Chapter 8
House heard Wilson's horn honk from the street below and laughed to himself as he grabbed his jacket, phone, and keys. They had started regular Friday night outings, a ritual sparked by its inevitable end, though that part went unspoken. The previous week, Wilson - who always drove - had complained about having to park and come upstairs and told House snippily that he was just going to honk from the street in the future. It was just too perfect an opportunity, so House had Wilson's traditional car horn replaced with one that played La Cucaracha. His mental image of Wilson's face at this moment, as the horn blared through the song down on the street, made the scheming and cost completely worth it.
"You're an ass," Wilson said as House slid into the passenger seat.
House laughed. "Hey, I had to know it was you… Didn't wanna drag my crippled ass down for the wrong honk."
"It's too bad you're single and lonely because you have all this time and money at your disposal for annoying me."
"Too bad for you, maybe. It's great for me. It's my consolation as I cry myself to sleep in my empty bed," he said, staring out the window. "After the hookers leave, that is. Hookers don't like when you cry… But you probably learned that the hard way."
Wilson fake laughed as he pulled into traffic. "So how are you?" he asked.
House was quiet for a moment. "Hungry, melancholy, crabby, with a dash of playful."
"Christ. What happened to 'fine?'"
"It's a therapy thing. I'm supposed to stop periodically and fully assess my emotional state, and when people ask how I am, it's a good reminder to do that."
"That could get very annoying."
"So can you. Your point?" House reached over and honked Wilson's horn so that the whole song played again in the middle of traffic. "That's the dash of playful."
They pulled into a spot near the bar they'd been frequenting because it had good burgers and was two doors down from a bowling alley. The alley was a hipster joint, but it made for good people watching and was open late. They walked into the bar, sat in a small booth, and proceeded to continue the weekly ritual by getting drunk as quickly as possible before the food came to soak up their buzz. In these goofy pre-meal moments, they were loose and chatty.
"You know what's really stupid?" Wilson asked House, leaning in over the table.
"Button-fly jeans," House answered immediately. "Did you ever notice they only did that with jeans? No button-fly khakis or button-fly tuxedo pants."
Wilson laughed. "No, no. You'll like the irony of this one," he said, his speech ever-so-slightly slurred. "I'm dying, right?"
House narrowed his eyes. "That is stupid."
"House," Wilson chided, clearly sending the message that he didn't want to have this argument again. Then he moved along with his thought. "So if I'm dying I'm supposed to be free from the worries and stresses of life. That's, like, the one good thing about dying. But last night I couldn't sleep and you know what I was thinking about?"
"That hooker you cried in front of?"
"Shut up. I was lying there worrying about all the stuff I have to do to prepare for the actual death. I have to buy a burial plot, a casket, figure out what my headstone should say. So I'm dying, but I'm stressed out about my death." Wilson laughed like this was just hysterical. House studied him.
"You don't have to do that. Someone else takes care of that stuff."
"Yeah, like my loving spouse and devoted kids?" Wilson teased back. "I don't want that to fall on someone."
House nodded. "Yeah, you want us all to be able to just relax and fully enjoy your death."
Wilson met his eyes and smirked, but it turned into a laugh. "Exactly."
Their food came and they busied themselves with condiments and a new round of drinks. "Well on behalf of us sorry saps left kicking around, Wilson," he raised his glass, "I thank you."
Wilson laughed and raised his in return. "To the careful planning of death!"
"And reckless abandon with life!"
"Salud!" they said together before downing shots.
[H] [H] [H]
House sat with Nolan, drained after going over some terrible memories - stuff he didn't let himself think about normally. His leg, head, and heart all ached and he felt he had done his part for the day and hoped Nolan would catch the ball he'd lobbed into his court. It was exhausting, all this "mental health" crap.
"So it sounds like one part of your strategy as a kid was avoidance. You'd avoid the house, avoid your father when you were in the house. That's perfectly reasonable, to try to avoid painful situations."
House frowned. "But the whole Vicodin-eases-my-pain thing is bad."
Nolan smiled gently. "Avoidance works in certain contexts, and certain methods of avoidance work better than others."
