A/N: Started this in April, in the wake of Simple Explanation, as a way to channel my reaction. Of course, said reaction was incredibly biased, on account of my shipping Taub/Kutner. As it were, I got so far, and just froze. Over the months, I've tweaked and retooled and added, but never finished until today. I'll warn you, not only have I never written for House fandom before this, but this is also my very first serious attempt at slashy overtones, so it's probably really clumsy. So please tell me what I'm doing right, and what I can do right in future, and whatever.
"They were ready to die, but for guilt, not love."
"You can't feel that much guilt without love."
House has to double-take at Taub's words, suspicion piqued. Sentiment is hardly expected from a man who's been spending the better part of a week trying to be a hardass… and it's especially jarring when he takes into account the raw voice, the wet eyes, the slight shudder. Of all the times to slip, he can't figure out why it would be now.
Biting his tongue, Taub takes only a moment to compose himself, blinking until his eyes are steely again. He knows House is staring at him, and he knows he should expect this, but nonetheless he asks, "What are you so fixated on?"
"Just wondering," House starts, "why a man who embraces the rational is suddenly pursuing the irrational." He almost smiles at this.
Taub scowls, on the other hand, both at his own words being used against him and at the idea of whatever House is implying. "How is this abnormal for me? I'm not you. I do believe in love, and I've made that clear several times."
"You've made it too clear – in matters concerning your wife. There's no way you can possibly be relating this back to her."
"Just because you're spending all your time obsessing over Kutner doesn't mean the rest of us don't still have lives."
"And just because you're being a dick every time someone mentions Kutner's name doesn't mean you're not obsessing over him." House notices almost smugly as Taub goes into his defense mode – squared jaw, shrugged shoulders, hands shoved into the pockets of his lab coat. Twirling his cane idly, he adds, "Case in point. In fact, you might even beat me out for the title of 'most stuck on Kutner.' If there wasn't something there, you wouldn't have to be defensive."
There is a beat of tense silence, and Taub chews on his bottom lip. He's furious, but, God, he's not in the mood to yell right now. Instead, his tone becomes more clipped. "All right, so now I'm a case. Sentimentality is a symptom, as it were. What makes you think it's new?" He glances at House sidelong, as if trying to figure out what he's playing at. "At the very least, I've been suggesting it throughout this case. Why notice it now?"
"A-ha." House cocks an eyebrow, wondering if Taub knows he slipped again. "You didn't disagree about your fixation. So with a double focus on Kutner and the patient, either you're drawing parallels or you're projecting yourself onto them."
"What? But what does that have to do with anything I just—" Taub takes a step back.
House takes a step forward. "And your bit about guilt and love just now can just as easily be a late defense to when I said you were covering for Kutner out of guilt."
"House, stop it." Taub takes another step back.
But House won't stop it, and they both know that. He's on a roll. He takes another step forward. "And that explains why you wouldn't admit to feeling guilty – why you still won't, even though the whole world can tell. You'd already made the connection in your head between guilt and love. Nobody else would have made the link, but you were still too much of a wuss to even admit it to yourself. So I'll admit it for you."
Taub tries to speak, to nullify what he knows is coming next, but his voice fails him. He takes another step back and trips, landing on an empty bench.
House leans over. He shakes his head, as a condescending boy when his little brother just doesn't get it. "You loved Kutner."
"I… What?" Taub shouldn't be surprised, but still doesn't really know what to make of it.
But House does. "Maybe even more than you want anyone to know."
"What are you getting at, House?"
"Assuming you're a normal person, you wouldn't have kept yourself so blocked off from him if you weren't scared of something. Since normal people don't tend to be scared of having friends, you had to see it as something else, so you pulled back. Then you decided to be a shitty friend on top of that." House's tone is accusatory, yet matter-of-fact. "You kept your distance so you wouldn't be tempted. Bet you're regretting that now."
Stunned, Taub falls silent again. He wants to say something, anything, to vindicate himself, but something stops him. It's probably not convincing enough anyway. He bites the inside of his lip until he can taste blood. House is too good at beating him down, and he can't afford that, not now. So he swallows thickly and he stands up straight, for once making nothing less than total, fixed eye contact with House.
"Fine," he rasps. "All right. You've figured me out. I'm not a heartless bastard. I am human, and it did affect me. And you deduce that I've been… pining for him based on that?" He frowns, as if disappointed in House's detective skills. "So if you give a crap about someone, you must be madly in love with them. By that logic, you're in love with Wilson."
"Did I ever say I wasn't?" House counters flawlessly. He always comes back with unnerving replies, and they both know that. Everyone knows that.
Taub exhales sharply, pulling a face. The worst part is that he doesn't know if House is telling the truth. Nobody ever knows with House. He might really love Wilson. He might just be trying to manipulate the conversation. It doesn't really matter.
"No comeback, again? You're losing your touch… and my point still stands. In fact, it stands because you're losing your touch." House threatens to smile again. "I'm used to getting more of a fight out of you. Anything vaguely broaching Kutner territory, you've been deflecting like a class-A jackass. But now, finally, you're slipping. You don't even have enough traction left on the situation to try and get me off your back. That's a problem."
"I'm flattered by your concern, really," Taub growls in the most scathing tone he can manage through clenched teeth. "I never tire of your free psychoanalyses. But I have a patient right now who needs antimony treatment and a new liver, so I'm sorry your insanity doesn't take precedence." He glances through the window to double-check on Charlotte before leaving.
