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If Wilson's being honest, he's got a pretty good idea of when it started, which isn't a very good sign, because it would suggest that he's some flavour of repressed, which—he isn't. Despite popular belief (mostly in high school; everyone in Princeton-Plainsboro's too busy, too sleep-deprived, or too high to care), he's relatively well-adjusted.
Perhaps surprising, given his area of specialisation—sick kids, after all, tend to depress—but he's always prided himself of going home and falling asleep without much time elapsing between lying down and being unconscious.
Still, though. Insomnia's new. But expected, perhaps, given the new empty space in a bed meant for two. At least everything's quiet now, quiet in a way it had never quite been.
It's not altogether uncommon, though, so as Wilson stares at the dark ceiling above him and listens to the electric fan next to him spin on, he tells himself it'll go away tomorrow.
These kinds of things always do, sooner rather than later.
Oh, God. Wilson hasn't thought about his family in a long, long time.
"You look like you got run over by a truck," is the first thing that House says when Wilson meets him in the lobby. He's got to admit, the statement does have some truth to it, so he hands House a cup of coffee and stares down at his own, swirling it gently from side to side and feeling the liquid slosh beneath his fingertips.
"Whereas you could at least try to be a little more original."
Wilson doesn't need to look to know that House's pulling a face. "Well, excuse me for trying to keep it PG in a public space, but if you insist," —Wilson hears a deep breath being taken, and gets an apologetic excuse ready in case the two of them are stopped by an outraged member of the public (sorry, this patient's escaped from the psychiatric ward)— "I think that you look like you've just had raucous sex with a raccoon in a dumpster after getting high on ten grams of crystal meth. Multiple times, actually," House says, at what would be considered a relatively loud volume.
From the corner of his eye, Wilson sees a young mother shoot them a horrified glance—raised eyebrows, pursed lips, the works—and scoot her child away from them. Probably for the better, actually.
"Which, the sex or the meth?" he says, sipping his coffee—fuck, it's too hot, and he splutters, gulping it down before it comes back up.
House contemplates. "Both."
"Congratulations. You'd be right," Wilson deadpans, reaching over to press the lift button.
"Anyway. Have fun with the cancer kids."
"Stop calling them that."
At that moment, House's cell goes off, and he looks down. "Wanna bet?"
"Cuddy," Wilson says, and the lift doors open before him.
"Wrong," House says, and waggles the phone at him triumphantly. "It's Chase. You owe me lunch for this whole week."
Watching House lope away, Wilson looks back at the elevator and realises it's already gone, and now he's got to wait for another one—and because it'd been going down, one that's probably carrying at least twenty other people in it.
Today probably—probably? —can't get any worse.
And that's the sentence Wilson finds himself repeating in his head as he sits down across from a thirty-three year old woman, her daughter hidden away somewhere beneath sterilised blankets and a mountain of well-wishes, and tells her that her daughter will die soon.
"I'm sorry," he repeats, and finds himself pushing a glass of water at her anyway. She stares blankly at the wall, and even after decades of doing this it never gets better. It's a wonder you haven't killed yourself yet, House had said once, sardonically, and Wilson now wonders why, indeed, he hasn't.
Hope's mother (a depressingly ironic name, Wilson reflects), to her credit, is remarkably composed. She'd expected this, probably, gotten used to preparing for the worst in the intermissions between chemotherapy and surgeries and waiting, more waiting, always waiting even as breath ran out and light did too and finally it'll be over.
She presses her lips together and looks down at the table. "How long?"
"A month, maybe. Give or take. The treatment isn't working, and she's weakened from it—our professional recommendation would be for you to consider stopping treatment to allow her to experience everything with reduced pain before…"
"Before she dies," Clarissa fills in flatly.
Wilson nods. "Yes. But of course, if you choose to continue treatment…" But even as he says it, she's already shaking her head.
"No. It's best—it's best for her if it stops." Despite her best efforts, Clarissa's voice shakes, and sadness sneaks up on people in the worst of ways, really.
"I'll let the team know," Wilson says carefully, surreptitiously nudging the box of tissues in her direction, and she takes one from the torn opening, still composed as ever in her high-heels and red lipstick and with her shiny black handbag, and if he'd seen her on the street he wouldn't have known. Maybe that's how she likes it, he thinks unkindly, and pushes that stray thought away.
As he's leading her to the door, she offers, "Well. Thank you for your help."
But he didn't really do anything at all, he wants to tell her, but that's never something you tell someone with a sick and dying daughter.
So instead Wilson nods, tells her she's welcome, and sends her off.
Wilson slides a sandwich across the plasticky cafeteria table, and it arces through air momentarily before bumping into House's elbow.
House glances up. "No pickles?"
"And a good afternoon to you, too."
"No pickles, then." House unwraps the cling film, takes a large bite out of it. Wilson watches him but the glimpses of partly chewed-up food in his mouth—of course House would chew with his mouth open, he reflects—makes him think of mushed-up, tasteless apple pie and sandwiches and food, then of nutrients collapsing into feeding tubes into veins, which makes him think of cancer, which makes him think of Hope and he suddenly isn't so hungry anymore. It's always like this, and he supposes it'd be easier if he'd gotten used to death, all those years ago.
"No food today?" House gestures.
Wilson clears his throat. "I ate earlier. You know clients."
"After their kid dies, they won't need to save up for college anymore, so of course they'd decide to throw their money away on some random oncologist," House grouses, unbotheredly gnawing away. Wilson shoots him a look. "Am I wrong? Besides, you should eat more. Growing doctors need their protein."
"You just want to steal my fries."
"Now, I didn't say that…"
"You could just get your own, you know." Wilson fumbles around in his pocket, slides a ten-dollar bill over to House, which goes smoothly into his pocket.
"But there's no fun in that," House whines.
"Then give me back my money."
"Uh…what about no?"
Wilson sighs, and that's when his cellphone goes off, vibrating eagerly on the table. He picks it up. "Wanna bet?"
House lifts an eyebrow. "Easy. It's Julie."
"Somehow, I doubt that." Wilson glances at the caller ID, and his heart swoops and sinks all at once.
"So?"
"You're right," Wilson says, and gets up from the table. "I have to take this."
Out of the cafeteria, he stands in the chilly February air and listens to the dial tone, and then the ensuing voicemail, plays it over and over again until there's an unshakeable cold in the tips of his fingers.
James, it's Mom here. I called yesterday, but maybe you were too busy because you didn't pick up. Danny's getting worse, much worse, and you know Peter isn't coming back, so—You need to see us, James—if you can't travel to Delaware we'll go to you. New Jersey, right? Just drop us a call when you're free and we'll come over.
He almost wishes it were Julie instead, like it would have been before the divorce, calling to berate him for something like not going home more, or not spending time with her, and then they'd argue, as always, and then he'd go to sleep on the couch, as always—and then in the morning he'd make breakfast for her, and they'd pretend that their marriage wasn't falling apart.
Danny. He hasn't said that name in a long time. Whenever someone'd mentioned Danny in public Wilson used to turn around, as if he could ever catch a glimpse of him.
And for the thousandth time in his life Wilson has no idea what to do, no idea at all.
When he returns to the cafeteria House is gone, leaving only the traces of a meal-once-was: a sandwich wrapper, and a napkin, with a hastily scribbled message written in ballpoint pen:
You owe me dinner for the rest of this week, too.
Then underneath, in smaller letters:
Haven't had the Jimmy special in too long.
Sometimes House can make him smile. Sometimes.
After, when he's driven home and fixed himself another TV dinner (it's been the fifth in a row, and Wilson knows vaguely that that isn't a good sign), Wilson lies down in bed and stares at the ceiling.
He can't help it. Hope's mother with her nails drumming against his table. House with that crinkled-up smile on his face. His mother and the way her voice distorted through the telephone. The walk back to his car, numbers and statistics and files clouding his vision, the eerie glow of streetlamp on concrete. Someone's voice stumbling over his brother's name, over and over and over again. He's getting worse.
There's always someone to take care of and that's the okay part. Wilson wouldn't know what to do with himself without that. Helping gives your hands something to do and your head something to think about, and sometimes it comes with pain and death but that's to be expected, after all.
Wilson turns over in bed again, fumbles for the phone on his dresser. He should call her, he should, but he reasons to himself that it's already 1 a.m. and she'll be long asleep—his mother's an early sleeper and even remembering that fact leaves something curdling in his stomach.
Danny.
He stares at the ceiling, body enclosed in blankets and the weightlessness that comes with sleeping alone, and waits for sleep to come until his alarm goes off, and it's time to go back to work again.
"You're going to be fine," he tells the man sitting in front of him, smiles the smile that House has dubbed the Reassuring Cancer Patients smile—rather aptly, Wilson has to admit.
The man heaves a sigh of relief, and Wilson can see that he doesn't want to be here any longer—no one except the dying want to stay in Oncology—so he briefly details post-treatment options to the man, hands him a pamphlet, and tells him to contact any member of the team any time he has questions.
"Thank you so much, Dr. Wilson," the man says earnestly, standing up to leave. "You've been a really great help."
"No problem at all," Wilson tells him, and watches as the glass door of his office swing shut as the man walks out.
Danny must be about that man's age by now. Wilson can't imagine how he must look like.
And that's what he finds himself telling House in the dim light of the bar, hands cupping the cold sweaty roundness of a beer glass.
"It's so easy to forget someone's face," he says into his glass.
House turns back from watching football on the tiny TV in the corner of the bar. "What'd you say?" he yells, right into Wilson's ear.
Wilson swirls his glass around and watches amber drink swish around itself into nothingness. "Nothing."
"Your patient?"
"She's dying," he says, and to Wilson's utter surprise, horror, and mortification, he feels his throat start to close up and his eyes start to smart, and he prays to whatever deity kind enough to listen to strike him with a fatal allergy on the spot so that he doesn't need to lose it in front of House—of all people.
Because Wilson doesn't cry. He throws breakable objects to distract himself with cleaning the pieces up. He goes for hour-long drives to nowhere in particular and gets lost in between roads. He watches TV and gets drunk and throws up in the morning.
Oncologists tend not to make a habit of crying. Not at death.
Thankfully, House doesn't seem to notice. He's turned back to the football rerun, which gives Wilson just enough time to compose himself.
"No surprise there," House mumbles dryly, and Wilson's too tired to formulate any kind of a response.
"She's eleven. Eleven years old."
"Another sick kid, then."
"Her name is Hope," Wilson says, because he has to let someone else know, and he might be just a tiny bit out of his rational mind by now. "She's eleven, and she likes colourful crocheted stuff, and her favourite food is pizza, like everyone else in her class, and she likes to draw and run and play soccer, but she can't do that anymore, of course. Now she likes to listen to her mom's stories and watch the clouds go by outside the window, but only if the curtains are drawn back so I go in her room every morning."
He feels House watching him and quickly downs the remaining of his drink. "And she'll die," Wilson says. "In a few months, at best. In two weeks, at worst."
"I thought you'd learn not to get attached by now."
"I thought so too."
"Is that why you're out with me now?" House gestures to the two glasses in front of them, his own half-full one and Wilson's empty one. "Choosing to drink away your sorrows?"
