Chapter Text
Only a few hours passed before a loud, wild pounding jarred him awake. Confused, he looked around. A sort of white-gray haze had settled over his eyes as he looked toward a window, where the bright light of the full moon shone through the narrow slits of the blinds. The pounding had stopped by now. Had that been a dream? If so, why couldn't he remember it? Next, he thought that the source might have come from somewhere else after all. Normally, he didn't believe in supernatural forces, but for some reason, a poltergeist crossed his mind. After the pounding echoed again, this time even louder, he knew it had a perfectly natural origin. The whole thing was coming from the door. Where else? Someone had to be standing outside, hammering away like crazy. Shortly after, he even heard a voice that sounded familiar: "Come on, open up. I know you're in there."
Slowly and heavily, he stood up, walked over to the door, and opened it. Standing before him were two teenagers, with one of them propping up the other. His gaze immediately fell on the thigh, where the jeans had already turned a blood-red color. Without having to think about it for long, he already knew exactly where that might have come from.
"Damn it, what took you so long, House?" asked the one supporting his friend.
"What did you two mess up this time?" he just grunted.
"Nothing, honestly," the uninjured one tried to justify himself. "We were just on our way home!"
"You're lying, Mike!" House said straight to his face.
He knew all too well that it wasn't true.
His motto remained unchanged: Everybody lies! …And he knew exactly when he was being lied to. He could practically smell it. Mike let his head drop and had to admit that House was right.
"Alright, man. We weren't on our way home. …We were heading to Derik's place to score some stuff for the weekend. Then, in Conan Alley, we literally stumbled over a dead body. I wanted to split right away, but Rick said we should at least swipe his wallet. Shortly after, the dead guy's friends showed up and thought we had taken him out. With our little loot, we ran for it. They chased us and started blasting a gun all over the place. …But Rick got hit in the thigh, and we barely managed to hide." Mike confessed.
When Mike mentioned the name of that alley, House swallowed hard. Because just a few hours ago, he had been right there himself to get his fix. But somehow, the whole thing had ended in a fiasco. In his mind's eye, he could only vaguely see a flash from a pistol that killed the guy holding it. That damn bastard had suddenly wanted double the money than usual. House wasn't about to put up with that and got into a scuffle with him. After the guy dropped dead, shot by his own weapon, House had simply fled in a trance with the heroin.
Since he felt somewhat responsible for Rick's current condition, he let the two in with the words, "You know the way," into his humble "shack." House locked the door behind them and walked toward the two friends, who were now waiting in a small room. Rick had already settled onto a metal table with his pants pulled down, trying his best to hide the pain. But his rapid breathing gave him away.
As House stepped up to a small refrigerator, he immediately commanded: "Lay on your stomach."
With Mike's help, Rick laid down on his stomach, hoping he could get this over with soon.
After half a minute, House stepped up to the metal table with the necessary supplies and took a closer look at the wound. Without a word of warning, he poured some alcohol over the wound to disinfect it. Rick screamed in pain because that damn stuff burned like hell.
"Shut up and take it like a man!" was House's sharp comment.
Seriously, how could a guy react so sensitively? A man had to be able to endure any kind of pain. The former doctor knew what he was talking about; for years, he had been living with chronic pain that tortured him again and again. Yet, he managed to keep it to himself under painkillers like Vicodin, or now, with heroin. …For the most part, at least. Okay, having a projectile in your thigh was no joke either. Most gunshot wounds hurt. House knew this all too well, because he himself had been shot… and twice, at that.
Only because of those gunshot wounds had all of this started. If he hadn't been shot, he wouldn't be living this pathetic life now. A lonely life on the "streets." The shooter back then, Jack Moriarty, hadn't managed to kill him, but he had destroyed his life.
While his thoughts indulged in memories, he took a pair of sterile forceps. After grabbing the bullet with them, he pulled it out and dropped it, forceps and all, into a bowl. Finally, he applied a bandage, saying: "You should change this once a day."
"Okay," Rick muttered, waiting for House to finally finish his treatment.
When that was done, he climbed off the table, pulled his pants back up, and wanted to get out of here with his buddy as quickly as possible. Even though they had known this House guy for a year, he was still kind of creepy. He barely spoke, looked at everyone with an icy glare as if he were completely indifferent to them. On top of that, he could truly see right through anyone.
Before the boys could leave the small room, they heard his voice, which sounded slightly threatening: "Didn't you forget something?"
Crap!
Mike and Rick had genuinely believed they could leave this place without being stopped by him. The two turned around and saw House standing right behind them with an open hand.
"Come on, I'm not getting any younger!" House said.
House wanted to get paid; after all, he wasn't doing this for free. It didn't matter what the payment looked like. Most of the time, he received either money or drugs for these patch-up jobs. The main thing was that he somehow made ends meet. Life on the streets was extremely harsh, and he had to see how he could get through it. He could, of course, put an end to the whole thing, but he was far too cowardly for that.
Mike and Rick looked at each other briefly, wondering what they could give him. Their own stuff? Hardly, since that was already running low. Money? The money they had on them was supposed to be for getting more. Their payment options were therefore quite limited. They should have thought about that beforehand. Going to House had been more of a natural, spontaneous reaction. That meant they had somehow forgotten about the payment from the very start.
Since nothing was offered, House finally made a suggestion: "Alright, …fifty-fifty!"
House, however, only harvested blank stares. Man, how could anyone be so stupid? Had they already forgotten everything? There were still idiots all around him who couldn't even get one thing right.
"I'm talking about your little loot! …At least half."
After House gave the two a nudge, the penny finally dropped. Rick took a loud breath and pulled out the stranger's wallet. He opened it and took a closer look at the contents. To his luck, the haul was not small. Because if House didn't get an adequate payment, he would go absolutely ballistic. The two friends hadn't experienced this yet, but they had heard about it from friends who hadn't escaped his temper tantrums. Rick briefly counted it out and pressed exactly half into House's hand.
"Is that enough?" Rick could only ask.
"It'll have to be," was the doctor's icy reply.
House was actually surprised by how much he had taken in, but of course, he didn't show it to the two of them. Five hundred dollars, not bad. He had never received that much before. At least it would keep him afloat for a while. This was hands down the best business he had ever done. Money-wise, he normally got forty to a hundred and twenty dollars. But with this amount, he could restock the fridge with food and alcohol, at least somewhat improve his little "street clinic" …and most importantly, supply himself with drugs.
Without a word of goodbye, the two friends vanished into the cold night.