This is one of my personal favourites. I suppose Season 4 and 6 spoilers. Pretty serious trigger warnings for graphic descriptions of blood and suicide further down. if you like Gency, follow TheNinjaGirl123, she has an awesome one out!
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The man had a jittery walk. That's the only unusual thing anyone noticed about him as he walked down the corridor of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, his hands buried deep in his hoodie pocket. Reaching the end of the corridor, he spied the door he wanted, needed, was desperate for. James Wilson, M.D, it read. He smirked, not bothering to knock before barging in.
"House, this is not the-" the young doctor began tiredly before looking up and smiling pleasantly. God, that smile. It made the stranger sick to his very stomach. "Ah, Mr Peterborough. Sorry about that. What can I help you with?"
The 'patient' kicked the door shut, before bringing his hands- and his gun- out of his pocket. He aimed the revolver shakily at the stunned doctor.
"Why can't you cure me?" he spat.
"I know you're upset," the oncologist tried in that sickly, fake understanding voice. "But I don't think-"
"WHY CAN'T YOU CURE ME!?" he yelled, cocking the gun as tears poured down his face, spittle spraying with the sheer force of the shout.
"I explained this to you," the idiot who dared call himself a doctor said annoyingly calmly, standing up. "We've tried everything; chemo, surgery, even experimental treatments, but the cancer is just to aggressive. I'm sorry."
"To hell you're sorry," he hissed through gritted teeth, keeping the weapon trained on the other man. "To hell you explained it."
"Mr Peterborough-"
"Shut up!" he shrieked, finally squeezing the trigger.
The bullet flew through the air, finding its mark in the oncologist. The man's enemy doubled over, in too much shock to even scream.
"Remember me, Dr Wilson," the shooter said before raising the shaking gun to his head.
"NO!" came the strangled cry from the doctor, but it was too late.
The man was dead before he hit the ground.
Wilson fell to his knees, his hands clamped on the rough hole ripped through his abdomen. He tried to scream for help, but his throat seemed to have closed up; all he could manage was a whisper.
15 minutes, he thought. 15 minutes as his stomach fluids slowly seeped into his chest cavity, poisoning him from the inside-out.
As he fell onto his side, his thoughts flicked to House. That poor, screwed-up son-of-a-bitch was the best friend was the best friend in the entire world; in a fit of nostalgia, he wanted him here, a voice of some comfort as he slowly died.
Painfully, he reached into his trouser pocket, pulling out his trusty IPhone. As the screen illuminated, he smiled for a moment at the screensaver. It was silly, really, just him and House making stupid faces. He'd taken it at this medical conference in Geneva (Geneva, New York, definitely not Geneva, Switzerland). The entire trip had been a disaster; the flight had been delayed almost 8 hours. Then, the hotel had screwed up the reservation, leading to Wilson naturally insisting that House have the one bed, condemning him to a week on the floor. To add more to the nightmare, House's leg had been playing up, so almost the entire trip (apart from their lectures) was spent in the claustrophobic hotel room, drinking beer, eating takeout and watching crappy Discovery Channel repeats. Just to top it all off, when it actually came to the lectures, House, just like always, offended almost everyone in the audience, and Wilson hadn't realised just how big the audience was, which lead to him getting serious stage fright. But he'd got that picture out of it, and that was enough for him.
Fumbling, he unlocked the phone. Blood-slick fingers slipping on the smooth screen, he managed to speed-dial who would hopefully be his saviour before dropping the phone, his hand automatically travelling back to the bullet wound.
"Yah?" House answered; Wilson could have cried with relief.
"Help," he rasped quietly, his breathing harsh and ragged. "Help."
He listened as he heard House jump up and limp out of his office.
"What happened?" House said as loudly and clearly as he could; he was clearly in an elevator, Wilson recognised the tinny echo.