Wilson considers this, and decides it's a pretty apt description. "I guess."
"Good choice, then." House takes a drink. "Your little bleeding heart's definitely losing sleep over this, isn't it?"
Wilson puts his head in his hands. "No, it won't. And I sleep perfectly fine."
"Everybody lies," House says easily, and stands up. "My place tonight?"
"I've got medical files that I need to look through by next week, House—not everyone's like you—some of us actually take procedures seriously, you know."
"Yeah, more files about more sick people. You're in Oncology, there's only so much cancer one can diagnose in two days," House says, not altogether unkindly. "Come on, Wilson."
He thinks of Hope, then of Danny, and for once in his life Wilson's tired of feeling guilty, of feeling this sick lump in his chest, more of an illness than anything else, and forty years later he still hasn't quite figured out how to make it go away yet.
Point is, he's tired, and some part of him already knows he'll spend the night staring up at the ceiling again, so Wilson sighs and stands up and gives in, as always.
Outside House's apartment, Wilson checks his phone. There's a message waiting for him, left unread: It's Mom. The doctors' aren't optimistic about Danny's condition. We need to discuss treatment options with all of the family. Respond as soon as you can. Her number's still the same, somehow, has never changed the last time he'd called, more than five years ago now. It had been for Christmas, or for Hanukkah. Or for something else.
He hesitates, and then House opens the door with his key and Wilson shoves his phone back into his pocket. Danny can wait.
And for what Wilson knows that's all Danny has been doing, sitting and waiting and alone, all alone, waiting for his brother who ran away all those years ago and never came back. What kind of older brother would do that?
House snaps his fingers at Wilson. "Anybody home?"
Wilson starts. "Sorry—just thinking about something." He toes off his shoes and follows House inside. He's always vaguely liked House's apartment more than his own, liked the many lamps on tables and the dimness of the place.
House sits down on the couch slowly, gestures to Wilson. "Beer?" And even though Wilson's tired he goes over to the fridge anyway, cracks open a can and sits down on the couch next to House, passing it to him. He checks his phone surreptitiously as House turns on the TV, the comforting noises of some type of late-night show washing over the apartment. Wilson should reply. It's his mother. What kind of person doesn't care about their mother? What kind of person do you have to be?
And Wilson's always tried to be a good person, or at least somewhat of one, but now he's sitting on the couch of the only man he calls a friend, twice-divorced and freshly alone, and he hasn't even seen his family in ten years, and he's seen so many people die and yet he's still alive, staring at a TV with a phone cradled in his limp hands, and he doesn't know what kind of a person that makes him.
"You're not drinking?" House asks, surprisingly sincere, and Wilson manages to look at him.
"I've had enough for one night, I think." He's sobered up now, his brain relatively clear, and Wilson doesn't want to risk it, because he knows he says things when he's drunk and at this particular point in his life he's bound to say something to House he'll regret. "You don't usually drink this much, not on Fridays—"
"My leg is fine," House says shortly, turning back to the TV. It's Wheel of Fortune, Wilson finally realises, an old rerun of one of the episodes, and the lady on the screen opens her mouth in a joyous shout, tinny voice barely audible.
"Okay," Wilson says, small.
"Okay," House echoes, lack of his usual House-ness, and Wilson thinks to himself that maybe something's wrong, that maybe he's done something wrong, and that's it for the two of them, and he doesn't quite know why even the thought strikes him with terror.
He likes House. He does. Many people have called him crazy, insane, or other variants of those, and he's gotten used to them, but the thing is House sees people in a way that no-one else comes close to. And maybe Wilson likes the feeling of being seen through, being seen beyond his job and his bland niceness, and maybe he's a little fucked-up for that, but Wilson thinks House has always been clear about what kind of person Wilson really is, and he likes that.
When Wilson dares to look over again House's fallen asleep, mouth half open and beer can lying abandoned on the coffee table before them. Maybe he isn't completely sober because he finds himself wondering about how nice House would look to someone else—blue eyes, smile and all—before he opens his mouth, of course. House's never said it before but Wilson knows he doesn't sleep easy, and now Wilson looks at him and wishes he could stay here for tonight, and fall asleep next to him, and somehow that would be okay. But House doesn't do that kind of thing, and honestly Wilson's not sure if he could, too.
So instead Wilson throws away the beer can on the table, clears out House's trash—consisting of pizza boxes and takeout containers—and washes the dishes in the sink for good measure, because there aren't many anyway, and he might as well keep busy. And then he leaves a note for House on the coffee table: See you Monday.
Domesticity, Wilson's learned, isn't really his thing, no matter how much other people seem to think it is, and no matter how much he might want it. That's why he and House are friends, after all.
He lets himself out by the front door. No sleep tonight.
"James," she says. "James, darling, you need to respond to me, okay? It's Danny. Please, you're his older brother, you were supposed to take care of him, especially after Peter left, and then you ran off, too, and you never came back, and we've been struggling without you ever since.
"This is a chance to be a good brother again, James. You shouldn't have done what you did but now you have a chance to fix it. Please? He still remembers you. The doctors say he dreams of you sometimes, wakes up saying your name.
"I love you, and Danny does, t—"
Someone raps sharply on his window and Wilson resists the urge to slam his head down on the steering wheel. Instead, he winds it down.
"What is it now, House?"
House's leaning against his cane and sporting a new pair of sunglasses, for whatever reason, and Wilson tries not to notice that the new pair of sunglasses somehow suit his face.
"You left on Friday."
Wilson pinches the bridge of his nose. He can feel the beginnings of a headache, and all he wants to do is fall asleep and not wake up in the ensuing twenty-four hours. "Yes, I did."
House pokes his head into Wilson's car. "Why?"
"So I can't just do whatever I want now?"
"Well, why would you want to voluntarily leave my wonderful company?" House points out, completely straight-faced, and Wilson can't help but snort. "What? I'm not joking."
"I was just tired. People do get tired sometimes, believe it or not."
"And yet you don't look like you've gotten a wink of sleep since then."
That's because I haven't, Wilson resists the urge to say. He'd downed two cups of coffee on the drive here, rapid-fire, and he'd almost fallen asleep at a red light and only been awoken by the horns of the vehicles behind him, and he vaguely knows that those aren't very good signs, but, well…
"Uh…crazy schedule." Wilson racks his brains for another excuse. "Patient files?" he offers weakly.
"Over the weekend?"
"You know how it is." Oh, dear god, Wilson feels like some old guy at an academic conference who's just had three cups of 19 Crimes in a row. And judging by House's expression, he's sounding very much un-Wilsonlike, too.
"What were you doing before I came?"
Oh, shit. Wilson shrugs. "Just…preparing to get out of my car. It's 8 a.m., you know, as in, a perfectly normal time to start work."
"Cameron tells me you've been here since 7.30 a.m."
Double shit. "What, you've got people tracking me?" Wilson says, and he doesn't need to try much to sound indignant.
House smirks. "She's got excellent powers of observation. Have fun getting ready for work, then." The part he doesn't say—that he'll find out eventually—hangs in the air between them.
"It's not anything," Wilson says.
"Coming from you, that means it's something." House says, turning to go. "You owe me lunch today, too, and have fun with the cancer kids today."
Fuck. Hope—he'd forgotten to check in with her. Check in on her. Check her. Whatever. Not the point. And the other patients, lying in their beds—maybe okay, maybe experiencing respiratory distress, maybe dying—
Wilson throws the car door open and dashes across the parking lot, narrowly missing an oncoming car that honks at him.
He reaches the Oncology ward at 8.10 a.m., an hour later than he usually does, and maybe something's happened to one of his patients in that one hour, maybe the 84-year-old woman in remission's gotten worse, or the accountant in room 34, or that teen he'd seen on Thursday's gotten diagnosed with cancer, or—or Hope—
But Wilson stands there in the corridor, everything seems to be going on as per normal. One intern walks by and greets him, and he murmurs a good morning back, and one of the nurses—Erica, she's wonderful at her job, his mind automatically supplies—stops by him and tells him that all the patients, including Hope, are stable.
Stable. They're doing alright. They're okay, he tells himself. No-one's going insane just yet. His patients aren't, and he isn't.
He's not going crazy. He's not.
Wilson should be paying attention to something or other, but the scattered papers of a patient's file aren't making lots of sense to him, and his eyes can't be forced to focus on the tiny lettering detailing this new person's medical history. His phone chooses that moment to vibrate—either his mother, or House, and neither are very good options—but he ignores it.
And then it vibrates again. And again. And again. And by the fourth time it starts to vibrate Wilson's sure it's House, so he resists the temptation to slam his head into his desk and instead picks up the phone.
"House, what is it?"
"I want food, and you're getting me some." Shit, he hadn't realised that it's almost lunchtime. Thirty minutes into his break, actually.
"I'm…uh, kind of busy right now, actually, so…"
"Stop lying. I'm outside your office right now and you haven't done anything in the past five minutes except slump on your desk, massage your temples, and occasionally look depressed."
Wilson jerks his head up and sure enough, House is outside his office, waving jauntily at him through the glass door separating the two of them. He should have known better.
He gets to his feet, squinting away the fuzziness encroaching his vision, and throws open his door. "Why are you here, House? Don't you have, I don't know, some patient urgently begging for your help, or something?"
House maintains eye contact with Wilson and says loudly into his phone, "Gotta go, Wilson, some crazy person's accosting me in the hallway."
"Okay, what do you want?"
"To have lunch with my best friend ever, because I miss him so very much," House says innocently.
Wilson fumbles for his wallet, throws it at House. "There. Your best friend."
"Self-deprecation isn't a good look on you."
"Neither is your cane, for that matter."
House gestures at Wilson like he's a particularly interesting specimen. "See? You're not even trying with the comebacks. I miss the old Wilson."
"He's not coming back anytime soon," Wilson says, and he's aware that his tone's getting increasingly frustrated, but he's had it, he's had it with his mother and House and Danny and cancer, and in a perfect world he'd wake up and everything would be right again, but now he's in a hospital hallway and Hope won't get any better and his mother's probably losing sleep over Danny, and House—the only person Wilson's ever known—won't even care.
House tilts his head, is about to speak, and then Wilson sees someone coming down the hallway and thank the heavens for that. "Also, Cuddy's behind you," he points out helpfully.
"Now that's a terrible attempt at misdirection—"
"Funny," Cuddy says behind House. "Last I checked, the Diagnostics ward wasn't in this direction—unless, of course, the hospital underwent a complete makeover since last night."
"Dr. Cuddy," House says, dryly. "What a…pleasant surprise."
"It's nice to see you, Dr. Wilson," she says instead, completely ignoring House, and Wilson smiles back. "House, why don't you stop bothering the poor man and actually go back to doing what you're supposed to do?"
"I've been bothering him for years and he doesn't seem to mind," House points out.
"That's what he thinks," Wilson pseudo-whispers to Cuddy, and she laughs at that.
House nods at the both of them slowly. "So that's how it is. Don't forget I've still got your ex-wives' numbers. And your wallet." He turns and walks away, his cane clacking against hospital tiles.
Cuddy turns to Wilson, and he immediately straightens his back. But all she does is say, "Wilson, you should get more sleep. You look…" She frowns.
