TWICE THE MAN
Part II
Summary: Wilson/House centric. Paranormal-ish. Episodic, sort of. Implied character death. Wilson suspects there is something very wrong with House.
Pairing: House/Wilson Bromance.
Rating: General. Some language.
Disclaimer: Gregory House is not mine, dammit!
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"Hey-"
Wilson turned and was glad to see House walking up to him. He needed to talk to House.
Cuddy needed him to talk to House. "How are you?"
House did not disguise his irritation. "Fine and nothing."
"What?"
"I mean I'm fine and to answer your next question, namely Is there anything wrong House? The answer is - No, nothing is wrong."
"You're miserable when you're fine. Lately you've just been occupied and by occupied I mean disconnected and weird. There's something wrong."
"God, I wish people would stay the hell out of my psyche. There's only room for me."
"As long as you refuse to tell me what it is, I won't stop bugging you about what it is, so you may as well get it over with and tell me."
House stopped so suddenly that Wilson ran into the back of him. "When did you start trying to be me?" House asked testily. "You don't look anything like me or talk like me or think like me on your best day or walk like me on your worst day. And if you were anywhere even within shouting distance of being me, you'd have stopped wearing such ugly ties."
Wilson already had a headache. "It's not even noon and I'm already exhausted." He said.
"Boo-hoo."
Wilson rubbed his palms together. "House. Believe it or not, incredible as this may seem to everyone on the planet, you have friends who care. You've been acting weird-"
House lost his scant reserve of patience. "Don't you want to know about Elvis?"
Wilson looked genuinely confused. "Excuse me?"
"I know we're in public but give me a moments' clarity, will ya'? My case. The case? Patient X?"
Wilson nodded if only to encourage House to calm down. "Sure. Okay. Tell me about Elvis."
House limped quickly away, his shoulders bobbing up and down. "Well, come on. Unless you want to discuss this right here?"
Wilson followed him. House was either going to 'fess up and tell him what was really wrong or keep playing his game. Whichever it was, he had to be there to find out. "Coming."
Cuddy appeared at his side as House entered the elevator. "I'll be right there." Wilson called after him, then turned to Cuddy.
"How is he?" She asked.
Wilson shrugged. "Acting like House; mercurial, evasive, angry - in denial. The usual."
"Do you have any idea who this mystery patient is?" She asked. "None of the fellowships have been able to find out anything."
"I have an idea, but it's just a stab in the dark. Without tests, labs - and we can't do those unless we know who it is." Wilson hoped she would ask no more.
Cuddy bit her lip. Her eyes were tired and sad. "Do you think he's losing it?"
He honestly had no idea. But he knew one thing, he would do everything he could to help House if House was nuts, or sick, and everything he could to prove House sane if he was sane, sick or well. "How do you tell with him?" Wilson asked sadly.
Cuddy looked at the elevator that had swallowed House up moments ago. "I'm beginning to think this patient of his doesn't exist." She cupped a hand to her cheek as though needing comfort from the fear of that possibility. Trying to diagnose a non-existent patient might just be the route House would travel on his way to crazy. "Please keep an eye on him. If he becomes unstable, I mean dangerously, I'll have no choice but to take action. I only wish I knew at this point what action."
Wilson nodded, feeling a wave of sadness for his friend. And guilt. Eccentric, genius, mysterious, withdrawn, a loner, an odd-ball - all things House had been called and all things that more or less fittingly described an such unusual man.
Insane, nuts, irrational, crazy, demented - all terms to describe a man well on his way to mental illness and the probable end of his medical career.
Wilson went to Houses' office to find it empty and that said to him that things were not looking at all up. House had to be sick. It was not just the physical ticks, though House had always had those in some measure, but his most recent behavior. House had ditched Wilson many times but never over something that interested him like this case. Wilson was sure this case must be an itch in Houses mind and since House seemed to believe that Wilson was connected - he ought to have waited for him. Right? Unless House was lying to conceal the real patient, or to conceal something about that patient. If the patient was real.
