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_wilson2007-10-14 08:42 am
alanwolfmoon.livejournal.com) wrote in sick_wilson2007-10-14 08:42 am
Trash cans beware (ch 41)
Title: Trash cans beware (ch 41)
Pairing: House / Wilson, House/Chase mild friendship
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alanwolfmoon
Rating: PG
Summary: In honor 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 second attempt at fanfiction. Ever. Reviews and flames alike are welcome. (They make it look like I'm writing fast) the second to last chapter. (finally) which got written because i had enough time, due to chemistry class getting canceled for a golf tournament. who cancels school for a golf tournament?!
Denis sighed.
Doing pt with his boss was one thing, Wilson was a very, very co-operative person in general, and one of the most willing patients Denis had ever had.
Doing pt with his boss’s partner...was a different story. House was...an ass. And a pain in the butt. But Denis was actually pleasantly surprised, after the incident with Wilson tripping, House getting to him faster than Denis, falling flat on his face in a dead faint after confirming that Wilson didn’t reinjure something, and only coming to and hour later, House had seemed to actually begun caring whether or not he got much use out of his leg. This was a vast improvement over his previous position, which could have been easily summarized by “If I don’t hurt, I don’t care.”
He looked down at the nearly illegible patient schedule, and sighed again.
“Rrrrg.” growled Wilson, balling up his sixth sheet of paper in fifteen minutes and throwing it in the general direction of a trash can . It bounced off the side, and Wilson took a deep breath, wincing as his ribs twinged.
“Need some help, gimpy?”
Wilson rolled his eyes, got up, and hobbled towards the trash can , the cast on his ankle getting in his way.
House watched him, amused, from where he sat in one of the chairs in the oncology waiting room, absently rubbing his thigh.
“What’s up?” asked House, as Wilson groaned, throwing away yet another sheet of paper.
“I can’t get my signature right with the stupid brace on.” he said, waving his injured wrist in House’s general direction.
House laughed.
“C’mere with those.”
Wilson looked up suspiciously, but got up from the nurse’s station, and hobbled over to House, carrying a stack of papers.
House grabbed a few off the top, signing them with a perfect replication of Wilson’s loopy signature.
“House! You do remember what happened the *last* time you did that, right?!”
“Course. Hard to forget.”
“Stop it, come on, please tell me you never used that...”
“Nobody’s gonna know the difference, and I didn’t get a chance to use it. Stop whining.”
“Er...gray...horse? Oh, Dr. House, sorry.” said Denis, entering the room as he peered at his clipboard.
House started sniggering, and Wilson glared at him, resisting the temptation to kick him with his ankle cast.
Denis, tactfully ignoring the fraud involving his boss’s signature going on right in front of him, looked the two doctors over. Wilson looked mostly ok, he was rubbing his ear, which meant he wasn’t going to be doing much today, but he was getting around fine, having abandoned the wheelchair over a week ago, despite Denis’s worries that he might hurt himself. House on the other hand...wasn’t doing so well. He wasn’t passing out or puking, as he had been under the last two medication combinations respectively, but he was pale, shaking slightly, and looked close to exhausted. His pain was hard to get a handle on, it was mostly muscle pain, cramps, inflamation, tiredness, but there was a significant undertone of nerve pain, which was harder to control, and tended to flare for no apparent reason and without warning. And it stayed flared up, sometimes for and entire day, or even more. The muscles were easy compared to that, House could predict perfectly well when they were going to hurt more, because they stayed pretty much constant unless he overused the leg, which he knew when he was doing. But the nerves...Denis couldn’t put him on much in the way of strong narcotics, House had actually thrown the bottle of oxycodone at a trash can as soon as Denis had handed it to him. He had missed, and it had hit the startled Dr. Chase on the back of the head. But nothing much else seemed to work, it was frustrating. The vicodin may have seemed like over medication, but it was obvious that even if most of the time he was ok, he would have been taking it to prevent feeling those flare ups.
When his attention came back to the two doctors in the present, he found them arguing in the rapid fire manner that was typical of the two. Denis thought the topic was something about Wilson’s meniere’s, but then something about baseball came up, rapidly followed by a quick discussion of Cuddy’s melons as displayed by the shirt she was wearing today. The topic changed again, but House was saying less and less. This was going to be a rough day for the older doctor, and it was only nine.