"Um. Tired?" he suggests.
"I was thinking more of exhausted, actually. But that works too. Anyway, see you around, I've got to take care of a baby."
Wilson raises his eyebrows, points at House's retreating figure. Cuddy grimaces and nods in confirmation.
"I can hear the both of you perfectly well, you know," House says loudly.
"That's the whole point," Cuddy calls back, and then with a quick smile she's following House back down the corridor, and Wilson watches both of them go and for a split second wishes that he could follow—no, even better, that he could walk right down to his car and drive away, drive away and never come back.
Maybe he'd go to a beach and watch waves crash over stones. Danny had liked beaches, the blue sky, seagulls squawking and stealing sandwiches, and when he was eight and Wilson was ten they'd gone down to Coney Island together, and that was it, that was the whole day, nothing else other than the blue sky and the blue sea and his little brother's laugh.
Or maybe he'd go to somewhere else. Wilson doesn't know.
A memory.
He's sitting in a doctor's office, and she's telling him things, and he's seventeen and he's nodding and taking notes, and she's telling him all about Danny, all about the visiting hours and what this means for him and for Danny and for his mother, and it's making sense but also not, and he tries to tell her to slow down but she can't hear him because he can't speak, and she keeps going and he's on the verge of tears because if he doesn't do this correctly somehow he knows he'll never see Danny again, and then Danny is in the office, standing in front of him, and he looks Wilson in the eyes and asks Where's Mom?
I Don't Know, Wilson says. He doesn't.
Does She Hate Me?
I Don't Know.
And then it's Hope, staring up at him in his office—his office now, he's a doctor—with her brown eyes that seem oddly familiar, and she asks: Does dying hurt?
No.
How do you know?
You won't feel a thing. It's like before you were born. You didn't know anything and after you die you won't know anything either because you'll cease to exist.
Who said that?
Epicurus.
But how does he know? How do you know?
I don't, Wilson admits, and he is crying now, he can feel it. His face is wet. I don't know anything.
And then he's seventeen again, and Danny is gone, and all that's left is the doctor and her kind brown eyes.
Where's your mom, James? she asks.
I can take care of my little brother just fine, he says defensively.
That wasn't the question, James. Where's your mom? Where's your dad? Where's Peter?
My mom's with my dad and my dad's with Peter.
Where?
Not here.
Where?
I don't know.
Someone raps on the table and Wilson jerks up, his heart going a hundred-and-eighty per minute. "What?"
House's seated across from him. Wilson rubs his eyes and his mind's fuzzy, still confused, still reeling, and he'd been half-expecting to find himself in that doctor's office—Dr. Nora Smith, that'd been her name—with that notebook in his hands that he still keeps in one of his office drawers. He glances around—he's in the hospital's cafeteria, no shops are open, and they're all alone.
"You didn't show for lunch. Or for dinner," House says.
"Why are we here?" Wilson asks.
"I should be asking you that."
"What time is it?"
"Let's see," House says, clipped. "It's twelve-oh-eight a.m., actually."
Wilson closes his eyes. "Shit. I just went to take a quick dinner, I didn't realise…"
"Who's Danny?"
Double shit. "Huh?" When in doubt, feign ignorance.
"Danny."
"Where'd you get that from, an advertisement or something?" Wilson says, blinking blearily at the table. "So many people are named Danny, House. Look, I'm sorry I kept you this late—you know how it is—let's just leave, okay? There's still work tomorrow."
House, unfortunately, refuses to budge. "Specifically, since you conveniently can't seem to recall, the Danny that you were mumbling about in your sleep earlier."
Wilson frowns. "I don't know anyone called Danny. You must have…"
"What, misheard? That's rather difficult, seeing that only two of us are here."
"Why are you here?" Wilson counters. "By this time you should've been well on the way home by now, or sitting on your couch watching reruns of Wheel of Fortune."
Just as he'd hoped, House takes the bait. "It's a good show." Because god forbid that House reveal he actually gives a shit about anyone in his life, Wilson thinks. To admit any reason for staying would be to admit any reason for caring, and they both know that.
"Glad we both agree, then," Wilson says lightly. "Let's go home, then."
"Not so fast."
"What, you've got something to say?" Wilson stares at House. "What is it?"
"Tell me, Wilson. Who's Danny?"
Wilson sighs. If it was anything else House would've let it drop by now, but House's watching him with that look he only gets with particularly interesting—or perturbing—cases. "He's just…someone I know, okay? No big deal."
"Since I've never heard you mention him before…his appearance has to be a recent thing, but you'd probably have known him earlier. From childhood, maybe."
"House, just—quit it, okay?" Wilson says, a little louder than he would've liked, and the sound of his own voice's jarring in the silent cafeteria.
House stares at him, and Wilson tries to think of something to say, for damage control, something the old him would've already come up with by now—but he comes up empty.
"Okay," House says finally.
"You're not going to drop it, are you?" Wilson says, quieter.
"Am I known for dropping things?"
"Why? It's not like I'm dying. It's not a medical problem you can solve. It's not even anything." And for a moment Wilson's tempted to tell House everything—that there isn't much to tell. That he's got a sick brother and a desperate mother and he's such a terrible person that he can't even bring himself to take care of either of them.
And the thing is Wilson knows about House's father, and his mother, and how his childhood had been like. Not everything, not all the details, but enough. Enough to know things, enough so that his car has extra jackets and blankets and heat packs and everything warm anyone could ever need. Enough to know why no-one's ever around House's apartment during holiday seasons, and enough to offer to come over every time.
That's a reason to not see your family anymore. More than a reason that any child should ever need to give.
But Wilson's family had been good, and kind, and warm, and there's no reason he shouldn't call his mom and tell her See you Friday. And the thing is, he wonders what House would say if he knew.
Something that went like: Classic suburban picket-fence childhood problems, probably.
So instead he gets up and after a beat House follows.
"You're driving me back, right?" There's a challenge in House's tone, funny because he knows Wilson won't ever refuse.
And even though the floor blurs in Wilson's eyes and he feels a migraine start to wrap his head around, it's not like he can say no.
The drive to House's apartment is alright, all things considered. Wilson manages to stay alert, save for one particularly long traffic light, mostly because House's staring at him like a hawk. Ha. House as a hawk would be oddly fitting, but Wilson's fairly sure that would feature in his recurring nightmares.
They're almost reaching when House says, "You haven't said anything."
"Um…" Wilson hazards.
"That doesn't count as something." House continues, half to himself, "You're a driving hazard, do you know that?"
"I'm not the one who drives when he's drunk."
"Not drunk," House corrects as they pull up outside his apartment. "Very mildly buzzed. Key word: mildly."
"I'm not going to crash my car."
"That's what most people say right before they crash their car. And then what'll happen to all the cancer kids you're treating?" House snipes.
Wilson stops the car, unlocks the doors. "Don't call them that."
"I've never met an oncologist so scared of the mention of cancer before. Or of illness as a whole, actually."
"Good night, House," Wilson says. House remains in his seat. "We've reached your apartment, you know," he continues pointedly. "Generally people tend to go home when they've reached home."
"You're not usually this prickly. So I'm close to something, after all."
Wilson shuts his eyes. "Just—get out."
To House's credit, Wilson hears the sound of the door unlocking, then some shifting around, then House slams the door shut behind him without saying anything more.
Wilson watches him leave and for a moment he almost wants to get out and follow, to spend an evening watching reruns of whatever dumb show's on at the moment, to while away the long hours that seem so difficult to spend alone.
At that moment his phone vibrates, and it almost seems like some sort of omen, some sort of sign. Wilson glances at it and his heart jumps into his mouth and he presses the Answer button.
"Jimmy," the voice on the other end says, breathless and recognisable. "Jimmy, I've been waiting for you to pick up for so long—I'd almost given up, you know, but I thought to myself that my son's an oncologist, he's probably just busy, and you have been, haven't you—"
"Mom," he says, and the word snaps him out of his half-reverie. "What's happened to Danny?"
"What? —what do you mean?"
"It's half past midnight. Did the doctors reach out with urgent news, or…" Even as he says that Wilson feels his heart hanging right up somewhere in his throat. It seems inconceivable, for Danny to be hurt. To be dead. That's not what younger brothers do.
"No, no," she says, confusion evident in her tone. Wilson slumps down onto the steering wheel, staring into the dark street beyond. "He's getting worse, but nothing terrible's happened to him."
"Why'd you call so late, Mom?" he asks, and it comes out hopelessly tired, but he can't bring himself to apologise.
"I thought you'd pick up if I called later."
That's what he'd known she would say, even as he'd asked the question.
"I'm free to meet you, Mom," Wilson says. "I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier—work, and all…"
"That's great!" she says perkily, and her tone vaguely reminds Wilson of that of moms on TV, the ones who bring sweating jugs of orange juice out to their kids on a melting summer day. "It's been so lonely—it's just me, you know, since now you and Danny and—and Peter—all have gone."
Guilt pokes languidly at Wilson again, long-dead by now, and he wonders if it's possible to feel guilty about his delayed reaction to feel guilty. "I'm sorry."
"See you next Friday, then. Lunch?" She hangs up before he can reply and all that Wilson hears is the dial tone, and then he puts his phone down and stares ahead into the darkened street.
"Okay," he says, to no-one in particular.
For the whole of the next day, Wilson can barely keep his eyes open. He'd spent the previous night thinking—about his mom and what she'll want this time around, and then about Danny and what he must look like, and at one point House had featured in his muddled, blanket-addled thoughts, and that was immediately followed by a vividly remembered scene of Julie standing in their kitchen doorway in one of their quarrels, yelling at him: Why are you so obsessed with House? Sometimes I'm not sure if you're in love with me or him!
At that point he'd gone back to thinking about Danny.
He pokes himself with the nib of his pen and tries to stay awake.
House snaps his fingers in front of his face and Wilson jerks back. "Hey, sleepyhead, you listening?"
"Sorry."
"Mummy didn't put you to bed early last night, did she?" House narrows his eyes at Wilson.
"Something like that," Wilson says evenly.
"As I was saying—"
Wilson stares at House and Julie's voice replays, agonisingly slowly, in his mind: Sometimes I'm not sure if you're in love with me or him. No, no, no—that's the sleep deprivation speaking, Wilson. Stop thinking about that.
Anyways he's fairly sure he isn't in love with House—he'd have to be gay, and insane, two things of which Wilson's confident he's not. He likes most women—hence the remarrying—and he's pretty well-adjusted, being left mercifully alone for most of his childhood. Why is he thinking about this?
"You're still not listening, are you?"
Wilson blinks up at House. "It's almost ten p.m., House. Every person on day shift's long gone by now."
House scoffs. "Because they have actual lives. Unlike you."
"…you do realise that you also fall under the category of 'people not having actual lives'?"
"Nope, I don't. I'm here by choice and you aren't. Ergo," House gestures at himself, "not a loser," then proudly motions to Wilson. "Loser."
Wilson shrugs and leans back in his office chair, half-shutting his eyes. "Point made."
"No protest?"
"Why should I?"
Out of nowhere, House claps his hands, and Wilson's eyes shoot open. "You know what, let's play a game."
