This short fic was inspired by the song "The old apartment" by the Barenaked Ladies. I know this is not what the song is about, but I always had a scene like this in my mind when I heard that song, so I finally decided to write it down.
Disclaimer: House and Wilson are not mine. I wish they were, then I could finally ship them in season four ;)
„There you go," House whispered hoarsly as the door finally opened with a low mourn. He stared into the darkness and waited for his eyes to adjust. The hall was empty except from an old mirror that still hang on the wall. House carefully lifted a foot over the doorstep, leaning heavily on his cane. His right leg slumped down a little, but he quickly shifted his weight to his left side. It was becoming worse, he noticed sadly. It won't be long until the right leg would be of no use at all. Wilson had told him about a hundred times that it was due to age, not because of his damaged leg, but House stubbornly disagreed and blamed it all on the partly removed muscle. There was a time though, when the muscle stump had been re-innervated, when he could use his right leg. He could run. The thought made House smile, but the corners of his mouth dropped fast again. That time was long gone. He had been almost fifty when they finally found a way to speed up re-innervation and he had started to use a cane again about twenty years later. Nothing lasts forever.
The way to the kitchen felt like a mile. House shuffled his feet hastily over the bleached timber floor boards, leaving traces in the dust. He did not have much time. Authorities had decided to knock this old house down, including their old apartment. When he and Wilson had moved out, they had left nothing here, but now House found memories everywhere. Why didn't they pack them all up, taking them all along to that new apartment?
House was tempted to pull out that small shopping bag that he had stuffed into one of his pockets. You'll never know what you might find. He did not want to leave the memories behind again.
An old man stared at him, as he passed that old mirror. The shoulders bend, the face wrinkled, the hair grey and thin. "Stupid old cripple!" House growled at him and quickly turned away from his reflection. It was enough to feel his muscles disappear and his mind to weaken, he did not need to see his wrinkled face to remind him of his age.
Sometimes when his mind was clear, when his brain worked, shifting endless facts that once used to help him to solve his medical cases, he felt young again. But most of the times he felt nothing. He was lost in a boring everyday life away from the hospital.
The kitchen door stood open, his way only slightly blocked by cobwebs. House lifted a hand and wiped them away. Shaking a frightened spider from his fingers, he looked around. An empty plate still stood on the counter. Someone had left it behind, to busy with their way to a new apartment to remember to take the old dish with them.
The pattern was hardly recognizable. House wiped the dust away and held it close to his eyes to make it out, then he wrinkled his nose. Roses! He had never liked girly stuff like that. Once he had tried to convice Wilson to buy black dishes with glowing skulls on them. Some rockstar had designed these back then and House thought they were pretty cool. He had cut out catalogue pictures and taped them to the fridge. But Wilson had refused to buy anything like that and ripped off the pictures. Eventually House had run out of catalogues and Wilson bought plain dark blue dishes. Something without skulls, something that did not remind him of his work. House remembered Wilson's arguing and in the end he had not objected very much. The kitchen was Wilson's thing - except for the beer in the fridge, that they had to share.
House put the plate back down and hobbled to the oven. The oven door stood open a little and he pulled the handle. The tray had fallen down or someone had just carelessly shoved it in there like this. Hardly visible on one side of the tray was a little bump. House ran a finger over it, his fingertip collecting the dust of so many years. He remembered the noise, the clatter of metal, pots and dishes when the tray fell. He had tried to avoid doing the dishes again and stacked everything up on the tray and put it in the oven. Wilson had seen through his plan and took it all out again. At the end of their little fight Wilson had angrily thrown it all into the sink. The dishes had broken, the pot had lost a handle and the tray had gotten its bump. Later that evening House had guiltily cleaned up that mess when Wilson had been asleep.
He closed the oven door again and took a deep breath, at least as deep as he could. He had become a bit asthmatic in the last few years. Your lung tissue has lost its flexibility, Wilson had said and House had felt old.
From one of the other rooms came a low scatching noise. House lifted his head and listened. There was something in the livingroom. He leaned on his cane again and went back out in the hall to go investigate.
The bedroom door was ajar and House forgot about the noise in the livingroom. He got too easily distracted these days. It was hard to believe that he once was one of the smartest doctors in the country. Sometimes he even forgot about that. He needed Wilson to remind him of some of the cases he solved. That teenage super-model that turned out to be a boy, he would never forget about her. She had a nice ass. And breasts … House grinned. He had pretended to have forgotten about her and had urged Wilson tell him the story again, made him describe that beautiful girl with the body of a perfect woman. House had enjoyed Wilson's description! Not because of the naked teenager, but he loved the awkward look on Wilson's face when he talked about the girl.
The worn out curtains still covered the boarded up window in the bedroom. House limped across the room and pulled at the window. This one had always been very hard to open and with his cane in one hand this seemed to be impossible. He put his cane aside, knocked around the rotten wood to loosen the lock and pulled with both hands. When the window finally opened he was almost knocked over.
Through a tiny crack in the wood, light fell into the room. The sun always came around to shine into the bedroom in the late afternoon. House watched a thousand small dust particles dance in the small lightbeam, swirling around like frisky kids on a dance floor.
He suddenly felt the need for the warm sunlight and knocked his fists against the boards that the authorities and nailed across the window. The wood was rotten and the nails rusty, but House still needed all his strength to loosen one of the boards. He felt a sharp pain in his hand when a large splinter drove into his flesh. A few drops of blood ran across his wrinkled hand and he fumbled a bit to get the splinter out. There probably still was some of it left in his hand, but even with his glasses, his eyes weren't good enough to see it.
