"ROAD RAGE"
Chapter 28
"The Old Lion"
January 20,
Early morning:
Sometimes Wilson feels like a voyeur.
He's always spying, always stealing covert glances; pretending to be oblivious of his friend hiding constant discomfort. Wilson has difficulty pulling off any kind of subterfuge, because House can read him like a book. House always acts the angry, misanthropic bastard when he perceives a hint of compassion turned in his direction. Occasionally, when House's mask slips and reveals the torment that gnaws at his
bones, he always knows that Wilson always knows.
External signs are easy to spot if you know where to look. They've always understood that.
The 'angry misanthropic bastard', however, is a friend; has been a friend forever in their collective memory. So how does the first friend avoid showing concern for the other? For Wilson, a twinge of ambivalence has always compromised his moments of: 'I didn't see a thing'. It has always halted him in his tracks with an annoying sense of obligation.
"Our friendship is an ethical responsibility."
Observing an angry, misanthropic bastard who experiences too much physical pain might cause second thoughts when the drugs come out ... but only for a moment. This is a man with a cruel disability whose emotions are laid bare beyond the capacity to control. He needs the pills to survive. Ergo: pills (for pain) and accompanying booze (for oblivion), are killing him by inches. Mounting evidence of this over the years, has caused even informed medical professionals to cringe.
When Wilson sometimes dares to mention this obvious fact, he always catches royal hell for it. Sometimes he doesn't understand why he catches royal hell from everyone he knows, but he mentions it anyway.
Such moments are often humbling. He knows he is an enabler. When House's face is ashen and his eyes red-rimmed with strain, Wilson brings him his Vicodin and pours him a stiff glass of whatever is handy.
Ergo: Enabler.
House's breathing comes in gasps; muscles rigid from hiding distress and retreating from reality. His hands gravitate to the scar, transmitting meager warmth to get the situation under control. He sometimes seems to exist inside a private forest fire that licks at a bed of dry leaves, searching for the roots.
House is an old lion, suffering from an old wound, growling and biting at the source of the fire; diverting stares from curious eyes. All his life he has been a menace to lesser creatures. He is surrounded by rabbits, hiding and watching and judging, but voiceless except far beyond his hearing. And then they squeal.
Wilson sometimes feels like one of the rabbits, hesitating for having laid witness to such a sad display, even when it plays out before his eyes. He will offer assistance in a non-patronizing manner if he can, which will put him in peril of being rebuffed, because the old lion exists in mortal fear of solicitousness. Wilson will reach out regardless. This ritual has gone down before and he has always been aware of the consequences.
Considerations and contradictions aside, exasperation resides within the heart of James Wilson.
Exasperation.
Not with House, the old lion, but with fate.
Wilson wishes, not for the first time in this long friendship, that just once cruel fate might act in a different manner for this old lion, still trying to hold off the fire.
Just once!
oooooooo
Standing in the bathroom doorway with a damp towel wrapped loosely around his hips, James Wilson stared across the room in dismay at Gregory House.
Tangled in bed linens, House struggled to straighten surgically impaired muscles to their best length. His hand gripped the damaged flesh, crushing the skin. House, the old lion, surrounded by fire, labored with old wounds while the forest burned and the rabbits' eyes stared and grew wide. Stretching his leg to its limits was one of the methods he would sometimes use in order to seek a short span of relief. Abuse the abused muscles until the strain outreaches the pain. It was useless and made no sense.
From his ragged breathing and fists clenched in the bed sheets, House was not getting the desired effect. His back arched above the mattress, struggling, forcing wakefulness.
Wilson sighed. Hesitant about what to do, if anything, he knotted the damp towel more securely around his waist and stepped across to the bed. He stood over it, looking down.
"House. Stop! Give me a number." It was the single, most practical method he could think of to get a few scraps of information without House grating at him to get the hell away and leave him alone.
"Sixteen … " came the muted, sarcastic response. "… and counting."
Wilson dropped to his knees on the floor and reached to untangle the tight ropes of bedding from House's legs.
"What are you doing?" House moaned.
"Trying to get you loose from the damn sheets," Wilson said. "Hold still so I can pull 'em off you …."
A period of silence punctuated by short intakes of breath accompanied Wilson's attempts to free House's feet and ankles from the tangle. Finally they slipped away and Wilson tossed the bundle aside. "Jesus! What were you doing … running a marathon?"
"Yeah, right … I wish!" House heaved himself around to flop on his back and point to the chair by the bedside table. "The morphine kit," he panted. "It's in the inside pocket of the overnighter …"
"No, House … God no!"
Wilson's refusal to take the easy solution brought the full force of House's anger.
"I'm in pain, damn you! It's the only thing that works." He tried to force himself to a sitting position, pushing with uncanny upper-body strength upon Wilson's restraining hands against his shoulders. "Get me the morphine or get the fuck out of my way!"
House's response came exactly as Wilson had predicted it would.
"No!" He snarled. "It's too soon after the last one. You're killing yourself!"
