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Hanahaki. Not a disease still well understood, given how long it’s been around. History books detail centuries of it, right alongside tuberculosis, leprosy, smallpox, dysentery, etc. It’s not infectious, like people used to think.
House has read every paper on it from early publications in 100-year-old books, to recent things in Nature and other prestigious journals. It is understood that humans in love have a physical manifestation of that, though the “love organ” or whatever that is has never been found. The only time it is found is when it’s necrotic, infected, and dying from the flowers and plants taking root in there. It’s not in healthy individual lungs, so no one knows where it hides if it’s there at all. Secondly, not all unrequited love or a perception of unrequited love triggers Hanahaki in all people. Psychiatric journals publish every day conflicting evidence on what the psychological trigger is and who is more susceptible to the disease and why. It’s really hard to say, and then there’s the groups of people who talk about destiny, fate, and soulmates and it gets a thousand times more convoluted.
No one even knows where the flowers come from, though it is likely some sort of inhaled thing as though the flowers are often love specific, they are regional. Studies have been done around the world showing that lung manifestations of Hanahaki grow regional plants, invasive and native. And then there are the case reports about the rare manifestations of Hanahaki. He recently saw one about a 17-year-old girl whose liver was failing due to it. She survived with transplant, though the underlying disease took her second liver and she died. They checked her lungs for that illustrious “love organ”, to no avail.
The surgery works, though, when it’s a normal case and it’s done in time. The downside is that you can never really love that person again in the way that you loved them. So, if it was romantic, you lose all possibility. So even if that person turns out to love you back, it’s over. It’s a cruel fate.
One would think House researches all of this because Hanahaki is an uncommon and unknowable beast of a disease, but the truth is it’s deeply personal for him. House himself has Hanahaki, and he’s had it for the past 18 or so years. How, people, often fellow Hanahaki patients he finds himself admitting this to ask. It’s a complicated answer.
Some rare cases of Hanahaki can manifest as a slow growing chronic illness, one that relapses and remits much like other illnesses such as autoimmune diseases or cancer. House even participated in a research study, donating his tissue, and his flowers, and all his health information a few years back before he started self-treating, which is another thing in itself. The study still hasn’t been published and he believes he’s due in 5 more years for a follow-up, as it is a cohort study, of which he’s probably not eligible for. The only theory for chronically ill patients is that it may have something to do with genetics and the immune system, but some papers have looked into the kind of love that triggers it. There’s some correlation with semi-requited love being a major factor in protecting the person, with past “situationship” style incidents being a commonality. It fits him and his person well.
Wilson is the person he’s loved since the moment he met him. That first night in New Orleans was one of the times they’ve kissed over the years, but nothing more than that. Kissing Wilson is easy, but it’s also dangerous and difficult. The love is clearly not requited, but Wilson keeps finding time to get married then divorced and desperate and kiss him anyway in that way that pulls all his lovers in, only to repeat the cycle and choose someone else. It’s perhaps that is what has sustained his illness’ slow course. Though, who really knows. The idea of blaming him is a long and complicated battle that he never tries to elucidate.
He's sure if he told someone, like actually told someone in his life, say Cuddy. They’d just ask him to get the surgery. He doesn’t want to. And he’s often the only doctor in the room that understands when patients don’t want to, and they die throats burst open, human pottery and bouquet soaked in blood. It’s because doing so removes that love, and love is a wonderful disastrously addictive feeling. And there’s always that hope, that fucking hope that sustains the love. He’d rather love than not at all, and he really ridiculously adores loving Wilson. And perhaps, that will be what kills him. He’d already die for Wilson for any reason anyway, he figures it doesn’t make much of a difference how.
And he’ll be fine. One thing that’s helped him is this experimental drug, circling back to the self-treatment. There’s a long ongoing rat study on Hanahaki, though it’s a rare, accidentally made strain of rat, because naturally rodents don’t get this disease. The drug is called some unremarkable unidentifiable number, like many drugs are called before they go to clinical trial to get bought up and named something stupid that will be memorable on TV later. It bolsters a few immune pathways, one of which is the pathway that keeps tuberculosis latent in immunocompetent people.
