ext_28194 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
alanwolfmoon.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sick_wilson2007-07-09 10:09 pm
alanwolfmoon.livejournal.com) wrote in sick_wilson2007-07-09 10:09 pm
trash cans beware (ch 10)
Title: Trash cans beware (ch 10)
Pairing: House / Wilson
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alanwolfmoon
Rating: PG (so far)
Summary: In honour of the '200 members' prompt onsick_wilson
The prompt was "Today wasn't the first time Wilson had been a little late for work recently, so House didn't give it much thought. Especially since the patient Cuddy had found for him was turning out to be more than just a case of intestinal flu, after all."
Disclaimer: MINE! ALL MINE!....uh, no. Not mine.
Notes: Only my seccond attempt at fanfiction. Ever. Reveiws and flames alike are welcome.
this one is loooooong...
here are the links to the other parts.
i cannot, for the life of me, get them to act like links....
Pairing: House / Wilson
Author:
alanwolfmoonRating: PG (so far)
Summary: In honour of the '200 members' prompt on
sick_wilsonThe prompt was "Today wasn't the first time Wilson had been a little late for work recently, so House didn't give it much thought. Especially since the patient Cuddy had found for him was turning out to be more than just a case of intestinal flu, after all."
Disclaimer: MINE! ALL MINE!....uh, no. Not mine.
Notes: Only my seccond attempt at fanfiction. Ever. Reveiws and flames alike are welcome.
this one is loooooong...
here are the links to the other parts.
i cannot, for the life of me, get them to act like links....
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wilson/50452.html#cutid1
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wi
http://community.livejournal.com/sick_wilson/50452.html#cutid1
TWhen House woke up, it was to the sound of quiet whimpering.
He frowned.
Yes, the tv was still on, but it was showing a old hockey game.
He looked around.
Radio was off, stereo was off, ipod was by the door, off.
Then he heard it again, and looked down.
Wilson was there, still using him as a pillow, except he wasn’t so happy looking anymore.
“Wilson? Are you ok?”
Wilson just winced at the noise.
House looked him over, worried.
His hand was over his ear, his eyes were closed tightly. House sighed, as he recognized the symptoms of one of Wilson’s migraines.
Although, as he turned the tv off so it wouldn’t keep making Wilson scrunch his eyes closed, he noticed Wilson’s sumitriptan bottle on the floor, full, and next to it the syringe still in a plastic wrapping.
It looked like he had gotten a migraine, started to deal with it, and then gotten a meniere’s attack.
House couldn’t help thinking that Wilson was a rather unlucky guy.
“House? Are you...awake?” whispered Wilson, squinting at him.
House sat up, causing Wilson to wince.
He picked up the bottle of sumatriptan from the floor, as well as the syringe, and poked Wilson in the shoulder with his finger.
Wilson complied, moving his arm in House’s general direction, to make it easier to inject the sumitriptan.
After unwrapping the syringe, House stuck it in the bottle, and pulled the injector to the correct amount.
He tapped it to get rid of any air bubbles, and gently put it in Wilson’s arm.
Wilson whimpered again, and House pulled the needle out.
House sighed.
Wilson got bad enough migraines without the added discomfort of not having a clue which way was up, that he usually called and told Cuddy to have Dennis take his patients until his migraine went away.
They were supposed to be at work in less than three hours, but House knew Wilson was going to be in no shape to go, even if his migraine did subside before then.
He sighed.
If it was him, he would just call Cuddy and tell her to give any cases to his team.
But Wilson honestly did not have the best staff when it came to the medical parts of his job.
Dennis was good enough at the parts wherein people got told they were going to die, but he wasn’t all that great of a doctor.
Which was probably why he was an oncologist.
House knew that if he let Dennis take over for the whole day, Wilson wouldn’t ever forgive him.
He would take any sort of crap when it came to himself, but when it came to his patients, he wouldn’t let House take the easy way.
House got up, and limped heavily into the kitchen, his leg worse than it had been the night before.
He picked up his phone, and dialed Cuddy’s cell.
It was still five in the morning.
“Hey Cuddy. No, I’m not insane. Well, maybe I am, but who’s counting. Anyway, I’m going to take Wilson’s cases today. No. Really. No, I am not kidding. Or lying. Or manipulating. Ok, thanks. I’ll be there at seven. No. No, Wilson’s just...out of it, and...he’s probably going to end up hurting himself.” House sounded rather uncomfortable near the end of the call.
House limped back into the living room, and saw Wilson squinting dejectedly at the warm spot House had left on the couch.
He promptly occupied it.
“You doing any better?” whispered House.