"Fuck it! I'd rather be dead than put up with this. It's inhuman …"
"Don't be such a baby!" Wilson hissed between his teeth, declining to raise his voice and take the chance of Blythe overhearing. "Lie back and let me try some deep-muscle stimulation …"
House turned feverish eyes to Wilson's emotion-flushed face for a moment. Finally, hesitating, he glared at his friend and snarled, lion-like: "You're no good at this!"
Wilson stood poised on both knees at the side of the bed. "I can try. Hold still so I can reach you!"
"Hurry up and get on with it then, or get out!"
The oncologist's hands were gentle at first, then his fingertips bit into the skin, pushing House's desperate grasp out of the way. Each hand formed an arc that, when Wilson's thumbs and fingers closed in, made a circle that nearly surrounded House's leg just above the knee. Slowly he tightened his grip. He had no difficulty completing the circle with his fingers.
"Ingrid showed me how to do this," Wilson grunted. "I don't have the experience or the grip that she does, so it may take a little longer …"
"It also might help if you spent more time doing … and less time talking …" House growled.
Wilson applied more pressure and moved closer to his left, palpating the tight surface
of House's thigh in ever-tightening increments. He alternated gripping and loosening
his long fingers in a rapid motion that resembled that of a manual blood-pressure cuff. Working to relax deeply corded tendons, he watched closely as House writhed beneath his touch, beyond conversation now, upper body straining to remain still beneath Wilson's grasp.
Wilson's own wrist ligaments were tiring quickly as he worked, and he had to pause often to rest and flex his fingers. He could feel sweat beading and itching on his forehead already. He wasn't used to this, and it wasn't long before he began to cramp and freeze up. His skin felt clammy. Deep muscle massage wasn't as easy as it looked when he'd seen Ingrid doing it with such professional ease.
Again and again he eased off and then returned to tighter palpations near, around and above the angry scar that disfigured House's thigh. Using the heels of both hands Wilson changed his attack to ease his aching wrists, kneading downward across the unyielding tissue. He could feel a deep burning pain traveling upward and into his shoulders. He was sweating copiously, becoming sore enough to want to quit this losing battle, admit defeat, and reach for the morphine. It felt more and more as though someone were repeatedly shooting staples into his biceps.
Wilson backed off a moment to let the burning sensations fade, and then renewed his attack. His fingers and thumb tips searched desperately for any sign of release from the damaged biceps femoris; some indication of progress before his aching arms went completely numb.
Finally he detected a faint jerk of response from the muscle group; House's adductors giving up the fight, backing off beneath his determined, mulish attack. He could discern the rock-hard consistency of spasming nerves and sinew beneath his hands beginning to unhinge.
The final release allowed his fingertips to make shallow white dimples in the skin as it relaxed into submission in tiny increments, relaxing back to normal consistency of skin and muscle and tissue.
The effort was finally working. Ingrid had taught him well. Wilson the novice felt as though he'd been at it for hours. How long had it really been? Maybe two or three minutes? He must stick with it a little longer, although the angry burn in his arms would soon paralyze them, making them buzz like particle accelerators, compressing the tendons and gluing his fingers to his palms. He could feel the drone that would close down tactile sensation. He was not sure if he had enough stamina to hold out before both forearms and hands became useless.
Then it was over.
A noticeable shift in House's rigid back indicated a slow release from the crippling muscular spasms. Wilson saw that his friend was able to lie flat on the mattress.
There was silence in the room. Both their bodies were spent. Wilson wilted backward, landing on his butt beside the bed. Above him, House lay gasping with relief.
The burn in Wilson's arms flared and then gradually abated as his system shot endorphins to combat the pain of release. He let himself slump, doubling up weakly beside the bed. His biceps twitched as they loosened, like an overheated car engine ticking down. The towel at his waist had slipped a few inches and a sensationless forearm lay slack across his lap, pinning it in place.
At that moment he was incapable of anything, including movement. He let his head fall onto the edge of the mattress, and leaned there catching his breath. His hair, plastered to his head, was saturated with sweat. Rivulets trickled down his forehead and fell in fat droplets from his nose and chin. He had no strength to wipe them away.
House remained silent and motionless also, except for deep, rough breathing that was leveling out to normal as they both struggled to recover.
"Wilson-n … I –I …" House managed a guttural whisper.
James nodded without making any effort to answer. The quiet manner in which his
name had just been spoken was probably all the 'thank you' he would ever receive.
He smiled a little and let his chin drop onto his chest.
Moments later Wilson felt the touch of hesitant fingers brush across his wet hair at the spot where his forehead made a wet patch on edge of the sheet.
Familiar mockery returned.
"Wilson … you stink.
"So do you."
"But you stink worse. Besides, it was your snoring that woke me up and made my leg go into spasm."
Wilson smiled weakly. "Bullshit!"
Even through diminishing pain, House placed the blame squarely on his friend's head.
No surprises there.