House, surprisingly, leaves the silence be for a moment. He leans on his cane, watching as Taub takes a little longer than planned to check on the couple, almost hesitant to look away. Finally, House thinks aloud, as he has been. "You clearly cared more than I ever did, so you should know something. But you're too busy… well, caring, so I should know something. For as much time as I was studying him…"
This is it. Taub knows he's about thisclose to losing it, and though he's been able to compose himself from this state before, he knows he won't hold himself together if he lets House continue. Fully aware that House is still talking, he tunes it out and marches dutifully toward Cuddy's office.
He doesn't get far before House notices, and a loud crack resounds across the hall as House slams the end of his cane on the floor like a petulant boy. "Walking away isn't going to make it disappear!" With no discernible response, House limps to catch up. "Like I said, for as much as I studied him, I should have figured he'd do this."
He is ten feet away.
"And for as close as you were to him, you should have seen it coming."
Five feet.
"You know how suicidal people work. It takes one to know one."
Three feet.
"Unless you were too wrapped up in your delusion to notice."
A foot and a half.
"If you opened your eyes once in a while to reality instead of being stuck on yourself, Kutner would still be alive."
He is right beside Taub, who stops in his tracks.
Before there is any time for either one to process anything, Taub lashes out and hits House, as hard as he can. Some rational part of him suddenly fears for his job and wonders how he lost self-control, but right now he is only aware of his shaking shoulders and bright white knuckles and the trickle of blood pouring out of House's nose. He wants to tell House that he has no room to call anyone selfish. Instead, voice almost strangled, he finds himself clinging to his last shreds of restraint. This doesn't last long, and against his will, he hisses, "It's all my fault. Now why didn't I think of that?"
The tables are turned. Now House is left without words. He's not even sure what he feels. Maybe, in an ironic sort of way, he's proud. His nose hurts – it isn't fractured, but still bleeds like a river – and that, he figures, is all the proof he needs that he is right about Taub.
Taub himself confirms this. "Fine, House. You're right. You always are. That's all I've been thinking about. And you know… I have to thank you now." There is still a feral, wounded look about him, which is heightened as he attempts a strange smile. "Now that you put it the way you do, I have to wonder who's doing the projecting around here. Should have seen it coming. Takes one to know one. Wrapped up in delusions." His grin widens, forced and twisted, and he looks even more unsettling. "You could be talking about yourself. It could be your fault. You could have saved him."
"But I wasn't close to him," House deflects. House always deflects. But he doesn't seem to be relishing the fact that he's getting to Taub, and in fact it seems like Taub's gotten to him, too.
He's right. They're both right.
For a moment, they just stare at each other, and somehow they both know they're haunted by the same thing. They're both looking for someone to blame, and that's all this is. Each knows that the other hears that low, hollow, familiar voice in his ear, whispering "Why didn't you save me?"
"You were the closest to him," House emphasizes, less harshly than before. "You should have answers."
Taub frowns. "If I had answers, it wouldn't have happened. You can deduce everything. You should have answers."
"I should," House says simply.
And that's all there is. House leaves without another word, cleans up his face, and ponders, as he's been doing since it happened. He should have the answers. He always does.
He ignores Cuddy's plea to talk to someone. He tunes out Wilson's worry too. All he can think about is what he's missing. Tomorrow, he reasons, he's going to Kutner's apartment again. He can't get answers out of people, so he has to find them in this place. There have to be answers somewhere.
Taub's guilt weighs even heavier. He hates House. He hates Kutner. He hates himself. But there isn't time for that. He does all he can to cure Charlotte. It's all he can think straight enough to do.
When there's no more excuse for him to be at work, he goes home, but can't bring himself to meet Rachel's eyes. He can't handle her concern. He can't admit there's anything to be concerned about, even to his own wife. She asks if he wants to talk about Kutner, and he declines. He can't do it. Not yet, and if he has his way, not ever.
House spends the next day in desperate search. Wilson knows there's something wrong, and says as much. Of course Wilson knows. Wilson knows House best. But House brushes him off acerbically – all too close to what he had accused Taub of doing, perhaps, though he doesn't think of this – and skips the funeral. He has other things to do.
Taub is the only one paying attention to the patients at this point – though it doesn't matter anymore. He comes to work to find the treatment is ineffective, and Charlotte is going to die any time now. He's sorry for her, sorry for Eddie, sorry that he's going to lose his distraction.
Bitterly, he finds himself thinking that Kutner could have caught this in time, or even that House could have, had he been paying attention. But he needs to tend to his patient, even in her last moments. He skips the funeral too.
House is knee-deep in photographs, studying each one intently for… anything. He buries himself in the study of what he should have caught.
Taub has just watched his patient die by her husband's side. Once he takes her to the morgue, he no longer has anything to bury himself in.
House hears Kutner's voice in his head, louder this time, but he can't answer the plea. He can't find any answers, only more questions. He finds a dark, moody picture, uncharacteristic of the man he thought he knew – how did he not know about this? – and lets the others slip from his fingers.
Taub is haunted by the voice, by the thought, by him, and it brings the guilt and anger to the surface, and he can't stand it. He can't feel this much guilt without love. He finds himself at that empty bench again, and that's it. The fight is over. He slips again, and this time he falls.