Plucking Petals: A House MD One Act Play, a house, m.d. fanfic

Plucking Petals: A House M.D. One Act Play

by pgrabia

Characters/Relationships: House and Wilson friendship-UST (Pre-slash if you see things that way—like me ;)).

Genre: General, some angst.

A/N: My first attempt at writing a play, so be kind . A post-episode fic for Episode 7x9: "Larger than Life. Will b e AU very soon I'm sure (like after tonight's new episode. Oh well.).

Spoiler Alert: Major Spoilers for all seasons up to and including Episode 7x9: "Larger than Life".

Rating/Warning(s): M/R for coarse language including f-bombs, sexual innuendo

~H/W~

Synopsis: House go to Wilson for relationship advice concerning Cuddy and him. What starts as easy conversation becomes a look into House's true feelings concerning both his girlfriend and his best friend.

Setting: The day following the last scene in Episode 7x9 "Larger than Life". It is morning at Wilson's office at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Wilson is in his office doing paperwork as the lights come up on Stage. House enters through door down stage right. Wilson's desk situated down center stage with room in front of it and edge of stage for pacing.

Properties: One door, located down stage right; one desk and one desk chair, down center stage. One extra chair in front and to right of centre of desk; Stack of files and papers, a lamp and a pen on desk. House carries one cane.

(Lights rise on stage. Wilson is seated at his desk working diligently on his paperwork. House enters Stage Left through door without knocking, throwing door open.)

House: Wilson! (Enters, shuts door behind him and faces Wilson at desk.)

Wilson: (Looks up from paperwork.) What now?

H: I have a problem. (Sits, lifts both feet onto desk.)

W: What else is new? Hey, get your feet off of my desk—you're crumpling my files!

H: (Brings feet down.) Sounds painful. You should get that checked. Cuddy's angry.

W: Again, what else is new? (Sighs.) Why is she angry?

H: She found out.

W: House, I don't have time for twenty questions—you know, in fact, I don't have time for this conversation at all. She's your girlfriend, you figure out what to do about it on your own.

H: Great. You're angry too.

W: Are we talking about your little con job so you could get out of spending the evening with either one of us?

H: Yes.

W: I'm not angry.

H: Liar!

W: I'm not. You needed some time for yourself. I get that. God knows she's been dragging you around by your balls lately. I never knew she was so possessive. Do you always do everything she says?

(House glares at him, says nothing.)

W: (shrugs.) What?

H: If I didn't know you any better I say that you're jealous.

W: Of you? Hardly.

H: (shakes head no.) Of Cuddy.

W: What? Trust me, I'm not jealous of Cuddy.

H: Admit it. She's got me, you want me. Classic definition of jealousy.

W: I don't…Are we talking about wanting-to-spend-time-with-my-best-friend-once-every-three-months want, or I-want-to-make-the-beast-with-two-heads-with-you want?

H: Actually it would be the beast with four heads, but I think we're on the same page.

W: (makes face, shakes head.) You're disgusting.

H: I'm disgusting? You're the one who brought it up.

W: I did, didn't I? Hmm. I wonder what that is all about? House, all I want to is to spend time with you once in a while doing some of the things we used to do together. You know—a guy's night in front of the TV watching a movie or The Discovery Channel—

H: (Brightening.) -Or porn?

W: Or whatever. Pizza, beer and no women telling us how to eat or whining about calories or cholesterol or making us serve them because that's how gentlemen show that they care crap. Getting fucked out of our brains drunk playing Booze Monopoly—which, by the way, was a brilliant idea.

H: (Smugly.) Thanks, I know.

W: I miss that stuff. I let Sam put a leash on me and now that she's gone Cuddy has a muzzle and body harness on you.

H: Only on Saturday nights. What to know what we do on Tuesdays?

W: I'd rather have a vasectomy with no anesthesia.

H: I could arrange that but it'll cost you.

W: I just think that she's been controlling you a little too much. You don't have time to spend with anyone else but her—not even time for yourself—without lying to her. So, while I don't like being lied to, I'm not angry. Disappointed, yes. Angry, no. (Returns to doing paperwork.)

H: (Pauses moment, pensive) I like spending time with her.

W: (Does not look up.) Good.

H: I'm her boyfriend so I should enjoy being with her and doing things with her.

W: (Hesitantly looks up.) Yeah…?

