AN: and again, sorry for the delay. Too much work at the office and translating an existing piece is not quite so thrilling…
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It was the fourth week that House spent in the locked ward. Just like every day before he refused any form of cooperation. Es was just sitting there, staring holes into the floor or plucked away at his clothes.
Great wardrobe! Since he'd been assessed as being suicidal he was being housed in a ward that offered almost nothing to keep his mind occupied. No shoes that deserved that name, instead some flimsy slippers. So he ambled around on bare feet. That was small battlefield. Orderlies put the slippers back onto his feet at least ten times a day and House toed them off almost immediately. No belt, instead an elastic band in his pants. No glass mirror in the bathrooms, only a polished, shiny plate of stainless steel, meticulously set into the tiles of the wall. All windows enforced with wire-mesh. It was a prison, only the name was different! No power-cords anywhere, not even sockets. Full video-surveillance, no privacy whatsoever, he couldn't even jerk off at night without the possibility of being watched!
No music. Well, there were loudspeakers that were blabbing all day long, but there were no instruments. All good instruments were considered too dangerous: Piano, guitar, keyboards. All available literature was crap and all offered activities simply an impertinence. So he just sat there for hours, making music in his mind.
The only reason he got up in the morning was because the orderlies dragged him out and put away the mattress for the day as a reaction to his refusal to get up on his own. House had decided to bet on total passive resistance because being here did not sit well with him. In fact, it was completely unacceptable!
Patiently House waited for his chance. It would come, it was only a matter of time.
After three months in this hell of isolation he was being transferred. Without announcement he was being brought to an US Marshal Service airplane where they chained him to a seat side by side with *real* criminals. Damn it, had they now decided to put him back into an ordinary jail? House prayed for a plane-crash, an abduction, anything that would get in the way of a planned landing.
Unfortunately air travel is one of the safest means of transportation and so House saw three stop-overs during which prisoners left and others were brought in. Only House himself and two really heavy guys remained seated all the time. Where the hell were they heading? East, that much was obvious, but where to exactly? In any case he should sign his will if he were to go into the same jail as those two hardcore-badass bastards. If those were exemplatory for the occupants of his destination he'd never get up from kneeling ever again. House guessed it wouldn't take more than a week. Ah, well, a week could be damn long, but it was a defined span and the end was within sight. Maybe he could even speed the process up a bit? You only had to kick the right guy's balls, then you were toast, sure as hell.
It was dark when he was finally freed from the chains. He was led to a separate car. At least that meant he would NOT be put into the same place as the two bad-os. The two-hour drive was spent in silence, House staring out of the window from the backseat, trying to discern his surroundings and get a clue regarding his destination, but in the dark, all places seemed to look alike.
When they stopped and he realized WHERE exactly he'd been brought to, House refused to get out of the car. This time he did not stop at passive restistance, he was fighting with teeth and claws. He would NOT get out of the car here, no fucking way! But they were three and not cuffed and a lot stronger. Eventually he stood at the gates of the psychiatric hospital of Trenton – just a stone's throw away from Princeton.
House knew full well, whom to thank for this: Wilson. This pathetic wanker was not to be deterred.
House wished he were dead.
House just continued with his complete passive refusal of cooperation. The joint was so alike to the one in Vegas, had House not experienced the travel, one could have told him he'd never been gone away at all. Just the staff's lilt was a bit more familiar – and he had his own small room.
As if all that were not enough, here he had to participate in therapy. Every fucking day for thirty minutes he sat in Dr. Stern's office. Every day half an hour of dedicated non-listening to the other doctor's blabbing, non-reacting to whatever was happening: at times it was exhausting.
House tried to hoard NSAIDs. After the hospital they had put him on non-addictive pain-meds. Since one could off oneself with virtually anything, if only the dosage was high enough, it was just a matter of time to gather enough stuff. Unfortunately, everything was strictly rationed and saving some increased his pains.
Eventually they found his secret stash and took it all away. From then on, they controlled his oral orifice after every medication to make sure he had indeed swallowed everything. His room was being subjected to regular searches. It was hopeless. With good care he might well turn seventy in this hellhole!
On the table of Dr. Stern laid a copy of 'Medicine Monthly' and House tried to decipher at least the upside-down headlines without being caught. His mind was starving for stimulation, for some contact to the outside-world. Maybe a psychiatric ward was not as bad as a jail when it came to House's personal suffering of physical pain and fear. But it was completely undignified and the most cruel form of a coma or so House thought.
"Does that interest you?" Stern pointed at the periodical
//fuck, he noticed.//
"Do you want to have it?"
//yes, you son-of-a bitch! Do I have to bend over or sing a song?// given his current location, the latter was more likely.
"See, I want something from you and now you want something from me. That's a good start, I'd say." Stern had of course noticed the change in posture and body-language. He was pretty sure that right now House was mentally present for the very first time. Even if he did not answer any of Stern's questions, the psychiatrist was absolutely certain that House was listening attentively. Stern could see House's eyes flicker under lowered lids. There was always something to get people hooked!
//that's blackmail, you jerk!//
"You're causing my staff a lot of trouble, Dr. House. They are not responsible for what happened to you."
Already, House's attention began to drift again. So he wouldn't get the magazine. Stern realized he was overdoing it. "Why don't you leave your shoes on? If you do, I'll give you this." Stern pointed at the paper, "And if you agree to henceforth keep them on, you may have it as long as you'd like to."
House immediately left the room, returned moments later, grabbed the journal and left. One hour later, Stern could see House in a corner, immersed in the new acquisition.