DETOX
After House leaves, bandaged hand in tow, Wilson sits down and stares at the X-ray.
He's been hoping and hoping and hoping that House would lessen his Vicodin use over time, but the opposite is happening.
Wilson waited too long to stop it, and if he forces House off of it now, House will kill himself, directly or not.
He could just stop prescribing it; stop making it so easy. But he's wary of doing anything that might cause House to resent him; they're closer than ever now that House has settled in to his misery, dragging Wilson along for company.
And what if House found someone else to enable him? That just wouldn't do, now would it?
He debates admitting to House that it was his idea, that he just wanted to see if House could stop. For House's own good. Because he cares about him.
And then a few weeks later, after House would be done calling him a woman and swallowing three times the Vicodin in front of him out of spite, things could get back to normal.
Or he could just let it ride; it's gone this far, might as well see how it plays out. Maybe House will realize something about himself; maybe he'll see that he really does need to make some changes-
Wilson can't even finish the thought.
Nothing's going to change, ever. This is life now. He either has to watch House die slowly from painkiller abuse, or watch him become a confused, broken mess.
At least with the Vicodin there's a semblance of stability; he's still the same person Wilson's always loved, he just takes a lot of pills and gets angrier a bit more quickly than he used to.
And he limps. But Wilson doesn't really notice that anymore; it's odder for him to walk alongside people who don't limp, as he has to consciously quicken his pace to keep up.
Wilson's mind tries to twist it in a positive light. Hey, they're both dying slow deaths now!
He makes a noise between a sigh and a laugh and takes down the X-ray, prepared to wait it out.
POWERFUL SOLACE
The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night. - Nietzsche
He doesn't know why he does it.
Every morning he opens his eyes, gets out of bed, goes to work.
Every night he comes home, gets in bed, closes his eyes.
Oh, he has small bursts of happiness here and there. A good book, a good movie…
…House, in a good mood. Which happens just often enough to keep Wilson from forgetting that it ever happens.
But there are some long-ass stretches of misery in between those good times. And yet he talks to patients, fills out paperwork, fills the car with gas, pretends to listen to his wife.
Why does he keep doing it? Why has he kept it up, all these years?
Some people might let themselves off the hook by convincing themselves that those good times, few and far between as they may be, are worth sticking around for.
Wilson knows better.
He's just a coward.
A coward whose basic needs are met, giving his mind ample time to obsess over what might be and what never will.
He does usually manage to convince himself that House needs him; for all the arrogance and abuse, House does need him. And House probably knows he needs him, which fuels the arrogance and abuse, and Wilson's pretty much given up on it ever changing.
Wilson could leave, of course. He could, whenever he wanted, if he could just get the courage.
It's a comforting thought.
RUSH
He feels oddly okay about it all.
He got to stand up for House, and is actually suffering visibly because of it. No silent misery for him this time; now people can see how much he goes through.
It was quite a rush, standing up to those assholes, and it feels good.
This job is wearing on him anyway. And hell, maybe Julie will leave him. Maybe he can finally give up trying to do this "normal life" bullshit. Maybe this is the blessing in disguise he's been needing...
It's tempting to whistle as he tosses shit he doesn't even remember buying into boxes.
Of course House wanders by and wonders what's going on. Wilson tells him with a proud sneer of his sacrifice, almost daring House to not care.
…But House does seem to care, and while he still bugs Wilson to do him a favor, he's strangely subdued when he leaves.
Wilson watches him go with a chill.
Maybe House will pull them all out of this mess. Maybe he actually cares enough about Wilson, or his own job at least, to try.
…What if House could get rid of Vogler? It seems absurd, but he's done more fantastic things. And Cuddy herself has a history of going out of her way to tolerate House's bullshit.
Wilson stares into his box of knickknacks, his rush gone, his thoughts clouded.
Maybe he shouldn't finish packing yet. Maybe everything will be back to normal soon.
Now he doesn't know how to feel.
DECISIONS
If Stacy came back it would be good. Really. It would make it easier for him to spend time with Julie, as House's attention would be focused elsewhere…
Wilson stifles a gag. It's not that it's terrible spending time at home, it's just…boring. Julie's been drifting away for a long time already, and it's so fucking hard to care.
But he has to try. This is the life he chose when he decided to live; this is the life in which he's stuck.
Except he never really decided to live…. He just keeps telling himself he really needs to make that decision. Soon. And if he indeed does want to live, he needs to make some changes.
But he just keeps putting the decision off, and more and more years tick by, and he ends up in situations he despises with no clear way out but a bullet. And he has the bullets but not the courage; so here he sits.