“Dr. House? Exam room two please.”
House looked up, nodded, and accepted the crutches Wilson held clumsily out towards him, levering himself to his feet with a sharp intake of breath. Denis winced inwardly again, and decided that they wouldn’t be doing *anything* intensive for pt. probably just an assessment would be more that enough for House today.
“Ok, so it seems that we’re getting closer to the combination, but we’re still not getting the right dosage, am I right?”
House shrugged, but didn’t argue, and Wilson nodded.
“I was thinking we could try these, they’re a stronger version of the same anti convulsant.” Denis handed the samples box to Dr. House.
“If I’m not pregnant or nursing...” said House, reading the back of the box.
Denis laughed, and turned the box over.
“You’re not. You’re skinny enough it’d show right away.”
House smirked and Wilson laughed. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a difficult day after all.
Chase sighed, leaning on the sink.
House had been discharged, he was going to be ok, and his liver was returning to normal.
God, why did he still have problems with this?
House didn’t even drink much, it wasn’t nearly the same thing...
But...some memories didn’t leave, no matter how much you wanted them to.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Ah! Oh...Dr. Wilson...sorry.”
Wilson smiled, apparently not there for any real purpose.
“Cameron said you’d been missing for a while.”
“Oh...yeah, I guess I forgot to say I was going to lunch.”
“He’s going to be ok you know. Shouldn’t be much lasting damage.”
Chase nodded, slightly confused. He’d been the one to deliver the final blood work.
“He’s going to be fine. You on the other hand, I’m not so sure about.”
Chase groaned, resting his forehead against the mirror.
“By the way, Cameron didn’t mention it to me. She mentioned it to House, who is stuck in his office, having some trouble with the meds, and he mentioned it to me.”
Chase blinked.
“You mean....”
Wilson nodded, then sighed.
“Honestly, it sounds better than it was, he’s still utterly clueless, but at least he’s trying.”
Chase blinked, confused.
“Clueless about what?”
“About how to express the fact that he finally managed to replace his compulsion to be different by being miserable with...I’m not exactly sure what, but something, and is actually trying to not break everyone around him. Which is really, really huge.”
Chase thought for a moment.
“Bet it’s you.”
Wilson blinked.
“What’s me?”
“You’re what replaced being miserable.”
Wilson looked a bit to the side, frowning slightly.
Chase grinned, then left.
Wilson eventually shrugged and left to go back to House’s office.
John stared. That was it. Just stared. Blankly. Not knowing what thoughts were whirling through his head. Not knowing what to make of the scene in front of him. His wife obviously did, as she ran forward to support her son on the side not held by Greg’s friend. “John, a little help would be nice!” she snapped, the words taking forever to filter through the confused mess of his thoughts.
When they did, more confused thoughts sparked off the sounds. Blythe didn’t snap. She didn’t yell. But she just did. Another sound made its slow way into his brain, proving to be a quiet, ever so quiet, pained moan. Then more words, Blythe continuing her uncharacteristic yelling as she ordered, yes, ordered, him to help on the other side.
“He’s got it.” was all that came out, although he had actually been intending to ask a few hundred questions that were all jumbled up in his mind.
“John! Are you blind?! He hasn’t got it! He can barely stand up himself! Get *over* here!”
John, slowly, complied, still in a state of swirling shock and confusion.
“What’s...what’s going on?” he finally managed to croak as he stiffly switched places with the man in a labcoat that had been formerly supporting his son’s right side with an injured wrist.
Blythe glanced at him, panic fading enough for her to notice the utterly lost and confused look on her husband’s face.
“John, I *know* they told you he was sick. That it meant he was going to be on painkillers that would take a while to figure out the dosages of. What did you think that meant?!”
John just blinked slowly, putting his other hand on his slowly collapsing son’s chest to support him with the extra leverage.
“John, pay attention, that bench. See it? That’s where we’re going. John, move.” john moved toward the bench that had been indicated by his nearly irate wife.
“Ok, let him down easy. *easy* john, not fast. There. Go get something from the vending machines, ok? Eat it. If you still don’t know what’s going on, get something else. Eat it. Keep doing that.”
