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anything that gives my Britishness away, I try my best :D xxx
'Eyes wet, toward…
Wide open, frayed.
If God's taking bets…
I pray He wants to lose.'
{Alanis Morissette: Not As We}
'That's everything, I think,' stated House finally after what seemed like hours later, handing a shell-shocked Wilson his post-exposure prophylactic pills and a glass of water in a bid to protect him against the very real possibility of HIV and any other sexually transmitted infections, the endless swabs that had been taken from every part of him now sat harmlessly in the box next to House, along with Wilson's blood, hair and fingernail samples.
The whole humiliating process had been nothing short of grueling; a stunned, tired, relieved silence having descended over the three of them the moment it was over, none of them quite able to believe where this night had led them. Now, as he slowly sat back on the comforter at Wilson's bare feet, not even realizing that he was slowly kneading his damaged thigh, House could barely take in the devastation that they were sat right in the middle of, the utter carnage that covered the floor, the back of the couch and the door graphically illustrating Wilson's rapidly struggling descent into this.
His cane was lying there on the floor next to the front door, having been anxiously discarded a couple of hours ago now.
It was lying in a slick puddle of Wilson's congealing blood and vomit, the crude observation making House's breath catch horribly in his dry throat.
This shouldn't be happening.
This was all wrong.
His overcome eyes found Cuddy's then, her face a mirror image of his if her aghast expression was anything to go by as she gazed back at him over Wilson's fluffy head, having instinctively wrapped her shattered Head of Oncology in her arms, cocooning him in his blankets and offering him a temporary refuge; the profound safety of which had relaxed him enough to let him begin to exhaustedly drift off and escape this nightmare, if only for a few minutes.
The same couldn't be said of her and House, neither of them able to escape the sheer shock of what they'd just had to do to their friend, as necessary as it had been.
Thankfully, House had gotten the most invasive part of the examination over before anything else, clinging desperately to Cuddy's comforting voice as much as Wilson was as she'd attempted to soothe their damaged friend for the duration, the endless, humiliated tears that had trickled miserably down Wilson's cheeks into her lap continuing no matter what she said. Before long, House was gladly covering Wilson back up again to move on to the rest of his body, determined to take every tiny shred of evidence he could to get the bastard who had caused all this in the first place caught and behind bars.
House didn't know if Wilson was going to go to the Police, but he sure as hell hadn't been about to do a half-assed job just to get the job done quicker, not when Wilson had so clearly lost it a good while back and wouldn't thank him in the long run for putting him through it for absolutely nothing. House wasn't stupid, he knew damn well there would come a time, be that in the next hour or the next year, when Wilson would be unbelievably angry, angry and resentful of anything and anyone that reminded him of this night… the least he could do was make sure his friend had solid evidence on Police records to convict the scum who'd made him like that, who'd not only robbed him of his sense of self, but who'd also dragged two of the people he loved most into what was surely one of the worst times of his life, House's and Cuddy's ongoing, double-edged presence never letting him forget that, both of them forever associated with this terrifying night despite Wilson needing them with him now more than ever.
Yet despite this, and despite usually being an avid fan of having to be cruel to be kind… here… well, here it had just made House feel thoroughly sick, as necessary as the process was. His medical act felt every bit as violating as the criminal act Wilson had just suffered through, House knowing full well that, one day, his leading role in the aftermath would most likely either make or break his and Wilson's friendship. Wilson had never been so vulnerable in all his life, forcibly laid bare in both the physical and psychological sense before House, stripped of any defenses to leave him completely and utterly cut open. Therefore, logically, House knew he was either going to become his safety blanket, there to offer Wilson a safe haven and to pick up the pieces to rebuild his friend back into the man he used to be, or Wilson was going to suffocate under the smothering effects of that same safety blanket, House's ongoing presence never letting him move on from this night.
Either way, things would never be the way they were, and House was utterly terrified he was going to lose in a twisted game that none of them, least of all Wilson, had wanted to play in the first place.
