House didn't wait around for the guy to die. They'd said all they needed to say to each other. The guy was sleeping, he'd slip quietly from that into death, with no-one there to mourn him. House was fine with that, he'd done what he could.
The hospital was quiet, everyone who could had fled out of the place as soon as the lockdown was lifted. The conference room stood empty and quiet, his minions long since gone. He wondered briefly where they'd been the last few hours, which room of the hospital they had been locked in. Probably some doctor's lounge somewhere, just his luck to get stuck with dying guy.
He collapsed into his office chair gratefully. The pain in his leg had escalated into full blow agony. He downed a couple of ibuprofen knowing it would do little to help. He studied the little bottle, didn't even need a prescription for these; they handed them out like candy to everyone with a headache or a bit of muscular pain. Useless. He threw the bottle across the room.
Eyes closed he lay back and pictured his Vicodin in his head. He could feel it, taste it on his tongue, hear the rattle of the bottle, the bitterness of the pills as he swallowed them dry. Feel the blessed relief that would seep through his body, dulling the pain down, numbing him. Each day as the pain grew his yearning, his need, for the Vicodin increased. He knew that it was only a matter of time, not if he succumbed, but when.
He rubbed his palm across the crater in his leg. He'd told that guy about the pain. That it was bad, getting worse. A bad pain month he'd said. Pain was moving, migrating. He feared the arterial wall had been damaged, meaning the pain would only increase. A scan would confirm or deny, for once he didn't want to know.
Dying guy had automatically assumed that bad pain meant broken heart. Like pain couldn't exist without some emotional or psychological cause. Like a mangled thigh and nerve damage weren't responsible for House's agony. No, if he only found true love and happiness his pain would disappear. Well he'd tried to find both and they were as elusive as ever. The pain was the only sure bet, it never left him.
House took his hand away from his thigh and gripped the edge of the desk, knuckles turning white as the pain took his breath away. The ibuprofen wasn't even taking the edge off tonight.
He thought of dying guy, with morphine dripping into him, taking his pain, taking his life.
Lucky bastard.