AH!! I'm back from the underworld known as "musical-production"…aka three-four hours of insane dancing and singing every day after school. I get to school before the sun comes up and leave after it's gone down…aye…sadly meaning I have NO time to work on this fic, but I did manage to FINALLY type up chapter ten. But I'll stop blathering so you can read and review!
Kisses!!
Chapter Ten
Gregory House sat in his office with his oversized, cherry-colored tennis ball balanced in the crook of his cane. He flicked his wrist to toss it up, and then carefully maneuvered his cane to catch it as it fell. It was a skill that he had honed, and he was now quite proud of his ability to do it without so much as thinking.
He didn't even watch the ball as it whirled towards the ceiling, each time it nearly brushed the top; it hurtled back down to land neatly, every time, in the center of the handle of his cane.
A medical text book was open on the desk but he'd given up on looking at it. The name and cure for Wilson's sickness eluded him.
House thought of another time when he'd sat in the same chair, with the same ball headed towards the same ceiling, and falling back towards the same cane. He wished he was having the same sort of innocent thoughts he'd been having then. He wished that the same man was standing outside the window looking in at him, thinking that he didn't notice.
Wilson thought that that he hid his meditation, but rather, it was House who let Wilson have his quiet moments of contemplation, even when he knew Wilson was thinking about him. Too often he saw the far away look in Wilson's eyes, then that gaze would turn and focus on him. Eyes would narrow into a stare that seemed to take in everything, and then they would turn inward, until the whole world was closed off, and Gregory House was all that remained. House realized that Wilson always saw him like that.
Wilson had a way of looking at the larger world. He was one of those people who judged all aspects of the situation, not because of some moral duty, but rather because he was capable of seeing all aspects of the situation; something very few people could do.
But then, there was the other side of his vision.
This was the side that saw House and only House. When Wilson turned his attention to House everything else was shut out of his perception.
Why, though, why did he fell the need to ignore everything else simply to see House?
Because House's desires were selfish and House's life was only self-serving, and that if Wilson, even for a moment, tried to compare House with the rest of the world he would seem awfully insignificant and petty in comparison.
Wilson was infinitely wise.
He saw the truth about House. But he knew to keep that separate and removed because if he didn't he would cease to care about House. But he knew that House needed him. But the only way that he could allow himself to be bothered with House was to forget about all the concerns oft the rest of the world.
House didn't want to inflict that burden upon Wilson anymore.
There are two sorts of people in the world: the manipulators and the manipulateés. House was a manipulator, not by some malicious intention of his own. It was the only way he knew how to live. He was so filled with pain that the only way he could survive was to feed his pain with the pain of others. He needed to live off the other's emotions because he was incapable of feeling. Their satisfaction with him was not needed, because satisfaction itself was such a weak emotion. But hatred and respect were emotions he craved.
Wilson was a manipulateé, again, not by any fault of his own, other than his soft heart. Wilson cared too much for other people, and was able to become too emotionally attached them. As much as he tried to deny his emotions, saying that a doctor could not become emotionally involved, Wilson allowed himself to be manipulated because he cared for House. House felt that because he lacked all control over his own life that maybe if he controlled someone else's he would in turn have power over his own.
The over-sized tennis ball fell to the ground and rolled away under his desk where it wedged under his computer. Sighing, he leaned forward from his chair and tried to dislodge it with his cane. But the ball refused to budge. He scowled at it and tried to knock it loose a few more times before giving up.
House leaned back in his chair, using one hand to lift his crippled leg onto the desk. He massaged it gently, but didn't even feel his fingers as they gently worked the flesh. The wall blurred before him like a mirage in the desert. But, like a real mirage, the solution he searched for was just beyond his reach.
He closed his eyes and felt the haze of exhaustion sweep over him. But the restless nature of his mind kept him from dozing.
Symptoms and diseases flitted across his mind. Each word made him thick with honeyed fear.
He was so frightened it made him nearly nauseous, as if he'd drunk a gallon of molasses. But what was it about that fear that he found sweet?
The realization hit him, not the one he had originally been looking for, but rather this: was he afraid of not find the solution to Wilson's illness, or was he afraid of finding it? Wilson had hurt him so much and now he wanted him to be dead.
God…
He wanted him to be dead.
House
Ice-cold flesh. Fingers, like cat whiskers across milk, skim over the pale surface. My touch so tentative, so hesitant, so frightened. The feel of him sends shivers down my spine.
I like it.
His eyes though dark in life, are still open. They look up at me with a hollow gaze that should pierce my soul. I see the accusation there, and I should be wounded by that hatred. Those eyes clearly say, "You failed me." But, I find no sadness in that allegation. No guilt stabs my conscience.
"You failed me." I whisper to the cold corpse. "You turned your back upon me. You were just another one. Another heartbreak, another pain."
I like it.
Yelling at him, and his inability to answer or even defend his actions. So, I keep right on.
"You should have been there for me. You should've helped me. And that's why I didn't help you. I could've done it. I didn't fail you, I chose my silence. I knew what it was that spread poison through your veins and I kept it secret. We're even now, my 'friend', you took my life. I take yours. Fair's fair."
Still I received no answer from the dead body.
I love it.
I pick up a marker and scrawl on the wall of the morgue. The steel is as cold as the bodies that the room itself holds.
Dr. James Wilson
Boy-Wonder Oncologist.
Failed lover. Failed friend.
Whose blood is on his own hands.
Rest in torment.
"How do you like it now?" I screech and throw down the marker? "That's all you came to. Nothing. You were nothing. You were nothing! You were nothing to me, Jimmy! Nothing!!"
I twist ready to storm from the morgue.
"Nothing!" I scream, turning back from the door.
A glass vase bearing a single red rose is sitting on a shelf. I grab it and hurl it at the wall just above his head. It shatters into a hundred pieces, peppering his bare skin with needle-sharp fragments. Blood oozes out the way it does from dead bodies, blood just lingering under the surface happy, to slide out given the chance.
The rose petals are torn to shreds too. The stem had fallen to the floor broken into three, neat pieces. The petals are scattered over his body and across the ground, like pools of crimson blood themselves.
Was it fair that something so beautiful had been broken because of Wilson's mistake?
My life had been beautiful…perhaps not beautiful…but viable…until his mistake had broken it
I bend over slowly and begin to pick up the pieces.
House awoke with a start.
He knew what was wrong with Wilson.
Hahaha. Another cliff-hanger! LOL! Love! Reviews anyone? LOL!