Chapter Title: Iridescence
Disclaimer: I don't own House or anything related to it; they are owned by FOX.
AN: Ok, so this was supposed to be oneshot but it didn't work out that way. I had no choice, my muse forced me to write. She's funny that way. I can never write new chapters for the stories that are supposed to be chapter fics, yet I end up writing more chapters for a fic that should be a oneshot. Oops. Well, anyway, some reviewers asked me to continue, so just consider this a Christmas present. Don't get used to it. Enjoy! Also, thank you to all the nice, kind, wonderful people who reviewed. Everyone else is a Grinch.
o
o
o
Looking back, he would never remember what had compelled him to go there that night. There had been no startling moment of realization, no sudden chill that made him grab his keys and race out the door, hoping he wouldn't be too late.
He hadn't known in that way he'd heard so many people describe. There was no premonition, no knot of fear in the pit of his stomach. He could just as easily have gone home and gotten the sleep he so desperately needed, unaware his best friend was dying.
Yet something had tugged at the back of his mind, a quiet worry that he'd almost ignored. Something had made him take the long way home, just so he could make a quick stop. It had seemed natural, necessary. There was always a chance he would be needed.
On a dark night, weeks later, he would wonder if that's what he'd wanted, if a part of him had hoped he would be needed. Was that what he'd become, to pray his friend would fall and break just so that he could be there to pick up the pieces?
He hadn't speeded trying to get there; he'd even obeyed the stop signs. His hands hadn't been white or shaking as he gripped the steering wheel, and he hadn't been filled with overwhelming dread. He'd never once thought, what if I'm too late? Looking back, that was the worst part. How could he not have known?
He remembered that it was a cold night. He'd forgotten to bring a warm coat, so he'd hoped to cut his visit short and get home as soon as he could.
There were no clouds, and the stars were bright and clear. He could see his breath in front of his face when he parked his car and got out. It was so cold that he considered just getting back in his car and going home, House be damned.
In the end, guilt won out, and his feet seemed to carry him of their own accord up the steps of House's apartment building. He wrapped his arms around himself in a futile attempt to get warm, finally giving up and opening the door.
He made his way up the stairs slowly, reluctant footfalls echoing softly as he climbed. It was dark, but he never thought to turn on the light. Instead he let his eyes slowly adjust to the inky blackness, until he could see the world in muted shades of grey.
He knocked on the door to House's apartment, and when no one answered he gave in and used his key. He probably wasn't even home. Wilson was sure he was in some bar somewhere, trying to drown his pain.
It wasn't until he opened the door that he knew something was wrong. It hit him like a punch to the gut.
An empty bottle of scotch.
Glass shards all over the floor, and they cut through his new shoes as he ran across the room, to where House was lying on the floor, in a pool of vomit and-
blood.
It was then that Wilson knew, then that the cold certainty settled in his heart, and for a moment he couldn't breathe, and later, he would swear his heart had stopped.
No. No, this can't be happening.
Wilson dropped to his knees, his heart pounding now, deafening him. Bits of glass cut his legs, and he knew this was no nightmare. Later, his clothes would be stained with blood and he would realize he didn't know if it was House's or his own.
He pulled House's head into his lap, shaking with quiet desperation. He ran his fingers through House's hair, leaving red streaks behind. Then, slowly, reluctantly, he slid two fingers onto House's neck and felt for a pulse.
He didn't know how long he waited; it seemed like an eternity but he knew it must have been only a few seconds. He thought at first it was just wishful thinking, but then he was sure. House's pulse was weak and erratic, but it was there.
Suddenly Wilson could breathe again. He fumbled for his phone, his fingers leaving red prints on the shiny surface. He held the phone with one hand even as he attempted to stop the slow flow of blood from House's wrists. He was covered in blood now, and a part of his brain tried to calculate how much blood his friend had lost, and how much more blood he could afford to lose.
When the operator told him it might take ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive, he swore and threw the phone across the room, not bothering to hit the end button. Then all his medical knowledge flew out of his head and he fumbled to make a tourniquet.
He held House's wrists in his hands, and House was so pale now, and Wilson couldn't see if he was breathing, but blood was still oozing out of the two gashes on his wrists, and that meant his heart was still beating.
Wilson didn't know how long he sat there, trying to keep House's wrists above his heart and put pressure on the wounds and this was so much easier when it was hypothetical. When it was just a first aid class he'd taken years ago.
How could anything have prepared him for this, for the sight of his best friend lying in a pool of his own blood, blood that was inexorably being pumped out of House's body, and there was so much blood. Wilson didn't think House could lose this much blood and live, but it was hard to tell. The blood was everywhere, and the stinging in Wilson's legs where he'd gotten cut on the glass told him not all of it was House's.
One of House's hands started to slip from his grip, and he struggled, to keep holding it, because he had to keep the pressure on, he had to stop the bleeding, or slow it, at the very least, just buy time until the ambulance showed up…
Wilson didn't know how long he sat there, clutching House with hands that were slippery with blood, now moving, praying to a God he'd stopped believing in a long time ago. It seemed like an eternity to him, like time had chosen to stand still and he would be trapped there forever.
Finally, finally, after what must have been only a few minutes, he heard the distant cry of a siren. Then the paramedics rushed into the room, and they pulled Wilson away from House, and he wouldn't remember much of that.
He wouldn't remember that he held so tightly to House that the paramedics were reminded of the vice-like grip of the dead, or that his empty eyes just reinforced that comparison. He wouldn't remember the pretty female paramedic that wraps a blanket around him and tells him he's in shock, or that she was a little scared of the way he couldn't meet her eyes.
He wouldn't remember that he was covered in so much blood that the paramedic checked to make sure he wasn't seriously hurt, too. They loaded him onto the ambulance with House and they tried to talk to him, get him to snap out of.
The whole time, he never took his eyes off House's face.
He wouldn't remember the way they bustled around House and frantically tried to stabilize him, the way they were just as concerned about his own rapid pulse and shallow breathing.
The ambulance ride, arriving at Princeton-Plainsboro, doctors in the ER yelling and running about, all this will be a blank in his memory. When they finally realized one of the glass shards had nicked his femoral artery, he would be almost catatonic. Still, he was in much better shape than House.
The combination of drugs, alcohol, and blood loss, left untreated, was enough to kill House ten times over. House, however, had the advantage of a veritable army of doctors and nurses fighting to keep him alive.
Wilson wouldn't remember being wheeled in on a gurney, or that House was next to him. He won't know how many times House flat-lined, or how many times he was revived.
Worst of all, he wouldn't know whether those two numbers were the same.
o
o
o
Reviews are greatly appreciated. Have a nice day!