This research group has done a great job pioneering cures and also understanding in the field. The drug works, at least to keep the disease at bay longer though by some unknown mechanism. He’s just lucky that the lab tech is easily paid off, and no one’s noticed this long about the purchases. The drug works for him, it certainly keeps many Hanahaki symptoms at bay and he hasn’t really coughed up petals in years. It probably helps he has the chronic type, anyway.
Except, the drug being that it has not been tested in people, optimized, modified, nor anything really, comes with a lot of side effects. He ignores them. Because he’s determined to be fine just loving Wilson as he allows. And they’re manageable, a much better chronic issue than dying of Hanahaki anyway.
There’s just one issue. He’s living with Wilson, freshly out of Mayfield, closer to this man in proximity than he ever has been. Actually, there’s two issues. The research group has lost grant money in the politics of science, and they have stopped doing drug related research. He has no access to buying it easily without questions being asked, since the drug isn’t widely sold and is synthesized in house in this lab.
He has no idea what to do.
---
The first thing about his disease that returns are the psychological manifestations. The vivid nightmares, the ever-present sense of doom he gets a few times a day. He already had full blown psychosis not that long ago, and he’s still in therapy, so it doesn’t jolt him too much. He can talk that stuff out, cope with it. It’s fine.
What’s not fine is just how many of the dreams are about Wilson, of things he wishes he could have. Wilson never notices, he just wakes him up as usual to complain that he’s sleeping in and leaves him breakfast in the fridge.
When he eats the breakfast leftovers for the fourth time that week, the feeling of something shifting his lungs makes him drop the plate and shatter it. He throws up next, from the fear, from the disease itself, and maybe from the drug withdrawal.
He goes to work and he’s fine, he’s absolutely just fine.
One thing Dr. Nolan and therapy have helped him on is to not project the darkness of his life onto everyone at work. He realizes that he did it because of both a lack of emotional regulation and because pushing people away was easier than allowing them to care about him. He’s not perfect, bad pain days especially still bring a irritation out of him and probably always will. People are always a little bit more empathetic when it’s that anyway, and he tries not to say something cruel and heart shattering.
But, with the ache of everything going on, it’s blatantly obvious. Though, he’s not angry, he’s not even shouting at anyone. He takes the easiest case in the pile, and he defers to Taub of all people on his ideas. He doesn’t argue, or do something illegal and borderline malpractice, he just sits there.
It’s what they don’t tell you about Hanahaki, about how the pining is much more than just you. It gets amplified and it weakens you. House is the most fatigued he’s ever been, maybe only just barely less so than he was while detoxing in Mayfield. His muscles ache and his joints burn. The feeling of movement and tightness in his lungs is ever present, and he prioritizes sitting instead of exerting himself. This isn’t anything he isn’t used to though, as long as he isn’t coughing up whole flowers his disease is still in the chronic and slow stage. At least he thinks.
Cuddy knocks on his door. “Your team saved the patient.”
“Cool.”
“It was Lupus, you were wrong about toxins.”
House just looks at her and that’s when her face goes pale. She approaches him slowly, like he might run off. “God, House. Say something! Tell me it’s never Lupus. Compliment my shirt. Yell at me. Yell at your team. Say anything!”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Cuddy sighs, “Look. Your team’s been worried about you all day. Every single one of them told me to check on you. And I thought, you know, it’d be the usual. The anger, the same song and dance you always do when something’s consuming you. But…this is terrifying. I’ve never seen you so quiet, maybe only when Wilson left and even then, you did something insane like hire my now current boyfriend to bug his house.”
House opens his mouth and that’s when he starts coughing. It’s as bad as he remembers, the hacking and the pain. It’s like the worst asthma attack of your life mixed with the ever-present feeling of the roots and flowers and thorns. Thorns, because he remembers what the first plant that took home in him was. Red Roses, a cliché he realizes, but he’s never cared much for the meanings behind the flowers. It’s more what it says about him, that even his flowers are an extra level of self-destruction. It can’t just be growth it has to be thorny and sharp. It can’t just be love, it has to be the stereotypical embodiment of it that will never be fully requited.
He realizes how dizzy that made him because he doesn’t even remember when Cuddy came to his side to rub his shoulder and take his pulse. She’s even auscultating his lungs and he doesn’t have the energy to push her away.
“You sound awful,” And he can see the differential flashing throughout her head.
“I know.”
“What do you have?” She asks, as she takes off the stethoscope. Regardless of what she thinks he has, she’s successfully deduced he’s fully aware of what’s going on.
