Night of the Dripping Tap, Chapter 7
House lay paralysed on the bed. Even if he had wanted to, there was no way he could move. He thought drolly that he must weigh in excess of four hundred and fifty pounds. There was a man sitting on his chest who jiggled when he laughed and a flock of bunnies skipped and jumped over his legs.
Further down in the brick tunnel he was wedged in, House saw his mother. Strange that she would come down this far, he thought then laughed again.
'Gregory!' she called, and House giggled.
He couldn't contain the snorts and sniggers that were exploding out of his mouth. The man who wouldn't budge from his position jiggled and jiggled fixing him with a cold, hard stare.
Flapping his arms pathetically, huge swathes of skin wobbled under him. A rabbit started nipping at his stomach and House tried to brush it away. Damn rabbits.
He flapped again and this time his fingers curled around the man's arm. It felt hairy and strong and House reached for the fingers with his own. He drew his hand away quickly when he touched the cold, hard metal of a gun.
All his senses were confused and he couldn't tell which way was up or where he was in relation to time and space.
'Over here Gregory!' his mother again, didn't she realise the danger she was in? Between the rabbits and the gun, House's body was twitching, and wobbling, like he was seven again and being tickled by his father.
Thousands of cool hands stroked across his forehead and he felt like he couldn't take any more sensation. He wanted to just let the rabbits have their literal pound of flesh and for the gun to just shoot him and put an end to it.
'Gregory! Gregory!' he tried in vain to warn her away but his mother was nothing if not persistent.
'Doctor House? Doctor House?' God, what now? 'I need you to wake up for me now, Doctor House?'
Appearing further away in the tunnel the man with the gun turned and aimed directly at his own leg. The shot reverberated off the closing walls and the bullet ricocheted violently zinging off the walls of the tunnel. House felt his heart pound and couldn't catch his breath. The man was limping toward him getting faster with every passing second.
'Gregory?'
'Doctor House?'
Blood was oozing out of the corners of the man's mouth and the smile on his face formed a permanent rictus. House's heart pounded furiously and to say he was more terrified than he had ever been in his life was an understatement.
Nothing was making sense. There was no logic or reason and images swam across his eyes looping and swirling like drunken handwriting.
'Greg, honey?'
The man was getting closer and House watched horrified as the blood pouring out of the giant hole in his thigh morphed into miniature replicas of the patient with the stinking gas.
He found himself to be tied and bound to the floor. Every muscle he had flexed in an effort to free himself. No way was he was going to succumb to death by noxious inhalation.
'Doctor House, you must wake up now. DOCTOR HOUSE?!'
There was something buzzing in his ear and someone was shaking his shoulder.
'Gregory, honey, it's okay, come on and wake up now.'
He felt the ties that bound him loosen and slacken. He wriggled free and turned away from the horror facing him and readied himself to run.
He sucked clean air into his chest and blew out the sulphuric vapour. In and out, in and out. His heart calmed and slowed and House thought for a minute how relaxed he was feeling.
'I shouldn't feel like this… I shoul-'
'Doctor House are you okay? Are you in pain?'
House's eyes snapped open and fixed on his mother. He levered himself up into a sitting position and tried to blink the confusion away.
'You had a nightmare, we couldn't wake you, are you okay?' the nurse shoved a thermometer in his ear and he heard it bleep out its reading. 'I'll give you a few minutes to wake up then we'll take another look at your wound, see what's going on, okay?'
With a half-formed smile she rushed out of the room leaving House and his mother to sort through a mess of random emotions.
'Mom?'
'Honey.'
House moved again in an effort to shift his point of view. He looked his mother deep in the eyes then lowered himself gingerly back against the pillows, panting.
He closed his eyes and breathed the lingering tension out through puffed cheeks.
'The morphine.'
Blythe watched her son fall back into a more restful, gentle sleep. She watched his chest rise and fall and his head flop over to the left. She packed up her things into her handbag and put on her coat.
She would be back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.