As much as House resisted the idea of therapy, he had grown to enjoy his conversations with Nolan. He was smart and knew his field exceedingly well. And because House had shunned a lot of the psychological realm, he found himself challenged and provoked when they had these conversations. He liked having new things to chew on.
"Alright, doctor, enlighten me. Why is avoiding my dad different than popping Vicodin to avoid pain?"
"Well, for one, there's the physical effects of long-term drug use on your body, but since you have very little regard for what you put your body through, let's move on." House smirked in response. "Let's consider avoidance as a sort of treatment for a health condition." Metaphors and medicine… he was speaking House's language now. "First of all, there's the precision of the treatment. Avoidance is broad-spectrum. When we avoid situations, we avoid all of it. We can't pick and choose, so avoiding the negative aspects also means missing out on the positive aspects." He looked steadily at House.
"So I open myself up to psychological diarrhea?"
Nolan grinned at him. "In a way," he said. "Just like the loss of good bacteria causes physical problems, the loss of positive experiences or interactions can cause emotional and relational problems." House nodded. "With your father, however, it sounds as if there wasn't a lot of potential for positive outcomes, so these metaphorical 'side effects' were probably minimal." House nodded in agreement with that point. "But the same is not true for avoiding large swathes of life by getting stoned. There is positive potential in life, Greg. In people."
"You have to say that or you'd be out of work." House was teasing him and Nolan smirked, but ignored it.
"Secondly, there's the accuracy of the treatment. Avoiding being around your father was a very accurate treatment for preventing his assaults. Though it began as an accurate treatment for leg pain, I would argue that Vicodin for psychological pain is as accurate as aspirin for a gunshot wound."
House kept his face steely. Nolan was making sense but House felt this pull, this attachment to his drug still and, in a perverse way, didn't want to sell it out, to pretend it hadn't helped him through hard times in its own way. So just to be difficult he pointed out, "Aspirin helps with pain. Helpful if you've been shot."
"And thins blood. Not so helpful."
"Well, pain relief is necessary while treatment for the gunshot wound is happening."
"So all these years, Vicodin eased your pain while you were actively treating your wounds?" Nolan raised an eyebrow at him.
House sulked. "Touché, Freud."
"All that said, you do have a contradictory tendency to walk right into suffering, at times, and I'd encourage you to consider the avoidance of suffering, when possible, to be a reasonable course of action."
House's mind flickered over the past years and things he had done that he knew would bring pain. He thought of Cuddy and his trepidation from the beginning, his knowledge that it would eventually hurt like hell. But he didn't want to talk about Cuddy right now. He was too tired already. So instead…
"What about Wilson?" he asked.
"What about Wilson?"
"He's dying. He's gonna die. Soon. And… that's gonna hurt. Do I just avoid him, avoid further attachment so that when he leaves me it won't hurt so bad?"
Nolan reclined further into his chair, studying House. "Hmm. Interesting question. Should we avoid engaging with people when we know it will bring us pain?" He sat there, though, as if he knew the answer and was just indulging House's being difficult.
"You see? Misanthropes of the world unite!" House shouted triumphantly, raising his arms above his head.
"Ah, but misanthropes can't avoid people. They just hate people."
"Because they're unavoidable."
"Okay, so you may avoid people because you can't be bothered. They offer nothing to you. You're apathetic. Apathy is the absence of feeling. Hate, well… You still care. And why would someone avoid people out of hating them? What makes us hate?"
"They annoy us," House answered. Nolan nodded. "They slow us down, hold us back."
Nolan waited for more, but House was resistant, so he offered, "Dare I say, they hurt us?"
"Fine, yes, but then avoiding people avoids the hurt. As you said, it worked with my dad."
"With whom there was very little potential for goodness. Would you say the same about Wilson?" House shook his head, relenting a little. "And whether or not the good times you both have in the next months will be enough to help ease the incredible loss you will feel when he dies… well, only time will tell. But - as a person, not a therapist - I'd say people roll those dice more often than not."
"And then the pain comes. Then what?" House asked.
"Often we turn to others for help with that."
