Um...back after the world's longest hiatus. I basically spent the day reading bad!fic quotes, so this ended up rather crappy by comparison to others. I also kind of realized Wilson is incredibly OOC, but whatever. At least I'm posting. Don't own House MD, or Wilson, blah blah blah.
Old yellow bricks,
Love's a risk,
Quite the little Escapologist
Looked so miffed,
When you wished,
For a thousand places better than this
Old Yellow Bricks – The Arctic Monkeys
"Who are you?" he called out, voice hollow, broken, small with fear.
She did not respond, but merely continued to stare with a faraway, dissolved, subdued look that belonged to the most dreadfully lost of souls. She blinked, and wounds blossomed and died on her head like great, morbid red flowers, opening and closing like gaping blackened mouths.
"I..." he muttered, at a sudden loss for words as he scrambled away from the endless black holes twisting and writhing on her face. He slid off the couch in his bid for escape with a dull thump, rolling on the floor like a deflated rubber ball.
A wide grin cracked across her face like a fissure breaking in the earth, temporarily chasing off the head wounds. She leaned over him and he once again thought she appeared quite lovely, in a deadened sort of way. Her eyes appeared to get sucked back into reality (his reality, anyway), and her hair hung from her face in what appeared to be characteristically messy blond strands. The grin made her more comely, somehow, and he wondered if this was, in fact, the same menacing woman he had seen in the country.
The grin widened as he stared at her. She stuck out a hand in a genial, friendly manner, eyes not leaving him once.
"Don't hurt yourself," she laughed.
He did not extend a hand, or even move. "I…you…the river…" he stuttered wildly, eyes rolling around the room for some form of protection from her.
"Oh," she frowned, a creased look burying her previously gregarious-looking demeanor. She backed off a little, giving him space to sit up without being smothered by her. He sat, stared at her, confused by her conflicting personalities. What happened to the stony, threatening martyr from the river? She was surely not also this bright faced young girl with the sunny laugh and eager hand.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Oh."
She stared around his office for a moment and returned her gaze to him. "I didn't think you could see me…" her voice trailed off quietly.
"Of course I could see you!" Wilson exclaimed almost angrily. "Why wouldn't I be able to see you?"
Her face merely creased further, burying her features in old laugh lines. "You never noticed me before then."
"You were there before? No, no, I would've seen you," he reasoned to himself quickly.
"You didn't notice anybody else," she replied pointedly, a small frown of disappointment working its way onto her face. "I actually think this is the first time a dreaming person has seen anyone next to that river."
"I-How many other people are there beside you?" Wilson thought of the potential masses of people watching him cry out in frustration at a river -- a river for God's sake – and was immediately appalled by it.
She shrugged. "It changes. So what's your name?" she queried casually, as if the previous topic of conversation was rather typical and stale.
"I'm not telling you my name! I don't even know who you are! I don't even know if you're real!"
She stared at him with her strangely hollow eyes, like a frozen pond with fish roaming beneath the crust of ice.
"If I'm real enough for you to hold a conversation with, doesn't that make me real enough?" she asked simply.
Wilson frowned.
"No. I've had conversations with pillows after long shifts. That doesn't make them animate objects," he replied.
"But that does make them real."
"No, it doesn't. I don't trust a schizophrenic's descriptions because they aren't real. I'm pretty sure you're not real! Talking to you is just making me crazier! I'm hallucinating! I've got dementia! Schizophrenia! Something's making me hallucinate! Maybe House…" He stopped talking at the mention of House's name.
"You don't like him much, I take it?"
"No one likes him much. I used to tolerate him, I guess."
She stared at him thoughtfully and said nothing. The wounds began to quiver open again; she looked like a grotesque, rotten flower.
"Well, I'm not inclined to speak if it won't help you realize anything. If I make you crazier, that won't do much good to anyone, I suppose."
Wilson frowned more intensely and stared at her; a challenging, stubborn aura stuck to his demeanor.
The wounds opened and closed, like doors; as if they were opportunities that he was missing. He noticed that they sealed themselves into white flaps of skin when she talked. It made him feel like she was locking him out of something.
"Go away," he muttered.
"I can't." The wounds closed, tiny sections of skin locking them shut.
The door slammed open and Wilson fell off the couch. He swiveled his head around frantically, looking for the girl.
A throat cleared in the doorway. Cuddy stood there, soft smile on her face.
"Wilson, I know you're tired, but I need some work done around this hospital! Maybe you're not up to seeing any of the cancer patients right now, but can you at least do some clinic duty?"
He nodded, swallowing a dry lump of foreboding that had been swelling in his throat since 10 that morning.
Finally posted, after MILLIONS OF YEARS OF FAIL TIME.
I didn't even really try on the last half of this. Sorry for the crap and the shortness.
Eh, if you don't hate me, then do whatever you want with it.
~Le Person