“It’s…a flare up of a chronic illness.”
Cuddy blinks. “So, you’ve had this for a while.” And then realization comes over her face, “Oh…wait I remember. You had a similar cough back when you first accepted this job.”
“I did.” He grits out, as his chest gives a good impression of what he imagines burning in a fire feels like.
Cuddy squeezes his shoulder again, “So, is this manageable? Do you need me to prescribe you something?”
The fact that this is the one-time Cuddy respects his privacy on something almost makes him want to tell her. That no, the only treatment was made for a rat study that’s gone bankrupt. No, it isn’t manageable, and I’m terrified I’ll finally die. No, there’s nothing you can do, no medicine can help. It must be a testament to how much she’s trusting him right now, and that feels worse.
He coughs again and Cuddy watches the blood, rose petals, and thorny stems spew over his chin and legs. What she asks surprises him. “House tell me it’s not me.”
“It’s not you,” He hisses, “Why do you always make everything I do about you, huh? You’re worse than Wil-“ He coughs at the thought of Wilson’s name, and a few more petals clear their way.
Realization hits her. “You have to tell him.”
That’s when House gets up, as wobbly as it is. “No. No I don’t. It’s been 18 years and it’s fine.”
“It’s been chronic for 18 years?” She follows after him, “House. This is the most insane thing you’ve ever done.”
“I’ll put it on the docket when I go to therapy next week.”
Cuddy stops him by gripping his arm. He can’t even face her. “Listen, you need to tell him. Wilson would hate that you’re doing this to yourself. Or at the very least, get the surgery. I can get you in anonymously so no one would have to know.”
“I don’t want the surgery.”
“Why not?”
House gives a bitter laugh. “Because, I love him.”
Her face twists into disbelief. No one gets it until they get it, and so it doesn’t hurt him that she looks at him like he’s a dead man walking. He turns to face her. “Cuddy, I’ll be fine. It’s chronic.”
“We don’t know that. Chronic patients can move to acute phase and death quickly. And you live with the guy too, I can’t imagine that helps.” She’s begging now, the cracks in her voice reverberating in his.
When he doesn’t answer he can see it then, the vision in her gaze. Where he’ll die just like the few Hanahaki patients they’ve had over the years that have refused curative treatment. Going from pain, to delirium, and gutted, a body turned soil. House sees it with her because he’s pictured it a thousand times. She begins to cry and that’s when he turns and focuses on moving forward and avoiding Wilson at all costs.
---
Cuddy would be right that living with Wilson would make things one thousand times worse, but he’s relatively absent from the condo. It tells him a few things. Wilson’s dating someone, or at least sleeping with them. He never spends this much time without telling House otherwise.
And that makes it worse, because it’s a damned unrequited disease of course. The first time he coughs up a whole rose flower and part of the rose bush is when he begins to panic. The time he coughs up his next species of flower, a yellow hyacinth, he realizes he’s on his way to Stage 2 and his disease has gone from chronic to acute. He’s actually going to die in the next few weeks, given that his course follows the standard. But he has that feeling, just a settled thing deep in his gut, that it’s going to be a lot faster than that. He worries that the experimental drug has caused not only a relapse, but a full on rebound, that will make the course of his disease faster and quicker.
When he comes to that realization, he avoids thinking about it and he dreams that Wilson rejects him over and over again in every stage of their lives over the years. He’s going to die. The nightmare ends with House floating in the Mississippi River, body up and drying in the sun. The flowers sway from his mouth and Wilson’s in funeral black, waving him off.
Since that dream everything just grows progressive and worse over the next week. He’s losing weight, he’s feverish, and he’s developing pre-syncope. The lack of oxygen is definitely affecting his cardiac output, though moving on to full on heart failure is less likely to happen as it will be the roses that take him first. As for work, he only made it two more days before Cuddy forced him to take medical leave. Of course, not without begging him to get the curative surgery to no avail.
That’s when Wilson notices, when he’s bedridden and banned from work. He almost resents him for not noticing sooner, for not noticing way back when. In the way he was breathless, far more than from their first kiss. That he begged him to stay unmarried in his life. But he doesn’t, it’s really House’s own fault that he’s in this mess. In love with someone who just can’t love him. It’s almost selfish, that he’ll give Wilson that guilt for the rest of his life dying this way.
