Chapter Text
Wilson was busy finishing up his paperwork in his office that was due before lunch when House burst in, unannounced.
He looked up briefly, sighing and rolling his eyes he asked "What do you want this time House?"
"Can't a guy just visit his bestfriend at work when he wants?" House hobbles into his office and twiddles with his cane before ploping onto Wilson's couch.
Wilson continues filing his paperwork, ignoring the stead stream of yapping coming from his couch. Something about a patient with black boils, rash and fever. He honestly could not care less right now. He was really stuck for time, he had to finish this paperwork before his appointment at lunch.
Suddenly, a 40-something, greasy-looking man walks in without knocking. "Hel-" The man locks the door behind him. Wilson blinks.
This immediately grabs House's attention and he stops yapping. He sits up and faces the man who does not make eye contact with him. House follows the man with his eyes as he moves.
The man swivels the chair at Wilson's desk and sits on it, directly facing him. The oncologist lifts his eyebrow at the rattish and stubby man with slightly shabby, black hair. The man carries himself with an air of confidence that is only seen in narcissists and political leaders.
"Oh God this will be soo boring." House thinks.
The man pulls out a gun and leans his elbows against the wooden table, immediately making his intentions clear. Wilson tenses at the sight.
He smirks, accentuating his rosey red cheeks, oh so full of himself and demands "Give me 100 prescriptions of morphine or else."
House laughs, throwing his head back in an exaggerated manner while the other two heads turn to him. "Are you serious!? All this time I have been praying to a non-existent God for something interesting to grace me and this is the best he can do!?" House continues laughing.
The man frowns, already fed up with House's antics despite only just having met the man.
"Okay, I will write you some prescriptions and you will leave us alone." Wilson says in his most "trying to not cause trouble" voice and takes his prescription pad out of his drawer grabbing the nearest pen.
"No way, we are not letting this criminal get away with all that precious morphine! Wilson, did your parents never teach you to mind what's yours?" House frowns and makes his way limping to Wilson's desk, leaning against it instead of using his cane. One would expect him to at least be slightly nervous, but the diagnostician seems as calm as still water. Maybe only slightly pissed off.
House grabs Wilson's prescription pad, waddles to the window and chucks it out.
Wilson stares at him slack-jawed. The man is done. "Alrighty, that's enough." He points his gun at House's chest but turns to Wilson. He demands more than he asks "Tell me you have another prescription pad."
"Uh, no sorry." Ah, Wilson ever the apologist, House thinks. Stupid enough to apologize to the man that is practically holding him hostage. He does not even find it endearing. Definitely.
"You better get one or your friend here gets it" He gestures to House with his gun. The oncologist begins to frantically search his drawers, opening and shutting them loudly.
"There's no rush!" House says with enough sarcasm to kill a race horse. The gunman is so done with him and threatens to shoot his bad leg.
"I'm serious, get me that morphine." Wilson is sweating and his hands have a definite shake to them. He fiddles with cluttered stationary, looking for something that he know is not there. House remains unbothered.
The man fires a shot beside House, which narrowly misses him. The diagnostician gives the greasy man a death glare but still seeming perfectly unstressed.
"It's okay! I have it!" Wilson exclaims a little too proudly. He quickly begins writing. House leans closer to the desk and finds that Wilson is scribbling on a post-it note."God, the moron!" House thinks.
The man crosses his arms and taps his foot impatiently. After a second, Wilson hands the man the fake prescription. Unfortunately, the puffy man is not as stupid as he looks.
"This is a fake!" House has to will himself to not roll his eyes.
This is the last straw for the man. He fires a single bullet at House. It hits him in the side, going through him as easily as a knife through butter. Wilson hears a dull clunk as the bullet slides out of House and falls onto the floor.
House stands there silently in shock for a moment, mouth gaping, like a cartoon character standing in the air waiting for gravity to take effect.
And then it does.
The diagnostician collapses to the carpeted floor, his blood pooling around him, staining the grayish carpet a deep red.
