A/N: This really isn't one of my fandoms. I've only seen four or five episodes, so I guess this is based more on the fanfics I've been reading for the past... oh, three hours. So yeah, it's pretty generic, but a girl will do anything to avoid writing what she's supposed to be writing. Anyway, with my apologies, here goes:

Wilson didn't know how long he'd spent rocking slowly back and forth, just a fraction of an inch, digging his temples deeper and deeper into the flesh of his left arm, braced against his desk. The woolly scratchiness of his suit irritated his skin, but the pressure of his arm against his head helped wall the pain into an almost manageably sized cage. He could store it, safely, in his menagerie, in under an hour, probably. His meds would start working soon. Any minute now.

Please God, if you have any mercy.

He had so much to do, so damned much to do, but it wasn't going to happen today. He couldn't work like this. Maybe this was why he could still sympathize, a little, when House came running to him for drugs. He'd complain of pain and Wilson would sympathize, which was all he ever did, it seemed sometimes. Once, he'd thought that that was all he ever needed or wanted to do. He'd thought it helped.

Maybe he could boil all the twisted, complicated mechanics of their stupid, screwed up friendship into that simple transaction. House hurt, he hurt, and they both got their fix.

He was a little sick of his.

And this was different. This hurt was all his own, couldn't he have that? A bit of inner peace while his brain exploded? This is how wars are lost. From the inside out.

His office door opened, the sudden noise and the flicker of light around the edges of his eyelids, even pressed closed and buried in his arms, caused his head to throb sickeningly, and more than hard enough to make him forsake his admitted melodrama.

"Dr. Wilson?"

Cuddy. Prying his eyes open, just a crack, he lifted his head off his arms to face his boss, swallowing against the throb that lurched him, from his head to his gut to his toes, curled up, clenching in his clean black shoes.

"Yeah," he answered, reluctantly. He was annoyed at the way his voice came out, quiet and weak.

"I – have a special case for you." She paused, like she was unsure if she could ask. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Will be," he answered, giving up at looking at her against the light from the hallway, leaning his head down into his hand, fingers braced at the temples, for all the good it would do. "If it's urgent, give it to Roger. If it can wait until tomorrow – leave the referral."

"Okay," said Cuddy, the click of her heels as she approached the desk drilling into his skull. "I'll leave this here for you, when you're ready." She hovered over him for a long moment. Go away already. "Headache?" she asked.

"Mmm," he answered, tiredly. "Migraine."

"You should go home. It's four thirty anyway."

"I can't go out there," he said, waving vaguely towards the hallway, spilling fluorescent light and waves of white noise in through the still-open door. God, he felt pathetic. The raindrops were the worst. Incessant. He wouldn't be able to drive in this. Better stay put.

"Have you taken anything?"

"Yeah. Just waiting. I'll be fine."

"Okay," Cuddy said. "Feel better."

She gave him an informal squeeze of the shoulder that made him tense up instinctually and sent another wave of migraine-y goodness roiling down through his body. She must have seen, because she sighed heavily. Then her heels clicked away on the floor, and the door closed behind her, more quietly than it had opened.

Wilson let his head sink back down into the comfort of his arms.

The damned door opened again, less than fifteen minutes later, and none too gently. Fuck, that hurt.

"Taking a catnap?"

"Go away, House."

"Can't. Mommy sent me to tell you it was time to put away your toys and go home. C'mon. I'll give you a ride."

"No. Thanks."

"I wasn't offering a pill. I was offering to drive you. You know, in your car."

"No, thanks."

Wilson could feel House levelling a glare at him. "C'mon. It's raining out. Can't let the cripple go out on a motorbike in that rain, now can we? The rain'll make my leg hurt, I'll have to be hopped up on Vicodin just to sit on the damn bike, and then I'll be sure to crash. Do you want to kill me, Wilson?"

"If you don't keep your voice down –"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. C'mon. Boss' orders. Off your ass."

Wilson sighed, but he felt like someone, probably a professional boxer, was punching him in the side of the head every time he took a breath. He really did just want to go home, curl up, and die.

"Alright," he said, as loudly as he could manage. Carefully, he stood up, leaning against the desk as his head protested, pain spidering across his skull and down his neck. Deep breath. Briefcase. No. Don't bother. He wasn't going to be working tonight.

He opened his eyes, finally, looking for his jacket, and looked up suspiciously when he found House handing it to him.

House rolled his eyes. "Just hurry up, would ya?"

They made their way slowly through the building and out to the parking lot. Wilson was sure he'd been given some pretty strange looks, but he hadn't seen them, his eyes closed fast almost all the way out.

He heard himself moan when he got into the car. Pitiful, really.

"Want a Vicodin?"

God, yes. Yes. "No."

"You're staying at my place, so I don't have to pick you up in the morning."

"Mmm."

--

Wilson poked his head into Cuddy's office when they got in the next day. "Hey," he said, "I guess I should thank you for making House drive me home, the other day."

Cuddy gave him a strange look. "What do you – oh. Why? I didn't say anything."