"What game?" Wilson glances at House cautiously. At one point—a year after they'd just met—he'd learned to be wary of playing any kind of game with House, since one incident landed both of them in a police station and another in the ER—though to be fair there probably shouldn't have been two incidents at all.
"Don't be a wuss, Jimmy," House says, picking up a stress ball from Wilson's table—Princeton-Plainsboro Medical Conference 2000, it says—and tossing it at Wilson. It hits him square on the forehead. "It'll be easy, promise."
"If I say yes, will you drive me home after this?"
"Sure," House says casually, and that gets Wilson straightening up in his seat.
"You're serious?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" House chucks another stress ball at him and Wilson catches it before it whacks him on the head.
"What's the game?"
"Rock-paper-scissors."
Wilson stares at him. "That's it?"
"Five rounds," House proclaims, fishing out five hundred-dollar notes from his wallet and fanning them out on Wilson's table, but when Wilson starts to reach for his wallet, House holds up a finger. "Not so fast. Each round I lose, you get a hundred-dollar note, but for each round you lose, I get to ask you a question."
Wilson freezes.
"That's not fair," he says, vaguely aware of a ringing in his ears.
"Whoever said anything about fair?"
"And if I don't play?"
House twirls something around his finger and with a sinking stomach Wilson recognises the glint of his car keys. "You stay here for the rest of the night while I go home."
Wilson lunges for the keys but House manuvers it easily out of his grip. "Too slow, Wilson."
"You're an asshole."
"And you are too."
House's been banking on this, Wilson realises, has been waiting till Wilson's desperation for a familiar bed and sleep starts to get to him. House'd been right—he has no choice.
"Fine," Wilson says. "I'll play your game." Maybe he'll win five out of five games.
House smiles and his eyes look impossibly blue under the hospital lights. Warm and blue and not like Danny's at all. "I'll count us down. No cheating."
Wilson wins the first round and takes one of House's bills. It might come in handy next week, anyways. House watches him with a strange look on his face and Wilson thinks that this almost feels like a dream.
They go for the next round. Wilson loses.
House clears his throat, tilts his head to the side. "First question, then."
"Okay," Wilson says, and it's hard to anticipate a moment that you know will mean life won't ever be the same after it, and sharp as an arrow comes regret—he should've just let House walk out of his office, stayed one night alone in an empty office, anything other than this. House had been right all along—Wilson isn't a good person, however much he'd like to think he is.
At least there's no pretense with House. That's why so many people are interested by House, Wilson supposes, because far more people are like Wilson than House.
"Who's Danny?"
Of course that would be his first question.
"He's my little brother." Still, it doesn't seem to satisfy House, who squints suspiciously at Wilson.
"And?"
"That's two questions," Wilson points out.
"Doesn't count if you've given half an answer." They go into a brief staring match, which Wilson promptly loses because his eyes start stinging five seconds in.
"Fine. He—he's got schizophrenia." Wilson stares resolutely at his table. House doesn't say anything more. "Next round?" He's eager to get this over with, after all, and some part of Wilson's looking forward to the drive home after this, the ritualistic manner of their conversation that'll follow. Of course, only if House deigns to forget about his game, which isn't very likely.
They play the next round. Wilson wins and another of House's hundred-dollar bills joins his wallet. House, to be fair, seems unbothered by it.
In the second-last round (really, only their fourth round) House's scissors beats Wilson's paper, so there's that.
"Next question, then," House says, and there's a gleeful look on his face that Wilson doesn't particularly enjoy. "You see, Wilson, the thing is, practically no-one knows anything about your childhood. Not even the people in Oncology, nor your fellow department heads. Which is—strange. Even I don't, and we've known each other for years."
"That's…not a question," Wilson says, as if they both can't predict what's next.
"I'm getting to it," House says petulantly, almost like a child. "So. Why is that?"
"Most people don't really talk about their childhoods. Most people with, well…relatively well-adjusted parents," Wilson hedges, letting his insinuation hang in the air for a moment.
"Are your parents well-adjusted?"
Wilson blinks, nonplussed. Of course they are. Of course they were. "Of course," he says aloud. "My father was overseas most of the time—he still is, I think, in South Korea or somewhere else—and my mother was a good mom."
"Half-answers again. You'd make a terrible patient," House grouses, kicking his legs up on Wilson's table and reclining back.
"She…" Wilson racks his brain. "She'd work for us. And she got us clothes, and she paid for Danny's medical bills, and she'd get us food, too, and money, and other things. Like any good mother would."
"Isn't that what most parents do?"
"Yeah, but…she was a good parent," Wilson says, and it comes out harsher than he'd have liked. "I think that's enough for you, isn't it?"
House looks up at the ceiling, tossing a red stress ball up and catching it and tossing it again until it becomes a crimson blur in Wilson's eyes. He does it again, and again, and again until Wilson starts to get vaguely concerned, and just when he's about to ask if House's alright—
"You know, my father would pay for things too. He'd get me most things I wanted. I think at one point we even had a dog."
"But—but that's a different thing," Wilson protests.
"Different how?"
"My mother never hit me." She hadn't really been enough around for hitting to happen, but that's still a good thing, and if she'd been home more Wilson's fairly sure she'd never lay a hand on him or Danny. Wilson shifts in his seat. "Let's just get this over with—it's getting late."
"If you say so," House says, but Wilson has a sinking feeling that even as they're speaking House's attempting to DDx him with a nonexistent condition.
Rock-paper-scissors. House wins.
Almost immediately, Wilson's hit with the question: "What happened to your family?"
"What do you mean?" Wilson says, looking at House, and there's a faint shadow of a smile playing around the latter's lips, and at any other moment, in any other situation, Wilson would have found a way to match that smile.
"I mean—where are they now?"
Wilson swallows. "Uh—my dad's overseas, like I said earlier. My older brother's—in…" He can't remember. "He's…"
"What?" House prompts.
"He left when I was six," Wilson says honestly. "I was a surprise kid, I think. He was twenty-one. And Danny's in a psychiatric ward, but you already know that. And my mom—my mom's still in Delaware."
"So—all apart, then," House confirms.
Wilson feels a sudden wave of annoyance. "And that's wrong?"
House tilts his head, looks at Wilson—and the worst thing is Wilson recognises that look. It's the look House makes when he's talking to a particularly headstrong patient, or a particularly dense one, and it generally means something akin to what-the-fuck-did-you-just-say?
But all House tells him is: "Interesting."
Wilson's face scrunches up in involuntary confusion. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing," House says, tossing Wilson his car keys. "Game's over, kiddo."
The car keys smack Wilson on the forehead and land in his lap. "No, House—"
And Wilson's had it, really, he's so tired, so tired of the constant games people are throwing at him, so tired of having to squirrel truth out of people and dodge questions and care and care and care and he wants to ask someone, anyone, when can he stop caring? —but to ask would make a bad person out of him.
So instead of screaming or crying or any of the one thousand other things he's tempted to do, Wilson shuts his eyes and asks again, "What does that mean?"
House doesn't answer for a while, for such a while that Wilson thinks that he isn't going to. He's ready to give up—though lately he's been doing that a little too much—ready to grab his keys and drive them back and go home.
Then Wilson hears: "It just means now I know about your family history. That's all." House looks strangely sincere, and maybe it's the dim lighting, or maybe it's just Wilson's eyes playing tricks on him, but somehow it's the most honest expression Wilson's ever seen him pull.
Which is—something.
"So don't worry your pretty little head about it," House snarks, and the moment should have been broken.
Except that Wilson's still thinking about House's face, still lost in thought, so he dumbly repeats, "Pretty?"
House looks him over, and decides, in all seriousness, "Don't get ahead of yourself just yet, actually."
House ends up driving Wilson home and somehow Wilson manages to fall half-asleep, head against the hard window and traffic lights glowing faintly beneath his closed lids. He drifts and drifts and some part of him almost wishes the ride'll never end.
In an uncharacteristic display of consideration (gasp!) House doesn't say anything for the thirty-minute ride back, not even his usual offhand grumble about how "able-bodied people should drive themselves home". There's only radio static, and the occasional bursts of people speaking before their voices sink back into unintelligibility.
Wilson blinks awake when the car comes to a complete stop. "Time to get off," House says, looking straight ahead.
"Oh." Blearily, he fumbles for the handle, pushing the car door open. "Thanks—I'll drive next time. Uh, I mean tomorrow."
"And you owe me lunch too. Don't think you can weasel out of it."
"Of course," Wilson says. "Good night, House. I'll see you."
"And while you're at it you should try subscribing to a concept called sleep. You know, like the rest of us do. Or at least try to do."
Wilson feels the shadows of a smile find its way onto his lips. "That goes for you too."
"Yeah, but people actually like you, so it makes a difference, whereas they're intimidated by my—"
"Lack of bedside manner?"
"I was going to say awesomeness."
Wilson smiles. He's grateful, sometimes, for the fact that nothing in his life ever changes. "Don't take too many pills tonight, House. I'll still be here tomorrow," he says, and shuts the car door.
And to be entirely fair Wilson does try to snatch some sleep. He tries to but when he lies down in bed and closes his eyes and stretches his arms across the emptiness beside him he starts to think of his mother, and she's coming Friday—which is in five days—and she'll probably be visiting his apartment and he should get the place cleared up before then, so Wilson ends up swinging his legs out of bed and going to clean his house—he hadn't known that so much dust had accumulated everywhere—and before Wilson knows it the sun's come up, streaking the sky with purple and pink—and Danny had loved sunrises but hated waking up for it—and Wilson misses him, and it's time to go to work again.
At the exact moment Wilson reaches for the lift button, his phone buzzes briefly in his hand, and House leans over to look at its screen.
"Who is it?" Wilson asks, pressing the button and watching it light up.
"Your mom," House sing-songs. "No, seriously," he adds when Wilson shoots him a look, and oh god it is actually his mom. "Also, who names their mom 'Jenny Wilson' in their phone?"
"And who went to search up the name of their friend's mom yesterday?"
House shrugs. "It was tempting. Ever heard of this little website called LinkedIn? Your mom's crocheted animals looked interesting, actually."
Wilson's about to retort when his phone buzzes again, and he can't help but look down.
James, was wondering if we could meet earlier this week? Danny needs help. Wednesday?
Wednesday's…fuck. Wednesday's tomorrow.
It's only just registered in his mind when another text pops up on the screen: I'm planning on driving over tomorrow! See you for lunch. Not even a perfunctory are you free on Wednesday, Wilson thinks. Which shouldn't irk him, but somehow he is irked.
And Wilson doesn't need to question if House's seen it, because the latter's currently leaning blatantly over Wilson's shoulder in a gross attempt at invading Wilson's privacy. All of his attempts tend to end up being successful, mainly because Wilson isn't very good at feeling bothered about it. Blatant actions are better than discreet ones, after all.
"Better start getting ready, then, Jimmy," House says carelessly, loping into the lift as its doors slide open. "That's tomorrow."
"I know," Wilson groans, following. "I can't make it for lunch tomorrow, then."
"Oh." House's quiet for a moment. "What cuisine does she like? The…Thai place near here? Or maybe the café near here? Or—ooh. What about Chinese?"
Wilson sighs. "House, you will not be stalking my mother and I while we're having lunch together."