H: So what if we don't have anything in common. We can create our own things in common.

W: (Encouragingly.) Sure you can.

H: Except that everything I come up with she hates and everything she comes up with bores the hell out of me. But usually she just wants to stay home with Rachel. Boring, retarded Rachel.

W: (Shocked) She's not retar—why, that's a horrible thing to say!

H: Even if it's true? Wilson, she has the intelligence of a lima bean.

W: She does not. Quit being cruel.

H: You're right. Lima beans have never been anything but gracious to me. (House gets up from chair. Walks to Balcony window and looks out.)

W: Wonderful. Listen, if you're done, I have a lot of work to do. (Returns attention to paperwork.)

H: I mean I should enjoy her company.

W: She is your girlfriend's daughter.

H: (Half-shouting and turning to face Wilson at desk.) I'm not talking about Rachel, Moron! I'm talking about Cuddy.

W: (Looking up again.) I think we've already been over this once.

Return trip.

W: Ah. (Sighs.) House, do you love Cuddy?

(House looks away from Wilson. Doesn't answer .)

W: Don't you?

H: Well, I should. I've only played games with and pursued her for years!

W: You didn't answer my question. Do you love Cuddy or don't you?

(House looks down at floor where he is tapping his cane repetitively.)

W: House?

H: Define love. (Looks at Wilson again.)

(Wilson says nothing, waits for an answer.)

H: (Reluctantly.) Yeah. I love her.

W: (Sarcastically.) Wow—that was convincing! I hope you do a better job when you tell her that.

H: It's just that…you know, never mind.

W: (Pointing pen at House.) You're playing me. House, it's just what?

H: Do we have to talk about feelings? I'm already having a shitty day!

W: This is important.

H: (Pauses, begins to pace slowly in front of desk.) For years I've wanted to be with her. When I found out she was seeing Lucas, I initially was jealous, but, it wasn't really jealousy. It was more like competitiveness. A prize was up for grabs to the best man, winner take all. I was going to beat Lucas because I knew I was the better man. It should have been about being with Cuddy for life because I love her, but it wasn't. When I backed off I was irritated to lose to Lucas, but not because I lost her to him. When I would see them together at the hospital, I was fixated on how much I hated Lucas for beating me instead of how much I loved her.

W: (Quietly.) Oh.

H: (Returning to chair and sitting.) Yeah. A couple of days before she and I got together I saw Nolan. The entire time we talked about what had happened with me that week that might have been bothering me. Our focus the entire session was on one particular person. I didn't want to talk about that person so I took him on a wild goose hunt psychiatry-style but he kept bring me back. Then he switched gears and told me that it wasn't this other person I was obsessing about that was the problem but that it was Cuddy moving in with Lucas that was upsetting me.

W: (With interest.) And it wasn't?

H: (Shaking his head.) No. Not until he said that. I had long before accepted the fact that they would be moving in together when they wanted to buy the loft. He was practically living with her anyway. It pissed me off. Here we had been dancing around issues concerning the other person and then he just flips and out of nowhere tells me that it was about someone we hadn't talked about. I felt like I'd wasted the whole fucking hour…the whole fucking year. After I left there I tried to forget what he'd said and couldn't. I had accepted that Cuddy and I were not meant to be. I was frustrated that I lost the game but that's it. Nolan only put doubts into my head until Cuddy was all I could think about. But she wasn't who I had been upset about.

W: Who was?

(House looks away, debating with himself over whether to answer or not; Wilson waits in silence for an answer.)

H: Oh, will you look at the time…!

W: House you came to me. Now answer my question.

H: (Softly, slowing moving head to look at Wilson.) You.

W: (Surprised.) Me?

H: (Nodding.) I had just moved out of the loft and back to my own apartment. I was pissed off about being replaced by Sam in your life. Every time you get a new woman, you push me away. You need needy people. When no one else is around, my neediness attracts you. When you pick up another needy woman, you don't need me and you push me away until Mrs. Wilson becomes the soon to be ex-Mrs. Wilson. Then you come back to me. I thought that that had ended with Amber…that was a foolish assumption to make.

W: Do I really do that?

H: Every time. The thing is…when you bought the loft out from underneath Cuddy and Lucas because she hurt me and you were punishing her I thought that I finally had a home. Just you and me. It was like having a family and a home. When you're a military brat you're on the move constantly. You can't set down roots. Where you're living is a house. You don't have a home.