House made a face. "Blind leading the blind. 'Hey gunshot wound victim, can you help me with my stab wounds over here?'"
Nolan laughed. "That's not realistic, Greg. That's not what we do. We go to people who can help us with our injury. People who aren't presently injured themselves. People who are experts in healing." House looked sullen. "But you, in the metaphor," Nolan continued, "you would sooner bleed to death in the gutter than stumble into an ER."
House scowled at him, but gently. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"But it doesn't come naturally. It isn't your instinct. Right now you still have a sense of your own power and strength. You did this, you made these choices to detox, to seek help. Last time we did this, someone else was making you and you were far less forthcoming. I'm waiting to see, when the chips fall, if you've really learned it's safe to come here. I'm wondering if I'll see you when you're vulnerable."
House sat in silence for a very long time, mulling over what he'd said. The tricky thing with emotions is that in the hypothetical we feel so powerful over them, like preparing for a hurricane or flood, storing food and generators. But when the storm really comes, we still might freak out.
After a full five minutes, Nolan asked gently, "What was it like, at home as a child, when you were vulnerable, when you were sick or hurt?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if you were sick - home from school - what would your mother do?"
Delighted to talk about his mother instead, House explained. "Mom stuff. Chicken soup. Medicine. All that."
"Would she sit with you? Bring you comic books? Stroke your hair?"
House considered it. "Yeah. Sometimes."
"How about if you were injured? How about when your father injured you? Would she do the same things?"
House knit his brow, trying to sift through fuzzy memories. He wanted to be very accurate, in this case. "Um, not as much. I mean, she'd treat the injury, but she wanted to move on and get past it. She'd tell me it wasn't my fault, make excuses for his temper, and kind of… try to get us all back to normal."
"So would it be accurate to say she attended to your physical pain, but not your emotional pain after these assaults?" House thought about it and nodded. "When your father assaulted you emotionally - embarrassing you, threatening you - did your mother address it with you?"
House shook his head. "No. She'd try to change the subject. Again, move us all along."
Nolan took a deep breath and House steeled himself. Deep breaths meant tough questions. "When you were sick or injured, what would your father do?"
"Nothing." House answered flatly.
"There is no nothing," Nolan challenged him. "Even choosing not to act is making a choice."
House sighed. "Fine, he chose not to do anything," he said in a mocking voice.
"How did you interpret that? What did you think he felt about you at those times?"
"He was disgusted," House said, flat again. "He hated weakness. He hated when people let pain overcome them."
"People or you?" Nolan probed. House considered this. "When your mother was sick or hurt, did he ignore her too?"
"No," House said slowly. He didn't know where Nolan was going with all of this, exactly, but he had that epiphany feeling, realizing suddenly that his dad's lack of compassion, though present and cold and hard, had not been ubiquitous. He remembered him caring for his mother during her migraines. He remembered him speaking tenderly to the families of soldiers he had worked with. He hadn't hated all weakness; he had hated House's weakness. "Just me." House croaked. He stood and paced, running a hand across his hair, over his beard. "He hated me, I guess."
Nolan clicked his tongue. "I don't know what he felt for you. That's hard to say without talking to him. Even if he loved you, though, we know his behaviors didn't exhibit love. But…" he trailed off.
"But what?" House asked, pausing his pacing to look down at Nolan.
Nolan glanced at his watch. "You okay? We have… weeks, months, years… You wanna call it a day?"
"No, I want you to tell me what your head-shrinking little radar is telling you?"
"Okay. I promise I will. But first do something for me?"
"What?" House replied, rather coldly.
"Stop and articulate to yourself, to me, what you're feeling right now."
House felt his lips - tightened into a line. He felt his forehead - creased, his brows drawn together. He felt his bodily need to be up, moving, large. "I'm angry."
Nolan nodded. "And how do you feel about me right now? Do you wanna be around me?"
"I don't know."
"Do you want to hurt me?"
"No," House answered immediately, defensively.