"But it's good for a diagnosis," House protests.
"Diagnosis?" Wilson turns to look at House, and it's hard to not get pissed off when your best friend is House, but—a diagnosis? "Have you been—DDx-ing me?"
"No," House says without conviction, and the lift comes to a halt. "Oh, would you look at that, it's my turn to get off. See you later, crocodile."
"House—" Wilson picks up his pace, makes it out of the lift just before the doors close. "I've been telling you not to do that! Do you even know what the definition of 'privacy'—"
"Well, it paid off for you, didn't it, that's why you're on antidepressants now—"
"That's not the point," Wilson says, and he doesn't realise he's yelling until people swivel their heads to look at him. "Sorry," he calls out to them, and working under House must mean you see things weirder than grown men shouting in lift lobbies, because they turn right back around.
"But it worked."
"But that's not the point." And they're getting closer to House's office now. Wilson can see Cameron, Chase and Foreman inside, all huddled around a whiteboard, discussing something or other.
"Look, 'diagnosis' was a slip of my tongue, all right? I've got more important things to do than listen to middle-aged men whine about their mommy and daddy issues—"
"When have I ever done that—" Wilson says, and House barges into his office, and normally they both know Wilson'll turn around and leave at that point, that he'll run away.
But today he's tired and he doesn't feel like running anymore, so Wilson follows him and lets the door swing shut behind them. The three kids—basically kids, Wilson's brain supplies, they look so young, and somehow them working with House depresses him to no end—look up, inadvertently revealing the words scribbled across the whiteboard.
40-year-old Asian woman. Symptoms: Fever, rash, paralysis on one side of body, breathing difficulty.
"See?" House says from behind Wilson. "So, unless you happen to be a 40-year-old Asian woman—"
"Sorry, could you move aside for a second?" Wilson says to Chase, and Chase stares at him, uncharacteristically at a loss for words—well, the three of them all are—and complies. Wilson takes hold of the whiteboard and spins it around, revealing:
40-something (?) year-old white man. Symptoms: Jewish, insomnia, sleep-talking, clinical depression, recent loss of appetite, aversion to family, chronic inability to refuse.
Wilson gestures incredulously at the whiteboard. "What would you call this, then?"
Maybe he'd been foolish, after all, to have hoped that House's questions and his game and all had been genuine, that House possessed the barest semblance of an ability to—care. For the ten years Wilson's known him House's never been like that and it would be foolish to assume anything would change now.
Wilson's never been entirely sure why House's stuck with him, actually—but as he stares at the whiteboard he thinks he might know why.
"Uh…a patient that bears a remarkable resemblance to you? You know, it's surprising how two people can be so completely similar, even down to the finest details…" House suggests.
Wilson stares at him.
And if it were just the two of them Wilson would have done something else, something other than leaving, something that would leech away all his disappointment, maybe, something that would make sense, because he can handle his own life now, he's always been able to, and a diagnosis is—it's stupid, and Wilson can't help but wonder if House sees him as such too, as a flat cutout of a chronic enabler, of someone with a 'chronic inability to refuse'—or maybe as a patient, as someone to treat and grumble over and then leave behind forever, and Wilson no longer knows which possibility is worse.
Or maybe even if it were just the two of them Wilson wouldn't have said anything, and he'd leave anyway, leave House standing there as if it made any difference at all.
But either way they're not alone, so Wilson won't know, and now he never will. So he turns around and leaves.
And anyway he ends up not meeting House for lunch. He ends up in his office, and then he ends up driving himself home.
Wilson'll apologise tomorrow. They both know he always will.
Except he doesn't see House tomorrow. When Wilson asks Cuddy where he is—trying to make it seem like an offhand comment, but by the look on her face his attempt's unsuccessful—and she tells Wilson that House's called in sick. Which he never does, and now Wilson is worried, and now Wilson is guilty, and there's really no way to win, is there?
Wilson ends up calling House's number during every available break he has between patients, and he's so tired that he nearly presses the wrong contact at least thrice—it's not his fault his patients today somehow all have names starting with H, or at least with the letters adjacent to H—but there's no answer, it's voicemail every time, and by the time it's lunch break Wilson has to rush to the Thai place near his hospital, and he doesn't want to, and he doesn't want to see his mother (god, he's guilty, he's so guilty) but he goes anyway, he goes and he reaches and he sits and he waits for his mother to arrive, to see her second son.
And Wilson sits and waits and thinks of House and hopes and he's never particularly had any time to pray but he does now anyway. For what good it does.
And then he sees her, walking fast down the narrow alleyway, making her way into the restaurant as the bell tinkles behind her. She's older, he observes with a surprising amount of detachment, and she's wearing a brown shawl and a yellow shirt, which are two rather confusing colours.
"James," is the first thing his mother says when she sees him. She musters up a smile and younger Wilson would have been so happy. "It's nice to see you after such a long time."
"Hi, Mom," Wilson says, and she sits down, and they both look at each other for a while. "How's, uh, everything with you—and Danny?"
And it's like they're the same they've always been years ago, and with the question his mother snaps to life, reawakens to her old self, and it's like time's never passed at all.
"We've been—struggling lately," she says vaguely. "His treatment's expensive, you know—you must know, you're a doctor now, aren't you? —especially since he's getting worse."
And Wilson wants to ask if she's sure she isn't spending the money on something else, but he presses his lips into a tight line and nods. "I'll—"
At that moment, the doors to the restaurant open, and Wilson—sitting on the side facing the entrance—sees House walk in. No, the correct word in this case would be that House saunters in, looking like a person without a care in the world, and Wilson feels his face go slack, and for a split second he forgets that he's talking to his mother, and the walls, upright as they are, start closing in anyway.
"James?" he hears his mother ask, as if from a distance. "What were you saying?"
"Um," he hears himself say. "I'll—yeah—"
House smiles at the waitress—smiles—which makes Wilson wonder if he's just House's particularly friendly döppleganger, because House doesn't do that. He doesn't saunter, or smile. Those are not things one usually associates with Gregory House. The waitress points him to an empty seat, which is—oh, fuck—which is the table directly opposite Wilson. Fuck, Wilson realises, they'll be making eye contact. Dear god.
"James?" his mother says, as House settles down in his seat, mouthing a 'thank you' to the waitress and Wilson can't help but frown. "Do I have to start being worried about you as well? Being a doctor must be exhausting, after all, it would be a shame—"
"No, I'm fine," Wilson reassures distractedly. "I'll—I'll get the money, Mom. How much do you need?"
"Well…" his mother looks about the restaurant, eyes flitting distractedly around the place, and Wilson's heart sinks. House's consulting the menu, his eyes flickering up once in a while to meet Wilson's, and after they make eye contact once Wilson resigns himself to staring aggressively at the table. "Is—is fifty thousand….?"
Fifty thousand?
"That's…Mom, I can't get that all to you right now." He looks at her, looks at the way she fidgets, and he knows what that means.
"But Danny needs it for his treatment. James, don't you want your brother to get better?" she pleads, almost, and behind her House puts his menu away, and Wilson tries to ignore him.
"Yes, but—even the highest that most hospitals will charge a patient is 20k at most, and you've never had a problem with it before…" he says, as gently as he possibly can.
"Well, there's been an increase in cost," she says, reaching across the table to touch his hand and Wilson has to force himself not to flinch at her touch, at her skin flitting briefly over his. "And after you've been gone it's just become harder to manage, and I miss you, and Danny does too, and we both miss you."
Guilt forms a hard lump in Wilson's throat and suddenly it gets harder to breathe. "I know."
"Is it so hard to help?" she says, pleadingly, and Wilson can't say no, but—
"No, Mom, but I just want to know what you need it for—" At that, he sees House perk up in his peripheral vision.
She frowns, withdrawing her hand. "What are you accusing me of?"
Shit. Wilson backpaddles frantically. "Nothing—no, I'm just—" Just what? He can't even trust his own mother.
"Nothing you can spare for me and Danny?"
"Mom…"
"After you stopped coming five years back," she says, voice softer now, "he got worse. I didn't want to worry you. I've been looking after him for five years now, alone."
I looked after him for forty years alone, Wilson wants to say, and where were you then? But he bites the words back and even thinking of them sends guilt through him.
"I'll—I'll get you the money," Wilson says quietly. "Just—tell me honestly, have you been—well—at the casino recently?"
His mother's expression freezes, and it would be almost comical, her eyes blinking hard and her lips pressed together and Wilson watches their raw pinkness fade slowly to a languid white, and he knows what the answer is.
"Looking after Danny's stressful," she says carefully, and Wilson exhales. "They help me relax—"
"How much," Wilson says tiredly.
She lowers her head. "Thirty thousand dollars."
"When I left you promised you would stop," Wilson says, but she'd said that when Wilson was six, and then when he was twelve, and she'd kept on saying it every year until he was eighteen and college rolled around, and then five years later when he came back from college she'd insisted she would stop then, but she hadn't and Wilson doesn't think she ever will.
"I know, James, but it's so hard, and—"
Wilson's too tired to fight back. "Okay, Mom. I'll get you the fifty thousand by this Friday," he says.
Immediately, her face brightens, her birdlike frame opening up once more. "Thank you, James. I'll stop after this, you know I will. Danny's in good hands, don't you worry, so just concentrate on working, okay?"
She stands up from the table, slings her handbag on one shoulder, smiles at him. "I'll see you around, then."
"Yeah," he says, feeling an indescribable weight settle on his skin. "See you around, Mom."
She waves at him and walks out of the restaurant, leaving Wilson to stare at nothing at all. Rather selfishly, he thinks—but she didn't even ask me how I was doing at all. She didn't even ask to see my house.
She didn't say anything at all.
The thought makes him feel dizzy, confused, as if he'd just been blindfolded and spun around sixty times and asked to walk in a straight line. His vision sharpens and suddenly nothing feels concrete, like if he dares to reach out and touch anything all the colour and sights and sounds around him will slough off into nothingness, and he'll be left in an empty space, a void of white space and silhouettes of mothers and brown eyes of brothers.
Wilson closes his eyes and he's so tired, he thinks, that he could fall asleep.
"James," someone says, and Wilson opens his eyes instead, and it's House, settling into the seat in front of him.
Wilson blinks.
"You saw me just now," House offers helpfully, and somehow Wilson can't summon an appropriate enough reaction, because how do you react when the person you know most, who also happens to be a self-righteous prick, appears in front of you after he's called in sick and you're worried he's been off doing something stupid, and then you find out that he just wanted to stalk you and your mother?
House snaps his fingers in front of Wilson's face and Wilson jerks back instinctively. "So he lives after all."
"You stalked me," Wilson says. "after I explicitly told you not to."
House nods. "Yup."
"You came in after my mother did so I couldn't make a scene."
"It's not hard to find pictures of your mother online. You should teach her a thing or two about internet security."
"And now you're sitting in front of me pretending nothing you did was particularly wrong."
"I find it helps if you think of what I supposedly 'did wrong' as the actions of a man simply trying to help his bullheaded, impossibly stubborn best buddy get over his mommy issues."
Wilson buries his head in his hands.
"I take it that's a sign of approval," House says jauntily.
Wilson raises his head and if he had the energy he would have glared at House. "Either way, now you know."
