Title: Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
Author: Shelli (a href"http://labellacaracol. Characters: House, House/Wilson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,527
Spoilers: Post Merry Little Christmas
Summary: There's a burning feeling somewhere in his stomach that's seperate from the sleeping demon in his thigh, and he grits his teeth because he knows that's what the Vicodin and the trip to Everything's Swirly Land was all about. All he got was a lousy stain on his carpet and an empty feeling in his stomach that started when he heard his door shut. Now he stares at Wilson's door--well, the hotel's really--and tries not to laugh because the sound of doors shutting never mattered this much to him before.
Notes: Fourth part in the We're Kings Over the Parkway Tonight series, even though the parts work as standalones. They're in-between episode speculation, trying to keep in with what's happening in the show. Fun to write, really...

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

He leans heavily on his cane and wonders what he looks like, a cripple with snow melting on his shoulders as he stands uncertainly in the hallway of a hotel. It's sometime into the early morning hours, and he spent his Christmas on his couch with Jack Daniel, the leftover scent of vomit, and the hollow sounds of "Merry Christmas" in his ears. His fingers curl into a loose ball at his side, and he feels a little sheepish to be there, staring down a doorknob like it's his greatest enemy. Which is stupid, he thinks, because it turns out that he's his own greatest enemy. He tightens his grip on his cane and smoothes out the skin along his forehead with his fingers.

How he found himself here, somewhere past midnight in the fuzzy grey quality of the day after Christmas, in front of the door to the hotel room of a man who has recently betrayed him more often than he cares to recall, is as mysterious to him as how he found himself walking into a police station to confront the dickweed that's currently ruining his life. He chews his lip—which still tastes of pills, liquor, and his own vomit, despite an extra twenty minutes in the shower—and thinks that Wilson had a pretty big hand in ruining his life lately, too. Why the hell i is /I he here? But he can remember warm eyes and gentle smiles and reassurance (moans, hands, lips) and in the end, he knows he couldn't stay away.

It turns out that it's Wilson who acts first. House's eyes widen in surprise as the door opens and Wilson nearly walks into him, ice bucket in his hand. The little yelp he lets out as he stumbles backward into the door is akin to that of an animal being strangled, and House tries to remember why he's there instead of imagining Wilson as a small squirrel. He's certainly got the hair part down, and his lips press together in a smile when he wonders if his tail could possibly be as bushy as his eyebrows.

"You're smiling. Did you steal more pills? Or maybe you ran over an elf on your way here."

"Don't be silly. Christmas is over. All the elves are back at the North Pole." The question of whether or not he stole more pills still hangs in the air but he doesn't feel like reaching out for that one just yet. His leg is throbbing, pain radiating in waves along his bones, up through his hips, to settle into a solid ache at the base of his stomach, not to mention what's going on in the lower half of his leg, how it sometimes reaches out and curls a fist around his knee, or when his toes tingle as if they've gone to sleep and he wants to pound his fist against something until it stops.

He realizes Wilson is standing here, staring at him, and House flashes back to the last time he saw Wilson—hazy though it was, and at the time he wasn't even sure he was still alive, was only partially sure he still wanted to be. He'd offer some sort of explanation except he doesn't do those types of things, so instead he drags a hand over an eyebrow and stares at the carpeting, the orange pattern inlaid in the faintly off-red fabric slightly alarming to the senses.

"Did you take the deal?"

Something in him clenches at that question, bristles and bares its teeth and growls. His knuckles turn white as he grips his cane and finds Wilson's face again, narrows his eyes as his jaw sets a little tighter. "I'm going to rehab." It isn't the whole truth, but Wilson hasn't been really fond of the whole truth—at least, not to i his /I face—lately, and it's as far as he wants to get into it now anyway.

Wilson deflates a little, lets out a breath, and he can watch as the relief eases into his shoulders, into the set of his arms as they hang at his sides. He tastes deception in his own mouth and it's uncomfortable but "everybody lies" plays a few times in his head until he feels a little dizzy. His leg twitches, spasms, and the pain shoots into his spine like a missile. His cry echoes into the hallway, turns the head of a couple walking to their room, makes Wilson knit his eyebrows together and lean toward him, hand brushing House's on the cane.

"Are you alright?" Wilson winces and shrugs the question off, backing off House and turning back into his hotel room. "Come on, come sit down."

House hobbles in after Wilson, feeling a jumble of things he hates to feel—pain, embarrassed, ashamed, small—and the grit of his teeth is less for the pain stabbing into him and more for the Vicodin that's only one piece of paper away. He feels the curl of anger in his gut and he collapses onto Wilson's bed, torso hovering over his thigh as he braces himself to the pain.

He can feel Wilson's eyes on him as he stands near him, arms over his chest. "There are other ways. Pain management programs. It doesn't have to stay like this."

As House curls his fingers around his thigh, as the blood pounds at his temples, as his skin rips in two, he shuts his eyes and tries to remember why he came here. He can smell Wilson, like soap and a gentle aftershave, in the air, overpowering the fresh hotel scent. He's been too long in this room, without an apartment, but House's mind doesn't think of his empty couch. House's mind is only white pain.

The bed indents beside him and there's a shoulder brushing against his, a hand on his shoulder. "You'll get through this." He pulls his eyes shut tight and tries to feel the warmth of his hand over the surge of pain.

It takes a few minutes, but it abates—not entirely but enough that he can uncurl his body and sit fairly upright. His left hand unclenches and he flexes his fingers to bring feeling back into them. Wilson's hand still rests on his shoulder, his eyes still fixed on his face. House takes a breath because the pain has let go of his lungs and he tries to fill himself with the feelings he had when he first came over. He looks up at Wilson, the picture of concern.

"You'll get through this," he says again, as if repeating it will make any of this any easier, will jump into his bloodstream and become his Vicodin. The unspoken "with me" hangs in the air and around Wilson's head, his eyes soft and gentle like the hand on his shoulder, like the scent hanging in the room. House levels his eyes as he feels the weariness settle into his bones.

When the tide of anger rises in him, he doesn't fight it. When he feels his world hurtle toward a crescendo, he rides the wave of righteous fury because it's easier than trying to look into Wilson's eyes as his leg rips apart and remember how he breathed against his neck.

He stands. Wilson's hand falls into his lap. He leans heavily on his cane as he stares down into those eyes, caring and understanding, and he remembers being left on his floor, remembers a "Merry Christmas," feels a prick in his thigh.

"You want to help me like you wanted to help all your wives, like you wanted to help your dying patient." House watches as Wilson deflates and anger mounts behind his eyes. "Stop trying to help me."

It's the "get out of my life" that he falters on, but Wilson doesn't see it. No, all he can see is House's back and the door shutting in front of him.

House watches Steve run in circles in his cage. That sheepish feeling from earlier is gone, vanished, vanquished with the warm touch of someone who thought he was doing what was right. As the pain slides into his hip, he leans back against the couch, pulls his eyes shut, and mutters a "fuck you" into the air. He tries to remember why he went there in the first place, finds the cowed feeling that washed over him in the face of his own near death—the first entirely due to his own large mistake. The stain of it stares at him accusingly from the floor, even as he has his eyes screwed shut. He takes a medical journal from the table and throws, covering it up.

He seeks out the anger and it comes over him again, strong and powerful. His lips curl and he leans his head back against the couch. He was the one who was wronged here. Betrayed. And all because of someone who needs to take care of someone else. Wilson must be short of attractive cancer patients.

He grins but on the edge of his consciousness he can feel the stain staring at him from beneath the magazine.