Wilson did not seem to hear him.
House sighed, and pushed the coffee table away from the couch so that there were about four feet of clear space in between.
“Wilson, you do not want to stay curled up on the couch like that. You’ll feel better if you’re lying flat.”
Wilson only pressed his face into the warm form next to him.
Which happened to be House.
House frowned, somewhat worried.
Wilson never acted like this.
When he got a migraine, he shut himself up in the quietest, darkest place he could find, and stayed there until it went away.
If he was sick, he would show up for work, and do everything he was supposed to, except visit his immuno-comprimised patients, no matter how awful he felt.
When Wilson was too sick to go to work, he would usually make it about halfway there, realized he was not going to make it the rest of the way, and then called Cuddy and House.
Cuddy would get Dennis to take over, and House would come by and pick him up.
Luckily, he hadn’t gotten that sick since House had acquired his motorcycle.
The time he had tripped on the stairs, breaking his leg, he had called House, and just asked him to bring a splint.
Wilson was usually pretty good at dealing with pain and discomfort.
Which was why this new, whimpering and snuggling version was worrying House.
He gently lifted Wilson’s face, peering at his expression.
Wilson’s eyes were tightly shut, he was biting his lip, and he looked totally miserable.
House blinked.
Wilson was shaking.
That wasn’t normal.
His migraines caused him to lay as still as possible.
The same with the meneire’s.
He though about every time he had seen Wilson sick, or hurt, or upset, or sad, or depressed.
None of them bore any resemblance to Wilson’s current state.
Then he remembered one time, Wilson had dragged him to some boring conference about understanding patients with disabilities.
House had never been quite sure what Wilson’s intentions had been when he had suggested it, and he had spent the majority of the weekend in the mental disabilities section, wearing a borrowed white coat, in an effort to divert the thought that he was a patient.
But there had been one part that they had gone to together, where they were supposed to “experience” different disabilities.
House had totally refused to participate, but Wilson had jumped right in.
The first few were mostly about different kinds of paralysis, but then they had gotten around to the ones about sensory problems.
Wilson had seemed oddly reluctant at that point, but House had teased him, and he had eventually decided to do it, just to make House shut up.
House had mostly just wanted to see what the one for experiencing what it was like to not be able to feel pain was, but before they had gotten to that, there had been the ones for blindness, and then for deafness.
Wilson had been fine, although he had tripped an awful lot during the blindness one.
Then had come the ones about less problematic sensory problems, like anosia, which had been very boring.
After those, however, had been a section about multiple sensory problems. Wilson had nearly left again right before the one for blindness and deafness had started, but had seen House watching him, and stayed.
House had noticed that Wilson seemed much more hesitant to do that particular exercise than any of the others.
He had found out why, when halfway through, Wilson had sat down, shaking.
House had “cripple coming through”-ed his way through the crowd, receiving a large number of glares from the “disability sensitive” people who were in abundance at that particular conference, pulled the blindfold and earmuffs off, and dragged Wilson out of there, still shaking.
It had taken more than fifteen minutes for Wilson to calm down after House had sat him down in a stairwell because he had seemed freaked by the crowds outside.
House hadn’t asked him what it was about, Wilson hadn’t mentioned it again, and the incident had been forgotten.
Until now anyway.
“Wilson. Wilson...Wilson, are you ok?” House started talking softly into Wilson’s right ear.
Wilson winced at the sound, but his shaking did lessen slightly.
House kept talking, and started rubbing Wilson’s back.
Wilson started, and shrank away from the touch.
“Wilson, it’s ok, it’s me. The misanthropic bastard. Who doesn’t happen to be acting like all that much of a misanthropic bastard at the moment. It’s ok. You’re at my apartment, remember? It’s ok.”
House kept talking, and Wilson didn’t flinch when House started rubbing his back again.
House glanced at his watch.
He had forty five minutes if he took his car, and an hour if he took his bike.
The problem was, he couldn’t bring Wilson on his bike if he was in this state, and he wasn’t planning on leaving him freaked out like he was.
House decided he had about half an hour to calm Wilson down, before he had to deal with getting one or both of them to work.
“Wilson, you want something to eat? Or drink?”
no answer.
“Wilson, you there? You want me to call Tracy and see if she’ll come over for a thousand bucks?”
Wilson might have mumbled something, or he might have whimpered again, in any case, he moved a bit so that more of him was against House’s side.
House looked at his unfortunate couch ornament for a moment, as he tried to find a comfortable position that also maximized the amount of his body was touching the soft warmth that was talking to him, and sighed.