Wilson barges into his room while he’s in-between coughing fits and checking to make sure his blood pressure isn’t rapidly dropping. “What is going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You-“ Wilson points a finger and makes a noise in his throat, “You’re so full of shit.”
“Ouch! He’s mad!”
“Of course I’m mad!”
“You weren’t mad a week ago when this started,” House hisses out, hoping it will make him go away. “Because you were too busy with your little dates with whoever’s going to be bad for you this time.”
It has the intended effect because Wilson flushes with anger and embarrassment. “So, what. You get so ill Cuddy forces you to take medical leave and you don’t tell me…out of spite? Jealousy?”
It’s funny almost, how right he is. “I didn’t tell you because you’ve been avoiding me.”
“You’ve been avoiding me!”
House sits up, in an attempt to regain breath. “Usually when I avoid you, you cling to me until I stop. So, no, you’re avoiding me.”
“I can’t do this right now.”
“Nor can I, glad we agree.” House takes a deep breath in an attempt to conserve his oxygen for the stupid thing he’s about to do. He grabs his cane and shoves past Wilson.
When he makes his way to the front door, panting and swimming in dark spots, Wilson shouts. “Where are you even going?”
“To my old apartment.”
“You still have that?”
House swallows before the bile and blood drips onto the floor. “Of course, might need it.”
“What makes you think I’m going to kick you out?”
“The fact that you’re dating someone and the fact that you’re going to tie the knot far too quickly as per usual makes me think that.” House says. And it’s the truth, he knows Wilson won’t keep the permanence they have here. Organ or not, he knows the track record. He knows his place. He knows that he’s going to die.
Wilson spins him around and he can barely focus on him because of how dizzy he is. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Cancer?”
“No.” House heaves, but he can see why Wilson would think that symptom wise.
Wilson opens his mouth again and House jabs his cane on his foot. “Get away from me.”
And he makes it out the door, and Wilson waits there for him on the porch like his entire life is coming to an end. If he were brave, he’d say stop being dramatic, I’m the one dying here. But it feels too real, too soon. And he’s consumed by the longing in his gaze, the disgusting love he has pumps through the living parasites in his lungs and through to his palms. They burn as he hops on his bike all the way to his old apartment.
He only makes it to his own porch and that’s when he sobs into his hands, flowers fluttering in front of him. The brightest red roses, the yellow hyacinths, and now dandelions and their sharp leaves. He’s pretty sure dandelions mean something about resilience, and maybe to him it shows how stupid he really is. Dying is like that, questioning if it’s all worth it and of course it feels worth it, that feeling of warmth he got right before he left makes it worth it.
So, he just waits there until the time is 7 PM. There’s a dinner event at the hospital tonight, for prospective donors. He knows Wilson has to go because Cuddy was originally making him go this time, albeit with a list of conversations for him to have since he’s just really bad at attracting donors given his spitefulness and bluntness. Wilson would still go because knowing him, he really does believe House will stay here for the night.
But House is sentimental, more so than he is smart. He also is not at all ready to go back to a place with so many ghosts from before Mayfield. So, he hops on his bike and decides to spend the night at home, or what is meant to be it, praying Wilson will be too tipsy and fatigued to even bother to check if he came back.
He doesn’t feel like he has that much longer anyway, maybe he won’t even make it till morning.
---
House arouses from another nightmare because he’s choking, he’s actually fucking choking. He scrabbles at his throat and immediately coughs up five full flowers and then he throws up his empty stomach. The acid and blood and floral taste is worse now. He’s going to die. If he’s not already in Stage 2, he’s about to be and Stage 3 will not be far along. Stage 3 is the delirium phase, and this is when Hanahaki becomes incurable, even if the love is requited. He’s going to die without knowing what’s going on, without being able to say goodbye, one last I love you, I fucking loved you before he goes.
He decides to ground himself with the medicine. Pulse 125, tachycardic. Lungs, bilateral crackles and wheezing. Esophageal tightness. Pulse ox is 91%, patient is in distress and feels “light headed”. Blood pressure is 100/60, low, means patient might be internally bleeding from Stage 2 spread of Hanahaki. Patient is in love and dying. Patient does not want to die. Patient wants to stay in love.
The door opens. Wilson, very much not in an outfit designed for a party with rich donors. It’s a comfortable outfit, almost one he could run in, like he’s afraid House is going to bolt out of there.
