Summertime made promises it knew it couldn't keep.
The fairytale was climbing up a mountain far too steep.
Colour in the pictures with your royal hands.
Now I am craving heart-break while you're making your demands.
-"Calm Like You" by The Last Shadow Puppets
One…
Black was the color of the moment. It shined in the light every time the silk fabric moved next to him. The golden beam of light held his eyes for a moment. He stared at the swirl of dust particles, watching as they spun in topsy-turvy directions, falling all the time but never quite reaching the ground. He wondered how that would feel, the endless drop, the swirl of the gentle air around him… and then nothing. Just a figment, one of thousands, caught in that ever more gruesome looking light. Hell would be like that. Always trying but never quite succeeding. The madness that would follow would completely destroy him. He took in a breath.
Vanilla. It stung his sensitive nose. Why did women always choose vanilla when picking a 'neutral' scent? It was too sweet. It was too innocent for the woman lying next to him. He imagined a spicier scent, something that made his blood run hot and his mouth water. A second passed. He was left with only his imagination. That scent would never cling to his clothes again; would never mingle with his own, through close contact or shared sweat.
No. No rest for the wicked. Even from women of love's past.
Two…
He breathed out, making himself feel the deflation of his lungs. His skin felt loose and clammy. The sheets under him, Egyptian, and with a thread count he couldn't bring himself to remember, were tangled in his legs. The coolness of them felt like heaven to his heated body. The temperature was a warning sign he choose to ignore. Avoidance was the best policy. His skin was getting sensitive though. He could feel the sweat along his back, under his arms, on the back of his knees and in between his toes. The hair on his arms stood at attention. Goose bumps climbed from the back of his hand to his shoulders. His hearing was playing tricks on him.
He heard the nameless woman groan at the imaginary noise. No one in their right mind would be at his door. Except another girl from the service. But he had one, thanks. He heard the rustle of coarse fabric, a blouse being buttoned haphazardly. He titled his head toward her. His sight was starting to blur slightly. A flash of olive colored skin and another of black satin, and he saw the tall figure in front of him get unsteadily to her feet. Her artificial black hair swung from side to side as she walked to the door.
Why would she do that? There was no one there. Anyone who would have knocked had already been there and left. His eyes wandered to the ceiling. He didn't need to see the strange interloper at the door.
Three…
It was too quiet. The silence was deafening. He shifted in the bed. The sheets were damp and sticky. He breathed in. His skin crawled and he stiffened.
A growl issued from outside the bedroom. He was hallucinating. That voice couldn't be here. That voice was thirty miles away, behind a desk, pushing papers and exercising her power over all her loyal, cowering subjects. The vicodin was already wrecking havoc on his mind. He felt only an ounce of fear. This time he had nothing to lose. This time he didn't have a chance to get what he wanted… what he needed. He embraced the temporary insanity and let himself close his eyes. If she was going to be here, it would be on his terms.
He heard a high, unfamiliar voice issue out a complaint about only doing her job. God, did he really sleep with that voice? Again, he heard a thinly veiled threat and another growl.
"Get. Out."
Her voice sounded off he realized through his haze. It sounded deeper, maybe hoarse. His subconscious would not change the tone and timber of her voice. What for? Was it angling for a teary reunion, full of begging and kneeling and exclamations of self-fault and forgiveness? What utter bullshit. He wasn't as fucked up to dream a scenario as that. A happy reunion indeed. Which only left one plausible explanation.
She was really in the hotel room.
Four…
Now that was a mystery to solve. She was too proud to come back and ask him for a second chance. Not this soon anyway. She would have waited a month, fighting with herself and trying to talk herself into seeing she made the right decision. She would be miserable the entire time. He heard the high pitch voice whine again. This time he made it out to be about money. He had paid her already. He smirked as the other voice cited hooker protocol [you always get the money beforehand] and promptly threw the woman out.
"Bitch!" was shouted from the hallway and he heard the door slam shut. He winced. The vibrations seemed to flow through his head, straight to his drug and alcohol-hung over brain, shaking it violently. The room lurched. He was feverish. The sheets were almost soaked through.