Wilson was terrified, in pain, very dizzy, and, judging by his snuggling, either cold or lonely.
Since he was still covered by the couch blanket, House was guessing it was the latter.
House was somewhat surprised at the fact that he felt bad about this.
It wasn’t something he felt very often.
He thought it was called sympathy, but he might be wrong.
It might be the result of his attempt at cooking last night.
But...then again...he could have been right the first time.
He finally decided that he would act, as he usually did, on the assumption that he was right.
House pulled Wilson up abruptly, and amazingly enough, got them both to the floor without killing himself or Wilson.
House was now leaning against the wall, parallel to the couch, Wilson basically on top of him, facing up, and shaking harder than before.
Wilson whimpered, turned over, and pressed his face into House’s chest.
House blinked.
He had intended to get Wilson more towards flat, but apparently he had just allowed Wilson to huddle on top of him instead of next to him.
House looked at his watch, and reflected that he seriously doubted he was going to be getting Wilson to calm down, or even to go to the car, in time to make it to work soon enough to do both his and Wilson’s jobs the way things were going.
House decided to try a different strategy.
One that, if Wilson had not been huddled on top of him, whimpering, in agony, and terrified, he seriously doubted he would ever have tried.
And definitely not if it hadn’t been Wilson.
He hugged the shaking oncologist, firmly but gently, and started rubbing his hand over his friend’s sweat covered back.
“Shh, Wilson, it’s ok...it’s me, House, it’s ok, I’ve got you...shh, it’s ok...”
Wilson’s shaking diminished rapidly, as he felt the terror drain away.
Nothing bad was going to happen.
House was there.
He knew that no matter how much he argued, and teased, and manipulated, that House wouldn’t let something bad happen to him.
He was safe.
And...being hugged...?
As Wilson calmed, he realized House was hugging him.
House had broken his own rule?
His own, very, very, well kept rule?
The rule that was one of the strongest manifestations of his antisocial personality?
“House?”
House let go.
“Yeah?”
Wilson snorted.
House sighed.
“I have to go in ten minutes.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Calming me down.”
“What, you think I was going to leave you like that?”
They were whispering, Wilson was still having a migraine, but the meneire’s attack seemed to have faded to manageable levels.
“I wasn’t thinking about much of anything.”
Wilson felt House’s chest shake slightly.
“Although...”
“What?” asked House, his voice full of dread.
Wilson smiled very slightly.
“I think I remember you saying you weren’t being a misanthropic bastard a while back.”
Wilson could feel House relax as he realized that Wilson was going to let the hugging go without discussion.
“I lied.”
Wilson’s chest was the one to shake this time.
“You ok?” asked House, quickly.
Wilson would have blinked, if his eyes were open.
“That depends. I’m lying on top of you, at least I think I’m on top of you, I can’t really tell because I have no idea which way is up, I’m having a migraine, not the worst, but not the best either. I just basically had a panic attack, I’m utterly exhausted, but I did just laugh at your joke. You tell me.”
House sighed, not sure if he was relived or embarrassed, and was probably both.
“Hey, I really have to get to work though.” said House, somewhat unhappily.
“Since when do you worry about getting in on time?”
There was a pause, while House considered whether telling Wilson that he was covering for him would make him angry, worried, or happy.
He was saved the trouble of voicing his decided choice of action, by his phone ringing.
He got it out of his pocket somehow, and flipped it open.
It was Cuddy.
“Hello?” he asked, still whispering.
“House, I need you here as soon as you can get here. I know you said Wilson’s not doing well, but I really need you here.”
House blinked.
Cuddy would not have him leave Wilson for a single patient, no matter how confusing the diagnosis was.
“What’s going on?”
“Is Wilson listing?”
“I don’t know–”
“Wilson, are you listing to Cuddy?”
“Yes, but I can’t hear what she’s saying.”
“–did you get that?.”
“Yes, tell him that one of his patients got hit by a bus..or had a seizure and broke their arm or something, tell him something to make the question not seem weird.”
House blinked, not sure if he wanted to, but decided to play along until he knew what was up.
“Cuddy says that Dennis told her to tell you that Carl’s blood work isn’t there yet, and he wants to know what you want him to tell Carl in the meantime, because he is...hold on I forgot the rest, what was the rest Cuddy?...ok, because Carl called to ask if anything was up.”
“Um...tell Cuddy to tell Dennis to–just say that the first half looked fine, and that the second half should be there by noon.”
“You get that Cuddy?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, she got it. I gotta go Wilson, sorry.”
“That’s ok.” House got awkwardly out from under Wilson, and hunted around for his cane for a second, before grabbing his pack and helmet and limping out the door.