House gets up immediately and has the last of his energy carry him forward and that’s when Wilson presses himself back against the door, holding the knob tightly. He’s blocking the exit.
“No. House. You’re staying here and we’re talking about it.” Wilson shouts, he’s in full stubborn mode now. There’s no stopping him, House realizes. There’s no stopping him and House is about 15 minutes away from passing out from his latest fit.
“Open that door.”
“No.”
“Open it.”
“No,” Wilson leans back further as he approaches, “Stop coming over here like you’re Jack Nicholson in The Shining.”
House does the futile thing of trying to grab the doorknob and they slap and shove each other’s arms like kids. It’s almost enough adrenaline he thinks he’s going to be fine, but then Wilson shoves him by accident and his entire world is spinning. He gags for a completely different reason this time and tries to stabilize himself on the bed.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m not okay, figured we already established that.” House manages to get out. He sits on the bed, likely what Wilson wants so they can have this stupid conversation.
Wilson softens his voice, “Not cancer…Is it the Vicodin.”
“My life honestly would be a lot easier if it was the Vicodin.”
“So, it’s worse than Vicodin?”
“Yes.”
“It’s alright. Relapse, even to a different opiate or substance, is common and understandable we can just-“ He starts and House shouts just to get him to stop.
“Shut up! It’s not drugs, does this even look like drugs to you? You’re a shit doctor, oncology has rotted your brain. I don’t even take too much ibuprofen these days because you keep nagging me about my kidney function.”
Wilson approaches him then and he feels his hands cool against his forearm. “House.”
“I know you have this sick fantasy in your head that fixing people like me will-“ House starts to get out. Old habits, of course. Just push him away and you’ll be fine, House. If you push him away, it’ll break and it’s better that you broke it before it just broke on its own. It’s better to die alone. Though Dr. Nolan’s consistent voice is in his head and it’s a miracle because wow kids, therapy can work sometimes, and then he stops himself.
Even Wilson seems pleased because he’s grinning like House didn’t just spew blood all over the nice hardwood. “You talked yourself down from being an ass. This is big for you. Now tell me, what’s going on, please.”
“What’s big is…” House says, standing suddenly and then the world is blacking out around him. His O2 saturation was already getting low. He’s probably well within the 80s now. The only thing he remembers is Wilson’s strong chest coming into him as he falls.
---
The lights are bright. Hospital, clearly. Likely PPTH. Wilson’s hand is on his shoulder, he can tell from the shape, the weight, the warmth of him. He hacks then, and spits up three red roses, a section of the bush, over the side of the bed.
Wilson’s there, staring at a scan in front of him. As his vision returns, he stares right at it himself. Lung X-Ray, PA view. Bilateral masses in base of both lungs with a mixture of flowers growing from base to apex. Some flowers have reached the most distal part of the trachea. Flowers are whole, multiple budding. Definitely Stage 2 Hanahaki, soon to be Stage 3 as he suspected. His disease is in full relapse, rapidly progressive phenotype, as he suspected. Wilson knows, this wasn’t supposed to happen.
House finds that he has nothing to say, and it has nothing to do with the pain or the coughing. It’s just that Wilson knows, and there’s really nothing to say. What should he say? Sorry, I love you
Wilson turns then, face blank. “How long?”
“18 years.”
Wilson didn’t seem to expect that, how could he? The way his disease looks symptom wise and in the imaging one would probably suspect he was within a month of disease. Chronic is rare, and Wilson wasn’t the diagnostician among them as beautifully brilliant as he is. No one looks for what’s rare, even though Wilson’s absorbed some of his line of thinking over the years.
Wilson wobbles a little bit as he walks over, looking almost fainter than he feels right now. “God dammit House! You are always so…I don’t even know what to say to you.”
House shrugs, “Right back at you.”
“You’re dying.”
“Obviously,” House coughs for a moment, laying back down.
Wilson has a thousand thoughts on his mind. “The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You are getting that damned surgery, House.” Wilson hisses, and he nearly flinches when his chart is slammed on the side table by his bed.
House swallows blood. “No.”
“Why is it that you seem so fucking keen on dying?”
“Because,” House’s voice breaks then, and he’s feeling the most vulnerable he ever has. “Do you have any idea what it’s going to be like to stop loving someone?”