He was alone now. He couldn't hear anything. The hooker had just left. She had noisily gotten out of bed, threw her clothes on, and left, not caring if the door slammed shut, waking him from a drug-induced dream. That was it.
Until he smelled her perfume.
The fragrance was made up of lemon, citron, jasmine, heliotrope, with a light hint of sandalwood, giving the perfume a mixture of floral and spice. It complimented her natural scent perfectly. That was why he had bought the damned, expensive thing in the first place. He tried to open his eyes. They were heavy and refused to listen to him. He didn't really want to look anyway. He didn't want to see her. He didn't want to see the look she must be giving him, at how he felt he looked.
He felt like shit.
He could envision her eyes roaming over his form, the sheet that was covering his legs and waist, his torso bare. The sheets must be showing the amount of perspiration he was giving off. Maybe she could feel the heat that was wafting off of him in waves. Then he could see her eyes finally resting on the orange bottle on the night stand next to the bed. He didn't want to see her reaction. He couldn't handle that now. He was far from ready to deal with that. Wilson proved that to him last night.
"House…" he heard her hesitantly breathe out.
"I'm still alive," he grumbled. His stomach was starting to cramp. He knew if he tried to sit up, he would vomit. He groaned.
"How many of them have you taken?"
She used a pronoun. She didn't even want to acknowledge the vicodin sitting right beside her.
"Now or in total?" he quipped.
Fi…
He felt her hand grip his wrist. Her fingers barely circled around it. Her grip tightened as she moved his arm back towards his chest.
"How many, House?"
"Four," he gasped. If he remembered rightly, he counted out four. The pain was starting to radiate from his stomach. His back started to bow and he gingerly turned on his side, getting into a fetal position. He heard her move towards the bathroom. She returned a moment later, with several hurried steps just in time, to place a trash bin next to the bed as he hurled over the side of the bed. His stomach felt like it was trying to escape his body via his throat. The acid burned his throat as he watched 2 half digested pills mixed with bile leave his mouth. His eyes watered as he coughed and sputtered.
"I need to get you to the hospital," he heard her voice say above him.
He rolled onto his back and, with a shaky hand, wiped his mouth with the back of it. He finally opened his eyes. She was wearing a navy colored sweater, dark jeans and nikes. Her hair was tied up and her makeup non-existent. Her eyes were glassy and her face withdrawn. Frankly, she looked almost as horrible as himself.
"I'm not going to the hospital. I'm not dying."
"No, you're only OD'ing," she snarled at him, losing all patience. "You're such an idiot."
He took a deep breath.
"Leave me here then. I don't even know why the hell you're here in the first place. You're done with me. You owe me three hundred dollars since you also kicked out that hooker early."
"I'm here because the rest of your team is chickenshit and can't come here themselves… I—"
Her hesitation was the last straw. He was beyond sick and had no patience to deal with her… guilt, anger, whatever emotion she was trying to hide from him. He knew she was pissed and heartbroken and perplexed about her decisions but they were no longer his problem. She had made that very clear. The audacity she had gathered to barge into his room made him suddenly furious.
"Get the hell out of my room. Why didn't you just sic Wilson on me? Did he tell you being a nabi* for you was a waste of my time?"
He knew when the words flew out of his mouth that he had said something awfully, intensely wrong. Her eyebrows drew together sharply and her eyes narrowed dangerously in a scowl. They shone brighter in the morning light. Her cheeks reddened.
"You don't know?" She whispered. Then to herself, "Of course not… probably hasn't even had the TV on…"
Her lower lip trembled as she let the sentence waiver off. House could see her try to pull herself together. What the hell did he say? He wasn't even close to his usual sarcasm and disdain. He watched as she placed a hand over her mouth, holding back something he now needed to know. She turned her back on him, a sob wracking her whole body.
"Cuddy?" He asked.
