chokes down two before shuffling over and handing the bottle to House. His head pounds every time he leans down; he holds his sleeve against his face to try and avoid actually bleeding on House, although he's not sure why it should matter.
"Damn," House croaks, and drops three pills in his mouth. "I hope I don't look as bad as you."
______
He cracks the door open just a little, peering in. Doctor Wilson's sitting up in bed, dressed in a soft set of old green scrubs, looking pretty much human again. They'll release him in another day or two, and Nate will never see him again, unless they both wind up at one of the same hearings or trials in the coming months. It's a shame; they might've really been friends, had things not been what they were.
"Hey, New Guy," he says. The words come out with about half the volume he'd intended. It feels like there's something crushing his chest, the rock and the hard place pressing in on him. How do you face someone when the last time they saw you, you'd held a gun to their head? "I --"
"Didn't have a choice. Did you?" Wilson says, flatly. Setting down the magazine he's been reading, the doctor looks him over, as the door swings open just a bit more.
"I wish to God I did. You have to know that. Hardest fucking thing I ever had to do."
"Tooey," Wilson sighs, "I ... once had to do something that almost killed me, and I -- I get it. Come in. You ... look like hell." Wilson's rubbing his hand through his hair, considering him, taking stock of the bruises, the blackened eye, the bandaged hand. "I'm sorry about House."
Nate can't help grinning, even though it pulls at the healing cuts in his lip. "I'm not," he says, settling into the chair that sits alongside Wilson's bed. "It was a stupid thing to do, but I'd do it again. He was either all bark, or he wasn't."
The look Wilson gives him is incisive, calculating. "You ... provoked House?" he asks, in that slow, careful way of his. House must've told him a different tale. "That ... isn't easy to do. I mean, it's easy to piss him off, but for House to have actually hit you?" Wilson pauses, scowling. "Do I even want to know what you did?"
"Probably not." He's grinning again, like the idiot he knows he is sometimes. "Couldn't help myself. I'll be fine. I don't have any more hearings to attend for a week. What're you -- I mean, this thing is so huge that I don't even know who's got to testify and when. I ... I hope they won't make you."
Suddenly, it's as if New Guy is gone. He shuts down so quickly that Nate almost hears the steel doors slamming closed around him. There's nothing left but a dull, impenetrable surface. Shouldn't have brought it up. He's PTSD; who the hell wouldn't be?
The Lieutenant's team had found the Warden's basement. They'd sent in forensics guys who'd done a thorough job on the place. Taken samples of skin cells and hair from the chair, the ... electrical apparatus. The noose. They'd found a lot of blood on the floor, some of it pretty fresh. The DNA results aren't back yet, but Nate already knows this man was there. The last of the bruises haven't quite faded from Wilson's throat.
He should probably just go, but he can't leave Doctor Wilson like this, alone in this sorry state of mind. Someone's got to throw the guy a lifeline, and House is -- who knows where House is. Up in a Pave Hawk again, likely as not, flying while he can. "You were right about House," Nate says, watching the first signs of life return to Wilson's eyes at the mention of his friend. Same way it always worked, back in the camp. "Arrogant jackass. I like him a lot."
Wilson blinks as his mind returns to the present. "Well ... you've certainly got the bruises to show for it," he says, looking Nate over once more. "If you really did pick a fight with him, you're a braver man than I am."
"I did," he replies. And I doubt that. "Just one of those things that had to happen." Nate smiles when he thinks of it, smiles so wide that he thinks his lip will start bleeding again. It had been exhilirating, as freeing as it was painful, fighting with House on House's terms.
Wilson's watching him now, his manner so much softer than House's, but no less perceptive. Then he's smiling back, bemused, like he's admiring all the damage House did. Or maybe he's admiring Nate for being brave and dumb enough to have started that fight. "I think I get it about that, too," Wilson says, and that's all the invitation Tooey needs.
He spots the remote control on Wilson's bed, and snatches it up. Not like he's got anywhere else to be this afternoon, and he enjoys Wilson's company. He finds the appropriate button and clicks it.
" -- Carla Jean Fowler! Come on down! You're the next contestant on --"
______________________________________
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Nate Long practically wrote this story himself. It was bizarre. I knew he wanted to meet House again, so I put them in the same hallway and from then on I had no control of anything that happened. When he decided to get House to buy him lunch, I couldn't believe it. I was even more astounded when I realized that he fully intended to provoke House into violence. It wasn't only out of guilt, either. He had a whole slew of reasons, too many to even start listing; he liked House a lot and that had much to do with it. And he simply cannot resist playing with gunpowder. He never could, and that's how he ended up with the job he has.
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....and I am babbling. Oopsie. :)