“When should I stop?” asked john, stupidly.
“You’ll know when, trust me. Now go!” john followed the instructions of voice that was so familiar, yet so alien. He had never heard it raised except in laughter.
“Here hon, we got him here.” said blythe to Wilson as the chocolate eyed oncologist returned, looking frantically around for his glacier eyed partner, followed by Dr.’s chase and foreman.
“Oh. Thank you. Did john...?” asked Wilson, hurriedly fumbling with the bottle chase had mercifully noticed and brought downstairs with him on his way to answer House’s page. The page had not been related to the fact that House was going to nearly pass out on his feet in about two minutes after it had been sent.
“He’s shocked out of his wits. I told him to go eat things out of the vending machines, and that he’d know when to stop.”
Wilson shook his head, relived, and tilted House’s weakly raised head back, putting his right hand over House’s mouth and nose to force him to swallow the strong narcotic.
“He said everything was working out pretty well...” said blythe, very concerned as she watched her son’s best friend gently lay him flat.
“It is. This is called breakthrough pain. It’s just what it sounds like, it’s when the routine meds aren’t enough to suppress a short term increase in pain levels.”
“Short term...how long is this going to last?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully not more than an hour, and the medication I just gave him should help in the meantime. If it continues for much longer than an hour, or this medication doesn’t help sufficiently, we’ll have to either give him something stronger, or knock him out. He’d get annoyed if we did either of those without asking him first, so unless he stays this out of it, I’m going to wait until he consents to do anything that drastic.”
“You didn’t ask him about that medication.” said blythe, not accusing, simply trying to get a hold on the situation.
“Right, because this is the medication that he and Denis, that’s the pain management specialist he’s been seeing, agreed on in case of severe breakthrough pain.”
“Wil...son?”
“Hey, yeah, I’m here, it’s me.” said Wilson, all thoughts of the conversation with House’s mom evaporating as he crouched next to House.
Blythe watched Wilson touch House on the cheek with the fingers of his left hand, his right hand resting across House’s chest, just touching the far shoulder, with interest, and took a step back.
“Dr. Wilson.”
Wilson turned, feeling himself tense at the voice.
“Mr. House.”
“He let you touch him when he’s down.”
Wilson blinked.
“What?”
“He’s never let anybody touch him when he’s down. Never. He hated it when that Stacy girl did it, even though he put up with it for her. He let you touch him. He let you comfort him.”
Wilson stared at john House, frowning.
“Are you saying that you approve?”
“I’m saying that it’s my fault he’s like that. Not *that* that, but it’s my fault he can’t stand letting anyone touch him when he’s hurting. I never thought he’d be able to overcome that. He still hasn’t. You have. He couldn’t break down the wall I forced him to build, but you just built a ladder over it. Or punched through the gates, whichever metaphor you prefer.”
To Wilson, chase and foreman’s confusion, Blythe suddenly stepped between her son and her husband, recognizing his building malice for what it was. He took a step forward anyway. Then stopped, as another voice sounded from behind him.
“Yes. And if you weren’t a prideful, unsympathetic, drunken control freak, he wouldn’t have been miserable for nearly forty years. He wouldn’t have only let a total of two people inside that wall in his entire life. He wouldn’t be terrified of human connections and being hurt. He wouldn’t be in this much pain, because he would have talked to someone about getting on less damaging pain medication six *years* ago. How long has it been since you retired? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty? You’re not in the military, you’re not anything important to anybody except your family. Yet you can’t let go, can you? You still have to control everything. And in doing so you pushed one of the two people who would have cared about you away. Most cases of abuse stop when the victim becomes and adult, but you had to keep your clenching, convulsive hold on him all his life. You slapped him, a grown man, a doctor, a cripple, a teacher, a friend, when he did nothing but state his opinion. You couldn’t take it when he stood up for someone else, because that’s not what you made him. You wanted him to be miserable because if he was happy, it would have meant you had no effect on him. So you tried to teach him again what you had pressed into his mind when he was a child, that any connection to another person means only pain. You tried to hurt him through Dr. Wilson and Dr. Chase, maybe even turn Dr. Chase against him. But then he beat you. He got you mad at him, he made you want revenge on him, he made you forget about his friends, because you *didn’t* press hard enough. Because he does care. Because you are a sad, pathetic excuse for a twisted imitation of a human being, and he knows you are worthless. He knows you are worthless and he knows that what you taught him is just as sick and twisted of a lie as you are. You have lost. You can’t do *anything* to affect him anymore. Because his *friends* won’t let you. You have absolutely *zero* control over him. You. Have. Lost.”