He had only seen her this way twice before: the night he first kissed her in twenty years and almost a year later when he shouted from the balcony that he had slept with her. He sat up gingerly on the bed, making sure the sheet was securely around his waist. His head had cleared but his body still ached from the vomiting and sweating. He felt beat up and sore as if he had been slammed into the wall a couple hundred times. He hissed slightly when his stomach cramped. It subsided. Cuddy took another ragged breath, both her hands covering her face.
"Cuddy?" He tried again.
She laughed. It was the type of laugh that caused a person's blood to run cold and fear to crawl through their skin. It was deeply cynical.
She wiped her face with her left hand and looked at him with an expression he didn't recognize. Even at his meanest, most cruel moments, there was always something in her eyes, some deep emotion just stirring within the surface of a silver sea. But there was nothing there now.
Nothing.
No glimpse of hate. No speck of anger.
Null. Void.
People think hate is the worst emotion in the world. It is not. Apathy is. She was apathetic to him now. She really didn't care anymore, especially after what he had said [which he was still trying to figure out in the back of his mind].
It scared the hell out of him.
It was just below the thought of her dying, fear factor wise. She was done. Her eyes glared the truth at him.
"What happened?" The words left his mouth without his permission. He looked down at his hands in his lap, fidgeting with the sheet around his waist as the cramps subsided. He still felt like shit, but the worst of it was over.
"What do you remember?" She countered.
He squinted. "Well, I remember up to scotch number five that I was drinking with Wilson. Then I partied with a couple pledges..."
Abruptly she turned to walk out of the room.
"Wait!" He yelled out. She stopped just inside the door frame.
"I don't know what the fuck I'm saying that has you like this but just spit out what you're here to say." He spoke to her back. She had her right hand holding onto the door frame.
House heard her sigh, brokenly, before she faced him again, leaning on the doorframe as if that were the only thing holding her up. For a brief second, he thought the sorrow now dripping off of her was about him, them, love, and mistakes. Her lips trembled and her cheeks were twitching. She wiped at her eyes again, mascara smearing on the bottom of her eyelashes. He watched as her chest heaved in a deep inhale.
"Something happened this morning… last night. Wilson…"
His chest tightened and it had nothing to do with the drugs and alcohol in his system. He could remember Wilson leaving early this morning after he had jumped into the pool with the Rutgers kids. He could remember seeing Wilson's disbelieving face and look of disappoint worn only when House was at his worst. He remembered seeing the broad shouldered man walk away in quasi-disgust and saunter out of the crowd of co-eds, tie, blazer and trench coat a stark contrast to the t-shirts, shorts, and jeans present. He got to his feet, swaying slightly and looked around for clothes. Out of the corner of his sight, he saw Cuddy look into the living room of the suite, averting her eyes and still trying to compose herself.
"Is he at Princeton-Plainsboro?" House gruffly posed, his voice tight.
He could not imagine his friend laying in one of the stark white hospital beds. It was an unnatural scene. He couldn't picture him in the pale green or blue gowns worn by the patients. He was always in a lab coat or a tie. He was always the one standing next to the bed, not laying in it.
House had found his boxers and jeans and put them on surprisingly fast for a man with a bad center of gravity. He couldn't find his shirt. Vaguely aware Cuddy had not finished telling him everything he searched until he found a crumpled tee sandwiched between the wall and dresser. Still barefoot he walked up to her.
Tears were sliding down her face in rivets. He made to touch her but she shrank from him and moved into the larger room.
"Tell me what happened. My team's working on him?"
He hated himself for the break in his voice.
"Early this morning," Cuddy started again. She sniffled and kept her gaze lowered to the floor. "He was in an accident. Paramedics did everything th—"
The rest of her words were drowned out by the blood rushing to his head. His sight blurred and faded into darkness. He had only one last agonizingly, tormenting thought.
James Wilson was dead.
Many thanks to Akemi1582 for taking the time out of her super busy schedule and proof-reading this for me! She's such an awesome beta. Thank you, dear readers, for sticking with me, also. I hope the drama isn't too much in this chapter. Hopefully I'll get the next chapter polished off soon. -PSC