"Maybe not punch me, but do you wanna make me feel stupid, make me feel inept, make me feel like you are better than me?" House was silent. He felt choked up. He had been overwhelmed by a mind full of insults to throw at both Nolan and all his theories. "Okay, now stay with me. How did you feel a few moments ago, before the anger? What I want you to see, Greg, is that anger is secondary to something. Some other emotion causes us to get angry. We feel scared, embarrassed, sad… and then we might get angry. What feeling made you angry?"
House took a breath and thought back to two minutes ago, which felt so far away already. His parents, his pain. "I felt… wronged. I felt… pissed off-"
"No, before the pissed off."
"I felt rejected. Like he didn't want me around. Didn't want me to… thrive." The anger was dissipating. It still felt dangerously close, like an animal held at bay, but it wasn't biting at his limbs anymore.
"You felt rejected by your father. Unloved.
"Unwanted."
"Scared."
"Powerless."
Nolan nodded. "And it makes you mad. And that is very normal."
House exhaled. He walked a little closer to the sitting area again. "But if you don't recognize it, if you don't see what is happening to you emotionally in these situations, you will run into contexts in which you lose control of your behavior. Your anger will take over. The irony of the avoidance, Greg, is that you cannot avoid everything, so it leaves you even more powerless in a way. You cannot avoid all of the pain in the world. And so you have to deal with the little stuff - the small moments of pain - to learn how to cope with the big stuff. This isn't just letting go of the narcotic numbing. You have to learn how to stay in the pain for a little while. What you've been doing…" Nolan shook his head. "You flee or you fight. And that isn't working."
House sat down shakily, his unspoken commitment to try to do neither. "Okay. So I'll feel it. What do you want to say to me that you're scared to say? I won't insult you."
Nolan exhaled a puffy little laugh. "I'm just scared for what you're ready for."
"Ready or not."
Nolan blinked. "It occurred to me that you might be able to relate to something I suspect your father felt, when he ignored your suffering."
"What's that?" House steadied himself, already feeling an ugly prickle over being compared to his father.
"Often – not always, but often – people have the most difficulty watching the suffering of those they've hurt themselves, whether they caused it or not. Seeing the hurt, and knowing you may have caused something similar… It provokes guilt. People console themselves with the idea that the people they hurt can take it. Seeing their vulnerability takes that consolation away."
"Are you talking about Wilson?"
"Are you?"
House leaned forward, propping his elbows on his legs, and stared at the ground. Nolan went further. "I mean what are you gonna do when Wilson dies?" Nolan asked. House looked up at him. "Drive your car into his grave?" House saw him holding his breath, waiting to see if his attempt to push him had gone too far. House liked it. Nolan was aggressive, like House was with patients. If he saw his opening to do the job, he did it, even if it was risky.
"I don't know," House answered. The concept of no Wilson was still unthinkable for him. He laid his head in his hands. "He did break me," he mumbled, forlorn.
Nolan leaned forward and put a hand lightly on House's shoulder. "There's dead, and there's sick. You're not broken, you're injured. This is what I do, Greg. And I told you from the beginning of this… I'm not done with you yet."
[H] [H] [H]
House was playing the piano when Cuddy called him late one evening. "You have a case?" she asked him.
"Not at the moment," he told her.
"Good, because I have one for you." She proceeded to tell him about a patient in her hospital and his mysterious, persistent, and worsening symptoms. No one was making any progress with the patient and she knew House would. "I hope you don't mind. I just don't want someone to die because I'm being coy."
"No problem. It's always the same old story. The ladies come crawling back on their hands and knees for one more experience with my huuuuuge intellect." He listened to her silent response. "Stop rolling your eyes." Cuddy laughed.
"I'm emailing you a bunch of stuff. I don't know if you can see the images well enough that way, but it's a start. I already FdExed you copies of everything, though, so you should get that at PPTH tomorrow."
"Pretty confident I'd do you a favor, huh?" He was already moving to his laptop to check what she'd sent.
"You usually come through for me," she said. He sort of snorted a laugh, deflecting. But still, it hung there for a sec. "You do, House. When I let myself ask you." They were silent for a moment more.
"Why do you have to let yourself?" he asked. "I mean, why is it hard to ask me?" He swallowed, a little nervous about this somewhat casual conversation's turn for the serious. She was quiet.
