Author's Note : I suddenly thought about this best friends again and I finally finished this fanfic just last night. It turned out sadder that I had planned, and I hope you guys don't mind. I still can't take my heart off them, though Sherlock Christmas Special was out, lol
Anyway, this is my take of how House dealt with Wilson's death (kind of, I think). So, as usual, tell me how you guys think about this :)
Disclaimer : House, M.D. belongs to FOX and David Shore.
"House."
"Shut up."
"I'm sorry, House."
"Shut up."
"You wouldn't say it, would you?"
I woke up in sweat. That line had woken me up for the hundredth time. And it was the hundredth time that Wilson had walked away in my dream. It was always us in our road-trip-outfits. I always saw him in his shirt and his leather jacket. But he wasn't as thin as he had been when we ended out journey. His hair was just like when he had started out road trip. He was like how I always remembered him.
I sat up tiredly. My leg hurt and I hadn't slept well in the past two months. I noticed the empty bottle on my nightstand. I grabbed my cane and started to limp to find some vicodin I had hidden months ago.
When I found a half-empty bottle of vicodin, I noticed the clock on the wall showed that it was sixteen past three in the morning before I took four of it and drank the leftover beer on my coffee table. I just knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. I limped towards my piano and decided to play, despite of the sleeping neighbors. I didn't care.
When I touched the first key, I knew what my brain was trying to tell me.
I miss him.
It was the song he had hated so much on the day I had first seen him, "Leave A Tender Moment Alone" by Billy Joel. The papers from the parole office that I had to sign reminded me of the papers he had been carrying on that day. And just like him ending up signing those papers, so would I. But not like him, not hoping for someone to help him, I did. This time, I just wanted him to be here. If he had been here, he might've been scolding me. He might've been lecturing me. He might've been drinking beer with me. He might've even been sprawling on my couch, asleep. I just wished that he had been here. I would do anything to make him be here again.
Call me in the night
I don't mind
I don't care
I can't sleep
And I knew how much he hated me calling him in the middle of the night—either it had been ruining his sleep or his relationship with the woman beside him. But now I just wished he would do that to me. Just like when he had told me that he had had to stay here because his marriage had been in ruins. Or when he had given me a terrible excuse just to come to be able to check on me. Now I always waited for my phone to ring—knowing that it was only him who would've called me since the past seven months. I always waited for the familiar catching tone of "Dancing Queen" suddenly blaring from my old phone. But I knew that I was just waiting for an unreal phone call. Hell. I was the one who had taken his phone and thrown it away somewhere in the middle of that pile of straw.
Damn. I miss him.
And I didn't even realized when my fingers had started playing that song—in much slower tempo. And I somehow could imagine him rolling his eyes to the song. I once had proved to him that it was really my ringtone for him and his expression had been priceless. I could feel my lips twitched as the scene was playing in my head.
Call me in my day
In my car
On my way
My mind wandered to the day that I had been drugged so that he would have been able to take me to my dad's funeral, and oh-so-many-road-trips we had had. I had been always secretly enjoyed our trips. I never knew why our trips had always meant something. It was like we had had to drive away for miles to get what we had to figure out. Just like when I had forced him to take my patient to find that imaginary restaurant. That was when I had had to show him that our friendship had mattered more than he had thought to me, though somehow, I always knew that he had already known that anyway. And at that time, I had known that this friendship had mattered more than I had let myself show to him. Because no matter what, I had never wanted to lose him
And in every road trips—every, I had been always pretended to sleep anytime he had wanted to start a serious conversation I hadn't wanted to have—sometimes I had fallen asleep, too. But I always liked it when he had called me after a long pause. And when it had turned to be something I hadn't wanted to talk about, I just had had to blow it up until he had forgotten what he had been talking about and we stopped talking just to make him groan several minutes after that, knowing that I had conned him into not talking.