"Know what?" House says, happily feigning ignorance.
"That my mom's normal," Wilson says evenly, pushing his chair back and standing up, "and she's not going cuckoo, and I'm not either. And you can't diagnose me, because there's nothing to diagnose."
He catches the faint look of surprise on House's face, the tilted head with slightly upraised eyebrows, but Wilson can't be bothered to decipher House any longer so he turns on his heel and leaves.
Outside the restaurant, he switches on his phone, waiting for it to power up, and the first thing that flashes when his screen lights up is a missed call from Cynthia, his co-department head.
She calls sometimes, he reasons, and that's normal.
But as he scrolls down it isn't one missed call, it's five, then ten, and with increasing dread he clicks on her contact and waits for her to pick up.
"Dr. Wilson?" is the first thing she says.
"I'm sorry I didn't pick up—my mother—"
The second thing she says is, "Dr. Wilson, Hope's passed on half an hour ago."
She's dead.
And the funniest thing is Wilson hadn't really known her at all, not really. He'd known things about her, but only fragments that any other person would have known.
It makes him feel—heavy. Upset, but he can't bring himself to do anything about it. Wilson stares up at his darkened office ceiling and tries to think about nothing at all.
Millions of people die from cancer each year despite treatment, Wilson reasons, and Hope should be no different. And it had been a hemorrhage—Cynthia had said she wouldn't have felt anything. Like falling asleep: one moment here, the next gone. They hadn't been able to do anything, and even if Wilson had been here, even if he hadn't gone to lunch, the outcome would have been the same.
Wouldn't it?
Another cancer kid dead, House would say, big deal, but it is a big deal, it is—
Someone knocks on his door and Wilson sits up on the couch. Speak of the devil.
"I'm not very interested in talking to you right now, House," he says, watching as House pushes the door open and walks in anyway.
"Looks like someone's in a bad mood," House remarks in retaliation, sitting down next to Wilson, so close that their shoulders almost brush.
"You shouldn't be here."
"And you shouldn't come to Diagnostics quite as often as you do, either." Wilson looks away. "I heard about your patient. The eleven-year-old, right?"
"It was an intracerebral hemorrhage," he says softly.
"She didn't have a chance. And she was going to die soon, anyway, wasn't she?"
"You don't know that," Wilson says sharply, and House glances towards him. "She could have lived for another month, maybe even a year—I've seen it before, and I should have—"
"Should have what? Been there? To magically stop the bleeding in her brain?"
Wilson falls silent.
"It's always the same with you, Wilson," House says. "When your cancer kids—or patients—inevitably die, as most of them end up doing eventually—you blame yourself. You've been doing that for the last two decades. Aren't you sick of that?"
"Well, you wouldn't know," Wilson says, his voice coming out raspy. He can't remember the last time he'd drunk water. "Try giving more of a shit about your patients sometime and see what happens."
"Well, actually, 'giving a shit about your patients' means figuring out what's wrong with them—medically speaking, because some of those people are pretty fucked-up in other places—and then fixing that. Your job ends there, and so far you're doing your job.
"'Giving a shit about your patients' doesn't mean practically treating them as your own family. Which, speaking of family, you've got a pretty fucked-up batch of people as your family, too. Maybe that's why," House snaps, and Wilson doesn't think he can handle a fight right now.
"Fine," he says. "Okay. You're right, as always."
"The passive-aggressive thing doesn't work on me, you know. Either sit here and spit whatever it is out or stop moping over people who you know are going to die."
"I'm not moping. I'm—" Wilson searches for the word. "I'm just doing what I normally do. Look, what's your point—"
"My point," House says bluntly, "is that you have issues and that you get high off of people needing you. It's like your kink."
Wilson leans back and closes his eyes. "Go away, House." He should have known better, really, and it's actually a pretty impressive coincidence all by itself, how Wilson always manages to be around people like House, those who are tormented and who have shaky hands and who can never quite fall asleep at night.
"First it's your brother. Then your mom. Then me. Then your cancer kids. You've really got it on for the needy, don't you think? Maybe you like how you look like next to them. Oh, look at me, I'm so well-adjusted, I'm such a good person, I actually take care of myself—when the truth is you're more fucked-up than anyone else."
"That's just your own twisted way of thinking," Wilson says, turning to look at House, "because you can't bear to think that people really are normal. You've never known what being 'normal' is like." He closes his mouth and god are his lips dry, and he tastes something bitter in his mouth, sitting heavy on his tongue. Bitter.
House stares straight ahead, at nothing at all. "At least I admit it. Nothing worse than a hypocrite."
And for a split second Wilson's tempted to punch House, hit him in the face over and over again until something between one of them breaks, until there's blood all over and he can't see straight, and House's had it coming, anyway, and Wilson wants to dig his nails into House's scar tissue and make him hurt, again and again, make him feel the constant ache running through his mind, the constant ache that he supposes must come with living.
But that wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be fair. House knows what pain is.
"I'm sorry," Wilson says instead, quietly, and that's when House whirls on him.
"What is your problem—any other sane person would have started yelling by now, or punching me, or literally any other of a thousand and one other reactions apart from just sitting there and doing nothing."
Wilson sits there and does nothing.
"Doing this doesn't make you a better person than me, you know," House mutters under his breath.
"You know," Wilson says conversationally, "my brother and I used to go to the beach once every month."
House's quiet for a moment. It's so quiet that Wilson can hear their breathing. Then: "And?"
"We'd go there with my mom too, and it would be the best day of the entire month." There's an ache behind his eyes now.
"…and?"
"And nothing," Wilson says softly. "And all of that, all of that family stuff, and I still got out of there. I couldn't even stay in Delaware."
"Plenty of people move away from their families," House says brusquely. "You don't see any one of them losing sleep over it."
"Our family was different. I couldn't walk away from Danny, or from my mother. You heard what we said. You know that."
"All I heard was your mother extorting money out from you to feed her gambling addiction," House says, and really, Wilson should have known better than to talk to House about this. And there's that faint ache again—House doesn't care about Wilson, not really. Anything between them is the equivalent of a punching bag to a drunken man. And it's not that Wilson minds, and it's not that Wilson doesn't care about House—he does, but—but sometimes it's so, so—tiring.
He's so tired.
Still, he tries. "I don't even know what Danny looks like anymore. To me he's still a child."
"So your entire backstory's just to justify why you have such an emotional attachment to every single cancer kid that walks into your office? Because—what—you 'see your brother' in every one of them?" House punctuates the back of the sentence with quotation marks, and even though Wilson should have known, he really should have, but some part of him's still waiting.
"Good night, House," Wilson says, and if he were a better man he would have stayed. Instead he stands up and makes for the door.
Rustling. "You can't leave, Wilson. What happened to helping the needy, huh?"
And if he were a better man Wilson would have long killed himself by now.
Instead he turns around and tells House, "I'll be back tomorrow. Like normal, you know."
Wilson leaves. House doesn't try to stop him.
When he shuts his eyes he ends up thinking of Hope eventually, ends up seeing her large eyes and her smile and her picture books plastered across the back of his eyelids, ends up seeing the sunlight falling across her white sheets, so Wilson ends up taking two sleeping pills. On second thought, one more—for good luck. And then he falls into bed, and then into sleep, so naturally that it feels unnatural.
He's tired.
A memory.
He must be nine, because he's holding Danny's hand in it, he's leading him away from the stove because he's cooking dinner and he doesn't want his little brother to get burned by the flame. His mother is somewhere. Out again. She'd put on makeup and red lipstick and high heels and he knows she'll dock his pocket money afterwards and ask him to fetch Danny from preschool.
He's happy because the preschool teachers there love him. They're always telling him that he's such a good kid, helping his mom like that, and Wilson likes being a good kid.
And then Danny trips and falls as he's running after something, playing about in the ways that children always do, and at that moment his mother opens the door and sees Danny crying and sees Wilson standing there and after that Wilson gets a scolding, like he always does, but he's got no-one else to blame anyway because he's supposed to look after Danny. He's supposed to look after people younger, smaller, weaker. He has a duty, a responsibility, an obligation to fulfill.
And fulfill it he must.
Someone's pounding on his door. "Hope," Wilson says.
Maybe if he ignores them they'll realise they've got the wrong door and they'll go away. Maybe he can sleep the ache away. Maybe he can sleep until everything goes away and nothing is left.
Besides, he's tired.
He closes his eyes.
Someone's shaking him. "Wait," Wilson says, mumbles, he can't tell which. "I'll be up. Five more minutes." He's so tired, so tired.
"You've been sleeping for probably a day," the other person says, vaguely familiar.
"Go away." Wilson bats at the other person and turns away.
"You leave me no choice," the other person says dryly. A pause. Some rustling. Then the lights turn on, shading the back of Wilson's eyelids a dark crimson, and Wilson groans, unwillingly opening his eyes.
The first thing he sees is his room, everything still the way he'd left it. The next thing he sees is House.
"Oh, hell no."
"So I don't have to check for lucidity, huh?" House says, unapologetically climbing his way onto Wilson's bed and reclining against a pillow.
Wilson rolls over. "I'm tired."
"You've been out from the office for a day and a half. I'm pretty sure Cuddy's going insane without any 'normal people' to keep her company."
"You should go back to work."
"I can hear those cancer kids calling your name, Wilson."
"I know," Wilson says evenly.
There's silence. Then: "No-one could reach you since the day before yesterday, which isn't something you would pull."
"Okay."
"Come on, up and at 'em." House pokes him.
Wilson opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. The light hurts his eyes, and he realises with a stunning clarity that he wants to die.
But everyone wants to die, really, all the time, House would say.
"Wilsonnnn," House sing-songs, poking him again, and oh fuck it's Friday and he hasn't sent his mother the money yet and Wilson sits up—and that action somehow makes him dizzy—and he reaches for his phone on the nightstand.
Fuck. Six missed calls from his mother. Wilson presses the call button and holds his breath as if that'll change anything.
"Mom," he says immediately when she picks up. "I'm sorry, I'll get the money to you right now—" In the background, he hears House's exasperated sigh, and Wilson tries his best to focus on his mom's voice, but everything sounds underwater, gloopy and murky and he mumbles through pleasantries as she's yelling—or speaking loudly, he can't really tell—about being late, and about not responding, and he manages to Paypal the money to her, hands trembling and somehow still cold, still cold, and after that he hangs up before she starts saying anything more.
House opens his mouth just as Wilson ends the call and Wilson shakes his head. "I know."
"You know what?"
"I didn't mean to," Wilson says. "I just—forgot. It slipped my mind. I didn't mean to." House stares at him and Wilson braces himself. Maybe he'll say that Wilson's a hypocrite again—which he is.
"Jesus, Wilson," House says, softly.
"I didn't mean to do anything I did," Wilson says again. "I didn't mean it."
But House isn't looking at Wilson the way he usually does when he's about to rip into someone. The look on his face is unfamiliar, and confusing, and un-House like, as if everything that made House himself's suddenly been stripped away, and Wilson feels on the verge of panic.
"What is it," he says, just to have something to say.
"You're insane."
Wilson blinks. "You're saying this?"
