A/N: So i wrote this while i was sitting at my computer listening to music. Didn't even take me ten minutes to write, it's just a little drabble. Spoliers for Season 5 if you look really really close under a really powerful microscope. Again, anyone who can tell me where the title comes from gets super bonus points and becomes my new best friend.
In a Slow Hell
It was a dusty, faded old photograph in a dusty, faded old frame that had sat on the mantel for as long as House could remember living in that apartment. It wasn't a particularly good picture of either of them but for some reason that made him like it even more. Two bright, good looking guys smirked back at the camera with the kind of arrogance that only can only be associated with youth. House, standing at his full height of 6'3" was to the right of a baby faced James Wilson, who was trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with his older and taller friend but just couldn't measure up.
It took twenty some years for them to both figure out that it was and always would be House who could never quite measure up.
Because while House may have excelled at his career, Wilson excelled at life. For the majority of their friendship, Wilson was kind enough not to point this fact out, especially after the infarction and the whole mess with Stacy. But at the end, all he could and would do was just remind him of just how little he really had.
House had actually liked Amber, and thought that she might be good for Wilson. He'd even given his blessing to the relationship by telling him that he could and had done worse. But of course, all that was forgotten the moment he opened his mouth on that bus. Sometimes, in his darker moments, House wished he had never survived the heart attack. That he'd fried his brain with the Deep Brain Stimulation. Wished that he'd never woken up from that coma.
He reached out and took the frame off the mantel. Using his sleeve, he wiped the dust away and gave it one last long look before placing it in the drawer. He didn't need any more reminders of the good life he had and that Wilson had thrown away with a few careless words. The pain in his heart and head were reminder enough.