Keeping up with House
House and Wilson watched people as a pastime. Wilson was fairly sure it was House that had gotten him in to it, but there were times when it fell so naturally in to place, that he wondered whether it may not have been the other way around.
Currently, they were in the cheap plastic waiting seats in the clinic (Wilson wasn't sure how House had manipulated them into that position, under Cuddy's radar somehow), and watching the ebbing and flowing of patients around them. They talked about other things, but House's eyes remained fixed on the room, and the great unwashed wandering back and forth. In unconscious mimicry, Wilson did the same, searching with his eyes for just what it was that House was seeing; the little clues and tells that were later constructed into great edifices of iron-cast truth.
They weren't talking about anything at all really. Wilson found it hard to believe that he could actually hold a conversation without comprehending a single word, but the back and forth was so ingrained by now that that was exactly what was happening. He only noticed when the flow was broken suddenly by House's distraction, his half of the words trailing off as his eyes fixed on a person that particularly interested him.
'What?' queried Wilson, following the gaze with mild curiosity, not bothering to glance across to see House's expression. After all these years, he could almost hear it. House had that closed but interested face on, of one considering a puzzle.
'That's not an injury you see often these days,' House replied, nodding towards the wiry looking girl limping across to the nurse's station. Her skin was rough and lined, tanned in a way that suggested hard work in the outdoors rather than expensive holidays to luxury beaches. Her clothes, whilst clean and functional, were old and worn enough to almost merge into her, until she made a single picture, entirely without mask or camouflage. The limp was neither hidden or accentuated, as much a part of her as the clothes, her whole body involved in the lopsided movement and lean muscles developed as such.
'What, a limp? Yeah, can't think of a single person with one of those,' Wilson commented dryly. House ignored the jibe, with a distracted shake of the head.
'She's been caught in a steel-toothed bear-trap,' House corrected him. Wilson looked again, studying her closely, trying to pick up the clues and solve the puzzle himself first. Certainly, the girl clearly lived and worked outside, and something had given her a hefty limp… beyond that though, he could see nothing that would confirm House's statement. Still, he thought to himself, he'd already accepted it as fact. House always inspired that sort of confidence.
'Why?' he sighed, because he knew it would give House the satisfaction of proving his cleverness.
'That particular twisting of the tendon and bone. They really make a mess of the ankle. Judging by her age, she can't have had it longer than micro-surgery couldn't fix though.'
'Doesn't look like she would've had the money for it.'
'No,' replied House, his gaze roaming again. Wilson considered the girl a moment longer. She interested him yet, but for different reasons to House. She interested Wilson because she had interested House, however briefly. This was a game he was better at than picking up such clues as the twist to the limp. This was the game of what would catch House's dragonfly interest.
His eyes were still fixed on her as she moved off with the wad of forms the duty nurse had presented her with, heading for a chair across the clinic to fill them in. It was in that odd but inawkward movement that she caught the light like a mote in a dusty room and suddenly made sense to Wilson. Here was someone who had had their full mobility taken from them, and a slim chance at regaining it, however difficult, similarly snatched. And yet, the limp was just another part of her now, as much as curly hair or buck teeth.
House had never allowed his injury to merge into himself, still raging tiredly against it after five years. He saw the girl in the clinic moving on, and analyzed her from head to foot, although what he picked up, Wilson wasn't sure. Nevertheless, the oncologist filed it away, just another part of keeping up with House.
Shifting in the mildly uncomfortable plastic chair, House felt Wilson's gaze shift off the girl now quietly filling in forms, and his lips quirked in a small smile. Wilson wouldn't drop any puzzle until he had solved it, however discreet he was about it, so he had almost certainly understood why House had mentioned the girl. It was yet another reason why Wilson never seemed to chafe on his nerves, as all people invariably seemed to. That, and he was very useful for opening Vicodin bottles.
'Is the oncology lounge going to get TiVo?' he asked, eyes back to noting a hundred things a second- that discrepancy of genetics between 'father' and daughter over in the corner, the drooping of the eyelids in that pasty flu-sufferer, the white line where a wedding ring used encircle a nervously tapping finger…
'You serious? Do you think we need any more reason to have you hanging around? Only ob-gyn would be that stupid.'
'You'll hurt my feelings.'
'Actually I was insulting the ob-gyn department, but I can do you too if you want.'
And the conversation drifted on, but it was not their real communication. If you wanted to keep up with House, you had to follow what he was truly looking at.
The End