Wilson shook his head at the sudden pain between his eyes. The nausea the man managed to evoke in him whenever House was on a mystery bender was already making its nasty presence known. That said to Wilson that something was there to conceal. "Where the hell did he go?"
Wilson entered Houses' empty office. It was bizarre. Wilson looked around, wondering where House would have hid those alluded to lab results. If they could shed some light on what was going on...
He started with the desk.
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Wilson read the results aloud to Cuddy. "Two inconclusive's and one indeterminate." He closed the file and slumped on her office chair like a bean bag, overcome with weariness. "Well, that certainly speeds things along. We now have confirmation that we don't know what's wrong with him."
More from habit than the need to, Cuddy brushed aside great wave of her dyed and heavily sprayed hair. "Can you even guess who this mystery patient might be? Please tell me you think he's real."
Wilson rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes with one hand. "I think,..." He sighed heavily. What did he think? Before he had not had the courage to voice what he thought. Now he felt he had no choice and it made him feel like a Benedict. "And this is just a guess because I hope I'm wrong, that this patient might be House himself."
Cuddys' expression told him that the possibility had at least crossed her mind. "He's running tests on himself and hiding the results? Hiding, in fact, that he might be sick?" She had feared Wilsons' words would echo her own worries and now that they did, Cuddy wished she could take them back. "How long have you suspected this?"
"Not long." He looked at her with sad resignation. "Does it strike you as a totally unrealistic scenario?"
Cuddy swallowed the fear she had been harboring. Fear that now had been given a measure of weight. Of course it was possible. It was not only possible, it wouldn't be the first time.
But, "House wasn't really sick then." She reminded Wilson, clinging to that with white knuckles. But Houses' history of off-kilter behavior and kookie schemes also carried validity. That's all this might be, really, she hoped. Just a really, really bad joke. Cuddy wondered at her sudden urge to just go along with said joke and let House fall as he may. So often he had landed on his feet.
But not always, and not entirely without help.
"No. Not that time." Wilson quietly answered.
All the same, to hear it almost physically hurt. The pain of the possibility that House, after the recent abuse to which he had subjected his own brain, was no longer himself made it all the way to her protesting heart. He was a friend. She had to protest until given no final choice but to accede to any other option.
With House it was so possible that the truth could be either, or that it would probably remain a guessing game until he himself decided to let them know which was correct. What did House say once? That at the end of the story about the boy who cried wolf, the wolf does really come and does really eat the boy. For herself, Cuddy took the meaning home; although House had lied a dozen times, that didn't preclude that he wasn't really sick this time.
Goddamn him and his need to hide everything. There had been times when Cuddy had wanted to slap his face and wrap her arms around him all at once. This was turning out to be one those times. "You know how stubborn he is. How private and stupidly insufferable - how can we find out for sure? Tie him down? Run tests on him ourselves? Suppose we're wrong?"
"Suppose we're right?" Wilson felt the old, slow, nausea that followed him whenever House appeared to be on the edge of going down forever. "These are text book labs for checking for neurological disorders." Wilsons' voice went quiet with the possibility. "He's been acting weird - well, weirder. Short term memory loss, confusion, his emotions are all over the place - I mean more than usual." He paused, idly picking at the material on her office chair. "House has suffered a serious concussion, a cracked skull, a heart attack and a seizure and all within a few hours. There may have been enough oxygen deprivation," he hated to suggest it, "to cause some brain damage."
"That didn't manifest itself until now?"
"Over-work, back to drinking again, back on the Vicodin or some combination of the above might have stressed his brain."
Cuddy closed her eyes to it, then opened them agin. Wilson, she noted, looked terrible. "Speaking of damage, you look like hell." But Cuddy knew the possibility was at least there somewhere. That such physical damage might be in reference to House seemed to go against the natural order of the universe. House was a lot of things but over-all he was his fantastic brain.
"Let me work on him." Wilson said. "Talk to him. Maybe I'll get lucky and we won't have to drug him again in order to stop him pushing his own self destruct button. Maybe nip this, whatever this is, in the bud."
"Nip fast."
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"House."
House groaned and rolled over in his office lounger. He'd been having the best nap he'd had in days. "Why can't you ever have a question for me during working hours?"