Wilson’s anger dissipates then, it curdles deep where the roses are growing. He squeezes House’s shoulder, and it feels like it’s fertilizing him right to rot. “You-that’s…Is this person even worth it?”
“Worth what?”
“Dying over.”
House looks right at him. “Yes.”
He means that, despite the bitterness. Despite Wilson’s had years of him to notice. Despite that House hangs the moon for him, and has kissed him, and has brought him back from the brink after every divorce. Despite that he told him he loved him, when he woke from the coma. That he bailed him out of jail all because he was pretty and interesting. That he’s put every feeling into their mistakes of kisses over the years, that he sits with him shoulder to shoulder every evening, that he likes what the organ says about him because it says that the thing Wilson chose for himself was House. He’d rather it be a clear-cut no, because it’s almost worse dancing there in the gray and wanting to die over someone who could never make the final leap.
Wilson laughs then, that cruel kindness he does when House is being too much of a self-sacrificial lamb. He turns and the tension splays along his shoulders down to the way he squeezes into himself. “I don’t think someone that would be so fucking oblivious for 18 years and nearly killing someone is worth it.”
House stares and stares and stares. Wilson is mad at the person he loves? Wilson continues, “Like, look. I’m not uneducated, I’ve seen the reports on chronic cases. Usually, those people are sustained because it’s thought there’s some chance the love is actually semi-requited and is often acted upon, but that person just never makes the final leap and thus strings the person along. That means the person you love is at least semi-aware, right? And they’re just…they can’t be worth it, then, doing all of that and then killing you.”
“They were never aware.” House admits, because it’s easier than telling Wilson he’s right because it’s him. It really is possible he was never aware, at least about the Hanahaki and not the feelings House clearly has for him. The feelings should’ve been obvious. Wilson’s never known until he slapped that X-Ray right in front of him looking the most lost he’s been since Amber. Plus, the chronic case theories could be wrong. They could be, there’s no way this is semi-requited. House is just a convenient stability, a dandelion dressed up rose bouquet spewing jealous yellow after every destabilized James Wilson relationship.
“How could they not be? You’d still have to have coughed up a petal or two over the last 18 years, they would’ve noticed.”
“I took an experimental drug for most of that time. From a rat study, to put my disease in latency.”
Wilson’s mouth twitches, like he’s about to snarl at him again. But he doesn’t. “Of course you did. That probably explains why you’ve got some other strange issues that can’t be accounted for by the Hanahaki nor your history of Vicodin use.”
“What else is wrong with me, doc?” He tries to joke. It doesn’t land
“Your hypothalamus is atrophying, noted on MRI,” Wilson says, clinical, “And one of your kidneys is covered in cysts and is in acute failure, even though you don’t have polycystic kidney disease, and we’ve considered removing it. Who knows what else it did to you. If you stopped taking it suddenly, it might explain why your disease went so quickly into Stage 2.”
“If my hypothalamus is atrophying, why don’t I have any neurological signs?”
“I have no clue.” Wilson rubs his face, “I am truly in over my head with this. I feel awful that I never knew.”
He feels the guilt of not knowing even though he yelled at his mystery love for doing the same. It’s ironic how close Wilson is to dying on the point. “What would you have told me if you did?”
“I’d have told you that you should get the surgery.”
House snorts, not knowing why he expected something else. “Yeah, okay.”
“And…” Wilson’s eyes shine, “I’d have told you that I loved you. That, even though one is unrequited, mine wouldn’t be. I’d have stopped wasting time and stopped being a coward. I know it’s selfish and terrible of me to say that I’d only confess when I knew you’d be dying. But I don’t know, it feels as good a time as any because you’re refusing the fucking surgery over someone who doesn’t deserve you and I don’t know what else to say other than I want you to live!”
Wilson’s heaving and so is House. What did he just say? That X-ray in the back of the room burns into his retinas.
He realizes that he asked the question aloud. “I said, I would’ve told you that I loved you! I mean I still do, actually, so I really really want you to live, even though that’s a selfish thing to tell anyone whose dying, especially a Hanahaki patient.”