And to his utter bemusement House cracks a smile, the briefest one Wilson's seen yet, but it lingers around the edges of his mouth (not that Wilson is watching—but who is he kidding, really, he's always watching, always looking), and House says, "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing," Wilson says.
"No—really."
Wilson considers. "Nothing's wrong with me." The next line he says comes out whispered, of its own accord. "Do you think that's the problem?"
House's quiet for a while, which is how Wilson knows he's made a mistake.
"You should probably go back," Wilson says lightly, attempting to lighten the mood. "It's somewhere in the afternoon now, I think. I'll go with you."
"You're just never going to talk about it?" House says abruptly.
"It's not as if there's anything to talk about. I just fell asleep. That's all. You're reading too much into—well, whatever thisis." Wilson gestures at the two of them, but House just stares at him.
"It's not that and you know it isn't."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"There is!" House shouts suddenly, so loudly that Wilson's ears ring with the effort of listening. "There is a problem, and I need you to tell me what it is so I can fix it, and you can go back to being the Wilson who's infuriatingly nice and who gets me things and who isn't tired all the time—because between the both of us at least someone has to be normal and well-adjusted and happy—and I'd rather it be you!"
Wilson blinks, and the ache behind his eyes is back again. House is staring at him, and his eyes are so bright, so blue, and Wilson feels, strangely, like crying.
So instead of saying anything he lowers his head and stares fixedly at the wooden floorboards. Julie had decided on them and now she's gone just like the rest of them and Wilson realises, fucked-up as it is, that House's the only one who's ever really stayed—with his beer nights and bar-hopping and all.
Fuck. He's going to cry. He bites his lip and makes eye contact with nothing other than the floorboards, which to Wilson are suddenly made endlessly fascinating.
"Okay," House says, and stands up from the bed. "Okay."
He's going to leave, Wilson thinks. He'll leave and never come back.
But then there's faint clanging from the kitchen, and when House reappears in the bedroom doorway he's holding two mugs of something in his hands, a faintly disgruntled look on his face. "Here," he says, and when Wilson reaches for the one on the right House pulls it away from him, shoving the other one in his face. "Nuh-uh, beer's only for the ones with a Vicodin addiction. Normies get water."
Wilson splutters and he's still capable of laughing after all. He sips at his water. House sits down next to him and Wilson can feel his warmth seep through the places where their arms touch.
"When I was a kid," House says quietly, "my dad would hit me, but you know that already. You've seen my medical records. He'd do other things, too. Ice baths, matchstick-under-skin, all kinds of methods that he'd come up with. He kept me guessing. He liked playing games, too—he'd tell me that if I answered this question correctly or came up with some solution to some problem, that he'd remove the punishment altogether. I never did solve them.
"But on the other hand he was nice, sometimes. He'd buy me presents—magazines, model cars, trinkets he'd get from some place or other—and he'd leave them on my desk for me to find the next morning. He'd bring us on family vacations, to Spain, to Hawaii, to Canada, anywhere I wanted to go. He'd take me out for dinner sometimes, anything I wanted. He let me try caviar when I was ten just because I asked."
And as House speaks Wilson can't help—can't help—but imagine a tiny House—how he must have looked back then—getting hit, over and over again, until blood seeped between cracks in the floorboards and someone yelled in the distance over and over again, and no-one had stopped it, no-one, not even the doctors or nurses or just one person who said why's this kid falling out of so many trees in a year?
Or, even worse, maybe they did.
Wilson looks at House but for that split second all he sees is Danny, huddled in some corner of the earth, rocking back and forth and terrified, terrified, terrified, and his gaze darts away again.
"Your father, he—" Wilson says instead, and pauses, searching for the words he needs to say.
"I know." House closes his eyes briefly, hand clenching around a fistful of bedsheet, then glances at Wilson. "I know now, at least. But people who abuse can be good to you in so many other ways that you find yourself going back to them—because they're family, or for some other stupid reason. Over and over again."
Wilson stiffens. "My mother isn't abusive. My family wasn't abusive."
"From what I've seen—"
"She was a good mom. She gave us money and bought us food and she'd bring us around on our birthdays. She never hit us. She'd never hit us," Wilson says, but it sounds pleading and weak to even his own ears, and he wishes House could understand.
It wasn't like that. It had never been like—that.
They'd never been that family on the covers of child abuse pamphlets, the ones with hotlines listed all down the front. His mother had never once laid a hand on him. Wilson'd never been hit—or put in ice baths, or burned, or anything like that. His childhood had been—well, unremarkable. Indistinguishable from anyone else's.
"Your mother was neglectful. That's a form of child abuse," House argues.
"She never—she wasn't neglectful. Neglectful mothers leave their kids out on the streets for hours before they realise something's wrong. Neglectful mothers don't even—they don't even remember to give their kids allowance, or food, or anything," Wilson says vehemently, and suddenly the bedroom walls feel all too suffocating.
"Not necessarily. Neglectful mothers leave their kid to take care of their other kid while they go out to casinos and get wasted. And then that poor kid has to become the younger kid's caregiver while also managing his neglectful mom. And then that kid gets tired, and worn out, because children aren't supposed to pick their younger brother up from daycare, or burn themselves cooking dinner, or work odd jobs because their mom's losing her meager salary at casinos everywhere, and then the younger kid gets diagnosed with schizophrenia and that kid takes care of him again and follows him everywhere and writes down all the medical stuff the doctors tell him, and then that kid's grades slip, and oopsies, momma's not happy, and that kid and his mom get into a big fight and that kid feels bad about it afterwards and that kid studies everyday and he gets into medical school but by this time he's exhausted and angry and frustrated and he decides his best bet would be to get out. And that kid was right to get out."
"It wasn't like that," Wilson says, but his voice comes out thin and tired. "It was never like that."
"Okay," House says, challengingly. "Then how was it like? Enlighten me."
Wilson opens his mouth and nothing comes out.
House's right. So right that something in Wilson's shriveled up and away.
His mother. Abuse. His mother—
—and abuse.
His mother had—what, had abused him? Not abuse. Wilson—has never been abused by his mother. Has he? He has. He has been abused and Wilson turns the concept of his mother and abuse over and over again in his mind and finds that he can no longer speak.
"So I'm right," House says, half to himself, half to Wilson. "Huh. No-one would have guessed, you know. Congratulations. You're pretty good at being well-adjusted."
Wilson laughs half-heartedly, and they sit in silence for another moment, and the air between them is so fragile and tenuous that he almost wants to stand up, to walk out and leave. There's never been any point in delaying the inevitable.
But god—does he want this. He wants to stay here forever, look at the curtains, at that half blade of light in between parted pieces of fabric, at House and his blue eyes and that confounding gentle tilt of his mouth.
"I'm so tired of this, House," he says anyway, and he feels himself smiling slightly, he can't help himself. "I'm so tired of my mother, and Danny, and Hope, and my patients. It's my job, I'm sure you know, all the things you have to do, everything that comes with being a person, and I don't know, I don't know how to trick myself into caring about everyone without reminders that this is my duty or I need to do this, but it's still so—so hard, every single second of every minute of every day and—"
And everything comes out so painfully, and he's tripping over his words, getting tangled up in what he's trying to say, but he pauses as the next thought strikes him.
"And?" House prompts quietly.
"I don't know if that makes me a bad person," Wilson says. "I'm—scared. That it does." The shaft of light through the curtains blurs in his eyes.
"Well. For all that it's worth, which isn't a whole lot," House says, "I don't think that you are."
Wilson nods, and then he leans forwards and buries his face in his palms and he feels his breath hitch in his chest, just the tiniest bit, and there's that ache at the back of his eyes again, and his heart tightens and Danny must be all alone, wide brown eyes indistinguishable from the dark all around, and he doesn't know what to do and he mumbles, "I don't know what to do."
There's a sudden warmth at his side. "No-one does." A pause. "You're not a bad person."
And his heart tightens further and maybe he cries, just a little, in the span of a shaky breath or two and maybe House sees, maybe he doesn't.
But either way he stays and talks to Wilson about stupid things like his dumb patient yesterday and monster truck exhibitions and annoying neighbours, and Wilson ends up saying things too, stupid ones, and sometimes they laugh, and that's all that happens until the shaft of light grays out, until Wilson's whole body aches with the beautiful unbearable weight of it all.
Wilson ends up waking up late, bright sunlight half-peeking in through the gap in the curtains. On a bed somewhere, he thinks fuzzily, maybe there will be someone to fill the empty white expanse of the other half of it. Maybe he'd dreamt of Danny, he isn't really sure. He can't remember. Which, again, could be a blessing. There's the faint murmur of a TV outside his bedroom. Muffled noises of people talking. He's sure he'd remembered to turn it off last night, which makes the whole thing seem vaguely creepy, something right out of a horror movie.
He sits up, and looks around—and suddenly it all clicks. House is here, still in his apartment, still outside on the couch watching reruns of Wheel of Fortune or yet another shitty medical drama, still here. And last night.
Fuck. His only hope is that House doesn't remember anything, either, which is—relatively unlikely.
Wilson stands up from the bed, walks uncertainly into the living room. House's sprawled ungainly on the couch, staring at the TV—where some blonde woman appears to be professing her undying love to one of those James-Bond types—and Wilson thinks that in the morning light, House borders on being beautiful.
In the morning light, he can trick himself into believing that this moment will span a day—that they'll get groceries from the supermarket next, and then do the laundry and go for lunch at a breakfast diner and perhaps all the stupidity that comes with a life normal people lead, and one of them will make dinner and the days will repeat themselves and Wilson'll never be sick of it.
But they'll never be those people, of course.
House barely affords Wilson a glance. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty."
"What time is it?" Wilson asks, his voice scratchy.
"Almost 10. Since you usually make the food around here, I was thinking we grab a bite instead."
Wilson glances at the clock on the mantlepiece. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
House switches off the TV and the apartment suddenly seems terrifyingly silent. "Well, I figured it would be better to let you sleep after last night." He sounds strangely casual, which makes Wilson all the more certain that House has no intention of letting Wilson paper over the entire incident—but it wasn't even really any kind of incident, it was just a Thing that happened. A Thing that the both of them could forget about (and Wilson thinks to himself, it's not as if House would care, anyway. Caring's Wilson's job).
So Wilson settles on, "Thanks. We should—go. Unless the clinic—"
"Nope. I took the liberty of telling Cuddy about your sorry ass yesterday and she greenlighted the two of us skipping work today."
"Are you sure?" Wilson's fairly sure that hadn't happened, and also that when he does eventually get back to work Cuddy will pull him aside and ask him in hushed tones about his recently developed hemorrhoids. "You didn't tell her anything else?"
House solemnly crosses his heart. "I would never, Jimmy. What kind of a person do you think I am?"
After the waitress's taken their order—she seems perpetually bubbly, with red hair and freckles, and rather fittingly the name on her name tag is Sunny—House leans across the wobbly diner table and stares intently at Wilson.
Wilson stares back. "What."
"Nothing," House says innocently, and continues staring at Wilson.
"What," Wilson says again, and it's much too early in the morning for this.
"Nothing," House repeats. His eyes are wide, annoyingly so, and very blue, which is equally annoying.
Wilson gives in. "Is this about last night?"