'Go and run a bath and I'll bring him in,' instructed Cuddy finally, her calmly uttered words gently cutting through House's dazed thinking, his perceptive friend and boss giving him the much needed opportunity to escape this, if only for a few minutes, to just get his aching head together once more.
House nodded, still not making a move but instead casting one more guilt-ridden glance at Wilson who was now restlessly dozing against Cuddy's chest as she held him within his blankets, gently stroking his hair back from his forehead. Despite her loving administrations, and his utter exhaustion, the need to just be free now of the revulsion that had seeped into every pore was still etched painfully into Wilson's expression, the energy to move from this comfy spot having drained away as soon as House had said the examination was over, too weary now to think past the next minute, never mind into the next few months.
He looked like some sort of abandoned rag doll, carelessly lost on the sidewalk and broken beyond repair as a result.
House felt like the innocently careless child who'd lost that beloved rag doll on the way home from school, realizing hours later when he couldn't find that rag doll anywhere that it must have fallen out of his bag and running back as fast as he could, only to find it dirtied and torn apart on the dusty ground, feeling wholly responsible for the injuries that could never be wholly repaired no matter how many people tried to fix it, his rag doll never again working quite like it used to.
All because he hadn't looked after it like he was meant to.
God, if he'd just come home on time, none of this would have happened-
'House,' insisted Cuddy gently, breaking through his troubled thoughts once more, reminding him that now was not the time for either of them to be wallowing in their own guilt, not yet, not until they'd ensured that Wilson was sorted. Without a word, he pulled himself up and turned to quickly limp off to Wilson's bathroom, quietly closing the door behind him and switching the hot water onto full before allowing himself a much needed moment of reprieve to gratefully sit down on the closed toilet seat, rubbing his leg hard now, and breathing past the building nausea as he guiltily closed his eyes.
He was going to lose.
And Wilson was going to hate him.
That was all House could think, knowing as he did that none of this need have happened had he just come home and been there for Wilson for once. His patient's symptoms weren't life threatening, she could have waited till morning for him to work out then that she hadn't given him nor his team a complete history. Hell, any other Doctor, given the choice, would have chosen their best friend over their patient every time, especially if their friend had so obviously been in need of their company that evening. Any normal human being would have been there.
And yet House, unsurprisingly, hadn't been.
His intrinsic need to find out the answer, to solve the mystery no matter how big or small, to find that missing piece in the puzzle that saved his patients' lives where other Doctors failed… that intrinsic need to do his job to the best of his ability, placing those puzzles at the top of his priority list, even taking precedence over his personal life… well, that intrinsic fucking need had just cost Wilson everything. Absolutely everything.
Because House knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Wilson would never have been attacked tonight had he been home. Oh, he might have been on the receiving end of a few nasty blows, they both would have been, but limp or no limp, House knew, with quite frightening certainty, that he wouldn't have thought twice about mercilessly killing any bastard who dared to threaten Wilson with anything remotely close to rape, his supposedly beloved career and all its puzzle-presenting perks be damned.
And he wouldn't have had an ounce of remorse.
And yet none of that protective conviction mattered, because he hadn't even cared enough to just leave work for once and come home to be with Wilson in the first place.
And Wilson would soon realize that, be that tomorrow or next week, when he began asking why, why had he been chosen, out the billions of people in this world, to become a victim of rape, why had it happened tonight, why had he answered that fucking door when it was pitch black outside, offering the perfect cover for the perverted bastard to choose his moment as he'd pleased… why hadn't House come home with him like he'd said he would in the first place? Why had Wilson been left on his own to deal with the death of two innocent children, to deal with his failure as a Doctor to dutifully save their little lives, when he had a supposed best friend who was meant to be there for him, to help him through times like that, to tell him he wasn't to blame? Why did he continue to rely on House, when he'd toed the line so many times, almost, almost costing Wilson dearly but never quite dearly enough to break them?
Why had he never learned to just cut his losses while he was still in one piece?
Because that last thought had been true, until a few hours ago, when Wilson had paid a damn fucking high price thanks to House's failure to show.
And House knew full well that his friend was lucky to not have paid with his life.