"Shot. St-st-"
Wilson couldn't take it anymore and let out a howl of pain, which echoed throughout the small office, just as the gunshot had. His hands tightened around his wound, and he just wished for House to get here soon, just to see his face before he died.
Eyes straying to his attacker, he was surprised when he didn't feel even the tiniest bit angry; he simply felt sorry for the poor man. Peterborough was a good man, had a wife, two beautiful daughters... instead of the incredible husband and father they should have had, all they would remember was a murderer. It was sad, really, when you thought about it.
Time seemed to have slowed to allow for his death. Yet all Wilson could think about was House. How would House handle his death? How would House's leg handle his death? Would House go back to his old self-destructive ways? Or, worst still, would he try to kill himself for real, so he could be with Wilson? The very thought of House, alone in his small apartment, with a gun to his head, with a deadly dose of pills in his hand, bleeding out on his dirty bathroom floor, hanging from his closet with a rough rope around his neck... it terrified the crap out of the dying man.
Finally, the door of the office flew open, and House, quickly followed by Taub, Thirteen, Foreman and Chase, crouched down by him. House leant down enough to be in Wilson's direct line of sight.
"Hey," House said, his voice softer than Wilson had ever heard it. "Try not to die."
Wilson managed to smile. He reached up, pressing his blood-stained fingers to House's cheek.
"The other guy's been dead about 2 minutes," Chase's Australian lilt floated into Wilson's ear. "Can only assume he's a patient..."
Wilson shook his head frantically, screwing his eyes shut as another wave of pain hit his stomach. One thing stuck out to him, though.
Two minutes.
How the hell had it only been 2 minutes? 1/30 of an hour? 120 seconds? How?
"Hey!" House shouted urgently, bringing Wilson back to real life. "Open your eyes, stay conscious!"
At the very mention of consciousness, Wilson felt his tenuous grip on reality begin to slip away. Struggling to stay awake, he reached up again and stroked House's face.
"I'm gonna miss ya," he managed to choke out before dropping into the black void of... something, he wasn't sure.
"Get a crash cart in here!" was the last thing he heard before he succumbed completely.
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Prodding.
The first thing he felt was prodding.
Wilson slowly opened his eyes to find that he was on House's lumpy old couch. The TV was playing the Discovery Channel loudly, and a half-drunk Bourbon sat on the unpolished coffee table. House himself was sat on the armchair, poking him with his cane.
"Guess this is your heaven, huh?" House mused, lowering the cane and allowing Wilson to sit up. "Pretty sucky heaven, if I do say so myself."
"I'm... dead?" Wilson said slowly, trying to process the situation.
"At the moment, yeah."
House nodded towards the TV screen. Wilson started as he saw his own pale, dead body, and the other House- the real House- desperately trying to revive him whilst David Attenborough said something about sloths having an enticing call.
"Wh-"
"You get a choice."
House had now morphed into Amber, and Wilson felt his heart ache. "Stay here or stay alive." She reached over and stroked his face. "He needs you," she whispered, placing a gentle kiss on his cheek. "Go to him."
Wilson nodded; he loved Amber, he wanted to be with her... but he loved House more.
He felt himself being sucked back into his body, and the pain hit with immense force. Then, everything went black.
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The second time he woke up, he knew immediately that he was in the ICU. He recognised the distinctive yet incredibly irritating beeping of the heartrate monitor, and the familiar squeak of the nurse's trolley.
Opening his eyes, he tried to take a deep breath, but his lungs seemed to have halved in capacity. Distressed, he tried to sit up, but a weight on his stomach pulled him down. He looked over to see Cuddy with her arms just underneath his ribs, keeping him down.
"Welcome back," she said quietly, moving her arm as she saw him sigh with relief. "You scared us all pretty bad."
He looked past her to see House asleep, precariously balanced on 2 chairs with a thin blanket thrown haphazardly on him; the blood was still on his face. Cuddy followed his line of sight, and nodded sadly.