W: I…had no idea.

(House looks at Wilson in disbelief.)

W: Okay, that's not true. I just didn't care. I was selfish. (Sheepishly.) I'm…sorry.

H: I know. (With cane between knees, taps floor with end of cane. Looks down at where cane taps floor) That damned crane collapse…because I'd been obsessing over what Nolan said I was shocked when I heard about Cuddy's engagement. It wasn't jealousy that reared its head, though. It was being reminded of how I had lost. Then when I went against Cuddy in wanting to do everything we could to save Hannah's leg she was furious. She told me that she was sick of and through with me. She told me that she was moving on with Lucas and…you were moving on with Sam and I was just being left behind. It dawned on me that she was right. I was all alone.

W: House— (Gets cut off by House.)

H: (Interrupting.) When I went home I was in physical pain and my mind was fucked up. I had accepted that she was no longer a possibility and I was okay with that. But watching you leave me behind…and failing with Hannah. My goal when I left Mayfield was to be happy. All year I'd done everything right, even when it was fucking hard to do so and yet in the end, it hadn't made a fucking difference. I was still alone—a failure. I went to my bathroom, tore the mirror off the wall to get to the stash of Vicodin I had hidden in a hole in the wall long before Mayfield. My leg gave out, I sat on the floor about to take one or twenty, I wasn't sure which.

W: (Shakes head slowly in dismay.) I searched your apartment but I never thought about you hiding it in the walls. But you didn't take it, did you?

H: (Looking up, stopping the tapping.) No. I sat there wondering where you were, picturing you at home having sex with Sam. That wasn't a pretty image by the way. I wanted you to come and check on me, to see if I was alright after all of that. You didn't, but Cuddy did, with a revelation that she'd broken up with Lucas because she loved me. Suddenly, I had won the game, the prize was in front of me, and it felt anticlimactic. The game was over and that's all that had really been motivating me—not her.

W: (Slightly exasperated.) So why are you in a relationship with her?

H: (Raising voice) Because she was there…and you weren't. I…wanted you but you pushed me away. I figured that if I didn't grab this opportunity to be with someone—even if she wasn't my first choice—I would grow old with nobody and die alone. I love her for saving me from myself and from my loneliness. You could say that she was the booby prize. (Waggles eyes.)

W: (Slowly, surprised but reservedly pleased.) I was your first choice?

H: Is there something wrong with your hearing?

(Both are silent for a couple seconds. House is uncomfortable, Wilson is trying to hold back a smile.)

W: House, Cuddy thinks you're in love with her, not for what she did for you. Is she wrong?

(House doesn't answer and looks Wilson meaningfully in eyes for a second. They are silent again very briefly. Then House's rises as if to leave.)

H: Now that I've completely made an ass of myself, I'll be going. This conversation never took place. (Walks toward door and reaches for handle.)

W: (Rises to feet quickly.) House, wait, don't go yet!

H: (Stops, looks back.) What?

W: But it did take place. (Speaks carefully, regretfully.) Knowing what I know now…I'll never forgive myself for not stopping in to check on you.

H: (Nods once, almost sadly.) Yeah.

(House and Wilson stare into each other's eyes for another second as if sharing a secret message of fondness or love.)

H: Uh, I have a feeling I'm going to be free tonight. My sofa and TV are your sofa and TV—that is, if you're interested. The Discovery Channel is showing a documentary on the life of spiders tonight.

W: Spiders? (Shudders in mix of fear and disgust.) Tell you what. You get the pizza and I'll bring the porn and beer.

H: (Enthusiastically.) Great!

W: And if you want or need to cancel, just tell me the truth.

H: I don't.

W: (Smiles.) Good.

(House turns door knob and opens door with intent to leave.)

W: Oh, and House?

(House stops, looks back quickly, expectantly.)

H: What?

W: You came here for advice; here it is: Once your heart figures out what is the right thing to do for you, then do it.

H: (Annoyed and disappointed.) That's it? Hell, the next time I want advice I'm going to go read a hallmark card.

(Wilson smiles knowingly, sitting back down behind desk, picking up pen and doing paperwork, not looking up.)

W: Then this hasn't been a complete waste of time.

H: (Trying to glare angrily at Wilson but a smile sneaks through a little.) Bitch.

(House exits through door down Stage Left and closes it behind him. Lights fade to black.)

The End