He was going to lose.
And Wilson was going to hate him.
The thought was crippling, literally so when House remembered that Wilson probably wouldn't appreciate being boiled alive, biting his lip hard against the stabs of cramping pain that fired through his thigh as he leant forward to switch the cold water on full blast for a minute, unable to help the hiss that escaped him when his thigh then went into spasm, forcing him to fall back down again to his seat.
He could do nothing but clutch his leg uselessly as he prayed for the knotting muscle to relax again, breathing deeply in between low moans that were covered, thankfully, by the sound of the cold water running.
Unfortunately, less than a minute later, the close to overflowing tub quickly put an end to that cover up, the effort it took for House to just stand and switch the water off eliciting a growl that bordered on a pained cry, his teeth clenched as he gripped the side of the bath.
'Your leg hurts.'
House jumped for the second time that night at the sound of Wilson's shattered voice, turning round quickly from the filled tub to find him stood barefoot in the doorway, the blankets that Cuddy had obviously wrapped tightly around him before sending him in making him look like a lost little boy as he clung to them, looking so trustfully to House, exhausted and still trembling, his sleepy eyes still raw from crying.
He looked so unlike his Wilson that House found he could barely speak past the lump that had been in his throat for a while now, a horrible feeling akin to grief flooding him as he stared sadly, almost fearfully, back at Wilson. He felt so, so guilty for letting him down and yet so protective of the broken man who stood before him, this quite frankly brilliant man who was everything a best friend and Head of Oncology should be, now completely unrecognizable in his wretched state.
'It's fine,' lied House automatically through gritted teeth, despite the fact that it quite obviously wasn't.
'House, I've been raped – that doesn't make me fucking blind. Or stupid,' shot back Wilson bitterly, the humiliated, shame-ridden anger that House had predicted only minutes ago surging from him in a startling instant before instantly dying away again, leaving both of them suitably mortified in the ringing silence that reigned afterwards in the small room.
House stared at him for a long, resigned moment before sighing loudly and lowering himself to sit on the side of the tub, making no effort now to hide the slowly easing pain as he grinded his fist hard into his scarred thigh. He had lied to Wilson for a reason just then, because he knew the inevitable conclusion Wilson would jump to.
He also knew that, pretty soon, he'd be proven right in his thinking.
He wasn't wrong.
'House, don't go… please, don't go,' pleaded Wilson faintly after an unnerving couple of minutes spent ruefully watching his friend, having realized as soon as he'd opened the door that his worst fear was coming true right before his very eyes; everything about House, from his clearly hurting leg to the guilt-ridden, tear glazed eyes that looked up to meet his, screaming that, any minute now, he would be gone.
Because that's what Greg House did.
He would either run a mile from this, or hit the Vicodin again, both similarly taking away the House he knew and loved at a time when he needed him so much, neither of which Wilson could handle right now, his chest beginning to tighten again as his panic went into overdrive once more, taking a frightened step back to block the doorway and barely able to get his words out in between breaths that were steadily becoming more ragged.
'Please, don't.. don't leave me.. I – I didn't.. I couldn't.. House, you can't-'
'I'm not going anywhere, Wilson,' interrupted House quietly, carefully pulling himself up onto his now less paining leg and thoroughly ashamed that his best friend obviously knew he couldn't rely on him at all, even at a time as awful as this. Wilson clearly knew him too well to expect him to stay, and that knowledge, at this point, was obviously just a bit too much, the anxious man staying right where he was in barricading House's only possible exit as he tried to control his breathing.
House didn't move for fear of sending Wilson over the edge, settling instead for merely watching, with some difficulty, Wilson attempt to ward off the panic attack that his body was so clearly wanting him to succumb to, patiently waiting by the bath and giving his friend the opportunity to seize back control over himself and the situation he was in, the usually taken for granted control that he'd been violently robbed of earlier on now in tattered shreds.
When Wilson could eventually speak, it was to weakly voice a long-term fear that both of them were silently terrified of, that Cuddy too was surely terrified of, unable to bring himself to meet House's gaze and choosing instead to root his frightened eyes to the emotionless safety of the floor; House's promise to not leave him the only thing here that was giving him the strength to say this.