John, Wilson, Blythe, chase, foreman and House were all staring at Cameron.
She was staring straight at john House, her eyes blazing, her expression set, her fists clenched.
Blythe walked around her husband, to stand in between him and Dr. Cameron.
So did foreman.
Wilson and chase stood between him and House, who was looking about half worried, half insanely amused.
John looked around, very, very irritated.
He finally looked back at Cameron, his face turning red.
“John, please. Don’t do anything stupid.”
He didn’t seem to hear his wife’s voice.
Foreman blinked, as Cameron stepped around him, walking towards john.
“You have no restraints. That is your problem. You cannot hold back things that most people would never let themselves do. You have no inhibitions, and you have a warped view of reality. Your wife loves you, because that warped view also holds love and compassion. But you are too stubborn to admit you are wrong to yourself when you think you should hurt someone. You aren’t truly all to blame, I’m sure your father was the same way, and impressed the same hurts on you, but I cannot and have no wish to ever forgive you. Either better yourself, right here, right now, or deal with your own ticking heart, reminding you what you have done until the day you d–”
Cameron doubled over, holding her stomach where john had punched her. Foreman caught her, glaring fiercely at john.
John blinked, looking at his fist, as though surprised by it’s clenched appearance.
Then he looked down, at Cameron gasping for air on the floor.
Then he ran a bit down the hallway, throwing up into the trash can.
Cameron smiled very slightly.
Everybody was now staring at her, eyebrows raised.
“I think...you need to...take some more Motrin.”
Cameron looked at House, who was sitting up now, still pale. Then she looked at Blythe.
“I’m sorry. I just... I know it’s hypocritical, but he just made me mad.”
Blythe shook her head, unhappy, but not angry.
“I just wish somebody could have done that years ago. It would have saved him a lot of trouble and unhappiness.”
House was making a sound suspiciously close to giggling.
Blythe left, to guide her horrified husband away.
House watched the two go with less than remorse.
“Knew you weren’t quite as stupid as you acted.” he said after a while.
Wilson looked at him, then at Cameron.
“You let me find out.”
“No, that would have been stupid. Because you don’t typically use that sort of information in such a productive way.”
“You didn’t try quite as hard to hide it as you might have.”
“I was tired and distracted. I couldn’t hide it. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t believe you. You wouldn’t let me find out if you didn’t want me to.”
House looked at her, his face bearing a slight smirk.
“It’s been three years. If you don’t think you’ve learned anything in that long, you’re really an idiot.”
Cameron blinked, confused.
“He’s saying you figured it out without him wanting you to.” said chase, grinning.
Foreman watched Cameron’s mouth open, then close, and grinned as well.
Pairing: House / Wilson, House/Chase mild friendship
Author:
alanwolfmoonRating: PG
Summary: In honor 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 second attempt at fanfiction. Ever. Reviews and flames alike are welcome. (They make it look like I'm writing fast) the second to last chapter. (finally) which got written because i had enough time, due to chemistry class getting canceled for a golf tournament. who cancels school for a golf tournament?!
trash cans beware
trash cans beware (ch 2)
trash cans beware ch 3
trash cans beware (ch 4)
trash cans beware (ch 5)
Trash cans beware (ch 6)
PART SEVEN!
trash cans beware ch 8
trash cans beware (ch 9)
trash cans beware (ch 10)
trash cans beware (ch 11)
trash cans beware (ch 12)
trash cans beware (ch 13)
trash cans beware (ch 14)
trash cans beware (ch 15)
trash cans beware (ch 16)
trash cans beware (ch 17)
trash cans beware (ch 18)
there are many ways to avoid flames for a stoyr. posting it in a format that no one can actually read? now that's clever. (ch 19)
trash cans beware (ch 20, 21, 22, 23)
trash cans beware (ch 24)
trash cans beware (ch 25!)