He watches House when Stacy's around. He can tell how much happier House would be if he had her back, if House would fucking let himself be happy.
So he has no choice but to encourage it; that's an easy decision to make at least. There's no reason for him not to support her return - using her current marriage as an excuse would be a touch hypocritical.
And his only other reason, valid in his eyes though it may be, will go to the grave with him.
Another decision he's never really made, just lived for far too long with.
PIANO
Some evenings, when there's no game on and nothing mindless enough on television worth their time, House will idly play on the piano while Wilson reads on the couch.
Or pretends to read, of course. Not that it takes much effort; with his back turned, House doesn't notice that Wilson never turns any pages.
Wilson doesn't recognize most of the tunes House plays; and even if he does, House moves from one to the other like he's playing an impromptu greatest-hits collection.
Wilson briefly imagines that House is playing for his benefit, and not just because he's bored.
It would be incredibly cheesy, of course, but also kind of nice to have a song played for him…it doesn't have to be a cheesy song, just any song that House played solely for Wilson's ears…
Wilson rolls his eyes and thinks it more likely that House will play at his funeral.
TV DINNER
He watches the dinner rotate in the microwave. He didn't even pay attention to what it was, just ripped something out of the box and hit some buttons.
When the buzzer dings and the light inside the microwave goes out, he stares at his reflection, comforted by the hatred he feels.
Julie's "out" for the evening. He strongly suspects she's fucking around, but he doesn't particularly give a shit. Not because of the potential hypocrisy - he just really does not care.
He almost wishes she would just end it, but then he would be alone again, and the cycle would just restart.
So fuck it, let her screw around, as long as there's someone else in the house.
Normally he would go over to House's and spend the evening, if not the night. But House has been seriously pissing him off with his insistence that Wilson is cheating.
Just because Wilson has cheated during almost every previous relationship does not necessarily mean he's cheating now. And Wilson had always admitted it to House before, when House would inevitably figure it out.
Why does House think Wilson would lie now?
He sighs and drops the tray onto the kitchen table with an unappealing spat. He flops and down and peels off the plastic to reveal-
-well, he's not sure. He grabs the box. "Country fried steak."
If you say so, he thinks glumly, tossing the box towards the trash can.
Without someone to cook for, this is how his meals go. He does enjoy cooking, but he hasn't been able to really cook for just himself in years. Way too much effort involved there.
Fortunately, this evening is a relatively rare blip. Usually he's sitting across the table from Julie, eating something either he cooked or she brought home. It's frosty and it's sullen and it's not much fun, but he likes having someone to eat with.
Other nights he's sitting next to House on House's couch, eating something either he cooked or brought over with him. It's familiar and it's comfortable and Wilson wants to be there now more than anything-
Wilson stops mid-chew and holds the steak knife against his throat. He considers trying to sever his jugular with it; he considers just making a surface scratch. But like always, he does neither, and is merely comforted by the weight of the serrated edge against his skin.
Because he could move his arm quickly backwards, fast and hard, see what damage he could do. He could do that, right now, and no one could stop him.
He breathes slowly, feeling his blood pulse against the knife blade. He could let it out, spill it all over this shitty microwave dinner that's sitting on the shitty lacy tablecloth his shitty wife bought.
The knife edge presses into his flesh, hard enough to leave gravy-filled dimples behind when he goes back to quietly eating.
It's not five minutes later that he hears the garage door. He raises his eyebrows in surprise but otherwise doesn't react.
When she comes into the kitchen and sees him sitting there, he says, "I didn't think you were coming back until late, so I didn't wait for you." His voice is polite but not what one would call loving.
She looks him in the eye for a moment but doesn't say anything, so he shrugs and continues eating.
"James I'm seeing someone else," she says, quickly, almost as if it's one word: JamesI'mseeingsomeoneelse.
He stops, willing himself to keep looking at his food and not react. He wants to leap up, knock his chair over, knock the table over; wants to throw the food in her face and scream "I knew it bitch! Thanks for saving me the alimony!"
Instead he says, "You can have the house. I'll set up payments."
She starts to cry. Cunt. "James, I'm sorry, I-"
He throws the rest of the dinner into the sink and starts to leave the room. She grabs his arm and before he can yank it away she says, "I didn't want this to happen!"
The last thing he wants to hear right now is her voice, especially if it's only going to spout whines and cliches. "Let me go," he says coldly, and she does. She looks at his neck and must see the gravy there; she opens her mouth to say something but he's already left the room.
He tries to keep from whistling as he packs a suitcase. Paying off the mortgage on this house will be a small price to pay for an excuse to stay with House for a few days.
