It had been four weeks since House had left Wilson all alone on his porch with tears running down his cheeks and an aching heart. Four weeks of awkward runins with his former boyfriend, of Cuddy demanding the two of them to fix whatever it was that was going on between the two men. Of course House had been too stubborn to do much about it - let alone look at Wilson.
Wilson had tried to move on - honestly, he really had - he had continued to go to play rehearsal, cook himself lunch and dinner, but his beaming smile hadn’t reappeared ever since that night. He felt terrible - not that surprising, after all, he had been dumped - and it hadn’t helped that Todd hadn’t contacted him again - nor any other members of the Dead Poets Society. The oncologist did try to keep himself healthy - even if it was just in case House changed his mind - but the last few days, he couldn’t be bothered to go to the shop and buy himself food. His breakfast now consisted out of a single cookie, his lunch was a bag of chips and his dinner whatever he could find in his cubboard, most of the time penne pesto. His diet was one-sided, always the same and extremely unhealthy. Nobody in the hospital had seemed to notice - not yet at least.
It had been an extrememly hard day when he found himself in his office staring at a bottle of gin. His patient had died - another one on the list of people for him to mourn - and House had been extremely mean, suggesting his attempt at suicide to the Ducklings.
He poured himself a first glass and downed it in mere seconds. He didn’t even hesitate to pour a second one and after that one - well - after that one he was hooked. Naturally, that was the moment House decided to burst into his office, for the first time in weeks. The man barely glanced at him while he demanded his help for a consult on his latest case. A consult of all cases. Wilson wanted to refuse, to tell the man to go fuck himself, but House would probably take that literally and ruin his attempt at being cross with the diagnostician.
The oncologist managed to slurr something - even if it wasn’t really what he wanted.
“Go away, House.”
“You’re drunk.” The adressed man stated. “How much have you had to drink?”
Wilson quickly grabbed the bottle from his desk, but due to his poor horrible hand-eye coordination - thanks alcohol - he dropped it to the ground, where it shattered on impact.
“Don’t move.” House ordered - why did he always order him? - as he rushed to the place where the bottle had fallen to the ground. He cleaned up as much as he could before he helped Wilson on his feet. “We’re getting you home.”
With his hands on Wilson’s ribs, the oncologist felt himself getting aroused - he hadn’t been touched since that night. House lead him out of his office, through the main entrance of the hospital, straight to the man’s car. When Wilson glanced over, he could see the empty look on the diagnostician’s face. There was nothing left of the love that had been once there. No love, no friendship, not the slightest sign that he had once cared for the man in his arms. House limped alongside him as he got to the car and made sure Wilson was buckled up. Then he got in the driver’s seat and took off.
In his head, Wilson could see a plan forming. He would, once he was inside, run for his closet, where he kept his gun. He would make Gregory House regret that he let the oncologist slide through his fingers. He wouldn’t kill the man, just scare him enough to get him away, to get him out of his life. Should he consider leaving the hospital - leaving all this behind? Maybe, if he survived tonight that was.
Before he even realized, House had parked the car. Wilson slowly got out, giving House the impression that he was more drunk than he actually was.
Once House had brought him to his living room, he pretended to collapse on his sofa. House brought him a big glass of water and made him drink every last drop of it.
“Alright James Evan Wilson. How long have you been neglecting yourself?”
The oncologist looked up, a frown on his face. “What the hell do you mean?”
“Do you honestly think that I would not feel how much weight you’ve lost when I have my hands on your ribs? Honestly, James, do you really think that I stopped caring just because you did something stupid?” When Wilson didn’t react to that statement, House sighed. “Who died?”
Wilson softly muttered a reply - something which seemed to please House.
“James, you’ve got to understand this - dear Lord, why do you continue to make everything so difficult? We had been doing so great, the sex was amazing, I could even see myself get married to you one day! But then you had to go out and kiss that Anderson guy and ruin everything! Was I not enough? What did that guy have that I don’t?”
House seemed to have finished raging and Wilson looked up. When he opened his mouth, all the slurring had gone. “A past. Todd had a link to my past, but that didn’t mean that we had a future!” He jumped to his feet, running to get to the gun. This wasn’t the forty year old doctor acting on a well thought-through decision, this was the hurt Neil Perry, who once again felt like everything was taken from him. He was faster than the cripple - of course he was - and before House was close enough to stop him, he was already pointing the gun at the diagnostician.
House came abruptly to a halt, his hands up on the air as a sign of surrender. “Don’t shoot, please.”
“Take one step closer and I pull the trigger.” Wilson’s voice didn’t even so much as tremble. He moved the gun and placed it against his own temple. “I really wish I had died that day. No James Wilson, no ten years of military school and med school, no hurt when I saw you leave. But no, I had to survive, Todd had to get sick and ruin my life! I would’ve died right after the play - the best damn day of my life. Honestly, I have no idea why it has taken so long for me to realize this.” Wilson’s grip on the gun tightened.