trash cans beware (ch 26)
trash cans beware (ch 27)
trash cans beware (ch 28)
trash cans beware (ch 29)
trash cans beware (ch 30!)
trash cans beware (ch 31)
trash cans beware (ch 32)
trash cans beware (ch 33 34)
Trash cans beware (ch 35)
trash cans beware (ch 36)
trash cans beware (ch 37)
Trash cans beware (ch 38)
trash cans beware (ch 39)
trash cans beware (ch 40!)
trash cans beware (ch 2)
trash cans beware ch 3
trash cans beware (ch 4)
trash cans beware (ch 5)
Trash cans beware (ch 6)
PART SEVEN!
trash cans beware ch 8
trash cans beware (ch 9)
trash cans beware (ch 10)
trash cans beware (ch 11)
trash cans beware (ch 12)
trash cans beware (ch 13)
trash cans beware (ch 14)
trash cans beware (ch 15)
trash cans beware (ch 16)
trash cans beware (ch 17)
trash cans beware (ch 18)
there are many ways to avoid flames for a stoyr. posting it in a format that no one can actually read? now that's clever. (ch 19)
trash cans beware (ch 20, 21, 22, 23)
trash cans beware (ch 24)
trash cans beware (ch 25!)
trash cans beware (ch 26)
trash cans beware (ch 27)
trash cans beware (ch 28)
trash cans beware (ch 29)
trash cans beware (ch 30!)
trash cans beware (ch 31)
trash cans beware (ch 32)
trash cans beware (ch 33 34)
Trash cans beware (ch 35)
trash cans beware (ch 36)
trash cans beware (ch 37)
Trash cans beware (ch 38)
trash cans beware (ch 39)
trash cans beware (ch 40!)
Denis sighed.
Doing pt with his boss was one thing, Wilson was a very, very co-operative person in general, and one of the most willing patients Denis had ever had.
Doing pt with his boss’s partner...was a different story. House was...an ass. And a pain in the butt. But Denis was actually pleasantly surprised, after the incident with Wilson tripping, House getting to him faster than Denis, falling flat on his face in a dead faint after confirming that Wilson didn’t reinjure something, and only coming to and hour later, House had seemed to actually begun caring whether or not he got much use out of his leg. This was a vast improvement over his previous position, which could have been easily summarized by “If I don’t hurt, I don’t care.”
He looked down at the nearly illegible patient schedule, and sighed again.
“Rrrrg.” growled Wilson, balling up his sixth sheet of paper in fifteen minutes and throwing it in the general direction of a trash can . It bounced off the side, and Wilson took a deep breath, wincing as his ribs twinged.
“Need some help, gimpy?”
Wilson rolled his eyes, got up, and hobbled towards the trash can , the cast on his ankle getting in his way.
House watched him, amused, from where he sat in one of the chairs in the oncology waiting room, absently rubbing his thigh.
“What’s up?” asked House, as Wilson groaned, throwing away yet another sheet of paper.
“I can’t get my signature right with the stupid brace on.” he said, waving his injured wrist in House’s general direction.
House laughed.
“C’mere with those.”
Wilson looked up suspiciously, but got up from the nurse’s station, and hobbled over to House, carrying a stack of papers.
House grabbed a few off the top, signing them with a perfect replication of Wilson’s loopy signature.
“House! You do remember what happened the *last* time you did that, right?!”
“Course. Hard to forget.”
“Stop it, come on, please tell me you never used that...”
“Nobody’s gonna know the difference, and I didn’t get a chance to use it. Stop whining.”
“Er...gray...horse? Oh, Dr. House, sorry.” said Denis, entering the room as he peered at his clipboard.
House started sniggering, and Wilson glared at him, resisting the temptation to kick him with his ankle cast.