“Got hit by a bus? Had a seizure?? Broke their arm??? what kind of liar are you?”
“A very stressed one. Sorry. Look, first off, there’s some stuff going on with Wilson’s patients that Dennis can’t handle, and Wilson would have gotten really upset if he knew. Second, I just got the meniere’s tests back on Wilson. You said it was his left ear, right?”
“Yeah, that was the one he was holding, and he could hear me fine out of his right, but not his left.”
“Because there is a significant amount of degeneration of the hair cells and a large amount of pressure buildup in his right ear as well. But those do look older. In his left ear, it looks like he did have an infection at some point, but it ended up leaving some scarring, causing the canal to be narrower than it should. By a significant amount. And much more than in his right ear.”
“So he had meneire’s before now, but it didn’t really affect him noticeably, then got an ear infection, and ended up with separate cases in each ear?”
“Yes, that’s what it looks like.”
House thought for a second.
It was unlikely, meneire’s was a rare disease to begin with, so two separate cases in a otherwise mostly healthy person was very odd.
But if Wilson had actually had it in both ears to begin with, and it had only gotten worse in his left because of an infection...
when he had done the blindfold exercise back at that disability-whatever conference he *had* seemed significantly less steady than most of the other people participating...
House suddenly realized that Cuddy was still talking to him.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said, I really need you to get here as soon as you can, because of the problems with Wilson’s patient.”
“Are the problems diagnostic? And is the guy named carl?”
“
No, the problems are not diagnostic, and no, I think *her* name is Sara.”
“Oh. Wilson was worried about her.”
“What? Did he tell you that?”
“No, remember in the stairwell, he was talking about how he needed to finish working and whatever else, and he listed three patients of his that he had to do something for, the first one was Linda, the second one was Carl, who is the same Carl who I told Wilson that his blood work wasn’t back yet, the third one was named Sara. I cut him off though...so I don’t know what he was worried about with her...”
There was silence on the other end, as Cuddy experienced the revelation of the fact that House must only pretend to not remember his patient’s names, before she snapped back to the problem at hand.
“So Wilson was worried about her and now this...”
“Would you particularly mind telling me what the “problem” is?”
“The problem? She doesn’t speak English. Wilson apparently managed to talk with her, but she isn’t getting anything Dennis was telling her, even though she was talking to him, I think clearly, in whatever language she’s speaking.”
“Do you happen to know what that language is by and chance?”
“No, I don’t recognize it.” admitted Cuddy.
“Well, what does it sound like?” said House, as he put his cane in the holder on his bike.
“It sounds...um...it’s got lots of “o” sounds...and “k” and “m” and “t” but I don’t really know how else to describe it.
House sighed.
“Does it sound chatty, or fast, or flowing, or angry?”
“I guess it sounds kind of flowing, I can’t really tell where one word ends and the next starts...it sounds kind of angry too I guess, but I don’t know if that’s the language or the girl’s mood.”
House snorted, and got awkwardly on his bike.
“Ok, I have no idea what language you are describing, but that does not mean I won’t know what it is. I’m getting on my bike. I’ll be there in about seven minutes.”
House hung up, and started his bike.
“Hello, holla, oh-hayo gozaimas, alo–”
“oh-hayo gozaimas!”
House blinked.
That had been easy.
“She speaks Japanese...” said House, to Cuddy who was standing next to him.
“Oh...sorry...I guess I should have gotten that one...”
“I’m wondering more about the fact that Wilson doesn’t speak Japanese...”
“He doesn’t? Then how was he talking to her?”
House asked the girl.
“Oni-san amerika-jin!”
House translated to Cuddy.
“Why didn’t she bring her brother this time?”
House asked.
“Wilson-san wa shuugaku o nihonji!”
House blinked.
“She says Wilson was learning Japanese, so she didn’t need to.”
“Wilson was?”
“Apparently.”
The girl said something else.
“What?”
“She asked why Wilson wasn’t here.”
“Oh...can you tell her that he’s sick?”
“I seriously doubt that’s a good idea.”
Cuddy blinked, but shrugged, and suggested that he tell the girl that Wilson’s brother was sick, and he had gone to visit him, but had gotten stuck in traffic on the way back.
House thought for a moment, and then relayed the message to the girl.
“Un...”
“What does that mean?”
“Practically anything, but in this case, it means ‘oh, I’m sorry about Dr. Wilson’s brother.’”
“how do you get that from a monosyllabic grunt?”
“Context.”
“Well, I guess that means you had practice when you translated that vegetative state patient’s grunt?”
House snorted.