"I'm shrugging," she laughed. "Like you can see that." He heard her sigh quietly. "I don't know if it's about you, House. Maybe it's me. I feel like you like me strong."
House opened the email from her, glanced over various stats and measurements while he considered what she'd said. "I do," he admitted. It's part of why she was different from other women, from other people. It's why he had trusted that he could let things fly with her. She could take it. She could take him. He was still rolling the idea over in his mind when she caught him off guard.
"Listen, Rachel's with my mom all week because her school was closed. I'm picking her up Friday. Would you… wanna grab a bite? Just, talk a little. I'd like to know how you're doing."
House felt elated, then conflicted, then disappointed in a matter of seconds. "I would love to, but I can't."
"Oh." Cuddy sounded disappointed and it killed him. "Hot date?" she asked, and he could tell she was only half-kidding.
"Cuddy." He shook his head, though she couldn't see it. "Come on."
"What? You might date, House."
"Will you just shut up? I go out with Wilson on Fridays now." His mind tried to find a way to make both things work, but it was futile and he was committed - after the conversation he'd overheard between the two of them back in Wilson's office - to do the right thing. "I don't want him to worry I'm gonna bail on him, Cuddy."
"I understand," she said, but she still sounded wounded. And then he realized that she really did understand, and she was jealous.
"I'm trying to learn from my mistakes."
"Well… That's good. Another time."
"I hope so." They were silent and he was so, so tired. He didn't know how to unravel all these threads with her yet. And so even though he wanted to stay connected to her voice, he was conscious of the risk of tangling things worse. So he said, "I'll call you tomorrow about liver-tumor-with-seizures-guy. Or, knowing me, maybe at three in the morning."
She laughed. "I knew you were the man to call."
"Go to sleep, Cuddy. I'll bother you later."
"Okay."
"And, Cuddy?"
"Yeah?"
"It doesn't mean I don't like you not strong." He hung up.
[H] [H] [H]
Wilson walked into his office and found a file folder tied shut with a ribbon, a greeting card stuck underneath. He opened the card to find a jubilant birthday greeting with a balloon motif, only the "birth" had been crossed out with a black sharpie and "death" had been scrawled in its place. The inside read "Hope your special day is filled with friends, fun, and celebration." He grinned at House's black humor and opened the file. Inside were receipts for the purchases of burial plots, caskets, and headstones. Two sets. Next to each other. He marched over to House's office. House was staring out his glass door juggling his ball. Wilson waved the folder at him. "You're a sick bastard," he said, but he was smiling.
House smiled back. "It was a dying man's wish. A lame wish about wanting to reduce deathbed stress, but such is the man," he said, waving his hand dramatically toward Wilson. He smirked, but noticed that Wilson was growing pale. House saw him sit down slowly, like an old man. "Oh, relax, Wilson. I'm not gonna kill myself or something. I just don't give a shit what happens to my body when I bite it and thought it would be funny to mess with all the people who think we're gay."
"House…I don't want this." Wilson looked sick.
House dropped into his desk chair across from him. "Alright. Geez. You really think I'm gonna mess with you from the fucking grave? I'll be cremated and sprinkled over the Playboy Mansion, then. Give the plot to one of your ex-wives."
"No, House, I… I don't wanna die yet."
House stopped bouncing his ball and looked at him seriously. "I don't want you to die yet."
"But I don't want to get sick. I don't want to get sick and die anyway," Wilson said, almost to himself.
"But you might get sick and then not die, Wilson." House leaned across his desk, willing him to have a change of heart. "This could have a happy ending."
Wilson looked up at him, his eyes wet. "But…" He looked undone. "If I just accept death, I don't have to risk the bigger tragedy. I don't have to fight only to lose."
House studied him and finally got it. He finally understood what Wilson was doing, why it seemed ludicrous to everyone but him. "You're avoiding," House told him. "You're trying to avoid pain. But if you do that, you'll miss this great potential, Wilson."
Wilson looked at House, rather stunned. "But I am dying."
House shook his head with fresh resolve. "You're not dead. You're sick," he told him, a wide smile spreading across his face. "This is what I do. What you do. And we're not done yet."