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"House!" Wilson yells and rushes over to House's side. He lays on the carpeted floor, a bloom of red spreading steadily around him. House is barely conscious at this point. He looks up and meets Wilson's eyes, brown and terrified; the man standing slightly awkwardly in the room entirely forgotten.
Wilson held one of House's hands and used the other to put pressure on his wound to stop it from bleeding out. It was then Wilson noticed tears streaming down House's face. He pulls the diagnostician onto his lap getting his blood all over his dress pants. The world around Wilson dims and quietens down. All he can focus on is House bleeding out in front of him.
"This is it, this is the end," Wilson thinks. "It's over-House is dead-what will I do now!?" He is so afraid.These thoughts swirl in this mind like a tornado. He cannot imagine life without House.
The presses his fingers on his neck, where is pulse is supposed to be. He finds it but it is fast and thready; already showing how much blood he had lost. Wilson takes a second to look at House's face. He was unconscious, now. And breathing a bit too fast.
He had to focus, he had to save his bestfriend from certain death. The oncologist finally got the mind to actually call for help.
When he looks around him he sees security guards dragging the gunman out of the door. When did that happen? He must have not noticed.
A throng of emergency assistance nurses and doctors flood the office with their medical equipment and pre-prepared gurney.
Hands grab at House, trying to take him from Wilson. He holds on to him as tight as he can, for as long as he can. Eventually, more hands come, to tug House away from him. His House. He holds on a little longer before the limp diagnostician is taken.
Wilson continues kneeling in the puddle of blood staining his carpet, feeling it cooling and coagulating now without House there to keep it warm. It takes the feeling of a steady hand on his shoulder for him to come to himself.
He looks up to see Cuddy looking down at him, concern and sorrow etched into her frown. "Are you okay?"
Wilson looks back down to his bloodied hands. "I'm not the one you should be asking that."
"I know you are worried, he will be fine. He survived much worse." Cuddy smiled at him in an attempt at comfort.
His face crumples as he remembered all the pain House has gone through in the course of his life such as: the infarction, Stacy leaving him and most recently his raging Vicodin addiction.
House had gone through so much pain so many times and Wilson was never able to help. Or at least make much of a difference.
As much as he begged House to quit the Vicodin for good, promising he would help him through withdrawal (House knew for a fact he would be true to his word because he had "a thing for neediness" as House constantly reminded him). Despite his efforts, he never came close to truely helping to soothe some of his bestfriend's pain. He had failed, utterly, miserably at being a good friend for House.
And now what? What was he doing while House was bleeding to death? He was sulking on the floor of his office, useless. The last thing he would want is to sit idle while his bestfriend of more than a decade died alone and cold on a hospital bed.
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Wilson watches House as he undergoes surgery. He had wanted to perform the surgery, to make sure House was in safe hands or to know who to blame if it all went awry. But Cuddy did not let him. Something about ethics and whatnot.
And so he stood. And watched. It was all he could do.
So he watched as House toed the line between life and death.
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It took a staggering 4 hours for the surgery to be completed. Though it was not too surprising, given it was a quite complicated operation.
Now, Wilson sat on the unreasonably uncomfortable chair that seemed to find it's way into every patient room.
House is in the ICU. Wilson is reading over his chart while he lay unconscious and intubated on his cot, his cane laying beside it, waiting. According to the chart, House had been shot in the abdomen. The bullet had made it's way through him, so there was nothing to remove. The problem was that the bullet had nicked his large intestine, which is full of helpful digestive bacteria. These are mighty useful to digest food in the intestines, but can and will digest anything else that might happen to be in their way.
This has resulted in the wound becoming infected, even though the most sanitary practices were used; House was developing sepsis.
The oncologist shifted uncomfortably in his chair and brought a hand to his mouth as he read over the file. This was terrible news. It was entirely possible that House would not survive this.
He tries his best to think back to Cuddy's words. Yes, he had survived the infarction, why would he not survive this? Surely House was better than to die from a lowly gunman's bullet. His pride would not let him. Wilson was certain.