Denis, tactfully ignoring the fraud involving his boss’s signature going on right in front of him, looked the two doctors over. Wilson looked mostly ok, he was rubbing his ear, which meant he wasn’t going to be doing much today, but he was getting around fine, having abandoned the wheelchair over a week ago, despite Denis’s worries that he might hurt himself. House on the other hand...wasn’t doing so well. He wasn’t passing out or puking, as he had been under the last two medication combinations respectively, but he was pale, shaking slightly, and looked close to exhausted. His pain was hard to get a handle on, it was mostly muscle pain, cramps, inflamation, tiredness, but there was a significant undertone of nerve pain, which was harder to control, and tended to flare for no apparent reason and without warning. And it stayed flared up, sometimes for and entire day, or even more. The muscles were easy compared to that, House could predict perfectly well when they were going to hurt more, because they stayed pretty much constant unless he overused the leg, which he knew when he was doing. But the nerves...Denis couldn’t put him on much in the way of strong narcotics, House had actually thrown the bottle of oxycodone at a trash can as soon as Denis had handed it to him. He had missed, and it had hit the startled Dr. Chase on the back of the head. But nothing much else seemed to work, it was frustrating. The vicodin may have seemed like over medication, but it was obvious that even if most of the time he was ok, he would have been taking it to prevent feeling those flare ups.
When his attention came back to the two doctors in the present, he found them arguing in the rapid fire manner that was typical of the two. Denis thought the topic was something about Wilson’s meniere’s, but then something about baseball came up, rapidly followed by a quick discussion of Cuddy’s melons as displayed by the shirt she was wearing today. The topic changed again, but House was saying less and less. This was going to be a rough day for the older doctor, and it was only nine.
“Dr. House? Exam room two please.”
House looked up, nodded, and accepted the crutches Wilson held clumsily out towards him, levering himself to his feet with a sharp intake of breath. Denis winced inwardly again, and decided that they wouldn’t be doing *anything* intensive for pt. probably just an assessment would be more that enough for House today.
“Ok, so it seems that we’re getting closer to the combination, but we’re still not getting the right dosage, am I right?”
House shrugged, but didn’t argue, and Wilson nodded.
“I was thinking we could try these, they’re a stronger version of the same anti convulsant.” Denis handed the samples box to Dr. House.
“If I’m not pregnant or nursing...” said House, reading the back of the box.
Denis laughed, and turned the box over.
“You’re not. You’re skinny enough it’d show right away.”
House smirked and Wilson laughed. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a difficult day after all.
Chase sighed, leaning on the sink.
House had been discharged, he was going to be ok, and his liver was returning to normal.
God, why did he still have problems with this?
House didn’t even drink much, it wasn’t nearly the same thing...
But...some memories didn’t leave, no matter how much you wanted them to.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Ah! Oh...Dr. Wilson...sorry.”
Wilson smiled, apparently not there for any real purpose.
“Cameron said you’d been missing for a while.”
“Oh...yeah, I guess I forgot to say I was going to lunch.”
“He’s going to be ok you know. Shouldn’t be much lasting damage.”
Chase nodded, slightly confused. He’d been the one to deliver the final blood work.
“He’s going to be fine. You on the other hand, I’m not so sure about.”
Chase groaned, resting his forehead against the mirror.
“By the way, Cameron didn’t mention it to me. She mentioned it to House, who is stuck in his office, having some trouble with the meds, and he mentioned it to me.”
Chase blinked.
“You mean....”
Wilson nodded, then sighed.
“Honestly, it sounds better than it was, he’s still utterly clueless, but at least he’s trying.”
Chase blinked, confused.
“Clueless about what?”
“About how to express the fact that he finally managed to replace his compulsion to be different by being miserable with...I’m not exactly sure what, but something, and is actually trying to not break everyone around him. Which is really, really huge.”
Chase thought for a moment.
“Bet it’s you.”
Wilson blinked.
“What’s me?”
“You’re what replaced being miserable.”
Wilson looked a bit to the side, frowning slightly.
Chase grinned, then left.
Wilson eventually shrugged and left to go back to House’s office.
John stared. That was it. Just stared. Blankly. Not knowing what thoughts were whirling through his head. Not knowing what to make of the scene in front of him. His wife obviously did, as she ran forward to support her son on the side not held by Greg’s friend. “John, a little help would be nice!” she snapped, the words taking forever to filter through the confused mess of his thoughts.
When they did, more confused thoughts sparked off the sounds. Blythe didn’t snap. She didn’t yell. But she just did. Another sound made its slow way into his brain, proving to be a quiet, ever so quiet, pained moan. Then more words, Blythe continuing her uncharacteristic yelling as she ordered, yes, ordered, him to help on the other side.