…If House will have him. But he's pretty sure House will let him crash on the couch for a while; he crashes there all the time, it's just that this time it's not because of too many emptied shot glasses.
And what a relief to not have to pretend to care about this marriage anymore. He'll be the first to admit that his heart wasn't in this one, even at the start; he'll also be the first to admit he doesn't really know why he went through with it. It was something to do, he supposed, and sometimes being miserable was okay if it meant you weren't alone.
He won't be miserable tonight, though. He can hear Julie sobbing in the bathroom and flips off the door as he walks by.
SMILE
Everything sucks. Might as well find something to smile about.
Wilson lies sprawled on the couch in the darkness, House's words echoing in his head.
He makes it sound so simple, he thinks bitterly.
Then he starts to feel a little nauseous thrill. What if it is that simple?
He wants to die; thinks about it constantly. And yet he doesn't do anything about it. Too weak.
But why the hell shouldn't he find things to smile about, then? When you want to die, what exactly can hurt you?
He briefly considers the biggest risk of all, then dismisses it with an audible scoff. Yeah, he could just walk down the hallway and grab that brass ring; and he would also be immediately pulled under the carousel and maimed.
Well, that's probably what would happen…but he doesn't know for sure.
At any rate, no!, that's not something he's ever trying unless he really is prepared to eat a bullet depending on the outcome.
His thoughts wander to his suitcase, tucked against the wall near the piano. He wonders if House has looked through it; if House has found the gun, tucked away at the bottom of a messy toiletries bag. Or the bullets, stuffed a bit more obviously in one of the inner pockets.
He'd be surprised if House didn't look through his stuff, but surely House would say something if he found any of that…
Wilson doesn't know if he wants House to find it or not. He doesn't know if he'd rather have House respect his privacy for once, or barge into his business like he always does; happily annoying and unknowingly comforting Wilson with the familiarity of it all, the implied interest in Wilson's life.
It's hard to decide on anything when you can't decide if you want to wake up in the morning.
Wilson sighs and settles under the blankets; might as well just go to sleep.
He can worry about smiling tomorrow.
LAUGHTER
On the drive back from the hospital, Wilson starts to laugh.
House wants him to move back in. He does, he all but admitted it, and it's somehow the funniest goddamn thing in the world.
In fact, it's so funny he's nauseous. Still laughing, he pulls to the side of the road, throws open the door, and vomits onto the road.
His laughing fit finally quieted, he stares out the windshield at the setting sun. He thinks about Grace, already on her way to Italy; he thinks about his meager collection of belongings, already in storage.
He doesn't even know where he's going right now, and he feels another giggle rising in his acid-soaked throat.
It would be pathetically easy to drive to House's apartment, sheepishly say that yeah maybe he should move back in for awhile, at least until he finds a place…and then he could just never find a place, and House would let him stay there, and they could live in frat-boy bliss forever.
The thought frightens him in its potential contentment; he thinks of how nice it felt to be at House's like that...how he would wake up in the middle of the night, miserable, then remember where he was and fall asleep feeling a little better.
He slams the car in gear, needing to distance himself from even contemplating such a thing. Down that avenue lies heartache, or happiness, or both, and Wilson can't decide which he deserves.
He turns into the first hotel he passes, and pays for a week in advance.
During the course of the elevator ride he manages to convince himself that he'll figure out what he's going to do before this week is up.
One week to figure it out.
He hasn't been able to figure it out at any point in the past thirty years, but surely this one week will do the trick.
He almost throws up again in the hallway before he can get the keycard to work.
LIFEBOAT
Sometimes Wilson has to stop what he's doing and close his eyes.
He imagines himself floating in a lifeboat, staring at a clear sky as he rocks gently back and forth.
Usually a few minutes of this are enough to calm him down, at least to where he can finish his work.
Sometimes it takes longer, and sometimes he imagines the boat slowly sinking beneath the water.
Sometimes he falls asleep.
Today he rests his head on the file he's been staring at for ten minutes and closes his eyes.
He opens them when the lifeboat bumps into land.
Wilson cranes his neck backward and sees House staring down at him with a quizzical look on his face.
He pokes Wilson with his cane, and Wilson smiles.
He knows he's dreaming when House smiles back.
House climbs into the boat with him and uses his cane to push off from land. They drift together, side by side, neither one saying a word.
When Wilson opens his eyes for real, it's dark; he must have been asleep for over an hour.
He leaves his desk the way it is; there's nothing there that can't wait until the morning.
When he gets back to the hotel he takes a couple of sleeping pills and lies down, comforted by the false memory of House's shoulder against his.