At that, House leans back in his seat, his expression one of barely concealed triumph. "You said it first."
"Oh, come on," Wilson says, exasperated. "There isn't anything to talk about."
"And you're one dead cancer kid away from having a mental breakdown," House says.
"You're in the middle of one every single day," Wilson points out.
House inclines his head. "I cope."
"With drugs."
"The difference is that you don't cope with anything at all."
"Because there isn't anything to cope with," Wilson argues, and his voice comes out harsh and tired and maybe just a little louder than he would have liked and a lady at the next table glances at the both of them somewhat disapprovingly and for a second she looks like his mother and his heart jumps up in his throat and he gapes at her, for some reason terrified—before he realises that her nose looks different, and the curve of her lips, too, and his mother never had earrings, and he feels undeniable relief, that his mother isn't out here to watch her son waste his life away in a diner at 11 a.m. on a workday.
Which is immediately followed by a sinking feeling in his stomach. Maybe—he really does have some kind of problem.
When Wilson glances back at House he sees the latter's been watching him with narrowed eyes. "This is what I'm talking about."
"Maybe you should stop fixating on my personal life for a change and look at your own," Wilson says—and the moment the words leave his mouth he regrets it.
"Well, maybe I don't want you to fucking off yourself the moment the next patient of yours kicks the bucket," House says, and they're definitely getting a few glances now.
"Shut up," Wilson hisses, glancing around them. "I'm not going to—to kill myself."
"What if your brother dies? Schizophrenics have 15 to 20 years left to live—but I'm sure you already knew that since you were a kid. What? You going to slit your wrists then, bleed out quietly somewhere, leave all your patients hanging, leave me alone? One more push and it's over. You know that. We both do."
Wilson closes his eyes briefly. He feels lightheaded, almost, strange since they're on level ground and nothing is happening, not really, and they're in a sunlit diner in the middle of New Jersey, and absolutely nothing is wrong.
"Something's happened to you, Wilson," House says softly. "You have to admit that. You need to admit that. You need to—admit that to someone."
Wilson swallows. And then he stands up and walks out of the diner.
His mother had abused him. Abuse. She'd forced him to look after his brother. But Wilson loves his brother, so what's the problem in that? The afternoon sunlight's too bright; winter's almost over, he's got to get rid of the habit of wearing coats now. He loves his brother. He hates his brother, sometimes, and he hates himself for that. His mother had—abused him? That's not abuse, something in his mind rejects. Abuse means House's childhood, means hands over flaming stoves and ice baths in winter and getting hit, getting hit, getting hit again. Wilson's never been abused. It's too bright and he's sweating but his hands are cold. He puts his hands in his coat pockets but they're still cold, his fingertips chilled. He isn't sure where he is. The trees stretch up all the way to the sky and he wishes Danny were here to see this. He wishes Danny were here. He wishes that he were seven years old again and he wishes that some part of him doesn't want to die. He wishes he doesn't still want to kill himself.
"I thought you would be here," a voice comes from behind him, achingly familiar. Wilson stares straight ahead, his phone limp in his hands. There's a kid walking a dog and the sight shouldn't make him feel as he does now.
"Was it a far walk?" Wilson asks instead, shifting over so House can sit down next to him.
"So thoughtful even in your misery," House mutters, sitting with a groan. "And yes, it was a far walk, and I expect repayment for me choosing to be such a kind and caring friend of yours today." They're close to each other, almost unbearably so, so close that Wilson can see the faint sheen of sweat on House's face, the grimace that comes with biting pain back in and feels—guilty. That sick sensation again, again, as old as he is. Older. Maybe he'd been born guilty. Isn't that hilarious.
"I'm—" he says, but House cuts him off.
"You know, instead of an apology—which you're always giving out like candy on Halloween, by the way, you should really stop—I'd appreciate you not having a meltdown."
"I'm not a toddler," Wilson says reflexively.
"I never said you were a toddler. But you're acting remarkably like one right now. Grown-ups talk about things, not run away, Jimmy."
"Yeah, like you do." Wilson nods towards the orange bottle clasped between House's hands. "How many of those do you take a day? And don't think I don't see the coats in your car, or the way you're always indoors during winter, or the locks you have on your door, or everything else. You're always running away."
House's quiet for a moment. Wilson knows that in the next moment House'll say something like do you want to go to a bar, and they'll end up somewhere dimly lit, somewhere with so many people that you can never hear what anyone's saying, and that's always been the point, and things will be safe and this will be forgotten like always.
"I don't think many people use me as a good example," House says. It startles a laugh out of Wilson. A nearby pigeon flutters away from both of them at the sound, and House's eyes follow it and Wilson's eyes follow House. "After the infarction I've never been much good at running."
"Ha," Wilson says dryly. "Ever consider a career as a stand-up comedian?"
House shrugs. "The problem is I'd be too good at it, and things wouldn't be interesting anymore." He says it so matter-of-factly and Wilson's reminded sharply of why they're still friends.
"Still."
"But you already know me. Everyone does."
Wilson stares at the pavement and thinks and the first thing that pops out of his mouth is: "It wasn't child abuse."
"…That's what you've been hung up on?" House says incredulously.
"Well—I mean, I was thinking about it yesterday—and today, I guess—and I don't know, but it wasn't like that and I don't want you to think that it was," Wilson says.
House leans back, folding his arms across his chest. "Jesus Christ, why do you have such a difficult time accepting that—"
"Because it wasn't," Wilson shouts. People turn to look and he instinctively lowers his volume. "It wasn't. I'm not—damaged. I have no excuse for what I don't do. I have no excuse for not calling my mother back or not helping her when my brother is somewhere in Delaware, scared and alone, and I'm the only one who knows what he needs and I'm still here, putting kids through chemo that doesn't even work, and then they die and then what? My brother's still alone and my mother's still alone and I have no excuse for not doing something about it. I have no excuse—I have to—" Wilson falters, looks down at the phone in his hands. "I have to do something."
He watches the kid walk his dog. It's stupidly furry and Wilson wants a dog like that, he's always wanted a dog like that, but having a dog meant having another mouth to feed meant having something more to take care of meant something he can't do.
"Jesus," he hears House mutter again under his breath. "You have a problem."
It's unexpected and Wilson laughs breathlessly. "I have a problem? Me?"
He turns to look at House but the latter's staring straight ahead. "Yeah. You do."
Wilson sinks further into the cold metal of the bench and looks at the kid and thinks of Hope. She would like to be here, she would, and maybe if things were different she would be out here by now, walking her dog and all like kids do, or playing frisbee with her mom, or just—walking, and that would be okay.
"What do I do?" His voice comes out small.
And then another kid runs up to that kid, taller and older—maybe by 3 years or so—and the younger kid looks up to her like she owns the world. Siblings, Wilson's brain supplies unhelpfully. He watches her take the kid by his hand and lead him along. Danny wouldn't have liked it here. He'd liked beaches more, the unlimited horizon of sea against sky, stretching as far as anyone could take in, the expanse of it. How big it was. How you could maybe lose yourself in it.
"Well, the first step would be to not kill yourself."
"And the second?"
"Do something about it." House holds his orange bottle up, waggles it about so the remaining pills click and clatter around inside. Wilson's eyes follow it unwillingly. "I've got this. You've got…I don't know, sleeping around with women?"
"Which didn't work out too well."
"So figure something out," House says. Figure something out. Wilson looks over at House again.
"So what was the diagnosis?"
"What?"
"You were DDx-ing me earlier this week. What was the diagnosis?"
House considers. "You know what it is." And before Wilson can say anything House stands up and lopes away, and he's forced to stand up and walk after him.
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do," House says firmly, but somehow not unkindly. "You know, let's see if alcohol is part of your treatment plan."
"Wait, House—" Wilson says, and for some reason there's an edge of desperation to his voice now.
"What?"
And before this moment he's never had to consider how to tell House thank you—because House isn't the kind of person most people thank. Mostly they just stare at him with expressions on their faces ranging from disgust to confusion to anger and then they walk out. It shouldn't be this hard, Wilson thinks, to thank someone you generally would consider a friend. Still—House doesn't do these kinds of conversations.
But they're still here.
"Well—thank you." Wilson says, and it comes out slightly too sincere for his liking. Dear god.
"No, actually, you're paying," House informs him happily. "Consider that the consultation fee."
"And the treatment?"
"Your place tonight," House decides, and that is that.
Danny stands in front of Wilson. He's still a kid and it's quiet and there's nothing else between them and their mother is somewhere else, but that's okay because Danny's smiling and his eyes are wide and he looks happy, so happy, and there's only the beach and sand granules between their toes and the faint salt-tinged air that blows by. The ocean is a blur of blue behind him.
Danny opens his mouth, says something that Wilson can't hear.
What, Wilson yells. The wind's too loud.
Danny shrugs, shakes his head, and Wilson loves him, he loves him so much that he can't bear to look at him any longer.
What? Wilson repeats.
It's okay, Danny says.
What's okay?
It's okay.
No, he finds himself saying. It's not. Wilson can't make out Danny's face anymore; it's a blur of beige shades and vague brown hair and the eyes, the eyes.
Maybe he's still smiling. Maybe he's not anymore.
It will be.
And then Wilson wakes up on the couch, and House is still asleep next to him, and the curtains are half-open and it's bright. He's slept through the night, he thinks, and everything has righted itself again, somehow.
He sits up, careful not to wake House, and for the first time, Wilson realises that there is someone for him, and it jolts him somewhat, makes him—happy. Content. He's okay, and the realisation hits him all at once. And everything else is at the back of his mind, but it's a calm Saturday morning and the breeze from the start of spring's all the way through the window now.
Wilson looks at House and Christ, he finds himself thinking, he wouldn't mind ten more years of this. Maybe he'll visit Danny, maybe not. Maybe his mother will come back. Maybe Wilson'll drive down to Delaware, maybe he'll get fired, maybe more people will die than he can cure, maybe any number of things will happen.
But he wouldn't mind another decade of this, another two decades of this, and for some unfathomable, confusing reason, he feels the ache that means he's close to crying.
House shifts a little and Wilson looks away. A second later he hears House's voice, scratchy and quiet. "Stop pretending you weren't watching me sleep."
"I wasn't," Wilson protests half-heartedly. He swallows the ache back down.
"Sure you weren't," House says wryly. "How was the sleep?"
"Whole night."
"Okay."
"Breakfast?"
"Lunch, actually," House corrects, pointing to the wall clock across them.
"Lunch, then," Wilson says, and House stands up, half-mockingly offering Wilson a hand.
"Need help getting up?"
"You're older than me—your joints should be stiffer than mine," Wilson points out, but accepts House's hand anyway, and the morning light falls at just the right angle across House's eyes, so that they become almost ethereal.
"It's okay," he says reflexively, thinking of Danny.
House doesn't say what? or huh? or any one of the one thousand and one things Wilson expects him to say.
Instead, he just tells Wilson, "Yes, it is." They're still holding hands. Wilson looks down at their hands interlinked together, expects House to move away just as quickly as he'd arrived, to let go and grumble about some inane comment, to change the subject and complain about clinic duty or stupid parents or anything, really, because House has never done anything quite like this before—
But House doesn't let go.