The old lion was still fighting the forest fire.
oooooooo
They made an appearance in the kitchen at 8:30 a.m.
Blythe had a pot of coffee ready to pour, and was removing a frying pan from the island cupboard.
Wilson walked into the kitchen a few steps ahead of House, not wanting to appear as though he were hovering.
House followed behind, a little wobbly. His hand gripped the cane like the jaws of a vise. "'Morning, Mom," he said with a disarming grin, and then shambled to the island where his bottle of Vicodin still sat beside the coffee pot.
"Good morning, Gregg," she replied with a sidelong glance to Wilson, who could do nothing except make a helpless face and shrug minutely with one corner of his mouth. "Good morning, James. Did you boys sleep well?"
House uncapped the bottle and allowed two of the white pills to drop into his palm. He tilted his head back and swallowed them dry. "Yup. Slept fine until Wilson woke me up banging around in the bathroom …" He lowered his eyes quickly, not wishing to see the look of incredulity she would cast in his direction.
Blythe angled her head at him and looked over the tops of her glasses. "Gregory House,"
she said at last, "you lie like a rug. Other people might be fooled by your Claymation face-making, but you grew up in my house, and I know all your tricks. Please stop treating me like one of your duller patients, because you look like death warmed over. Again."
He risked a glance upward, over-bright eyes darting between his mother and his friend, perhaps wishing for rescue from having to give comment. But Wilson's dark eyes grew darker, lips pursed, eyebrows drawn together. No help there.
House turned away from the island and moved determinedly to the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair and sat down. He would not clamp his hand around the scar, even if his leg fell off. He hooked his cane over the back of the chair and placed both hands on the table before him.
"Mom … I'm fine. Really. I had a muscle spasm this morning, but it's eased off now. You and I haven't seen much of each other the past ten years or so, and it's pretty much a different world for me now. I didn't want to come on this trip because I know how you worry. I'm a cripple, Mom. The pain comes and goes, and I have to deal with it." His gaze was downcast, purposely not looking into her face, afraid of seeing a teary reaction.
No matter how desperately he would have liked to do so, he could not tell her of the frightening dreams that had demolished his sleep and brought him to the point of struggling helplessly on his bed. Many of those dreams caused him to twist and turn
until he became tangled in sheets and blankets to the point of causing spasms.
Blythe sat down beside her son and placed her palm lightly upon his left forearm. "Gregg …"
He lifted his eyes to her in an instant of wild-animal panic. She squeezed his wrist briefly and then released it. Blythe House was not teary. She was determined. "I'm not the timid creature I was when you were a child, Gregg. I grew some backbone over the last few years when your father found out he couldn't rule me any longer. Things got a little better before he began to fail. I knew we'd have to wait you out until you decided to come home again, and I think I have James to thank for that ..." She smiled at Wilson across the room.
"I still wish you hadn't waited until your father was gone. The last few years he came to appreciate your position. He wouldn't have grilled you or teased you about it. He read as many articles as he could find about disabilities like yours. He tried very hard to understand. Some things did happen for the better between the two of us. It might be difficult for you to talk about many of those difficult times, but we have to resolve them ... soon."
Blythe lowered her tone of voice to a gentler volume, but continued before he could interrupt her. "I'm beginning to believe this place … here … these surroundings … are bringing back bad memories of your childhood. These aren't like the physical settings where we lived when you were a boy, but the atmosphere is similar. You remember the furniture, the rugs, the pictures, the piano. I think you're looking for your father's ghost. You're not sleeping well, are you? Is it because you're experiencing nightmares, and that's what sets off the pain and the spasms?"
He frowned, but didn't look away. His eyes shifted downward.
"Looking for my father's ghost?" Jesus, I've already found that …
"Mom … I don't think I can talk about any of this …"
"Oh yes you can. Gregory, you have to."
"Is that what happened to you this morning?" Wilson asked quietly from across the room.
House glanced up, face dark with sudden anger.
"That's none of your business."
"If it's not my business, then whose? It's our business, House. All three of us. Don't start getting defensive now. She may be onto something. She is, isn't she?"
"What happened this morning, James?" Blythe's brows were furrowed, eyes snappish.
There would be hell to pay if they didn't tell her.
"I had a spasm, Mom, a bad one," House finally interrupted. It was breakthrough pain because I couldn't move and I needed to scream. Wilson here, tied my leg in a knot with his bare hands … and the damn thing went away. Miracle worker!"
"Is that how you say 'thank you' to a friend?" Her tone was teasing, but there was smelted pig iron in her expression and bearing.
House snorted. "If he'd minded his own business, I wouldn't even have had to say that.
I would have just got out my stash and been a very happy boy this morning. Instead, he stands over there with arms of lead, fingers that barely work, and he looks like he's going to fall down any minute."
House looked up, parrying his attention back and forth between them. "I could use a cup of coffee … or maybe something a lot stronger."
They backed off; he had diffused the situation with nonsense. "I think Wilson could probably use a Vicodin."
oooooooooooo
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