“So....how am I supposed to tell her she’s dying?” asked Dennis, very, very uncomfortably.
House looked at him, then at the girl.
“By calling Wilson.”
“House, we can’t. You know Wilson would get himself all worked up about this because he isn’t here.”
“You want me...to tell a girl she’s dying...in place of Wilson...and do it as well as he does?”
“Well...um...he can’t have been that eloquent if he was just learning, right?”
“I seriously doubt the words are a big part of it.”
“Nani?”
The girl was looking rather confused.
“Justa matte. Gomen nasai.”
“What?”
“Exactly what she said. Then I told her, ‘wait, sorry.’”
“So...how do we tell her she’s dying?
“As nicely as you can.”
“Um...yeah...but...”
House sighed.
“Tell her, and I’ll translate....”
He frowned.
Yes, the tv was still on, but it was showing a old hockey game.
He looked around.
Radio was off, stereo was off, ipod was by the door, off.
Then he heard it again, and looked down.
Wilson was there, still using him as a pillow, except he wasn’t so happy looking anymore.
“Wilson? Are you ok?”
Wilson just winced at the noise.
House looked him over, worried.
His hand was over his ear, his eyes were closed tightly. House sighed, as he recognized the symptoms of one of Wilson’s migraines.
Although, as he turned the tv off so it wouldn’t keep making Wilson scrunch his eyes closed, he noticed Wilson’s sumitriptan bottle on the floor, full, and next to it the syringe still in a plastic wrapping.
It looked like he had gotten a migraine, started to deal with it, and then gotten a meniere’s attack.
House couldn’t help thinking that Wilson was a rather unlucky guy.
“House? Are you...awake?” whispered Wilson, squinting at him.
House sat up, causing Wilson to wince.
He picked up the bottle of sumatriptan from the floor, as well as the syringe, and poked Wilson in the shoulder with his finger.
Wilson complied, moving his arm in House’s general direction, to make it easier to inject the sumitriptan.
After unwrapping the syringe, House stuck it in the bottle, and pulled the injector to the correct amount.
He tapped it to get rid of any air bubbles, and gently put it in Wilson’s arm.
Wilson whimpered again, and House pulled the needle out.
House sighed.
Wilson got bad enough migraines without the added discomfort of not having a clue which way was up, that he usually called and told Cuddy to have Dennis take his patients until his migraine went away.
They were supposed to be at work in less than three hours, but House knew Wilson was going to be in no shape to go, even if his migraine did subside before then.
He sighed.
If it was him, he would just call Cuddy and tell her to give any cases to his team.
But Wilson honestly did not have the best staff when it came to the medical parts of his job.
Dennis was good enough at the parts wherein people got told they were going to die, but he wasn’t all that great of a doctor.
Which was probably why he was an oncologist.
House knew that if he let Dennis take over for the whole day, Wilson wouldn’t ever forgive him.
He would take any sort of crap when it came to himself, but when it came to his patients, he wouldn’t let House take the easy way.
House got up, and limped heavily into the kitchen, his leg worse than it had been the night before.
He picked up his phone, and dialed Cuddy’s cell.
It was still five in the morning.
“Hey Cuddy. No, I’m not insane. Well, maybe I am, but who’s counting. Anyway, I’m going to take Wilson’s cases today. No. Really. No, I am not kidding. Or lying. Or manipulating. Ok, thanks. I’ll be there at seven. No. No, Wilson’s just...out of it, and...he’s probably going to end up hurting himself.” House sounded rather uncomfortable near the end of the call.
House limped back into the living room, and saw Wilson squinting dejectedly at the warm spot House had left on the couch.
He promptly occupied it.
“You doing any better?” whispered House.
Wilson did not seem to hear him.
House sighed, and pushed the coffee table away from the couch so that there were about four feet of clear space in between.
“Wilson, you do not want to stay curled up on the couch like that. You’ll feel better if you’re lying flat.”
Wilson only pressed his face into the warm form next to him.
Which happened to be House.
House frowned, somewhat worried.
Wilson never acted like this.
When he got a migraine, he shut himself up in the quietest, darkest place he could find, and stayed there until it went away.
If he was sick, he would show up for work, and do everything he was supposed to, except visit his immuno-comprimised patients, no matter how awful he felt.
When Wilson was too sick to go to work, he would usually make it about halfway there, realized he was not going to make it the rest of the way, and then called Cuddy and House.
Cuddy would get Dennis to take over, and House would come by and pick him up.
Luckily, he hadn’t gotten that sick since House had acquired his motorcycle.
The time he had tripped on the stairs, breaking his leg, he had called House, and just asked him to bring a splint.