“James, Jimmy.” House’ voice sounded like he was begging. “Please don’t do this. What… What will I do without you?”
“Nothing House, that’s the point! You would go back to your own life, pushing everyone away but one friend - you would eventually find a replacement for me - popping Vicodin like it’s candy. You would live, and it would be less troublesome than with me around.” He nodded. “Well, now then, House. It’s time for me to go.”
Before House could even move a single finger to stop Wilson, a gun shot rang through the appartment. It was as if from that moment, everything happened in slow motion. House saw Wilson drop to the ground, agonizingly slow, the first drips of blood appearing at his temple. House was next to the oncologist the moment he touched the ground. There was only a slim chance that his lover was going to survive this. Very slim. He grabbed his phone and called the first number in his brief contact list: Cuddy. Once she picked up, he barked that she had to send a car immediately. He didn’t wait for a reply as he threw the phone to the ground and pushed his hand against Wilson’s wound, trying to stop the bleeding. He couldn’t try to get the bullet out, but stabalizing the man he could do. The heart beat wasn’t strong against his fingers, but it was there, just like the steady rise and drop of his chest.
Not even five minutes later, Cuddy barged into the appartment. House didn’t let her get past the initial shock and barked at her that they needed to get Wilson to the hospital. Together, they managed to get the man into the car, his head in House’ lap. He gently stroked the hair out of the man’s face while Cuddy drove off again, straight to the hospital.
Halfway the drive, Cuddy found her voice again. “When I said fix it, I didn’t mean like this, with a bullet in his brain. What the hell happened, House?”
“He… He was drunk.” House didn’t know what to say. Could he betray Wilson’s trust and tell Cuddy the truth about the man’s past? Wilson had specifically asked him to keep it secret. “He has tried to kill himself before.”
“What?! But James… He seemed so happy most of the time!” Cuddy was truly shocked now.
“You haven’t seen him truly, genuinly happy.” House sighed softly, remembering the first - and the last - genuine smile he had recieved from the man in his lap. “We need to cure him. I can’t lose him too after… After everyone else.”
“We will do our best, but House, the odds… They’re not in his favour.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?!” House snapped, pulling one of the strands of hair in his hands. “He has survived this once, he can do it again.”
“That’s not how it works, House, you know that…” Cuddy’s attention was mainly focussed on the road, but the diagnostician could see her glance over to the two of them every few minutes. “How is he?”
“He’s stable for now his heart is beating and he’s breathing. Isn’t that the main part of living?”
Cuddy sighed again. “I’m sure he’ll live.”
“What if he doesn’t? What if he dies? The last thing we did was fight, Cuddy. This isn’t how I imagined our last moment!” What the hell did the man in his arms do to him? If it had been anyone else - even Stacy - he wouldn’t have cared this much. He would’ve let the man die because that seemed the good thing to do. Maybe he should let Wilson go, like he wanted. He had said it was time anyway. What if Wilson had been living on borrowed time all his life?
“House, stop it. He loves you and we will be able to heal him. I promise that to you now.”
“You can’t promise me that.” He looked down as he sighed. “You can’t guarantee me that he’ll live. You said yourself that his chances are terrible.”
The Dean wanted to tell House again that things would work out, but they arrived at the hospital at that moment. Chase and Cameron rushed out towards them and he lifted Wilson up. He limped towards the entrance, forgetting his cane in the car - but he couldn’t care less. He limped - and kept limping - with the man in his arms until someone took Wilson from him. He followed where they brought him, not wanting to be separated. The nurses tried to stop him as they brought the oncologist to an OR, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He was going to watch and make sure that the doctors did their work properly.
There was nothing the nurses could do, so they watched him stand there, look at how the bullet was slowly removed from his lover’s brain. They got nervous of his stare - he wasn’t truly there, he was lost in thought - and tried to ignore him. Chase was the surgeon and he was doing an excellent job - nobody else was this good. The bullet got out of Wilson’s head and for a moment, it seemed like there was almost no brain damage. The oncologist was brought to his room to wake up on his own time. House had thrown a fit when the nurses wouldn’t let him into the room, so they all let him sit next to his best friend and lover, like nothing had happened between the two of them, like he hadn’t almost driven the man to kill himself.
An hour went past, then two, three. The oncologist should’ve woken up by now, why wasn’t he awake yet? The longer he stayed unconscious, the bigger the change at brain damage. House didn’t want a damaged Wilson back, he wanted the old, loving, smiling oncologist. He needed his boyfriend/partner/lover back. He had missed him for weeks now and it simply wasn’t fair that now that they had finally talked again, that Wilson had to go off and do this. I mean, he tried to kill himself.