House took his cane again and drove the handle against the wood until it all splintered and opened up enough to let the sunshine in. The warm light flooded the room and a warm summer breeze blew up the curtains. More dust rained from the curtains and House started to cough. It was a dry cough from the dust and he didn't really mind. It was the cough early in the morning that he was afraid of. He could feel his lung protesting against the black tar he had inhaled over the endless years of smoking. Wilson had told him to quit. He had to do it, he was an oncologist.
The light fell through the window, lightening up the opposite corner where their bed once stood. House remembered that bed. On weekends he had pulled Wilson to the bedroom at this time of the day, to love him there in the sunshine. He could still recall Wilson's face when he was younger, his boyish charm and his beautiful body.
House had always felt like he had to be a disappointment to Wilson. His body much older than Wilson's and crippled. But Wilson had never complained about that, he never complained about anything. He had put his warm hand on House's thigh and loved that part of his body just as much as the rest.
He closed his eyes to keep that picture of Wilson laying naked on their bed. The sunlight softly playing on his body, casting shadows and taking them away again. House had touched his soft skin, brushed his fingers over his cheeks. I love you, he had said and Wilson had smiled in return.
House smiled, too.
Another gust of wind roused the dust on the window sill and House coughed again. With the handle of the cane he pushed the window closed and reluctantly left the bedroom. There were so many more memories to capture and he would have to leave soon.
He heard the scratching noise from the livingroom again and this time he followed that sound. After the sunlit bedroom he had to wait until his eyes adjusted to the darkness again. A sofa still stood in the middle of the room. For a second he thought it was their old one. The one that Wilson slept on when he moved in with House the very first time. Of course they haven't been lovers back then, but still it had made all the difference in the world to House. He had loved to have Wilson living with him. With him around he had always felt less lonely and less miserable. Wilson had made him complete - even with a part of his thigh missing.
House felt the pain in his leg. A partly amputated muscle obviously wasn't as strong as a complete one. The leg felt heavy and it took him some time to limp over to the sofa. A cloud of dust surrounded him, when he slumped into the cushions. It was not their sofa. They had taken it with them when they moved out. House could not leave it behind. He never liked change and he always needed things to remind him of the past. There was something else. House tried to remember what else he couldn't let go of. Something that was part of him and reminded him of … His hand went up to the little scar on his neck. The bullet. House could not remember. He had wanted it back, he had a fight. With Cuddy. Oh, he remembered Cuddy! Beautiful, sexy and clever! She was a little gooey sometimes, but that was okay. She was a woman after all. And what a woman! House grinned broadly, then stopped again. He had not seen Cuddy in years. What was she doing? He remembered seeing her at the little party at the PPTH when Wilson had retired. Boy, she had become old!
House looked down at his hands leaning on the cane. They were old, shaky and liver-spotted. He looked away again. He had become old. These limitations of his body and mind drove him crazy. He felt like a prisoner in his own body, sometimes enabled to look out of a window, but mostly just sitting in a dimly lit cell.
The scratching noise was back again and House looked around. A swift movement in the corner caught his tired eyes. Something was hiding in the dark and it took him a few moments to see the faint light reflected in two beady eyes.
House did not move and slowly the small grey figure of a rat came out of the dark. "Steve," House whispered and the rat quickly disappeared again.
Excitedly he searched his pockets for something eatable and found an old peppermint drop. He lowered his hand to the floor and gave the candy a little flinch. It slowly wobbled across the floor and finally stopped a few inches away from the corner. Patiently House waited for the rat to come out. He felt the urge to cough again from the dust, but he suppressed it and breathed very low. It did not take long until the hungry little creature crept out of the dark again, sniffing curiously at the peppermint drop. Finally it grabbed the candy with both paws and started to nibble, the whiskers bobbing up and down as it chewed.
"House?" Wilson's voice echoed in the hall. There was no answer, but Wilson had seen the door ajar. "House?" he asked again, blinking into the dark.
"Shh," House whispered when Wilson came into the livingroom. "See, it's Steve McQueen." He pointed to the eating rat in the corner. "We cannot leave him here when they tear down the house."
Wilson sighed and walked over to the sofa. "Steve died 25 years ago." He put a hand on House's shoulder, tenderly rubbing the bony arm to comfort him.
"No, he's right over there." House's pale blue eyes shone almost brightly from the exitement.
"I can see him, but it's not Steve." Wilson sighed and pinched his nose, an old habit he never could get rid of. He wished he could just catch the poor old rat and take it home for House, but there was no more time. The demolition company was already waiting outside to tear the house down.
"We have to go now."
"We can't leave him here," House repeated with a sad voice, but took Wilson's outstretched hand and got up from the sofa. "My leg hurts," he added, and then had forgotten about it again.
Wilson took House's arm and led him down the hall to the door. This was getting more and more difficult for him. He wasn't young anymore and House kept running away, looking for more memories of the good old days.
Sunshine greeted them when they stepped out into the street. Both blinked, their eyes hurting from the bright light.
House looked up to the bedroom window. The splintered boards were dangling on the rusty nails, the sunlight was reflected on the window throwing a beam back at Wilson next to him. House lifted a hand up and brushed lightly over Wilson's cheek.
"I love you," he said softly and they both smiled.