"Chase had to slip him a sedative," she said. "This is the first time he's slept."
"How... long?" he asked raspily, his voice rough and gravelly from disuse.
"You've been in and out of it for 3 days," she replied. "What's the last thing you remember?"
He motioned for a pen and paper, his throat too sore to even consider talking anymore.
Remember dying, he wrote slowly.
"You remember dying?" Cuddy said, startled. "How-"
House sniffled in his sleep, causing her to freeze. Wilson shook his head forlornly, indicating that he didn't want to talk about it.
"That's okay, just sleep," she said softly, kissing the top of his head in a motherly fashion. "Just remember that you're lucky to be alive."
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Wilson's eyes next snapped open in the middle of a blazing argument between House and Cuddy.
"I don't care!" House yelled from his seat (which Wilson could barely see), clearly agitated.
"Just go home, take a shower, eat something!" Cuddy begged, sounding desperate, as she usually was with the genius diagnostician. "When did you last eat, and that singular fry you stole from Taub yesterday doesn't count!"
House remained silent just long enough for Wilson to announce his consciousness by groaning.
Both of them rushed to him, House slightly delayed by his stiff leg, which had shifted from it's normal 5 to a 7 on his personal pain scale in the past few days.
"If you ever die on me again, I will revive you and then murder you," House said straight away, making Wilson smile. The oncologist let his hand roam and find House's, gently clasping it, prying it away from the cane. Cuddy slipped out of the room, sensing a moment of intimacy between the two men.
"You were shot," House said flatly, pulling a chair towards himself with his free hand and sitting down. "The bullet went pretty much all the way through stomach, rupturing it. After a 3-hour operation where you flat-lined twice," at this point House glared at him malevolently, "they managed to stop the bleeding and sew you up. You lost 3 pints of blood, and your body went into total hypovolemic shock. You get strictly fluids for the next few days, then runny food- basically slop- for four weeks before soft food for another couple of weeks, then you can go back to normal food, but ease yourself in. Don't go eating giant steaks or anything for a few months."
Wilson rolled his eyes, emotion swelling in his chest. He pointed to the sink, sticking his parched tongue out thirstily. House extracted his hand from Wilson's, pouring him a glass of water and held it up to Wilson's cracked lips. The oncologist drank quickly, the pain in his throat all but eradicated when the liquid hit the Sahara-dry membranes.
"Better?"
"Yeah," Wilson said, his voice thin and quiet.
"By the way, if anyone asks, the shooter always had a beat-up face," the diagnostician murmured, looking down.
"What did you do?"
"When you went into surgery, I snuck down to the morgue and beat the crap out of the bastard," he said, anger leaking into his voice. "No-one shoots my best friend and gets away with it."
"I'm your best friend?"
House squirmed uncomfortably, massaging his thigh.
"Course," he muttered. Wilson grinned, trying to hide his excitement but failing miserably. "You're a lucky bastard," House grumbled. "You don't even have to be strapped down."
The younger doctor shrugged, fidgeting with House's fingers, feeling the callouses from the cane.
"I love you," he said, so quietly that House had to lean in to hear him, before jumping back, shocked.
"Wh-what?" House stuttered, confused for once in his life. Wilson felt his face heating up as he stared down at the thin hospital-issue blanket.
"Ignore me, it was probably just-"
"Shut up," House said distractedly, his eyes fixed on his heartrate monitor. "Look at me."
The oncologist obliged, immediately feeling his heartrate pick up. House leant down and held Wilson's eye open, the electric blue deeply contrasting with the soft brown.
"Heartrate increased, pupils dilated..."
House collapsed into the chair, a finger pressed firmly on his jugular. "Oh, God..."
Wilson closed his eyes, feeling tears prick the back of his eyelids. He was an idiot, he'd probably just ruined the best friendship he'd ever-
"I love you too."
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Part 2 coming soon! Please remember to rate and review!