Wilson, white shirt wrinkle-free and as fresh as a spring daisy, stood before House, his face a puzzle. "My friend is getting worse but he's too wrapped up in something to pay any attention to himself."
House stared up at Wilson with new eyes of suspicion. "Your "friend"." House threw off his coat that he was using for a blanket and levered himself to his feet with his cane and one hand on the chair back. "You know what I think about your friend?"
Wilson watched House take a seat at his desk. "What?"
"There is no friend. There's only you." Houses' brow was pinched with annoyance yet his eyes wide with concern. "You're the one who's sick. So what other symptoms have you been experiencing and why the hell didn't you tell me it was you who were sick?"
Wilson shook his head and sat in the chair opposite House. "House, if I knew I was sick, I would eventually tell you. And therefore if I already knew, would I come to you for a consult? Would I then deny it? Risk my job by lying about it to Cuddy? Plus don't you think I'd be getting treatment?"
House sat back, conceding to the reasonableness of Wilsons' argument. "No to all of the above." He admitted quietly, then sharply reminded him - "You left me hanging with my dick in Cuddys' wind."
Wilson hung his head a little, having good conscience enough to look guilty.
"Fine." House said wearily. "So? Why are you here? Elvis have a new symptom? Is he all shook up?"
A twist of his lip betray Wilsons' appreciation of the humor behind the whole situation but his face quickly turned serious. "He's sleeping more, tiring easily. If it were just stress that would be helping. Obviously it's not."
House squinted an eye in a sarcastic wink. "God, I just love all these vague physical manifestations of this even vague-er disease. I need more."
Wilson impulsively reached out a hand but stopped short of actually touching his friend. "I know. I'm sorry. There just isn't more. Not yet."
House thought for a moment. "Tell your friend to watch a horror movie tonight."
"Why?"
"We need to stress his brain. If something in Elvis' behavior changes, we might learn something."
"Meaning you want me to watch it with him?"
"Kind of hard to see any change from across town."
"Right." Wilson stood. "Okay." He turned back. "You know, this could be serious. He could possibly be dying."
"I know."
"And I care about him." Wilson added. "Like I care about you."
House stared at his friend, the odd statement hung in the air between them, House puzzled by it and Wilson quietly observing that puzzlement. "Well, it sucks but dying isn't just a possibility, it's an absolute." House stood himself and slipped into his coat. "I'm going home."
"Everybody dies?"
"Exactly, even if it takes fifty years. Or were you hoping that wasn't going to happen in this case? 'Cause I hate to disappoint you but -"
Wilson pressed rueful lips together. "You know, I was kinda' hoping."
"'Nite." Leaving Wilson, House walked to his office door and found his way to the lower parking garage. Winter made parking the bike outdoors a cold-seated prospect.
"Hey!"
Wilson had caught up to him.
House shoved his helmet down over his skull. "I thought you were off to Grace land? Remember? - stressing out Elvis; bloody movie; deep fried steak; Twinkies..."
"Umm. Elvis can't make it tonight so I'll have to pilgrimage another time. House, it's our Tai food night."
House seemed surprised. "Oh - right! Elvis can wait - he's probably already dying anyway." House tightened the strap around his chin. "I forgot it was Tai night,"
Wilson sucked in a breath. House had not only forgotten but seemed unsurprised that he had.
"but I'll be sure to remember if you're buying." House finished.
Wilson forced himself to smile. "Will you remember to be grateful? Meet you at your place."
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House watched Wilson shovel food into his mouth. "Well you certainly don't eat like you're sick."
Wilson chewed and swallowed. "That's because I'm not sick." Wilson watched House pick at his food then carelessly drop the chop sticks onto his plate. "You, however, have hardly eaten anything."
House shoved his plate away. "This case is bugging me."
Wilson tossed his own bowl of noodles on the coffee table and shifted his feet. One had fallen asleep because he had been so busy observing House while trying not to look like he was observing him, that he hadn't shifted his position in over an hour. He decided that a tactic other than direct questions might tell him more about whatever was going on with his friend. "What part?"