Only more doubt fills his mind when he looks at his bestfriend. He lays with various tubes going in and out of him. He is intubated. His precious morphine being pumped into him through his IV. The recent blood loss has seemingly aged him, Wilson sees wrinkles on his face that he had not noticed before. Now he quite frankly looks like an old, dying man on hospice care. The type he is used to dealing with everyday.
Wilson decides that he does not want to think about that.
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After fidgeting on the chair for a few hours with no improvement in House's condition, he decides to go get himself some coffee from the vending machine, hoping it will help clear his head a little. On the way there he meets Foreman, who seems entirely uneffected by the day's events.
"Hello. You look like you haven't slept for days. How are you doing?"
Wow. Straight to the point. Just like House. He supposes people are right to compare him to House. He is the most similar to him out of all the ducklings. Maybe that's why he is always first in line for promotions.
Or maybe Wilson really did look that bad.
"Yeah, House is still not conscious." Wilson fiddles with the coffee machine. He wasn't in a particularly chatty mood.
Foreman watches him for a second, a calculating look in his eye. So similar to House.
"It will be alright. He will be fine, he's way too petty to die from something like this."
Wilson looks at Foreman's ever neutral expression. If he was worried he sure did not show it.
He sips his coffee and looks away for a moment.
"Yeah, you're right. Thanks."
Foreman finally decides to make himself a coffee. He turns away from Wilson as he works the coffee machine.
"If there is anything I can do for you, tell me." Foreman turns to him with his coffee in hand.
"Thank you, Foreman."
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It is already dark outside and the lights have not been turned on in the room. Wilson is straining his eyes trying to read his magazine. Not as if he could focus on it anyway. All he has been really doing is fiddling with it for the past few hours.
Inevitably, his eyes drift to House. He lies still and unconscious. The only movement coming from him is the rise and fall of his chest, automated by his ventilator. He shuffles his chair a little closer to him.
His hand hovers over House's, unsure if he will wake him. He stares at House's face for a long moment. Seeing no change in his expression, he takes his hand in his. Still, no change. Wilson isn't sure how he feels about that. Some part of himself wants House to see his open display of affection for him. Holding hands like middle schoolers. He would berate him for it for hours if he knew.
But he lies there with that hideous tube down his throat. Even if he was awake, he wouldn't be able to speak.
Then Wilson notices how warm House's hand feels, almost feverish. He gets a thermometer from the bedside stand, it's a simple armpit one, and checks his temperature. 39.5°C
Wilson sighs. A fever. House was getting worse and there was nothing he could do but watch.
Wilson held his hand, hoping that somehow how could feel it.
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Wilson startles awake when Cameron walks in. She sees him holding House's hand, which has felt so natural to Wilson that he didn't think to pull away.
"Is this a bad time?" She asks, looking a little awkward standing in the doorway. She chooses to not comment on Wilson's hand holding, though she does stare causing Wilson to pull away.
"No, not at all." He lies. He would like nothing more for her to leave him and House alone, even if all he will do is stare at his unconscious bestfriend's face.
She leans against the door frame and crosses her arms, concern written on the creases of her face. "How long are you going to stay here for? I can already tell you have been here for awhile."
"Until he wakes up." Wilson leans back in his chair with his hand folded on his lap.
"You should go home, you aren't doing him any good staying here." Wilson knows she is right. He shifts in his seat.
"What are you here for?" Wilson asks her with a little more suspicion in his tone than he had intended. He immediately feels guilty. House isn't his to watch over, his ducklings care for him too. Maybe it would not be so bad to get a good night's sleep in his own bed. Though he doubts he would be able to sleep with the day's events.
Cameron pauses thoughtfully before speaking, not wanting to agitate Wilson further. He already seems quite on edge. She did not think this would effect him as much as it has. She must have underestimated his care for House.
"I came to check in. How is he doing?"
"He has a fever, otherwise nothing much has changed."
Worry colours her expression. She stands in silence for a long moment. Wilson fiddles with his thumbs.
Cameron frowns. "Thank you, Wilson." Cameron says abruptly and monotone. She turns on her heel and leaves.
Wilson would find it strange if he wasn't so damn tired. He crosses his arms and tries to find a comfortable position in the hard chair.