“He’s got it.” was all that came out, although he had actually been intending to ask a few hundred questions that were all jumbled up in his mind.
“John! Are you blind?! He hasn’t got it! He can barely stand up himself! Get *over* here!”
John, slowly, complied, still in a state of swirling shock and confusion.
“What’s...what’s going on?” he finally managed to croak as he stiffly switched places with the man in a labcoat that had been formerly supporting his son’s right side with an injured wrist.
Blythe glanced at him, panic fading enough for her to notice the utterly lost and confused look on her husband’s face.
“John, I *know* they told you he was sick. That it meant he was going to be on painkillers that would take a while to figure out the dosages of. What did you think that meant?!”
John just blinked slowly, putting his other hand on his slowly collapsing son’s chest to support him with the extra leverage.
“John, pay attention, that bench. See it? That’s where we’re going. John, move.” john moved toward the bench that had been indicated by his nearly irate wife.
“Ok, let him down easy. *easy* john, not fast. There. Go get something from the vending machines, ok? Eat it. If you still don’t know what’s going on, get something else. Eat it. Keep doing that.”
“When should I stop?” asked john, stupidly.
“You’ll know when, trust me. Now go!” john followed the instructions of voice that was so familiar, yet so alien. He had never heard it raised except in laughter.
“Here hon, we got him here.” said blythe to Wilson as the chocolate eyed oncologist returned, looking frantically around for his glacier eyed partner, followed by Dr.’s chase and foreman.
“Oh. Thank you. Did john...?” asked Wilson, hurriedly fumbling with the bottle chase had mercifully noticed and brought downstairs with him on his way to answer House’s page. The page had not been related to the fact that House was going to nearly pass out on his feet in about two minutes after it had been sent.
“He’s shocked out of his wits. I told him to go eat things out of the vending machines, and that he’d know when to stop.”
Wilson shook his head, relived, and tilted House’s weakly raised head back, putting his right hand over House’s mouth and nose to force him to swallow the strong narcotic.
“He said everything was working out pretty well...” said blythe, very concerned as she watched her son’s best friend gently lay him flat.
“It is. This is called breakthrough pain. It’s just what it sounds like, it’s when the routine meds aren’t enough to suppress a short term increase in pain levels.”
“Short term...how long is this going to last?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully not more than an hour, and the medication I just gave him should help in the meantime. If it continues for much longer than an hour, or this medication doesn’t help sufficiently, we’ll have to either give him something stronger, or knock him out. He’d get annoyed if we did either of those without asking him first, so unless he stays this out of it, I’m going to wait until he consents to do anything that drastic.”
“You didn’t ask him about that medication.” said blythe, not accusing, simply trying to get a hold on the situation.
“Right, because this is the medication that he and Denis, that’s the pain management specialist he’s been seeing, agreed on in case of severe breakthrough pain.”
“Wil...son?”
“Hey, yeah, I’m here, it’s me.” said Wilson, all thoughts of the conversation with House’s mom evaporating as he crouched next to House.
Blythe watched Wilson touch House on the cheek with the fingers of his left hand, his right hand resting across House’s chest, just touching the far shoulder, with interest, and took a step back.
“Dr. Wilson.”
Wilson turned, feeling himself tense at the voice.
“Mr. House.”
“He let you touch him when he’s down.”
Wilson blinked.
“What?”
“He’s never let anybody touch him when he’s down. Never. He hated it when that Stacy girl did it, even though he put up with it for her. He let you touch him. He let you comfort him.”
Wilson stared at john House, frowning.
“Are you saying that you approve?”
“I’m saying that it’s my fault he’s like that. Not *that* that, but it’s my fault he can’t stand letting anyone touch him when he’s hurting. I never thought he’d be able to overcome that. He still hasn’t. You have. He couldn’t break down the wall I forced him to build, but you just built a ladder over it. Or punched through the gates, whichever metaphor you prefer.”
To Wilson, chase and foreman’s confusion, Blythe suddenly stepped between her son and her husband, recognizing his building malice for what it was. He took a step forward anyway. Then stopped, as another voice sounded from behind him.