Wilson was usually pretty good at dealing with pain and discomfort.
Which was why this new, whimpering and snuggling version was worrying House.
He gently lifted Wilson’s face, peering at his expression.
Wilson’s eyes were tightly shut, he was biting his lip, and he looked totally miserable.
House blinked.
Wilson was shaking.
That wasn’t normal.
His migraines caused him to lay as still as possible.
The same with the meneire’s.
He though about every time he had seen Wilson sick, or hurt, or upset, or sad, or depressed.
None of them bore any resemblance to Wilson’s current state.
Then he remembered one time, Wilson had dragged him to some boring conference about understanding patients with disabilities.
House had never been quite sure what Wilson’s intentions had been when he had suggested it, and he had spent the majority of the weekend in the mental disabilities section, wearing a borrowed white coat, in an effort to divert the thought that he was a patient.
But there had been one part that they had gone to together, where they were supposed to “experience” different disabilities.
House had totally refused to participate, but Wilson had jumped right in.
The first few were mostly about different kinds of paralysis, but then they had gotten around to the ones about sensory problems.
Wilson had seemed oddly reluctant at that point, but House had teased him, and he had eventually decided to do it, just to make House shut up.
House had mostly just wanted to see what the one for experiencing what it was like to not be able to feel pain was, but before they had gotten to that, there had been the ones for blindness, and then for deafness.
Wilson had been fine, although he had tripped an awful lot during the blindness one.
Then had come the ones about less problematic sensory problems, like anosia, which had been very boring.
After those, however, had been a section about multiple sensory problems. Wilson had nearly left again right before the one for blindness and deafness had started, but had seen House watching him, and stayed.
House had noticed that Wilson seemed much more hesitant to do that particular exercise than any of the others.
He had found out why, when halfway through, Wilson had sat down, shaking.
House had “cripple coming through”-ed his way through the crowd, receiving a large number of glares from the “disability sensitive” people who were in abundance at that particular conference, pulled the blindfold and earmuffs off, and dragged Wilson out of there, still shaking.
It had taken more than fifteen minutes for Wilson to calm down after House had sat him down in a stairwell because he had seemed freaked by the crowds outside.
House hadn’t asked him what it was about, Wilson hadn’t mentioned it again, and the incident had been forgotten.
Until now anyway.
“Wilson. Wilson...Wilson, are you ok?” House started talking softly into Wilson’s right ear.
Wilson winced at the sound, but his shaking did lessen slightly.
House kept talking, and started rubbing Wilson’s back.
Wilson started, and shrank away from the touch.
“Wilson, it’s ok, it’s me. The misanthropic bastard. Who doesn’t happen to be acting like all that much of a misanthropic bastard at the moment. It’s ok. You’re at my apartment, remember? It’s ok.”
House kept talking, and Wilson didn’t flinch when House started rubbing his back again.
House glanced at his watch.
He had forty five minutes if he took his car, and an hour if he took his bike.
The problem was, he couldn’t bring Wilson on his bike if he was in this state, and he wasn’t planning on leaving him freaked out like he was.
House decided he had about half an hour to calm Wilson down, before he had to deal with getting one or both of them to work.
“Wilson, you want something to eat? Or drink?”
no answer.
“Wilson, you there? You want me to call Tracy and see if she’ll come over for a thousand bucks?”
Wilson might have mumbled something, or he might have whimpered again, in any case, he moved a bit so that more of him was against House’s side.
House looked at his unfortunate couch ornament for a moment, as he tried to find a comfortable position that also maximized the amount of his body was touching the soft warmth that was talking to him, and sighed.
Wilson was terrified, in pain, very dizzy, and, judging by his snuggling, either cold or lonely.
Since he was still covered by the couch blanket, House was guessing it was the latter.
House was somewhat surprised at the fact that he felt bad about this.
It wasn’t something he felt very often.
He thought it was called sympathy, but he might be wrong.
It might be the result of his attempt at cooking last night.
But...then again...he could have been right the first time.
He finally decided that he would act, as he usually did, on the assumption that he was right.
House pulled Wilson up abruptly, and amazingly enough, got them both to the floor without killing himself or Wilson.
House was now leaning against the wall, parallel to the couch, Wilson basically on top of him, facing up, and shaking harder than before.
Wilson whimpered, turned over, and pressed his face into House’s chest.
House blinked.
He had intended to get Wilson more towards flat, but apparently he had just allowed Wilson to huddle on top of him instead of next to him.
House looked at his watch, and reflected that he seriously doubted he was going to be getting Wilson to calm down, or even to go to the car, in time to make it to work soon enough to do both his and Wilson’s jobs the way things were going.