Four hours after the surgery, Wilson finally opened his eyes. He blinked as he looked around, a bit confused as to where he was. As soon as he spotted House, a frown appeared on his face. He opened his mouth to say something but the words never came out, which made the oncologist only frown deeper. After a couple of minutes of trying to speak, the man finally managed two words. “W-why…. H-h-here?”
“I’m here because I care about you, Wilson.” He took Wilson’s hand in his own. “I still love you and you trying to off yourself only made me realize it that it doesn’t matter you kissed Todd Anderson. All that matters is that you were sorry, that you regretted it five minutes after you did it. I should never have left, I should’ve stayed with you and maybe then nothing would’ve happened. What were you even thinking? The doctors managed to get the bullet out of your brain without doing any braindamage - that’s what they said at least - but I don’t really believe them.”
Wilson’s face twitched as the gun and killing was mentioned. “R-r-really?”
Wilson’s body was completely still, unmoving, which made House frown. “Wilson, James, could you squeeze my fingers?”
The oncologist nodded before a frustrated look crossed his face. “H-h-house.”
The diagnostician couldn’t feel a thing. No squeezing, nothing. “This isn’t good, Jimmy.” He sighed softly. “I think the bullet might’ve paralized you.”
Wilson’s eyes widened and he tried to shake his head. “N-n-no!” Along with those words, his heartbeat started rising alarmingly fast and his BP dropped, which made House jump on his feet and call for a crashcart. The nurses came running in and handed him the paddels. By the time House gave Wilson the first shock, the man was unconscious again. He managed to get his heart back into a normal rhythm and the BP back up.
The paddles were handed back and the crashcart disappeared along with the nurses as House quickly checked Wilson’s eyes forr any reaction to light. There was none. The man he loved, the man who had also tried to kill himself because of him, was in a coma.
*
Two months later - two months of Greg sitting next to Wilson’s bed - the oncologist had still not woken up. Even though House had his own job to do, he spent as much time as he could with his lover, informing him about the latest hospital gossip, about the cases he’d been taking and solving. Every time it was time for his clinic hours, Greg would sneak away to Wilson’s room and sit there for a good hour before he walked back downstairs and did his hours. Cuddy knew where he was during that single hour and covered for him every time.
For once, House wasn’t trying to use this to get something he wanted, he was geniunly scared that the oncologist might never wake up again. Every night, after he had said goodnight to Wilson, he sat down on top of his bed and stared balnkly at the wall. He wasn’t crying - he had done that the first few days after the heartattack - but his mind was at happier places, somewhere with Wilson close to him.
It had been two months and thirteen days when House got a call in the middle of the night. Wilson had moved - the diagnostician still believed that he had been paralyzed by the bullet - and that he might be waking up. Greg jumped up from where he had been sleeping - not that he had been doing a very good job at that, he kept waking up every few hours - grabbed his cane and rushed outside. He grabbed his jacket and put it on before he got on his bike. He drove to the hospital as fast as he could.
Once there, Cuddy ran towards him, tears in her eyes. This could only mean two things. Either Wilson had died and she was crying because of that, or these were actually happy tears or tears of relief. When a smile spread over her face, House knew she had good news for him. “He’s awake, House.” She halted at his side and accompanied him to Wilson’s room - he knew the route by heart by now.
He knocked hesitantly on the door, not sure whether he was ready for this or not.
When the hoarse voice of the oncologist came from inside, a wide smile spread on his face. “James…” He sighed softly as he walked in. “You idiot.” He looked down and quickly wiped his tears away. He wasn’t crying, not now.
“Greg…” Wilson croaked in response.
Greg looked up and actually liked what he saw. Wilson wasn’t as pale as he had been and he was smiling as well. Slowly, his hand moved from where it had been over the past two months and reached out for his. House gasped in disbelief when he felt the soft fingers curl around his rough ones. He softly squeezed them before he sat down next to Wilson.
“Took you long enough. Two months have gone by, you know that?” Greg sounded annoyed, but this was actually more concern that annoyance. James would know the difference.
Wilson beamed a smile at him and pulled him closer - he was weak, but it only took a small pull for House to understand what he wanted. He leaned closer and pressed his lips softly and carefully to the oncologist’s.
A soft smile appeared on the man’s lips and he kissed back with everything he had. He had missed this, House realized. He had missed this damn man and now that they were together again, he wasn’t going to let him go ever again, definately not over a single kiss he regretted immediately.
As Wilson pulled back from the kiss to take a deep breath, House used the moment to squeeze his hand and whispers softly: “I forgive you.”
James visibly relaxed under his touch - he wouldn’t be surprised if the oncologist would tell him afterwards that he had been worrying about that all along - and his happy smile beamed at him once again. House grinned back, happy for the first time in long. This would work out. All of it would work out, he was sure of it. He crawled onto the bed with Wilson, snuggled up to the man and closed his eyes. Within five minutes, he was asleep.