And now that my fingers started to play some random notes that I hadn't heard before, I realized that I wouldn't have any road trips anymore. I wouldn't have any jokes to throw. I wouldn't have any prank to pull. It was not because I had to go back to jail next week, but because the person I did that to was gone. I wouldn't have him here, or there, or anywhere anymore. Though all I could do was chanting his name in my sleep, pretending that he was still sleeping beside me just like when we were trapped in a single-bed hotel room.
Wilson.
How much he hated that we couldn't get the double-bed, but that was just because I would have noticed his difficulty in breathing, especially when it had been cold in the night. And Wilson being Wilson, he just hadn't wanted me to be burdened by his worsening condition, as if I hadn't known it anyway. As if I hadn't thought of any possibilities that could have been happening to him. As if he hadn't been the only matter I had actually cared about. Oh, wait. He was still the only matter I cared about—as if going back to jail was nothing.
Wilson.
Call me by my name
All I want is to hear you say
Jimmy.
I never knew if I ever said the chanting out loud. Even his first name came up in my mind. He had known how much I hated to be called by my first name since the first day we had met. I had said that it would have sounded like my mother—and also my father. He sometimes had called me 'Greg' just to piss me off and we had ended up pulling pranks to each other all day. But now, all I wanted was to hear him trying to start a decent—or indecent, conversation with me. I wanted to hear him call me. I would give up everything to be able to hear his familiar voice calling me again. Talking to me again.
"Hey, House," Wilson almost whispered.
"Yeah." I tried to stay as close as possible to him, without making him uncomfortable on his bed.
"I'm sorry."
"I know," I tried so hard not to look at him. I knew I was gonna lose it.
But Wilson managed to moved his thin arm to put his cold hand on mine and my head instantly turned to see him, either surprised by how cold his hand was or by his action itself.
"I'm sorry, House," he gave me a sad smile behind that hoarse whisper that could only heard by me.
"Shut up," I looked away, knowing that I was already losing it, though I didn't pull out my hand from his.
"Thank you for this journey—these five months."
"Shut up," I whispered with such pain that I didn't even know I could express only through that two words.
Wilson sighed slowly, carefully, so that he wouldn't cough since breathing was now a problem for him. "You wouldn't say it, would you?"
Damn.
"You didn't fight," I tried to find an excuse.
"Alright," he chuckled, though he knew me too well and he must have been expected my signature deflection.
Then it was silence again after that. But I could feel that I finally held his hand, trying to send the heat from my body into his ice-cold hand, wishing it would make him stay longer. But I knew it was almost time when he shifted to find a more comfortable position on his messed-up bed.
Every breath he took was a countdown to me, and the sound of it filled the room as if the buzzing of the lamp had never existed. All I could do was holding his hand tighter, not even afraid of breaking it, considering how thin he had become. Oh, I didn't care, if breaking his hand could make the time stop, I would certainly do it.
I was terrified of how many more breaths he would take. I was terrified of how I wouldn't be able to hear that hoarse sound of oxygen going through his lungs. I was terrified of the fact that I couldn't cure him. I wished time would've stopped.
And that was why I finally faced him. "Wilson," I tried to make my voice as firm as usual, though I knew I was failing.
With the strength he surprisingly had, he opened his eyes to see me.
"Your life was worthwhile and I love you."
Wilson gave me a sincere smile. A smile that was enough to tell me that he was satisfied, that he was relieved. I could feel his hand twitched in my grip and I knew that was his attempt to tighten his grip.
"Thank you," Wilson said in almost inaudible voice.
"Goodbye, Wilson," I whispered with a shaking voice. And that was when I felt my vision blurred.
My vision blurred. Right now, in front of my piano, once again, my fingers were playing a song I always played since his death. I always ended up playing this composition whenever I had tried to play every time I had found a piano in our journey, because this was not a song of goodbye. This was a song of him. A song of James Evan Wilson.
Now I wished he had been here to listen to it. I wished he would've ever listened to it. Though he had always secretly listened to the start of this song and asked me what song it had been every time I had played it—though I knew that he had already known that the song was an original composition I had written for him, I wished he had ever gotten the chance to listen the end of this composition.
But I knew that he wouldn't.