House decided to try a different strategy.
One that, if Wilson had not been huddled on top of him, whimpering, in agony, and terrified, he seriously doubted he would ever have tried.
And definitely not if it hadn’t been Wilson.
He hugged the shaking oncologist, firmly but gently, and started rubbing his hand over his friend’s sweat covered back.
“Shh, Wilson, it’s ok...it’s me, House, it’s ok, I’ve got you...shh, it’s ok...”
Wilson’s shaking diminished rapidly, as he felt the terror drain away.
Nothing bad was going to happen.
House was there.
He knew that no matter how much he argued, and teased, and manipulated, that House wouldn’t let something bad happen to him.
He was safe.
And...being hugged...?
As Wilson calmed, he realized House was hugging him.
House had broken his own rule?
His own, very, very, well kept rule?
The rule that was one of the strongest manifestations of his antisocial personality?
“House?”
House let go.
“Yeah?”
Wilson snorted.
House sighed.
“I have to go in ten minutes.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Calming me down.”
“What, you think I was going to leave you like that?”
They were whispering, Wilson was still having a migraine, but the meneire’s attack seemed to have faded to manageable levels.
“I wasn’t thinking about much of anything.”
Wilson felt House’s chest shake slightly.
“Although...”
“What?” asked House, his voice full of dread.
Wilson smiled very slightly.
“I think I remember you saying you weren’t being a misanthropic bastard a while back.”
Wilson could feel House relax as he realized that Wilson was going to let the hugging go without discussion.
“I lied.”
Wilson’s chest was the one to shake this time.
“You ok?” asked House, quickly.
Wilson would have blinked, if his eyes were open.
“That depends. I’m lying on top of you, at least I think I’m on top of you, I can’t really tell because I have no idea which way is up, I’m having a migraine, not the worst, but not the best either. I just basically had a panic attack, I’m utterly exhausted, but I did just laugh at your joke. You tell me.”
House sighed, not sure if he was relived or embarrassed, and was probably both.
“Hey, I really have to get to work though.” said House, somewhat unhappily.
“Since when do you worry about getting in on time?”
There was a pause, while House considered whether telling Wilson that he was covering for him would make him angry, worried, or happy.
He was saved the trouble of voicing his decided choice of action, by his phone ringing.
He got it out of his pocket somehow, and flipped it open.
It was Cuddy.
“Hello?” he asked, still whispering.
“House, I need you here as soon as you can get here. I know you said Wilson’s not doing well, but I really need you here.”
House blinked.
Cuddy would not have him leave Wilson for a single patient, no matter how confusing the diagnosis was.
“What’s going on?”
“Is Wilson listing?”
“I don’t know–”
“Wilson, are you listing to Cuddy?”
“Yes, but I can’t hear what she’s saying.”
“–did you get that?.”
“Yes, tell him that one of his patients got hit by a bus..or had a seizure and broke their arm or something, tell him something to make the question not seem weird.”
House blinked, not sure if he wanted to, but decided to play along until he knew what was up.
“Cuddy says that Dennis told her to tell you that Carl’s blood work isn’t there yet, and he wants to know what you want him to tell Carl in the meantime, because he is...hold on I forgot the rest, what was the rest Cuddy?...ok, because Carl called to ask if anything was up.”
“Um...tell Cuddy to tell Dennis to–just say that the first half looked fine, and that the second half should be there by noon.”
“You get that Cuddy?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, she got it. I gotta go Wilson, sorry.”
“That’s ok.” House got awkwardly out from under Wilson, and hunted around for his cane for a second, before grabbing his pack and helmet and limping out the door.
“Got hit by a bus? Had a seizure?? Broke their arm??? what kind of liar are you?”
“A very stressed one. Sorry. Look, first off, there’s some stuff going on with Wilson’s patients that Dennis can’t handle, and Wilson would have gotten really upset if he knew. Second, I just got the meniere’s tests back on Wilson. You said it was his left ear, right?”
“Yeah, that was the one he was holding, and he could hear me fine out of his right, but not his left.”
“Because there is a significant amount of degeneration of the hair cells and a large amount of pressure buildup in his right ear as well. But those do look older. In his left ear, it looks like he did have an infection at some point, but it ended up leaving some scarring, causing the canal to be narrower than it should. By a significant amount. And much more than in his right ear.”
“So he had meneire’s before now, but it didn’t really affect him noticeably, then got an ear infection, and ended up with separate cases in each ear?”
“Yes, that’s what it looks like.”
House thought for a second.