House shook his head. "All of it and no, not unless you can tell me more than I already know?"
Wilson raised his eyebrows. "Sorry. Afraid I can't help you there. What about the labs?"
"Inconclusive." House sounded irritated by the question. "I need to see the guy. I need to observe him. I need an actual, physical patient."
Wilson very calmly tried to sort out Houses' meaning. "Diagnosing by seeing him? Seems like no challenge at all." He teased. Did House just confess that his patient isn't real or do I just think that's what he means? How do you ask your best friend whether or not he's speaking of a figment of his imagination without letting on you think he may be losing a bit of his mind?
"House," Wilson decided to risk it. "Are you sure you're all right? This case . . ."
"Your case is driving me nuts."
"House, I don't have a case."
"Hey. We're alone here. Drop the secret code routine."
Wilson swallowed the fear rising in his chest. Now he felt really lost. "Can we start this conversation again?"
House stared at him. "You just unconvinced me that you're not sick. Unless this is a really bad joke and in case you hadn't noticed, 'aint in the mood lately."
Wilson quickly soothed. "Sorry." Jesus. What the hell was going on here? Had House run the labs for himself? "Did you run the DNA test?"
"Sure, for everything I could think of but there are a lot of things that have no genetic precursors or markers."
"Did you run his familial DNA?"
"Why would I need to? You already know Elvis."
Wilson subconsciously wiped a hand down his face. House was making him very afraid and more and more tired with worry. "House, Cuddy and I-"
Interrupting - "ALS." House said.
"ALS?" He repeated like a parrot. "Lou Gehrig's?" Wilson asked. "You think "Elvis" has Lou Gehrigs disease?"
"Fits. As vague as the symptoms are, it fits. No genetic predisposition required and he's the right age."
Wilson furiously thought. "True." Late adult onset. Wilson voiced in his head. House was a trifle later than usual but not out of the ballpark, and the symptoms, what had so far manifested, fit perfectly. ALS. Christ almighty. If true, about the only good news was that while taking the body away, it would leave the brain intact. House would still be House - if they could confirm it right now and start him on a regime of treatments to slow its progress.
Now that he had a working theory, Wilson wished he could forget the whole terrifying thing. "You can't be sure -" Please don't be sure, House.
"-No, but it's the first thing that fits better than anything else that might fit." House glared at him. "If Elvis would just enter the damn building, I could actually confirm." House got to his feet and limped down the hallway. "I gotta' pee."
When Wilson heard the door shut, he carefully pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket and, picking it up by its' edges, he placed Houses' plastic spoon from dinner into the bag and sealed it, tucking it back in his pocket. From the couch, he searched for a found a hair from Houses' head, one with the root attached, and placed that in a second bag.
If House was right, he had just diagnosed his own debilitating, eventually terminal illness. If it was indeed himself that his own cross-wired brain was attempting to diagnose. In any event, nothing would be clear until he got these samples back to the lab. Wilson tried to think of a way he might also obtain a sample of Houses' blood without him the wiser, but the flushing toilet put an end to any clandestine figuring for the present time.
Once House had seated himself again, Wilson turned his attention back to the nameless sports program House had chosen for the evening.
He could not help but steal glances at his friend for the next hour, hoping he was wrong, hoping House would be okay, hoping for anything. Empty wishes that House was already okay and this was all just some weird, lingering but temporary effect from the physical injuries Houses' body and brain had endured over the previous six months.
Some of those injuries, Wilson reminded himself, had occurred due his own selfishness. The deep brain stimulation, the metal probe - for Christs' sake, what the fuck was I thinking? - that he had asked House to stick into his skull on the off-chance it might save his dying girlfriend and which had caused House a serious seizure and subsequent coma, was his fault.
I never even thanked him. Wilson wondered which god was looking down at him through Houses' current physical wretchedness (most of that his fault too), and mocking him for his greed.
Wilson wished House didn't have such an aversion to physical contact, because he wanted to indulge a sudden impulse to fling his arms around him and hold on tight.
XXX
Part III ASAP