'What if…' began Wilson, taking a shaken breath and pulling the blankets tighter around himself before carrying on a moment later, eyes closed now and clearly more scared than he sounded, 'House… what if I've got… What if the meds don't work?'
What if I've got HIV?
The unspoken possibility hung sickeningly in the air between them, both knowing that, medically, the pills didn't mean he'd definitely be cleared of any possible HIV in the end, both knowing that, by now, the virus could potentially have already taken root, beginning to unfold the festering damage that would at the very least impact horribly in all areas of his life, and at the most… well, at the most the unwillingly contracted virus would most certainly limit his life span, quite ruthlessly so.
It was chilling to even begin to contemplate.
Wilson was surprised when he felt House's hands finally gripping his shoulders then, looking up with frayed bewilderment into defiant, bright blue eyes that were clearly hell bent on making damn sure that any part of his stuttered sentence, spoken with such trepidation, wouldn't come to fruition.
'They will work,' vowed House softly, relenting to Wilson's blatant distress and folding him into the hug that he so clearly needed, the heavy sigh that escaped his friend as he relaxed into the older man's secure hold so wearily relieved that House knew he couldn't leave him even if he wanted to, his voice gritty and heartfelt when he spoke words that Wilson needed so desperately to hear.
'And when you're going through all the crappy side-effects over the next few weeks, feverish and waking up at all hours in a cold sweat, vomiting past yourself, I'll be there. When you're scared shitless every day, when we test you in a few months time, you won't be on your own. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, I promise I'll be there, alright? I'm going nowhere.'
Wilson nodded wearily into House's shoulder, a nauseating array of confusing emotions battling for dominance within him, knowing that this side of House was most likely one he may never see again, but relieved beyond measure that he could be like this, just for now, just for tonight. Wilson couldn't help worrying about House's leg, the guilt he felt at House's possible temptation to down Vicodin because of him, on top of everything else, just crushing. He couldn't think past the absolute fear of HIV, of the unknown, he could barely breathe past the numbness of what he'd endured already tonight… this tight, unusually tender hold was doing more than House could ever know, cushioning him just a little, blessed bit when he was falling so, so hard into a dark, screaming pit of despair.
But above all, above all else, he longed for the hot bath his tortured gaze was now fixed upon, revolted disgust crawling horribly over every inch of his skin.
'Get in before it goes cold,' murmured House perceptively, feeling every undeserved ounce of the self-loathing rolling off Wilson in waves, not missing the fleeting anxiety that flashed through Wilson's eyes as he pulled back to release him, anxiety that House suspected he knew the various reasons for.
'Just let me go and get your pajamas for you and then I'll see what Cuddy's up to, okay? You can shout if you need anything, and I'll come in.'
Wilson nodded, watching House as he limped from the room and making doubly sure that the bathroom door was open just a crack so House could still hear him if need be, painfully embarrassed at the panic that came so easily to him now, panic that arose most quickly when House's presence with him was threatened in any way.
Or when a total stranger threatened him with their presence, breaking into his home and forcing themselves onto him, swiftly taking whatever their sick little minds needed in one agonizing moment, leaving him lying broken on the floor-
He was at the little bathroom window before he knew it, double checking and checking again that it was locked, hating himself for being like this but so frightened of his attacker coming back that he just couldn't help it.
It was only once Wilson turned round again that he saw his folded pajamas lying there on the floor by the slightly open door, just as House had promised, hot shame stabbing at him as he wondered what House and Cuddy must think of him after everything that had happened tonight, grieving for the man he used to be.
The man he was now… weak and pathetic… it was humiliating.
Completely and utterly humiliating.
And as he let his blankets fall to the floor, stepping into the warm water and lowering his aching body into its soothing depths, Wilson couldn't help himself as he took the flannel and began viciously scrubbing at his contaminated thighs, biting his lip in a choked attempt to hold everything in.
It was no good.
He closed his eyes and sobbed.