It was unlikely, meneire’s was a rare disease to begin with, so two separate cases in a otherwise mostly healthy person was very odd.
But if Wilson had actually had it in both ears to begin with, and it had only gotten worse in his left because of an infection...
when he had done the blindfold exercise back at that disability-whatever conference he *had* seemed significantly less steady than most of the other people participating...
House suddenly realized that Cuddy was still talking to him.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said, I really need you to get here as soon as you can, because of the problems with Wilson’s patient.”
“Are the problems diagnostic? And is the guy named carl?”
“
No, the problems are not diagnostic, and no, I think *her* name is Sara.”
“Oh. Wilson was worried about her.”
“What? Did he tell you that?”
“No, remember in the stairwell, he was talking about how he needed to finish working and whatever else, and he listed three patients of his that he had to do something for, the first one was Linda, the second one was Carl, who is the same Carl who I told Wilson that his blood work wasn’t back yet, the third one was named Sara. I cut him off though...so I don’t know what he was worried about with her...”
There was silence on the other end, as Cuddy experienced the revelation of the fact that House must only pretend to not remember his patient’s names, before she snapped back to the problem at hand.
“So Wilson was worried about her and now this...”
“Would you particularly mind telling me what the “problem” is?”
“The problem? She doesn’t speak English. Wilson apparently managed to talk with her, but she isn’t getting anything Dennis was telling her, even though she was talking to him, I think clearly, in whatever language she’s speaking.”
“Do you happen to know what that language is by and chance?”
“No, I don’t recognize it.” admitted Cuddy.
“Well, what does it sound like?” said House, as he put his cane in the holder on his bike.
“It sounds...um...it’s got lots of “o” sounds...and “k” and “m” and “t” but I don’t really know how else to describe it.
House sighed.
“Does it sound chatty, or fast, or flowing, or angry?”
“I guess it sounds kind of flowing, I can’t really tell where one word ends and the next starts...it sounds kind of angry too I guess, but I don’t know if that’s the language or the girl’s mood.”
House snorted, and got awkwardly on his bike.
“Ok, I have no idea what language you are describing, but that does not mean I won’t know what it is. I’m getting on my bike. I’ll be there in about seven minutes.”
House hung up, and started his bike.
“Hello, holla, oh-hayo gozaimas, alo–”
“oh-hayo gozaimas!”
House blinked.
That had been easy.
“She speaks Japanese...” said House, to Cuddy who was standing next to him.
“Oh...sorry...I guess I should have gotten that one...”
“I’m wondering more about the fact that Wilson doesn’t speak Japanese...”
“He doesn’t? Then how was he talking to her?”
House asked the girl.
“Oni-san amerika-jin!”
House translated to Cuddy.
“Why didn’t she bring her brother this time?”
House asked.
“Wilson-san wa shuugaku o nihonji!”
House blinked.
“She says Wilson was learning Japanese, so she didn’t need to.”
“Wilson was?”
“Apparently.”
The girl said something else.
“What?”
“She asked why Wilson wasn’t here.”
“Oh...can you tell her that he’s sick?”
“I seriously doubt that’s a good idea.”
Cuddy blinked, but shrugged, and suggested that he tell the girl that Wilson’s brother was sick, and he had gone to visit him, but had gotten stuck in traffic on the way back.
House thought for a moment, and then relayed the message to the girl.
“Un...”
“What does that mean?”
“Practically anything, but in this case, it means ‘oh, I’m sorry about Dr. Wilson’s brother.’”
“how do you get that from a monosyllabic grunt?”
“Context.”
“Well, I guess that means you had practice when you translated that vegetative state patient’s grunt?”
House snorted.
“So....how am I supposed to tell her she’s dying?” asked Dennis, very, very uncomfortably.
House looked at him, then at the girl.
“By calling Wilson.”
“House, we can’t. You know Wilson would get himself all worked up about this because he isn’t here.”
“You want me...to tell a girl she’s dying...in place of Wilson...and do it as well as he does?”
“Well...um...he can’t have been that eloquent if he was just learning, right?”
“I seriously doubt the words are a big part of it.”
“Nani?”
The girl was looking rather confused.
“Justa matte. Gomen nasai.”
“What?”
“Exactly what she said. Then I told her, ‘wait, sorry.’”
“So...how do we tell her she’s dying?
“As nicely as you can.”
“Um...yeah...but...”
House sighed.
“Tell her, and I’ll translate....”
no subject
(Anonymous) 2007-07-10 04:52 am (UTC)(link)it's "chotto matte," not "justa matte"
no subject
thanks for pointing that out.
no subject