“Yes. And if you weren’t a prideful, unsympathetic, drunken control freak, he wouldn’t have been miserable for nearly forty years. He wouldn’t have only let a total of two people inside that wall in his entire life. He wouldn’t be terrified of human connections and being hurt. He wouldn’t be in this much pain, because he would have talked to someone about getting on less damaging pain medication six *years* ago. How long has it been since you retired? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty? You’re not in the military, you’re not anything important to anybody except your family. Yet you can’t let go, can you? You still have to control everything. And in doing so you pushed one of the two people who would have cared about you away. Most cases of abuse stop when the victim becomes and adult, but you had to keep your clenching, convulsive hold on him all his life. You slapped him, a grown man, a doctor, a cripple, a teacher, a friend, when he did nothing but state his opinion. You couldn’t take it when he stood up for someone else, because that’s not what you made him. You wanted him to be miserable because if he was happy, it would have meant you had no effect on him. So you tried to teach him again what you had pressed into his mind when he was a child, that any connection to another person means only pain. You tried to hurt him through Dr. Wilson and Dr. Chase, maybe even turn Dr. Chase against him. But then he beat you. He got you mad at him, he made you want revenge on him, he made you forget about his friends, because you *didn’t* press hard enough. Because he does care. Because you are a sad, pathetic excuse for a twisted imitation of a human being, and he knows you are worthless. He knows you are worthless and he knows that what you taught him is just as sick and twisted of a lie as you are. You have lost. You can’t do *anything* to affect him anymore. Because his *friends* won’t let you. You have absolutely *zero* control over him. You. Have. Lost.”
John, Wilson, Blythe, chase, foreman and House were all staring at Cameron.
She was staring straight at john House, her eyes blazing, her expression set, her fists clenched.
Blythe walked around her husband, to stand in between him and Dr. Cameron.
So did foreman.
Wilson and chase stood between him and House, who was looking about half worried, half insanely amused.
John looked around, very, very irritated.
He finally looked back at Cameron, his face turning red.
“John, please. Don’t do anything stupid.”
He didn’t seem to hear his wife’s voice.
Foreman blinked, as Cameron stepped around him, walking towards john.
“You have no restraints. That is your problem. You cannot hold back things that most people would never let themselves do. You have no inhibitions, and you have a warped view of reality. Your wife loves you, because that warped view also holds love and compassion. But you are too stubborn to admit you are wrong to yourself when you think you should hurt someone. You aren’t truly all to blame, I’m sure your father was the same way, and impressed the same hurts on you, but I cannot and have no wish to ever forgive you. Either better yourself, right here, right now, or deal with your own ticking heart, reminding you what you have done until the day you d–”
Cameron doubled over, holding her stomach where john had punched her. Foreman caught her, glaring fiercely at john.
John blinked, looking at his fist, as though surprised by it’s clenched appearance.
Then he looked down, at Cameron gasping for air on the floor.
Then he ran a bit down the hallway, throwing up into the trash can.
Cameron smiled very slightly.
Everybody was now staring at her, eyebrows raised.
“I think...you need to...take some more Motrin.”
Cameron looked at House, who was sitting up now, still pale. Then she looked at Blythe.
“I’m sorry. I just... I know it’s hypocritical, but he just made me mad.”
Blythe shook her head, unhappy, but not angry.
“I just wish somebody could have done that years ago. It would have saved him a lot of trouble and unhappiness.”
House was making a sound suspiciously close to giggling.
Blythe left, to guide her horrified husband away.
House watched the two go with less than remorse.
“Knew you weren’t quite as stupid as you acted.” he said after a while.
Wilson looked at him, then at Cameron.
“You let me find out.”
“No, that would have been stupid. Because you don’t typically use that sort of information in such a productive way.”
“You didn’t try quite as hard to hide it as you might have.”
“I was tired and distracted. I couldn’t hide it. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t believe you. You wouldn’t let me find out if you didn’t want me to.”
House looked at her, his face bearing a slight smirk.
“It’s been three years. If you don’t think you’ve learned anything in that long, you’re really an idiot.”
Cameron blinked, confused.
“He’s saying you figured it out without him wanting you to.” said chase, grinning.
Foreman watched Cameron’s mouth open, then close, and grinned as well.