Chapter Twenty-One: Closer
"Help me, I've broke apart my insides…
Help me, I've got no soul to sell…"
House tried to figure out how many hours it had been since Wilson had been taken, but the numbers got fuzzy in his head, didn't compute and weren't even legible. It didn't matter whether they were minutes or hours or days; it all felt the same, the realization crawling over him like scorpions or centipedes, the knowledge that Wilson's chances of coming out of this were pretty slim.
But the statistical part, the idea that Wilson would likely die, wasn't what was really bothering him. He was a doctor. People died every day. Even Kutner had died. He himself had gotten damn close.
It was the uncertainty, the idea that there was something unknowable, unthinkable happening to Wilson.
Pain. Maybe that was the word that danced evilly across House's brain like Salome dancing for the head of John the Baptist. House had lived with pain for so much of his recent life, courted it like a wife that had been thrust upon him due to some sort of shotgun engagement. He had never wanted that drawn around Wilson, drawn around him like a noose. He'd always told Wilson that he didn't understand, and he never wanted him to.
The fellows could wonder and Tritter and his partner could try and help, but they wouldn't get it. House doubted even Amber could. Not really. But Amber was closest to understanding it, and that was why she was the woman sitting across from him right now. Not speaking, just sitting, drinking a coffee in House's apartment.
"What do you think?" House asked. Four little words that meant nothing and everything.
Amber reached out and placed her hand on top of House's. An unimaginable gesture before. Before this horrible thing brought them together. House hated it. He wanted to fling his hand away but it all seemed terribly juvenile. He could do juvenile; but only when Wilson had been there to watch it, to comment and shake his head and tell House that he was being ridiculous. Or the few times it had seemed as if Wilson had finally had enough and it seemed as if he would tell House to go fuck off and die already, to drown in his own self-destruction.
Like the times with Tritter.
How oddly things came together, bled together. Memories. Polaroids. Dreams.
He thought of how close he and Wilson had always been. All the quips about how they were or should be a couple. Maybe they should've been. Maybe that would have saved Wilson from Lucas' wrath; Lucas could have had Cuddy and… But no. That'd be wrong. Knowing Lucas' capacity for violence now, House couldn't do anything but cringe at the thought of he and Cuddy together.
The phone ringing cut into his thoughts. It was the bland tone that House's phone had defaulted to for "unknown caller".
House's breath caught in his throat. Maybe it was a hospital or the police, saying that Wilson had been dropped off safe and sound.
That was unlikely, so very unlikely, but part of his mind still clung to it before Amber gave him a look that demanded he pick the damn phone up already and answer it, see one way or another who it was. He scooped it up into his hand and pressed the "answer" button.
"House," he announced.
"Hello, House." It was Lucas' voice. Lucas' trademark snarl with all of the newly deep-seated evil in it.
"Where's Wilson?" House yelled into the receiver. He'd always watched those hostage movies and said sarcastic things like, "You think he's going to tell you?" But now, he couldn't think of much better or wittier or more intelligent to say. He just wanted to know that Wilson was still alive and breathing, even if he were damaged.
Because House was damaged anyway and Amber was damaged too but they could put Wilson back together, they could try. They could always try as long as Wilson was still alive.
"House," Amber hissed, "Is it…?"
House nodded ever so slightly, as if wary of Lucas picking up on any unnecessary movement and springing into action.
"Wilson is with me, House."
Well, House told himself, at least he said Wilson is, as opposed to… Wilson was, or whatever he'd say if Wilson… weren't, anymore.
"What do you want, Lucas?" House continued. "Whatever you want… your problem is with me. It isn't with Wilson, so why don't you just let Wilson go and we can figure all of this out. Like men."
Lucas' laugh ricocheted through the phone line. It was like shrapnel. House's skin crawled.
"Why, how exciting, House! I was just about to explain the same thing. Listen to my instructions. If you don't listen to me… Wilson dies. And he dies screaming. Am I clear?"
"Crystal," House mumbled.
"Bring the girl, too. Wilson's little girlfriend."
"Don't involve her in this." House felt like he was trying to be one of those hard men, those tough men in those movies, again. It was all so cliché, all so scripted. So fake, but this was real. It was all real.
"She was in it the first second she heard your name, House." Lucas laughed. An evil laugh. "You're going to listen to me now, House."
House tried not to sigh, but Lucas obviously had a few screws loose; if he hadn't had Wilson in his possession, House would have told him, too.
Instead, he said, "I'm listening. What do you want me to do?"
"Walk out your door to the end of the road. Go up to Main Street. Take the number 415 bus to the fifth stop. Get off. I'll find you there."
"And then we get Wilson?"
But the line had already gone dead.
Nine Inch Nails, "Closer", The Downward Spiral.