House sits up and Wilson rushes over to stop him, and then House feels it. He only had two patients whose love had been requited in time for the Hanahaki to be cured, and he never understood what they meant when they described to him what it was like. It’s like the universe itself is tearing apart inside of him, sucking everything in on itself. The feeling is like a thousand spiders are being born crawling around in his lung and up into his mouth. He gags and out comes the rose bush, and the dandelions, and those pesky disgusting hyacinths, and all the other buds of mystery flowers that haven’t bloomed yet. His chest burns as whatever masses, “love organs”, were there shrink up and fade back to whatever place mysterious place scientists can’t find. And they stay burning, because 18 years of damage doesn’t just disappear magically. He’s likely going to have scarring in his lungs forever, impeding future breath.
Wilson doesn’t even react to the bloodied petals that coat his front. He just stares at House. And it’s hitting him, he can see the moment his pupils thin when it does. He stumbles back and points a finger at him, the kind that means he’s getting lectured. But then the hand drops and Wilson faints.
“Nurse,” His raspy voice shouts, “Nurse, god dammit!”
James Wilson loves him.
---
Wilson’s fine, mostly. He sprained his wrist on the way down. What hurts more is that he woke up and sobbed next to him for about an hour and now they’re sitting in silence. Taub and Foreman did some more testing and imaging on him again to check for the remaining lung damage, which as he suspected is pretty extensive, and he’s now been scheduled for removal of his left failing kidney. Thirteen is off searching for more information on the experimental drug so they can know what to expect going forward with his health due to the use and the disuse.
House turns to Wilson. “Are you going to say anything?”
“Nothing I can say can make up for what happened.”
“What makes you think you need to make up for what happened?” It feels funny, that he doesn’t have to hide this anymore and he still can’t be honest with his own bitterness.
Wilson’s eyes water again. “Why do you think? You fucking asshole. You idiot. You-you bastard! Just let yourself be angry at me for once! I am the reason you’ve been suffering for 18 years, and I never noticed? I went and married women I didn’t really love because I was too scared to love you properly, not to mention I don’t even really think I’m all that attracted to women, even though I’ve been on a few dates with my first ex-wife again because I’m stupid and repressed and I felt bad for her…which is not the point right now, sorry. And all you can say is that it’s fine? You were suffering with that all this time! You were going to die for me as I sat here on my high horse insulting the person that could do this to you even though that person was me!”
“So, you want me to be mad at you?”
“Yes! No! I don’t know! I want you to feel something. I want you to allow yourself to be honest.”
“I just feel.” House shrugs, “I don’t know. I feel like I love you. I feel like this is a normal Tuesday for us. I feel like you’re being too hard on yourself. I feel like I want to give us a shot, but I’m also worried you’re only sticking around out of guilt. I also feel like I hate you because we’ve danced around each other for 18 years and you never noticed how far it went. But I also did hide this from you, so I don’t blame you.”
“Guilt?” Of course that’s what Wilson chooses to settle on.
“For…because this is the moment you realize you might’ve made a mistake. So, you’re only going to stick around because you’re afraid not loving me will kill me instantly in a rare case study report on instantaneous Hanahaki, or whatever, it’s a working title, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. And then you’ll date me and then resent me for years and do something terrible like drink yourself to death, or whatever it is sour apathy looks like to James Wilson. Likely cheating, but you can only do that for so long before you get even more sad and bored.” House says, and his chest is burning for a different reason. He wants to cry.
“Gregory. Look at me.”
He does. He looks awful, still pale like he’s going to faint again, eyes swollen and cheeks puffy and red. “I love you and that was before knowing. And I’m not going to let you push me away. I’m here because I want to be, even though I don’t deserve to. Because I’ve always loved you and that’s what makes it undeserving.”
“Always?” His voice breaks, and he burns his retinas with a different thing now.
Wilson squeezes his fists. “Yeah. And if you had confessed to me back then, I know I would’ve rejected you despite my feelings. That’s why I don’t deserve this chance.”
“What changed?” He asks as he snakes a hand over his.
Wilson blinks, “I think I did. I think when I bought that condo, it changed. When you played that damned organ, it changed. When you tried to die for Amber instead of living alongside me, it changed.”
“You deserve this.” House murmurs, “You’re still here. That’s all that matters. And the fact that you’re here out of love and not guilt is really all that matters to me.”
Wilson finally laces their fingers. “We’re so stupid. I’m so stupid. And you’re a soft-hearted sap and dishonest asshole. You’re making me think you’re dying all over again.”
“You’re an idiot then.”
“That makes me feel better.” Wilson sighs in relief.
“And…Sam?”
“Nothing happened. Or will happen, that is.” Wilson rubs the back of his hand absently, “And, are you sure you’re not upset with me.”
House sees the look in his eyes. The greatest plea for honesty. “I think I’m tired of being mad. I think I’ve been resentful and jealous for years with all those things squirming in my chest. But, I don’t want to complain or focus on the past. I want to move forward.”
“I’ll do better by you.” He says, resolute. House believes him and for once he doesn’t fight him. It feels good to be both bitter and in love for once, and it helps that he’s not going to hack up his soul because of it.
House smirks, “Make sure you have them save my failing kidney for science.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You can’t just study your own kidney.”
“I totally can it’s my kidney. I inform consented myself.”
Wilson rolls his eyes, “Fine. I’ll make sure to beg and plead on my knees for it, if you want to study it that badly.”
“The embarrassment of you doing that is more than enough, you giant sap.”
And then he laughs, a warm thing, a breezy thing. House joins him, intermittent with coughs and damage that will soon scar. Something blooms between them between the remains, and it’s just them. And if his team and Cuddy lean against the door spying on them giggling to nowhere, it’s no bother to him.
---
His chest is tight. A lot of it is due to permanent scarring, that will be affecting his breathing for the foreseeable future, and may affect his heart eventually too. Medically semi-manageable, albeit still a chronic thing that will have both good and bad days. His chest is also tight, because James Wilson makes him breathless.
It’s nothing grand. It’s just the way he looks at him and House realizes Wilson’s always sort of looked at him that way. He still feels stupid that he never noticed, that this Hanahaki metaphorically infested him up to his brain. But, he tries to forgive himself. There’s a part of him that wants to say that it was his fault and his shame and his cowardice that gave him this chronic disease leading to irreversible damage. But, he also wants to say that maybe they had nothing to do with each other, because it sort of feels like 18 years is enough time to blame yourself. It isn’t his fault. It isn’t Wilson’s fault either.
They’re here now, that’s what is supposed to matter. Dr. Nolan is proud of him for getting there too, though he still sometimes fights it on a normal day.
But Wilson is looking at him. His smile is nothing super wide, that same small dimply thing and those eyes devoted and warm. House waves to him from where he’s standing, boots caked with mud and sunhat extravagant and annoying.
“You’re growing roses.”
“How astute.”
“In the condo building’s community garden.”
“My, aren’t you smart, honey.”
Wilson links their arms and stares at the bush. His eyes are wide and searching. He can hear the questions there. Do these look a lot like the ones you hacked up in the hospital? Do they look a lot like the ones you grew inside of you? What does it mean for you to grow something that tried to kill us both, because killing you would’ve killed me too?
Instead, he says, “I love them.”
“I know.” House answers and it’s the best he can do.
This is something he worked on with Dr. Nolan, with the Hanahaki. For so long it was what had power over him in his feelings for Wilson. Suppressing them, really, destroying one of two good kidneys as a bonus. Affecting some of his short-term memory too, with the hypothalamic atrophy that resulted and eventually presented clinically. But, growing them gets rid of that power. No longer is he a greenhouse, human pottery fertilized in blood. He’s a man in love and that’s alright, fingers deep in the real earthen soil. It doesn’t control him anymore, and love is supposed to be freeing anyway, at least that’s what he believes.
“Just make sure you don’t cut yourself, dear,” House says as Wilson recklessly reaches for the thorns that hurt the scars a little less each day. “Don’t want you to be my next patient with Sporotrichosis.”
“I like honey more.” Wilson answers, nose scrunched in that irritated way when he’s blocked from putting his hands all over House’s little projects.
“You can put your hands in mine, honey. If it helps.”
It does because Wilson laces their fingers and kisses him sweetly for his troubles. He kisses the corner of his mouth next and murmurs, “I still feel as though we’ve wasted a lot of time.”
“I know.” Wilson doesn’t fail to remind him of this every time he looks at him when he coughs.
“But, I suppose it doesn’t matter.” Wilson’s eyes crinkle, “Since we have each other now.”
House is the one who kisses him this time. And they stay that way, encompassed by the afternoon sun. Something grows and moves within his chest, and he catalogues that feeling as the future this time. Life of together, fertilized right next to him instead of inside of him.